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
‘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 onto 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
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 Fifteen
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 Ryder-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 castoffs?’
‘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
