Never too Late

“But it so happens that I don’t particularly want to marry. Once bitten, twice shy, you know.

“I’m going to be very cautious next time. I certainly shan’t do anything as silly as falling in love without very careful consideration first.”

His blue eyes danced with amusement, but he didn’t smile. “I agree with you. Compatibility and friendship without heaving passion are much more likely to make a successful marriage, especially for us older ones.” He ignored the indignant sound she made. He went on gently, “I think it might be a good idea if you and I married on those terms, Prudence.” He turned back to the study. “Give it some thought, will you? Good night.”

She felt she would explode with indignation. She had had proposals before, but never one like that, offered casually and without waiting to find out what she thought about it. The arrogant wretch!

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.

Never Too Late

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 ANCIENT CHURCH of the village of Little Amwell was crowded to its massive Norman door, its pews brimming over with flowery hats, their wearers keeping up a steady murmur of conversation which vied with Mrs Broad, the organist, as she laboured through a selection of suitable wedding music. The groom was already there, and his best man, it lacked only the bride for the ceremony to begin.

She was at the door now; Mrs Broad’s sudden burst of chords sent every head over its shoulder as she began the short journey down the aisle on her uncle’s arm to where her bridegroom was waiting and her father stood ready to marry them. She was a very pretty girl, fair-haired and blue-eyed and slim, a vision in white silk and lace, followed by four very small bridesmaids, enchanting in pale blue with wreaths in their hair, and behind them, shooing them gently along, came the only other bridesmaid, a tall curvy girl with a face as pretty as her sister’s, only her hair was a burnished golden red and her eyes green. She was in blue too, a colour in which she didn’t look her best, but since the bride had strong views about the unlucky properties of green, she had resigned herself to pale blue silk and a wide-brimmed hat of the same shade. She followed slowly down the aisle, looking demurely ahead of her and still managing to see that old Mrs Forbes from the Grange was wearing a quite astonishing mauve hat, and Lady Byron from the Manor House was in her everlasting beige. She saw Tony, too, standing on the bride’s side, looking devastating in his morning coat; a pity he had refused categorically to be one of the ushers. He was marvellous, of course, but sometimes she wished he wasn’t quite so conscious of his dignity. She supposed that once she was married to him, at some not yet decided date, she would have to mend her ways; there were several things for which he had already gently but firmly reproved her.

She came to a halt behind Nancy, took her bouquet and hushed the youngest of the bridesmaids. James was beaming at his bride in a most satisfactory way and her father, while not actually smiling, was looking pleased with himself. And why not? she mused. Nancy had done well for herself; James was something up and coming in the business world and had a rather grand flat in Highgate Village, besides which he was a thoroughly nice young man.

Her father began the service and presently, bored with standing still, the bridesmaids began to play up. It was in the course of preventing one of them from prancing off down the aisle that Prudence became aware of the best man. True, she had known that he was there, conspicuous even. From the back he was a large man, topping James by a good head and with massive shoulders. He turned round now, for the very good reason that the bridesmaid had him by the trouser leg, and Prudence could see his face—nicelooking in a rugged way, with fair hair already sprinkled with grey. He removed the small girl’s arms from his leg and handed her back and smiled at Prudence. His eyes were very blue and crinkled nicely at the corners. Not a patch on Tony, of course, but he might be fun to know… She smiled back, and then composed her features into suitable solemnity as the choir launched itself into ‘The voice that breathed o’er Eden’, the little boys cast their eyes to heaven in an unlikely piety and the men behind them rolled out their notes in a volume of sound. Prudence, from under her brim, watched Mr Clapp, the butcher, bellowing his way through the hymn; he had a powerful voice, used frequently in his shop to cry the virtues of his meat. She took a quick peep at the best man, although there wasn’t much to see; broad shoulders and a ramrod back, and when he turned his head slightly, a high-bridged nose and a firm chin. She looked down at her bouquet. The choir had filled their lungs ready for the last verse, but she wasn’t heeding them. Traditionally, the chief bridesmaid and the best man paired off at a wedding; it might do Tony a lot of good if he were to be given a cold—well, cool—shoulder; he was, she suspected, getting too sure of her. She hadn’t met the best man yet; he had been abroad, James had told her, and had only arrived in time to see that James got safely to the church. Really she knew nothing at all about him. Married most likely, certainly engaged; it would be fun to find out.

