Dear Dragon

by Sara Seale

  "Darling-" said Alice gently, "I won't be here."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I go at the end of the summer—you knew that. I might—I might even have to go before."

  "But it's different now," Doone said stubbornly. "You'll stay because Pendragon wants you—and in the end, perhaps you'll marry him."

  "He doesn't want me any more," Alice said, and saw the child's face begin to pucker. "Now, Doone, we're both of us talking a lot of nonsense. When Pendragon's well again, everything will sort itself—you'll see."

  "I'll tell him."

  "Tell him what?"

  "Oh—things."

  "You're not," said Alice with sudden sternness, "to bother him with a lot of nonsense, or those lively inventions of yours, do you understand?"

  "No," the child replied calmly. "I don't think you do, either, Alice. You're only a Zombie, after all."

  "Zombie or not," exclaimed Alice, exasperated, "I understand very well when you're just being tiresome. Now, put all this rubbish out of your head, Doone, and go to your room and get ready for a walk."

  "It's raining," Doone replied, giving Alice an uncertain look from under her lashes.

  "Well then, get out a puzzle or something. I'll come and amuse you when I've finished my breakfast."

  "You haven't," Doone observed with mild complacence, "been eating anything all this time. May I have your cold sausage?"

  "Yes," said Alice, giving up the unequal contest. "But for heaven's sake take it back to your own room and eat it there."

  The day seemed to drag endlessly. The rain never stopped and Doone soon tired of puzzles and games. She joined Emma and Alice for lunch in the day-room since they were alone, but she was fretful and argumentative and even Emma was driven to sharpness.

  "Can I go and see Pendragon when we've finished?" the child kept asking over and over again and at last Emma gave permission, saying at the same time:

  "But don't upset him by talking a lot of nonsense."

  Alice would have given the same advice herself, but she wondered what lay behind Emma's admonition.

  "Can't Alice come too?" Doone asked, and Emma frowned.

  "No," she answered. "If Pendragon wants to see her he'll send for her."

  But he did not send for her. In the evening, the two brothers came home from the mine and announced the strike was ended and Keverne filled glasses and bade them all drink Pendragon's health.

  "Why Pendragon?" Emma asked, raising her eyebrows.

  "Because, my sweet, yesterday's little fracas decided them. They admire pluck and respect Pendragon, so you see, I didn't do much harm by not supporting him—in fact it made me out a cad and Pendragon a hero, so everyone should be pleased all round," said Keverne impudently and raised his glass in satisfaction.

  Emma went to see about the supper, and Merryn began piling bottles and glasses on to a tray.

  "Let's take a noggin up to the boss — he'll be cheered by his piece of news," Keverne said. "Come on, Alice!"

  "No," she said, drawing back.

  "No? Why? Have you had enough of visiting the sick for one day?"

  "I haven't seen him."

  His slanting eyebrows rose a fraction and he gave her a very odd look.

  "Well, don't you think you should remedy that?" he asked. "You've probably hurt the Dragon's feelings and he'll most likely belch out flame and burn up in revenge!"

  "No," said Alice again, and he shrugged his shoulders and, turning his back, told Merryn to bring up an extra glass in case Emma should join them.

  Alice stayed behind with the greyhounds, feeling lonely and unwanted. She could hear the voices coming from upstairs, and presently she saw Doone sneak up the stairs in her dressing-gown to join the party. Emma must have gone up the back stairs and joined them, too, for the dining-room remained untended for a long time and no sounds came from the kitchen.

  At last they were all coming downstairs again, their voices and laughter echoing round the high raftered roof, already lost in shadow. Doone flung herself down on the rug beside Alice, still clutching a bottle of ginger beer with a straw in it.

  "Why weren't you there, Alice?" she demanded excitedly. "You were the only ont not to drink Pendragon's health. That was mean!"

  "Did he ask for me?"

  "Not exactly, but he must have thought it was queer. Trelawny hasn't been to see him, either.

  "Well, they quarrelled, you must remember."

  "Pooh! The Pendragons are always quarrelling—that wouldn't keep her away!"

