After a couple of good classes in which they were both placed, Rupert and Billy felt like celebrating. Pretending to go to bed dutifully at eleven o’clock, they waited half an hour, then crept out down the back stairs, aided by a chambermaid. It was unfortunate that Malise, getting up very early to explore Paris, caught Rupert coming out of the
In the Nations’ Cup later in the day Rupert jumped appallingly and had over twenty faults in each round. In the evening Malise called him to his room and gave him the worst dressing-down of his life. Rupert was irresponsible, insubordinate, undisciplined, a disruptive influence on the team, and a disgrace to his country.
“And what’s more,” thundered Malise, “I’m not having you back in the team until you’ve learnt to behave yourself.”
Helen sat in the London Library checking the quotations in a manuscript on Disraeli before sending it to press. Goodness, authors are inaccurate! This one got everything wrong: changing words, leaving out huge chunks, paraphrasing long paragraphs to suit his argument. All the same, she was glad to be out of the office. Nigel, having recently discovered she was going out with Rupert, made her life a misery, saying awful things about him all the time. In the middle of a heatwave, the London Library was one of the coolest places in the West End. Helen was always inspired, too, by the air of cloistered quiet and erudition. Those rows and rows of wonderful books, and the photographs of famous writers on the stairs: T. S. Eliot, Harold Nicolson, Rudyard Kipling. One day, if she persevered with her novel, she might join them.
Being a great writer, however, didn’t seem nearly as important at the moment as seeing Rupert again. She hadn’t heard from him for a fortnight, not a telephone call nor a letter. Next Monday she was supposed to be flying out to Lucerne to spend a week with him, and it was already Wednesday. She’d asked for the week off and she knew how Nigel would sneer if she suddenly announced she wouldn’t be going after all. And if he did ring, and she did go, wasn’t she compromising herself? Would she be able to hold him off in all that heady Swiss air? God, life was difficult. A bluebottle was bashing abortively against the windowpane. At a nearby desk a horrible old man, sweating in a check wool suit, with eyebrows as big as mustaches, was leering at her. Suddenly she hated academics, beastly goaty things with inflated ideas of their own sex appeal, like Nigel and Paul, and even Harold Mountjoy. She wanted to get out and live her life; she was trapped like that bluebottle.
“Have you any books on copulation?” said a voice.
“I’m afraid I don’t work here,” said Helen. Then she started violently, for there, tanned and gloriously unacademic, stood Rupert.
Her next thought was how unfair it was that he should have caught her with two-day-old hair, a shiny face, and no makeup. The next moment she was in his arms.
“Angel,” he said, kissing her, “did you get my letter?”
“No, I left before the post this morning.”
“Sssh,” said the man with mustache eyebrows disapprovingly. “People are trying to work.”
“Are you coming out for a drink?” said Rupert, only slightly lowering his voice.
“I’d just love it. I’ve got one more quote to check. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”
“I’ll wander round,” said Rupert.
Helen found the quotation, and was surreptitiously combing her hair and powdering her nose behind a pillar when she heard a loud and unmistakable voice saying: “Hello, is that Ladbroke’s’? My account number’s 8KY85982. I want a tenner each way on Brass Monkey in the two o’clock at Kempton, and twenty each way on Bob Martin in the two-thirty. He’s been scratched, has he? Change it to Sam the Spy then, but only a tenner each way.”
Crimson with embarrassment, Helen longed to disappear into one of the card index drawers. How dare Rupert disturb such a hallowed seat of learning?
“Funny places you work in,” he said, as they went out into the sunshine. “I bet Nige feels at home in there. Come on, let’s go to the Ritz.”
They sat in the downstairs bar, Helen drinking Buck’s Fizz, Rupert drinking whisky.
“Don’t go and get tarted up,” he said, as she was about to rush off to the powder room. “I like you without makeup sometimes. Reminds me of what you might look like in the mornings.” He ran the back of his fingers down her cheek. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I’ve missed
“Not brilliant.”
“I read the papers. Belgravia was off form.”
“Something like that. I bought you a present. They’re all the rage in Paris.”
It was an ivory silk shirt that tied under the bust, leaving a bare midriff.
“Oh, it’s just gorgeous,” said Helen. “I’ll just never take it off.”
“Hm, we’ll see about that.”
“Such beautiful workmanship,” said Helen, examining it in ecstasy. “It’ll be marvelous for Lucerne. I’ve bought so many clothes. I do hope the weather’s nice.”
Rupert’s fingers drummed on the bar. He beckoned for the barman to fill up his glass.
“There isn’t going to be any Lucerne.”
“Why ever not?” Helen was quite unable to hide her disappointment.
“I’ve been dropped,” said Rupert bleakly.
“For a couple of bad rounds in a Nations’ Cup? That’s insane. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Well, it was actually. Malise told us to go to bed early. I never sleep before a Nations’ Cup, so I took Billy out on the tiles. We got more smashed than we meant to. Next day, every double was a quadruple.”
“Oh, Rupert,” wailed Helen, “how could you when you were jumping for Great Britain? Surely you could have gone to bed early one night? And to involve Billy. Malise must have been
Rupert had expected sympathy, not reproach bordering on disapproval.
“Poor Malise, who’s he going to put in your place?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
Helen could see he was mad, but could not stop herself saying, “I’m just so disappointed. I so wanted to go to Lucerne.”
“We’ll go some other time. Look, I’m off to the Royal Plymouth tomorrow morning. It’s an agricultural and flower show with only a couple of big show-jumping classes a day, so I shan’t be overoccupied. Why don’t you take the rest of the week off and come too?”
Helen was sorely tempted.
“When were you thinking of leaving?”
“Now. I want to avoid the rush hour and I’ve got a lot to catch up on tonight after three weeks away.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got an editorial meeting at three o’clock, and I’ve got to get this manuscript off to the press by Friday. I was planning to have everything clear before Lucerne.”
“And I’ve screwed up your little jaunt. Well, I’m sorry.” He certainly didn’t sound it. Helen warmed to her subject.
“And I do have some sort of responsibility towards my colleagues, unlike you. To go and get drunk before a Nations’ Cup is just infantile. And Malise said you could be the finest rider in Britain if you took it a bit more seriously.”
“Did he indeed?” said Rupert, dangerously quiet. Draining his glass and getting a tenner out of his notecase, he handed it to the barman. “Well, it’s no bloody business of yours or his to discuss me.”
He got to his feet. Helen realized she’d gone too far.
“Malise and I only want what’s best for you,” she stammered.
“Sweet of you both,” said Rupert. “Have a nice meeting. It’s high time you took up with Nige again. You two really suit each other.”
And he was gone.
Rupert returned to Penscombe at eight o’clock the following morning, just as Marion and Tracey were loading up the lorry for the four-hour drive down to Plymouth. He looked terrible and proceeded to complain bitterly about everything in the yard; then went inside to have a bath and emerged twenty minutes later looking very pale but quite under control.
