The Uncrushable Jersey Dress

Betty by the Numbers: Heroine’s Jobs

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

Betty by the Numbers: Heroine’s Jobs

Betty Neels was a nurse. She was a nurse in peacetime, a nurse in wartime, a nurse in the UK, a nurse in the Netherlands, a certified midwife, a Sister, a night superintendent and maybe more. She told her publishers and readers that she loved nursing, and picked it as her career of choice. It seems reasonable to assume that Betty Neels knew early-20th-century nursing cold.

A Dorset advertiser’s depiction of a nurse in 1910, a year after Betty was born.

She was, further, a daughter, a sister (the relation kind as well as the boss-nurse kind), a wife and a mother. In the last third of her life she was an unusually prolific author. She used a library (at least once), and enjoyed Dickens, Thackeray, Brontë and Donne. She enjoyed touring stately homes and living in the country. One might guess that she enjoyed gardening, eating, cooking and at least learning about antique furniture, but then one might also guess, based on her heroines’ Advanced Driving Certificates and varying levels of comfort in driving, that she was a good driver. However, when Mills & Boon asked, “What is the one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but never had the courage to try?” she answered, “Drive a car.” And she certainly never married a rich Dutch doctor and quit her job to rear a large brood of children with the help of one to six servants. So is all the gardening and cooking her heroines do also fantasy? I cannot say...

A German nurse circa 1936, about the time Betty got certified (I cropped out Hitler, who added less than nothing to the image)

However, I do know that her heroines were all the things we know Betty was, if you’re willing to stretch a point on the author-ing and allow a greeting-card-verse writer to stand in for the creation of 135 romance novels. In keeping with her great love, her heroines were primarily nurses. While a few of them professed no understanding of or interest in “women’s liberation, whatever that was,” only four of her 135 heroines – that’s just 3% – didn’t earn money through work of some sort. And those four kept busy: two vicar’s daughters visited parishioners, ran the Women’s Institute, succored pregnant travelers and so forth, one QC’s daughter read to the very old and the very young, and one veterinarian’s daughter helped out in Dad’s surgery.

But the nurses! There are 79 nurses of our 135 heroines, or 59% of the total. From 1969’s Sister Peters in Amsterdam through 1982’s Judith, a total of 55 books, they’re 100% nurses. Then we move into a period of decline; from 1982’s A Girl to Love, which stars our first non-nurse in the marvelous housekeeper and sensible countrywoman Sadie Gillard, through 1994’s A Secret Infatuation (surgical sister Eugenie Spencer), 48 books, we have 23 nurses – 48% of the total. In the remaining 32 books, only Araminta Pomfrey (Nanny by Chance, 1998) can claim nurse status, and that’s only by dint of a short stint as a student nurse.

An English nurse in about 1969, when Adelaide Peters was making her way to Amsterdam, and romance history, via Mills & Boon. You can read her story, and a whole lot of other very brief oral histories, on this memory wall site. You can see how nurse’s uniforms, and especially the caps, evolved in this fantastic slide show of American nurse’s caps from 1900-1970, modeled by the nurses themselves.

[As an aside, I note that Mrs. Neels began featuring non-nursing heroines at about the same time she tried her brief experiment with non-doctoring heroes. There are a total of six non-medical heroes, beginning in 1981 and ending in 1984. For the record, they are: civil engineer Simon Savage of Heaven Around the Corner (1981), history professor Charles Cresswell of Judith, television writer Oliver Trentham of A Girl to Love, factory owner and board chairman Jake Royle of All Else Confusion (all 1982), accounting-firm owner Lucius Massey of Roses and Champagne (1983) and economics professor Gideon Beaufort of Year’s Happy Ending (1984). They loved, respectively: a nurse, another nurse, a housekeeper/sensible countrywoman, a vicar’s daughter/companion, an illustrator with family money and a trained nanny.]

Of those 79 nurses, 57% were sisters or hoofdzusters, 32% were staff nurses or zusters, and 11%, just nine heroines, were students. The first student nurse, Lucy Prendergast, doesn’t show up until 1978’s Ring in a Teacup, and then we don’t meet a student again until 1984’s Polly, when we’re well into the transitional period. The final nurse, as noted above, is also a student. Many scholars have speculated that The Great Betty may have moved away from nursing heroines as the work began to change dramatically and quickly in the 70s and 80s, so her experience from the 30s through the 60s became less relevant to her writing. If this theory is correct, presenting students might have been easier than writing about more experienced nurses – however, sisters continued to predominate through the transitional period, right up to her penultimate nurse heroine, A Secret Infatuation’s Eugenie Spencer in 1994.

