party.
‘Oh, that hospital again,’ said his hostess. ‘Do you never get a free moment, Marcus?’
He made a laughing rejoinder, promised to dine at some future date, and started the car.
Araminta, still clutching her chips, said in a tight little voice, ‘Will you take me back to the house, doctor? It’s kind of you to offer me a meal, but I’m not hungry.’
A waste of breath, for all she got in reply was a grunt as he swept the car back into the lighted streets, past shop windows still blazing with light, cafés spilling out onto the pavements, grand hotels… She tried again. ‘I’m not suitably dressed…’
He took no notice of that either, but turned into a narrow side street lined with elegant little shops. At its far end there was a small restaurant.
There was a canal on the opposite side of the street, and the doctor parked beside it—dangerously near the edge, from her point of view—and got out. There was no help for it but to get out when he opened her door, to be marched across the street and into the restaurant.
It was a small place: a long, narrow room with tables well apart, most of them occupied. Araminta was relieved to see that although the women there were well dressed, several of them were in suits and dark dresses so that her jacket and skirt weren’t too conspicuous.
It seemed the doctor was known there; they were led to a table in one corner, her jacket was taken from her and a smiling waiter drew out her chair.
The doctor sat down opposite to her. ‘What will you drink?’ he asked. ‘Dry sherry?’
When she agreed, he spoke to the waiter, who offered menus. There was choice enough, and she saw at a glance that everything was wildly expensive. She stared down at it; she hadn’t wanted to come, and it would be entirely his fault if she chose caviar, plover’s eggs and truffles, all of which were on the menu, their cost equivalent to a week’s housekeeping money. On the other hand, she had no wish to sample any of these delicacies and, since she must have spoilt his evening, it seemed only fair to choose as economically as possible.
The doctor put down his menu. ‘Unless you would like anything special, will you leave it to me to order?’
‘Oh, please.’ She added, ‘There’s such a lot to choose from, isn’t there?’
‘Indeed. How about marinated aubergine to start with? And would you like sea bass to follow?’
She agreed; she wasn’t shy, and she was too much her parents’ daughter to feel awkward. She had never been in a restaurant such as this one, but she wasn’t going to let it intimidate her. When the food came she ate with pleasure and, mindful of manners, made polite conversation. The doctor was at first secretly amused and then found himself interested. Miss Pomfrey might be nothing out of the ordinary, but she had self-assurance and a way of looking him in the eye which he found disquieting. Not a conceited man, but aware of his worth, he wasn’t used to being studied in such a manner.
For a moment he regretted his spoilt evening, but told himself that he was being unjust and then suggested that she might like a pudding from the trolley.
She chose sticky toffee pudding and ate it with enjoyment, and he, watching her over his biscuits and cheese, found himself reluctantly liking her.
They had talked in a guarded fashion over their meal—the weather, the boys, her opinion of Utrecht, all safe subjects. It was when they got back to the house and she had thanked him and started for the stairs that he stopped her.
‘Miss Pomfrey, we do not need to refer again to the regrettable waste of your free day. Rest assured that I shall see to it that any other free time you have will be well spent.’
‘Thank you, but I am quite capable of looking after myself.’
He smiled thinly. ‘Allow me to be the best judge of that, Miss Pomfrey.’ He turned away. ‘Goodnight.’
She paused on the stairs. ‘Goodnight, doctor.’ And then she added, ‘I bought the chips because I was hungry. I dare say you would have done the same,’ she told him in a matter-of-fact voice.
The doctor watched her small retreating back and went into his study. Presently he began to laugh.
ARAMINTA woke early on Sunday morning and remembered that the doctor had said that he would be away all day—moreover, he had remarked that he had no doubt that she and the boys would enjoy their day. Doing what? she wondered, and sat up and worried about it until Jet came in with her morning tea, a concession to her English habit.
They smiled and nodded at each other and exchanged a ‘Goeden Morgen’, and the boys, hearing Jet’s voice, came into the room and got onto Araminta’s bed to eat the little biscuits which had come with the tea.
‘We have to get up and dress,’ they told her. ‘We go to church with Uncle Marcus at half past nine.’
‘Oh, do you? Then back to your room, boys, I’ll be along in ten minutes or so.’
Church would last about an hour, she supposed, which meant that a good deal of the morning would be gone; they could go to one of the parks and feed the ducks, then come back for lunch, and by then surely she would have thought of something to fill the afternoon hours. A pity it wasn’t raining, then they could have stayed indoors.
Jet had told her that breakfast would be at half past eight—at least, Araminta was almost sure that was what she had said; she knew the word for breakfast by now, and the time of day wasn’t too hard to guess at. She dressed and went to help the boys. Not that they needed much help, for they dressed themselves, even if a bit haphazardly. But she brushed hair, tied miniature ties and made sure that their teeth were brushed and their hands clean. She did it without fuss; at the children’s convalescent home there had been no time to linger over such tasks.
The doctor wasn’t at breakfast, and they had almost finished when he came in with Humphrey. He had been for a walk, he told them. Humphrey had needed to stretch his legs. He sat down and had a cup of coffee, explaining that he had already breakfasted. ‘Church at half past nine,’ he reminded them, and asked Araminta if she would care to go with them. ‘The church is close by—a short walk—you might find it interesting.’
She sensed that he expected her to accept. ‘Thank you, I would like to come,’ she told him. ‘At what time are we to be ready?’
‘Ten past nine. The service lasts about an hour.’
They each had a child’s hand as they walked to the church, which was small and old, smelling of damp, flowers and age and, to Araminta’s mind, rather bleak. They sat right at the front in a high-backed pew with narrow seats and hassocks. The boys sat between them, standing on the hassocks to sing the hymns and then sitting through a lengthy sermon.
Of course, Araminta understood very little of the service, although some of the hymn tunes were the same, but the sermon, preached by an elderly dominee with a flowing beard, sounded as though it was threatening them with severe punishments in the hereafter; she was relieved when it ended with a splendid rolling period of unintelligible words and they all sang a hymn.
It was a tune she knew, but the words in the hymn book the doctor had thoughtfully provided her with were beyond her understanding. The boys sang lustily, as did the doctor, in a deep rumbling voice, and since they were singing so loudly, she hummed the tune to herself. It was the next best thing.
Back at the house, the doctor asked Bas to bring coffee into the drawing room.
‘I shall be leaving in a few minutes,’ he told Araminta. ‘I expect you intend to take a walk before lunch, but in the afternoon Bas will drive you to Steijner’s toy shop. They have an exhibition of toys there today and I have tickets. And next door there is a café where you may have your tea. Bas will come for you at about five o’clock.