A Betty Neels Christmas: A Christmas ProposalWinter Wedding

by Betty Neels

  ‘No need to tell, I heard it all. Poor lamb. I’ll get the garden room ready and a morsel of food. The child looks starved—and look at that eye! A week or two here with good food and fresh air is what she needs.’

  During the next few days that was what Bertha got. Moreover, her aunt ordered Tom to bring the elderly Rover to the front door and she and Bertha were driven into Truro, where she sailed in and out of various shops buying clothes for her niece.

  When Bertha protested, she said, ‘I’ll not have a niece of mine wearing cast-off clothes which are several sizes too big and quite unsuitable. I shall speak to your father. Don’t interfere, miss.’

  So Bertha thanked her aunt and got joyfully into skirts and blouses and dresses which fitted her slender person and were made of fine material in soft colours. If only Oliver could see her now. She had talked to her aunt about what she should do and that lady had said, ‘Do nothing, gel. Let your stepmother wonder, if she can be bothered to do so. You are not to write to her nor are you to telephone. You will stay here until this doctor finds you.’

  ‘He won’t,’ said Bertha. ‘He’ll never find me…’

  ‘Have you never heard of the proverb “Love finds a way”? I have great faith in proverbs,’ said Aunt Agatha.

  Oliver had presented himself at half past twelve exactly to collect Bertha, and had been shown into the drawing room. Mrs Soames had come to meet him.

  ‘Oliver, thank heaven you have come. I tried to get you on the phone, but there was no answer.’

  She’d found his calm unnerving.

  ‘Bertha!’ she’d exclaimed. ‘She must be ill—that accident. She got me out of bed early this morning and insisted on being driven to Euston Station. I begged her to stay, to phone you, to wait at least until you came. She was quite unlike herself—so cold and determined.’

  ‘You did as she asked?’ His voice had been very quiet.

  ‘What else could I do? She wouldn’t listen to reason.’

  ‘She had money? Did she say where she was going?’

  ‘I gave her what I had. She told me that she was going to an aunt—a relation of her mother’s, I believe, who lives somewhere in Yorkshire. I begged her to tell why she wanted to leave us and I reminded her that she was to visit your mother—she said she would write to you.’ Mrs Soames managed to squeeze out a tear. ‘I really don’t know what to do, Oliver. Clare is terribly upset.’

  Oliver sounded quite cheerful. ‘Why, I suggest that we wait until one or other of us gets a letter. She is quite capable of looking after herself, is she not?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Will you come this evening so that we three can put our heads together? Dinner, perhaps?’

  ‘Not possible, I’m afraid, Mrs Soames.’ He spoke pleasantly, longing to wring the woman’s neck. There was something not right about the story she had told him. He would get to the bottom of it if it took him weeks, months…

  ‘The whole thing is fishy,’ he told Freddie as he drove away. Someone somewhere would know where Bertha had gone; he would send Cully round later with some excuse or other and he could talk to Crook—both he and Cook were obviously fond of Bertha, and in the meanwhile he would see if the nursery school knew anything.

  ‘Gone?’ asked Matron. ‘Without a word to anyone? I find that hard to believe. Why, she telephoned not a day or two ago to say that she would be coming back after Christmas, when she had had a short holiday.’

  Oliver thanked her. It hadn’t been much help, but it was a start.

  Cully’s visit had no success, either. Crook was disturbed that Bertha had gone so unexpectedly, but he had no idea where she might be. Certainly there was an aunt of hers somewhere in the north of England, and the master had a sister living, but he had no idea where.

  The doctor phoned his mother and sat down to think. Mrs Soames had been very glib, and he didn’t believe a word of what she had said, but there was no way of getting her to tell the truth. To find this aunt in Yorkshire when he had no idea of her name or where she lived was going to be difficult. Her father’s sister—unmarried, Crook had said—was a more likely possibility. He went to bed at last, knowing what he would do in the morning.

  Mr Soames QC was well-known in his own profession. The doctor waited patiently until a suitable hour the next morning and then phoned his chambers.

  ‘No,’ he was told. ‘Mr Soames is still in the States. Would you like to make an appointment at some future date?’

