A Swans - Eva Ibbotson

“The freedom?”

“Well, in Cambridge my Aunt Louisa sometimes allowed me to walk alone on the Backs and I was occasionally permitted to go to tea with my friends. Here nothing like that is possible. We are chaperoned and watched night and day. But I feel I must accept these restrictions, knowing they are for my own good.”

“But Harriet… I mean, you are coming back, aren’t you?” said Edward, his long face falling. Aware that the situation was out of hand, that his intention to carry her back—covered in shame and contrition—had somehow misfired, he fumbled for words. “I thought… I mean, I was going to take you to the May Ball and all that.”

At this point Marie-Claude, who has been unusually silent, intervened. Harriet could be relied upon not to lose her nerve while the young man was pompous and self-important, but if he turned pathetic anything might happen.

Pushing her golden curls firmly behind her ears, Marie-Claude addressed Edward. She addressed him exclusively and she addressed him in French, rightly concluding that a man expensively educated at a British public school would understand about as much of what she said as a backward two-year-old, and the effect on Edward was considerable. Though aware that people born abroad could sometimes speak their native language, to hear this beautiful girl pour forth sentence after sonorous, unhesitating sentence when he himself had suffered such torments over his French exercises, filled him with awe. Moreover, such words as he did understand— bois , for example, and campagne— seemed to indicate that her discourse concerned the beauties of nature, than which no topic could be more suitable. And indeed he was quite right, for it was of the outside amenities of the auberge above Nice that Marie-Claude spoke: of the grove of pine trees where Vincent intended to put tables in the summer and the freshness of the country produce he would use to prepare his famous dishes.

The meal ended, as it had begun, with Grace and then Edward was dismissed by Simonova.

“Now, Dr. Dinch-Futton, tomorrow is a special day of quiet for the girls while we prepare for The Nutcracker . Tchaikovsky is for us a sacred composer and there can be no frivolity. But as Mr. Verney has assured us of your good character, you may see Harriet for half an hour between four-thirty and five—in the presence of a chaperone, of course.”

And before Edward could think of anything suitable to say, gloves had been donned, parasols unfurled and two-by-two the girls set off across the square.

His luncheon with the Company left Edward deeply confused. He went to the post office to send a cable to the Mortons and tried at feast five different variations before settling for: Harriet safe further news follows. This at least would set their minds at rest and give him time to think. For of course Harriet must be returned to her father’s house—only it was not easy to see how.

“Do you think I ought to put the whole thing to the British Consul?” Edward had asked Verney. But it seemed the Consul was on leave in Sao Paulo and Verney advised most strongly against Edward taking the matter into his own hands. “Quite honestly, if you tried to force her to return with you they would think you were abducting her for your own purposes and you might well find yourself cooling your heels in the local gaol. Now you are here, why don’t you concentrate on your work? In any case, there’s no sailing for another week. I would be very happy to help with transport and in any other way I can.”

This was advice Edward was inclined to take. He had replenished his collection of fleas most effectively on the boat—there had been fleas on the crew, fleas on the passengers, fleas on the captain’s fox terrier… But he had glimpsed, here in Manaus, insects as fabulous as any he had dreamed of in Cambridge.

The annex of the Sports Club, in which Edward slept, was a low wooden building edging on to the forest. On the morning after his luncheon with Harriet, he took his nets, his collecting bottles and his tins—and entered his heritage.

He had expected the morphos, the nymphalids, the humming-bird hawk moths—but their sheer size, their musculature, the power it needed to kill them, intoxicated him. In an hour, on the track leading from the back of the Club, he collected enough specimens to line the walls of his little research room at Cambridge and for the first time in his life he felt a catch of butterflies as weight. The heat was staggering and he was not only the hunter but the hunted as sand-flies, tabanids and piums feasted on his crimsoning skin. But Edward hardly noticed the discomfort. That butterfly with the red wing-eye—he had never seen that described anywhere… And to fill his cup of happiness to overflowing, there on a cluster of sloth droppings was what he could see, even with the naked eye, as an entirely new species of flea.

His meeting with Harriet the next day only confirmed what he had learned at luncheon: that she was as closely guarded as a religious postulant. Harriet had been polite and friendly, but it was dear that nothing less than brute force would get her to leave the Company and at the moment he could see no justification for applying it, nor any likelihood of success should he attempt it.

This being so, Edward felt free to accept the invitation from two German naturalists, who had arrived at the Club annex on the previous night, to join them in an expedition to a valley above the Tamura Falls. Even without a sighting of mat fabulous missing link, the “insect-worm” Peripatus , he felt confident of adding to his collection in a way which would gratify the head of his department and make the whole journey worthwhile.

“So you see,” said Rom, reporting to Harriet on the morning of Alvarez’ arrival, “everything is going splendidly. With luck he’ll be away until Tuesday at least and you can concentrate on supporting Madame Simonova through her ordeal!” For the dreaded premiere of Nutcracker , with all that it implied, was almost upon them.

Harriet smiled. “Yes… I suppose it’s wrong to hope that Masha Repin doesn’t have too much of a success, but I can’t help hoping it just the same.” She looked up at him, her eyes warm with gratitude. “You have been so kind. I still can’t believe mat it can come right… that they will just let me dance. But at least you have shown me how not to be frightened.”

“There’s a lot more to show you still,” said Rom lightly. “I shall be tied up with business for the next two days.” Even to Harriet, he could not speak of Ombidos and his determination to make Alvarez see what went on there. “But after that I intend to take you out in the Firefly . Just you, this time. If you will come?”

“I will come,” said Harriet.

Chapter Twelve

The dinner for Antonio Alvarez was the grandest and most elaborate the Club had ever prepared. Harry Parker was everywhere, supervising the decorations, the arrangement of the vast silver epergne of knights in armor, the seating of the musicians. The arrival of Alvarez’ chef—with the pomp attending the appearance of a field marshal at maneuvers—had been less of a disaster than expected. Monsieur Pierre, whose mustaches were the most impressive ever seen on the Amazon, had brought a case of gleaming instruments and taken possession of the kitchens; but his personality was such that within a few minutes the staff, who had been hostile and resentful, were scudding about at his bidding, and it was clear that the menu would be as impressive as his reputation.