Always and Forever, chapter 8

Although I think Oliver is being lamentably slow about wooing Amabel, I'm far happier with Always and Forever than I was with All Else Confusion. That's a relief; I feared that familiarity would breed contempt with every Betts title, but now I've realized that I have a special level of contempt for the dreadful Jake.
But I digress. When last we left our heroine, she was being stalked by Miriam, and Oliver was in love with her. Both of those things are still true here. Miriam comes to call on Lady Haleford, who is frail enough to see visitors for only a few minutes at a time. She suggests that Miriam and Amabel go on a walk; in the course of the walk, Miriam persuades Amabel that Miriam is about to marry someone named Oliver, a doctor in London who likes to help the less fortunate - in fact, he just helped some pathetic girl get a job. The level of detail here, and the idea that this would come up in a 10-minute conversation, would make me suspicious; Amabel swallows it hook, line and sinker.
However, this conversation has a silver lining (at least for the impatient reader), because after it Amabel realizes she's in love with Oliver. She's upset that he apparently loves Miriam, and refuses to listen when he tells her there's "a great deal I wish to say to you" (p. 221). He soon hears that Miriam has come to visit, so I imagine he'll straighten everything out in chapter 9. But in the meantime, he'll have to rescue Amabel again; her mother gets pneumonia, and Keith insists that Amabel come home to take care of everything. (This scene is reminding me of the end of Lois Duncan's Daughters of Eve, when Jane's mother is in the hospital and her abusive father says Jane will have to take over now. Sadly, unlike Jane's father, Keith won't be feeling the business end of a cast-iron skillet anytime soon).

Always and Forever, chapter 7

Amabel has settled in with Lady Haleford, though Lady Haleford wakes her up every night for several hours because she wants someone to talk to. Oliver comes to visit occasionally, and learns that Amabel has bought a new dress. Lady Haleford encourages Oliver to take Amabel to dinner (which he had intended to do anyway), and they have a great time eating and dancing. Amabel is depressed when Lady Haleford is smug about how she invited Oliver to ask out Amabel, because Amabel assumes that Oliver pities her. As it turns out, he's in love with her, and waiting for her to figure out that she is in love with him.
In other news, Miriam has taken to stalking: she often calls Oliver, despite his lack of interest in her. She drives out to the village where Lady Haleford lives and stops Amabel as she walks the dog so that she can scope out Amabel. She even goes to the local church and chats with the vicar, hoping he'll tell her about Lady Haleford and her new companion. He even mentions that he saw Oliver and Amabel walking the dogs, which makes Miriam jealous. The plot thickens - but not too much, as we only have two more chapters to go!

Always and Forever, chapter 6

Oliver takes Amabel to his great-aunt's house. His great-aunt, Lady Haleford, is 87 and has just had a stroke. She doesn't need a nurse, but Oliver and Mrs Fforde want a companion for her. Amabel settles in and is happy enough. Miriam is still chasing after Oliver, despite his obsious disinterest, and when she discovers that a young woman is looking after Lady Haleford, she jumps to all the right conclusions. The chapter ends as Miriam is planning a visit to see Lady Haleford, so she can see Amabel for herself.

her person

For the first time since I started this blog (so, okay - a book and a half), Betts uses the phrase "her person" (as in, "Amabel was conscious of a warm glow deep inside her person", p. 116). I always find this phrase amusing. Of course, I know what the phrase means, but to me it always sounds as though she's got a minion. Better yet, the "doctor's large person" comes through the door a few pages later; does he have a small person, too? Who's Amabel's person? How did she get one, and where do I get one?

Always and Forever, chapter 5

Amabel and Oliver enjoy an evening and an afternoon together (not staying with each other overnight, of course!). Amabel answers Dolores's questions about this, not realizing that Dolores is not as kind as she seems. Miriam persuades Dolores to fire her, asking her to do so for several days, and even lying that Miriam and Oliver had recently spent the night together, because Miriam Is Wicked. Dolores does this with a cruelty and dispatch that Miriam would have approved: she gives Amabel notice in the morning, and expects her to be packed and out of her room within an hour or two of the end of the workday. Amabel's aunt is away, so she's forced to rent a shabby room (for a high rate, because of the pets). She has to leave there a day or two later, and then she's almost reduced to the free beds at the Salvation Army. She goes to a little medieval church that she had pointed out to Oliver on one of their walks, so she can try to figure out where to go next. Luckily, Oliver finds her there.

