abided by it. All the same, when she came back from her bath some twenty minutes later and found everyone gone and the hat on Anne’s bed, she settled the masterpiece of millinery upon her head and looked rather fearfully in the mirror.
Aunt Maud had been wrong; the hat did something for her, she looked almost pretty. She winced at the memory of the severe felt she had purchased for church-going last winter, with her aunt’s unqualified approval. The next hat she bought, she vowed, turning her head this way and that before the mirror, she would buy by herself, and it would be a hat to shock the family, the village churchgoers and the parson himself. She took it off with regret. It was a pity that as a general rule she didn’t wear hats; all the same she glowed gently with the knowledge that she wasn’t quite as plain as she had imagined. It would be nice, she thought sleepily, if you were wearing such a hat when Nanny’s Mr Right came along, if ever he came, which seemed unlikely.
Two days later Sister Brewster sent for her, to inform her in tones of disapproval that since her cousin was unable to go on the children’s holiday which Lady Marchant had so kindly arranged, and Matron had signified her approval of Arabella taking her place, she would have to make do with whoever was offered her. Upon this rather unfortunate opening she proceeded to build her plans for the expedition, merely pausing from time to time in order to tell Arabella that she was to do as she was told at all times. ‘I shall have my hands full,’ stated Sister Brewster loftily, ‘and I want no nonsense of any sort.’
Arabella wondered if the programme—and a very muddled one it was too—was to be adhered to, what time there would be left for her to do more than draw breath, let alone give way to any sort of nonsense. She assured the older lady that she wasn’t the nonsensical type, and then enquired how many children they were to escort.
‘Twenty-two,’ said Sister Brewster snappily.
‘Are they all able to help themselves?’
‘Some ten or eleven are capable of doing most things. You will need to help the others.’
Arabella caught her breath, clamped her teeth firmly on to her tongue and remained commendably silent. It was going to be far worse than she had been led to believe; no wonder Hilary hadn’t wanted to go, although she might not have known the details when she cried off. Arabella, who wouldn’t have played a dirty trick on anyone, couldn’t imagine others doing so, especially her own cousin.
She went along to the Sisters’ Wing of the Home that evening and told Hilary about it, and her cousin, sitting before her mirror, doing things to her pretty face, made a sympathetic sound. ‘Poor old Bella, I am sorry, love. Never mind, it won’t be for long and once you get to the camp I’m sure you’ll find swarms of volunteer helpers, then you won’t have nearly so much to do.’
She applied mascara with an expert hand and Arabella watched with an appreciative eye. ‘We’re leaving in two days’ time,’ she told her cousin. ‘Did you do anything about Watts’ holiday?’
Hilary got up and put on her coat. ‘Watts? Don’t worry your head, Bella—everything will be arranged.’
Arabella prepared to leave. ‘Where are you going?’ she enquired.
Hilary gave her a mischievous smile. ‘Just a little dinner for two. I’m late—be a darling and tidy up a bit for me, will you? I’ll be late back and I know I’ll be too tired…’bye, love.’
She was gone in a discreet cloud of Ma Griffe and Arabella started to put away discarded clothes and tidy the dressing table. She had done it before quite a number of times, and as she opened doors and closed drawers she reflected, without envy, that her cousin was certainly the prettiest girl she had ever seen. The thought sent her to the mirror to peer at her own reflection, an action so unrewarding that she made haste to go back to her own room.
Lady Marchant, even though she was in Canada, had seen to it that her work in arranging a holiday for the spastic children should not go unsung; the children were conveyed to Wickham’s in the morning where the bus was waiting for them, together with a battery of cameramen from all the best newspapers and even someone from the BBC.
Arabella, busy arranging the children in their most comfortable positions and then strapping them in, had no time to pose for her photograph, although she was assured by her friends later that there were some excellent shots of her back view on the six o’clock news, but Hilary, who had come down into the courtyard ostensibly to help, turned her lovely face to the cameramen, who realized that she was exactly what they were looking for. They snapped her in a dozen positions and the BBC reporter managed a short interview, in which Hilary, without actually saying so, gave the impression that she was in charge of the whole excursion.
The bus left at length, half an hour after everyone else, because Sister Brewster, at the last minute, had discovered that she had left behind most of the papers she needed for the journey; it was unfortunate that she couldn’t remember where she had left them. They came to light in her room finally, but by then the newspaper men and the reporter had gone home to their lunch.
Contrary to her expectations, Arabella enjoyed the journey; the children were good even though they were wild with excitement; most of them were able to do only a very little for themselves even though they had the intelligence of a normal child. Arabella listened patiently to their slow, difficult speech, pointed out the sights as they went along, and when the bus pulled in to a layby, helped them to eat their lunches. Several of them needed to be fed, several more needed a steadying hand. It took so long that she ate her own sandwiches once the bus had started again, sitting up in front with three of the more helpless of the children. They were pathetically lightweight, so they were close to the driver and the bus door, so that they could be whisked in and out quickly and leave room for those not quite so handicapped. The driver, Arabella had quickly decided, was a dear; quite elderly and rather thickset, a good steady driver too and not easily distracted by the shouts and noise going on around him.
They were to cross by Hovercraft to Calais and spend the night near Ghent, at a convent known to Lady Marchant, and despite Sister Brewster’s misgivings, the journey went smoothly and surprisingly rapidly. Once on the other side of the channel, Mr Burns, the driver, took the coast road to Dunkirk, turning off there to cross into Belgium and so eventually to Ghent. The convent was just outside the town, a charming red brick building enclosed by a large garden and with a gratifyingly large number of helpers waiting to receive them. The children were fed and put to bed and the three of them were sitting down to their own supper in a commendably short space of time. They talked little, for they were tired, and Arabella for one was glad to stretch herself out in her severe little bed in the room allotted to her leading from the children’s dormitory.
They were on their way directly after a breakfast eaten at an hour which had meant getting up very early indeed, but the morning was fine if chilly and spirits were high as Mr Burns turned the bus towards Holland. They had a journey of roughly a hundred and fifty miles to go and more than five hours in which to do it, for they were expected at the camp by one o’clock. Part of the journey at least would be on the motorway, the remainder as far as Arnhem on a first-class road. The holiday camp was nine or ten miles further on, in the Veluwe, and with no towns of any size nearby, that much Arabella had learned from her study of the map before they had left, and as they went along, Mr Burns supplied odds and ends of information concerning the country around them.
They were through Arnhem and off the main road now, tooling along through pleasant quiet country, wooded and sparsely inhabited—a little like the New Forest, decided Arabella, on her way round the bus with sweets for the children. It was as she was making her way to the front again that she noticed that Mr Burns’ driving had become rather erratic; he wasn’t on the right side of the road any more, but well in the middle. The bus shot back to the right far too sharply and then,
