Heaven is Gentle

Heaven is Gentle
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. Wishful thinking? Sister Eliza Proudfoot took a job at the special clinic run by Professor Christian van Duyl. She found him a somewhat formidable character – large in build and large in personality! He wasn't precisely overbearing, but Eliza somehow kept getting on the wrong side of him.Which didn't stop her falling in love with him – a mistake when he was engaged to the very suitable Estelle van der Daal. Eliza found Estelle a bit of a bore, but if that was what he wanted, who was Eliza to quibble! Was Estelle really so suitable – or was Eliza kidding herself that she might stand a chance with him?

Hardly an enjoyable trip, Eliza thought as he brought the car to a halt at the lodge front door.

And yet it had been wonderful. She had been with the professor for hours, and even if she hadn’t been sure before, she knew now that there wasn’t another man like him—not for her, anyway.

He came around the hood of the car, opened Eliza’s door and lifted her out to place her gently on the porch.

“Go down to the cottage through the house,” he advised her. “I’ll bring the parcels.”

She did as she was told, and found the little place warm and lighted, and a tea tray laid ready. Eliza would put the kettle on and when Christian came they would have a cup of tea. But when the professor did come, five minutes later, he gave her a bleak refusal when she suggested it. At the door he halted, though, when Eliza said in a level little voice, “Thank you for my lunch and for driving me, Professor. It was a lovely day.”

He turned right round and looked at her frowningly. He said almost angrily, “A lovely day.” And then, as though the words were being dragged out of him, “And a lovely girl.”

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.

Heaven is Gentle

Betty Neels

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://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

THE room was large and well lighted, and by reason of the cheerful fire in the wide chimneypiece and the thick curtains drawn against the grey January afternoon, cosy enough. There were three persons in it; an elderly man, sitting at his ease behind a very large, extremely untidy desk, a thin, prim woman at a small table close by and a tall, broad-shouldered man sitting astride a small chair, his arms folded across its back, his square, determined chin resting on two large and well cared for hands. He was a handsome man, his dark hair silvered at the temples, and possessing a pair of formidable black brows above very dark eyes. In repose he appeared to be of an age approaching forty, but when he smiled, and he was smiling now, he looked a good deal younger.

Miss Trim paused in the reading of the names from a typed list before her and glanced at the two men. They were smoking pipes and she gave a small protesting cough which she knew would be ignored, anyhow.

‘They sound like a line of chorus girls,’ commented the younger of her two companions. His smile turned to an engaging grin. ‘How do you like the idea of being nursed by a Shirley Anne, or an Angela, or—what was that last one, Miss Trim? A Felicity?’

His elderly companion puffed a smoke ring and viewed it with satisfaction. ‘We should have tried for a male nurse,’ he mused out loud, ‘but from a psychological point of view that would not have been satisfactory.’

‘There are still a few names on the list, Professor Wyllie.’ Miss Trim sounded faintly tart, probably because of the smoke wreathing itself around her head. She coughed again and continued to read: ‘Annette Dawes, Marilyn Jones, Eliza Proudfoot, Heather Cox…’

She was interrupted. ‘A moment, Miss Trim—that name again, Eliza…?’

‘Miss Eliza Proudfoot, Professor van Duyl.’

‘This is the one,’ his deep voice with its faint trace of an accent, sounded incisive. ‘With a name like that, I don’t see how we can go wrong.’

He glanced at the older man, his eyebrows lifted. ‘What do you say, sir?’

‘You’re probably right. Let’s hear the details, Miss Trim.’

Before she could speak: ‘Five foot ten,’ murmured Professor van Duyl, ‘with vital statistics to match.’ He caught the secretary’s disapproving eye. ‘She’ll need to be strong,’ he reminded her blandly, ‘not young any more, rather on the plain side and decidedly motherly.’ He turned his smiling gaze on Professor Wyllie. ‘Will you like that?’

His companion chuckled. ‘I daresay she will do as well as any, provided that her qualifications are good.’ He gave Miss Trim a questioning look, and she answered promptly, mentioning one of the larger London hospitals.

