Philomena's Miracle

“How incredibly pompous you sound, Tritia!

“I’m going back to work, too, you know, and living in a country house is no new thing for Philomena. Her own home is a charming one in England with surroundings just as lovely as these.”

He kissed his mother, waved to Tritia and shook his head at her as he opened the car door for Philomena. But he didn’t mention Tritia’s rudeness during the short drive, instead talking about nothing much until they arrived at Mevrouw de Winter’s door, where he stood quietly while Philomena thanked him for her weekend.

He looked down at her, smiling a little. “It was rather spoilt, wasn’t it? We must make up for it next time.”

She had the sad thought that there was unlikely to be a next time. Tritia would see to that, and perhaps it would be as well—her suddenly surprised mind warned her that falling in love with one’s rich, handsome employer was something which happened in novels, not to real girls such as herself.

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.

Philomena’s Miracle

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 CORRIDOR was long and austere, its walls coloured a dreary margarine, its paintwork brown varnished, the floor a shiny lino, cracked here and there, the whole very clean and uninviting despite the early April sunlight streaming through its long, narrow windows along one side. But to Nurse Philomena Parsons it was fairyland; the whole world was fairyland, for in her pocket was the letter informing her that she had been placed on the State Register; she had passed her finals, she could wear a silver buckle on her belt now and the world was her oyster. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Commander Frost, RN retired, whom she was wheeling to X-Ray in a chair, was in one of his nasty tempers, she might have broken into a gay whistle or danced a few steps as she pushed, but the old gentleman was in a crusty mood that morning and although she was so happy herself she had a soft heart which sympathised with his jaundiced outlook on life; probably, she conceded, at his age and in his circumstances, she would be crusty too, so she agreed with his mutterings about the inconvenience of being taken to X-Ray at eight o’clock in the morning in a low gentle voice which did much to soothe his feelings, smiling to herself as she spoke, thinking of the letter in her pocket. The smile was a charming one, lighting her mediocre features to prettiness and bringing a sparkle to her lovely green eyes, fringed with preposterously long lashes; her one beauty, unless one counted the honey-gold hair, long and thick and fine and pulled back into such a severe bun that its beauty, for the most part, was lost.

It would be necessary to take a lift down to X-Ray; there were two halfway down the corridor and she could see that there was someone waiting by them. The lifts were old and shaky and no one other than patients and their attendant nurses or porters was allowed to use them. The man waiting didn’t appear to come into any of these categories; he was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his eyes closed. He was very good-looking, Philomena considered, and very large; even when she unconsciously drew up her five feet three of nicely rounded person, she still had to look a long way up to him. She brought the chair to a smart halt in front of the lift and fell to studying him; good shoes, beautifully polished, a tweed suit which wasn’t new but of a masterly cut, a sober tie…blue eyes were staring at her, so she said good morning politely.

‘Good morning—and should there not be a porter to push that thing?’ he asked.

She smiled at him. ‘Oh, usually there is, but the porters are on an hour’s strike about something or other.’ She hesitated and added: ‘Perhaps you don’t know, but they’re awfully fussy about anyone but patients and nurses using the lifts; they don’t work very well, you see, and if they get overloaded they break down.’

For a moment he looked as though he was going to laugh, but his deep rather slow voice was quite serious. ‘Kind of you to tell me, but don’t you think that I should come with you in the lift to give a hand with that chair?’

The lift had arrived, making a dim, drumming sound as it settled in a wobbly way, and a very tall nurse carrying a small girl got out. Her ‘Hi, Philly, congrats,’ was called over her shoulder as she swept past them, and as the man manoeuvred the wheelchair into the lift he asked in an interested voice: ‘Getting married or engaged or something of that sort?’

He set the chair just so, smiled at its occupant and then looked at Philomena, closing the doors. ‘Me? Gracious, no.’ The smile she couldn’t suppress burst out again. ‘I’ve passed my finals—I’ve just heard.’

