by Lilian Peake
Miss Potter’s eyebrows shot upward in horror as she saw the damage. “Mrs. Pascall’s?” she asked in a throaty whisper. “You’re for it, if not from him then from her. Sooner you than me!”
“Is she in there?” Gayle whispered, but Miss Potter shook her head, her tugged-back, grey-streaked hair quivering with agitation. She flung Ewan Pascall’s door open wide and stepped back as if to remove herself as fast as possible from the impending explosion.
He was seated at his desk, frowning down at a letter. He glanced up abstractedly as Gayle entered, was about to motion her to a seat when his eye was caught by the great crumpled stain. It seemed to have spread itself especially for his benefit even more expansively across the material.
He stood so quickly his chair toppled over.
Gayle said, her voice a croak, “Your mother’s dress, Mr. Pascall.”
He strode round the desk and the anger in his face triggered off Gayle’s instinct for self-preservation. She cowered away like someone about to receive a fatal blow.
“Who did that?”
It took her a few moments to overcame her overwhelming impulse to run for cover. Then, bracing herself, she said, “I did, Mr. Pascall. I’m terribly—”
”You did? What is it, water?”
“Tea, Mr. Pascall. It was on my desk.”
“Tea!” What were you doing drinking tea at your desk? The staff canteen is the place for that, not the buyer’s office. Don’t you know the rules?”
She could only shake her head hopelessly. She could not give Mrs. Carrington away, she couldn’t say, My assistant was kind enough to bring me a cup to save me the trouble of getting it myself.
“You mean you don’t know the rules?”
“Yes, I do know the rules, but—”
”And you deliberately broke them?”
“No!” Her eyes filled, threatening to add their contents to the disastrous stain. She lowered the dress on to a chair. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pascall. It was an accident pure and simple.”
“I know damned well it was an accident. How could it be otherwise? But it could also be called gross carelessness, and if you were honest, that’s how you would describe it. Miss Grierson went to great lengths to obtain that dress from one of London’s top designers. And you—you—have to ruin it even before it’s even been on my mother’s back!”
Gayle’s handkerchief was becoming incapable of absorbing all the tears which were running down her cheeks. “I told you I couldn’t do the job. I told you not to push me into it. Now I’ve proved I was right, why don’t you give me notice or let me return to being the assistant I was before you forced me to become a buyer?”
Her hopeless sobs filled the silence. A handkerchief was pushed into her hand, footsteps took the owner of the handkerchief to the window and back to the desk. Then back to the window again. He seemed restless. Perhaps, Gayle thought miserably, he’s trying to decide how long to give me to find another job.
At last she quietened down and he stopped in front of her. “Are you a defeatist by nature, Miss Stuart? Does that run in the family, too, like a propensity always to accept second best? I must say I haven’t noticed a want of courage in your father. A lack of confidence in his own ability, yes—which has plainly been passed down to you in full measure—but cowardice in him, no.”
Her head came up and he saw her scarlet cheeks and tear-blurred eyes. “Cowardice? I’m not a coward!”
He smiled as if his challenge had been satisfactorily answered. “Glad to hear it, Miss Stuart.” He pointed to the dress. “You’re going to need all the courage you can muster to explain that little lot to my mother.”
“I—explain it to your mother?”
“Of course. You’re in charge of the department. She’s the customer. And customers are never—but never—wrong. And after all, you did it, so an apology at least is called for, don’t you think?”
“But I thought you might—”
”I try to pacify her? Sorry, it’s your job. And I wish you joy. She can be a very difficult, not to say an impossible customer. She often patronises your department. You must surely have met her when Miss Grierson was in charge?”
“I—I never exactly met her,” she said, her eyes evading his. “Your mother never—well, seemed to see me. She passed me by as if I didn’t exist.” She looked up anxiously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply she was a—” She stopped, aghast at herself. ‘Snob’ she was going to say.
He smiled—but for no more than a passing second. It seemed he had guessed what had been in her mind. “I make it a rule never to discuss the virtues and vices of customers, Miss Stuart, no matter if they are strangers from the other ends of the earth—or one’s closest relatives.”
