She wasn’t kept waiting; the rotund man came back within a few minutes and asked her to follow him to the end of the hall and through a door at its end. The room had a large bay window, its heavy velvet curtains not drawn; there would be a garden beyond, she supposed, as she crossed the carpeted floor to stand before the large desk in one corner of the room. The professor got slowly to his feet, the book he had been reading in his hand, a finger marking the page. He stood for a moment, looking at her over his spectacles.
‘Miss Smith? Miss Araminta Smith?’
She took exception to the lifted eyebrow. ‘Yes— Araminta because it makes up for Smith, if you see what I mean!’
He perceived that this rather dowdy girl with no looks worth mentioning might not be quite what she seemed. He put his book on the desk reluctantly—for he had been relaxing with the poems of Horace—in the original Latin, of course.
‘Please sit down, Miss Smith. I was expecting someone of a rather more mature…That is, your charges are young teenagers and, if you will forgive me for saying so, you look—er—rather young yourself.’
‘Twenty-three,’ said Araminta matter-of-factly. ‘Young enough to be able to understand them and old enough to be listened to.’ Since he looked doubtful, she added kindly, ‘Try me—if I don’t do you can find someone else, but the agency said that you needed someone urgently, so perhaps I could be of help until you do.’
She wasn’t suitable but she would have to do, at least for the moment.
‘It will be necessary for you to catch an early-morning train from Paddington. My nephew and niece are to stay here with me while their mother goes to her husband, who is ill. I have a manservant and his wife who live in the house, but they are too elderly to cope with teenagers. That will be your task.’
‘For how long, Mr Lister?’ She paused. ‘Should I have said Doctor? The agency said you were in the medical profession.’
‘Professor will do.’ He smiled at her. She was nothing to look at, but he liked her sensible manner. ‘Only for their half-term—a week. My sister has a splendid housekeeper, who has unfortunately gone to her home to nurse her mother. She should be back, and probably my sister will have returned by then.’
Everything quite satisfactory, thought Araminta; the problem of making arrangements for Alice and her father at a few hours’ notice would be dealt with presently. She bade the professor a staid goodbye, and he called her back as she reached the door.
‘You will need some money for fares and expenses,’ he pointed out mildly, and took out his notecase. The amount he gave her was over-generous, and she said so.
‘I shall expect an exact account of what you have spent,’ he told her.
She flashed him a look from her dark eyes. ‘Naturally,’ she told him coldly.
He ignored the coldness. ‘Mrs Buller will have everything ready; perhaps you will phone her as to what time you expect to arrive here. My sister has the number.’
Araminta nodded her tidy head. ‘Very well, Professor Lister. Good evening.’ He had opened the door for her, and she went past him into the hall and found Buller there, ready to speed her on her way. He gave her a fatherly smile.
‘Quite an upheaval, Miss—the professor leads a very quiet life—but I daresay we shall manage.’
She hoped so, and then concentrated on her own problems.
It was to be expected that Alice would be difficult. Araminta had been working for the agency for some time now, but always on a daily basis; now she was actually going to leave Alice and her father on their own.
‘How am I supposed to manage?’ stormed Alice when Araminta arrived at home. ‘You know how delicate I am—the doctor said I had to lead a quiet life. You’re selfish, Araminta, going off like this. You must say you can’t go.’ She lapsed into easy tears. ‘You might think of me…’
‘Well, I am,’ said Araminta sensibly. ‘There’s almost no money in the house, there’s the gas bill waiting to be paid and the TV licence, and Father’s salary won’t be paid into the bank for another week. If you want to eat, I’ll have to take this job. There’s plenty in the fridge, and you can go to the shops for anything you need. I dare say a little walk would do you good. Or Father can shop on his way home.’
‘Who is to make the beds and cook and do the housework?’ wailed Alice.
‘Well, I expect you could manage between you for a few days.’
‘You’re hard,’ cried Alice. ‘All you do is think of yourself.’
Araminta bit back the words on the tip of her tongue. She was, after all, a normal girl, wishing for pretty clothes and money in her pocket and a man to love her, and she saw no hope of getting any of these wishes. She went upstairs to her small bedroom in the little terraced house and packed a bag. Her wardrobe was meagre; she folded a sober grey dress—half-price in the sales and useful for her kind of job—a couple of sweaters, blouses and undies, dressing-gown and slippers, a tweed skirt and a rainproof jacket. Almost all she had, actually, and as she packed she could hear her father and sister talking in the sitting-room downstairs. She sighed a little, and made sure that she had all she needed in her handbag before going to join them.
It took the rest of that evening convincing her father that she really had to go. He was an easygoing man, spending money when he had it and borrowing when he hadn’t, but even he had to admit that there was a shortage of cash in the house.
‘Well,’ he said easily, ‘you go along and enjoy yourself, my dear. Alice and I will manage somehow. I’ll use what money there is, for you’ll bring your fees back with you, I suppose?’ He smiled at her with vague affection. ‘Our little wage-earner.’ He got up. ‘I’ll make a pot of tea before we go to bed.’
‘Not all the fees, Father,’ said Araminta in a quiet voice. ‘I need a new pair of shoes…’
She was up and dressed and eating a hasty breakfast when Alice came yawning into the kitchen. ‘You might have brought me a cup,’ she said plaintively.
‘No time,’ said Araminta, her mouth full. ‘I’ll phone you in a day or two when I know how things are going. Say goodbye to Father for me, will you?’
She dropped a kiss on her sister’s cheek and flew out of the door with her case, intent on catching a bus to Paddington.
The train was half-empty and she sat in a windowseat, watching the wintry landscape, glad to have the next hour and a half to herself. She had few qualms about the job; she had been working for the agency for more than a year now, although this was the first time the job was expected to last as long as a week—perhaps not even that if Professor Lister found her unsatisfactory. She wasn’t sure what to make of him; he hadn’t approved of her, that was evident, but he had been pleasant enough in a rather absent-minded manner. Hopefully he would be out of the house for most of the day; she would only need to keep the children out of his way in the early mornings and the evenings.
When she got out of the train at Tisbury she was thankful to find an elderly taxi parked outside the station. The driver was pleasant and chatty and, when she gave him the address, said at once, ‘Oh, Mrs Gault— poor lady. Worried sick, she is, with her husband ill on the other side of the world. Come to give a hand, have you? Half-term and all…’
The house was at the other end of the little town: a red-brick dwelling in a large garden. There was nothing elaborate about it; it was roomy, with large sash windows and a handsome front door with a splendid fanlight— what Araminta supposed one would describe as a gentleman’s residence. She paid the taxi-driver, took her case and rang the bell, and then, since no one came, banged the brass knocker.
The