Heidelberg Wedding

“This is really very nice, and it’s such a heavenly day, too.” Eugenia gave a happy sigh. “I love April.”

The calm expression on her companion’s face didn’t alter. “I must agree, but I think I’ll wait for May.”

She turned a puzzled face to Mr. Grenfell. “Why do you say that?”

“Somebody—Edward Way Teale, I think—wrote ‘All things seem possible in May.’”

She was just as puzzled. “Oh, are you—that is, do you plan to get married then?”

He said gravely, “You take the very words from my mouth, Eugenia.”

For some reason she felt depressed. Mr. Grenfell’s choice of a wife was his own business, of course, but she couldn’t help feeling that if he married Miriam he would be making the mistake of a lifetime.

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.

Heidelberg Wedding

Betty Neels

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

A CHURCH CLOCK somewhere close to the hospital struck the hour and Sister Eugenia Smith sighed, put down her pen, gave her muslin cap an unnecessary twitch and got to her feet, to walk, as she had done on so many previous occasions, out of her office and into the ward. She went unhurriedly, casting an eye here and there as she passed, to make sure that everything was just so, and came to a halt by Staff Nurse Bristow, waiting with her bundle of charts under one arm while one of the student nurses hovered with a trolley, equipped with all the odds and ends which might be required on the round. Eugenia smiled widely at her right hand as she joined her. ‘One day,’ she said softly, ‘I shall leave the office a few seconds late and Mr Grenfell will arrive a few seconds early—that’ll make history!’

She composed her features into a suitable seriousness as the swing doors were pushed open and the Senior Consultant Surgeon strode through them, ready to make his weekly round. Hatty Bristow, watching him greet Sister Smith with impersonal courtesy, wondered for the hundredth time how it was possible for the pair of them to be so indifferent to each other, for they were surely meant to fall in love at first sight; Mr Grenfell, with his tremendous height and size, his lint-fair hair and sleepy blue eyes, and Sister Smith, dark-haired, dark-eyed and lovely to look at—a tall girl, generously built. Hatty, mousey-haired and flat-chested, envied her from the bottom of a loyal heart. She considered that Eugenia was throwing herself away on Humphrey Parsons, the Medical Registrar at St Clare’s, although he was a good-looking young man, clever at his work and with a charm she had never trusted—but then he had never bothered himself over her; she was a plain girl and shy, and she was ready to admit that perhaps that was why she didn’t like Sister Smith being engaged to him. And as for Mr Grenfell, he was engaged too—to a beanpole of a blonde, beautifully made up and dressed, who had come to the ward at Christmas and ignored everyone. Not nearly good enough for him, Hatty had decided. She sighed, a shade too loudly so that Mr Grenfell looked at her, and when she went red, smiled nicely and wished her a good morning before turning to Sister Smith.

His polite: ‘Shall we start, Sister?’ received an equally polite: ‘Certainly, sir,’ and she led the way to the first bed, followed by Mr Grenfell, his registrar, his house surgeon, Hatty Bristow, the lady social worker, in case Mr Grenfell should require her services, and hovering on the perimeter, Nurse Sims and her trolley.

It was a small ward, only twelve beds, none of them ever empty for more than a few hours, for the waiting list was a long one, and although St Clare’s was an old hospital, the chest unit was modern, well equipped and meticulously run by Eugenia. She had taken over the ward three years ago from Sister Atkins, a dear old thing thankful to retire from the modern world of a profession suddenly full of technology which she had never quite understood. Eugenia had realised at once that Mr Grenfell was brimming over with new ideas and spent the first enthusiastic six months carrying them out, marvelling the while that he had never so much as hinted to Sister Atkins that he had them in mind. By the end of that time, the ward had been modernised, equipped with the very latest of surgical aids, and ready to admit the steady flow of patients in Mr Grenfell’s care.

