Eva Ibbotson - A Company of Swans

Silently counting the bars that were bringing her nearer deliverance, Harriet moved down towards the centre of the table, for she knew that it was in front of the Minister that she must come to rest in her final pose. As she came past the man in the blond toupee, confused by her nearness, put out a hand as if to grab her ankle — and recoiled, blanching, as Alvarez spat out three words of insult in Portuguese.

She was there! The Minister’s high-backed chair was opposite, his medals gleamed beneath the chandelier — and as the music moved into its dying fall, she prepared to sink slowly, driftingly, romantically on to the cloth in front of him.

Except that the epergne was in the way!

A frown mark like a circumflex appeared for a moment between Harriet’s brows. Then a man’s hand — strong, tanned and shapely — came round the base of the massive silver object and with extraordinary strength pushed it away.

Now all was well; there was room — and as she sank down she turned her head to smile her thanks.

The men had been behind her all the way, but there was nothing they liked better, nor recalled more often afterwards, than the sudden, anguished squeak — half-mouse, half-fledgling — that escaped her when she saw the face of her benefactor.

Then she threw up her arms and at this signal the lights went out. When they came on again, the girl and the cake had gone.

The departure of the guests left Harry Parker bewildered but gratified. The eruption from the cake of the dark-haired professor’s daughter had apparently given great pleasure — and this despite the fact that as far as he could see she had done nothing of the kind that was normally reckoned to gratify gentlemen after such a dinner. There was no doubt, however, that the praise had been sincere and Alvarez, before he left in Verney’s car, had congratulated him with real emotion on the entertainment he had provided. Harriet herself had stayed only long enough to explain to him, in the anteroom, the reason for the substitution and to beg him to keep Marie-Claude’s secret and this Parker was perfectly willing to do. Monsieur Pierre was returning to Rio the next morning; the chef had seen no sign of Marie-Claude, who had successfully made her escape, and Parker would not have dreamed of upsetting the most beautiful girl who was ever likely to come his way.

But out in the grounds of the Club, poor Edward stumbled through the foliage in a state of total despair. Inexperienced, prurient and drunk, he alone had entirely missed the point of Harriet’s performance. He had just been through the most shattering experience of his life, he told himself. Harriet — sweet, good, obedient Harriet, brought up by Professor Morton to be everything a young girl should be — had burst from a cake… had danced on a table in her underclothes!

Had she always been wanton? Edward asked himself as he leaned his aching head against the trunk of a tree, uncaring of the ants, the termites, the poisonous spiders it might harbour. Was it just this damnable climate or had it gone on all the time? Had she crept out at night in Cambridge to come out of cakes in Trinity… out of seashells in Sidney Sussex… out of cornucopias in St Cat’s?

A gigantic moth flew into a lantern; it was new to science, but he let it pass. Peripatus itself could have lumbered across his feet and he would not have bent to pick it up.

He had meant to marry this girl whose ankles had been gaped at by three dozen gentlemen at dinner… He had meant to commit his life to her in Great St Mary’s and approach her reverently in a honeymoon hotel in Bognor Regis… He had meant to introduce her to the Mater!

What fools they had made of him in that ballet company — of Verney too, or was he in on the act? Probably they all erupted, even that skinny ballerina — from pies, from ice-cream cones… thought Edward dizzily.

After a while the events of the evening took their toll and he was violently sick. Then, tottering to the annexe, he lay down on his bed. Tomorrow he would cable the Mortons and tell them to what depravity Harriet had sunk. They must give him powers to have her restrained until she could be taken to the boat and returned to England. But would they want her back? Would a girl like that be acceptable in Scroope Terrace, soiling and corrupting the whole city? Would he himself be willing to accompany her?

Such little breasts she had… but very much there… thought Edward, drifting into sleep — and woke sweating to rise from his bed and take a cold shower: the first of many that he was to take as he contemplated the descent from cake to gutter of the girl he had once loved.

The Minister for Amazonia had sent for Rom.

It was the morning after the banquet. Rom had spent the night at the Casa Branca and had not slept well. The presence of Edward Finch-Dutton at the dinner had been as unexpected as it was unfortunate, and the flushed face and drunken mutterings of Harriet’s erstwhile suitor as he staggered from the room made it clear that all his own efforts to reconcile Harriet’s family to her activities must now be set at naught.

But Harriet’s affairs must wait. He had come to do battle with Alvarez and arriving, punctual to the minute, at the Palace of Justice, he was shown into the room set aside for the Minister.

‘Come in, Verney.’

Alvarez, immaculately dressed as always, was sitting at a vast desk shuffling a pile of papers, but he rose and shook Rom’s hand.

‘I wanted to see you about the Ombidos report,’ he said. ‘I’ve read it again.’

‘Yes.’ Rom braced himself for a repetition of the excuses of the previous day.

‘And I have decided to go!’

Surprise and relief chased the shadows from Rom’s face.

‘You will go yourself?’ he repeated incredulously. ‘To Ombidos? Oh, but that’s splendid! You are the only person who can put things right up there.’

‘It means delaying my return to Rio and I am sending home my domestic staff. I want you to take me as far as Santa Maria in the Amethyst; I shall let it be known that we’re off on a fishing trip. Can you spare a few days?’

‘Of course.’

‘De Silva can meet me there in a government launch with a suitable escort. We’ll go by night and take them by surprise. Nominally it will be merely a courtesy visit, but if half of what you say is true, then the rest will follow.’

‘Would you like me to come all the way to Ombidos? I can bring a dozen of my own men and follow you.’

Alvarez smiled at the eagerness in Rom’s voice, but shook his head.

‘I know how you feel, but this is a job for my own countrymen. You have already made quite enough of a reputation as a rescuer of the oppressed. Now it is my turn for some of the glory!’

Rom was not fooled. Alvarez faced a dangerous journey and the hostility of his fellow politicians in Rio, for there were powerful men making money from Ombidos.

‘Could I ask you what made you change your mind about going?’

‘Yes, you could ask. And I will tell you.’ Alvarez sat down again behind the massive desk and motioned Rom to a chair. ‘It was that girl last night — the girl in the cake.’

‘What!’ Rom leaned forward, unable to believe his ears.

‘Yes, the girl in the cake,’ repeated Alvarez. ‘You can thank her that I’m risking my neck up that hellish river.’ He felt in his pocket, brought out a wallet and extracted a faded sepia photograph, which he handed to Rom. ‘Do you see the resemblance?’

The picture showed a young girl in a wedding-dress holding a bouquet of lilies. The portrait was conventional enough, but transcending the stiff pose, the studio props, was the expression on the thin face — a look both brave and eager, as though she could hardly wait for the adventure of her life to begin.