Romantic Encounter

“Your personal life is of no interest to me.”

Renowned consultant Alexander Fitzgibbon had made it clear from the start that their relationship was to remain strictly professional. Yet Florence couldn’t help but wonder what lay behind his cool, efficient exterior. If only she could break down the barrier and reach the man behind it.…

“Do you intend to leave at the end of the month?” he asked idly.

“Leave? Here? No…” She took a sharp breath. “Do you want me to? I dare say I annoy you. Not everyone can get on with everyone else,” she explained in a reasonable voice. “You know, a kind of mutual antipathy…”

He remained grave, but his eyes gleamed with amusement. “I have no wish for you to leave, Miss Napier. You suit me very well—you are quick and sensible and the patients appear to like you and, any grumbling you may do about awkward hours, you keep to yourself. We must contrive to rub along together, must we not?”

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, and her spirit and genuine talent live on in all her stories.

Romantic Encounter

Betty Neels

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

FLORENCE, CLEANING THE upstairs windows of the vicarage, heard the car coming up the lane and, when it slowed, poked her head over the top sash to see whom it might be. The elegant dark grey Rolls-Royce, sliding to a halt before her father’s front door, was unexpected enough to cause her to lean her splendid person even further out of the window so that she might see who was in it. The passenger got out and she recognised him at once. Mr Wilkins, the consultant surgeon she had worked for before she had left the hospital in order to look after her mother and run the house until she was well again—a lengthy business of almost a year. Perhaps he had come to see if she was ready to return to her ward; unlikely, though, for it had been made clear to her that her post would be filled and she would have to take her chance at getting whatever was offered if she wanted to go to work at Colbert’s again; besides, a senior consultant wouldn’t come traipsing after a ward sister…

The driver of the car was getting out, a very tall, large man with pepper and salt hair. He stood for a moment, looking around him, waiting for Mr Wilkins to join him, and then looked up at her. His air of amused surprise sent her back inside again, banging her head as she went, but she was forced to lean out again when Mr Wilkins caught sight of her and called up to her to come down and let them in.

There was no time to do more than wrench the clean duster off her fiery hair. She went down to the hall and opened the door.

Mr Wilkins greeted her jovially. ‘How are you after all these months?’ he enquired; he eyed the apron bunched over an elderly skirt and jumper. ‘I do hope we haven’t called at an inconvenient time?’

Florence’s smile was frosty. ‘Not at all, sir, we are spring-cleaning.’

Mr Wilkins, who lived in a house with so many gadgets that it never needed spring-cleaning, looked interested. ‘Are you really? But you’ll spare us a moment to talk, I hope? May I introduce Mr Fitzgibbon?’ He turned to his companion. ‘This is Florence Napier.’

She offered a rather soapy hand and had it engulfed in his large one. His, ‘How do you do?’ was spoken gravely, but she felt that he was amused again, and no wonder—she must look a fright.

Which, of course, she did, but a beautiful fright; nothing could dim the glory of her copper hair, tied back carelessly with a boot-lace, and nothing could detract from her lovely face and big blue eyes with their golden lashes. She gave him a cool look and saw that his eyes were grey and intent, so she looked away quickly and addressed herself to Mr Wilkins.

‘Do come into the drawing-room. Mother’s in the garden with the boys, and Father’s writing his sermon. Would you like to have some coffee?’

She ushered them into the big, rather shabby room, its windows open on to the mild April morning. ‘Do sit down,’ she begged them. ‘I’ll let Mother know that you’re here and fetch in the coffee.’

‘It is you we have come to see, Florence,’ said Mr Wilkins.

‘Me? Oh, well—all the same, I’m sure Mother will want to meet you.’

She opened the old-fashioned window wide and jumped neatly over the sill with the unselfconsciousness of a child, and Mr Fitzgibbon’s firm mouth twitched at the corners. ‘She’s very professional on the ward,’ observed Mr Wilkins, ‘and very neat. Of course, if she’s cleaning the house I suppose she gets a little untidy.’

Mr Fitzgibbon agreed blandly and then stood up as Florence returned, this time with her mother and using the door. Mrs Napier was small and slim and pretty, and still a little frail after her long illness. Florence made the introductions, settled her mother in a chair and went away to make the coffee.

