Beyond the Sunset (37 page)

His expression of surprise looked false to her and she guessed that the lad had run to fetch him. ‘No. I’m still familiarising myself with the shop and how it’s run. I’m exploring the office now.’

‘My dear Miss Blake, there’s no need for a lovely young woman like yourself to bother with business matters. I can tell you anything you wish to know and you can trust me to keep the paperwork in order, so—’

‘But how can I learn how our shop is run, and help with that, if I don’t understand what you do here?’

He blinked at her in shock and moved closer to the desk. ‘But surely
you
won’t be involved in running the shop?’

‘I certainly shall. When I’m more familiar with how things are done, I intend to serve in the shop sometimes, too.’

His shocked expression changed to utter horror. ‘But women don’t serve in shops like this one. Believe me, Miss Blake, the customers wouldn’t expect it and some might dislike it. And there’s no
need
!
I
can do all that’s necessary.’

‘As the owner, I should be foolish not to familiarise myself with every facet of running this shop. And the customers will soon grow used to me serving them, I’m sure.’

‘But the other ladies in the town don’t work in their husband’s businesses. There’s a lot of mental arithmetic involved, too, and—’

‘I can add up as well as you, I’m sure.’

His sneering expression at that remark showed a disdain for women she’d met in other men and that further annoyed her.

‘A woman as lovely as you will soon find a husband, I’m sure.’

She hated his compliments. He was standing very close to her now, and the way he was looking at her made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

‘And he’ll be a very lucky man,’ he added, with a soulful look.

He couldn’t mean . . . Ugh! She’d never marry a man like him. Never! Something about him made her shudder.

He laid one hand on her arm and only the memory of Mr Dawson’s request not to upset him stopped her from throwing his arm off violently. She pulled hers back, though.

‘If Carr told you that you needed to work in the shop, he was wrong!’ Harry said earnestly.

‘Zachary said the same as you and I gave him the same answer. It’s
my
shop – mine and my sisters’, I mean – and I want to be a part of what goes on here. I wasn’t bred to be idle, Mr Prebble, and I don’t intend to start now.’

She walked out of the office, hating the fact that he didn’t move and she couldn’t help touching him as she passed.

When Zachary touched her, she loved it.

Oh, she wished this charade weren’t necessary, wished it more desperately with each day that passed.

From the other side of the glass pane in the connecting door, Zachary watched Pandora hurry out of the office, face flushed. She stopped to shudder, then squared her shoulders and came towards the shop. He swung the door open, smiling at her.

‘I can’t stand him,’ she said in a low voice.

He was startled. ‘What’s he done?’

‘I’ll tell you when we’re alone. At the moment there don’t seem to be any customers in, so could you please show me how the shop is organised?’

‘Of course.’ He began the tour, explaining why the shelves were arranged in a certain way, showing her the tools kept under the counter, including a bowl of water for rinsing the hands quickly, and the marble slab at one end of the counter for cutting pieces of butter and cheese, or slicing ham.

Partway through the tour Harry came out of the back and stopped in the doorway, scowling at them. After a moment he walked across. ‘I’ll see to Miss Blake now, Carr.’

Pandora swung round. ‘I asked Zachary to show me round and I’m happy with how he’s doing it. Don’t let me keep you from your work, Mr Prebble.’

She was magnificent, but unfortunately her dislike for Harry was only too clear. She wasn’t good at dissembling, as Zachary had already found out.

When she left the shop, he went into the back room to fetch some more packets of flour and stopped for a moment, puzzled. There had been one or two more packets of flour on this shelf, he was certain of it because he’d always had an excellent memory for details. Old Mr Blake had often complimented him on that.

Where had the flour gone? Not into the shop, that was certain.

Frowning, he put some more one-pound and two-pound bags into a basket and carried it into the shop to fill the shelves. When he took the basket back to the preparation area, he stood still, surveying the piles of goods on the shelves one by one, committing them to memory.

Then the shop doorbell rang and he went back to serve a customer and speak yet again about his journey to Australia.

After carefully locking the connecting door, Pandora went back up to the parlour, thoughtful now. She found Alice sitting with some embroidery.

