Off with the Old Love

He walked Rachel across the hall to the door leading to the nurses’ home, opened it, put the case inside and said, “I don’t dare to go a step further and certainly not at this hour of night. You are all right, Rachel?”

She lifted a grateful face to his. “Yes, thank you very much—I can’t thank you enough, Radmer—and I must stop calling you that now, mustn’t I? I’ll see you in the morning.”

She smiled at him, making a brave attempt to behave normally.

“Good night, Rachel.” He bent his head suddenly and kissed her hard on her surprised mouth, turned on his heel and walked away.

She picked up her case and started up the stairs. She had been feeling dreadful, rejected, undesirable and not worth a second look, but somehow his kiss had changed that. Somewhere, right at the bottom of her unhappiness, there was a small…

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.

Off With the Old Love

Betty Neels

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

THE OPERATION, a lengthy one, was, to all intents and purposes, over.

The man who had been bending over the still figure on the table for two hours or more straightened himself to his great height, spoke a few words to his registrar facing him, made sure that the anaesthetist was satisfied, peeled off his gloves and turned to his theatre sister.

‘Thanks, Sister. I believe we caught him in time.’ His voice was deep and quiet and rather slow and there were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes because he was smiling beneath his mask.

Rachel handed a needle holder to the registrar and a pair of scissors to the house surgeon assisting him. She said, ‘Yes, sir, I’m glad,’ and meant it. It had been a finicky case and she had watched Professor van Teule patiently cutting and snipping and plying his needle in his usual calm fashion. If he hadn’t been successful she would have been genuinely upset; she had worked for him for two years now and they got on splendidly together. He was a first-rate surgeon, a brilliant teacher and a stickler for perfection, all of which he concealed under a laconic manner which new house surgeons sometimes mistook for too easy-going a nature, an error they quickly discovered for themselves. Rachel liked him and admired him; they had a pleasant relationship at work but where he lived or what kind of a life he led away from the operating theatre she had no idea, nor had she ever bothered to find out. His tall vast person, his handsome face and his pleasant voice were as familiar to her as the cloak she wrapped around herself going on and off duty: comfortable and nice to have around but taken for granted.

She nodded to one of the theatre nurses now and the girl slipped out of the theatre behind the Professor to take his gown and mask and warn Dolly, the theatre maid, that he would want his coffee. It was the last case on the morning’s list and he had a teaching round at two o’clock. It was going on for one o’clock already and Rachel, with three brothers, had grown up with the conviction that a man needed to be fed regularly.

The registrar cast down his needle and put out a hand for the dressing and then stood back. ‘You do it, Rachel. You’re handy at it.’

He pulled off his gloves. ‘That was a nice bit of needlework,’ he commented. ‘If ever I’m unlucky enough to be mown down by a corporation dustcart, I hope it’ll be the Professor who is around to join the bits together again.’

‘Refuse collector,’ said Rachel, a stickler for the right word, ‘and don’t be morbid, George, you’ll frighten Billy.’

She twinkled at the young house surgeon as she arranged the dressing just so and then stood away from the table while the patient was wheeled away to the recovery room.

‘Coffee?’ she asked, taking off her mask and gloves and standing still for one of the nurses to untie her gown. ‘It’ll be in the office…’

She went over to where her staff nurse was supervising the clearing away of the used instruments. She was a young woman, but older than herself, a widow with two children at school, and her firm friend.

‘Norah, I’ll be in the office. Professor van Teule wants his next list altered; I’ll try and pin him down to doing it now before he disappears. Send Nurse Smithers to her dinner, will you? And Nurse Walters. Mr Sims’s list isn’t until two-thirty and we’ve got Mrs Pepys coming on at two o’clock.’

They exchanged speaking looks—Mrs Pepys, one of the part-time staff nurses, was tiresome and gave herself airs, talking down to the student nurses and reminding them all far too often that she was married to a descendant of the famous Samuel. ‘We’ll go to second dinner—at least, you go on time and ask them to keep mine for me, will you? And you scrub for the first case, I’ll take the second and Mrs Pepys can take the third,’—Rachel’s pretty face assumed a look of angelic innocence—‘ingrowing toenails!’

