Eva Ibbotson - The Dragonfly Pool

But now suddenly there was a diversion.

Two rough-looking men in shabby raincoats made their way up the steps. One had a heavy dark beard and wore a battered hat pulled down low. The other was younger, with a chin full of stubble and burning black eyes.

They lurched into the pavilion, hiccuped a few times, and stopped to stare. Then they bent down to pat Pom-Pom.

“Nice little doggy,” said the bearded man. “Come along then. Come to Jack.”

Pom-Pom rolled his bloodshot eyes and rumbled in his throat.

“Now then,” said the man, “I’m not going to hurt you…”

He squatted down on his haunches and tried to pull the dog toward him.

“Careful,” said his companion. “He might bite you.”

“No, he wouldn’t. Dogs don’t hurt me, not ever.”

He belched loudly and tugged at Pom-Pom’s topknot.

The next moment there was a piercing scream as the old princess rose from her chair. “Anarchists!” she screeched. “Anarchists. They will cut him up and eat him!”

“No, no,” said the Scold. “I’m sure they’re just tramps.” And to the two men: “Be off with you. Go away. Shoo!”

But the men, who were too drunk to understand, showed no sign of moving. They continued to sway slightly and tell Pom-Pom that he was a nice little doggy.

“I know anarchists,” shrieked Princess Natalia. “In Russia they were everywhere! They will eat my Pom-Pom, and he will never become a father in Brazil! Quick, quick, we must take him home.”

“I’ll take him,” said Karil.

“No, no!” cried the Scold. “You can’t go back now; you’ll spoil Carlotta’s surprise.”

But Karil was getting bored with the fuss about Carlotta’s surprise. “I know all about the portrait,” he said. “I’ve known about it for ages, but I’ll be careful to make sure she doesn’t see me.”

“We must get the police… the police!” shrieked the old lady. She took a step backward, sending her chair crashing against the metal table, and the tramps, disgusted by the commotion, shuffled out into the rain.

“Silly old geezer,” one of them muttered.

But the Princess Natalia was now in the grip of fully fledged hysterics. “They have gone to fetch bombs,” she cried. “They will explode him and when the messenger comes he will be dead! He must go home!”

“George,” called the Countess Frederica, and the footman who had been huddled into his overcoat moved reluctantly toward her. “Pick up the dog and hurry back to the house with him.”

“He’ll bite me,” said the footman. “He doesn’t like me and he’s all upset now. He’ll bite, as sure as eggs is eggs.”

And certainly Pom-Pom did not look friendly. He had not enjoyed having his topknot pulled by unkempt strangers. The hair on his back was standing up and his growls came thick and fast.

“Don’t be such a coward,” snapped the countess, and George reluctantly bent down and then straightened himself with a cry, nursing his hand.

“I told you, the rotten little cur,” he muttered.

But Karil had had enough.

“Come on, Pom-Pom,” he said. He coiled up the lead, scooped up the little dog, and ran toward the gates of the park.

“Stop, Karil. Stop!” called the countess. She fumbled for her whistle but it had got caught under her collar.

And Karil, running like the wind, had vanished behind a clump of trees.

While Clemmy went on with her story, adding an audience of screaming fans and a bed draped in ostrich feathers, Carlotta was reasonably quiet, but as soon as it was finished she leaped up and said she’d changed her mind.

“I don’t want to wear the blue dress. I want to wear the yellow one.”

Francis, who had started blocking in the color tones, tore a leaf out of his sketchbook and let it drop.

“Very well. But there must be no more changes after this. I have to get to a particular point today or I can’t promise to get your painting done in time.”

For a few moments Carlotta was quiet — then she began to fidget again. “I’m bored,” she said, “and I don’t want to sit with my head turned like this because people won’t see my ringlets. I’m going to sit the way I was before, looking straight ahead.”

Francis put down his palette. “I think you’d better make up your mind, Carlotta,” he said quietly, “because if you want me to paint your picture, you’d better make some effort to cooperate.”

At the other end of the room the archduchess and the mournful governess exchanged anxious looks, but it was too late. Carlotta was heading for one of her famous tantrums.

“How dare you talk to me like that?” she shouted. “I won’t be told what to do by common people.”

Blind with ill temper she leaped to her feet, knocking over Francis’s easel, and rushed from the room, followed by her mother and the governess, both uttering bleating cries.

Francis put down his palette.

“I’m going to find the duke — I’m not going on with this,” he said.

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?”