Harriet

by Jilly Cooper

  None of the loose ends seemed to tie up either. Why had Cory come to her bedroom that last evening and tried to persuade her not to go off with Simon? Why hadn’t he been home when she and Simon had returned later? One would have thought he’d be so delirious to have Noel back he’d never have left her side.

  But as the days passed, it became increasingly obvious that she couldn’t go on without news of him, until she knew that he and the children were all right. And what about Sevenoaks? She had put a PS on her letter asking Cory to look after him till she found a job where she could keep him. But how long would it be before Noel persuaded Cory that Sevenoaks was too much of a nuisance? But how could she find out how things were going? If she rang Mrs Bottomley Noel might easily answer the telephone. Then she remembered Kit. Of course. He would certainly have news of Cory. The number was permanently engaged when she rang. He must have taken the telephone off the hook.

  ‘I’m going up to London,’ she said to her mother, as she went into the kitchen. ‘I’ll take William with me.’

  Upstairs she glared at her worn reflection in the mirror. ‘I’m almost beyond redemption,’ she sighed sadly. But she brushed her hair until it shone, put on the grey dress Cory had given her, and tried, without much success, to paint the circles out from under her eyes.

  Kit’s studio was in Islington. There was no answer when Harriet rang the bell. He must be out, she thought despairingly. It was nearly half past four and the milk hadn’t been taken in. She rang again. Still no answer. Heavy-hearted, she started down the steps when the door opened and Kit, a golden giant, dishevelled and naked to the waist, stood blinking down at her. Then he gave a bellow of rage like an apoplectic colonel, which sent her even further down the steps.

  ‘Harriet!’ he shouted. ‘Where the bloody hell do you think you’re going?’

  He bounded down the stairs, grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and pulled her inside the house. Then slammed the door and leant his huge shoulders against it.

  ‘You little bitch!’ he swore at her. ‘After all your cant about loyalty. God, you make me sick!’

  ‘W-what’s the m-matter?’ she faltered.

  William had started to howl. Harriet herself was close to tears, when a ravishingly pretty coloured girl wandered out of a bedroom, wearing a scanty orange towel.

  ‘What is all this noise, Keet?’ she said yawning.

  ‘Tangie, darling,’ said Kit, taking the howling child from Harriet and handing him to her. ‘Take this sweet little baby away and keep him quiet for a minute or two.’

  The coloured girl’s eyes flashed.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Kit hastily, ‘he’s not mine, scout’s honour! Nothing to do with me. Nor is she either, thank God. She’s got herself mixed up with my unfortunate brother, Cory.’

  William looked dubiously up at the sleek black face, but he stopped crying.

  ‘Give him back to me,’ protested Harriet.

  ‘Shut up!’ snarled Kit and, propelling her into the nearest room, shut the door behind them.

  ‘Well?’ he said, towering above her like some avenging angel. ‘What made you do it? Swanning off with lover boy without a word of explanation.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’ protested Harriet.

  ‘Go on then,’ said Kit coldly. ‘Amaze me.’

  ‘I didn’t go off with Simon, and I left a letter for Cory with Noel.’

  ‘The great postmistress,’ said Kit acidly. ‘You’re even more stupid than I thought.’

  He got up and poured himself a drink. ‘I suppose you’d better tell me the whole story.’

  When she had finished, he said, ‘Noel seems to have overreached herself this time. I told you never to believe a word she says. She must have torn your letter up and told Cory you’d done a bunk with Simon. He’s still divorcing her. The case comes up next week.’

  ‘It is?’ Harriet whispered incredulously. ‘But what about that letter from Cory Noel showed me, begging her to come back?’

  ‘He probably wrote it years ago. She’s always made a fuss about every nanny they had, and she hoards all her love letters. Did you notice the date?’

  Harriet shook her head.

  ‘Well then. I had dinner with Cory last night. He’s in a pretty bad shape.’

  ‘He’s in London?’ asked Harriet, turning red then white. ‘Did he mention me?’

  Kit conceded a grin. ‘I’ve never known Cory really boring before. He’s convinced he messed everything up by trying to pull you, then letting you go off with Simon.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Harriet with a sob. ‘What am I going to do?’

  Kit got to his feet. ‘You’d better go round to his house at once and ask him to take you back.’

