A Small Slice of Summer

  “Did you enjoy your nap?” he asked on a laugh.

  Letitia had tried so hard to stay awake; not to miss a moment of his company. She said, her voice stiff with annoyance at herself, “I’m so very sorry. I tried to stay awake….” She stopped, aware that she hadn’t put it very well, and he laughed again.

  “Would you have gone to sleep if Karel had been driving?” he asked.

  “No, for he would never have given me the chance—you should have given me a poke.”

  She wondered why he sighed as he put his arms around her. “This instead,” he said, and kissed her.

  She stared up at him, her emotions churning around inside her so that she really had no sense at all. Then she stretched on tiptoe and kissed him back.

  But when he did nothing about it, Letitia said in a hopeless voice, “Oh, Jason, goodbye,” and fled through the door and across the entrance hall.

  She was appalled at her behavior and at the strength of her feelings when he had kissed her, but then no one had ever kissed her like that before….

  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 BEST OF BETTY NEELS

  A Small Slice of Summer

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER ONE

  BIG BEN struck midday, and the sound, though muffled by the roar of London’s traffic, struck clearly enough on Letitia Marsden’s ear, causing her to put down the recovery tray she had been checking and look expectantly towards the doors separating theatre from the recovery room. Mr Snell had begun a Commando operation some three hours earlier; at any moment now the patient would be handed over to her care. The doors swung silently open at that very moment and she pressed the buzzer which would let the orderly know that she must come at once, and advanced to meet the theatre party and receive the still figure on the trolley from the hands of the scrub nurse.

  ‘Hi, Tishy,’ said that young lady in a cheerful whisper. ‘Everything’s OK, buzz if you want any help.’ They cast a combined professional eye over the unconscious man between them. ‘He’s been a nasty colour once or twice, so keep your weather eye open.’

  Letitia nodded. ‘What’s next? A cholecystectomy, isn’t it?’

  Her friend and colleague nodded. ‘Yes—this one should be fit to move before Sir gets through with it, though. The anaesthetist will be out presently—he’s new by the way, filling in for Doctor van den Berg Effert.’ She raised her brows in an exaggerated arch. ‘Super, too.’ she handed over the theatre slip, cast an eye on the clock, murmured: ‘So long,’ and slid back through the doors.

  Letitia began her work, silent save for the muttered word now and then to the attendant orderly, one Mrs Mead, a middle-aged lady of great good sense, who had the added virtue of doing exactly what she was asked to do without arguing about it—her whole mind, save for one minute portion of it, concentrated upon her task, and that tiny portion concealed so deliberately beneath her calm cringed away from the grotesque appearance of the patient; the flap of skin already grafted, later to be used to cover the extensive operation on his throat, gave the man, lying so still, a quite unhuman appearance, and yet she was fully aware that later, given skilled nursing, expert skin grafting and time, his appearance could be made perfectly acceptable even to the most sensitive. She noted his pulse, his pupil reactions and his breathing, charted her findings, and because his colour wasn’t quite to her satisfaction, turned on the oxygen. She was adjusting it when the door opened and a gowned and masked figure came unhurriedly in, to join her at the patient’s side. A large man, very tall, and when he pulled down his mask, extremely handsome with it, with fair hair already flecked with grey, bright blue eyes and a long straight nose whose winged nostrils gave him a somewhat arrogant expression. But his mouth was kind when he smiled, and he was smiling at her now. She didn’t smile back; since her unfortunate experience with the Medical Registrar she distrusted men—that was to say, all men under the age of fifty or so. She frowned at him, her eyes beneath their dark brows as bright a blue as his, her ordinary face, with its run-of-the-mill nose and large generous mouth, framed by the theatre mob cap which concealed the great quantity of dark brown hair she wore in a well-ordered coil on the top of her head.

  ‘OK?’ asked the giant mildly.

  She handed him the chart with its quarter-hourly observations. ‘His colour isn’t quite as good as it was,’ she stated, ‘I’ve started the oxygen.’

  He nodded and handed back the chart, looking at her now, instead of the patient. ‘Call me if you want me,’ he answered her, still very mild. ‘The name’s Mourik van Nie.’ He turned on his heel and slid through the doors, making no sound, and moving, considering his size, very fast.

  She got on with her work, saying what was necessary to Mrs Mead, her mind on her patient. It was only after an hour, when the giant had been back once more, pronounced the patient fit to be transferred to the Intensive Care Unit and gone again, that she allowed herself to speculate who he was. Dutch, she supposed, like Doctor van den Berg Effert, one of the few men she liked and trusted and wasn’t shy of; but then he was married to Georgina, her elder sister’s close friend; they had trained together and now Margo was Sister on the Children’s Unit, and Georgina lived in the lap of luxury and a state of married bliss in Doctor van den Berg Effert’s lovely home in Essex. She and Margo had been there to stay once or twice and Letitia, living in a fool’s paradise in which the Medical Registrar was the only important being, had imagined herself living like that too—only it hadn’t turned out like that at all; he had taken her out for a month or two, talking vaguely about a future, which she, in her besotted state, had already imagined into a fact which wasn’t fact at all, only daydreams, and then, when she had refused to go away with him for the weekend, had turned the daydream into a nightmare with a jibing speech about old-fashioned girls who should move with the times, and ending with the remark that she wasn’t even pretty… She had known that, of course, but she had always thought that when one fell in love, looks didn’t matter so very much, but she had been too hurt to say anything, and how did one begin to explain that being the middle girl in a family of five daughters, strictly but kindly brought up by a mother with decidedly old-fashioned ideas and a father who was rector of a small parish in the depths of rural Devon was hardly conducive to being the life and soul of the swinging set.