And he had achieved the same results with the men’s ward at the opposite end of the wing, getting exactly what he wanted with a calm determination which never admitted of defeat, and always very pleasantly. Eugenia couldn’t remember ever seeing him in a really nasty temper; true, if something had gone badly wrong, his handsome face became a mask of blandness and his voice, never loud, became a deeper rumble. But he had never told anyone off in the ward, waiting to do that in decent privacy, although she had never been a witness of such a happening. By all accounts, though, a few short sentences from him were far more effective than the occasional loud-voiced complaints of some lesser men. Indeed, she had seen some luckless student standing quite unabashed while a senior man ticked him off in front of his companions, and that same student, requested in Mr Grenfell’s quiet voice to see him in his office later, turn as white as his coat, so that she had felt compelled to fortify him with strong coffee before he obeyed the summons.

Now, after three years, she knew exactly what Mr Grenfell liked, and being a good nurse, endeavoured to give it to him; punctuality to the second, short, factual answers to his questions, and a devotion to her work which ignored the clock on occasions. Not that she didn’t rebel against these at times, especially when Humphrey had arranged an evening out together which had to be curtailed or even abandoned altogether because an emergency had been admitted or a patient had had a relapse… Humphrey tended to be a little impatient on these occasions, and, for that matter, so did she.

Eugenia took the first of the charts from Hatty’s hand, gave Mr Grenfell the board from the end of Mrs Dunn’s bed and took up her station opposite him. Mrs Dunn, a cheerful cockney who had lived within a stone’s throw of the hospital for most of her life, had been operated upon two days previously for what she described as ‘a nasty old chest’, and which Mr Grenfell, out of her hearing, referred to as pyothorax, brought about by a sketchy convalescence from pneumonia and several wasted months of sampling every cough and cold remedy on the chemist’s shelves.

Mr Grenfell sat himself down in comfort on the side of her bed, blandly disregarding Eugenia’s faint frown and well aware that no one other than himself would dare to do so. ‘How’s the chest?’ he wanted to know.

Mrs Dunn summoned a smile. ‘So-so, and don’t go telling me what you’ve done, because I don’t want ter know, see? When I’m on my feet, that’s time enough. And I’ll thank yer ter take out that tube that’s hanging over the bed…’

‘All in good time, Mrs Dunn. Sister shall take it out for you tomorrow. It’s doing a good job of work there, so bear with it.’

Mrs Dunn snorted weakly. ‘I won’t say ‘as ’ow yer not pretty ’ot stuff at yer job, Sister too, though what a pretty thing like ’er’s doing in this dump beats me!’

Mr Grenfell turned to look at Eugenia, studying her through half closed eyes. ‘Yes, she is pretty, isn’t she?’ he observed. ‘She’s also very good at her job, so just you do as she tells you.’ He got up, took the chart from Eugenia’s hand and read it, scribbled a line or two and handed it back. Their eyes met for a moment, pleasantly indifferent to each other.

The next three patients were within a day or so of going home, so beyond a brief examination of them, and a few instructions to Harry Parker, his Registrar, Mr Grenfell didn’t linger, but the next case, a teenager with chest stab wounds, took up a good deal of his time. The girl wasn’t doing as well as she should. Without speaking, Eugenia handed him the chart and pointed unobtrusively to the raised pulse and temperature. Mr Grenfell frowned. ‘Antibiotics?’ He then looked at Harry.

They weren’t doing much good, indeed they had been changed twice.

‘I’ll take a look, Sister,’ said Mr Grenfell, and waited while curtains were drawn, the trolley wheeled nearer and the patient got ready. The wounds were small, but then stab wounds always were, almost not to be seen. There was nothing wrong as far as could be seen, so he left Eugenia to make the girl comfortable and wandered off down the middle of the ward with Harry and the house surgeon. On the way to the next patient he paused to say to Eugenia: ‘I’ll have that girl back in theatre this afternoon, Sister, two o’clock. Usual pre-op treatment and Harry will write up the pre-med. There’s some sepsis there and I’ll have to look for it. Don’t tell her until you have to.’ He ruffled through the chart he was still holding. ‘She’s over eighteen? What about a consent form?’

‘No, she’s fifteen, but I’ve got her mother’s phone number—I’ll ask her to come right away.’ Her lovely eyes studied his calm face. ‘What shall I tell her?’

