Hannah

He was staring hard at her. “Why do you say that, Hannah?”

“Well—you and I—I mean, we’re miles apart, aren’t we? In different worlds. Hank hinted that it was because of me that he didn’t get a better table and we had to wait to be served—I must be a failure as a dinner companion. I wasn’t exactly a success with you, was I?”

Valentijn muttered something forceful under his breath, then got up and walked over to where she was sitting and stood looking down at her. He seemed enormous, looming over her, and strangely reassuring, too. He said slowly, “You look pretty in that dress, Hannah.”

She looked up at him shyly—she wasn’t used to compliments, especially from elegant, self-assured gentlemen. She wiped away the last of the tears with the back of her hand and smiled at him. “It’s new. I bought it just in case I got asked somewhere.” She smoothed the soft folds of the skirt with a careful hand. “Well, at least I’ve had a chance to wear it.”

She got to her feet and, as Valentijn didn’t budge an inch, she found herself within inches of his waistcoat. He very gently drew her close and kissed her just as gently. “Good night, Hannah.”

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.

Hannah

Betty Neels

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

BABY VAN EYSINK had made up his tiny mind not to take his feed; all four and a half pounds of him was protesting, doll-like arms and legs waving and his small face puce with manly rage. The puce deepened alarmingly as his blue eyes, squinting with temper, stared up into the face above him. Not much of it was visible above the mask, only a pair of wide grey eyes thickly fringed with dark lashes, and a few strands of fine straight light brown hair which had escaped from under the starched cap, but the eyes had laughter lines at their corners and the voice, urging him to be a good boy and do his best, was soft and gentle, so that he allowed himself to be soothed, and his loud bawling became a series of protesting squeaks and snuffles until he squeezed his eyes tight shut and began to feed, reluctantly at first and then with growing enthusiasm.

His performance had been watched anxiously by the girl sitting up in bed in the small hospital room. Now she spoke quietly, her English fluent but heavily accented.

‘Hannah, you are a marvellous person, this is now three times that my little baby has fed from his bottle, and that after so many weeks with that drip thing. I am so very happy, I shall telephone his papa this evening and tell him and he will be happy too. Now we shall soon go home, is it not?’

‘Not,’ said Hannah. ‘Well, what I mean is not for a little while longer—little Paul has to gain another pound and feed normally for at least three days. Besides, you’re not quite up to looking after him yet, are you, Mevrouw van Eysink?’

‘But there will be a nurse and when we are both quite well again, there will be a nanny.’ The girl pulled herself up on her monkey rope and altered her position. ‘I cannot wait for the moment when they will take this horrid thing from me!’

‘Not long now.’ Hannah’s voice was as soothing as when she had coaxed the tiny scrap on her lap, now feeding noisily. ‘You’ll be as good as new once it’s off; a few months’ exercise and therapy and you’ll be fit to dance at anyone’s wedding.’

‘Yours?’

‘Heavens, no! Is your husband coming this weekend?’

‘Yes, of course. Dear Paul!’ The girl in the bed tweaked a lace frill straight and smiled to herself. ‘I must not grumble, must I? I could have been killed, and worse, I could have lost my baby. It is a miracle that he was born, is it not?’

‘It is. It’s worth lying still in bed and then wearing a hip spica for a bit, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, oh, yes! Dear Hannah, you are always so sensible and reassuring just like Oom Valentijn…’

Hannah made a face under her mask; Oom Valentijn was quoted, praised and admired at least three times a day. He must be an uncle in a million, she decided and she was heartily sick of him. And a lot of good that did, for Mevrouw van Eysink had launched herself into a lengthy eulogy once more.

‘I am devoted to him,’ she declared, not for the first time. ‘You see, I do not remember my father, and my mother is, how do you say? invalid, and I have no brothers or sisters—so I am a spoilt little girl, having my own way always until Uncle Valentijn comes to see me. I am four years old then and he is twenty-one, and he tease me and teach me to ride a pony and look after cats and dogs and ride a bicycle, and he does not allow me to cry when I fall off. He comes—he came—many times over the years, even after he is married…’

‘Oh, is he married?’ asked Hannah idly.

