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Nurse at Fairchilds
Although Lisa was not actually engaged to Dermot Fairchild, she felt she had every right to be bitterly hurt when she discovered he was planning to marry another girl.
To get away from it all, she took a private nursing job, where she found she was so happy that all thoughts of love and marriage faded. But would her work always be enough for Lisa?
To get away from it all, she took a private nursing job, where she found she was so happy that all thoughts of love and marriage faded. But would her work always be enough for Lisa?
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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November 10, 2020
Published in 1965, this is less of a romance and more of a coming-of-age story for the 22 year-old heroine. She is the youngest and most hopeful character in a cast of minor characters who have all been impacted by WW2.
Heroine has been a nurse for four years – two years at a public London hospital and two years at a private nursing hospital. At the private hospital she falls for Dermot (!), a surgeon who is part owner of the hospital along with his uncles and aunt. Alas, Dermot is engaged to a chic French cosmetics heiress. Their fathers met during the war and pledged their offspring to each other. Dermot’s father died on the battlefield, so Dermot has been coddled all of his life by his uncles and aunt. But Dermot’s duty, now that he is of age, is to marry the French girl and open a private hospital in France backed by the cosmetics money.
Heroine is told of Dermot’s perfidy by her anxious mother, who works part-time at a beauty salon and knows all the gossip. Heroine confronts Dermot at work and learns the bitter truth. (Dermot is, of course, unrepentant and still wants to be “friends.”) Heroine decides then and there she will quit the private hospital for a rural posting.
Luckily, Dermot’s uncle is looking for a private nurse for his brother, The Major, who is recovering from bomb injuries he suffered in Malaysia. Heroine is to live at Fairchild’s – the family pile on the coast of? (Not clear – it’s an 8 hour car ride from London) with The Major(never married) and his spinster sister (fiancé killed at Dunkirk). All this backstory is filled in by the chauffeur (wife killed by a bomb in London).
The second half of the story consists of the heroine helping The Major learn to walk again by encouraging his interest in composing organ music and developing the perfect rose.
As I was reading about the heroine’s trip to Fairchilds with the chauffeur, I realized I was on page 100 without a clue who the hero was going to be. The Major? Was Dermot going to come to his senses?
Nope.
A car streaks across the road and heroine and chauffeur are in a car accident. Heroine loses consciousness and awakes to find herself in strong arms.
It’s the local doctor who lives with his sister (fiancé killed in the war).
Yes, the doctor (also a surgeon!) is our hero who falls for the heroine at first sight. He is there is for tea and sympathy whenever she feels wobbly about Dermot. He waits out the heroine’s change of heart and is rewarded with her presence at his hospital bed when his is injured rescuing a child.
And that’s it for the romance – a typical abrupt vintage ending with a hero who is barely on page.
What stands out in this story is how kind all the characters are to each other and how invested they are in the heroine’s happiness. From her mother (she would have loved texting) who always wants to know how the heroine is feeling – to the Major who is willing to marry the French girl so heroine can marry Dermot – this heroine is well-loved and looked after.
There is not a lot of conflict in this novel, (no stomach for it after WW2?) but it is an interesting vacation to a by-gone era when all kinds of healing and renewal were taking place.
Heroine has been a nurse for four years – two years at a public London hospital and two years at a private nursing hospital. At the private hospital she falls for Dermot (!), a surgeon who is part owner of the hospital along with his uncles and aunt. Alas, Dermot is engaged to a chic French cosmetics heiress. Their fathers met during the war and pledged their offspring to each other. Dermot’s father died on the battlefield, so Dermot has been coddled all of his life by his uncles and aunt. But Dermot’s duty, now that he is of age, is to marry the French girl and open a private hospital in France backed by the cosmetics money.
Heroine is told of Dermot’s perfidy by her anxious mother, who works part-time at a beauty salon and knows all the gossip. Heroine confronts Dermot at work and learns the bitter truth. (Dermot is, of course, unrepentant and still wants to be “friends.”) Heroine decides then and there she will quit the private hospital for a rural posting.
Luckily, Dermot’s uncle is looking for a private nurse for his brother, The Major, who is recovering from bomb injuries he suffered in Malaysia. Heroine is to live at Fairchild’s – the family pile on the coast of? (Not clear – it’s an 8 hour car ride from London) with The Major(never married) and his spinster sister (fiancé killed at Dunkirk). All this backstory is filled in by the chauffeur (wife killed by a bomb in London).
