‘Where did that dreadful beast come from? Look at the mess he’s making on the carpet.’
‘It’s Harriet’s dog,’ said Cory.
‘He needs a bath,’ snapped Noel.
‘He needs a psychiatrist,’ said Cory.
‘Is there any orange salad?’ Noel asked Harriet, after Sevenoaks had been forcibly removed.
‘Quit upstaging, Noel!’ said Kit sharply.
Noel glared at him, pushed the food to the side of her plate and lit a cigarette.
‘Did I tell you I spent a week in Israel last month?’ she said to Cory. ‘I’ve never seen anything like the wild flowers around the Sea of Galilee. And I actually saw the place they fed the five thousand.’
‘If you’d spurned your fish and loaves the way you’ve treated Harriet’s much more miraculous duck you’d have been excommunicated, darling,’ said Kit.
‘It’s a pity you’re not staying longer, Mummy. You won’t see Daddy riding in the point-to-point,’ said Chattie.
Noel turned her tawny eyes on Cory.
‘But, darling, that’s wonderful!’ she said. ‘You’re racing again, after all this time! Might you win?’
Cory shook his head. ‘Not a chance. She’s only a baby, and it’s her first race.’
Noel’s eyes lit up. ‘Do you remember that race you won the day we got home from our honeymoon? Goodness, how excited we were, and how we celebrated.’
‘And what appalling hangovers we had the next day,’ said Cory dryly.
‘Harriet had a hangover this morning,’ said Chattie. ‘And she always does when Daddy takes her out, too.’
Noel’s face hardened. She looked from Cory to Harriet.
‘Come on, Cory, open another bottle,’ said Kit. ‘The drink’s flowing like concrete.’
‘What was that marvellous Beaujolais we had when we dined with Jackie Onassis, the night the Aga Khan was there?’ Noel asked Ronnie.
‘Pick up those names, darling,’ drawled Kit, ‘you’re not impressing anyone.’
Noel flushed angrily. Ronnie turned to Chattie. ‘And what are you going to do when you grow up?’ he asked.
Chattie beamed at him. ‘I’m not going to get married,’ she said. ‘I might make a habit of it, like Mummy.’
Kit and Ronnie shouted with laughter. Even Cory grinned.
‘Ronnie’s a fine one to laugh,’ said Noel angrily. ‘He’s had three wives already!’
‘His own or other people’s?’ said Kit.
Harriet felt depression descending on her. She got up to remove the plates and bring in the pudding. Kit followed her into the kitchen.
‘Marvellous party,’ he said.
Harriet said nothing.
‘Oh, darling, relax, enjoy it. Noel’s putting on a command performance.’
‘And what about Cory?’ said Harriet savagely, clattering plates into the sink.
‘You mustn’t ever forget that Cory’s a writer,’ said Kit. ‘It’s all grist to his mill. This entire lunch will appear in a screen play one day.’
Back in the dining room, Ronnie Acland was doing his best to keep the conversation going.
‘How’s the latest script?’ he asked Cory.
‘It’s not,’ said Cory.
‘I enjoyed your last book,’ said Kit, refilling everyone’s glasses. ‘I came across it in a girlfriend’s bedroom, and stayed up all afternoon reading it.’
Cory smiled.
‘Harriet makes bloody lovely puddings,’ said Chattie dreamily, making rivers of cream in her chocolate mousse. ‘If you’re going to marry Ronnie, Mummy, why can’t Daddy marry Harriet?’
There was a frozen pause, then Kit began to laugh. Harriet knocked her wine glass over.
Cory calmly dipped his napkin in the water jug and started sponging the red stain.
‘I don’t know where you’re intending to stay tonight,’ he said to Ronnie Acland, ‘but a very good hotel’s just opened at Bolton Abbey,’ and launched into a dissertation on its merits.
Suddenly, there was a faint wail from upstairs.
‘Oh, there’s William crying,’ said Harriet thankfully, leaping to her feet.
Upstairs, Harriet pressed her burning face against the bedroom window. How could Chattie have said that! In front of Noel, too!
Just as she finished feeding William, there was a knock on the door. To her amazement it was Noel.
‘I thought I’d leave the men to their port,’ she said. ‘What a gorgeous baby. May I hold him?’
‘He’s very tricky with strangers,’ said Harriet dubiously.
But Noel had already gathered William up in her arms, and had soon reduced him to fits of uncontrollable giggles, tickling him and giving him butterfly kisses with her long, long eyelashes.
How beautiful she is, thought Harriet enviously.
Suddenly Noel stopped tickling William and turned her huge eyes on Harriet. ‘Tell me truthfully — how
Harriet was caught off guard.
‘Yes he did. Particularly with you bringing Mr Acland.’
‘Oh I know I shouldn’t have done that,’ said Noel. ‘But Cory’s so off-hand with me these days and, somehow, I felt I wanted to jolt him. I expect you think I’m wicked, but you’ve no idea how difficult it was being married ten years to a man who’s married to his typewriter. And yet, you know, I don’t really find other men lastingly attractive,’ Noel went on. ‘Every affair I’ve had has really been an attempt to shake Cory into loving me more.’
‘But he adores you!’ said Harriet amazed.
‘Maybe he does in his fashion — but that didn’t stop him switching off for hours on end when he was married to me, bashing out those bloody scripts. And he’s horribly arrogant. All the Erskine family are the same. You must admit he’s tricky to live with.’
She looked at William who snuggled his head against her.
‘I wish they were all as easy to cope with as you,’ she sighed. ‘If only I could be certain I was doing the right thing, divorcing Cory and marrying Ronnie. What do you think I should do?’
‘I don’t know,’ muttered Harriet. She shouldn’t talk to me like this, she thought desperately. I don’t want to discuss Cory with her.
But Noel hadn’t finished turning the screw. ‘Do you really think Cory does love me and nobody else?’
Harriet thought for a minute. ‘Yes, I do. I think he’s being torn to pieces.’
Noel put William down and, smirking slightly, wandered over to Harriet’s dressing table. For a minute she examined herself in the mirror, then her eyes lighted on Simon’s photograph.
‘My, he’s pretty. Good God, it’s Simon!’ She looked at William and, in a flash, put two and two together. ‘He’s your baby’s father?’
Harriet nodded, unable to speak.
‘But I know him!’ said Noel. ‘Very well. He’s doing brilliantly. There’s even talk of him doing a film with me this summer. And he’s this baby’s father? Well! Does he know?’
‘I wrote to him,’ said Harriet.
‘Well, he can’t have got the letter. He adores children. He’s always saying he wants at least ten of his own.’
Harriet’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Tell me how he is,’ she said.
Later, Kit went to sleep on the sofa. Noel and Ronnie took the children out to tea up the valley, Cory shut himself in his study, and Harriet was thankful to be left with the washing-up and her own tangled emotions.
When Noel returned she went into Cory’s study, but after a few minutes came out looking like a thundercloud and went upstairs to change. She and Ronnie were going out to dinner.
Eight-thirty found Ronnie pacing up and down the drawing room. ‘I don’t know if Erskine had this trouble with her,’ he said to Kit and Harriet, ‘but Noel’s incapable of getting anywhere on time. Rather embarrassing. We’re
