Бетти Нильс – An Unlikely Romance (страница 2)
Somehow the remark had sounded final.
She didn’t get off duty very punctually; she wasn’t a clock-watcher and the patients knew that, so that she was always the one to fill last-minute water jugs, find lost spectacles and exchange someone’s magazine with someone else’s. She changed quickly, caught up her overnight bag and hurried to catch a bus to Highgate. The bus queue was long and impatient and by the time she got to Highgate it was almost seven o’clock. Her uncle and aunt dined at eight o’clock and she had been warned that there were to be guests. She arrived hot and tired to be greeted with barely concealed impatience by her aunt.
‘Really, Trixie, you might at least try to be punctual for once. This is Margaret’s birthday celebration, after all. Tomorrow I shall want you to arrange the flowers for the party, you do them so well…’
Trixie went up to the second-floor room, which, as Aunt Alice had pointed out, reasonably enough, would do very well for her now that she came home so seldom, and got into the brown velvet, did her face and her hair and slipped into the drawing-room just as the first guests were arriving.
The dinner party was really for their old friends, Margaret’s godparents and a sprinkling of aunts and uncles, none of whom would have enjoyed her birthday party but who would have been hurt if uninvited.
Trixie, between two elderly gentlemen, brothers of Aunt Alice, ate her dinner and made dinner-table conversation, something she did very nicely, so that they remarked upon her quiet charm to Aunt Alice later that evening.
‘Nice girl,’ said one of them. ‘Can’t think why she hasn’t been snapped up. Make a splendid wife.’
‘Very shy and withdrawn and engrossed in her nursing,’ Aunt Alice observed with a snap. ‘Of course, dear Margaret is quite different…’
Trixie was busy the next day; there were flowers to arrange, the telephone to answer and help to give to her aunt’s cook and housemaid, and later the bits and pieces to unpack and arrange from the caterers.
Margaret wandered in and out, unpacking her presents and leaving a trail of paper behind her, pleased with herself and everyone else. She had thanked Trixie for the silk scarf she had been given, asked in a casually friendly fashion about her work and wandered away again without waiting for a reply. Although they were cousins and brought up together and, for that matter, got on well, Margaret had always adopted a slightly condescending manner towards Trixie—the poor relation, presentable enough and a pleasant companion when there was no one else around, and now quite rightly earning her own living. From time to time Margaret took her out to lunch or to the cinema and went home feeling that she had done her duty and been kind to her cousin.
Dressed in the brown velvet, Trixie took a look at herself in the looking-glass inside the old-fashioned wardrobe. Her reflection didn’t please her. The dress was well made, nicely cut and fitted her person well, but there was nothing about it to attract a second glance. She wished that she had Margaret’s glorious fair hair, cascading around her pretty face in a riot of curls, but her own pale brown hair was fine and straight and long and she had always worn it in a chignon so that its beauty was quite hidden. She put a final dab of powder on her nose and went downstairs.
Margaret had any number of friends. The big drawing-room was soon crowded, and Trixie sipped sherry and went around greeting the people she knew, young men and women she had known since her school days, but the majority of those there were unknown to her, smart and noisy, ignoring the other guests.
Presently she came face to face with Margaret, who caught her by the arm. ‘Hello—isn’t this fun? I say, Mother’s just had a phone call from Colonel Vosper—he was invited to dinner yesterday and had to refuse, now he’s phoned to say he’ll come for half an hour just to wish me many happy returns. He’s bringing a stuffy professor with him—they’re going to some dinner or other! This isn’t quite their scene, is it?’
‘If they’re going to a dinner,’ said Trixie matter-of-factly, ‘they won’t stay long, will they? Aunt Alice has gone to the door. It must be the colonel; shouldn’t you be there too?’
‘I suppose so.’ She paused to look Trixie over. ‘That’s a pretty awful dress you’re wearing—brown doesn’t suit you, you look like a church mouse.’ She added, casually kind, ‘You’d look nice in green or blue—you ought to get yourself some pretty clothes.’