The second half of the story consists of the heroine helping The Major learn to walk again by encouraging his interest in composing organ music and developing the perfect rose.
As I was reading about the heroine’s trip to Fairchilds with the chauffeur, I realized I was on page 100 without a clue who the hero was going to be. The Major? Was Dermot going to come to his senses?
Nope.
A car streaks across the road and heroine and chauffeur are in a car accident. Heroine loses consciousness and awakes to find herself in strong arms.
It’s the local doctor who lives with his sister (fiancé killed in the war).
Yes, the doctor (also a surgeon!) is our hero who falls for the heroine at first sight. He is there is for tea and sympathy whenever she feels wobbly about Dermot. He waits out the heroine’s change of heart and is rewarded with her presence at his hospital bed when his is injured rescuing a child.
And that’s it for the romance – a typical abrupt vintage ending with a hero who is barely on page.
What stands out in this story is how kind all the characters are to each other and how invested they are in the heroine’s happiness. From her mother (she would have loved texting) who always wants to know how the heroine is feeling – to the Major who is willing to marry the French girl so heroine can marry Dermot – this heroine is well-loved and looked after.
There is not a lot of conflict in this novel, (no stomach for it after WW2?) but it is an interesting vacation to a by-gone era when all kinds of healing and renewal were taking place.
May 24, 2024
It has been a million years since I last wrote a Goodreads review, but I have a little bit of time today, and this was a fun and *very strange* novel in its oddly-paced mid-60s fashion, so let's go!
Our heroine Lisa is -- you guessed it -- a nurse! A nurse at Fairchilds, which is a private nursing home. She's been going out on dates with Dr. Dermot Fairchild, the nephew of the head of Fairchilds (Max), and she thinks he's going to ask her to marry him once he's been made a partner in the business, but her mother has a job washing hair at a salon, which means she hears all the local gossip, and the mom (who is great and gets some actual character development and POV time) discovers that Dermot is actually engaged (for business reasons) to an Important French Nurse named Fay. A standard trope here would be that Dermot is innocent and Fay is going to be the Other Woman -- but no! Dermot is both Louche and Commercial -- he definitely wants to marry Fay, but he's been dating Lisa to avoid boredom (Louche), and because he wants her to work for him when he eventually moves to France (Commercial). Lisa is understandably upset for a wide variety of reasons, which she eventually realises mostly come down to hurt pride -- she feels used by Dermot since he gave her the impression he was ‘heart whole’ and available and even said some things that encouraged her to think he was thinking marriage, and she’s also mad at herself for letting her take him out even though there’s no real way she could have known he was already engaged.
So Lisa is angry and wants to get away from seeing Dermot every day at work, and conveniently overhears Max talking about how he needs a private nurse for his brother Ian -- she never figures it out, but it's made clear to the reader that Max makes sure she overhears it because he wants her for the job, although it isn’t clear what exactly his angle is — does he know she just found out about Fay so he thinks she’ll be ready to go anywhere to get away? Or does he think she's still involved with Dermot and assume she'll take the job to make nice with her boyfriend's family? I think the second, because at the end of the book he expects her to go to work for Dermot in France and has no idea that Lisa has refused.
Anyway, Lisa jumps at the job and that's when we hit the weird pacing, because the transition from Fairchild's to her new job takes A Lot of the book, or at least it feels like it does! There are some scenes of her getting packed and negotiating job details, and then Max's driver Foster takes her home to get the rest of her stuff and there's more packing and a really nice bit where she's hanging out with her mom, and then another scene with Lisa and her mom and Foster all having food together, AND THEN there's a loooooooong car ride where Lisa and Foster talk, plus a stop for tea -- all of which gives Norrell plenty of time to establish lots of detailed backstory about the Fairchild family. It's really fun reading and both Foster and Lisa's mom are sympathetic characters who are enoyable to spend time with, but *for a romance novel* the pacing was really weird, since there's no possible love interest in sight! Dermot is unredeemable, Foster is too old and the wrong social class and the narrative points out that he's feeling a fatherly interest in Lisa's situation, so ... clearly she's going to meet The Man after they finally arrive at her new job, and a typical Harlequin would quickly transition to that point so as to get the romance plot underway, but that's not what Norrell does! I really enjoyed it, but I was also very aware that it was odd.
