The Magic of Living

Arabella stopped, aware that her tongue, usually so tardy with its speech, was getting ahead of her thoughts.

But to good purpose, it seemed; the ice had gone, Gideon’s blue eyes were warm again. His voice was warm, too. “I’m sorry I was angry, Arabella, I’m not anymore. But why are you so anxious to pair me off with Hilary?” She remembered what Hilary had said.

“Well, Hilary told me…that is, you mustn’t mind her going out with Mr. Andrews—she doesn’t like him very much, only she promised him and she stood him up last week. Hilary didn’t mean you to quarrel about it…perhaps you could take her out tomorrow evening instead.” He was staring at her with an expressionless face.

“Tomorrow evening I shall be back in Doesburg.” His wide mouth curled into a smile. “Will you think of me there?”

She nodded a rather wispy head. “Oh, yes, of course I will.”

About the Author

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.

The Magic of Living

Betty Neels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

THE nursery of Little Dean House was no longer used as such, but its rather shabby comfort, coupled with the knowledge that Nanny Bliss would be sitting by its cheerful little fire in the old-fashioned grate, the very epitome of security, and when necessary, sympathy, made it a retreat to which every member of the Birch family went at one time or another.

The elder daughter of the family flung open its door now; she had hunted all over the garden for Arabella without success, only to remember after ten minutes’ futile poking and peering in the rather untidy, overgrown garden which surrounded the rambling house that she had heard her cousin say that she would help the twins finish their jigsaw puzzle during the afternoon, and that, she knew from experience, would be in the old nursery.

All three of them were on the floor, she perceived, as she shut the door behind her and crossed the room to where Edmund and Erica, with Arabella between them, were sprawling on their knees. The twins were ten years old; already showing signs of the family good looks, but their cousin bore no resemblance to her relations, for she had no looks worth mentioning; indeed, beside the golden prettiness of her older cousin, her unremarkable features and pale brown hair stood no chance at all; something which didn’t bother her overmuch; she had lived with her aunt and uncle since she had been orphaned at the age of five, and over the years had become accustomed to living in Hilary’s shade. They got on tolerably well together, and if the elder girl had the lion’s share of praise for her pretty face, her undoubtedly clever mind, and her charm of manner, Arabella hadn’t minded that either; at least not much. Hilary was the daughter of the house and as such expected—and got—everything she wanted. Arabella could quite see that she could hardly expect to receive the same attention for herself and she was grateful for the rather vague affection accorded her by her aunt and uncle—after all, they had given her a pleasant home, a good education and had treated her as one of the family—well, almost, and now that she was twenty-two and a trained children’s nurse and half way through her general training, it was only natural that her aunt should consider her capable of keeping an eye on the twins when they were home from school and she was herself on holiday or days off. It sometimes meant that she was the one to stay home if an expedition which didn’t include the twins was planned, for Nanny Bliss, although barely in her sixties, was still not quite recovered from the ’flu, with all its attendant after-effects, and as Aunt Maud pointed out sensibly enough, the twins needed someone firm as well as patient; able to join in their activities and curb them in their more hair-raising adventures.

It was a pleasant autumn afternoon, and Arabella had hoped to go over to the doctor’s house for tea and a game of tennis, but her aunt’s hints at lunch had been strong enough for her to scotch this idea. She had resigned herself to entertaining the twins, who, for some reason known only to their mother, had been told to remain indoors. Arabella knelt between them now, her chin on her hands, studying the puzzle and tolerably content. She had learned years ago not to be sorry for herself and she had common sense enough to realize that not everyone could expect everything they dreamed of from life. She liked her work, she had a number of friends and a strong affection for her uncle and aunt as well as a sense of loyalty. She looked up now as her cousin came to a halt in front of her, and the better to talk, dropped to her knees too.

She said in a wheedling voice: ‘Bella, I want to talk to you.’

