Nanny by Chance

by Betty Neels

  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.’

  He began a soothing monologue, encompassing a visit to some old friends in Friesland, another to the lakes north of Utrecht, where he had a yacht, and a shopping expedition so that they might buy presents to take home…

  The boys listened, happy once more and getting sleepy. Araminta listened too, quite forgetting that she was barefoot, somewhere scantily clad in her nightie and that her hair hung round her shoulders and tumbled untidily down her back.

  The doctor had given her an all-seeing look and hadn’t looked again. He was a kind man, and he knew that the prim Miss Pomfrey, caught unawares in her nightie, would be upset and probably hate him just because he was there to see her looking like a normal girl. She had pretty hair, he reflected.

  ‘Now, how about bed?’ he wanted to know. ‘I’m going downstairs again but I’ll come up in ten minutes, so mind you’re asleep by then.’

  He ruffled their hair and took himself off without a word or a look for Araminta. It was only as she was tucking the boys up once more that she realised that she hadn’t stopped to put on her dressing gown. She kissed the boys goodnight and went away to swathe herself in that garment now, and tie her hair back with a ribbon. She would have to see that man again, she thought vexedly, because the boys had said they wouldn’t go to sleep unless she was there, but this time she would be decently covered.

  He came presently, to find the boys asleep already and Araminta sitting very upright in a chair by the window.

  ‘They wanted me to stay,’ she told him, and he nodded carelessly, barely glancing at her. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed, she thought, for he looked at her as though he hadn’t really seen her. She g
ave a relieved sigh. Her, ‘Goodnight, doctor,’ was uttered in Miss Pomfrey’s voice, and he wished her a quiet goodnight in return, amused at the sight of her swathed in her sensible, shapeless dressing gown. Old Jenkell had told him that she was the child of elderly and self-absorbed parents, who hadn’t moved with the times. It seemed likely that they had not allowed her to move with them either.

  Nonetheless, she was good with the boys, and so far had made no demands concerning herself. Give her a day or two, he reflected, and she would have settled down and become nothing but a vague figure in the background of his busy life.

  His hopes were borne out in the morning; at breakfast she sat between the boys, and after the exchange of good mornings, neither she nor they tried to distract him from the perusal of his post.

  Presently he said, ‘Your schedule seems very satisfactory, Miss Pomfrey. I shall be home around teatime. I’ll take the boys with me when I take Humphrey for his evening walk. The boys start school today. You will take them, please, and fetch them at noon each day. I dare say you will enjoy an hour or so to go shopping or sightseeing.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Araminta.

  Peter said, ‘Uncle, why do you call Mintie Miss Pomfrey? She’s Mintie.’

  ‘My apologies. It shall be Mintie from now on.’ He smiled, and she thought how it changed his whole handsome face. ‘That is, if Mintie has no objection?’

  She answered the smile. ‘Not in the least.’

  That was the second time he had asked her that. She had the lowering feeling that she had made so little impression upon him that nothing which they had said to each other had been interesting enough to be remembered.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE boys had no objection to going to school. It was five minutes’ walk from the doctor’s house and in a small quiet street which they reached by crossing a bridge over the canal. Araminta handed them over to one of the teachers. Submitting to their hugs, she promised that she would be there at the end of the morning, and walked back to the house, where she told Bas that she would go for a walk and look around.

  She found the Domkerk easily enough, but she didn’t go inside; the boys had told her that they would take her there. Instead she went into a church close by, St Pieterskerk, which was Gothic with a crypt and frescoes. By the time she had wandered around, looking her fill, it was time to fetch the boys. Tomorrow she promised herself that she would go into one of the museums and remember to have coffee somewhere…

  The boys had enjoyed their morning. They told her all about it as they walked back, and then demanded to know what they were going to do that afternoon.

  ‘Well, what about buying postcards and stamps and writing to your mother and father? If you know the way, you can show me where the post office is. If you show me a different bit of Utrecht each day I’ll know my way around, so that if ever I should come again…’

  ‘Oh, I ’spect you will, Mintie,’ said Paul. ‘Uncle Marcus will invite you.’

  Araminta thought this highly unlikely, but she didn’t say so. ‘That would be nice,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Let’s have lunch while you tell me some more about school.’

  The afternoon was nicely filled in by their walk to the post office and a further exploration of the neighbouring streets while the boys, puffed up with self-importance, explained about the grachten and the variety of gables, only too pleased to air their knowledge. They were back in good time for tea, and when Bas opened the door to them they were making a considerable noise, since Araminta had attempted to imitate the Dutch words they were intent on teaching her.

  A door in the hall opened and the doctor came out. He had his spectacles on and a book in his hand and he looked coldly annoyed.

  Araminta hushed the boys. ‘Oh, dear, we didn’t know you were home. If we had we would have been as quiet as mice.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear that, Miss Pomfrey. I hesitate to curtail your enjoyment, but I must ask you to be as quiet as possible in the house. You can, of course, let yourself go once you are in the nursery.’

  She gave him a pitying look. He should marry and have a houseful of children and become human again. He was fast becoming a dry-as-dust old bachelor. She said kindly, ‘We are really sorry, aren’t we, boys? We’ll creep around the house and be ourselves in the nursery.’ She added, ‘Little boys will be little boys, you know, but I dare say you’ve forgotten over the years.’

