The Fifth Day of Christmas

“Why? And why do you call me Miss Pennyfeather?” Julia said, still absorbing what Ivo had just said.

“You don’t like it? But I always think of you as the magnificent Miss Pennyfeather. You are, you know, and you’re not only quite beautiful you’re—alive.”

He stopped the car in front of the house, turned toward her, slipped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her hard.

When she had her breath again, she said with a kind of stunned politeness, “Thank you for a very nice evening, Ivo.”

His face was only an inch or two from her own and he was smiling a little. “I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for a long time,” he said softly.

He got out, walked around the car and opened the door for her. She went inside the house without saying anything more, only a quiet good-night as she went up the stairs.

About the Author

Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of BETTY NEELS in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into her ninetieth year. To her millions of fans, Betty epitomized the romance writer, and yet she began writing almost by accident. She had retired from nursing, but her inquiring mind still sought stimulation. Her new career was born when she heard a lady in her local library bemoaning the lack of good romance novels. Betty’s first book, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, was published in 1969, and she eventually completed 134 books. Her novels offer a reassuring warmth that was very much a part of her own personality. She was a wonderful writer, and she will be greatly missed. Her spirit and genuine talent will live on in all her stories.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

Betty Neels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

VIEWED FROM the comparative comfort of the ambulance’s interior, the M1 looked uninviting. Miss Julia Pennyfeather, too occupied with her patient to have bothered overmuch with the passing scenery, now realised that the motorway was becoming more and more shrouded in fog, which, coupled with the fast darkening sky of a December afternoon, boded ill for their chances of reaching their destination as early as they had hoped. She pulled her cloak closely around her, cast a quick look at her dozing patient and peered out once more. There seemed to be a lot of traffic surging past, at great speed and in a confusion of lights, a sight which made her thankful that she wasn’t called upon to drive the ambulance. She frowned in thought, then, moving cautiously, opened the little glass window behind the driving seat and said softly to the man sitting beside the driver, ‘Willy—the fog, it’s getting worse, isn’t it?’

The man the back of whose neck she had addressed turned a cheerful face to answer her. ‘Proper thick, Nurse, but it’s not all that far. We’re coming up to Newcastle now; it’s about sixty miles to the Border and another twelve to the crossroads where we turn off—and the house is another ten miles or so.’

‘It’s nearly four o’clock,’ said Julia. ‘We shan’t get there much before nine…’

‘Just in nice time for a bit o’ supper, Nurse, before we ‘ands over the patient and goes to our warm beds.’

They were off the motorway now and almost clear of Newcastle; two hours’ steady driving would bring them to the Border, and once they were in Scotland… She broke off her speculations as the girl on the stretcher asked, ‘Where are we, Nurse?’

Julia told her, adding in a determinedly cheerful voice, ‘We shan’t be long now—three hours at the most, perhaps less. I expect you’d like a drink, wouldn’t you?’ She unscrewed a vacuum flask and poured the milkless tea into a mug. ‘As soon as we arrive, you shall have your insulin and your supper—I’m sure they’ll have it ready for you, for your nurse will have arrived some time this afternoon.’

‘I hope I like her.’

Julia glanced at her patient. ‘I’m sure you will,’ she replied in a soothing voice, and privately hoped that she was right. Miss Mary MacGall hadn’t been the easiest of patients—eighteen years old, pretty and spoilt and a diabetic who somehow never managed to achieve stabilisation, she had been a handful the Private Wing of St Clare’s Hospital had been glad to see go. In the two short weeks she had been there, having an acute appendix removed, and then, unfortunately, peritonitis, which naturally played havoc with the diabetes, she had been rude to the Matron, flirted outrageously with the young housemen, and exasperated the consultant staff; only with Julia was she amenable, and that was something neither Julia nor her fellow workers could fathom, unless it was that Julia’s dark and striking beauty was such a magnificent foil to her own blonde prettiness. And Julia didn’t fuss, but treated her with the pleasant calm that a well-trained nanny might have shown to a recalcitrant child. Not that Julia looked in the least like a nanny—indeed, just the opposite, with her almost black hair and great brown eyes with their preposterously long lashes. Her mouth was a little large perhaps, but beautifully shaped and her nose was straight, with the merest hint of a tilt at its tip. She was well above average height, nicely rounded and refreshingly and completely natural. She was just twenty-two and had achieved State Registration only a few months previously. And only the day before she had left the hospital where she had spent several happy, busy years, not because she had particularly wanted to, but to look after her sister-in-law who had just had a second child and was suffering from depression. It had been, therefore, a happy chance that Mary MacGall should have demanded to be sent home by ambulance, and also demanded, at the same time, that Julia should go with her on the journey. Julia was due to leave anyway, and it would give her a couple of days’ respite before she went home.

