A Summer Idyll

“My dear girl, it’s after midnight—

you should be in bed!”

Phoebe found herself apologizing. “I’m sorry—I went to sleep over my book.” She added, in the hope that it might put things right, “I didn’t mean to wait up for you.”

His cool voice chilled her. “No? I hardly expect you to be a wife who checks on every breath her husband takes.”

His words hurt her so much that she could have wept, but that wouldn’t help matters. She said pleasantly, “I can promise you I won’t do that.” She got to her feet and carefully put the book on the lamp table. “My goodness, I’m asleep on my feet—it’s been a long day, hasn’t it? Good night, George.”

She gave him a bright smile and went upstairs and into her room. Once there, she undressed in a fury of haste, jumped into bed and for no reason that she could think of, had a good cry.

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.

A Summer Idyll

Betty Neels

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS quite ten minutes after a ragged chorus of church bells had tolled the hour of five before Phoebe tapped on the office door and when bidden, entered. Sister Evans was at her desk, looking as fierce as usual, and without glancing up she asked briskly: ‘Yes, what is it?’

Phoebe didn’t allow the eagerness she felt to sound in her voice. ‘I’ve finished, Sister—I’m off at five o’clock.’

‘Very well, Nurse Creswell.’ It was a surprised Phoebe who heard Sister wish her a pleasant evening. She thanked her politely and whisked herself out of the office and back down the ward. Almost at the doors old Mrs James sat up in bed. ‘Nurse, nurse—I feel sick!’

There wasn’t another nurse to be seen. Busy in the sluice or the kitchen or even having a cosy chat in the linen cupboard—it was such a safe time on a medical ward, not time for evening medicines, far too early for the getting ready of suppers, a most unlikely hour for a houseman to do a round and Sister safe in her office. Phoebe sighed, nipped into the sluice room for a bowl and hurried back with it. Just my luck, she thought silently, proffering it and arranging a towel in a strategic place, just when she needed at least an hour to get ready before Basil expected her. A precious ten minutes went by before Mrs James decided that she felt better and consented to be tucked up once more.

The hospital, hedged in by East End streets lined with small grey houses, was old, added to from time to time, regardless of level floors or unnecessary staircases, so that Phoebe was quite out of breath by the time she reached her room in the nurses’ home, a state not helped by the speed in which she flung off her uniform, showered and then began to dress. She had given a good deal of thought to what she should wear, Basil had mentioned casually that the party was being given by a cousin of his—a real swinger, he had called her, and possessed of stunning good looks. Phoebe, surveying her own very ordinary features in the mirror, wished wholeheartedly that the cousin would spare some of her good looks for her. There was nothing wrong with her face, she supposed, but it would never set the world on fire. And mousy hair did nothing to help, and since no one had ever pointed out that her eyes were beautiful grey and heavily fringed, she set no great store by them. She sat down and did her face and then her hair, twisting it up in a neat knot and pinning it carefully before getting into the new separates she had bought in the January sales, a pleasant shade of green and of a fine jersey, just right for a spring evening. She had only been out with Basil three times, and she was still secretly surprised that she was going out with him and that he seemed to like her. He was one of the most popular housemen and could have taken his pick of any number of girls far prettier than she. He was good-looking too, and never at a loss for conversation. Phoebe thought he was marvellous, and she had a perpetual daydream, in which he fell in love with her, married her and became a successful consultant with a Harley Street practice with her running a flat-fronted Regency house and entertaining his rich patients in a little something from Bellville Sassoon. Nonsense, she told herself firmly several times a day, while a tiny corner of her mind persisted in denying that.

She put on the plain court shoes she had saved to buy, found her velvet jacket and, with a couple of minutes to spare, made her way round to the car park at the back of the hospital where the staff kept their cars.

Basil’s car was there—an elderly Triumph, its vivid red needing a good clean—but Basil wasn’t; he was at the other end of the row of cars, leaning on the bonnet of a sleek Rover, talking to Staff Nurse Collins whose father was well-heeled enough to keep his daughter in a style quite inaccessible to a nurse living on nothing but her pay. Phoebe stayed where she was, not sure whether to join them or look as though she hadn’t seen them. She decided on the latter, and presently was relieved to hear Basil’s voice remarking that there she was and why hadn’t she given a shout.

