Prudence

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Pull her up,’ yelled Jack, but in spite of my frenzied tugs, she trotted even faster, breaking into a brisk canter as Ace tried to overtake. Oh, God, a different rhythm — one, two, three, one, two, three. By the time I’d got adjusted to it, I’d lost both stirrups and the reins and was clinging on to her mane for grim death.

  Suddenly she plunged her head down in a terrifying graveyard cough, shaking me to the roots of my foundations then jerked her head upwards and hit me smartly on the nose.

  Through streaming eyes, I abandoned all hope as she dived into a little copse of trees. There were branches everywhere.

  ‘Duck your head,’ shouted Ace. Out of the copse, into another green field, downhill this time, towards the lake. I was just wondering if a soft piece of grass might be preferable to this bumping hell, when Ace drew even, caught Snowball’s rein and pulled her to a jolting standstill.

  ‘You bloody little fool, saying you could ride,’ he swore at me. ‘You might have been killed by those branches.’

  I was on the verge of tears.

  ‘Beastly, lousy horse,’ I said. ‘How can I steer it when it’s all I can do to stay on?’

  Ace’s lips twitched.

  Jack cantered up, laughing so much he couldn’t speak at first.

  ‘Darling, darling Pru,’ he said. ‘You’ve no idea how enchanting you looked from the back.’ He wiped his eyes.

  I preserved my wounded dignity for a few minutes and then my sense of humour reasserted itself. I began to giggle.

  They took it very gently after that, riding on either side of me like police horses bringing in the Grand National winner. We rode round the lake. A few sheep with russet bottoms looked at us curiously. A water skier clad in black rubber was zipping across the water. Gradually my nervousness disappeared and I began to enjoy myself.

  About a quarter of a mile from home, I felt Jack stiffen beside me. Two figures were walking by the lake. No one could mistake that brilliant red hair. The man was obviously Pendle. They moved slowly as people do who have no destination except each other. Pendle picked up a pebble and started playing ducks and drakes. Maggie tried to do the same, but every time her stone just fell at her feet. I saw Pendle put his hand over hers and show her how to flick her wrist. She gave a cry of joy as the stone bounded across the water.

  I felt quite sick as Pendle then put an arm through hers and they turned away from us to walk along the lake.

  Ace looked like a thundercloud, but Jack merely smiled and rode his horse closer to mine, so our legs brushed.

  ‘Poor idiot, poor besotted idiot,’ he said scathingly. ‘He never gives up, does he?’

  We rode straight back to the stables after that, no one saying a word.

  Jack and Ace went off to have a look at Jack’s house. I curled up with a book in front of the fire, but fell asleep.

  I was woken at dusk by Pendle.

  ‘Are you all right, not too bored?’ he said.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, stretching a little, and bending a glance in his direction intended to be subtly wanton.

  Pendle gave one of my curls a little tug of endearment.

  ‘My spies tell me Jack’s very smitten,’ he said softly.

  Which spies, I wondered. Ace? Maggie? Rose? Probably all three.

  ‘Oh well, he’s very handsome and all that.’ I paused in the hope that I might get Pendle worried. ‘But I don’t think my happiness lies in that direction. Besides, he’s married.’

  We locked looks for a minute.

  Pendle dropped his eyes first.

  ‘About tonight,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, brightening. Perhaps at last he was going to steal down the passage.

  ‘There’s a pretty tedious cocktail party on the other side of the lake with fireworks for some reason. Then we thought we’d go and have dinner in Ambleside. There’s a new French restaurant opened there. Would that amuse you?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I’d much rather be with you,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t we skip the party and go out on our own without the others?’

  ‘Can’t really desert Ace on his first night. I think he’s a bit depressed, jet lag and all that.’

  ‘It’s him that’s doing the depressing,’ I said crossly. ‘Why doesn’t he go to bed?’

  ‘Hush,’ said Pendle. ‘That’s not like you.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s like me anymore,’ I said with asob.

  I moved closer, close enough for him to take me in his arms, and kiss me very gently on the lips. I kept my mouth shut — terrified after being asleep all afternoon I might taste horrible — but I felt myself turn to jelly. Then just at that moment Ace and Jack came through the French windows, and Pendle let me go. I nearly wept with frustration. With a shiver, I wondered if Pendle had seen them coming up the garden and just kissed me in order to kid Ace he wasn’t running after Maggie.

