An Eligible Bachelor (15 page)

Guy tugged a lambswool jumper off the back of a chair.

‘Well, that’s great. I’ll go and tell Mum we needn’t worry, shall I? That I’m marrying you for your money, and I’m going to be a kept man for the rest of my life. Perfect.’

He stalked out of the bedroom and the door slammed shut behind him. Richenda stared after him, appalled that her offer had been misinterpreted. It seemed perfectly simple to her. Why should they all be running round like headless chickens so half a dozen people could come and eat Beef Wellington and put their feet up on the furniture? All for a couple of thousand pounds. She could make that in five minutes doing a voice-over, for heaven’s sake. Though something told her Guy wouldn’t appreciate her telling him that.

Never mind, she thought with a sigh. She’d let them
go ahead with their plans. She was pretty sure they’d soon tire of people tramping through their family home, and one thing was for certain – Madeleine wouldn’t take too kindly to being treated like the hired help. One click of the fingers from a jumped-up, Burberry-clad arriviste and it would all be over.

In the meantime, she’d keep quiet and play along with it. She’d go to bloody John Lewis with Madeleine and help her choose sheets. After all, while she was in there, she could pick up details of their wedding list service…

Sundays for Henty Beresford usually consisted of cooking a huge breakfast, washing up, ironing the uniforms, cooking a huge lunch, washing up, trying to get all the children to do their homework, doing the children’s homework for them, cooking tea, bath-hairwash-nit-check-fingernails-toenails and finally kitbags. Then, if she was lucky, sandwiches and cake in front of the
Antiques Roadshow,
which was spoilt for her by Charles trying to outguess the prices and then arguing with the experts – ‘Nonsense. You’d never get that. No one’s touching Meissen at the moment. Not unless it’s mint.’ ‘He’s trying to pull a fast one. That’s worth fifty grand of anyone’s money. Bet he’ll try and make him a silly offer as soon as the cameras stop whirring.’

Day of rest? Pah!

This Sunday, however, Henty was determined to make a few changes. The night before had shown her just how little respect her husband afforded her. And how little he considered anyone other than himself. Why else had he risked driving home like that? She wouldn’t have dreamed of going over the limit, because she knew how difficult it would make life if she lost her licence. And that was without going into the morality of drink-driving; it was, after all, illegal for a good reason. Something that wouldn’t even occur to Charles.

Somehow, his being stopped by the police last night had given her the courage to stand up for herself. She felt she had the upper hand for once, the moral high ground, and she was determined to take advantage of it while she could.

Once breakfast was over, Henty sent the children off to clean out the rabbits. There was much moaning and groaning.

‘Fine,’ said Henty, determined not to let her children take advantage of her any longer either. ‘I’ll put an advert in the paper. Find some nice little children who want some pets. Free to a
good
home, I’ll put.’

Startled by their mother’s uncharacteristic steeliness, and recognizing that she meant business, the children scurried off to do her bidding. Or at least pretend to.

Charles was sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee and leafing nonchalantly through the paper, as if he had not a care in the world.

‘So,’ said Henty. ‘Last night. Where do we start?’

Charles looked at her, rather startled. This was a very assertive tone for Henty.

‘Start?’ he asked cautiously.

‘You totally humiliated me, Charles.’

He frowned.

‘When? How?’

‘You and Fleur Gibson on the dance floor. Making it quite clear that if I hadn’t been in the vicinity you’d have been at it like rabbits. I don’t know where her husband was, but if you ask me you’re lucky he didn’t plant you one on the nose –’

‘Hey, slow down a minute. Let’s get this straight. I was
having a dance. That’s what people do at
dances
.’ Charles laid on the sarcasm with a trowel.

‘You were groping her, Charles.’

‘She was all over me. I was just being polite. She was plastered.’

‘She wasn’t the only one, was she?’

Strident and sarcastic digs weren’t Henty’s stockin-trade, but for once she was determined to make her point. They hadn’t got to bed until half past four. After his humiliation in the police station, Charles had got straight into bed, refusing to discuss what had happened.

Charles looked sideways at her, alarmed by the outburst.

