Ring in a Teacup

“I hope you have a good journey back,” she observed politely, and then, in a little rush because she had only just remembered, she asked, “How is the cat?”

“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.

Ring in a Teacup

Betty Neels

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

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.’

Lucy didn’t say a word; she had been pushing her luck and now there was nothing to do about it; she hadn’t really believed that she would get off scot free. She crossed the lecture hall and went through the door by the platform into the little room used by the lecturers. There were only two people in it, Sister Tutor and the lecturer, and the former said at once in a voice which held disapproval: ‘I will leave you to apologise to Doctor der Linssen, Nurse Prendergast,’ and sailed out of the room.

The doctor stood where he was, looking at her. Presently he asked: ‘Your name is Prendergast?’ and when she nodded: ‘A peculiar name.’ Which so incensed her that she said snappily: ‘I did say I was sorry.’

‘Oh, yes, indeed. Rest assured that it was not I who insisted on you returning.’

He looked irritable and tired. She said kindly: ‘I expect your pride’s hurt, but it doesn’t need to be; everyone thought you were smashing, and I would have gone to sleep even if you’d been Michael Caine or Kojak.’

A kind of spasm shook the doctor’s patrician features, but he said merely: ‘You are on night duty, Miss—er—Prendergast.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Yes. The children’s ward—always so busy and just unspeakable last night, and then I had a huge breakfast and it’s fatal to sit down afterwards,’ and when he made no reply added in a motherly way: ‘I expect you’re quite nice at home with your wife and children.’

‘I have not as yet either wife or children.’ He sounded outraged. ‘You speak as though you were a securely married mother of a large family. Are you married, Miss Prendergast?’

‘Me? no—I’d be Mrs if I were, and who’d want to marry me? But I’ve got brothers and sisters, and we had such fun when we were children.’

His voice was icy. ‘You lack respect, young lady, and you are impertinent. You should not be nursing, you should be one of those interfering females who go around telling other people how to lead their lives and assuring them that happiness is just around the corner.’

She tried not to blush, but she couldn’t stop herself; she was engulfed in a red glow, but she looked him in the eye. ‘I don’t blame you for getting your own back,’ she added a sir this time. ‘Now we’re equal, aren’t we?’

She didn’t wait to be dismissed but flew through the door as though she had the devil at her heels, back the way she had come, almost bursting with rage and dislike of him; it took several cups of tea and half an hour in a very hot bath reading the Daily Mirror before she was sufficiently calmed down to go to bed and sleep at last.

Lucy forgot the whole regrettable business in no time at all; she was rushed off her feet on duty and when she was free she slept soundly like the healthy girl she was, and if, just once or twice, she remembered the good-looking lecturer, she pushed him to the back of her mind; she was no daydreamer—besides, he hadn’t liked her.

She had expected a lecture from Sister Tutor, but no word had been said; probably, thought Lucy, she considered that she had been sufficiently rebuked for her behaviour.

She went home for her nights off at the end of the following week, a quite long journey which she could only afford once a month. The small village outside Beaminster, which wasn’t much more than a village itself, was buried in the Dorset hills; it meant going by train to Crewkerne where she was met by her father, Rector of Dedminster and the hamlets of Lodcombe and Twistover, in the shaky old Ford used by every member of the family if they happened to be at home.

Her father met her at the station, an elderly man with mild blue eyes who had passed on his very ordinary features to her; except for the green eyes, of course, and no one in the family knew where they had come from. He led her out to the car, and after a good deal of poking around coaxed it to start, but once they were bowling sedately towards Beaminster, he embarked on a gentle dissertation about the parish, the delightful weather and the various odds and ends of news about her mother and brothers and sisters.

Lucy listened with pleasure; he was so restful after the rush and hurry of hospital life, and he was so kind. She had a fleeting memory of the lecturer, who hadn’t been kind at all, and then shook her head angrily to get rid of his image, with its handsome features and pale hair.

The Rectory was a large rambling place, very inconvenient; all passages and odd stairs and small rooms leading from the enormous kitchen, which in an earlier time must have housed a horde of servants. Lucy darted through the back door and found her mother at the kitchen table, hulling strawberries—a beautiful woman still, even with five grownup children, four of whom had inherited her striking good looks, leaving Lucy to be the plain one in the family, although as her mother pointed out often enough, no one else had emerald green eyes.

Lucy perched on the table and gobbled up strawberries while she answered her mother’s questions; they were usually the same, only couched in carefully disguised ways: had Lucy met any nice young men? had she been out? and if by some small chance she had, the young man had to be described down to the last coat button, even though Lucy pointed out that in most cases he was already engaged or had merely asked her out in order to pave the way to an introduction to one of her friends. She had little to tell this time; she was going to save the lecturer for later.

‘Lovely to be home,’ she observed contentedly. ‘Who’s here?’