  Chapter Eight

  As I changed for the firework party, I decided to switch tactics. So far I’d played it cool with Pendle. Now for the first time, I decided to show him I was really keen.

  My green culotte dress was a show-stopper. I wondered, as I wriggled into it, if it were a bit much for the country. It clings everywhere and has cutaway sleeves and huge cut-outs back and front.

  Oh, well, I thought, if it doesn’t stir Pendle to frenzies of lust, at least it will annoy Ace.

  The Mulhollands’ reactions to the outfit were varied and typical. Jack choked over his drink. Pendle didn’t bat an eyelid. Rose said, ‘I wonder if I could get away with that?’ Ace raised a disapproving eyebrow and said I appeared to have run out of material. Maggie walked round and round me and said, ‘Oh, what heaven, but how do you go to the loo?’

  As we were leaving, mindful of my new plan of campaign, I seized Pendle’s hand. ‘Can we go in your car, just the two of us?’

  Pendle looked surprised. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said.

  It was dark now, but I could still see a ghostly gleam of the lake through the trees.

  ‘It’s so lovely,’ I said, turning towards him. ‘Oh, Pendle, thank you for bringing me up here. I’m having such a wonderful time.’

  He gave that watchful half-smile. ‘Are you really enjoying it?’

  ‘Oh, I am!’ I couldn’t resist putting my hand on his knee and leaning over to kiss him.

  He didn’t flinch — he just drew away from me. I shrank back to my side of the car, feeling just about as wanted as a Christmas Tree on Twelfth Night.

  ‘Sorry, but it’s dangerous on these roads,’ he said coolly. The hot fever of mortification had not subsided by the time we reached the party. It was a curiously fossilized affair — a few young people, but mostly old women roaring around on crutches, and so many retired colonels that even the flower arrangements were standing to attention.

  Rose arrived grumbling because Ace had refused to close all the windows and had put her false eyelashes in jeopardy. She was also annoyed that Maggie had appropriated the Professor’s hat and insisted on keeping it on. Maggie and Jack promptly parted like the Red Sea.

  Sick at heart from Pendle’s rebuff, I flirted outrageously with Jack, who was only too willing to oblige. In a blue shirt that matched his eyes, he was easily the handsomest man in the room and I, if not the prettiest, was certainly the most outrageously dressed. Those colonels couldn’t keep their monocles off my bare tummy. ‘I’m fast becoming a navel specialist,’ Jack told everyone. With everyone else in wool dresses, I felt rather like a street lamp left on during the day.

  Maggie and Pendle seemed to have disappeared somewhere and I found Jack’s presence curiously reassuring. We leant against the wall together.

  ‘I like large parties, don’t you? They’re so intimate,’ said Jack. ‘Look at Ace. Talk about the stag at bay!’ I looked across the room. Ace had been cornered by the daughter of the house.

  ‘He’s a handsome sod, isn’t he?’ said Jack. ‘Don’t you find him attractive?’

  Ace looked up and glared across a
t us.

  ‘No, I don’t!’ I said crossly. ‘He makes me feel I’m in the Upper Fourth, and covered with ink.’

  Ace was obviously coming over to break us up. I was dying to go to the loo, so I sloped off to the downstairs cloakroom. Maggie was right, the only thing to do was to take my dress off altogether. I laid it on the floor. In the pile of Esquires on the window ledge, I found a story by Graham Greene which I hadn’t read. I settled down with enjoyment. The only snag was that I hadn’t locked the door properly. A few minutes later it was pushed open. And there I was naked to my enemy with Old Overkill glowering down at me. I gave a scream and snatched the dress round me.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Ace.

  ‘Get out,’ I yelled.

  Ace slammed the door.

  Oh, the embarrassment. Still, if he’d flipped through Esquire, he’d have seen lots of girls just as naked as me, if not in such an undignified position. Do him good, boring old prig. All the same, it was several minutes before I could screw up enough courage to go back to the party.

