I Cannot Think of a Christmas-y Phrase That Allows Any Play on the Title When Two Paths Meet

I shall keep trying to think of a festive tie-in for the title of our final finalist for the 2012 Best Betty Christmas vote, but doubt I’ll get there.  The candidates, for the last time – second-to-last, really, as I’ll list them again when I post the voting link – are:

Damsel in Green (1970)

Caroline's Waterloo  (1980)

A Girl to Love (1982)

When Two Paths Meet  (1988)

The Mistletoe Kiss  (1997)

A Christmas Romance  (1999)

So our final re-cap is for When Two Paths Meet, recently reprised with Betty Debbie’s brilliant review.  The setting is romance as geography: Katherine and Jason court in Salisbury (the only city in Wiltshire, apparently), in and around the cathedral famous for the beauty of its architecture and setting, as captured in the glorious paintings of John Constable – and, more vaguely, on the cover of the original Harlequin edition of this novel.

So we open in October, and in jig time Katherine has her first job, thanks to Jason, living quite close to the cathedral and companioning the elderly Graingers.  She looks forward to deploying her salary in service of amassing a more flattering wardrobe by Christmas.  She sets aside some money to buy presents for her vile brother and his almost-as-vile wife and their two unloving and unlovely children; whether that’s true-spirit-of-Christmas or get-yourself-to-a-shrink-and-deal-with-that-martyr-complex is in the eye of the beholder.

By chapter five, Katherine is a nursing aide at the hospital, and we are drawing closer to the holiday.  Sister is pressing every able-bodied patient into paper-chain construction, and the ward is further bedecked with paper flowers and “coloured crepe-paper mats for the bed tables and locker tops.  They would be the very devil to keep tidy and clean, observed Andy, but Sister, who considered herself artistic, always got carried away at Christmas.”  Needless to say, the visit to Katherine’s family is a complete bust – “She had been stupid to come” – let us draw the veil.

An evening out with Jason’s fun and friendly young cousin, Edward, does Katherine a bit of good, as do the mince pies back at Mrs. Potts’s boarding house, and the promise of turkey on Christmas.  Mildly heartened, Katherine has a bit of a spree on a snowy Christmas Eve, as she’ll be working Christmas and Boxing days.  She buys herself a new wool crepe dress and plain black leather shoes, and after boiled ham with parsley sauce at Mrs. Potts’s, and then heads out to the cathedral for the midnight service.  Exiting that uplifting event, she’s waylaid by the doctor and Edward and a steaming-mad Dodie Veronica, who drag her back to the doctor’s for steaming-hot chocolate and salmon (this does not sound a perfect match to me).  She also gets an invitation to the Fitzroy New Year’s Eve party, which should be a doozy.  Jason drives her home and kisses her cheek.  Happy Christmas indeed!

Christmas day dawns early and chilly, and we’re off to work, where three RTAs in the night will keep us busy.  However, there’s also a bran tub of presents; Katherine draws the last one.  “notelets — so useful, Staff Nurse pointed out kindly, for writing thank-you notes for presents.

“Only Katherine hadn’t had any presents.”  One could weep.

Still, the ward is genuinely festive, “the consultant surgeon, Mr. Bracewaite, arrived with the turkey and, suitably aproned and crowned with a chef’s cap, carved with the same precision he exhibited in the theatre.” (yuk)  There are crackers (the bang-prize kind, not the cheese-and kind), paper hats, and a bottle of plonk (cheap wine), which the nurses drink on duty(!).  Katherine gets to tour the other wards, adding another two glasses of hooch to her count for the afternoon.  The alcohol content does not, fortunately, cause her to drop a patient, but she does bump into Jason in Paediatrics and drop a clanger – calling him by his first name.  Oh, dear.

 So that’s Christmas, but remember, it’s England – so Katherine’s early dismissal by Sister on Boxing Day counts as part of the holiday, especially as she once again gets scooped up by Jason and borne off to his house for tea ‘round the fire, with fruitcake.  The witch Dodie appears, tosses out a few shockingly unkind insults, and then vanishes in a puff, leaving the Fitzroy boys and Katherine to enjoy Dover sole and trifle and poker lessons.  I wish I could make a case for the 27^th being part of Christmas – the snow’s still crisp and white and even – because the three of them hie off to Stourhead, and it’s just the loveliest outing ever.  But I don’t see how I can advance that argument.  So that’s it for Christmas When Two Paths Meet.  (But New Year’s...)