‘Kitty and Jerry and Paul, dear. Emma’s got her hands full with the twins—they’ve got the measles.’

Emma was the eldest and married, and both her brothers were engaged, while Kitty was the very new wife of a BOAC pilot, on a visit while he went on a course.

‘Good,’ said Lucy. ‘What’s for dinner?’

Her parent gave her a loving look; Lucy, so small and slim, had the appetite of a large horse and never put on an ounce.

‘Roast beef, darling, and it’s almost ready.’

It was over Mrs Prendergast’s splendidly cooked meal that Lucy told them all about her unfortunate lapse during the lecture.

‘Was he good-looking?’ Kitty wanted to know.

‘Oh, very, and very large too—not just tall but wide as well; he towered, if you know what I mean, and cold blue eyes that looked through me and the sort of hair that could be either very fair or grey.’ She paused to consider. ‘Oh, and he had one of those deep, rather gritty voices.’

Her mother, portioning out trifle, gave her a quick glance. ‘But you didn’t like him, love?’

Lucy, strictly brought up as behoved a parson’s daughter, answered truthfully and without embarrassment.

‘Well, actually, I did—he was smashing. Now if it had been Kitty or Emma…they’d have known what to do, and anyway, he wouldn’t have minded them; they’re both so pretty.’ She sighed. ‘But he didn’t like me, and why should he, for heaven’s sake? Snoring through his rolling periods!’

‘Looks are not everything, Lucilla,’ observed her father mildly, who hadn’t really been listening and had only caught the bit about being pretty. ‘Perhaps a suitable regret for your rudeness in falling asleep, nicely phrased, would have earned his good opinion.’

Lucy said ‘Yes, Father,’ meekly, privately of the opinion that it wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference if she had gone down on her knees to the wretched man. It was her mother who remarked gently: ‘Yes, dear, but you must remember that Lucy has always been an honest child; she spoke her mind and I can’t blame her. She should never have had to attend his lecture in the first place.’

‘Then she wouldn’t have seen this magnificent specimen of manhood,’ said Jerry, reaching for the cheese.

‘Not sweet on him, are you, Sis?’ asked Paul slyly, and Lucy being Lucy took his question seriously.

‘Oh, no—chalk and cheese, you know. I expect he eats his lunch at Claridges when he’s not giving learned advice to someone or other and making pots of money with private patients.’

‘You’re being flippant, my dear.’ Her father smiled at her.

‘Yes, Father. I’m sure he’s a very clever man and probably quite nice to the people he likes—anyway, I shan’t see him again, shall I?’ She spoke cheerfully, conscious of a vague regret. She had, after all, only seen one facet of the man, all the others might be something quite different.

She spent her nights off doing all the things she liked doing most; gardening, picking fruit and flowers, driving her father round his sprawling parishes and tootling round the lanes on small errands for her mother, and not lonely at all, for although the boys were away all day, working for a local farmer during the long vacation, Kitty was home and in the evenings after tea they all gathered in the garden to play croquet or just sit and talk. The days went too quickly, and although she returned to the hospital cheerfully enough it was a sobering thought that when she next returned in a month’s time, it would be September and autumn.

Once a month wasn’t enough, she decided as she climbed the plain, uncarpeted stairs in the Nurses’ Home, but really she couldn’t afford more and her parents had enough on their plate while the boys were at university. In less than a year she would qualify and get a job nearer home and spend all her days off there. She unpacked her case and went in search of any of her friends who might be around. Angela from Women’s Surgical was in the kitchenette making tea; they shared the pot and gossiped comfortably until it was time to change into uniform and go on duty for the night.

The nights passed rapidly. Children’s was always full, as fast as one cot was emptied and its small occupant sent triumphantly home, another small creature took its place. Broken bones, hernias, intussusceptions, minor burns, she tended them all with unending patience and a gentleness which turned her small plain face to beauty.

It was two weeks later, when she was on nights off again, that Lucy saw Mr der Linssen. This time she was standing at a zebra crossing in Knightsbridge, having spent her morning with her small nose pressed to the fashionable shop windows there, and among the cars which pulled up was a Panther 4.2 convertible with him in the driving seat. There was a girl beside him; exactly right for the car, too, elegant and dark and haughty. Mr der Linssen, waiting for the tiresome pedestrians to cross the street, allowed his gaze to rest on Lucy, but as no muscle of his face altered, she concluded that he hadn’t recognised her. A not unremarkable thing; she was hardly outstanding in the crowd struggling to the opposite pavement—mousy hair and last year’s summer dress hardly added up to the spectacular.

