A Company of Swans (36 page)

"uncle Rom will be awfully sad too," said Henry, blinking back his tears at the news that Harriet had decided to go and be a famous dancer, that she would not be coming back. "He likes Harriet; he likes her very much."

"Yes, he does," said Isobel. "So I'm afraid he will be extremely sad. What will make him particularly sad is that she said goodbye to you and not to him. It will hurt his feelings, don't you think? So perhaps, Henry, it would be really kind not to tell him? Just to keep it a secret? You're grown-up enough for secrets, aren't you?"

Henry was. Sinclair of the Scouts, in the Boy's Own Paper, was continually keeping secrets, some of them calculated to burn a hole in a lesser person's breast. Aware of the child's passionate desire to please her, Isobel was sure that he would keep his word—and if anything went wrong she could plead, naturally enough, an unwillingness to cause Rom pain. There had only remained the sending of the cable to Professor Morton—for it was not Isobel's intention to let Harriet reappear in Rom's life as a glamorous ballerina—and the deed was done. After which she settled down to her role as comforter.

"You must be happy for her, darling," she said to Rom. "I met Dr. Finch-Dutton at Belem and he told me that it was all that Harriet had wanted all her life. Just to dance… always to dance."

"We will not speak of Harriet," was his only answer.

Yet he accepted without question Isobel's version of what had happened. Count Sternov, whose friendship it was impossible to doubt, had been at the Metropole just after Simonova's miraculous recovery and had heard her offer to take Harriet to Russia. Both he and the Metropole manager had seen the ballerina depart in triumph, walking to the hansom with her arm around the shoulder of the English girl, while Miguel himself had seen Harriet go aboard with the company.

So what had occurred was clearly what Rom had both feared and expected. Overcome by this sudden marvelous opportunity, Harriet had gone and perhaps wisely made the break cleanly without messages or farewells.

He made no further inquiries and, concealing from everyone the degree of his wretchedness and the hurt she had caused him by not trusting him enough to speak honestly of her ambitions, he pursued his plans: transferring his possessions, making provision for his Indians, issuing instructions to MacPherson concerning Stavely. He had set himself to restore his father's house and he would do so, but the burden of loss he rolled through his days—as Sisyphus rolled his stone-seemed only to grow heavier as the gray weeks passed.

Isobel, however, did not give up nope. It was of course absurd that she should live in Paradise Farm, even with the generous allowance Rom had proposed, while he ruled alone at the Hall. The suggestion was an insult. Her place was by Rom's side and as his wife, and now that the detestable girl was gone he would come to see this. So she changed her clothes five times a day, flirted, brushed against him "by accident" and would have been surprised to learn how infrequently Rom even noticed that she was there.

Harriet had been gone for a month when, in the hour before sunset, Rom walked through the tall trees toward the Indian village, bound on business with old Jose. The light had slanted in just that way when he had first gone in search of Harriet and found her cradling Manuelo's baby. He had known then really, that he wanted no children which were not hers—and suddenly the sense of desolation so overwhelmed him that he stopped and put out a steadying hand to the trunk of a tree.

At which point there entered a deus ex machina.

It entered in an unexpected form: that of a lean, rangy and malodorous chicken. Exuding the sangfroid of those reared as household pets, enjoying its customary evening stroll from the village, the bird stopped, examined the unexpected figure blocking its path, gave a squawk of displeasure—and retreated…

Leaving behind a small mottled object… A single chicken feather, to which Rom stooped and which he held for a surprisingly long time in the palm of his hand.

Then he turned abruptly and made his way back toward the house.

Henry, conversing on the bridge with the manatees, was the first person to see him. Uncle Rom looked different—the way he had looked on the first day, not all grim and shut-in as he had appeared since then—and emboldened by the change in his hero, Henry beamed and said, "Hello!"

"Hello, Henry!" Rom, ashamed now of the way he had been neglecting this endearing child, held out his hand. "I was just on the way to find your mother. I'm going back to Europe tomorrow; I'll book a passage for you soon, on a fine steamer, but I have to leave at once."

Henry nodded. "You're going to find Harriet, aren't you?" he said with the quick insight of those who love.

"That's right," said Rom, greatly surprised.