Salisbury Cathedral Christmas card





Elaine Hodgson



All I Want for Christmas is A Girl to Love

So we arrived at six finalists for the 2012 Best Betty Christmas vote, as listed below.  Not to influence anyone’s thinking or independent judgment or anything, but I suspect this is the one that will get my vote. 

Damsel in Green (1970)

Caroline's Waterloo  (1980)

A Girl to Love (1982)

When Two Paths Meet  (1988)

The Mistletoe Kiss  (1997)

A Christmas Romance  (1999)

One reason I suspect this:  I know Sadie Gillard and Oliver Trentham’s names without having to look them up.  The best I can do on the others is DiG’s heroine first name and hero last name, CW’s heroine first name (hint provided), and I may never forget that ACR stars Theodosia.  Betty Keira will post Betty Debbie’s full reprise of A Girl to Love on Monday, but meanwhile I shall remind you, at more length than intended, of the wonderfulness of the Christmas celebration it shares with us.

Background: Sadie’s granny dies five weeks before Christmas, and Sadie has to sell the cottage in Chelcombe, a small village in Dorset where she’s lived for most of her 23 years.  Fortunately, Oliver buys the place and hires her to housekeep for him and his two small daughters.  In the grand British Betty tradition of upper-lip-stiffening, Sadie mourns Granny for about three paragraphs and then starts making the best of things – and one of the best things is that Christmas is coming, and someone has got to make the season festive for the girls, since their haughty, cold-hearted governess sure won’t do it, and Dad is too emotionally insecure and work-burdened to be proactive in the matter.  Beautifully, and love-inducingly, he pitches in when offered the chance.

As, for instance, when he bundles Sadie into the Aston Martin Volante (not socking great in size, but great in awesomeness) and heads to Bath for a spot of gift-getting.  Sadie buys herself some more colorful clothes as well, including a sapphire-blue dress to wear on Christmas – and for Neels aficionados, perhaps a skosh of foreshadowing...  Later, we get to peek over Sadie’s shoulder as she composes her lists of household necessities for this most consumerist of holidays, and tag along as she makes her purchases at both Mrs. Beamish’s village shop and at the “splendidly old-fashioned grocers” in Bridport, where, “they offer you a chair, you know, and call you madam.”

Coming away from Bridport, Oliver frowns, prompting Sadie to ask, “You don’t like Christmas?”  “It’s become a commercial holiday, I seem to have lost the real Christmas years ago,” he replies.  Sadie assures him, “You’ll find it again in Chelcombe.”

Or perhaps in Bridport, for after the two little girls arrive, Sadie proposes a trip to that city to see Father Christmas parade through town.  The festive air is infectious, and kinda-sorta leads to the dismissal of the vile Miss Murch.  With her gone, the happy almost-family is free to make paper chains, with Oliver “making rather a botch of it,” but at least he’s trying.  And he’s happy to take the girls and Sadie shopping, in Dorchester this time, so they can buy presents for each other, including a shocking tie for Dad and a garish headscarf for Sadie.

We also have mention of the carol service at church, the children’s party at school, carol singers arriving for mince pies, “tying up of parcels and, for the first time in years, a great many Christmas cards.”  By Christmas Eve, the cottage is festooned with holly and colored paper, and the pillowcases are ready for stuffing with gifts.

Then, yay! it’s Christmas morning and Anna and Julie crowd onto Sadie’s bed with Tom the cat to open their gifts.  Oliver joins them with the tea tray, and amongst the garish headscarves, hankies and knitted gloves, Sadie receives an “extravagant box, tied with bright cords and.. awash with tissue paper.”  It contains a real silk blouse and skirt in amber:  “Its elegance was indisputable.  Just looking at it made her feel beautiful,” and, in fact, brings her to a teardrop or two of happiness.  Plus a demand that she “kiss Daddy thank you,” which she does, chastely on his cheek.

Walking to church through the snow, carving turkey “in a masterly fashion,” and playing with new dolls and their hand-sewn outfits, before a late tea and bit of record-player listening, round out a “lovely day.”  I am quite sure we have all re-discovered the spirit of Christmas at this point.