  She had said nothing at all, not because she was a meek girl, but because she was too choked with hurt pride and rage to make sense. She had thought of several telling speeches to make since that unhappy occasion, but since he worked on the Medical Wing and she spent her days in Theatre Unit, there was small chance of their meeting—and a good thing too, although her friends, meaning it kindly, kept her informed of his movements. He was currently wrapped up with Jean Mitchell, the blonde staff nurse on Orthopaedics, w
hom no one liked anyway; Letitia, in her more peevish moments, wished them well of each other.

  The Commando case was transferred to the ICU.; she handed him over to the Sister-in-charge, repeated the instructions she had been given, put his charts into her superior’s hands, and raced back to the recovery room. The cholecystectomy would be out at any moment now and she had to fetch the fresh recovery tray and see that Mrs Mead had cleared the other one away and tidied up. They were nicely ready when the doors swung silently open once more. It had been a straightforward case; she received her instructions, obeyed them implicitly, and when the anaesthetist loomed silently beside her, handed him the chart without speaking; there was no need to tell him the things he could see for himself: the patient was ready to go to the ward and she stood quietly waiting for him to tell her so, which he did with an unhurried: ‘OK, Staff, wheel her away. There’s an end-to-end coming out in a few minutes, old and frail; do what you can and let me know if you need me.’

  And so the day wore on. Letitia was relieved for a late dinner and found the canteen almost empty, though the Main Theatre staff nurse was still there and a handful of nurses who had been delayed by various emergencies.

  Letitia wandered along the counter with her tray, looking for something cheap and nourishing; she had bought a dress on her last days off and her pocket was now so light that buying her meals had become a major exercise in basic arithmetic. She chose soup, although it was a warm June day, a roll to go with it and a slab of treacle tart, because starch was filling and even though it was fattening too she was lucky enough not to have that problem, being possessed of a neat little figure which retained its slender curves whatever she ate. She paid for these dainties at the end of the counter and went to join her fellow staff nurse, Angela Collins, who cast a sympathetic eye at the contents of her tray, said fervently: ‘Thank God it’s only a week to pay-day,’ and addressed herself to her own, similar meal.

  Letitia nodded. ‘Holidays in four weeks,’ she observed cheerfully, and thought with sudden longing of the quiet Rectory. The raspberries would be ripe, she would go into the garden and walk up and down the canes, eating as many as she wanted. She sighed and asked: ‘How’s theatre? There’s only that resection left, isn’t there?’

  Her friend snorted. ‘There was—they popped two more on the list while Sister wasn’t looking. She’s fighting mad, but Mr Snell’s doing his famous wheedling act and that new man has the charm turned full on—he’s got her all girlish. I must say he’s rather a dream; a pity he’s only here while our Julius takes a holiday.’

  ‘I thought you liked him.’

  ‘Our Julius? Of course I do—we all dote on him, but he’s married, isn’t he? To your sister’s best friend, too.’

  Letitia nibbled at her roll, making it last. ‘Yes, she’s a sweetie, too.’

  She wolfed down the treacle tart. ‘I’ve still got some tea, shall we make a pot?’

  They hurried over to the Nurses’ Home and climbed to the top floor where the staff nurses had their rooms, and because there were several girls off duty, the tea was stretched to half a dozen mugs, sipped in comfort on Letitia’s bed to the accompaniment of a buzz of conversation until she looked at her watch, discovered that she was almost late, and flew back through the hospital once more, walking sedately in those parts where she was likely to meet Authority, who frowned on running nurses, and tearing like mad along the long empty back corridors.

  The afternoon went fast; it was half past four before the last case was wheeled away to the ward and Letitia, aided by the faithful Mrs Mead, began clearing up. Between them they had the place stripped, cleaned and put together again by the time Big Ben chimed five o’clock. Mrs Mead had gone and Letitia had taken off her theatre dress and mob cap and was standing in the middle of the room doing absolutely nothing when the giant walked in once more.

  ‘Not got home yet?’ he asked carelessly as he crossed to the outside door. ‘Good afternoon to you.’ He smiled vaguely in her direction and she heard him walking rapidly along the corridor which led to the wards. When she couldn’t hear his footsteps any more she took one final look round the recovery room and went in her turn out of the door. As she passed the Surgical Wing she caught a glimpse of him, standing outside Sister’s office, deep in conversation with Staff Nurse Bolt, another friend of hers. They were both laughing and it made her feel a little lonely: he could have stopped and talked to her, too.