  Thank goodness the fireworks were about to start, and I could hide my blushes in the garden. Jack brought my drink out to me. Touching shoulders, we watched the fireworks explode over the lake in a blaze of coloured stars, while everyone ooh-ed and ah-ed. Suddenly someone let off a squib behind me and I jumped straight into Jack’s arms. He seemed in no hurry to let go of me until he saw the expression on Ace’s face.

  As soon as the last rocket had emptied its splendour into the night, the Mulhollands made leaving noises.

  ‘Won’t you stay for some spaghetti?’ said the daughter of the house, flashing her teeth at Ace.

  ‘No, they won’t,’ said Rose. ‘They’ve got to go on somewhere else. But I think I’ll stay. More my age group,’ she added to us. ‘Besides, they’ll need some help with the washing-up.’

  ‘Washing-up!’ snorted Maggie, as soon as Rose was out of earshot. ‘She can’t wait to slope off and see Copeland.’

  We dined in a smart restaurant; deep carpets, and waiters rushing around silently with lighted frying pans. Nothing, however, could have been more flambée than the atmosphere at our table.

  Ace and Pendle sat on either side of me opposite Jack and Maggie. I found it sinister the way Maggie and Pendle avoided talking to each other.

  Jack kept ordering more wine.

  ‘I’d adore to have snails,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I will too,’ said Jack. ‘Garlic’s all right if you both do. What a frightful party,’ he went on, unfolding his napkin.

  ‘I didn’t notice you making major in-roads into it,’ snapped Ace.

  ‘Oh, I had a nice time,’ said Jack, winking at me. ‘But I was worried about the rest of you.’

  Soon they were all tearing the party to shreds.

  ‘The daughter of the house was noticeably taken by you, my dear,’ said Jack, grinning at Ace, ‘Nice to see you haven’t lost your touch.’

  I had suddenly developed a fearful sore throat, and found I couldn’t eat very much after all. The cold night air knocked me for six when we came out of the hotel. As I wandered towards Pendle’s car, desperately trying to walk straight, I was grabbed by the arm.

  ‘You’re coming with me,’ said Ace.

  ‘I’m going with Pendle and Jack.’

  But before I could argue, he opened the car door. ‘Get in!’ he said coldly. One didn’t argue when he used that tone. I lowered the window, however, and as Jack and Pendle came out of the hotel I shouted, ‘Help! I’m being kidnapped.’

  ‘I’m running Pru home,’ said Ace. ‘You two take Maggie.’

  ‘Oh, she was coming with us,’ said Jack. ‘Cradle-snatcher!’ he shouted as we drove off.

  My giggle faded away lamely. I reached in my bag for a cigarette. The packet was empty. ‘Hell’ I said angrily.

  ‘You smoke too much,’ said Ace. ‘Do up your seat belt.’

  ‘I don’t fancy them. I don’t like being trapped in cars with strange men.’

  ‘Do it up!’

  Bloody Hitler — but he was bigger than me. Sulkily I tried to shove the seat belt into place. In the end he had to do it for me. I cringed back against the seat so no part of me would touch him.

  After a couple of miles, he turned off the road down a cart-track stopping at the edge of the lake. Then he lit a cigarette but didn’t offer me one. Out of the corner of my eye I studied his forbidding profile. Perhaps the sight of me naked in the loo had been too much for him, and he was going to run true to Mulholland form and make a pass at me. More likely he was thinking about Elizabeth and that car crash. That must have been why he’d made me wear a seat belt. Suddenly, I felt sorry for him.

  ‘What a heavenly moon.’

  ‘I didn’t come here to discuss the moon,’ he said. ‘I want you to lay off my brother.’

  I gaped at him. ‘Which one?’

  ‘You know perfectly well which one,’ he said harshly. ‘Jack’s married — leave him alone.’

  ‘He doesn’t behave as though he is,’ I snapped.

  ‘Of course he doesn’t, with you egging him on.’

  ‘Me!’ I said in amazement. ‘Me egging him on!’

  ‘Yes, you. Clinging to him like ivy when I arrived last night, snuggling up to him at the stables, wearing that monstrous dress this evening, and pretending you were scared every time the smallest firework went off.’

  ‘I don’t like bangs!’ I said, my voice rising.

  ‘I thought you came here with Pendle.’

