A Swans - Eva Ibbotson

Picking up her skirts, Marie-Claude began to run.

Rom stood on deck, his eyes narrowed against the rays of the setting sun. He wore a stained khaki shirt, a gun-belt; a strip of linen covered a bullet graze on his hand. There had been no time to attend to his own affairs, for he brought the men who had been wounded at Ombidos to the hospital. Yet his eyes as he looked at the gilded city were peaceful. It was done. Alvarez and de Silva were still collecting evidence, taking statements—but the Ombidos Rubber Company was no more.

He himself had not stayed behind on the Amethyst while the others went to Ombidos. It had never been his intention to do so. From his own encounter with the men who ran that hell-hole, he knew that they would not stay to argue with anyone who surprised them at their sport; they would try to shoot their way out and take to the jungle. Rom’s own business was with one man who must not escape. He had not done so and Rom’s thoughts now were of a long, cool bath, a meal and then Follina… and sleep.

The sails were lowered. The Amethyst came in quietly on her engine. One by one the stretchers were carried down the gangway to the ambulances waiting on the quay.

“Jesu Maria! I didn’t realize I was dead already,” said the last of the casualties—a handsome and cheeky lieutenant with a flesh wound in his leg. “I suppose it’s no good asking an angel to give us a kiss?”

Rom turned his head. Panting, agitated, her eyes huge with entreaty, Marie-Claude came running up to him.

“Please, Monsieur… I must speak to you. Oh, quickly, please …”

Act One was safely over. Masha had done well enough as Giselle, the village girl in love with the nobly-born Albrecht who is secretly betrothed to a princess. She had discovered his treachery, gone mad, killed herself. Only Count Sternov and a handful of connoisseurs had missed the pathos and depth which Simonova had brought to the role.

In the bel étage , Verney’s box was empty.

And now Act Two—the last act. Not swans this time, nor snowflakes but Wilis, all eighteen of them, entering the moonlit grove in the wake of their Queen… Welcoming Giselle as she rises from her grave… Telling her that she too is a Wili now and must be revenged on any man she meets.

Albrecht, bereft in black velvet, appears with lilies. The Wilis surround him. He must be danced to death. No, begs Giselle… not Albrecht! Save him!

It was at this point that Captain Carlos reached the stage-door, showed his police pass and was admitted. With him were the hulking Sergeant Barra detailed to perform the actual snatch and Leo, the negro gaoler, to act as assistant and interpreter.

And following behind them Edward Finch-Dutton, feeling like Judas. He had only to point out Harriet, himself remaining out of sight. Compassionate as he knew himself to be, afraid that a struggling, terrified Harriet might weaken his resolve, he had arranged for Carlos and his men to push her into the cab and take her down to the ship without him. It was they who would see that she was locked in her cabin where the stewardess, aware that the law was taking its course, had agreed to administer a mild sedative. By the time he came to open Harriet’s door the next day, it would be as a savior rather than an assassin that she would regard him.

All the same, his heart was pounding as he followed the policemen, in their ill-fitting uniforms, into the wings.

At once the sound, the heat, hit him. The girls were in a V-formation, those on his side comfortingly close. This was not like it had been in Verney’s box, just seeing a row of faceless girls. He could make out the individual dancers quite well. Well, fairly well…

“Which one?” whispered Leo. “The Captain wants to know which one’s the girl?”

Edward narrowed his eyes, frowning. The Wilis were getting into rather a state, dashing about a lot, and in the center Giselle and her Albrecht were dancing a pretty ferocious pas de deux . Then his brow cleared. There were several lightly-built, brown-eyed girls, but here now was Harriet, conveniently close to their side of the stage.

“That one,” he said, pointing. “Fourth from the end.”

Leo scratched his head. “You’re sure? They all look alike to me.”

Edward nodded. Any kind of hesitation at this stage would be fatal. “She’s the thin one with dark hair.”

“Jesus, that darn stuff gets up my nose,” complained Leo. “Do they have to have so much blooming mist?”

There was certainly a lot of mist. From swirling around the dancers’ legs it had risen to envelop them to the waist. Now it was rolling out toward the footlights and the conductor had begun to cough. Still it crept across the stage, while old Fernando chuckled with glee and poured another bucket of hot water on the crystals in his tray. He had recognized the chairman of the Opera House trustees instantly, even with the stubble on his chin and the old clothes he wore, and the instructions Verney had given him had made the old man extraordinarily happy. Even without the bank-note Verney had slipped into his pocket and the quick promise of recompense afterward, Fernando would have gone on making mist. They never let him go on long enough with anything: not the thunder sheet, nor the coconut for the horses’ hooves… and now to be ordered to go on making mist and mist and still more mist… !

A Wili, whipping into a chaîné turn, cannoned into her neighbor and cried out as she received a slap across the face. Mist or no mist, one did not cannon into Olga Narukov. Maximov, groping for Masha’s arm, grabbed the extended leg of the Wilis’ Queen who crashed to the ground. Upstage yet another Wili lay, felled by the tombstone on Giselle’s grave.

The mist had reached the front of the stalls and a lady in a tiara rose and hurried away, a handkerchief across her mouth. There were exclamations, titters.

“Just keep your head, Doctor,” said Leo. “She’ll be coming off this way if she’s the one you said. No need to panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” said Edward as he peered with watering eyes into the gloom.

Masha Repin came off after her solo, letting off a volley of oaths in Polish. This was Simonova’s doing, all of it—a plot to ruin her triumph—but she would not be beaten, the curtain was to stay up—and hearing her cue, she shot on stage again in search of Maximov.

Two stage-hands came and dragged away Fernando who was laughing like a maniac, but it was too late for he had tipped out another bucket full of water and the mist rolled on unimpeded. The act was drawing to a close; soon now the clocks would chime for daybreak and the Wilis melt away into the forest…

“Now!” Leo whispered. “The Captain says they’ll do it now, while she’s on her own. That is her over there by that rock?”

“Oh, yes, that’s definitely her.” Edward spoke with authority, for the pose was one he knew well—the dark head bent, one foot resting against the opposite leg.

“Hell!” Sergeant Barra swore under his breath. One minute the girl had been there, standing by the jutting plywood rock. The next minute she had vanished.

“We’ve lost her,” said Leo. “She must be with that bunch just coming this way. Look out for her as they come through those trees.”

Edward searched frantically among the milling girls just dancing off. Perspiring, confused, rubbing their eyes, they halted in the wings. One was bending over an injured comrade, another was groping for her lost wreath… That wasn’t Harriet… nor that one…

Then someone opened a door, there came a gust of air dispersing the clouds of mist … and with an upsurge of relief, Edward found himself looking straight at Harriet.