A Hundred Thousand Dragons Read online

  Jack sucked in a mouthful of smoke. ‘That’s the one. He’s . . .’ He stopped and swallowed. ‘He’s a great man in his way.’ Arthur felt sure that wasn’t what Jack had been going to say. ‘He’s one of the few Englishmen to have been through the Yemen. He’s more at home in the desert than most Arabs.’

  Arthur raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that who he was? What on earth has he got against you?’

  ‘I let him down rather badly once. I deserved everything he said.’

  ‘You can’t have done.’

  Jack’s mouth twisted. ‘You think so? I’m sorry, Arthur.’ He hesitated. ‘I can’t explain.’

  ‘But you . . .’ began Arthur when Jack raised his hand warningly.

  ‘Here’s Isabelle,’ he said. ‘Please don’t tell her.’ He crushed out his cigarette, stood up and gave a shaky smile. ‘Isabelle! You look even more radiant than you did ten minutes ago. Shall we go in?’ And standing behind his friend and cousin, he shepherded them firmly into the restaurant.

  TWO

  Holding two glasses of champagne, Jack skirted his way round the side of the ballroom. Old Lady Stuckley, Mark Stuckley’s grandmother, had nabbed him as he arrived and sent him off to get drinks.

  He was glad he had come to the Stuckleys’ party. After his bruising encounter with Durant Craig, his first thought was to make some excuse and to skip the ball, but that would mean questions to face and explanations he didn’t want to make.

  And really, what had changed? Nothing. So what if Vaughan did know what Craig thought of him? He’d never met the man before and probably wouldn’t meet him again. Even if he did, Vaughan had clearly disliked Craig’s attitude and, with any luck, Craig, an imperious beggar, wouldn’t stoop to explain. Arthur had seen far more than Jack was comfortable with, but Arthur was a friend.

  He had been grateful to Arthur during lunch at Claridge’s. Arthur, anxious to keep Isabelle from guessing anything more untoward than a second cocktail had occurred during her absence, went on the attack immediately. His battery of conversational weapons included the wedding, the guests, the presents, the honeymoon (they were sailing to Egypt the day after the wedding) and, as a remarkably effective smokescreen, deciding exactly what they were wearing for the fancy-dress ball.

  There were intervals during lunch when Jack found himself so engaged that he could almost forget that any such person as Durant Craig existed; almost but not quite. There were gaps – awkward gaps – when he should have responded but didn’t, gaps when Isabelle looked at him with puzzled, intelligent eyes. Then Arthur would come to the rescue once more and the situation was saved, but it was a real relief to say goodbye and get back to the privacy of his own rooms.

  But, thought Jack, he couldn’t stay hidden away. Life, as he had observed before, went on, no matter how chewed-up he was feeling, and he still had a living to earn, especially if he wanted some time off. There was a story to complete for On The Town, another two to edit, three long stints at the sub-editor’s desk, an article entitled Jazzing up Murder for Modern Music to write and a visit to Ronald and Scott’s to hire a costume. By the time the weekend came he felt he’d earned his trip to Sussex. He parked the Spyker in the old stable block at Hesperus on Saturday afternoon and, for the first time in four days, relaxed.

  He felt the tension ebb out of him as he sat, listening as the little ticking noises made by the hot metal of the engine cooling were gradually replaced by the sounds of distant cattle, horses and birdsong. Even so, he was on edge as he went into the house. Had Arthur said anything? Had Isabelle guessed? The answer, judging from Aunt Alice and Uncle Phil’s reception, was no, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief.

  And it was, he thought, taking a sip of champagne as he waited for the dancers to let him through, a very good party. With a shriek of glee, Marjorie and Phyllis Stuckley descended upon him.

  ‘Jack! There you are!’ said Phyllis. ‘You look absolutely spiffing! Dance with me, darling, won’t you? We really have to dance.’ The band started an energetic version of Walking My Baby With The Pink Pom-Pom. ‘Come on, Jack. This is a ripping tune.’ She looked at the two glasses he was holding and her face fell. ‘Don’t say you’re taken already.’

  ‘Only by your grandmother,’ said Jack, laughing.

  ‘Grandma’s an absolute menace,’ said Marjorie petulantly. ‘She always collars all the best men.’ She looked at his costume. ‘I wanted you to come as a sheikh,’ she said with a pout. ‘You’d look just like Rudolph Valentino.’

