Eva Ibbotson - A Company of Swans

Simonova shrugged. ‘She is a good child… though she does not have Natasha’s ears,’ she murmured mysteriously, and swept out into the corridor, where she could be heard yelling instructions at the girls.

Rom had called at the Club earlier to brief Edward. ‘It’s a great honour you understand, this invitation? In fact, I know of no one else who has been allowed to lunch with Madame and the girls.’ And he went on to caution Edward to be extremely careful in his use of language and not to mention that he was staying at the Sports Club, which would certainly be considered flighty.

‘I myself,’ said Rom with perfect accuracy, ‘never mention my connection with the Club to any lady of my acquaintance.’

At a quarter to one, therefore, Edward — in his new light-weight suit — made his way towards the theatre. He had imagined his first meeting with Harriet a hundred times. He had visualised her abandoned in a hovel, backstage in a scandalously short skirt, or driving with a rich protector in a carriage. But he had not imagined her crossing the Opera Square in crocodile with twenty other girls, wearing a straw hat and long-sleeved foulard dress, in the wake of a formidable woman in black and a portly gentleman in a frock-coat.

Edward approached, raised his hat.

‘Ah. You are Dr Dunch-Fitton,’ stated Simonova. The procession came to a halt while she raked him with her charcoal eyes. ‘Mr Verney has asked that you may join us at luncheon, but it is out of the question that my girls can be seen walking through the town accompanied by a man. You may meet us at the Restaurant Guida in ten minutes. In the private room, naturally.’

And leaving the flabbergasted Edward standing, the row of girls with their parasols held aloft passed with downcast eyes across the square.

In the restaurant, Verney’s instructions had been obeyed to the letter. A private room, totally screened from the rest of the patrons, had been prepared; white cloths and virginal white flowers decorated the tables; a portrait of Carmen expiring at the feet of her matador had been replaced by a Madonna and Child.

The girls filed in under Simonova’s eye. Edward, arriving confused and perspiring, was permitted to sit on her left with Harriet on his right. Marie-Claude and Kirstin sat opposite; the Russian girls stretched away on either side.

The first course arrived: platters of hot prawns in a steaming aromatic sauce. Edward, who was hungry, leaned forward.

‘We will say Grace,’ said Simonova.

Everybody rose. There followed nearly ten minutes of an old Russian thanksgiving prayer during which Lydia, giggling into her handkerchief at the ballerina’s unusual embellishments to the sombre and simple words, was kicked into silence by Olga. Then they all sat down and Edward glanced hopefully at the prawns.

‘And now you, Harriet.’

So everyone rose again and Harriet folded her hands. ‘Oculi omnium in te respiciunt, Domine,’ she began — and thus it was that the first words Edward heard the abandoned girl pronounce were those which preceded every meal at High Table in St Philip’s.

Harriet had been badly frightened at the thought of this encounter, but the incredible way the Company had rallied to her support — and above all, Rom’s quick pressure on her hand as they set off — had given her the courage to play her part and when they were all seated at last she turned to Edward and said composedly, ‘I trust you found my father well?’

‘No, Harriet, I did not. I found him deeply distressed by your conduct. How could you run away like that?’

‘Run away?’ Simonova’s lynx-like ears caught the phrase and she fixed her hooded eyes on Edward. ‘Natasha Alexandrovna did not run away. She was called!’

‘All of us were called,’ said Kirstin. Her gentle sad face and soft blue eyes were making an excellent impression on Edward. ‘Many of us struggled, but God was too strong.’

‘It is a vocation,’ pronouced Simonova. ‘Nuns and dancers, we are sisters. We give up everything: friends, family, love…’ Her eyes slid sideways to Dubrov. ‘Particularly love!’

Edward, temporarily nonplussed, tried again. ‘Yes, but dash it—’

Simonova raised a peremptory hand. ‘Please, Dr Funch-Dutton — no language before my girls! I am like the Abbess of a sisterhood. Tatiana!’ she suddenly called sharply down the table. ‘Where are your elbows?’

‘Yes, but… I mean, poor Professor Morton,’ stammered Edward. ‘The anxiety… and naturally I myself felt—’

‘Yes, yes, you feel; it is understandable. When Teresa of Avila left her home there must have been many who suffered. Yes, there are always tears when a pure young soul offers herself to higher things: the Dance, the Church — it is all one. Consider St Francis of Assisi—’

But here Dubrov pressed her foot in warning, remembering — as she would presently — that the gentle saint had signalled his conversion by removing all his clothes and setting off naked for the hills.

The entrée was brought. Fresh mineral water was poured into the glasses.

‘You like being here, then?’ asked Edward, turning once more to Harriet and noting with a pang that even after all she had done, her ears still peeped out from between the soft strands of her hair just as they had done in King’s College Chapel.

‘I like it in one sense,’ said Harriet carefully. ‘It is such a privilege to be under Madame’s tutelage. But naturally I miss the freedom of Cambridge.’ She glanced sideways under her lashes to see if she had gone too far, but Edward’s face was devoid of incredulity.

‘The freedom?’

‘Well, in Cambridge my Aunt Louisa sometimes allowed me to walk alone on the Backs and I was occasionally permitted to go to tea with my friends. Here nothing like that is possible. We are chaperoned and watched night and day. But I feel I must accept these restrictions, knowing they are for my own good.’

‘But Harriet… I mean, you are coming back, aren’t you?’ said Edward, his long face falling. Aware that the situation was out of hand, that his intention to carry her back — covered in shame and contrition — had somehow misfired, he fumbled for words. ‘I thought… I mean, I was going to take you to the May Ball and all that.’

At this point Marie-Claude, who had been unusually silent, intervened. Harriet could be relied upon not to lose her nerve while the young man was pompous and self-important, but if he turned pathetic anything might happen.

Pushing her golden curls firmly behind her ears, Marie-Claude addressed Edward. She addressed him exclusively and she addressed him in French, rightly concluding that a man expensively educated at a British public school would understand about as much of what she said as a backward two-year-old, and the effect on Edward was considerable. Though aware that people born abroad could sometimes speak their native language, to hear this beautiful girl pour forth sentence after sonorous, unhesitating sentence when he himself had suffered such torments over his French exercises, filled him with awe. Moreover, such words as he did understand — bois , for example, and campagne — seemed to indicate that her discourse concerned the beauties of nature, than which no topic could be more suitable. And indeed he was quite right, for it was of the outside amenities of the auberge above Nice that Marie-Claude spoke: of the grove of pine trees where Vincent intended to put tables in the summer and the freshness of the country produce he would use to prepare his famous dishes.

The meal ended, as it had begun, with Grace and then Edward was dismissed by Simonova.

‘Now, Dr Dinch-Futton, tomorrow is a special day of quiet for the girls while we prepare for The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky is for us a sacred composer and there can be no frivolity. But as Mr Verney has assured us of your good character, you may see Harriet for half an hour between four thirty and five — in the presence of a chaperone, of course.’