It was an unmistakable reprimand and she apologised accordingly.
He pointed. “The phone.” He lifted the receiver and motioned to her to take it. On his blotter he wrote a number. “Dial that, then take cover!”
Her eyes, moist and large now with apprehension, looked into his. If she was seeking sympathy, she was looking in vain. It was almost as if he was enjoying himself.
“What—what do I say, Mr. Pascall?”
“That is entirely up to you, but,” cynically, “try telling the truth. It sometimes pays off.”
“Of course I’ll tell the truth! Did you think I’d lie to her and try to wriggle out of it? If that’s all you think of my integrity then why in heaven’s name did you make me a buyer?” The words were out before she could stop them, the tone accusing and belligerent. She sought his eyes again, this time with alarm, but he was looking at her not with anger but with something which could almost be described as a searching, detached curiosity.
“So inside the mouse there’s a tigress, even if it has only reached the cub stage. What was it your father said? Your fighting spirit was so active that whoever provoked it would be well advised to turn and run. I didn’t believe him. Now I’m beginning to. Well, you’re going to need that fighting spirit, Miss Stuart.” He indicated the telephone which, all this time, had been agitatedly registering the dialling tone.
“Get it over. There’s no need to tell me what my mother says. I shall hear. She speaks on the phone as though she were addressing an audience in a vast, packed meeting hall.”
The number was dialled with a shaking finger, the wait was agony, the answering “Mrs. Anastasia Pascall speaking” was stentorian and intimidating.
With a plunging heart Gayle said, “M-Mrs. Pascall? This is Gayle Stuart.”
“Gayle who?” was the deafening reply.
“Stuart, Miss Stuart, b-buyer in the dress section of Pascall’s, your—your son’s department store.”
“Well, Miss Stuart?” came the suspicious, spine-chilling response.
“Your—your dress, Mrs. Pascall.”
“Yes, my dress, for which I have been waiting for over a week but which for some inexplicable reason has not been sent to me. I need it tonight, but wish to have it this afternoon. My son has promised to bring it home as soon as he can lay hands on it.”
“I’m—I’m in your son’s office, Mrs. Pascall.” The man in question was staring out of the window, leaning forward, hands in pockets, as though the milling, churning crowds in the street below held tremendous interest for him. “The dress is here, Mrs. Pascall.”
“For heaven’s sake,” came from across the room, “get it over. Stop procrastinating!”
“Your dress is ruined, Mrs. Pascall. I’m sorry.”
There was a sharp hiss of breath from the owner of the store. “For God’s sake,” he muttered, “couldn’t you have led up to it more delicately?”
Gayle, hand over receiver, snapped to his back, “You told me to get on with it, so I got on with it”
Ewan Pascall turned, leaned back and wrapped one leg over the other, his narrowed eyes contemplating her like a cat sizing up the most vulnerable part of a bird it was about to pounce on and tear to pieces.
But Gayle had no time to ta
ke cover from the predatory, considering gaze of the enemy within touching distance. It was the unseen enemy which took all her attention. It was as much as she could do to stop herself from shielding her ear from the choking, incriminating verbal onslaught of the intangible yet none the less palpable sound of the voice of the incensed customer on the other end of the line.
“My dress—ruined?” she raged. “Ruined? The dress I shall need in an hour or two for a very important engagement, the dress which was made for me by one of London’s top designers, and you calmly tell me it is ruined?” The speaker paused for breath. In a more controlled tone she continued, “In what way is it ruined?”
“Well, I—I spilt tea on it, Mrs. Pascall,” Gayle said feebly. “It was accidental—”
”Gross, criminal negligence, Miss—Miss—”
”Stuart,” Gayle prompted weakly.
“I don’t care a damn what your name is! Let me speak to my son. I shall demand your immediate dismissal!”
Silently Gayle held out the phone. Equally silent, but with an amused quirk of the eyebrow, Ewan took it. “Mother?” For some minutes he did not speak. He propped himself against the desk and listened. He closed his eyes—and, Gayle thought, probably his ears—to the stream of abuse which poured out of the receiver. At last it stopped.