Always and Forever, chapter 4

Oliver lets Amabel know about the job in York (the job in a shop that Miriam's friend, Dolores, owns), and Amabel gets it. She gets only half the going rate for such a job, and (gasp!) has to work almost 50 hours a week. On the other hand, hardly anyone comes to the store, and Dolores gives her a room (complete with kitchenette, loo, and enclosed space outside where the pets can go during the day) to stay in. So on balance, Amabel has done well for herself, but she doesn't see it that way. She spends most of her wages on making the room nicer, which can't be a good idea for one that has no savings.
Miriam has been possessive lately, and their friends have taken to treating them as a couple, so Oliver goes up to York to see Amabel. It's mind-boggling that Oliver can't understand the reasons for this behavior, but Dolores does. She calls Miriam to warn her about how friendly Oliver and Amabel are. At the end of the chapter, Oliver even quotes a Nigerian proverb ("Hold a true friend with both your friends") at Amabel, holding both her hands and telling her that he's her true friend. This always strikes me as hilarious; could he be any more literal-minded?

Shades of Enid Blyton!

In chapter 3, p. 77, Great-Aunt Thisbe serves Oliver and Amabel a high tea which even an Enid Blyton character would have cherished: "The table was elegantly laid, the teapot at one end, a covered dish of buttered eggs at the other, with racks of toast, a dish of butter and a homemade pate. There was jam too, and a pot of honey, and sandwiches, and in the centre of the table a cakestand bearing scones, fruitcake, oatcakes and small cakes from the local baker, known as fancies."

Always and Forever, chapter 3

Great-Aunt Thisbe assures Amabel that are plenty of museum jobs open in York, and that all that's needed to get one is "intelligence, the Queen's English and a pleasant voice and appearance" (p. 63). It seems unlkely to me that no one else wants to be a curator or museum guide; my SO was surprised for another reason: "They speak the Queen's English in York?"
Oliver goes to look for Amabel at her old home, and her mother shows her true Ungrateful Parent colors by telling Oliver, a stranger, that "The silly girl didn't like the idea of them [the dog and cat] being put down - left us in the lurch too" by not helping Keith with the gardening business (p. 68). He decides to drive up to York to see Amabel, not enquiring too deeply into his motives for so doing (though even a careless reader would suss them out, of course). He sees Amabel a few times, and hears about her wish to get a job. The catty Miriam unexpectedly comes to the rescue, gossiping about her friend in York who owns a shop, but who is impractical and needs an assistant. The chapter ends there, but one can guess what will happen in chapter 4.
By the way, Amabel's wish to get a job, but apparent cluelessness about the process, makes this book not only an ungrateful family story, but also a helpless woman story.

off-the-peg dresses

Ok, so here's the strange things about Betts fashion: she's always dismissive of dresses that are "off-the-peg", but all of her characters wear them. I was inspired to write this by a description of the dress Amabel wears to eat dinner with Oliver in chapter 2: "...[Amabel] got into a jersey dress, which was an off the peg model, but of a pleasing shade of cranberry-red..." (pp. 43-44). The alternative to off-the-peg is couture, which by definition means custom fittings, if not custom-making and custom design. So all those times her heroines go on a shopping spree at Jaeger or Harrods, they're buying off-the-peg. The only heroines who wear handmade clothes are the poor ones, who have people in the village hand-make their dresses.

