Across the Counter

by Mary Burchell

  “Well, I wish you the utmost good luck,” Mr. Arnoldson said briskly, just in case Katherine should linger too long over the less attractive aspects of the job. “And since presumably you will have some personal arrangements to make before leaving London, you’d better take this afternoon off. Subject to Mrs. Culver’s approval, of course,” he added, but rather as a matter of form.

  “Thank you, Mr. Arnoldson.” Katherine shook the hand that he genially extended to her. And consumed with excitement not unmixed with apprehension, she returned to her department.

  “So you’ve decided to accept?” said Mrs. Culver as soon as she saw Katherine.

  “Why, of course! How did you know?”

  “You look too eager and thrilled for anyone who has refused a challenge,” was the laconic reply.

  “Oh—” Katherine put up her hands to her warm cheeks “—I suppose I must.” She laughed. “But you didn’t expect me to refuse, did you?”

  “No. Except that only this morning you were talking of Bremmisons—as though it were the only place on earth worth bothering about.”

  “I still think it’s the greatest store in London.” Katherine declared loyally. “But Morringham...” She paused and smiled half to herself.

  “What’s so wonderful about Morringham?” Mrs. Culver wanted to know. “Just a big, overgrown Mid land town from all I’ve ever heard of it.”

  “It has its attraction,” declared Katherine, to whom Morringham seemed the finest city in the World at the moment, since it contained Malcolm. “Anyway, it’s quite near my own home,” she added, thankful for this useful fact that served to explain to all and sundry the rapture that she really could not hide.

  “Well, you’d better go along to lunch now.” Mrs. Culver glanced at her watch. “And then, I understand', you’re to have the afternoon off.”

  “If you can spare me,” said Katherine contritely.

  “If I’m going to have to spare you for a whole month, it won’t hurt to add this afternoon, I suppose,” was the good-humored reply.

  So Katherine thanked Mrs. Culver and went downstairs to the staff catering quarters.

  Few people realize the immense amount of activity that goes on in any big store behind those mysterious doors marked Staff Only. And Bremmisons was no exception. In the bright, attractive canteen literally hundreds of people were fed daily, and adjoining the canteen was a generous-sized lounge where members of the staff could read, chat or write letters in any leisure moments left over from their mealtime.

  As Katherine passed through the lounge to the assistant buyers’ dining room, she paused beside a display screen to examine a new series of photographs. Here one could see records of staff dances, directorial dinners, sports presentations—all the many activities of Bremmisons’s employees outside work hours.

  There was nearly always something of interest on view. And on this occasion Katherine’s attention was immediately caught by a set of photographs under the heading “Inaugural Dinner at Kendales.”

  Presumably this was to celebrate—if “celebrate” was the right word—the formation of the new management of the well-known Morringham store.

  There was Malcolm, looking extraordinarily handsome, sitting beside a lovely ash blonde who was wearing an evening dress that suggested Paris rather than Morringham. His fine dark eyes were fixed on his attractive companion, and he was evidently laughing at something she had just said.

  Katherine was not at all jealous by nature. But she experienced an understandable little twinge of envy before she hastily reminded herself that it would be nothing less than a social duty for Malcolm to make himself charming on such an occasion.

  And how charming he could make himself Katherine knew all too well!

  She ate a somewhat hasty lunch, hardly able to believe that this might be the last time she would lunch in these familiar surroundings. For if her appointment at Kendales should extend indefinitely, she was not likely to come back to Bremmisons before her marriage.

  And at that thought Katherine suddenly saw her immediate future shrink in the most breathtaking way, so that for the first time she really saw herself as Malcolm’s wife.

  It was an intoxicating thought to take with her when a little later—having bade at any rate a temporary farewell to her colleagues—she went out into the cool October sunshine.

  At such an unfamiliar hour, she caught a bus with an ease unknown to her at her usual home-going time. And twenty minutes later she was letting herself into her small apartment situated in that rather vaguely defined region between Fulham and Chelsea.

  The little place looked extraordinarily attractive at this unusual hour of the afternoon, and she felt a slight pang at the thought of having to leave something that she had made so much her own. But the idea that this time tomorrow she might already have seen and talked to Malcolm transcended any minor regrets, and she set about making her modest preparations.

  The next day Katherine caught an early-morning train and arrived in Morringham about noon. A friendly taxi driver directed her to a quiet, fairly inexpensive hotel. And having taken a room for the night—until she should have time to make more permanent arrangements—she lunched there and then went out into the town.

  It was her intention to look around Kendales from the point of view of a customer before she viewed anything from the other side of the counter. And if in the process she should come across Malcolm, nothing could be more delightful. She had resisted all temptation to write and tell him of her coming, for she was anxious not to spoil the enchanting element of surprise.

  Although her home was so comparatively near to Morringham, the place was not really very familiar to her, and as she walked along now with a feeling of leisure almost unknown in her busy young life, she looked at everything almost with the eye of a stranger.

