Rags To Riches: Her Duty To Please. Michelle Douglas

find the Bentley parked by the canal and the doctor in his study. He looked up as Bas went in, but before he could speak Bas said urgently, ‘You’re just this minute back, mijnheer? You do not know about the exhibition closing early? I thought Miss Pomfrey and the boys would be here.’

      The doctor was out of his chair. ‘At the toy shop? It is closed? Why? You’re sure? They were not in the café?’

      ‘No one had seen them. I spoke to the man closing the place—there’s been an electrical fault, that’s why they shut early. He was sure that there was no one left inside.’

      The doctor was already at the door. ‘They can’t be far, and Miss Pomfrey isn’t a girl to lose her head. Come along. We’ll find them. You stay in the car, Bas, in case they turn up.’

      With Bas beside him he drove to Steijner’s shop. There were few people about—the proprietor and his assistants had gone home—but there was a van parked outside and men unloading equipment.

      The doctor parked the car and walked over to them. ‘You have keys? I believe there are two boys and a young woman still inside. I’m not sure of it, but I must check.’

      He looked up as a small splattering of glass fell between them. He looked up again and saw what appeared to be a stocking waving from the gabled window.

      The man looked up, too. ‘Best get them down, mijnheer. I’ll open up—you won’t need help? I’ve quite a bit of work here…’

      He opened the door, taking his time over its bolts and chains, giving the doctor time to allow for his relief, mingled, for some reason which he didn’t understand, with rising rage. The silly girl. Why didn’t she leave the place with everyone else? There must have been some other people there, and the boys would have understood what was said—everyone would have been warned in good time.

      He raced up the stairs, turned the key in the lock of the last door and went up the staircase two at a time. The boys rushed to meet him, bubbling about their adventure, delighted to see him, and he put his great arms around their small shoulders.

      He said, very softly, ‘I hope you have a good explanation for this, Miss Pomfrey.’ The look he gave her shrivelled her bones.

      Araminta, ready and eager to explain, bit back the words. He was furiously angry with her. No doubt any other man would have sworn at her and called her names, but he had spoken with an icy civility which sent shivers down her spine. A pity he hadn’t shouted, she reflected, then she could have shouted back. Instead she said nothing at all, and after a moment he turned to the boys.

      ‘Bas is below with the car. If you haven’t had tea we will have it together.’

      ‘Shall we tell you about it, Uncle Marcus?’ began Peter.

      ‘Later, Peter, after tea.’ He crossed the room and took Araminta’s stocking off the glass window. It was hopelessly torn and laddered, but he handed it to her very politely. Her ‘thank you’ was equally polite, but she didn’t look at him. She felt a fool with only one stocking, and he had contrived to make her feel guilty about something which hadn’t been her fault. Nor had he asked what had happened, but had condemned her unheard.

      At the bottom of the staircase she paused; she would show him that there was no handle on the door. But he was already going down the next stairs with the boys.

      She was going to call him back, but his impatient, ‘Come along, Miss Pomfrey,’ gave her no chance. She followed the three of them out to the car and got in wordlessly. Once back at the house, she tidied up the boys ready for tea, excused herself on account of a headache and went to her room.

      The doctor’s curled lip at her excuse boded ill for any further conversation he might wish to have with her. And she had no doubt that he would have more to say about feather-brained women who got left behind and locked up while in charge of small boys….

      Bas brought in the tea. ‘Miss Pomfrey will be with you presently?’ he wanted to know. He had seen her pale face and his master’s inscrutable features in the car. ‘You could have cut the air between them with a pair of scissors,’ he had told Jet.

      ‘Miss Pomfrey has a headache. Perhaps you would take her a tray of tea,’ suggested the doctor.

      ‘Mintie never has a headache,’ declared Peter. ‘She said so; she said she’s never ill…’

      ‘In that case, I dare say she will be with us again in a short time,’ observed his uncle. ‘I see that Jet has baked a boterkeok, and there are krentenbollejes…’

      ‘Currant buns,’ said Paul. ‘Shall we save one for Mintie?’

      ‘Why not? Now, tell me, did you enjoy the exhibition? Was there anything that you both liked?’

      ‘A tent—that’s why we were in the room at the very top. It was full of tents and things for camping. We though we’d like a tent. Mintie said she’d come and live in it with us in the garden. She made us laugh, ’specially when we tried to open the door…’

      The doctor put down his tea cup. ‘And it wouldn’t open?’

      ‘It was a real adventure. Mintie supposed that the people who went downstairs before us forgot and shut the door, and of course there wasn’t a handle. You would have enjoyed it, too, Uncle. We banged on the door and shouted, and then Mintie broke the glass in the window and took off a stocking and hung it through the hole she’d made. She said it was what those five children in the Enid Blyton books would have done and we were having an adventure. It was real fun, wasn’t it, Peter?’

      His uncle said, ‘It sounds a splendid adventure.’

      ‘I ’spect that’s why Mintie’s got a headache,’ said Peter.

      ‘I believe you may be right, Peter. Have we finished tea? Would you both like to take Humphrey into the garden? He likes company. I have something to do, so if I’m not here presently, go to Jet in the kitchen, will you?’

      The boys ran off, shouting and laughing, throwing a ball for the good-natured Humphrey, and when Bas came to clear away the tea things, the doctor said, ‘Bas, would you be good enough to ask Miss Pomfrey to come to my study as soon as she feels better?’

      He crossed the hall and shut the study door behind him, and Bas went back to the kitchen. Jet, told of this, pooh-poohed the idea that the doctor was about to send Miss Pomfrey packing. ‘More like he’s got the wrong end of the stick about what happened this afternoon and wants to know what did happen. You don’t know?’

      Bas shook his head. ‘No idea. But it wasn’t anything to upset the boys; they were full of their adventure.’

      Araminta had drunk her tea, had a good cry, washed her face and applied powder and lipstick once more, tidied her hair and sat down to think. She had no intention of telling the doctor anything; he was arrogant, ill-tempered and she couldn’t bear the sight of him. Anyone else would have asked her what had happened, given her a chance to explain. He had taken it for granted that she had been careless and unreliable. ‘I hate him,’ said Araminta, not meaning it, but it relieved her feelings.

      When Bas came for the tea tray and gave her the message from the doctor she thanked him and said that she would be down presently. When he had gone she went to the gilt edged triple mirror on the dressing table and took a good look. Viewed from all sides, her face looked much as usual. Slightly puffy eyelids could be due to the headache. Perhaps another light dusting of powder on her nose, which was still pink at its tip… She practised one or two calm and dignified expressions and rehearsed several likely answers to the cross questioning she expected, and, thus fortified, went down to the study.

      The doctor was sitting at his desk, but he got up as she went in.

      He said at once, ‘Please sit down, Miss Pomfrey, I owe you an apology. It was unpardonable of me to speak to you in such a fashion, to give you no chance to explain—’

      Araminta chipped in, ‘It’s quite all right, doctor, I quite understand. You must have