by Lilian Peake
“You will need all the diplomacy you possess to deal with awkward customers. We have plenty of those, amongst the many thousands more of the good ones. You’ll make mistakes, but you must take them in your stride and learn from them.”
“Yes, Mr. Pascall.” At the door she turned. “Are you sure—quite sure—?”
Quietly the answer came, “I know what I’m doing, Miss Stuart.”
“Yes, Mr. Pascall.”
“Good luck, Miss Stuart.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pascall.”
A smile illuminated his face, flooding it for the merest and most startling second with warmth and life. Then it was gone.
In the small office in a corner of the dress department, Gayle dialled her father’s extension on the internal telephone. As she waited for him to answer, she looked round trying to absorb into her system the incredible fact that this partitioned, slightly claustrophobic box—it was little more than that—no longer held the mystique it used to hold when Carla Grierson occupied it.
It’s mine, Gayle thought, mine to work in, sit in, dream in and even hide in, if I wanted!
The gruff voice of her father disturbed her reverie. “Dad? Just to tell you I took the job.”
“I know, love. Mr. Pascall’s just gone.”
Her scalp tingled with indignation. “What was he doing,” she snapped, “checking up on my pedigree? Making sure I was well bred enough to carry the position without letting down the sacred name of Pascall?”
Her father laughed. “Thanks for proving me right. He asked me if you were really as unsure of yourself as you seemed to be, or whether you had reserves of self-confidence and fighting spirit which hadn’t yet been tapped. I told him that your ‘fighting spirit’ was so active that once it was aroused it was as well for the one who dared to provoke it to turn and run!”
“You didn’t really say that, did you?”
“I did. I also told him that if you manage the dress department with the efficiency and cool competence with which you run our home—and me—he’s got nothing to worry about! He said as long as you didn’t try to ‘run’ him, he was glad to hear it. And also that his summing-up of your character had been proved correct.”
So the great Mr. Ewan Pascall had summed her up? Was he now congratulating himself on his ability to spot a girl with hidden talent, with the necessary ingredients in her personality to make a successful buyer overnight? She was afraid he was wrong. In the forefront of her mind was the nagging dread that she would be a failure and let down not only herself and the firm’s owner, but her father, too.
“But, Dad,” she argued, “the fact that I run our home efficiently has no bearing on whether or not I’ll make a good buyer. I told him, I warned him I couldn’t do it, but he refused to believe I was speaking the truth. He forced me into it—”
”Gayle, love,” the patient voice persisted, “I’ve known for years, and to my constant regret, how much you take after me. I know myself inside out. I lack ‘push’, and if I ever had any initiative I strangled it at birth. But, Gayle, as I keep saying, you’re young, you mustn’t be content to stagnate. It’s a chance in a million Mr. Pascall’s offered you. Accept it with both hands. Believe me, if you don’t, as the years go by you’ll never stop regretting it.”
“But, Dad, you don’t understand, he’s taking a terrible risk—”
Herbert laughed indulgently. “Now I know why he said that talking you into it was like trying to climb a mountain with both feet heavily weighted! Go on with you, love, you can do it. If Mr. Pascall thinks you can, then take it from me, you can. He’s like his father, shrewd and a keen businessman. He’s rarely, if ever, wrong in his judgments.”
Gayle rang off with a sigh. It was obvious that her father regarded Ewan Pascall as a paragon and that nothing would make him change his mind. But this time, she thought despondently, Ewan Pascall had made one of his ‘rare’ mistakes.
What had he instructed her to do? Inspect the stock, contact suppliers, look at the order books. She was searching for them when the phone rang.
“Miss Potter here. Mr. Pascall wishes me to tell you that he has contacted the staff manageress. She has arranged to supply you with an assistant who will be joining you after lunch.”
Gayle thanked her, surprised to know that Ewan Pascall had been considerate enough to do such a thing and that he had not put her out of his mind the moment he had discovered from her father that his ‘summing-up’ of her character had—or so he thought—been proved correct.