  That went home. ‘So did I,’ I said.

  ‘You probably know Maggie was Pen’s girlfriend before Jack ran off with her. How do you think he feels now? The first time he brings someone else up here, Jack just snaps his fingers and she comes running.’

  I wanted to scream at him — to tell him that Pendle hadn’t taken any notice of me since we arrived, that he hadn’t seen the way Pendle devoured Maggie with his eyes whenever he thought no one was looking. But some peculiar loyalty to Pendle — or was it reluctance to utter out loud what I dreaded? — kept me from saying anything.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not after your precious brother. He kissed me the other night only because I was there.’

  ‘It makes no difference, I suppose, that he’s married? You can behave like that with anyone else you like, but not with Jack! Now are you going to leave him alone?’

  ‘I might and I mightn’t.’

  Ace exploded. ‘You bloody well will!’ he said.

  I lost my temper. ‘You don’t understand anything!’ I screamed. ‘You go about like God Almighty on speech day, like a flaming spare prig at a wedding, ordering everyone around just because, to your eyes, they’re behaving badly. You never stop to think why they’re behaving like that.’

  ‘Cut it out,’ he said sharply. ‘You’re behaving like a child.’

  ‘This time tomorrow,’ I said, my voice shaking, ‘I shall have left this beastly place and you’ll never be bothered with me again!’

  He backed the car out and drove down the road. I was trembling all over, but I was too proud to ask him for a cigarette. When we got home I fled upstairs and buried my face in my pillow and cried and cried. Much later someone knocked on my door — and waited — and then knocked again, but I didn’t answer.

  I was overcome with dizziness when I got out of bed the next morning. I’m going into a decline, I told myself. I dressed and put on a lot of rouge and a huge pair of dark glasses. I found Maggie reading the Sunday papers, still wearing Copeland’s hat.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said, her eyes avid with curiosity. ‘We were worried about you. What on earth did you and Ace get up to?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘I suddenly got a terrible headache.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with Ace,’ she said. ‘He’s so sour this morning you could make yoghurt out of him. He’s got Rose in the drawing-room going through the bills. I wish I was a fly on the wall.’

  ‘Poor Rose,’ I said. ‘He does j
ackboot around, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t blame him really,’ said Maggie. ‘Rose hasn’t paid a bill since he left, not to mention selling the Romney. Then there’s the couple of grand here, and the couple of grand there she’s touched him for to do up the kitchen, and the roof and the drawing-room. And you can see how much “doing up” there’s been.’

  She picked up a colour supplement and began to flip through it.

  ‘And what about your new house?’ I said.

  ‘Oh Jack’s paid for most of that, although Rose pretends she has. I wish I could work up some enthusiasm about it.’

  She went over to the window. ‘Jack and Pendle’ve taken the boat out. I think I might ride this afternoon. Jack’s got to work.’

  Next moment Rose came out of the study, looking red-eyed. ‘Tell Mrs Braddock I don’t want any lunch,’ she said faintly, and ran upstairs.

  A minute later we heard the telephone click.

  ‘Straight on to Copeland,’ said Maggie. ‘A thin lot of good he’ll be to her.’

  But in ten minutes we saw Rose flash past the door in dark glasses and a huge blond fur coat. The front door slammed and there was a scrunch on the gravel as the car drove off.

  Lunch was a nightmare — I kept going into a cold sweat and I couldn’t eat a thing. Fortunately they were all arguing too heatedly to notice me.

  After much bickering, Pendle was persuaded to go riding.

  ‘What about Pru?’ said Maggie.

  ‘There aren’t enough horses,’ I said quickly.

  ‘She’s so light she can ride one of the ponies,’ said Ace.

  ‘She’d be happier curled up in front of the fire helping me write this damned report,’ said Jack.

  Ace’s eyes were boring into me.

  ‘I’d like to ride,’ I said firmly.

  ‘I think you’ll find this one easier than the one you had yesterday,’ said Ace later, as he gave me a leg up.

  He reached forward and took off my dark glasses. ‘Don’t ride in those,’ he said, putting them in his pocket. ‘It’s dangerous if you fall off.’ He looked at me closer. ‘You look terrible. Are you all right?’