Sally-Ann, page 7
Nurse got back into bed, shaking with laughter. “Oh, this! It’s all right.” She repeated to herself: “That’s the way to talk of an ermine coat.”
Mr. Bloom blinked in a puzzled manner at his little room.
“It must be all right,” he consoled himself. “Anything Miss Ann does must be all right. But—”
Ann had settled down on the end of her mother’s bed. Without a word of interruption she told her story from beginning to end. There was just one thing she left out. She never mentioned Timothy.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Alice. “What a thrill. There’s such a lot I want to ask.”
Alfred got up and put his arm round Ann.
“It’ll have to wait, then. She’s tired, and she’s got to work in the morning.”
It was those words Ann heard as she took off Mona’s clothes. She had hung up the frock and coat. She had taken off the last of the underthings. They lay in a little white satin circle round her feet. She had a sudden feeling she was going to cry. Despising such weakness, she pushed the things to one side and savagely pulled on her own pyjamas.
“No good snivelling,” she told herself fiercely. “Dad’s right, you’ve got to work tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FIVE
It was five minutes past nine when Ann came into the Maison Pertinax the next morning. Lila’s eyes snapped with pleasure. Ann late. It was the sort of opportunity for which she had been waiting.
“Good morning.” She looked ostentatiously at the clock. “Five past nine. It’s very inconsiderate to be late with Miss Briggs away.”
“Sorry,” said Ann, and passed on to the stairs. Lila was not going to let her go so easily.
“Just because Mr. Pert let you take Miss Brigg’s place yesterday, that’s no reason why you should think you can take liberties today.”
Ann paused.
“I’m sorry. I had to call at a shop on the way. It didn’t open till nine.”
“I doubt if Mr. Pert would think shopping in his time quite what he paid you for.”
Ann flushed. She couldn’t explain. Couldn’t turn round and say, “I wasn’t shopping. I was leaving a borrowed ermine coat at a furrier’s.” All the same, Lila was making too much fuss. She had never been late before. There was no need to nag the first time it happened. Besides, she was in no mood for Lila this morning. She just wanted to be left alone. Left to work and work until she had forgotten about yesterday and felt just Ann Lane again. She came back to the desk.
“Look here, I am late; I’ve admitted it. You’re not making me any earlier by keeping me talking here. You always threaten what Mr. Pert will say. Well, why don’t you report me? Tell Mr. Pert.”
Lila looked down at the ledger in front of her. Telling Mr. Pert was the one thing she did not want to do. If she told him he would probably say “Five minutes late! Dear, dear. Tell her she must be punctual in future.” And forget all about it. As a threat Mr. Pert was grand. In actual fact he was a letdown.
“I’ll let you off this time, but don’t let me have to complain again. Now, please hurry.”
Ann hesitated. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Lila she didn’t want her leniency. That she’d go to Mr. Pert herself. Good sense won, however. Inwardly boiling, she went downstairs.
Lila looked after her, loathing her more than ever. There was something about Ann. Her ability to think for herself, her refusal to eat humble pie. “Upset the whole shop before she’s through,” she muttered as she went back to sorting the day’s appointments.
Ann passed most of the other girls on the stairs. “Hullo, Ann. Did you see anything of the wedding?” asked Kitty.
Biddy held her by the arm.
“What’s the man like she’s marrying?”
Agnes peered near-sightedly at her through her glasses.
“I don’t suppose you saw him, did you?”
“Sure, and she did then,” said Norah. “You wouldn’t be at a wedding and not catch sight of the bridegroom, would you now?”
June’s head appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
“What did Lady Mona wear? She looked lovely in her pictures this morning.” She sighed. “So slim.”
“Girls”—Lila came to the top of the stairs—“it’s ten past nine. Really, Ann, I should have thought you’d caused enough trouble being late without adding to it by gossiping on the stairs.”
With the rudest faces at Lila’s back the girls trooped up. Betty, who was last, whispered, “Were you given any wedding cake?” And on getting Ann’s nod went up looking as pleased as if she had eaten the cake herself.