The choir, conscious of a job well done, subsided into their pews and her father began the little homily he must know by heart, for she had heard it at countless weddings at which he had officiated. By turning her head very slowly, she could see her mother, still a pretty woman, wearing a Mother of the Bride’s hat, and a slightly smug expression. She caught Prudence’s eye and smiled and nodded. Prudence was well aware what her mother was thinking—that she would be the next bride, with Tony standing where James was standing now. She would have liked a quiet wedding, but there would be little chance of that. It would be exactly the same as Nancy’s, white silk and chiffon and more little bridesmaids. No plans had been made, of course, but she was quite sure that her mother had it all arranged. That lady had been puzzled and disappointed that Prudence hadn’t been the first to marry anyway. She was, after all, the eldest, and she was twenty-seven, with a long-standing engagement behind her, there had seemed no reason why she and Tony shouldn’t have married before Nancy and James, but Tony had lightheartedly declared that they had plenty of time, there was no hurry. He had a splendid job with a big firm of architects, a pleasant house on the edge of Little Amwell and the prospect of a trip to New York within the next month or so. ‘After I’m back,’ he had told Prudence easily. ‘After all, you’re perfectly content and happy at home, aren’t you?’

She had been aware of a faint warning at the back of her mind, so absurd that she had ignored it, and then, in the excitement and bustle of the wedding, forgotten it.

But now it came back to tease her. She was by no means content to sit at home and wait for Tony; there had been no reason at all why she shouldn’t have married him months ago and gone to New York with him; somehow, the excitement of marrying him had fizzled out like a kettle going off the boil—and yet surely, after three, almost four years, she should know if she loved him or not? Something, she wasn’t sure what, would have to be done.

Her father had finished, Mrs Broad was thumping out the opening lines of ‘Oh, perfect love’ and the choir had surged to its feet with the congregation hard on its heels. The signing took on a new lease of life; the choir thinking of their dinner, the guests of the champagne and buffet lunch awaiting them in the marquee erected on the roomy lawns surrounding the solid Victorian vicarage. It was a bit of an anticlimax to sit down again while the wedding party trailed into the vestry, and presently out again. There had been the usual kissing and congratulations there, but beyond a rather casual greeting from the best man, Prudence had had no chance to speak to him. She went down the aisle beside him presently, her pretty face and vivid hair drawing a good many admiring glances, none of which came from the best man. Benedict van Vinke—a foreign name. Later, if he was disposed to be friendly, she would ask him where he came from.

But although he was friendly enough, he wasn’t disposed to tell her much. He parried her questions with lazy good humour, smiling at her with a flicker of amusement in his eyes. She ended up discovering almost nothing. He was a Dutch doctor, he travelled a good deal, he had known James for a number of years, they had in fact been at Cambridge together. Beyond these snippets of information he didn’t go, and presently she wandered off, still wondering about him, to do her duty by the other guests.

Tony joined her presently, and it pleased her to see that he looked annoyed. He gave her a severe look. ‘Even if you are chief bridesmaid, there’s no need to sit in the best man’s pocket. Everyone here knows that we’re going to get married and it’s hardly the thing for you to spend the entire time with him.’

‘Are you jealous, Tony?’ she wanted to know.

‘Certainly not! Jealousy is a complete waste of good sense, I merely observed that other people might think…’

‘You mind what they think?’ Prudence asked, her green eyes very bright.

‘Naturally I mind. The opinion of other people is important to a professional man.’

