An Unlikely Romance. Betty Neels

      ‘Surely you should have something new and smart for a cocktail party?’ asked Mary, looking down her nose.

      ‘Me? I shan’t know anyone there—Margaret has masses of friends, you know, and I don’t know any of them. I mean I don’t intend to dazzle them—it’s her party…’

      ‘I should have thought—’ began Mary, and was silenced by a general chorus of ‘shut up’. Trixie dealt with treacle tart, swallowed her tea and darted off; there was still ten minutes before she needed to be back on duty and in her room she packed an overnight bag with neat efficiency, straightened her cap and made her way from the nurses’ home to the ward once more. She wasn’t really looking forward to the party; she had lived with Aunt Alice and Uncle William ever since her parents had died in an accident when she was ten years old, and although they had educated her, fed her and clothed her and in their way been kind to her, she had never been quite happy, for somehow the knowledge that they were doing their duty and at the same time resenting her being there had been borne in upon her before very long. As she had grown she had realised that their interest was centred on their daughter Margaret, pretty and popular and spoilt, and as soon as she had left school Trixie had suggested that she should train for a nurse, but to her surprise this was frowned upon. Margaret had no intention of doing anything and Aunt Alice had realised that if Trixie were allowed to leave home there might be raised eyebrows over the fact that, while her own daughter stayed at home enjoying herself, their ward had to earn her own living. So Trixie had spent several years making herself useful around the large house at Highgate, meeting very few people, for Aunt Alice had let it be known that she was a shy girl and disliked social occasions, and she might have been there still if one of Margaret’s more eligible men friends hadn’t started to show an interest in Trixie, and, since she hadn’t liked him very much and gave him no encouragement, he’d begun to feel himself quite interested and serious about her. It was time, decided Aunt Alice, to do something about the matter. Trixie had been told that, now that she was older and with no prospect of marriage in sight, if she still wished to do so she might apply for training at one of the London teaching hospitals. Something she’d done very quickly before anyone could change their minds. She wasn’t quite twenty-one when she began her training, which from Aunt Alice’s point of view was very convenient, for there was no opportunity to celebrate the occasion. Trixie was given a gold watch and lunch at the Ritz on her day off and told to go to Highgate whenever she wished. ‘For your room will always be ready for you, Trixie,’ said her aunt. ‘We shall miss you; you have been like a second daughter to us.’

      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,