Nanny by Chance

‘I trust you do not find the job too tiresome for you?’ asked the doctor gently.

She spun round. He was standing quite close to her, looking amused.

She said tartly, ‘I was talking to myself, doctor, unaware that anyone was listening. And I do not find the boys tiresome but it has been a long day.

‘Indeed it has.’ He didn’t offer sympathy, merely agreed with her in a civil voice which still held the thread of amusement.

He glanced at his watch. ‘I dare say you wish to unpack for the boys and yourself. I’ll have them with me until half past six.’

He gave her a little nod and held the door open for her.

In her room, she put away her clothes, reflecting that she must remember not to voice her thoughts out loud. He could have been nasty about it—he could also have offered a modicum of sympathy…

She still wasn’t sure why she had accepted this job. True, she was to be paid a generous salary, and she supposed that she had felt sorry for him.

Upon reflection she thought that being sorry for him was a waste of time; it was apparent that he lived in some comfort, surrounded by people devoted to him. She supposed, too, that he was a busy man, although she had no idea what he did. A GP, perhaps? But his lifestyle was a bit grand for that. A consultant in one of the hospitals? Or one of those unseen men who specialised in obscure illnesses? She would find out.

She went to the boys’ room and unpacked, put everything ready for bedtime and then got out pen and paper and wrote out the rough outline of a routine for the boys’ day. Probably the doctor wouldn’t approve of it, in which case he could make his own suggestions.

At half past six she went downstairs and found the boys in the small room where they had their tea earlier. The doctor was there, too, and they were all on the floor playing a noisy game of cards. There was a dog there too, a black Labrador, sitting beside his master, watching the cards being flung down and picked up.

They all looked up as she went in and the doctor said, ‘Five minutes, Miss Pomfrey.’ When the dog got to its feet and came towards her, he added, ‘This is Humphrey. You like dogs?’

‘Yes.’ She offered a fist and then stroked the great head. ‘He’s lovely.’

She sat down until the game came to an end, with Peter declared the winner.

‘Supper?’ asked Araminta mildly.

The doctor got on to his feet, towering over them. ‘Come and say goodnight when you’re ready for bed. Off you go, there’s good fellows.’

Bas was waiting in the hall. ‘Supper is to be in the day nursery on the first floor,’ he explained. ‘You know the way, miss.’ And they all went upstairs and into the large room, so comfortably furnished with an eye to a child’s comfort.

‘Uncle Marcus used to have his supper here,’ Paul told her, ‘and he says one day, when he’s got some boys of his own, they’ll have their supper here, too.’

Was the doctor about to marry? Araminta wondered. He wasn’t all that young—well into his thirties, she supposed. It was high time he settled down. It would be a pity to waste this lovely old house and this cosy nursery…

Bas came in with a tray followed by a strapping girl with a round face and fair hair who grinned at them and set the table. Supper was quickly eaten, milk was drunk and Araminta whisked the boys upstairs, for they were tired now and suddenly a little unhappy.

‘Are Mummy and Daddy going a long way away?’ asked Peter as she bathed them.

‘Well, it would be a long way if you had to walk there,’ said Araminta, ‘but in an aeroplane it takes no time at all to get there and get back again. Shall we buy postcards tomorrow and write to them?’

She talked cheerfully as she popped them into their pyjamas and dressing gowns and they all went back downstairs, this time to the drawing room, where their uncle was sitting with a pile of papers on the table beside him.

He hugged them, teased them gently, told them he would see them at breakfast in the morning and bade them goodnight. As they went, he reminded Araminta that dinner would be in half an hour.

The boys were asleep within minutes. Araminta had a quick shower and got into another skirt and a pretty blouse, spent the shortest possible time over her face and hair and nipped downstairs again with a few minutes to spare. She suspected that the doctor was a man who invited punctuality.

He was in the drawing room still, but he got up as she went in, offered her a glass of sherry, enquired if the boys were asleep and made small talk until Bas came to tell them that dinner was ready.

Araminta was hungry and Jet was a splendid cook. She made her way through mushrooms in a garlic and cream sauce, roast guinea fowl, and apple tart with whipped cream. Mindful of good manners, she sustained a polite conversation the while.

The doctor, making suitable replies to her painstaking efforts allowed his thoughts to wander.

After this evening he would feel free to spend his evenings with friends or at the hospital; breakfast wasn’t a problem, for the boys would be there, and he was almost always out for lunch. Miss Pomfrey was a nice enough girl, but there was nothing about her to arouse his interest. He had no doubt that she would be excellent with the boys, and she was a sensible girl who would know how to amuse herself on her days off.

Dinner over, he suggested that they had their coffee in the drawing room.

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Araminta, ‘I’d like to go to bed. I’ve written down the outlines of a day’s schedule, if you would look at it and let me know in the morning if it suits you. Do we have breakfast with you or on our own?’

‘With me. At half past seven, since I leave for the hospital soon after eight o’clock.’

Araminta nodded. ‘Oh, I wondered where you worked,’ she observed, and wished him goodnight.

The doctor, politely opening the door for her, had the distinct feeling that he had been dismissed.

He could find no fault with her schedule for the boys. He could see that if she intended to carry it out to the letter she would be tired by the end of the day, but that, he felt, was no concern of his. She would have an hour or so each morning while the boys were at school and he would tell her that she could have her day off during the week as long as it didn’t interfere with his work.

He went back to his chair and began to read the patients’ notes that he had brought with him from the hospital. There was a good deal of work waiting for him both at Utrecht and Leiden. He was an acknowledged authority on endocrinology, and there were a number of patients about which he was to be consulted. He didn’t give Araminta another thought.

Araminta took her time getting ready for bed. She took a leisurely bath, and spent time searching for lines and wrinkles in her face; someone had told her that once one had turned twenty, one’s skin would start to age. But since she had a clear skin, as soft as a peach, she found nothing to worry her. She got into bed, glanced at the book and magazines someone had thoughtfully put on her bedside table and decided that instead of reading she would lie quietly and sort out her thoughts. She was asleep within minutes.

A small, tearful voice woke her an hour later. Paul was standing by her bed, in tears, and a moment later Peter joined him.

Araminta jumped out of bed. ‘My dears, have you had a nasty dream? Look, I’ll come to your room and sit with you and you can tell me all about it. Bad dreams go away if you talk about them, you know.’

It wasn’t bad dreams; they wanted their mother and father, their own home, the cat and her kittens, the goldfish… She sat down on one of the beds and settled the pair of them, one on each side of her, cuddling them close.

‘Well, of course you miss them, my dears, but you’ll be home again in a few weeks. Think of seeing them all again and telling them about Holland. And you’ve got your uncle…’

‘And you, Mintie, you won’t go away?’

‘Gracious me, no. I’m in a foreign country, aren’t I? Where would I go? I’m depending on both of you to take me round Utrecht so that I can tell everyone at home all about it.’

‘Have you got little boys?’ asked Peter.

‘No, love, just a mother and father and a few aunts and uncles. I haven’t any brothers and sisters, you see.’

Paul said in a watery voice, ‘Shall we be your brothers? Just while you’re living with us?’

‘Oh, yes, please. What a lovely idea…’

‘I heard voices,’ said the doctor from the doorway. ‘Bad dreams?’

Peter piped up, ‘We woke up and we wanted to go home, but Mintie has explained so it’s all right, Uncle, because she’ll be here with you, and she says we can be her little brothers. She hasn’t got a brother or a sister.’

The doctor came into the room and sat down on the other bed. ‘What a splendid idea. We must think of so many things to do that we shan’t have enough days in which to do them.’