  ‘I can’t! What can I say to him?’

  ‘I should tell him the truth — that you love him. I’ll get you a taxi. Don’t worry about William. We’ll look after him for an hour or two.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  In the taxi, she desperately tried to keep her hands steady as she re-did her face, spilling scent and foundation all over her bag. Now they were entering Chiltern Street; there was the familiar dark blue house. Oh wait, she wanted to say, I haven’t put any mascara on. Then she thought, how silly to worry about mascara at a time like this!

  She rang the bell and waited, hands clammy, throat dry, her heart pounding like surf. When Cory opened the door he seemed about to tell her to go to hell, then he realized who she was and just stared at her in amazement. She stared back unable to speak. For a moment, she thought he was going to take her in his arms, then he stood back to let her come in. They went upstairs to the room where he’d first interviewed her. He seemed to have grown taller and thinner, paler too — the haughty, inscrutable face heavily shadowed and tired. There was an embarrassed silence; then he said, ‘Sit down. How are you?’

  Harriet perched on the edge of one of the yellow silk armchairs. Her legs wouldn’t hold her up any longer.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘And William?’

  ‘He’s lovely.’

  She refused when he offered her a cigarette, her hands were shaking too much.

  ‘How’s it going, you and Simon?’ he asked in a matter-of-fact voice, as he concentrated on lighting his own cigarette.

  ‘I’m not with Simon, I never have been — only for a couple of hours that Saturday night. I realized then we were completely washed-up. Didn’t Noel give you my letter?’

  He shook his head slowly. He didn’t seem interested in explanations. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Made it up with your parents? That’s good.’

  ‘I came up to London to look for a job,’ she lied.

  ‘Why don’t you come back?’ He paused. ‘The children are desolate without you.’

  ‘And you?’ she wanted to cry.

  He was playing with a green glass paperweight on his desk. ‘If you were to come back,’ he said carefully, ‘there wouldn’t be any funny business. I shall be abroad for most of the rest of the year.’

  ‘No!’ she interrupted him with a violence that brought her to her feet, face-to-face with him. ‘I couldn’t come back on those terms.’

  ‘I see,’ he said in a flat voice.

  She went over to the window and looked out at the young leaves of the plane tree, glinting white in the setting sun. Her throat felt like sand. She was trying to summon up courage to do the most difficult thing she’d ever done in her life.

  ‘For someone who’s too clever by three-quarters,’ she said in a shaking voice, ‘you’re awfully dumb, where women are concerned. Don’t you see, if I were living in the same house, and you were away all the time, and never laid a finger on me, I’d die of frustration?’

  Cory looked up — the weary eyes suddenly alert.

  ‘Don’t you understand,’ she went on slowly, ‘that I only ran away because Noel said she was coming back to you, and I just couldn’t take it?’

  ‘Go on,
go on,’ he said, his face as white as hers.

  ‘Don’t you understand,’ she sobbed, ‘that I love you? Love you more than anything else in the world. And I can’t live without you!’

  She didn’t need to say any more. He was across the room, the great arms she had been waiting for closed round her, and he was kissing her so fiercely she almost lost consciousness.

  Then he said despairingly, ‘Oh, darling Harriet. I love you. But it wouldn’t work. I’m too old and tired and bitter for you.’

  ‘You’re not,’ she jibbered. ‘Just thinking about you turns me to jelly,’ she went on. ‘I’ve never been crazy over anyone as I am over you.’

  Cory stared down at her, at the parted lips, the burning eyes, the flushed cheeks, the dishevelled hair.

  ‘Hey,’ he said wonderingly. ‘You do love me, don’t you? What the hell am I going to do about it?’

  ‘You will do something, won’t you?’ she said nuzzling against him, so he could feel the frantic beating of her heart.

  ‘Be careful,’ he said, trying to smile.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m beginning to feel as though I can be consoled,’ and he kissed her forehead, and then her cheeks, salt with tears, and then her lips.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t give me time to be ashamed of what I’m doing. I’m going to keep you. What else can I do, when you’re so adorable? But you don’t know what you’re in for. I shall make a bloody awful husband.’

  Harriet leapt away in horror. ‘I didn’t mean that! You don’t have to marry me.’

