by Betty Neels
He said, very softly, ‘I hope you have a good explanation for this, Miss Pomfrey.’ The look he gave her shrivelled her bones.
Araminta, ready and eager to explain, bit back the words. He was furiously angry with her. No doubt any other man would have sworn at her and called her names, but he had spoken with an icy civility which sent shivers down her spine. A pity he hadn’t shouted, she reflected, then she could have shouted back. Instead she said nothing at all, and after a moment he turned to the boys.
‘Bas is below with the car. If you haven’t had tea we will have it together.’
‘Shall we tell you about it, Uncle Marcus?’ began Peter.
‘Later, Peter, after tea.’ He crossed the room and took Araminta’s stocking off the glass window. It was hopelessly torn and laddered, but he handed it to her very politely. Her ‘thank you’ was equally polite, but she didn’t look at him. She felt a fool with only one stocking, and he had contrived to make her feel guilty about something which hadn’t been her fault. Nor had he asked what had happened, but had condemned her unheard.
At the bottom of the staircase she paused; she would show him that there was no handle on the door. But he was already going down the next stairs with the boys.
She was going to call him back, but his impatient, ‘Come along, Miss Pomfrey,’ gave her no chance. She followed the three of them out to the car and got in wordlessly. Once back at the house, she tidied up the boys ready for tea, excused herself on account of a headache and went to her room.
The doctor’s curled lip at her excuse boded ill for any further conversation he might wish to have with her. And she had no doubt that he would have more to say about feather-brained women who got left behind and locked up while in charge of small boys….
Bas brought in the tea. ‘Miss Pomfrey will be with you presently?’ he wanted to know. He had seen her pale face and his master’s inscrutable features in the car. ‘You could have cut the air between them with a pair of scissors,’ he had told Jet.
‘Miss Pomfrey has a headache. Perhaps you would take her a tray of tea,’ suggested the doctor.
‘Mintie never has a headache,’ declared Peter. ‘She said so; she said she’s never ill…’
‘In that case, I dare say she will be with us again in a short time,’ observed his uncle. ‘I see that Jet has baked a boterkeok, and there are krentenbollejes…’
‘Currant buns,’ said Paul. ‘Shall we save one for Mintie?’
‘Why not? Now, tell me, did you enjoy the exhibition? Was there anything that you both liked?’
‘A tent—that’s why we were in the room at the very top. It was full of tents and things for camping. We though we’d like a tent. Mintie said she’d come and live in it with us in the garden. She made us laugh, ’specially when we tried to open the door…’
The doctor put down his tea cup. ‘And it wouldn’t open?’
‘It was a real adventure. Mintie supposed that the people who went downstairs before us forgot and shut the door, and of course there wasn’t a handle. You would have enjoyed it, too, Uncle. We banged on the door and shouted, and then Mintie broke the glass in the window and took off a stocking and hung it through the hole she’d made. She said it was what those five children in the Enid Blyton books would have done and we were having an adventure. It was real fun, wasn’t it, Peter?’
His uncle said, ‘It sounds a splendid adventure.’
‘I ’spect that’s why Mintie’s got a headache,’ said Peter.
‘I believe you may be right, Peter. Have we finished tea? Would you both like to take Humphrey into the garden? He likes company. I have something to do, so if I’m not here presently, go to Jet in the kitchen, will you?’
The boys ran off, shouting and laughing, throwing a ball for the good-natured Humphrey, and when Bas came to clear away the tea things, the doctor said, ‘Bas, would you be good enough to ask Miss Pomfrey to come to my study as soon as she feels better?’
He crossed the hall and shut the study door behind him, and Bas went back to the kitchen. Jet, told of this, pooh-poohed the idea that the doctor was about to send Miss Pomfrey packing. ‘More like he’s got the wrong end of the stick about what happened this afternoon and wants to know what did happen. You don’t know?’
Bas shook his head. ‘No idea. But it wasn’t anything to upset the boys; they were full of their adventure.’
