A Swans - Eva Ibbotson

That morning he took her out in the Firefly . He was teaching her to handle the little boat; she was quick to learn and never happier than when she was on the river helping him to reed logs into the temperamental fire-box, wrinkling her nose at the lovely smell of woodsmoke and steam or handling the tiller with that grave concentration that was her hallmark.

It was a magical day, free of the sullen rain-clouds that so often mustered by noon; the clear, calm water mirrored the peaceful sky.

“The Maura must be the most beautiful river in the world,” said Harriet blissfully. She was wearing the old blue skirt and white blouse she had saved from the holocaust, not trusting her new clothes to Firefly’s whims. There was a smut on her cheek, but Rom had decided against removing it; it was a becoming smut, dear to his heart. “Oh, look—isn’t that your otter?”

He nodded. “That’s the male. They’ve been in that bank since I came—a most faithful pair. In a moment you’ll see a clump of palms on the left leaning over the water—there’s usually a sun bittern there… Yes, look, he’s just flying up now. Incredible, isn’t it, the orange and gold…”

“You know it all,” said Harriet wonderingly. “You give people this river.”

Rom shook his head, turning to adjust the throttle. Not people, he could have said: just you.

He came over to sit beside her, putting his hand over hers on the tiller, not because she needed help but because he wanted to be where she was.

“Harriet, I know you love Follina and being here and God knows I do too. I’ll do everything I can to hang on to the place—but it is time to think of the next step. If I am to put Stavely on its feet, I can’t delay too long.”

Feeling her grow tense, he laid an arm across her shoulders. The bullet graze from Ombidos was almost healed and even in her panic she smiled at that. “If it’s any consolation to you, I think the good times are almost over out here. My own fortune is safe—I have seen this coming for some time and shifted my interests to Europe—but there’s going to be real hardship and little enough one can do to help.”

He was silent, seeing goats grazing in the parks of the Golden City, the Opera House closed, the “black gold” that was rubber lying unclaimed on the docks because the world could buy it at half the price from the new plantations in the East.

“Yes. I know, Rom. I understand that you… that one has to go back. And I promise I won’t make a fuss when it happens—how could I, when it was I who begged you to save Stavely? Henry needs you, he really does, and Stavely’s beautiful—there’s nowhere more beautiful in the world. And… Mrs. Brandon will be so grateful to have your help in bringing up Henry.”

Rom smiled down at her, his face alight with tenderness. It touched him very much, this incessant concern for the child. “You think I would be a good example to him, do you?”

“Yes. I do think that, as a matter of fact.” She had seen his eyes grow soft at the mention of Isobel’s name and it became necessary to take a few deep and steadying breaths. “I think that a child who had your example before him would grow up to be—” But she could not go on. It was overwhelming her—this image of the woman he had so passionately loved welcoming him as savior of her home—and the tears she was powerless to check spilled over, making a channel through the smudges on her cheek.

“My darling… oh, my love.” He wiped her face, took the tiller from her and gathered her to him with his free arm. “What is it, Harriet? What are you frightened of? Tell me, my heart, for I swear that whatever it is—”

“Nothing… honestly, Rom, nothing. I have everything anyone could want. I am probably the happiest person in the world. Only please, please , could we not talk about… what comes next? Could we just live each day fully and properly, savoring every second like in Marcus Aurelius ?” And again, “I promise not to make a fuss when the time comes to leave. I promise .”

He left it then. “Of course,” he said cheerfully, giving her the tiller once more. “There is not the slightest need to think about it now. Steer for the far side of that little island—there’s a wonderful spot there for our picnic. That was a turtle which just plopped into the water. Maybe we’ll find some eggs and have an orgy…”

But that night, long after she was sleeping in his arms, he lay awake puzzling out the reason for her fear. Did she feel herself incompetent to run Stavely? She must know that he would help her in every way, that she would have a first-class staff. Was it something to do with Isobel? She seemed to pronounce her name with difficulty. He had meant to offer Isobel Paradise Farm—there seemed no other way to keep an eye on Henry and that he should do so was clearly Harriet’s dearest wish. Did she imagine that Isobel as an older woman would interfere in her affairs? Surely she must know that he would never permit that? Or was it her love for Follina that made the thought of leaving such a dread?

No, there was nothing there to account for Harriet’s terror. It had to be something far deeper than that. And as he lay wakeful in the dark, there came to him the image of Harriet balancing on her leaf by the lake with the Victoria Regina lilies—and the answer Simonova and the others had given to the question he had found it so hard to ask.

“When she came, we thought it was too late… But we don’t think it as much as we did… We remember Taglioni, you see.”

And three days ago in Simonova’s sick-room: “You have taken the only girl who might have made a serious dancer.”

Did Harriet know how good she was? Was that it? That much as she loved him, she couldn’t bear to give up dancing? Once at Stavely he had found his mother sitting at the piano, her hands on the silent keys and a blind, lost look on her face. God knows she had loved her husband if any woman had, but had she paid too great a price?

Now it was Rom’s turn to be afraid. He looked down at Harriet and she seemed to sense his regard, for without opening her eyes she burrowed deep into his shoulder with a sleep-drugged sigh of utter contentment.

“No,” thought Rom, banishing his specters. “I don’t believe it.”

The next day he left early to inspect a consignment of redwoods unloaded at Sao Gabriel. Returning earlier than expected, he let himself silently in his drawing room.

From the horn of the gramophone came the sound of a Brahms impromptu. Harriet was standing with her back to him, her fingertips resting on the arms of a chair.

He had often seen her dance… for his delighted villagers, for Maliki and Rainu, creating a ballet of the bath in which, suffocated with mirth, they brought her towels en pointe— and once, unforgettably, at night in his room after love when she had spun like a dervish, expressing her ecstasy in movement; for she was not a girl who suffered from the tristesse that is supposed to follow passion.

But now she was working. Relentlessly, steadily, Harriet practiced her pliés … bending… rising… bending… while he watched her straight, slim back, the tendrils of soft hair lapping her neck. His territory— his —and now turned away from him in the iron discipline of class.

He stood for some time in the doorway, his face taut. It seemed to him that it would have been easier to see her absorbed in another man than to watch this impersonal dedication, this being lost to everything except the need to perfect each movement. Then he went out silently and made his way to his study.

Harriet had woken that morning chiding herself for letting her happiness make her soft. She must keep her muscles supple, her body in shape, for she must not be a burden to Rom. She must be able to find work as a dancer—if possible far away, for she did not think she could bear to be in Cambridge knowing he was so close. The others had gone without complaint, those girls he had brought to Follina and honored with his love. She would not be less brave, less competent than they.