‘Not any more. He was a young man then and it was an unfortunate marriage, for they found that they did not love each other and Annette went away with another man and there was a divorce…’ She saw the look that Hannah gave her. ‘You think that I should not be telling you all this? But I like you and you are discreet, and without you I should not have the little Paul and I must talk to someone, you understand? I love my Paul, but for Oom Valentijn I have a strong affection. Why, he even helped us to marry, for my mother did not find Paul rich enough, but Oom Valentijn told me to marry whom I chose and that money didn’t matter, and he is right, although we are not poor, you understand. It is a pity that he is not married too, for he has a great deal of money and a beautiful house to live in.’

‘Well, I daresay he’ll find someone,’ observed Hannah. There surely were plenty of girls around who would be glad to live in a lovely home and have all the money they wanted, even if they had to marry someone middle-aged to get them.

They lapsed into companionable silence, broken after a minute or two by Mevrouw van Eysink’s small, excited shriek. ‘Oom Valentijn!’ She plunged into a spate of Dutch. Hannah didn’t look round; for one thing little Paul needed one’s undivided attention and for another, she wasn’t all that interested. She knew exactly what he would be like—thick-set and balding and wearing pebble glasses, like the Dutch characters she had occasionally seen on TV or at the films: his opinions had been quoted so often now that she felt that she knew him very well indeed—and deadly boring he must be too.

She twiddled the teat in little Paul’s mouth with a cunning hand because he was getting tired now and hadn’t quite finished, but she had to look up when Uncle Valentijn walked past her to the bed, giving her a civil, ‘Good morning, Nurse,’ as he did so.

Her reply, equally civil, ended in a gasp. Uncle Valentijn wasn’t running true to form. He was tall and his shoulders were enormous and he showed no signs of approaching middle age. True, his hair was iron grey, cropped unfashionably close, but his features, while not those of a young man, were remarkably handsome, with a high-bridged nose and a straight mouth and blue eyes—they were studying her now, briefly and with polite indifference, and Hannah flushed under her mask, glad that little Paul should give a loud burp and need instant attention.

Uncle Valentijn made himself comfortable on the side of his niece’s bed. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner, my dear,’ and Hannah, liking his deep, rather slow voice, pricked up her ears. ‘You seem to have made a remarkable recovery.’ He bent and kissed one delicately made-up cheek. ‘And just as pretty as ever. I saw Paul as soon as I got back—he sends his love and will be with you at the week-end.’

His niece beamed at him. ‘He comes each weekend, but soon I shall go home, once I have this—this thing off.’ She paused. ‘Can we not speak Dutch?’ She turned her head to look at Hannah. ‘You will not mind, Hannah, if we speak in our own language? I am so tired of speaking yours…’

Her visitor turned to look at Hannah too and there was faint amusement in his eyes. ‘Not in the least,’ she said, and felt awkward and in the way.

‘And how is my godchild?’ he wanted to know, and crossed the room, to take the baby from her with a polite murmur of, ‘May I?’

He knew exactly what he was about, she saw that at a glance, but then so he should. Hadn’t Mevrouw van Eysink told her time and again that he was a famous paediatrician? Baby Paul was lucky; not only had he survived a bad motor car crash before he was born and then arrived two months too soon, but he had doting parents, who from all accounts were able to provide him with a more than comfortable home and as a bonus, Uncle Valentijn.

She received the infant back presently, laid him in his cot, collected up her bits and pieces, and with the advice that if her patient required anything she had only to ring the bell, she went. To her surprise, Uncle Valentijn got up to open the door for her.

She was waylaid almost at once by the willowy blonde who shared the staff nurse’s duties with her on the Prem. Unit and as well as that, was a close friend.