Araminta had drunk her tea, had a good cry, washed her face and applied powder and lipstick once more, tidied her hair and sat down to think. She had no intention of telling the doctor anything; he was arrogant, ill-tempered and she couldn’t bear the sight of him. Anyone else would have asked her what had happened, given her a chance to explain. He had taken it for granted that she had been careless and unreliable. ‘I hate him,’ said Araminta, not meaning it, but it relieved her feelings.
When Bas came for the tea tray and gave her the message from the doctor she thanked him and said that she would be down presently. When he had gone she went to the gilt edged triple mirror on the dressing table and took a good look. Viewed from all sides, her face looked much as usual. Slightly puffy eyelids could be due to the headache. Perhaps another light dusting of powder on her nose, which was still pink at its tip… She practised one or two calm and dignified expressions and rehearsed several likely answers to the cross questioning she expected, and, thus fortified, went down to the study.
The doctor was sitting at his desk, but he got up as she went in.
He said at once, ‘Please sit down, Miss Pomfrey, I owe you an apology. It was unpardonable of me to speak to you in such a fashion, to give you no chance to explain—’
Araminta chipped in, ‘It’s quite all right, doctor, I quite understand. You must have been very worried.’
‘Were you not worried, Mintie?’
He so seldom called her that that she stared at him. His face was as impassive as it always was; he was looking at her over his spectacles, his brows lifted in enquiry.
‘Me? Yes, of course I was. I was scared out of my wits, if you must know—so afraid that the boys would suddenly realise that we might be shut up for hours and it wasn’t an adventure, after all.’ She added matter-of-factly, ‘Of course, I knew you’d come sooner or later.’
‘Oh, and why should you be so sure of that?’
She frowned. ‘I don’t know—at least, I suppose… I don’t know.’
‘I hope you accept my apology, and if there is anything—’
‘Of course I accept it,’ she interrupted him again. ‘And there isn’t anything. Thank you.’
‘You are happy here? You do not find it too dull?’
‘I don’t see how anyone could feel dull with Peter and Paul as companions.’
She looked at him and smiled.
‘You have been crying, Miss Pomfrey?’
So she was Miss Pomfrey again. ‘Certainly not. What have I got to cry about?’
‘I can think of several things, and you may be a splendid governess, Miss Pomfrey, but you are a poor liar.’
She went rather red in the face. ‘What a nasty thing to say about me,’ she snapped, quite forgetting that he was her employer, who expected politeness at all times, no doubt, ‘I never tell lies, not the kind which harm people. Besides, my father has always told me that a weeping woman is a thorn in the flesh of any man.’
The doctor kept a straight face. ‘A very sensible opinion,’ he murmured. ‘All the same, if it was I who caused your tears, I’m sorry. I have no wish to upset you or make you unhappy.’
She sought for an answer, but since she couldn’t think of one, she stayed silent.
‘You behaved with commendable good sense.’ He smiled then. ‘Dr Jenkell assured me that you were the most level-headed young woman he had ever known. I must be sure and tell him how right he was.’
If that’s a compliment, thought Araminta, I’d as soon do without it. She wondered what would have happened if she had been pretty and empty-headed and screamed her head of
f. Men being men, they would have rushed to her rescue, poured brandy down her throat and offered a shoulder for her to cry into. They would probably have called her poor little girl and made sure that she went to her bed for the rest of the day. And the doctor was very much a man, wasn’t he? Being plain had its drawbacks, thought Araminta.
The doctor, watching her expressive face, wondered what she was thinking. How fortunate it was that she was such a sensible girl. The whole episode would be forgotten, but he must remember to make sure that her next free day was a success.
He said now, ‘I expect you want to go to the boys. I told them that they might have supper with us this evening, but that they must have their baths and be ready for bed first.’
Dismissed, but with her evening’s work already planned, Araminta went in search of the boys and spent the next hour supervising the cleaning of teeth, the brushing of hair and the riotous bath. With the boys looking like two small angels, she led them downstairs presently. There had been little time to do anything to her own person; she had dabbed her nose with powder, brushed her own hair, and sighed into the mirror, aware that the doctor wouldn’t notice if she wore a blonde wig and false eyelashes.