Seven of our nurses, 9%, work nights, though if I recall correctly a few of the others occasionally had night duty. My Irish nursing friends in the 1990s worked one week of night duty every six weeks or so. My recollection is that they had seven 12-hour shifts, 8pm to 8am, and then seven days off. The retribution threatened to housemates making undue daytime noise when Marion and Dara were “on nights” involved – again, if my memory is accurate – scalpels, iodine, plastic tubing and digitalis. (Normally lovely young women, they suffered ugly personality changes with the drastic alteration to their circadian rhythms.)

Would you believe 18% of our nurses, 14 heroines, worked for private patients in some capacity or other? I’ve lumped people like Emily Grenfell, the student nurse blackmailed into nursing Sebastian van Tecqx’s sister privately (The Fateful Bargain, 1989), and Christina Forbes, who takes leave from the Theophilus to nurse her Dutch-language teacher (Not Once But Twice, 1981), into this category. Sticklers will note that their work is not the same as that of Roly Brown, forced by Authority to put up with the egos and hypochondria of the Private Patients wing (Tulips for Augusta, 1971), or Hannah Lang, forced by her hideous mother to give up hospital nursing amongst the premies and turn to the more-lucrative agency nursing for the idle rich (Hannah, 1980). A confession: I’ve probably left out a few, since page one or two often gives me the heroine’s title and specialty, and with that block filled it, I doubt I always came back to it when, on page 114, she scoots off to Leeuwarden for a stint with our hero’s whooping-cough-afflicted former nanny/ex-girlfriend/mischievous godson.

Operating theatre after Sister Greenslade and Staff Nurse Bennett finish restoring it to pristine condition

A UK ward in 1973 – unclear whether medical or surgical, but pretty sure the patients are women. And the nurses! L to R: staff, aide and sister?

As to specialty, we’ve got quite the mixed bag, including a bit of double-counting: 19 are on surgical wards, 15 on medical wards, ten in theatre (my favorites!), eight in casualty or related urgent-care areas (my second favorites), two in outpatients and two in offices – one in the hero’s consulting rooms, the other in uncle’s GP practice. Seven of our nurses, or 9%, care for kiddies; just two, or 3%, specialize in elderlies. I’ve classified six as specializing in a ‘body part,’ which includes three orthopaedics and one each of gynaecology, chests, and ears, noses and throats. Betty Anonymous is currently pursuing the ENT route in hopes of meeting Emily Seymour of Winter Wedding – but she quit nursing to marry Renier Jurres-Romejin back in 1979, Betty Anon!

Very well, unless you have questions, I shall move on to the 56 heroines (41%) without nursing training. Questions? No?

Then I have one for you: What’s the second-most popular career choice for Betty Neels heroines? Take a moment...

I bet you said, “Companion!” didn’t you? You are spot on; there are 17 companions, 13% of all heroines and 30% of non-nursing heroines. If you said, “Mother’s help!” (or “Nanny!” or “Governess!”), you weren’t far off. We follow the trials of 14 nanny/governess/mother’s helps in the course of the oeuvre – although only one of them is a trained nanny. That’s 10% of the heroines; 25% of the non-nurses.

Louisa May Alcott, who worked as a seamstress amongst her other jobs, traveled from Boston to Europe as a young woman by serving as a paid companion to an invalid – maybe a relation.

Glancing through the list of alternative professions, we can pretty much generalize heroines’ roles as domestic, medical, non-domestic childcare, business or outliers. The bulk are in the first two categories, as you’ve probably noticed.

The domestic sphere includes those aforementioned companions and mother’s helps, as well as six of what I call “professional daughters,” four each of maids, general household helpers and housekeepers, three cooks and three social secretaries, and then a seamstress, a docent, a cataloguer, and a caretaker (the joker in the pack!).

On the medical front, we’ve got nine clinic assistant-types, including clinic assistant Celine Bayliss, pathology-lab assistant and bottlewasher Eustacia Crump, and part-time physiotherapy assistant Henrietta Cowper. There are also seven doctor’s receptionists (you know which doctor), five medical typist/secretaries, two hospital administrators (canteen, path. lab), a physiotherapist, a hospital switchboard operator and a hospital-canteen worker.