  There was nothing especially gay or elegant about Morringham. On the other hand, nor was there anything in the least meretricious. The two main streets had a solid, handsome aspect, most of the buildings having been planned on large, uncompromising lines that were not without attraction.

  Altogether, Katherine thought, you could go further and do much worse than Morringham. She was aware, though, that bereft of the engaging sunshine that at present warmed the somewhat sooty facades, the place probably looked a good deal more formidable and less attractive.

  At the junction of the two main streets stood Kendales.

  She remembered it as soon as she saw it. Though—as is the case with most of us in the passage from childhood to our grown-up years—it was not as big as her vague schoolgirl recollection had suggested.

  The main frontage was impressive, with good, straight, unfussy lines. And she found herself immediately deciding that Malcolm’s alterations would probably be confined to the interior of the store.

  Her sense of curiosity and expectancy pleasantly stimulated, she pushed open one of the heavy swinging doors and went in.

  She had not, of course, expected anything of the scope and scale of Bremmisons. But she was a good deal shocked to find that her first impression was one of something like confusion. And not by any means charming confusion. Far too many things, it seemed to her, were displayed in far too little space. And even allowing for the fact that reorganization and rebuilding must inevitably call for a certain amount of compromise with one’s highest standards, Katherine felt that something better should have been achieved.

  This isn’t just the result of emergency, she thought shrewdly as she wandered around, unobtrusively observing. Mr. Arnoldson was right. Many alterations will have to be made.

  She found Blouses and Skirts upstairs. And here for the first time she found also a casual indifference to the customer. Downstairs, any inquiry she had made as a possible customer had been answered with a prompt and friendly courtesy. Here, to her professional annoyance and irritation, she saw three assistants fussing around a well-dressed customer, while she herself and a rather apologetic-looking little woman were left to their own de
vices.

  Katherine gave them three minutes, during which she decided that the good-looking young woman with the beautifully coiled dark hair was almost certainly the problematical Miss Lester. Then she approached the group and said pleasantly but distinctly, “Is anyone free to serve, please?”

  The girl with the dark hair turned her head. For two seconds she gave Katherine a cool stare—just long enough to intimidate most people and make them feel they had intruded. Then she said with entirely hollow politeness, “If you will wait just a minute, madam...”

  “Very well.” Katherine was unperturbed. “I will wait since I want to speak personally to a Miss Lester who works here. But over there is a customer. And customers should not be made to wait.”

  The reaction, was instantaneous and almost amusing. Without a word, one of the juniors detached herself from the group and sped across to the timid little woman, while the girl with the dark hair also took a couple, of steps away from the over-favored customer and said, “I am Miss Lester.”

  “I thought you must be.” Katherine still spoke pleasantly. “I’m Miss Renner. I’ve been sent up here from Bremmisons.

  “You? Will you come this way, please?”

  Miss Lester’s surface politeness was much in evidence now, but her very fine gray eyes remained cold and unfriendly as she conducted Katherine to a small cubicle at the rear of the department.

  “I’m sorry I had to keep you waiting,” she observed perfunctorily.

  Katherine thought there had been very little compulsion about it. But she had no intention of starting as the critical know-all or of alienating Miss Lester any more than was necessary. So she merely said, “That’s quite all right. I saw you were busy with a customer. But I just wanted to make myself known to you as I was looking around.”

  It was not in her plans to start discussing things with this unfriendly young woman until she had had an opportunity to talk with the onetime owner of the store. Indeed, she would probably not have addressed her at all if she had not been annoyed by the general atmosphere of inattention in what she was already beginning to regard as “her” department.

  So she merely talked generally of the inconveniences when reorganization has to take place, but also of the opportunity that it gave for a fresh line on one’s work.

  It was the other girl who spoke with greater bluntness. Looking directly at Katherine, she inquired with scarcely veiled hostility, “Are you being given carte blanche to alter everything?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way at all.” Again Katherine refused to show annoyance. “I worked under someone who made an enormous success of our Separates Department and I think Bremmisons is willing to put a good deal into an attempt to make a similar success here. My job—”

  “What suits a London store doesn’t always suit a provincial store, you know.”

  “No. I realize that. But my job will be to find out what is especially good in the existing position and decide how far one could graft on new ideas. Or possibly,” she added calmly, since she thought Miss Lester needed a salutary shock, “whether the whole thing should be reorganized.”

  “Does Mr. Kendale know about this?”

  “I imagine he’s been informed,” said Katherine realizing that she had not confirmed that somewhat important detail with Mr. Arnoldson. “But in any case I think I should go and see him now.”

  She rose to her feet, thus firmly putting an end to the conversation. Miss Lester rose, too, and unexpectedly said, “I’ll take you myself.” But whether this was a piece of belated courtesy or a casual demonstration of the fact that she was on special terms with Mr. Kendale, Katherine was not quite sure.

  As in Bremmisons, the staff offices were on the top floor, and Miss Lester seemed to know her way around here very well. She briskly led Katherine along a corridor and without knocking ushered her into what was evidently a secretary’s outer office.