"I'm so glad!" The little face was transformed with relief. "I've been awfully worried about her because I knew she shouldn't dance when she had the measles! I went to a dancing class once and it was horrible: you go round and round very fast in slippy shoes, and if you did that with the measles you'd fall down and get bronchitis and—"

"Wait a minute, Henry. When did you think Harriet had the measles? In the maze at Stavely?"

"No, when she came here to—"

He broke off, bit his lip, hung his head in misery. He had betrayed a secret and now would never grow up to be like Sinclair of the Scouts.

"When was that?" Rom had managed to speak calmly, almost casually, but the child shook his head and cast an involuntary glance of fear in the direction of the terrace where Isobel reclined.

They had reached a trellised arbor with a stone seat, to which Rom led the little boy. "Henry, do you remember what it says on the mantelpiece in the Hall at Stavely? Carved into the wood?"

"Yes, I do remember. It says: TRUTH THEE SHALT DELIVER—IT IS NO DREDE. And 'deliver' isn't like delivering milk, it's like making you feel better. Only keeping secrets is good too," said Henry and sighed, caught on the horns of this ancient and troublesome dilemma.

"Yes, it is. It's very good." Rom made no attempt to minimize the seriousness of the problem. "Except when someone is in danger—or ill—and then keeping a secret is not as important as telling the truth."

Henry deliberated in silence, made up his mind. "You see, Mummy said it would hurt your feelings if you knew that Harriet had come back and not said goodbye to you. Only, I didn't realize she was going away because she had a basketful of presents all wrapped up in interesting paper. And she was so nice to me when I was afraid of you being my stepfather." He paused, flushing, but his uncle's race was so utterly kind that Henry knew he would not be offended by anything he said and in a rush—blessed with the total recall of those who have uncluttered minds—Henry repeated his last talk with Harriet. "She said she didn't have measles, but her eyes were streaming like anything when I kissed her good night and she was shivering—and the spots come later, you know." His face grew pinched again. "And I'm sure she shouldn't dance if she feels like that. If she got that thing you get after bronchitis, she could die! And I don't want Harriet to die!"

"She won't die, Henry," said Rom. "I promise you!" And as Henry gazed up at his uncle he knew that he had been a little bit silly once again. Because when Uncle Rom looked like that—so powerful and triumphant—no one could possibly die. No one could do anything except live and be happy.

"I'm extremely grateful to you, Henry," said Rom, getting to his feet. "Indeed, I am utterly in your debt. And I don't think it's necessary for us to mention our conversation to your mother. Gentlemen often have private conversations of this sort among themselves. I'm leaving very early in the morning, but we shall meet in England and have some splendid times." And shaking Henry's hands with gratifying formality, he strode away.

Left alone, Henry made his way back to the manatees. The carving on the mantelpiece had been quite right, he reflected. Truth did deliver you. He felt much better. He felt, in fact, absolutely fine!

Half an hour before Mr. Fortescue was due from London, Aunt Louisa went upstairs to Harriet's room to put a clean towel on the washstand and to change Harriet's nightdress for a high-necked one of bleached calico. It was her own, but she did not grudge it to the errant girl, for the few but shamefully luxurious things which Harriet had brought from Manaus had all, of course, been confiscated and sold.

"Goodness, she has got thin!" said Mrs. Belper, who had come to be with Louisa on this important day. Just returned from a week's visit to her sister, she was startled by the change in Harriet.

"She is thin because she doesn't eat!" snapped Louisa. "I hope you don't think that we are starving her."

Mr. Fortescue was due at two-thirty and in deference to the occasion Louisa had ordered coffee and even a plate of digestive biscuits to be sent to the drawing room.

"I wish Bernard could be here," she said. "But he never will miss giving a lecture."

"Perhaps it is as well, Louisa; it might be a little painful. After all, if the diagnosis is what we expect, it will virtually be a statement that his daughter is—"

A shrill peal of the door-bell brought both ladies to their feet and out into the hall.

Mr. Fortescue was as well-dressed as they expected and the gleaming Rolls-Royce in which his chauffeur waited was evidence that his Harley Street specialist was in the top rank, but he was surprisingly young.

