‘Naturally, for her. One hint that she is being pursued by a man and her position in the Company might be seriously jeopardised. Followers are strictly forbidden and Madame Simonova is an absolute stickler.’
‘But I’m not pursuing her! I’m trying to save her!’ cried Edward.
‘Better not put it like that to the Company. Or to anyone in the audience. I’m afraid Professor Morton is under a misapprehension regarding—’ He broke off. ‘Ah, here come the Sternovs!’ and he led Edward towards his friends. ‘Allow me to introduce Dr Finch-Dutton, just out from England. Count and Countess Sternov and the Countess Sophie.’
By the time they were seated in Verney’s box, Edward’s head was spinning. The Countess had taken him aside to confide that her sixteen-year-old daughter was ballet-mad and quite heartbroken because an inequality of the toes prevented her from being accepted by the Dubrov Company. A young Englishwoman, Mrs Bennett, had congratulated him on being allowed to see these dedicated and unapproachable dancers perform. Was it possible that the Professor really was mistaken about the status of ballet girls in polite society, thought Edward, unaware that Rom’s friends would have done a great deal more for him than utter a few white lies.
But now the conductor entered, the house lights dimmed and all thoughts vanished from Edward’s mind except one. After the long, exhausting journey, the sorrow and wrath she had caused him, he was going to see Harriet again.
Or was he?
The curtain went up on a farmyard and a ballet of chickens of whom Harriet was not one… A funny lady who was really a man came and chided her daughter for dancing with a handsome farmer… It was all rather jolly and the tunes were nice.
And now a lot of village girls came on and danced with the heroine. Pretty girls in white dresses, each with a different-coloured apron and scarf around her throat.
‘Well, what do you think of your friend?’ whispered Rom. ‘They are very pleased with her work in the Company.’
Edward frowned with concentration. Harriet must be on stage then — and indeed there were so many village maidens that one of them was bound really to be her. He leaned forward, peering intently at the twisting, shifting patterns made by the girls with their twirling skirts. There was a thin girl with brown hair at the end on the right, but there was another one at the front and a third just vanishing behind a hay-cart.
‘It is a bit difficult to pick her out, actually. I’m not used to dancing,’ he said helplessly.
Rom shot him a look of contempt and handed him the opera glasses. But the glasses only made things worse. One got a head here and an arm there and then they were gone. Edward tracked now this girl, now that, before handing back the glasses with a disconsolate shake of the head.
‘She’s the one with the dark red kerchief,’ said Rom maliciously.
‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course! I see now,’ said Edward gratefully.
And for the rest of the evening, Rom had the satisfaction of seeing the moron who had professed an interest in Harriet devoutly pursuing Olga Narukov across the stage.
As Rom had expected, he experienced no difficulty in setting up the luncheon which was to put Edward in his place once and for all. In every ballerina there smoulders the conviction that she is also a great actress; Rom’s plan had only to be outlined and Simonova was already planning her costume and instructing her underlings, and by the time he returned to the theatre at noon with a case of Chateauneuf du Pape as a thank-offering, the transformation from glamorous ballerina to fierce duenna was already complete.
‘The girls know what they have to do,’ she said, ‘and everything is ready. My clothes are good, you think?’
‘Indeed I do.’ Simonova wore black to the throat; a black hat with a veil shielded her face and a jet-handled parasol lay on the chair. He bent for a moment over her hand. ‘I am truly grateful, Madame. Not everyone would go to such trouble for a girl in the corps.’
Simonova shrugged. ‘She is a good child… though she does not have Natasha’s ears,’ she murmured mysteriously, and swept out into the corridor, where she could be heard yelling instructions at the girls.
Rom had called at the Club earlier to brief Edward. ‘It’s a great honour you understand, this invitation? In fact, I know of no one else who has been allowed to lunch with Madame and the girls.’ And he went on to caution Edward to be extremely careful in his use of language and not to mention that he was staying at the Sports Club, which would certainly be considered flighty.
‘I myself,’ said Rom with perfect accuracy, ‘never mention my connection with the Club to any lady of my acquaintance.’
At a quarter to one, therefore, Edward — in his new light-weight suit — made his way towards the theatre. He had imagined his first meeting with Harriet a hundred times. He had visualised her abandoned in a hovel, backstage in a scandalously short skirt, or driving with a rich protector in a carriage. But he had not imagined her crossing the Opera Square in crocodile with twenty other girls, wearing a straw hat and long-sleeved foulard dress, in the wake of a formidable woman in black and a portly gentleman in a frock-coat.
Edward approached, raised his hat.
‘Ah. You are Dr Dunch-Fitton,’ stated Simonova. The procession came to a halt while she raked him with her charcoal eyes. ‘Mr Verney has asked that you may join us at luncheon, but it is out of the question that my girls can be seen walking through the town accompanied by a man. You may meet us at the Restaurant Guida in ten minutes. In the private room, naturally.’
And leaving the flabbergasted Edward standing, the row of girls with their parasols held aloft passed with downcast eyes across the square.
In the restaurant, Verney’s instructions had been obeyed to the letter. A private room, totally screened from the rest of the patrons, had been prepared; white cloths and virginal white flowers decorated the tables; a portrait of Carmen expiring at the feet of her matador had been replaced by a Madonna and Child.
The girls filed in under Simonova’s eye. Edward, arriving confused and perspiring, was permitted to sit on her left with Harriet on his right. Marie-Claude and Kirstin sat opposite; the Russian girls stretched away on either side.
The first course arrived: platters of hot prawns in a steaming aromatic sauce. Edward, who was hungry, leaned forward.
‘We will say Grace,’ said Simonova.
Everybody rose. There followed nearly ten minutes of an old Russian thanksgiving prayer during which Lydia, giggling into her handkerchief at the ballerina’s unusual embellishments to the sombre and simple words, was kicked into silence by Olga. Then they all sat down and Edward glanced hopefully at the prawns.
‘And now you, Harriet.’
So everyone rose again and Harriet folded her hands. ‘Oculi omnium in te respiciunt, Domine,’ she began — and thus it was that the first words Edward heard the abandoned girl pronounce were those which preceded every meal at High Table in St Philip’s.
Harriet had been badly frightened at the thought of this encounter, but the incredible way the Company had rallied to her support — and above all, Rom’s quick pressure on her hand as they set off — had given her the courage to play her part and when they were all seated at last she turned to Edward and said composedly, ‘I trust you found my father well?’
‘No, Harriet, I did not. I found him deeply distressed by your conduct. How could you run away like that?’
‘Run away?’ Simonova’s lynx-like ears caught the phrase and she fixed her hooded eyes on Edward. ‘Natasha Alexandrovna did not run away. She was called!’