Finally they arrive -- NO NO THEY DO NOT! They do not arrive, they are about to arrive, and BOOM there's a car accident! Lisa gets to bravely nurse the other person in the accident and then pass out and wake up in the arms of Duncan who is a *very* good-looking doctor just a little older than her. He's clearly a potential love interest, and Lisa is of course immediately antagonistic towards him since he's bossy, but she doesn't pay much attention to him, because she's busy nursing Ian! Ian is an incredible cinnamon roll who Lisa loves taking care of, and she helps him figure out what he's interested in doing now that he can't be a soldier (which is composing for the organ and growing roses) and generally delighting in his character and personality. Ian is so charming that I really wanted Lisa to end up with him, despite the age gap, but Norrell doesn't show her hand -- Duncan is still on the table, even though he and Lisa don't interact much. Duncan has a sister Myra who is perfectly positioned to be the Other Woman who doesn't want her beloved brother getting married BUT INSTEAD she and Lisa become BFFs pretty much immediately; they both love "trad jazz, modern art, and the new ‘honey’ look in make-up" which for some reason is one of my most favourite Harlequin sentences ever. I really love it when a Harlequin lets the heroine have female friends!
Eventually the plot remembers it's supposed to be happening, so Dermot comes to visit with Fay (remember, Ian is Max's brother, Dermot is Max's nephew, so Dermot is also Ian's nephew) and Lisa tells Ian the sad story about Dermot's treatment of her. Ian wants Lisa to go out for the day so she doesn't have to have a Painful Encounter but Lisa stays to help Helen out with the hostessing duties -- yes, sorry, this is the first time I've mentioned Helen, she's Ian's ... sister? aunt? cousin? I didn't write it down, but she's the obligatory Older Woman who runs the household and gives our heroine encouragement and support. Anyway, Helen is in a tizzy about having to host Dermot and Fay, so Lisa sticks around to help, and Dermot manages to get her alone and begs Lisa to help him out by going to France with him because he hates Fay and Regrets Everything. Lisa is politely and firmly OMGWTFBBQ that Dermot would think she had any reason to help or trust him, and leaves as quickly as possible.
We then come to the one annoying part of the book: Ian secretly decides to marry Fay (because Fay doesn't care which Fairchild man she gets, she just wants the marriage connection), so that the field will be left clear for Dermot and Lisa to get back together. WHY is Ian doing this? WHY does Lisa not put the pieces together and figure out what he is doing? I don't know! Lisa goes home to visit her mom for the weekend, very confused as to whatever is going on between Ian and Fay, and runs into Max, who is like 'You're going to France, right?' and she's even more confused, and then she runs into Dermot, who is like 'DO MY WILL' and she's like 'Nope! Bye!' and goes home and we get more delightful scenes of her hanging out with her family, which is WONDERFUL but we there are ONLY 22 PAGES LEFT and ... there's still not a romance! Lisa isn't interested in any of the men! Surely she's going to marry Ian, right? He must be in love with her or he wouldn't be sacrificing himself to try to ensure her happiness, right? She's going to go back to her job and Realise Her Feelings.... right?
At this point, dear reader of this very long review, I must explain something. I read this book in May of 2023 and took copious notes *as I was reading*, which is where most of the text of this review comes from. It is now May of 2024, and I am typing up this review from my notes in real-time, and I HAVE BAMBOOZLED MYSELF because at this point in both my original read of the book and my reread of my notes, I am 100% convinced Lisa is going to marry Ian and they are going to have a marvelous peaceful life together in their country home listening to organ compositions and growing roses, and yes it doesn't fit very well given Lisa's love of jazz and modern art, but whatever, vintage romance!