A subdued bellow from the other end of the theatre corridor gave her no time to say more. She joined the Professor and his colleagues in her office and listened without rancour while the registrar and Dr Carr, the anaesthetist, made pointed remarks about women gossiping.

‘Go on with you,’ said Rachel mildly, on the best of terms with them both, and poured her coffee and then replenished the Professor’s mug.

He was sitting on a quite inadequate chair which creaked alarmingly under his weight. ‘That will give way one day,’ she pointed out kindly. ‘Won’t you sit in mine, sir?’

‘Only when you are not here, Rachel.’ He watched her settle in her own chair. ‘And now, this list of mine…’

They discussed the changes amicably. The Professor did not offer his reasons for starting his list at eight o’clock in the morning in three days’ time, nor did Rachel evince the slightest curiosity as to why he expected her to struggle with her nurses’ off duty rota and juggle it to suit. He took it for granted that she was prepared to be scrubbed and ready for him at an hour when she was usually in her office, coping with paperwork while her nurses got the theatre ready.

He got up to go presently, taking his registrar and the house surgeon with him. At the door he turned to ask casually, ‘Your weekend off, Rachel?’

‘Yes. The theatre’s closed for cleaning, sir.’

He nodded. ‘Well, enjoy yourself.’

He wandered off to cast a sharp eye over his patient in the recovery room and Rachel began to enter details of the day’s work into her day book, dismissing him completely from her mind.

That done, she went along to theatre, to find Norah on the point of going to her dinner and the two junior nurses back on duty. She spent the next half-hour instructing them; they were very new to theatre work and a little scared and clumsy, but they were keen and they admired her hugely. A highly successful lesson was brought to its end by the appearance of Mrs Pepys, looking, as always, far too good for her surroundings. She bade Rachel good day and ignored the nurses.

‘Hello,’ said Rachel. ‘We’ve laid up for the first case—staff’s back in a few minutes, she’ll scrub. You lay for the second case, please, and take the third…’ She paused on her way to the door. ‘Ingrowing toenails.’

Mrs Pepys’ exquisitely made-up face screwed itself into distaste. ‘Sister, must I?’

Rachel’s thick dark brows lifted. ‘Staff’s off duty early, I’ve a pile of book work, but if you don’t feel you can cope…’

‘Of course I can cope, Sister.’ Mrs Pepys was furious at having her capabilities questioned but she didn’t say so. Rachel was a calm, good-tempered girl, slow to anger and kind-hearted, but she was also a strict theatre sister and her tongue, once she was roused, had a nasty cutting edge to it.

With the two nurses safely in the anaesthetic room, making it ready, and Mrs Pepys huffily collecting instrument packs ready to lay up the second case, Rachel went off to her dinner.

There were only two other sisters still in the dining room: Lucy Wilson from the accident room, who, since accidents never occurred to fit in with the day’s routine, was seldom at meals when everyone else was, and Sister Chalk, verging on retirement but still bearing the reputation of being a peppery tyrant. Rachel, who had trained under her on Men’s Medical, still treated her with caution.

Conversation, such as it was, was confined largely to Sister Chalk’s pithy opinion of the modern nurse, with Lucy and Rachel murmuring from time to time while they gobbled fish pie—always fish on Fridays—and something called a semolina shape. Presently they excused themselves and went their different ways. Dolly would have put a tray of tea in the office and Rachel, with five minutes to spare, was intent on reaching it as quickly as possible.

She took the short cut along the semi-basement passage, thus avoiding the visitors who would be pouring into the entrance hall and the wards, then took the stairs at the end two at a time to teeter on the top tread as Professor van Teule, appearing from the ground under her feet, put out a large arm to steady her.

‘Oh, hello, sir,’ said Rachel and beamed at him. He towered over her, but, since she was a big girl herself and tall, she had never let his size worry her. ‘Short cut, you know.’