‘So,’ said Henty. What are we going to do, now you’ve lost your licence? There is absolutely no way I’m going to be able to manage. It’s not physically possible.’

She wasn’t being difficult. It was true. Every morning, Charles dropped the girls at the bus stop that took them to their school in Cheltenham before he drove to the station, while Henty took the boys in the opposite direction to the school in Eversleigh. In the evenings and at weekends there was an elaborate rota involving both of them for swimming lessons, tae kwon do, ballet and Lily’s flute, and that was before parties or other social events were taken into consideration.

But all that seemed to concern Charles was that he wouldn’t be able to drive the horsebox.

‘I’m completely buggered, aren’t I? The hunting season’s started and how the hell am I supposed to get me and the girls to the meet? It’ll be OK if it’s local – we can ride there at a push.’ He looked at Henty, annoyed. ‘I wish you’d learn to pull it.’

‘Well, I can’t and I won’t.’ Henty stood up and started banging plates on top of each other. ‘And anyway, the hunt’s the least of our problems. How am I supposed to pick Lily up from flute and Walter up from Beavers on a Thursday when they’re fifteen miles apart?’

‘Can’t you do a lift share with the other mothers?’

‘I already do!’ Henty shrieked. ‘For God’s sake, Charles – you have no idea how complicated life is with four children. And you without a licence isn’t making it any easier. Can’t you take this seriously?’

Charles sighed. His head was pounding but he knew he wasn’t going to get any sympathy for mentioning it. All he wanted was some bloody peace and quiet. Not his usually docile wife reminding him what a tit he’d been.

‘OK. We’ll get a nanny. Even better, a nanny-groom – one that can bloody well drive and pull a horsebox. She can take me to the station and pick me up every night. And help you out with the rest of it.’

Henty looked at him open-mouthed.

‘What?’

‘She can live in the stable flat. In fact, I don’t know why we didn’t think about it before.’

‘Because we can’t afford it?’ ventured Henty, and was rewarded with a filthy glare.

‘Actually, it’ll be an economy. We’ll save a fortune on babysitters. I think Mrs Potter’s got a cheek charging us thirty quid for last night.’

‘Charles – I had to give her extra because in case you didn’t notice we didn’t get home until four.’

‘So how much will it cost?’

‘I don’t know. Three or four hundred quid a week?’

Charles winced.

‘Well, make sure you get one that knows how to clean as well. This place is a pigsty.’

Henty fought down the urge to empty the teapot over his head. Charles was always infuriatingly arrogant and sexist when he was stressed. It was how she knew he was ashamed of his behaviour the night before. She decided to quit while she was ahead – she couldn’t begin to count the amount of times she’d dropped hints about having some live-in help. It annoyed her that it was only visions of his hunting being curtailed that had made Charles capitulate, but she wasn’t going to complain. It would be heaven to have an extra pair of hands…

‘Where’s the bloody review section?’ Charles was rifling frantically through the paper.

‘I think Thea took it to line the rabbits’ cage,’ replied Henty sweetly, and fled the room before she burst into giggles of triumph.

Charles couldn’t quite bring himself to go and retrieve the review section. It was bound to have been weed on already. But he was annoyed, because he wanted to scrutinize the bestseller lists, analyse for the six millionth time what it was that the general public were buying to line their bookshelves, and see if he could get a glimmer of inspiration for the next big thing. The inspiration he had once had in spades.

Charles Beresford had always felt slightly second rate. He’d gone to a minor public school – not one grand enough to make him feel one of the elite, but one that made him feel like a bit of a knob. He wasn’t smart, but
he wasn’t streetwise either. Pretty ill-equipped altogether. Then he’d failed to get into Oxford and had ended up going to Bristol, which had always piqued him, as at the time it was known as a dumping ground for Oxbridge rejects. And at Bristol, he didn’t get into the posh halls of residence, but had ended up on the Downs with the hoi polloi. He was an also-ran, a wannabe. And rather than accepting his station in life, he always hung on the coat-tails of those he admired, and so had a constant reminder that he wasn’t quite rich, glamorous or sophisticated enough to really belong.

