‘Mintie?’ Paul looked anxious.
‘Your uncle is quite right; I’d rather shop by myself. But I promise you I’ll show you what I’ve bought and you can help me wrap everything up.’
Suddenly indignant, she suggested that the boys should go and fetch their schoolbooks, and when they had gone she turned her eyes, sparkling with ill temper, on the doctor.
‘Presumably we are to return to England shortly?’ she enquired in a voice to pulverise a stone. ‘It would be convenient for me if you were to be civil enough to tell me when.’
The doctor put down the letter he was reading. ‘My dear Miss Pomfrey, you must know by now that I’m often uncivil. If I have ruffled your feelings, I am sorry.’ He didn’t look in the least sorry, though, merely amused.
‘We shall return in five days’ time. I have various appointments which I must fulfil but the boys will remain with me until their parents return within the next week or so. I hope that you are agreeable to remain with them until they do? You will, of course, be free to go as soon as their parents are back.’
‘You said that you would arrange for me to start my training…’
‘Indeed I did, and I will do so. You are prepared to start immediately? Frequently a student nurse drops out within a very short time. If that were the case, you would be able to take her place. I will do what I can for you. You are still determined to take up nursing?’
‘Yes. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m not sure if the life will suit you.’
‘I’m used to hard work,’ she told him. ‘This kind of life—’ she waved a hand around her ‘—is something I’ve never experienced before.’
‘You don’t care for it?’
She gave him an astonished look. ‘Of course I like it. I had better go and see if the boys are ready for school.’
That morning she went shopping, buying a scarf for her mother, a book on the history of the Netherlands for her father and a pretty blouse for her cousin, who would probably never wear it. She bought cigars for Bas, too, and another scarf for Jet, and a box of sweets for Nel and the elderly woman who came each day to polish and clean. Mindful of her promise to the boys, she found pretty paper and ribbons. Wrapping everything up would keep them occupied for half an hour at least, after their tea, while they were waiting impatiently for their uncle to come home.
They were still engrossed in this, sitting on the floor in the nursery with Araminta, when the door opened and the doctor and Mevrouw Lutyns came in.
The boys ran to him at once and Araminta got to her feet, feeling at a disadvantage. Mevrouw Lutyns was, as always, beautifully dressed, her face and hair utter perfection. Araminta remembered only too clearly the conversation she had had with the doctor in Leeuwarden and felt the colour creep into her cheeks. How he must have laughed at her. Probably he had shared the joke with the woman.
Mevrouw Lutyns ignored her, greeted the boys in a perfunctory manner and spoke sharply to the doctor. He had hunkered down to tie a particularly awkward piece of ribbon and answered her in a casual way, which Araminta saw annoyed her. He spoke in English, too, which, for the moment at any rate, made her rather like him. A tiresome man, she had to admit, but his manners were beautiful. Unlike Mevrouw Lutyns’.
He glanced at Araminta and said smoothly. ‘Mevrouw Lutyns is thinking of coming to England for a visit.’
‘I expect you know England well?’ said Araminta politely.
‘London, of course. I don’t care for the country. Besides, I must remain in London. I need to shop.’ Her lip curled. ‘I don’t expect you need to bother with clothes.’
Araminta thought of several answers, all of them rude, so she held her tongue.
The doctor got to his feet. ‘Come downstairs to the drawing room, Christina, and have a drink.’ And to the boys he added, ‘I’ll be back again presently—we’ll have a card game before bed.’
They went away and Peter whispered. ‘We don’t like her; she never talks to us. Why does Uncle like her, Mintie?’
‘Well, she’s very pretty, you know, and I expect she’s amusing and makes him laugh, and she wears pretty dresses.’
Paul flung an arm round her. ‘We think you’re pretty, Mintie, and you make us laugh and wear pretty clothes.’
She gave him a hug. ‘Do I really? How nice of you to say so. Ladies like compliments, you know.’
She found a pack of cards. ‘How about a game of Happy Families before your uncle comes?’
They were in the middle of a noisy game when he returned. When she would have stopped playing he squatted down beside her.
‘One of my favourite games,’ he declared, ‘and much more fun with four.’
‘Has Mevrouw Lutyns gone home?’ asked Paul.
‘Yes, to dress up for the evening. We are going out to dinner.’
He looked at Araminta as he spoke, but she was shuffling her cards and didn’t look up.
Two days later the boys went with their uncle to do their shopping, leaving Araminta to start packing. She had been happy in Holland and she would miss the pleasant life, but now she must concentrate on her future. Her mother, in one of her rare letters, had supposed that she would go straight to the hospital when she left the doctor’s house. Certainly she wasn’t expected to stay home for any length of time. All the same, she would have to go home for a day or so to repack her things.
‘We may be away,’ her mother had written. ‘There is an important lecture tour in Wales. Your cousin will be here, of course.’ She had added, as though she had remembered that Araminta was her daughter, whom she loved, ‘I am glad you have enjoyed your stay in Holland.’
Neither her mother or her father would be interested in her life there, nor would her cousin, and there would scarcely be time for her to look up her friends. There would be no one to whom she could describe the days she had spent in the doctor’s house. Just for a moment she gave way to self-pity, and then reminded herself that she had a worthwhile future before her despite the doctor’s doubts.
For the last few days before they left she saw almost nothing of the doctor. The boys, excited at the prospect of going back to England, kept her busy, and they spent the last one or two afternoons walking the, by now, well known streets, pausing at the bridges to stare down into the canals, admiring the boatloads of flowers and, as a treat, eating mountainous ices in one of the cafés.
They were to leave early in the morning, and amidst the bustle of departure Araminta had little time to feel sad at leaving. She bade Jet and Bas goodbye, shook hands with Nel and the daily cleaner, bent to hug Humphrey, saw the boys settled on the back seat and got in beside the doctor.
It was only as he drove away that she allowed herself to remember that she wouldn’t be coming again. In just a few weeks she had come to love the doctor’s house, and Utrecht, its pleasant streets and small hidden corners where time since the Middle Ages had stood still. I shall miss it, she thought and then, I shall miss the doctor, too. Once she had left his house she wasn’t likely to see him again. There was no chance of their lives converging; he would become part of this whole interlude. An important part.
I do wonder, thought Araminta, how one can fall in love with someone who doesn’t care a row of pins for one, for that’s what I have done. And what a good thing that I shall be leaving soon and never have to see him again.
The thought brought tears to her eyes and the doctor, glancing sideways at her downcast profile, said kindly, ‘You are sorry to be leaving Holland, Miss Pomfrey? Fortunately it is not far from England and you will be able to pay it another visit