Betty Neels - Pineapple Girl

While she was still staring up at him, he let her go and asked in a perfectly normal voice, “Will you have tea or coffee?”

She drew a steadying breath. “Coffee, please,” she said, and took the chair beside his because he was holding it for her. It would help the situation a great deal if someone else came down to breakfast, but on the other hand she wondered what he would say next if they were alone for a little longer.

He handed her a coffee. “Bacon? Eggs? Kippers, perhaps—or a boiled egg?”

How could he talk about kippers when only a moment ago he had been kissing her as though he really enjoyed it? “Bacon and eggs,” said Eloise; if he could eat a hearty breakfast and do a little kissing on the side, so could she.

Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of BETTY NEELS in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

THE WARD was in twilight, the patients settling down for the night, those recently operated upon already sedated and made as comfortable as possible, while those ladies who were once more on their legs were putting in the last hair rollers, cleaning their teeth, and drinking the final dregs of the cocoa or Horlick’s which the junior night nurse had been handing round. There were curtains round the bed by the door, though, and everyone was careful not to look in that direction. Mrs Peake, who had been in the ward for weeks now, was about to leave it. She had been quiet and uncomplaining and grateful for even the smallest service, and as Miss Crow, a convalescent appendix, remarked: ‘It did seem ‘ard to ‘ave ter die all quiet-like.’ Her listeners had nodded in agreement and one of them had whispered: ‘Yer so right, dearie, but at least she’s got our nice Staff with ’er.’

There was another round of whispered agreement. Eloise Bennett was liked by all her patients; she somehow managed to make a long night shorter, and the coming of morning something pleasant, even for those due for theatre that day. And she was a good nurse, too, seeing to uncomfortable pillows before the bed’s occupant had time to complain, whisking sheets smooth, knowing when to be firm and when to sympathise, and over and above these things, she knew her work well—all the complications of drips and pumps, ventilators and tubes held no fears for her; sudden emergencies were dealt with with a calm born of experience and common sense, so that although she had only been qualified for a little more than a year, she had already been singled out by authority to be thrust into Sister’s blue the moment a vacancy occurred.

She came from behind the curtains now, a tall girl, with a splendid figure and a wealth of nut-brown hair piled under her nurse’s cap, and a face which could be considered plain but for a pair of large hazel eyes, richly fringed, for her nose was too short and her mouth far too wide and her brows, although nicely arched, were dark and thick. She smiled as she encountered the gaze of the little group of women still out of their beds, said in a pleasant voice: ‘Ladies, you’re missing your beauty sleep,’ and went past them to start her evening round at the top of the ward.

The first three beds offered no hindrance to her progress; operation cases of that afternoon, they were already settled for the night and sleeping, so she merely checked their conditions, studied their charts and moved on down the ward. Old Mrs James was in the next bed, elderly and crotchety and impatient of the major surgery she had undergone a few days previously; Eloise stayed with her for a few minutes, listened to her small grievances, promised sleeping pills very shortly and went on to the next bed.

The ward was almost full, only one empty bed at the end of the row stood ready to receive any emergency which might arrive at a moment’s notice. It would have to be moved presently, thought Eloise as she sped past it, for if anyone came in during the night the whole ward would be awakened by the trundling of the trolley down its length. She sighed a little, for the day staff could have done it easily without disturbing anyone at all…

The first bed on the other side of the ward still had its overhead light on, its occupant sitting up against her pillows, reading. The new patient, admitted that day for operation in the morning and according to the day nurses, as tiresome a woman as one could wish not to meet. Eloise stopped by the bed, said, ‘Good evening, Mrs Fellows,’ in her nice quiet voice and pointed out that bed lights had been due out ten minutes earlier. ‘I’m going to give you something to make you sleep,’ she promised. ‘You’ve had a drink, haven’t you? Nurse will bring you a cup of tea early in the morning and get you ready for theatre.’

Mrs Fellows was aggressively blonde, extremely fat and far from sweet-tempered. ‘And who are you?’ she wanted to know, belligerently. ‘I shan’t sleep a wink, no one knows how I suffer with my poor nerves—the least sound and I wake. I need the greatest care and attention—the very thought of my operation makes me feel faint!’

Eloise considered privately that fainting was the last thing that Mrs Fellows was likely to do; shout, scream, wake everyone up—yes, very probably; anything to focus attention on her plump person.

‘Don’t think about it,’ she advised, ‘there’s no need, you know, because you’ll know absolutely nothing about it…’

Mrs Fellows shot her a look of dislike. ‘Easy to talk,’ she sneered, ‘a great hulking girl like you, as hard as nails and never a day’s illness. You’re all alike,’ she added vaguely.

‘I expect we seem like that to you,’ conceded Eloise, ‘but we’re not really.’ She stretched up and turned off the bed light. ‘I’ll be back presently with those pills.’ She smiled kindly at the tiresome woman and turned to the occupant of the next bed, Mrs White, a small, wiry woman who was going home the next day and who greeted her with a smile. ‘I’ll miss yer, dearie,’ she said softly. ‘It’ll be nice to get ‘ome, but I’ll miss yer… ’Ere, this is from me old man and me. Yer been an angel and we wants yer ter ‘ave it.’