‘Oo’s that, then?’ asked Mrs Buckett, who came up twice a week from the village to do the rough, and after years of faithful service considered herself one of the family.

‘The surgeon I worked for at Colbert’s—and he’s brought a friend with him.’

‘What for?’

‘I’ve no idea. Be a dear and put the kettle on while I lay a tray. I’ll let you know as soon as I can find out.’

While the kettle boiled she took off her apron, tugged the jumper into shape and poked at her hair. ‘Not that it matters,’ she told Mrs Buckett. ‘I looked an absolute frump when they arrived.’

‘Go on with yer, love—you couldn’t look a frump if you tried. Only yer could wash yer ’ands.’

Florence had almost decided that she didn’t like Mr Fitzgibbon, but she had to admit that his manners were nice. He got up and took the tray from her and didn’t sit down again until she was sitting herself. His bedside manner would be impeccable…

They drank their coffee and made small talk, but not for long. Her mother put her cup down and got to her feet. ‘Mr Wilkins tells me that he wants to talk to you, Florence, and I would like to go back to the garden and see what the boys are doing with the cold frame.’

She shook hands and went out of the room, and they all sat down again.

‘Your mother is well enough for you to return to work, Florence?’

‘Yes. Dr Collins saw her a few days ago. I must find someone to come in for an hour or two each day, but I must find a job first.’ She saw that Mr Wilkins couldn’t see the sense of that, but Mr Fitzgibbon had understood at once, although he didn’t speak.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Mr Wilkins briskly. ‘Well, I’ve nothing for you, I’m afraid, but Mr Fitzgibbon has.’

‘I shall need a nurse at my consulting-rooms in two weeks’ time. I mentioned it to Mr Wilkins, and he remembered you and assures me that you would suit me very well.’

What about you suiting me? reflected Florence, and went a little pink because he was staring at her in that amused fashion again, reading her thoughts. ‘I don’t know anything about that sort of nursing,’ she said, ‘I’ve always worked in hospital; I’m not sure—’

‘Do not imagine that the job is a sinecure. I have a large practice and I operate in a number of hospitals, specialising in chest surgery. My present nurse accompanies me and scrubs for the cases, but perhaps you don’t feel up to that?’

‘I’ve done a good deal of Theatre work, Mr Fitzgibbon,’ said Florence, nettled.

‘In that case, I think that you might find the job interesting. You would be free at the weekends, although I should warn you that I am occasionally called away at such times and you would need to hold yourself in readiness to accompany me. My rooms are in Wimpole Street, and Sister Brice has lodgings close by. I suppose you might take them over if they suited you. As to salary…’

He mentioned a sum which caused her pretty mouth to drop open.

‘That’s a great deal more—’

‘Of course it is; you would be doing a great deal more work and your hours will have to fit in with mine.’

‘This nurse who is leaving,’ began Florence.

‘To get married.’ His voice was silky. ‘She has been with me for five years.’ He gave her a considered look. ‘Think it over and let me know. I’ll give you a ring tomorrow—shall we say around three o’clock?’

She had the strong feeling that if she demurred at that he would still telephone then, and expect her to answer, too. ‘Very well, Mr Fitzgibbon,’ she said in a non-committal voice, at the same time doing rapid and rather inaccurate sums in her head; the money would be a godsend—there would be enough to pay for extra help at the vicarage, they needed a new set of saucepans, and the washing-machine had broken down again…

She bade the two gentlemen goodbye, smiling nicely at Mr Wilkins, whom she liked, and giving Mr Fitzgibbon a candid look as she shook hands. He was very good-looking, with a high-bridged nose and a determined chin and an air of self-possession. He didn’t smile as he said goodbye.

Not an easy man to get to know, she decided, watching the Rolls sweep through the vicarage gate.

When she went back indoors her mother had come in from the garden.

‘He looked rather nice,’ she observed, obviously following a train of thought. ‘Why did he come, Florence?’

‘He wants a nurse for his practice—a private one, I gather. Mr Wilkins recommended me.’

‘How kind, darling. Just at the right moment, too. It will save you hunting around the hospitals and places…’

‘I haven’t said I’d take it, Mother.’

