A Swans - Eva Ibbotson

Oh, God, that wretched child, what had he done now? Henry had not known Rom’s name at the time and could hardly have told her much, but a determined girl asking for an Englishman of Rom’s wealth and status could find him easily enough and worm her way into his house. If she found Rom closeted with some prissy English girl, what then?

“You had absolutely no right to do that, Henry,” said Isobel. “Blabbing about our affairs to a stranger. I’m ashamed of you.”

A tear forced its way between Henry’s lids and ran down his cheek. He would always get it wrong— always . Well, at least with the measles one’s eyes were always streaming. No one could prove that one was crying, thought Henry, and turned his face to the wall.

Chapter Eleven

True to his word Rom cabled once more to MacPherson, his representative in London, for news of the occupants of Stavely. He received a reassuring reply. Mrs. Brandon and her son were believed to be in good health and traveling abroad. However, MacPherson added another piece of information over which Rom pondered in silence, standing with his back to his cluttered office and looking out over the riverside. Then he wrote out one more cable. Considering that it contained the blueprint for his future life it was surprisingly short—scarcely a dozen words—but Rom did not employ agents who needed pettifogging instructions in order to carry out their work.

After which he set himself to the amusement of the Dubrov Ballet Company.

Though it was customary for the chairman of the Opera House trustees to entertain visiting companies once at Follina, it was not customary for him to organize excursions to the Tumura Falls, the “wedding of the waters” and islands on which scarlet ibis nested in their hundreds. No one, from Simonova herself to the most bovine of the Russian girls, was deceived as to the reason for these outings to which everyone except Masha Repin and her clique came—no one except (as Verney had intended) Harriet herself. Her humility made it impossible for her to conceive that she could seriously interest a man such as himself, and Rom was content to have it so. Not to use his power over her, not to hurry or hustle her, young as she was, was his main concern and it took all his strength, for with every hour he spent in her company he grew more certain that in this unobtrusive and scholarly girl he had found his solace and delight.

The day before Alvarez was due in Manaus, Rom organized an outing on a lake in the forest whose waters were entirely covered by the giant leaves and peony-like flowers of the Victoria Regina waterlily; a still, mysterious place beneath overhanging trees.

“Magnificent!” declared Simonova as she sat in the first and most luxurious of the carriages Rom had hired, but she did not feel it necessary to descend. The knowledge that soon she would be leading a purely rural life, the mistress of goats, kohlrabi and Brussels sprouts, made it unnecessary for her to risk the long grass by the water’s edge, and with a commanding gesture she kept Dubrov and Grisha by her side.

“I wish that someone would stand on a leaf!” announced Maximov. His magnificent physique outlined by a cream shantung tropical suit, he had loaded the good-natured Kirstin with a tripod and various boxes and was directing his camera at a leaf the size of a table with an upturned edge.

There was a certain lack of response. Olga curled her lip and muttered an oath in Pushtu, the rest of the Russians backed away—and Marie-Claude looked incredulously at the premier danseur . She was in an excellent mood. The Vasco da Gama , docking that morning, had brought a most exciting letter from Vincent. He had found the perfect place for the restaurant: an old auberge in the foothills of the Alpes Maritimes whose proprietor wished to retire at the end of the year. Quite a small sum as a deposit, Vincent had written, would give them the option to buy, and this sum he hoped to have in a couple of months if he was lucky with the tips. The knowledge that he would have it after her eruption on Saturday whether or not he was lucky with the tips had made Marie-Claude extraordinarily happy—but not so happy that she was prepared to risk her filmy white dress by standing on a leaf.

Harriet waited to see if anyone else would come forward. Then—

“Shall I?” she said. “I could try…”

She picked up her skirt and stepped carefully on to the leaf nearest her, then on to a larger one. She was scarcely heavier than a child and the leaf held. To a spatter of clapping from Lobotsky and the girls, she raised her arms and took the classical attitude of the Winged Mercury, smiling shyly at Maximov as he stooped to his viewfinder. And Rom, standing beside Simonova’s carriage, put a question he had refrained from asking, as though the answer might cause him pain.

“Has she a future as a dancer?”, he asked. “A serious future?”

Dubrov and Simonova exchanged glances, but it was Grisha who spoke.

“When she came we thought it was too late. She was too much an amateur. We still think it, but we don’t think it as much as we did.”

“We remember Taglioni, you see,” added Dubrov.

“I am afraid I don’t know much about her,” confessed Rom. “She was a great Italian dancer, but that’s all I know.”

“Her father sent her to Paris to study,” explained Simonova, “while he prepared a great debut for her in Vienna. But when she returned he found that she was entirely unprepared. Weak. Hopeless!”

“Everyone said cancel the debut,” put in Dubrov. “But he didn’t. He was obstinate. He worked with her and worked with her and worked with her.”

“Three sessions a day with no food, no water… In the morning, exercises for the legs and feet. At midday, aplomb… At night, the jumps. Again and again. She cried, she collapsed, she fainted,” said Simonova gleefully. “ Often she fainted.”

“But at her debut she was ready,” finished Grisha. “And more than ready.” He glanced over at Harriet, still posing on her leaf. “She was eighteen years old.”

“I see,” said Rom. Do I have to do that for her, he thought? No, damn it, I won’t have her fainting. Yet he felt a kind of chill—almost a premonition of something that could touch his happiness.

“It would not happen now, I think,” said Simonova. And then: “ Chart !” she cried, “she is sinking!”

Kirstin had given a little cry and run forward to take the camera from Maximov, who was closest to Harriet, so that he could pull her to safety, but the premier danseur had no intention of risking his new suit and clung firmly to his apparatus. It was Rom, some twenty yards away, who seemed in an instant to be by Harriet’s side. “Jump!” he said and she jumped, laughing and unperturbed, into his arms.

“You have spoiled your dress,” scolded Marie-Claude, for Harriet was wet almost to her knees.

“Aunt Louisa’s dresses cannot be spoilt,” said Harriet. “That’s their one advantage.”

“There might have been pirhanas,” scolded Lobotsky.

“Might there?” Harriet asked Rom.

“Unlikely.” But it was not that unlikely; the water was stagnant and deep. She was almost too fearless, he thought, too much at ease in this place.

They picnicked in style and drove back relaxed and comfortable for the evening’s performance of Fille . Rom, who had dutifully accompanied Simonova on the outward journey, was traveling with Harriet and her friends and much enjoying the unquenchable Marie-Claude’s stories of her future as a restaurant proprietress seated behind a big black till.