Den of Thieves by Julia Golding

Author:Julia Golding
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Egmont
Published: 2011-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

We arrived back at Madame Beaufort’s lodgings as a nearby clock sounded midday.

‘Oh blast! I’m so late: she’ll kill me!’ I exclaimed as it dawned on me that I had missed two hours of ballet while I had been making my acquaintance with death Parisian style.

‘Poor Cat,’ grimaced Frank. ‘I completely forgot you have balletic duties. You’d better go straight up.’

Leaving Frank and Joseph to make themselves decent for a call on the Avons, I ran upstairs, two at a time, and burst into the practice room where all the dancers were gathered. They were standing in a long line, looking at themselves critically in a wall of mirrors, bending and swaying like willow trees in a breeze. In contrast to the hustle of the streets I had just left, the quiet in the room was a shock.

My entrance broke the concentration in the room as surely as a hot pin lancing a boil lets the pent-up unpleasantness spurt out.

‘If there is one thing I cannot abide, it is lateness,’ rapped Madame Beaufort, bearing down on me like an angry poodle, her mass of hair wobbling in time with the shake of her head.

‘I am sorry, madame, but I have a very good excuse. When you hear what happened –’

‘I do not want to hear excuses – there is no special treatment for anyone in my ensemble.’ Her gaze alighted on my new clothes. ‘And what is that you are wearing?’

I opened my mouth to explain.

‘Never mind, no time to change now. To the barre and copy Belle.’

‘But don’t you want to hear about the king . . .?’

‘Quiet! Dance! By Saint Anne, you have more than enough to learn without being the only one to miss our lessons!’

Clearly nothing short of an earthquake would prevent Madame Beaufort from putting her girls through their paces. I took my place at the end of the row of dancers and turned to face the mirror. I looked so out of place, it was laughable. Belle, my neighbour, was tall and graceful, dressed in a loose white practice gown; I was short, angular and decidedly rumpled in my patched striped skirt and apron. As for learning to dance, who did Madame Beaufort think she was fooling? I had no more chance of succeeding than a monkey of writing Hamlet.

Swish! The rod tapped my wrist.

‘Bend it so, Cat. Imagine your hands are exclamation marks to your movements, not full stops.’ Madame Beaufort curled her own palm over the back of my wrist, easing it into the required shape. I was taken aback to hear anything so poetic from her. ‘See, you can do it when you try.’

Gazing at myself in the mirror, I understood what she meant. If I thought of myself as awkward, my body behaved accordingly; if I forgot myself and let the music flow through me, I became far more elegant.

Oh no, I’m beginning to think like a ballerina! Help! It must be the after-effect of the events of the morning. I frowned at my reflection.

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