Betty Keira refers to Sister Peters as 'the baby whisperer'. She and I both know a real baby whisperer. Who? None other than my very own Dr. van der Stevejinck. He can take a crying baby and without breaking a sweat have that baby asleep before you know it. The younger the baby the better. He just has that knack. It might be a misnomer though, to call him a baby whisperer...he manages his magic without saying a word (in best RDD style).
Sister Peters in Amsterdam may not be La Neels best novel, but it will always hold a special place in my heart for being the first...the first of many lovely love stories.
-Betty Debbie
The
Great Betty Neels wasn't a spring chicken when she took up writing. I
don't know if she always scribbled here and there. I don't know if she
knocked out random chapters of books that never went anywhere and sat in
the bottom of some drawer somewhere. (Someday we may uncover a missing
manuscript for a Betty Neels space opera, I'm sure of it.) The way she
tells it, she simply overheard someone telling a librarian that there
weren't enough good romance novels and a switch was flipped on inside
her. One day she was a nurse and another day she was a writer. If she
was half as hard-working and dedicated to her nursing as she was to her
books, she must have been amazing. Her first book,
Sister Peters in Amsterdam begins,
"It was one o'clock; the corridor leading from the main hospital to the children's unit was very quiet." The rest is history.
Adelaide Peters
is the baby whisperer. She's a nice looking redhead of 25 and a capable
sister in charge of Children's Emergency and Outpatients. When little
darlings are recalcitrant or fussed or inconveniently damp Sister Peters
dons her Lasso of Truth and her Deflecting Wristbands, hops into her
Invisible Jet and rules that ward. She has a minister father, twin
brothers, Matthew and Mark (love it!), for whom she sends school fees
and monetary help home and a mother who live off in the country
somewhere.
When
Baron Professor 
Coenraad Blankenaar Van Essen
visits her ward and tours the facilities he is secretly checking her
suitability (and her statistics) for a one-year nurse exchange program.
Don't start asking pesky questions like, "But, Betty Keira, wouldn't it
be medically unsafe to put a woman in charge of sick children under
emergency conditions when she doesn't speak a common language with them
or their distraught parents?" To which I answer, 'She's the baby
whisperer. Just go with it.'
And then she's off to Holland!
Adelaide
has agreed to go because the professor is hot. Sure, sure,
international travel, broadened horizons, foreign language
mastery...that's all there too. But lest we forget: The Professor is
HOT.
The structure is a little unusual in this book so I'll take this in seasons.
Fall:Arrival
and re-acquaintance with hot doctor. We are introduced to the character
Freule Margriet Keizer, a shadowy figure initially, who seems to see a
lot of the good doctor. Addy struggles with the difficult language and
muddles her verbs charmingly but proves herself as a dedicated nurse and
a sensible woman.
Winter: The
Great Neels uses this opportunity to chuck every Dutch tradition in the
pot like a very well-bred mulligan stew. During the feast of Saint
Nicolaas we meet Zwarte Piet, Nicolaas' 'black slave' (okey-doke), and
Addy meets Margriet. Addy isn't in love yet so her hopes aren't
precisely dashed but she does like Coenraad enough to feel sorry that
he's taken. (Girlfriend, a wise woman once said, 'If you like it then
you should have put a ring on it. Oh, oh, oh.')
On New Year's Eve she
is invited to his aunt's house for a party--the first time he will see
her out of uniform! How disappointing then to be looked at as though she
were an advertisement for Lawn Aeration or Carpet Installation. She is
angry with him--incensed that he is non-responsive to her considerable
feminine wiles. Thus she embarks on a curious one-sided courtship.
No
actual attempts at wooing are made, but she assumes the right to hate
him (when he brushes her off) and Margriet (when she...acts like
herself) nonetheless. I am put in mind of that movie
The Mouse That Roared
wherein the tiny country, in a bid to recover economically when a
California vineyard knocks off their only export, declares war with
America only to have a difficult time being noticed at all.
Or Pepe Le Pew making violent love to a flower pot. I'm put in mind of that too...
Either way, Addy has her moment of flashing realization that night. She is in love with the Professor. (Smacks head)
That's why I want to scratch Margriet's eyes out!
The
Betty Neels I know and love could wrap things up within days or weeks
of such an event but if I may draw your attention to the YEAR-LONG
CONTRACT Addy signed...We've still got the better part of two more
seasons to traverse.
Addy gets lost in a blizzard (in a city!), is
rescued by you-know-who with the medical degree and smashing bedside
manner, and weathers some blistering cattiness from Margriet who has
attached herself to the Professor like an oxpecker on a rhino's backside
(only less willing to eat ticks). Think she's going to roll over and
let another symbiotic relationship develop under her nose? Nuh-uh.
Ice-skating also occurs in this Dutch winter and Coenraad engineers some quality time with his best nurse out on the ice.
Spring:She discovers, by asking her elderly Dutch teacher, the
Sad Tale of the Orphan Boy or How the Professor Lost His Eyesight in One Eye. I won't ruin it but it involves Nazis, prison camp, loyal servants and the Late Unpleasantness.
The Professor takes her to tea where she discovers that he is a baron.
"...don't you approve of titles?" "Well of course I do,"
replied Addy in just the right tone for someone hailing from a country
governed by a constitutional monarchy. This American Betty might have
replied to that selfsame question, "Ordinarily and theoretically, no.
Romantically and interestingly, yes." Is there anything more drear and
cheerless than those awful French novels wherein they call each other
Citizen and Citizeness? Gag.