  The doctor introduced himself. ‘You are his chief clerk? So I can speak freely to you? I am a friend of the Soames family and there is a personal matter I should like to attend to—preferably with Mr Soames. Failing that, has he a relation to whom I could write? This is a family matter, and Mrs Soames is not concerned with it.’

  ‘Dr Hay-Smythe? You have a practice in Harley Street. I remember that you were called to give evidence some time ago.’

  ‘That is so. You would prefer me to come and see you?’

  ‘No. No, that won’t be necessary. Mr Soames has a sister living in Cornwall. I could give you her address.’ The clerk sounded doubtful.

  ‘I will come to your chambers to collect it, and if you wish to let Mr Soames know of my request, please do so.’

  It was impossible to go down to Cornwall for at least two days; he had patients to see, a ward round at the hospital, an outpatients clinic, and then, hours before he intended to leave, an urgent case. So, very nearly a week had passed by the time he got into his car with Freddie and began the long drive down to Cornwall.

  It was already later than he had intended; he had no hope of reaching Miss Soames’s house at a reasonable hour. He drove steadily westward, Freddie alert beside him, and stopped for the night at Liskeard in an old friendly pub where he was given a hearty supper before going to his room, which was low-ceilinged and comfortable. Since Freddie had behaved in a very well-bred manner he accompanied his master, spreading his length across the foot of the bed.

  ‘This is definitely not allowed,’ Oliver told him. ‘But just this once, since it is a special occasion. I only hope that Bertha’s aunt likes dogs.’

  Freddie yawned.

  They were on their way again after breakfast—bacon, mushrooms freshly picked, fried bread, a sausage or two and egg garnished with a tomato. A meal to put heart into a faint-hearted man—something which the doctor was not. In an hour or so he would see his Bertha again, beyond that he didn’t intend to think for the moment. He whistled as he drove and Freddie, no lover of whistling, curled his lip.

  It was shortly after ten o’clock when Betsy carried the coffee tray into Miss Soames’s sitting room, which was small and pleasant, overlooking the wide stretch of garden at the back of the house. Bertha was out there, walking slowly, her hair in a plait over one shoulder, and wearing one of the pretty winter dresses which Miss Soames had bought for her.

  Her aunt, peering over her spectacles at her, observed, ‘The girl’s not pretty, but there’s something about her… Takes after our side of the family, of course.’ She poured her coffee. ‘Leave the child for the moment, Betsy. She’s happy.’

  Betsy went away, but she was back again within a minute.

  ‘There’s an ’and some motor car coming up to the door…’

  Miss Soames sipped her coffee. ‘Ah, yes, I was expecting that. Show the gentleman in here, Betsy, and say nothing to Bertha.’

  The doctor came in quietly. ‘Miss Soames? I apologise for calling upon you unexpectedly. I believe that Bertha is staying with you?’ He held out a hand. ‘Oliver Hay-Smythe.’

  She took the hand. ‘What kept you, young man?’ she wanted to know tartly. ‘Of course, I knew that you would come, although Bertha is sure that she will never see you again.’

  He followed her gaze out of the window; Bertha looked very pretty, and his rather tired face broke into a smile.

  ‘I told her that if a man was worth his salt he would find her even if he had to search the world for her.’ She gave him a level gaze. ‘Would
you do that, Doctor?’

  ‘Yes. I do not quite understand why she is here. I think that her stepmother wanted her out of the way. That doesn’t matter for the moment, but it took me some time to discover where she was.’

  ‘You have driven down from London? What have you done with your patients?’

  He smiled. ‘It took a good deal of organising, but I’d planned a holiday this week.’

  ‘You’ll stay here, of course.’ She looked over his shoulder. ‘What is it, Betsy?’

  ‘There’s a dog with his head out of the car window.’

  ‘Freddie. Might I allow him out? He’s well-mannered.’

  ‘Get the beast, Betsy,’ commanded Miss Soames, and when Freddie, on his best behaviour, came into the room, she offered him a biscuit.

  ‘Well, go along, young man. There’s a door into the garden at the back of the hall.’

  Freddie, keeping close to his heels, gave a pleased bark as he saw Bertha, and she turned round as he bounded towards her. She knelt and put her arms round his neck and watched Oliver crossing the lawn to her. The smile on her face was like a burst of sunshine as she got slowly to her feet. He saw with delight that she had a pretty colour in her cheeks and a faint plumpness which a week’s good food had brought about. Moreover, the dress she was wearing revealed the curves which Clare’s misfits had so successfully hidden.

