Jilly Cooper - Prudence

I felt quite sick as Pendle then put an arm through hers and they turned away from us to walk along the lake.

Ace looked like a thundercloud, but Jack merely smiled and rode his horse closer to mine, so our legs brushed.

‘Poor idiot, poor besotted idiot,’ he said scathingly. ‘He never gives up, does he?’

We rode straight back to the stables after that, no one saying a word.

Jack and Ace went off to have a look at Jack’s house. I curled up with a book in front of the fire, but fell asleep.

I was woken at dusk by Pendle.

‘Are you all right, not too bored?’ he said.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, stretching a little, and bending a glance in his direction intended to be subtly wanton.

Pendle gave one of my curls a little tug of endearment.

‘My spies tell me Jack’s very smitten,’ he said softly.

Which spies, I wondered. Ace? Maggie? Rose? Probably all three.

‘Oh well, he’s very handsome and all that.’ I paused in the hope that I might get Pendle worried. ‘But I don’t think my happiness lies in that direction. Besides, he’s married.’

We locked looks for a minute.

Pendle dropped his eyes first.

‘About tonight,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said, brightening. Perhaps at last he was going to steal down the passage.

‘There’s a pretty tedious cocktail party on the other side of the lake with fireworks for some reason. Then we thought we’d go and have dinner in Ambleside. There’s a new French restaurant opened there. Would that amuse you?’

I took a deep breath. ‘I’d much rather be with you,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t we skip the party and go out on our own without the others?’

‘Can’t really desert Ace on his first night. I think he’s a bit depressed, jet lag and all that.’

‘It’s him that’s doing the depressing,’ I said crossly. ‘Why doesn’t he go to bed?’

‘Hush,’ said Pendle. ‘That’s not like you.’

‘I don’t know what’s like me anymore,’ I said with asob.

I moved closer, close enough for him to take me in his arms, and kiss me very gently on the lips. I kept my mouth shut — terrified after being asleep all afternoon I might taste horrible — but I felt myself turn to jelly. Then just at that moment Ace and Jack came through the French windows, and Pendle let me go. I nearly wept with frustration. With a shiver, I wondered if Pendle had seen them coming up the garden and just kissed me in order to kid Ace he wasn’t running after Maggie.

As I changed for the firework party, I decided to switch tactics. So far I’d played it cool with Pendle. Now for the first time, I decided to show him I was really keen.

My green culotte dress was a show-stopper. I wondered, as I wriggled into it, if it were a bit much for the country. It clings everywhere and has cutaway sleeves and huge cut-outs back and front.

Oh, well, I thought, if it doesn’t stir Pendle to frenzies of lust, at least it will annoy Ace.

The Mulhollands’ reactions to the outfit were varied and typical. Jack choked over his drink. Pendle didn’t bat an eyelid. Rose said, ‘I wonder if I could get away with that?’ Ace raised a disapproving eyebrow and said I appeared to have run out of material. Maggie walked round and round me and said, ‘Oh, what heaven, but how do you go to the loo?’

As we were leaving, mindful of my new plan of campaign, I seized Pendle’s hand. ‘Can we go in your car, just the two of us?’

Pendle looked surprised. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said.

It was dark now, but I could still see a ghostly gleam of the lake through the trees.

‘It’s so lovely,’ I said, turning towards him. ‘Oh, Pendle, thank you for bringing me up here. I’m having such a wonderful time.’

He gave that watchful half-smile. ‘Are you really enjoying it?’

‘Oh, I am!’ I couldn’t resist putting my hand on his knee and leaning over to kiss him.

He didn’t flinch — he just drew away from me. I shrank back to my side of the car, feeling just about as wanted as a Christmas Tree on Twelfth Night.

‘Sorry, but it’s dangerous on these roads,’ he said coolly. The hot fever of mortification had not subsided by the time we reached the party. It was a curiously fossilized affair — a few young people, but mostly old women roaring around on crutches, and so many retired colonels that even the flower arrangements were standing to attention.

Rose arrived grumbling because Ace had refused to close all the windows and had put her false eyelashes in jeopardy. She was also annoyed that Maggie had appropriated the Professor’s hat and insisted on keeping it on. Maggie and Jack promptly parted like the Red Sea.

Sick at heart from Pendle’s rebuff, I flirted outrageously with Jack, who was only too willing to oblige. In a blue shirt that matched his eyes, he was easily the handsomest man in the room and I, if not the prettiest, was certainly the most outrageously dressed. Those colonels couldn’t keep their monocles off my bare tummy. ‘I’m fast becoming a navel specialist,’ Jack told everyone. With everyone else in wool dresses, I felt rather like a street lamp left on during the day.

Maggie and Pendle seemed to have disappeared somewhere and I found Jack’s presence curiously reassuring. We leant against the wall together.

‘I like large parties, don’t you? They’re so intimate,’ said Jack. ‘Look at Ace. Talk about the stag at bay!’ I looked across the room. Ace had been cornered by the daughter of the house.

‘He’s a handsome sod, isn’t he?’ said Jack. ‘Don’t you find him attractive?’

Ace looked up and glared across at us.

‘No, I don’t!’ I said crossly. ‘He makes me feel I’m in the Upper Fourth, and covered with ink.’

Ace was obviously coming over to break us up. I was dying to go to the loo, so I sloped off to the downstairs cloakroom. Maggie was right, the only thing to do was to take my dress off altogether. I laid it on the floor. In the pile of Esquires on the window ledge, I found a story by Graham Greene which I hadn’t read. I settled down with enjoyment. The only snag was that I hadn’t locked the door properly. A few minutes later it was pushed open. And there I was naked to my enemy with Old Overkill glowering down at me. I gave a scream and snatched the dress round me.

‘Jesus,’ said Ace.

‘Get out,’ I yelled.

Ace slammed the door.

Oh, the embarrassment. Still, if he’d flipped through Esquire, he’d have seen lots of girls just as naked as me, if not in such an undignified position. Do him good, boring old prig. All the same, it was several minutes before I could screw up enough courage to go back to the party.

Thank goodness the fireworks were about to start, and I could hide my blushes in the garden. Jack brought my drink out to me. Touching shoulders, we watched the fireworks explode over the lake in a blaze of coloured stars, while everyone ooh-ed and ah-ed. Suddenly someone let off a squib behind me and I jumped straight into Jack’s arms. He seemed in no hurry to let go of me until he saw the expression on Ace’s face.

As soon as the last rocket had emptied its splendour into the night, the Mulhollands made leaving noises.

‘Won’t you stay for some spaghetti?’ said the daughter of the house, flashing her teeth at Ace.

‘No, they won’t,’ said Rose. ‘They’ve got to go on somewhere else. But I think I’ll stay. More my age group,’ she added to us. ‘Besides, they’ll need some help with the washing-up.’

‘Washing-up!’ snorted Maggie, as soon as Rose was out of earshot. ‘She can’t wait to slope off and see Copeland.’

We dined in a smart restaurant; deep carpets, and waiters rushing around silently with lighted frying pans. Nothing, however, could have been more flambée than the atmosphere at our table.