Mrs. Angela Meehan is Matron of St. Paul’s School in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. If I were a home- and children-loving rich Dutch doctor, I would love her.

We’ve got four school-matron types, two orphanage assistants, two school assistants and a volunteer reader at a nursery school – that’s the non-domestic childcare. Of the businesswomen, count three typists, two B&B proprietors and two business owners (cottage tea shop; needle-crafts shop). So for outliers, I get seven shop clerks (supermarket shelf-stackers amongst them, plus Abigail Trent earning six gulden daily in a Friesian village store despite not speaking the language because Dominic van Wijkelen has not paid her for several months of nursing services), two library aides, an illustrator, a florist’s assistant (doesn’t count as business because she’s really lousy at client service), a farm worker and a writer of greeting-card verses.

The non-nursing jobs add up to a total of 114, held by 67 heroines. Eleven of our nurses make career changes in the course of a novel – like poor, workers’-rights-violated Abigail Trent as described above, although they’re more likely to take on companion-type roles with light nursing than grocery-assistant-ing. And then there’s the unflappable Annis Brown, who serves as both a nurse and a cook to the burly working men of the Spitzbergen radio station in Midnight Sun’s Magic (1979). (Her previous work as sister of the children’s ward at St. Anselm’s, London, stands her in good stead for her dealings with the rather bratty Jake van Germert.)

Never having figured out how to turn all those A levels into a remunerative career, and unable to work a cash register, Matilda Philomena can’t wait to see what’s next for her on the wheel-of-casual-work!

So the 135 heroines average 1.4 jobs each, but the nurses are only 1.2 per, while non-nurses carry 1.8 during the course of their stories. Bar short-term student nurse Araminta Pomfrey, none of the nurses holds more than two jobs. Araminta, however, is one of six heroines performing four distinct jobs in the course of her story, as she quits her job as an aide at a children’s convalescent home shortly after Nanny by Chance begins to work as (untrained) nanny to Marcus van der Breugh’s twin nephews. That assignment finished, she finally gets to start her nursing training, but quits in frustration at the heartlessness of modern medicine’s focus on efficiency over humanity. Dr. van der Breugh then finds Mintie a job as temporary assistant matron at a boys’ school in Eastbourne, which town possesses a seaside promenade convenient for lonely weeping and a cozy tearoom where formerly lonely weepers may receive marriage proposals. Suzannah Lightfoot (The Chain of Destiny, 1989) works as a docent, a cataloguer, a companion, and a nursery school aide. Matilda ffinch (The Most Marvelous Summer, 1991) introduces herself to her readers as a social secretary, but tries out assistant matron-ing, companion-ing (to Grandpa Scott-Thurlow) and temporary nanny-ing (to goddaughter Scott-Thurlow). Francesca Haley (The Proposal, 1993) has four jobs, as does poor Henrietta Cowper – three at once as she cobbles together part-time work in the physiotherapy department at St. Alkelda’s, nights cleaning offices and Saturdays at the fruit stall down the street. After a bad bout of ‘flu loses her all her jobs, Adam Ross-Pitt finds her work as a general household-helper – and that’s a three-fer, as well: she’s a maid, needlewoman and docent for Sir Peter and Lady Hensen, for which 53-hour week they pay her fifty quid plus room and board. Even for a 1996 copyright, that sounds like awfully skimpy wages. Finally there’s independent woman Julia Gracey, whose graceless and sexually-harassing boss/boyfriend Oscar does her out of her job writing greeting-card verses after she points out a few of their incompatibilities. With her sisters leaving home to marry, Julia needs an income – and finds it in companioning Gerard van der Maes’s invalid housekeeper, plying her clever needle at a northern estate (that catches fire) and finally opening her own needle-crafts shop for about two weeks of losses.

Here is the text of the job-posting for seamstresses at the very gorgeous, very historical, very gigantic Derbyshire property of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Chatsworth. I really wish one of our Bettys would apply (Betty Kylene is very handy with a needle, isn’t she?):

Soft furnishing Seamstress x 2 (1 F/T, 1 P/T - 3 days per week) - 2 year fixed term contract

Chatsworth is embarking on the next phase of a substantial interior refurbishment project. This is an exciting time in Chatsworth's history and these posts offer an opportunity to contribute to the future of some important historic interiors in one of the country's greatest treasure houses.

