A Company of Swans (30 page)

"Thank you. You are extremely kind."

Rom looked at her sharply as she stood before him in her favorite listening pose: her hands folded, her feet in the third position. It occurred to him that neither in her face nor her voice was there the relief and gratitude that he expected—that indeed he felt, to be his due.

Fie went away to take a shower then and Harriet was led by the Rio-trained chambermaid to the rooms which had been occupied by the bishop, where she washed her face and hands and combed her hair. She could see how suitable the accommodation had been for the eminent cleric: the rooms were paneled in dark wood, books lined the wall, there was a high and unmistakably single bed. Nothing less like the Blue Suite, with its exotic bathroom and voluptuously-curtained bed, could be imagined.

Lorenzo had set a meal in the salon, at a table by the window. In order not to embarrass Harriet, Rom had dressed informally in a white open-necked shirt and dark trousers. Showered and shaved, his hand lightly bandaged, he had shaken off his fatigue and felt tuned-up and expectant, a change that he regretted. There was nothing that he must expect.

"I'm afraid I couldn't put on anything different,"

said Harriet apologetically. "I suppose I must do something about getting hold of my clothes."

He smiled. "There's nothing more becoming than what you're wearing. Most of the clothes women buy are aimed at achieving just that effect—ethereal… a bit mysterious… and exceedingly romantic."

No, that was a mistake. He must not be personal; he must pay her no compliments and quite certainly he must not stretch out a hand to where her winged and devastating collarbone curved round the hollow in her throat. A "neutral topic," that was what was required. Her work, then…

"They're a strange lot, those Wilis," said Rom. "Why are they so determined to dance all those poor men to death?"

"Well, they're the spirits of girls who died before their wedding day—because they were deserted by their fiances, I think, though one is never told exactly."

"But Albrecht seemed to be all right? Maximov was still going strong when I pulled you from the rock, as far as I could see."

"That's because Giselle saves him by dancing in his stead. She goes on and on, throwing herself in front of him, until the dawn comes and the Wilis have to leave."

"Why, though? Surely he betrayed her, didn't he, in Act One?"

Harriet lifted her head from her plate, surprised. "She loved him. Him. Not what he did. So of course she would try to save him."

The topic was not turning out to be as neutral as he had hoped. He began, in response to her shy questions, to tell her a little about Ombidos now that the horror was past, and of Alvarez' courage once he had decided to go.

And another "neutral topic" ran into the ground as he recalled the Minister's voice when he spoke of Lucia, who had had Harriet's eyes… and who must have looked at Alvarez as Harriet was looking now, her lifted face full of trust and happiness.

Only why, thought Rom a little irritably, for he felt that Harriet somehow was not really helping. Why does she look like that? She must be aware of my reputation… of what everyone would think.

"It's late," he said abruptly. "You must be tired—don't let me keep you up."

"Could we go onto the terrace first," she begged. "Just for a moment?"

He nodded, pulled out her chair and led her out through the French window.

Another mistake. The scent of jasmine overwhelmed them with its sweetness and the moths hung drunkenly over the tobacco flowers. There was a moon.

"It's a proper in such a night as this night, isn't it?" she said.

"Yes."

Shakespeare's words, over-familiar, endlessly quoted but indestructible, unfolded their silver skeins in both their minds.

In such a night stood Dido with a willow in her hand upon the wild sea banks, and waft her love to come again to Carthage… In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did renew old Aeson …

In such a night…

And Rom, staring out at the moonlit strip of river, was pierced by a deep and unconquerable sense of loss, of waste. If all went as he hoped, he would marry her; they would be together and it would be good. But this particular night as they stood on the terrace, both released from danger, bathed in the scent of jasmine, this would never come again.

And roughly he said, "Come! We must go in."

She followed him in silence. Back in the salon, he asked, "Did you find everything you wanted in your rooms?"

"Yes, thank you. It was all very comfortable."

"I'll say good-night, then."

She did not go immediately, but stood with bent head looking down at a bowl of lilies. Then, "It seems very difficult to be ruined in this house," said Harriet petulantly.

