Jilly Cooper - Harriet

‘You do look nice,’ she stammered. Privately she thought he looked stunning.

Cory shrugged. ‘I’ll have champagne poured over it before the night’s out. Can you cut the nails on my right hand?’

As she bent over his hand, her hair in Carmen rollers tied up with a scarf, keeping the towel up with her elbows, her hand shook so much, she was frightened she’d cut him.

‘You can leave William here,’ he said. ‘I’ve cleared it with Mrs Bottomley.’

‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’

‘Been monopolizing you too much myself lately. Do you good to get out.’

‘Yes,’ she said, trying to sound more enthusiastic.

He glanced round the room. ‘The light’s terrible in here. Go and make up in Noel’s room. I must go. I’m invited for eight. If any of the young bloods start pestering you, give me a shout.’

The mirrors in Noel’s room showed her from every angle. It’s like a Hollywood set, she thought, all those pink roses and ruffles. It’s a mistress’s room not a wife’s, and quite wrong expecting Cory to sleep in it, like putting a wolfhound in a diamante studded collar and a tartan coat. And how extraordinary to have so many photographs of oneself looking down from the walls: Noel sunbathing topless, Noel receiving a screen award, Noel arriving at a première smothered in ermine, Noel laughing, with Chattie, Jonah and Tadpole gazing up adoringly. That one hurt Harriet most of all. Trust Tadpole to suck up, she thought. Sevenoaks would be more discriminating.

She gazed in the mirror. She looked small and defenceless. She’d been rubbing olive oil into her eyelashes for at least a week now, and they didn’t seem any longer. If only she could be a thousandth as beautiful as Noel tonight. The orange dress slithered over her head — it really was low; she took out the rollers and brushed her hair until it shone and stood back, for once pleased with her appearance.

She took the hair out of her brush, opened the window and threw it out; it promptly blew back again. Time was running out. Hastily she loaded up her evening bag, breaking her comb to get it inside. Pinching some of Noel’s loose powder to fill the little gold compact her parents had given her for her sixteenth birthday she wondered when she would ever see them again. Her sudden overwhelming wave of homesickness was only interrupted by the doorbell.

Dinner was much less alarming than she expected. Billy’s parents were friendly in a bluff horsey sort of way, and even though there were twenty for dinner — mostly hunting types — they were much less glamorous and bitchy than the people at Arabella’s party. There was only one really pretty woman there, a Mrs Willoughby who had red hair and sparkling green eyes like a little cat.

Harriet sat between the joint-master and Billy’s Uncle Bertie, who squeezed her thigh absent-mindedly and flirted with her in a gentle way.

The food, as Cory predicted, was disgusting. Fortunately a Jack Russell with beseeching eyes sat under the table and wolfed all her fish. The second course, Coq au Vin, was full of soot and quite inedible. Harriet toyed with hers for a bit then, when a maid came round with a large bowl full of bones, thankfully threw her chicken pieces in too. It was only when the maid moved on to Billy’s Uncle Bertie on Harriet’s right, who immediately picked up Harriet’s bits and put them on his plate, that she realized with horror that the maid was handing round second helpings.

She also put up another black after dinner when the women were drinking coffee. ‘Have you lived here long?’ she said to Billy’s mother, during a pause.

‘Well quite a long time,’ said Mrs Bentley.

‘About five hundred years,’ whispered Mrs Willoughby, out of the corner of her mouth.

Fortunately the wine had been orbiting the table pretty fast at dinner and everyone laughed.

Nice car, thought Harriet, as Billy’s Ferrari roared along the narrow roads. She snuggled down under the fur rug. Perhaps it was its coating of dog hairs that made it so warm.

‘Do you ride?’ said Billy.

‘No. I’m afraid I don’t. I get taken for one occasionally,’ said Harriet.

‘You’d look super on a horse. I could teach you very quickly.’

‘Do you really think you could?’

‘We’ve got an old pony of my sister’s. It taught us all to ride. It’s as quiet as anything. Soon get you going on that.’

She’d soon be talking about running martingales with Arabella!

Billy swung the car between a huge pair of gates. Sneering lions reared up on pillars on either side; the curtains flickered in the lodge window as they went by. Ahead the big house was blazing with lights; floodlighting illuminated the blond walls. Drink had done nothing to still the butterflies in Harriet’s stomach.

The car park was a quagmire from the recent rain.

