A Company of Swans (12 page)

So now, though with considerably less excitement than in his former days, Rom raked his opera glasses down the line of swans.

In every chorus line there is one beauty and there now, fourth from the left and dancing with competent precision, she was. A blonde, surprising in a troupe of Russian girls, with big velvety eyes, a lovely mouth and perfectly rounded limbs. But as Rom followed her along the line of swans—nice girls, perfectly in step, doing rather fetching emboîtés—something peculiar happened. His extremely expensive opera glasses seemed to take on a life of their own, moving again and again to the left of the lovely creature he was pursuing in order to home in on the serious, entirely ordinary face of the girl beside her: a brown-haired, grave-eyed girl, the third from the left.

Only why? She danced with grace and musicality, but that was certainly not what had drawn him. Rather there seemed to emanate from her some extreme emotion: one that drew from him an instinctive feeling of protection and concern.

The swans had come to rest upstage, facing the audience, leaning their heads on their arms. The head of the serious brown-haired girl leaned very tenderly—she cared about the fate of her Queen—but Rom, watching her, saw now a faint but unmistakable trembling of her chin. She was frightened, very frightened indeed, and in an unexpected burst of empathy he saw what she was seeing—the infinite yawning gap of the auditorium with its blurred rows of potential executioners.

Her debut, then? Unlikely—Russian ballet girls were always put on the stage early… yet he felt it must be so. He tried to imagine her receiving a sudden summons in some dark, snowbound apartment in St. Petersburg or bidding her family goodbye in a wooden house in Kiev, but none of the images fitted nor did a glance at the programme help. She might be Tatiana Volkoffsky, or Lydia Pigorsky or Natasha Alexandrovna—and she might not.

The idiot huntsmen appeared and threatened to shoot the swans and it was with considerable relief that Rom saw Simonova return and stand protectively in front of them, banishing the huntsmen with a great sweep of her arms. The third swan from the left, with her troubled eyes, had quite enough to put up with without getting shot.

Though he dutifully continued to study the blonde in the waltz that followed, Rom found himself returning rather more often than he intended to the girl beside her, checking up on her progress as might a good shepherd with a slightly wounded lamb. She was doing well; he could feel her confidence growing. She had, it occurred to him, rather a lovely throat.

But now the stage cleared, the slow, sweet strains of the solo violin rose from the orchestra—and there began the great pas de deux of love and plighted troth that for many people is Swan Lake.

Simonova had willed herself into youth. As Maximov—no meat porter now, but a manly and noble Prince—raised her from the ground, she pirouetted slowly beneath his arm… leaned against him in arabesque penchée… developpéd forward to throw herself back with total trust against his chest. He lifted her high above his head, put her down again to revolve slowly en pointe, her free foot fluttering in little battements. When he held her it was by the wrists, leaving her hands free for their poignant, wing-like draping.

Thunderous applause greeted the end of the adage and the swans returned. To Rom it seemed that his little brown-haired swan was feeling distinctly better and he might have felt free once more to pursue "the beauty" had he not seen at that moment a new and real danger that threatened her. A single feather had come loose from the circlet round her head and, still held at its base, trembled disconcertingly over one of her eyes.

The unfairness of this shocked Rom. She had begun to conquer her fear; she was dancing beautifully—and now this! Following her as she hopped and circled about the stage, he saw how manfully she attempted to avert disaster. Again and again her lower lip came out as she tried to mow away the offending feather, but without success.

The music was increasing in speed; the evil sorcerer, Rothbart, was making himself felt and Siegfried was hurtling about between the swans, seeking his Queen… He found her and now as dawn broke, they danced their farewell while the swans stood sadly by, their arms crossed over their breasts.

Not much longer to go, Rom said to her silently. Hang on. But as she stood there, a gust of air from the passing soloists completed the fell deed; the feather dislodged itself, fluttered upward, descended again… and settled on her small and serious nose.

At which point, most understandably, she sneezed.

