She held out the ridiculous embroidered smock; the baggy pants with their hideous flap front that fell open if a buttons popped loose-never mind the rags she was supposed to tie around her knees to hold the pants off the ground-then kicked at the scuffed, wide-toed leather boots. The shapeless felt hat was so pitiful she couldn't even bring herself to look at it
"This is only one of the outfits you'll be wearing," Malcolm Moore told her, sounding infuriatingly patient.
"But they're ugly!"
"You're not in training to be a fashion model," Kit said sternly.
Margo subsided, but not happily. "I know"
"Now, about the choices you made," he continued, "Connie has a few words."
"Starting with the ball gown," the outlandish outfitter said, hanging it back on its rack. "The first word is `No.' Your job isn't to go down time and party it up. It's to learn scouting. If you want to revisit London later for a vacation, on your own time and money, fine. Until then, the party dresses stay here."
Margo sighed. "All right. I'm supposed to go down time and be miserable."
"Not at all!" Connie said, somewhat sharply. "You have a remarkably negative attitude, Margo, for someone who's been given the chance to go down time for free. Britannia Gate tours cost several thousand dollars each."
Margo felt her cheeks burn. She hadn't thought of it quite like that. "I'm sorry. It's just I got so excited when you said I could go and that we could pick out clothes ...." She turned an appeal for forgiveness on Kit. "I'm sorry, really I am. I was just so disappointed after I saw those," she pointed to the glittering silks, velvets, and satins, "then you said what I would get to wear was these."
The humble farm clothing--men's farm clothing lacked only mud to make the hideousness complete.
"Apology accepted," Kit said quietly. "Once you learn your trade, Margo-and you have a great deal yet to learn-you can play dress-up as often as you like. But not while you're on the job. Never while you're on the job."
Margo felt like crying. She'd been rude and ungrateful her temper always got her into trouble -- and they were being desperately nice to her. It wasn't a situation she was accustomed to. She felt lost as to how she ought to respond.
Connie Logan said more kindly, "Here, let's see what else we can find. Malcolm, what about having her pose as a charity girl?"
"We'd need a chaperon for that," Malcolm said slowly, "but I like the charity girl idea. Her hair's short and that'll either have to be disguised or explained. Charity girl is the perfect cover. As for a chaperon, I could hire someone from an agency and rent a flat for the week we'll be there."
"I don't understand," Margo said. "What's a charity girl? Why would that make a good cover story for me?"
"Poverty-stricken children-orphans, children with destitute parents-were sometimes taken in by charitable institutions," Malcolm explained "There were dozens of schools supported by patrons and patronesses. Children wore uniforms and numbered badges to identify them.. Because sanitation was a problem and head lice were common, even girls' hair was cut short."
"Head lice?" Margo grabbed the sides of her head, instinctively trying to protect her scalp from an invasion of vermin.
Kit cleared his throat "Sanitation in Victorian London was quite a bit better than many places you'll end up as a scout. Head lice-and other nasties--can be eliminated once you get back."
Margo just stared, overcome with an intense desire to be . She hadn't thought about lice. The more she studied for this job, the clearer it became there was a great deal she hadn't thought about.
"Well, I'm not quitting," she said stubbornly, straightening her spine. "Nobody ever died from having head lice!"
Malcolm exchanged glances with Kit, who said repressively, "Millions have done just that. The point is, you keep yourself as clean as you can and deal with medical problems when you return. If you return. Why do you think you're required to receive so many inoculations before coming to a time terminal? Up time, we don't even vaccinate for smallpox any longer. It's an extinct disease. Yet even in someplace as relatively sanitary as Denver of the 1890's you could still contract it. Not to mention lockjaw or blood poisoning from a simple cut or scrape. So you take your medicine, keep yourself clean, and hope you don't come back with anything Medical can't handle.
"Now, I think this charity girl idea's a good one, but that leaves us with another question, Malcolm. Namely, how to explain your association with her. You're known in London."
"Fairly well, in certain circles," Malcolm agreed.
"So people will know you wouldn't have a reason to associate with a charity girl of eighteen. And her accent's all wrong, anyway, to pose as a British orphan."
"The few people I know down time believe me to be an eccentric gentleman from British Honduras-which helps explain away the occasional wobble or two in my accent."
Margo blinked. He'd sounded astonishingly British during that sentence, which he hadn't before. In fact, given the small amount of stage training she'd had, she'd have bet everything she owned it had been genuine, not affected.
"How did you do that?"
"Do what?" He sounded American again, as American as Minnesota winters.
"Sound British? I thought you were American."
Malcolm grinned. "Good. I've studied hard to sound like that. Heading down time to Denver with an English accent isn't a good idea. Fortunately I have a quick ear and years of practice. But I was born in England." He cleared his throat and glanced away. "I survived The Flood, actually."
Margo said breathlessly, "The Flood? From The Accident?"
Malcolm rubbed the back of one ear. "Well, yes. I was just a kid. We lived in Brighton, you see, near the seaside. We ran a little tourist hostel during the summers. My family was lucky. We only lost my elder brother when the house caved in."
Margo didn't know what to say. The English coast had been wiped out by tidal waves. All the coastlines of the world had been hit hard. Several dozen cities had been reduced to rubble and the ensuing chaos, rampant epidemics, and starvation had reshaped world politics forever. Margo hadn't been old enough to remember it. She forgot, sometimes, that most of the people on this time terminal did remember the world before the time gates and the accident which had caused them.
She wondered quite suddenly if that was why her father had been the way he was. Had he blamed himself all those years ago for her brother's death, then found himself unable to cope with the changed world? She shivered, not wanting to sympathize with him, but something in Malcolm's voice had triggered memories of her father during his more sober moments. The look in her father's eyes during those moments echoed the desperate struggle not to remember she saw now in Malcolm's dark eyes.
"I'm sorry, Malcolm. I didn't know."
He managed a smile. "How could you? Don't dwell on it. I don't. Now, what were we saying? Oh yeah, my background. The people I know down time think I'm a gentleman from British Honduras, with no visible means of support and no daily job to distract me from gentlemanly pursuits. -I just happen to have a lot of wealthy, scatterbrained friends who pay me visits from the other side of the water, particularly America.." He grinned. "That way it's natural for my tourists to gawk at the sights. Londoners in the 1880's considered Americans boorish provincials just this side of savagery."
Margo sniffed. "How rude."
Connie laughed "Honey, you don't know the half of it. Victorian Londoners took class consciousness to new extremes." She gestured to the Britannia section of her shop. "It's why I carry such a varied line of costumes for the Britannia Gate. Clothes said everything about our station in life. Wear the wrong thing and you make me a laughingstock--"