‘Hannah!’ She put out a hand so that Hannah had to stop. ‘Hannah, who’s that stupendous type who strolled in a little while ago—he’s really something…’

Hannah interrupted her a little tartly. ‘That’s Uncle Valentijn.’

Her friend’s large blue eyes popped alarmingly. ‘But it can’t be! He’s fat and middle-aged and…’

‘Well, I thought that’s how he’d be—like that Dutch character we saw in that film a couple of weeks ago, remember? And I’d got heartily sick of him, anyway: Uncle Valentijn this and Uncle Valentijn that, day after day.’ Hannah shifted her tray and prepared to move on. ‘You know how it is, Louise.’

Louise giggled. ‘Is he staying?’

‘How should I know? He said “Good morning” and “May I” and the rest of the time they spoke Dutch. He didn’t even look at me—I mean, not to see me, you know. People don’t. I wish I had fair hair and blue eyes and a figure.’

Hannah spoke without a trace of envy for the girl with her, who had all those things.

‘You’re very nice as you are, love,’ declared Louise. ‘Have you had coffee? I haven’t either, we’ll pop down as soon as we’ve cleared up, shall we? There’s nothing due until half past ten.’

‘I’m famished,’ observed Hannah. ‘If only I didn’t get so hungry then I’d diet.’ She looked down at her small well-rounded figure and sighed, then muttered under her breath, ‘Here comes the Honourable!’

Sister Thorne, the younger daughter of a viscount, no less, bore down upon them in a purposeful fashion which they had learnt to be very wary of. She was a large woman with a booming voice, constantly issuing orders and making sure that no member of her staff had time to do more than draw breath between one task and the next. She didn’t look in the least like a member of the aristocracy, thought Hannah, watching her approach; she should have been as willowy and pretty as Louise, instead of which she was stout with a face like a well-bred horse, used no make-up and strained back her greying hair in an unbecoming bun. She was a splendid nurse, though, and made no bones about staying on duty when she should have been off if there was something on the ward she wasn’t quite happy about. She expected her nurses to do the same, of course, and they did so without complaining, although whereas Sister Thorne, however late she was, was whisked away in some chauffeur-driven car to wherever it was she spent her evenings, the nurses had to run for a bus and spend the evening soothing their boy-friends’ tempers because they’d missed the big picture at the local cinema.

She halted in front of Hannah now. ‘You should have tidied away by now, Staff Nurse. I expect my nurses—my trained nurses—to set an example to the students. You’ve just left Baby van Eysink? I shall visit there next, I believe Doctor van Bertes is there, is he not? He will wish to see the notes of his niece’s case. Be good enough to go to my office and fetch them and bring them to me there.’

She glanced at Louise, standing uneasily, wanting to go but not wishing to appear to be running away. ‘Your cap is crooked, Staff Nurse, and you are wearing excessive make-up.’ She sailed away and Hannah, with an expressive look at her friend, sped in the opposite direction, to shed her load in the dressings room and repair to the office and fetch the notes.

Sister Thorne and Uncle Valentijn were standing facing each other when she knocked and went into her patient’s room, and she had the impression that they had been arguing. Well, she amended to herself, not arguing, neither of them were the type to do that, issuing statements perhaps and not agreeing in a well-bred way. Hannah handed her superior the notes and made for the door, to be arrested by the visitor’s smooth: ‘One moment, Staff Nurse Lang.’ He gestured politely at Sister Thorne, who nodded graciously.

‘I hear from both my niece and from Sister Thorne that it is largely through your efforts and patience that my godson is thriving. I—we are deeply indebted to you.’

Hannah, taken by surprise, blushed fiercely, mumbled that it hadn’t been anything really and poised herself for flight. As she went she saw the look Uncle Valentijn gave her—amused, mocking and tinged with the indifference which she had detected in his voice. A horrible man, she decided, nipping down the corridor, far, far worse than the Uncle Valentijn she had built up from her fertile imagination.

She was off duty at five o’clock, with two free days to follow, and she didn’t see him again before she went off duty, half an hour late, because Baby Paul took twice as long as usual to finish his bottle.

