Roses Have Thorns

The next three days were extremely pleasant. She had her meals with the family and spent some time with Mevrouw Nauta, but the rest of the days were hers. She wandered around the countryside and on the second day borrowed a bike and went further afield. The weather was kind, for at least it didn’t rain, and on the third day she cycled the seven miles over to Sneek. She hadn’t the time to see much and she longed for time to explore, but at least she had seen one Dutch town.

Of the Professor there was little to be seen; he was polite to her when they met at meals, but she had the feeling that he was avoiding her. That, she supposed, was natural enough—he had engaged her to be a companion to his grandmother, and now she was surplus to his requirements. He was polite at the funeral, introducing her, when their paths crossed, to the hordes of family and friends who came. Sarah shook hands and murmured politely, lost in a sea of strange faces.

It wasn’t until that evening at dinner that she heard him telling his parents that he would be leaving that night. It seemed that they already knew that he was going away, but now for some reason he would be going almost at once.

‘You’ll take the car?’ asked his father, and nodded his head when the Professor observed that it was an easy drive.

He bade her goodnight and hoped that she would have a good journey, his voice so cold that she replied stiffly in as few words as possible. It was Hans, driving her to Schiphol the following morning, who told her that the Professor had gone to Germany for a fortnight. ‘He lectures, miss, and he’ll call in on his way back to London, I expect.’ He added, ‘We are all quite sorry to see you go, miss. You made the old lady’s last days very happy.’

She thanked him gratefully, responding suitably to his hope that they would meet again at some time, and said goodbye at Schiphol with regret.

The Professor might not like her overmuch, but he had arranged her journey meticulously. Moreover, he had arranged for someone to deliver Charles to her bedsit that evening, for which she was grateful, for without her cat her homecoming would have been lonely indeed. Her room, after the luxury of the Nautas’ home, seemed smaller and darker and shabbier than it actually was, but once the fire was lit and Charles had settled down in front of it and she had unpacked her few things, her good sense reasserted itself. She had a home, even though it was one room, and she had a job, too.

She was at her desk in good time in the morning, confident that Miss Payne, however much she disliked her, would have accepted her letter. Besides, the Professor, when he arranged her return, would surely have explained why she hadn’t gone back to her job when she should have done.

An hour later she was forced to admit that he had either forgotten or had decided it wasn’t necessary to give any explanation to her department. Miss Payne, choosing her time between clinics, had come to see her and hadn’t minced her words. Sarah was not to be depended upon, and was she aware that this was the second time that she had returned late from a holiday without bothering to let anyone know?