‘Why not, love? I’m very well able to take over the household again—is the pay very bad?’

‘It’s very generous. I’d have to live in London, but I’d be free every weekend unless I was wanted—Mr Fitzgibbon seems to get around everywhere rather a lot; he specialises in chest surgery.’

‘Did Mr Wilkins offer you your old job back, darling?’

‘No. There’s nothing for me at Colbert’s…’

‘Then, Florence, you must take this job. It will make a nice change and you’ll probably meet nice people.’ It was one of Mrs Napier’s small worries that her beautiful daughter seldom met men—young men, looking for a wife—after all, she was five and twenty and, although the housemen at the hospital took her out, none of them, as far as she could make out, was of the marrying kind—too young and no money. Now, a nice older man, well established and able to give Florence all the things she had had to do without… Mrs Napier enjoyed a brief daydream.

‘Is he married?’ she asked.

‘I have no idea, Mother. I should think he might be—I mean, he’s not a young man, is he?’ Florence, collecting coffee-cups, wasn’t very interested. ‘I’ll talk to Father. It might be a good idea if I took the job for a time until there’s a vacancy at Colbert’s or one of the top teaching hospitals. I don’t want to get out of date.’

‘Go and talk to your father now, dear.’ Mrs Napier glanced at the clock. ‘Either by now he’s finished his sermon, or he’s got stuck. He’ll be glad of the interruption.’

Mr Napier, when appealed to, giving the matter grave thought, decided that Florence would be wise to take the job. ‘I do not know this Mr Fitzgibbon,’ he observed, ‘but if he is known to Mr Wilkins he must be a dependable sort of chap! The salary is a generous one too…not that you should take that into consideration, Florence, if you dislike the idea.’

She didn’t point out that the salary was indeed a consideration. With the boys at school and then university, the vicar’s modest stipend had been whittled down to its minimum so that there would be money enough for their future. The vicar, a kind, good man, ready to give the coat off his back to anyone in need, was nevertheless blind to broken-down washing-machines, worn-out sauce-pans and the fact that his wife hadn’t had a new hat for more than a year.

‘I like the idea, Father,’ said Florence robustly, ‘and I can come home at the weekend too. I’ll go and see Miss Payne in the village and arrange for her to come in for an hour or so each day to give Mother a hand. Mrs Buckett can’t do everything. I’ll pay—it is really a very generous salary.’

‘Will you be able to keep yourself in comfort, Florence?’

She assured him that she could perfectly well do that. ‘And the lodgings his present nurse has will be vacant if I’d like to take them.’

‘It sounds most suitable,’ said her father, ‘but you must, of course, do what you wish, my dear.’

She wasn’t at all sure what she did wish but she had plenty of common sense; she needed to get a job and start earning money again, and she had, by some lucky chance, been offered one without any effort on her part.

When Mr Fitzgibbon telephoned the following day, precisely at three o’clock, and asked her in his cool voice if she had considered his offer, she accepted in a voice as cool as his own.

He didn’t say that he was pleased. ‘Then perhaps you will come up to town very shortly and talk to Sister Brice. Would next Monday be convenient—in the early afternoon?’

‘There is a train from Sherborne just after ten o’clock—I could be at your rooms about one o’clock.’

‘That will suit Sister Brice very well. You have the address and the telephone number.’

‘Yes, thanks.’

His, ‘Very well, goodbye, Miss Napier,’ was abrupt, even if uttered politely.

* * *

THE REVEREND NAPIER, his sermon written and nothing but choir practice to occupy him, drove Florence into Sherborne to catch the morning train. Gussage Tollard was a mere four miles to that town as the crow flew, but, taking into account the elderly Austin and the winding lanes, turning and twisting every hundred yards or so, the distance by car was considerably more.

‘Be sure and have a good lunch,’ advised her father. ‘One can always get a good meal at Lyons.’

Florence said that she would; her father went to London so rarely that he lived comfortably in the past as regarded cafés, bus queues and the like, and she had no intention of disillusioning him.

She bade him goodbye at the station, assured him that she would be on the afternoon train from Waterloo, and was borne away to London.