‘I’ll see her if you like. Try and get her here by one-thirty, will you?’

Eugenia nodded and they made their way to the next bed, its occupant a sprightly eighty-year-old with fractured ribs and lacerations of the lung. She had been admitted during the night and the lengthy business of examination began. Harry had already seen her, of course, but it was left to Mr Grenfell to decide what to do for her. Eugenia, anxious to get the patients’ dinners served, thought him tiresomely slow; they were barely halfway round the ward. Her mind ran on ahead of her, reviewing the day. There was the girl for theatre, a handful of patients for X-ray and physiotherapy, patients to be got up and put to bed again, teas, medicines and a pile of tiresome little chores to do in the office. And she was off at five. Humphrey was off too, and they were going to spend the evening together; rather a special evening—dinner and dancing, in celebration of Humphrey’s birthday. She began to be aware that Mr Grenfell was looking at her and went faintly pink, feeling guilty because her attention most unforgivably had wandered.

He didn’t say anything, which made her feel even guiltier, but gave her some fresh instructions about the old lady’s treatment and passed on to the next bed; a straightforward chest surgery, going along nicely. Eugenia received directions about discontinuing the drainage, removing tubes and getting the patient on her feet and waited for Mr Grenfell to inspect the next patient; she knew him well enough by now to recognise that this was one of the days when he wasn’t to be hurried, and since she liked him in a vague impersonal way, she made no effort to urge him on. There was a faint smell of fish and soup coming from the ward kitchen, and her generous mouth twitched into a tiny smile as she saw his nostrils flare, but it made no difference to his rate of progress; he finished the round without hurrying, and at her pleasant: ‘You’ll have coffee, sir?’ thanked her mildly and followed her into the office. She had time to hiss instructions about dinners to the attendant Hatty before she went past him and sat down at her desk.

Harry came with them, and the house surgeon, but there wasn’t room for anyone else. Mr Grenfell bade the lady social worker a polite goodbye, adding the rider that he would see her presently on the men’s side, then he sat himself on the edge of Eugenia’s desk. ‘I’ll be bringing half a dozen students with me on Friday afternoon,’ he told her. ‘The round will be rather longer than my usual one, I’m afraid. You’ll be on duty?’

She had arranged to leave after lunch because Humphrey was free and it was an opportunity for them to browse round Selfridges pricing cookers, electric irons, kitchen equipment and so on. Humphrey intended to start married life with his home properly furnished down to the last pepperpot; a praiseworthy ambition which unfortunately meant that marriage was out of the question until they had saved enough money between them to achieve his wish. Eugenia, when they were first engaged, had declared that she really didn’t mind if they had no stair carpet and odd tea-cups, but Humphrey wouldn’t hear of it; he came from a solid middle class home, where everything matched, was polished and had its allotted place in a pristine household. And since his father had died, it had become even more pristine, so that Eugenia, when she visited her future mother-in-law, found herself plumping up cushions if she had leaned against them. If Humphrey had smoked she would probably have emptied the ashtrays as well, but he held strong views about the dangers of tobacco. Views not shared by Mr Grenfell, who with a careless: ‘May I?’ had taken out his pipe and was busy filling it while she poured the coffee.

She said with a briskness to disguise her disappointment: ‘Yes, sir, I’ll be here. Will you want anything special? And any particular patients?’

‘Oh, Mrs Dunn for a start—she’s so cheerfully unaware of her condition that she’ll make a complete recovery.’ He named several more and added: ‘There will be two new patients tomorrow morning—I saw them in OPD this morning. I don’t think there’s much we can do for either of them, but I’ll see what can be done.’ He turned to Harry and gave him instructions and then sat puffing at his pipe and drinking his coffee. He took up a good deal of space on the desk, and Eugenia thought vexedly that her neat piles of papers would be a fine muddle. Being engaged to Humphrey had turned her into a tidy girl. Sure enough, presently Mr Grenfell got up, spilling X-ray forms, diet sheets and off-duty lists all over the floor.