Arabella fitted a particularly difficult piece into the puzzle. When Hilary called her Bella it meant that she wanted her to do something for her: partner some disappointed young man to the cinema or local dance because Hilary had something better to do—lend her something, or drive her somewhere, for Hilary couldn’t drive; she hated it and declared that she had men friends enough to drive her wherever she wished to go, only just sometimes they weren’t available, and then Arabella, who despite her unpretentious appearance, drove very well indeed, would be coaxed into getting out the car and taking her cousin to wherever it was she wanted to go. It could be a nuisance, but Arabella enjoyed driving and it had never entered her head to condemn her cousin for being selfish.

It wasn’t any of these things now, though. Hilary went on: ‘Let’s go over to the window,’ and ignoring the cries of protest from the two children, strolled to the other end of the room, calling a casual ‘Hi, Nanny,’ as she went. Arabella shook herself free from her cousins and joined her, waiting quietly to hear what Hilary had to say and thinking as she waited what a very pretty girl she was and how clever too. She was one of the Ward Sisters on the private wing at the same hospital at which Arabella was doing her training, and was popular with patients and doctors alike, being showered with gifts from the former and receiving a never-ending series of invitations from the latter, and on top of that, she was very good at her job. She turned her bright blue eyes upon her cousin now.

‘Bella, remember when old Lady Marchant asked me if I’d go with that bus load of kids to that holiday camp in Holland—something to do with that society—she’s the president or secretary, I can’t remember—and I said I would, because after all, she’s frightfully influential and all that—well, Dicky White’—Dicky was one of the adoring housemen who followed her around—‘told me yesterday that the old girl had gone to Canada, so she won’t know if I go on that dreary trip or not.’

She smiled brilliantly and with great charm. ‘Go instead of me, darling—you know how good you are with brats. Besides that, Sister Brewster’s going too, and you know I simply can’t stand her—I should go mad.’

Arabella didn’t like Sister Brewster either. ‘They’re spastics,’ she reminded her cousin.

Hilary gave her a faintly impatient look. ‘Well, of course they are, ducky, that’s why you’ll be so marvellous with them—after all, you’re children’s trained.’ She nodded encouragingly, ‘You’ll be just right.’

‘It’s for two weeks,’ Arabella pointed out, and added reasonably, ‘and I don’t really want to go, Hilary, my holidays are due and I’m going to stay with Doreen Watts—you know, in Scotland.’

‘Oh, lord, Bella, you can change your holidays and go a couple of weeks later—what’s a couple of weeks?’ Hilary waved an airy hand; she had long ago mastered the art of reducing everything which didn’t directly concern herself to an unimportant level which she didn’t need to worry about.

‘Why don’t you want to go?’ asked Arabella. ‘Oh, I know about old Brewster, but what’s the real reason?’

Hilary smiled slowly. ‘It’s a secret, so don’t breathe a word. You know that new honorary? The one with the dark hair and the hornrims?’

‘Mr Thisby-Barnes?’ Arabella’s voice was squeaky with surprise. ‘But he’s married!’

Her cousin gave her a look of contemptuous affection. ‘Bella, you are a simpleton—a nice one, mind you—I do believe you still live in an age of orange blossom and proposals of marriage and falling in love.’

‘Yes,’ said Arabella simply.

‘Well, darling, a lot of girls still do, I suppose, but one can have some fun while waiting for the orange blossom—and I’m not doing any harm. He and his wife don’t get on, and I’m only going out to dinner with him.’

‘But can’t you go out with him before you go with the children?’

Hilary frowned. ‘Look, darling, there’s a dance he’s taking me to—oh, don’t worry, it’s miles away from Wickham’s, no one will ever know, and it comes slap in the middle of this wretched trip.’ She turned her beautiful eyes upon Arabella. ‘Bella, do help me out—I can wangle it so easily, and no one will mind. There are a thousand good reasons why I can’t go at the last minute and they’ll be only too glad if I can find someone to take my place—you.’ Which was true enough.

Arabella frowned, and the stammer which only became noticeable when she was deeply moved, became apparent. ‘You s-see, Hilary, I d-don’t think you sh-should.’