‘Up to my fucking hocks in mud,’ bellowed a hunting lady in disgust, holding her dress above muscly knees. The wind plastered Harriet’s feather boa against her lipstick.

She left her coat on a huge four-poster, its rose pink brocade tattered with age. In the distance she could hear the sensual throb of the music. It was almost eleven; the ball was in full swing. Pale-shouldered women crowded in front of the gilt-framed looking glass, putting on scarlet lipstick and slapping powder over flushed-from-dinner faces.

The frayed banners hanging from the walls shivered in the heat; a pair of huge, blue chandeliers hung from the ceiling. On the landing a group of women laughed loudly. Elizabeth Pemberton in hyacinth blue was one of them. As Harriet went downstairs, clutching the curved banisters for support, she breathed in the sweet heady scent of a huge tub of pink hyacinths.

Billy was standing looking distinguished under some antlers. ‘You’re easily the prettiest girl in the room,’ he said, taking her hand. Beyond lay the ballroom brilliantly lit. On tables round the walls champagne was plunged into ice buckets. The Master’s wife, heavily corsetted, stood in the door distributing largesse. The band had stopped; couples were drifting off the floor. There was Arabella her face looking glamorously suntanned for once against a floating white dress; and Charles Mander leaving his hand lingeringly on the bare back of a fast-looking beauty. She couldn’t see Cory anywhere.

Harriet was instantly conscious that Billy was regarded as somebody. Seeing her with him lots of people who’d ignored her at Arabella’s party said ‘Hullo,’ and were obviously trying to remember where they’d seen her before. Billy found their table and the rest of the dinner party near the band, and after knocking back a few more glasses of champagne, asked Harriet to dance.

Surreptitiously Harriet was still searching everywhere for Cory. Then, as they reached the far end of the ballroom, suddenly she saw him and felt an absolute explosion of jealousy. He was talking to a beautiful, slightly ravaged looking woman with greeny gold hair, slanting eyes, high cheekbones and a beautiful green silk dress worn off one shoulder. That must be Melanie. She had the kind of mystery and sophistication that made Harriet feel as raw as a broken egg.

‘Hullo Harriet,’ said Elizabeth, who was sitting at the same table. ‘Sammy’s dress does suit you. Harriet’s terrifyingly thick with my nanny,’ she added to the ferret-faced man in a red coat sitting beside her. ‘One shudders to think what they tell each other about us.’

Cory looked up suddenly and noticed them.

‘Hullo, Cory,’ shouted Billy, waggling his arms and legs so vigorously in time to the music that his mousy locks fell over his pink forehead. ‘I’m taking good care of her,’ he brayed with laughter.

‘I’m sure you are, Billy,’ said Cory, giving them both a rather wintry smile. He turned back to Melanie.

Harriet felt a great stab of disappointment. Suddenly she knew all the scenting and curling and orange dress had been directed at Cory, and he’d hardly glanced at her.

The ball grew more raucous. Young men were trying to lob ice cubes down the front of girls’ dresses. In the kitchen a group were engaged in feeding a long string of cocktail sausages down the waste disposal, with shrieks of laughter. Harriet had danced with nearly everyone in the party, and drunk nearly a bottle of champagne, which only deepened her despair. Billy was doing his duty dance with his aunt. Mrs Willoughby was as usual dancing out of her party. Everyone else was on the floor, except Harriet and two men in red coats who sat with their backs to her discussing a day out with the Quorn. Harriet tried to put on an animated ‘I-am-just-waiting-for-my-partner-to-return’ sort of face. She was terrified Cory would see her being a wallflower. Billy’s mother stopped at the table and whispered to one of the men in a red coat. He turned and looked at Harriet. ‘Of course,’ he said, in a long-suffering voice. ‘May I have the pleasure of this dance?’

Harriet was so humiliated, she got all hot and flustered and said sorry each time he tripped over her feet. He never apologized at all. There was Cory dancing again with the beautiful Melanie. Oh God, don’t let him fancy her too much.

The ball became wilder; upstairs the cordoned-off bedrooms were heaving with occupants. After a trip to the ladies, Harriet saw Mrs Willoughby emerge from a side room, patting her hair, with Elizabeth Pemberton’s husband, Michael. During a break between dances, a drunk poured a whole bottle of champagne over his wife, and then, picking up another, started to water the rest of his party. Two men in dinner jackets carried him bellowing out of the ballroom, his legs wriggling like a sheep about to be dipped.