‘A pity you’re off duty,’ observed his mother. ‘Uncle Valentijn will be back this evening—and you have days off too, haven’t you?’ She frowned. ‘I do not like it when you are not here, Hannah, because Paul is sometimes not good, but of course you need your free time—I expect you have much fun.’

Hannah wrapped the baby neatly into a gossamer shawl and popped him into his cot. She said soberly: ‘It’s nice to have a change.’ She bade her patient goodbye and fifteen minutes later, clad in a pleated skirt and a short-sleeved blouse, her small waist encircled by a wide belt, she went through the hospital doors into the dusty warmth of a London summer’s evening. As she crossed the busy street, she didn’t see Uncle Valentijn, sitting at the wheel of a powerful Bristol motor car, waiting to turn it into the forecourt of the hospital. He watched her with casual interest; an unassuming girl, he considered, but presenting a pleasing enough appearance. She should be walking down a country lane, he thought suddenly, not battling her way through London streets. The traffic lights changed and he swept into the hospital grounds, dismissing her from his mind.

Hannah joined the tail of a bus queue, waiting patiently while she allowed her thoughts to wander over the day behind her. She was glad that little Paul was perking up at last; it had been touch and go with him ever since his birth, but now it looked as though he was going to make it; another month or two of care and he would have caught up with his weight. She would miss him, and his mother too, for that matter. Mevrouw van Eysink was only a couple of years older than she was and although they came from quite different backgrounds they got on well.

She climbed on to her bus and was swept through the rather dingy streets, over the river and into still more streets, not dingy now but tired-looking backwaters, each row of Victorian houses looking exactly like the next. Hannah got off presently, walked down a side street and turned into another one leading from it. The houses here were just the same as all the others—shabby genteel was the expression, she decided, going down their length to the end of the row. Some of them were still occupied by only one family, but the rest had been converted in a ramshackle way into flats. From the outside they didn’t look so bad, but the builders had skimped the paint and plaster inside and used cheap wood for the doors and windows, so that nothing quite fitted any more. She turned into number thirty-six and started up the staircase the four flats shared.

She and her mother lived on the third floor, sandwiched between an old lady who walked with a stick whose every tap could be clearly heard by those beneath her, and a young couple who were ardent disciples of pop music, so that Hannah’s mother never ceased to complain in her plaintive way about the noise. But despite Hannah’s frequent suggestions that they should find somewhere else to live, both quieter and cheaper, she always refused. ‘This is a good address,’ she argued, ‘and surely you don’t grudge me that refinement? After all, your dear father was a rural dean and heaven alone knows how I have to scrape and screw on my miserable pension and the sacrifices I’m forced to make.’

Hannah, hearing it all for the hundredth time, had always agreed quietly and forborne to mention that a large portion of her own salary went to bolster up that pension. Her mother had never been able to cope with money; when her husband had been alive he had given her a generous allowance—too generous, as it turned out, for on his death it was discovered that he had been digging into his slender capital in order to pay it, and now, five years later, his widow still considered that she should have the same amount to spend upon herself. And Hannah had said nothing; her mother was still a pretty woman, a fact which her mother frequently pointed out to her, adding the invariable rider that she could never understand how it was that she had such a very ordinary daughter. She always said it laughingly, making a little joke out of it, but to Hannah, very conscious of her ordinary face and small, slightly plump person, it was not a joke.

Her mother’s voice, high and girlish and slightly complaining, greeted her as she opened their flat door.

‘Hannah? You’re late, darling. I’m afraid I haven’t done anything about supper yet; this warm weather has brought on one of my wretched headaches…’

Hannah went through the narrow hall into the sitting room. Her mother was lying on a rather shabby sofa, one beautifully kept hand to her forehead. ‘Don’t bang the door,’ she added sharply, and Hannah said, ‘No, Mother. I’m sorry you’ve got a bad head. I’ll get supper presently.’

