Roses and Champagne. Betty Neels

than not Virginia who was asked. And Katrina couldn’t remember when her sister had persuaded him to take her to the Hunt Ball; she had done it so prettily that it would have been cruel to have refused her, and she herself, cheerfully protesting that she didn’t care who she went with, had gone with the eldest Frobisher boy, a worthy young man, already going bald and for ever nattering on about the obscure work he had to do at the Foreign Office. And after that, Lucius had taken Virginia each succeeding year—since she was seventeen. Not that he’d singled her out deliberately; he had a great many friends and went out with them all, never showing preference for any of the girls he knew, but gradually everyone came to take it for granted that he and Virginia intended to marry sooner or later, and indeed, Virginia made no effort to deny this, and Katrina, since the awful occasion when she had observed that it was nothing but gossip and been asked if she were jealous of her own sister, had kept silent.

      As she watched a car came round the corner of the house and raced down the drive towards the big gates. That would be Lucius in his Jaguar, going up to London to do big business, she supposed. He’d be back by the evening, though, because Emily’s mother was giving a dinner party and they had all been invited. Katrina made a mental resolve to warn Virginia to be polite at all costs.

      As it happened there was no need; her sister told her over lunch that she was going out to dinner with James, and she didn’t care who knew it.

      ‘Then I’ll phone Mrs Drake and say you’ve got a heavy cold,’ said Katrina. ‘That’ll give her a chance to get someone else.’

      Virginia gave her a pitying look. ‘You always do the right thing, don’t you? Say what you like—and I’m going up to town tomorrow to find a dress. What about you? I know you’ve no looks to speak of, but you’ve got a good figure—why don’t you tart yourself up a bit?’

      On the way up to the studio after lunch, Katrina stopped in front of the enormous wall mirror on the landing and took a good look at herself. Medium height, a little too plump, nice legs and hands and feet, a face unremarkable save for her eyes, pale brown hair expertly cut to frame it, and well cut, expensive clothes suitable to the life she led.

      ‘Very dull,’ she told her reflection, and went on up the small staircase to the next floor and into her studio, where she lost herself in the happy world of fairy tales. She was illustrating a new edition of Hans Andersen, and got carried away on a stream of elves and gnomes and princesses in distress. She painted until the light failed and went downstairs to the sitting room where they always had tea. There was no sign of Virginia, and Mrs Beecham, coming in with the tray, offered the information that Miss Virginia had gone out in the car not half an hour past.

      ‘Well, we’ll both be out this evening, Mrs Beecham, so don’t wait up, will you? Whoever comes in last will lock up.’

      Katrina poured herself a cup of tea, took a scone, picked up the daily paper and settled herself in a chair by the fire. The room was cosy, softly lighted and prettily furnished; her mother had always used it unless there had been people for tea—besides, there was no sense in having fires in the other, larger rooms unless there were guests. Bouncer was there too, and the two cats, lying in a friendly heap at her feet. She was a lucky young woman, she told herself soberly, to have so much when so many had so little. All the same, she felt a twinge of panic, glimpsing the years ahead. Supposing she didn’t marry? And after all, she was turned twenty-seven and no one had actually asked her. Would she be content to stay here, painting and drawing and running the house and watching her friends grow old? And not being friends with Lucius any more?

      She shook herself briskly. He had behaved very badly; come to think of it, he had changed over the recent years. His eyes could be as hard as stones on occasions, and he smiled a nasty little mocking smile far too often. The thought struck her that perhaps he was really in love with Virginia after all, but something had caused him to draw back from marrying her. He was a good deal older, of course, but that shouldn’t matter; he was a handsome man and didn’t look his age. There could be a girl somewhere, of course, but she discarded the thought at once. He wasn’t devious, he would have made no bones about telling her that there was someone else. He had only laughed and said that poor Virginia had no heart. Katrina frowned; her sister was a darling—spoilt, perhaps, but who could help that, she was so enchantingly pretty and had such a way with her. To say that she was heartless was quite untrue.

      Katrina bestirred herself, took Bouncer out for a run and went up to her room to change for the evening. She chose a dress with care. Lucius would be there and for some reason she wanted to look her very best—’Like a soldier cleaning his rifle before a battle,’ she explained to Bouncer, who had made himself comfortable on the end of her bed.

      The dress was soft green crêpe-de-chine, very simple, very expensive and just a shade too old for her. As most of her clothes were. Now that Virginia was grown up and went everywhere with her and to a great many parties on her own, Katrina had begun to think of herself as very much the older sister, and she dressed accordingly, which was a pity, for she had a pretty figure and a clear, unlined skin and looked a lot younger than her age. But even if she bought the wrong clothes, her taste in shoes was not to be faulted. They were her weakness; sensible enough during the day but replaced as soon as maybe by elegant high-heeled models by Rayne and Gucci. She looked with satisfaction at the strappy kid slippers which went with the dress, slung on the quilted jacket she wore in the evenings if she was driving herself and went downstairs. There was no sign of Virginia and she wasn’t in her room, so Katrina left a note for her and went outside to where Lovelace had parked the car for her, a Triumph Sports, quite elderly now but still going well. Lovelace had never quite approved of it, too fast for a young lady, he had averred, although he had to admit with the same breath that Miss Katrina was a first-class driver.

      The Drakes lived five miles away in another village. As Katrina went down the drive and turned into the lane bordered by Stockley House’s high wall, she thought with regret that normally Lucius would have called for her and driven her there and brought her home again. It was a sobering thought, rendered even more so when his Jaguar overtook her half way there, sliding sleekly past without him even turning his head, and even though it was dark, he would have known her car in the light of the headlamps. She watched his tail light disappear round the next bend and felt lonely.

      There were only a dozen people at the Drakes’ house, and she knew them all, and since she was the last to arrive the drawing room was full enough for her to be able to avoid Lucius. Or so she thought.

      She was sipping a dry sherry, which she detested, and listening to the Reverend Bartram Moffat’s equally dry conversation, when he wandered over to them. He greeted them both affably, advised the Vicar that their host wanted advice about some parochial business and took up a position in front of her so that to escape would be difficult.

      ‘Got over your nasty temper?’ he wanted to know with what she considered to be sickening indulgence. She said: ‘No,’ and took another sip of sherry.

      He took her glass from her, poured the contents into his own and gave her back the empty glass. ‘You always hated the dry stuff,’ he observed, ‘and what you need at the moment is something sweet—I could pickle walnuts with your expression, Katie.’

      She felt a bubble of laughter longing to escape, but all she said frostily was ‘Indeed?’

      ‘Where’s our brokenhearted Virginia? I’m willing to bet Gem against Bouncer that she’s gone out for the evening with young Lovell.’

      Katrina twiddled her glass and went red. ‘She needs comfort,’ she observed.

      ‘Rubbish, and you know it. Tell me, what are your plans? Am I to be ignored in future? Is the whole silly affair to be decently forgotten and a return made to the status quo, or do we speak to each other in private?’

      She raised serious eyes to his. ‘You know quite well that I could never hate you, Lucius, we’ve grown up together, we’ve been like brother and sister, but I don’t want to be friends any more; maybe you weren’t serious about Virginia, but you’ve hurt her deeply, and I can’t forgive that.’

      ‘All I hurt was her vanity and her pride.’ He was staring