She mumbled something or other, bereft of words as usual when she was with him, although her smile made up for that, and when he opened the car door, she got in. She had hoped he would say something nice about her outfit, but he hardly glanced at it, merely said that they would have to step on it if they weren’t to miss the best of the food.

The cousin lived miles away, near Croydon. What with Basil taking a wrong turning and all the evening traffic, the party was in full swing by the time he had found a place to park the car and they had walked back to the rather staid-looking house in a quiet street. Although neither the house nor the street were quiet; the din met them as they opened the old-fashioned iron gate and pushed open the half-open door.

The moment they were inside, Phoebe saw that she was dressed quite wrongly; there were dozens of girls there, wearing slinky black dresses with deep vee necklines and no backs worth mentioning, and those who weren’t wearing black were in tight pant suits, glittering with gold and sequins. The girl who came to meet them was wearing black satin, skin tight and short; she wore one very large dangling earring and there were pink streaks in her dark hair. She flung her arms round Basil, kissed him with great warmth and then looked at Phoebe. ‘Girl-friend?’ she enquired, ‘Basil, I can’t believe it?’

The amused look she cast at Phoebe sent the colour flying into her cheeks, and it stayed there because Basil looked at her too with a faint derisive smile. ‘Hardly that,’ he said, but he took Phoebe’s arm and squeezed it, and the smile changed so quickly that she thought that she might have imagined it.

The girl grinned, ‘I’m Deirdre,’ and when Phoebe said politely: ‘How do you do? I’m Phoebe,’ she said rather impatiently: ‘Well, come on in and meet everyone.’ Somebody went past with a tray of drinks and she caught him by the arm. ‘Have a drink for a start.’

It tasted like sugared petrol, but Phoebe sipped it obediently, keeping close to Basil because she didn’t know a soul there. True, he threw names at her carelessly from time to time, but faces came and went so rapidly that she never caught up with them. And presently she found herself against a wall and Basil at the other end of the room surrounded by a crowd of people all laughing their heads off. She had hidden her glass behind a great vase filled with lilac and was trying to look as though she was enjoying herself; not that that mattered, because no one noticed her. It seemed like hours later when Basil reappeared, a glass in his hand. ‘Hullo there,’ he began carelessly. ‘Having a good time? I say, this is some party—haven’t enjoyed myself so much in years.’ He looked at her and frowned. ‘You look a bit of a wet blanket, darling—it’s not quite your scene, perhaps.’

She was anxious to please him. ‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ she assured him. ‘I came here just for a minute or two, to get my breath.’

He dropped a casual kiss on her cheek. ‘Oh, good. There’s masses of food in the other room, but I daresay you’ve had all you want.’

He slid away, leaving her with her mouth watering; she was famished, now that she came to think about it. Hunger sent her edging her way through the people milling round the room. She found a plate and collected tiny sausage rolls, smoked salmon on slivers of brown bread and butter, tiny vol-au-vents, a stick of celery—hardly a meal, but it would keep her empty insides quiet for a little while—then she found a chair in a corner of the room, and was surprised when presently she was joined by another of the guests. A thin, pale man, in a good grey suit, looking, she had to admit, as much like a fish out of water as she did.

‘On your own?’ he asked.

‘No, but I’ve—that is, the man I came with has heaps of friends here—and of course he wants to talk to them.’

He gave her a long considered look. ‘Not quite your sort,’ he commented. ‘Not mine either—a lot of lay-abouts with too much money and nothing to do. You look as though you earn your own living?’

It was hardly a compliment, but it was so nice to talk to someone that she felt no resentment. ‘Yes, I’m training to be a nurse.’

‘Good Lord—who did you come with?’

‘Basil Needham. He’s a houseman at St Coram’s.’

Her companion said, ‘Good Lord,’ again, and gave her another faintly pitying look. ‘I’d never have believed it of him.’

She misunderstood him and said earnestly: ‘Oh, he’s very clever—I expect he’ll be famous one day.’ Her eyes shone with delight at such a prospect and the man looked vaguely uncomfortable.

‘Not very old, are you?’ he observed.

