She picked up the hem of the skirt and tested its thickness and strength while Flo stood uncomfortable and stiff like a child.
“She’s vests an’ everything,” said Mrs. Royer.
At once Mrs. Howell lifted the petticoat and exclaimed how beautiful Flo’s underclothes were, and how beautiful her shoes were, and then told her to stand away again and went on about how beautiful her hat was. “Artistic, don’t you think, Mrs. Royer? Sets her off so; she has features just perfect for a vignette.”
Flo had never listened to such a gush.
“Oh, I’m so glad you were wise and decided to take advantage of the scheme,” Mrs. Howell went on. “And I’m sure you ought to feel very happy, Miss Royer; happy and grateful.”
Flo murmured that she did.
“Of course, you must be good and always do your best, and think of your mother and try to be a credit to her, dear. And remember that I recommended you, which, of course, means that the Vicar is interested. You wouldn’t let him down, I’m sure. You must be a little credit to us all,” and Mrs. Howell smiled benignantly, not directly at Flo, but over her head. It was as though she were addressing a class. “Of course, you mustn’t expect everything to be easy; it isn’t for any of us; we all have our trials, even your mother here, I know . . .”
“I do,” said Mrs. Royer solemnly, thinking of cook.
“. . . but you know what trials are for. They are sent to test and try us; and according to how we meet our trials, so we are rewarded. You know what it says in the Bible . . .”
But Flo wasn’t listening. She wished that Mrs. Howell would let her go. She felt so helpless; as if she had done something wrong already and was being reprimanded. Suppose that her new mistress were to turn out to be like this.
“You will be a long way away, but that will be all the better,” Mrs. Howell was now saying. “You won’t always be able to run home when something goes wrong, and so you’ll learn to depend on yourself, and that is what we all have to do, isn’t it, Mrs. Royer?”
Taken by surprise Mrs. Royer nodded vigorously and spasmodically clasped her hands, holding on to herself as it were. As Mrs. Howell went on the thought came to Mrs. Royer that what had been said wasn’t quite right about the Vicar, at any rate, because he certainly depended on his wife. “Blow ’is nose for ’im, if she could, she would.” And Mrs. Royer smiled without knowing.
Mrs. Howell did not notice because she had just become aware that her talk hadn’t yet been rounded off as it should be.
“And, of course, my dear, when I say we all must depend on ourselves, you know I mean also that there is an Ever-present Friend to help us.” The capital letters were those of a born elocutionist. “Yes, you must never forget your prayers, Miss Royer, promise me that, won’t you, and I’ll tell the Vicar, and He will pray for you, too.”
There was a pause. Mrs. Royer cleared her throat. Flo wondered if she might go. Mrs. Howell wondered whether she had said all that her husband would have liked her to say.
“How do we pay for these ’ere things?” asked Mrs. Royer, self-consciously jerking her thumb at Flo. “That was what I wanted ’er to be told, mum. I’m honest an’ I don’t want there to be no charity an’ no mistakes.””
“I’m quite sure you don’t, Milly,” Mrs. Howell took the opening promptly. “The clothes have been given you, my dear, so that you can go away decently dressed, so you won’t feel inferior . . . you’ve heard of an inferiority complex, of course. Well, that’s it. The society have seized on this as the best method of helping you because, although, as the Vicar says, there is nothing degrading in waiting on others . . . it should really be, indeed, of course, it really is, a privilege, to serve . . . but there has unfortunately grown up a . . . a, well, shall we say, a foolish idea that it is demeaning to go out to service. So in order that their girls shall not feel menial, the society have decided . . .”
Flo wondered what “menial” meant. It sounded mean, and the Vicar’s wife’s talk now made her feel meaner and smaller than before. She glanced to the square bay, but it had been made into an arbour for tall ferns, and grey chenille curtains kept out most of the rest of the light, so that there was no relief there. When her attention came back, Mrs. Howell was saying:
“. . . I know that it may seem to be a long time for a girl to have to go on paying, but it enables her to start right, and a good start is half the battle, as my Husband is always reminding us. And all the six months, of course, she has the privilege of wearing good clothes. Isn’t that an awfully good idea don’t you think, Miss Royer? But I know you do.”
Flo was relieved not to have to answer.
“I suppose, though, mum, that she’ll have something just to be going on with?”
“Two shillings a week,” said Mrs. Howell very graciously, “and most of that she will be able to save, I expect. You see, with clothes and all her food, what more can she require? It will give her a good opportunity to practise that other great virtue, it will teach her the Value of Thriftiness . . . too much makes us all wasters . . . waste not, want not, you know, my dear,” she concluded, turning towards Flo and motioning for her to come closer. “Let me give you a kiss, dear, and be sure, if there is any way in which you think the Vicar or I may help you, that we shall be perfectly happy to do it, won’t we, Mrs. Royer?”
“I’m sure, mum. You always does.”
Then came the kiss. Mrs. Howell’s lips were thick and soft and rather surprisingly warm and seemed to leave a wet blob on Flo’s cheek, so that she felt that she wanted to mop it at once.
“It was so thoughtful and kind of you to bring her to see me before sending her away,” Mrs. Howell called after them. “Don’t forget to close the door behind you, Milly.”