His congratulations were sincere as he pressed the button and their unsteady conveyance began lurching downwards. ‘Cause for celebration,’ he added kindly.

The smile faded just a little. ‘Well, I don’t expect I shall—I—don’t go home very often, it’s rather a long way away, and the other girls who passed have all got someone—family or boy-friends…’

His eyes were very kind. ‘Hard luck, but very exciting, all the same.’

The lift wobbled and stopped and Commander Frost, deep in his own thoughts, said suddenly: ‘She puts me in mind of my dear Lucy—listens when I say something and then gives me an intelligent answer—not pretty, of course.’ He gave Philomena a surprisingly intelligent look. ‘You’ll make a good wife, my dear.’

Philomena blushed, a regrettable shortcoming which she had never been able to overcome. ‘Thank you, Commander.’ She was pulling back the doors as she spoke and didn’t look at either of her companions. The big man wheeled the patient out of the lift and into the passage for her and got back into the lift. ‘You really oughtn’t to,’ pointed out Philomena. ‘Supposing you get caught?’ She added: ‘Thank you for your help.’

He smiled and began to close the lift doors. ‘A pleasure.’ The doors closed and he was away again. Philomena sighed gently; she would have liked to see more of him, he looked nice and he had been friendly and helpful. Probably he was going to the Private Wing to see one of the patients; she decided to forget him.

‘He would make you a splendid husband,’ observed the Commander, à propos nothing at all.

The morning was busy, but it had its moments; Philomena was bidden to the Principal Nursing Officer’s office, congratulated, informed that she was the Gold Medallist for her year and it was intimated by Miss Blake that when a vacancy for a Ward Sister occurred, she would be invited to apply for it. She went back to her ward telling herself that she was the luckiest girl alive and went on telling herself so while she worked her way through the dressings to be done before dinners. Only she wasn’t quite the luckiest, she admitted, allowing the thoughts she kept tucked away at the back of her head to air themselves for once; the luckiest girl would have a family to tell her how clever she was and how proud they were of her—moreover, she would have someone bearing a marked resemblance to the man in the lift waiting for her when she got off duty, eager to take her out and celebrate. She popped her thoughts back again where they belonged and turned an attentive ear to Mr Wilkinson’s cheery Cockney voice while she deftly removed the stitches from the complicated wound which Mr Dale, the consultant surgeon, had so meticulously stitched together.

‘Going out to celebrate, Staff?’ Mr Wilkinson wanted to know. ‘Live in Wareham, don’t you? Family coming up to make a night of it?’

She snipped a particularly complicated piece of Mr Dale’s needlework. ‘It’s a bit too far.’ She made her voice cheerful. ‘And my stepmother hates driving long distances…’

‘No sisters or brothers?’ he asked sympathetically.

‘Oh, yes—two stepsisters.’ Both of them excellent drivers, both owning their own cars, neither of them caring twopence whether she passed her exams or not, not because they disliked her, it was just that they had nothing in common. Both they and her stepmother gave her a tolerant affection which stopped short at putting themselves out in any way for her. They had never put themselves out for anyone, although they had loved her father, not very deeply but with charming demonstration so that Philomena, who found it difficult to be deliberately charming, appeared reserved towards him, and yet, when he had died a year or two previously, her sorrow had been deep and genuine whereas they had quickly adjusted to life without him in the pleasant roomy old house on the outskirts of Wareham.

They had been well provided for and neither they nor her stepmother had been able to understand why Philomena hadn’t left nursing at once and adopted the pleasant leisurely life they led. But she hadn’t wanted to do that; she loved her home, but she loved nursing too, so she had stayed at Faith’s, making a successful career for herself and happy too, for she was well liked and had a great number of friends. She went home, of course, and her stepmother and Miriam and Chloe welcomed her affectionately, but they never asked her about her work; hospitals smacked to them of the more unpleasant side of life. They arranged a party or two for her, took her with them when they went riding or driving to visit friends, and then after a day or two took it for granted that they had done their share of entertaining her and drifted off with their own particular friends again, leaving her quite happily to garden or drive herself around in the little Mini her father had given her when she had had her twenty-first birthday. And if she felt lonely she never admitted it, even to herself.

