Jilly Cooper - Harriet

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.

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.

But when she saw the figure smothered in squashy blond furs getting out of a large Rolls-Royce, she realized that her efforts had been to no avail. For Noel Balfour was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She had a gold, breath-taking, erupting beauty, and she swooped down on the family with a rasping cry of love like a bird of paradise.

‘Cory, darling, you’ve lost far too much weight! Chattie, baby, what a beautiful dress! Jonah, my angel, how tall and handsome you’ve grown!’

When Harriet had recovered from the shock, she made out that Noel’s face was thin and oval, her skin of a thick magnolia creaminess, her eyes tawny, clear and restless, and the impression of gold came from her marvellous mane of hair. She was tall — almost as tall as Cory — but her body was as supple as silk. Underneath her furs, she wore a saffron wool dress which clung to every curve.

As soon as she had hugged the children, she turned her dazzling smile on Harriet. ‘We’re horribly, horribly late. There’s no excuse. Well, let’s all go and have an enormous drink,’ she said, putting her arm through Harriet’s. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am you’re looking after the children — I’ve heard such marvellous reports about you. After lunch I want to come and see your little baby, and you must tell me all about yourself.’

Harriet, expecting indifference, hauteur, antagonism, was completely disarmed by such friendliness. In the drawing room, they found Ronnie Acland talking to Cory about shooting.

Harriet was further surprised to find herself liking Ronnie Acland, who was a tall, handsome, rather florid man in tweeds, with a loud voice and excellent teeth. He seemed to be smiling all the time, probably from embarrassment.