Mrs. Royer obediently shut it.
“The stuck-up frump,” said Flo. “I . . .”
“Ssh,” interrupted her mother urgently. “She’s very good, she is, an’ as she says, you ought to be . . . er, you ought to do as she’s told you. But for her you wouldn’t have all them things.”
“Way she talked, she might be giving them . . .”
“Don’t let cook hear,” Mrs. Royer broke in, following her through the heavy lobby door. “I bet she’s wonderin’. She’ll be trying to find out all day,” and a chuckle in the gloom of the back passage told Flo that her mother would be happy for the rest of the morning, anyway.
Chapter 3
Sunday afternoon and evening passed quickly. So well did Flo’s things suit her that everybody that knew her responded at once with open, pleased admiration, or ill-hidden jealousy, both of which Flo could enjoy. The feelings of meanness and littleness of the morning she escaped from. Most jealous of all was Ivy, who, of course, had to try everything. Ivy had a natural grace which let her look well in almost anything; Flo was somewhat stumpy and generally hard to suit. But for once the navy blue costume was too stiff and sober for Ivy’s untidy beauty, though exactly right for the more staid Flo.
“Well, if you don’t land a feller in that, you’re a wet hen,” said Ivy. “I bet I wouldn’t be long skivvying, anyway.”
She went out again; it was very seldom she told where she was going. Mrs. Royer was gossiping somewhere and Flo went up to pack. Mrs. Howell had given them a travelling bass, one half of which went over the other half in the same way as a soap container does. The halves did not fit tightly, so that clothes could be stacked right up out of the lower portion and the upper half became a very deep lid. It should have been strapped, only Mrs. Howell had kept the straps thinking that they might still be useful, and Flo was going to have to manage with old rope. It was rather a relief after her many visits to be left alone to pack, because she wanted to decide carefully about things. She had begun to realize that it might be a year before she came back. All the things that she knew she wanted and all the things that she might take were put on the bed. Into the bottom of the bass at once went the spare new underclothes. The choice of other clothes was difficult, not because there were so many to choose among, but because by contrast she saw how shabby the other things were. Most of them were Ivy’s cast-offs, Ivy always having been in work of some sort, while Flo had only had one job since school, three months of office cleaning for the Thistle Trust Limited. Then even more difficult were decisions over intrinsically worthless possessions, which nevertheless were to Flo most valuable. A hand-mirror encrusted with queer shells that her mother had brought from Morecambe from a Mothers’ Meeting trip had as a rival a rounder mirror in which she could see herself much better, but which had only a plain wood back. The Bible which she knew that she ought to take got left behind because she felt that “Sir Gibbie” and “Peg o’ my Heart” would really be better company. A photograph taken at the age of three went into the bass, while another more recent which showed Ivy as well was thrown out because Flo considered that Ivy looked more intelligent on it than herself. Into the bass, too, went a blood-streaked pebble, somewhat resembling a heart, found at Walney Island on the same day that she picked up a sixpenny bit. Afterwards she had carried the stone everywhere for three weeks hoping that it would give more luck, though it hadn’t. Now, however, she felt that she ought to try it again. She had an uneasy fear that even if it didn’t give good luck, it might, if left behind, cause bad luck. Beside the stone went a green glass pig half an inch long with three legs and no tail. This pig had a mate with only two legs and no tail, but after considerable thought that one she left to look after her mother. Last of all, in preference to a morocco pocket-wallet of her father’s, a pair of opera glasses of his went into the bass. They were plain, and had never been in a theatre, though the black enamel had been worn off the yellow metal of the frames of the lenses, and one of the barrels was rust-pitted from much use in all weathers. Flo remembered how her father had always carried them in his left trouser pocket, and how he had brought them out and let her toy with them very occasionally when she was very young. But he had always been so careful to see that they did not get dropped that the whole family had grown up with the impression that they were valuable; and when he died suddenly of pneumonia in the late spring when Flo was six, the glasses had been carefully put away in the polished walnut box which was one of Milly Royer’s few maidenhood treasures. Flo, of course, had not known this, but one day in the last year of her schooling, she had been attracted by the round eye of mother-of-pearl let into the box lid and had found the glasses and had taken them out. By that time her mother had grown careless, and when she saw her with them she merely tried to recall where they had been put, and then forgot them again. But Flo had remembered how her father once had taken her to Walney and let her look at a yacht far out, with the sun on its white sails. On deck there had been a woman in a poppy jumper, and the sun had enriched her hair to gold; and Flo, seeing all this with unexpected intimacy, in the enclosed field of the lenses, had suddenly felt a romantic thrill. How lucky the woman was, how good it must be to be out there, she thought, and then knew envy. The picture was in her memory never to be forgotten, and how often she had prayed to be able to have a husband who would give her a yacht like that, or how many times she had day-dreamed of herself on a yacht, she could not have told. As she handled the glasses now, the thought strayed into her mind that the way the youth had been lying on the deck of the unfinished submarine was exactly how she would lie on the deck of “her” yacht. She laughed lightly at that, and put the glasses in without hesitation. She had been told that her father had wasted a lot of time uselessly staring through the glasses at ships when he might have been working, but what did that matter? She thought that it was a good thing to have done.