Of course, Betty doesn’t neglect the quintessential experience of the holidays:  cleaning like crazy, making a big mess of everything, and then tidying up again.  On Boxing Day, Oliver invites an unknown number of people over for drinks and titbits, which requires Sadie arising at the crack of d. to manufacture the sausage rolls Oliver is accustomed to ordering from Fortnum’s, and staying up late to clear away the dishes and napkins after a singularly successful drinks party.

Spirit of Christmas, indeed.  Plus, they're -- spoiler alert -- engaged by New Year's, so loving and giving abounds for ever after.

Meet Me Under The Mistletoe Kiss

Gracious!  Look at the date!  What with decking my halls and wedging myself into a corner of an overstuffed hotel ballroom for the Jonkheer’s office holiday party, doing ankle-strengthening exercises for the threatened ice-skating at my own office holiday party and berating dilatory family members for their failures to produce either travel plans or Christmas wish lists, I’ve fallen behind on the Christmas-scene re-caps.  For the fourth of six times, let me just note the finalists for the upcoming TUJD Best Christmas Ever (2012 version) vote:

Damsel in Green (1970)

Caroline's Waterloo  (1980)

A Girl to Love (1982)

When Two Paths Meet  (1988)

The Mistletoe Kiss  (1997)

A Christmas Romance  (1999)

The Mistletoe Kiss actually opens in October, with Ermentrude Foster and Ruerd ter Mennolt meeting for the first time over his desk at St. Luke’s hospital.  As autumn strolls toward winter, they get off to a bad start, rectify that over boiled eggs, rescue a kitten, adopt a dog, and so forth.  Ruerd’s rude and unkind fiancée suggests he throw a Christmas party, and Emmy begins knitting a pullover for her father’s Christmas present.  Mr. Foster gets a job offer, engineered by Ruerd, that will allow him, the Mrs. and Emmy to spend Christmas in Dorset, where they belong, rather than in noisome, crowded, dingy London.  But before that can happen, Emmy must get hit in the head by housebreakers, and Mum and Dad must discover that the Dorset plumbing is faulty and the house over-burdened with the previous owner’s furnishings, which sad setting for a convalescent Christmas inspires Ruerd to invite the whole clan over to Huis ter Mennolt.

And then we get truly festive.  The Fosters and Ruerd decorate the tree together, topping it with a fairy doll that his youngest niece will receive as a gift after the holiday, and Emmy and Ruerd deck the nursery walls with paper chains before a bevy of siblings arrive with their children (so important an element of a true, old-fashioned Christmas, right?) in tow.  There’s shouting and laughing, racing, dog-hugging and uncle-hanging-onto.  Twenty people sit down to dinner, with white lace and sparkling glass and polished silver surrounding an epergne filled with holly, Christmas roses and trailing ivy.  You may imagine the menu.

Next day is Christmas Eve, with the promise of snow in the air, a brisk walk, tea by the fire with Christmas cake and another magnificent menu (roast pheasant tonight).  “Christmas Day proved to be everything it should be”: church in the morning, with carols albeit in Dutch, then presents after lunch.  Emmy gets a “blue cashmere scarf, the colour of a pale winter sky” that will remind her of the professor every time she wears it.

And the mistletoe of the title?

“She turned to go back upstairs again.  ‘I ought to be changing,’ she said quickly.  ‘Thank you for my scarf. I've never had anything cashmere before.’

“He didn't say anything, but wrapped his great arms round her and kissed her.

“She was so taken by surprise that she didn't do anything for a moment.  She had no breath anyway.  The kiss hadn't been asocial peck; it had lingered far too long. And besides, she had the odd feeling that something was alight inside her, giving her the pleasant feeling that she could float in the air if she wished.  If that was what a kiss did to one, she thought hazily, then one must avoid being kissed again.

“She disentangled herself.  ‘You shouldn't…’ she began. ‘What I mean is, you mustn't kiss me. Anneliese wouldn't like it…’

“He was staring down at her, an odd look on his face. ‘But you did, Ermentrude?’

She nodded.  ‘It's not fair to her,’ she said, and then, unable to help herself, asked, ‘Why did you do it?’

