A Swans - Eva Ibbotson

The day after his return from Ombidos, however, Rom drove his Cadillac up the drive to discuss with Harry Parker the dinner for Alvarez in two days’ time. He had never hoped to avoid the occasion; Alvarez, a connoisseur of food and women, was also a connoisseur of plants and had visited Follina. The Minister had particularly asked for his presence and Rom had no intention of snubbing him. He had hoped, however, to be involved as little as possible. Now he had changed his mind.

“Verney!” said Harry Parker, coming out to greet him. “I heard you’d been away and I don’t mind telling you I was terrified in case you didn’t make it for Saturday! The thing is, we have agreed that someone ought to make a speech in the Minister’s honor, just a short one before the toasts. It must be in Portuguese, of course, and everyone suggested you.”

“Yes, all right. I’ll do it.”

“I say, that’s terribly decent of you,” said Parker, surprised and greatly relieved. “Everyone’s coming! De Silva, the Mayor, Count Sternov… I’m putting you on the right of Alvarez with the Mayor opposite. I’ll show you the seating plan.”

They walked together past the tennis courts, the swimming pool, the new one-story wooden building which Parker had had built in the grounds to provide accommodation for visitors defeated by the Golden City’s inexplicably ghastly hotels. Rom cared little for Parker’s views, but he had to admit that the young man—brought out from England to run the club on “British” lines—was doing a good job.

“Actually there’s been a bit of a fuss,” said Parker. “We’ve just heard that Alvarez travels everywhere with his own chef—got a delicate stomach or something. Some high-up French fellow… He intends to bring him here to supervise his own dishes for the banquet. You can imagine how my kitchen staff’s taken it! I hope there won’t be any bloodshed.”

He led Rom through into his office and showed him the plans.

“That seems all right,” said Rom. “I shall want to speak to Alvarez privately before the dinner. Tell him I want to brush up on his new honors before my speech. Can you clear the smoking-room and give us drinks in there?”

“Of course. No trouble. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re helping us out. You know the fellow, don’t you?”

“Yes, he’s been out to Follina once. He is a keen gardener.”

“I’ve laid on a bit of… you know… afterward,” said Parker, and over his sharp-featured face there spread a middle-aged leer. “A surprise. The old man likes women, I gather?”

“Yes.”

But if Parker had hoped to be asked more about the “surprise” he was destined to be disappointed. Odd fellow, Verney, the secretary thought. A devil with the women, they said, and certainly that singer two years ago had been the most staggering female he had ever seen. Yet when men stayed behind to tell a certain kind of story or compare notes of their conquests, Verney always seemed to melt away.

“Come and have a drink, anyway, before you go,” he suggested.

In the bar Carstairs and Phillips were where they always were: one on either side of an overstuffed sofa, beneath a portrait of King Edward VII at Sandringham despatching grouse. Carstairs’ bald pink pate was bent over the slightly yellowed pages of the five-week-old Times and he was reading out the current crop of deaths to the wheezing Phillips, who sat with one hand cupped round his whiskery ear.

“Arbuthnot’s gone!” he yelled across to his friend. “Remember him? Andy Arbuthnot. Seventy-three, he was. Pity when they go young like that.”

Phillips shook his wispy head. “Don’t remember him. What about Barchester? Peregrine Barchester. Been waiting for him to go these ten years. Always had a dicky heart.”

Carstairs peered at the paper with his bloodshot eyes. “No. No Barchester here. Berkely… Bellers… Birt-Chesterfield! That must be the widow—the old man went years ago. Yes, that’s right—Mabel Birt-Chesterfield. Ninety-eight, she was.”

“She’ll cut up nicely—oh, very nicely.” Phillips’ head bobbed sagely on its withered stalk.

“Well, I should hope so; they’ve waited long enough. Always in straits, the Birt-Chesterfields. Someone here’s going to be cremated: Borkmann.”

“Don’t hold with that. Womanish business, cremation. Still, I daresay he’ll be foreign.”

“There’s a very young fellow here. Brandon. Henry Brandon. Never heard of him. Only thirty-eight.”

“Hunting accident, I suppose?”

“Can’t be. Died in Toulouse. Henry Brandon of Stavely Hall, Suffolk. They don’t hunt in Toulouse, do they?”

“There was a General Brandon in the Indian Army. My brother knew him. Might be his son I suppose.”

“Excuse me, but might I look at your paper for a moment?”

A look of incredulity and outrage spread over the old gentleman’s face. He would have been less shocked if the man had come into his bathroom and asked to look at his wife. As a matter of fact it would have been easier to hand over Florence while she lived. And it wasn’t as though the man was an outsider. He was a well-thought-of chap: Verney, a member of the Club.

“It’s The Times , you know,” he said, thinking that Verney had not understood. “It’s just come off the boat.”

“I know. I won’t be a moment. You mentioned a name I thought I knew.”

“Ah.” Well, if the fellow had suffered a bereavement that wasn’t quite so bad. He handed over the paper, pointing with his rheumatic finger at the obituary column.

There was silence while Rom looked at the entry.

BRANDON: On May the 3rd, suddenly, at Toulouse, Henry Alexander St. John, of Stavely Hall, Suffolk, Aged 38. Funeral private. No flowers by request.

“Friend of yours?” inquired Carstairs presently.

“No,” said Rom and handed back the paper.

La Fille Mai Gardée is a light and charming ballet without the depths of Swan Lake or Giselle . It ends happily: the village girl, Lise, gets her handsome young farmer; the rich and foolish suitor departs in confusion. There are dances with ribbons, harvest frolics and of course the chickens with their échappés .

But there is, in the last act, an extraordinarily moving passage of mime which has become a classic. It occurs when the heroine, shut into her house by her strict mother, lives in imagination—and to the tenderest of melodies—the future that she hopes for with her love.

It was this passage which Simonova was rehearsing while Harriet—who should have been elsewhere-stood in the wings, unable to tear herself away. Almost a week had passed since Verney had stormed away from her at the Casa Branca and the ache of his rejection never quite seemed to go away, but now she forgot herself utterly as she watched… and saw the gaunt, eagle-faced woman turn into a tremulous young girl… saw her put on with reverence her wedding-dress… saw her pick up her first-born and rock it in her arms… count out the other children she would have—and chide them, as they grew, for disobedience.

There were no props and only ancient Irina Petrovna with her cigarette playing the upright piano. Simonova was in a tattered practice dress and hideous bandeau, but it was all there: the glory of married love and its marvelous and celebratory ordinariness.

“So! What are you doing here? There is no rehearsal for the corps !”

The ballerina, sweeping off, had encountered Harriet.

“I’m sorry, Madame… only I had to watch,” said Harriet, rising from her curtsey. “You were…” She shook a wondering head. “I shall never forget it. Never! It seemed so simple… there isn’t even really any dancing.”