The contrast between his handsome house and her own home was cruel, but she didn’t allow it to bother her. He stopped before its front door and she prepared to get out. She stopped halfway. ‘I shall be about half an hour,’ she told him. ‘Would you like to come in, or perhaps you would rather come back?’
His mouth twitched. ‘I’ll come in, if I may.’ It would be interesting to see how this unassuming girl, who had fitted into the quiet luxury of his home with unself-conscious naturalness, behaved in her own house. Besides, he had a wish to meet the delicate sister. As plain as her sister? he wondered.
Araminta put her key in the lock and opened the door, and stood aside to allow him to pass her into the narrow hall. It was a bit of a squeeze, for he was so very large, but she said nothing, only called softly, ‘Alice? Alice, I’m back…’
Alice’s voice came from the kitchen. ‘And about time too, I’m sick of all this beastly housework…’ Her voice got louder as she opened the door wider and came through, and then changed miraculously as she saw Professor Lister. ‘Oh, we weren’t expecting you…’ Her cross face became wreathed in smiles.
‘This is Professor Lister, Alice. My sister, Professor. Alice, I shall be away for another week or ten days. I’ve come to collect some more clothes. I’ve brought my case with me…’
The professor had shaken hands and smiled but not spoken; now he said, ‘Ah, yes, I’ll fetch it in for you.’ And he went out to the car again.
Alice clutched Araminta’s arm. ‘Why didn’t you warn me? I’d have had my hair done and put on a decent dress. He’s quite something.’ She added peevishly, ‘The house is in a mess…’
‘I doubt if he notices,’ said Araminta prosaically. ‘He’s a bit absent-minded.’
Alice tossed her head. ‘I’ll make him notice me…’ She turned to smile at him as he came back into the house. ‘You run along, dear,’ she said sweetly to Araminta. ‘I daresay Professor Lister would like a cup of coffee.’
Araminta climbed the stairs to her room and set about the business of finding fresh clothes, stout shoes and an all-enveloping overall, since it seemed likely that she would be expected to do the housework as well as keep an eye on Jimmy and Gloria. That done, she took a pile of undies and blouses down to the kitchen, stuffed them into the washing-machine and switched it on. Alice wasn’t likely to iron them, but at least they would be clean when she got back. She could hear voices in the sitting-room, and Alice’s laugh, as she went back upstairs to collect her writing-case and choose a book to take with her. She thought that she might need soothing by bedtime each day, and ran her hand along the row of books by her bed. She chose Vanity Fair and Thackeray’s Ballads and Songs. She hesitated, her small, nicely kept hand hovering over Jane Eyre, but there wasn’t room for it in her case. She closed the case, carried it downstairs, and went into the sitting-room. The professor was sitting in one of the shabby armchairs by the fireplace and he got up as she went in. Alice was sitting on the old-fashioned sofa. She looked prettier than ever, thought Araminta without envy, but it was a pity that the room was so untidy, more than untidy, grubby. Why did Alice look so cross, anyway?
She looked quickly at the professor, but he looked as he always did, pleasant and at the same time unconcerned, as though his mind were elsewhere. She could hardly blame him for that; she longed to get a duster and tidy up a bit. All the same, Alice was surely pretty enough to override her surroundings—something must have gone wrong…
‘I’m ready, Professor,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as possible when I’ll be coming home,’ she told her sister, and was rewarded by a pouting face.
‘I suppose I’ll have to manage. Lucky you, it’ll be as good as a holiday.’
Alice got up and offered a hand to Professor Lister, looking at him in a little-girl-lost manner which Araminta found irritating, although probably, being a man, he liked it. He showed no signs of either liking or disliking it; she had never met a man who concealed his feelings so completely.
‘I’m sure you must be relieved to know that, after all this time, whatever it was your doctor diagnosed has apparently cured itself. I must urge you to go and have a check-up. It isn’t for me to say, but I feel sure that you have little reason to fear for your health.’ He shook her hand firmly and stood aside while Araminta kissed her sister’s cheek, but Alice was still peevish. She went over to the door with them and wished them a cold goodbye as they got into the car, shutting the door before they had driven away.
Araminta peeped at her companion’s profile; he looked stern.
‘As I said it is, of course, not for me to say, but I believe that your sister is in excellent health. I suggested that she should see her doctor so that he might reassure her. If she had needed medical care when she first went to him he would have advised her to see him regularly.’
‘He told her that she had to take things easily.’
‘But not for two years or more.’
‘It’s very kind of you to concern yourself, Professor Lister,’ said Araminta frostily, ‘but perhaps…’ She paused, not quite sure how to put it. ‘You’re a surgeon,’ she pointed out.
‘I am also a doctor of medicine,’ he told her blandly. ‘Have you all that you require for the next week or so?’
She wondered if she had been rude. ‘Yes, thank you. I’m sorry if I was rude; I didn’t mean to be.’
‘It is of no consequence. Indeed, I prefer outspokenness to mealy-mouthed deception.’
They were almost back at his house. ‘We shall leave directly after breakfast,’ he observed, with the cool courtesy which she found so daunting. ‘Will you see that the children are ready by nine o’clock—and the animals, of course?’ He drew up before his door and got out and opened her door for her. ‘I expect you would like an hour or so in which to pack for yourself—I’ll take the children out with the dogs.’
He stood in the hall looking down at her, unsmiling, while Buller fetched her bag from the car. He must find all this a most frightful nuisance, she reflected, his daysturned upside-down and, even if he’s fond of the children, he doesn’t like me overmuch. A sudden wish to be as pretty as Alice swam into her head; it was the impersonal indifference which she found so hard to bear.
She thanked him in her quiet way, and went upstairs and began to pack her things before going to see if Jimmy and Gloria had made a start on theirs. They hadn’t, and it would be too late by the time they got back and had had dinner; getting them up in the morning would be bad enough. She fetched their cases and began to pack for them as well.
The professor went to his study after dinner and Araminta, mindful of his placid, ‘We shall leave directly after breakfast. Will you see that the children are ready by nine o’clock,’ finished the packing, persuaded the children to go to their beds and went to her room, intent on a long hot bath and washing her hair, but she had got no further than taking the pins out when there was a tap on the door. There was Buller with a request that she would go at once to the study as the professor had been called away and wished to see her before he went.
‘He’ll have to wait while I get my hair up,’ said Araminta.
‘If I might venture to say so, miss, the professor is anxious to be gone—an urgent matter at the hospital, I believe. Could you not tie it back or plait it?’
‘Well, all right, I expect I’d better.’ She began with quick fingers to weave a tidy rope of hair over one shoulder; it hung almost to her waist, thick and mousy, and she was braiding the last inch or so when Buller knocked on the study door and held it open for her.
The professor was stuffing papers into his bag. He looked up as she went in and, if he noticed the hair, he made no comment.
‘Miss Smith, I have to return to the hospital, and I am not sure when I shall get back. There may not be time to discuss