Professor Sam Gervis, 36, is lost...in more ways than one. On a physical level he has merely taken a wrong turn onto one of the byways branching off the shortcut from Pulchester. On a metaphysical level he is lashed together with the wrong soul mate and doomed to swirl around the Toilet Bowl of Infinity with her if something doesn't happen soon.
Polly Talbot, 20, happens.She stops to give him direction (in more ways than one), is called a rustic chatterbox for her pains and dismisses him from her mind--a mind chockablock with Latin and Greek. (Sona si Latine loqueris. Honk if you speak Latin.)
Polly has a temp job typing up a manuscript for Sir Corpus-Mortem (not really), the local dead languages expert, handily located within cycling distance from home (where live her parents and two gorgeous older sisters and maybe some other people too but we don't care much about them).
Sam discovers her working at Wells Court and he is revealed to be a friend of her boss and mildly gobsmacked that someone who he wrote off (or would like to have written off) at first sight turned out to have a first-class brain. But he can't say the same for her sense of style.
Those were your sisters in church?...very pretty girls and dressed charmingly....You know, you intrigue me.
'I couldn't care less,' said Polly.
Yes, she has herself well in hand when it comes to the Professor, cheerfully lobbing back every volley he sends her way.
Sir Corpus-Mortem mextremum vitae spiritum edere (gave up the ghost) which is all very sad for his family but allows Polly a change of venue. Instead of pounding away at her manuscript in the neighborhood, it is determined that she should come to Sam's house to finish her work, keep his soon-to-married sister, Diana, company and keep out of his elegantly affianced way. That's right. He's engaged to Deirdre--a horse-faced local belle. (He didn't hate it so he put a ring on it.) Naturally she has a bosom which calls to mind breakfast foods of the pancake variety which bodes ill for his future implied conjugal relations...
To Polly, Sam is cold and aloof unless he's being irritable. (But charmingly so.)
On weekends he drives her home, becoming acquainted with her family and her lifestyle. Cora and Marian (the Talbot Babes) are initially very taken with Sam but twig to Polly's as-yet-undiscovered feelings fairly quickly. (Being nice girls, they leave him pretty well alone.) Mother Talbot is just a darling--she has ideas about Sam and Polly, never mind the age gap, their public indifference to one another or his flat-chested fiancee.
And what does Polly feel? Well, she has awakened to the awfulness of her wardrobe and the desire to look better than she does. That's as far as it goes.
When Sam sees her in her off-the-peg but charming two-piece the temptation (oh yes, Sam has been unwillingly tempted for weeks) to kiss her overwhelms his better judgment...which makes her imminent departure that much more pressing.
She has been surreptitiously making plans to begin a nursing course at a nearby children's hospital, not at all sure why Sam can't know, only knowing that when she's gone she must stop thinking about him.
When the last Greek word is thumped out and the last proofs are placed upon his desk, Sam drives her home again. His departure is dispassionately swift and it is only the next day, while taking a solitary walk with the dog that she is poleaxed by the dawning realization. Oh my dear Sam, it's me you need
!Thank heavens she has her position to take up in a few days which will keep her busy and her mind off of Sam...
...right up until he walks onto the ward, nearly swamping her with delight. She didn't even know he was a surgeon. No one ever said.
'Do you have to screw your hair up like that, Polly?'
She gave him a surprised look. '...it doesn't make any difference.'
He studied her for a long moment. 'No, it doesn't.'
That's when we know that love has caught up with Professor Gervis.
Editorial Note: He goes out of his way to tell her that she'll never make a nurse (she takes this to be a comment on her aptitude and he means it as a crypto-love note) which reminded me of Baroness Schraeder making cracks about Fraulein Maria becoming a nun. I don't want to throw any bombs here but I'm betting that his telling Polly her future (some might say dictating) might offend some more modern sensibilities. Might I offer that they are both the kind of folks to want a large family and that she's more a do-the-work-at-hand type than the self-actualized-through-professional-success type. (I think Sam knows this about her.) I also offer that I know someone who nurses, is happily married and has raised 8 children so I'm not saying it can't be done but she doesn't have time for the kind of gentility and luxurious shopping that I think The Great Betty forecasts for her heroine. So, anyway, it didn't bug me a bit and I find him charmingly casting out hint after hint like a Discovery Channel host chumming the waters during Shark Week.
