The Convenient Wife

She peeped at him. He was smiling, but not nicely. “Oh, dear, what have I said to make you smile that way?”

“Like what?”

“Well, you smile like that when you lecture the nurses and one of them makes a silly reply to a question.” She paused. “Ready to pounce.”

He roared with laughter. “Am I such an ogre? Do you think I am an ogre, Venetia?”

It would be best not to tell him what she thought of him. “No,” she told him sedately. “I’ve never thought that. You’ve always been kind to me.” She added, suddenly bold, “When you’ve remembered that I’m here.”

He said blandly, “Oh, but I’ve never forgotten that.” A remark that left her puzzled, and hunting for a suitable reply.

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, and her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.

The Convenient Wife

Betty Neels

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

VENETIA FORBES, sitting at the end of the back row of Casualty’s crowded benches, allowed her gaze to roam; it was a nice change from watching the clock on the wall facing her, something she had been doing for over an hour. She was a smallish girl, pleasantly plump, with an ordinary face redeemed from plainness by a pair of magnificent grey eyes, thickly lashed. She had pretty hair of a soft mouse shade which curled on to her shoulders, although at the moment she was so covered in dust and dirt that it was difficult to see that. Her clothes were torn and filthy, and one sleeve had been roughly torn apart so that a first-aid pad could be tied around her forearm, which she held carefully cradled in her other hand. She was a nasty greenish white, but she was apparently composed, unlike her neighbour, a stout woman who was threatening hysterics at any moment and with an eye rapidly turning from an angry red to a rich plum colour. By morning, Venetia thought, it would be an even richer purple.

She glanced at the clock again, and then studied her surroundings. Casualty was bulging at the seams, for not only had those seriously injured in the bomb blast at a nearby Woolworth’s been rushed to St Jude’s, but the majority of those less seriously hurt as well, St Jude’s being the nearest Casualty—a large department, always comfortably occupied, but now crowded to the doors. Most of the people round her had minor wounds—deep scratches and grazes, sprained ankles, perhaps a broken bone or two, and until the really ill victims had been dealt with and warded they would have to possess themselves in patience. There were fifty or sixty people ahead of her, and already a number of them were demanding attention which the hard-pressed nurses and housemen were unable to give.

The woman next to her nudged her bandaged arm, and Venetia went a shade greener and closed her eyes for a moment.

‘Sorry, ducks. ’Urt yer arm, ’ave yer? What abart me eye, eh? I’ve lorst me shoes. ’Ow am I going ter get ’ome, that’s what I want ter know?’ She surveyed her feet in their remnants of stockings. ‘Can’t walk like this, can I?’

‘I expect they’ll send you back in an ambulance.’

‘An’ when’ll that be, I’d like ter know?’

‘Not just yet, I’m afraid. They have to attend to the ill people first.’

‘Course they do, ducks, but we’ve been ’ere for getting on for two hours…’

There was a good deal of shuffling from the front bench, and the first of the slightly injured was wheeled away to a cubicle. Venetia, to keep her mind occupied, began doing complicated sums in her head to discover how long it would be before her turn, and looked at the clock once more. Not too long, she hoped. She was feeling sick.

Various persons had been hurrying to and fro past her for ages now, and she had kept her mind occupied by watching them. Quite a few of them she knew, at least by sight—Mr Inglis, the orthopaedic surgeon, his registrar, two consultant surgeons, the senior physician, and any number of house doctors and house surgeons—and she had more than a passing acquaintance with several of the nurses hurrying to and fro, but none of them noticed her. In any case, she reflected, she was probably unrecognisable.

She turned her attention back to the clock and watched the second hand jerking from minute to minute, and she went on staring at it as a very tall man went past and was met by one of the registrars, who ushered him into a cubicle at the far end of the department. She had never spoken to him, only attended his lectures, and she thought it unlikely that she would ever speak to him. Perhaps that was a good thing—from all accounts he was an impatient man, not suffering fools gladly, and with a coldly biting tongue when annoyed. Probably crossed in love, she decided, watching his large back disappear behind the curtains.