We require two experienced soft-furnishing seamstresses to join the team, to work on large scale interiors projects. In addition there will be the opportunity to work on the alteration of historic curtains. Experience of making high-quality hand finished curtains, complex pelmets and other soft furnishings are essential.

The role requires previous experience of using industrial sewing machinery on a diverse range of cloth types. Proven pattern-matching skills, cutting, machine joining, and the ability to work to a consistent speed maintaining high levels of accuracy is essential. There will be some hand finishing, and the application of complex trimmings required.

Betty K, if you move to Chatsworth I promise to come visit.

The post holders will be required to assist with the removal and installation of soft furnishings, working from height. Candidates must be able to demonstrate experience of working on an industrial sewing machine as part of the selection process.

All applicants must have excellent written and communication skills, be self motivated and able to work effectively alone or as a member of a team.

Please click here for job description.

To apply please send your CV, including current salary details, to: The HR Department, Chatsworth Settlement Trustees, The Estate Office, Bakewell, DE45 1PJ or via email to hr@chatsworth.org.

Closing date for these positions is 3 February 2012.

Lord Baden-Powell's Finishing School for Young Men

2012-01-26T08:14:00.001-08:00

A hive of scum and villany

I was re-reading A Girl Named Rose the other day, a book suitable to almost all moods and seasons, when I ran across a bit that made me laugh:
Him: What did you have for lunch? Beans on toast? (he asks her of her date with an oily, Brighton-bound houseman)
Her: Yes, and a cup of coffee...
Him: I've never liked beans since I ate them out of a tin when I was a scout.
Her: You were a scout?
She looked so surprised that he laughed.
Him: It keeps little boys out of mischief.

My boy is in scouts. He's about to earn his Tenderfoot rank. I was his Cub Scout leader for several years several years ago. I wrote on my mommy-blog at the time:
The way to the heart of an 8-year-old boy lies through projectiles and food...but mostly projectiles.

and in another entry:
Scouts, scouts, scouts...(head cradled in hands) Can't live with 'em, can't legally trebuchet them off a ravine cliff...

After a very difficult den meeting (tears were shed, egos were bruised, mothers were called) I was packing up to go (baby on hip, toddler in hand and shepherding three cubbies out the door) and heard the fire alarm. All I could hear was a drumbeat of Yoda in my head: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the Dark Side.

Oh for the love of Jane Wyman!

Arg. Cubbies. The story is that it was mostly an accident--if hanging on the plastic box covering the fire alarm is ever an accident. But I was a little too soul destroyed to dredge up den motherly kindness. That's right. I went there. I recounted the plot of Magnificent Obsession.
--which is just what this situation was like if you see the Cubs as cavalier, playboy Rock Hudson who crashes his speedboat doing something silly and reckless (something suspiciously like hanging from a fire alarm box), keeping life saving equipment from Sexy Jane Wyman's husband who subsequently dies. I only hope that when Jane Wyman looses her eyesight and needs restorative surgery she will be helped by those same Cubbies who have fallen in love with the widow and also (freakishly fast, pre-internet) gotten to be expert eye surgeons all in the name of Christian charity (which is what Magnificent Obsession refers to although I'm pretty sure the movie makers wanted you to think that it was Sexy Jane Wyman).

And let that be a lesson to you.

So, no, I'm not really sure if it does keep young boys out of mischief. I'm pretty sure it was invented to get young boys to want to adventure to the Antarctic for King and country. (Non sequiter-ly speaking, my Canadian brother-in-law was a Queen's Venturer.)

I was massively pregnant with my latest pledge of affection while I had this job which I thought was bad enough (those scout shirts are as unflattering as possible) and then I had the Pledge.
Hey Sister van Voorhees...Where did the baby go? What's he doing under that blanket?

No, I'm not sure I can agree with Professor Sybren Werdmer ter Sane on this one.

Good Morning, Class

2012-01-25T11:21:00.000-08:00

another great submission via email from Betty Anonymous!

Good Morning, Class

"Good morning, class.
"Good morning , Ms Anon. "

"Now, before I return your marked papers, let’s just see if you’re all accounted for. Betty Francesa’s mom called the office this morning to say she’s got the sniffles, so she is excused from class today. "

What Betty Francesca’s mom and Ms Anon don’t know: Betty Francesca had puffy eyes and a red nose because she had been reading Caroline’s Waterloo and had been crying her eyes out because the gypsies were beating the poor little donkey.