Ann, unbuttoning her coat as she went, hurried to the cloakroom. Sitting on the table obviously waiting for her were Iris and Connie.
“Well, well!” said Iris. “And how is Miss Groot this morning?”
Ann stood still and stared at her. She had planned how to deal with Iris. She would question her, of course, and when she did she would look blank. People often looked like each other. She would laugh and say, “Me at the Manton bridesmaids’ party! Are you mad? I must have a double.” But this calling her Sally Groot took the wind out of her sails.
“Now look here.” Iris got off the table and put her arm through Ann’s. “There’s no need to look scared. Connie and me are good sports. We won’t give you away. But you’ve got to tell us who you are; fair’s fair.”
“That’s right,” Connie agreed. “You see, us girls can hold our tongues. We need to, or goodness knows where we’d be.”
“Connie, Iris,” called Lila, “what are you up to?”
“Sorry,” Iris sniffed. “My node is bleeding and Connie’s puddin’ a key down my back.”
Lila made an annoyed clicking.
“Well, come up as soon as possible.”
“Yes,” Iris agreed. They listened to Lila’s departing footsteps. “Old cat! Now, come on, Ann.”
“I can’t explain now.” Ann hurried into her overall. “I’m already late. She’s furious.”
Connie sighed.
“Sour puss. I’d like to bash her face in.” Iris grabbed hold of Connie.
“Come on. Let’s dash through our work, then we can slip into Ann’s cubicle and hear.”
“You can’t unless I’m through,” said Ann. “You forget Minnie Briggs is away and I’m doing double.”
Iris was halfway to the door.
“No good taking that tone, old dear. You want to make a friend of me. I’m lovely when I’m on your side, but a bagful of trouble when I’m on the other.”
Ann’s chin shot up.
“No one’s ever scared me yet, and they aren’t going to start now, Iris. It’s perfectly true I was at the party last night, and I know you saw me, and somehow found out I was pretending to be Sally Groot, but I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of, and neither you nor anybody else can bully me. Now I’ll go up. If I’m through in time I’ll tell you all about it, but because I want to and not because you’ve made me.”
By lightning work Ann was just finished when Iris and Connie came in. Iris looked round.
“Through?”
“All but putting this tray straight.”
Iris lay down on the couch.
“Let Connie do it; you can do something to my face, and then if Nosey P comes in I’ll say I mucked it up when my nose bled.”
Ann’s face expressed distaste.
“I hate the sight of her, but I don’t like lying to her. If she comes in we’re gossiping, and that’s that.”
Ann told a shortened account of yesterday’s doings; Iris and Connie were spellbound.
“Bridesmaid with Lady Primrose and Lady Jane!” gasped Connie.
“They were awfully nice,” said Ann; “in fact, I liked them all except Miss Bolt.”
Iris wriggled on the couch.
“There’s just one word for that lady, and it begins with a B.”
“Go on, Ann.” Connie gave the make-up tray a final flick with the duster. “What happened after the wedding?”
Ann skipped the part in the vestry, the kiss and the few words with Cora.
“At the reception Lady Mona told Sir Timothy Munster he must look after me.”
Iris sighed.
“There are fairies at the bottom of your garden.”
“And he was awfully kind, and thinking I was Sally Groot, he said he’d motor me up to town for the bridesmaids’ party, and of course I was in an awful stew. I said I couldn’t and all that, but he went to Lady Mona, and she fixed it, and she lent me her clothes to wear.”
Iris turned to Connie.
“You should have seen her. Talk of the upper ten! She looked in the last two. What’s he like, Ann?”
Ann flushed and stooped over her tray, pretending to wipe off a speck of powder.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Iris sat up.
“Come off it. He was all over you. You know how he looked; I told you, Connie.”
Ann’s heart missed a beat.
“He wasn’t. I think it was just Lady Mona asked him to be kind.”
