by Jilly Cooper
‘Oh how lovely!’ said Harriet. ‘Shall I take the coffee off?’ She put it on the table beside her bed.
‘Daddy’s just finished feeding William,’ said Chattie. ‘And he’s coming up with all your presents. Oh, why are you crying, Harriet?’
‘Harriet’s crying, Daddy,’ she said to Cory, followed by Mrs Bottomley, as he came in and dumped William on the floor.
Cory saw Harriet’s brimming eyes.
‘She’s entitled to do what she bloody well likes on her birthday,’ he said. ‘Get off the bed, Sevenoaks.’
‘She’d better put on her dressing gown,’ said Mrs Bottomley, looking at Harriet’s see-through nightgown. ‘Happy Birthday, love.’
Harriet couldn’t believe her eyes when she opened her presents. Ambrose and Tadpole had given her a rust silk shirt. Sevenoaks was broke and had only given her a pencil sharpener. Chattie gave her a box of chocolates, several of which had already been eaten.
‘I just had to test they were all right,’ said Chattie.
There was also a maroon cineraria from Jonah, which he had chosen himself and bought with his own pocket money, and a vast cochineal pink mohair stole from Mrs Bottomley, which she’d knitted herself, because Harriet never wore enough clothes. Cory gave her a grey and black velvet blazer, and a pale grey angora dress.
‘But they’re beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘I’ve never seen anything so lovely.’
‘Sick of seeing you in that old duffle coat,’ said Cory.
‘Daddy loves giving presents,’ said Chattie, ‘and he hasn’t got Mummy to give them to any more.’
When she’d eaten her breakfast, she got up and went to look for Cory. She found him in his study flipping through the pages of the script he’d written yesterday.
Harriet cleared her throat.
‘I just want to thank you for everything,’ she said, blushing scarlet. ‘For making me feel so happy here, and for all those heavenly presents. I really don’t deserve either, what with Sevenoaks and all the messages I forget to pass on and all that.’
And, reaching up, she gave him a very quick kiss on the cheek and scuttled out of the room.
‘Sexy,’ said Chattie, from the passage.
As the hour for Arabella’s party approached, Harriet grew more and more nervous. She’d been a disaster in the singles bar. What likelihood was there that she’d be any better with the hunting set? She must remember to say hounds instead of dogs.
She was sitting wrapped in a towel, putting her make-up on, when Chattie banged on her door.
‘Come on. I want to show you something. Keep your eyes shut.’
‘It can’t be another present,’ thought Harriet, feeling the thick carpet under her feet as Chattie led her towards the stairs, then turned sharp right into Jonah’s bedroom. She shivered as a blast of icy air hit her.
‘Don’t look yet,’ said Chattie pushing her forward, ‘Now you can.’
Through the open window above the elm trees, at the bottom of the garden, Harriet could see a tiny cuticle of new silver moon.
‘Now wish,’ said Chattie. ‘It doesn’t work if you see it through glass. Wish for the thing you most want in your life. I’ve already wished for some bubble gum.’
Harriet, listening to the mournful cawing of the rooks, suddenly felt confused.
For the first time in months, she didn’t automatically wish she could have Simon back. He was the fix, the first drink, that would trigger off the whole earth-shattering addiction all over again. She didn’t want her life disrupted. Her thoughts flickered towards Cory for a second, then turned resolutely away. Please give William and me happiness and security whatever form it takes, she wished.
She turned round and found Cory standing in the doorway watching her. She couldn’t read the expression on his face.
‘I hope it’s a sensible wish,’ he said acidly. ‘Like making your dear friend Sevenoaks less of a nuisance. He’s just eaten the back off my only pair of dress shoes.’
He kicked Sevenoaks who slunk towards Harriet, rolling his eyes and looking chastened at the front, but waving his tail at the back.
Chattie flung her arms round him.
‘He’s so clever, Sevenoaks,’ she said. ‘He’s eaten your shoes because he doesn’t want you to go out.’
‘He’s definitely an asset, Daddy,’ said Jonah, who’d just arrived for the weekend.
‘He’s a very silly asset,’ said Cory.