She drifted away, a sight to gladden the eyes in her golden sequinned jacket and layered silk skirt. Trixie watched her progress through the crowded room, but not enviously, for she hadn’t an envious nature, only wondering if a sequinned jacket would do for her own person what brown velvet quite obviously could not.
There was a little bustle at the door as the colonel came in; an elderly man, still upright and handsome. His companion followed him in and paused to talk to Aunt Alice and then Margaret, so that Trixie had ample time to study Professor van der Brink-Schaaksma, immaculately handsome in black tie.
She gave a little gasp of surprise and retired prudently behind a group of people, from where she surveyed his progress through the room with Margaret. Her cousin was exerting her charm, a pretty hand on his arm, looking up into his face in open admiration. He was so completely out of his element, thought Trixie. He had put every other man in the room in the shade, but he was unaware of it; indeed, although he was smiling down at her cousin, listening to her chatter, she had the strong impression that he was probably contemplating some tricky aspect of endocrinology. She had seen that absorbed look on his face often enough to recognise it.
She had moved back even further, intent on keeping out of his line of vision, and it was unfortunate that her aunt should call her by name in her rather loud voice.
‘Trixie,’ cooed Aunt Alice,
There was nothing for it but to abandon her dark corner and make her way across the room to where the old gentleman stood, and of course at that same moment Margaret and the professor had paused to speak to someone and had turned round to watch her. She was unable to avoid his glance, but she gave no sign of recognition, and, to her great feeling of relief, nor did he.
Well, why should he? He had never actually looked at her on the ward and she was dressed differently. She retired to a sofa with the colonel for the kind of chat her companion enjoyed; he was holding forth about politics, modern youth and modern warfare to a listening audience. Trixie was a very good listener. He got up to go presently. ‘A nice little talk, my dear; I wish we could have stayed longer but we must attend a function, as you may know.’ He looked around him. ‘Where is Krijn? Ah—with Margaret. Such a very pretty girl, even an absent-minded professor may be forgiven if he falls under her spell.’
He patted Trixie’s shoulder. ‘We must talk again,’ he told her as they said goodbye.
She slipped away to the other end of the room, reluctant to come face to face with the professor, and presently the guests began to leave. A small party of Margaret’s closest friends were taking her out to dinner and Trixie was kept busy finding coats and wraps.
‘Coming with us?’ asked one of the girls.
There was no need for her to reply. Margaret had overheard and said at once, ‘Oh, Trixie hates going to restaurants, and besides, she’s on duty at that hospital of hers at the crack of dawn.’
Neither of which was true, but Trixie said nothing. Margaret didn’t mean to be unkind; she was thoughtless and spoilt and ever since they had been children together she had been accustomed to the idea that Trixie was by way of being a poor relation, to be treated as one of the family but at the same time to make herself useful and obliging.
Trixie had put up with that, for she was grateful for having a home and a family of sorts. All the same, it had been a heaven-sent blessing when the eligible young man had fancied himself in love with her and she had at last embarked on a life of her own. If she had been hurt she had very firmly never allowed anyone to see it. She saw them into their cars and went back into the house to eat her dinner with her aunt and uncle and agree, with sincerity, that Margaret was quite beautiful. ‘If only she would settle down,’ observed Aunt Alice. ‘That was a very distinguished man who came with the colonel—a professor, too. I wonder what he does…’
Trixie, who could have told her, remained silent.
She left the house the next morning without having seen Margaret again. She was on duty at ten o’clock for the rest of the day and only her uncle had been at breakfast with her. ‘I’ll say goodbye to your aunt and Margaret for you,’ he told her. ‘They both need a good rest after all the trouble they went to for the party.’ He sounded faintly reproachful. ‘A pity you couldn’t have had a day or two more free to give a hand.’