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.‘There’s plenty of hot water,’ she told him.‘Did you bring the car?’‘Yes.I’ll have a shower and a nap.Breakfast about nine o’clock?’It was barely seven.‘Yes, would you like it in bed?’He choked back a laugh.‘The last time I had breakfast in bed I was nine years old, suffering from the mumps.’When she looked at him, he added, ‘That was twenty-seven years ago.’He smiled, and the smile made her suddenly aware of the flyaway dressing gown and no slippers.She said briskly, ‘I will call you at nine o’clock.’He went away then, and she saw to the cats, put everything ready for breakfast and went quietly upstairs.The bathroom door was open but the three bedroom doors were closed.She had a shower, dressed, then made her bed and went downstairs again.Just in time to say dag to Mevrouw Steen.There was no need to tell her that the Professor was there; the car was before the door.Mevrouw Steen broke into voluble talk, smiling widely.‘Mrs Beckett is coming home today.’ Julia thought for a moment and added in Dutch, ‘This afternoon.’Mevrouw Steen nodded.‘I clean house…’She trotted off, but not before Julia had warned her not to go upstairs until the Professor was awake.‘No sleep,’ she told her in her fractured Dutch.‘Driving all night.’Mevrouw made sympathetic clucking noises, went into the sitting room and shut the door on the sound of the Hoover.Julia began to get breakfast.Bacon and eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread.There was no lack of food in the house.Toast and marmalade to follow, and tea or coffee.And while she was busy she considered lunch.Salad, and there was ham in the fridge, and in the evening before he went back she would cook him a meal.A Spanish omelette, potatoes in their jackets and a salad—a bread and butter pudding, perhaps, or a sponge pudding with custard…The bacon was sizzling in the pan and it was nearly nine o’clock.Time to rouse him…He came into the kitchen through the door leading to the garden.‘You’re up,’ said Julia, and frowned because that had been a silly thing to say.‘I wanted to have a quick look at the garden.Something smells delicious.’He looked as though he had slept all night—shaved and immaculately turned out.Of course he would have clothes here, thought Julia, and, suddenly conscious that she had been staring at him, she blushed.The Professor studied the blush with interest and decided that it made her even prettier than she already was.‘Can’t I help?’ He sounded casual.‘If you would make the toast?’Mevrouw Steen came in then.She had a great deal to say and it was frustrating, for Julia only understood one word in a dozen.The dear soul paused for breath presently and Julia offered her a mug of coffee and she trotted off with it.She would go upstairs, she said, and clean.‘A good soul,’ said the Professor as he speared a mushroom.‘When you leave here I must find some kind of help for Mrs Beckett.Mevrouw Steen’s a splendid worker but she doesn’t like responsibility.’Julia looked down at her plate.‘I expect you would like me to go once Mrs Beckett is settled here.’‘Now, why should you think that? Mrs Beckett is going to need you for another three weeks at least.You wish to go home?’‘No, no.I love it here,’she burst out.‘I don’t know how you can bear to live anywhere else.Well, I dare say that’s not true, for you have your lovely house in Amsterdam.’‘You liked that too?’‘My goodness me, indeed I did.’‘Then we must find time to go there again.’ He added casually, ‘I am planning to do rather more work over here—go over to Scotland from time to time when necessary.’‘You mean you won’t live in London?’ The thought filled her with a dismay she couldn’t understand.The professor watched her face.‘From time to time,’ he repeated gently.‘I’m going down to the village to see Piet.Shall we have lunch before we go to Leiden?’‘We? Wouldn’t it be better if I stayed here and had everything ready—tea—and the cats waiting.’ She looked at him.‘A welcome, if you see what I mean.’He agreed readily, and presently she watched him walking along the lane.Even from the back he looked full of energy—a man who had had a good night’s sleep and with not a care in the world.CHAPTER FIVETHE Professor didn’t come back until she was putting lunch on the table.‘Well,’ said Julia to Portly, sitting beside her while she made a salad, ‘I’m sure if he doesn’t want my company I couldn’t care less.After all, I’m only a kind of housekeeper.’She wallowed in a comforting self-pity for a few minutes, and then forgot about it as the Professor came into the kitchen.‘Piet will come each day,’ he told her without preamble.‘He’ll do anything you want him to do and if you wish to leave the place he will stay with Mrs Beckett and Mevrouw Steen.’‘Thank you, but I’m happy to stay here.Will Mrs Beckett be able to sit outside for a while each day?’‘Dr de Groot—you saw him at Leiden—will come and see her in a day or so and let you know what he wants done.’‘I see.When will you go back?’‘Anxious for me to be gone, Julia?’ He sounded amused.‘I’m going back this evening.’‘But you’ve only just got here.You’ve had no sleep; you’ll be dead on your feet.’‘I’m going back from Harwich on the night ferry.I’ll sleep then
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