Betty Neels - An Independent Woman

Julia snipped savagely at a length of curtain intended for a dress.

“Well, I don’t suppose you will—he’s a bit grand for us….” Ruth said.

“Why do you say he’s so grand?”

“He’s at the very top of the tree in the medical world and he’s got a Dutch title, comes from a very ancient family with lots of money…”

“Huh,” said Julia. “Probably no one’s good enough for him.”

Ruth replied mildly, “You do dislike him, don’t you?”

Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of BETTY NEELSin 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 street, like hundreds of other streets in that part of London, was shabby but genteelly so, for the occupants of the small turn-of-the-century houses which lined it had done their best; there were clean net curtains at the windows and the paintwork was pristine, even if badly in need of a fresh coat. Even so, the street was dull under a leaden sky and slippery with the cold sleet.

The girl, Ruth, looking out of the window of one of the houses, frowned at the dreary view and said over her shoulder, ‘I don’t think I can bear to go on living here much longer…’

‘Well, you won’t have to—Thomas will get the Senior Registrar’s post and you’ll marry and be happy ever after.’

The speaker who answered, Julia, was kneeling on the shabby carpet, pinning a paper pattern to a length of material. She was a pretty girl, with a quantity of russet hair tied back carelessly with a bootlace, a tip-tilted nose and a wide mouth. Her eyes under thick brows were grey, and as she got to her feet it was apparent that she was a big girl with a splendid figure.

She wandered over to the window to join her sister. ‘A good thing that Dr Goodman hasn’t got a surgery this morning; you’ve no need to go out.’

‘The evening surgery will be packed to the doors…’

They both turned their heads as a door opened and another girl, Monica, came in. A very beautiful girl, almost as beautiful as her elder sister. For while Julia, she of the russet hair, was pretty, the other two were both lovely, with fair hair and blue eyes. Ruth was taller than Monica, and equally slender, but they shared identical good looks.

‘I’m off. Though heaven knows how many children will turn up in this weather.’ Monica smiled. ‘But George was going to look in…’

George was the parish curate, young and enthusiastic, nice-looking in a rather crumpled way and very much in love with Monica.

They chorused goodbyes as she went away again.

‘I’m going to wash my hair,’ said Ruth, and Julia got down onto her knees again and picked up the scissors.

The front doorbell rang as she did so, and Ruth said from the door, ‘That will be the milkman; I forgot to pay him…I’ll go.’

Professor Gerard van der Maes stood on the doorstep and looked around him. He had, in an unguarded moment, offered to deliver a package from his registrar Thomas, to that young man’s fiancée—something which, it seemed, it was vital she received as quickly as possible. Since the registrar was on duty, and unlikely to be free for some time, and the Professor was driving himself to a Birmingham hospital and would need to thread his way through the northern parts of London, a slight deviation from his route was of little consequence.

Now, glancing around him, he rather regretted his offer. It had taken him longer than he had expected to find the house and he found the dreary street not at all to his taste. From time to time he had listened to Thomas’s diffident but glowing remarks about his fiancée, but no one had told him that she lived in such a run-down part of the city.

The girl who answered the door more than made up for the surroundings. If this was Ruth, then Thomas must indeed be a happy man.

He held out a hand. ‘Van der Maes, a colleague of Thomas. He wanted you to have a parcel and I happened to be going this way.’

‘Professor van der Maes.’ Ruth beamed up at him. ‘How kind of you.’ She added, not quite truthfully, ‘I was just going to make coffee…’

He followed her into the narrow hall and into the living room and Ruth said, ‘Julia…’

‘If it’s money you want there’s some in my purse…’ Julia didn’t look up. ‘Don’t stop me or I’ll cut too much off.’

‘It’s Professor van der Maes.’

‘Not the old man from across the street?’ Julia snipped carefully. ‘I knew he’d break a leg one day, going outside in his slippers.’

Ruth gave the Professor an apologetic glance. ‘We have a visitor, Julia.’

Julia turned round then, and looked at the pair of them standing in the doorway. Ruth, as lovely as ever, looked put out and her companion looked amused. Julia got to her feet, looking at him. Not quite her idea of a professor: immensely tall and large in his person, dark hair going grey, heavy brows above cold eyes and a nose high-bridged and patrician above a thin mouth. Better a friend than an enemy, thought Julia. Not that he looked very friendly…

She held out a hand and had it gently crushed.

‘I’ll make the coffee,’ said Ruth, and shut the door behind her.

‘Do sit down,’ said Julia, being sociable.

Instead he crossed the room to stand beside her and look down at the stuff spread out on the carpet.

‘It looks like a curtain,’ he observed.

‘It is a curtain,’ said Julia snappishly. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that by the time she had finished with it it would be a dress suitable to wear to an annual dance which the firm she worked for gave to its employees. A not very exciting occasion, but it was to be held at one of London’s well-known hotels and that, combined with the fact that it was mid-February and life was a bit dull, meant that the occasion merited an effort on her part to make the best of herself.

She remembered her manners. ‘Do you know Thomas? I suppose you’re from the hospital. He’s Ruth’s fiancé. He’s not ill or anything?’