"I have come to see Harriet Morton," he announced, handing his hat and gloves to the maid.

"Yes, indeed. We were expecting you," said Louisa, all affability. "It is good of you to come all the way from London. We have naturally been very much concerned—my poor brother has been distracted—but we really feel that an institution of some kind is the only answer. Though of course it is for you to say after you have examined her."

Mr. Fortescue did not appear to be a man of many words.

"Perhaps you will take me to her?" was all he said and Louisa, explaining the sad circumstances, her niece's inexplicable depravity and the course which on the advice of Dr. Smithson they had been compelled to take, led him to the top of the stairs, where she took a key from the bunch at Tier belt.

"You keep her locked in?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Fortescue. Yes indeed! We would not be willing to take the responsibility of leaving a girl of that sort unguarded."

She inserted the key in the lock—only to find that the specialist's lean brown hand had closed firmly over hers.

"Give me the key if you please. And be kind enough to wait for me downstairs. I always examine patients of this kind alone."

"But surely that is not customary?" Louisa was distinctly flustered. "Surely another person is always present when—"

"Are you telling me how to do my job, Miss Morton?" The voice was silkily polite but the glint in his eyes sent Louisa scuttling back downstairs.

He waited until she was out of sight and then turned the key.

The room was bare, cold, scrupulously clean. In the narrow bed Harriet lay on her back and did not turn her head.

Rom walked over to her.

He had imagined this meeting a thousand times: the happiness, the love that would flow between them, the joy with which they would laugh away their misunderstanding. Now there was none of that. A red mist covered his eyes; rage savaged him: he thirsted to kill—to take hold of the woman he had just seen and beat her head against the wall—to press his fingers slowly, voluptuously into the jugular vein of the man who had done this to Harriet.

Harriet opened her eyes. For a moment she stared unfocused at the figure bent over her. Then over the face of this girl he had believed to value her career above his love there spread a look that he was never to forget as long as he lived.

Next came a desolate whimper of pain, a fractional movement of the head.

"No," said Rom quietly, "you're not dreaming. I'm here, Harriet! In the flesh—very much in the flesh." Aware that she was on the edge of the abyss, that he must call her back very gently, he laid only the lightest of hands on her hair. "You've led me the devil of a dance! I went to St. Petersburg first! Simonova's in fine fettle, I may say."

She could not speak yet. Only her eyes begged for the power to trust in this miracle.

"I must say that I find that a perfectly detestable nightdress," said Rom cheerfully. "Your Aunt Louisa can certainly pick them!"

It came then. Belief. He was real, he was here. She sat up and threw herself forward into his arms—and among the frenzied words of love and agony and longing Rom caught, surprisingly, the name of a well-known London suburb.

"You want to live in St. John's Wood?" he asked, startled. Later it occurred to him that this salubrious district had probably saved Professor Morton's life, for the passion with which Harriet now pleaded to be set up as a kept lady so intrigued him that he forgot his murderous rage.

"It is an entrancing prospect, certainly," he said. "Especially the Gothic windows. However, I am not going to install you in a villa in St. John's Wood. I am going to install you at Stavely where you will be my love, my companion and also—by tomorrow afternoon—my wife."

"No." Harriet had had her miracle. She needed no more and lifting her face a daring inch away from his, she informed him that he was going to marry Isobel.

"Harriet, do be quiet about Isobel. I never had the slightest intention of marrying her and if you had not been so obstinate and blind you would have seen that at once. I don't even like her any more—the way she treats Henry would put me off for a start. In fact, in the month I've spent with her I've grown quite sorry for my brother. Now listen, I must get hold of the necessary documents and go and find your father, but I'll be back—"

No. She was not able to be left. Her eyes grew wide with fear. "If you go, they'll find some way of separating us. They'll lock me in again and tell you I'm mad and—"

"All right then, we'll go together," he said, cheerfully matter-of-fact. "You can wait in the car. Get dressed and—"

"I can't. They've taken away my clothes."

Rom gritted his teeth against a renewed attack of fury. "Never mind." He pulled a blanket off the bed, wrapped it around her, picked her up. "Poor Harriet, I'm always abducting you in unsuitable clothes."