He was certain that he had misheard her. "What?"

She did not repeat her sentence, merely looked up once in order to scrutinize his face. Then she nodded, for she had found what she sought, and walked over to the bell-rope and pulled it.

The bell rang loudly as it had rung on that other night which, incredibly, was less than four weeks ago.

"Coronel?" Lorenzo, still shrugging on his jacket, turned to his master.

"It was I who rang." The authority in her voice surprised Rom and augured well for the future he had planned. "I have decided to sleep in the Blue Suite—please see that it is prepared. And be so kind as to ask Maliki and Rainu to come to me. I wish," said Harriet, "to take a bath."

Chapter Fifteen

"I am ruined," said Harriet, waking in the great white-netted bed. The word seemed to her so beautiful that she spoke it again to herself, very softly: "Ruined. I am a fallen woman."

She turned her head on the pillow. Rom's dark head was half-buried in the sheet, one arm thrown out in sleep. The problem now was what to do with so much happiness; now to contain it and not let it spill out and disturb him. Happiness like this could almost certainly disturb people and Rom must not be woken by her. Not ever woken…

I have put myself beyond the reach of decent women, thought Harriet, trying out different variations of her fall and smiling at the ceiling.

A new world lay before her—a world at whose existence she had not even guessed. The mystics knew it, and perhaps God Himself and possibly Johann Sebastian Bach in places… but none of them had been ruined by Rom, so they could not know it as she knew it.

Moving very slowly, very carefully, she put one foot on the ground, looking at it speculatively because the foot, like the rest of her, had been ruined and felt totally beautiful and totally good, as though each separate toe had shared the extraordinary bliss of the previous night. The negligee that Maliki had wrapped around her after her bath was lying across a chair and she put it on, because she was not yet accustomed to being a loose woman and was not certain that she ought to walk around the room with nothing on. Moreover she was going on a pilgrimage, and pilgrimages were better conducted in negligees.

Because she had to remember this room. It was Rom's own room, to which he had carried her from the Blue Suite, and she had to remember every single thing in it so that years later she could come back here in her mind. Even on her deathbed she must be able to come back here and walk across the deep white carpet, knowing that behind her Rom still slept… Particularly on her deathbed. She had to remember this chair on which his clothes lay and the pattern made by his shirt against the gold brocaded silk… and she traced with one finger the fleurs de lys woven in Lyons two hundred years ago so that she, a ruined girl and the happiest person in the world, could delight in their intricacy.

She had to remember for always the shape of the carved handles on the chest of drawers and the glint of the carriage clock, its hands at ten to six. She had to remember the books lying on the low table—three books with leather bindings and beside them a small bronze dragon and Rom's fountain pen. She had to remember the Persian rug spread on the carpet and that was going to be difficult: she must work and work at remembering that, for the squares and diamonds of cinnamon and amethyst and pearl were unbelievably complex.

She must remember how it felt to walk barefoot to the window and lift the curtain a little… The mosquito netting had trapped a moth, which must not die because nothing was allowed to die on the morning of her ruin, and which she freed and saw flutter up to the lamp. Which meant that she must study the lamp, too: five petals of rosy glass held by a silver chain…

"Who gave you permission to leave my side?"

She spun around. Rom was leaning on one arm, looking at her. He was awake, alive—he had not perished in the night!

"I was getting to know the room," she said.

"So I saw. But you happen to be further away than I care for."

"Then I will come back." She came to him and hung her head, for what she saw in his eyes was too much even for a woman as officially depraved as she now was.

"I thought perhaps I should get dressed?" she suggested.

"No, I'm not very keen on that," said Rom in conversational tones.

"Actually it's difficult, because I only have my Wili costume. But I can't go out into the garden without my clothes."

"Ah… But you aren't going into the garden."

"Am I not?" She considered this. Then her face crunched into the urchin smile which had so surprised him when he first saw her with Manuelo's baby under the trees. "Well, I will come back—only I would like to creep from the foot of the bed into your presence, like the odalisques did with Suleiman the Great."