The order books were full, which meant that very soon there would be a delivery of day dresses and evening gowns. Not today, she hoped, they mustn’t arrive today! She wandered round the department, running her hand along the racks of clothes, inspecting the prices, all of which seemed to Gayle to be rather high. But that, it seemed, was how Carla Grierson had liked it.
Trade was slow. It was Monday morning and Gayle supposed that most women were busy in the home. After lunch a cheerful, talkative-looking woman put her head round the door of the office. “Miss Stuart? I’m your new assistant.”
Gayle took the outstretched hand. “Delighted to see you, Mrs.—?”
“Carrington, Elsa Carrington. Fair, fat and forty, that’s me!” They laughed. “Want me to do anything, dear?”
“Sell some dresses, Mrs. Carrington,” Gayle said, smiling. “If there’s no cash in the till the end of the day, I shall be on my way out by this time tomorrow!”
Trade brightened during the afternoon. Gayle gladly put aside her new responsibilities and joined Mrs. Carrington behind the counter.
Rhoda invited Gayle and Herbert into her house for the evening. After working upstairs for a while, Mel joined them. He held Gayle’s hand, telling her how sensible she had been to accept Mr. Pascall’s offer.
“You can start saving in earnest for the great day,” Rhoda said.
Mel put his arm round Gayle. “It’s after the great day that worries me,” he said with a laugh. “If I pass the exams—”
”When,” his mother put in with a touch of pride in her voice.
“All right, when. When I pass them, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll get promoted within the firm, although there aren’t many vacancies in my line higher up the scale. If they haven’t got a better job to offer me, I shall have to look round and find somewhere else.”
Herbert asked with a frown, “Which would mean moving?”
Gayle could not bear to see the lost look on her father’s face as Mel replied, “It would definitely mean moving.”
So, if she married Mel, her father would be left on his own? But how could she leave him? If she married Mel ... Until that moment she had never questioned the fact that one day she would become Mrs. Melvin Booker, that she would wear Mel’s ring and bear his children. Now she, like her father, frowned uncertainly.
Mel’s arm tightened round her and she accepted it as she accepted the fact that she ate three meals a day. The kisses they exchanged had become as much a habit as washing her face and brushing her teeth. He was the ‘boy next door’ whom she had grown to acknowledge first as a boy-friend, then as ‘her young man’, then at last, as the man she was going to marry.
It had never occurred to her to question the fact—until now. She stirred and Mel, thinking she was trying to find a more comfortable position, obligingly removed his arm. The loss of contact with him did not make her want to reach out and put his arm back where it was. On the contrary and to her dismay, she felt a surge of relief at being freed from his touch.
What was the matter with her? Was anxiety at the thought of leaving her father making her change her mind about marrying Mel? But surely, if she loved him—? Loved him? Of course she loved Mel! She would go anywhere with him. If they had to move, Rhoda would be next door. Rhoda would look after her father—wouldn’t she?
When she, Gayle, became Rhoda’s daughter-in-law, Rhoda and her father would be linked by the marriage; kith and kin they called it. If the thought came that
Rhoda, fond as she was of Herbert, would find it impossible to wait on him and attend to all his needs, without any return of the affection she felt for him, then the thought was tossed away to float unheeded in a sluggish backwater in Gayle’s mind.
Next morning Gayle began to assert her authority. She would make changes, long overdue, within the department. As she made the ‘new broom’ decision, she did not spare a thought for the dust she might create in taking such an action, nor did she consider the length of time it might take for that dust to settle.
Carla Grierson had always insisted on garments being racked according to the name of the manufacturer. It was an arrangement which Gayle had regarded as wrong, but whenever she had suggested to Carla that the ordinary woman, in shopping for a dress, cared less about the manufacturer than the cost, Carla had dismissed the idea.
“I don’t cater for the ‘ordinary woman’, Miss Stuart,” she had said. “If I stocked any garment which did not have a quality label on it, it would lower the tone of the department.”
