Jilly Cooper - Harriet

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 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.’

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.

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.’