‘How did your visit to the shop go?’

‘It was – interesting. Or it would have been.’

Alice raised one eyebrow.

‘Prebble would keep fussing over me, but he didn’t want me to look inside the office. I wonder why. You’d think
he
owned the shop, not me.’

‘I find him officious and patronising.’

‘Yes. But there’s something else about him. Something . . . repulsive. I can’t bear him to touch me.’

‘He touched you?’

‘Patted my arm. And I had to brush past him to get out of the office.’ She shuddered.

‘I can’t stand him either. Well, it’s more than dislike. He frightens me.’ Alice explained about the intruders. ‘I’ve always thought it was him. Or else he was behind it. He didn’t like me coming to live here, was bossing Dot about before and taking some of the money meant to go on her food. Just a bit here and there, but it mounts up. He said he was saving it for the new owners and produced a cash box containing the exact amount, so Ralph – Mr Dawson couldn’t accuse him of wrongdoing.’

‘Horrid little weasel. I can’t understand why Mr Dawson appointed him as manager.’

‘Would you have preferred Prebble to come and find you in Australia?’

Pandora looked at her in horror. ‘No! I suppose after my uncle was killed, there was no one else left to run the emporium. Zachary loves it. He’d make a good manager.’

‘The customers certainly prefer him. While he was away I heard a lot of people say it was more pleasant shopping here when he was around, how they used to wait to be served by him.’

‘Zachary’s a lovely man.’

Alice smiled. ‘And you’re fond of him.’

Pandora couldn’t deny it. ‘Very. But he hasn’t got any money and I have the shop.’

‘Do you love him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then fight for him. Don’t let anything stop you. I didn’t fight and I lost the man I loved when I was younger because of my father’s interference.’

‘Don’t worry. I shan’t let anything come between us.’ She smiled fondly for a moment, picturing Zachary, then changed the subject. ‘Would you like to come into town and help me choose some dress materials? I need to find a dressmaker who can make some up quite quickly. My clothes are all dreadfully shabby.’

Alice slipped her needle into the edge of the embroidery and put it down. ‘I’d love to come.’

In perfect accord the two women went out shopping. They chose three lengths of dress material for Pandora, vivid colours that would go well with her dark hair. Afterwards they took them to a dressmaker of whom other ladies spoke well, and there they received a flattering degree of attention.

But Pandora had definite views on what she wanted. She stared at the fashion plates the dressmaker was showing her. Huge skirts like pyramids. Elaborate trimmings with loops and swirls of braid or little waterfalls of frills peeking out from beneath a scalloped hem. ‘Oh, no! I don’t want such full skirts. Or such fussy decoration. I think they look silly and how would you walk briskly in one, let alone run?’

The dressmaker blinked at her in surprise. ‘Ladies don’t usually need to walk briskly and certainly not run, Miss Blake.’

‘Well, I’m not a lady and I love a good brisk walk. In fact I don’t want a crinoline frame at all. A couple of petticoats, perhaps, with flounces round the hems. That’s as far as I’ll go.’

‘But you’d look so good in a fashionable dress with your slender waist and elegant figure.’

‘It’d drive me mad to have six yards of skirt hem bobbing around my legs.’ Pandora smiled at her. ‘Don’t waste your time on trying to make me into a fashionable lady, Miss Poulton. I just want to look – reasonable. With nice materials and colours.’

‘I can make you whatever you’d like.’ The dressmaker took out a sheet of paper and pencil, staring down at it thoughtfully.

‘Here, let me.’ Pandora took the pencil out of her hand and sketched a matching skirt and bodice.

‘You draw well.’

‘When I have time. Can you do that with the dark green? And change the sleeves and skirts a bit for the other colours.’

‘Easily.’

‘Good. How quickly can you make one up?’

The dressmaker looked at her speculatively. ‘Would you mind us doing the seams with a sewing machine? We’re very modern here and I’ve had a sewing machine for a few years. Some ladies still prefer hand sewing, but the machine does very neat work, I promise you.’

‘I’d not mind at all. I’ve never seen a sewing machine. Can I look at it?’