  "Trelawny doesn't wish to see Pendragon," Merryn said loudly, thrusting out his chin. He was, thought Alice in surprise, getting more like his brother every day.

  "For the matter of that, Pendragon has no great desire to see Trelawny, so they're both happy," retorted Keverne,

  filling another glass for himself. "Where are you going? Its long past supper time."

  "I'm taking Trelawny to the dogs, if you must know," replied Merryn aggressively. "If you drink much more, Keverne, you'll start picking a quarrel with someone."

  "Hark at my little brother!" Keverne exclaimed, but he was still quite good-humoured. "You're growing up, m'lad. You and Trelawny going to the dogs, forsooth! You'd better watch out it doesn't become a reality—I know the workings of our charming cousin's mind, and so, I think, does Pendragon."

  "What the hell do you mean?"

  "Hasn't it occurred to you that she's got down to the last of the Pendragons?" Keverne grilled, and Emma said quickly:

  "Don't tease him, Keverne. I think you are drinking too much."

  "And poor little Alice isn't drinking at all—what a shame!" he said and filled another glass.

  Merryn hesitated, looking quite ready to reciprocate in the quarrel he had accused his brother of wanting to pick, but at a frown from Emma he went out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.

  "Drink up, Alice-sit-by-the-fire, or am I in the doghouse?" Keverne said, handing Alice a glass.

  She could not answer him truthfully with Doone hanging on every word, so she merely looked at him gravely and shook her head.

  "It's not fair! She should go and see Pendragon!" Doone shouted suddenly, and Emma lifted the child to her feet.

  "Alice shall take his supper up," she said. "You've had enough excitement for one night, Doone. Let me put you back to bed."

  Doone kissed Alice goodnight and went without any fuss, and Keverne stood looking down with a lifted eyebrow and saying nothing.

  When Emma came back she told Alice to come with her to the kitchen and fetch Pendragon's tray and her smile held the kindly assurance which Alice had missed for the last two days.

  "And don't hurry back, m'dear," Keverne shouted after

  them. "It isn't often I get the chance of dining alone with my wife."

  Alice carried the tray carefully upstairs and down the long corridor to the other wing of the house where she seldom went. She knocked on Pendragon's door and went in.

  If he was surprised to see her he did not show it, but pushed back the litter on his beside table to make room for the tray and thanked her politely.

  "Well," he said as she stood there not knowing whether to go or stay. "It's about time you enquired for the invalid, I must say."

  "I understood you didn't want to see me," she replied stiffly.

  "What gave you that idea, I wonder? Now you're here, you might as well sit down."

  She sat on the edge of a chair by the bed and watched him tentatively through her lashes. He looked tired and a little pale, but the bandage fixed crookedly across one temple gave an illusion of the traditional pirate's patch. Although recumbent and consequently docile, he appeared no less alarming in bed than when up and about, she thought.

  "I sent my apologies by Doone last night," he said. "Did she tell you?" "Yes."

  "Yet you didn't come to see me today?" "I thought it was better to stop away unless you asked for me. "

  "Why should I ask for you? If you had anything to expla
in I imagined you would come of your own accord."

  "I had nothing to explain," she said, and saw his face harden.

  "Very well," he said, pushing away his plate as if the food no longer interested him. "We'll forget the whole thing. Your private life is, after all, your concern. I probably had no right to cirticise."

  "You did more than criticize, Pendragon," she said, and his eyes flicked over her, cold and appraising.

  "Very likely," he retorted. "It's never pleasant to find one's been made a fool of."

  "I have never tried to make a fool of you, dear Dragon,"

  she said with a brave attempt to pierce his armour, but there was no softening in his voice when he replied.

  "Very likely not," he said and reached for a cigarette. "It might be fairer to say I allowed myself to be fooled. I was misled, shall we say, by my own wishful thinking. I've always expected too much of women."

  "I've never thought you expected anything."

  "Haven't you? But then you don't know me very well. Trelawny made the same mistake."

  "You can't blame people for taking you at face value, Pendragon," she said. "Everyone thought you would marry Trelawny for—for obvious reasons."