Always and Forever, chapter 2

In this chapter, we hear about Oliver's house in London. It's a narrow Regency house, complete with a servant (Bates) and a black Labrador (Tiger). We also hear that he's been in the company of Miriam Potter-Stokes lately, one of those elegant and well-dressed women who often throw themselves at Betts heroes. She's well-dressed, but Oliver isn't very enthusiastic about spending time with her - Miriam clearly likes him more than he likes her. Odds are that Miriam and Amabel will meet in later chapters, and that Miriam will be condescending, and that I'll enjoy reading all about it. Anyway, seeing Miriam reminds Oliver of Amabel - possibly "because the difference in the two of them was so marked" (p. 40). So he visits Amabel, finds her having a good cry about her mother's new marriage, and is very comforting - he even takes her out to dinner.
Amabel has been looking for jobs in the newspaper. She writes to her mother about the splendid apple crop, and about all the fruit she has harvested. She actually does quite a lot of gardening in the weeks before her mother's return. They have a large garden plot, an orchard, and an old greenhouse. Sadly, once Keith (Amabel's stepfather) arrives, there goes the orchard - on the first day of his arrival, he announces his intentions of taking out all the trees and putting a new greenhouse there. Keith assumes that Amabel will stick around and do the lighter gardening, even though he doesn't like her and even declares that "I'm the boss here" (because Amabel's mother is a doormat). After Amabel finds him mistreating the animals she takes some money (with her mother's permission) and runs away with the pets to her great-aunt Thisbe in Yorkshire. Her aunt is very welcoming, saying, "Welcome to my home, child. And yours for as long as you need it." (p. 59)

more about Amabel and jobs

In one of my posts yesterday (before I picked up Always and Forever), I'd said this:
"And she never goes off to get training, or live on the dole for a while until she is trained for a career."
This is absolutely true for Amabel. She muses that, "She would have to train for something... But training cost money, and she wasn't sure there would be any. She could get a job and save enough to train" (p. 30). But then she comes up with the waitressing/National Trust idea, and hares off on that instead. It never occurs to her to ask her mother for some start-up costs, or to live at home while she commutes to a training, because after all they've been in business together, and surely Amabel has a right to some of the money, if her mother chooses to give up the business?

Always and Forever, chapter 1

I'm looking forward to this book! All Else Confusion made me cranky, so this will be a nice change. I have a "larger print" version of this book - it's not a trade paperback, as older large-print Bettses are, but a mass market paperback with slightly larger type. Most of the people I know who like Bettses (aside from me, I mean) are over 60, so I shouldn't be surprised by the larger print.
Amabel, our heroine, runs a B&B with her mother, who is visiting Amabel's sister in Canada. Amabel isn't happy about being left at home alone, but puts a brave face on it. She's a jolie laide - "with a face which, while not pretty, was redeemed by fine brown eyes" and long, pale brown hair (p. 5). She has a dog, Cyril, and a cat named Oscar.
One day, during a storm, Dr. Oliver Fforde and his mother knock on the door, asking to stay because the weather's awful for driving. He drives a Rolls Royce, by the way, which is a nice change from Bentleys. Of course Amabel is a good cook and a good host, and it's not surprising that Oliver and Amabel get along well. In the days that follow the Ffordes' departure, Amabel proves to be a capable B&B manager. Oliver stops by one day to see how she's doing, and takes her out to lunch.
At the end of the chapter, Amabel receives a letter from her mother, explaining the delay in her return from Canada: she has met a market gardener, and after they marry they will convert the B&B into a working garden, so Amabel should feel free (that's a strong hint, there!) to go find a career. Amabel assesses her skills (p. 30: "She could cook - not quite cordon bleu, perhaps, but to a high standard - she could housekeep, change plugs, cope with basic plumbing. She could tend a garden... Her pen faltered. There was nothing else."). Of course she has A levels, but she decides that working as a waitress, or for the National Trust (as a house guide, or in a teashop) would be a better fit.
I was delighted by her mother's letter, because I didn't know how to categorize this book before I read it. Her mother's cool assumption that Amabel will keep the B&B running until her mother's return several months hence, and the strong hint that she won't be wanted after that, make this book an ungrateful family title. Yippee!