‘She trained there,’ she recited from her meticulous notes, ‘and is now Ward Sister of Men’s Medical. She is twenty-eight years old, unmarried, and thought very highly of by those members of the medical profession for whom she works.’ She added primly, ‘Shall I telephone Sir Harry Bliss, Professor? He is the consultant in charge of her ward.’

‘Good lord, woman,’ exploded her employer, ‘you don’t have to tell me that! Of course I know it’s old Harry—known him man and boy, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Get him on the telephone and then go away and concoct the right sort of letter to send to this young woman.’

‘You wish to interview her, sir?’

‘No, no. There’s no time for that; if Harry says she’s OK she’ll do. We go to Inverpolly on the tenth; ask her to come up there whichever way she likes to by the fifteenth—expenses paid, of course. See that she gets a good idea how to reach the place and add a few trimmings—benefit to mankind and all that stuff. Oh, and warn her that she must be prepared to look after me as well if I should have an attack.’

He waved a hand at Miss Trim and she understood herself to be dismissed as she murmured suitably, thanked Professor van Duyl for opening the door for her and went back to her own office, where she set about composing a suitable letter to Miss Proudfoot, thinking as she did so that the young lady in question would need to be tough indeed if she accepted the post she was couching in such cautiously attractive terms. Conditions in the Highlands of Wester Ross at this time of year would be hard enough, working for the two men she had just left harder still. Professor Wyllie was a dear old man, but after acting as his secretary for fifteen years, she knew him inside out; he was irascible at times, wildly unpredictable, and his language when he was in a bad temper was quite unprintable. And as for Professor van Duyl—Miss Trim paused in her typing and her rather sharp features relaxed into a smile. She had met him on several occasions over the last five years or so, and while he had been unfailingly courteous and charming towards her, she sensed that here was a man with a nasty temper, nicely under control, and a very strong will behind that handsome face. As she finished her letter, she found herself hoping that Miss Proudfoot was good at managing men as well as being tough.

The subject of her thoughts, blithely unaware of the future hurtling towards her, was doing a round with Sir Harry Bliss, his registrar—one Donald Jones, a clutch of worried housemen, and the social worker, a beaky-nosed lady with a heart of gold, known throughout the hospital as Ducky. And keeping an eye on the whole bunch of them was Staff Nurse Mary Price, an amiable beanpole of a girl, much prized by Sister Proudfoot, and her willing slave as well as friend. She sidled up to her now, bent down and whispered urgently, listened in her turn, nodded and sped away.

‘And where is our little Mary Price going?’ enquired Sir Harry without lifting his eyes from the notes he was reading. There was a faint murmur of laughter because he prided himself on his sense of humour, but Sister Proudfoot who had heard that one a dozen times before merely handed him the patient’s chart as the housemen fanned out into a respectful semi-circle around the foot of the bed. ‘It’s time for nurses’ dinner,’ she said in a composed voice.

‘Implying that I am too slow on my round, Sister?’ He stared down at her over his glasses.

She gave him a serene glance. ‘No, sir—just stating a fact.’ She smiled at him and he rumbled out a laugh. ‘All right, all right—let’s get on with the job, then. Let me see Mr Atkins’ chest.’

She bent to the patient, a small, shapely girl with bright golden hair swept into a neat bun from which little curls escaped. Her eyes were unexpectedly hazel, richly fringed, her nose small and straight and her mouth sweetly curved. A very pretty girl, who looked years younger than her age and far too fragile for her job.

She was on her way back from a late dinner when the faithful Staff came hurrying to meet her. ‘They’ve just telephoned from the office—Miss Smythe wants to see you at once, Sister.’ She beamed down at Eliza like a good-natured stork. ‘I’ll start the medicines, shall I, and get old Mr Pearce ready for X-ray.’

Eliza nodded. ‘Yes, do. I wonder what I’ve done,’ she mused. ‘Do you suppose it’s because I complained about the shortage of linen bags? You know we have to be careful nowadays.’ She added a little vaguely, ‘Unions and things.’

‘But you weren’t nasty,’ Mary reassured her, ‘you never are.’

Eliza beamed at her. ‘What a great comfort you always are, Mary. We’ll have a cup of tea when I get back and I’ll tell you all about it.’