The dressmaker took her into the workshop and showed her the machine, which stood on its own little table.

‘It was made by Sugden, Bradbury and Firth in Oldham and cost us seven pounds. My brother was the one who insisted I buy it. He loves anything mechanical. I was a bit nervous when I first used it, but now I love it, and so do my girls.’

The women in the sewing room smiled and nodded.

As they came out of the shop, Alice couldn’t help chuckling. ‘You shocked her with your disdain for fashion.’

‘I know. But she agreed to do what I wanted in the end. And I think I redeemed myself in her eyes by my interest in her sewing machine.’ Pandora gave a little skip of excitement. ‘How wonderful to have some brand-new dresses! We always had to buy ours second-hand and a lot of mine were passed down by my sisters till we all stopped growing taller.’

‘You’d better go and buy a new hat as well. That one is rather battered.’

‘I suppose so.’

Again Pandora received flattering attention, and again she had to convince the milliner that she didn’t want anything fussy. She came out wearing one of the two new straw hats she’d purchased. Both had small brims and neat trimmings, though the one she intended for Sunday wear did have a soft, curly feather trailing along one side of the brim and hanging down a couple of inches at the back.

‘Now, on to some shopping that I shall really enjoy.’ She led the way to the bookshop, where she bought half a dozen books, wishing once again that her father had lived to see this day.

Back in her bedroom, tidying herself up and putting away her purchases, Pandora looked into the mirror. The face that stared back at her was rosy, the eyes sparkling. She was pretty, she admitted. She didn’t usually care about that, but now she wanted to look as pretty as she could for Zachary. He said he loved her and he certainly looked at her admiringly. Why did he still insist on keeping his distance? Surely she’d proved that she wasn’t going to change her mind about their marriage? What if out of pride he refused to remain her husband?

No. No, she wouldn’t let him do that. Determination filled her. She’d claim that the marriage had been consummated, if necessary. Mr Featherworth and Mr Dawson might approve of him keeping his distance, but they were old. They didn’t understand or perhaps they’d forgotten how much you could love someone, how much you could miss being with him. And they thought too much about money.

Well, she knew better. It was important to have enough money to live decently and feed your family, of course it was, but what counted most in the world was your family and those you loved. She’d lost her sisters. She wasn’t going to lose Zachary as well.

And if she had her way, if fate was kind to her, she’d make a new family, have several children and love them all. Boys who looked like their father. Girls who weren’t too tall and who were quite pretty. Being too pretty was a burden. It had often irritated her that men couldn’t see beyond her face. And being tall could make things difficult, too. Most men wanted a woman shorter than they were.

If they didn’t need to find out what was wrong at the shop, she’d stop this silly charade at once and insist Zachary move in with her.

If he’d agree to do that. Her thoughts always stopped short at his steely determination. No one would ever force Zachary Carr to do something he believed wrong.

20

T
hat evening, Pandora went into the shop and asked Zachary to fill her a basket with a few staples for a family she knew who had fallen on hard times.

He began taking things off the shelves, seeming to understand without being told what they might need. ‘Is that enough?’

‘That’s fine.’ She felt someone close behind her and turned to find herself almost nose to nose with Prebble, so edged back towards Zachary.

‘Doesn’t Dot usually do your shopping, Miss Blake?’ Prebble asked. ‘It doesn’t do to pamper a maidservant, you know.’

She’d had enough of him poking his nose into her affairs. ‘Kindly mind your own business, Mr Prebble, and leave me to mind mine!’

Zachary let out a snort of laughter, which he tried but failed to disguise as a cough.

Colour high, Prebble took a couple of steps backwards, but remained close by and didn’t stop watching her and what she was taking. She turned her back on him and examined the basket, nodding. ‘That’s enough. I don’t want my friends to feel overwhelmed.’

Zachary noted down the items in the account book then carried the basket to the door for her. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘Just to Pelson Street. I want to visit Bill’s parents. They were on very short commons when I left Outham and I wasn’t even able to say goodbye to them. Mr Dean may be working on one of the relief schemes, so I’ve left it till evening to visit them.’

‘They’ll welcome this food, then. Are you sure the basket isn’t too heavy?’