Harriet (11 page)

    Oh God, thought Harriet, I mustn’t be a spoilsport.

    The Black Tulip was even worse than the Loose Box. Harriet found her smile getting stiffer and stiffer as she toyed with an avocado pear.

    ‘First I cut out all carbohydrates,’ said the little fat German.

    Opposite them Sammy and the handsome German couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They were both getting tighter and tighter. Harriet wondered who the hell was going to drive her home.

    ‘Then I gave up bread and potatoes,’ said the fat German.

    He must have been huge before he lost all that weight, thought Harriet, as she rode round the dance floor on his stomach. She suddenly longed to be home with Cory and William and the children. What would happen if William woke up? Mrs. Bottomley slept like the dead. Cory’d go spare if he had to get up and feed him. She wondered how long he’d taken to get rid of Woman’s Monthly.

    ‘A new penny for your thoughts, Samantha,’ said the handsome German.

    ‘They’re worth a bloody sight more than that,’ said Sammy.

    They all laughed immoderately.

    ‘I also cut out all puddings and cakes,’ said the fat German.

    ‘I get no kick from champagne,’ sang the lead singer. ‘Pure alcohol gives me no thrill at all.’

    You can say that again, thought Harriet.

    Sammy was leaning forward, the fat little German gazing hungrily at her bosom.

    ‘Shall we go for a drive on the moor?’ he said.

    ‘No,’ said Harriet, violently. ‘You all can,’ she added. ‘But could you drop me off first?’

    ‘We’re all going back to Heinrich’s hotel for a little drink,’ said Sammy, getting rather unsteadily to her feet.

    ‘I must get back in case William wakes,’ said Harriet desperately.

    After some argument, Sammy relented. ‘We’ll get you a cab,’ she said. ‘Claus can pay. The only one going at this hour is driven by the local undertaker.’

    Harriet felt as cheerful as a corpse, as she bowled home under a starless sky. She couldn’t stop crying; she had no sex appeal any more, the world was coming to an end, she’d never find a father for William.

    As she put the key at the door, Sevenoaks, who usually slept through everything, let out a series of deep baritone barks, then, realizing it was her, started to sing with delight at the top of his voice, searching round for something to bring her.

    ‘Oh please, Sevenoaks, lower your voice,’ she pleaded.

    But as she crept upstairs, Cory came out of the bathroom with a towel round his waist, his black hair wet from the bath, his skin still yellow-brown from last summer.

    Did Woman’s Monthly stay for hours?’ she said.

    ‘Hours,’ said Cory, ‘I had to throw them out. It must have been pre-menstrual tension I was suffering from before they arrived.’

    Harriet was feeling too depressed to even giggle. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said.

    Sevenoaks sauntered into Cory’s room and heaved himself up on to Cory’s bed.

    ‘Get him off,’ snapped Cory. ‘That dog’s got to go. He’s been whining ever since you went out. Where have you been anyway?’ he said in a gentler tone, noticing her red-rimmed eyes.

    ‘To the Loose Box, with Sammy. We met some Germans, one was quite good-looking, the other one was awful. The good-looking one fancied Sammy, so did the awful one, but he had to put up with me. I tried to get out and find some people of my own age, but I don’t think they liked me very much.’ And with a sob she fled to her room.

    When she turned down the counterpane and got into bed, she found her electric blanket switched on, and a note pinned to the pillow.

    ‘Dear Harriet,’ it said.

    ‘Doesn’t matter what He says, we think you’re smashing, and so does he really, love from Tadpole, Ambrose (Miss) and Sevenoaks.’

    Harriet gave a gurgle of laughter. Suddenly the whole evening didn’t seem to matter very much any more. She lay in bed and thought about Cory. She felt like a child joining up numbers to discover what a picture was; she felt she hadn’t managed to join up any of Cory’s numbers at all.

CHAPTER FIFIEEN

    HARRIET was ironing in the kitchen when a car drew up. ‘Come on, let’s hide,’ whispered Chattie. ‘It’s awful old Arabella. She only turns up when Daddy’s at home.’