She gave a small soundless sigh as she said it; she was tired and hot and hungry, and just for a moment she allowed her thoughts to dwell on life as it had been five years ago. She had been nineteen then, living at home and helping her father as well as coping with the major share of the housekeeping in the nice old house where they had lived. There had been a lot to do and plenty of time in which to do it and leisure to ride the elderly cob her father kept in the field beyond the house, or cycle round the lanes. She drove her father too and helped the old crotchety man who ruled the garden, and as though that wasn’t enough, she cooked most of their meals, so expertly that guests would compliment Mrs Lang on her cook, to be answered by a charming smile and a murmured: ‘Oh, we manage very well between us,’ which left them with the strong and erroneous impression that she had spent hours in the kitchen turning out the delicacies on the table. Which wasn’t true, of course, but Hannah never let on; her mother was selfish and dreadfully lazy, but she loved her, despite the rather tepid affection her parent accorded her.

Hannah stooped to kiss her mother and then went into the small kitchen to put on the kettle; she had missed her tea and if she was to get their supper she simply had to have five minutes’ peace and quiet first. She took the tray into the sitting room and sat it on the little table in the window, then sat herself down on a high-backed chair beside it.

‘Been busy?’ asked Mrs Lang idly.

‘Oh, about the same as usual.’ Hannah knew that her mother had very little interest in her work, indeed, she shuddered away from illness. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mother?’

Her mother accepted a cup with a wan smile. ‘Dear child, what a comfort you are—it’s selfish of me, but I’m glad that you have no plans to marry.’ Mrs Lang sipped her tea and took a quick questioning look at Hannah. ‘You haven’t, have you? I don’t suppose you get much chance to meet young men…only doctors and students.’

‘They seldom marry nurses, Mother. They can’t afford to.’

‘Oh, well, I daresay you’ll meet some nice man one day.’ Mrs Lang added with complete insincerity: ‘I do hope so.’ After a pause she added: ‘And poor little me will have to look after myself.’

‘I don’t suppose I’ll get married,’ said Hannah gruffly, ‘so you don’t need to worry. What would you like for supper?’

And presently she went into the kitchen and made a soufflé and salad, and all the while she was doing that she wondered what it would be like to be married and pretty like Mevrouw Eysink, lovingly spoilt and petted and the proud mother of a little baby like Paul, not to mention a devoted husband rushing over each weekend with armfuls of gifts…

‘Roses,’ said Hannah, gazing unseeingly at the view of chimney pots from the kitchen window, ‘hand-made chocs and diamonds…’

‘What did you say, dear?’ called her mother from the sitting room.

‘Supper’s ready, Mother.’

Hannah spent her days off in the usual way, slowly developed over the five years during which they had lived in London. At first they had made a point of going somewhere—an art gallery, a film they wanted to see, or a concert, but gradually things altered. Mrs Lang began to complain that she found the housework too much for her, even though Hannah did most of it in her off duty, and then, just for a little while, there had been the young man from the hospital pharmacy, who had taken Hannah out on several occasions. She hadn’t wanted to take him home, but she finally gave in to her mother’s request to meet him, and then sat and listened to her mother destroying, in the nicest possible way, the tentative friendship she and the young man had formed.

Not that her mother lied; she merely made it appear that Hannah was a dedicated nurse and moreover had promised her father when he died that she would live with her mother and look after her. Mrs Lang, without actually saying so, had led him to believe that she was suffering from something vague and incurable which necessitated constant loving attention. The young man hadn’t given up immediately; he asked Hannah out once more and she had accepted. But when she had mentioned it to her mother that lady said without a moment’s hesitation that she had invited several people to dinner on that particular evening and had relied upon Hannah to cook the meal. She had dissolved into easy tears, murmuring that she supposed that she was of no account any more and Hannah must certainly go out if she wished; the invitations could be cancelled. ‘The first dinner party I’d planned for months,’ she had finished plaintively. And the soft-hearted Hannah had hugged her and declared that she didn’t mind if she didn’t go out and she’d love to cook the dinner for their guests.