plots

So. I've just finished blogging about the first Betts on my list, so now it's time for me to work out names for the various plots. All Else Confusion is certainly the basic marriage of convenience. There's the slight twist that Jake doesn't realize he's in love with Annis straight away, and Annis has at least a chance of happiness with Matt, but that's it. The marriage of convenience nearly always has at least one of them in love from the get-go, it always features a shopping spree (though there's one book, which I might be misremembering, in which the hero pretends he's poor. It sounds so unlikely for a Betts that I'll assume I'm wrong for the moment).
There's also the helpless woman plot, in which the hero finds the heroine a series of jobs - or, occasionally, she finds them herself - and despite living almost hand-to-mouth, she spends most of her surplus income on jersey dresses and two-piece outfits. That comes in handy when the hero falls in love with her, of course, but it's hardly a sound financial strategy. Of course, because she's of good family, she rarely takes a job as a maid - though that does happen. And she never goes off to get training, or live on the dole for a while until she is trained for a career. Or go to university - Betts heroines are never, ever university girls. Occasionally, the heroine has her own business - I'm reminded of a Betts heroine who owns a teashop and never makes any money, which makes her a suitable candidate for rescue by the hero.
Sometimes the helpless woman plot is combined with the marriage of convenience, or with the fabulously over-the-top ungrateful family (exemplified in the book where her selfish sister doses some babies with sleeping pills so she can go to a fashion show, if memory serves me correctly). The ungrateful family plot is where one is most likely to find a Betts heroine doing work that's "below her station", such as cleaning houses, because she works and works just so her family can buy chocolates. Extravagantly. More rarely, the Betts heroine is the older sister and caretaker of her siblings.
The inappropriate fiancee plot is a favorite as well. The heroines rarely have interesting fiancees (they tend to be dull but worthy), but the hero's fiancee is nearly always thin, attractively dressed, selfish and mean. They make for interesting reading - I'm speaking on the Betts scale of interesting, of course. Funnily enough, the Betts heroines can be just as catty as the mean fiancees when provoked, but the hero always realizes the sterling worth of the heroine and persuades the fiancee to break the engagement. Often, she finds solace in the arms of an American - rich Americans, or overly friendly ones, are the only people from the States who ever show up in the books.
The medical plot can be combined with the inappropriate fiancee plot or the ungrateful family plot (as in the example with the sleeping pills above), but basically it's your doctor-nurse cliche. They work in the same medical setting, and through a series of dramatic events they realize they're right for each other,

All Else Confusion, chapter 9

It's the last chapter - yippee! It's hard to remember that this book is 25 years old - but even in other times, Jake's attitudes would have been disturbing. Jake leaves Annis at her parents' house while he goes overseas, and doesn't tell her where he is going or when he'll be back. So when Annis decides to chase him down to tell him she loves him, she has to find out his whereabouts from his secretary (who, natch, is surprised that Annis doesn't know). So Annis flies off to Naples, tells Jake that she loves him and finds out that (of course) he's in love with her, and they decide to have a proper honeymoon in Naples.
I don't think I'll be this happy to see chapter 9 in every Betts. This is one of my least favorites, because Annis is more of a doormat than usual - well, she's probably average on that score, but he walks all over her more often.
I'm done! This is, by the way, the marriage of convenience plot. It's slightly unusual - Annis flying off to Naples is atypical, as is Jake being a businessman and not a doctor, but Betts couldn't write exactly the same book over and over again, could she?

All Else Confusion, chapter 8

Jake and Annis are home from Lisbon. Annis buys a dress, they go to a party, they go to Bath, they visit Jake's family. Everyone - Annis, Betts, and certainly I - am just waiting until chapter 9. Jake throws the "man with the head..." quote from Tennyson at Annis, which would make me run away, but Annis doesn't (she does protest,"But I'm a person! Why should I obey blindly just because you want me to?", (p. 159) but doesn't pursue it after Jake changes the subject). They go back to London and Annis goes sightseeing every day to fill in the time, but never mentions it to Jake lest it bore him (though he explains the "intricacies of business" to her in some detail).
They have a dinner party, and afterward Annis is cross with Jake because he assumes she had nothing to do with the preparation. She exclaims that "I can't think why you married me, and I can't think why I married you either!" (p. 162). Jake had been planning to dump her off at her parents' house while he went overseas; when she protests, he maddeningly says, "Remember Tennyson?" and changes the subject. He's horrible, honestly, and even his timely intervention when little Audrey is carried off by a party of tinkers (!) doesn't make him much better.

All Else Confusion, chapter 7

This is a very dull chapter. Annis is peeved, so she makes a comment in Jake's hearing about how single children often grow up to be more selfish than those in large families. Jake alludes to this the next morning, but when she apologizes he asks her why she's "making such a thing about it" (p. 137).
Another odd bit of dialogue makes me think he's a bit of a jerk:
Annis: "Oh, do you think I'm pretty?"
Jake: "Why else should I have married you?" (p. 141)
I was amused to see one of the servants saying that "though I says it as shouldn't...", because I use that phrase as well. Come to think of it, I probably got it from a Betts, or from an old British children's book.