Rom might allow himself to enjoy his box alone during the performance, detesting the whispers and chatter that accompanied so much theater-going, but in the interval he did his social duty and, making his way to the refreshment lounge, was soon the center of a group of friends—being stared at through lorgnettes by ladies who thrived on gossip about his affairs. Mrs. Lehmann, permanently chagrined since he had made it clear that her obese and insufferable daughter was not destined to become mistress of Follina, nevertheless came up to tell him that he had done well to bring the Dubrov Company to Manaus. The Curtis twins, their hair up for the first time, edged closer to the exotic Mr. Verney with whom, since he had procured lemonade for them at the Consulate fete, they were officially in love and were reproved by their tight-lipped Mama.

"I should have thought you would know better than to make eyes at a man who all but murdered a fellow countryman!"

"He didn't murder Mr. Carruthers," said Mary. "He just threw him in the river."

"Mr. Carruthers had been ill-treating his Indians horribly," said Alice. "He tied them to ant-heaps and—"

"That's quite enough," hissed Mrs. Curtis, dragging her daughters past the group surrounding Verney. No doubt they would all be going on to the party at Follina on the following day, breaking the Sabbath. An orgy it would be, with every kind of carry-on. She herself would not dream of setting foot in the place, even if he should once deign to invite her! Everyone knew about his morals: opera singers and actresses! Even now he had probably picked out some girl on the stage who would stay behind when the others left and turn up next morning in the Amethyst with bags under her eyes and a pocket full of jewels. Disgusting, it was—absolutely disgusting!

"What did you think of the little blonde… you know, the fourth from the end?" asked de Silva, speaking hurriedly for his wife would return at any moment from the ladies' cloakroom.

"Charming," said Rom, smiling at his friend. "Though I think we should reserve judgment until tomorrow."

"Yes," de Silva sighed. What must it be like to know that any girl you wanted could be had for the asking? What was it about Rom? Other men were almost as wealthy, though few matched him for sheer nerve. Was it that corsair Took of his, or the stories of his physical endurance—those mad journeys alone in the Firefly? Or just that he didn't really care one way or another?

Count Sternov arrived, bear-like and entranced, and the conversation changed to Russian.

"She is incomparable, Simonova!" said the Count. "Incomparable! Sofka thinks her interpretation is finer than Kchessinskaya's, don't you, coucoushka?"

The Countess, splendid in a brocade caftan and lopsided tiara, nodded. "Kchessinskaya is more girlish, more frightened—but Simonova has the grandeur, the pathos… and boshti moy, those extended arabesques!"

"Ah, but will she manage the fouettés? She is no longer young."

"She will manage them," declared the Countess.

Young Mrs. Bennett, in her blue silk gown, passed them and smiled shyly at Mr. Verney. He was far too grand and important to speak to her, of course; Jock was only an accountant in the timber exporting firm of which Verney was director. But to her surprise, Verney not only bowed but came forward to address her, for he had remembered the shy little boy with the blond curls who had been everywhere with his mother.

"I was wondering if you and your husband would like to come to the party I'm giving at Follina tomorrow? It will be rather noisy, I expect, but you would be very welcome."

"Oh!" Her big blue eyes, so like Peter's, lit up with pleasure. "Thank you very much! I'll go and tell my husband."

A party at Follina—an invitation for which the Lehmanns and the Roderiguez and that stuffy Mrs. Curtis would have given their eyes! She hurried away, and for a few hours the small ghost which haunted her, waking and sleeping, was laid to rest.

But Nemesis now awaited Verney as he stood relaxed and at ease with his glass of champagne. The Mayor arrived and informed him that the Baltic princesses had requested he be presented to them.

"Ah, a summons!" Rom put down his glass, but as he prepared to follow the Mayor he turned and asked casually, "Did anyone notice the little girl in the corps that sneezed? Third from the left as they came on?"

De Silva shook his head; so did the Count and Countess and the other men standing by.

"I didn't hear anyone sneeze," said Sternov. "I don't see how one could with all that row."

"Odd," said Rom.

Very odd, he thought, following the Mayor to the President's box. For it seemed to him that that small sneeze was what Act Two had rather been about.

Act Three is entirely swanless. Prince Siegfried's parents give a great ball to which the princesses of many lands are invited, in the hope that one of them will catch his eye. The hope is vain. They dance for him, but the Prince says no to all of them. Then the evil Rothbart brings in his daughter, whom he has enchanted so as to resemble Odette. Dazzled by her virtuosity (the thirty-two fouettés!) and believing her to be Odette, the Prince promises to marry her and it is at this moment—and a very poignant moment it is—that the "real" Odette appears at the window, a despairing shape fluttering in anguish to show the Prince that she has been betrayed.

