by Jilly Cooper
‘What did Orion do?’ she said sleepily.
‘He was a mighty hunter who died of a scorpion sting,’ said Cory. ‘After boasting he’d rid the world of wild beasts. Then Zeus put him in the sky.’
‘Who was that, Cory?’ said Harry Mytton. ‘Didn’t he used to hunt with the York and Ainsty?’
Cory’s lips twitched. Harriet started to giggle. He put his hand over her mouth. She started to kiss it. He shook his head, smoothing her hair back from her forehead.
Orion was moving back and forth again. Following his progress, Harriet suddenly began to feel very odd. She shut her eyes. Everything went round and round. She sat bolt upright.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Cory.
‘I feel sick.’
‘Serves you bloody well right.’ Cory wound down the window, and shoved her head out. Icy blasts of cold made her feel better, but it was a relief when Harry Mytton turned into the Wilderness drive.
The owls were hooting in the garden. Mrs Bottomley’s thermos of cocoa was waiting for them in the kitchen. Cory unscrewed it and poured it down the sink.
‘Don’t want to upset the old girl,’ he said.
Harriet fled upstairs, put on more scent and cleaned her teeth. Then, thinking Cory might smell the toothpaste and think she was trying too hard, rinsed her mouth out again. Then she turned off her electric blanket.
‘Careful, Harriet, careful,’ said her reflection in the mirror. ‘This kind of behaviour got you into trouble before.’
Down in the drawing room Cory had taken off his coat and tie and stood in front of a dying fire nursing a glass of whisky.
Harriet curled up on the sofa, watching the light from one lamp fall on the bowed heads of a pot of white cyclamen.
The telephone rang. Cory picked it up.
‘No, it’s very kind, Elizabeth, but I’m absolutely knackered. Thank you for a tremendous evening.’ There was a pause. ‘As to that, I don’t think it’s any of your bloody business. Goodnight.’ And he dropped the receiver back on the hook.
‘Interfering bitch,’ he said.
Harriet giggled. ‘I bet she said, “That child’s been hurt enough”.’
Cory looked startled, then he laughed. ‘That’s exactly what she did say.’
For a minute he looked out over the silent valley, then he drew the curtains, stubbed out his cigarette and came towards her. Then he held out his arms, and she went into them like a bird out of the storm. As he kissed her she could feel the current of excitement coursing over her. God, this is absolute dynamite, she thought, as her hands crept around his neck, her fingers twining into the thick black hair.
Suddenly the telephone rang.
‘Leave it,’ said Cory, his hold tightening.
‘It might be important,’ murmured Harriet.
‘Can’t be.’
‘I’ll get it. It might wake Mrs Bottomley and we don’t want that,’ said Harriet, giggling. ‘I’ll say you’re in a meeting.’
She picked up the receiver. She could hear the pips.
‘It’s long distance for you from America.’
‘I expect it’s MGM about the treatment,’ he said, taking the receiver from her.
Suddenly the colour drained from his face. Someone must have died. She could see the knuckles white where his hand clutched the receiver. The conversation was very brief. Harriet collapsed onto the sofa. She had a premonition that something very terrible was about to happen to her. She looked at Cory and suddenly had a vision of pulling a wounded man up to the edge of a cliff, then finally letting him go so his body circled round and round as he splattered on the rocks below. Cory put down the receiver and reached automatically for a cigarette.
‘That was Noel,’ he said. ‘She’s finished filming and she’s flying back to England tomorrow. She and Ronnie Acland are coming North next week. She wants to see the children so they’re coming over for lunch on Wednesday.’
‘But she can’t,’ gasped Harriet. ‘It’ll crucify you. She can’t go round playing fast and loose with other people’s lives.’
Cory glared at her, his face grey. He seemed to have aged ten years. The last hour might never have happened.
‘They’re her children as much as mine,’ he snapped.
Harriet stepped back as though he’d hit her, giving a whimper of anguish.
‘And don’t stare at me with those great eyes of yours,’ he said brutally. ‘If Noel and I choose to behave in a civilized manner, it’s nothing to do with you. You’d better go to bed.’
