Strawberry Fields (29 page)
‘ . . . If she wouldn’t mind trying them on,’ he was saying. ‘Only my mama will be so disappointed if I get the wrong size – normally, she would come in herself but she’s got a slight cold in the head . . .’
Later, Miss Warrender would say to Sara: ‘Cold in the bleedin’ ’ead my foot; ’e were buyin’ them for ’is fancy woman!’, but that was just her way. You had to have a laugh, she would have said, or you might as well cock your toes up.
Now, however, she was on duty. She turned to Sara.
‘Miss Cordwainer, there’s a gentleman here . . .’
Sara moved forward even as Mr Hepworth raised startled eyes to her face; the name had done it, of course.
‘Sara? I can’t believe it! Your mother told me you’d returned to Switzerland . . . oh, I suppose you’re home for the holiday, but what on earth are you doing behind that counter?’
‘Selling gloves,’ Sara said rather tartly. Trust her mother to think up some fairy story that couldn’t possibly hold water for long! She turned to her colleague. ‘Yes, I’ll try the gloves on for the gentleman, Miss Warrender.’
‘Thanks, Miss Cordwainer.’ Another customer loomed, a fat, peroxided lady with long scarlet nails and a discontented expression. ‘I’d best attend to this lady, then, if you’ll take over here.’
With no real choice, Sara picked up the dark-brown gloves lying in a welter of others on the counter.
‘Are these the ones, sir? The colour is called dark chocolate . . . they’re top of our range, very superior, soft leather.’
‘Yes, I daresay,’ Mr Hepworth said distractedly. He lowered his voice. ‘What’s going on, Sara?’
‘I don’t live at home any more,’ Sara said patiently. ‘I’m working for my living, as you can see, Mr Hepworth.’ She slid the gloves on to her hands; they fitted beautifully and felt wonderfully warm and comfortable, too. She held out her gloved hands. ‘See?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Mr Hepworth said. ‘Your parents must be distraught! You can’t like being a shop girl for goodness’ sake!’
‘It’s rather nice, actually,’ Sara said, taking the gloves off with great care – she remembered the times at home that she had peeled her gloves off inside out and cast them on the nearest chair; but she hadn’t known then that they cost a week’s wages and more, and could split if handled roughly. ‘It’s a living, anyway. Shall I try these ones on now, sir?’
‘Yes, yes, why not? Well, I don’t understand it. Your mother definitely gave me to understand that you were in Switzerland. I asked when you’d be coming home and she said she didn’t know. My mama said . . .’ he paused and looked cautiously at Sara and it occurred to her that she didn’t know Alan Hepworth at all, nor he her, despite the fact that they had kissed in the comfortable darkness of a taxi, and she had once spent a couple of hours in the cinema, fighting off his rather tentative advances.
‘What did she say?’ Sara said, however, suddenly curious. It might be interesting to find out whether her mother managed to fool women of her own age and station in life.
‘Well, I don’t know whether I ought to say this . . .’
‘If you don’t get on with it, I’ll have to serve someone else,’ Sara said impatiently, seeing a skinny, fashionable young woman approaching the counter. ‘I can’t turn down sales, Mr Hepworth, because I’m paid on a bonus system.’
‘Oh! Look, I’ll have the dark-brown ones, and would you try the lighter ones again, please?’
Sara pulled them on and Mr Hepworth leaned a little closer. ‘My mama said that your mama was unnatural, and had no affection for you. She said it stuck out a mile, though I can’t say I’d ever noticed.’
‘Your mother was right,’ Sara said. ‘My mother doesn’t like me very much. The chocolate-coloured gloves are thirty shillings, sir, and the lighter ones twenty-eight and eleven.’
‘I’ll have both,’ Mr Hepworth said recklessly, pulling out a fat wallet. ‘Wait till my mother hears that I’ve found you – and where!’
Sara sold him the gloves, sending his bill and his bank note off in the little jar thing which whizzed it along to the cash desk where Miss Addington abstracted it and sent back his change and the receipted bill. Then she turned to the next customer and began serving her, for the department was getting busy.