It is in the last act that the swans reappear and they do so rising rather effectively from a bed of mist. At least, they do if the dry ice works, but dry ice on the Amazon is apt to be capricious. Thus some swans rose out of the mist; others, notably the swan that had sneezed, seemed likely to remain permanently immersed in it. Yet when the stage cleared and her serious face and graceful arms emerged, it appeared to Rom that she was very much improved in spirits. The little pucker between her eyes had gone and the rest of her feathers seemed to be secure. And considerably relieved, he lowered his glasses and prepared to watch Simonova dance her farewell pas de deux of forgiveness and reconciliation with Maximov before vanishing—this time forever—into the lake.

The curtain fell on an ovation. Simonova was recalled again and again. Bouquets were showered on her: the bouquet ordered by the Opera House trustees, the bouquet of Count Sternov, of the Mayor… A large water-lily thrown by an admirer hit her in the chest like a cannon-ball and she did not flinch. The gallery yelled for Maximov…

"A triumph, ma chčre," said Dubrov, waiting in the wings with her wrap.

"Not bad, eh?" she agreed. "Fifteen curtain calls! I was thinking, Sashka—let's announce my retirement at the end of the tour, what do you think? Right now it might be rather a disappointment for them."

Swans do not take curtain calls. Harriet, back in the dressing room, smiled like a Botticelli angel and said wonderingly, "I'm alive. I'm still alive!" And then, "Do you think anybody heard me sneeze?"

"Nobody heard you sneeze," said Marie-Claude, who knew a great deal but not quite everything. "And now please hurry, because tomorrow there is to be a very splendid party and I want some sleep."

Chapter Five

For ten days after Harriet's departure, Aunt Louisa and the Professor went about their business unconcerned over her whereabouts. It was naturally assumed that she was having a pleasant time with Mrs. Fairfield and meeting the right people and Edward, though he missed her, had discovered a flea with a totally unexpected bristle on the third tergite and was much occupied in working out the implications of this breakthrough.

This peaceful state of affairs was shattered on the last day of April, when a concerned and friendly note arrived for Aunt Louisa from Mrs. Fairfield. She and Betsy had been so sorry, she wrote, that Harriet had had to postpone her visit, but if the Professor's cousin was now recovered and they were returned from Harrogate, it would give them great pleasure if Harriet could come up for Betsy's dance. It was quite a small affair, nothing grand, but Betsy would be so very pleased to see her friend…

Aunt Louisa, reading the letter which came by the afternoon post, did not scream or faint. She controlled herself with masterly skill, but she went to "the instrument" and telephoned the lodge of St. Phillip's to ask the porter to find Professor Morton and request him to come home—something she had never done before in her life. After that, and perhaps unwisely, she telephoned her friend Mrs. Hermione Belper at Trumpington Villa.

The Professor—arriving in an extremely unpleasant mood, for he had been interrupted while giving what he regarded as one of his most brilliant lectures—found Louisa's icy hand being chafed by the Tea Circle's president while other ladies offered sal volatile, tea and commiseration in voices from which they found it impossible to remove an undercurrent of glee.

"What has happened, Louisa?" he inquired sternly—and the ladies, responding to his manhood, withdrew into a corner.

Louisa held out Mrs. Fairfield's note and the Professor paled. "I don't understand this. Can Harriet have deliberately deceived us—or has she been abducted?"

"She has deliberately deceived us, Bernard! I have spoken to Mrs. Fairfield on "the instrument" and the note they received with all that tarradiddle about Harrogate was definitely in Harriet's writing. Betsy knows it well."

"Have you informed the police?"

"No, Bernard, please, not the police. The scandal… Surely there has to be some way of hushing it up? We must think. I suppose someone could have forced her to write that letter, but I don't feel it was that—she has been so strange lately. Oh, Bernard, I know! I'm sure I know!" Louisa sat up suddenly and the smelling-salts clattered to the floor. "She has run away to that ballet company! She must have done. Do you remember how weirdly she spoke at that dinner party? About it being the thing she had wanted all her life? That dreadful Russian who came to Madame Lavarre's…"