That, however, is not how this book ends. Lisa goes back to work and Ian offers to marry Fay so she can marry Dermot, and she says no thank you, and then she half-jokingly says that if he's willing to marry Fay just because he wants a nurse, Lisa would marry him -- and maybe in the original draft the book ended here? Because it is absolutely what makes sense emotionally, BUT NO Helen runs in to say that Duncan (remember Duncan? the good-looking young doctor who has barely been in this book at all because Lisa is way more interested in nursing Ian?) was in a car accident! Lisa is distraught and Ian tells Lisa 'You love him and want to marry him!' and Lisa is like 'Why yes, yes I do! BUT ALAS he does not wish to marry me!' and then many side characters explain to her that Duncan is crazy about her and wants to marry her, so she rushes to the hospital and Duncan's sister reassures Lisa that Duncan is in love with her and wants to marry her, and look, it's a HEA! Between Lisa and the guy she has barely interacted with who has had no character development! *She should have married Ian*.
And yet... I loved most of this book, and I think I would reread it? And probably if I do reread it, I will spend the entire book expecting Lisa and Ian to get married again, and be equally surprised and confused by the ending. Good job, Marjorie Norrell! Are any of your books this inexplicably good?
Our heroine Lisa is -- you guessed it -- a nurse! A nurse at Fairchilds, which is a private nursing home. She's been going out on dates with Dr. Dermot Fairchild, the nephew of the head of Fairchilds (Max), and she thinks he's going to ask her to marry him once he's been made a partner in the business, but her mother has a job washing hair at a salon, which means she hears all the local gossip, and the mom (who is great and gets some actual character development and POV time) discovers that Dermot is actually engaged (for business reasons) to an Important French Nurse named Fay. A standard trope here would be that Dermot is innocent and Fay is going to be the Other Woman -- but no! Dermot is both Louche and Commercial -- he definitely wants to marry Fay, but he's been dating Lisa to avoid boredom (Louche), and because he wants her to work for him when he eventually moves to France (Commercial). Lisa is understandably upset for a wide variety of reasons, which she eventually realises mostly come down to hurt pride -- she feels used by Dermot since he gave her the impression he was ‘heart whole’ and available and even said some things that encouraged her to think he was thinking marriage, and she’s also mad at herself for letting her take him out even though there’s no real way she could have known he was already engaged.
So Lisa is angry and wants to get away from seeing Dermot every day at work, and conveniently overhears Max talking about how he needs a private nurse for his brother Ian -- she never figures it out, but it's made clear to the reader that Max makes sure she overhears it because he wants her for the job, although it isn’t clear what exactly his angle is — does he know she just found out about Fay so he thinks she’ll be ready to go anywhere to get away? Or does he think she's still involved with Dermot and assume she'll take the job to make nice with her boyfriend's family? I think the second, because at the end of the book he expects her to go to work for Dermot in France and has no idea that Lisa has refused.
Anyway, Lisa jumps at the job and that's when we hit the weird pacing, because the transition from Fairchild's to her new job takes A Lot of the book, or at least it feels like it does! There are some scenes of her getting packed and negotiating job details, and then Max's driver Foster takes her home to get the rest of her stuff and there's more packing and a really nice bit where she's hanging out with her mom, and then another scene with Lisa and her mom and Foster all having food together, AND THEN there's a loooooooong car ride where Lisa and Foster talk, plus a stop for tea -- all of which gives Norrell plenty of time to establish lots of detailed backstory about the Fairchild family. It's really fun reading and both Foster and Lisa's mom are sympathetic characters who are enoyable to spend time with, but *for a romance novel* the pacing was really weird, since there's no possible love interest in sight! Dermot is unredeemable, Foster is too old and the wrong social class and the narrative points out that he's feeling a fatherly interest in Lisa's situation, so ... clearly she's going to meet The Man after they finally arrive at her new job, and a typical Harlequin would quickly transition to that point so as to get the romance plot underway, but that's not what Norrell does! I really enjoyed it, but I was also very aware that it was odd.
Finally they arrive -- NO NO THEY DO NOT! They do not arrive, they are about to arrive, and BOOM there's a car accident! Lisa gets to bravely nurse the other person in the accident and then pass out and wake up in the arms of Duncan who is a *very* good-looking doctor just a little older than her. He's clearly a potential love interest, and Lisa is of course immediately antagonistic towards him since he's bossy, but she doesn't pay much attention to him, because she's busy nursing Ian! Ian is an incredible cinnamon roll who Lisa loves taking care of, and she helps him figure out what he's interested in doing now that he can't be a soldier (which is composing for the organ and growing roses) and generally delighting in his character and personality. Ian is so charming that I really wanted Lisa to end up with him, despite the age gap, but Norrell doesn't show her hand -- Duncan is still on the table, even though he and Lisa don't interact much. Duncan has a sister Myra who is perfectly positioned to be the Other Woman who doesn't want her beloved brother getting married BUT INSTEAD she and Lisa become BFFs pretty much immediately; they both love "trad jazz, modern art, and the new ‘honey’ look in make-up" which for some reason is one of my most favourite Harlequin sentences ever. I really love it when a Harlequin lets the heroine have female friends!
