A Stairs - Eva Ibbotson

‘What do you mean?’

‘How dare you suppose that I don’t know who you are or what you are? That I don’t understand what I see? Do you take me for some kind of besotted schoolboy? It is unspeakable! You could weigh as much as a hippopotamus and shave your head and wear a wig and it wouldn’t make any difference to me. I never said you were beautiful. I never thought it. I said that you were you.’

Susie loosened his hands. Then she smiled, that tender, wise smile that made nonsense of her ugliness and said, ‘Well, in that case we must just hope that our children don’t inherit your awful temper. Or my nose.’

‘Oi, Gewalt!’ said the Noble Spanish Lady, seeing their faces as they returned to the ballroom. ‘Look, Leo! It has happened! What shall I tell Moyshe and Rachel? And Cousin Steffi? You know she wanted Susie for her Isaac!’

‘To mind their own business,’ said that stout bullfighter, Leo Rabinovitch, hitching up his cummerbund. ‘That is what you shall tell Rachel and Moyshe, and Cousin Steffi also,’ - and went forward resignedly to greet his new son-in-law.

- - - -*

The Duchess of Nettleford, helmeted and lightly daubed with woad, for she was nothing if not thorough, surveyed the dancers with an unusually benevolent eye. Things, it seemed, were going well for the girls. Like the Ancient British Queen she represented, she had led her troops into battle and she had conquered. Tom had opened the ball with Lawy and was quite clearly interested. Beatrice (an undoubted and very yellow daffodil), was dancing with a young subaltern whom Minna had led up to them. And Gwendolyn, too, was on the floor — almost literally, for the poor girl could never master the tango and the wooden clogs of that staunch Northumbrian heroine, Grace Darling, did not really help. Fortunately the good-looking sunburnt gentleman dressed as some kind of Greek who partnered her had seemed to be perfectly aware of the honour of standing up with the daughter of a duke. True, Hermione and Priscilla, clutching respectively the head of John the Baptist and an asp, were still sitting unclaimed beside her and there had been a disappointment about Tom Byrne’s younger brother. At thirteen he was too young, even for Beatrice, though in the old days when marriages had been sensibly arranged, no one would have bothered about nonsense like that. Still, on the whole, things were going well. As for that scandal at the beginning when some serving maid had turned out to be a countess or the other way round, the duchess had scarcely heeded it except to notice with pleasure how furious it had made the grocer’s daughter who had ensnared young Westerholme. ‘Ah, Lawy,’ said the duchess as Lavinia, looking complacent and freshly-caught, came up to her. ‘How’s it going, eh?’

‘Very well, Mother,’ said Lavinia, smirking. Tom says he knows he can trust me to look after Ollie at the church.’

‘Ah, knows he can trust you, does he!’ The duchess was delighted.‘Did you…you know, give him a bit of a hint?’

Lavinia dropped her eyes. ‘Well, Mother … you know…’

‘Look, there’s Tom now,’ said Priscilla, pointing with her asp. ‘What’s he doing with that dumpy Jewish girl, do you suppose?’

‘He took her out just now,’ said Lavinia. ‘I expect she was feeling ill.’

The music stopped. With an alacrity that was proper but not quite pleasing, the Ladies Beatrice and Gwendolyn were returned by their partners to Boadicea’s side, and on the dais, Mr Bartorolli wiped his brow.

‘The Byrnes are very democratic, aren’t they,’ drawled Hermione. ‘Lady Byrne’s kissing that Jewish girl now.’

Lavinia, perfectly confident, waited. And her confidence was justified. Tom, his deep happiness assured, moved by his stepmother’s unforced pleasure on his behalf, had determined to do everything that was needed to make the ball a success. And what was needed, as Minna had just assured him, was for someone — anyone - to dance with the Nettleford girls.

So Tom, radiant with happiness, approached the Boadicean Camp and aware that he had already danced with the eldest and the worst of them, bowed before one who seemed to be dressed in a great many muslin nappies and to be nursing a papier mache head dipped in tomato juice.

But Hermione’s triumph was short-lived. They had scarcely circled the ballroom half a dozen times when th music stopped abruptly and was succeeded by a fanfare. And looking up at the dais, the dancers saw Lord Byrne standing beside Mr Bartorolli and holding up his hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I have an announcement to make. An announcement which I know will give great pleasure to everybody present…’

- - - -*

Anna stayed for a while in the garden, standing with her back to a great cedar as though thereby she could draw in some of its strength. She was as cold, as still, as stone.

Rupert had gone. She must live without him. It was done.

There were just a few things to do before she slipped away. Explain to the dowager that she was leaving, thank the Byrnes, say goodbye to Ollie … And after that, Mersham, to pick up her things and wait for the milk train to London. It was ten miles by road from Heslop to Mersham, but from her dawn rides on the mare she knew of a short cut across the fields which she would find even in the dark. By the time the other servants woke, she would be gone.

But first, Petya. She had promised him a dance. Back to the ballroom, then, whatever it cost…

He had been searching for her. ‘Ah, there you are, Annoushka,’ he said, beginning to talk excitedly in Russian. ‘You’ve missed such an exciting thing! Tom is engaged to marry Susie Rabinovitch and they stopped the orchestra and announced it and everyone clapped. And you know that girl dressed like a fish - only she’s not meant to be a fish, Hugh says - well, I was standing next to her and she sort of whooped when Lord Byrne announced it and went purple, just like in a book, and then she rushed out! Tom’s very happy and Susie’s really nice and there’s going to be lots and lots of champagne. And Lady Byrne’s going to ask you to stay here instead of Mersham - she says you’ve been there long enough as a guest and it’s her turn to have you, so do come, ‘Noushka, because they’re so nice and their horses are fabulous.’

‘Petya, I must go back to town,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve been away so long and it isn’t fair on Mama.’

‘Oh, no! We’d have such fun! There’s the wedding, too - you must stay for that!’

‘I can’t, love. Maybe I’ll come back,’ she lied, ‘but it’s Pinny’s birthday next week and you know I like to be there for that: she’s done so much for us. So now let’s have our dance and then I’ll slip away quietly. Listen, it’s a polka! We’ll show them!’

And they did. But when it was over and Anna, under cover of the supper break, tried to gain the double doors, she was suddenly arrested - for sweeping into the ballroom, still laughing at Hawkins’ efforts at pronouncing their names - there came the Ballets Russes!

They came in costumes borrowed from Firebird and Sheherezade and all the other costumes immediately looked drab and uninteresting. They came as guests, not performers, but all eyes were instantly fixed on them, such was their vitality, their ‘otherness’. There was La Slavina, darling of the Maryinsky for two decades and still, in her forties, a woman from whom it was almost impossible to avert one’s eyes. There was the ineffably stylish designer, Lapin, with drooping eyes and a white streak in his jet-black hair. There was the silent and beautiful Vladimir on whom the mantle of Nijinsky seemed likely to foil, a choreographer with a bald and yellow skull, a pale, tragic-looking girl straight out of a ‘blue’ Picasso…