Harriet heard the cocks crowing. She looked at the photograph by the bed. She couldn’t even be loyal to Simon’s memory. Cory was a different generation; his world was in ruins; he merely regarded her as a diversion, because he was a bit tight and she was available.
Her mind raced round seeking comfort, but she found none. She saw her dishevelled clothes in the bedroom, the unstoppered make-up, the cellophane pack which had contained her new tights. She remembered the excitement with which she’d dressed. She’d been so sure, she’d even turned off her electric blanket. She crept between the sheets and shivered until dawn.
Chapter Eighteen
As Wednesday approached Cory grew more and more impossible, snapping at Mrs Bottomley, the children and, most of all, at Harriet.
On Tuesday night he was going to a dinner in Leeds and asked Harriet to iron a white dress shirt for him. She took considerable pains over it but, unfortunately, Ambrose, who had been looking for mice in the coal hole, walked all over it when she wasn’t looking.
Cory hit the roof. ‘Can’t you ever concentrate on one thing for more than five minutes?’
Harriet lost her temper. She had been cooking all day for tomorrow’s lunch and she had a headache.
‘If you didn’t make people so nervous, they might stop making a hash of things.’
‘Go on!’ he said glaring at her.
‘I don’t mind you shouting at me. But I don’t see why you should take it out on Mrs Bottomley and the children. It’s not their fault your rotten wife’s turning up tomorrow.’
Oh, God, she thought, as his face twisted with rage. I’ve really put my foot in it now.
‘It would be as well if you remembered whose house this is, and who pays your salary!’ he said, stalking out of the room.
Half-an-hour later she heard the front door bang and his car drive off with a whirring sound of gravel.
Gibbering with rage, Harriet ate a large piece of walnut cake, and then another piece, and was just embarking on a third, when she heard a step and nearly jumped out of her skin as two hands grabbed her round the waist and a familiar voice said, ‘Guess who?’
Leaping away, choking over the walnut cake, she swung round and looked up through streaming eyes into a handsome, decadent face. There was something familiar about the dark eyes, which were now narrowed to slits with laughter.
‘Hullo, darling,’ he said. ‘I’m Kit Erskine.’
‘Goodness, you surprised me.’
‘Oh, I’m full of surprises. Where’s Cory?’
‘Out, gone to Leeds.’
‘That’s good. We’re alone at last.’
‘Mrs Bottomley’s upstairs,’ said Harriet hastily, backing away.
‘How is old Botters?’
‘On the scurry — sweeping under carpets. Mrs Erskine and Ronnie Acland are coming to lunch tomorrow, so there’s a lot to do.’
Kit whistled. ‘They are? What a carve-up. That cake looks good.’ He cut himself a large piece. ‘I’m starving. Where shall we have dinner?’
‘I can’t,’ said Harriet. ‘I’ve got to. .’
‘Wash your hair,’ said Kit. ‘Don’t worry. You can give Noel a good ten years.’
At that moment Mrs Bottomley walked in with a feather duster.
‘Master Kit!’ she squeaked. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’
‘Botters! Darling!’ He gathered her up as though she were light as a feather, and carried her round the room.
&
nbsp; ‘Put me down, Master Kit!’ she protested, half laughing, her legs going like a centipede.
The kitchen was large, but with Kit’s arrival, it seemed to shrink. He polished off three double whiskies and most of the walnut cake, and exchanged gossip with Mrs Bottomley, but all the time his eyes were wandering lazily over Harriet.
She tried to decorate a pudding for tomorrow, but found, in her nervousness, she was decorating far more of the table.
Kit picked up a handful of crystallized violets and scattered them higgledy-piggledy on the top of the mousse.
‘It’s got to look nice for Mrs Erskine,’ wailed Harriet.
‘No-one bothers about her,’ said Kit. ‘You should have the courage of your confections.’
‘How’s Cory?’ he asked Mrs Bottomley.
‘I’ve never known him as bad as this,’ said Mrs Bottomley disapprovingly. ‘I made that walnut cake this morning. You know it’s his favourite and he wouldn’t touch it. Like a bear with a sore head. Ever since he heard she was bringing that Ronald Acland. What’s he like? He looks a smart fellow.’