  "So, I might have at one time. It didn't seem likely then that I should come across anyone who—well, it can't matter now. You will stay until the end of the summer, as arranged?"

  "Because of Doone?"

  "Naturally, because of Doone."

  "I don't know," she said, and got up from her chair to walk about the room. "I don't know that I care to stop on under a cloud."

  "I'm not aware that a cloud has arisen," he retorted. "As I said before, your private life is your own concern— can't you forget my, probably, unwarrantable interference?"

  "No," she said, wanting to fling herself across the bed, to tell him that if she stayed, it was not for Doone's sake, but because she could not bear to leave him yet.

  "Oh, come now, Alice!" he said, and the glow from his cigarette lit up his face for an instant in the dimness. "Would Aunt Brown approve of you running out on a job because of a misunderstanding? Light the lamp, will you, please?"

  She came round the bed to attend to the lamp, and he watched while the spreading light brought her face to life again. The irregular profile with the tilted nose and rounded forehead was caught, for a moment, in sharp relief, and he stretched out a hand which she did not see.

  "Aunt Brown would have told me to do what I thought was right," she said, her attention on the lamp, adjusting the wick so that it would not smoke.

  "And what do you think is right?" he asked, still watching her.

  "Doone is my only reason for being here," she answered. "If the family is going to be split up, perhaps I should stay a bit longer. If you've finished with your tray, Pendragon, I'll take it down."

  "Thank you," he replied to both concessions. "Am I forgiven, Alice?"

  "For what?" she said, and turning to pick up the tray, became aware of his eyes on her, suddenly enquiring in the lamplight.

  "For misunderstanding — if I have misunderstood," he said, but it was too late for assurances now. He had intimated that night that he had thought she might have become fond of him, but in all the bitter argument that had ensued he had never once said that he had come to, care for her. It was not, she thought, reasonable to suppose that he had.

  "Goodnight, Pendragon," she said, and heard him curse softly under his breath as she left the room.

  CHAPTER NINE I

  He was up and about the next day and apart from his bandaged head, seemed to be none the worse for his experience. Rain still fell, keeping them indoors, but towards evening it cleared and Pendragon took himself off in his car.

  "Is he fit to drive?" Alice asked Emma a little anxiously, but Emma only smiled.

  "The Pendragons are tough, my dear. Tomorrow he'll be back at the mine," she said. "Tonight he will have gone to Trelawny."

  "Trelawny!"

  "There's business to be discussed. If she's buying us out there are several matters connected with the mine to be settled."

  Alice wrinkled her forehead.

  "Does he mind—you and Keverne going, I mean?" she asked, puzzled by the ease with which the Pendragons

  could shift their relationships, and Emma glanced at her a shade impatiently.

  "Why should he?" she replied. "He's known for a long time that Keverne's only a square peg in a round hole. He'd have bought him out himself, if he could have afforded to."

  "And Trelawny's still going on with it?"

  "Why not? The fact that she's lost on her throw for Pendragon won't alter her decision. For all her hard ways she would like to do Keverne a good turn—for old times' sake."

  "And don't you mind?" Emma's smile was bitter-sweet.

  "No, Alice," she said. "If she likes to pay her debt this way, I shall be content."

  "Yes, I see. And Merryn—what will become of him?" "I think she'll marry him."

  "Trelawnyl" She was really shocked. "But she's always said he's dull! Quite often she peers at him — not very kindly."

  "Trelawny isn't kind, as you should know, but she's always Wanted to marry into this family. Didn't you hear Keverne say last night that she'd got down to the last of the Pendragons?"

  "Yes, but I thought he was joking. Emma — poor Merryn's not like the others—he's built a little world of his own and — and Trelawny would hurt him unbearably."

  "You can't go through life without being hurt," Emma said.

  And doesn't it occur to you, Alice, that Merryn, the youngest and the least appreciated, might come into his own if he got what he wanted?"

  "You once told me that none of the Pendragons had got what they wanted," Alice said, and Emma looked at her with troubled eyes.

  "Yes," she said, "that was true once, and for Pendragon himself, perhaps it's still true. I'd thought-"

  "What did you think?"

