Heaven Around the Corner

“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.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

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.