‘Ronnie Acland? Well, he calls himself an actor but, frankly, I wouldn’t have him on my side playing charades. But his father is dying, which means any moment dear Ronnie will become Lord Acland, and that’s what Noel finds attractive. She’s spent all her life waiting for Lord Right to come along.’
Harriet giggled. You couldn’t help liking Kit. Kit sensed weakness. ‘I say Botters. .’
‘Don’t call me that. It’s rude.’
‘Will you babysit so I can take Harriet out to dinner?’
Mrs Bottomley looked dubious. ‘She needs a break. Mr Cory’s been nagging her terrible but he won’t like you both swanning off the moment his back’s turned.’
‘He won’t know. I’ll get her back early. Please, darling Botters?’
‘Well, if I weren’t fumigating with Mr Cory, I wouldn’t do it.’
Kit took Harriet to a small dimly-lit club where they both talked and drank a great deal.
Kit shook his head. ‘So Noel’s really coming tomorrow. I suppose Botters told you Noel and I once had a walk-out.’
‘It sounded more like a stay-in to me,’ said Harriet.
Kit grinned. ‘So the kitten had claws, after all. The odd thing is that Cory’s never held it against me. “How can I blame you,” he said to me afterwards, “when I’m incapable of resisting her myself”.’
‘Oh poor Cory,’ said Harriet. ‘Why doesn’t he find someone else? He’s so attractive.’
‘He’s bewitched,’ said Kit. ‘He’s burnt himself out in the idiotic hope that one day, after a year, maybe five years, ten years, a lifetime, he’ll suddenly crack the rock, and conquer that shallow, dried-up heart.’
‘I hate her,’ Kit went on savagely, ‘for her damn narcissism, and yet when you first meet her she’s so dazzling, you can’t see anything else. It’s like looking straight into the sun. Anyway.’ He stretched his legs so one of them brushed against Harriet’s. ‘Enough of other people’s worries. What about yours? What made you keep the baby? Hung up on the father are you?’
‘Yes — I suppose I still am.’ She flaming well wasn’t going to tell him anything about Cory.
Kit took her hand. ‘I’m realistic about love. What’s the point of eating your heart out for someone who doesn’t love you? The answer is to find an adequate substitute.’
‘Yes?’ said Harriet, taking her hand away ‘And where do I find that?’
‘Right here, darling. What could be more adequate than me?’
Harriet looked at him. Yes, he was adequate all right. Everything about him, the deep, expensive voice, the sexy eyes, the mocking mouth, the thick blond hair, the broad, flat shoulders, the long muscular thighs, one of which was rubbing against hers again.
‘I think we’d better go home,’ said Harriet.
He stopped the car halfway up the drive and switched off the engine. Suddenly he reached forward and took hold of the ribbon tying back her hair.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she spat, springing away.
‘My, but you’re jumpy,’ he said, pulling off the ribbon, so her hair rippled down thickly over her shoulders.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘You must stop hiding the fact that you’re a very attractive girl.’
‘I don’t want to attract men,’ she said in a frozen voice.
‘Listen, darling, you’ve had a bad knock, but it’s like falling off a horse. The longer you take to ride again, the more difficult you’re going to find it.’
Bending his head, he kissed her very gently on the lips.
‘There,’ he said, as though he were soothing a frightened animal. ‘Not so bad, was it?’
Not bad at all, thought Harriet. Very pleasant, in fact. And when he kissed her again, she kissed him back.
‘God,’ he whispered, ‘we’re going to be great together.’
He opened his fur coat and pulled her inside, so she could feel the length of his hard muscular body against her.
Oh dear, oh dear, she thought. Here I go again. I mustn’t be so loose.
‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘Relax, I’m not silly enough to let you get pregnant again.’
Pregnant. If he had jabbed a branding iron on her back, nothing could have brought her to her senses more quickly. Panic stricken, she wrenched herself away from him, opened the car door, and tore up the drive.
‘Hey, wait a minute!’ She heard Kit laughing behind her. ‘Take it easy, darling. Don’t be in such a hurry to get me into bed.’