Sam invents reasons to take her home and fetch her back. He conveniently forgets to have dinner until they're on their way. He chats her up in the hallways (breaching all sorts of unspoken hospital etiquette concerning whom a student nurse may speak to and whom they may most definitely not speak to). He's doing a spot of skirt-chasing and it is only by implying (loudly and publicly) that, since he knows her father, he merely is casting an avuncular eye on her, that he avoids having her gossiped about.
And then Diana invites her over to see her wedding dress. There is a storm. Polly, cautiously suggests leaving early. Sam calls. Diana peels out of the driveway anyway...nearly killing them both in a highway accident. Polly saves them by driving to the verge. Sam finds them and since Diana has fallen asleep he bawls out Polly.
And then later he finds her on the ward and bawls her out again.
Editorial Note:
I remember being more bugged at this part in previous readings but, since he hasn't been told anything other than, 'Polly insisted we leave,' I don't blame him too much. He's shaken and furious and still loves her anyway:
My only regret is that I've started my training at this hospital; I had thought I would never have to see you again.
'You don't mean that, Polly.' His voice was so gentle...
He manages to force her into a public acceptance of his sister's wedding invitation (he is so clever and single-minded!) and we get a simply charming interlude where Sam in practically drunk on the wine of love. Polly wears a sweet, little Laura Ashley dress and he only just stops himself from proposing on the spot. You look so pretty... Deirdre slithers around and makes herself objectionable...oh, and his sister clears up the accident mis-communication at the end which didn't matter at all since Sam had decided that he'd take Polly any way he could get her.
For her part, Polly is beginning to notice the Professor's partiality. This has to stop, you know...
In a muddle, Polly decides to give in her notice and quit--seeing Sam everyday and waiting with morbid fear for his wedding to be announced is killing her. Before she can formally do so, she finds a choking baby, does all the right initial aid, and then sprints across the hall and thrusts the poor darling at the Professor. Sam...do something! Being ticked off for rule-breaking is the last straw on her frayed nerves and she practically flings her notice at the SNO and takes a bus back home.
Mother, brilliant, brilliant mother, knows to make an extra large dinner. Sam will be showing up soon, she just knows it.
And he does, and we're ever so close to some top-drawer snogging when he gets a blasted phone call. (The good health of an entire tenement full of sleeping children was sacrificed for this minor plot twist. I hope you're happy.)Deirdre shows up, uncorks her vial of venom and pours it into Polly's ears and Polly, who had begun to hope, turns into a block of ice.
She must get away. Immediately. Scotland!
Sam tracks her down at a train station lunch counter and does his explaining, proposing and snogging in cheerful view of an appreciative audience.
The End
Rating: Lashings of No-Calorie, Guilt-Free Whipped Cream! This story belongs to both the hero (our scheming, plotting hero) and our heroine (our dizzy, Latin-drenched heroine) equally. Yes, the age difference is not incidental (his 36 to her 20) but she's so good at managing him that you have no doubt that she'll have him meekly tucking into his soup while she presents him with pledge after pledge of her affection for years to come.
I love that his name is Sam--a lovely, accessible name--and that he falls so hard and so publicly (I mean, everyone knows he's got a yen for the plain little student nurse) for the girl he named the 'rustic chatterbox' at their first meeting.
I love Polly--she's at just that age when personal make-overs (particularly for girls who like their Latin more than fussy footwear) are uncomfortably embarked upon (feel free to sing the icky lyrics of 'Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon'). And it's usually a boy who gets the ball rolling in that direction--that's how you know that Polly likes Sam.
If there is a moment that dates itself a bit, it's when Sam's young cousin is essentially told that being a surgeon's wife is the next best thing to being a surgeon. She's a little young to be told that having a family and career are mutually exclusive (though I am of the camp that thinks you can have it all but often not all at once--which applies to my husband and myself) but this is a very peripheral quibble.