But the next time they met was quite another kettle of fish. Lucy had crossed the busy street outside the hospital to purchase fish and chips for such of the night nurses who had been out that morning and now found themselves too famished to go to their beds without something to eat. True, they hadn’t been far, only to the Royal College of Surgeons to view its somewhat gruesome exhibits, under Sister Tutor’s eagle eye, but they had walked there and back, very neat in their uniforms and caps, and now their appetites had been sharpened, and Lucy, judged to be the most appropriate of them to fetch the food because she was the only one who didn’t put her hair into rollers before she went to bed, had nipped smartly across between the buses and cars and vans, purchased mouthwatering pieces of cod in batter and a large parcel of chips, and was on the point of nipping back again when a small boy darted past her and ran into the street, looking neither left nor right as he went.

There were cars and buses coming both ways and a taxi so close that only a miracle would stop it. Lucy plunged after him with no very clear idea as to what she was going to do. She was aware of the taxi right on top of her, the squealing of brakes as the oncoming cars skidded to a halt, then she had plucked the boy from under the taxi’s wheels, lurched away and with him and the fish and chips clasped to her bosom, tripped over, caught by the taxi’s bumper.

She wasn’t knocked out; she could hear the boy yelling from somewhere underneath her and there was a fishy smell from her parcels as they squashed flat under her weight. The next moment she was being helped to her feet.

‘Well, well,’ observed Mr der Linssen mildly, ‘you again.’ He added quite unnecessarily: ‘You smell of fish.’

She looked at him in a woolly fashion and then at the willing helpers lifting the boy up carefully. He was screaming his head off and Mr der Linssen said: ‘Hang on, I’ll just take a look.’

It gave her a moment to pull herself together, something which she badly needed to do—a nice burst of tears, which would have done her a lot of good, had to be squashed. She stood up straight, a deplorable figure, smeared with pieces of fish and mangled chips, her uniform filthy and torn and her cap crooked. The Panther, she saw at once, was right beside the taxi, and the same girl was sitting in it. Doctor der Linssen, with the boy in his arms, was speaking to her now. The girl hardly glanced at the boy, only nodded in a rather bored way and then looked at Lucy with a mocking little smile, but that didn’t matter, because she was surrounded by people now, patting her on the shoulder, telling her that she was a brave girl and asking if she were hurt; she had no chance to answer any of them because Mr der Linssen, with the boy still bawling in his arms, marched her into Casualty without further ado, said in an authoritative way: ‘I don’t think this boy’s hurt, but he’ll need a good going over,’ laid him on an examination couch and turned his attention to Lucy. ‘You had a nasty thump from that bumper—where was it exactly?’ and when she didn’t answer at once: ‘There’s no need to be mealy-mouthed about it—your behind, I take it—better get undressed and get someone to look at it…’

‘I wasn’t being mealy-mouthed,’ said Lucy pettishly, ‘I was trying to decide exactly which spot hurt most.’

He smiled in what she considered to be an unpleasant manner. ‘Undress anyway, and I’ll get someone along to see to it. It was only a glancing blow, but you’re such a scrap of a thing you’re probably badly bruised.’ To her utter astonishment he added: ‘For whom were the fish and chips? If you’ll let me know I’ll see that they get a fresh supply—you’ve got most of what you bought smeared over you.’

She said quite humbly: ‘Thank you, that would be kind. They were for the night nurses on the surgical wards…eight cod pieces and fifty pence worth of chips. They’re waiting for them before they go to bed—over in the Home.’ She added: ‘I’m sorry I haven’t any more money with me—I’ll leave it in an envelope at the Lodge for you, sir.’

He only smiled, pushed her gently into one of the bays and pulled the curtains and turned to speak to Casualty Sister. Lucy couldn’t hear what he was saying and she didn’t care. The couch looked very inviting and she was suddenly so sleepy that even her aching back didn’t matter. She took off her uniform and her shoes and stretched herself out on its hard leather surface, muffled to the eyes with the cosy red blanket lying at its foot. She was asleep within minutes.

She woke reluctantly to Casualty Sister’s voice, begging her to rouse herself. ‘Bed for you, Nurse Prendergast,’ said that lady cheerfully, ‘and someone will have another look at you tomorrow and decide if you’re fit for duty then. Bad bruising and a few abrasions, but nothing else. Mr der Linssen examined you with Mr Trevett; you couldn’t have had better men.’ She added kindly: ‘There’s a porter waiting with a chair, he’ll take you over to the home—Home Sister’s waiting to help you into a nice hot bath and give you something to eat—after that you can sleep your head off.’

‘Yes, Sister. Why did Mr der Linssen need to examine me?’

Sister was helping her to her reluctant feet. ‘Well, dear, he was here—and since he’d been on the spot, as it were, he felt it his duty…by the way, I was to tell you that the food was delivered, whatever that means, and the police have taken eye-witness accounts and they’ll come and see you later.’ She smiled hugely. ‘Little heroine, aren’t you?’