  ‘Is that meant to be a compliment?’ asked Jack with a grin.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Marjorie fervently. ‘He’s scrummy. What are you, anyway? Isabelle said something about Greek gods, but you don’t look very Greek to me.’

  ‘I’m a Corsican bandit,’ said Jack. ‘I refused to be any sort of god.’ He was wearing a scarlet shirt, a scarlet scarf, baggy trousers, one gold earring and what seemed to be an arsenal of weapons. ‘Now I’m here, I feel quite soberly dressed.’

  ‘The costumes are marvellous, aren’t they?’ said Phyllis, looking around at the knights, fairies, Vikings, princesses, cowboys, harlequins, columbines, sheikhs, geisha girls and various unidentifiables who thronged the dance floor. ‘I bet you can’t guess what we are.’

  ‘The most beautiful girls in the room?’

  Marjorie and Phyllis giggled in delight. ‘That’s right, of course,’ said Marjorie, ‘but what else?’

  The two sisters were wearing long silky dresses of midnight blue picked out with stars. ‘I give up,’ said Jack after a few moments’ frowning consideration.

  ‘Go on, guess!’ pleaded Marjorie.

  Jack glanced at the seats at the side of dance floor where old Lady Stuckley, dressed as The White Queen, was waiting. She caught his eye and beckoned him over. ‘Can I catch up with you later? I really should talk to your grandmother. Besides that,’ he added, looking across the room, ‘I think that monk chap is waiting for you.’

  ‘Rasputin?’ Marjorie’s face fell.

  ‘You promised, Marjorie,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘All right, but he’s so old. Afterwards, Jack?’

  ‘I’ll count the minutes.’

  He carried on threading his way through the crowd. Blackbeard the pirate put a hand on his arm. ‘Avast, me hearties,’ he growled, adding, in a normal voice, ‘D’you fancy a smoke on the terrace, Jack? It’s ages since we caught up with each other and I can’t hear myself think in here.’

  Jack grinned. Under an exuberant beard and eye patch, topped off by a bandanna and three-cornered hat bearing the skull and crossbones, was his old friend, Mark Stuckley. ‘I didn’t recognize you under the shrubbery.’

  ‘The beard, you mean? Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.’ Mark raised his voice to carry over a saxophone solo. ‘Are you coming outside?’

  ‘I promised your grandmother I’d get her a drink,’ said Jack regretfully. ‘I’ll join you later.’

  ‘Okey-doke,’ said Mark. ‘Have my sisters seen you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jack, nodding to where Marjorie Stuckley was being steered round the floor by Rasputin. ‘Marjorie’s nabbed me for a dance after the Mad Monk. Who is he? I can’t make out who’s who under all these beards people have sprouted.’

  ‘Rasputin, you mean? That’s a bloke called Vaughan. You know him, don’t you? He said he’d met you.’

  Jack felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him. He didn’t know how, but he managed to keep his smile fixed in place. ‘Vaughan?’ he repeated in as casual a voice as he could manage. ‘Yes, I’ve met him.’

  ‘I find him uphill work,’ said Stuckley. ‘Goodness knows how Marjorie’s coping. I’ll see you later.’ He strode off to the terrace.

  Jack forced himself to look away from Rasputin and walk towards Lady Stuckley.

  ‘Goodness, Jack, what a time you took,’ said Lady Stuckley as he put the drinks on the table. ‘I saw those silly girls of mine stop you and my heart sank.’

  ‘I pleaded a prio
r engagement.’ He smiled. ‘After all, it was a royal command.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ said old Lady Stuckley with a delighted smile.

  He stood back and gave an elaborate bow, which made Lady Stuckley giggle like a schoolgirl. ‘My respects to Your Highness.’ Adjusting his inconvenient array of weaponry, he lowered himself gingerly on to the seat. ‘Daggers and things are all very well,’ he complained, ‘but you never know where they’re going. If I can refrain from stabbing you, you will dance with me, won’t you?’

  Lady Stuckley chuckled in great satisfaction. ‘Once I sat down in this outfit, young man, I thought it might be as well if I stayed sitting for the rest of the ball.’

  ‘You can’t possibly do that.’

  ‘Perhaps I could manage a waltz before the end of the evening.’

  ‘My life will be a blank until the moment comes.’

  She smiled. ‘If I were forty years younger . . .’

