Jilly Cooper - Bella

‘Bella.’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?’

‘Of course,’ she said. She didn’t even stop to consider it. The one thing that could have spoilt her evening was the sense of being a failure, that he’d get to know her a little and then decide she was a bore.

Later, they went back to her flat for a drink and Bella drew back the curtains in the drawing-room to show Rupert the view. Half London glittered in front of them.

‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ said Bella ecstatically.

‘Not a patch on you, and you’ve got the most beautiful hair in the world.’ He picked up a strand. ‘Just like Rapunzel.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘The princess in the tower who let down her hair and the handsome prince climbed up and rescued her. You must have read it as a child?’

Bella looked bleak. ‘My mother didn’t approve of fairy stories.’

Rupert frowned and pulled her into his arms. ‘The more I hear of your childhood the less I like it,’ he said.

Then he kissed her very hard. After a minute he pulled her down on to the sofa and began fiddling with her zip.

‘No,’ she said, stiffening.

‘Why not?’ he muttered into her hair. ‘Christ, Bella, I want you so much.’

Bella took a deep breath and burst into tears. One of her greatest acting accomplishments was that she could cry at will. She had only to think of the poor unclaimed dogs at Battersea Dogs’ Home, waiting and waiting for a master that never came, and tears would course down her cheeks.

‘Oh, please don’t,’ she sobbed.

Rupert was on his knees beside her. ‘Darling. Oh, I’m sorry. Please don’t cry. I shouldn’t have rushed things. I’ve behaved like a pig.’

She looked at him through her tears. ‘You won’t stop seeing me because I won’t?’

He shook his head wryly. ‘I couldn’t if I tried now. I’m in too deep.’

After he’d gone she looked at herself in the mirror. ‘You’re a rotten bitch, Bella. God, you’re in a muddle,’ she said slowly.

She wanted men to want her, but once they tried to get involved she ran away, frightened they’d find out the truth.

Rupert arrived next evening, his arms loaded with presents.

‘I’ve decided you missed out on a proper childhood, so we’re going to start now,’ he said.

In the parcels were a huge teddy bear, a Dutch doll, a kaleidoscope, a solitaire board filled with coloured marbles, a complete set of Beatrix Potter and The Wind in the Willows.

Bella felt a great lump in her throat. ‘Oh, darling, you shouldn’t spend all your money on me.’

Rupert took her face in his hands. ‘Sweetheart, listen. There’s one thing you must get into your head; there are a hell of a lot of disadvantages about being a Henriques, but being short of bread isn’t one of them.’ He held out his hands. ‘We’ve got buckets of it. My father’s worth a fortune and, since Lazlo put a bomb under the bank, we’re all worth a lot more. I’ve got a private income of well over £25,000.’

Bella’s jaw dropped.

‘That’s what’s so lovely about you, Bella. Anyone else would know about the Henriques millions. I’ve never worried about money in my life, and when I was twenty-one last month I inherited. .’

‘Twenty-one?’ said Bella quickly. ‘You said you were twenty-seven.’

He looked shamefaced. ‘I did, didn’t I? I knew you wouldn’t be interested in me if you knew how young I was.’

‘But I’m twenty-three,’ wailed Bella. ‘I’m cradle-snatching.’

‘No you’re not,’ he snuggled against her. ‘Anyway, I’m crazy about older women.’

From then on they were inseparable, seeing each other every night, touring the smart restaurants and getting themselves talked about.

As spring came, turning the parks gold and purple with crocuses, Bella found herself growing more and more fond of him. He was very easy to like, with his languid grace, sullen pent-up beauty, and his appalling flashes of malice that were never directed at her.

But he could be moody, this little boy who had always had everything he wanted in life. His thin face would darken and she could feel his longing for her like a volcano below the surface.

The eternal late nights were taking their toll on his health too. He had lost pounds and there were huge violet shadows beneath his eyes.

One May evening they were sitting on the sofa in her flat, when he said, ‘Don’t you mind that I never take you to parties and things?’

She shook her head. ‘The only parties I like are for two people.’

Rupert turned her hand over and stared at the palm for a minute, then said, ‘Why don’t we get married?’

Panic swept over Bella. ‘No!’ she said nervously. ‘At least, not yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘We come from different backgrounds. I’ve always been a have-not, you’ve always been a have. Your family would loathe me. I haven’t any background.’ She gave a slightly shaky laugh. ‘When I talk about the past, I mean yesterday.’

‘Rubbish,’ Rupert said angrily. ‘Don’t be such a snob. I love you and that’s all that matters.’

‘I love you too.’ Bella pleated the folds of her skirt.

‘You’re making things impossible for me,’ said Rupert sulkily. ‘You won’t marry me; you won’t sleep with me. I’m going out of my mind.’

He got up and strode up and down the room. He looked so ruffled and pink in the face, Bella suddenly had an hysterical desire to laugh.

‘There’s someone else,’ he said, suddenly stopping in front of her.

‘How could there be? I’ve seen no-one but you for the last six months.’

‘And before that?’

‘Casual affairs.’

He caught her wrist so hard that she winced with pain.

‘How casual? I don’t believe you! You’re as passionate as hell beneath the surface, Bella. One only has to see you playing Desdemona to realize that.’

Bella had gone white. She snatched her hand away from Rupert and went over to the window.

‘All right. There was someone, when I was eighteen. He seduced me and I loved him, and he walked out on me the night my mother died.’

Rupert was unimpressed. ‘But darling, one loves the most ghastly people when one’s eighteen. You wouldn’t be able to see what you saw in him if you met him now.’

Finally, Bella agreed to go and meet his family on her birthday, the following Thursday.

She lay in bed dreaming about Rupert the Monday morning before her birthday. I can’t have been very easy these past weeks, she thought ruefully. Living on a permanent knife-edge wondering whether or not to tell him the truth about my past.

‘I love you, and that’s all that matters,’ he’d said. Perhaps she would tell him, but could she bear to see the incredulity and contempt in his face? And if she didn’t tell him, would he ever find out? No-one else had. She realized that, for the first time in years, she was beginning to feel secure and happy.

She idly wondered what to wear when she met his parents. She hoped she wouldn’t be too intimidated by them. She ought to buy a new dress, but too many bills were flooding in.

She picked up the paper, glanced at the gossip page to see if she or Rupert were mentioned, then turned to the personal column — villas in the South of France, ranch minks, hardly worn, costing £3,000. If I marry Rupert, she thought, they’d be within my grasp.

And then she saw the advertisement, in bold type, edged with black, and went cold with horror.

‘Mabel, where are you? I’ve looked for you everywhere. I’ll be waiting at the bar of the Hilton at seven o’clock. Steve.’

Suddenly, her heart was pounding, her hands clammy.