  "Nothing. He's the complex one of them all. I've never really understood him, but I think he's a romantic—odd, isn't it?"

  "That's what Merryn said," Alice replied slowly and

  remembered him gazing at his tank of tropical fish while he told her, too, that he would be prepared to marry without love because there was so much else besides.

  Emma bundled the darning she was dealing with back into the basket and prepared to seek her next chore. She looked suddenly tired.

  "I wish you were older," she said. "Why?"

  "You'd be better versed in the ways of going after what you wanted, perhaps. Young girls can be a problem, I imagine, when it comes to being met half-way."

  Alice was unsure of her meaning but she said quickly:

  "Emma—you didn't really believe that I'd been—well, encouraging Keverne, did you?"

  Emma's blue eyes were faintly apologetic.

  "Not really. I know what he is, she said. "But Pendragon's meeting that sort of emotional turmoil for the first time. You'll have to help him, Alice—he probably doesn't even realize what jealousy can do to one."

  "I can't help him, for I don't know what he wants of me," Alice said sadly, and Emma, without replying, smiled and left the room.

  It was possible in the next few days to forget the recent storms, for Keverne, already making plans for a new future, had dropped his habitual bravado, and Merryn was out most evenings, presumably with Trelawny. Alice avoided Pendragon's company whenever possible, which meant sitting in her room in the evenings, since often he was the only one left downstairs, but if he noticed, he made no comment, although sometimes she found him watching her with an enigmatical expression.

  On a day when Alice had made one of her rare trips by bus into St. Mewan to shop, she met Trelawny sauntering along the village street with her greyhounds at her heels. Alice would have avoided the meeting if she could, but Trelawny greeted her is if nothing had occurred to disrupt the life at Polrame.

  "Come into the pub for a drink. After that I'll run you home and save you that dreary bus ride,"
she said, and Alice could hardly refuse without seeming rude.

  She had not been inside the Pandragon Arms since the night of her arrival, and she marvelled now at the odd

  streak of fate which had led her there and ended in such a different job from the one she had expected.

  They sat in the dusty lounge where Alice had taken refuge, and the landlord, bringing their drinks, looked curiously at her, doubtless remembering.

  "Stayed over to Polrame a sight longer than those other nursemaids, didn't you, miss?" he observed chattily and Trelawny gave him a haughty stare.

  "Miss Brown is not a nursemaid," she said, and the man mumbled apologies and went away.

  "He's dying of curiosity to know whether you've landed Pendragon, of course," Trelawny said. "Well, Alice, have you?"

  "I don't know what you mean," Alice replied uncom-fort-ably.

  "Oh, come off it, darling! It was never a secret between us what you were after. I didn't think Pendragon would fall for your line, that's all.

  "I didn't have a line. I never could make you understand that, Trelawny."

  "Well, whether you had or whether you hadn't, it worked, didn't it? When is the wedding?"

  "I don't imagine a wedding was even in Pandragon's mind, but if it had been, you saw to it that he should think the worst of me, didn't you?" said Alice crisply.

  "Do you mean be believed all those things I spat at him in a rage?" Trelawny sounded surprised but quite unabashed and Alice looked at her curiously. The girl quite evidently bore her no malice.

  "Why did you tell him if you didn't intend him to believe?" she asked.

  "My dear child, when you're hopping with rage and jealousy you say the first thing that comes into your head that you know will hurt. Why didn't you defend yourself?"

  "Because," said Alice, downing her drink with sudden urgency, "if there's no trust in a relationship there's no basis for anything else. Pendragon gave me no chance to explain and, afterwards, I didn't care to."

  "For crying out loud!" Trelawny exclaimed incredulously. "You do enjoy rubbing salt in your wounds!"

  "I don't enpoy it at all, but I've got my own sort of pride," snapped Alice.

  "Pride!" scoffed Trelawny impatiently. "Pendragon's got enough of that for a regiment—it was his pride I hurt, not his sensibilities. He told me that night that I'd never really known him and I think he was right. You should suit him very well, my wide-eyed innocent. He told me he wanted affection and understanding and all that romantic twaddle—imagine!''