"Where is Betty Magdalen? I saw her outside just now in the playground – on the teeter-totter with our little exchange student from Eton-Harrow-Winchester. Let’s see what her excuse will be this time. That Betty Magdalen! She will always try to reason herself out of the stickiest situations. Well, then., here are your English papers. All in all, I am very pleased with your efforts.
Betty Mary, very nice, though you’ve got the numbers of the chapters mixed up.
Betty Debbie, I am not entirely certain you’ve done your reading assignment. I think I may safely deduce from your comments that you’ve been reading Keira’s Digest again.
Betty Carla, very nice, but there were no dingos in the story, dear.
Betty Lulu, your writing has improved greatly, well done, I can see you’ve worked hard at the extra homework I gave you.
Betty AnHK, how on earth you managed to detect the influence of Taoism in front of a feudal background juxtaposit capitalistic tendencies in Melanie’s behaviour towards her sisters fiancé quite escapes me. Otherwise your essay is very engaging.
Betty Dorthe, your writing has a lot of zest, and the way you have with whisking the words into a text was quite the icing on the cake for me.
Betty JoDee! What have I said about throwing spitwads in my classroom?!! Huff. You were away from school for a while so you didn’t write a review this time.
Betty Barbara, I love the angle you took at looking at the protagonists’ families! Your review almost reads like a real family history. Well done.
Betty Laurel, you feel the story could be turned into a musical or even an opera? That’s a very interesting thought. And you mentioned that Melanie was mostly mumchance – very perceptive of you.
Betty Keira, you inferred the same thing in your paper. Excellent review. I truly enjoyed reading it. Well done.
Betty Beth, one cannot say that there was an over-abundance of words in your paper, but I enjoyed reading it none the less."

Knock, knock.

"Excuse me, Ms Anon. "
"Yes, Betty Henry?"
"Nurse ffinch sent me to tell you that Betty Magdalen shall be late. Little Betty Ross fell off the see-saw and she had to take him to Nurse ffinch’s office."
"Thank you, Betty Henry."
"Not at all."

"Where was I? Ah, yes. Here we are.
Betty Anonymous, your style is still a little stilted, you have to work on that. And I will give you some worksheets, you need to work a little on your prepositions. "

"Good morning, Ms Anon. Sorry I’m late – "
"Yes, that’s quite alright, Betty Magdalen, I hope little Betty Ross was not badly hurt?"
"No, just a little cut and a few scrapes."
"Well, I am certainly glad to hear that. Here is the book review you wrote,
Betty Magdalen. Very nicely done. I like your style. Good work.
Betty van den Betsy, your analysis is concise and to the point, well thought out, fun to read and the statistics you compiled on the exact amount of calories consumed by each of the characters throughout the novel with exact numbers for the percentage of calories from each of the four food groups is a masterpiece –

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg

"Saved by the bell. We’ll continue after a little recess."

Betty Anonymous

Not the Other Woman

2012-01-24T14:08:00.000-08:00

via email from Betty Anonymous:

Not the Other Woman

On Saturday, I had volunteered to do some dog sitting. And, while the little princess had a little snooze in one of the two spots on the couch favoured by her, I watched The Rich and the Beautiful of Sylt, an island in Northern Germany.

One of the Rich featured in the program – and in her case Beautiful, too – was Rosalie van Breemen, born August 2, 1966, in Utrecht, The Netherlands. She is a former Dutch model, worked as a presenter on Dutch television, and as a journalist for De Telegraaf and Paris Match, for example.

She is Dutch , but also Frisian, as she emphasized in the documentary.

In 1987, Rosalie van Breemen met French actor Alain Delon. Despite a considerable age difference (30 years), they had a long-lasting relationship. They had two children, but were never married. In 2001, the couple separated.

In 2002, she married French millionaire Alain Afflelou. After their divorce in 2008 she wrote a book about how when your marriage fails you can make your divorce a success.

Pour le meilleur et pour l'avenir
Comment rater son mariage et réussir son divorce ?
2009
(For Better and for the Future)
The French title of the book plays on the French Pour le meilleur et pour le pire ( For better, for worse)

En ze leefde nog lang en gelukkig
Hoe laat je je huwelijk mislopen en slaag je in je scheiding?
2010
(En ze leefde nog lang en gelukkig – And she lived long and happily – A typical phrase in Dutch fairy tale endings.)

In 2010, Rosalie married American billionaire Robert Agostinelli, son of Italian immigrants.

