Damsel in Green

By Betty Neels, ©1970

Nurse Georgina Rodman had met Professor Julius van den Berg Eyffert and his children when they were brought as casualties into her hospital, and the Professor arranged with Matron to have her “on loan” for a time to help with their convalescence. It was not long before Georgina found herself wishing she could be with them “for keeps.”

GRADE: A- 

BEST QUOTES:
“It was a pity that life didn’t allow you time to dawdle a little on the way.”

“Nurses never ran except for fire and haemorrhage.”

“‘Your bosom is heaving too—so many girls don’t have bosoms these days. I supposed it’s the fashion.’ He sighed.”

REVIEW:
Georgina Rodman—everyone calls her George—will “never make a good nurse,” we are told on the second page. “You’re too impetuous,” snaps her floor charge nurse, when it seems to us, in the few paragraphs we have known her, that she is intelligent, helpful, and compassionate about her patients; she knows to fish out a man’s false teeth when he’s wheeled into the Emergency Department looking blue. Despite her “flaws,” she’s just passed the exams to qualify as an RN. Unfortunately, as the Matron is congratulating her, “Matron had said, ‘a splendid career.’ It occurred to Georgina at that moment that she didn’t much care for the idea. At the back of her mind was a nebulous dream of a husband and children,” as if you can’t have both. “She felt a small shiver of apprehension; supposing Matron’s ‘splendid career’ was to be her lot in life?”

Not to worry, though, a few weeks after starting her “splendid career,” she’s working the night shift in the ED when a man, boy and girl in a car crash are brought in. On their heels follows a very large man—quintessential Betty Neels, who never had an even average-height hero—who tells Georgina that the children are his and that he is a doctor. He’s a commanding presence: “She had met him a bare five minutes ago, and on the strength of this short acquaintance was quite prepared to take his word on anything.” His name is as big as he is, Professor Julius van den Berg Eyffert—and “Georgina felt a peculiar lifting of her spirits” when she learns that Julius is single, just the guardian (not parent) of five children, his cousins. Cor, age 7, has broken both his legs, and becomes quite fond of Georgina when he’s in the hospital, so Julius naturally asks Georgina to come with the family when they return home to their village, which is not far from Great-Aunt Polly’s house. She’s an orphan, of course, sent at age 9 to live with Polly when her parents died of flu (it happens—get your shots, people!), and then Polly herself was crippled by polio 7 years later. The only quirk of the job is that she is required to wear a uniform at all times when she is on duty, and when she asks him if she may know why, he answers, “No, you may not.” And he continues to call her Nurse Rodman when the children all call her George. 

Back at the house, we witness a charming family up close, and Georgina slowly falls for them all. Poor Cor is in traction in bed for six weeks, so she spends a lot of time keeping him from “suffering from ennui,” as little Beatrix explains. The only wrenches in the works are that Georgina has fallen tragically in love with Julius, and he has informed her, “I have at last made up my mind to marry.” What a tragedy! And even worse, when she meets him at the end of her day off—not in uniform—he kisses her! What will his fiancée think about that?

Needless to say, there is much confusion about who is getting married, the de rigueur Betty Neels trip to Holland, and a near-tragedy to bring the floundering couple together, but the fun is watching Georgina interact with this charming family and Julius, who is a warm, kind, endearing character. Betty Neels is a most charming writer—but you and about 50 million others know that. To wit, after Georgina receives a too-businesslike letter from Julius the morning after he kisses her for the first time, “She put the letter in her pocket, with the unspoken thought that presently, when she was alone, she would tear it up into very small pieces indeed, and consign it to the waste paper basket, but it was surprising what a number of good reasons for not doing this occurred during the day. It seemed expedient, when she went to bed that night, to put it under her pillow.” Georgina is strong, smart, and human, with doubts and foibles and imperfections that make her that much more delightful. The children in particular are lovely and sweet, and this book is what I have already come to expect from Neels (see also The Fifth Day of Christmas and Tangled Autumn). This is the second Neels book I read and also the fourth, as I did not review it in a timely fashion and had to go back and have another go-round, and it was completely worth another viewing—so I can easily recommend it if you haven’t already had the pleasure.