All Else Confusion, chapter 6

Here's what happens at the end of Annis's and Jake's wedding day: Annis "wished him goodnight, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, because all her life she had kissed her parents goodnight and it was going to be a habit hard to break" (p. 110). O-kay. I know it's a chaste Betts, and that they have an agreement to stay celibate for the first few months of their marriage (because it's essentially a marriage of convenience for Jake), but Annis's confusion between her parents and Jake is strange.
They dash off to Lisbon for a few days, because Jake has business there. Jake buys Annis several dresses. As always, good clothes transform a Betts heroine into something quite lovely. I can think of only one person in my acquaintance who looks noticeably different, and better, in formal dress, so I find this strange.
There's a tiresome - and red-flag raising, if either of these people thought - sequence where Jake asks Annis to eat lunch alone in their hotel room. But she sees him driving with an attractive woman before lunch, so she eats in a restaurant and sits with one of his colleagues. So he's cranky that she went against his wishes about her lunch (!), so she mentions the woman, and all is well. But were I a marriage counselor, I'd warn Jake about being controlling and Annis about jealousy.

All Else Confusion, chapter 5

One who was unfamiliar with Betty Neels's books might have wondered why on earth I included "house #1" as a label. It's because nearly always, the hero has two or three, often with servants to match. So for this chapter, I longed to be able to label this "house #2" - because doesn't a flat that covers a whole floor of a house in London count? But I can't, because even if it's posh, it's still a flat. So with the wedding coming up, Jake takes Annis to look at his flat, which of course is furnished and decorated exactly to her taste (soft colors, a Sheraton table, an original Turner in the sitting-room, etc.).
I'd forgotten about Betts's utterly bourgeois tastes - and I mean that literally. Jake and Annis go to Claridges, and he treats her to lobster and champagne, among other things. Whatever would Lord Peter Wimsey say? Well, I suspect he'd say nothing, but the silence would speak volumes. Quite a lot is given to Annis in this chapter: lunch, a sapphire engagement ring, a car.
Jake's busy in the weeks before the wedding, so Matt becomes Annis's right hand. In a different author's hands, this would lead to a wholly different plot, but it doesn't, because Matt's still keen on marrying Annis's sister.
The chapter ends with Annis going down the aisle to her wedding.

All Else Confusion, chapter 4

After the funeral, Jake had kept Annis in Bath on the pretext of work, but we learn here that he was lying - there's only a half-hour of phone calls. If this were a very different type of romance, this would lead to Gothic horror - will the heroine ever get home? - or a seduction scene. But it's a Betts, so of course they chastely get into his Bentley and go off to meet his family. His grandmother jumps the gun a bit, which leads to this ever-so-romantic proposal:
Jake: Grandmother approves of you, isn't that nice? She longs to be a great-granny.
Annis: Whatever has that got to do with me?
Jake: I told her that I was going to marry you.
It turns out that I was wrong about the last chapter; Jake is in love with Annis, but he doesn't realize it yet. They're going to marry in three weeks' time. Jake (because he's rich, of course) tells Annis not to worry about a trousseau, and suggests to her parents that he give them a little something to pay for a helper to take Annis's place (though since they didn't really need one when Annis was in Bath, why bother now?). Matt, by the way, wants to marry Annis's younger sister.

All Else Confusion, chapter 3

Was Betts a Monty Python fan? I'd never noticed before that when Mrs Duvant falls ill, she says, "I'm not dead yet." Of course, she dies a few pages later of cancer, which she's had all along. I find it odd that Mrs Duvant chooses to spend her last days with Annis, a new acquaintance; that Matt never mentions the illness to Annis's family; and that Mrs Duvant wants Annis to call Jake, not Matt. OK, that last one's for plot reasons, but I still don't see the logic; Matt's her nephew, and his father is Mrs Duvant's brother. It's Annis who suggests contacting Matt's father. But this way, Annis amd Jake get to trade philosophies at the deathbed.
The only other event in this chapter (if we can call it an event) is Annis's realization that she's in love with Jake. And since it's pretty clear he likes her, and has even said he has found the person he wants to marry, it means the reader has to plow through six more chapters until the end - because nearly every Betts has nine chapters (if it's a novella, there are five). Oh, and Jake inherits the house.

