Eva Ibbotson - A Company of Swans

Rom took a steadying breath. ‘If you want a corpse on your hands, Miss Morton, and a court case, that is your affair. You have called me in; I have given my diagnosis. Now, please fetch the patient’s birth certificate at once: it is required by the governors of my clinic as a condition of admission.’

‘I told you she was too thin,’ bleated Mrs Belper.

Totally flustered, Louisa made as if to go to the telephone, only to find the extraordinary surgeon standing in front of it while still holding Harriet in his arms.

‘Her birth certificate,’ he said implacably. ‘At once.’

The Rolls had driven off and the ladies were trying without success to calm themselves in the drawing-room, when the doorbell rang again.

‘Good afternoon,’ said the obese, grey-haired gentleman standing on the step. ‘You are expecting me, I know. My name is Fortescue…’

Professor Morton was lecturing, pacing the rostrum, his gown flapping, his voice managing to be both irascible and droning; while in the front row Blakewell, a fair-haired, good-looking young man destined for holy orders, wondered if boredom could kill and kicked Hastings, who had gone to sleep and was sliding from his chair.

‘And this man who calls himself a scholar,’ rasped the Professor, ‘has the effrontery — the unbelievable effrontery — to suggest that the word hoti in line three of the fifth stanza should be translated as—’

The door burst open. An agitated College servant could be seen trying to restrain a man in an extraordinarily well-cut grey suit who pushed him aside without effort, closed the door in his face and proceeded to walk in a relaxed manner to the rostrum.

‘Professor Morton?’

‘I am Professor Morton, yes. But how dare you walk in here unannounced and interrupt my lecture. It’s unheard of!’

‘Well, it has been heard of now,’ said the intruder calmly, and the students sat up with a look of expectancy on their faces. ‘I came to inform you that I have removed your daughter firmly and finally from your house and to ask you to sign this document.’ He laid a piece of paper with a red seal on the lectern. ‘As you see, it is your permission for my marriage to Harriet.’

The Professor grew crimson; the Adam’s apple worked in his scraggy throat. ‘How dare you! How dare you come in here and wave pieces of paper at me! And how dare you kidnap my daughter!’

‘I think the less said about that the better. I found Harriet half-starved and confined like a prisoner because she tried to have a life of her own. If you would like me to tell the students of the state in which I found her, I should be happy to do so.’

‘How I treat my daughter is none of your business. Harriet is sick in her body and sick in her soul—’ But he took an involuntary step backwards, aware of a sudden menace in the stranger’s stance. ‘Who are you anyway?’ and rallying: ‘I won’t be blackmailed. Harriet is underage—’

‘Professor Morton, it is only because you are Harriet’s father that I have not actually throttled you. Anyone else who had treated her as you have done would not have lived to tell the tale. I choose to believe that you are misguided, pompous and opinionated rather than sadistic and cruel. But unless you sign this document without delay I will take you out into the courtyard, debag you and throw you into the fountain.’

The look of expectancy on the students’ faces changed to one of deep and utter happiness.

‘You wouldn’t dare!’ blustered the Professor.

‘Try me,’ said Rom. He looked down at the row of upturned faces. ‘I can do it myself, but it would be easier if I had help. If anyone is willing to help me debag the Professor, would they put up their hand?’

There were fourteen students in the lecture room and thirteen hands shot up without an instant’s hesitation. Then Ellenby, sole support of a widowed mother, shook off his moment of cowardice and also raised his hand.

‘I think you should sign, you know,’ said Rom pleasantly. ‘After all, it’s no tragedy to have your daughter installed as mistress of Stavely.’

‘Eh? What?’ The Professor peered at the document and registered the fact that Harriet’s suitor was Romain Paul Verney Brandon of Stavely Hall, Suffolk. ‘Good heavens!’

If the Professor had continued to defy him, had kept up his bluster, Rom might have felt a reluctant respect for the detestable man. But over Professor Morton’s face there now spread a look of servile amazement and awe — and unscrewing his fountain pen, he signed his name.

He was, however, not destined to resume his lecture. Rom might have left the room, but he had shown the students a lovely and fulfilling vision; he had unleashed primeval forces which were not to be gainsaid.

Blakewell rose first and even when he became a bishop he was to speak with nostalgia of this moment of release. Hastings followed — then Moisewitch, whom the Professor had humiliated in front of the entire tutorial group, took off his spectacles and laid them carefully on the window-sill. No words were necessary as every student in the hall moved as one man towards the rostrum.

‘His trousers first,’ said Blakewell. ‘Start with his trousers…’

Rom drew back the curtains and looked out on Stavely’s moonlit avenue of beeches, the silver pools of light in the meadows of the park, drank in the sharp clean smell of the air with its first touch of frost. He was back home and with every reason to rejoice. To the place he had left as a penniless and rejected youth, he had returned as master — and he had brought his future bride.

Away to the left he could see the chimneys of Paradise Farm, but no light showed from the house. Isobel was back, having sulked all the way across the Atlantic, but she had decided to remain in London and spend some of the allowance Rom had bestowed on her. Her son was with her now, but a message from the housekeeper had informed Rom that he could expect Master Henry at the end of the week. Clearly it was not going to be difficult to keep an eye on his nephew!

He stayed for a while, still, by the window, but the dreams he had had for Stavely eluded him. It was probably just reaction from the constant exercise of will, the long journey and fruitless delay in Russia, that made him feel both restless and weary. What else could ail him, after all — and knowing that he would not sleep, he nevertheless turned from the window and began to prepare for bed.

He was interrupted by a knock at the door — quiet, but not noticeably timid — and Harriet, still in her Aunt Louisa’s appalling nightgown, entered the room. At which point Rom became aware of what had ailed him… and ailed him no longer.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ said Harriet, ‘but I woke up and I wondered if I could make a request of you?’

She had folded her hands and now with a rush of expectancy he looked down at her feet which she proceeded to fold also.

‘What request would that be, Harriet?’ he asked, matching her own grave and measured tones.

‘Well, you said we were going to be married tomorrow, didn’t you? Because of the special licence?’

‘Yes, I did say that. If you wish it, that is?’ he teased.

How did she manage to look like that after the ordeal she had been through? Did she somehow consume and metabolise love, this extraordinary girl?

‘I do rather wish it,’ said Harriet. ‘I wish it like someone who has been lying in a cold grave might wish for the day of resurrection. Or like an extremely hungry lion might wish for a Christian. And I mean to be immensely respectable and wear a mob-cap and have quarrels with you about the coal bill to show how independent I am. Only there is one thing I so very much want to do, still, and it isn’t a very married thing. I know you don’t approve of it and I do understand that, but it would make me so happy because you know how interested I have always been in Suleiman the Great.’