A Suitable Match

Eustacia nodded and then said, “Oh…” when Sir Colin took her arm and turned her around.

“So am I. I’ll drop you off on my way.”

“But I’m wet. I’ll spoil your car.”

“Don’t be silly,” he begged her nicely. “I’m wet, too.”

He bustled her to the car and settled her into the front seat and got in beside her.

“It’s out of your way,” sighed Eustacia weakly.

“Not at all—what a girl you are for finding objections!”

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.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EUSTACIA bit into her toast, poured herself another cup of tea, and turned her attention once again to the job vacancies in the morning paper. She had been doing this for some days now and it was with no great hope of success that she ran her eye down the columns. Her qualifications, which were few, didn’t seem to fit into any of the jobs on offer. It was a pity, she reflected, that an education at a prestigious girls’ school had left her quite unfitted for earning her living in the commercial world. She had done her best, but the course of shorthand and typing had been nothing less than disastrous, and she hadn’t lasted long at the boutique because, unlike her colleagues, she had found herself quite incapable of telling a customer that a dress fitted while she held handfuls of surplus material at that lady’s back, or left a zip undone to accommodate surplus flesh. She had applied for a job at the local post office too, and had been turned down because she didn’t wish to join a union. No one, it seemed, wanted a girl with four A levels and the potential for a university if she had been able to go to one. Here she was, twenty-two years old, out of work once more and with a grandfather to support.

She bent her dark head over the pages—she was a pretty girl with eyes as dark as her hair, a dainty little nose and a rather too large mouth—eating her toast absentmindedly as she searched the pages. There was nothing… Yes, there was: the path lab of St Biddolph’s Hospital, not half a mile away, needed an assistant bottle-washer, general cleaner and postal worker. No qualifications required other than honesty, speed and cleanliness. The pay wasn’t bad either.

Eustacia swallowed the rest of her tea, tore out the advertisement, and went out of the shabby little room into the passage and tapped on a door. A voice told her to go in and she did so, a tall, splendidly built girl wearing what had once been a good suit, now out of date but immaculate.

‘Grandpa,’ she began, addressing the old man sitting up in his bed. ‘There’s a job in this morning’s paper. As soon as I’ve brought your breakfast I’m going after it.’

The old gentleman looked at her over his glasses. ‘What kind of a job?’

‘Assistant at the path lab at St Biddolph’s.’ She beamed at him. ‘It sounds OK, doesn’t it?’ She whisked herself through the door again. ‘I’ll be back in five minutes with your tray.’

She left their small ground-floor flat in one of the quieter streets of Kennington and walked briskly to the bus-stop. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock and speed, she felt, was of the essence. Others, it seemed, had felt the same; there were six women already in the little waiting-room inside the entrance to the path lab at the hospital, and within the next ten minutes another four turned up. Eustacia sat there quietly waiting, uttering silent, childish prayers. This job would be nothing less than a godsend—regular hours, fifteen minutes from the flat and the weekly pay-packet would be enough to augment her grandfather’s pension—a vital point, this, for they had been eating into their tiny capital for several weeks.

Her turn came and she went to the room set aside for the interviews, and sat down before a stout, elderly man sitting at a desk. He looked bad-tempered and he sounded it too, ignoring her polite ‘Good morning’ and plunging at once into his own questions.

She answered them briefly, handed over her references and waited for him to speak.

“You have four A levels. Why are you not at a university?’