All Else Confusion, chapter 2

I'll ignore Annis's confusion about Jake (he infuriates her, but she'll miss him when she goes, etc.), because it's not resolved yet - it's only chapter 2! Though, he does take her out for dinner and dancing, give her a lot to drink, and then kiss her goodnight. Instead, here are some noteworthy points:
- Jake drives a Bentley! I mean, it's probable that he does, because Betts heroes generally do, but it's fun to see this one.
- Mrs Duvant is Jake's godmother, and she's wealthy. So there are all those trappings of wealth that are always present in a Betts: shopping in Jaeger, Annis's old-but-still-good tweeds, etc.
- The reminder that Betty Neels and I don't share the same musical tastes at all, at all, evinced here by Jake asking, "I hope it's not Bach [at the concert that evening]?" Based on the books, Betts liked Grieg, Debussy, Schubert and others.
- They play poker, which I can't recall coming up in any other Betts. Jake is surprised that Annis picks it up quickly, but Annis had 5 A-levels, one in Maths, so of course she can play poker.

labels I might use

I've been turning some labels over in my head, so I thought I'd put them out here for people to see:
waif, his employee, Bentley, other car, shopping spree, poor gentry, wedding, natural disaster, rescued pet, not a doctor, doctor, nurse, jolie laide, beautiful, Dutchman, Englishman, jealousy.
ETA: in love, chapter 10
ETA: proposal, his fiancee, her fiancee, house #1, house #2, house #3
I'm sure there are more, but that's a short list. For example, I'll have to add - and think of names or numbers for - the three or four different plots Betts uses.

All Else Confusion, chapter 1

I decided to go alphabetically through my bookcase, so I'm starting with All Else Confusion (Mills and Boon, 1982), chapter 1. One gets an inkling of Betts's views on the verso, where she decides to quote from Tennyson's The Princess:
"Man with the head and woman with the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey;
All else confusion."
Annis, the woman in this romance, is a typical Betts heroine: "although she was moderately clever, she had an endearing dreaminess, a generous nature and a complete lack of sophistication."
She stays at home to help her mother, which makes very little financial sense; the family's strapped for cash, so why doesn't Annis get a job so they could buy some labor-saving devices (such as an up-to-date stove and a washing machine that works)? The other relevant things in this chapter are the discussion of Annis's frail sister Audrey (since Betts mentions Audrey's smallness and timidity repeatedly, you know it'll come up again), and her introduction to the laughably-named Jake Royle, the wealthy businessman and hero of the piece, who is first seen on horseback. He's virile, don't'cha know. Also on horseback is a nice neighbor named Matt - despite All Else Confusion's faults (and believe me, we'll get to those in the next week or so), it's a pleasant change for Betts to mention another man whom the heroine could have loved.
At the very end of the chapter, Annis agrees to stay with a woman she has just met: Matt's aunt, Mrs Duvant.

welcome to my new blog!

I've been blogging here for a few years, but I wanted to try this as a separate experiment. For years - really, almost a decade - I'd been trying to think of a format that would allow me to chatter about Betty Neels's romances (which I like, and love to mock) and also allow me to sort them into reasonable categories. See, for those who have never read her books, she wrote over 100 books for Harlequin (well, Mills and Boon). They have the same three or four plots over and over, and I wanted a way to chart them. I hadn't worked out a way to do it (and to be honest, I hadn't been trying very hard to find one), until I saw another blogger's tags the other day, and realized they could do what I want.
So what I plan to do is blog about a chapter of a Betts book every day until I run out of them. I don't own every single one - there are ten or so that I'm missing. Which, yes, means I own about 100 similar romances by the same author. They're strangely compelling, taken as a body - all those English women with jersey dresses and long hair marrying (nearly always) laconic Dutch doctors who are tall, with fair greying hair and very expensive cars and houses. Yes, houses - Betts doctors nearly always have more than one house.