Read Online Harriet by Jilly Cooper - Free Book Online

to the photographs on the table.
        ‘Jonah and Chattie, aged eight and five. Contrary to all the rubbish you’ve read in the papers about Noel’s and my married bliss, they’ve had a very rough time. Ever since Jonah was born, Noel’s been making her mind up whether or not to leave me. The children have been used as pawns. Now she’s finally decided she wants to marry Ronnie Acland.’ His voice hardened. ‘And we’re getting a divorce.’
        ‘I’m abroad a lot. The children live up in Yorkshire in my old family home. Noel has never got on with any of the nannies. As a result, they’ve had a succession of people looking after them. They desperately need someone kind, loving, responsible and permanent to give them security.’
        He looked at Harriet, taking in the pitiful thinness, the long legs sprawled like a colt’s, the lank dark hair drawn back in a crumpled black ribbon, the irregular features, sallow skin, huge frightened eyes, full trembling mouth.
        ‘Have you any idea what you’ll be in for?’ he said. ‘It’s a dead-end part of the world. Nothing ever happens there. All the locals ever talk about is hunting. I go up to work there because it’s more peaceful than London. Could you throw yourself into looking after two children? Because if you can’t, there’s not much point your coming. How old are you?’
        ‘Nearly twenty,’ said Harriet.
        ‘But Mrs. Hastings said you’ve got a degree.’
        ‘No, I dropped out when I got pregnant.’
        ‘But you do have experience with children?’
        ‘I’ve looked after friends’ children a lot.’
        ‘But I gathered you’d had a job, or was that just part of Mrs. Hastings’s meticulous inaccuracy? How long did it last?’
        Harriet shuffled her feet. ‘Only one night,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It was a housekeeping job for a man in the country.’
        ‘And?’
        ‘He… he tried to rape me the first night.’
        Cory Erskine raised an eyebrow. ‘Quick work! How did he manage that?’
        ‘He came into my bedroom j-just after I’d turned out my light and…’
        ‘And you didn’t feel it worth your while to capitulate. Very admirable.’
        Harriet flushed angrily. If she had expected sympathy, she was quite wrong. Cory Erskine’s face was without expression.
        ‘And the baby,’ he went on. ‘Is he good? Does he cry much?’
        Harriet took a deep breath. She might as well be honest, as she obviously wasn’t going to get the job.
        ‘Yes, he does; but I think babies are barometers. They reflect the mood of the person looking after them. I mean,’ she floundered on, ‘if I were happier and less worried, he might be, too. It’s just that I haven’t been very happy lately.’
        Cory Erskine didn’t appear to be listening. He was examining the page in his typewriter. He turned it back, and typed in a couple of words with one finger.
        Bastard! thought Harriet. How dare he be so callous!
        ‘Well, if he cries that’s your problem,’ he said without looking up. ‘We’ll put you both at the far end of the house, and then no one but you will hear him.’
        Harriet gave a gasp.
        ‘You can cook and drive a car?’ he went on.
        She nodded.
        ‘Good. You don’t have to do everything. There’s a housekeeper, Mrs. Bottomley. She’s been with our family for years, but she’s getting on and the children exhaust her. Jonah’s a weekly boarder at a prep school, and Chattie goes to day school. You’d have to look after them when they’re at home, ferry them to and from school, see to their clothes, cook for them, etc. I’m going to France for at least a month from tomorrow, but when I come back, I’m coming up North to finish a couple of scripts.’
        ‘Do you mean you’re really going to hire me?’ asked Harriet in a bewildered voice.
        He nodded. ‘I only hope you won’t be horribly bored.’
        ‘Bored?’ said