It was all of half an hour before she saw him again, and by then the occupants of the benches around her were being dealt with with efficient rapidity. He walked back the way he had come, talking to his registrar, and Venetia’s neighbour said, ‘Cor—look at ’im. There’s an ’andsome bloke.’ She put a large hand on Venetia’s injured arm; Venetia gave a small, gasping sigh and little beads of sweat shone on her dirty face.

This time, she thought hopelessly, there was nothing for it—she was either going to be sick or faint. She closed her eyes, so she didn’t see Professor ter Laan-Luitinga pause by her.

‘This girl was here as I came in,’ he observed. ‘She’s all in. I wonder…?’ He lifted the pad off her arm and stood studying the splinter of glass which had gone in one side of her forearm and out the other.

Venetia opened her eyes and looked up into his dark face. Very handsome, she thought hazily, and indeed he was, with a high-bridged nose above a rather thin mouth, dark eyes under alarming eyebrows, and a head of dark hair sprinkled with silver. She said clearly, ‘I’m so sorry, but I think I’m going to faint.’

And she did. The professor picked her up off the bench. ‘An empty cubicle?’ he demanded. ‘I’ll get this thing out— I’ll need a local in case she comes round.’

Venetia had never fainted in her life; now she did the thing properly and stayed unconscious for all of three minutes, by which time the professor had made a neat incision, removed the glass shard and given a local injection. Just in time, for she opened her eyes and frowned.

‘Lie still,’ he told her. ‘The glass is out. I’ll put in a few stitches as soon as the local acts.’ He stared down at her. ‘Have you had ATS injections?’

She nodded. ‘The last one about three months ago.’ She added urgently, ‘I’m going to be sick.’

Someone tucked a bowl under her chin and the professor, taking no notice, began his stitching. Presently he cast down his needle. ‘That should take care of it,’ he observed. ‘Go home and go to bed, you’ll feel more the thing in the morning. See your own doctor.’ He smiled suddenly at her. ‘You were in a lot of pain, were you not?’ He said to someone she couldn’t see, ‘Get this young lady back home in an ambulance, will you?’ Then he nodded at Venetia, patted her shoulder with a surprisingly gentle hand, and went away, dismissing her from his powerful mind, already battling with the quite different problems of the operation he intended to do on the boy with the damaged brain.

Venetia watched him go, head and huge shoulders above everyone else, his registrar beside him. It must be nice, she reflected, to give orders to people knowing that they would be carried out without any trouble to himself, although, she conceded, it was only fair that anyone with as brilliant a brain as his should be spared the mundane tasks of everyday life.

Her rather hazy thoughts were interrupted by a brisk staff nurse.

‘You are to go home and go to bed for the rest of the day. Will you tell me where you live, and I’ll see if I can get an ambulance to take you?’

Venetia opened her eyes. ‘The nurses’ home. Here.’

‘For heaven’s sake! Why on earth didn’t you say so hours ago? Whatever will Sister Bolt say? You should have told someone.’

‘Who?’ asked Venetia politely. ‘When you were all up to your eyes with the badly injured. And I’m perfectly able to go over to the home by myself.’

‘Don’t you dare. Professor ter Laan-Luitinga will raise the roof in his nasty cold way if he hears that he hasn’t been obeyed to the letter. I’ll fetch Sister Bolt.’

Venetia closed her eyes again, trying to shut out a threatening headache. Sister Bolt was a veteran of St Jude’s and, although Venetia had never worked in Casualty, she knew that its senior sister had a Tartar’s reputation. It was therefore surprising when that lady’s amazingly sympathetic voice made her open her eyes once more.

‘Nurse? What is your name, and which ward are you on?’

‘Forbes, Sister and I’m on Watts Ward.’

‘You will stay here until the home warden comes for you. I will have a word with her. You fainted.’

‘Only because someone accidentally leaned on the splinter, Sister.’

Sister Bolt said kindly, ‘You poor child. Very painful. You had better have the rest of the day off. Eight stitches inserted by Professor ter Laan-Luitinga…’ She uttered the words as though conferring an honour upon Venetia, and went on, ‘Did you become unconscious when the bomb exploded, Nurse?’

