LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Your concern on my behalf flatters me but is quite unnecessary, Sarah. Go and dress.’

      Once or twice during that strange night she had caught herself almost liking him—now she wasn’t so sure. She went ahead of him with something of a flounce and didn’t answer.

      The day turned out to be almost as strange as the night had been. The old lady was becoming confused—she refused to believe that it was morning and presently, with the blinds drawn, fell into a restless sleep. Sarah sat quietly, watching the small figure in the bed. People came and went: the Nautas, the Professor, and then Nel with coffee for Sarah. She had just finished it when the Professor returned.

      ‘Go and take a turn in the garden,’ he told her. ‘I’ll be here, so don’t argue—when my grandmother wakes again you’ll have your hands full.’

      Which turned out to be very true. Old Mevrouw Nauta, refreshed by her sleep, demanded supper once again, dismissed her grandson and insisted on more music. Sarah played for some time, and would have stopped for a while but she was urged to continue, so that it was well after lunchtime when the Professor came once more into the room. ‘Off with you,’ he told Sarah. ‘Lunch is ready for you.’

      She said quickly, ‘I can’t—Mevrouw Nauta has just told me to go on playing.’

      ‘She will have to put up with me.’ He scooped her off the stool and took her place, and much to her surprise began to play Debussy. He took no notice of her, and his grandmother had her eyes closed; she went downstairs and ate her lunch and then, urged by Mevrouw Nauta junior, took a walk in the garden. When she went back, the Professor and his grandmother were talking softly together and he had her hand in his. He got up presently and went away with nothing but a casual nod.

      The following two days and nights followed the same erratic pattern so that Sarah hardly knew what time of day it was, but old Mevrouw Nauta was quieter now, content to lie and listen to Sarah playing and from time to time reading out loud. Sarah had company for a good deal of the time: Mevrouw sat quietly in a corner of the room, knitting or embroidering, and her husband wandered in and out to sit by the bed and listen to his mother, rambling a little now but still chatty and occasionally querulous.

      It was the Professor who shared the long hours of the night with Sarah and the old lady, sitting relaxed by the bed while Sarah played or read aloud or sat thankfully silent while he and his grandmother talked. He made the old lady laugh, a weak chuckle which Sarah found pathetic, and he brought her flowers, delicate little nosegays which Sarah arranged in vases around the room. Always he behaved as though his grandmother were well, ignoring her confusion, discussing the new flower-beds in the garden that his father was having dug, just as though she would be there to see them when they were planted, coaxing her to eat and sometimes drawing Sarah into their conversation, slipping back into English, never at a loss for the cheerful talk the old lady enjoyed.

      It was four o’clock in the morning of the third day when the old lady closed her eyes and didn’t wake again. Sarah had been reading to her while the Professor lounged in a chair by the bed, his eyes on his grandmother. Something made her look up, and she faltered and stopped and then closed the book. She drew a sharp breath, and wishing not to intrude, whispered, ‘Oh, she…what do you want me to do?’

      He picked up the small hand on the coverlet and kissed it. ‘Nothing, Sarah. My mother and father came this evening while you were in your own room, and so did the servants. I’ll fetch Nel presently. Go to bed now.’

      ‘I can’t leave you alone…’

      He turned to look at her, and she was shocked at the grief in his calm face. ‘Do as I say, Sarah.’

      So she went, to lie awake for a time and then fall into the sleep she needed so badly. She woke once, to remember that she was due back at work in two days’ time. When she woke the second time it was to find Nel standing by the bed with a breakfast tray. There was a note propped up against the teapot telling her that the family hoped that she would join them for coffee, but that if she was still tired she was to remain in bed.

      She went downstairs presently and found Mevrouw Nauta in the drawing-room. Her husband was there too, but there was no sign of the Professor. ‘Radolf has gone to make the necessary arrangements,’ Mevrouw Nauta told her. ‘He should be back at any moment. You slept? You have had a tiring two weeks, my dear, and we are most grateful to you.’

      ‘You made my mother very happy,’ observed Mijnheer Nauta. ‘She loved music, above all the piano.’

      When the Professor joined them he said at once, ‘My grandmother asked that you should attend her funeral, Sarah. In four days’ time. I’ll arrange for you to travel back the day after that.’

      ‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘I don’t think—’

      She was stopped by his frown. ‘It was her particular wish—unless you have any other plans?’

      She bristled at his manner—indifferent and arrogant, she told herself, and she was on the point of reminding him that her plans included going back to work when Mevrouw Nauta chimed in. ‘Oh, do please stay, Sarah, you were so good to her and it was her wish.’

      ‘Very well,’ said Sarah quietly, and listened politely while Mevrouw Nauta enumerated the family who might be expected to attend the funeral. Sarah hoped that there weren’t many more like the Professor.

      She wrote to the head of her department that afternoon. Miss Payne disliked her, but surely she would understand that Sarah couldn’t refuse to stay in Holland? She walked to the village, very glad to be free to go where she liked, purchased a stamp and posted her letter—happily unaware that there was a lightning strike of postmen in England, and that the chances of her letter’s getting to its destination on time were slim.

      The next three days were extremely pleasant. She had her meals with the family and spent some time with Mevrouw Nauta, but the rest of the days were hers. She wandered around the countryside and on the second day borrowed a bike and went further afield. The weather was kind, for at least it didn’t rain, and on the third day she cycled the seven miles over to Sneek. She hadn’t the time to see much and she longed for time to explore, but at least she had seen one Dutch town.

      Of the Professor there was little to be seen; he was polite to her when they met at meals, but she had the feeling that he was avoiding her. That, she supposed, was natural enough—he had engaged her to be a companion to his grandmother, and now she was surplus to his requirements. He was polite at the funeral, introducing her, when their paths crossed, to the hordes of family and friends who came. Sarah shook hands and murmured politely, lost in a sea of strange faces.

      It wasn’t until that evening at dinner that she heard him telling his parents that he would be leaving that night. It seemed that they already knew that he was going away, but now for some reason he would be going almost at once.

      ‘You’ll take the car?’ asked his father, and nodded his head when the Professor observed that it was an easy drive.

      He bade her goodnight and hoped that she would have a good journey, his voice so cold that she replied stiffly in as few words as possible. It was Hans, driving her to Schiphol the following morning, who told her that the Professor had gone to Germany for a fortnight. ‘He lectures, miss, and he’ll call in on his way back to London, I expect.’ He added, ‘We are all quite sorry to see you go, miss. You made the old lady’s last days very happy.’

      She thanked him gratefully, responding suitably to his hope that they would meet again at some time, and said goodbye at Schiphol with regret.

      The Professor might not like her overmuch, but he had arranged her journey meticulously. Moreover, he had arranged for someone to deliver Charles to her bedsit that evening, for which she was grateful, for without her cat her homecoming would have been lonely indeed. Her room, after the luxury of the Nautas’ home, seemed smaller and darker and shabbier than it actually was, but once the fire was lit and Charles had settled down in front of it and she had unpacked her few things, her good sense reasserted itself. She had a home, even though it was one room,

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