‘I often use it myself,’ he told her placidly and let her go. He stood aside so that she could pass him and with another smile and a nod she started off along the passage which would bring her out in the theatre wing. He stood and watched her go, his face impassive, before he trod down the stairs.

Rachel hadn’t given him a second thought; she had five minutes more of her dinner time still. She hurried into her office, saw with satisfaction that the tea tray was on her desk, and stationed herself before the small square of mirror on the wall, the better to powder her nose and tidy her hair beneath her frilled cap. Her reflection was charming: big dark eyes, a straight nose—a little too long for beauty—and a generous mouth, the whole framed in glossy dark brown hair, wound into a thick plaited bun. She pulled a face at herself, rammed a hairpin firmly into place and sailed into the corridor on her way to theatre, where Norah was dealing competently with Mrs Pepys’s airs and graces and the junior nurses’ efforts to be helpful. There was a good ten minutes in hand. The two staff nurses joined her for tea and then went back to theatre so that the two student nurses might have theirs.

Rachel settled down to her desk work, interrupted almost at once by the arrival of Mr Sims and the anaesthetist who, of course, wanted tea as well. They were joined presently by Billy, who, since there was no more tea in the pot, contented himself with the biscuits left in the tin.

‘What is the first case, Rachel?’ asked Mr Sims, who knew quite well.

‘That PP—left inguinal hernia. Norah’s scrubbing.’

‘I want you scrubbed for the second case.’

‘Yes, I know, sir,’ said Rachel tranquilly. ‘It’s that nasty perf.’

‘And the last?’ Mr Sims was a shade pompous but he always was.

‘Ingrowing toenail. Mrs Pepys will scrub.’ She added, ‘Is Billy doing it?’

‘Good idea. That will allow me to leave George to keep an eye on him.’

The afternoon went well with none of the hold-ups which so often lengthened a list. Norah went off duty at four o’clock, and the heavy second case was dealt with by five o’clock, leaving Billy to tackle the ingrowing toenail. By six o’clock everyone but Rachel and one nurse had gone and, leaving her colleague to finish cleaning the theatre and readying it for the night, Rachel sat down once more to finish her books. She would be off duty at eight o’clock and had every intention of driving home that evening. She allowed her thoughts to stray to the two days ahead of her and sighed with anticipatory pleasure before finishing her neat entries.

She had a bed-sitting room in the nurses’ home because, although she would have preferred to live out, there was always the chance that she might be needed on duty unexpectedly. She sped there as soon as she had handed over the keys to the night staff nurse, and tore into the clothes she had put ready—a tweed skirt and a sweater, for the evenings were still chilly at the end of March—snatched up a jacket and her overnight bag, and, pausing only long enough to exchange a word here and there with such of her friends as were off duty, hurried down to the car park where her car, an elderly small Fiat, stood in company with the souped-up vehicles favoured by the younger housemen and divided by a thin railing from the consultants’ BMWs, Mercedes and Bentleys. As she got into the Fiat she glanced across to their stately ranks; Professor van Teule’s Rolls Royce wasn’t there. Fleetingly, she wondered where it was and then dismissed the thought as she concentrated on getting out of London and on to the M3 as quickly as possible.

Her home was in Hampshire, some fifty miles distant—a pleasant old house on the edge of the village of Wherwell, with a deep thatched roof and a garden full of old-fashioned flowers in which her mother delighted. She had never lived anywhere else; her father had been the doctor there for thirty years and, since her eldest brother intended to join him in the practice, she supposed that it would always be home.

The streets were fairly empty and Rachel made good time. Once on the M3, she pushed the little car to its limit until she came to the end of the motorway and took the Andover road, to turn off at the crossroads by Harewood Forest. She was almost home now. She drove through the quiet village and presently saw the lights of her home.

She turned in at the open gateway and stopped at the side of the house. Her father had the kitchen door open before she had got out of the car and she went joyfully into the warmth of the room beyond. Her mother was there and her eldest brother, Tom.

‘Darling! So nice to see you.’ Her mother gave her a great hug. ‘You’ll want your supper…’

Her father kissed her cheek. ‘Had a good trip from the hospital?’ he wanted to know. ‘You look very well.’

