Betty Neels - Nanny by Chance

He came presently, to find the boys asleep already and Araminta sitting very upright in a chair by the window.

‘They wanted me to stay,’ she told him, and he nodded carelessly, barely glancing at her. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed, she thought, for he looked at her as though he hadn’t really seen her. She gave a relieved sigh. Her, ‘Goodnight, doctor,’ was uttered in Miss Pomfrey’s voice, and he wished her a quiet goodnight in return, amused at the sight of her swathed in her sensible, shapeless dressing gown. Old Jenkell had told him that she was the child of elderly and self-absorbed parents, who hadn’t moved with the times. It seemed likely that they had not allowed her to move with them either.

Nonetheless, she was good with the boys, and so far had made no demands concerning herself. Give her a day or two, he reflected, and she would have settled down and become nothing but a vague figure in the background of his busy life.

His hopes were borne out in the morning; at breakfast she sat between the boys, and after the exchange of good mornings, neither she nor they tried to distract him from the perusal of his post.

Presently he said, ‘Your schedule seems very satisfactory, Miss Pomfrey. I shall be home around teatime. I’ll take the boys with me when I take Humphrey for his evening walk. The boys start school today. You will take them, please, and fetch them at noon each day. I dare say you will enjoy an hour or so to go shopping or sightseeing.’

‘Yes, thank you,’ said Araminta.

Peter said, ‘Uncle, why do you call Mintie Miss Pomfrey? She’s Mintie.’

‘My apologies. It shall be Mintie from now on.’ He smiled, and she thought how it changed his whole handsome face. ‘That is, if Mintie has no objection?’

She answered the smile. ‘Not in the least.’

That was the second time he had asked her that. She had the lowering feeling that she had made so little impression upon him that nothing which they had said to each other had been interesting enough to be remembered.

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