‘Twenty-two.’ She looked around her. ‘Are people beginning to go? I must find Basil…’

‘Oh, they’ll go to a night club.’

‘Well, I’ll have to find him just the same—we’ll have to get back to St Coram’s.’ She added politely: ‘It’s been nice meeting you. I expect you’re going to a night club too.’

He got to his feet. ‘God forbid—I live here.’ He walked away, leaving her gaping after him, and then she forgot him as Basil pushed his way through the people leaving.

‘There you are. We’re all going on to a disco…’

Phoebe wasn’t listening. ‘Who was that man?’ she asked. ‘He said he lived here.’

‘Well, of course he does, you little idiot, he’s Deirdre’s husband. Get your coat—it’ll be a bit of a squash in the car, but that won’t matter.’

‘We’re going back to St Coram’s?’

He gave her an impatient look. ‘Good God, no! Do get a move on.’

Phoebe, a mild-tempered girl, didn’t budge. ‘I’m not coming,’ she said mulishly.

‘Don’t be a fool! You’ve no way of getting back on your own.’

Which was true enough. She had thrust a handful of small change into her purse, probably not enough to get her back to St Coram’s. Her mind boggled at the long walk ahead of her, even if she could get a bus for part of the way.

‘If you could lend me some money for a taxi?’ she suggested diffidently.

‘No way. I’ll need all I’ve got with me. Get a bus.’ Just for a moment Basil looked uncertain. ‘You won’t change your mind?’

She shook her head, willing him to change his, but he didn’t; he turned on his heel and left her without so much as a backward glance. After a minute or so Phoebe followed him, to find the hall empty. She picked up her coat for a moment, pausing, then put it on and went to the door. She was on the point of going through it when the man she had spoken to during the evening came into the hall.

‘Everyone gone?’

‘Yes. I’m just…that is…thank you for a nice party.’

‘Not going to the disco?’

‘Well, no. I’m going to catch a bus…’

He had come to stand beside her. ‘I’ll drive you back to your hospital.’ He muttered something under his breath, it sounded like, ‘It’s the least I can do.’ But she wasn’t sure of that.

Phoebe said politely: ‘It’s very kind of you to offer, but you have no need.’

For answer he took her arm, banged the door behind them and crossed the pavement to a Mercedes parked at the kerb. Phoebe got in, since there seemed no point in protesting further, and was whisked across London without further ado. Her companion didn’t say a word until they had reached the hospital, and when she thanked him he said carelessly: ‘Not at all. I’d better go and look for my wife, I suppose.’

Phoebe couldn’t think of anything suitable to reply to this; she murmured goodnight and smiled uncertainly. It surprised her very much when he leaned across to say to her: ‘Give him up, my dear—he’s not for you.’

He had driven away before she could think of an answer to that one too.

And it seemed as though he would be right. Phoebe didn’t see Basil at all the following day—nor, for that matter, for several days to come. And when at last she met him face to face as she came back from the Path Lab he gave her a cool nod and would have walked right past her if she hadn’t stopped him with a firm voice which surprised her as much as it surprised him.

‘Didn’t you worry?’ she asked. ‘Leaving me to get back on my own from that party?’

He flushed a little. ‘Worry? Why should I worry? A sensible girl like you—you’re hardly likely to attract unwelcome attentions, are you?’

His faint sneer made her wince, but all the same she asked: ‘Why not?’

She knew the answer; she supposed that because she had thought that she was in love with him, it was going to hurt, however nicely he put it.

But he didn’t bother with niceness. ‘My dear girl, you’re not silly enough to imagine you’re pretty?’

‘Then why did you take me out?’

Basil laughed. ‘An experience, shall we say—a very unrewarding one, I might add.’

Phoebe didn’t say anything to that: she stood on tiptoe in her sensible black shoes and smacked his cheek hard. She was appalled the moment she had done it; it was an unpardonable thing to do, she told herself as she bolted back to the ward, to find Sister irate at the length of time she had been away. She stood meekly before that lady, letting her run on and on, and then, impatiently dismissed, skipped back to the ward to her endless chores.