This was one of the last Neels titles I ever read and I was over the moon that she still was able to surprise and delight me. Go get this one. You'll thank me.
Food: Rhubarb jam, porridge, bacon, eggs, fried whitebait, lamb chops, lobster patties, roast lamb, trifle, avocado pear stuffed with prawns smothered in a delicate sauce (no, thank you), salmon patties, bacon and egg pie and Mrs. Talbot plans a large steak and kidney pie when Polly washes out of nursing school because she knows Sam will be 'round for supper.
Fashion: A too-big blouse with a prim collar, a plain pleated cream dress with bronze leaves, an elderly jersey dress, a candlewick dressing gown which has him looking down his nose at her (purely a defensive move on his part as she's been easily entrancing him--lovely clothes or no). Polly goes on a not-overly-thought-out shopping trip to update her look, buying a pink cotton blouse and skirt, a sleeveless dress in cream jersey, a knitted jacket in all colors I'm having some trouble imagining, some frivolous sandals and a flimsy apricot night dress (the better to be caught on midnight forays to the kitchen in). Deirdre wears a blue crepe trouser suit with jangling jewelry. Sam's sister wears a wedding dress of white organza and lace. Deirdre wears a vivid yellow dress to the wedding with a wavy-brimmed hat covered in pink roses. Happily, due to last week's Bertha I know that to La Neels a vivid dress is code for blindingly garish.
Betty Barbara here--
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this one as well. You pretty much covered the few sticking points I had, especially the "You'll never make a nurse" part. WE know what he means--but it must have been a blow to Polly to hear a judgment like that from the man she has come to love and the doctor she respects.
And I also did a date check over the being a surgeon's wife is just as good as being a surgeon. Well, no it isn't. I was surprised at Our Betty for making that comment, for she had several heroines who had medical school aspirations that were cruelly squashed by fate. So I expected her to be a little more supportive.
For those of us with some knowledge of the book biz, the whole sub-plot about the book induced a bunch of giggles.
And I think I remember one of the Neels heroines' brothers falling for a medical school classmate and deciding that they'd set up practice together...
ReplyDeleteAlso, not knowing a thing about the book biz, I am dying to know which bits were giggle-worthy and how you came by your knowledge, Betty Barbara.
Betty Barbara undoubtedly knows more than I do, but unless something very fishy was going on, that book wasn't coming out less than a year after turning in the manuscript. Yes, some books can be churned out faster, but usually that because they're topical and current. Not so with this particular tome -- Latin and Greek had been dead for a long time...
ReplyDeleteI've commented before that The Great Betty worked really really hard as a nurse for over 30 years, so to be told, "Don't worry, you won't need to work after we marry," must have seemed like the height of luxury and comfort.
The most professional woman I ever knew is Betty Henry's mum, Anne. (That makes her my former-mother-in-law.) She's in her 80s now, so almost a generation younger than The Great Betty. Anne's mother had been a doctor and when her husband, Anne's father, died tragically young, Amy had to support the family. She got a job as a psychiatrist because there was housing available on the estate of the mental hospital. Anne grew up thinking that she would never work outside the home, and she didn't. That didn't make her any less efficient and successful -- it just meant that after marriage, she didn't have to make a living.
I see The Great Betty as being in the same mind-set. After having to be the wage-earner, she thought it would be just wonderful if her heroines could afford to be full-time stay-at-home mums. Nothing wrong with that, I reckon.
My objection to Sam's announcement that Polly would never be a nurse is that, while we know he's saying it because he plans to marry her out of hand, she thinks he's saying that she's incompetent. He's too smart not to see that's what she's inferring, yet he says it again. I don't see that as romantic -- I see it as insensitive and even a bit cruel.
I grant you, Betty Magdalen, that it was insensitive but it was his only way of communicating that Polly shouldn't fall too terribly in love with the life she was living without saying outright, 'I love you and will throw Deirdre over at the soonest possible moment!' So, I don't think it's cruel precisely, just ham-handed.
