A Swans - Eva Ibbotson

It was all that was needed. Harriet’s terror receded. She could make out no faces in the blue-wreathed, overheated room, but she sensed that the applause was kindly and now she climbed on to the rim of the cake, leapt lightly down on to the floor—and began to dance.

She danced naturally and with a perfect innocence, making no attempt whatever to match the gestures of Marie-Claude, but to the men watching her she purveyed an extraordinary sense of happiness, of fun. It was the delight of a young girl allowed to stay up for a party that Harriet shared with her audience—the excitement, the wonder of being awake in this glittering grown-up world—and the leader of the orchestra, getting her measure, quietened his players so that the showy, exuberant music revealed its charm and tenderness.

“Who is she?”

Alvarez’ aside to Rom had none of the languor that had characterized his utterances hitherto. The dissipated puffy face looked younger, almost vulnerable, as he followed the girl’s movements with his eyes.

“One of the dancers from the Dubrov ballet.” Rom’s own expression, as he watched and waited, gave nothing away—yet he was amazed by her performance. Though he had seen in the first instant that Harriet was pursuing some appallingly difficult task which she had set herself, it had taken all his control not to seize her by force and carry her from the room. But now, as she danced, he found himself—along with all the other sated, experienced men—following her movements with a forgotten thirst for innocence, for those dreams of a selfless life and a noble love that are the gift of youth. Without one step that could not be seen in any dancing class, without one “revealing” gesture, Harriet held her watchers spellbound, fastened by an invisible thread to her soft limbs, her tender eyes and loosened hair.

Only a few bars now to the end of the Offenbach and she moved closer, looking beneath the folds of the damask for the footstool. It was difficult, the next bit… Marie-Claude had practiced it a great many times; there was only a small space between the diners, but she had to do it—she mustn’t be afraid.

And now she had done it! Jumped in a graceful, soaring leap onto the table!

They had not expected that. There was a hiss of surprise, and glares of disapproval at the drunken Englishman on a side table who cried out and might have disturbed the concentration of the little dancer as she stood, pensive and relieved, testing the damask with her bare toe.

“It is necessary to be more legato on tables,” Marie-Claude had said. Moreover the table was narrow, the pink blurs that were the gentlemen’s faces disconcertingly close. Harriet let the first, languorous bars of The Odalisque go by before she knew what to do. Then she smiled… stretched her arms slowly above her head… began, most musically, to yawn… and to cover the yawn with splayed and slender fingers.

And for the men who by now would have been horrified had she as much as lifted her petticoat by a few inches, Harriet danced the irresistible, slow and delicious onset of sleep as it overcame the excited, now overtired girl she had been down there on the floor. She let her head droop forward… brought up her folded hands to make a cushion for her cheek. She rallied to perform a few quick pirouettes, as if she could not yet bear to let the bright day go… and faltered, overcome once more by weariness.

Silently counting the bars that were bringing her nearer deliverance, Harriet moved down toward the center of the table, for she knew that it was in front of the Minister that she must come to rest in her final pose. As she came past the man in the blond toupee, confused by her nearness, put out a hand as if to grab her ankle—and recoiled, blanching, as Alvarez spat out three words of insult in Portuguese.

She was there! The Minister’s high-backed chair was opposite, his medals gleamed beneath the chandelier—and as the music moved into its dying fall, she prepared to sink slowly, driftingly, romantically onto the cloth in front of him.

Except that the epergne was in the way!

A frown mark like a circumflex appeared for a moment between Harriet’s brows. Then a man’s hand-strong, tanned and shapely—came round the base of the massive silver object and with extraordinary strength pushed it away.

Now all was well; there was room—and as she sank down she turned her head to smile her thanks.

The men had been behind her all the way, but there was nothing they liked better, nor recalled more often afterward, than the sudden, anguished squeak—half-mouse, half-fledging—that escaped her when she saw the face of her benefactor.

Then she threw up her arms and at this signal the lights went out.

When they came on again, the girl and the cake had gone.

The departure of the guests left Harry Parker bewildered but gratified. The eruption from the cake of the dark-haired professor’s daughter had apparently given great pleasure—and this despite the fact that as far as he could see she had done nothing of the kind that was normally reckoned to gratify gentlemen after such a dinner. There was no doubt, however, that the praise had been sincere and Alvarez, before he left in Verney’s car, had congratulated him with real emotion on the entertainment he had provided. Harriet herself had stayed only long enough to explain to him, in the anteroom, the reason for the substitution and to beg him to keep Marie-Claude’s secret and this Parker was perfectly willing to do. Monsieur Pierre was returning to Rio the next morning; the chef had seen no sign of Marie-Claude, who had successfully made her escape, and Parker would not have dreamed of upsetting the most beautiful girl who was ever likely to come his way.

But out in the grounds of the Club, poor Edward stumbled through the foliage in a state of total despair. Inexperienced, prurient and drunk, he alone had entirely missed the point of Harriet’s performance. He had just been through the most shattering experience of his life, he told himself. Harriet—sweet, good, obedient Harriet, brought up by Professor Morton to be everything a young girl should be—had burst from a cake… had danced on a table in her underclothes!

Had she always been wanton? Edward asked himself as he leaned his aching head against the trunk of a tree, uncaring of the ants, the termites, the poisonous spiders it might harbor. Was it just this damnable climate or had it gone on all the time? Had she crept out at night in Cambridge to come out of cakes in Trinity …out of seashells in Sidney Sussex… out of cornucopias in St. Cat’s?

A gigantic moth flew into a lantern; it was new to science, but he let it pass. Peripatus itself could have lumbered across his feet and he would not have bent to pick it up.

He had meant to marry this girl whose ankles had been gaped at by three dozen gentlemen at dinner… He had meant to commit his life to her in Great St. Mary’s and approach her reverently in a honeymoon hotel in Bognor Regis… He had meant to introduce her to the Mater!

What fools they had made of him in that ballet company—of Verney too, or was he in on the act? Probably they all erupted, even that skinny ballerina—from pies, from ice-cream cones… thought Edward dizzily.

After a while the events of the evening took their toll and he was violently sick. Then, tottering to the annex, he lay down on his bed. Tomorrow he would cable Hie Mortons and tell them to what depravity Harriet had sunk. They must give him powers to have her restrained until she could be taken to the boat and returned to England. But would they want her back? Would a girl like that be acceptable in Scroope Terrace, soiling and corrupting the whole city? Would he himself be willing to accompany her?