Tom gave her a brotherly slap. ‘Revoltingly healthy,’ he pronounced, ‘and putting on weight, too.’

‘No—am I? There’s too much of me already.’ She grinned cheerfully at his teasing. ‘How are Edward and Nick?’

‘Doing well.’ It was her father who answered. ‘Edward’s done excellently in his exams and Nick’s settling down nicely.’

They had sat down at the old-fashioned table with its Windsor chairs at each end and the smaller wheel-backs, three each side. They were joined by Mutt, the labrador, and Everett, the family cat, who sat quietly while they had the soup and cold ham, taking a long time over them for there was so much to talk about.

‘How’s Natalie?’ Rachel wanted to know, passing her cup for more tea.

‘Fine. She’s coming over tomorrow.’ Tom had got engaged to a girl in the next village—the vet’s daughter and someone they had all known for most of their lives. ‘How about your Melville?’

Melville was a producer in television and it was because of him that Rachel neither noticed nor encouraged the advances of quite a few of the medical staff at the hospital. She was quite prepared to be friendly but that was all; she was wholly loyal to Melville and, being a modest girl, had never quite got over her delight and surprise when he had made it clear, after they had met at a party, that he considered her to be his. True, he hadn’t mentioned getting married, but he took her out and about, sent her flowers and, when she had firmly refused to spend a weekend at Brighton with him, had taken her refusal with good grace and no hard feelings. Indeed, he had somehow made her feel rather silly about it and she was honest enough to agree with him. She was, after all, twenty-five and sensible. Too sensible, perhaps. She smiled. ‘Up to his eyes in work but he’s collecting me for a drink on Sunday evening. I’ve got to be back because Professor van Teule wants to operate at eight o’clock on Monday morning.’

Her father lifted an eyebrow. ‘Working you hard? Something tricky?’

‘No, the usual list—most of his cases are tricky, anyway. I expect he wants to get away early.’

‘You like working for him still, darling?’ asked her mother.

‘Oh, yes. He’s always good-natured and easy—we get on famously.’

Her mother gave an inward regretful sigh. She had met Melville only once, and she hadn’t taken to him. This Professor sounded nice—he would be married, of course, and probably middle-aged… She asked, ‘How old is he?’

Rachel bit into an apple. ‘Do you know, I’ve no idea? Anything between thirty-five and forty-five, I suppose. I’ve never looked to see.’

They cleared the supper dishes and then, since it was now late, went to bed.

The weekend went too quickly. Rachel, country born and bred, wondered for the hundredth time what on earth had possessed her to choose a job which forced her to live in London. But she had never wanted to do anything else and her family had let her go at eighteen to train at one of the big London teaching hospitals and made a great success of it, too. They were proud of her, although her mother’s pride was thinned by the wish that Rachel would marry, but she never mentioned this.

Rachel drove back after tea; Melville wouldn’t be free until half-past eight and she had plenty of time. It was a blustery evening and there was little traffic, even on the motorway. She parked the Fiat and made her way to her room where she changed into a dark brown suit and a crêpe blouse and exchanged her sensible low-heeled shoes for high heels. Melville liked well-dressed women; indeed, he didn’t care for her job since, as he explained to her in his well modulated voice, it necessitated her wearing the most outlandish clothes.

‘Well, I’d look a fool tripping round the theatre in high heels and a smart hat,’ Rachel had pointed out reasonably, not really believing him.

She had ten minutes to spare; she nipped along to the little pantry the sisters shared in their corridor and found Lucy making tea. Melville had said drinks, which probably meant nothing but bits and pieces to eat with them and she had had no supper. ‘Mother gave me a fruit cake,’ she said. ‘Bring that pot of tea with you and have a slice.’

Lucy followed her back to her room and kicked the door shut. ‘Going out? It’s a beastly night but I suppose Melville will see you don’t get cold and wet. I like the shoes—new, aren’t they?’

