Heaven Around the Corner

Heaven Around the Corner
Betty Neels

Mills & Boon presents the complete Betty Neels collection. Timeless tales of heart-warming romance by one of the world’s best-loved romance authors.COULD SHE COPE WITH THE SAVAGE FAMILY?Louisa didn’t want to marry the boring Frank, and she definitely didn’t want to live with her stepmother. Luckily, after completing her training, Louisa found what sounded like a pleasant and challenging nursing job—in Norway! She was delighted. She enjoyed her job, even though her patient, Claudia Savage, did cause some problems.Of course, the situation wasn’t helped by the cold, uncooperative attitude of Claudia’s brother Simon. She couldn’t understand why he was so disagreeable.…

“Oh, I understand you very well,” said Louisa, her voice a little high with suppressed feelings.

“What a very disagreeable man you are, Mr. Savage, with your orders and arrogance. I should very much dislike having you as a patient.”

His dark eyes snapped at her. “You surprise me, Louisa. I should have thought it would have been the very thing, because I would be entirely at your mercy and you could wreak revenge to your heart’s content.” His silky voice had a nasty edge to it. He opened the door. “Perhaps we’d better keep out of each other’s way?” he said.

She agreed stiffly and when she was alone again, wondered why the prospect left her with the feeling that life would be rather dull.

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.

Heaven Around the Corner

Betty Neels

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

THE SEPTEMBER SUN, shining from an early morning sky, cast its impartial light on the narrow crowded streets, the smoke-grimed houses, several quite beautiful churches and the ugly bulk of the Royal Southern Hospital, giving a glow to its red bricks and a sparkle to its many narrow windows. It was a splendid example of mid-Victorian architecture, crowned with cupolas and a highly ornamental balustrade and rendered even more hideous by reason of the iron fire escapes protruding from each wing. And inside it was even uglier, for here the sun was unable to reach all its staircases and passages, so that the dark brown paintwork and distempered walls tended to cast a damper on anyone passing through them.

But the girl going down the stairs two at a time noticed none of these things. Her neat head with its crown of light brown hair was full of excited thoughts. She had passed her State finals; she was a fully trained nurse at last—the world was her oyster. She was determined on that, despite the Principal Nursing Officer’s gracious speech as she was handed the fateful envelope. There was a place for her at the Royal Southern, that lady told her; Night Staff Nurse on the surgical wing and the prospect of a Sister’s post very shortly, and there was no need for Nurse Evans to decide at once…

But Louisa Evans had already decided instantly; she was going to leave, not only the hospital, but if possible, England too, although she prudently forbore from saying so at the time. At the end of the day, when she went off duty, she was going to write her resignation and hand it in and then she would go home for her two days off and tell her stepmother. She checked her headlong flight for a second, dreading that, but it was something which had to be done, and she had made up her mind to that weeks ago when she sat her exams.

She went along a narrow corridor, up another flight of stairs, across a wide landing and through the swing doors leading to Women’s Surgical. Just for the moment the future wasn’t important, only the delicious prospect of telling Sister and the nurses on the ward that she was an SRN.

And she had no need to tell anyone. Sister, coming out of her office, took one look at Louisa’s happy face and said: ‘You’ve passed—congratulations, but of course I knew that you would.’ And after that the news spread like wildfire, with the patients, only too glad to have something to talk about, telling each other, nodding their heads and saying, with hindsight, that of course Nurse Evans had been bound to pass, she was such a good nurse. And as for Louisa, she floated up and down the ward, doing her work with her usual efficiency while a tiny bit of her mind pondered the problems of what she should do and where she should go.

A problem solved sooner than she had expected: She had been to her midday dinner—a noisy meal she shared with friends who had reached her exalted position too—and she was back on the ward, changing Mrs Griffin’s dressing, when that lady asked her what she intended doing.

Louisa, aware of how news, false as well as true, travelled with the speed of light round the hospital, said cautiously that she hadn’t quite made up her mind, and rolling the lady carefully back into a sitting position, rearranged her pillows, smoothed the counterpane and prepared to depart with her dressing tray.

‘Well, don’t go for a minute, Nurse,’ begged Mrs Griffin. ‘Listen to this: “Trained nurse urgently required for lady patient travelling to Norway in a month’s time for an indefinite stay. Good salary and expenses paid.” What do you think of that?’ She folded the Telegraph and handed it to Louisa, who read it carefully, and having an excellent memory, noted the telephone number. ‘It sounds fun,’ she observed cheerfully. ‘Someone’ll be lucky.’ She drew back the curtains and with a parting nod raced off down the ward to clear the tray and get on with the next dressing. But before she did that, she jotted down the telephone number on to the hem of her apron.

She went off duty at five o’clock, composed her letter of resignation and handed it in for delivery to the office and then went to telephone from the box in the entrance hall. There was no one about; she could see the porter on duty, sitting with his feet up, sipping tea during his brief break. All her friends were already in the Nurses’ Home, getting dressed for the party they were all going to later on that evening. She dialled the number.

The voice at the other end asked her to wait a moment and after a few seconds another voice spoke. Louisa had had all the afternoon to rehearse what she was going to say and she was listened to without interruption. When she had finished, the voice, a woman’s, high and somehow breathless, said: ‘I have interviewed several nurses already, but none of them suit me. Come and see me tomorrow morning about eleven o’clock.’