Dare I, Gayle wondered, make such a fundamental alteration? Would there be criticisms and complaints if I racked according to price instead of name? Perhaps she should get the approval of the management, of Ewan Pascall himself? But she told herself firmly, I’m in charge now. Why shouldn’t I do what I think is right without consulting my superiors?
When Mrs. Carrington arrived, and before the business of the day began, she joined Gayle in sorting through the stock on display and racking them according to price.
Early in the afternoon the phone rang. Gayle’s first reaction was to stare at the office from which the clamour was coming and wait for someone to answer it. Then it came to her that it was her phone in her office and what was she waiting for, the spirit of Carla Grierson to take the call?
She lifted the receiver and said breathlessly, “Sorry to keep you. Gayle Stuart here.”
“What were you doing,” came the cool, measured tone of the owner of the firm, “serving a customer?”
“No, I How could she tell him. For a moment I forgot who I was and thought your fiancée was in charge again?
“Prolonged lunch hour, perhaps? Taking advantage of your higher status?” The voice held mild amusement. “All right, I’ll forgive you—this time. But don’t let it happen too often, will you, Miss Stuart?”
“I was working, Mr. Pascall,” she said in a tone which she hoped would crush him, “so you’ve got it all wrong. You may have become conditioned to the ways of your fiancée, but may I tell you here and now that I don’t intend to follow her example?”
There was a long, chilling silence, a silence so long and so icy it even seemed to touch the hand holding the receiver with frostbite. It brought Gayle rapidly to her senses and she hoped that the warmth of the apology which she hastened to make would placate and thaw just a little the glacial person at the other end.
That her apology had not been unreservedly accepted was apparent in the coldness of Ewan Pascall’s tone. “I’ve been requested by my mother to collect and take home the model gown which was especially ordered for her by your predecessor, Miss Grierson. It seems my mother had been expecting delivery of it for some days and as she intends wearing it for an official dinner she’s attending tonight she is, understandably, getting worried. Would you please bring the dress, packed as carefully as possible, to my office.”
Gayle’s fingers pressed into her cheek. “Dress, Mr. Pascall? For your mother? I’m sorry, Mr. Pascall, but I wasn’t even aware that your mother had ordered a dress.”
“Then, Miss Stuart,” he rapped out, “you should have made it your business to know, shouldn’t you?” He had plainly not forgiven her for stepping out of line and speaking disparagingly, if only by implication, of his fiancée. “How right you were to say that you had no intention of following Miss Grierson’s example. More’s the pity. If you did you might become just a little more efficient.”
She supposed that in the circumstances she deserved his sarcasm. All the same she had to defend herself. “But, Mr. Pascall, Miss Grierson never told me anything. And I’ve only been in this job two days. How could I—”
”I rang about my mother’s dress, Miss Stuart, not to discuss your length of service as a buyer with the firm.”
“I’m—I’m sorry, Mr. Pascall. I’ll find the dress straight away.”
“You’d better, Miss Stuart. And fast.” He rammed the receiver down.
The marking-off room, Gayle told herself feverishly, where goods were price-tagged and stored before being passed on to the various departments—that was where Mrs. Pascall’s dress would be.
“Yes,” said the manager of that department, “we’ve had a dress here for her ladyship about a week. Been wondering what to do with the thing, short of wrapping it in gold leaf and putting it in a glass case. If anybody so much as breathes on Her Highness’s purchases, they’re for the high jump. They might as well hand in their notice on the spot. Be glad to get the costly item off our hands. Shall I send it down?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Hardy. I’ll come and get it myself. It will be safer that way.”
As Gayle rang off, Mrs. Carrington put a cup of tea on the desk. “Save you going up to the staff canteen for it, dear. Pay me later.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Mrs. Carrington. I’ll just drink a mouthful, then have the rest when I get back. I must go and rescue Mrs. Pascall’s dress from the hazards of the marking-off room. It seems she wants it for some dinner tonight, so heaven help us if it doesn’t arrive on her doorstep in mint condition!”
