Tabitha in Moonlight

By Betty Neels ©1972

Sister Tabitha just could not damp down her feelings for the attractive Dutch surgeon, Marius van Beek, but what future could there be for her in that direction? He appreciated her as an efficient colleague—but she could hardly convince herself that he ever saw her as a woman; she was so gauche and Marius was so experienced. As the last straw, Marius had called Tabitha a Cinderella and asked when the prince would come along with the glass slipper. Little was he aware that only he himself could give the answer to that one!

GRADE: A-

BEST QUOTES:
“Go away and whip up your nurses or whatever you do at this hour of the day.” 

“How nice a wedding is. I mean a wedding where everyone really likes the bride and groom and not the kind where the women go just to be spiteful about each other’s hats.”

REVIEW:
Tabitha Crawley is “unremarkable enough” in appearance, causing many to “dismiss her as a nice, rather dull girl”—but all is not lost, “she had a good figure and quite beautiful legs.” What more could a man want? Certainly not the fact that she’s calm, considerate and kind and a hard worker … 

The senior orthopedic surgeon, Bill Raynard, has broken his patella and has lured Dr. Marius van Beek to come down and sub for him while he’s incapacitated. In typical Neels fashion (though I grant you this is only the fourth of Betty’s books I’ve read) Tabitha instantly experiences a “delightful feeling of excitement” at meeting the Dutch doctor, along with a sigh that he’ll never look twice at her, she’s so plain. (He actually stares at her a while, making her cheeks turn pink.) An old friend of Dr. van Beek’s, his tutor at Cambdrige, has broken his leg, and Dr vB does the surgery, and Tabitha takes in the kindly old man’s cat and helps Marius pack up the old man’s things, as he is to be evicted from his rooming house; Marius plans to take his old friend home with him.

As for backstory, Tabitha’s mother had died when she was 15, and her father—now deceased—had married a woman who did not like Tabitha, and this woman and her daughter Lilith now reside in Tabitha’s family home, where when she visits she is relegated to the attic and exhorted not to wear a beautiful dress to Lilith’s birthday party. But guess who shows up at the party—that’s right, Marius van Beek! She’s in the garden, and he tells her she is charming in the moonlight, and when she answers that she is not pretty, he asks her who told her that? Why, it was her stepmother … but before they can get too deeply into the matter, Lilith, who is intent upon winning Marius for herself, quickly scoops the man away from Tabitha. Nonetheless, he manages to run into her when she’s out for a walk the next morning, and tells her she has an idée fixe, and suggests in the manner of the day that she get some therapy. She fails to take the hint and runs away, but they meet again on the orthopedic wards, of course, where he tells her he’s taking Lilith out for a day trip. “Tabitha fought a violent desire to burst into tears, box Mr. van Beek’s ears and find Lilith at once and do her some injury.”

But Marius turns up in her drawing room that evening, again plumbing the depths of Tabby’s insecurities, and the next morning she decides to wear some makeup to work. Kindly Mr. Bow tells her, “They say that beauty is but skin deep; but there are other kinds of beauty than the obvious one, and thy are vastly more important.” Lucky it is, then, that Tabitha has both! Indeed, even Marius tells her, “You’re a very restful girl. Most women are forever patting their hair or putting on lipstick or peering at themselves in those silly little mirrors they carry around.” (She doesn’t do those things, she thinks, because they “would make little difference to her appearance.”) 

For the rest of the book Marius gently woos her, and she stubbornly refuses to see that he cares, instead construing his kindness to the fact that when he marries Lilith she will be his sister in law—and never mind all those kisses. The remaining chapters are sprinkled with reminders of Tabby’s handicap, such as when she purchases a new hat, “a large floppy one with a wavy brim which she considered suited her very well because it hid her face.” He plays her evil stepmother—who is really completely horrible—and Lilith, winking at Tabby as he does so, but she is unable, unfortunately, to see it. Ultimately, Marius tells Tabby, “A pretty face isn’t always a beautiful one,” in a scene that made me a little vklempt, because I am such a sap. Add to this a touch of gentle humor now and then, and you have another spiffing read from Betty Neels. Her books may be somewhat repetitive, but so far she's been a consistent winner, so I for one am going to continue to read them.