“My word!” ejaculated Mrs. Royer.
“There’s vests. Two of everything,” said Flo, beginning to step into the costume skirt. It was tight at the waist, but she held her breath while she got the two hooks into the eyes. She smoothed the creases in front and drew her open hands down from her waist behind and was delighted by the close feel of it. “But only one blouse,” she murmured with the slightest hint of regret. She dropped the blouse quickly over her head. It was of buff cotton with a print design of small red and blue triangles to match the suit braiding.
“Fancy that!” said Mrs. Royer. “My! Didn’t I tell you?”
The jacket slipped on easily. Flo left the front open, but buttoned the belt.
“What more d’you want?” demanded Mrs. Royer.
Flo slowly turned and walked stiffly and sedately the six paces which the room allowed, then abruptly she swooped back.
“There’s shoes, too; I forgot! Brogues.”
Also there were two pairs of stockings, but they were black, thick cashmere, so that she did not mention them because she thought that she looked better in her own which were grey cotton.
“My word,” repeated Mrs. Royer, “I never thought they’d do you like that. When Missis told me, I thought it ’ud be somethin’ not worth having.”
“I bet Ivy’ll be jealous,” said Flo.
She looked down at herself in front and tried to look over her shoulder to see what it was like at the back. “It does fit, doesn’t it?”
“Like you’d been measured.”
“It isn’t a bit tight?”
“You look like a real lady,” said Mrs. Royer. “Fancy them fitting you up like that. Eh, everybody’ll wonder what’s happened . . . we’ve had a fortune or somethin’,” and she chuckled and suddenly remembered Mrs. Dower. “You must come. She won’t believe if I just tell her. But if you’re there . . .”
“You’d have thought they’d have sent a hat,” said Flo.
“Yes; haven’t they?”
“That’s all that came,” Flo nodded at the box.
“Eh, but there should be; I remember Missis sayin’ . . .” Mrs. Royer felt clumsily among the tissue paper and uttered a triumphant,” Here y’are; fancy missin’ that,” and she brought from underneath where it had been lying flat, a navy-blue knitted hat something like a turban. It suited Flo; she felt as well dressed as she imagined any queen could feel. She took off its nail the square of pitted glass that was kept by the window, and holding it in both hands, tilted her head first one way then the other to see how she would appear to passers-by on either side.
“Now, you do look a little lady,” said her mother gushingly. “You see, but for me you’d have missed it. Suppose it had been thrown away . . .”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have done that!” exclaimed Flo. “Isn’t it . . .,” she didn’t want to say “natty” again, because she had already used it three times, therefore she ended with “neat?”
“It might have growed on you, it’s that much as it should be,” agreed her mother. “Let me try.”
But on her round skull with streaky hair hanging all round like cobwebs the turban made her look “like nothin’ on earth”, as she said, and she dragged it off and gave it back. “It don’t look like the same when you have it on,” she said, quite relieved that she had not spoilt it. “My word, what’ll Mrs. Dower an’ Sal Fairburn, an’ Old Poll say . . . an’ Sarah Ann? Huh, it was Sarah as told me as I’d no right to send you away. Let me get my things on.”
She bustled to the door and plucked her hat and coat off the nail as if there were a fire and she had to escape.
“What, keep them on and go with you?” asked Flo. “I . . . I’m not washed or anything.”
“Who’ll know with you with them things on?” demanded Mrs. Royer, leading to the front door.
Flo followed, hesitant yet thrilled; and the daffodils forgotten in the firelight, seemed to shake their heads.
Chapter 2
On Sunday morning Flo was taken to the Vicarage where Mrs. Royer worked. There was a cook, who was also supposed to be general, but she never touched any job that was dirty or tiring. Ivy and Flo had told their mother that she ought to leave, only she had been going there for twenty-two years last February 28, a date easy to remember, so that it was foolish even to expect her to leave. All Saturday night Flo had been happy, standing to be admired and stroked by her mother’s friends, listening to exclamations and questions, and aware of jealousy when there were others of about her own age present. But now she felt different.
“Is Missis up?” asked Mrs. Royer as soon as she had got her head and first foot across the back doorstep.
“Up? Of course,” snapped Mrs. Worthing, six feet two, little more than a skeleton. It was one of her grumbles that Mrs. Royer should be allowed to get there at nine on Sundays instead of at eight. “She’s been up half an hour.”
“Here’s our Flo,” said Mrs. Royer, quite deaf to the antagonism. “What d’you think of her? Isn’t she a stunner?”
The inspection was made with a widening of the lower part of Mrs. Worthing’s nostrils, the wings of which had a curious flexibility that let her make a sneer her most artistic accomplishment.
“Where did she get them?” she asked.
“Missis got ’em,” Mrs. Royer answered, enjoying her moment.
“Whatever for?”
“To go to job as she’s got her; that as I told you of, and as you said wouldn’t be no good.”
“And if she’s got to be dolled up for it like that, it won’t be no good. If she was any girl of mine, I’d send them back and tell them I can dress my own daughter without any of their charity.”
Mrs. Worthing turned away and clanged the iron frying-pan on the gas-stove.
“It isn’t charity; she’s going to pay for ’em,” said Mrs. Royer determinedly. “Where’s Missis?”
“There’s all the washing-up waiting,” Mrs. Worthing stated coldly, now ignoring Flo. “Missis’ll have no time to waste. It’s a special service . . .”
“She’ll be in the breakfast-room, is she?”
Mrs. Royer accepted cook’s silence as “Yes”, and told Flo to wait. She came back five minutes later and told Flo to follow. They went through the hall which was overcrowded with a Victorian hatstand, a mahogany table with a marble top, and a much-carved black oak chest. There was a smell of dust. The breakfast-room was on the right. The vicar’s wife was at the far side of the fireplace sitting very upright in a maroon silk dressing-gown decorated with large scroll pattern in white. Her plentiful auburn hair was done loosely, chiefly towards the front, so that it helped to increase her appearance of height, and Flo felt small, as if she were going up to someone on a dais.
“Oh, now, Miss Royer, you do look smart,” Mrs. Howell greeted her. “No wonder your mother feels proud; indeed, anyone could be proud of you; you might even be taken for a . . .”she was going to say “bishop’s daughter”, but realised just in time how demeaning that would be to the bishop; therefore she finished by saying “a police inspector’s daughter”, Fortunately Mrs. Royer was thinking too much of Flo, and Flo was thinking too much of Mrs. Howell, for either of them to notice the hesitation or to wonder why in the world the police had been dragged in. The awkward moment passed very satisfactorily, Mrs. Howell thought, and she went on in a loud, elaborate manner: “Go over there, my dear, in the light. Oh, wouldn’t she make a picture, Mrs. Royer? If only I had time to paint her.” Mrs. Howell raised her large rather coarse hands in a gesture meant to indicate the extreme of regret, and then waved for Flo to come closer. “Let me feel the material, dear; I don’t want you to have to pay for poor stuff, you know.”