The Betty of Bettys

Your winner, Betties:

The Promise of Happiness 

(or, as we have been affectionately calling it for years: Becky and the Baron, the Hot, Hot Baron)

(Do you think we need a soundtrack on this? Yes. Definitely. Let's have a soundtrack. Feel free to dance around the kitchen.)

It was a hard-fought contest of titles and The Promise of Happiness only beat out A Gentle Awakening by FOUR votes. So it seems fitting to pause a moment and give the runner-up a moment in the sun.

I like what Betty Janice had to say about A Gentle Awakening: "...she leaves her mean father, earns Nanny's respect and devotion, teaches Pauline to bake, gets Sir William to eat his daughter's attempts, responds to fiancee Wanda's slap with an entire jug of lemonade, nurses the sick household, speaks Dutch... delicious book!"

Florina is such a sweet and unassuming heroine and I writhe for her, having jumped from the frying pan of her father's house (Is there a more loutish father in Neelsdom?) and into the fire of Sir William's employ. She's top over tail in love before she knows what's hit her and the prospects look dire. But her sterling qualities (fluent Dutch, Grade A cookery and a real affection for his daughter, Pauline) coupled with Sir William's willingness to do menial housework (make coffee, bring morning tea, deliver trays of food, hoover (!), scrape potatoes and wash dishes in the midst of the measles epidemic) make me sure that these crazy kids will go together like vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce.

Now, on to our winner. The Promise of Happiness is often my favorite Betty (Always top five but these things shift around like the sands of an outgoing tide. You feel me.) because of the indomitable spirit of the heroine. Though running away from the only home she has with two pets and no real luggage or money is dramatic, the part that gets me by the throat is when she regrets that the Baron only sees her as "a dowdy girl who wore cheap clothes and didn't know how to make the best of herself--and she wasn't really like that...it was difficult to splash out...and he was so secure himself that he would never have known the insecurity that not having money brought with it." 

There is an entire library filled with things Doctor Baron Tiele Raukema van den Eck doesn't know but, by the end, he's taken a seat in the front row of the Becky Saunders Memorial Lecture Hall, composition book open, pencil at the ready. He sees her at last.

Tiele wondered if there was extra-credit labs offered or opportunities for field trips.
He'd offer to drive the instructor in his Rolls Royce Corniche...take it in easy stages...stop off at every handy lay-by.
He was a very dilligent student.

I do think it's interesting that both of our top finalists had instances where the hero (A Rich British Doctor in one and a Rich Dutch Doctor in the other, as has been noted.) did not scruple of be slightly caddish in pursuit of his ends. 

Sir William's fiancee, Wanda the Wicked, gets marched through briar patches so she'll run back to London in her laddered tights, flinging her engagement ring (in a modern setting, you just know) over her shoulder.

Nina van Doorn gets dragged to a chamber concert to provide the flimsiest cover to Tiele as he stares at the back of Becky's head all night. It was perhaps as flimsy as Nina's evening gown that, no doubt, exposed far too much bosom of the salt cellar variety. (He would have disapproved of it if he'd bothered to glance at her even once.) 

This has been such a fun ride, Betties, and I'm so happy you all took it with me. The final vote, as we all know, hasn't settled anything at all. I'd love to hear your Top Five books in the comments section and whether any of your favorites changed over the last months as you've reread the selections.