She removed the last stitch, sprayed the scar, said ‘There, as good as new, Mr Wilkinson,’ collected up her instruments, and nipped down the ward, just in time to help Sister Brice with the dinners. The ward was full with not an empty bed in it, and that afternoon there would be several cases for theatre. Philomena, spooning potatoes on to the plates with the expertise of long practice, reflected that she would be lucky to get off at five o’clock. Not that it would matter, she wasn’t going anywhere.

The afternoon was even busier than she had anticipated. The first case for theatre turned out to be a leaking abdominal aneurysm, which had presented symptoms very similar to an appendix and needed a good deal more surgery; the patient returned from the recovery room an hour later than she had expected, consequently the other three patients were all tardy too, and over and above that two beds had to be put up down the centre of the ward to accommodate street accidents. Five o’clock came and with it Sister Brice, but there was no hope of getting off duty; it was almost an hour later when she finally gave her report and started on her way to the changing room, and before she reached it, Potter, the Head Porter, stopped her to tell her that she was wanted in the front hall.

For a moment she hoped that it was her stepmother or her sisters, a hope to be dismissed immediately as nonsense; they had never been near the hospital, and besides, they didn’t know that she had had her results that morning. It could be one of her friends from Wareham, in London for a visit and calling on the offchance of seeing her—taking her out, perhaps. She pushed her cap back a little impatiently on her still neat head and retraced her footsteps. Old Mrs Fox, perhaps, who had been a friend of her mother’s years ago, or Mary Burns, in town to shop, or that boring Tim Crooks… She whisked round the last corner and saw that it was none of these people, so she stopped and looked around her, for the only person there was the man she had met in the lift that morning, lounging against the window of the porter’s lodge, apparently asleep. But he wasn’t; he straightened up and came towards her, and when she said uncertainly: ‘Hullo—have you seen anyone…’

‘Not a soul,’ he assured her blandly, ‘I’m the only one here.’

‘Oh—I expect it was a mistake; Potter said that someone wanted to see me.’

‘Correct, I do.’

She raised bewildered green eyes to his and asked simply: ‘Why?’

He smiled very nicely. ‘I wondered if you would take pity on me and come out to dinner—unless you have other plans.’

‘No, I haven’t.’ She added cautiously: ‘I don’t know your name…’

‘Walle van der Tacx.’

‘Oh, Dutch, are you not?’ She held out a hand and he shook it gravely. ‘I stayed in Amsterdam for a few days with my father…’

‘I’m afraid I can’t claim to live there, my home is a mile or so from a small town called Ommen, twenty kilometres or so to the east of Zwolle and roughly a hundred and thirty from Amsterdam. I have a country practice there.’

‘Oh, you’re a doctor!’ The relief in her voice caused his firm mouth to twitch. ‘Well then, I’d like to come very much—but haven’t you anything better to do?’

The twitch came and went, but his blue eyes were kind. ‘I can think of nothing better. I’m hungry and I hope you are too; dining alone can be extremely dull.’

‘Haven’t you any friends here?’

‘Several, but none of them free this evening.’ His voice was casual and she believed him. ‘Shall we meet here in half an hour? We might try one of those restaurants in Soho.’

Philomena was halfway across the hall when she turned back. ‘Why me?’ she asked.

‘We did meet this morning,’ he reminded her. ‘Besides, you have a good reason to celebrate, haven’t you, and I hoped that would decide you to come.’

Such a sensible answer that she agreed happily.

The Nurses’ Home was noisy; a dozen or more of its inmates had passed their exams too and all of them were going out with boy-friends, fiancés or family. Philomena had her head in her cupboard, deciding what she would wear, when Jenny Pringle, one of her closer friends, drifted in with a mug of tea. Her hair was in rollers and her face heavily creamed in preparation for the evening’s festivities, but she put the mug down on the dressing table and sat herself down on the bed, prepared to gossip for a few minutes.