Two days later, her mother turned up. She said nothing to Sara, she just went to the counter and began to try on gloves, ordering Miss Warrender to fetch the appropriate scarves and handbags to match her choice in an impatient, unpleasant way. She’s heard I’m here and she’s come to make sure, Sara thought. Good! Now she can see I’m not afraid of hard work and I’m coping without them!
An hour later, when her mother had placed an enormous order and gone on to gowns, the floor walker came over, rather diffidently, and told Sara she was wanted in the office.
‘Wharrever for?’ Miss Warrender asked. ‘Lord, when we’re so busy, too!’
Sara, whose feet were aching, thought that a trip to the office would be quite restful compared to running backwards and forwards, fetching gloves, scarves and leather handbags for impatient ladies who no sooner set eyes on them than they wanted something different. So she went at a walking pace through her own department, across lingerie, through gowns and up the stairs which led to Ye Olde Oake Restaurant and the offices.
The girl behind the big desk looked up at her, brows arching.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’
‘I’m Miss Cordwainer, from gloves,’ Sara said. ‘I’ve been told to come up to the offices.’
An expression of pity crossed the girl’s face, but she said, ‘Oh yes, Miss Cordwainer, it was Miss Whyte wanted to see you. Go straight through.’
Sara went to Miss Whyte’s door, knocked and entered. Miss Whyte was a fat, elderly lady with grey hair piled up on her head and an anxious expression. She looked up when Sara entered the room but did not smile. She indicated a chair, however, then began rearranging some artificial red roses in a green glass vase, fiddling with them as though she did not want to meet her employee’s eyes.
‘Sit down, Miss Cordwainer. I’m afraid we’ve had a complaint.’
‘A complaint?’ Sara was completely bewildered. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Whyte, I don’t understand. We’re awfully busy but I don’t think I’ve left anyone waiting and I didn’t take my lunch-hour today because of Miss Elgar from gowns being off . . .’
‘It isn’t that. Well, not precisely, anyway.’ Miss Whyte cleared her throat uncomfortably. ‘A – a customer said you’d been pert, Miss Cordwainer. She – she said that she wasn’t prepared to shop at a place which employed pert young girls. And she’s a very good customer.’
Sara sighed. Suddenly, she understood.
‘It was my mother, wasn’t it, Miss Whyte? Mrs Cordwainer. I imagine she told you she wouldn’t shop here whilst you continued to employ me. Is that a good guess?’
Miss Whyte was as red as the artificial roses. Sara could see her trying to make sense of what had happened and failing; only seeing a good customer whistled down the wind because of some young girl she scarcely knew.
‘No, it’s not that at all . . . a customer said you’d been pert and we really can’t have that sort of thing, as you realise. I’m sorry you take the attitude that the store is somehow to blame . . .’
‘I don’t!’ Sara said, shocked at such a blatant twisting of the facts. ‘I never said that, I just said that it was my mother who had complained. And it was, wasn’t it, Miss Whyte?’
There was a moment’s silence whilst Miss Whyte struggled with her conscience, and then she heaved a deep sigh.
‘It was Mrs Cordwainer, yes. She told me she wanted you to return home, said you’d left after a quarrel . . .’
‘It wasn’t true, Miss Whyte. My mother turned me out.’
‘Yes. I did wonder . . . but there’s no doubt that your mother won’t shop here whilst we employ you.’
‘It’s probably just an idle threat, Miss Whyte,’ Sara said, even as her heart descended into her neat black court shoes. ‘She’s shopped here all her life, I can’t see her changing to another store just because I work here.’
‘Miss Cordwainer, have you any idea how much money your mother spends in this store each year?’
‘A – a hundred pounds? Fifty?’ Sara was guessing, but she had to say something. ‘But no matter what she spends . . .’
‘Last year she spent three hundred and fifty pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence. This year she has already spent four hundred and seventy-two pounds, nine shillings and elevenpence. These are vast sums, Miss Cordwainer, so it means that at a time when by and large customers are spending less and less, your mother is not someone we can afford to lose.’
‘I see that,’ Sara said, with increasing despair. ‘But I have no money except for what I earn, I can’t afford to lose my job!’