“He smiled.  ‘My dear Ermentrude, look up above our heads.  Mistletoe—see?  A mistletoe kiss, permissible even between the truest strangers. And really we aren't much more than that, are we?’

“He gave her an avuncular pat on the shoulder. ‘Run along and dress or you will be late for drinks.’  Emmy didn't say anything; her throat was crowded with tears and she could feel the hot colour creeping into her face.  She flew up the staircase without a sound. Somewhere to hide, she thought unhappily.  He was laughing at me.

“But the professor wasn't laughing.”

Not an entirely unmixed Christmas for Emmy, then.  But, as Grandmother ter Mennolt says, “I must confess that I prefer the quiet of my room, but it is Christmas and one must make merry!”  Which seems to involve stuffing oneself with bonhomie, turkey and mince pies, although as a cousin ter Mennholt notes, “‘Of course, not all Dutch families celebrate as we do here.  This is typically English, is it not?  But you see we have married into English families from time to time, and this is one of the delightful customs we have adopted.’”  And after that, we have some lovely wintery time with children and pea soup, blow hot-blow cold professorial nonsense and bitter-twisted-fiancée/ex-fiancée-lies, escape plans and loin-girding to arrive at the eventual HEA on the beach with a bitter wind slicing into our snogging bones.

Christmas Caroling with Caroline’s Waterloo

So here’s the list of finalists, again, for the upcoming TUJD Best Christmas Ever (2012 version) vote:

Damsel in Green (1970)

Caroline's Waterloo  (1980)

A Girl to Love (1982)

When Two Paths Meet  (1988)

The Mistletoe Kiss  (1997)

A Christmas Romance  (1999)

Caroline’s Waterloo holds at least two distinctions in this group: one is that it’s the only volume with a MoC; the other is that it’s the only volume in which we don’t actually celebrate Christmas.  But regardless of how Professor Baron Radinck Thoe van Erckelens feels about holidays in general, patient, staff nurse and ideal wife Caroline Tripp Thoe van Erckelens believes in celebrating in style, and is happy to prepare for the festive day, as you may recall...

The book opens with an October bike tour in which Caro injures herself.  While recuperating from concussion and a deep leg wound in the Professor-Baron’s luxurious home, “it suddenly seemed very important to [Caroline] that the Professor should enjoy his Christmas,” and she plans to contribute by playing piano for the six household staff so they may learn a Christmas carol or two.  As she explains to butler Noakes, “Look, Noakes, everyone loves Christmas – if you could just take him by surprise, it might make it seem more fun. Then perhaps he'd have friends to stay – or something.”

 

She returns home to England to celebrate, one assumes, Christmas in her bedsit with her cat.  However, Radinck has other plans, tracks her down and marries her – this seems about mid-November.  The choral sessions begin again, and she buys wool and begins to knit him a sweater she doubts he’ll wear.  As she takes sensitive control of Huis Thoes, she envisions a houseful of guests, “all laughing and talking and dancing in the evening.”  And, of course, attendant on a wealthy Husband of Convenience there’s a “great sapphire in a circle of rose diamonds,” a mink coat and several shopping sprees for clothes, price-tickets no object.

And so the days unfurl: learning to ride, listening intelligently, rescuing donkeys.  In the spirit of Christmas, there’s a birth in a stable (baby donkey Prince), a beautifully-wrapped gift of a spectacular new dressing gown to replace the one bespoiled by donkey afterbirth, generations-old jewels, and a spate of pre-Christmas and New Year’s social events, like the burgemeester’s reception, a few drinks parties and the hospital ball (for which Caro has ‘flu and Radinck has a trip to Vienna, but still, it hovers festively in the background).

I believe this is the passage that makes for the best Neels Christmas ever for some of you:

“They were all a little shy at first.  The room was grand and they felt stiff and awkward and out of place until Caro said in her sparse, excruciating Dutch: ‘Sing as though you were in your own sitting-room – remember it’s to give the Professor pleasure and it’s only because this is the best place for him to hear you.’

