‘But at her debut she was ready,’ finished Grisha. ‘And more than ready.’ He glanced over at Harriet, still posing on her leaf. ‘She was eighteen years old.’
‘I see,’ said Rom. Do I have to do that for her, he thought? No, damn it, I won’t have her fainting. Yet he felt a kind of chill — almost a premonition of something that could touch his happiness.
‘It would not happen now, I think,’ said Simonova. And then: ‘Chort!’ she cried. ‘She is sinking!’
Kirstin had given a little cry and run forward to take the camera from Maximov, who was closest to Harriet, so that he could pull her to safety, but the premier danseur had no intention of risking his new suit and clung firmly to his apparatus. It was Rom, some twenty yards away, who seemed in an instant to be by Harriet’s side. ‘Jump!’ he said and she jumped, laughing and unperturbed, into his arms.
‘You have spoiled your dress,’ scolded Marie-Claude, for Harriet was wet almost to her knees.
‘Aunt Louisa’s dresses cannot be spoilt,’ said Harriet. ‘That’s their one advantage.’
‘There might have been pirhanas,’ scolded Lobotsky.
‘Might there?’ Harriet asked Rom.
‘Unlikely.’ But it was not that unlikely; the water was stagnant and deep. She was almost too fearless, he thought, too much at ease in this place.
They picnicked in style and drove back relaxed and comfortable for the evening’s performance of Fille. Rom, who had dutifully accompanied Simonova on the outward journey, was travelling with Harriet and her friends and much enjoying the unquenchable Marie-Claude’s stories of her future as a restaurant proprietress seated behind a big black till.
Their carriage was in the lead as they drove through the outskirts of the city, crossed the Avenida Eduardo Ribeiro — and turned into the square on which stood the Hotel Metropole.
‘Oh, stop! Stop! Please stop!’ It was Harriet’s voice, but scarcely recognisable. She had slumped forward on her seat, covering her face with her hands, and now she sank down on to the floor, almost beside herself with fear.
‘What is it? What is it, my dear?’ Rom was amazed. Could this be the girl who had danced on the lily leaves?
‘That man over there… Don’t let him see me! Oh, can’t we turn back, please… please…’
Rom looked out of the carriage window. A heat-flushed man in a topee and crumpled linen suit was sitting in a cab on the other side of the road. Around him was piled his luggage: a tin trunk, a number of nets and canvas bags, a holdall. His expression was disconsolate, not to say peevish, as he gazed over the head of the flea-bitten horse whose twitchy ears pierced a sombrero with a hibiscus flower on the brim and he was engaged in an altercation with the driver, who, by frequent shrugs and wavings of the arms, indicated that he understood nothing of what was being said and cared even less.
In this apparition Rom recognised a familiar sight: a man recently landed from a liner, defeated by the Golden City’s inexplicable lack of hotels, wondering where he was going to lay his head — but nothing to explain Harriet’s terror.
‘It’s Edward,’ she said, fighting down a sob. ‘He’s come to take me back — my father will have sent him.’
‘Is he a relation?’
‘No. They wanted me to marry him, I think, but I never would have. But it means they know I’m here — my father may be with him too. Oh God, it can’t be over yet, it can’t!’
‘That’s enough, Harriet.’ Rom’s voice was deliberately harsh. ‘He seems to be alone and you are far from friendless — he can hardly carry you off by force.’
‘We’ll help you! We’ll hide you!’ declared Marie-Claude.
Rom ignored this noble sentiment as he had ignored Harriet’s terror.
‘Let me just get this clear, Harriet. Were you engaged to him?’
‘No!’
‘And he has no legal hold over you?’
‘No, but—’
‘All right, that will do.’ He leaned forward and gave some instructions to the driver. ‘The carriage will turn round and take you to the back of the hotel. Meanwhile,’ said Rom, opening the carriage door, ‘I think I will go and introduce myself to your friend.’
Edward had suffered since he had agreed to go in search of Harriet. It had been rotten luck finding that there was no British boat for a fortnight, so that he’d had to cross the Channel and trust himself to foreigners. Then on the voyage there had been the unscrupulous behaviour of Isobel Brandon to contend with; Edward had not seen Mrs Brandon on the recent visit to Stavely, but he had no difficulty in identifying the beautiful red-haired widow listed among the passengers — though why she should seek solace in her bereavement by travelling to the Amazon was hard to understand.
But his friendly gesture in introducing himself and reminding her of his mother’s acquaintance with the General had caused Mrs Brandon to unloose on him — in a totally unbridled manner — her small son. ‘Go and ask Dr Finch-Dutton,’ Edward heard her say a dozen times a day — and presently Henry would appear to ask the kind of questions with which children and philosophers trouble their betters. Why do spiders have eight legs and insects six, Henry wanted to know. Do flying fish have souls? Why is there a green streak in the sky just before the sun goes down… on and on and on.
Which did not mean that Edward was pleased to see him carried off the boat at Belem. There was no real harm in the child and the relief of travelling on alone had been vitiated by the appalling heat as soon as they left the fresh Atlantic breezes. And now in Manaus, where he had hoped for a cool bath and a chance to muster his forces, his troubles seemed only to have begun.
‘Good afternoon.’ Rom had reached Edward’s side and stood looking up at the cab with amused friendliness. ‘Can I help at all? Are you in trouble?’
‘Oh, I say! Yes! That’s jolly decent of you. Didn’t expect to see a fellow countryman here,’ said Edward. ‘My name’s Finch-Dutton — Dr Edward Finch-Dutton, from Cambridge. The truth is, I’m in a bit of a fix. I’ve just come off the Vasco da Gama and spent the whole afternoon driving round trying to find somewhere to stay. I tried the Hotel Metropole, but it’s booked to the roof — so is the Europa, not that I’d put a dog there. And then that scoundrel’ — he glared at the driver, busy spitting melon seeds into the road — ‘drove me to a place he said was a hotel—’ But there Edward broke off, unable to speak of what had happened after he had asked for a room at Madame Anita’s. ‘And now he proposes to dump me and my luggage and charge me a perfectly ludicrous sum which I have not the slightest intention of paying.’
Rom turned and fired off half-a-dozen rapid sentences at the cabby, who became servile and explanatory. The Englishman had not understood: he had tried to tell him that the hotels were always full when a company was performing at the theatre but the man would not listen. He himself had done his best, but he now wished to receive his fare and attend the festivities for his niece’s confirmation at which he was already overdue.
‘Your niece’s festivities — which interest me little — will, however, have to wait,’ said Rom pleasantly. ‘And if you don’t want to lose your licence, you will stop spitting into the road.’ He turned back to Edward. ‘Perhaps I can help. My name’s Verney, by the way. I’m on my way to the Sports Club to pick up a message; it’s quite a decent place, run by an Englishman — Harry Parker. They sometimes accommodate travellers for a few days — members of expeditions and so on. I can’t promise anything, but I daresay he might fit you in.’
‘I used to know a Harry Parker at my prep school,’ said Edward. ‘He kept a weasel in his tuck-box. Don’t suppose it’s the same chap.’ But he brightened visibly at the thought of someone in this steam-bath of a city who might conceivably have been at Fallowfield Preparatory School on the bracing and healthy Sussex Downs.