‘Ryder Cock Ross to Banbury Cross,’ said Chattie.
The Ryder-Ross’s house was large, Georgian and set back from the road at the end of a long drive.
Women were clashing jaw bones, exchanging scented kisses in the hall. One of them, in plunging black and wearing so many diamonds she put the chandeliers to shame, was Sammy’s boss, Elizabeth.
When Harriet went upstairs to take off her coat, the bed was smothered in fur coats.
She was wearing the dress Cory had given her for her birthday. She examined herself in Arabella’s long gilt mirror. It did suit her; it was demure, yet, in the subtle way it hugged her figure, very seductive. Oh please, she prayed as she went downstairs, make someone talk to me, so I’m not a drag on Cory.
He was waiting for her in the hall — tall, thin, remote, the pale, patrician face as expressionless as marble.
As they entered the drawing room, everyone turned and stared. A figure, squawking with delight, came over to meet them. It was Arabella, wearing a sort of horse blanket long skirt, a pink blouse, and her hair drawn back from her forehead by a bow.
‘Cory, darling, I thought you were never coming!’
She seized Harriet’s arm in a vice-like grip. ‘I’m going to introduce Nanny to some people her own age.’
Whisking Harriet into the next room, she took her over to meet a fat German girl, saying, ‘Helga, this is Mr Erskine’s nanny. Helga looks after my brother’s children. I thought you might be able to compare notes.’
Harriet couldn’t help giggling to herself. Nothing could have reduced her to servant status more quickly. It was not long, however, before two tall chinless wonders came over and started to tell her about the abortive hunting season they’d had.
Half-an-hour later they were still talking foxiana, and Harriet allowed her eyes to wander into the next room to where Cory was standing. Three women — the sort who should have been permanently eating wafer-thin mints on candlelit terraces — were vying for his attention.
He’s an attractive man, thought Harriet, with a stab of jealousy. I wonder it never hit me before.
Suddenly he looked up, half smiled at her, and mouthed: ‘All right?’ She nodded, the tinge of jealousy gone.
‘A brace of foxes were accounted for on Wednesday,’ said the better-looking of the two chinless wonders. ‘I say,’ he said to Harriet, ‘would you like to come and dance?’
He had long light brown hair, very blue eyes, and a pink and white complexion.
‘Yes please,’ said Harriet.
There was no-one else in the darkened room as they shambled round the floor to the Supremes, but he was much too straight to lunge at her during a first dance, thought Harriet with relief.
‘We haven’t really been introduced,’ he said. ‘My name’s Billy Bentley. Haven’t seen you before. You staying with Arabella?’
‘I work for Cory Erskine,’ said Harriet.
‘That must be interesting,’ he said. ‘Frightfully clever bloke Cory, read so many books, very hard man to hounds too.’
He’s certainly not very kind to Sevenoaks, thought Harriet.
‘You ought to come out with us one day,’ said Billy Bentley.
They shambled a few more times round the floor.
‘Suppose I ought to get you a drink,’ he said. ‘But honestly you’re so jolly pretty, I could go on dancing with you all night.’
Harriet felt quite light-headed with pleasure, but, as they came out of the room, Arabella drew her aside.
‘Nanny,’ she said, as Harriet crossed t
he room, ‘could you give them a hand in the kitchen? They’re a bit short-staffed.’
Cory was out of earshot so Harriet could do nothing but comply. As she came out of the kitchen, half an hour later, she heard a slightly blurred man’s voice say, ‘I see old Cory’s surfaced at last. Looks better, doesn’t he?’
‘So he should, my dear.’ A woman’s voice, catty, amused, ‘Pretty cool, I call it, bringing your mistress and passing her off as a nanny. Arabella says she’s got a baby. I wonder if it’s Cory’s.’
Scarlet in the face, trembling with humiliation, Harriet carried the glasses into the dining room, straight into Cory.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
She lowered her eyes in confusion. ‘Arabella said they needed help in the kitchen.’
‘Like hell they do. Put those glasses down at once. You’re shaking. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, it’s nothing,’ snapped Harriet, her voice rising. ‘I was just upset at being treated as a servant.’ She fled upstairs on the pretext of doing her face.