  Cory smiled. ‘You’re not the only one who’s allowed to dictate terms. You’ve just said you’ll never come back to Yorkshire unless I devote every minute of the day to laying fingers on you.’

  Harriet blushed. ‘I never said that.’

  ‘So if I take you, it’s for good. For ever and ever.’

  She was trembling now, really perturbed.

  ‘But I forced you into it.’

  He sat down and pulled her onto his knee.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he said very gently. ‘I know what a shy, reserved person you are, except when you get sloshed at Hunt Balls, and I know what it cost you to come here and tell me you loved me. But if you knew what it meant to me, for the first time in ten years, the miracle of hearing the girl I love tell me she loves me, and really mean it.

  ‘It’s strange,’ he went on, pushing her hair back from her forehead. ‘I can’t even place the moment I started loving you. It’s so mixed up with convincing myself I was acting for your own good — dragging you away from Billy, bawling you out for going out with Kit, because he was a wolf, trying to persuade you not to go off with Simon because he’d make you a rotten husband, but all the time I must have been eaten up with jealousy because I wanted you for myself. I got so used to being hung-up on Noel, I never believed I could love anyone else, and then you ran away and the house was like a morgue. I knew I ought to give you and Simon a chance, but after five days I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I came South. And. . look.’

  He pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, on which was scribbled a telephone number.

  ‘That’s Simon’s number,’ said Harriet.

  He nodded. ‘I was going to ring up and try to persuade you to come back.’

  And then Harriet realized that this awkward, difficult, beautiful man really did love her.

  ‘Oh, I’m so happy,’ she said, bursting into tears and flinging her arms round his neck. ‘You’re really over Noel?’

  ‘Really, really. She’s like measles — you don’t catch her twice.’

  Harriet giggled. ‘That sounds more like Kit. Where is she now?’

  ‘I don’t know. Conserving her energies somewhere for her appearance in the divorce courts next week.’ His face hardened. ‘I’m afraid it’s going to be very nasty. She’ll probably cite you.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ and she began to kiss him.

  ‘Are the children really all right?’ she said later. ‘God, I’ve missed them so much.’

  ‘They’ve missed you — if I hadn’t come down here, they were threatening to get on a train to London and fetch you themselves. We’ll ring them up and give them the good news in a minute. Christ, it is good news.’

  Only one thing was nagging Harriet. ‘How’s Sevenoaks?’ she said.

  ‘Well actually he’s here,’ said Cory. ‘I thought he’d have withdrawal symptoms if we both abandoned him, so I brought him with me.’

  ‘Oh, you are sweet. Can I see him?’

  ‘Sure, he’s in my bedroom, down the passage.’

  He followed Harriet to the door, adding, ‘He’s greatly improved by the way. In your absence, I took the opportunity of teaching him a few manners. In actual fact he’s quite trainable if one’s firm. He sits and stays now, and comes when he’s called. And at least I’ve stopped him climbing onto beds and chewing everything up.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ said Harriet, opening the bedroom door, and looking inside.

  On the bed sprawled Sevenoaks, his shaggy grey head on the pillow, snoring loudly. Beside him, chewed to bits, lay the remains of a pair of suede shoes.

  ‘Oh doesn’t he look sweet lying there?’ said Harriet.

  Sevenoaks opened an eye, and suddenly saw Harriet.

  ‘Stay,’ thundered Cory. ‘Stay.’

  Sevenoaks took a flying leap through the air, and landing at Harriet’s feet threw himself on her in ecstasy, nearly knocking her sideways, moaning with joy.

  ‘Stay,’ howled Cory.

  Sevenoaks gave Cory an old-fashioned look and took no notice at all.

  Harriet caught Cory’s eye and went off into peals of laughter.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she said, ‘are you sure you really want to marry me? You won’t get fed up?’

  ‘Of course I will, but not for very long,’ said Cory, pulling Sevenoaks off. ‘I mean we’re virtually married already. We’ve got three children and a problem dog between us. We’ve spent long evenings discussing their education and what we feel about life, you’ve cooked and washed and kept house for me. The only thing we haven’t done is slept together, and I don’t have any major hangups about that.’

  ‘We’ve eaten all the gingerbread,’ said Harriet ecstatically, ‘and now we can enjoy the lovely, lovely gilt.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Cory, and he began kissing her. .

  THE END

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