Chapter 52
Chapter fifty-two
Ormdale
Alarge creature beat past the library window, and Sir George did not even look up.
There was something perversely comforting about no longer expecting life to be ordinary.
When he had laboured in the Lord’s vineyard as a clergyman, he had often been pained by the things his parishioners got up to.
Not so much the more flagrant sins, but the petty cruelties and self-deceptions—those, he found very hard to bear with charity.
Dragons were remarkably deficient in deception.
If they did not like you, they thrashed their tails at you, or hid from you, or bit you.
As a last measure, they envenomated you.
They did not invite you to tea and tell you how much they admired your sermon when all the while they were working eagerly towards your downfall.
But today, Sir George was feeling just as embattled as Royal Dragon Master as he had ever felt as a shepherd of souls.
As a consequence of which he was, at present, trying very hard not to write to his wife and beg her to cut her holiday short.
He had, of course, already written to his wife about Violet’s return.
But he had scrupulously avoided using any language that implied her own return was keenly looked for.
It had been quite understood that Emily would remain with her friend at the seaside for at least the rest of the month.
Whenever the desire to imply that her early return would not be unappreciated came upon him, he would close his eyes and imagine her blissfully picking her way along the beach, gathering shells, reading poetry, and making the most indolent of watercolour pictures (one of which she had sent him), and he would tell himself he could last a little longer without her.
He pushed aside the paper upon which he had written Dearest Emily and contemplated the two communications on his desk which defied his meticulous filing system.
Sir George had a meticulous filing system for correspondence. He had a file for Dragon Sightings (Spurious) and Dragon Sightings (Plausible). There had been a great many Plausible Sightings in the North Sea lately, especially in the region of Finnmark.
He had ones for Threats, Blackmail, and—his least favourite—Sheer Nonsense.
This included the category of people who did not believe in dragons and wrote to tell him that he was a liar.
George did not know what motivated such people.
If he was a liar, he must be aware of the fact already, and their writing him to inform him of the fact was equally a waste of time for all parties.
There were also categories such as Conspiracies, Special Requests, and Helpful Suggestions.
Requests for Advertising was the only category of correspondence he allowed to go unanswered.
He had once responded with inadvisable candour to a businessman’s request for George to lend his recommendation to a product claiming to substantially alleviate skin disorders, and had been startled and offended to discover his ‘endorsement’ on the fellow’s advertisements.
UNPRECEDENTED AND ASTONISHING, says Royal Dragon Master.
Emily had pointed out that while the man had used George’s words completely out of context, those had indeed been George’s words. George had forborne to answer any further requests for endorsements.
Superficially, both of the unclassifiable letters ought to go under the heading Official Correspondence. But there were oddities about both of them.
One came from Stephen Fairweather. The other was an anonymous telegram.
Stephen had written very formally to make an appointment to visit the Ormdale Menagerie with ‘a colleague.’ Coming from a correspondent as garrulous as his wife’s cousin Stephen, George found it ominous.
The anonymous telegram from the Downing Street telegraph office, therefore, had gained an added gravity from arriving at much the same time.
BEWARE VISIT FROM WAR OFFICE STOP SIGNED A FRIEND
He sighed and took off his spectacles. He felt as if something profoundly important were missing, something that would help him make sense of it all.
Emily, obviously.
For now, though, he would settle for a very hot cup of tea. He would have to make do with the warm one Annie had delivered a little while ago, and as he reached for it, his eyes fell on the newspaper she had brought along with it.
There was a photograph of a face he had seen recently, a well-waxed moustache distracting the viewer from the sad eyes above it.
He wore a great many medals on his tailored uniform, because he was, apparently, as the caption proclaimed, THE DUKE OF CORNWALL AND YORK, and the heir apparent to the English throne.
George picked it up with a cry of exasperation. How had he not realised it before? Why, this was the very man he had met in the royal library at Windsor!
“Heaven help me, I am the lunatic!“ exclaimed George, studying the face closely. “‘Another George’ indeed! Well, Christ keep thee, sir king, and thy kingdom, in very truth.”
But despite his faux pas in not recognising a senior member of the Royal Family, it comforted him a little to look into those sad eyes.
As vastly disparate as their stations were, here was a man with more duties and more people to protect than he had himself, though he doubted that George Saxe-Coburg-Gotha had as many who truly loved him.
And what had the prince said, that day in the library? An invitation to visit him again if he were in trouble? Today, it felt like a gift, for which George gave silent thanks, and drank his tepid tea with renewed courage.
Then he heard a foot on the stair, and a familiar voice, which for an instant he thought he had dreamt.
“George, dear?” a voice called. “Are you hiding in there?”
“Emily!” he cried out, jumping up like an infatuated schoolboy.
They met at the door, with George scrambling for the handle on one side, and his wife opening it from the other, and as they found each other and came to rest in each other’s arms, they laughed.
“How many times must I remind you, dear, that it’s Lady Emily since your knighthood,“ she murmured in the vicinity of his beard.
“About as many times as you’ll have to remind me that I’m Sir George myself, I expect,“ he said into her orange-blossom-scented hair. “I’m so glad you’re home. I didn’t like to say it, but we’ve been in such a muddle without you.”