A Swans - Eva Ibbotson

“What will Bernard say? Oh, how the poor man has been plagued by that girl. The bad blood there must have been in her mother!”

“She was a dreadfully flighty little thing; I remember her well. Always mooning over the piano.”

“What do you suppose he means by ‘unspeakable depravity,’ Hermione?” said Louisa, grasping her friend’s arm. “Could there be some scandal that… that one simply cannot hush up? Something… medical?”

The Professor’s key in the lock put an end to this line of speculation. He entered the drawing room and, without preamble, Louisa put the cable into his hand.

He read it once, read it again. “This tells me nothing that I did not already know,” said the Professor heavily. “It was perfectly obvious that the first cable was just moonshine. No girl would defy her father and throw in her lot with those scoundrels unless she was thoroughly sick in her soul. And her body.” His voice shook with anger. “Harriet had everything here: a good home, upright companions, financial security. It was you”—he rounded on Louisa—“who told me to give her a guinea. Without that, she could not have done it.”

Louisa bowed her head. “Yes, Bernard. I admit it. I let my generosity overcome me—but see how I have been punished!”

The Professor took out his watch. “Too late to go up to London now; I shall take the first train in the morning. This is a matter for the Foreign Office. Cedric Fitzackerly will know what to do; he’s a Junior Secretary now.”

“That was the student you actually approved of, wasn’t it?” said Louisa. “The one that didn’t argue or fall asleep in tutorials?”

She had not expressed it exactly as the Professor would have wished, but substantially she was correct. Unlike the idle, womanizing undergraduates it was his misfortune to teach, Fitzackerly had been attentive and polite, thanking the Professor at the end of every lecture and devoting his final-year dissertation to the Professor’s own views on the odes of Bacchylides, so that when the young man came to him for references it had been a pleasure to write something that would make those fellows in Whitehall sit up.

“I shall go and telegraph Fitzackerly now and tell him to expect me. It’s too late to hush things up—matters have gone too far. Edward must be given every assistance by the authorities out there. Better even that Harriet should be locked up until the boat sails rather than—” But here for a moment he was unable to continue. “We must not forget our debt to Edward. To travel back with a girl such as she has become involves a considerable sacrifice. If, that is, he means to bring her back himself.”

“He has wasted a great many words on that cable,” said Louisa. “There was no need to put must—it would have made quite good sense without it. Or please. To put please on a cable is quite unnecessary. No one expects it.”

But for once the Professor, usually sympathetic to Louisa’s passion for frugality, was impatient. “This is hardly the moment to think of such trivialities, Louisa. We had best give our minds to thinking of how Harriet can be punished when she returns.”

“Do you mean to have her back here, then, Bernard? Would it not be better if she was sent to some kind of institution where they deal with… girls of that sort?”

“When she has been returned, we shall decide what to do,” said the Professor.

He then left for the post office and Hermione Belper also prepared to take her departure. A discussion of who had bought Stavely and what would happen to the Brandons would clearly have to wait for another day and, determined to be the first to spread the news of Harriet’s degradation through the city, she too hurried away.

“ Merde ,” said Marie-Claude, giving the traditional first-night greeting but without much hope that the expected good luck would follow. The premiere of Nutcracker was upon them and backstage the atmosphere was tense. Masha Repin was not popular. Her ambition was so violent, it had not yet acquired the cloak of good manners and while Maximov might dislike Simonova, he felt secure with her as he did not with the Polish girl. The tension filtered through even to the corps . Lydia, finding her headdress too tight, burst into tears. A limping boy rubbing his calves showed that Olga, too, was not immune to the general stress—and the temperature stood at 101 degrees.

Harriet, reaching for her snowflake costume, was forestalled by Marie-Claude who held it out, ready to help her slip it on.

“Marie-Claude, you mustn’t! I can manage, honestly.”

During the two days since the banquet, Marie-Claude’s gratitude had been a heavy cross to bear. She insisted on tidying Harriet’s locker, fetched coffee for her during rehearsal breaks and commandeered her dancing shoes in order to shellac the linings and darn the toes.

“But you have to take half the money,” she had cried when Harriet returned from the Sports Club. “You ought to have all of it, you know that.”

Harriet’s refusal had been steadfast. “I don’t want it; it’s for the restaurant.” And as Marie-Claude continued to look at her beseechingly: “I must have somewhere really special to sweep into with my admirers when I am a prima ballerina assoluta , you must see that!”

Her little joke had fallen flat; neither Kirstin nor Marie-Claude had smiled. Harriet’s work was becoming very good; she was beginning to be talked about.

Out front, Simonova sat very straight in Verney’s crimson-lined box on the bel Stage . He had left his key for them before he went upriver and now Dubrov—letting things go hang backstage—was beside her and lending silent support. She was looking splendid and formidable in a jade green silk dress and turban and the earrings he had bought her after her first Giselle . Only her hands, clenching and unclenching on her lap, showed the ordeal this occasion was for her.

The curtain rose to sighs of appreciation from the audience. Stifling in evening clothes, living in a land without seasons, they were enchanted by the great Christmas tree, its spire reaching almost to the proscenium arch. The children arrived at councillor Stahlbaum’s party; little Clara—played by Tatiana, the prettiest of the Russian girls—received her nutcracker. No tension, so far—Masha Repin as the Sugar Plum Fairy did not appear until the second act.

The transformation scene next. The ornaments dropped from the tree, the councillor’s drawing room vanished… and the snow began to fall. Snow and snow and still more snow, turning the tree into a miracle of white… They loved that, the Brazilians, many of whom had never seen this strange substance, and applause ran through the house.

The snowflake fairies entered and Simonova leaned forward intently to look at the corps .

“She grows strong,” she whispered. “Grisha is right.”

There was no need for Dubrov to ask of whom she spoke. A strange friendship had grown up between the aging ballerina and the newest, youngest member of the corps . Harriet never put herself forward, but she could not conceal her avid interest for everything that touched Simonova’s life. To pass on memories and experiences to the young is a great longing—if the young will listen. Harriet listened.

Act Two now, and Simonova’s hands were gripping the edge of the box-like talons. The Kingdom of the Sweets—and there was Masha with her dreaded youth, her smile, her blonde hair and little crown, sitting on her throne… descending… looking very beautiful… executing her little dance en pointe …

Executing it damnably well and getting a roar of applause from the audience, who were very much taken by this ballet which demanded so little of them and produced such a festive atmosphere. And she was pretty, this Sugar Plum Fairy, in her pale pink tutu covered in delicate, sugar-plum lace, her crown of stars. Here was a heroine much to the Brazilian taste.