Eva Ibbotson - A Company of Swans

‘I should have thought you would know better than to make eyes at a man who all but murdered a fellow countryman!’

‘He didn’t murder Mr Carruthers,’ said Mary. ‘He just threw him in the river.’

‘Mr Carruthers had been ill-treating his Indians horribly,’ said Alice. ‘He tied them to ant-heaps and—’

‘That’s quite enough,’ hissed Mrs Curtis, dragging her daughters past the group surrounding Verney. No doubt they would all be going on to the party at Follina on the following day, breaking the Sabbath. An orgy it would be, with every kind of carry-on. She herself would not dream of setting foot in the place, even if he should once deign to invite her! Everyone knew about his morals: opera singers and actresses! Even now he had probably picked out some girl on the stage who would stay behind when the others left and turn up next morning in the Amethyst with bags under her eyes and a pocket full of jewels. Disgusting, it was — absolutely disgusting!

‘What did you think of the little blonde… you know, the fourth from the end?’ asked de Silva, speaking hurriedly, for his wife would return at any moment from the ladies’ cloakroom.

‘Charming,’ said Rom, smiling at his friend. ‘Though I think we should reserve judgement until tomorrow.’

‘Yes,’ de Silva sighed. What must it be like to know that any girl you wanted could be had for the asking? What was it about Rom? Other men were almost as wealthy, though few matched him for sheer nerve. Was it that corsair look of his, or the stories of his physical endurance — those mad journeys alone in the Firefly? Or just that he didn’t really care one way or another?

Count Sternov arrived, bear-like and entranced, and the conversation changed to Russian.

‘She is incomparable, Simonova!’ said the Count. ‘Incomparable! Sofka thinks her interpretation is finer than Kchessinskaya’s, don’t you, coucoushka ?’

The Countess, splendid in a brocade kaftan and lopsided tiara, nodded. ‘Kchessinskaya is more girlish, more frightened — but Simonova has the grandeur, the pathos… and boshti moy , those extended arabesques !’

‘Ah, but will she manage the fouettés? She is no longer young.’

‘She will manage them,’ declared the Countess.

Young Mrs Bennett, in her blue silk gown, passed them and smiled shyly at Mr Verney. He was far too grand and important to speak to her, of course; Jock was only an accountant in the timber-exporting firm of which Verney was director. But to her surprise, Verney not only bowed but came forward to address her, for he had remembered the shy little boy with the blond curls who had been everywhere with his mother.

‘I was wondering if you and your husband would like to come to the party I’m giving at Follina tomorrow? It will be rather noisy, I expect, but you would be very welcome.’

‘Oh!’ Her big blue eyes, so like Peter’s, lit up with pleasure. ‘Thank you very much! I’ll go and tell my husband.’

A party at Follina — an invitation for which the Lehmanns and the Roderiguez and that stuffy Mrs Curtis would have given their eyes! She hurried away, and for a few hours the small ghost who haunted her, waking and sleeping, was laid to rest.

But Nemesis now awaited Verney as he stood relaxed and at ease with his glass of champagne. The Mayor arrived and informed him that the Baltic princesses had requested he be presented to them.

‘Ah, a summons!’ Rom put down his glass, but as he prepared to follow the Mayor he turned and asked casually, ‘Did anyone notice the little girl in the corps that sneezed? Third from the left as they came on?’

De Silva shook his head; so did the Count and Countess and the other men standing by.

‘I didn’t hear anyone sneeze,’ said Sternov. ‘I don’t see how one could with all that row’

‘Odd,’ said Rom.

Very odd, he thought, following the Mayor to the President’s box. For it seemed to him that that small sneeze was what Act Two had rather been about.

Act Three is entirely swan-less. Prince Siegfried’s parents give a great ball to which the princesses of many lands are invited, in the hope that one of them will catch his eye. The hope is vain. They dance for him, but the Prince says no to all of them. Then the evil Rothbart brings in his daughter, whom he has enchanted so as to resemble Odette. Dazzled by her virtuosity (the thirty-two fouettés!) and believing her to be Odette, the Prince promises to marry her and it is at this moment — and a very poignant moment it is — that the ‘real’ Odette appears at the window, a despairing shape fluttering in anguish to show the Prince that she has been betrayed.

It is in the last act that the swans reappear and they do so rising rather effectively from a bed of mist. At least, they do if the dry ice works, but dry ice on the Amazon is apt to be capricious. Thus some swans rose out of the mist; others, notably the swan that had sneezed, seemed likely to remain permanently immersed in it. Yet when the stage cleared and her serious face and graceful arms emerged, it appeared to Rom that she was very much improved in spirits. The little pucker between her eyes had gone and the rest of her feathers seemed to be secure. And considerably relieved, he lowered his glasses and prepared to watch Simonova dance her farewell pas de deux of forgiveness and reconciliation with Maximov before vanishing — this time for ever — into the lake.

The curtain fell on an ovation. Simonova was recalled again and again. Bouquets were showered on her: the bouquet ordered by the Opera House trustees, the bouquet of Count Sternov, of the Mayor… A large water-lily thrown by an admirer hit her in the chest like a cannon-ball and she did not flinch. The gallery yelled for Maximov…

‘A triumph, ma chère ,’ said Dubrov, waiting in the wings with her wrap.

‘Not bad, eh?’ she agreed. ‘Fifteen curtain calls! I was thinking, Sashka — let’s announce my retirement at the end of the tour, what do you think? Right now it might be rather a disappointment for them.’

Swans do not take curtain calls. Harriet, back in the dressing-room, smiled like a Botticelli angel and said wonderingly, ‘I’m alive. I’m still alive!’ And then, ‘Do you think anybody heard me sneeze?’

‘Nobody heard you sneeze,’ said Marie-Claude, who knew a great deal but not quite everything. ‘And now please hurry, because tomorrow there is to be a very splendid party and I want some sleep.’

For ten days after Harriet’s departure, Aunt Louisa and the Professor went about their business unconcerned over her whereabouts. It was naturally assumed that she was having a pleasant time with Mrs Fairfield and meeting the right people and Edward, though he missed her, had discovered a flea with a totally unexpected bristle on the third tergite and was much occupied in working out the implications of this breakthrough.

This peaceful state of affairs was shattered on the last day of April, when a concerned and friendly note arrived for Aunt Louisa from Mrs Fairfield. She and Betsy had been so sorry, she wrote, that Harriet had had to postpone her visit, but if the Professor’s cousin was now recovered and they were returned from Harrogate, it would give them great pleasure if Harriet could come up for Betsy’s dance. It was quite a small affair, nothing grand, but Betsy would be so very pleased to see her friend…

Aunt Louisa, reading the letter which came by the afternoon post, did not scream or faint. She controlled herself with masterly skill, but she went to ‘the instrument’ and telephoned the lodge of St Phillip’s to ask the porter to find Professor Morton and request him to come home — something she had never done before in her life. After that, and perhaps unwisely, she telephoned her friend Mrs Hermione Belper at Trumpington Villa.