Remarkable woman. After both separations, Rosalie van Breemen managed to find a new love and get married within a year or two.
For richer, ...

I was strongly reminded of the other women in Neelsdom (which for some reason unbeknownst to myself I like to call Neeldom), the RDDs’ woman friends, would-be-wives, fiancées, ex-wives, ex-fiancées...

In the documentary, Rosalie van Breemen gave me the impression that she is a very nice person, down-to-earth, and I cannot see her in the role of one of the other women. A very handsome woman – "keeping middle-age at bay".

Cute.

This is about what she looked like in the documentary.

With Alain Delon

With Alain Afflelou

With Agostinelli

P.S. She owns a lovely Japanese dog. After her divorce and while she was writing at her book in her home on Sylt, he kept her faithful company.

Betty Anonymous.

Upcoming Reprise

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 30th.

Paradise for Two

Prudence Makepeace, (I'm in love with her name),

diabetic coma, handy ruptured appendix, fetching nighties.

The Quiet Professor - Reprise

2012-01-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

As I was editing this review, I had to reinsert Betty Keira's link to Helen Reddy singing I Am Woman. I don't know if Betty Keira knows that I actually heard Helen Reddy sing that song (and Delta Dawn!) at the Lane County fair back in the 70's? When I was a teenager. Before Betty Keira was born. Yes, I'm that much older than her.
I have to agree with Betty Keira on this one. I like much of The Quiet Professor, but Back-Stabbing Melanie is the real drag on the production . Megan is way nicer to her than she deserves. Way. Nicer. When I read this book, I mentally subtract about 50 IQ points from Melanie and then I'm okay with her. She'd have to be that much less intelligent to look forward to being related to Oscar's parents.

Megan Rodner is 28 has been engaged for six months to Oscar Fielding and if, right about now, you're thinking to yourself, "Hm. Oscar. That's such a unique and creative name for a doctor. I'll bet he's interesting," you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. Wronger than wrong. In the words of Megan's right hand, Oscar is 'a stuffed shirt'. But she had had her twenty-eighth birthday a day or two before that and since he seemed devoted to her and she liked him very much, indeed was half in love with him, she had agreed to become engaged.