Her cousin smiled beguilingly. ‘Oh, Bella darling, I tell you it’s all right. Anyway, I’ve promised to go and I can’t break a promise.’

‘B-but you m-must have kn-known that you were going with the children before you s-said you would go,’ stated Arabella baldly.

She studied her cousin’s face, reflecting that Hilary had been like a big sister to her ever since she could remember—a rather thoughtless sister sometimes, but never unkind. That she was also completely selfish was a fact which Arabella had grown up with and accepted cheerfully; if she herself had been the pretty, pampered daughter of a well-to-do man she would undoubtedly have been selfish too. She watched a dimple appear in Hilary’s cheek.

‘Yes, I did,’ admitted her cousin, ‘but I knew you’d help me out.’ She added urgently, ‘You will, won’t you, Bella?’

‘All right,’ said Bella, ‘but I won’t do it again, really I won’t.’

Her cousin flung an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re a darling—tell you what, I’ll see if I can get Watts’ holidays changed, then you can go home with her when you get back—how’s that for a good idea?’

Arabella agreed that it was, provided that Doreen didn’t mind, and suppose it wasn’t convenient for her family? Hilary waved the idea away carelessly; she would arrange everything, she said airily. ‘And what’s more,’ she promised, ‘I’ll come back to Wickham’s tomorrow with you, instead of waiting until the next day, then you can have the Triumph to drive us up and drive yourself back on your next days off.’

A bribe—Arabella recognised it as such; she loved driving. One day, when she was a qualified nurse and earning more money, she intended to save up and buy herself a car, but until then she had to depend upon her uncle’s kindness in lending her the Triumph which shared the garage with his Daimler. She said now: ‘That will be nice, thank you, Hilary,’ but Hilary, having got what she had come for, was already on her way to the door.

It was when the twins had been sent away to wash their hands for tea that Nanny, knitting endlessly, had looked up from her work to say:

‘You always were a bonny child, Miss Arabella, and far too kind-hearted. Miss Hilary always had what she wanted out of you, and still does; no good will come of it.’

Arabella was putting the last few pieces of the puzzle in their places, but she paused to look at the cosy little figure in the old-fashioned basket chair. ‘Nanny dear, I don’t mind a bit—did you hear what we were talking about?’

‘Well enough. And what happens, young lady, if Miss Hilary should set eyes on a young man you fancied for yourself, eh? Do you let her have him?’

‘Well,’ said Arabella matter-of-factly, ‘I can’t imagine that happening, and if it did, what chance would I have, Nanny? No one ever looks at me when Hilary’s there, you know—besides, I don’t care for any of the men who fancy her.’

‘That’s a vulgar expression,’ said Nanny repressively, ‘but one day, mark my words, Mr Right will come along and you won’t want to share him.’

Arabella wasn’t attending very closely; she asked eagerly:

‘Nanny, do you believe in orange blossom and falling in love? You don’t think it’s old-fashioned?’

‘How can anything be old-fashioned when it’s been going on since the world began, Miss Arabella? You keep right on thinking that, and leave those queer young people in their strange clothes and hair that needs a good brush…’ she snorted indignantly. ‘Let them think what they like, they’ll find out what they’re missing, soon enough,’ she added darkly.

Arabella got up off her knees and went to look out of the window.

‘I wonder if I shall like Holland,’ she hazarded. ‘The camp’s somewhere in the middle.’ She sighed to herself; probably she would be alternately run off her feet and bored stiff, for Sister Brewster was twice her age and she had worked on her ward and hated every minute of it. It was a pity that Lady Marchant had ever had the idea of asking Wickham’s Hospital to lend two of its nurses to accompany the children—just because she had been a patient there and had taken a fancy to Hilary—perhaps she thought she was conferring a favour, or more likely, she had had difficulty in recruiting anyone else.

‘I think I’ll go for a walk,’ said Arabella; she didn’t want any tea, she felt all of a sudden out of tune with the world, a good walk would settle everything back into its right place again. After all, what did it matter if she went on holiday a couple of weeks later—and she liked children. Besides, it would be an opportunity to see another country, however limited the sightseeing would be.