‘What are you doing, Philly?’ she asked cautiously, mindful of the fact that Philomena was probably not doing anything exciting like the rest of them.

‘Finding something to wear.’ Philomena’s muffled voice came from the depths of the cupboard, but she emerged a few moments later. ‘Tea,’ she exclaimed, ‘how nice. Do I look my poor best in this pink thing or the green?’

‘You’re going out!’ Jenny was genuinely delighted; they all liked Philly and most of them knew that her home life wasn’t as happy as it might have been, and besides, she hadn’t a boy-friend; she got taken out occasionally by one or other of the housemen, but sooner or later their eyes were caught by someone a great deal prettier than she was. ‘Who with?’

‘Doctor Walle van der Tacx.’

‘You’re joking!’ Jenny kicked off her slippers and tucked her feet under her. ‘A name like that!’

‘He’s Dutch.’ Philomena had decided on the green, nicely cut, simple and just right for her eyes. ‘I met him today in a lift, he’s hungry and doesn’t like eating his dinner alone, so he asked me if I’d go with him.’

Her friend looked at her in utter astonishment; it was so unlike Philly to go on a blind date. Of course she had been knocked off balance by reason of the final results, but even so, it didn’t seem like her at all.

‘Is he nice?’ asked Jenny anxiously.

‘I think so.’ Philomena added, ‘He lives at a place called Ommen,’ as though that proved that his credentials were beyond doubt. ‘Shall I wear my hair up or down?’

‘Down—you always look so severe with it piled up like that, and it’s pretty hair.’

‘I don’t think he’ll notice.’ Philomena was tearing out of her clothes, pausing to gulp tea as she did so. ‘There’d better be a bathroom free, he said half an hour.’

‘Where are you going to meet?’

‘The front hall.’ Philomena had snatched up a towel and was making for the bathroom. ‘He said something about Soho…’ She pattered away, unheeding of her friend’s: ‘But you don’t really know him!’

She was ready with five minutes to spare and as it hadn’t entered her head to keep him waiting, she went down to the front hall. He was waiting for her, leaning up against the Porter’s Lodge again, deep in conversation with Potter. He came to meet her at once with a cheerful: ‘There you are—punctual too, a rare thing in a woman.’

She was too shy to ask how he was so sure of this, and anyway there was no need for her to say anything much, for he swept her out of the main entrance on a steady gentle flow of small talk which saw them safely into the car standing in the forecourt, but on the point of getting in she stopped short. ‘A Maserati—one of the new ones—a Khamsin.’ She had stopped to look at one in a car showroom only a few days previously and had been shocked to see its price—almost eighteen thousand pounds! One could buy a house for that, or live comfortably for four or five years.

Her companion opened the door a little wider. ‘Easy to get around in,’ he told her in a placid matter-of-fact voice which made its price seem quite reasonable after all.

‘Do you travel a great deal?’ she asked him as he got in beside her.

‘Quite frequently—I have a sister living in the south of France.’ He swung the car neatly into the evening traffic. ‘Do you drive?’

She told him about the Mini. ‘I keep it at home, though, I’m not much good in London traffic.’

‘No? But surely it would be useful when you go home?’

Philomena looked out of the window, not really seeing the cars streaming along in the clear April evening. ‘I don’t go very often.’

He didn’t question her further but embarked on the kind of conversation which needed little reply on her part, but which nonetheless put her at her ease. ‘You said Soho,’ she reminded him presently as he turned up into Shaftesbury Avenue. ‘I’ve never been there—not for a meal, I mean.’

