Betty Neels: Ring in a Teacup

“In splendid shape—you wouldn’t recognize him, he has become so portly.”

“You were very kind to him.” She tugged at her hand, which he was still absentmindedly holding, but he didn’t let it go.

“Kinder than I have been to you, Lucilla.”

She tugged again and this time he let her hand go. “You’ve been very kind,” she repeated, longing for poise and an ability to turn a clever sentence. “I must go.”

He caught her so close that the squeak of surprise she let out was buried in his waistcoat. “I almost forgot—” his hand came up and lifted her chin gently “—I had to give you this from Mies.”

She had never been kissed like that before.

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 SUN, already warmer than it should have been for nine o’clock on an August morning, poured through the high, uncurtained windows of the lecture hall at St Norbert’s Hospital, highlighting the rows of uniformed figures, sitting according to status, their differently coloured uniform dresses making a cheerful splash of colour against the drab paintwork, their white caps constantly bobbing to and fro as they enjoyed a good gossip before their lecture began—all but the two front rows; the night nurses sat there, silently resentful of having to attend a lecture when they should have been on their way to hot baths, unending cups of tea, yesterday’s paper kindly saved by a patient, and finally, blissful bed.

And in the middle of the front row sat student nurse Lucy Prendergast, a small slip of a girl, with mousy hair, pleasing though not pretty features and enormous green eyes, her one claim to beauty. But as she happened to be fast asleep, their devastating glory wasn’t in evidence, indeed she looked downright plain; a night of non-stop work on Children’s had done nothing to improve her looks.

She would probably have gone on sleeping, sitting bolt upright on her hard chair, if her neighbours hadn’t dug her in the ribs and begged her to stir herself as a small procession of Senior Sister Tutor, her two assistants and a clerk to make notes, trod firmly across the platform and seated themselves and a moment later, nicely timed, the lecturer, whose profound utterances the night nurses had been kept from their beds to hear, came in.

There was an immediate hush and then a gentle sigh from the rows of upturned faces; it had been taken for granted that he would be elderly, pompous, bald, and mumbling, but he was none of these things—he was very tall, extremely broad, and possessed of the kind of good looks so often written about and so seldom seen; moreover he was exquisitely dressed and when he replied to their concerted ‘good morning, sir,’ his voice was deep, slow and made all the more interesting by reason of its slight foreign accent.

His audience, settling in their seats, sat back to drink in every word and take a good look at him at the same time—all except Nurse Prendergast, who hadn’t even bothered to open her eyes properly. True, she had risen to her feet when everyone else did, because her good friends on either side of her had dragged her to them, but seated again she dropped off at once and continued to sleep peacefully throughout the lecture, unheeding of the deep voice just above her head, explaining all the finer points of angiitis obliterans and its treatment, and her friends, sharing the quite erroneous idea that the occupants of the first two rows were quite safe from the eyes of the lecturer on the platform, for they believed that he always looked above their heads into the body of the hall, allowed her to sleep on. Everything would have been just fine if he hadn’t started asking questions, picking members of his audience at random. When he asked: ‘And the result of these tests would be…’ his eyes, roaming along the rows of attentive faces before him, came to rest upon Lucy’s gently nodding head.

A ferocious gleam came into his eyes; she could have been looking down into her lap, but he was willing to bet with himself that she wasn’t.

‘The nurse in the centre of the first row,’ he added softly.

Lucy, dug savagely in the ribs by her nervous friends, opened her eyes wide and looked straight at him. She was bemused by sleep and had no idea what he had said or what she was supposed to say herself. She stared up at the handsome, bland face above her; she had never seen eyes glitter, but the cold blue ones boring into hers were glittering all right. A wash of bright pink crept slowly over her tired face, but it was a flush of temper rather than a blush of shame; she was peevish from lack of sleep and her resentment was stronger than anything else just at that moment. She said in a clear, controlled voice: ‘I didn’t hear what you were saying, sir—I was asleep.’

His expression didn’t alter, although she had the feeling that he was laughing silently. She added politely, ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ and sighed with relief as his gaze swept over her head to be caught and held by the eager efforts of a girl Lucy couldn’t stand at any price—Martha Inskip, the know-all of her set; always ready with the right answers to Sister Tutor’s questions, always the one to get the highest marks in written papers, and yet quite incapable of making a patient comfortable in bed— The lecturer said almost wearily: ‘Yes, Nurse?’ and then listened impassively to her perfect answer to the question Lucy had so regrettably not heard.

He asked more questions after that, but never once did he glance at Lucy, wide awake now and brooding unhappily about Sister Tutor’s reactions. Reactions which reared their ugly heads as the lecture came to a close with the formal leavetaking of the lecturer as he stalked off the platform with Sister Tutor and her attendants trailing him. Her severe back was barely out of sight before the orderly lines of nurses broke up into groups and began to make their way back to their various destinations. Lucy was well down the corridor leading to the maze of passages which would take her to the Nurses’ Home when a breathless nurse caught up with her. ‘Sister Tutor wants you,’ she said urgently, ‘in the ante-room.’