When next Julia looked out of the window it was snowing hard and the fog had become dense. The ambulance was travelling slowly now, with its blue light flashing, and Julia was uneasily aware that they were skidding from time to time. She opened the little window once more and said softly into Willy’s ear, ‘Is it freezing as well?’

He nodded without looking round.

‘Are we lost?’

She heard his chuckle and took comfort from the sound. ‘Not a bit of it, Nurse. We’re over the Border—we’ll be at the crossroads soon.’

‘Is Bert all right? Does he want to stop?’

She peered ahead, the visibility was down to about ten yards and that was obscured by driving snow.

Bert answered for himself. ‘I’m OK, Nurse. It’s not far now and I think we’d do better to keep going. It might clear.’

She agreed softly, knowing that he had said that to reassure her, and closed the window, observing for the benefit of her patient,

‘We’ve a dozen miles or so to go. Are you very hungry? I’ve some cream crackers here and there’s plenty of tea.’

But Mary was disposed to be difficult. She said rather peevishly,

‘I want a huge steak with lots of duchesse potatoes and creamed cauliflower and lashings of gravy and sauce, then Charlotte Russe with masses of whipped cream and a plate of petits fours—the gooey ones, and a huge whisky and soda—oh, and Kummel with my coffee.’

Julia felt sympathy with her patient. After all, she was very young; she would be on a fixed diet for the rest of her life. It was a pity that she was so spoiled that she refused to accept the fact, and anyway, once she was stabilised, the diet wouldn’t be too awful, for her parents were wealthy enough to give it the variety those in more straitened circumstances couldn’t afford. She said kindly, ‘You make me feel quite hungry too, but you’d pay for it afterwards, you know.’

The girl beside her scowled. ‘Who cares? That’s what you’re for—to see that I don’t die in a coma.’

Julia looked at her reflectively. ‘There’s always the possibility that someone might not be there…’

‘Oh, yes, there will,’ declared Mary, and sat up suddenly. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to stay with me—for ever, I mean.’

Julia smiled, feeling a little touched. ‘How nice of you to ask me. But I have to go home and look after my sister-in-law for a bit, then I thought I’d get a job abroad for a year or two—and I’ve still got my midwifery to do.’

‘Marry a rich man instead.’

‘Why rich? As long as he’s the right one, the money doesn’t matter very much, does it? You need enough to live on and educate the children.’

‘And pretty clothes and the hairdresser and jewellery and going to the theatre and out to dine, and a decent holiday at least twice a year.’

Julia said soberly, ‘Perhaps I’m not ambitious,’ and turned away to look out of the window again—a pointless act, for it had been quite dark for some time now.

When the ambulance at last stopped, Julia couldn’t believe they had arrived, for the last hour had been a nightmare of skidding and crawling through the blanket of fog and snow and now there was a gale blowing as well. She stepped out of the ambulance into several inches of snow and then clutched at her cap as a gust of wind tossed her backwards as though she had been a leaf. It was pitch dark too, but in the ambulance lights she could just see the beginning of steps leading upwards. She stood aside to let Bert and Willy get into the ambulance and asked, ‘Shall I ring the bell?’ and thought how ridiculous it sounded in this black waste of snow and fog and howling wind. But Bert said cheerfully enough,

‘OK, Nurse—up them steps, and look out for the ice.’

