A Swans - Eva Ibbotson

And now a lot of village girls came on and danced with the heroine. Pretty girls in white dresses, each with a different colored apron and scarf around her throat.

“Well, what do you think of your friend?” whispered Rom. “They are very pleased with her work in the Company.”

Edward frowned with concentration. Harriet must be on stage then—and indeed there were so many village maidens that one of them was bound really to be her. He leaned forward, peering intently at the twisting, shifting patterns made by the girls with their twirling skirts. There was a thin girl with brown hair at the end on the right, but there was another one at the front and a third just vanishing behind a hay-cart.

“It is a bit difficult to pick her out, actually. I’m not used to dancing,” he said helplessly.

Rom shot him a look of contempt and handed him the opera glasses. But the glasses only made things worse. One got a head here and an arm there and then they were gone. Edward tracked now this girl, now that, before handing back the glasses with a disconsolate shake of the head.

“She’s the one with the dark red kerchief,” said Rom maliciously.

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course! I see now,” said Edward gratefully.

And for the rest of the evening, Rom had the satisfaction of seeing the moron who had professed an interest in Harriet devoutly pursuing Olga Narukov across the stage.

As Rom had expected, he experienced no difficulty in setting up the luncheon which was to put Edward in his place once and for all. In every ballerina there smolders the conviction that she is also a great actress; Rom’s plan had only to be outlined and Simonova was already planning her costume and instructing her underlings, and by the time he returned to the theater at noon with a case of Chateauneuf du Pape as a thank-offering, the transformation from glamorous ballerina to fierce duenna was already complete. “The girls know what they have to do,” she said.

“and everything is ready. My clothes are good, you think?”

“Indeed I do.” Simonova wore black to the throat; a black hat with a veil shielded her face and a jet-handled parasol lay on the chair. He bent for a moment over her hand. “I am truly grateful, Madame. Not everyone would go to such trouble for a girl in the corps .”

Simonova shrugged. “She is a good child… though she does not have Natasha’s ears,” she murmured mysteriously, and swept out into the corridor where she could be heard yelling instructions at the girls.

Rom had called at the Club earlier to brief Edward. “It’s a great honor you understand, this invitation? In fact, I know of no one else who has been allowed to lunch with Madame and the girls.” And he went on to caution Edward to be extremely careful in his use of language and not to mention that he was staying at the Sports Club, which would certainly be considered flighty.

“I myself,” said Rom with perfect accuracy, “never mention my connection with the Club to any lady of my acquaintance.”

At a quarter to one, therefore, Edward—in his new light-weight suit—made his way toward the theater. He had imagined his first meeting with Harriet a hundred times. He had visualized her abandoned in a hovel, backstage in a scandalously short skirt, or driving with a rich protector in a carriage. But he had not imagined her crossing the Opera Square in crocodile with twenty other girls, wearing a straw hat and long-sleeved foulard dress, in the wake of a formidable woman in black and a portly gentleman in a frock-coat.

Edward approached, raised his hat.

“Ah. You are Dr. Dunch-Fitton,” stated Simonova. The procession came to a halt while she raked him with her charcoal eyes. “Mr. Verney has asked that you may join us at luncheon, but it is out of the question that my girls can be seen walking through the town accompanied by a man. You may meet us at the Restaurant Guida in ten minutes. In the private room, naturally.”

And leaving the flabbergasted Edward standing, the row of girls with their parasols held aloft passed with downcast eyes across the square.

In the restaurant, Verney’s instructions had been obeyed to the letter. A private room, totally screened from the rest of the patrons, had been prepared; white cloths and virginal white flowers decorated the tables; a portrait of Carmen expiring at the feet of her matador had been replaced by a Madonna and Child.

The girls filed in under Simonova’s eye. Edward, arriving confused and perspiring, was permitted to sit on her left with Harriet on his right. Marie-Claude and Kirstin sat opposite; the Russian girls stretched away on either side.

The first course arrived: platters of hot prawns in a steaming aromatic sauce. Edward, who was hungry, leaned forward.

“We will say Grace,” said Simonova.

Everybody rose. There followed nearly ten minutes of an old Russian thanksgiving prayer during with Lydia, giggling into her handkerchief at the ballerina’s unusual embellishments to the sombre and simple words, was kicked into silence by Olga. Then they all sat down and Edward glanced hopefully at the prawns.

“And now you, Harriet.”

So everyone rose again and Harriet folded her hands. “ Oculi omnium in respiciunt, Domine ,” she began—and thus it was that the first words Edward heard the abandoned girl pronounce were those which preceded every meal at High Table in St. Philip’s.

Harriet had been badly frightened at the thought of this encounter, but the incredible way the Company had rallied to her support—and above all, Rom’s quick pressure on her hand as they set off—had given her the courage to play her part and when they were all seated at last she turned to Edward and said composedly, “I trust you found my father well?”

“No, Harriet, I did not. I found him deeply distressed by your conduct. How could you run away like that?”

“Run away?” Simonova’s lynx-like ears caught the phrase and she fixed her hooded eyes on Edward. “Natasha Alexandrovna did not run away. She was called!”

“All of us were called,” said Kirstin. Her gentle sad face and soft blue eyes were making an excellent impression on Edward. “Many of us struggled, but God was too strong.”

“It is a vocation,” pronounced Simonova. “Nuns and dancers, we are sisters. We give up everything: friends, family, love…” Her eyes slid sideways to Dubrov. “Particularly love!”

Edward, temporarily nonplussed, tried again. “Yes, but dash it—”

Simonova raised a peremptory hand. “Please, Dr. Funch-Dutton—no language before my girls! I am like the Abbess of a sisterhood. Tatiana!” she suddenly called sharply down the table. “Where are your elbows?”

“Yes, but… I mean, poor Professor Morton,” stammered Edward. “The anxiety… and naturally I myself felt—”

“Yes, yes, you feel; it is understandable. When Teresa of Avila left her home there must have been many who suffered. Yes, there are always tears when a pure young soul offers herself to higher things: the Dance, the Church—it is all one. Consider St. Francis of Assisi—”

But here Dubrov pressed her foot in warning, remembering—as she would presently—that the gentle saint had signaled his conversion by removing all his clothes and setting off naked for the hills.

The entree was brought. Fresh mineral water was poured into the glasses.

“You like being here, then?” asked Edward, turning once more to Harriet and noting with a pang that even after all she had done, her ears still peeped out from between the soft strands of her hair just as they had done in King’s College Chapel.

“I like it in one sense,” said Harriet carefully. “It is such a privilege to be under Madame’s tutelage. But naturally I miss the freedom of Cambridge.” She glanced sideways under her lashes to see if she had gone too far, but Edward’s face was devoid of incredulity.