She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich at Waterloo Station and queued for a bus, got off at Oxford Circus, and, since she had a little time to spare, looked at a few shops along Oxford Street before turning off towards Wimpole Street. The houses were dignified Regency, gleaming with pristine paintwork and shining brass plates. Number eighty-seven would be halfway down, she decided, and wondered where the lodgings were that she might take over. It was comparatively quiet here and the sun was shining; after the bustle and the noise of Oxford Street it was peaceful—as peaceful as one could be in London, she amended, thinking of Gussage Tollard, which hadn’t caught up with the modern world yet, and a good thing too.

Mr Fitzgibbon, standing at the window of his consulting-room, his hands in his pockets, watched her coming along the pavement below. With a view to the sobriety of the occasion, she had shrouded a good deal of her brilliant hair under a velvet cap which matched the subdued tones of her French navy jacket and skirt. She was wearing her good shoes too; they pinched a little, but that was in a good cause…

She glanced up as she reached the address she had been given, to see Mr Fitzgibbon staring down at her, unsmiling. He looked out of temper, and she stared back before mounting the few steps to the front door and ringing the bell. The salary he had offered was good, she reflected, but she had a nasty feeling that he would be a hard master.

The door was opened by an elderly porter, who told her civilly that Mr Fitzgibbon’s consulting-rooms were on the first floor and would she go up? Once on the landing above there was another door with its highly polished bell, this time opened by a cosily plump middle-aged lady who said in a friendly voice, ‘Ah, here you are. I’m Mr Fitzgibbon’s receptionist—Mrs Keane. You’re to go straight in…’

‘I was to see Sister Brice,’ began Florence.

‘Yes, dear, and so you shall. But Mr Fitzgibbon wants to see you now.’ She added in an almost reverent voice, ‘He should be going to his lunch, but he decided to see you first.’

Florence thought of several answers to this but uttered none of them; she needed the job too badly.

Mr Fitzgibbon had left the window and was sitting behind his desk. He got up as Mrs Keane showed her in and wished her a cool, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Napier,’ and begged her to take a seat. Once she was sitting he was in no haste to speak.

Finally he said, ‘Sister Brice is at lunch; she will show you exactly what your duties will be. I suggest that you come on a month’s trial, and after that period I would ask you to give three months’ notice should you wish to leave. I dislike changing my staff.’

‘You may not wish me to stay after a month,’ Florence pointed out in a matter-of-fact voice.

‘There is that possibility. That can be discussed at the end of the month. You are agreeable to your working conditions? I must warn you that this is not a nine-to-five job; your personal life is of no interest to me, but on no account must it infringe upon your work here. I depend upon the loyalty of my staff.’

She was tempted to observe that at the salary she was being offered she was unlikely to be disloyal. She said forthrightly, ‘I’m free to do what I like and work where I wish; I like to go to my home whenever I can, but otherwise I have no other interests.’

‘No prospects of marriage?’

She opened her beautiful eyes wide. ‘Since you ask, no.’

‘I’m surprised. I should like you to start—let me see; Sister Brice leaves at the end of next week, a Saturday. Perhaps you will get settled in on the Sunday and start work here on the Monday morning.’

‘That will suit me very well.’ She did hide a smile at his surprised look; he was probably used to having things his own way. ‘Will it be possible for me to see the rooms I am to have?’

He said impatiently, ‘Yes, yes, why not? Sister Brice can take you there. Are you spending the night in town?’

‘No, I intend to go back on the five o’clock train from Waterloo.’

There was a knock on the door and he called ‘come in’, and Sister Brice put her head round the door and said cheerfully, ‘Shall I take over, sir?’ She came into the room and shook Florence’s hand.

The phone rang and Mr Fitzgibbon lifted the receiver. ‘Yes, please. There’s no one until three o’clock, is there? I shall want you here then.’

He glanced at Florence. ‘Goodbye, Miss Napier; I expect to see you a week on Monday morning.’

Sister Brice closed the door gently behind them. ‘He’s marvellous to work for; you mustn’t take any notice of his abruptness.’

‘I shan’t,’ said Florence. ‘Where do we start?’