‘Not that I mind in the least,’ she had told her reflection.
Her supposition was regrettably true, he barely glanced at her throughout the meal, and when he did he didn’t see anyone other than the dependable Miss Pomfrey, suitably merging into the background of his life.
The next days were uneventful, a pleasant pattern of mornings at school, afternoons spent exploring and evenings playing some game or other. When their uncle was at home, the boys spent their short evenings with him, leaving her free to do whatever she wanted.
She supposed that she could have gone and sat in the little room behind the drawing room and watched the TV, but no one had suggested it and she didn’t like to go there uninvited. So she stayed in her room, doing her nails, sewing on buttons and mending holes in small garments. It was a pleasant room, warm and nicely furnished, but it didn’t stop her feeling lonely.
It was towards the end of the week that Paul got up one morning and didn’t want his breakfast. Probably a cold, thought Araminta, and kept an eye on him.
He seemed quite his usual self when she fetched them both from school, but by the evening he was feverish, peevish and thoroughly out of sorts. It was a pity that the doctor had gone to the Hague and wouldn’t be back until late that evening. Araminta put him to bed and, since the twins didn’t like to be separated, Peter had his bath and got ready for bed, too. With Bas’s help she carried up their light supper.
But Paul didn’t want his; his throat was sore and his head ached and when she took his temperature it was alarmingly high. She sat him on her lap, persuaded him to drink the cold drinks Bas brought and, while Peter finished his supper, embarked on a story. She made it up as she went along, and it was about nothing in particular, but the boys listened and presently Paul went to sleep, his hot little head pressed against her shoulder.
Peter had come to sit beside her, and she put an arm around him, carrying on a cheerful whispered conversation until he, reassured about his brother, slept too.
It was some time later when Bas came in quietly to remind her that dinner was waiting for her.
‘I’m sorry, Bas, but I can’t come. They’re both sound asleep and Paul isn’t well. They’re bound to wake presently, then I can put them in their beds… Will you apologize to Jet for me? I’m not hungry; I can have some soup later.’
Bas went reluctantly and she was left, her insides rumbling, while she tried not to think of food. Just like the doctor, she thought testily, to be away just when he was wanted. She wouldn’t allow herself to panic. She had coped with childish ailments at the children’s convalescent home and knew how resilient they were and how quickly they got well once whatever it was which had afflicted them had been diagnosed and dealt with. All the same, she wished that the doctor would come home soon.
Minutes ticked themselves slowly into an hour, but she managed a cheerful smile when Bas put a concerned head round the door.
‘They’ll wake soon,’ she assured him in a whisper. But they slept on: Peter sleeping the deep sleep of a healthy child, Paul deeply asleep too but with a mounting fever, his tousled head still against her shoulder. She longed to changed her position; she longed even more for a cup of tea. It did no good to dwell on that, so she allowed her thoughts free rein and wondered what the doctor was doing and who he was with. She hoped that whoever it was wasn’t distracting him from returning home at a reasonable hour.
It was a good thing that she didn’t know that on the point of his leaving the hospital in the Hague he had been urgently recalled…
When he did get home it was ten o’clock. Bas came hurrying into the hall to meet him, his nice elderly face worried.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked the doctor.
‘Little Paul. He’s not well, mijnheer. He’s asleep, but Miss Pomfrey has him on her lap; he’s been there for hours. Peter’s there too. Miss Pomfrey asked me to phone the hospital, but you were not available…’
The doctor put a hand on Bas’s shoulder. ‘I’ll go up. Don’t worry, Bas.’
Araminta had heard him come home, and the voices in the hall, and relief flooded through her. She peered down into Paul’s sleeping face and then looked up as the doctor came quietly into the room.
‘Have you had the mumps?’ she asked him.
He stopped short. ‘Good Lord, yes, decades ago.’
He looked at his nephew’s face, showing distinct signs of puffiness, then stopped and lifted him gently off her lap.
‘How long have you been sitting there?’
‘Since six o’clock. He’s got a temperature and a headache and his throat’s sore. Peter’s all right so far.’