Editorial Note:
It is difficult to travel this novel-ish road with Megan for the next 180 pages when she had such a flimsy reason to attach herself to the wrong man in the first place. If you think of her as having a very long birthday bender, and agreeing to marry him as a result of a muddled hangover, this all might make more sense. Indeed, I can think of nothing that would make a girl sober faster than becoming engaged to Oscar.
One day, a silly nurse drops a specimen destined for the path lab. (For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe, the horse was lost...) Such a small thing to get the ball rolling. It is Megan who girds up her silver buckle and braves the ogre's den. Professor Baron Jake van Belfeld looks up from his desk and, if he is to believed later, falls promptly in love. It isn't the first time they've seen each other so I think that he rather likes that she's shielding a student nurse from his unholy wrath. What a pity she's engaged...
Megan dresses that night for her first visit with Oscar's people. Oscar isn't a big fan of her expensive Italian shoe habit so it'll have to be the understated pumps. Oscar's mother and father (who probably call each other Mother and Father when they're covered in flannel and falling asleep) spend a few days in the big city every year, splashing out on a modest hotel, a concert, set menus and lots of time with their boy--all enough to place them in villain class. And have I mentioned Mrs. Fielding's 'economical clothes and fearsome hairdo'? Mother Fielding takes one sour look at Megan and reads some prepared remarks on the evils of career women. It does not go well.
If only Oscar could marry someone quiet and shy and willing to take second place (no third!) to his mother and his work... (I believe this is how foreshadowing is done, ladies.)
The next time they get together it is to travel all the way to Buckinghamshire (less than 100 miles!) for the first time in 6 months to meet her parents. It goes very well. Why, even meek little Melanie, her shy, quiet sister, willing to take second pla...(Hey look, there's that foreshadowing!) blossoms like a self-effacing rose when he's around. Good thing, thinks big sis, wiping her brow. We can't have Melanie upset for a fraction of a minute.
Oscar just loves Mel...erm...Buckinghamshire. Buckinghamshire is 'like a shy little angel...you're not a bit alike'. And if that backhanded remark isn't enough, Oscar goes on to rhapsodize about Buckinghamshire's cooking skills. Buckinghamshire makes the best scones.
But they were Megan's scones actually and she's got a rather light hand with pastry too but Oscar hasn't bothered to find out. In a bit of pique, she invites Oscar over for dinner in her brand new bed-sit. She'll knock him for six with her homemade onion soup.
Editorial Note:
This is really the saddest part of all. Megan is a fantastic homemaker/contriver--making her bed-sit attractive and cozy and working miracles with her cramped kitchenette--but just because she's a professional butt-kicker Oscar is uninterested in moving her from her tiny, cramped 'Nurse' pigeon hole. (Twwwwwwpppppttt. Cue the Helen Reddy music and put up your dukes pretty-boy.)
Of course Oscar cancels. He's only missing beans on toast, right? So there she is in her nice dress, with the homemade onion soup cooling on the stove and the lamb chops and baked custard...and the whole success of her future marriage resting on Oscar's finding her cooking as good as Buckinghamshire's. Tears!
A knock on the door brings the professor (we don't learn his Christian name until page 136).
Your cat was knocked over. Nice place you have here. What tears? I don't see any tears. Something smells good. Oh the prat canceled? Would I do instead?
Would you do? Honey, you're trading me a Rolls Royce for my rusty Morris. Will you do?
A lovely dinner is shared and he compliments her properly on her cooking. When Oscar comes to dinner several days and a few cold shoulders later he also compliments her on her cooking. "Did Buckinghamshire teach you?" Oh no, he didn't.
Megan is unable to make it home to Buckinghamshire in another weekend. No problems though. Oscar just goes without her.
Here, Oscar has crossed the Rubicon. He was flirting with disaster when sampling Mel...um...Buckinghamshire's cooking. He was teetering on the brink when sauntering off for early morning strolls to...ahem...birdwatch with Buckinghamshire. But traveling into the heart of Buckinghamshire, without his fiancee'? He has crossed a line.
Slaving away in London, Megan suffers from a brain cloud. Something is pricking at her consciousness and she can't quite grab at it.
The professor is content to wait and spar lightly with Megan. He might be The All-Seeing-Eye but she isn't--until, one night she twigs to it. Eureka! The Prat and the Simp! They're perfect for each other.
Megan is just sick about it. The professor waylays her in a corridor and bucks her up in a semi-painful but effective way. He meets her for dinner, offers himself as her father confessor (Thornbirds!) and gives good advice. Sit and stew a bit, find out if Melanie the Back-stabber is really in love and be prepared to take her sloppy seconds if she isn't. Okay, maybe that's not a direct quote.
Melanie really is in love. Oscar is the gutter crutch to her broken tib. He is the humpback whale to her barnacle. He is the brick wall to her clinging vine.
Right. So, there's only one thing to do. Megan whisks back to London, dons a ego-boosting outfit and meets a shame-faced Oscar for the Big Break-Up which goes something like this:
Megan: I know you really love Buckinghamshire. So, here's my ring back.
Oscar: Whew. I really dodged a bullet, didn't I? When I talked to Buckinghamshire...erm... Melanie we agreed to get married really soon--not like how I was going to make you wait forever and waste your youth and then make you live with my mother (which you loathed the idea of) while I worked to establish myself in London (which you also hated). No, we'll get married right off and I'll take a country practice...Your dream come true. All for Melanie. Do you know of a caterer I could use?
Megan: You talked to Melanie about this already? Before we broke it off? Okay...Well, I wish the best for you.