There was an auxiliary nurse off sick, which meant that there was even more to do than usual; she steadily trotted to and fro, getting hot and untidy, responding to her patients’ wants, glad at the same time that she had so much to occupy her that there was precious little time to think. Only when she was off duty did she allow her thoughts to dwell on Basil—a broken dream, she admitted that honestly, and she had been a fool to indulge in it. He’d been amusing himself between girlfriends, she had no doubt—like eating a slice of bread and butter between rich cream cakes.

She sat down at her functional dressing table, took off her cap and studied her face. Presently she unpinned her hair and pushed it this way and that, judging the effect. It was no good—she remained, at least to the casual eye, uninteresting. In her dressing gown presently, she trailed along the corridor and joined her friends over tea and a gossip, while at the back of her mind the idea of leaving—going right away—was already forming. She could give a month’s notice and start again at another hospital. It would be a wrench, because she had been happy during the last year; she was never going to be brilliant in the nursing world, but she was good with patients and kind and gentle. Besides, she was young enough to start again. The idea had solidified into certainty by the time she was in bed; a fresh start, and she would forget the hurt Basil had inflicted.

She slept soundly because she was tired, but when she woke she knew that her mind was made up. She would go that very morning and see the Principal Nursing Officer, something she hardly looked forward to, as that lady was known among the lesser fry at the hospital as the Tartar—a quite unsuitable name, as it happened, for she was by no means fiery in character, although her wooden expression, and the fact that she smiled only at Christmas and the Annual Ball, made her intimidating. But Phoebe, having decided, wasn’t going to be put off by that. When the breakfasts had been served and Sister had come on duty, she knocked on the office door, ready with her request to go to the office at nine o’clock.

But the speech was unnecessary. Sister looked up as she went in. ‘They’ve just rung through, Nurse—you’re to go down to the office at once. Run along.’

Phoebe didn’t run, mindful of Sister Tutor’s remarks about fire and haemorrhage, but she walked very fast, wondering what on earth she’d done.

She put an anxious hand to her cap, knocked on the door and was bidden to go in. The Tartar’s wooden features wore an expression which Phoebe could only imagine to be sympathy, although she spoke briskly enough.

‘Nurse Creswell, your aunt, Miss Kate Mason, is ill. She has asked her doctor to send for you—apparently you are her only relative.’ She gave Phoebe an accusing look as though that was her fault. ‘She feels most strongly that your place is by her side so she may be nursed back to health. I should add, Nurse, that your aunt is suffering from chronic bronchitis and crippling arthritis and is unlikely to regain a state of health when she will be unable to do without your care. It means, of course, that you will have to give up your training for at least the immediate future.’

Phoebe stared at the Tartar’s cold eyes while she digested this information. Here was help not quite what she would have wished for, but a loophole of escape. Aunt Kate was a holy terror; dictatorial and on the mean side, she had ignored her family for years and Phoebe, the last member of it left, hadn’t seen her for some time. So like Aunt Kate, she mused, to turn a cold shoulder on the family and then demand help as though it was her right. But it was an escape…

‘Am I to go at once, Miss Ratcliffe?’

‘Naturally. I consider this an emergency and the doctor who is attending her stresses the need for nursing help as soon as possible. You will be given compassionate leave until your leaving date and you will, of course, receive payment until that day. You may go today, Nurse Creswell, and I trust that your year with us as a student nurse has given you a good grounding for whatever tasks you will need to undertake.’

Phoebe sorted this out. ‘Yes, Miss Ratcliffe, I’ll do my best.’ She added rather shyly: ‘I’ve been very happy here.’

The Tartar inclined her head graciously. ‘I trust that your future will be as happy, Nurse. Goodbye.’

Very doubtful, thought Phoebe, speeding back to the ward to tell Sister. Aunt Kate lived in Suffolk, in a village which she remembered only vaguely—but even if it had been a large town, she doubted very much whether she would get a great deal of time to spare. All the same, she liked the country; she would use some of her savings to buy a bike, so that when she had an hour or so… She was already making the best of a bad job when she knocked once more on Sister’s door.

Sister was surprised and flatteringly reluctant to let her go. ‘Not that I can do much about it,’ she grumbled. ‘I quite see that if your aunt has no one else to look after her, there’s nothing else to be done.’