Venetia drew her mousy brows together, thinking hard. ‘No, Sister. It surprised me, and I was blown off my feet, but there was a stand of winter woollies by me and they fell on top of me, so, except for the glass, I’m perfectly all right.’ She added apologetically, ‘I do have a headache.’

‘I’m not surprised. The professor has left instructions as to your medication. When you have been bathed clean and are in bed you will be given what he has ordered.’

Sister Bolt sailed away, and very shortly the warden arrived. She was a nice, cosy, middle-aged lady who clucked sympathetically over Venetia and hovered round in a motherly fashion while she was transferred to a wheelchair, wheeled briskly into a lift, and then over the bridge which separated the hospital from the nurses’ home. Her arm began to hurt, and she was grateful to Miss Vale for the speed with which she got her into a bath, where she was soaped and sponged and then sat with her eyes obediently shut while her hair was washed. She felt much better when she was clean once more, and as Miss Vale turned back her bed she said, ‘I do hope all the other people in Cas have someone to help them.’

‘You may depend upon it,’ said Miss Vale cheerfully. ‘In you get, and I’m going to get you a nice cup of tea and some toast and give you those pills. You’ll feel as right as rain when you’ve had a good sleep.’

So Venetia had her tea, nibbled at the toast and took her pills, and presently she slept. The October afternoon was sliding into dusk when she woke to find Sister Giles from her ward standing at the end of her bed.

‘Feeling better?’

She was another nice person, thought Venetia, still half asleep. A bit brisk, but perhaps one got like that when one had been running a busy surgical ward for years.

‘How’s that arm?’

Venetia levered herself up in bed. ‘Quite comfy, thank you, Sister.’

‘You’re on duty at seven-thirty tomorrow. I can’t spare you for two days off, but take tomorrow and come on duty the day after, Nurse. The ward’s bulging, and I’m having to cut off-duty for a few days.’

‘I’m sure I could come on duty tomorrow, Sister—’

‘If anything were to go wrong with your arm Professor ter Laan-Luitinga would be most annoyed. The day after will do; there’s quite a lot you can do with one arm.’ She added with kindly briskness, ‘Bad luck, Nurse Forbes. Luckily it’s no worse.’ She breezed to the door. ‘They’re bringing you something to eat. Have a quiet day tomorrow.’

The prospect of a day in bed was inviting, the prospect of a meal even more so. When Miss Vale came presently with chicken and creamed potatoes, and a delicious cold pudding which Venetia felt sure she must have pinched from the doctors’ supper table, she ate the lot. When the day staff came off duty various of her friends came to see her and, over cups of tea, discussed the day’s excitement, sympathised with her and expressed envy that she had been stitched by the professor, who, as one of her friends pointed out, concerned himself with complicated operations on brains and left the easy stuff to lesser men. ‘Gosh,’ she added, ‘it must have been worth it. Did he say anything?’

‘He told me to lie still.’

Her friends smiled at her in an indulgent fashion. Venetia was well liked both by her second-year set and by those junior and senior to her. She was good-natured and hard-working, and not in the least interested in catching the eye of any one of the house doctors, and when someone pointed this out to her she merely said that she hadn’t time. ‘I simply must get trained and get on the register,’ she had pointed out. ‘Besides, I’m not very exciting to look at, am I?’

A truth which her friends kindly denied while privately agreeing with her.

‘I cannot think,’ she observed to her companions over a last very strong cup of tea, ‘why everyone is so scared of Professor ter Laan-Luitinga. He’s only a man, after all, and he doesn’t even live here. I mean, he’s kind of international, isn’t he? Here today and gone tomorrow.’

Caroline Webster, the acknowledged beauty of their set, spoke kindly because she liked Venetia. ‘If only he’d stay for a month or two instead of the odd week here and there, Venetia darling. He isn’t only a man, he’s every girl’s dream.’ She peered at her pretty face in Venetia’s dressing-table looking-glass. ‘I wonder if he’s married, or has a girl? Such a pity that no one knows a thing about him.’

