“Everyone’s mad over them,” Penny had grumbled.“And what have dragons ever done for us, I ask you?”
As it turned out, the dragons had done quite a lot for Crispin.They had gotten him a proper job (with a codename) at Britain’s fledgling espionage service.Never mind it was in a lamentable shambles.That, in itself, presented Crispin with an opportunity to excel.
Now he just had to make good on his promise to C to worm himself (pun intended) securely into the confidence of his Yorkshire connections.But he’d have to be quick.He could tell his father was uneasy about something.The War Office looked as if they were going to make some sort of move themselves.
Crispin would have to move faster.He didn’t like putting his assignment for Churchill to one side.C might laugh at it as theatrics, but he couldn’t forget the Home Secretary’s ringside speech.It still gave him chills when he thought of it.But for now, his priority was to establish himself in the SSB and his new employer’s good graces.He’d follow up the Brotherhood of St George on the side, and keep anything he found in his pocket until Churchill came calling.
Next up—how to present himself in Ormdale in the best possible light, and before his father did.
“Neil,” Crispin said to the clerk eating a sandwich at his desk.“Are they still looking for someone to help out on that committee you told me about?”
“You mean for Brussels?”asked Neil.“Rather.Between the two of us, Britain’s contribution looks to be a bit of a flop.I don’t know what they were thinking.It’s the Universal Exposition, you know, not your spinster aunt’s charity bazaar.”
“What a shame,” said Crispin.“But still, it gives someone somewhere a chance to pull a rabbit out of his hat at the last moment, doesn’t it?”
But he was thinking of a very different sort of creature—the kind the most extraordinary girl he had ever seen liked to hold in her arms.
“What do you mean this isn’t a story?”Penny repeated in amazement.
“Somebody tried to burn a Chinese laundry?”the subeditor repeated in a flat tone.“And no one was trapped inside?Was it gang warfare?Does it threaten our readers?No?”
“There’s a secret society behind it,” protested Penny.“A sinister brotherhood.I chased one of them all over Limehouse.He was—very unpleasant.”
“I’m trembling,” the editor said, turning away and picking up a proof.
Penny was in shock.She knew she was really onto something.Something big.Why couldn’t this stupid man see it?
“What if I infiltrate it?Like Nelly Bly?”The words had slipped out quite unintended.
But it was true.Why, if Nelly Bly could commit herself to a madhouse for ten days or circle the globe in only seventy-two in one blue wool dress, then Penny Fairweather could insinuate herself into a secret society of English nativists, surely.
“You think you can do that, Miss Fairweather?”he said, eyeing her with a gratifying return of interest.“Undercover?And there’s a connection to the Yorkshire lizards?”He looked her up and down, then held out his hand.“You’re on.”
Too late, she wondered if the Brotherhood of Saint George ever accepted female members.
Chapter fifty-two
Ormdale
Alargecreaturebeatpastthe 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 writtenDearest Emilyand 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.