  He didn’t say anything, but took her in his arms and held her close. Presently he spoke. ‘I came as soon as I could, my darling. I had to find you first…’

  ‘How?’ asked Bertha. ‘Who…?’

  ‘Later, my love.’ He bent his head and kissed her.

  Bertha, doing her best to be sensible, said, ‘But I want to know why my stepmother sent me here—she’ll be so angry when she finds out.’

  ‘Leave everything to me, dear heart. You need never see her or Clare again if you don’t want to. We’ll marry as soon as it can be arranged. Would you like Christmas Eve for a wedding?’

  He kissed her again, and eventually, when she had stopped feeling light-headed, she said, ‘You haven’t asked me—you haven’t said—’

  ‘That I love you?’ He smiled down at her. ‘I love you, darling Bertha. I fell in love with you the moment I clapped eyes on you in that hideous pink dress. Will you marry me and love me a little?’

  She reached up to put her arms round his neck. ‘Of course I’ll marry you, dear Oliver, and I’ll love you very much for always. Will you kiss me again? Because I rather like it when you do.’

  Aunt Agatha, unashamedly watching them from her chair, took out her handkerchief and blew her nose, and to Betsy, who was peering over her shoulder, she said, ‘I must need new glasses, for my eyes keep watering!’

  She sounded cross, but she was smiling.

  WINTER WEDDING

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS snowing outside, and the pallid faces of the night nurses coming off duty looked even more pallid in its glaring whiteness. Emily Seymour, one of the last to go, traipsed down the stairs from the top floor, where she had been in charge of the Ear, Nose and Throat wards, yawning widely, longing for her bed and knowing that it would be some time before she could get into it; it would be even longer today, she decided gloomily, glancing out of a landing window. The snow had settled and cycling through the streets would be a slow business. A pretty girl in staff nurse’s uniform, bounding up the staircase towards her, paused to join her at the window.

  ‘Lucky you, Emily,’ she exclaimed cheerfully, ‘going home to a nice warm bed. Had a busy night?’ She glanced at her companion with sympathy. ‘No, don’t answer, I can see you did. What happened?’

  ‘Terry had to have a trachy at two o’clock this morning. I got Mr Spencer up—or at least, I rang his flat when Night Sister told me to—and she couldn’t be there because the Accident Department was going hell for leather—and he brought Professor Jurres-Romeijn with him.’ She paused, staring out into the freshly whirling snow. ‘I had everything ready, he did it in seconds flat.’

  The pretty girl rolled a pair of fine eyes. ‘Oh, him. He’s the answer to every girl’s dream; such a pity that no one knows anything about him and that he’s not going to stay for ever. I must think up some good reason for going along to ENT this morning and see if I can soften him up a bit. I daresay…’ she paused, listening. ‘Oh, God, that sounds like Sister Gatesby trundling our way. ’Bye, love, be good.’

  And when have I ever had the chance to be anything else? thought Emily, going on her way once more.

  She met Sister Gatesby at the bottom of the second flight and that lady, stoutish and almost due to retire, seized on her at once. ‘Just the girl!’ she breathed happily. ‘Just run back for me, Staff Nurse, and get the keys off the hook in Sister Reeves’ office in ENT, will you? You can leave them at the Porter’s Lodge as you go out; Theatre Sister wants them.’

  She turned and wheezed her way down again, leaving Emily to trail all the way upstairs once more, muttering darkly under her breath. But she had finished her muttering by the time she had reached the top floor; for one thing she was a little short of wind and for another she had just remembered that her nights off were due in two days’ time; she occupied the last few yards in making plans, then opened the swing doors and went through, into the landing which opened into the two wards, the kitchen, Sister’s Office, the dressing room and the linen cupboard. The keys would be in Sister’s Office, the first door on the left. She could hear the nurses in the ward, already well started on the day’s routine; by the time Sister came on everything would be as it should be. She crossed the landing and then stopped with her hand on the door; Mr Spencer and Professor Jurres-Romeijn were in the dressing room, their backs towards her. She could see Mr Spencer’s bald patch on the back of his head about which he was so sensitive because he was still quite a young man, and she could see the Professor’s iron-grey cropped head, towering over his companion, for he was a vast man and very tall. He was speaking now, his voice, with its faint Dutch accent, very clear, although not loud.