“They loosened up after that.  They were well embarked on ‘Silent Night’ with all the harmonies just right, when the Professor unlocked his own front door.  No one heard him.  Even Rex, dozing by the fire, was deafened by the choir.  He stood for a moment in the centre of the hall and then walked very quietly to the drawing-room door, not quite closed.  The room was in shadow with only a lamp by the piano and the sconces on either side of the fireplace alight.  He pushed the door cautiously a few inches so that he could look in and no one saw him.  They were grouped round Caro at the piano, her mousy head lighted by the lamp beside her, one hand beating time while the other thumped out the tune.  Radinck closed the door gently again and retreated to where he had cast down his coat and bag and let himself out of the house again.  The car's engine made no noise above the sighing and whistling of the wind.  He drove back the way he had come, all the way to the airport on the outskirts of Leeuwarden where he parked the car, telephoned his home that he had returned earlier than he had expected, then got back into the car and, for the second time, drove himself home.

Caro had received the news of Radinck's unexpected return with outward calm. ‘We’ll find time to rehearse again tomorrow,’ she told them all. ...

“She closed the piano and went to sit in the sitting-room by the fire, her tapestry in her hands. She even had time to do a row or two before she heard Radinck open the door, speak to Noakes, on the watch for him, and cross the hall to open the sitting-room door.

“‘What a nice surprise!' she smiled as he came into the room. ... 

“‘You are feeling better, I can see that, and being sensible, sitting quietly here.’  ‘Oh, I’ve been very sensible,’ she assured him. ... ‘What have you been doing with yourself?’

“‘Oh, almost nothing – the flowers and catching up with my Dutch, and showing Marta how to make mince pies...’  ‘I surprised you playing the piano before we married,’ he said.  ‘Do you remember? Don’t you play anymore?’

“Caro's red face went pale. ‘Yes – well, sometimes I do.’

“He sat back in his chair, relaxed and at ease, and watched while Noakes placed the coffee tray at Caro’s elbow.  ‘Have you any plans for Christmas?' he asked idly.

“She stammered a little. ‘I understand from Noakes that you don’t – that is, you prefer a quiet time.’

“‘I am afraid that over the years I have got into the habit of doing very little about entertaining – I did mention the party which I give, did I not? Is there anything special you would enjoy? A little music perhaps?’

“‘Music?’ Caro’s needle was working overtime, regardless of wrong stitches.  She took a deep breath.  ‘Oh, you mean going to concerts and that sort of thing; Becky was telling me ... but you really don't have to bother.  We did agree when we married that your life wasn’t to be changed at all, but you’ve already had to go to these parties with me and you must have disliked them very much.  I’m very happy, you know, I don’t mind if I don’t go out socially.’

“‘I thought girls liked dressing up and going out to parties.’

“‘Well, yes, of course, but you see I don’t enjoy them if you don’t.’  She hadn't meant to say that. She stitched a whole row, her head bowed over her work, and wished fruitlessly that the floor would open and swallow her up.

“‘And what precisely do you mean by that?' asked Radinck blandly.

“‘Nothing, nothing at all.’  And then, knowing that she wouldn’t get away with that, she added: ‘What I meant was that I feel guilty because you have to give up your evenings doing something you don’t enjoy when you might be in your study reading ... and writing.’

“‘Put like that I seem to be a very selfish man. I must endeavour to make amends.’  Caro gave him a surprised glance. He wasn’t being sarcastic and his voice held a warm note she hadn’t heard before.”

After which, we have confusions and reconciliations, ending back in that sitting room with a suddenly very conveniently, and happily, married couple.  Christmas, unmentioned now, is still at least a few days away, and I'm guessing the not-so-surprise-but-the-surprisers-don't-know-that carol-choir goes over a treat.

It’s beginning to look a lot like A Christmas Romance

Those finalists, again, for TUJD Best Christmas Ever (2012 version) are:
  

Damsel in Green (1970)

Caroline's Waterloo  (1980)

A Girl to Love (1982)

When Two Paths Meet  (1988)

The Mistletoe Kiss  (1997)

A Christmas Romance  (1999)

Let us recall a few highlights of that latest-published volume, in which dietician’s assistant Theodosia Chapman manages to meet senior medical consultant Professor Hugo Bendinck, fall for him, adopt a dog with him, lose him (the doctor, not the dog), and win his undying love forever in a mere 103 pages in my 2001 Mills & Boon “Betty Neels Collector’s Edition.”