Gayle gulped a mouthful of tea, then left it to race upstairs. Reverently in the lift, she carried the dress draped over her arms. Its colour was flame, the material sheerest chiffon, the sleeves were full and caught into a wrist band, and from a gathered waistline the skirt fell in folds to the hem.
Mrs. Carrington admired it profusely. “Bet it cost a small fortune. I’ll pack it for you, dear. Things are slack in this department, Can’t think why. I’m used to being rushed off my feet.”
“I did hope,” Gayle said with a worried frown, “that regrouping the dresses into price ranges might bring the customers in.”
“Perhaps we’ll have to give the change-over more time to be noticed.” She said frankly, “Not exactly cheap, are they, some of these clothes?”
“Miss Grierson,” Gayle said, exaggerating her predecessor’s superior accent, “didn’t want to lower the tone of the department.”
Mrs. Carrington laughed. “Well, she kept her job, so the turnover in her time couldn’t have been that bad. Of course,” with a confiding smile, “when you’re as well in with the boss as she was, you couldn’t expect her to lose her job, could you?” She held out her arms for Mrs. Pascall’s dress.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Carrington. Carry on serving—if you can find anyone to serve! I’ll pack this.”
Gayle took the dress into her office and draped it across the desk. One thing she had learnt from Carla was how to fold and pack a dress. Carla’s expensive clientele expected their clothes to be treated with the utmost care, both in the handling and the delivery of the garments. Disliking the job of packing them herself, it was one of the first things Carla had taught her assistant to do.
In a cupboard, Gayle found a large flat box. With the intention of placing it beside the dress, she swung it off the shelf towards the desk. She misjudged the speed with which her hands were moving and collided with the teacup. It clattered on to its side, flinging with a gesture of grand generosity its entire contents in a wide horizontal sweep across the front of the unbelievably expensive, flame-coloured couture model gown.
CHAPTER TWO
“No,” cried Gayle, hands to her mouth, “no, no!”
“What, dear?” Mrs. Carrington asked conversationally, putting her head round the office door. Her eyes followed Gayle’s, which were staring fixedly at the stain the pale brown liquid lad made as it soaked the material from shoulder to waist. “You haven’t!”
Mrs. Carrington gasped. “Oh, Miss Stuart, whatever are you going to do?”
Gayle whispered, her brain reeling and in her thoughts still trying to deny the stain’s existence, “She wanted it tonight. She’s going out to dinner ... Mrs. Carrington,” her eyes imploring, “what shall I say to Mr. Pascall? He’ll sack me, I know he will.”
“No, he won’t, dear, of course he won’t.” Mrs. Carrington’s tone belied her anxious expression. “I’ll get some water and a sponge. Whatever happens, we’ve got to get that stain out.” She hurried away.
Gayle, feeling for her chair, stared at the havoc her careless, hurried action had wrought on the dress the owner’s mother was so confidently expecting to wear that evening.
The water and sponge did little to remove the stain. As they pressed the water into the material, it seemed to shrink even as they watched, leaving a wrinkled, corrugated diagonal path of dampness.
“Let’s dry it out in front of your electric fire,” Mrs. Carrington suggested.
“It’s hopeless,” Gayle moaned. “I’ll just have to tell Mr. Pascall and take whatever’s coming my way.”
She felt faint at the thought. She had held the position of buyer for only two days and already she had committed two unforgivable sins—she had been rude to the top man and she had ruined the top man’s mother’s precious and irreplaceable model gown. The confession—and its reception—was something to be dreaded, but confess she must, at once.
Miss Potter, on the internal telephone, informed her that Mr. Pascall was free but busy. Was it urgent?
“Very urgent indeed,” said Gayle. She was told to present herself to Mr. Pascall without delay but he hoped it would not take long.
How long to fire me? Gayle thought as she carried the ruined dress across her arms. What had Mr. Hardy said? “Whoever mishandles Her Highness’s belongings might as well hand in their notice on the spot.”