  Jack sighed. ‘What an opportunity I lost, by being born too late. We would have taken London by storm.’

  ‘I did take London by storm,’ said Lady Stuckley complacently, which was nothing but the truth. ‘Do you know I was nearly your grandmother? Your grandfather proposed to me.’

  Jack did know, for Lady Stuckley mentioned it virtually every time he met her, but he expressed suitable surprise. ‘Did he? I’m sure I would’ve been much improved.’

  ‘Well, your father certainly would have been,’ she said dryly. ‘You haven’t turned out at all badly, all things considered.’ Lady Stuckley looked at him perceptively. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Something’s upset you.’ She paused for Jack to answer. When he didn’t, she shrugged her shoulders. ‘Ah well, it’s none of my business and I’m a nosy old woman, only you’re too polite to tell me so.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Jack, chilled by Lady Stuckley’s unexpected insight. He glanced up and saw Isabelle dancing with Arthur. He had to think of something to tell the acute old lady. ‘Isabelle wanted me to wear a different costume. She was a bit shirty when I refused.’

  Lady Stuckley pursed her lips in disbelief, but, thank goodness, didn’t contradict him. ‘They make a very handsome couple,’ she said, following his gaze to Isabelle and Arthur. ‘Young Stanton has more nerves than are good for him but he’s sound enough, like all his family, even if he is too inclined to think. Thinking’s no good for a man. They brood too easily. Still, he should get on well enough with Isabelle Rivers. She’s a clever girl. I wondered if she was too clever. Clever girls can see a man’s faults and men don’t like it.’

  ‘A really clever girl wouldn’t point them out,’ said Jack. ‘Or perhaps the man hasn’t got any faults.’

  Lady Stuckley gave a crack of laughter. ‘I’ve never met a man yet who didn’t.’ She looked at Isabelle once more. ‘Being clever’s all very well but since she took up with Arthur Stanton I’ve had a far greater opinion of her sense. She suits that mediaeval dress. Marjorie and Phyllis told me she was going to come as some sort of Greek goddess. She doesn’t look very Greek.’

  ‘No, that notion went by the board. She went for Camelot in the end. He’s Lancelot and she’s Guinevere.’

  ‘And very pretty she looks, too. I can’t think the chain mail young Stanton’s wearing is particularly suitable for dancing in, though.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose they had jazz at the court of King Arthur.’

  ‘Good for them. All these modern dances are far too energetic.’ Lady Stuckley raised her lorgnettes and peered across the ballroom with aged but sharp eyes. ‘Goodness knows why young Vaughan chose to dress up as Rasputin. He cannot be comfortable, smothered by that beard.’

  Jack felt his knuckles tighten. ‘Young Vaughan?’ he repeated.

  She glanced at him. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I met him the other day,’ said Jack in what he hoped was a casual manner.

  ‘Young Vaughan,’ she said reflectively. ‘He was in the Diplomatic Service for a time. He never sits still. He’s always rowing round something or shooting animals or climbing up a mountain somewhere.’

  It was obviously expected of him to make some sort of comment. ‘Isn’t he a bit old for that sort of thing? He must be at least fifty.’

  Lady Stuckley laughed. ‘At my age, that’s not old. Since his wife died he’s only had himself to please, not that that ever mattered. He’s always done exactly as he liked. I suppose everyone’s got to have their amusements, but I find some of the things he does very odd.’

  ‘There’s nothing odd about climbing mountains, is there?

  Lady Stuckley sniffed. ‘When he was up at Cambridge, he started digging up dead people.’

  ‘Digging up dead people?’ repeated Jack in surprise. It seemed a peculiar sort of pastime, even for the most wayward student.

  ‘Dead people and pots,’ said Lady Stuckley with a sniff. ‘Treasure hunting, you know? He calls it archaeology but it boils down to dead people and pots. I believe his house is full of things he’s dug up. I asked him once if he’d found any treasure and he told me he’d found a gold pin from a brooch. It’d be much easier to go and buy a gold pin, surely – and a brooch as well, if he wanted one – than try and dig them up. It seems a very haphazard way of obtaining jewellery.’

  Despite his tension, Jack couldn’t help laughing. He could quite see that the practical Lady Stuckley would find little point in merely academic pursuits. He finished his champagne and stood up. She stretched her hand out to him in a queenly gesture that went well with her costume and, much to her pleasure, he bowed gallantly and kissed her hand. ‘Your Majesty,’ he murmured.