Phoebe refrained from saying that Aunt Kate had sufficient money to employ a private nurse if she so wished.

‘Well, you’d better go,’ sighed Sister, ‘and you were turning into quite a good nurse too.’

Phoebe bade her goodbye, announced her departure to the nurses on the ward, explained to the patients, and took herself off to her room, where she started to pack. She was about halfway through this when two of her friends came over to change their aprons. They listened to her with astonishment, heedless of returning to their wards, begged her to write, and promised to say goodbye on her behalf to her other friends.

‘What about Basil?’ one of them asked.

Phoebe bent over her case, ramming things in with some force. ‘I’ve had no time to see him or let him know,’ she said casually. ‘I daresay we’ll meet up some time.’

Her companions exchanged glances. ‘Well, have fun, Phoebe—we shall miss you.’

She would miss them too, she thought, sitting in the train, gazing out at the flat Essex countryside, but perhaps she would make new friends in the village. It was quite a long journey, and by the time the train reached Stowmarket, she was famished. She put her two cases in the left luggage at the station, then went into a nearby café and had a meal of sorts before collecting her luggage once more and crossing the square to board the bus for Woolpit. It was a five-mile ride and Phoebe sat in the almost empty bus, watching the first signs of spring with delight. London’s parks were all very well, but they couldn’t compete with primroses and the bread-and-cheese in the hedges under a thin sunshine from a pale blue sky. The bus turned off the by pass, rattled down the narrow road to the village and stopped at one side of the village green. Aunt Kate’s house was on the other side, beyond the village pump, a nice old house with sash windows and tall Tudor chimneys. Phoebe said goodbye to the driver and carried her cases across the green, put them down in the porch which sheltered the white wood door, and thumped the knocker. The Tartar had told her that she would telephone the doctor to say that Phoebe was coming at once, but she doubted if she was expected quite as soon.

The door opened cautiously and a girl of sixteen peered round it.

‘Hullo,’ said Phoebe, ‘I’ve come to look after Miss Mason. May I come in? I’m expected.’

The girl smiled then. She opened the door wide, took one of Phoebe’s cases from her and said breathlessly: ‘Oh, miss, come in, do. I said I’d stay until you got ’ere, ’e said I was to, but now I can go ’ome.’

‘Do you come each day?’ asked Phoebe quickly. ‘And what’s your name?’

‘Susan, and I come mornings, to clean and that—there’s been a nurse, but she won’t come no more—couldn’t manage with Miss Mason’s ways. Went this morning, early she did.’

Hence the urgency, thought Phoebe. The doctor, whoever he might be, must think of her as a gift from heaven. She could imagine his relief; being a niece of his troublesome patient, she could hardly pack her bags and leave.

‘Well, I’m here now,’ said Phoebe hearteningly. ‘Just show me where my room is and where you keep everything. Is my aunt in bed? Asleep?’

Susan nodded. ‘She usually has a nap till tea.’ She added anxiously. ‘We could be quiet like.’

Phoebe nodded in wholehearted agreement. Let her just have time to look around her and make a cup of tea, she prayed hopefully, and followed Susan down the hall.

She remembered the house well enough. The kitchen was at the right of the passage at the back, a roomy old-fashioned place, its only concession to modern times being the gas stove. Aunt Kate had never seen the sense in spending money on washing machines and the like when she could get a young local girl to do the chores for a small wage. All the same, it was a pleasant place as well as old-fashioned, and it was clean. Phoebe nodded understanding at Susan’s pointing finger; the larder, the sink, the various drawers and the old-fashioned dresser. They went quietly out again and disregarded the sitting room and dining room doors, then crept up the stairs beside the back door. The landing was roomy and had four doors leading from it as well as a narrow stair leading to the attics. One door was closed; and they listened long enough to hear the snores from behind it and then crossed to one of the rooms at the front of the house. It was rather sparsely furnished and the curtains and bed spread were a depressingly dull green, but it overlooked the street and the pale sun made it cheerful. A vase of flowers, thought Phoebe, and her few bits and pieces scattered around, would make all the difference. She nodded to Susan, took off her coat and left it on the bed and accompanied her silently downstairs again.