The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp. Sarra Manning

at his wife with exasperated fondness. How many sleepless nights had she had over those bloody floors? Which meant Mr Sedley had had many sleepless nights too, which wasn’t very helpful when he was dealing with so many figures. One decimal point in the wrong place or one extra nought subtracted when it should have been added and they’d be ruined.

      He patted her hand. ‘That Becky will do as well as any other,’ he said mildly. ‘Let him marry who he likes.’

      Mrs Sedley turned to him aghast. She could feel one of her heads coming on. ‘Who said anything about them getting married?’ she exclaimed in horror. ‘We hardly know a thing about her!’ A muscle was spasming painfully between her eyebrows. ‘Although I do worry that he works so much and he’s never once had a girlfriend, but does it have to be her?’

      ‘She’s pretty enough,’ Mr Sedley said diffidently as if he’d never once caught his breath at the sight of Becky in her workout gear.

      ‘There’s something about her that I don’t like. She reminds me of a ginger cat we had when I was a girl,’ Mrs Sedley remembered with a shudder. ‘It would bring in these half-dead animals – mice, baby birds, that sort of thing – then toy with them for hours instead of putting them out of their misery.’

      ‘Maybe you should take one of your pills,’ Mr Sedley advised because his wife had turned a mottled red colour, which never boded well; such a pity that Emmy and Jos had inherited her high colouring. This conversation about Emmy’s little friend was getting tedious. ‘Jos is big enough and ugly enough to do as he pleases, and that’s the end of the matter.’ And then he stalked off in the direction of his study to have a glass of whisky and she went off to take a pill and have a lie down, and they were still at odds with each other the next day and Mrs Sedley couldn’t help but feel that Becky Sharp was to blame.

       Chapter 7

      ‘I have that horrible back-to-school feeling,’ Amelia said with a sigh. Mid September had rolled around all too soon, and Amelia was about to return to Durham.

      No wonder Becky felt as if something were about to change. Something big and monumental.

      She stared down at the third finger on her left hand and wondered how it would bear up under the weight of a huge rock.

      Jos wasn’t at all subtle so he’d probably go for something that was at least ten carats. Becky had never thought about getting married and she was only twenty and who got married at only twenty, unless they were dull religious types? But Becky needed a plan B and Jos had his successful protein balls and his huge trust fund, and embracing the LA lifestyle wouldn’t exactly be a hardship. If she stuck it out for a little while then she could have at least half his balls in the divorce settlement.

      ‘Don’t you think, Becky?’

      Becky blinked at Amelia as she was torn away from her little fantasy of a big house in the Hollywood Hills with its own swimming pool. She’d hardly ever gone to school so she’d never really known the Sunday-evening gloom of finishing homework that had been left to the last minute, then bath and an early night. Her childhood gloom had lasted for years and encompassed far more than a little angst about a half-finished essay on the Spanish Armada.

      ‘Actually, I have quite a good feeling about the future,’ Becky insisted to Amelia’s reflection as her friend put the last touches to her make-up. ‘New beginnings, new adventures, and all that. By the way, I’d go easy on that blusher if I were you, Emmy. You’re so lucky having naturally rosy cheeks. I wish I did. I’ll just have to settle for being pale and interesting, I guess.’

      Amelia cast aside her blusher as if it had scalded her and started dabbing at her face with powder instead.

      ‘I think you look beautiful, Becky,’ she said a little enviously. Becky was wearing another one of her cast-offs, a gauzy grey little dress with tiny crystals sewn into it, which made Becky look like an ethereal wood nymph. When Amelia had worn it, she’d looked like a dumpy rain cloud.

      ‘You look lovely too,’ Becky said a little more perfunctorily than Amelia would have liked. She hadn’t been sure about her new dress; it was very pink and puffy, like a gigantic marshmallow, but Becky had persuaded her otherwise. ‘You look so sweet. Gorgeous George won’t know what to do with himself when he sees you. He’ll want to eat you up!’

      ‘I wish!’ Since her party, Amelia hadn’t seen George at all unless she was stalking him on all forms of social media, which wasn’t that rewarding. George was so focused on his political ambitions that he wouldn’t risk a careless meme or a whimsical picture of a sunset on Instagram.

      Instead, he tended to tweet links to leader articles in the Daily Telegraph and Financial Times and it was hard for even the most besotted young woman to feign an enthusiasm about cuts to farm subsidies.

      ‘Honestly, Emmy, he’ll take one look at you in that dress and lure you away to some dark corner and ravish your poor, defenceless, young body,’ Becky said and she snatched up the pillow from Amelia’s bed and gathered it to her in a passionate embrace. ‘I’d put money on it!’

      Amelia flushed with painful hope but unless George had undergone a personality transplant since their first meeting, the poofy marshmallow dress was hardly going to cut it.

      They were going to an End Of Summer party at an exclusive Mayfair nightclub. There was rumoured to be a brace of young royals attending, as well as everyone. When you and all your friends lived in one postal code, had all attended one of several boarding schools and your mothers all sat on the same committees, then your everyone was actually quite small.

      There were paparazzi outside when Jos gallantly handed Amelia and Becky out of the car and for once Amelia was happy to pose for photos. The hope of … (not being ravished because, try as she might, Amelia knew that George wasn’t the ravishing sort) … George’s face lighting up when he saw her put a sparkle in Amelia’s eyes, gave her a giddiness and an allure that she didn’t normally have. And when she saw Becky’s hand tucked into Jos’s meaty paw, saw the way that Becky leaned into her brother and whispered in his ear, Amelia felt nothing but happiness for them. Maybe one day, let it be soon, she’d know that same kind of happiness. With George.

      But the first person she saw, when they found the table that Jos had reserved for them, wasn’t George at all.

      One sweet pang of regret pierced Amelia’s heart to be replaced by a genuine pleasure as the man who’d been sitting there got to his feet and promptly knocked over his drink.

      ‘Dobbin!’ she cried as Becky stared in amazement at Captain William Dobbin of Her Majesty’s Royal Regiment. She’d heard his name in passing from Amelia because when she wasn’t mooning over Gorgeous George, her conversation still revolved around him, and this Dobbin was his best friend. Dobbin had distinguished himself with honours several times in war-strewn, dusty places and so Becky had expected some dashing and glamorous war hero.

      Not this tall, ungainly man with large hands and feet and even larger ears, shown in all their massive glory by his close-cropped black hair, while the rest of him was poured into a hideously tight suit. Perhaps he shared the same tailor as Jos.

      In fact, Dobbin might have been a good back-up plan (a plan C), but one look at those ears – so big they had to be a hazard on the front line … A world of no. She’d asked Amelia why everyone called him Dobbin instead of William and now she knew; he was like a great big carthorse in a world full of sleek thoroughbreds.

      ‘Emmy!’ Dobbin said in a rusty voice full of wonder. ‘How long has it been?’

      He took Amelia’s hand, realised his own was wet after spilling his drink and pulled out a voluminous white handkerchief to mop at both of them.

      Becky hid her smile in Jos’s shoulder. Jos was quite the heart-throb next to the hapless Dobbin.

      ‘Dobs, it’s fine. I’m hardly damp at all,’ Amelia said, taking