  ‘Don’t forget you promised me a waltz,’ said Lady Stuckley, highly gratified. ‘I don’t know what the matter is but your manners haven’t suffered.’

  After that rather wearing session, all he really wanted to do was join Mark Stuckley on the terrace for a breather, but he was stopped by Isabelle. ‘There you are, Jack. I saw Lady Stuckley had nabbed you. She’s a holy terror, isn’t she?’

  ‘She thinks you’re clever,’ he said. ‘And she’s got a good opinion of your sense.’

  ‘Has she?’ Isabelle looked remarkably pleased. ‘That’s quite something coming from her.’ She took his arm. ‘Have this next dance with me, Jack. Arthur says he won’t move another step.’

  ‘Have you ever tried to dance wearing armour?’ demanded her glowing fiancé. ‘If I don’t get a drink soon I’ll boil.’

  ‘Perhaps your next dance should be the Lobster Quadrille,’ said Jack with a grin.

  ‘Ouch!’ said Arthur, smiling. ‘I’m going to find some fresh air.’

  Jack held out his arm to Isabelle. ‘I’m all yours, Belle.’

  They started round the room, expertly weaving in and out of the crush of dancers. Isabelle rested her head on his shoulder and looked at him with serious green eyes. ‘Jack,’ she said quietly. ‘You do know Mr Vaughan’s here, don’t you?’

  Unconsciously his arms tightened around her. ‘Yes. Why are you telling me, Isabelle?’

  ‘Because of the other day at Claridge’s. I know what happened.’

  They danced a few more steps. ‘Arthur promised he wouldn’t say anything,’ he said quietly.

  She drew back slightly. ‘Don’t look so grim, Jack. I knew there was something wrong. You were far too bright and brittle.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘You’re a bit like that now. You mustn’t blame Arthur. I asked him outright what the matter was.’

  They danced a few more steps in silence. ‘I thought I hid it rather well,’ said Jack eventually.

  ‘Too well, Jack. I know you.’

  He sighed and kissed her forehead gently.

  ‘So what was it about, Jack? Who was that horrible man?’

  It was some time before he spoke. To an outsider it would have looked as if they were concentrating on nothing more than the steps of the dance, but Isabelle could feel the tension flowing through him. ‘You know who it was, Belle,’ he said eventually. �
�If Arthur told you what happened, he must have told you who it was.’

  ‘It was a man called Craig, wasn’t it?’ She felt his hands tighten.

  ‘That’s right.’ He took a deep breath and repeated the name in a whisper. ‘Craig.’

  She looked at him blankly.

  ‘For God’s sake, Belle, you can’t have forgotten,’ said Jack, suddenly impatient with her lack of understanding. ‘Durant Craig. Don’t you remember what I did?’

  ‘Craig? I don’t . . .’ She stopped and held him closer. ‘Oh, Jack. I understand now.’

  A sudden, vivid picture formed in her mind of an autumn day at home, a cold clammy day with mist shrouding the trees in the park. She had forgotten it. It was in the war and seemed so long ago.

  She had been coming down to breakfast when the doorbell rang. Egerton, the butler, walked down the hall to answer it and she’d paused at the foot of the stairs to see who it was. In those days they were used to all sorts of men turning up. Hesperus, like many other big houses, had been turned into a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, but the house was full and they weren’t expecting any new arrivals.

  Outside stood a thin, nervous-looking man, hardly more than a boy, twisting his cap round and round in his hands. He wore a Flying Corps jacket over dirty khaki and he had a few days’ growth of stubble on his chin. In a barely audible voice he asked if Lady Rivers was at home. Egerton hesitated and the boy made a noise that was a cross between a laugh and a sob.

  ‘Don’t you recognize me, Egerton?’

  And then she had flown across the hall to him. ‘Jack! Jack, what’s happened to you?’ She tried to kiss him but he fended her off.

  ‘Don’t come too close. I was on a troop ship. I’m crawling.’ He spoke in little jerky sentences. ‘Vermin, you know.’

  She laughed, happy to see him again after his long and silent absence. ‘Is that all? Don’t worry, we’re used to it.’ She heard her mother come out of the morning-room and turned. ‘Oh, mother, it’s Jack! He’s got a creepy-crawly problem but we can deal with that, can’t we?’