Bachelor's Wedding, chapter 1

Oooh boy, a new Betts! This one features an English doctor, for a change. Better still, it features my favorite plot - the ungrateful family plot. In this case, poor Araminta works through an agency, earning bits of money to help support her extravagant father and her anemic sister Alice. Alice lounges around all day, because she's anemic. Araminta needs a new pair of shoes, while Alice gets a new dressing gown as a treat. Over-the-top, I know! But that's the fun of this plot.
Anyway, Araminta winds up getting a last-minute job through her agency: taking care of a ten-year-old and a thirteen-year-old, the nephew and niece of Jason Lister, a doctor. She fetches them from their home, because their mother has to go to Chile to see their sick father, and takes them to Jason's house. She'll take care of them during their half-term holiday, though so far they are spoiled brats.
Araminta isn't much to look at, but Jason is, of course. Betts heroes always are. I'd forgotten that Bachelor's Wedding is the book (one of several, I think), where the hero has a rare moment of leisure. Typically, he chooses to spend it "with the poems of Horace - in the original Latin, of course." (p. 9)
We don't get a very detailed description of Jason's house; it's quite large, though, with at least four good-sized bedrooms. He also has a cook, whose husband works for the doctor as well.

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!

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.