She advanced cautiously with the beam of her powerful torch guiding her: it wasn’t so bad after all—the steps ended at a great door upon whose knocker she beat a brisk tattoo, and when she saw the brass bell in the wall, she rang that for good measure. But there were no lights—she peered around her, unable to see anything but the reassuring solidarity of the door before her, and that hadn’t opened. She was about to go down the steps again to relay her doubts to her companions when the door swung open, revealing a very old man holding a hurricane lantern. She was still getting her breath when he spoke testily.

‘Ye didna’ need to make all that noise. I heard ye the fust time.’

Julia, who had nice manners, apologised. ‘Is this Drumlochie House?’ she asked through teeth which were beginning to chatter with the cold.

‘Aye—ye’ll be the nurse with Miss Mary?’

‘That’s right—could you turn on the lights, please, so that the ambulance men can bring her indoors?’

‘No lights,’ said the old man without annoyance. ‘Wind’s taken the electric—can’t think how ye got here.’

Julia couldn’t either, but it hardly seemed the right moment to discuss it. She said instead, ‘Then would you leave the door open and we’ll bring Miss Mary in.’

She didn’t wait to hear his reply but went carefully down the steps again.

She followed the two men, with the carrying chair and Mary in it, between them, back up again, shuddering at the possibility of a broken ankle or two added to Mary’s diabetes. But they achieved the entrance without mishap and went inside where the old man was waiting for them, his lamp held high. ‘So ye’re back, Miss Mary,’ he was, it seemed, a man of few words, ‘your room’s ready.’

He turned and started to walk across the hall towards the staircase discernible in the gloom, and the ambulance men, still with Mary between them, followed him with Julia bringing up the rear, shivering a little partly because she had got cold waiting at the front door and partly because her surroundings were, inadequately lighted as they were, a trifle forbidding. They seemed to walk a great distance before the old man at length opened a door and they entered Mary’s bedroom—a large apartment with a fire burning in its open fireplace and most pleasantly furnished. Julia, looking round her, heaved a sigh of relief. If their rooms were half as comfortable they would have nothing to grumble about.

‘Where’s the nurse?’ she asked the old man.

He stood and thought, his head on one side, for an aggravating moment. ‘The nurse? Weel, she’s to come from Edinburgh, but it’s been snowing a blizzard since daybreak hereabouts. There’ll be no nurse.’

‘No nurse!’ Julia looked at him with something like horror. ‘But I’m going back to London with the ambulance in the morning—I can’t leave my patient. Where’s the telephone?’

‘The wind’s had it.’

The wind, thought Julia bitterly, was answerable for a lot.

‘There must be some way of getting a message—to the village or a doctor—or the police.’

He didn’t even bother to say no, just shook his head. ‘Snow’s deep,’ he observed without emotion. ‘There’s Jane the cook and Madge the maid gone to Hawick yesterday to shop for Miss Mary’s return. They’ll not be back for twa days, maybe.’

Julia’s dismay was smothered in a flood of practical thoughts.

‘Food?’ she asked. ‘Hot water, candles?’

‘Food’s enough—candles and lamps we’ve got—hot water, now, that’s another matter. I’ve no call for hot water, stove’s gone out.’

‘If you could possibly light it for us again? Miss Mary—all of us, we need to wash at least. Are there any rooms ready for us?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Madge was to have done that, and me thinking ye’d not get here in this weather—I didna’ light the fire…’

‘Never mind—could the ambulance men come and help you? They’re tired and hungry—they must have a meal and a good sleep. If you’d give them the bedlinen I’m sure they’ll make up the beds, and I’ll come down to the kitchen and cook something.’

He looked at her with a glimmer of respect. ‘Aye, do that if ye will. Miss Mary—she’s all right?’

‘Once she has had her supper she will be.’ Julia smiled at him and went to fetch Bert and Willy.

There was food enough once she could find it in the vast semi-basement kitchen. She pottered about, still wrapped in her cloak, while the men made up beds and lighted fires, making Mary’s supper as attractive as possible.

