Eva Ibbotson - A Company of Swans

Ever since Henry had mentioned Harriet, Isobel’s need to be on her way had become a kind of frenzy. She had told herself again and again that she was being absurd; Henry could not even have known Rom’s name when he spoke to Harriet in the maze — yet she could not free herself of the image of a young girl crossing the main square of Manaus, walking up the imposing flight of steps to the mansion that must be Follina, being admitted by two powdered footmen… and then the door closing behind her. Closing… but not opening again to let her out. An absurd image, but one which gave Isobel no rest.

But little as Isobel was aware of her surroundings, she did notice a tall man in a crumpled linen suit who had come off the gangway of the Gregory and was now walking in a somewhat dazed manner in her direction. Surely — yes, it was the irritating Englishman who had travelled with her and was now, presumably, on his way home.

‘Dr Finch-Dutton?’

Edward turned, stopped, lifted his hat. He seemed to be overcome with embarrassment, and this was not surprising, for he presented an extraordinary sight. His fingers were criss-crossed with strips of sticking-plaster and another massive piece of plaster traversed his forehead. Two deep scratches ran from the top of his collar to his chin, and a piece was missing from the lobe of his right ear.

‘Good heavens, Dr Finch-Dutton — what on earth has happened to you? Have you been in the jungle?’

‘Yes, I suppose I have. In a sense. Yes, you could say that,’ answered Edward heavily. ‘Blood-poisoning cannot be entirely ruled out, the doctor says.’

‘What kind of animal was it?’ enquired Isobel, puzzled by the doctor’s injuries. Too slight for a jaguar, the scratches had definitely been made by something with long, sharp claws.

‘You may ask,’ said Edward. ‘Yes, Mrs Brandon, you may well ask.’

In response to her nod he took the chair beside her and Isobel, seeing that he was too distraught to place an order himself, asked for a cafezinho. ‘I cannot tell you what I have been through,’ Edward continued. ‘You wouldn’t believe it. Indeed, I find it impossible to believe it myself. But these injuries’ — he held up his fingers, touched his bitten ear — ‘were conferred on me by a human being. A human female. In short… a girl.’

‘Impossible!’

‘You might think so. But I assure you I speak the truth.’

‘Good heavens!’ Isobel, trying not to laugh, looked at him in mock concern. ‘Would it help you to tell me about it?’

‘Yes,’ said Edward, nodding gratefully, ‘I think it would. To tell the truth, I’m at my wits’ end and I simply don’t know what to do. I can’t keep going up and down the Amazon like a yo-yo. I suppose I ought to take her back to Manaus, but I don’t know if that’s what she wants. A couple of men came from Verney’s office just now to transfer her to the Bernadetto and she just kicked them in the shins and shut herself into her cabin. They—’

‘Verney?’ said Isobel, her heart pounding. ‘Who is… this Verney?’

‘A good point,’ said Edward mournfully. ‘I don’t know. I thought he was a friend, but now I think perhaps he was double-crossing me all along. I fancied I caught a glimpse of him on the stage in all that mist… only then I decided I must have been mistaken, because the fellow hadn’t shaved. Very well-turned-out fellow, Verney, you see. But now I wonder — maybe he snatched her. Got in first, so to speak?’

‘Snatched who?’

‘This girl I came to save. Decent girl, well-brought-up, only she went to pieces out here. Verney told me she was in good hands, but now I ask myself whether it wasn’t he who made her come out of a cake.’

‘Out of a cake?’

‘Yes, incredible, isn’t it? So I thought I’d bring her back by force — for her own good, of course. It was what her father wanted. Only those idiots seized the wrong girl. Well, it was I who told them to, but I could have sworn it was her. She used to tie her shoes just like that… only of course, they all tie their shoes like that in the ballet — you can see it in those paintings by that French fellow, the way they bend over. And they all whiten their arms and scrape back their hair — it’s the absolute devil trying to make out who is who.’

‘So you got the wrong girl?’

‘Yes. Only I didn’t realise it until we were a good hundred miles down the river. The stewardess gave her a sleeping draught, she kicked up such a shindy. And of course she talked Russian all the time, but we thought she was just putting it on. And then at last I went down to open the cabin door…’ He fell silent, remembering the moment of exaltation up there on the deck before he went below to forgive Harriet. ‘And then she simply flew at me. She just went for me like a tigress — biting, scratching, kicking. There was no way I could defend myself. But that wasn’t all — my injuries are nothing; it’s what she did to—’

He swallowed. It seemed he could not yet say the creature’s name without being overcome by emotion.

‘To what?’

‘Peripatus ,’ Edward brought out. ‘I had it with me in a travelling case — you can’t leave something as valuable as that lying about in a cabin. And she tore the box from my hand and threw it on the ground and then when the bottle rolled out she…’ He fought for control once more. ‘She stepped on it. Deliberately. Ground it into the floor with her heel. The specimen is totally destroyed.’

‘What on earth is Peripatus?’

Edward told her. ‘I can’t tell you what a knock it is. I wouldn’t have thought anyone could do that… deliberately.’

‘Well, the creature was dead, wasn’t it? So it didn’t suffer?’

‘ I suffered,’ said Edward. ‘I don’t think I shall ever get over it. There are things a chap never forgets. And now what am I to do with her? She doesn’t speak a word of English and just kicks anyone who comes near her; she’s raving mad. Of course she’s had a bad time, I can see that. She keeps saying all these names — Yussop and Grigory and Alexi — over and over again, and passing her finger across her neck, so I suppose she means they’re her brothers and they will cut my throat. But if she comes from a large family, maybe she’s homesick?’

Olga had got a splinter of glass into her foot through grinding the tube into the ground with her ballet shoes. She’d gone quite quiet while he took the splinter out of her heel — such a hard, muscular foot she had. All of her was hard and muscular, which was not what he had expected; well, not quite all of her… But then when he’d finished she’d started wrestling with him again. Verney’s men had thought it a great joke when she wouldn’t go with them, but what the devil was he to do?

‘And what of the girl you came to save?’ Isobel asked.

Edward shrugged wearily. ‘What can I do? She’s completely depraved. Mind you, there is no way Harriet could have done that to Peripatus. She may come out of cakes—’

‘Harriet! Is that her name?’

Edward nodded. No good trying to shield Harriet now, things had gone well beyond that. ‘Her name is Harriet Morton. Her father’s a professor at my own college, St Philip’s, and she used to be a thoroughly decent girl. At least, I thought she was. As a matter of fact, we were at Stavely only three months ago.’

‘Tell me about her. All about her,’ said Isobel, forcing herself to look appealingly into his eyes.

So Edward told her the story of his courtship and pursuit, the distress Harriet had caused to him and her father, and the part that Verney had played in the story while Isobel listened, here and there putting in a question, and storing away everything she heard, for knowledge was power and power she now needed desperately.