“Oh, yeah!” Iris combed her platinum curls. “I know that look on a man’s face. It never came because he was being kind to anyone.”
“Us girls,” Connie explained, “are very good at knowing looks on men’s faces.”
Iris turned round.
“Besides, what else upset the Honourable Cora Bolt?”
Ann looked up.
“Do you know her?”
“Only by her pictures. And seeing her around. But she spoke to me. Very nosey about you.”
Ann heard the cloakroom conversation. She smoothed the rug where Iris had made a dent.
“She needn’t worry. I’ll never see him again.”
“Iris and Connie!” Lila’s voice came shrilly up the corridor.
Back in their cubicles, Connie put her head round Iris’s curtain.
“Did you hear that? Do you know I think she’s fallen for him.”
“Think!” Iris’s face expressed volumes. “You ought to have seen her face last night, then you’d have known. Tell you what. I think the poor little cow needs friends.”
Connie blinked.
“What’s the matter with us?”
Iris powdered her nose.
“That’s right. Knowing men as we do, we’re just the ones to see her through.” Lila’s bell rang sharply three times. “Blast, there’s my old Countess. If I was aristocracy you’d never find me making a hairdresser’s appointment at this time.”
In a house like the Lanes’ what concerned one concerned all. Naturally the Lanes disliked having boarders; but since they had to be they accepted them more or less as members of the family. Their coming had meant sacrifices. Ann gave up her large room over her parents to Miss Dean and took to the little top front room which had been a boxroom. Bunny had to give up his room over the bathroom to Nurse, and slept in the small back room under Oswald Perkins.
Alice suffered most. Though wild horses would not have dragged from her that she minded at all. If the others grumbled she always said:
“I like having them. It’s company.”
Inside she detested it. Not that she minded the boarders personally; she didn’t. Once they were in the house she treated them as some of her family. But she hated not having the house to herself. She was proud of her home. It was, of course, old fashioned, and you couldn’t keep it warm in the winter, but having three floors gave a nice feeling of space. She would never forget the day she first saw it. It was a week after the day she had told Alfred Ann was on the way, and they’d have to have a bigger place.
“Come for a walk,” Alfred had said.
They had walked up the King’s Road and turned off and presently came to Number 95 Anchor Street. Alfred had taken a key out of his pocket. He had unlocked the front door. He had taken her all over the house. Then down in the hall he had held her by the shoulders.
“How’s that for a place to bring up a family?”
How excited she had been.
“Not really? Are you sure you can afford it?”
Alfred had been doing well, then. There had been a nice secure feeling about the way he had said “quite.”
It wasn’t only having strangers in the house Alice minded. It was the work it gave to Alfred. It had been bad enough when the flats had come and each year he had done worse. Of course she had minded. It had been dreadful the day he had told her he had to sell the shop. She hadn’t liked to think of him with nothing to do because she knew he’d hate it. But by having something to do she had never even pictured the things he did do. He’d always looked so smart. He’d looked like a chemist who only wasn’t a doctor because he couldn’t pay the fees. And now! Carrying up breakfast trays. Scrubbing out the kitchen. Doing the stairs. Paraffining the bath. He had even wanted to do the steps and the outside brass. She had struck there. He couldn’t see why she had cried. But since it made her cry he gave in. He said it worried him thinking she was out there in the cold, but if someone had to be upset better him than her.
Accepting the boarders as family gave them certain rights. They could worry if Bunny looked peaky; they could admire Ann’s clothes; they could bring in an evening paper for Alfred to save him buying one. But they couldn’t criticise. If there was any criticising to be done Alice could manage it without help. But in the days which followed the wedding she had a job to stall it off. Not that any of them actually said anything unkind, but they did give the effect that the little they did say was only half what they would like to.
Ann did not help. Only four people knew what had happened. Only two knew about Timothy. Alice and Alfred, while appreciating that a thing like the wedding happening to a girl upsets her, could see no reason why after a couple of days she wasn’t herself again. Iris and Connie never bothered to wonder how Ann was feeling. They treated her rather as Mona and Manners had treated her while they were dressing her. A doll that they owned and could do what they liked with.