Someone asked, ‘Are you sure that’s all he said to you, Venetia?’

‘Oh, he asked if I’d had ATS injections.’

‘What a waste,’ moaned Caroline. ‘Couldn’t you think of something to say?’

‘No, and I was being sick…’

Horrified laughter greeted her, so loud that the night sister, coming to see that Venetia was all right, bade them all go to their rooms and stay there. She offered Venetia a pill, watched her swallow it and went away again, and Venetia went thankfully to sleep once more.

She felt fine in the morning; her arm was sore and stiff, but her headache had gone. She ate the breakfast brought to her and then got up and trailed around in her dressing-gown, sharing elevenses with those of her firm friends who were off duty, watching TV, and doing her nails. Her hands were scratched and grazed, and she was surprised to find that there were bruises on her person, most of them, luckily, out of sight. Her face was scratched as well, and she spent some time rubbing in a cream guaranteed to give instant beauty, offered to her by the generous Caroline. It made very little difference to her ordinary features, and since she had a lovely complexion already it did little good, although it did a lot for her ego.

She went on duty the next morning, and since the ward was still extremely busy there was plenty for her to do, even with one hand: TPRs, adjusting drips, feeding patients, helping the hard-pressed staff nurses with dressings. The day passed very quickly, and although she was late off duty it was still not quite six o’clock when she left the ward.

Her arm was aching now, and she thought thankfully of her bed. She would go to first supper and then get between the sheets. The thought sent her hurrying down the stone staircase and into the main corridor which ran from end to end of the hospital. She was almost at its end when Professor ter Laan-Luitinga turned the corner, walking slowly, a sheaf of papers under one arm, and deep in thought. So deep, she just hoped that he wouldn’t see her.

It wasn’t until he had passed her that she was brought to a halt by his voice.

‘Nurse—wait.’

She turned reluctantly, but stayed where she was.

‘Where have I seen you before?’ His eyes lighted on the wide strapping on her arm. ‘Good lord, who would have thought it?’

A remark which she took in good part; she must have been unrecognisable in Casualty. ‘Well, I’m clean now,’ she pointed out matter-of-factly, and added a hasty, ‘sir’.

His alarming eyebrows drew together. ‘Why are you on duty?’

‘Well, the ward’s awfully busy, and there aren’t enough of us to go round.’ She smiled at him re-assuringly. ‘But we can manage. I’m sure you have plenty to worry you, too. I hope that boy is going to do—’

‘Yes, eventually.’

‘Oh, good. I expect you are very tired,’ she added kindly, ‘operating and all that. I dare say you could do with a good sleep.’

He stared down at her over his commanding nose. ‘When I need advice, Nurse, I will ask you for it.’

His astounded stare at her ‘Oh, good,’ reminded her to add ‘sir’ again.

He turned on his heel, and then paused. ‘Your name, Nurse?’

‘Forbes, Venetia Forbes.’ She added, ‘I’m not supposed to speak to consultants—I’m only just second year, you see.’

‘Pray accept my apologies for making it necessary for you to address me, Nurse Forbes.’

She gave him another smile. ‘Well, of course, I will. I think it’s very handsome of you to say that. I mean, you don’t even need to notice me…’

‘I am relieved to hear that.’ He gave her a frowning nod and walked away.

She watched his vast person disappearing down the corridor until he turned a corner. ‘Very testy,’ she declared to the emptiness around her. ‘I dare say he’d rather be in Holland—perhaps he’s got a wife and children there. Poor fellow.’

The poor fellow, discussing with his registrar the finer points of the craniotomy he was to perform on the following morning, paused suddenly to ask, ‘Do you know of a Nurse Forbes, Arthur?’

If Arthur Miles was surprised, he concealed it nicely. ‘Venetia Forbes? First or second year nurse on the men’s surgical. You stitched her arm in Cas; a glass splinter, if you remember, sir.’

‘I remember.’

‘Nice little thing, by all accounts. On the plain side, but you must have seen that. Liked by everyone; no wiles, and a bit shy, though she can be remarkably plain-spoken.’