She went down the back stairs and out of the kitchen door and through the little wicket gate at the bottom of the vegetable garden and so into the woods beyond. It was quiet there, the house stood equidistant between Great Sampford and Little Sampford, a mile or so away from the country road which connected these two villages, so that there was nothing but the quiet Essex countryside around her. She wandered on, and presently came out on to the crossroads, where four lanes met and parted again to go to Finchingfield, Steeple Bumpstead, Cornish Hall End and, behind her, back to the Sampfords. She chose the way to Cornish Hall End, because it went through the neck of the woods once more and at its end she could take the path back through the trees.

It was September and warm for the time of year. Arabella pulled off the cardigan she had snatched up as she had left the house and walked on, wishing she was wearing something thinner than the cotton shirt and rather shabby tweed skirt she had on. There had seemed no point in wearing anything else when she had got up that morning; she had known in advance that she would be asked to pick fruit some time during the day, and later, when she would have changed, she had had the twins wished on her. Thinking about them reminded her of Hilary’s request, and her pleasant little face became thoughtful—it was a pity that her cousin had got entangled with Mr Thisby-Barnes, but Arabella knew from experience that it wouldn’t help in the least if she were to argue with Hilary about him. Hilary had always done exactly what she wanted to do, in the most charming way possible, and would brook no interference.

Arabella dismissed the vexing matter from her mind, sensibly realizing that there was nothing to be done about it except hope that Hilary would tire of Mr Thisby-Barnes as quickly as she had tired of so many other of her admirers. Having disposed of one worry, however, Arabella found her mind turning to another—the bus trip with the children. She would have to find out more about it, and about a passport and what she was supposed to take in the way of clothes. It would be necessary to go and see Sister Brewster, who would probably hate her going just as much as she herself was beginning to.

She turned off the road and started back home, thinking vaguely now of all the things she would like to do and wondering if she would ever get the chance of doing half of them. She would like to marry, of course—some paragon whose hazy picture in her head was a splendid mixture of good looks and charm and endless adoration of her homely self, besides being possessed of sufficient money to give her all she should ever ask for. That she wasn’t the kind of girl to ask for anything seemed beside the point, as did the fact that the young men of her acquaintance tended to treat her like a younger sister and seldom showed any sign of even the mildest interest in her. It would help, she thought a trifle wistfully, if Hilary were to marry and go and live somewhere sufficiently far away to leave her a clear field; not that that would help much, although there had been Jim Besley, a casualty officer at Wickham’s who had shown signs of fancying her—he had driven her home for her days off, though, but Hilary had been home too, and although she had made no effort to charm him, he had had no eyes for Arabella after that. And there had been Tony Clark, a dull young man from the Path Lab—he had got as far as suggesting that he should take Arabella to the cinema one evening, only Hilary had come along just as he was getting down to details as to where they should meet, and somehow they didn’t go after all. He took Hilary out instead and spent so much money on her entertainment that Arabella’s kind heart was wrung by the sight of the economical meals of eggs and chips he was forced to live on in the canteen until pay day came round again.

She had walked rather further than she had intended; she got back to the house only just in time to get ready for dinner, and her aunt, meeting her in the hall as she went in, her mousy hair hanging untidily down to her waist, her cardigan slung anyhow round her shoulders, asked her with some asperity where she had been, and would have doubtless delivered a short, not unkind lecture on her appearance, if Hilary hadn’t come running downstairs, looking like a fairytale princess, to rescue her with a few careless, charming words. Arabella gave her a grateful glance. Hilary was a dear, it was mean to feel annoyed, however faintly at having been coerced into taking her cousin’s place on the children’s outing; it was, after all, a small return for the kindness she had received from her cousin since she had gone, as a small, unhappy girl, to live with Hilary’s parents.