But this presents a problem for Addy.
Bad enough that the Professor is rich. Worse that he's nobility. A
country parson's daughter would have to be insane to reach that high.
(Had she not heard of The King and the Beggar Maid?)
But then he kisses her thoroughly and she kisses him back.
Had
she not just discovered his Adel-ness and wealth, this story might have
ended there. As it is, she tells him not to say anything. So much
better to be swamped by eddying waves of confusion and doubt when a
conversational air blower could have mucked that gutter out in a jiff.
In
the spring a young man's thoughts turn to lorries full of scrap iron,
oil tankers and bus accidents. (Thank Betty for a stunning visual.) Addy
makes a heroic rescue in tight quarters and Coenraad, in turn, rescues
her.
Summer:Coenraad invites all the nurses out to his family
compound
for a picnic. The cable-knit sweaters, deck shoes, and bon fires
practically drip off the page in a sort of amalgam of all the Kennedy
clan's more glamorously wholesome activities. Coenraad and Addy swim out
to a floating platform where he tells her about his eye and about how
he's always hoping for a miracle.
"How did you find out that I knew?"
"You always stand on my good side when we're at work."Aww. That's how you know they're meant for each other.
He
invites her to travel with him to England. (Does he know she can't
afford the fare?) After assuring herself that the trip won't include an
overnight stop in Brighton (I heart Betty.), she agrees to come.
Not
much time and energy are wasted on England. Addy makes an apple pie.
Coenraad charms her parents. Father gives him some advice (we don't find
out what) which Coenraad plans on taking. (A handy-dandy
Fortune Cookie Generator tells us that it is, 'Your emotional nature is strong and sensitive.' Spot on. Eerie.)
On
the trip back we find that her social life in Holland has been a bit
dire. She had one ill-fated trip out with two rowdy doctors, one dance
and mild chat-up with Brocade Waistcoat Fellow and what she thought
would be a safe night out to a concert with Dr. Vos, an aged widower who
will probably have his teeth punched in by Coenraad due to some
lecherous advances made on the future Baroness Van Essen.
Then Addy, desperate to put some distance between herself and Coenraad, accepts a date with Brocade Waistcoat Fellow.
The next day a fellow doctor, upon hearing who her date was, exclaims,
'Couldn't you do better than that?'Erm.......no.
It's
been nearly a year and between three lechers and a bad dresser she
chose the lesser of evils. Better a Brocade Waistcoat than Wandering
Hands, my mom always said.
But maybe the Professor agrees that Addy
should have been able to do better. He asks her to the hospital ball and
in a flurry of excitement she spends some carefully saved money on a
dress. Her quiet elation is burst when Margriet, laying in wait like a
jungle cat, pounces on her "by chance" (fat chance) outside the
hospital.
Margriet: Hey, girlfriend. We should hang out more.
Addy: Why are your eyes turning red?
Margriet: I'm so glad that I twisted Coenraad's arm to ask you to the ball. You've only had that Carnival Freak Show asking you out so...
Addy: Huh. Don't mind that. It's the sound of my heart fracturing irrevocably. You were saying...?
Margriet:
And I thought this totally uncharacteristic kindness on my part would
be rewarded with the Heirloom Sapphire engagement ring! And it was!
Addy: Where is it?
Margriet: Jewelers. I'm having it reforged in the fires of Mount Doom into an exact copy of Sauron's ring
--The Demon Lord of Mordor! Bye!
Addy
must break the date now. She fakes a toothache--possibly the most
unromantic of excuses (short of going nuclear. You know what I mean...
Women's problems.)--and
cancels. And then she decides she must go home. Even though it is a few
weeks shy of her contract, she asks for permission to leave.
She
gets all the way to his aunt's house (Where better to kill time while
simultaneously avoiding Coenraad and waiting for the train?) when in
walks Coenraad. He's furious and ready to drag her back to the hospital
by her hair.
But somehow he manages to ask her to stay on until
Friday (uh...okay) and has her explain what all that, "I hope you and
Margriet are happy together, forever, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G"
stuff was all about.
White faced and pinched, she allows him to dictate the terms of her dismissal.
On
the day of her final departure, he waylays her in the hall, drags her
off to somewhere private enough (a city square outside a church?) and
gets his proposing over with at last. "I've been in love with you from
the start!" Really!? Public snogging and firm wedding plans.
The EndRating:
Since this was her first effort some of the Neels-isms are light on the
ground. The hero is wonderful (glasses and a depth perception problem!)
and the heroine is (she hates this word) sensible. I like it. Still, it
takes a long time getting going and the time frame (one whole year) is
more reality based than novel based (there's a reason Romeo and Juliette
takes less than a week from end to end). I was a little irked that it
spanned that entire time and Coenraad didn't make his feelings more
plain. However, the last 10 pages make it all worth it even if making
her stay for three more days before she could leave was weird and
unnecessary. I give it a
boeuf en croute for originality and the spot of semi-blindness.
Fashion:
Dainty frilled cap, velvet dress with chestnut brown hair bow, a green
coat and hat that get serious mileage, a white bathing cap with a
ridiculous fringe and a 'despised' black swimsuit, an unused turquoise blue raw silk ball gown. The professor proposes in a 'car coat'.
Food:
Savory tidbits, hot chestnuts (I think I need to try some), potato
chips, milkless tea, creamy cake, lobster patties, chicken legs, tiny
pork pies, apple pie and chicken mousse (hm).
