She found herself jumping and blushing scarlet as Nigel, who was suffering from acute telephonitis, exchanged lengthy indignation meetings on Rupert’s dreadful behavior with Dave and Paul and Maureen, and evidently every other saboteur in and around the country. There was brave talk of taking Rupert to court, but as the other Antis pointed out, Rupert, being as rich as Croesus, would employ the best lawyer in town and as Nigel had been letting down Rupert’s tires, witnessed by Rupert and Billy and later the groom, he was on weak ground.
“Even worse, Helen,” Nigel added, his piggy unblacked eye gleaming behind his thick spectacles, “R.C.B. appropriated my address book.”
“Oh dear,” said Helen, starting guiltily, “will he find any important numbers?”
“Crucial,” said Nigel sententiously. “That book contains the numbers of every resistance fighter in the UK, people who are believed to belong to the hunting fraternity, but who are really one of us and supply us with vital information. Fiona Westbury, the daughter of Saturday’s master, is a classic example, and the secretary of the Chairman of the British Field Sports, who’s been one of us for years. With that book in his hands, R.C.B. can smash our entire network. I’m sure he beat me up because he was so anxious to get his hands on it.”
“Rather like Watergate,” said Helen, again fighting a terrible desire to giggle.
As the week crawled by, she was filled with an increasing restlessness and sat at her typewriter playing he loves me, he loves me not with the raindrops cascading down the window from the incessant April showers, quite incapable even of typing “Dear Sir,” because the only sir who was dear to her still hadn’t rung.
She’d learnt from the paper that the Crittleden meeting started on Good Friday and lasted over the Easter weekend.
On Thursday at lunchtime, in anticipation of seeing Rupert, she went out and spent nearly three weeks’ salary on the softest beige suede midi dress. Coming through the door of the office, she found Nigel holding out the telephone receiver and looking boot-faced.
“Some man with a foreign accent asking for you, says it’s personal.”
Helen felt her knees give way, her cheeks flame. She could hardly cross the room, then found herself positively winded by the thud of disappointment because it was Paul on the other end.
“I put on a French accent to deceive Nigel,” he said, laughing heartily. “How about that concert on Saturday night?”
Almost in tears, Helen had told him she was going away for the whole weekend.
“That’s a shame,” said Nigel as she came off the telephone. “I was going to a CND rally in Hyde Park on Sunday. I hoped you’d accompany me.”
“And I was hoping to see R.C.B at Crittleden,” Helen wanted to scream at him, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen either.”
She spent a miserable Good Friday going to the three-hour service, praying for resignation and trying not to ask God to remind Rupert to ring.
On Saturday afternoon she went downstairs and, sitting on a hard-backed chair in the television room, tried to watch Crittleden, but had to wait until some Charlie Chaplin film had finished on the other channel before she could switch over. By this time the BBC had left Crittleden and gone over to some extremely noisy motor race. Seeing the pained expressions on the lady academics’ faces, Helen explained that a friend of hers was jumping at Crittleden, which should be on any minute.
At last they went over to the show ground. It was pouring with rain and it was not until the last five riders, none of them Rupert, had demolished the course, that the announcer told them that the winner was a German rider who had produced the only clear. An Irishman was second with four faults, and Rupert Campbell-Black for Great Britain was third with eight faults: Billy Lloyd-Foxe and three other riders had tied for fourth place with twelve faults apiece.
After the incessant rain, said the announcer, the Crittleden arena was like a quagmire and any rider who got round was to be congratulated. Through the downpour the German rider came into the ring, followed by the Irish rider in his holly green coat. Helen’s heart started thumping, her mouth went dry, as Rupert followed them on a huge chestnut. The black collar of his red coat was turned up, his white breeches splattered with mud.