ReplyDeleteBetty Barbara here--
ReplyDeleteBetty Keira--Short answer--I worked for Waldenbooks for 17 years. And also, as an avid reader, I would track my favorite authors through the industry press. Oh goodie! their agent has "sold" a book--manuscript due in x months to a year. Then another year (usually) until said book hits the bookstore shelves.
A scholarly tome (low demand unless the author is a well-known and/or well-regarded expert in the field) would take even longer to "sell" to a publisher, even one of the smaller academic presses. So it is the easy path to publication that marks this sub-plot as 'fiction'. In real life it might have taken Sam a number of years to fulfill his promise to see that the book was published.
Regarding the publishing thing - I remember wondering about that too, but, please, don't forget, all of our RDD/REWs are so very well connected. Things Happen when they want them to. :)
ReplyDeleteRegarding some of the anachronisms in Betty's books - it makes sense that they'd occur in her writings, especially given the extreme changes in social mores in her lifetime. And I do realize that as a publishing house Harlequin isn't known for worrying about consistency or correctness. (I've read books - I believe one was a Neels) where the name of the hero changed along the way, obviously, yet they failed to catch every instance of that old version before going to print. Other things crop up on a regular basis. I mainly stick to Neels and Essie Summers in the Harlequin line, although when I'm at the bottom of the barrel for reading material, anything someone gives me to read qualifies, except Danielle Steel - can't abide her writing! ;-)
Anyway, even Harlequin should have caught some of the more obvious of these anachronisms, don't you think?
I grant you that Harlequin/Mills & Boon is not known for their proofreading/fact checking/determining the correct usage of foreign language. I'm learning French and I *cringe* when I read through a Selects set in France because there's *nearly always* something wrong.
DeleteBut as far as the anachronisms go, that's (IMHO) part of the charm of the Neels books, that 'out of time'-ness. It's just like reading the original James Bond novels; they're very much of a time and place. Or another novelist I love, Josephine Tey. Her books are definitely post-war England. While theoretically Ms. Neels' books are supposed to be contemporary, that's just a façade, and I'm thinking most readers expect that feel. Or not. And who knows -- maybe she had something in her contract that kept H/B&N from making those kind of changes?
There's a typo up there (LOL... pot, meet kettle). Instead of "'out of time'-ness", read "sense of another time".
DeleteI rather like the timeless out of timeness sense of another time. I have read Damsel in Green recently. The number of typos in that volume is horrendous. Words missing. Words from a few lines further down appearing a few lines further up replacing the words that where there when the Great Betty wrote the script. And then there is this:
DeleteBeatrix was in bed; so were both the cats and Robby. The little girl rolled enormous blue eyes at her. 'George, I thought you would never come. We've all been so lonely.' She caught sight of the plate in Georgina's hand. 'What have you got there?' Georgina told her, and went and sat on the bed, which comes it rather crowded. She asked doubtfully, 'Are these three going to stay the night?' Beatrix bit into her pastry. 'Oh, no. ...
The only thing that really annoyed me about the book was that the sisters weren't expected to contribute to the household finances- their money went to buy fashionable clothes- but Polly was.
ReplyDeleteNo, they can buy one fewer outfit a month and help out, too. It isn't fair.
I loved this book and, despite having enjoyed many Betty Neels' books when younger, I had not read this one. It reminds me of Georgette Heyer's The Corinthian, especially in the relationships between Sam and Polly, being similar to Richard and Penn's, and both young heroines 'growing up' and realising their true feelings.
ReplyDeleteI always wondered about the typewriter in Polly.
Delete'Greek and Latin,' he told her with some smugness, 'a comparison, if I may so describe it—as far as I know, there's been precious little written about the subject since Beeton's Classical Dictionary, although my work is no dictionary.' He turned to nod over one shoulder. 'There's a desk and typewriter and all you may need through there. You can start as soon as you wish.'