  She had to hear of him later that evening, when half a dozen of them were sitting round consuming the chips they had been down the road to buy—cheaper than the canteen and filling—besides, someone had come back from days off with a large fruit cake and, between them they had gathered tea and sugar and milk and made a giant pot of tea. They had cast off their frilly caps and their shoes and some of them were already in dressing gowns and the noise was considerable. It was Angela who brought up the subject of the newcomer. ‘He’s fab,’ she uttered to anyone who cared to listen, ‘huge and smashing to look at, and one of those lovely slow, deep voices.’ She turned her head to look for Letitia, pouring tea. ‘Hey, Tishy, you must have had time to take a good look—didn’t you think he was absolutely super? Just about the most super man you’ve ever set eyes on?’

  There was silence for a few seconds; every girl in the room knew about Tishy and the Medical Registrar, and because they all liked her they had done their best to help her by saying nothing about it and ignoring her pinched face and red eyes. It was a pity that Angela hadn’t stopped to think. Several of them spoke at once to save Tishy from answering, but she spoke with her usual composure. ‘I didn’t really look at him—we were too busy. He knows his job, though.’

  There was a chorus of relieved agreement before someone wanted to know if the rest of them had seen the trouser suits in Peter Robinson’s, and the talk turned, as it so often did, to clothes.

  Letitia was on duty at eight o’clock the next morning. The list was heavy enough to begin with, petering out after dinner time, so that by four o’clock she was clearing the recovery room in the pleasant anticipation of getting off duty punctually at half past four. As indeed she was. She wandered through the hospital on the way to her room; several of her friends were off duty too, they might have a few sets of tennis, it was a lovely day still. She stopped to look out of a window and saw Doctor Mourik van Nie getting into a car—a splendid BMW convertible. She studied its sleek lines and admired the discreet grey of its coachwork before she turned away, wondering where he was going.

  Jason Mourik van Nie was going to Dalmers Place. An hour or so later he joined Julius van den Berg Effert and Georgina on the terrace behind the house. Polly, their very small daughter, was almost asleep on her father’s knee and Georgina exclaimed in relief as he walked out of the french windows. ‘There you are— Polly refuses to go to bed until you’ve kissed her good night.’ She smiled at her husband’s friend. ‘If you’ll do that right away. I’ll whisk her off to bed and Julius shall get us all a drink.’

  Jason smiled at her, kissed his small goddaughter, exchanged a brief ‘Dag’ and sat down.

  ‘Stay where you are, darling,’ said Julius, ‘I’ll pop this young woman into her bed and bring the drinks as I come back.’

  His wife gave him a warm smile. ‘Tell Nanny I’ll be up in ten minutes unless Ivo starts to cry.’ Her smile widened and Julius grinned back at her; Ivo was just two months old, a tiny replica of his father, whereas little Polly was like her mother with a gentle prettiness and most of her charm. She wound a small arm round her father’s neck now and smiled sleepily at him as he carried her into the house.

  Jason watched them go. ‘Julius is a lucky man,’ he said quietly. ‘You, and the enchanting Polly, and now Ivo.’

  ‘I’m lucky too,’ Georgina told him, ‘I’ve got Julius.’

  ‘I hope someone says that about me one day,’ he observed. ‘May I smoke my pipe?’

  She nodded. ‘Of course. Did you have a busy day?’

  ‘So-so.
One Commando to start with and a couple of abdominals, then we petered out with appendices. Snell was operating again. Oh—Theatre Sister sent her love, I’ve forgotten what she said her name was and I couldn’t identify her very well; she was gowned up and masked, the only face I’ve seen clearly in these last few days was in the recovery room—quite unremarkable, though—it belongs to someone called Tishy.’

  Georgina smiled. ‘Little Tishy. She’s Margo’s young sister—she must be twenty-three, I suppose, she qualified six months ago. You didn’t like her?’

  Jason stretched his long legs and studied his enormous, beautifully shod feet. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it,’ he admitted carelessly. ‘Mousey girls with heavy frowns aren’t quite my line.’

  ‘Oh, she doesn’t frown all the time,’ stated Georgina quickly, ‘it’s only because you’re a man,’ and as her companion’s brows shot up: ‘She was almost engaged to the Medical Registrar, but he switched his interest to a dashing blonde on Orthopaedics—I daresay she was more accommodating. I don’t know what he said to poor little Tishy, but ever since then she’s shied away from anything male under fifty.’

  ‘Julius too?’

  ‘Julius is thirty-seven,’ his loving wife reminded him, ‘but Margo is a friend of mine and of course I know Tishy too; she’s been here once or twice, so she knows Julius quite well as well as working for him. He takes care to be casually friendly, bless him. She’s a splendid nurse.’

  She turned her head and her eyes lighted up as they always did when she saw her husband.

  ‘Sorry I was so long,’ he apologized as he set the tray of drinks down. ‘Great-Uncle Ivo telephoned—wants to know when we’re going over to Bergenstijn. I told him we’d be there before the summer’s over. The theatre’s closing at the end of July, we’ll go then if you would like that, my love.’