‘And that’s the reason you’re annoyed with me?’ Prudence lowered long dark lashes over her eyes. ‘I must go and say hullo to Lady Brinknell.’

She sauntered off, but not to the lady in question. She fetched up again beside Benedict van Vinke, waited patiently until the couple he was talking to wandered away, and asked: ‘If you were going to marry a girl and she spent a lot of time with another man, at a function like this one, would you be annoyed?’

He smiled down at her. ‘Very.’

‘Why?’

His eyes widened. ‘Obvious reasons. If she were my girl, she wouldn’t be allowed to wander off with any Tom, Dick or Harry around.’

‘You’d be jealous?’

‘Very.’

‘And you wouldn’t mind what everyone said? I mean, you wouldn’t object just because it might make people gossip?’

‘Good lord, no! Who cares what other people think? It’s none of their business, anyway.’

Prudence heaved a sigh. ‘Oh, well—thank you…’ She glanced without knowing it in Tony’s direction, and Benedict van Vinke said kindly: ‘You mustn’t take him too seriously, you know.’

She said sharply: ‘I don’t know what you mean! It was a purely hypothetical question.’

He only smiled and asked lazily: ‘When are you going to marry?’

She said crossly: ‘I have no idea—and anyway, it’s none of your business,’ and then, quite forgetting to be annoyed, added wistfully: ‘We’ve been engaged for years and years…’

He ignored the last bit. ‘No, it isn’t,’ he agreed equably, ‘but after all, it was you who brought the subject up in the first place.’

She was on the point of turning away when Tony joined them. He put a proprietorial arm on Prudence’s shoulder. ‘May I suggest,’ he began, and she wished that he wouldn’t preface so many of his wishes with that remark—’ that you circulate, Prudence. Lady Byron remarked to me only a few minutes ago that she’d barely set eyes on you, and the Forbeses—people at the Manor, you know,’ he explained kindly to Benedict, ‘were asking to meet you.’

His voice implied that this was an honour indeed, but the large man standing before him, looking at him with a tolerant good humour which set his teeth on edge, only smiled at him. ‘I’ll be delighted to meet them later on,’ he conceded. ‘I’ve a number of old friends to chat with first.’

He made no effort to move away; after a small silence Tony took Prudence’s elbow and walked her off. ‘It’s fortunate that van Vinke is unlikely to see much of us,’ he observed frostily. ‘I dislike that type of man.’

‘What type is he?’ asked Prudence; she had her own ideas on that, but it would be interesting to hear Tony’s opinion.

‘Arrogant, conceited, not bothering to make himself agreeable. I suggest that you avoid him for the rest of the day, Prudence—besides, he’s a foreigner.’

She was struck dumb by the appalling thought that over the years she had allowed herself to be dictated to by Tony. After all, they weren’t married yet; he had no right to expect her to conform to his ideas. She said baldly: ‘I like him.’ She picked up a glass of champagne from the buffet table they were passing, tossed it off, shook his hand from her arm and joined a group of aunts and uncles she barely knew except for the exchange of Christmas cards each year. The champagne, coupled with her indignant feelings, gave her unwonted vivacity, so that her elderly relatives, watching her as she left them presently, remarked among themselves that dear Prudence seemed to have changed a good deal. ‘Of course, she is twenty-seven,’ observed the most elderly aunt, and pursed her lips and nodded her head wisely, as though twenty-seven was a dangerous age when anything might happen.

The reception, following a time-honoured pattern, drew to its end. The bride and bridegroom disappeared, to reappear shortly in tweed outfits suitable for their honeymoon in Scotland. It was still late August and warm, but Little Amwell, buried in the heart of Somerset, was undoubtedly milder in climate than the far north where Nancy had decided they should go. When Prudence had asked her why, she had said simply: ‘It sounds romantic.’

