the late afternoon? Would that do? There are several things I must see to…’
‘Of course, we’ll expect you around teatime. Take a taxi from the station and put it down to expenses. I don’t suppose you have a uniform? I’ll get Matron to find something.’
He had given her tea and she had come back home to find her cousin returned. A good thing, for she’d offered to cook them a meal while Araminta began on her packing. She’d phoned her mother later to tell her that she had left the hospital and was taking up a job as an assistant school matron.
‘What a good idea,’ observed her parent comfortably. ‘You liked the convalescent home, didn’t you? A pity you couldn’t have stayed with Dr van der Breugh’s nephews, for it seems to me, my love, that you are cut out to be a homebody. I’m sure you will be very happy at Eastbourne.
‘We shall be home very shortly and we must make plans for Christmas. We still have a good deal of research to do and the publishers are anxious for us to have our book ready by the spring, but we shall be home soon, although we may need to make a trip to Cornwall—there have been some interesting discoveries made near Bodmin.’
Araminta was sorry to leave Cherub once again. It was fortunate that he was a self-sufficient cat, content as long as he was fed and could get in and out of the house. Araminta, on her way to Eastbourne the next day, wondered if it would be possible for her to have him with her at the school. There was a flatlet, Mr Gardiner had told her, and Cherub would be happy in her company. She would wait until she had been there for a time and then see what could be done. It depended very much on the matron she would be working with. Araminta, speculating about her, decided that no one could be worse than Sister Spicer…
The school was close to the sea front, a large rambling place surrounded by a high brick wall, but the grounds around it were ample; there were tennis courts and a covered swimming pool and a cricket pitch. And the house looked welcoming.
She was admitted by a friendly girl who took her straight to Mr Gardiner’s office. He got up to shake hands, expressed pleasure at her arrival and suggested that she might like to go straight to Matron.
‘I’ll take you up and leave you to get acquainted. The boys will be at supper very shortly, and then they have half an hour’s recreation before bed. Perhaps you could work alongside Matron for a while this evening and get some idea of the work?’
Matron had a sitting room and a bedroom on the first floor next to the sick bay. She was a youngish woman with a round, cheerful face and welcomed Araminta warmly. Over a pot of tea she expressed her relief at getting help.
‘It’s a good job here,’ she observed. ‘The Gardiners are very kind and considerate, but it does need two of us. You like small boys? Mr Gardiner told me that you had worked with them.’
She took Araminta along to her room presently, at the other end of the house but on the same floor. It was quite large, with a shower room leading from it, an electric fire, a gas ring and a kettle. It was comfortably furnished and on the bed there was an assortment of blue and white striped dresses.
‘I’ve done the best I could,’ said Matron. ‘See if any of them fit—the best of them can be altered.’ She hesitated. ‘Mr Gardiner always calls me Matron—but the name’s Pagett, Norma. I should call you Matron as well, when the boys are around, but…’ She paused enquiringly.
‘Would you call me Mintie? It’s Araminta, really, but almost no one calls me that. Do I call you Miss Pagett?’
‘Heavens no, call me Norma. I’m sure we shall get on well together.’
Norma went back to her room and left Araminta to try on the dresses. One or two were a tolerable fit, so she changed, unpacked her few things and went back to Norma’s room.
There was just time to be given a brief resumé of her work before the boys’ suppertime, and presently, presiding over a table of small boys gobbling their suppers, Araminta felt a surge of content. She wasn’t happy, but it seemed that she had found the right job at last—and who could be miserable with all these little boys talking and shouting, pushing and shoving and then turning into pious little angels when Mr Gardiner said grace at the end of the meal?
Later that evening, sitting in her dressing gown, drinking cocoa in Norma’s room, Araminta reminded herself that this was exactly what she had wanted. She would never be a career girl, but she hoped there would be a secure and pleasant future ahead for her.
Hard on this uplifting thought came another one. She didn’t want security and life could be as unpleasant as it liked, if only she could see Marcus again.
The next few days gave her no chance to indulge in self-pity. Accustomed as she was to the care of small children, she still found the day’s workload heavy. Norma was well organised, being a trained children’s nurse, and efficient. She was kind and patient, too, and the boys liked her. They liked Araminta, too, and once she had learned her day’s routine, and her way round the school, she found that life could be pleasant enough even if busy—provided, of course, that she didn’t allow herself to think about Marcus.
The following weekend was an exeat, and the boys would have Saturday, Sunday and Monday to go home, save for a handful whose parents were abroad.
‘We will split the weekend between us,’ Norma told her, ‘I’ll have Friday evening—you can manage, can’t you?—and come back on Sunday at midday. You can have the rest of Sunday and Monday, only be back in the evening, won’t you? The boys will come back after tea. Mr Gardiner doesn’t mind how we arrange things as long as one of us is here to keep an eye on the boys who are staying—there aren’t many; all but half a dozen have family or friends to whom they go.’
‘I don’t mind if I don’t go home,’ said Araminta. ‘I’ve only just got here…’
‘Nice of you, but fair’s fair, and you’ll be glad of a couple of days away. This is always a busy term— Christmas and the school play and parents coming and the boys getting excited.’
Marcus van der Breugh, busy man though he was, still found time to phone Mrs Gardiner senior. ‘A happy coincidence,’ he told her, ‘that you should have mentioned your son’s urgent need for help. I am sure that Miss Pomfrey will be suitable for the work.’
Mrs Gardiner, with time on her hands, was only too glad to chat.
‘I heard from him yesterday evening. He is very satisfied. She seems a nice girl—the boys like her and the matron likes her. So important that these people should get on well together, don’t you agree? And, of course, she is fortunate in that it is an exeat at the weekend and she will be free for part of the time to go home. She and Matron will share the days between them, of course; someone has to be there for the boys who stay at the school.’ She gave a satisfied laugh. ‘I feel we must congratulate ourselves on arranging things so successfully.’
The doctor, making suitable replies when it seemed necessary, was already making plans.
Araminta was surprised to get a letter the next morning; her parents were still away and the writing on the envelope wasn’t her cousin’s. She opened it slowly; her first delighted thought that it was from the doctor was instantly squashed. The writing was a woman’s; his writing was almost unreadable.
It was from Lucy Ingram. She had asked her brother where Araminta was, she wrote, and he had given her the school’s address. Could Araminta come and stay for a day or two when she was next free? The boys were so anxious to see her again. ‘It’s an exeat next weekend and I dare say all the schools are the same. So if you are free, do let us know. I’ll drive over and fetch you. Do come if you can; it will be just us. Will you give me a ring?’
Araminta phoned that evening. It would be nice to see Peter and Paul again, and perhaps hear something of Marcus from his sister. She accepted with pleasure but wondered if it was worth Mrs Ingram’s drive. ‘It’s only a day and a half,’ she pointed out, ‘and it’s quite a long way.’
‘The M4, M25, and a straight