It was getting on for midnight when Julia removed the supper tray, and Mary, still grumbling, had consented to go to bed. Julia left an oil lamp the old man had produced in the room, wished her patient a good night and went in search of Willy and Bert. She found them, after a great deal of tramping up and down draughty corridors, very snug in a little room on the floor above.

‘Nothing but fourposters downstairs,’ Willy explained. ‘We’ve found you a nice room below, Nurse, got a fire going an’ all. First left at the bottom of the stairs.’

She thanked them, warned them that she was about to cook supper and went in search of her sleeping quarters. The room was reasonably near her patient’s, she was glad to find, and at the head of the stairs, and although there was a piercing draught whistling round the hall below, the room itself looked pleasant enough. She sighed with relief, went to look at Mary, who was already asleep, and made her way downstairs once more. The old man had disappeared; to bed probably, having considered that he had done enough for them. She set about frying eggs and bacon and boiling the kettle for tea, and presently the three of them sat down to a supper, which, while not being quite what they had expected, was ample and hot.

The three of them washed up, wished each other good night, and crept upstairs, bearing a variety of candlesticks and yawning their heads off. Julia, with a longing eye on the comfort of the bed, undressed with the speed of lightning, unpinned her hair, brushed it perfunctorily and went to find a bathroom. There were several, none supplying more than tepid water, so she cleaned her teeth, washed her face and hands with the same speed with which she had brushed her hair and, after a quick look at the sleeping Mary, retired to her room, where, without daring to take off her dressing gown, she jumped into bed. And as she closed her eyes the front door bell rang.

She waited a moment, pretending to herself that she hadn’t heard it, but when it pealed again she got out of bed, picked up her torch, thrust her feet into slippers and started downstairs. The wind was fiercer now and the draughts eddied around her, chilling her to the bone. Only the thought of the unfortunate person on the doorstep urged her on. It would be the nurse, arrived by some miracle Julia was far too tired to investigate, or perhaps the cook and the maid from Hawick, although she fancied that the town was a good many miles away. She undid the bolts of the front door, slid the chain back and opened its creaking weight on to the fog and wind and snow outside.

There was a man on the top step, a very large man, who stood wordless and patient while she allowed her torch to travel his considerable length. She knew that he was staring at her from the gloom and when she said impatiently, ‘Oh, do come in—we’ll both catch our deaths of cold…’ he stepped into the hall without uttering a word, only when he had locked the door behind her did he say without heat,

‘Of all the damn fool things to do—opening a door to a complete stranger in the dead of night!’

Julia’s beautiful eyes opened wide. ‘But you rang the bell.’

‘And have you never heard of opening a door on its chain? I might have been armed with a shotgun.’

Julia interrupted him in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘Don’t be absurd—who’d be out on a night like this with a shotgun?’

He laughed then. ‘Since you’re kind enough to trust me, could I beg shelter until the morning? I’m on my way down from Edinburgh and quite obviously I’ve taken the wrong road.’

He gave himself a shake and the snow tumbled off him, to lie unmelting on the floor. ‘You’re not alone in this place?’

‘No,’ said Julia with calm, ‘I’m not—there are two ambulance men asleep upstairs, so tired they won’t hear a sound—and my patient—oh, and there’s a kind of ancient family retainer, but I haven’t seen him for several hours.’

He took the torch from her hand and shone it deliberately on her.

‘You are a fool,’ he remarked mildly. ‘Here you are, a very beautiful girl unless my eyes deceive me, with two men sleeping like the dead upstairs, an old retainer who’s probably deaf and a patient chained to his bed…’

‘Look,’ said Julia patiently, ‘I’m very tired—you’re welcome to a bed,’ she waved a vague arm towards the staircase. ‘There are plenty of empty rooms if you like to choose one. Are you hungry?’

She had taken the torch once more from his grasp and shone it briefly on him. ‘Take off that coat,’ she advised. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on—will bacon and eggs do?’

‘Not only beautiful but kind too,’ he murmured. ‘Thank you, I’m famished. Where’s the kitchen? Go back to bed and I’ll look after myself.’

She was already on her way kitchenwards. ‘It’s warmer there than anywhere else. Come along.’