He got down to pick them up, bundling them up any old how and putting them back on the desk so carelessly that some of them fell down again. ‘Sorry, Sister,’ he said mildly.

‘It’s of no consequence,’ said Eugenia frostily, and was quite taken aback when he observed: ‘You’re quite right, it isn’t. One can be too tidy, it makes for a warped way of living.’

A remark which left her unable to think of a suitable reply. She accompanied him to the ward door, bade him a civil good morning and watched him meander away, with his two companions, already late for his round in the men’s ward on the other side of the corridor. Just for a few seconds she wondered what kind of a private life he had, and then forgot the thought, already busy planning the afternoon’s work—she would have to spare a nurse to go to theatre and pray heaven Mr Grenfell made a quick job of whatever he intended to do.

It was unfortunate that he did no such thing, although she had to admit that his meticulous surgery had probably saved the girl’s life. It had taken a good deal of exploration to discover the source of the sepsis and still longer to put it right. The girl had gone to the recovery room and then returned to the ward well after four o’clock. Eugenia hadn’t got off duty until almost six, because however much she wanted to, she couldn’t leave the ward until she was sure that the girl was going to be all right. Hatty was a splendid nurse, but Eugenia had always held the notion that the more senior you were, the more you had to be prepared to give up off-duty if the need arose. It wouldn’t be fair to Hatty to leave her with an ill patient, the rest of the ward to run, the report to write and the nurses to manage. Even when she at last felt justified in going, she had walked slap into Mr Grenfell coming up the stairs two at a time. Naturally, he had stopped to ask her about her patient and she had stood for another ten minutes, listening carefully to his observations on the case. She even offered to go back with him to the ward, but he refused this with a cheerful: ‘Hatty’s there, isn’t she? A sound young woman. I’ll let Harry know if there’s anything to be altered. Have a pleasant evening.’

He had gone, disappearing down the corridor at the head of the stairs at a great rate.

By the time she had run a bath, decided which dress to wear and done her nails, it was very nearly time to meet Humphrey. She wasted a few minutes inspecting herself in the wardrobe mirror; last year’s dress was still quite wearable, but anyone with an eye to fashion would know that it was just that. A new one would be nice, it would cheer up the bleak days of a cold March, but it wasn’t necessary, as Humphrey had pointed out, they wouldn’t be going to any dances now that the spate of hospital balls and Christmas festivities were behind them, far better for her to save the money. And she had saved it, because, after all, he had been quite right, only somewhere at the back of her mind was a rebellious wish to splash out on a new outfit, not something sensible, but high fashion, real silk or real wool, and not bothering to ask the price.

She gathered up her purse and her coat and put her evening slippers on, reflecting that she would be going home the following week; Humphrey would be on call and hospital-bound. She had a sudden longing to be home now, cooking supper for her father and Becky and Bruce, wrestling with their homework, and after they were in bed, sitting by the fire with Plum the cat on her lap, while her father told her of some rare book he’d picked up in the Charing Cross Road. She sighed soundlessly and flew down to the nurses’ home entrance, anxious not to keep Humphrey waiting.

She was a few minutes late, a fact which he had pointed out to her gently as he kissed her and ushered her into the car. ‘I daresay you’ve had a busy day,’ he observed. ‘I know I have.’ He got in beside her and she turned her head and smiled at him. He was a good-looking man, dark-haired and as tall as she was, good at his job and at the age of thirty, fairly sure of a secure future. She had often wondered why he hadn’t married sooner, but when she had got to know him better she could understand that security meant a lot to him, so that although he had had girl-friends in plenty he had never been serious with them, only with her, because she was older and sensible as well as very pretty. She had been glad he thought her pretty, but she wasn’t sure about being sensible and she wasn’t all that old; twenty-six was still quite a way off thirty… It would be another two years before they could marry too, unless she could persuade him that fitted carpets and a three-piece suite could not compensate for those two lost years.

