Ring in a Teacup

Mies shrieked with laughter. ‘Lucy, you are so sweet and so oudewetse—old-fashioned, you say?’ She tucked an arm under Lucy’s. ‘Let us have coffee and discuss the dance.’

‘I really meant it—that I’d rather not go. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve anything to wear.’

Mies didn’t believe her and together they inspected the two dresses Lucy had brought with her. ‘They are most deftig,’ said Mies politely. ‘You shall wear this one.’ She spread out the green jersey dress Lucy had held up for her inspection. It was very plain, but the colour went well with her eyes and its cut was so simple that it hardly mattered that it was two years old. ‘And if you do not dance,’ went on Mies, unconsciously cruel, ‘no one will notice what you’re wearing. I will be sure and introduce you to a great many people who will like to talk to you.’

It sounded as though it was going to be an awful evening, but there would be no difficulty in avoiding Mr der Linssen; there would be a great crush of people, and besides, he would be wholly taken up with his Eloise.

Lucy, in bed, allowed her thoughts to dwell on the enchanting prospect of turning beautiful overnight, and clad in something quite stunning in silk chiffon, taking the entire company at the dance by storm. She would take the hateful Fraam by storm too and when he wanted to dance with her she would turn her back, or perhaps an icy stare would be better?

She slid from her ridiculous daydreaming into sleep.

CHAPTER THREE

LUCY DRESSED very carefully for the dance, and the result, she considered, when she surveyed herself in the looking glass, wasn’t too bad. Her mousy hair she had brushed until it shone and then piled in a topknot of sausage curls on the top of her head. It had taken a long time to do, but she was clever at dressing hair although she could seldom be bothered to do it. Her face she had done the best she could with and excitement had given her a pretty colour, so that her eyes seemed more brilliant than ever. And as for the dress, it would do. The colour was pretty and the silk jersey fell in graceful folds, but it was one of thousands like it, and another woman would take it for what it was, something off the peg from a large store; all the same, it would pass in a crowd. She fastened the old-fashioned silver locket on its heavy chain and clasped the thick silver bracelet her father had given her when she was twenty-one, caught up the silver kid purse which matched her sandals and went along to Mies’ room to fetch the cloak she was to borrow.

Mies looked like the front cover of Vogue; her dress, blue and pleated finely, certainly had never seen anything as ordinary as a peg; it swirled around her, its neckline daringly low, its full skirt sweeping the floor. She whirled round for Lucy to see and asked: ‘I look good, yes?’ She was so pleased with her own appearance that she had time only to comment: ‘You look nice, Lucy,’ before plunging into the important matter of deciding which shoes she should wear. Lucy, arranging Mies’ brown velvet cape round her shoulders, fought a rising envy, feeling ashamed of it; if it wasn’t for Mies and her father she wouldn’t be going to a big dance where, she assured herself, she had every intention of enjoying herself.

They were a little late getting there and the entrance hall of the hospital was full of people on their way to leave their wraps, stopping to greet friends as they went. Doctor de Groot took them both by the arm and made his way through the crowd and said with the air of a man determined to do his duty that he would stay just where he was while they got rid of their cloaks and when they rejoined him, he offered them each an arm and told them gallantly, if not truthfully in Lucy’s case, that they were the two prettiest girls there.