The story opens just five weeks before Christmas, when it’s cold and wet and dark outside, but cozy and warm in Theodosia’s London studio flat, with its bright cushions and handsome ginger cat, Gustavus.  Theodosia lives alone but plans to spend the holiday with her remaining family:  two elderly and rather unloving great-aunts in a chilly cottage in Finchingfield.  Much of the book’s four chapters concern various preparations for Christmas, greatly enlivened by the assistance of Hugo, whom Theodosia meets at the hospital where she works as a typist.

There’s also an awfully lot of mention of cold:  cold weather, Great-aunt Mary’s face “held little warmth,” cold cottage, underdone beef, cold supper, “not quite hot” bath water, cold feet (literal), chilly church, cold lunch, shivering one’s way to the bathroom, cold sleet, a brief mention of her parents’ deaths, five years earlier, of ’flu.  I am curling my toes and hunching my shoulders just typing about it.  But Theodosia has ginger hair – a bit of fire – and a ginger cat, and the professor’s car and home are blissfully warm, and Christmas is coming...

So off we go to the hospital ball, in a nipped and tucked dove-grey dress from Oxfam, to dance with the professor and ride luxuriously home in his Bentley.  And then it’s time to dash out to Fortnum & Mason’s to do the aunts’ shopping – but wait, the professor is there again, driving us (luxuriously) to that emporium to hand over the shopping list to the food-department experts and spring for a lunch of (hot) omelette and a glass of wine, and resisting “a wish to kiss the tip of her nose.”

And the following weekend, in the Christmas spirit of loving and giving, Theodosia succors an old lady hit by a car.  The professor, coincidentally and fortuitously driving by, ties off gushing arteries and whatnot whilst our heroine chats with the plucky survivor:

“She went and knelt by the old lady, who was still conscious but very pale.  ‘Bit of bad luck,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I was going to me daughter for Christmas...’  ‘Well, you will be well again by then,’ said Theodosia.  ‘The doctor's here now and you're going to hospital in a few minutes.’  ‘Proper Christmas dinner, we was going ter 'ave.  Turkey and the trimmings—I like a bit of turkey...’  ‘Oh, yes, so do I,’ said Theodosia, her ears stretched for the ambulance.  ‘Cranberry sauce with it...  and a nice bit of stuffing.’  The old lady's voice was very weak.  ‘And plenty of gravy.  Sprouts and pertaters and a good bread sauce.  Plenty of onion with it.’  ‘Your daughter makes her own puddings?’ asked Theodosia, and thought what a strange conversation this was—like a nightmare only she was already awake.”

You’ve got to love that, right?  She’s kneeling on the sidewalk, speckled with elderly blood, queasy at the site of the “awful mess” a speeding car can make of a stranger’s leg, and chatting about pudding recipes.  Perhaps not traditionally Christmassy, and perhaps adopting an unloved mutt out of the dogs’ home (which they do that afternoon) isn’t either, but the spirit is certainly right.

Sadly, by Christmas Eve we’re in a fine muddle, the prof having told Theodosia he plans to marry, and neglecting to mention, from some misplaced modesty or inappropriate sense of the dramatic, the you bit – I plan to marry you.  So of course when she sees him laughing with a lovely woman who kisses his cheek, she doesn’t think, “Must be his sister,” but instead grabs the nearest path lab assistant and pretends they’re dating.  And then off home to the sometimes cozy, sometimes chilly bedsit to pack the great-aunts’ gifts and catch the late train.  Except landlady Mrs. Towzer, “Aving a bit of a party this evening; must get meself poshed up,” drops off a letter from those fickle aunts, dis-inviting Theodosia for Christmas! in preference to an elderly archdeacon and his wife recently returned from South America.  A moment’s despondency for Theodosia, and then:

“...she got up, counted the money in her purse, got her shopping bag from behind the door, assured Gustavus that she would be back presently and left the house.”

She lays out her train-ticket funds on three days’ groceries, plus a discounted turkey leg, a small Christmas pudding and a plastic tree.

“...‘We are going to have a happy Christmas together,’ she told Gustavus.  ‘You'll be glad, anyway, for you'll be warm here, and I've bought you a present and you've bought me one, too.