Prudence, handing out bags of confetti among the guests, remembered that remark. Only that morning when Tony had called in on his way to the church, he had made some measured remark about combining business with pleasure when he and Prudence went on honeymoon. There were clients in Hamburg and Oslo who were considering giving his firm a big contract— as he had said, time enough to talk about that when he got back from America; she was content enough at home. Suddenly she knew that she wasn’t.

The guests went away slowly, stopping to chat, mull over the wedding and discuss each other’s appearance. When the last one had gone, Prudence kicked off her slippers, flung her hat on to a chair and went to the kitchen to give Mabel, grown old in her parents’ service, a hand with the tea-tray.

With it in her hands, she kicked open the creaking baize door leading to the front hall and paused to say over her shoulder: ‘I’ll be back presently, Mabel, and we’ll think about supper. Did you enjoy the wedding?’

‘A fair treat, Miss Prudence, but you’ll look just as pretty when your turn comes.’

Crossing the hall, Prudence had the strange feeling that Mabel’s words sounded like a death sentence.

Her parents were in the drawing room. Not alone, for old Aunt Rachel, who lived miles away in Essex, was to stay for a day or two before going home by train. And Tony was there, stretched out in one of the comfortable rather shabby armchairs, looking, thought Prudence crossly, as though he owned the place. To make matters worse, he looked up and grinned at her as she went in, without bothering to get up and take the tray from her. Was he so sure of her already? She dumped it on the sofa table near her mother’s chair and sat down, a slow buildup of ill-usage creeping over her. Furthermore, her teeth were set on edge by his careless, ‘Tired, old girl?’

She was not his old girl, she argued silently, she was his fiancée, to be cherished and spoilt a little, and certainly not to be taken for granted.

She said haughtily: ‘Not in the least,’ and addressed herself to Aunt Rachel for almost all of the time they took over tea. And when the elegant little meal was finished, she picked up the tray once more, observing that Mabel needed a hand in the kitchen and adding in a decidedly acidulated tone: ‘And perhaps you would open the door, Tony?’

She dumped the tray on the kitchen table and then went to the stove, where she clashed saucepan lids quite unnecessarily until Mabel looked up from the beans she was stringing.

‘Now, now! Hoity-toity!’ said Mabel.

Prudence didn’t answer; she had heard Mabel say just that whenever she or Nancy had displayed ill humour since early childhood, for Mabel had joined the Trent household when Mrs Trent had married and had taken upon herself the role of nanny over and above her other duties, and since Mrs Trent was still, at that time, struggling to be the perfect vicar’s wife, Mabel had taken a large share in their upbringing, a process helped along by a number of old-fashioned remarks such as ‘Little pitchers have long ears,’ and ‘Little girls should be seen and not heard,’ and ‘Keep little fingers from picking and stealing.’

And when Prudence didn’t answer, Mabel said comfortably: ‘Well, tell old Mabel, then.’

‘I don’t think I want to get married,’ observed Prudence in a ruminating voice.

‘And what will your dear ma and pa say to that?’

‘I haven’t told them—you see, I’ve only just thought about it in the last hour or so.’

‘The wedding’s unsettled you, love—seeing our Nancy getting married—girls always have last-minute doubts, so I’m told. Not that you ought to have with such a nice long engagement. They do say, “Marry in haste…”’

‘Repent at leisure. I know—but, Mabel, Tony and I have been engaged for so long there doesn’t seem to be anything left. I think if I married him I’d regret it to my dying day. I want to stay single and do what I want to do for a change, not sit here at home, doing the church flowers and helping with the Mothers’ Union on Thursdays and waiting for Tony to decide when we’re to be married. I want a career…’

‘What at?’ Mabel’s voice was dry.

‘Well, I can type, can’t I? And do a little shorthand and I’ve kept the parish accounts for Father for years. I could work in an office.’

‘Where?’ Mabel put the bowl of beans on the table and went to the sink to wash her hands.

