Eva Ibbotson - A Company of Swans

Leo, when he appeared clanking his bunch of keys, turned out to be the gaoler, a retired Negro boxer who had once worked for Pinkerton’s detective agency in New York, spoke English and could even read.

‘It’s the real thing, all right,’ he said to Captain Carlos when he had perused the contents of the cable. ‘The British Foreign Office sent it, no mistake. They want the girl back in England and they want you to help this gentleman get her there.’ And he nodded without irony at Edward before depositing a gob of tobacco spittle at his feet.

‘You see!’ said Edward triumphantly. ‘I told you.’ He turned to Leo. ‘Now listen carefully. Tell them I want at least two men, strong ones. I want them outside the theatre on Friday evening just before the performance ends, and I want a closed cab waiting too. They’re to seize the girl as she comes off stage — without hurting her, mind you — bundle her into the cab and take her down to the docks. The Gregory sails at dawn — there will be a cabin waiting for her. She must be locked in — I have spoken to the stewardess, but she will want to see your authorisation — and I’ll let her out myself when we’re safely down-river. Got it?’

He leaned back, extremely pleased with himself. The plan, masterful and simple, had occurred to him as soon as the Gregory arrived — a white oasis of British calm and hygiene in the turmoil of the docks — and two cabins for the return journey had unexpectedly become available.

Leo spoke to the Captain, who nodded. It might have been worse — he had been afraid he would be expected to hold the girl in his gaol. And at least the Englishman was going with her. Not to see Edward Finch-Dutton’s long, equine face ever again had become the Captain’s most passionate desire.

He turned to Leo. ‘Ask him how we’re to know which girl to grab?’

‘I shall of course come with you to identify her,’ said Edward. ‘Naturally…’

The disaster that Simonova’s accident represented struck the Company afresh on Friday as they rehearsed with Masha Repin for the evening performance of Giselle. The Polish girl, having plotted and schemed for just this chance, was nervous and hysterical, abused the conductor for his tempi , complained of Maximov’s lifts and threw her costume at the wardrobe mistress. Simonova’s rages had been no less violent, but in a curious way they concerned — in the end — the performance as a whole. Masha’s panic was for herself.

For Harriet, Simonova’s injury had been a personal blow. As long as she lived she would never forget the moment when the proud, arched body crumpled and fell — and if she hated any human beings it was those doctors who, uncaring of the injured woman’s presence, had pronounced their horrendous verdict.

The tragedy had entirely put out of her mind her own danger. She had not seen Edward at the banquet and if she thought of him at all, it was to assume that he was still away on his collecting trip. Of Rom she did think, and incessantly. He had said he would be absent for two days, but had been away for almost a week and the city was rife with rumours of some cloak-and-dagger affair up-river in which he was said to be involved. Knowing what she would feel if anything happened to him made it impossible for her to remain in ignorance of her emotions, and she could only be glad of the incessant rehearsals which filled the day.

Not so Marie-Claude.

‘Oh God, those dreary Wilis,’ she complained, jamming a myrtle wreath on her golden curls.

‘They’re not dreary, Marie-Claude. They’re sort of vengeful and icy and implacable, but they’re not dreary,’ said Harriet.

But Marie-Claude, who had danced her first Wili at the age of sixteen, had scant patience with those spectres of betrayed maidenhood who endeavour to dance to death any gentlemen foolish enough to cross their path — and two hours before the start of the evening performance, she announced her intention of going to look at the shops.

Neither of her friends went with her. Kirstin had joined the group of girls comforting Maximov — who needed to be told some twenty times an hour that he was not to blame for Simonova’s accident — and Harriet had decided to hurry back to the Metropole to see if the new doctor expected that afternoon held out any more hope.

The city was golden in the late afternoon sun. People sat in cafés on the mosaic pavements; children splashed in the fountains. Marie-Claude walked with pleasure, enjoying the full delights of window-shopping as experienced by those untroubled by any intention to buy.

Rejecting a pink and white striped silk suit, approving a blue organdie, she wandered along the Rua Quintana, crossed a busy square and paused by a kiosk at the edge of a small park overlooking the harbour where she bought a bottle of lemonade.

She was just selecting a bench on which to sit and drink it when she saw, coming down the steps of the porticoed police station, the gangling figure of Dr Finch-Dutton. He was carrying a small wooden box and apparently dressed for travelling.

So he wasn’t away in the jungle as Harriet had thought. Strange… why had he made no contact? And what did he want with the police?

Repressing the natural instinct of flight so common in people acquainted with the Englishman, Marie-Claude studied him. He had entered the park by the other gate, sat down in a chair by the bandstand and now proceeded to take out of the wooden box something at which he stared with great intensity.

‘Bon jour, Monsieur.’

Edward looked up, blushed, jumped to his feet. He had avoided all truck with the ballet company — complete surprise was the essence of his plan to snatch Harriet away — and he no longer felt capable of trusting anyone. But the sight of Marie-Claude, her face gilded by the rays of the westering sun, entirely overset him. Whoever had been responsible for Harriet’s eruption, it could hardly be this enchanting girl with her staggering facility in oral French. And lifting his hat, he held out the glass specimen bottle he had been studying and said simply, ‘Look!’

Marie-Claude looked, gave a small shriek and retreated. Inside the bottle lay a large, dead reddish-brown worm with a great many baggy legs and two stumpy antennae.

‘It’s Peripatus !’ said Edward raptly, staring for the hundredth time at this miracle which he had been vouchsafed. ‘I found it this morning. You can’t imagine what this will mean to the head of my department. It’s absolutely crucial, you see — the missing link between the Arthropods and the Annelids.’

He launched into an account of the creature’s significance, while Marie-Claude’s jaw tightened in an effort not to yawn.

But there was no stopping Edward, who saw himself as a man sanctified and set apart. For he had not meant to go into the forest again; he had been packed and ready, made his farewells at the Club when, with half an hour to wait before the cab was due, he had decided to go bug-hunting just once more.

And there on a damp patch of leaf-mould beneath a clump of kapok trees, he had found it!

Edward’s joy had at first been purely entomological. But no man can feel a rapture as intense as his without undergoing a general change in outlook. As he prepared Peripatus for the long journey home, Edward had seen himself as a man who had failed in magnanimity. Harriet, it was true, had to be apprehended; she had to be taken to the Gregory by force — there was no way out of that — but he had intended to have as little to do with her on the journey as possible. She would be aired and exercised like the prisoner she effectively was until he restored her to her father, and that was all.