The consulting-rooms took up the whole of the first floor. Besides Mr Fitzgibbon’s room and the waiting-room, there was a very small, well-equipped dressing-room, an examination-room leading from the consulting-room, a cloakroom and a tiny kitchen. ‘He likes his coffee around ten o’clock, but if he has a lot of patients he’ll not stop. We get ours when we can. I get here about eight o’clock—the first patient doesn’t get here before half-past nine, but everything has to be quite ready. Mr Fitzgibbon quite often goes to the hospital first and takes a look at new patients there; he goes back there around noon or one o’clock and we have our lunch and tidy up and so on, he comes back here about four o’clock unless he’s operating, and he sees patients until half-past five. You do Theatre, don’t you? He always has the same theatre sister at Colbert’s, but if he’s operating at another hospital, doesn’t matter where, he’ll take you with him to scrub.’

‘Another hospital in London?’

‘Could be; more often than not it’s Birmingham or Edinburgh or Bristol—I’ve been to Brussels several times, the Middle East, and a couple of times to Berlin.’

‘I can’t speak German…’

Sister Brice laughed. ‘You don’t need to—he does all the talking; you just carry on as though you were at Colbert’s. He did mention that occasionally you have to miss a weekend? It’s made up to you, though.’ She opened a cupboard with a key from her pocket. ‘I’ve been very happy here and I shall miss the work, but it’s a full-time job and there’s not much time over from it, certainly not if one is married.’ She was pulling out drawers. ‘There’s everything he needs for operating—he likes his own instruments and it’s your job to see that they’re all there and ready. They get put in this bag.’

She glanced at her watch. ‘There’s time to go over to my room; you can meet Mrs Twist and see if it’ll suit you. She gets your breakfast and cooks high tea about half-past six. There’s a washing-machine and a telephone you may use. She doesn’t encourage what she calls gentlemen friends…’

‘I haven’t got any…’

‘You’re pretty enough to have half a dozen, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘Thank you. I think I must be hard to please.’

Mrs Twist lived in one of the narrow streets behind Wimpole Street, not five minutes’ walk away. The house was small, one of a row, but it was very clean and neat, rather like Mrs Twist—small, too, and bony with pepper and salt hair and a printed cotton pinny. She eyed Florence shrewdly with small blue eyes and led her upstairs to a room overlooking the street, nicely furnished. ‘Miss Brice ’as her breakfast downstairs, quarter to eight sharp,’ she observed, ‘the bathroom’s across the landing, there’s a machine for yer smalls and yer can ’ang them out in the back garden. I’ll cook a meal at half-past six of an evening, something ’ot; if I’m out it’ll be in the oven. Me and Miss Brice ’as never ’ad a cross word and I ’opes we’ll get on as nicely.’

‘Well, I hope so too, Mrs Twist. This is a very nice room and I’m sure I shall appreciate a meal each evening. You must let me know if there’s anything—’

‘Be sure I will, Miss Napier; I’m one for speaking out, but Mr Fitzgibbon told me you was a sensible, quiet-spoken young lady, and what ’e says I’ll believe.’

Sister Brice was waiting downstairs in the prim front room. ‘There’s time to go back for half an hour,’ she pointed out. ‘I’m ready for the first patient; Mr Fitzgibbon won’t be back until just before three o’clock, and Mrs Keane will already have got the notes out.’

They bade Mrs Twist goodbye and walked back to Wimpole Street, where Mrs Keane was putting on the kettle. Over cups of tea she and Sister Brice covered the bare bones of Mr Fitzgibbon’s information with a wealth of their own, so that by the time Florence left she had a sound idea of what she might expect. Nothing like having a ward in the hospital, she reflected on her way to the station. She would have to make her own routine and keep to it as much as possible, allowing for Mr Fitzgibbon’s demands upon her time. All the same, she thought that she would like it; she was answerable to no one but herself and him, of course—her bedsitter was a good deal better than she had expected it to be, and there was the added bonus of going home each weekend. She spent the return journey doing sums on the back of an envelope, and alighted at Sherborne knowing that the saucepans and washing-machine need no longer be pipe-dreams. At the end of the month they would be installed in the vicarage kitchen. What was more, she would be able to refurbish her spring wardrobe.