Ten minutes later he was sitting at the kitchen table devouring the food she had cooked, while she made the tea. ‘Thank heaven there’s a gas stove,’ Julia commented as she fetched two cups. ‘The wind took the electric and the telephone.’

‘How very whimsical!’

Julia poured him another cup of tea and then filled her own cup. In the little silence which followed a clock wheezed dryly and struck twice, and the wind, taking on a new strength, howled like a banshee round the house. Julia looked up to see the stranger’s eyes fastened on her. He smiled and said, ‘If you trust me, go to bed—I’ll clear up and find myself a room.’

She got to her feet and picked up her torch, yawning as she did so. ‘There’s your candle,’ she indicted a brass candlestick with its snuffer which she had put ready for him. ‘Don’t come into my room, will you? It’s at the top of the stairs—nor the third one on the right—that’s my patient’s. Good night.’

She wondered why he looked amused as he wished her good night, getting politely to his feet as he did so, which small action somehow reassured her.

Not that she needed reassuring, she told herself, lying curled up in her chilly bed; the fire had died down and the warmth it had engendered had already been swallowed up by the icy air. She shivered and decided that she liked him, even though she knew nothing about him, neither his name nor his business, but she liked his face—a face she felt she could trust, with strong features and steady blue eyes and a mouth that was firm and kind. And even though he had called her a fool—which she was bound to admit was the truth—he had also called her beautiful. She fell uneasily asleep, smiling a little.

Something wakened her in the pitch darkness, a sound, not repeated. She switched on the torch to find that it was just after six o’clock, and sat up in bed, the better to listen. The sound came again—a hoarse croak. She was out of bed, thrusting her feet into her slippers as the list of post-operative complications liable to follow an appendicectomy on a diabetic patient unfolded itself in her still tired mind. Carbuncles, gangrene, broncho-pneumonia…the croak came again which effectively ruled out the first two, and when she reached her patient’s bedroom and saw Mary’s flushed face as she lay shivering in bed, she was almost sure that it was the third.

As she approached the bed Mary said irritably, ‘I feel so ill, and I can’t stop coughing—it hurts.’

‘I’ll sit you up a bit,’ said Julia with a calm she didn’t feel. Sudden illness on a hospital ward was one thing, but in an isolated house cut off from the outside world, it was quite a different matter. She fetched more pillows and propped the girl up, took her temperature which was as high as she had expected it to be, and gave her a drink, while all the time she was deciding what to do. Presently, when Mary was as comfortable as she could be made, Julia said,

‘I’m going to send someone for the doctor—once we’ve got you on an antibiotic you’ll feel better within hours. Will you stay quietly until I come back?’

She found the stranger in the third room she looked into, lying on his back on a vast fourposter bed, fast asleep. She put out an urgent hand and tapped a massive shoulder and he opened his eyes at once, staring at her with a calm which she found most comforting.

Before she could speak he said reflectively, ‘The hair’s a little wild, but I still think you’re a beautiful girl. What’s the matter?’

Julia swept her long black hair impatiently on one side the better to see him. ‘My patient—she’s ill. I’m afraid I must ask you to go and find a doctor or a telephone or—or something. I can’t ask the ambulance men to go; they’ve got to go back to London today and they must have a night’s sleep.’

He had sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘And I, being a man of leisure, am the obvious one to sacrifice on the altar of frostbite and exposure.’

Julia just stopped herself in time from wringing her hands. ‘I’d go myself, but who’s to look after Mary if I do?’

‘A moot point,’ he conceded, and stood up, reassuringly large. ‘And before I detect the first rising note of hysteria in your very delightful voice, I must tell you that I am a doctor.’

Julia’s first reaction was one of rage. ‘You beast,’ she said roundly, ‘letting me get all worried!’

He smiled at her and lifted her neatly to sit on the bed and then sat down beside her. ‘I am of the opinion that if I were not a doctor I should even now be meekly dressing myself, preparatory to tramping miles in search of aid, while you coped with great competence with whatever crisis has arisen. Now, let’s have the bad news.’