Down in the wardrobe she found a lone stage-hand, who at first greeted her with respect, not recognising in the elegantly dressed girl the little dancer in her shabby clothes — and then as she smiled, he asked her to sit on the last of the skips so that he could close it, as he had asked her to do three months ago in the Century Theatre when the adventure began.
Then she went back to the stage-door, where Furo was waiting and was driven to the Metropole, where she went, first of all, to say goodbye to Simonova.
During the fortnight since Harriet had last seen her, Simonova’s thinness had become spectacular: now she lay like a death’s head on the single pillow. Dubrov for once was absent, supervising the loading of the scenery.
‘So,’ said the ballerina as Harriet approached and curtseyed. ‘You are happy. One can see that.’
‘Yes, Madame. Extremely happy. But I wish that you—’
‘Oh, never mind, never mind,’ said Simonova irritably. ‘Let them clap Masha Repin. Myself, I will be thankful if I can even walk again.’
‘But you will, you will! Professor Leblanc is the greatest specialist in the world.’
‘Ach, specialists, what do they know? I believe nothing.’ She turned her head restlessly on the pillow and pierced Harriet with her eyes. ‘It will not last, this love of yours, you know that?’
‘Yes, I know. At least, it will for me but not for him. He is going back to the place in England where he was born and there is a woman there who…’ But this did not seem to be a sentence that one finished.
‘Yes, yes. It is always so. Dancers, singers… we are for pleasure, but it is others who become the châtelaines of great estates. So you must see that you get some jewels and you must work and work. Remember what Grisha always tells you about your shoulders — the left one in particular.’
‘Yes, Madame, I will. And I will never forget your Odette — or your Giselle — not if I live for a hundred years. Never, never will I forget them.’
‘And my Lise?’ came Simonova’s sharp voice from the bed. ‘My Lise in Fille — what was wrong with my Lise?’
‘Your Lise too.’ Harriet was close to tears. ‘To have been in your company even for such a short time has been the greatest privilege in the world.’
‘You are a good girl. Now I must rest for the journey, but first…’ She seemed to be coming to some decision, a frown etching deep lines into the worn forehead. ‘Yes, I will do it. Go over there to that blue suitcase.’
Harriet stepped round the stretcher lying ready to convey Madame to the boat and found the case.
‘Lift the lid. There is a pair of ballet shoes on top — my last pair. The pair I wore when I had my accident. Take them out and bring them here to me.’
Harriet did so and Simonova seized them in her bony hands, stroked the pink silk with one long finger as a mother traces the features of an infant in her arms. ‘See,’ she said tenderly, ‘they are hardly worn; I fell so soon. They should go to a museum perhaps — the last shoes of Galina Simonova — but who goes to museums? Take them. They are for you.’
Harriet, unashamedly crying now, shook her head. ‘No, Madame, I can’t! There must be someone who… matters more.’
‘Masha Repin, perhaps,’ sneered the ballerina. ‘Or that pretty friend of yours who thinks only of restaurants. Take them. Take them quickly. And now go!’
It was a very long time before the three friends slept that night. Marie-Claude had a great deal to tell them, for Vincent had secured his auberge and she was to be married in December. ‘And it’s because of you, ’arriette. You made it possible for Vincent to give the deposit and never, never will I forget what you have done.’
As they talked sleepily in their beds it seemed that Kirstin, too, might soon hang up her dancing shoes, for there was a young man in a village on the Baltic not far from the town were she had been born — a childhood friend who for a long time had been willing to be something more. His father owned a fleet of trawlers which Leif would inherit and he had never been to the ballet in his life, which to Kirstin was very much in his favour. ‘I don’t know,’ she said now. ‘It may not work out, but I think I will go back and see. It’s such a pretty place — the red wooden houses, and the water…’
‘So you see, it is you who must be a great dancer, ’arriette,’ said Marie-Claude, ‘so that we can bring our children to see you and tell them that with this divine prima ballerina assoluta we once shared a horrible room full of cockroaches in the city of Manaus.’ She sighed, seeing Harriet’s face. ‘But of course it is this man you want for always — and no wonder,’ she said, motioning to a froth of pale green muslin on the chair: the dress she had bought at Verney’s insistence when shopping for Harriet.
‘Perhaps this earl’s grand-daughter to whom he goes in England no longer loves him?’ suggested Kirstin. ‘Perhaps she has met someone else?’
‘And then when he has recovered from his broken heart, he can put you into a villa in some suitable district with your own carriage. In Paris it would be somewhere near the Bois… or in St Cloud, perhaps, but in London I don’t know…’
‘St John’s Wood, I think,’ said Harriet, recalling the novels she had dipped into while doing her homework in the public library. ‘Somewhere near the Regent’s Park Canal. A Gothic villa with a wisteria in the garden.’ Her eyes grew bright at the thought that she might after all have a future as a kept woman, awaiting Rom’s visits twice a week in a violet tea-gown. No, that was greedy. Once a week. Once a fortnight, because the trains were dreadful from Stavely and the roads even worse. It was ridiculous of course. Isobel would not have met someone else — no one who had ever loved Rom could possibly stop — and a man married to a woman as beautiful as Isobel would scarcely trouble to travel to London to visit his mistress in St John’s Wood. Moreover, Rom, once he married, would be faithful, Harriet was sure of that. But the daydream had done her good and trying to work out how many days she would see him if he came every other week for, say, five years… wondering if that was what the pomegranate seeds had meant… she fell asleep.
In the morning there was an unexpected development. Grisha and some of the Russian girls, going down before breakfast to meet the Bernadetto as she docked, returned to say that Olga had not been aboard, nor had the crew any idea of her whereabouts.
‘It is extremely strange,’ said Grisha, returning to the Metropole dining-room where the rest of the company sat at breakfast. He turned to Harriet. ‘Monsieur Verney sent some men to fetch her from the Gregory, I think?’
‘Yes, he did,’ said Harriet, and beamed at the ballet master because he had pronounced Rom’s name. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Grisha shrugged. ‘I suppose she has decided to wait for us in Belem,’ he said, and instructed Tatiana to pack Olga’s things and see that they were put on board.
The rest of the day passed in a bustle of last-minute shopping, packing, promises and plans. Harriet bought farewell presents for her friends: a deceptively demure nightgown for Marie-Claude and a blouse for Kirstin. She also bought a record of ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ for the Indians and found for Rom, in a dusty shop full of maps and oleographs, a book with pictures of the tapestry of ‘The Lady and the Unicorn’ — a wonderful stroke of luck, for above the golden-haired virgin and her obedient beast were embroidered the words: Mon seul désir — and these were the words which Rom had whispered to her two nights ago as she lay in his arms.