Eventually the plot remembers it's supposed to be happening, so Dermot comes to visit with Fay (remember, Ian is Max's brother, Dermot is Max's nephew, so Dermot is also Ian's nephew) and Lisa tells Ian the sad story about Dermot's treatment of her. Ian wants Lisa to go out for the day so she doesn't have to have a Painful Encounter but Lisa stays to help Helen out with the hostessing duties -- yes, sorry, this is the first time I've mentioned Helen, she's Ian's ... sister? aunt? cousin? I didn't write it down, but she's the obligatory Older Woman who runs the household and gives our heroine encouragement and support. Anyway, Helen is in a tizzy about having to host Dermot and Fay, so Lisa sticks around to help, and Dermot manages to get her alone and begs Lisa to help him out by going to France with him because he hates Fay and Regrets Everything. Lisa is politely and firmly OMGWTFBBQ that Dermot would think she had any reason to help or trust him, and leaves as quickly as possible.
We then come to the one annoying part of the book: Ian secretly decides to marry Fay (because Fay doesn't care which Fairchild man she gets, she just wants the marriage connection), so that the field will be left clear for Dermot and Lisa to get back together. WHY is Ian doing this? WHY does Lisa not put the pieces together and figure out what he is doing? I don't know! Lisa goes home to visit her mom for the weekend, very confused as to whatever is going on between Ian and Fay, and runs into Max, who is like 'You're going to France, right?' and she's even more confused, and then she runs into Dermot, who is like 'DO MY WILL' and she's like 'Nope! Bye!' and goes home and we get more delightful scenes of her hanging out with her family, which is WONDERFUL but we there are ONLY 22 PAGES LEFT and ... there's still not a romance! Lisa isn't interested in any of the men! Surely she's going to marry Ian, right? He must be in love with her or he wouldn't be sacrificing himself to try to ensure her happiness, right? She's going to go back to her job and Realise Her Feelings.... right?
At this point, dear reader of this very long review, I must explain something. I read this book in May of 2023 and took copious notes *as I was reading*, which is where most of the text of this review comes from. It is now May of 2024, and I am typing up this review from my notes in real-time, and I HAVE BAMBOOZLED MYSELF because at this point in both my original read of the book and my reread of my notes, I am 100% convinced Lisa is going to marry Ian and they are going to have a marvelous peaceful life together in their country home listening to organ compositions and growing roses, and yes it doesn't fit very well given Lisa's love of jazz and modern art, but whatever, vintage romance!
That, however, is not how this book ends. Lisa goes back to work and Ian offers to marry Fay so she can marry Dermot, and she says no thank you, and then she half-jokingly says that if he's willing to marry Fay just because he wants a nurse, Lisa would marry him -- and maybe in the original draft the book ended here? Because it is absolutely what makes sense emotionally, BUT NO Helen runs in to say that Duncan (remember Duncan? the good-looking young doctor who has barely been in this book at all because Lisa is way more interested in nursing Ian?) was in a car accident! Lisa is distraught and Ian tells Lisa 'You love him and want to marry him!' and Lisa is like 'Why yes, yes I do! BUT ALAS he does not wish to marry me!' and then many side characters explain to her that Duncan is crazy about her and wants to marry her, so she rushes to the hospital and Duncan's sister reassures Lisa that Duncan is in love with her and wants to marry her, and look, it's a HEA! Between Lisa and the guy she has barely interacted with who has had no character development! *She should have married Ian*.
And yet... I loved most of this book, and I think I would reread it? And probably if I do reread it, I will spend the entire book expecting Lisa and Ian to get married again, and be equally surprised and confused by the ending. Good job, Marjorie Norrell! Are any of your books this inexplicably good?
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