She was still of the same mind the following morning as she drove the Triumph back to London with Hilary beside her, and although she was disappointed when her cousin declared herself too bored with the whole matter to give her any more information about the trip she was to take, she agreed readily enough to wait until Sister Brewster had been informed of the change. ‘She’ll send for you,’ laughed Hilary, ‘and fuss and fret about a hundred and one things, but you don’t need to take any notice, love—I can’t think what Lady Marchant was about, suggesting that old Brewster should be in charge.’

‘How many children?’ asked Arabella.

Hilary shrugged. ‘Do you know, I can’t remember—not many, though, most of them…’ she stopped abruptly and made some remark about the traffic, so that the sentence never got finished.

Wickham’s looked as grey and forbidding as it always did, even on a lovely autumn day, its brick walls and rows of windows looked uninviting, and now, today, under a pale sky with a threat of rain, and a wind blowing the first of the leaves from the row of plane trees across the London square, it looked more inhospitable than ever. But Arabella didn’t notice, and if she had, she wouldn’t have minded; she was happy at Wickham’s—in a year’s time, when she had finished her training, she would probably take a job in some other hospital, but that was a long while yet. She parked the car in the corrugated iron shed set apart for the nursing staff and walked with her cousin to the side entrance which would take them to the Nurses’ Home. She had barely half an hour before she was due on duty; she bade Hilary a swift goodbye and raced along the complexity of passages which would get her to the Home.

On the third floor, where she had her room, there was a good deal of laughing and talking. Second dinner was just over, the young ladies who had eaten it were making themselves a cup of tea. They crowded into her room, obligingly filling a mug of the comforting liquid for her, and carrying on a ceaseless chatter while she cast off her green jersey dress and tore into her blue and white striped uniform. Between heartening mouthfuls of scalding tea, she answered her companions’ questions as to her days off, exclaimed suitably over the latest hospital gossip, and agreed to go with a number of her friends to the cinema on her next free evening. It wasn’t until they were crowding through the door that she told them she was going to take her cousin’s place on the children’s bus trip.

The dozen or so nurses milling around her paused in their headlong flight back to their work on the wards. ‘Arabella, you can’t!’ exclaimed Anne Morgan, one of her particular friends. ‘Old Brewster’s in charge and there are to be twenty-two kids and they’re almost all more or less helpless—it’ll be terrible!’

‘Why can’t your cousin go?’ a voice wanted to know.

Arabella got out of answering that one by exclaiming, ‘Lord, look at the time!’ and belting down the stairs. Going on duty at two o’clock after days off was bad enough, it would be ten times worse if one were late and incurred the displeasure of the Ward Sister.

She slid into Women’s Medical with thirty seconds to spare, and when Sister came through the door a minute later, Arabella was making up an empty bed for all the world as though she had been at it for five minutes or more.

She had no time to herself after that, and when she went off duty that evening, her impending journey was quite overlooked in the scattered conversations carried on between baths and cups of tea and the trying on, by at least six of her closest friends, of a hat which had been delivered to Anne that evening. She was to be bridesmaid to her sister within a short time, and the hat was a romantic wide-brimmed affair, all ribbons and lace. It suited Anne very well—it suited them all, it was that kind of a hat, but when it was offered to Arabella she laughingly refused; her aunt had advised her that the maxim ‘A plain hat for a plain face,’ was a good one, and Arabella had faithfully abided by it. All the same, when she came back from her bath some twenty minutes later and found everyone gone and the hat on Anne’s bed, she settled the masterpiece of millinery upon her head and looked rather fearfully in the mirror.

Aunt Maud had been wrong; the hat did something for her, she looked almost pretty. She winced at the memory of the severe felt she had purchased for church-going last winter, with her aunt’s unqualified approval. The next hat she bought, she vowed, turning her head this way and that before the mirror, she would buy by herself, and it would be a hat to shock the family, the village churchgoers and the parson himself. She took it off with regret. It was a pity that as a general rule she didn’t wear hats; all the same she glowed gently with the knowledge that she wasn’t quite as plain as she had imagined. It would be nice, she thought sleepily, if you were wearing such a hat when Nanny’s Mr Right came along, if ever he came, which seemed unlikely.