Panting, she pushed open the front door, and fled into the house, slap into Cory.
‘Harriet! Thank God you’re back. Are you all right?’
Her hands shot to her face, rubbing mascara from beneath her eyes, smoothing her hair, tucking in her shirt.
‘I’m fine,’ she stammered. ‘I’ve been having a drink with Kit.’
‘You’ve been out with Kit?’ The voice changed, became so brutally icy that Harriet drew back as though she’d been struck. For a second she saw the blaze of contempt in his eyes, as he took in her dishevelled condition, then the shutters came down, and his face resumed its normal deadpan expression.
‘I might have guessed you’d run true to type,’ he said. ‘William’s been yelling his guts out for the past hour. If you can’t have a more responsible attitude towards the children, you’d better pack your bags and get out in the morning!’
For a minute Harriet gazed at Cory appalled. Then she jumped as a voice behind her said, ‘Do I hear the sound of high words?’ and Kit wandered through the front door, straightening his tie, and ostentatiously wiping lipstick off his face.
‘Hullo, Cory,’ he went on. ‘You look a bit peaky, my dear. What you need is a few late nights.’
Harriet didn’t wait for Cory’s reply. She fled upstairs, scalded by remorse and humiliation. Surely he couldn’t sack her for something so trivial.
She found William scarlet in the face, his eyes piggy from crying for so long.
‘I’m sorry, darling, so sorry,’ she whispered, as she picked him up and cuddled him. Gradually his sobs subsided and, as she waited for his bottle to heat up, she shivered with terror at the thought of the future — bleak, salary-less, with no Chattie and Jonah, no Cory even when he was being nice. In just a few weeks, she thought miserably, I’ve come to regard this rambling house as home.
As she gave William his bottle, however, there was a knock on the door. It was Cory.
‘Don’t get up,’ he said, looking at William. ‘Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine,’ stammered Harriet. ‘I’m sorry about going out.’
‘It wasn’t a very good idea going out with Kit. He’s only interested in easy lays — and that’s the last thing you need.’
Harriet hung her head. ‘Then you don’t hate me?’
Cory smiled faintly. ‘When my horses do stupid wilful things, I beat the hell out of them. It doesn’t mean I love them any the less.’
‘Then you w-won’t send me away?’
Cory shook his head. ‘The children would be desolated. Anyway, it’s me who ought to apologize, I’ve behaved like a bastard the past few days.’
He picked up Simon’s photograph by Harriet’s bed.
‘I’ve been so bound up in my own private hell. I’ve been impervious to anyone else’s. Poor little Harriet.’ He touched her cheek gently with his hand. ‘Do you still miss him so much?’
Harriet flushed.
‘Yes. . no, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell your wife not to come tomorrow? It’s not too late,’ she blurted out.
‘I’ve got to see her and Ronnie Acland together some time,’ he said, going towards the door.
In the doorway, he paused and turned. ‘And please tie your hair back again when Noel comes tomorrow. You look far too pretty like that, and I don’t want her to start cross-petitioning.’
The moment he’d gone, Harriet, carrying a protesting William, raced to the mirror. He’d called her pretty. Cory had actually called her far too pretty! He’d never paid her a compliment before. She put her hand to her face where Cory had touched it, and just for a second wondered what it would be like to be loved by him, to see the haughty, inscrutable face, miraculously softened, to hear the detached voice, for once passionate and tender. Then the great shadowy owl of shame at her own presumption swooped down to overwhelm her.
Even so, after she had put William to bed, she washed her hair, and was just drying it, when a note was thrust under the door.
On it was written ten times in huge childish scrawl: ‘I must not try and seduce Harriet.’ Then the writer had reverted to normal handwriting. ‘Darling Harriet, Cory wants me to write this line a thousand times, but my hand is aching and I want to go to bed. So please forgive me. Love, Kit.’
Harriet giggled. You couldn’t be angry with Kit for long.
Chapter Nineteen
Noel and Ronnie Acland arrived at least an hour late the next day, by which time the children were frenzied with frustrated excitement, and Harriet had run upstairs at least a dozen times, to re-tie her ribbon and powder her nose.