Rachel agreed guiltily. Since she had started going out with Melville she had spent more on clothes than she could afford, and they were the kind of clothes she wouldn’t normally have bought. Her taste ran to tweed suits and simply cut jersey dresses with an occasional splurge on something glamorous for the hospital ball or some special occasion.

She drank her tea and gobbled up her cake. ‘I must fly…’ She took a last look in the mirror and Lucy said laughingly, ‘Do him good to be kept waiting, and you needn’t bother to prink; you look good in an old sack.’

Rachel gave her jacket a tug. ‘I’m getting fat,’ she worried. ‘It doesn’t notice because I’m tall, but it will—Melville doesn’t like fat girls.’

‘You’re not fat.’ Lucy picked up the teapot, preparatory to departing to her own room. ‘Just generously curved. There is a difference. Have fun, love.’

Melville’s car wasn’t in the forecourt. Rachel peered round hoping to see him and then took a backward step back into the entrance hall. Her heel landed on something yielding and she turned sharply to find herself face to face with Professor van Teule’s solid front.

She said guiltily, ‘I’m so sorry—have I hurt you badly? I had no idea…’

He glanced down at his elegantly shod foot. ‘I scarcely noticed.’ He eyed her deliberately. ‘You’re very smart. Going out for the evening? If he’s not here you’d better come inside—you’ll catch a cold standing here.’

She obeyed his matter-of-fact advice, and, when he enquired if she had had a pleasant weekend, said that yes, she had. ‘But over too soon—it always is.’ She glanced at his placid face. ‘Is there a case in theatre? You’re here…’

‘There was. I’m on my way home.’

She hardly heard him. Melville’s Porsche had stopped outside and he was opening the entrance door and coming towards them. She half glanced at the Professor, a polite goodbye on her tongue, only he wasn’t going away; he stood, completely at ease, watching Melville who caught her hand and cried, ‘Darling, I’m late. Do forgive me—I got caught up at the studio. You know how it is.’

She said hello and added almost crossly, ‘This is Professor van Teule—I work for him. Professor, this is Melville Grant—he’s in television.’

‘How very interesting,’ observed the Professor. ‘How do you do, Mr Grant.’ He didn’t shake hands, only smiled in a sleepy way and patted Rachel on a shoulder. ‘Don’t let me keep you from your free evening.’

He went on standing there, so that after a minute Rachel murmured a goodbye and went to the door with Melville at her heels.

It shouldn’t have been like that, she thought peevishly—he should have walked away instead of seeing them off the premises like a benevolent uncle.

Melville opened the car door for her with something of a flourish. He gave a quick glance behind him as he did so to see if the Professor was watching. He was.

‘Sleepy kind of chap, Professor What’s-his-name. Don’t know that I’d care to have him nod off over my appendix or whatever.’

Womanlike, Rachel sprang at once to the defence of the man who had annoyed her. ‘You couldn’t have a better surgeon,’ she declared roundly, ‘and he’s far too busy to do appendicectomies—he specialises in complicated abdominal surgery and he’s marvellous with severe internal injuries; even when it seems hopeless, he…’

Melville drove out of the forecourt. ‘My dear girl, spare me the gruesome details, I beg you. Tell me, did you have a happy time with your family? I can see that it did you good, you’re more beautiful than ever.’

Something any girl would like to hear and, to a girl in love, doubly welcome. ‘Lovely, but far too short.’

He had turned the car in the direction of the West End. ‘I thought we might have a drink…’ He named a fashionable club. ‘I had dinner with the producer and you will have had a meal, of course.’

Rachel had her mouth open to say that she hadn’t but she had no chance to speak, for he went on, ‘There’s a party next week—you simply must come, darling. Buy yourself something eye-catching; everyone who’s anyone will be there.’

She thought guiltily of the dresses she had bought in the last few months, worn a few times and then pushed to the back of the wardrobe because Melville had hinted, oh, so nicely, that to be seen more than a couple of times in the same dress just wasn’t on. She said quietly, ‘I’ll have no chance to go shopping and I’ll be too whacked to go to any parties.’ She turned to smile at him. ‘You’ll have to find another girl, Melville.’