  She gave him a sweet smile and shooed the boys ahead of her up the stairs.

  ‘Is Uncle Marcus cross?’ asked Paul.

  ‘No, no, of course not. You heard what he said—we may make as much noise as we like in the nursery. There’s a piano there, isn’t there? We’ll have a concert after tea…’

  The boys liked the sound of that, only Peter said slowly, ‘He must have been a bit cross because he called you Miss Pomfrey.’

  ‘Oh, he just forgot, I expect. Now, let’s wash hands for tea and go down to the nursery. I dare say we shall have it there if your uncle is working.’

  The doctor had indeed gone back to his study, but he didn’t immediately return to his reading. He was remembering Araminta’s words with a feeing of annoyance. She had implied that he was elderly, or at least middle-aged. Thirty-six wasn’t old, not even middle-aged, and her remark had rankled. True, he was fair enough to concede, he hadn’t the lifestyle of other men of his age, and since he wasn’t married he was free to spend as much time doing his work as he wished.

  As a professor of endocrinology he had an enviable reputation in his profession already, and he was perfectly content with his life. He had friends and acquaintances, his sister, of whom he was fond, and his nephews; his social life was pleasant, and from time to time he thought of marriage, but he had never met a woman with whom he wanted to share the rest of his life.

  Sooner or later, he supposed, he would have to settle for second best and marry; he had choice enough. A man of no conceit, he was still aware that there were several women of his acquaintance who would be only too delighted to marry him.

  He read for a time and then got up and walked through the house to the kitchen, where he told Bas to put the tea things in the small sitting room. ‘And please tell Miss Pomfrey and the boys that I expect them there for tea in ten minutes.’

  After tea, he reflected, they would play the noisiest game he could think of!

  He smiled then, amused that the tiresome girl should have annoyed him. She hadn’t meant to annoy him; he was aware of that. He had seen enough of her to know that she was a kind girl, though perhaps given to uttering thoughts best kept to herself.

  Araminta, rather surprised at his message, went downstairs with the boys to find him already sitting in the chair by the open window, Humphrey at his feet. He got up as they went in and said easily, ‘I thought we might as well have tea together round the table. I believe Jet has been making cakes and some of those pofferjes which really have to be eaten from a plate, don’t they?’

  He drew out a chair and said pleasantly. ‘Do sit down, Miss Pomfrey.’

  ‘Mintie,’ Peter reminded him.

  ‘Mintie,’ said his uncle meekly, and Araminta gave him a wide smile, relieved that he wasn’t annoyed.

  Tea poured and Jet’s botorkeok cut and served, he asked, ‘Well, what have you done all day? Was school all right?’

  The boys were never at a loss for words, so there was little need for Araminta to say anything, merely to agree to something when appealed to. Doubtless over dinner he would question her more closely. She would be careful to be extra polite, she thought; he was a good-natured man, and his manners were beautiful, but she suspected that he expected life to be as he arranged it and wouldn’t tolerate interference. She really must remember that she was merely the governess in his employ—and in a temporary capacity. She would have to remember that, too.

  They played Monopoly after tea, sitting at the table after Bas had taken the tea things away. The boys were surprisingly good at it, and with a little help and a lo
t of hints Peter won with Paul a close second. The doctor had taken care to make mistakes and had even cheated, although Araminta had been the only one to see that. As for her, she would never, as he had mildly pointed out, be a financial wizard.

  She began to tidy up while the boys said a protracted goodnight to their uncle. ‘You’ll come up and say goodnight again?’ they begged.

  When he agreed they went willingly enough to their baths, their warm milk drinks with the little sugar biscuits, and bed. Araminta, rather flushed and untidy, was tucking them in when the doctor came upstairs. He had changed for the evening and she silently admired him. Black tie suited him and his clothes had been cut by a masterly hand. The blue crêpe would be quite inadequate…

  He bade the boys goodnight and then turned to her. ‘I shall be out for dinner, Miss Pomfrey,’ he told her with a formal politeness which she found chilling. ‘Bas will look after you. Dinner will be at the usual time, otherwise do feel free to do whatever you wish.’

  She suppressed an instant wish to go with him. To some grand house where there would be guests? More likely he was taking some exquisitely gowned girl to one of those restaurants where there were little pink-shaded table lamps and the menus were the size of a ground map…

  And she was right, for Paul asked sleepily, ‘Are you going out with a pretty lady, Uncle Marcus?’

  The doctor smiled. ‘Indeed I am, Paul. Tomorrow I’ll tell you what we had for dinner.’

  He nodded to Araminta and went away, and she waited, sitting quietly by the window, until she judged that he had left the house. Of course, there was no reason for him to stay at home to dine with her; she had been a fool to imagine that he would do so. Good manners had obliged him to do so yesterday, since it had been her first evening there, but it wasn’t as if she was an interesting person to be with. Her mother had pointed out kindly and rather too frequently that she lacked wit and sparkle, and that since she wasn’t a clever girl, able to converse upon interesting subjects, then she must be content to be a good listener.