“...The room looked welcoming and cheerful; the holly and the Christmas cards covered the almost bare walls and the Christmas tree, viewed from a distance, almost looked real. The cat food, wrapped in coloured paper, and the box of chocolates were arranged on each side of it and she had put the apples in a dish on the table. ‘Quite festive,’ said Theodosia to Gustavus, who was washing himself in front of the gas fire. ‘Now I shall have a cup of cocoa and you shall have some milk, and we'll go to bed.’”

But Hugo has been busy disentangling lies and grilling great-aunts, and swoops in to bear his love away to his warm Regency house, rendered less quiet than usual by the arrival of family.  Take it away, Betty:

“‘You are spending Christmas with me at home.’  ‘I'm not. I have no intention of going anywhere.... It is most kind of you,’ began Theodosia, and put a hand on his arm.  This was a mistake, for he took it, turned it over and kissed the palm.  ‘Oh, no,’ said Theodosia in a small voice as he wrapped his great arms round her.  She wriggled, quite uselessly, and he said gently, ‘Keep still, my darling; I'm going to kiss you.’  Which he did at some length and very thoroughly.

“‘I have been wanting to do that for a long time.  I've been in love with you ever since we first met.  I love you and there will be no reason for anything I do unless you are with me.’ 

“He gave her a swift kiss.  ‘Now come along.’  He swept her downstairs and as they reached the hall Mrs. Towzer came to see who it was.  ‘Going out, Miss Chapman?  At this time of night?’ She eyed the professor. ‘You've been here before; you seemed a nice enough gent.’  She stared at him severely.  ‘No ’anky-panky, I ’ope.’  The professor looked down his splendid nose at her. ‘Madam, I am taking my future wife to spend Christmas at my home with my sister and her family... ‘Oh, well, in that case... ’Appy Christmas to you both.’

“‘I promise I will never be stern with you.’  He turned to look to her as he started the car. ‘Or our children.’  She smiled and wanted to cry, too, for a moment.  From happiness, she supposed. ‘What a wonderful day to be in love and be loved.  I'm so happy.’  As they reached his house, the first strokes of midnight sounded from the church close by, followed by other church bells ringing in Christmas Day. ... He closed the door behind him, set Gustavus in his basket on the table and swept Theodosia into his arms. ‘This is what I have wanted to do—to wish you a happy Christmas in my own home—your home, too, my dearest.’  Theodosia, after being kissed in a most satisfactory manner, found her breath.  ‘It’s true, it’s all true?  Dearest Hugo, Happy Christmas.’  She stretched up and kissed him and then kissed him again for good measure.” 

The end.

Betty by the Numbers: Marriages

Harlequin author Catherine Spencer has a story on the Harlequin website of a modern-day marriage of convenience – her widowed dental hygienist, with two young daughters, married the widower of her best friend, who had two young sons.  They thought it would be best for the kids, so they created a happy family for several years and divorced after the kids were grown.  Sounds better than Consuelo Vanderbilt’s experience in being threatened and emotionally blackmailed into marrying the Duke of Marlborough to satisfy her mother’s social ambitions – that marriage ended after two sons and eleven years, though the divorce didn’t happen for another 15 years, and then they managed an annulment five years after that, apparently on grounds that the bride married against her will and the groom did it for the money.  It makes a love match sound rather appealing, doesn’t it?

 

The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, 1895 – the former Miss Vanderbilt needed the veil because, though famously beautiful, she is rumored to have cried throughout her wedding.

That said, any rich, Dutch doctor who needs a gracious hostess for his dinner parties and mousey Mama to his flighty late-wife’s children is welcome to call on me – assuming he doesn’t mind a little wear on the tires, if you will.  I am great at all that hostessing stuff, and Betty Beth has already volunteered to take the kiddies for a few hours a week, and I would be suitably appreciative – no gushing – of shopping sprees at Harrod’s and a devoted household staff.  (Drifts off into pleasant daydream....)

Actually, only one quarter of Betty’s marriages are convenient.  I tend to avoid the MOC stories, as the premise is so utterly and unbelievably unhappy to me.  “As I am now almost forty, and you are 26, we’re probably both willing to spend the rest of our lives without so much as speeding past the Brighton city limits.”  Oh, no, we are not, bucko.  We’ve never been there, and we understand that mutual affection, respect and a socking great allowance paid quarterly are important components of a successful union, but we’ve heard a few things about Brighton, and frankly it sounds worth exploring in the right company.  Anyway, it turns out I’ve been avoiding fewer books than I realized – and The Vicar’s Daughter (1996), which includes a MOC, was off the list anyway because I hate when the parents die in car crashes (sorry, Once for All Time).