  ‘Good lord, Harry, am I to be fobbed off with that prim miss? Surely there’s another nurse…?’ He sounded annoyed.

  Mr Spencer put up a hand to rub the bald patch. ‘Sorry, sir—she’s first class at her job…’

  ‘I take your word for that—we are talking about the same girl, I suppose? A small, plump creature who merges into the background from whatever angle one looks at her.’

  Mr Spencer chuckled. ‘That’s our Emily—a splendid worker and marvellous with children. You’ll find that she grows on you, sir.’

  ‘Heaven forbid! The only females who grow on me are beautiful blondes who don’t go beetroot red every time I look at them.’

  Emily forced herself to move then and in direct contradiction to the Professor’s words, her face was chalk white, not red at all. She went silently into Sister’s Office, took the keys and went back down the endless stairs, the Professor’s words ringing in her ears. She had the nasty feeling that she was never going to forget them for as long as she lived, and through her tired brain the beginnings of a fine temper began to flare.

  She was prim, was she, and plump and given to blushing, something which the Professor, loathesome type that he was, found both amusing and tiresome! She gained the Porter’s Lodge, slammed down the keys in old Henry’s astonished face and pranced out of the hospital entrance. Well, he had made it known all too clearly that he didn’t want her for some job or other; she would make it just as clear to him that she wasn’t going to oblige him. Let him find another nurse to wait on him hand and foot; someone with blonde curls and blue eyes… Emily, in the cupboard-like room by the bicycle shed where the nurses who lived out were expected to change, tore the cap off her own unspectacular brown hair, coiled so neatly, and began to race out of her uniform. Presently, buoyed up with her rage, she got her bike from the shed and oblivious of snow and slush, pedalled home.

  Home was a small semi-detached villa on the very outskirts of the town. E
mily, giving up a good post in London, had searched desperately for some months until she had found both a large hospital and a home close by. The hospital was one of the new ones, magnificently equipped, destined to take the overspill from London, ten miles away, and still a source of some astonishment to the inhabitants of the small town where it had been built. It took her ten minutes to cycle home, but today, because of the snow, she took a good deal longer and arrived at the wrought iron gate with ‘Homelea’ written on it, in a breathless state. Louisa, her younger sister, would be waiting with her breakfast, something she hated to do. She parked her bike in the little shed at the side of the house and went in through the back door.

  Louisa was in the kitchen, her pretty face screwed up with peevishness.

  ‘You’re late,’ she began. ‘The twins are being little devils and they’ve both been sick.’

  Emily made soothing murmurs; probably Louisa, who was only eighteen and impatient, had given them their morning feeds so fast that they had no choice but to bring the lot up again.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ went on Louisa loudly, ‘until I can get away from this hole…only another month, thank God!’

  Emily unwound the scarf from her neck. ‘Yes, dear.’ She could have voiced her nightmare fears of what was going to happen when Louisa went; Mary, their elder sister, and the twins’ mother, was still in the Middle East, unable to leave until her husband had been cleared of some trumped-up charge about something or other to do with his work. She, and her husband, should have been home months ago; the twins were to have been left with Emily for three months, no longer, an arrangement which seemed sensible at the time; they were too young to take with her, Mary had decided, and besides, she had had no idea if she would be able to get adequate help, even a good doctor. Louisa, waiting to go into a school for modelling, was staying with Emily, and a month or two in a London flat, with both sisters to look after them, was the answer.

  Only it hadn’t worked out like that. At the end of the three months, Mary had managed to get a message to Emily, begging her to look after the twins for another few months at least, and she, looking at them, rapidly growing from small babies to energetic large ones, quite overflowing the small flat close to the big London teaching hospital where she worked, decided that the only thing to do was to move to a small town where she might with luck find a house with a garden. Louisa hadn’t liked the idea, of course, but as Emily had pointed out in her sensible way, the babies mattered; she had promised to look after them until Mary and George came home again and until they did there was nothing else to do about it.