Returning to the drawing room, still shaking, she was button-holed by a very good-looking man with greying blond hair and a dissipated face.
‘Lolita! At last!’ Harriet drew back. ‘My name’s Charles Mander,’ he went on. ‘You’re not local are you?’
‘Yes,’ said Harriet, defiantly. ‘I look after Cory Erskine’s children.’
‘How electrifying! Lucky Cory.’ His eyes, alert with sudden interest, travelled slowly over her body, stripping off every inch of clothing.
‘And have you met Noel yet?’ Then he began to laugh. ‘No, of course you haven’t. She’s not silly enough to let a pretty girl like you under her roof.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Harriet angrily.
Then Cory was by her side.
‘Hullo, Charles.’
‘Hullo, Cory, old boy. Long time no see.’
The greeting was amicable enough, but Harriet could tell that the two men hated each other.
‘I’ve just met your charming little — er — friend. I congratulate you, Cory. Such a comfort on these long winter nights.’
Cory gave a cigarette to Harriet, selected one himself and lit them both before he replied, ‘You always did have your mind below your navel, Charles.’
Charles Mander started to laugh again. ‘It reminds me of that song we used to sing in the nursery. How does it go? Something about “God bless Nanny, and make her good”. I must say, I wouldn’t mind making Nanny myself.’
There was a frozen pause.
‘If I were a gentleman, Charles,’ said Cory, in a voice that sent shivers down Harriet’s spine, ‘I’d knock you down. But it would only give you the satisfaction of being a public martyr.’
He turned, deliberately looking at a fat blonde woman lurching towards them.
‘Your wife’s drunk again,’ he added quietly.
Cory and Harriet didn’t speak until they were nearly home. Gone was the easy cameraderie of the past few weeks.
Then Cory said, ‘I’m sorry about Charles Mander. There’s no point in beating about the bush. He used to be a lover of Noel’s, probably still is, so he can never resist bitching me up. I imagine you heard the same sort of remark as you came out of the kitchen.’
Harriet nodded.
‘What did they say?’
Harriet’s tongue seemed to be tied in knots. ‘They said William was your child.’
‘Charming,’ said Cory. ‘The hunting season’s been so frightful they’re very short on gossip. Doesn’t bother me. But I should never have exposed you to that snake pit. I should have realized how vulnerable you are.’
‘It was so lovely,’ she muttered. ‘Everything’s spoilt now.’
‘It needn’t be,’ he said as he turned the car into the drive.
Once inside, he followed her up to her room. Outside the door, she paused and stammered out her thanks for taking her to the party.
‘I enjoyed taking you,’ he said and, putting out a hand, smoothed back a loose strand of hair that had fallen over her eyes. ‘I was watching you this evening. You had that lost wistful look of the moon when it suddenly appears during the day. I must say I’ve been wondering about you myself lately.’
Harriet looked up, startled. Cory’s face was in shadow. Then suddenly they both jumped, as unmistakably down the passage came the sound of Sevenoaks drinking noisily out of the lavatory. The tension was broken. Harriet went off into peels of laughter.
‘The enemy of promise,’ said Cory. ‘Go to bed little one, and don’t worry.’
Harriet went to bed, but couldn’t sleep. What had Cory meant that he’d been wondering about her lately? It seemed her relationship with him was something so fragile, a candle that she had to protect with both hands because everyone was trying to blow it out.
Chapter Sixteen
She felt staggeringly untogether in the morning. She had a blinding headache. It was as much as she could do to feed William. Chattie, recognizing weakness, started playing up.
‘We’re going to the meet with Daddy,’ she said. ‘Can I wear my party dress?’
‘No, you can’t,’ said Harriet.
‘Well my red velvet dress then?’
‘Trousers are much warmer.’
‘I don’t want to wear trousers. I’m not a boy.’
‘Oh Chattie, please,’ she said in despair.
‘You’ll wear them and bloody well like it,’ said Cory, coming in tying a stock, his long legs encased in boots and tight white breeches.
Chattie tried a different approach.
‘Can I have a two-wheeler with stabilizers?’ she said.