  “Is Mr. Kendale in?” she inquired of the girl who was sitting there typing.

  “Yes, Miss Lester.” Katherine noted immediately that the reply held just that note of respect usually reserved for at least minor vips.

  “Tell him there’s someone to see him from Bremmisons.” And with hardly more than a casual nod to Katherine Miss Lester took herself off with an air of having restored a natural sense of proportion to the situation.

  The other girl had already disappeared into an inner office and Katherine was left there wondering a little uneasily just how she was going to tackle the formidable old gentleman described by Mr. Arnoldson as so uncooperative and difficult.

  “Will you come this way, please?” The young secretary was holding open the door and standing aside for Katherine to enter.

  Resolutely, she went in—and immediately stopped short.

  For the man who rose from behind the big desk by the window might possibly be described as formidable, but certainly not as old. Tall, well built and unsmiling, he was not more than in his middle thirties, Katherine decided at a quick guess. And strongly suspecting some sort of trick on Miss Lester’s part, she spoke coolly and decisively.

  “I’m sorry. I think there has been a mistake. I wanted to see Mr. Kendale. The assistant managing director.”

  “I am the assistant managing director.” There was nothing especially friendly about either the well-pitched voice or the very direct glance. “And my name is Kendale.”

  “But—” groping in her memory, Katherine tried to recall whether Mr. Arnoldson had made the initial mistake or whether she had missed something he had said “—I understood I was going to meet a formidable old gentleman!”

  The man did give a grim little smile then.

  “Not particularly old, but otherwise correctly described,” he replied dryly. “I expect you confused me with my father. But he hardly ever comes down to the store nowadays.”

  “No?” Still a little bewildered, she picked her words less carefully than usual. “But I thought he sat on the board and was rather—” She stopped and colored, and immediately a gleam of malicious amusement appeared in the unusually dark blue eyes that were watching her.

  “Obstructive?” he suggested. “No, I am the Mr. Kendale who sits on the board and is rather obstructive. And you, I take it—” he picked up a letter that was lying on the desk in front of him “—are the Miss Renner who proposes to tell us how to run Kendales?”

  “No.” With an effort Katherine recovered herself. “I don’t propose to do anything of the kind. Nor, I’m sure, was that Mr. Arnoldson’s idea when he sent me here.”

  “Then suppose you sit down—” he indicated a chair, but still with nothing friendly in his manner “—and tell me what was Mr. Arnoldson’s idea when he sent you here.”

  So Katherine sat down and in a firm but courteous way described to him Mr. Arnoldson’s proposal for the reorganization of those departments that catered especially to the young customer.

  He thoughtfully rolled a pencil between his hands while she was talking, but he watched her with the greatest attention, and she thought he missed nothing. At the end he merely asked, “And in all this somewhat extensive reorganization, Miss Renner, are you supposed to act entirely on your own initiative?”

  The faintly ironic tone of his voice did not escape her, but she maintained a perfectly pleasant manner as she said, “Only insofar as I’m to draw up a suggested plan.”

  “Then to whom are you answerable during your stay here?”

  “To you, I suppose, Mr. Kendale,” she replied with deceptive mildness.

  “To me?” His strongly marked eyebrows rose abruptly. “Come, that’s a novel viewpoint.”

  “I don’t know why it should be.” She smiled. “You are the assistant managing director. I take it that, for all except final major decisions, you’re the boss.”

  He laughed, and she noted that it was a very pleasant laugh even though it still held a touch of amused irony.

  “Believe me, you’re the first person who’s come from Bremmisons with that idea,�
�� he told her. “For the last month the general impression has been that what I say doesn’t go.”

  Katherine didn’t reply immediately. Instead she studied him with a not unsympathetic attention.

  “Mr. Kendale,” she said at last, “I’m more or less a local girl and that may be why I see things in a slightly different light. But in any case I realize that few things must be more galling than to act even as assistant managing director in a firm that one once owned.”

  “I never owned it,” he replied quickly. “If I had been the owner instead of my father, Kendales would not have been sold.”

  “I ... see.”

  “It would have been completely reorganized, of course. Possibly even with the younger customer especially in mind.” He paid that the tribute of a dry little smile. “But it would have remained a family business.”

  Katherine bit her lip thoughtfully, for she realized she was now on very delicate ground.

  “I’m-sorry, Mr. Kendale,” she said. “I think I would feel very much as you do if I were in your shoes. But the name still appears over the main door. I think it’s important still to make it one of the best stores in the country, don’t you?”

  He was silent—perhaps in disagreement or perhaps in sheer astonishment—and she went on, “That being so, it will be better for you and me to pull together instead of away from each other, won’t it?”

  “Undoubtedly,” he agreed dryly and with a certain air of withdrawal. “Had you already decided that I would be uncooperative?”

  She had, of course. Or at least Mr. Arnoldson had fully prepared her for such a contingency. It would be simple to give an easy denial, but she hardly thought that would carry much weight with this uncompromising man. Finally she said frankly, “I thought it quite possible you would resent someone you might well regard as an interloper.”