As they lined up, a man in a tweed suit and a bowler hat came out holding an umbrella over an attractive, middle-aged blonde in a dark gray suit, who delicately picked her way through the mud. Another bowler-hatted man in a tweed suit followed them, carrying a huge silver cup and shielding a tray of rosettes from the rain under his coat.
“Here comes Lady Pringle, a fine horsewoman in her own right, to present the prizes,” said the announcer. Helen could see Rupert chatting and laughing with Billy and, as Lady Pringle reached him, he took off his hat and, bending down, kissed her on both cheeks.
“Lady Pringle and Rupert Campbell-Black are obviously old friends,” said the announcer as she handed him a lemon yellow rosette, “and she’s obviously delighted to have a British rider in the first three.”
“Isn’t that the young man who picked you up last Sunday?” said one of the female anthropologists, changing her spectacles to have a better look. But Helen had fled upstairs to sob her heart out on her bed. How could Rupert look so cheerful and carefree when she’d been going through such hell waiting for him to call?
“Lady Pringle, indeed,” she sobbed and, taking the photograph of Rupert which she’d surreptitiously cut out from one of Nigel’s
She was crying so hard, at first she didn’t hear the knock on the door.
“Telephone,” said a voice.
When she got downstairs it was Rupert.
“Angel, I’m sorry I haven’t rung before. I left your number at home and I’ve only just remembered the name of your coven. We’ve been up at the South Lancashire show and the lorry blew out on the way down, so we only arrived in time for the big class.”
“How did you get on?” asked Helen. She was damned if she was going to let him know she’d been watching.
“Not bad. I was third, Billy fourth. We had to unload the horses straight out of the lorry, and the going was terrible, nogs in front of every fence. Are you coming down?”
“I d-don’t know,” said Helen, thinking of her swollen eyes and lack of sleep. “I can’t tonight.”
“Come down tomorrow. I’d come and collect you, but I’ve got classes in the morning. Get a taxi.”
“But it’s miles,” said Helen, appalled thinking of all the money she’d squandered on the midi dress.
“It’s only an hour from London. I’ll pay,” said Rupert. “Come to the main entrance. I’ll leave the cash and a ticket with the man on the gate.”
Rupert’s estimate of the time it would take to drive down to Crittleden was very different from the taxi driver’s. No doubt he shifted that Porsche at a hundred and twenty miles an hour the moment he got on the motorway, thought Helen, as she nervously watched the fare jerk up and up. ?25—?35! She was sure the driver wouldn’t take an American check and she couldn’t ring up her bank as it was Sunday. Scrabbling round in her purse she found only ?1.30. Perhaps he’d accept her gold watch until she could find Rupert. Even worse, two miles from Crittleden they ran into a huge traffic jam. A glorious mild day had followed yesterday’s downpour. Every young green leaf and blade of new grass sparkled with raindrops and all the people who’d given the show a miss yesterday seemed to have decided to go today. For the thousandth time Helen checked her face in the mirror. Her hair had gone right, the suede dress brought out the amber of her eyes, but she still looked tired.
“Got him bad, ’ave you?” said the taxi driver as the third application of Miss Dior in ten minutes fought with the diesel fumes. She’d looked rich enough when she’d got into the car; that dress must have cost a packet, and Americans were rarely short of a few bob.
“Been to Crittleden before?”
Helen shook her head. “One of the show jumpers has invited me. You may have heard of him, Rupert Campbell-Black.”
“Rupert Campbell-Black,” said the driver. “I know Rupert, ’ad him in the cab, and his mate, Billy Lloyd-Foxe. ’E’s a lad, is Rupert. Did you see him at the ’orse of the Year Show in one of the novelty classes on the last day? Dressed up as Miss World, wiv coconuts in his dress. They fell out as he rode over the jumps, brought the ’ouse down. ’E’s a lad, is Rupert. I got ’is autograph for my missis; she’s mad about Rupert, she is.”
And Lady Pringle and Gabriella and Bianca too, thought Helen bleakly.
At last they reached the main gates.