The doctor laid the still sleeping boy in his bed and bent to examine him gently. ‘We will let him sleep, poor scrap.’ He came and took Peter in his arms and tucked him up in his bed, talking softly to the half-awake child. Only then did he turn to Araminta, sitting, perforce, exactly as she had been doing for the past few hours, so stiff that she didn’t dare to move.
The doctor hauled her gently to her feet, put an arm around her and walked her up and down.
‘Now, go downstairs, tell Bas to ask Jet to get us something to eat and send Nel up here to sit with the boys for a while.’
And when she hesitated, he added, ‘Go along, Miss Pomfrey. I want my supper.’
She gave him a speaking look; she wanted her supper, too, and the unfeeling man hadn’t even bothered to ask her if she needed hers.
‘So do I,’ she snapped, and then added, ‘Is Paul all right? It is only mumps?’
He said coolly, ‘Yes, Miss Pomfrey. Hopefully only mumps.’
She went downstairs and gave Bas his messages, then went and sat in the small sitting room. She was tired and rather untidy and she could see ahead of her several trying days while the mumps kept their hold on Paul—and possibly Peter.
‘Twelve days incubation,’ she said, talking to herself, ‘and we could wait longer than that until we’re sure Peter doesn’t get them, too.’
‘Inevitable, Miss Pomfrey. Do you often talk to yourself?’
The doctor had come silently into the room. He poured a glass of sherry and gave it to her and didn’t wait for her answer. ‘It will mean bed for a few days for Paul, and of course Peter can’t go to school. Will you be able to manage? Nel can take over in the afternoons while you take Peter for a walk?’
He watched her toss back the sherry and refilled her glass. Perhaps he was expecting too much of her. ‘See how you go on,’ he told her kindly. ‘If necessary, I’ll get some more help.’
‘If Peter were to get the mumps within the next few days I shall be able to manage very nicely,’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘It is to be hoped that he will. Let us get them over with, by all means.’
Bas came then, so she finished her seco
nd sherry far too quickly and went to the dining room with the doctor.
Jet had conjured up an excellent meal: mushroom soup, a cheese soufflé, salad and a lemon mousse. Araminta, slightly light-headed from the sherry, ate everything put before her, making somewhat muddled conversation as she did so. The doctor watched with faint amusement as she polished off the last of the mousse.
‘Now go to bed, Miss Pomfrey. You will be called as usual in the morning.’
‘Oh, that won’t do at all,’ she told him, emboldened by the sherry. ‘I’ll have a bath and get ready for bed, then I’ll go and sit with the boys for a bit. Once I’m sure they are all right, I’ll go to bed. I shall hear them if they wake.’
‘You will do as I say. I have a good deal of reading to do; I will do it in their room.’
‘Aren’t you going to the hospital in the morning?’
‘Certainly I am.’
‘Then you can’t do that; you’ll be like a wet rag in the morning. You need your sleep.’
‘I’m quite capable of knowing how much sleep I need, Miss Pomfrey. Kindly do as I ask. Goodnight.’
She wanted to cry, although she didn’t know why, but she held back the tears, wished him a bleak goodnight and went upstairs. She felt better after a hot bath, and, wrapped in her dressing gown, she crept into the boys’ room to make sure they were asleep. Nel, the housemaid, had gone downstairs again and they slept peacefully. Promising herself that she would get up during the night to make sure that they were all right, Araminta took herself off to bed.
She was asleep at once, but woke instantly at a peevish wail from Paul. She tumbled out of bed and crept to the half-open door. Paul was awake and the doctor was sitting on his bed, giving him a drink. There were papers scattered all over the floor and the chair was drawn up to the table by the window. She crept back to bed. It was two o’clock in the morning. She lay and worried about the doctor’s lack of sleep until she slept once more.
She was up very early, to find the boys sleeping and the doctor gone. She dressed, crept down to the kitchen and made herself tea, filled a jug with cold lemonade and went back to the boys’ room. They were still asleep. Paul’s face was very swollen but Peter looked normal. She had no idea how she would manage for the next few days; it depended on whether Peter got mumps, too.