My favorite marriage scenarios are the ones where he proposes near the end of the book, but not so near that we don’t get to see the wedding.  Cassandra by Chance (1973) is the first of seven – just 5% of the stories offer us an invitation to the wedding of two entirely happy, mutually loving people – but what a wedding: “on a cold blustery January day in the little village church on Mull... overflowing with flowers.”  The bride wears blue, to match her sapphire engagement ring.  (And seems to have her new mink coat on over the blue dress.  Am I misreading that?)  After a jolly reception at her sister’s, they change into sheepskin jackets and walk briskly up the hill to Ogre’s Relish, planning for a mixed half-dozen of baby ogres and ogresses.  Happily, there is no mention of awkward social moments with would-be suitor and minister Mr. Campbell conducting the service.

 

A sapphire-blue wedding dress – perhaps a skosh chilly for Mull in January.

 

This one will work well if he gives you an heirloom aquamarine.

If you haven’t read Philomena’s Miracle (1978) recently, do go back and tuck through those last few pages of wedding-prep and aisle-walk.  They really make a VHEA, although I do wish Betty didn’t harp so on our heroines’ looks, as if that were the primary and proper criterion for love.  If you’ve never read Philomena’s, you have a treat in store.  I’m less enamored of Eugenia and Gerard’s Heidelberg Wedding (1984).  Hands up who’d want to be proposed to, without warning, at the door of the chapel and swept in, handed a bouquet, and pointed toward the officiant.  We skip a lot of years after that, and then get four wedding scenes in ten books in 1997-2000.  Perhaps Harlequin/M&B was paying extra for satin and lace – and flowers.  Always flowers.

 The wedding chapel at Heidelberg Castle, pre-be-flowering.

With the usual caveats, I count 34 MOCs, or 25% of the 135 books.  Five of them take place early in the story, 23 happen about halfway through, and six occur toward the end – including that of the beautiful Sophie and her Rijk, who marry for convenience on page 137, and discover they really, truly do love each other on page 188, after rescuing a small child from drowning and freezing and straightening out all the confusion as to just what the curiously-likeable Irena means in Rijk’s life.

Given that seven marriages take place in the final paragraphs, that leaves 94, or 70%, to occur after the curtain falls upon our satisfyingly-snogging hero and heroine.  As the milkman in Last April Fair (1980) says “to no one in particular” after squeezing and wriggling past a blissfully-unnoticing Phylly and Pieter, “it’s a very good morning for some of us, and that’s a fact.”

While we have limited glimpses into their Afters, about 27 couples (MOC and non-MOC) show up in subsequent books, and 100% of them are blissfully happy together.  If I know anything about social sciences (and I don’t), that’s a statistically-significant sample.

Finally, let me quote from Kate Fox’s anthropological work Watching the English, recommended on this site by Betty Andrea, and many thanks to the said Betty for the tip.  Here’s Ms. Fox on weddings in England:  “We know that a wedding is supposed to be a joyous event, but in our usual Eeyorish fashion, we really see it as an ordeal, an occasion fraught with difficulties and dangers (or, as the ever-cheery Debrett’s puts it ‘a minefield for the socially insecure and a logistical nightmare for the organisers’ and, for good measure, ‘a source of inter-family tension’).  Something is bound to go drastically wrong, and someone is bound to be mortally offended – and because of our belief in the magical disinhibiting powers of alcohol, we know that the veneer of polite conviviality may crack, and the inevitable family tensions may erupt into unseemly tears and quarrels.  Even if stiff upper lips are maintained on the day, there will be grumbles and recriminations in the aftermath, and in any case, even at best, we expect the whole ritual to be rather embarrassing.”

According to Fox, the English practice “negative politeness,” which involves taking great care not to threaten the privacy of others.  This and other factors make them chronically uneasy on social occasions, like wedding receptions.  (“Positive politeness,” as practiced in the US and most western European cultures, involves seeking to include others in community – or invading their privacy.)