The Dragonfly Pool (39 page)

Most of the letters were from Tally. At first they were excited, hopeful, telling him about the play, about an otter cub which had become separated from his mother and they had to take back, and about Armelle who was trying to put them in touch with their internal organs—but always looking forward to when he came. Not “if” he came. Only and always “when.”

The letters went on through the summer holidays, describing the aunts and Kenny, who was trying to take over the vegetable round with Primrose because his father had become an air-raid warden—but the letters were shorter now, and he could sense her hurt as she asked why he didn't write back. Then a last letter written in the autumn term—a letter that did its best to be funny about the new gardener who seemed to be about ten years old.

And then no more letters as she gave up hope.

When he had finished, Karil went over to the window and stood looking out. All the uncertainties of the last weeks had gone; he felt very calm and very resolute. It was as though his father's strength had flowed into him—and he knew exactly what he would do.

Carlotta and the uncles were already at breakfast when Karil came into the dining room the next morning. The uncles raised their behinds but only very slightly, and then—for some reason—raised them a little more because there was something different about Karil today.

But it was his cousin whom Karil addressed first. Carlotta looked pale and had been crying and she rubbed her shoulder from time to time to show that she was in pain.

“I'd like to speak to you privately,” he said to her. “Will you come to the schoolroom when you've finished?” And to Uncle Dmitri: “You will excuse me if I'm a little late.”

The schoolroom was at the top of the house—unheated and dismal. Karil had kept Carlotta waiting and the glance she gave him was full of fear and apprehension, but his first words caused her to break out in smiles of relief and even triumph.

“Carlotta, I've come to apologize. I treated you shamefully yesterday. Of course stealing is very wicked and very wrong—when I'm on the throne I shall make sure that theft is dealt with most severely—so it's not surprising that I lost my temper. After all, my great-great-grandfather was known as Karil the Cruel.”

“Was he? Was he really?” Carlotta was fluttering her eyelashes. “I didn't know that. How . . . exciting. What did he do?”

“Oh, impaled the heads of his enemies on spikes outside the palace gates. That kind of thing,” said Karil, who had just invented this particular ancestor. “I'll show you when we get back to Bergania.”

“We?” said Carlotta, licking her lips. “Am I going back with you?” But she was a little suspicious. Karil had always refused to discuss his return and turned aside her offers of help.

But her cousin was coming to the point. “You see, Carlotta, I was very angry when you took my letters, but now that I've read them I'm really very grateful to you because my eyes have been opened.”

“Have they?” Carlotta was breathing heavily, hanging on his every word.

“Yes, they have. I can't understand now how I allowed these people to be so familiar and take such liberties with me. Calling me by my Christian name, using all sorts of unsuitable phrases, thinking that I would like to come to their ridiculous school. Reading all the letters together like that made me realize how deluded I had been.”

“Countess Frederica did say she thought you were not yourself on the journey to England.”

“The countess was quite right. I see now that I was so shocked by my father's death that I had lost all judgment.” Karil shook his head solemnly from side to side. “I don't mind telling you, Carlotta, that I have had a narrow escape. Of course, I blame myself—I must have allowed them to forget my position—but I assure you it won't happen again. From now on I am going to prepare myself for my royal duties and let nothing stand in my way. And I rely on you, Carlotta, to help me.”

“Oh, I will, Karil. I will!” Carlotta's face was flushed with excitement. “I have some really good ideas about how to decorate the palace when we get back—you know how artistic I am.”

“I shall be very interested to hear about them. Perhaps when we go for our walk in the park we can discuss this further. Be sure to be careful and button your coat up well—it's turning very chilly. That little muff of yours may not be warm enough.”

To the uncles Karil did not go into details about his conversion, but they could not fail to notice that Karil was now a different boy.

“I wonder if you could help me to design a better crest for the House of Bergania,” he asked his Uncle Dmitri. “Our motto is too . . . well, it isn't strong enough. ‘The Truth Shall Set Thee Free' doesn't sound very royal, does it? A perfectly ordinary person could have a motto like that. Could we look through your book?”

“Yes, indeed, indeed,” said Uncle Dmitri happily. “I will think about this—I have some very strong motifs. Mailed fists, of course, and dragons rampant.”

“And something metallic—crossed pikes perhaps. Or axes? Would that be possible?”

“Everything is possible for people like us,” said Uncle Dmitri proudly.

His other uncles, too, noticed with relief the change in Karil.

“I think I would like to learn a really martial piece of music for my return to Bergania. Something that makes my subjects realize that I have come back not just as a figurehead but to take the reins of state into my hands. I don't know what key it should be in, but I feel there would be a lot of tubas and trombones. And a separate piece for Carlotta—a kind of theme tune for her when she alights from her carriage. I think she might have her own anthem.”

