Eva Ibbotson

She accepted a second helping of an unknown but delicious fish. Beside her, the indomitable Olga was crunching to smithereens a leg of roasted guinea-fowl. Tatiana, who spoke no word of English, was bent over her plate.

Only when? thought Harriet, thus left free to pursue her thoughts. When do I speak to him? After tonight I won’t see him again, not ever, she thought—wondering why the exotic fish she was consuming seemed, after all, not to be in the least delicious. Verney might go to the other performances at the Opera House, but he would hardly trouble to seek out a humble member of the corps.

The entree was cleared; bowls of pomegranates, pawpaws and pineapples were set out. Sorbets arrived in tall glasses and a concoction of meringue and passion fruit… The wine changed to the lightest of Muscadels…

But Harriet’s appetite had suddenly deserted her, for the result of her deliberations had become inescapable. If she wanted to plead for the child who had so inexplicably wound himself round her heart, there was only one way to do it—alone. And only one time—tonight.

As a host Verney might appear relaxed to the point of being casual, but the ingredients which made up his famous parties—the food, the wine, the lights, the music—were most precisely calculated. So after the formality of the dinner he loosed his guests into the flower-filled enfilade of rooms which ran along the terrace and replaced the Viennese trio which had played earlier by a group of Brazilian musicians, knowing that guests too shy to waltz or polka in the presence of these professionals would soon be caught by the syncopated rhythm of Los Olvideros. And soon Maximov was dancing with young Mrs. Bennett, the sharp-faced Harry Parker beat all other contestants for the hand of Marie-Claude and Simonova herself had led the enraptured Count onto the floor.

But a man who knows exactly when to welcome and feed and amuse his guests, knows also when to send them back. At midnight his servants came with jugs of steaming coffee, and with a flourish the curtains were drawn aside—to reveal a shining avenue of light from lamps strung between the jacaranda trees and at its end the Amethyst glowing with welcome, waiting to take them home.

“That went off very well, Lorenzo,” said Rom. “You can clear up in the morning. I’m going to bed.”

But he lingered for a while, enjoying the silent house; relishing that moment of well-being which attacks even the most hospitable of men when their guests have gone. He opened a French window to let in the coati. The night was clear—the Milky Way spectacularly bright and Pegasus, up-ended and undignified to someone from another hemisphere, pointing to the north and what had once been home.

He was just about to make his way upstairs when he caught a movement in the doorway leading to the adjoining room. He turned—and a girl stepped forward into the light.

“Oh God!” said Rom under his breath. “You!” and the dark face was suddenly creased with weariness.

“Mr. Verney, I am very sorry to trouble you, but could I talk to you, please?”

He had looked away, missing the fear in her eyes and the way she laced her fingers to stop them trembling.

This girl, then, like all the others… this girl who in the garden had held out such different promise. The oldest ruse, the stalest trick of them all. Staying behind because something had been “forgotten,” because the boat had been “missed.”

From the same doorway, after the other guests had gone, had stepped Marina in her bare feet, her blouse pulled off one shoulder, tossing her russet hair… And Dolores, the Spanish girl from the troupe he had nursed, whimsically wrapped in one of his Persian rugs because someone had told her that Cleopatra had been brought to Caesar wrapped in a carpet. Millie Trant too, who had used the same formula as Harriet: “Let’s you and I have a little talk, Mr. Verney.” But Millie had been honest—there was no mistaking her intentions from the start.

He could laugh now to think how careful he had been not to talk to Harriet again once they came in from the garden, determined not to make her conspicuous. Yet he had watched her unnoticed; seen how she drew out Mrs. Bennett, asking quiet questions about the absent child. Later Dubrov had told him a little of her story. Well, was it surprising that a girl who had run away from a good academic home should turn out to be what, seemingly, she was?

“Very well,” he said, fighting down his weariness, his desire to humiliate her by turning on his heel and leaving her. “If you wish it, we will… talk.”

He pulled the bell-rope and Lorenzo, sleepy and surprised, appeared. “Take Miss Morton up to the Blue Suite and send someone to see that she has what she requires,” he said in rapid Portuguese. And to Harriet, who had not understood him, “I will join you in half an hour.”