A Christmas Romance Read Online Free Page B

should be forced to buy someone else’s dress.
    Theodosia, happily unaware that she had been seen, took the dress home that evening, tried it on and nipped down to the bathroom where there was a full-length mirror. It would do; she would have to take it in here and there and the neck was too low. She brought out her work basket, found a needle and thread and set to. She was handy with her needle but it took a couple of evenings’ work till she was satisfied that it would pass muster.
    It wasn’t as though she was going with a partner, she reminded herself. There would be a great many people there; no one would notice her. Miss Prescott would be going, of course, but any mention of the ball during working hours was sternly rebuked and when Theodosia had asked her what she would be wearing she’d been told not to be impertinent. Theodosia, who had meant it kindly, felt hurt.
    She dressed carefully on Saturday evening. The grey dress, viewed in the bathroom looking-glass by the low-wattage bulb, looked all right. A pity she couldn’t have afforded a pair of those strappy sandals. Her slippers were silver kid and out of date but at least they were comfortable. She gave Gustavus his supper, made sure that he was warm and comfortable on the divan, and walked to the hospital wrapped in her winter coat and, since it was drizzling, sheltered under her umbrella.
    The hospital courtyard was packed with cars for this was an evening when the hospital Board of Governers and their wives, the local Mayor and his wife and those dignitaries who were in some way connected to St Alwyn’s came to grace the occasion. Theodosia slipped in through a side door, found her friends, left her coat with theirs in a small room the cleaners used to store their buckets and brooms and went with them to the Assembly Hall where the ball was already under way.
    It looked very festive, with paper chains and a Christmas tree in a corner of the stage where the orchestra was. There were balloons and holly and coloured lights and already there were a great many people dancing. Once there, one by one her friends were claimed and she herself was swept onto the dance floor by one of the technicians from the path lab. She didn’t know him well and he was a shocking dancer but it was better than hovering on the fringe of the dancers, lookingas though dancing was the last thing one wanted to do.
    When the band stopped, one of the students with whom she had passed the time of day occasionally claimed her. It was a slow foxtrot and he had time to tell her about the postmortem he had attended that morning. She listened carefully, feeling slightly sick, but aware that he was longing to talk about it to someone. There were several encores, so that it was possible for him to relate the very last of the horrid details. When the band stopped finally and he offered to fetch her a drink she accepted thankfully.
    She had seen the professor at once, dancing with an elegantly dressed woman, and then again with the sister from Women’s Medical and for a third time with the Mayor’s wife.
    And he had seen her, for there was no mistaking that gingery head of hair. When he had danced with all the ladies he was expected to dance with, he made his way round the dancersuntil he came upon her, eating an ice in the company of the hospital engineer.
    He greeted them both pleasantly, and after a few moments of talk with the engineer swept her onto the dance floor.
    ‘You should ask me first,’ said Theodosia.
    ‘You might have refused! Are you enjoying yourself?’
    ‘Yes, thank you.’ And she was, for he danced well and they were slow foxtrotting again. The hospital dignitaries wouldn’t allow any modern dancing; there was no dignity in prancing around waving arms and flinging oneself about … but foxtrotting with a woman you liked was very satisfying, he reflected.
    The professor, his eye trained to see details at a glance, had recognised the grey dress. It was pretty in a demure