shall like having you here,’ said Oliver as she went to the door. ‘We would like you to stay forever, Eustacia.’
‘I shall like being here with you,’ she assured him. To stay forever would be nice too, she reflected as she went to her room and tidied her hair and powdered her flushed face. She was a little surprised at the thought, a pointless one, she reminded herself, for as soon as the boys’ parents returned she would have to find another job. It would be a mistake to get too attached to the children or the house. Perhaps it would be a good idea if she didn’t look too far ahead but just enjoyed the weeks to come.
She went back to the drawing-room and found Sir Colin alone, and she hesitated at the door. ‘Oh, I’ll go and help my grandfather unpack…’
‘Presently, perhaps? I shall have to leave early tomorrow morning, so we might have a little talk now while we have the opportunity.’
She sat down obediently and he got up and went over to a side-table. ‘Will you have a glass of sherry?’ He didn’t wait for her answer, but poured some and brought it over to her before sitting down again, a glass in his hand.
‘You are, I believe, a sensible young woman—keep your eye on the boys, and if you aren’t happy about them, if their coughs don’t clear up, let me know. Make sure that they sleep and don’t rush around getting too hot. I’m being fussy, but they have had badly infected chests and I feel responsible for them. You will find the Samwayses towers of strength, but they’re elderly and I don’t expect them to be aware of the children’s health. They are relieved that you will be here and you can call upon them for anything you may need. I shall do my best to come down at weekends and you can always phone me.’
He smiled at her, and she had the feeling that she would put up with a good deal just to please him. She squashed it immediately, for she strongly suspected that he was a man who got his own way once he had made up his mind to it.
She said in her forthright way, ‘Yes, Sir Colin, I’ll do my best for the boys too. Is there anything special you would want me to know about them?’
He shook his head. ‘No—they’re normal small boys, full of good spirits, not over-clean, bursting with energy and dreadfully untidy.’
‘I’ve had no experience—’ began Eustacia uncertainly.
‘Then here is your chance. They both think you’re smashing, so they tell me, which I imagine gives you the edge.’
He smiled at her very kindly and she smiled back, hoping secretly that she would live up to his good opinion of her.
Her grandfather came in then and presently they crossed the hall to the dining-room with its mahogany table and chairs and tawny walls hung with gilt-framed paintings. Eustacia sat quietly, listening to the two men talking while she ate the delicious food served to her. Mrs Samways might not be much to look at but she was a super cook.
They went back to the drawing-room for their coffee and presently she wished them goodnight and took herself off to bed, first going in search of her grandfather’s room, a comfortable apartment right by the Samwayses’ own quarters. He hadn’t unpacked so she did that quickly, made sure that he had everything that he might need and went upstairs to her own room.
The boys were asleep; she had a bath and got into bed and went to sleep herself.
She was wakened by a plump, cheerful girl, who put a tray of tea down by the bed, told her that it was going to be a fine day and that her name was Polly, and went away again. Eustacia drank her tea with all the pleasure of someone to whom it was an unexpected luxury, put on her dressing-gown and went off to see if the boys were awake.
They were, sitting on top of their beds, oblivious to the cold, playing some mysterious game with what she took to be plastic creatures from outer space. Invited to join them, she did so and was rewarded by their loud-voiced opinions that for a girl she was quite bright, a compliment she accepted with modesty while at the same time suggesting that it might be an idea if they all had their breakfast.
She made sure that their clothes were to hand and went away to get herself dressed, and presently returned to cast an eye over hands and hair and retie shoelaces without fuss. They looked well enough, she decided, although they were both coughing. ‘I’d quite like to go for a walk after breakfast,’ she observed casually. ‘I mean a proper walk, not on the road.’
Breakfast was a cheerful meal, with Samways hovering with porridge, bacon and scrambled eggs, and her grandfather, after a good night’s sleep, willing to recount some of his youthful adventures. Eustacia left them presently, went upstairs and made their beds and tidied the rooms, did the same for her grandfather and then went to remind the boys that they were going to take her for a walk.
‘There’s a windmill,’ she reminded them. ‘It doesn’t look too far away—I’d love to see it.’
She had hit on something with which to interest them mightily. Had she seen the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? they wanted to know, because that was the very windmill in it. They walked there briskly and returned to the house for hot cocoa and an hour’s reading before lunch. The afternoon was spent with her grandfather and she was able to spend an hour on her own until Mrs Samways suggested that she might like to look round the house. It was quite large and rambled a good deal. ‘Rather a lot to look after,’ observed Eustacia, peering at family portraits in the library.
‘Ah, but there’s two good girls who come up from the village each day, and Sir Colin comes mostly at weekends and then not always… He brings a few guests from time to time and we have Christmas here, of course. He’s not all that keen on London. But there he’s a clever gentleman and that’s where he works. I dare say if he were to marry—and dear knows I hope and pray he does, for a nicer man never stepped—he’d live here most of the time. London isn’t a place for children.’
Eustacia murmured gently; she realised that Mrs Samways was doing her an honour by talking about her employer and she was glad that the housekeeper seemed to like her. It hadn’t entered her head that making the beds and tidying up after the boys had endeared her to Mrs Samways’ heart. ‘That’s a nice young lady,’ she had informed her husband. ‘What’s more she gets on with the boys and they listen to her, more than they ever did with me.’
They had their tea in a pleasant little room at the back of the house and gathered round the table afterwards to play cards until the boys’ supper and bedtime. Eustacia tucked them in finally, listening rather worriedly to their coughs, although neither of them were feverish. They had certainly eaten with youthful gusto and, by the time she had got out their clean clothes for the morning and gone to her own room to tidy herself, they were sound asleep, their nice, naughty-little-boy faces as peaceful as those of small angels.
After dinner she sat with her grandfather in the drawing-room, listening to his contented talk. He hadn’t been so happy for a long time, and it reminded her of his dull existence at their flat in London; this was like a new lease of life to him. Her thoughts flew ahead to the future when the boys’ parents would return and she would know that she was no longer needed. Well, she reflected, she would have to find another job similar somewhere in the country and never go back to London. She had said goodnight to her grandfather and had seen him to his room and was on the point of going upstairs when the phone rang as she was turning out the drawing-room lights.
She picked it up hesitantly, not sure if this was something the Samwayses would consider to be their prerogative, and indeed Mr Samways appeared just as she was lifting the receiver.
‘I’m