Ann was feeling anything but all right. She had never guessed how much missing people could hurt. It seemed impossible that she could go on being so silly about a person she had only met once. But she could. She found his face and the way he said things coming between her and the world. Sometimes she would get up in the morning determined to snap out of such wool-gathering. Then something, perhaps a face in the street, or an advertisement for “Munster’s Soap Flakes” on a hoarding, brought him back with such vividness that for a second she was dancing with him again, or sitting with him on the chest in the corner at the reception. Hearing him say “Quite right,” “Just Sally,” “I deserved that,” or “When am I going to see you again?”
You can’t have been the life and soul of a house full of inquisitive boarders without their noticing when you stop being the life and soul. Ann thought she was doing well. She cracked the same sort of jokes as before, laughed at the same things, tried to take the same interest in their doings. But the boarders knew the difference. At first they remarked on it to each other.
“Miss Ann hasn’t seemed herself these last days,” Mr. Bloom said to Miss Dean.
Miss Dean rather liked Mr. Bloom. She said he was “gentlemanly,” by which she meant he didn’t come in late and never took his bath at the time she liked hers.
“I’ve noticed it, too, I thought perhaps I’d ask her in for a little talk. Girls are glad to have someone to confide in.”
Oswald Perkins met Nurse on the stairs.
“I say,” he said awkwardly, “I think Ann’s a bit off colour. You know what’s wrong?”
Nurse nodded.
“What do you think? She’s in love, my boy. I know that moony look.”
“Really? Who with?”
“Ah!” Nurse wagged a finger at him. “If I knew I wouldn’t tell. But as it happens I don’t.”
After a bit they stopped asking each other and asked Alice.
“Is Ann all right? Seems a bit down.”
“I’ve been thinking Ann is not quite herself.”
“Miss Ann is a bit depressed these days. I wish one could think of something to cheer her up.”
Nurse was the only one who spoke out.
“Ann’s fallen in love. You mark my words, my dear, there’ll be orange blossom before Christmas.”
To them all Alice was vague. “She’s all right.” And to Nurse, “Don’t be silly.” But she and Alfred worried.
“There is something up,” Alfred said anxiously. “Seems as if the heart had gone out of her.”
“That’s what Nurse said.” Alice paused to count the stitches in the sock she was knitting. “She says she’s in love.”
“Don’t see how she can be,” Alfred objected. “Who’s she met? I don’t suppose there’s anybody up at her shop would interest her.”
Alice laughed.
“There’s only Mr. Pert!”
Alfred roared.
“That’s good. I can’t see her fancying the job of Mrs. Pert.”
Alice laid down her knitting.
“Young Oswald Perkins is a bit taken with her. She’s been out with him those few times.”
“Not him.” Alfred shook his head. “Not Ann’s cup of tea. She’s being kind, that’s all.” He hesitated. “You don’t think, do you, that it’s mixing with all those rich people? I mean that it’s nothing to do with her falling in love. After all, seeing how they live and being one of them for a day is enough to upset a girl.”
Alice’s needles made an assured click-clack. She smiled up at Alfred.
“Our Ann! Don’t you know your own daughter better than that?”
“All the same, it’s since then she’s been as she has,” Alfred persisted.
Alice’s head went up. Not even Alfred could suggest things like that.
“Well, been like what? A little down perhaps. Like as not we’re all making mountains out of molehills. Maybe it’s just a chill or something.”
Alfred came across and gave her an affectionate pat.
“Old hen, aren’t you, clucking round your chickens?”
Alice picked up her sock again.
“And I’ll go on clucking if there’s any chat about Ann.”
Even Bunny noticed Ann was not quite as usual.
“Gosh, Ann’s getting awfully slow,” he grumbled. “That’s two days she’s promised to bring me some new transfers and forgot.”