When he left Bristol, he wanted to go into publishing, but singularly failed to get so much as an interview. So he took the back route, and went to work for a literary agent instead, hoping that the contacts he made there would open doors. Again, he failed to get into a top-rate agency, but ended up as assistant to the infamous Meredith Payne. She had once been a literary legend, champion of feisty, feminist writers, but at pushing sixty was becoming a little dotty, with her hennaed hair and mouth lined with plum lip-liner. Too many liquid lunches had puffed her up and she waddled rather than walked, her swollen feet stuffed into sandals, silver rings cutting into her fingers.

After just a few days it became clear to Charles that Meredith was losing the plot completely. He panicked, wondering if he should hand in his notice straight away, then realized that perhaps he could salvage something from the wreckage. For although she was no longer generating much business, she was good company and a fabulous source of gossip – what she didn’t know, she
made up, and it was really quite surprising she’d never been sued for libel. So she was often taken out for lunch, and she invariably took Charles with her, to relay the important things that had been said afterwards and to light her cigarettes. Thus he was given a personal introduction to some of the most important names and faces in the publishing industry. In the meantime, he sucked her dry for information; learned all her trade secrets – the ones she was more than happy to share with him after a good lunch – went through every single file, every single contract, read all the small print, clarified with her anything he didn’t quite understand, until he was satisfied that he knew everything there was to know about being a literary agent. He made sure he was there to pick up after her, chasing up contracts and payments she had forgotten, reading and responding to manuscripts she had ignored, returning phone calls on her behalf, until the industry was quite clear that it was Charles holding things together. Gradually, clients, editors and publishers began to talk to him directly if they wanted anything done. Meanwhile, poor old Meredith tottered around oblivious in her own little world, slowly losing her grip on reality.

In the end, Charles reasoned that, as he was running the agency almost single-handedly, it was time to set up on his own. He was ready to jump ship. All he needed was a hot project…

One Friday evening, Charles was invited to dinner with his friend Dickon. They’d been at university together: Dickon had been part of the glamorous, moneyed crowd Charles had hovered on the edge of but never been
quite comfortable with. Dickon had rather surprisingly kept in touch. He had an enormous mansion flat in South Kensington, was louche, immoral and bisexual with a penchant for matchmaking that was slightly out of character.

‘Come and meet my new lodger,’ Dickon commanded languidly. ‘She’s an utter sweetie. She keeps house beautifully, but she’s wasted on me. I’m far too depraved for her. She’d be ideal for you, though.’

Charles was indeed immediately enchanted with Henty, who was like a Dresden shepherdess with dark curls, a creamy skin and a delightful naivety mixed with a sense of mischievous fun which proved a refreshing change from the rest of the world-weary thrillseekers at the table. By pudding, Dickon was reading from Henty’s diary in a wicked imitation of her breathless, rather Sloaney tones. It had the entire table in stitches, as it depicted her madcap escapades around Kensington and Chelsea, trying to avoid the wandering hands of various baronets and viscounts and fighting off their advances.

‘I’m the only virgin left in SW3,’ she insisted.

Charles was transfixed, not only by Henty, but by the diary itself. It was startlingly well-written, in a style of its own. The descriptions of people and places were colourful, wickedly accurate and vivid; the antics were hilarious; the narrative thread was utterly compelling. And the world it depicted was glamorous, intriguing: a little slice of English life that fascinated people – minor aristocracy and wealthy layabouts behaving outrageously.

When the post-prandial white lines came out, Charles and Henty were the only ones who didn’t indulge.
Charles went to help her with coffee in the kitchen.

‘I made truffles,’ she said, carefully laying them out on a plate, ‘but I don’t know why I bothered. Maybe I should have rolled them in coke instead of cocoa.’

She went to pick up the tray of coffee cups, but Charles put a hand out to stop her.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

She looked at him warily.

‘It’s OK. I’m not trying to get your knickers off. I want to talk to you about your diary.’

‘God, it’s so embarrassing. Bloody Dickon’s always using me as his after-dinner entertainment.’

‘So why do you keep a diary? Hardly anybody does these days.’

‘I don’t know. I always have. I find it sort of therapeutic. Besides, I’ve got the most dreadful memory and I can’t remember a thing that’s happened half the time and I think that’s awfully sad, don’t you?’