‘I’m on duty until the early afternoon…’

‘Oh, well, the afternoon then, about three o’clock. I’m at the Connaught Hotel, and ask for Miss Savage.’

Louisa put the receiver down slowly. Miss Savage had sounded petulant; she wondered what complaint the lady suffered from, but the only way was to go and see her and find out. Even if she were offered the job, she need not accept it.

She started to stroll along the passage to the small door which opened into the Nurses’ Home. On the other hand, if she were offered the job it would be like the answer to a prayer—she had been longing to leave the hospital for some months now, not because she was unhappy there—on the contrary, she had enjoyed every minute of the three years she had spent within its walls—but because her stepmother, living not too far away, had been able to keep tabs on her for that time, knowing that she had set her heart on training as a nurse and wasn’t likely to leave the Royal Southern and was therefore unlikely to escape. But now she could do just that… She quickened her steps, intent on not being late for the party.

They had all decided to dress rather grandly for the occasion. Louisa, burrowing around in her cupboard, wasted a good deal of time deciding whether the pale blue crepe would look better than the sage green silk jersey. On second thoughts she didn’t like either of them, she had had them too long although she hadn’t worn them all that much. She chose the green and rushed off to find an empty bathroom.

Half an hour later she was dressed and ready—a rather small girl and a little too thin, with a face which wasn’t quite pretty although her eyes, large and hazel and fringed with long curling lashes, redeemed it from plainness. Her hair, long and fine and silky, she had fastened back with a silver clasp because there hadn’t been time to do anything more elaborate. Presently her friends trooped in and they all went into the hospital to the residents’ room where the housemen and some of the students had laid on a buffet supper. The room was packed already, with everyone talking at once and quite a few dancing to a barely heard tape recorder. Louisa, popular with everyone because she was ready to lend an ear to anyone who wanted it, was quickly absorbed into a group of young housemen, all of whom looked upon her as a sisterly type to whom they could confide their troubled but fleeting love affairs, for she never told them how silly they were but listened to their outpourings, giving sympathy but never advice. For a girl of twenty-two she had a wise head on her shoulders, albeit a rather shy one. Her stepmother had taken care that she had had very little chance of making friends while she was at school and when she left, until she had succeeded at last in her ambition to train as a nurse; she had been kept too busy to do more than meet the people Mrs Evans approved of, most of them elderly or at least middle-aged, so that she still retained the feeling of not quite belonging among the young people at the hospital, certainly she had shied away from any of the young men of her acquaintance who had hinted at anything more serious than a kiss, and they, once they had laughed about her among themselves, but kindly, had taken to treating her like a sister.

She joined the dancers presently and except for short pauses for food and drink, didn’t lack for partners for the rest of the evening. The party broke up around midnight and they all went their several ways, yawning their heads off and grumbling at the prospect of getting up at half past six the next morning. All the same, they made a pot of tea and crowded into Louisa’s room to drink it and discuss the party, so that it was an hour later before she went finally to bed, too tired to give a thought about the next day.

She dressed carefully for the interview in a thin wool suit with a slim skirt and a short loose jacket, it was a pretty grey and she wore a silk shirt in navy to go with it; a suitable outfit, she considered, making her look older than her years, which she considered might be a good thing.

The hotel looked grand and she went inside feeling a great deal less calm than she looked, but the reception clerk was pleasant and friendly and she was led to the lift and taken several floors up and along a thickly carpeted corridor until the porter tapped on a door and opened it for her.

Louisa had expected to be interviewed in one of the reception rooms of the hotel; presumably her patient was confined to her room. And a very handsome room it was too, splendidly furnished with wide french windows and a balcony beyond—and quite empty. She walked into the centre of the room and waited, and presently a door opened and a chambermaid beckoned her. It was an equally luxurious room, this time a bedroom, and sitting up in the wide bed was, she presumed, Miss Savage.

Miss Savage wasn’t at all what Louisa had expected her to be. She had entertained the vague idea that the lady would be elderly and frail: the woman in the bed was still young—in her thirties and pretty with it. She had golden hair cut in a fringe and hanging in a gentle curve on either side of her face, her make-up was exquisite and she was wrapped in soft pink, all frills and lace.

She stared at Louisa for what seemed a long time and then said surprisingly: ‘Well, at least you’re young.’ She nodded to a chair. ‘Sit down—you realise that we may be in Norway for some time if you come?’

Louisa said, ‘Yes,’ and added: ‘Will you tell me something of your illness? I couldn’t possibly decide until I know more about that—and you must want to know a good deal more about me.’

Miss Savage smiled slowly. ‘Actually I think you’ll do very well. You’re young, aren’t you, and haven’t been trained long.’

‘I’m twenty-two and I became a State Registered Nurse yesterday. I’ve not travelled at all…’

‘Nor met many people? From the country, are you?’

‘My home is in Kent.’

‘You won’t mind leaving it?’

‘No, Miss Savage.’

The woman picked up a mirror and idly examined her face. ‘I’ve got a liver complaint,’ she observed. ‘My doctor tells me that I have a blocked duct, whatever that is, I’m not bedridden but I get off days and he insists that if I go to Norway I should have a nurse with me.’ She shot a glance at Louisa. ‘My brother works there—he builds bridges—somewhere in the north, but I’ve arranged to take a flat in Bergen for a month or so.’