‘Only if you do what Harriet tells you. How do you feel?’ he said to her.
‘Frightful.’
‘So do I,’ said Cory. ‘God knows what Arabella gave us to drink. Some fruity little paint stripper, I should imagine. One could almost hear the enamel dropping off one’s teeth.’
‘Why do you go on wearing a dinner jacket, Daddy,’ said Chattie, ‘if it always makes you feel sick in the morning?’
Harriet suspected he’d gone on drinking long after she’d gone to bed.
‘Can Harriet come to the meet with us?’ said Jonah.
‘Oh please yes,’ said Chattie.
‘It’s too much of a hassle with William and things,’ said Harriet.
Cory, a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, was filling up a hip-flask with brandy.
‘You can leave William with Mrs Bottomley,’ he said. ‘Do you good to get some fresh air. There’s a button missing from my coat. Can you sew it on?’
‘Are you taking Python?’ said Harriet.
‘Yes,’ said Cory. ‘As a second horse. I’d like to see how she makes out.’
The horses went to the meet by box. Cory drove Harriet, Jonah, Chattie and the dogs by car.
The mist had rolled back from the hills to reveal a beautiful mild day. The ivy was putting out shining pale leaves; young nettles were thrusting through the green spring grass. Catkins shook in the breeze, the bracken burned the same rusty red as the curling leaves that still clung to the oak trees. The wet roads glittered and the stone walls gave off an almost incandescent whiteness in the sunlight.
‘I’m hot,’ said Chattie. ‘I could have worn my party dress.’
‘Chattie I’ve told you a hundred times,’ said Harriet.
‘No you didn’t, you only told me twice.’
‘Don’t be rude,’ said Cory.
There was a pause.
‘It’s raining, it’s pouring,’ sang Chattie. ‘The old man’s snoring. He went to bed and bumped his head, and couldn’t get up in the morning. The doctor came and flushed the chain and out flew an aeroplane.’
Both children collapsed in giggles.
‘The doctor came and flushed,’ sang Chattie.
‘Shut up,’ said Cory.
‘Ouch. Sevenoaks is treading on me.’
‘Can we stop for some sweet
s? There’s an absolutely brilliant sweet shop in Gargrave,’ said Jonah.
Gradually they caught up with riders hacking to the meet. Soon there was a steady stream of cars and horse boxes.
Cory parked on the side of the road.
‘You can bring Tadpole,’ he said, locking Sevenoaks in the car. ‘I’m not risking that delinquent getting loose.’
‘We must give him a bit of window,’ said Harriet, winding it down.
Cory went off to find his horse box. Harriet took Chattie and Jonah and walked along to the village where the meet was being held. Little grey cottages lined a triangular village green. A stream choked its way through pussy willows and hazel trees. The churchyard was full of daffodils in bud.
Riders everywhere were gossiping and saddling up. There was a marvellous smell of trodden grass and hot, sweating horses. Anxious whinnyings came from the horse boxes. Hunt terriers yapped from the backs of cars.
There was Arabella looking considerably the worse for wear, Harriet was glad to notice, impatiently slapping her boots with her whip and looking round for her horse. And there was Billy Bentley, looking far more glamorous than he had last night, in a red coat, his long mousy hair curling under his black velvet cap, sitting on a huge dapple grey which was already leaping about as though the ground was red hot under its feet. Next to him, taking a swig out of his hip-flask, eyeing the girls, supervising the unboxing of a magnificent chestnut in a dark green rug, was Charles Mander.
Harriet tried to slide past them, but she had not counted on Chattie, who rushed up and said, ‘Hullo, Charles.’
He turned. ‘Hullo Chattie,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ said Chattie. ‘Why don’t you come and see us any more? He always used to come and bring us presents when Mummy lived with us,’ she added to Harriet.
‘Hullo, pretty Nanny,’ said Charles.
Harriet tried to look straight through him, but only managed to look sulky.
‘I’m five now,’ said Chattie. ‘I used to be four.’
‘I used to be four too,’ said Charles.
‘My daddy’s twenty-one,’ said Chattie.
‘I wish my children put out propaganda like that,’ said Charles, laughing.