‘Indeed?’ The professor lost all interest. ‘Now, I thought I’d try that new drill…’

Venetia had gone on her way to the nurses’ home, to gossip with her friends until it was time for supper, and then retire to her room to drink tea with those of them who weren’t going out for the evening. Almost all her friends had some kind of love-affair in progress and, since she made a good listener, she knew the ins and outs of them all, but if she felt that she was missing romance she never said so. To anyone who asked her she replied that she was quite happy to visit her granny on her days off, and in her off-duty to visit the art galleries and museums easily reached by bus. They made a nice change from the dull streets encircling the hospital in the east end of London; they didn’t cost much, either.

She always went to her grandmother’s house on her days off. A small, red brick cottage in a row of similar ones, tucked away behind the opulent avenues of Hampstead, it had been home for her for the last five or six years, ever since her mother and father had been killed in a car accident. She had no brothers or sisters, and, for that matter, no uncles or aunts, either. Save for a cousin of her father’s whom she had never met, and who lived somewhere in Yorkshire, she and her grandmother were without kith and kin. Her grandmother hadn’t always lived there; when Venetia was very small she had gone with her mother and father to visit her grandparents at a nice old house on the edge of a Sussex village, but when her grandfather had died a good deal of his income had died with him, and her grandmother had moved to the little house she now lived in to be near Venetia’s parents, who lived in a pleasant house on the other side of the Heath. It wasn’t until after their deaths that she discovered that the house had been rented, and what money there was was barely enough to feed and clothe her. All the same, her grandmother had insisted that she should continue at school until she had her A levels. She was eighteen by then, and, although she had been offered a place at one of the lesser universities, she had got a paid job instead as a receptionist to a team of doctors and then, almost two years ago, she had persuaded her grandmother to let her train as a nurse.

She had had no regrets; she enjoyed her work and, being a friendly soul, had no trouble in making friends. The patients liked her, too, for she was patient and good-tempered and most sympathetic without being sentimental. The pay wasn’t very much, for she had to pay board and lodging to the hospital, but there was enough over to buy clothes and help out her grandmother’s small income. And it would get better—in a little over a year she would be trained, with more freedom, more money and a chance to work where she fancied.

It was three days later that she met the professor again. She had raced off duty at five o’clock, changed into a sweater and skirt, brushed her hair and tied it back, packed what she would need for a couple of days into a big shoulder-bag, dragged on her jacket and sped down to the entrance. The rush hour was on and she would have to get into a queue for a bus, but she would still be home in time for supper.

She was half-way across the vast expanse of the entrance hall when she saw the professor making for the door from the other side—the side sacred to consultants, the hospital secretary’s office and the boardroom. He was going fast, and if she slowed her steps there would be no need to encounter him—on the other hand, if she just hurried more she might slip through the door ahead of him. The quicker she got to the bus stop the better the chance of getting on a bus at this hour of day.

As it turned out they arrived at the door together, and to her annoyance he opened it for her and then stood so that she couldn’t get past him.

‘Ah, Nurse Forbes. You have had the stitches out?’

‘Thank you, yes, sir. You stitched it beautifully; there’ll be almost no scar.’

His firm mouth twitched. ‘I do my best. Why are you dancing around like that? Are you in a hurry?’

She had indeed been edging round him. ‘I’m going to catch a bus.’

‘Where to?’

It was none of his business, but she said politely, ‘Hampstead.’

‘Ah—Hampstead. I’m just about to drive myself there; may I offer you a lift?’

‘Well,’ said Venetia, ‘it’s very kind of you, sir, but I’m not sure…’

He hadn’t listened to a word. She was swept outside into the courtyard, and walked across to where a dark blue Bentley was parked. ‘Get in,’ he said, and, since it was obvious to her that he meant exactly what he said, she got in.

‘Where do you live?’

He had inched the car into the rush-hour traffic and had turned the nose to the west.

‘If you would drop me off in any part of Hampstead…’ began Venetia.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Where do you live?’

‘Do you talk to everyone in such a manner?’ asked Venetia, quite forgetting who he was. ‘Or perhaps,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘you’re tired after a long day’s work.’