    ‘We can’t,’ protested Harriet, watching a tall girl get out of the car. ‘She’s seen us.’

    ‘Anyone at home?’ came a debutante quack from the hall.

    The girl who strode into the kitchen was in her late twenties, very handsome, high complexioned, athletically built, with flicked-up light brown hair drawn back from her forehead.

    ‘Hullo, Chattie,’ she said breezily. ‘How are you?’ But before Chattie could answer she turned to Harriet. ‘And you must be the new nanny. I’m Arabella Ryde-Ross. Cory’s spoken about me, I expect.’ But before Harriet could answer the girl turned to William, who was aimlessly beating the side of his chair with a wooden spoon.

    ‘What a darling baba. Not another of Noel’s cast-offs?’

    ‘No, he’s mine,’ said Harriet.

    ‘Oh?’ said Arabella. It was strange how someone could get four syllables out of that word.

    ‘Doesn’t your husband mind you taking a job?’

    ‘I’m not married.’

    ‘Oh, how amazingly brave of you.’ Arabella paused and looked at William again. ‘I must say Cory’s a saint, the lame ducks he takes under his wing.’

    ‘One, two, four, five. Bugger it. I’ve left out three,’ said Chattie, who was counting Ambrose’s kittens.

    Harriet tried not to giggle. Arabella looked appalled.

    ‘Chattie, don’t use language like that. Run along and play. I want to talk to Nanny.’

    ‘She’s not called Nanny, she’s Harriet, and I don’t want to play, thank you,’ said Chattie. Then a foxy expression came over the child’s face. ‘Would you like a sweetie, Arabella?’

    ‘Aren’t you going to offer Nanny one?’

    ‘It’s my last,’ said Chattie. ‘And I want you to have it.’

    ‘That’s very kind of you, Chattie,’ said Arabella, popping the sweet into her mouth. ‘I get on so well with children,’ she added to Harriet. ‘People are always saying I’d make a wonderful mother.’

    At that moment Cory wandered in and Arabella flushed an unbecoming shade of puce.

    ‘Hullo, Arabella,’ he said. ‘You look very brown.’

    ‘It fades so quickly. You should have seen me last week. I’ve just got back from St. Moritz, or I’d have been over before. We’re having a little party next Friday.’

    Cory frowned. ‘I think something’s happening.’

    ‘Well, we’ll have it on Saturday then.’

    How could she be so unsubtle? thought Harriet.

    ‘No, Friday’s all right,’ said Cory. ‘I’ve just remembered. It’s Harriet’s birthday. It’ll do her good to meet some new people. Yes, we’d like to come.’

    Harriet didn’t dare look at Arabella’s face.

    ‘Did you like that sweet, Arabella?’ said Chattie. ‘Yes thank you, darling.’

    Chattie gave a naughty giggle.

    ‘Tadpole didn’t. He spat it out three times.’

    Harriet scolded Chattie when Arabella had gone, but the child shrugged her shoulders.

    ‘I hate her, and Mummy says she’s after Daddy. I hope she doesn’t get him,’ she added gloomily. ‘She never gives us presents; she says we’re spoilt.’

    ‘She’s got a point there,’ said Harriet.

    ‘She’s just told Daddy he ought to give you the push, because we’re so naughty,’ said Chattie, picking up one of the kittens. ‘But he told her to shut up, and we’d never been better looked after. Goodness, Harriet, you’ve gone all pink in the face.’

    Trees rattled against her bedroom window. She looked at the yellow daffodils on the curtains round her bed and felt curiously happy. William was getting more gorgeous every day. She was getting fonder and fonder of Chattie and Jonah. Sevenoaks lay snoring across her feet. She felt her wounded heart gingerly; she was not yet deliriously happy but she was content.

    ‘Happy Birthday to you,’ sang a voice tunelessly, ‘Happy Birthday, dear Harriet, Happy Birthday to you.’

    And Chattie staggered in with a breakfast tray consisting of a bunch of wild daffodils, a brown boiled egg, toast and coffee.

    ‘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 door
^w
ay 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 Ha r. riet.

‘You ought to come out with us one day,’ said Billy Benv
ley.

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 the 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.’