Oscar: Didn't you love me at all?...We should get together again so you can hear me praise Melanie's obvious perfections, sis.
Allow me a minute to fulminate about Oscar and sweet, shy Melanie. I was willing to believe they were not horrible people right up until he said they'd clandestinely made semi-firm wedding plans behind her back.
When Megan makes her lonely way back to her bed-sit she sees the Rolls. The professor, privy to the off-duty rota and guessing that tonight would be particularly difficult, is taking her out to dinner. Because he isn't a hypocrite, he also plans to order champagne. But he braces her up with typically hearty condolence. ...stop crying...Did you howl?...Had you thought? Until this evening there were three unhappy people, but now there is only one...I'm hungry.
And I just love Megan for seeing the sense of all this and not tossing her cat at him. She's willing to believe that he's got her interest at heart and will take some gentle chafing if it helps keep her emotionally together.
More Editorializing:
I appreciate that Megan doesn't let herself succumb to the sullens too frequently but she has good reason to complain and if she won't, I will. Melanie is 'bubbling over' with happiness and has the bad taste to do it out loud on the phone. Oscar wants to meet and be boring on the subject of her better sister. The hospital grapevine offers snide comfort and gossip. She can't go home for comfort because it might make her sister feel the least little bit bad (and we can't have Melanie feel bad for three seconds, now can we?). She can't show her parents the depth of her hurt and humiliation for the same reasons. Yes, Megan got herself into it by engaging a man she wasn't really in love with but there's no denying that Melanie is cruelly clueless and Oscar is no better. I give the professor a lot of latitude here because at least he is completely blameless.
Because all of this public bravery (in the interests of good taste, I am not posting a picture of Jenny Sanford, Silda Spitzer, Elin Woods, etc., etc.) is making her look less than stellar, the professor, Mother and Melanie (who you will not be able to convince me is acting in a selfless manner) tell her she ought to quit her job and go away. So, goaded into it, she agrees to go with the professor to nurse temporarily at an orphanage. Holland will be just the tonic she needs.
The professor tries very hard to present a cool, disinterested demeanor buy betrays himself when he tells her that he can make the way smooth for leaving the hospital. There is no reason for you to give reasons for leaving...I do not wish you to be hurt anymore; you have had enough. See, he's not having much of a courtship either and all this bucking up and avuncular casualness is fraying the poor man's nerves too.
The Holland Interlude
In Holland, Megan swiftly finds out that Jake has a first name (it's Jake!), he's not married (even though he let her think he was for 120 pages), he's a baron (nice gig if you can get it), and (drumroll please) that she loves him!
Holland has lots of orphans (even one little girl found in a grocery sack) and, more importantly, is the safe 'away' place that Megan needs to come to terms with Melanie and Oscar. A young Dr. Timuss is a brief, ever so brief distraction that fizzles almost immediately. And then, on the next to last day in the country, Megan, while holding a baby, tells Jake she loves him. '...it wasn't until you brought me here and left me without saying anything that I discovered that it was you...I watched the back of you walking away and I felt--I don't think there's a word,'....Jantje's face crimson[ed] with effort. 'Oh the lamb, he needs a changing.'
Do you not just love this woman?! She's going to shoot straight from the hip, going to be as honest as possible and knows when to change a baby. He'll have married a treasure.
Jake drives her off to his house the following day instead of taking her to England. It's an abduction of the nicest kind.
The End
Rating: Hmmm. Not one of my favorites but it has its moments. Melanie was the real drag on the production. She's like cement boots (ala Jimmy Hoffa) dragging us down to a watery grave. She's not really someone I can even enjoy disliking. I could buy that she was a proper wife for Oscar. I could buy that she had a deep connection to Megan. I could not sustain the cognitive dissonance of both. Any woman humorless enough to get along with Mrs. Fielding is no soul-sister of Megan's. Also, I hate that she'll be over the moon about Megan's engagement in part because she won't have to feel guilty anymore. Ugh. I shall comfort myself with the thought of her slowly turning into a pale shadow of Mrs. Fielding for the duration of her married life.
The Quiet Professor, instead of being an episodic travelogue, is practically an Epicure's Guide to England. Not bad (in fact, some of it I love) but a little heavy handed. Still, the heroine is fair-minded, selfless, disciplined...and if declaring one's love in the midst of a childish bowel movement doesn't bespeak aplomb, I don't know what does. It's a mince pie that deserves more if not for the dead weight of Oscar and Melanie.

Food: Boy, does she list every meal they had. This is some, not all: Megan makes homemade onion soup, baked custard, lamb chops and cheese scones for that fink who thinks she only knows how to open a tin of beans, lobster mousse (independent of one another those words are entirely inoffensive), salade Nicoise, cold vichyssoie soup, raised pork pie (please, Betty Debbie), jellied chicken (?), creme fraiche, apple pie and cream, steak and kidney pudding, braised chicory and saute' potatoes, toasted cheese, roast duck with oranges and Curacao, smoked eel on buttered toast, ham salad, pommes frites, ice cream, strawberry tarts and cold lettuce soup (ew.)

Fashion: azure blue crepe de Chine, an often-employed little grey jacket and long pleated skirt (for traveling! in pleats! long ones!), green taffeta skirt and crepe blouse, a honey shirtwaister, a sweet little breaking-it-off-with-my-fiance' outfit of black and white checked wool skirt (hounds-tooth? pretty please.), a scarlet sweater (see what you're missing bub?) and a black cord jacket