Eva Ibbotson

Would it help if he told his mother that it was all right? That the “secret boy” was probably found already and knew how much they needed him? Harriet had promised she would try to find him and he trusted Harriet as he trusted no one in the world. So far he had said nothing, since he was not supposed to know the reason for their journey, but surely anything was better than to have her so worried.

He cleared his throat. “It’ll be all right,” he said, “because of Harriet. Harriet will have found him.”

“Found who?”

“The ‘secret boy.’ ” Aware that his idol was now grown-up and had a name, Henry still clung to the old usage.

“Harriet?” His mother’s sharp voice made Henry close his eyes. “Who is Harriet?”

“She was in the maze.” Henry was very tired now. “With the ‘tea ladies.’ Only she wasn’t a tea lady; she was a girl.”

“And what has she to do with all this?”

Henry moistened his cracked lips. “She said she was going to the Amazon… And I said would she find him and tell him… about Stavely. And she said she would.”

“What sort of a girl? Grown-up?”

“Yes.” Under his eyelids Henry saw Harriet as she had been in the maze, looking down at him so tenderly. He could see her white blouse and her blue skirt with the bands round the hem and her crunchy, friendly smile. “She was lovely,” Henry said now. “She was really beautiful.”

Fury gripped Isobel. She remembered now catching a glimpse of one young girl among the dreadful spinsters and overdressed matrons who had tramped through Stavely. She had stood for a moment, watching from the corridor. Not pretty, of course; perfectly plain and ordinary, but young—eighteen, perhaps.

Oh, God, that wretched child, what had he done now? Henry had not known Rom’s name at the time and could hardly have told her much, but a determined girl asking for an Englishman of Rom’s wealth and status could find him easily enough and worm her way into his house. If she found Rom closeted with some prissy English girl, what then?

“You had absolutely no right to do that, Henry,” said Isobel. “Blabbing about our affairs to a stranger. I’m ashamed of you.”

A tear forced its way between Henry’s lids and ran down his cheek. He would always get it wrong—always. Well, at least with the measles one’s eyes were always streaming. No one could prove that one was crying, thought Henry, and turned his face to the wall.

Chapter Eleven

True to his word Rom cabled once more to MacPherson, his representative in London, for news of the occupants of Stavely. He received a reassuring reply. Mrs. Brandon and her son were believed to be in good health and traveling abroad. However, MacPherson added another piece of information over which Rom pondered in silence, standing with his back to his cluttered office and looking out over the riverside. Then he wrote out one more cable. Considering that it contained the blueprint for his future life it was surprisingly short—scarcely a dozen words—but Rom did not employ agents who needed pettifogging instructions in order to carry out their work.

After which he set himself to the amusement of the Dubrov Ballet Company.

Though it was customary for the chairman of the Opera House trustees to entertain visiting companies once at Follina, it was not customary for him to organize excursions to the Tumura Falls, the “wedding of the waters” and islands on which scarlet ibis nested in their hundreds. No one, from Simonova herself to the most bovine of the Russian girls, was deceived as to the reason for these outings to which everyone except Masha Repin and her clique came—no one except (as Verney had intended) Harriet herself. Her humility made it impossible for her to conceive that she could seriously interest a man such as himself, and Rom was content to have it so. Not to use his power over her, not to hurry or hustle her, young as she was, was his main concern and it took all his strength, for with every hour he spent in her company he grew more certain that in this unobtrusive and scholarly girl he had found his solace and delight.

The day before Alvarez was due in Manaus, Rom organized an outing on a lake in the forest whose waters were entirely covered by the giant leaves and peony-like flowers of the Victoria Regina waterlily; a still, mysterious place beneath overhanging trees.

“Magnificent!” declared Simonova as she sat in the first and most luxurious of the carriages Rom had hired, but she did not feel it necessary to descend. The knowledge that soon she would be leading a purely rural life, the mistress of goats, kohlrabi and Brussels sprouts, made it unnecessary for her to risk the long grass by the water’s edge, and with a commanding gesture she kept Dubrov and Grisha by her side.

“I wish that someone would stand on a leaf!” announced Maximov. His magnificent physique outlined by a cream shantung tropical suit, he had loaded the good-natured Kirstin with a tripod and various boxes and was directing his camera at a leaf the size of a table with an upturned edge.