‘How should I know? London, I suppose.’

‘You wouldn’t like that. You listen to me, love. You go back to the drawing room and talk to your Tony, he’s a steady young man, making his way in the world.’

‘Oh, pooh!’ Prudence started slowly for the door. ‘For two pins I’d slip out of the garden door!’

‘And what’s unsettled you, my lady?’ asked Mabel. ‘Or is it who?’

But Prudence didn’t answer, only the door closed with a snap behind her.

Tony was still there when she got back to the drawing room and he barely paused in what he was saying to her father to nod at her. Prudence went and sat down by her mother and listened to that lady’s mulling over of the wedding in company with Aunt Rachel.

‘And when is it to be your turn?’ asked her aunt.

‘I don’t know,’ said Prudence, then raised her voice sharply. ‘Tony—Aunt Rachel wants to know when we’re getting married.’

Tony had frowned slightly; he did dislike being interrupted when he was speaking and Prudence’s voice had sounded quite shrewish. ‘At the moment I have so many commitments that it’s impossible to even suggest a date.’

His voice held a note of censure for her and Aunt Rachel asked in surprise: ‘But I always thought that the bride chose her wedding date?’

He chose to take the remark seriously, and it struck Prudence, not for the first time, perhaps, that his sense of humour was poor. ‘Ah, but I’m really the one to be considered, you see. I have an exacting profession and Prudence, living quietly at home as she does, need only fall in with my wishes, without any disruption of her own life.’

Mrs Trent looked up at that with a look of doubt on her face and even the Reverend Giles Trent, a dreamy man by nature, realised that something wasn’t quite as it should be. It was left to Prudence to remark in a deceptively meek voice: ‘Nothing must stand in Tony’s way now that he’s making such a success of his career.’

She looked at them all, her green eyes sparkling, smiling widely, looking as though she had dropped a heavy burden. Which she had—Tony.

She didn’t say a word to anyone, least of all Tony, who, the day following the wedding went up to London, explaining rather pompously that there was a good deal of important work for him to do. ‘Stuff I can’t delegate to anyone else. I shall probably be back at the weekend.’ He had dropped a kiss on her cheek and hurried off.

She wasted no time. With only the vaguest idea of what she intended to do, she spent every free moment at the typewriter in her father’s study, getting up her speed, and after she had gone to bed each evening, she got out pencil and paper and worked hard at her shorthand. She wasn’t very good at it, but at least she had a basic knowledge of it, enough perhaps to get by in some office. She began to read the adverts in the Telegraph, but most of them seemed to be for high-powered personal assistants with phenomenal speeds. Perhaps she would do better at some other job, only she had no idea what it might be. Nursing had crossed her mind, but she was a bit old to start training—besides, although she had done her St John Ambulance training to set a good example to the village, she had never quite mastered bandaging and finer variations of the pulse had always evaded her. All the same, she didn’t lose heart. She welcomed Tony at the weekend when he called after church, and listened to his plans for the trip to New York with becoming attention, while her head was filled with vague hopeful plans for her own future. It was on the tip of her tongue several times to tell him that she had decided that she couldn’t marry him after all, but that, she realised, would be silly. She must wait until she had a job—any job that would make her independent. He was so sure of her that he wouldn’t believe her; she would need proof to convince him.

August slipped gently into September and Nancy and James came back from their honeymoon to spend a few days at the Vicarage before setting up house in Highgate. It was at the end of this visit that Nancy suggested that Prudence might like to spend a weekend with them. ‘James thinks that we ought to have some of his friends who couldn’t come to the wedding, for drinks one evening—it’ll be a Saturday, so why don’t you come for a couple of nights? I don’t know many of them and it would be nice if you were there too. Let’s see, it’s Thursday—what about Saturday week? Come up on Friday night so that you can help me get things ready.’

Prudence hesitated. ‘It sounds fun, but won’t you and James want to be alone for a bit?’