The Dragonfly Pool

Clemmy did not try to stop him. Alone in the room, she knelt down and began to clear up the mess, which was considerable. The easel had dislodged the box of paints and tubes of color had spilled onto the floor; there was a splash of crimson on the carpet.

She had been working for a few minutes when a quiet voice said, “Can I help?”—and she looked up to see a boy of about twelve standing in the doorway.

Karil, having shut Pom-Pom into the old princess’s room, had heard the familiar sound of Carlotta drumming her heels on the floor and made his way to a quieter part of the house.

Now he moved forward to see if he could be of use, and as he did so the kneeling woman got to her feet. Her marvelous russet hair was loose, and as she shook it back from her face it was as though the dark room had acquired its own sun.

But it wasn’t her beauty that held him spellbound—it was that she was familiar. He had seen her before.

“Oh, but I know who you are. You’re Clemmy—you have to be! I saw you in Zurich at the cheese tasting. It was such a lovely picture.”

And suddenly he was back there among his friends in a world that had held danger, but also friendship and loyalty and hope. And surprising himself as much as her, he burst into tears.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” she said, stretching out her arms to him, and she knew in that instant that he had not betrayed his friends, that he was wretchedly unhappy and that the truth lay elsewhere.

“I can’t understand why they didn’t write,” Karil sobbed. “I wrote and wrote and there wasn’t a single word back. They seemed to be my friends and then they just dropped me—even Tally. And Matteo, too. They might as well have let me go to Colditz. I really believed in them.”

Clemmy pushed his hair back from his forehead and waited while he found his handkerchief.

“Oh, Karil, you’re such an idiot! How could you think that? You knew them. I think Tally must have written you a hundred letters. Magda found her again and again after lights out, scribbling and scribbling. The others, too, but when they didn’t hear anything they thought you’d become too grand for them.”

“They couldn’t have thought that! They should have trusted me.”

“Yes. And you should have trusted them.” But Clemmy was aware that his hurt, here in this wretched place, must have been even greater than Tally’s. “Matteo even came here to try to see you,” she went on. “Did they tell you?”

He shook his head. “I thought I saw him, but when I asked my grandfather he said it wasn’t him.” He wiped his eyes and put his handkerchief away. “When I didn’t hear anything from Delderton I thought maybe it was a sign that I must forget about trying to lead my own life. That I have to follow in my father’s footsteps and learn to be a king . . . that that’s what he wanted . . .”

“Is that what they say? That your father would have wanted that? ”

“All the time.”

Clemmy looked down into his face. “Karil, your father was a good man, I’m sure of that. Matteo has talked to me about him a lot since he came back from Bergania. I saw a picture of him once in a gallery; I’ve never forgotten his face. That was a man who wanted one thing and one thing only for his son—and I’ll swear to that with my last breath.”

Karil’s eyes held hers.

“What? What would he have wanted for his son?”

“That he should be happy. That he should follow his star.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Karil Sees His Way

Are you feeling all right, Karil?” asked Countess Frederica nervously.

Karil looked up from his plate of lumpy breakfast porridge.

“Yes, thank you. I’m absolutely all right. I’m fine.”

The Scold frowned. That was what was worrying her. Karil looked different; he had not smiled like that since before his father’s death. She was pleased of course, but it was . . . strange.

“Your cough seems better,” said Aunt Millicent, the kindest of the aunts.

Karil nodded and agreed that his cough was better, and the two women exchanged puzzled glances.

For really it was extraordinary that a bad cough should almost disappear in twenty-four hours, and it wasn’t just unlikely but impossible that Karil, in that short time, could have got fatter—yet the boy’s face had completely lost its pinched and undernourished look.

Yet nothing, surely, had changed. Karil had not been there the day before when Carlotta had stamped out of the room and thrown over the easel of the painter who had treated her so rudely. By the time the Scold returned from the park Karil was in his room, and since then his routine had been as usual. Yet something was making her uneasy and she went on peering at him throughout the meal.