‘I thought we might go to Kettner’s.’ He had turned the car into Frith Street and then into Romilly Street and they had stopped before she could say anything. She had heard of the restaurant, of course, but the few evenings out she had enjoyed had ended at more homely places; young doctors tended to choose a steak bar or the Golden Egg, but this was something different; she was heartily glad that she had worn the green dress and taken pains with her face and hair.

They were shown to a table at once—presumably he had booked one while she was changing—and she sat back and looked around her with unconcealed pleasure. ‘What a super place!’ Her wide mouth curved in a lovely smile. ‘You’re very kind to bring me here.’

‘It is you who are kind to keep me company—and may I call you Philomena?’ He lifted a finger to the hovering waiter. ‘I shan’t ask you what you would like to drink—we’ll celebrate with champagne.’

And probably it was the champagne which gave Philomena the pleasant feeling that Doctor van der Tacx was an old friend, and when presently he suggested mildly that she might call him Walle, she agreed readily enough before getting down to the serious business of deciding what they should eat. In the end she took his advice, given in a casual almost unnoticed way, and chose paté maison, a magnificent dish of lobster, fried with herbs and then covered and set alight with cognac, and rounded these delights off with Vacherin.

‘That was sheer heaven,’ she assured her host over coffee, ‘I’ve never had such a gorgeous meal and in such a super place.’ She beamed at him widely. ‘I never thought I’d celebrate like this.’

He smiled back at her. ‘Perhaps you will have your celebrations next time you go home,’ and when she didn’t answer: ‘You live a long way away?’

A hundred and thirteen miles was nothing; three hours at the most and in a car such as his, much less; a loving family or a devoted boy-friend would have made light of it. She said reluctantly: ‘Not so very—my home’s at Wareham, in Dorset.’

His only comment was: ‘Ah, yes—a charming place, I’ve been sailing in those parts,’ and at her questioning look, he added blandly: ‘I was up at Cambridge for some years and I have friends in England—I spent a good deal of time with a fellow student who was mad on sailing.’ He laughed. ‘Lord, it makes one feel old!’

She hadn’t really thought about his age; his hair was fair and thick and silvering at the temples, but he had the kind of good looks which would be very much as they were now in twenty years’ time. ‘You’re not old,’ said Philomena. ‘I’m twenty-three.’

He dropped the heavy lids over his eyes to hide their sudden gleam of amusement. ‘And I am thirty-six.’

‘That’s not in the least old. I expect you’re at the height of your career and very content with your life and everything in the world to look forward to.’

‘Thank you, Philomena. Until now I have been more than content with my life, but now I’m not so sure.’ He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘You know you haven’t asked me if I’m married.’

The champagne had made her decidedly chatty. ‘Well, no, but I don’t think you are…’

‘Do tell why?’

‘Well, you’re not the kind of man who would—would ask the first girl you met to go out to dinner with him if you were married.’

‘You’re right of course, but too flattering. I don’t fancy that you know much about men.’

She poured more coffee. ‘No, I don’t. You see, I don’t go out a great deal with them—there are so many pretty girls in hospital, and of course the housemen go for them first.’ She gave him a rather appalled look; the champagne had certainly made ducks and drakes of her usual quiet matter-of-factness. If he paid her a compliment now about being pretty, she would hate him for it.

He didn’t. He said with calm: ‘Young men always go for the pretty girls, that’s human nature, but young men grow up, you know.’

Probably he was right; he had a very assured way of speaking so that one believed him, and besides that, she felt at ease with him, as though they had been old friends for a very long time. She voiced her thoughts with unconscious forlornness. ‘I suppose you’ll be going back to Holland very soon?’

‘No, I’ve several people to see over here and there’s a seminar I’m going to in Edinburgh. I’ve two partners in the practice so that we can all get away now and again. I’ve promised to do some shopping for my mother and a cousin, perhaps you would help me with that? Tritia wanted to come with me, but she’s only nineteen and what would I do with her while I’m at the hospital? And I certainly didn’t want to take her to Edinburgh—she’s pretty and spoilt, the kind of girl young men look at and then get to know without waste of time.’