The Dragonfly Pool

There was nothing to be done. By the time the uncles came running, the duke was lying on the floor with a fractured skull—and quite definitely dead.

But that was only the beginning.

For when the lawyers and the accountants came and the duke’s affairs were looked into, it was discovered not only that he had absolutely no money but that he had been cheating the bank, borrowing money and embezzling it.

And the bank did what banks do when this happens; they took over all his possessions, including his house and his furniture—indeed everything he owned.

Karil came back for the funeral but he returned straightaway to Delderton. He had inherited his grandfather’s title, but anyone addressing him as “Your Grace” got thoroughly snubbed, and all he wanted was never to hear the name of Rottingdene again. Fortunately the uncles were too busy worrying about what would happen to them and their families to want to look after him.

And even if they had wanted to keep Karil they could not have done so, for by then Matteo’s plan had succeeded and he had arranged for the Berganian government-in-exile to declare Karil as its ward.

But Rottingdene House now emptied as everyone left to avoid the bailiffs the bank had put in to wind up the duke’s affairs. The servants were dismissed and the governesses went off to stay with relatives who were even harder up than they were themselves. And poor Princess Natalia went mad.

After she found Pom-Pom lying squashed under the duke, she scooped up the little dog (who was not dead though he ought to have been) and started rushing through the emptying rooms wailing and crying.

“Oh, when will the messenger come?” she moaned. “When . . . when?”

She was still rampaging through the house a few days later when a tall, distinguished-looking stranger came up the steps, and with a screech that echoed to the rafters she ran toward him.

“You have come!” she cried joyfully. “You are the messenger! You have come to take my Pom-Pom to his bride.”

And before he could protest, she had thrust the little dog into Uncle Fritz’s arms.

So now Pom-Pom had become the mascot for the government-in-exile, and it was clear that Uncle Fritz was already very fond of him.

“And the uncles?” asked Karil as they scooped Pom-Pom out of the car. “Are they all right?”

The minister for culture nodded.

“They’ve all got jobs. Uncle Dmitri is a doorman at the Ritz and Uncle Alfonso is driving taxis. And Franz Heinrich is going up to an island in the Outer Hebrides as gamekeeper to a Scottish landowner.”

“Goodness! I can’t see Carlotta on a Scottish island.”

“No. Carlotta couldn’t either. She threw some remarkable tantrums. But Countess Frederica has got a job as adviser to the aunt of the Prince of Transjordania, who has a house in London. She wants someone to live in and show her how things are done in British society, and the countess has accepted as long as she can bring Carlotta.”

They had reached the courtyard and a number of children came to pat the dog, but Uncle Fritz’s mind was elsewhere.

“These buildings,” he said, looking around, “do you know what happens to them in the holidays?”

“I don’t think anything does,” said Karil. And the children standing around agreed that the buildings stayed empty.

The minister of culture’s eyes lit up. “Good,” he said. Good. They would make an excellent center for a festival. Not folk dancing perhaps but drama or music . . .

The hall was full, everyone was in their seats, when a large cream-colored limousine drew up under the archway. Cars like that were seldom seen at Delderton, where the parents didn’t go in for obvious luxury and were more likely to arrive on a tandem or hitch-hike to their destination. Two people got out—a woman wearing a hat with a veil and a silver fox fur over her shoulder, and a small man in a raincoat.

Everyone was in the hall except for one of the maids, who had been stationed by the door to collect latecomers.

“Just take us straight in,” ordered the woman, talking with a slight American accent. “We’d like to sit near the front.”

“I’ll do my best,” said the maid, looking hard at the newcomers, “but it’s very full.”

She led them into the hall and, as luck would have it, there were two vacant seats in the third row. Followed by disapproving stares, for not only were they late, but parents at Delderton did not wrap themselves in the pelts of dead animals, the elegant woman and the small man in the raincoat slipped into their seats.

And the curtain went up.

It went up on a ravishing Greek landscape—flowers and a view of light blue sea and streaming sunshine—and on Persephone and her maidens playing with a painted ball.

Whatever was wrong with Verity’s acting, she looked lovely, with her tousled dark hair and her bare feet and the delicate ankles she set such store by, and from Verity’s parents and the parents of the girls who were her companions there came a sigh of pleasure.