But she wasn’t going to think about that now; they had the evening before them and she intended to enjoy every moment of it. It was, after all, an occasion; a thirtieth birthday was an important event and justified the spending of money, and they hadn’t had an evening out like this one since… She paused to think about that; so long ago that she couldn’t remember what they had celebrated. She asked: ‘When was the last time you splashed out like this, Humphrey?’

‘Our engagement, eighteen months ago.’

She said: ‘Oh,’ uncertainly, and then: ‘Perhaps the next time it’ll be to celebrate our wedding.’

‘That’s hardly likely, darling.’ Humphrey’s voice was, as always, reasonable. ‘Even if we had a quiet wedding, we would have a few guests, I imagine, there’d be no point in celebrating twice over, would there?’

A sensible reply which for some reason annoyed her. ‘Are we any nearer deciding the date?’ she asked, and felt instantly mean at his quiet: ‘Well, no, my dear, I only wish we were.’ He gave her a quick sideways glance. ‘I want to begin our married life together with as much comfort for you as I can manage.’

‘Sorry—I didn’t mean to be beastly. Only London gets me down at this time of the year. It’s all right in the country—primroses and catkins and the first daffodils and lambs…birds singing…’ She stopped because moaning in that self-pitying fashion was of no help to Humphrey—besides, never having lived in the country he wasn’t all that interested. Memories of her home in Wiltshire came crowding back, but she pushed them away again; after all, her father and the twins seemed happy enough in the little terraced house in Islington; he was headmaster at a nearby school and Bruce and Becky were doing their GCSEs at the Upper School with every prospect of getting good passes. They seldom talked about Chidcoate Magna, and Eugenia hoped that in time they would integrate into the life of the city around them; something she had never been able to do.

They were going to the Savoy. Humphrey parked the car and they went into the hotel, parking their coats and meeting again in the foyer. ‘This is fun,’ whispered Eugenia as they entered the restaurant and were led to their table. She hoped they would have a drink and then dance before they ate, but Humphrey pointed out that both of them had had sketchy meals that day; dinner, eaten at leisure, would do them more good. They could dance afterwards for as long as she wished.

She sipped her sherry, her feet tapping soundlessly in time to the music. Of course she was hungry, but she longed to dance. The music came to an end and she studied the menu. They were to have the set menu, for as Humphrey had pointed out earlier on, the food was so good it would be a treat anyway, and why pay exorbitant prices when the same food, or almost the same, could be had on the set menu. Eugenia agreed, stifling the rebellious wish to order the most extravagant dishes she could find. There must be something horrid about me, she thought, I’ve done nothing but find fault the whole evening. She blamed her day for that; and that wasn’t like her either, usually she took the days as they came, some slack some so busy that there was only time for a snatched cup of tea and a sandwich. Then she thought longingly of her days off and catching Humphrey’s eye, wanted to make amends for her bad mood. ‘It looks gorgeous—I’ll have the prawns, I think, and then the chicken Marengo.’

After that she laid herself out to be a delightful companion, listening to his considered opinions about medicine, the National Health Service, the need to keep up to date with his studies, his regret that he couldn’t see more of his widowed mother. Eugenia listened with a sympathetic ear, although deep down inside her, buried under her loyalty to Humphrey, was dislike of that lady, a small frail person, with a wispy appearance which hid an obstinate wish to have her own way whenever possible. She lived very comfortably in a nice little house in Hampstead, and whenever they went to see her, she complained in the gentlest possible manner that it was just too far from St Clare’s for Humphrey to go home each day. ‘But of course,’ she had observed in a sad voice, ‘his career must come first—you’ll remember that when you’re married, I hope, Eugenia.’

Eugenia dismissed her future mother-in-law from her mind and attacked the prawns with relish, to have the edge taken off her appetite by Humphrey’s: ‘How splendid it would have been if Mother could have joined us.’

She smiled and agreed; he was a good son and she admired him for that. He would be a good husband too, she had no doubt, providing for her to the best of his ability, seeing that the children were decently educated… She said warmly: ‘I expect you’re disappointed and I am sure she is, but her bridge evening does mean a lot to her, doesn’t it? And this was the only evening we had free.’