I always wondered what that typewriter looked like. Greek and Latin, a comparison - that means Polly had to type Greek and Latin, so there had to be Greek and Latin letters on that typewriter.
Yes, using a typewriter boggles the imagination. I used to have to mark accents onto the typed page with a pen, so Greek characters would have been impossible. Maybe there were specialist typewriters, but why would Sam, a paediatrician, have such a machine?
DeleteStill a fun read and your site has got me reading Neels again - at an alarming rate. Great fun, like watching a Tom Hanks/ Meg Ryan chick lit with a bottle of wine and box of chocolates on an evening.
It is a bit like the curate's egg for me, good in parts. I love them both and then not so much.
ReplyDeleteAfter a series of duds, Polly is a delightfully engaging read. He adores her and she loves him. Both their families are decent people and what seems like a rarity, we don't have the sisters angling for the hero. (Probably because they vibe Sam desires a large family and Polly would only be too willing to 'present him with a row of handsome little Greek and Latin scholars').
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be skimmed over that Sam is (emotionally) cheating on Deidre before he finally breaks it off with her. Neels, goes out of her way to have every secondary character who interacts with Deidre ruminate on her unsuitability. There are hints how they became entangled but it never satisfactorily explained why he became engaged to her when there were so many dealbreakers evident.
Sam's anger after the car accident was understandable. (Has anyone counted the number of dead bodies that seem to rack up in Neels-dom? The mortality rate must be approaching Midsomer levels). He almost lost the two people he loves most in the world through stupidity. We also inferred that the anger was underpinned by fears that he may have misjudged Polly's compatibility as a wife as he did Deidre.
Sizable age differences between the hero and heroine are generally creepy. We really didn't notice it here as Polly can comfortably match him and thought it more of a plot device so he is of age where is he is established in his career and she is of an age where commencing nursing isn't unusual.
Yes, the biggest flaw in the romance was (not the mythical multilingual typewriter, but) the devastating comment that Polly would never be a nurse. Sam, coupled with the bullying Sister, undermined her confidence badly. It was needlessly cruel regardless of its romantic intent. The observation that as a woman you are better off as a surgeon's wife rather than a surgeon was equally problematic. (It makes you appreciate how radical the 1978 Mills and Boon novel Beloved Surgeon by Shelia Douglas was).
'Never too far to be with my Polly,' is the breath taking line of the novel (ignoring the dangers of driver fatigue). Sigh.
I simply had to read Beloved Surgeon after I saw your comment. I must say, in spite of the surgeon’s wife comment, Polly held up much better. Beloved Surgeon read like a “what not to do” sexual harassment PSA. Being a Surgeon’s wife in Polly’s world would be much better than being a female surgeon in Jill’s world. Had this been a Betty book, Jan, or perhaps the American girl, would have been the lead, and Jill would have been the Veronica ( she was kind of a drip). The only thing radical about Beloved Surgeon was the suggestion that Jill might continue to work (part time, of course) after she married. Betty wins again! Though I have to admit to mentally adding more than a few years to Polly’s age to make it palatable (16 years difference=way too much) Polly’s wit and intelligence make for a fun read, Oh, and for once it made sense that she couldn’t “sneak” after the car wreck. Sam never would have believed her at that moment.
DeleteI know it’s been a little while since anyone has commented, but I love, love, love this one and I want to know if ANYONE can tell me why Sam keeps seeing that harpy Deirdre so long? I realize it was going to take a little while but eventually I threw out the “ awwwwwww, COME ON!!!!!!!!!”
ReplyDeleteThank you so much!
Pure speculation-Sam had reached a point in his life where he was prepared to marry 'anyone suitable'. Sam isn't immediately sure of Polly's regard particularly as the age difference between them is quite sizable. Sam is not going alienate his 'anyone suitable' in the shape of Dierdre until he is certain of Polly.
DeleteSam is also observing the RDD (or in this case RBD) rules for terminating a suddenly undesirable engagement. Said unwanted fiancée must be manipulated into dumping the RBD lest aspirations are made against the doctor's character and to minimise social scandal hence the slow detachment.