“Dismiss her, Mother? This is only her second day. In all honesty I think she should be allowed a little longer in which to prove herself. After a few weeks,” with a quick, derisive glance at the girl who was watching him so anxiously, “I might have to reconsider my decision, but until then—”
”I shall have to have another dress, Ewan,” Gayle heard his mother say. “I cannot go in any of the rags in my wardrobe.” The son’s eyebrows rose again in ironic amusement. Each ‘rag’ in that wardrobe, Gayle thought, probably cost more than the entire contents of mine.
“Would you please tell that girl,” the irate customer went on, “that in approximately fifteen minutes I shall be visiting the dress department and shall expect to find a selection of dresses put aside for my personal consideration.”
Her son replaced the receiver and, without altering his lounging position said, eyeing his flushed, agitated employee, “Well, you asked for it and by heaven, you’ve got it coming! Regard it as the acid test. The proverbial ranting, irreconcilable awkward customer. But,” at the door Gayle turned, “take heart, Miss Stuart. If you can deal with my mother and send her away reasonably satisfied, you can deal with anyone—but anyone.”
Gayle returned to her office to await, with a feeling which only a prisoner in a condemned cell could possibly share with her, the arrival of the formidable mother of Pascall’s owner.
When Mrs. Pascall arrived, she swept across the fashion floor, passing through Coats and Co-ordinates, leaving a trail of bowing, fawning, staring female assistants in her path, all without exception wearing the expression of one who was thinking, ‘There but for fortune...’
But surprisingly, Gayle’s fighting spirit came to her aid. “If she thinks,” she told herself furiously, ‘I’m going to treat her as if she were royalty like all the others, then she’s mistaken!’
“Where’s this Miss Stuart?” Mrs. Pascall demanded of a timid Mrs. Carrington.
Miss Stuart appeared at the door of her office, a professionally cool smile on her face and a beating drum where her heart should be. “Yes, Mrs. Pascall?” she asked. “Can I help you?”
“Help me? You would have helped me if you had refrained from mining my dress in the first place.” Gayle stammered out another apology, but Mrs. Pascall waved away the halting words.
Somewhere in the background Gayle became aware of the presence of the store’s owner. Why, she asked herself desperately, did he have to put m an appearance? To watch her self-respect being slowly, excruciatingly ground into oblivion by his infuriated parent?
Mrs. Pascall weaved her way through the racks of dresses. “Something is wrong. Things have been changed. What have you done, Miss Stuart?” She named a famous brand of dresses. “Where are they? Miss Grierson always racked them together. They are the only possible gowns I could accept as a substitute for the model dress you have ruined. I would not be seen dead in anything else!”
Gayle glanced fearfully at the tall, half-smiling man lounging against the counter, arms folded, watching the proceedings.
“I’ve—I’ve altered the presentation, Mrs. Pascall. I’ve grouped the dresses into price instead of maker.” Another uncertain glance at the onlooker. “I thought it might encourage sales. Things have been a bit slow A swift, scared glance at the owner at what she had inadvertently given away. “I mean I thought that customers—ordinary women with a limited amount of money to spend—might find it easier to choose if the dresses were displayed by price instead of label.”
“But that’s ridiculous! Ewan,” her son responded with lifted eyebrows, “why did you allow this girl to interfere with the running of this department?”
“Mother,” patiently, “she is running the department. It’s her job.”
“Then you should at least insist that she does not interfere with Carla’s ideas. You must tell her to leave things as they are. I’m utterly confused. Miss Stuart, select all the evening gowns you have in stock by the manufacturer I have mentioned, making sure they are in my size,” her proportions were ample, “clear one of the racks and allow me to make my choice of dress in peace and comfort.”
Mrs. Carrington, who had just finished serving a customer, said, “I’ll clear a rack, Miss Stuart. You find the dresses.” So, smarting from the sardonic amusement of the irate customer’s son, and stinging from the humiliation piled upon her by the irate customer herself, Gayle searched painstakingly for the gowns bearing Mrs. Anastasia Pascall’s favourite label.