“Ah yes, dear Carlotta,” said her father. “I was not sure if . . .”

“Yes, yes, I know. I'm ashamed to say that I was quite confused when I first came . . . my father's death . . .” he paused, and Uncle Franz Heinrich patted his shoulder.

“Of course, my boy. I quite understand; it takes time after such a blow to find one's true path again.”

Don Alfonso, too, was very sympathetic when Karil explained his change of heart—and produced sketches for a uniform which he thought might be suitable for Karil's household guards and one for Karil himself to wear on state occasions.

“You said you did not like plumes, I think?” he inquired, but Karil said he now realized that plumes were necessary to add to a monarch's dignity—and Alfonso went off happily with his sketch pad to see what he could do.

After a few days the Scold came to Karil and told him how pleased she was to notice the change in him.

“The way you helped Carlotta when we were getting ready to go for our walk and made sure she had her gloves . . . Sometimes I have felt that you would never come to your senses and see where your destiny lies, but now at last I feel I shall have my reward for all the work I have done.”

Gradually, as Christmas approached, Karil's position in the household changed. The uncles did not only lift their behinds when he came into the dining room, they stood up for him. The servants no longer dared to smile at him, and the governesses curtsied as he passed. Karil had become more than dignified; he had become kingly.

But it was Pom-Pom who set the seal on Karil's new status. His ancestors had always known which of the great khan's companions were worthy of their attentions. There came an evening when Karil was reading aloud from the
Almanach de Gotha
, that historic volume which gives the titles and descendants of all the royal houses of Europe. The fire had gone out, the uncles and their wives sat dozing in the cold, when Pom-Pom rose from the hearth rug, stretched, and looked about him. Then slowly he wheezed his way across the room, stood for a moment deep in thought—and flopped down onto the frozen feet of the prince of Bergania.

T
he staff had been worried about Tally being sad—but Tally
not
being sad was almost worse.

As soon as Clemmy returned from Rottingdene House Matteo called Tally into his room and told her what Clemmy had discovered there.

“So you see how far he was from forgetting you.”

Tally stared at him. Her face crumpled up and for a moment it looked as though she was going to cry. “Really?” she said. “You're not making it up?”

“I'm not making it up,” said Matteo, and he asked Clemmy to come and describe her visit to Rottingdene House.

“So we have to bring him here at once,” said Tally, when she heard what Clemmy had to say.

This was what Matteo had been afraid of.

“Look, Tally, if you do anything rash you could get Karil into serious trouble.”

And later in the day he called in all the children who had been to Bergania and told them the same thing.

He might have spared his breath. Tally was transformed. The worms of Delderton looked in vain for new houses and the book of Important Sayings stayed closed, as she surged through the school getting ready for her friend.

Daley was sitting at his desk, sighing over the file labeled EVACUATION. He had got as far as writing letters to all the parents asking them whether they would send their children to America with the school. They were piled up on top of his filing cabinet, ready to go to the post.

A knock on the door made him close the file and call, “Come in.”

Tally entered and the headmaster smiled; the change in the girl since Clemmy had returned from London was amazing.

“Can I speak to you?”

“Of course.”

Tally came up to his desk. “It's about Karil.”

Daley, who had heard all about the prince from Matteo, said, “What about Karil?”

“You have to give him a scholarship. Please. He has to come here. He can't stay in that awful place.”

“Perhaps you'd better sit down,” said the head. And then: “Scholarships don't grow on trees, you know. I would have to consult the board.”

“You would give him a scholarship if he was a refugee from Poland or from Spain and he'd been bombed. Well, he is a refugee—just as much as them.”

The headmaster was silent, wondering just how much to tell her.

“When you first came back from Bergania,” he said presently, “Matteo consulted me about the prince. I explained that I could give him a scholarship but only if he came here with the consent of his guardian. I could not shelter the boy as a runaway. And it seems that this consent will not be given.”

“It has to be given. It has to,” said Tally. “It's not fair to keep him there like a prisoner. It's a dictatorship like Hitler and we're all fighting that. That's what Delderton is supposed to be about, fighting injustice.”

“Yes,” agreed Daley, “that is what the school is about, certainly—among other things.”

But he felt very tired.

“I told him what it was like here,” Tally went on. “That it's a place where you can find out who you are. I told him about the river and about Clemmy moving the snails and Matteo finding the otter cub. And about the play—it's going to be
good
. . . and oh, everything. And it's wrong not to let him come. It's simply
wrong
.”

When she had gone Daley sat for a while, looking out at the courtyard while Tally's words went on sounding in his head.

I told him it was a place where you can find out who you are,
she had said—and it was as though she had given him back the vision he had had when he first came to Delderton. He had spent ten years making a place where children could be themselves. And suddenly he found that he had come to a decision, and he carried the letters to the parents over to the wastepaper basket and tipped them in.