"Over my dead body will you creep!"

"But if I wanted to?"

He pulled her down so that she lay against his shoulder. "It's bad for people to get what they want—it deprives them of their dreams. I'll explain it to you. Later…"

Harriet lifted her head. "How many times a day can one be ruined?" she asked—not in any way displeased, just interested.

"We shall have to find out." And his mouth suddenly twisted: "Oh, God, I have ruined you, too, you gallant girl, but I swear—"

She had begun obediently to put up a hand to the buttons of her negligee, was beginning to undo the one at the top.

"How dare you?" he said roughly, pulling her fingers away. "Leave it alone! That button is mine!"

In the days that followed, Harriet became somewhat beautiful. Her skin glowed, her hair—Rom swore it grew thicker and heavier almost by the hour and like most lovers he both rejoiced in what improved her and swore that he wanted nothing about her to change.

He had sent word to the Company that she was safe and Marie-Claude, the sensible girl, had packed Harriet's clothes and taken them to Verney's office for Miguel to send to Follina. However, this helped Harriet little for Rom promptly gave orders to have them burned.

"Nothing personal, you understand. Just a difference of opinion between me and your Aunt Louisa. Later we'll buy some more. The blue skirt and the white blouse are all right—and your petticoat; you can keep that." He grinned down at her. "Who knows, after all, when you may get the urge to dance on tables!"

But clothes were not really Harriet's problem, for the white cloud bed with its mosquito netting—from which she occasionally still rescued the moths that became trapped in its folds—had become her world. She saw it now as a white-sailed ship on which she voyaged with Rom to Monserrat or Venusburg.

"I think God has made a mistake about love," she said to him, lying with her head in the hollow of his arm. "If one can find it—all this ecstasy, and seeing the world in a grain of sand like this… then one isn't going to struggle to be properly religious and good."

"If you knew how rare it was, Harriet," he said, smoothing back her hair. "What we have here. God wasn't chancing His arm much, I assure you. Not many people are deflected from the pursuit of the good by a requited passion. I have chased it all my adult life—and I found it the day you came."

"It's because they haven't got you that they don't find it. But then why should I be given this chance? Why me?"

She could make no sense of this. Wickedness had led to ecstasy. Only temporary ecstasy, of course—she would lose him and she knew how. But already she had had so much more than she was entitled to.

"Only I'm not completely happy all the time," she pointed out, "because you won't let me creep from the foot of the bed into your presence. So perhaps God will let me—"

"Oh, Harriet, let Him be. He's not after you, poor God! You're His suffering creature now bathed in love. Come here and I'll show you."

When Rom was working in his study or at the loading bay at Sao Gabriel, Harriet had baths. Maliki and Rainu presided over these hour-long rituals from which Harriet emerged smelling now of frangipani, now of hibiscus or increasingly—as her helpers became aware of her passion for the scents and unguents of their country—of essences they themselves had compounded from plants which she had not even known existed. Even so, she could never defeat Rom who, after burying his face in her hair only for a moment, would announce firmly, "Cedar-wood" or "Cattelya" or "Moon Lily," before unwinding the snowy towel in which she was wrapped in order to make certain that he had guessed correctly.

When she was not having baths, Harriet ate pomegranates.

It is difficult to speak well of this fruit. Once opened, it disgorges enormous quantities of slimy reddish pips which laboriously have to be consumed because there is little else. Just how many seeds there are in a pomegranate, is hard to discover—more, certainly, than can be counted with ease.

Harriet, however, ate them: seed by seed, forcing them down… at breakfast… at lunch, enduring the insipid taste, the stickiness… for the legend of Persephone was always with her—Persephone, who had been forced to remain in Hades for as many months as she had eaten pomegranate seeds. Not expecting the impossible, Harriet had altered the time-scale: one pomegranate seed, which had kept Persephone with her dark-visaged lover for a month, was to give her one day with Rom.

"That's five hundred and twenty-three, I think," she told him triumphantly. "Five hundred and twenty-three whole days with you sometime in my life—" and went off to wash her hands.