Mrs. Pascall, dressed resplendently in impeccably tailored coat with a deep fur collar and a large hat set upon her immaculately arranged hair, ran her eyes critically over the collection. “Is this all you have?” she asked, and tutted when Gayle admitted that it was.
At last Mrs. Pascall selected three gowns, imperiously directing Gayle to accompany her to the fitting room.
The trying-on was a lengthy business. Mrs. Pascall required help not only in putting on the clothes, but in the flicking of every fold into place, the adjustment of every neckline and the easing of every bodice over her well-padded frame.
When Gayle began to think the woman would never come to a decision, Mrs. Pascall said, “This will do. Not a patch on the one you ruined, but it’s better than nothing. Help me off with it.” As Gayle did so, she was rewarded with a petulant accusation of having ruined her customer’s hair-style as well as the ill-fated and now useless model gown.
As Gayle emerged from the fitting room, leaving Mrs. Pascall to dress, she hoped Ewan Pascall had returned to his own quarters. But he was inspecting the clothes, glancing at the hanging labels and generally running a critical eye over the display stands.
His mother emerged as Gayle was packing the dress. “Take it down to my car, Miss Stuart,” she ordered.
“Let me, Miss Stuart,” Mrs. Carrington offered. Gayle smiled and thanked her.
“Ewan,” his mother said, “I shall see you at home. Don’t be late. Remember you are escorting me to this dinner party.”
Her son inclined his head. “Well, are you satisfied, Mother?” There was a sardonic glint in his eyes.
“With the dress, reasonably so, although I’m still furious about the ruined gown. With the treatment I’ve received at the new buyer’s hands,” she turned a frigid look upon Gayle, “I am extremely dissatisfied.”
She swept out, leaving Gayle alone with her employer.
“Well, Miss Stuart,” he murmured with a lazy smile, “you’ve been blooded. You’ve dealt with the store’s—and probably the town’s—most difficult customer. Did you enjoy being initiated into the rites of customer-appeasement?”
The question was plainly meant to taunt, but Gayle answered, “I’m sorry I let y
our mother down, Mr. Pascall.”
“If I may say so, Miss Stuart, you let yourself down more. You allowed yourself to be browbeaten, and that, in a buyer, just will not do. You soothe, you don’t mentally salaam. You pacify, you don’t prostrate yourself. Do you understand what I mean? Apologise briskly and politely, then provide them with a large number of alternatives from which to choose. In the end they become so confused they forget what they came to grumble about. Then you take over the sale and guide them to select the dress you consider suits them best, both physically and financially.” He smiled and the momentary softening of his grey-blue eyes, usually cool and assessing, made her heart race.
The phone rang. With something like relief Gayle escaped into her office. The call was from the sales representative of a dress manufacture whose goods were stocked by the department.
“I’m free tomorrow morning,” Gayle told him, and arranged a time to see him.
Ewan Pascall was still there when Gayle returned to the department. “I’ve been examining your stock,” he said. “It’s March, admittedly early March, but,” glancing outside at the rain being flung against the windows by the seasonal gale, “spring is not so far away. A couple of weeks, perhaps.” His arm lifted. “All these garments are geared for winter. You realise they will either have to be sold or marked down for a quick sale? You’ll need the space for the spring and summer stock.”
“Yes, Mr. Pascall,” Gayle answered sharply. “I’m aware of that. I inherited a well-filled order book from Miss Grierson. The new season’s clothes should be here soon.”
He said, with a faint smile, “So Carla taught you something? You’re not quite the empty-headed shop assistant you would have me believe?”
“I wasn’t ‘taught’ by your fiancée, Mr. Pascall. I picked up the information myself. This may only be my second day in charge, but I’ve spent a certain amount of time studying all the paperwork and sales records Miss Grierson left behind.”
He looked at her closely for a few moments but made no comment. What had he seen in her face? As he turned to go, he said, “You realise that in marking down the winter stock you’ll lose on it?”