‘Mrs Cordwainer spends many times your annual salary in our store, Miss Cordwainer,’ Miss Whyte said gently. ‘I’m sure, if you will just go home and tell her you’re sorry for whatever took place, you will have no need either of your salary or your job with us. I shall be sorry to lose you – and so will gloves – but your mother’s ultimatum has left us no choice.’ She held out the pieces of paper she had been fiddling with. ‘Your cards, Miss Cordwainer.’
Sara could not believe this was happening, yet she knew it was, knew that what her mother had done she had done quite deliberately, after some considerable thought. She had – she thought – cut the ground from under Sara’s feet; now Sara would have to go home!
Sara turned towards the door; at least she now had some experience to talk about when applying for another job. Provided her mother could not run her to earth she might be safe at some other store. She had got the door half open when something occurred to her. She turned.
‘One of these days, Miss Whyte, I shall probably be a married woman with a reasonable income at my command. If you think that I shall shop at the store which turned me away at a customer’s spiteful whim, then you are very much mistaken.’
Miss Whyte sighed too; she looked very sorry, but Sara could tell that the older woman’s resolve had not been shaken.
‘I’ve no doubt you’re right, my dear, but that, as you say, is in the future. The present is hard and getting harder. No one ever thought the Wall Street slump would continue to affect trade the way it has, and going off the Gold Standard does not seem to have helped at all. In fact, unless business looks up, there may not
be
a Barringtons of Liverpool by the time you’re a married woman.’
be
a Barringtons of Liverpool by the time you’re a married woman.’
‘Well, I tried,’ Sara said ruefully. ‘Is it any use asking you if you’ll give me a reference? Only I’ve worked hard for you, and I’ve learned a lot. It may be possible, if I have a good reference, to get another position.’
‘Certainly. I’ll write one myself and give it to you before you leave tonight,’ Miss Whyte said. ‘But for your own sake, Miss Cordwainer, I think you’d be well-advised to look for work outside the centre of the city.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Sara said, not pretending to misunderstand the warning. ‘I’m sorry about the threat, but I had to try. It’s not only me, it’s my grandmother I have to think about. I’m living with her and she only has a tiny pension.’
Miss Whyte stood up and came round the desk. She patted Sara’s shoulder, then shook her hand.
‘I feel very bad, very bad,’ she said heavily. ‘It would not be true to say I had no choice, but your mother does have influence, Miss Cordwainer. She told me so. She said she would put it about that I’d encouraged you to flee from home, she’d see that I lost customers from all walks of life, but particularly those in more affluent circumstances. And she could do it, you know. Would do it, if I . . .’
‘It’s all right,’ Sara said. ‘You’ll pay my wages at the end of the week, when I leave, I hope?’
‘I’ll see you’re paid the full week, but you must leave tonight,’ Miss Whyte said. ‘Come to accounts with me and I’ll see to it right away. No need to go back to gloves, except for your coat and bag, of course.’
When Sara got home and told her grandmother and Miss Boote there had been a good deal of recrimination, but then Sara said that she would not be beaten, Miss Boote gave her three cheers, and Mrs Prescott went out to the kitchen and came back into the living room carrying a bottle of sherry.
‘It’s for medicinal purposes, usually, but I think we need cheering up before we begin to plan our campaign,’ she announced. ‘Miss Boote, you’ve been a good friend to my girl; what do you suggest?’
Miss Boote looked embarrassed.
‘Well, there is one thing . . .’ she began. ‘But I scarcely like to suggest it.’
‘Fire ahead,’ Sara told her. ‘Any idea has to be better than mine, because my head is quite empty.’
‘All right, I wilL You know I work in a bank on Walton Road, quite near the Salvation Army Barracks?’
‘Yes, I know. Not that you talk about it much,’ Sara said. ‘Oh, Miss Boote, don’t say there’s a vacancy in your bank?’
‘No; wish there were,’ Miss Boote said gruffly. They were sitting round the fire and she stared steadfastly into the flames. Oh Lord, her idea must be so dreadful that she dare not face us whilst she talks about it, Sara told herself. Never mind, any job is a job, with Christmas coming up.
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