by Lilian Peake
Herbert struggled to his feet. Rhoda, in the armchair opposite, looked with considerable interest at the tall, good-looking stranger.
Herbert, with his usual awkwardness, made the introductions. Ewan took Rhoda’s outstretched hand, then nodded curtly to Mel.
“Mr. Pascall,” Herbert said, plainly embarrassed at having his employer plunged headlong into the bosom of the family, “how good of you to bring my daughter home. I was expecting her to phone me.”
Narrowed, derisive eyes looked on the girl who appeared to be so ardently in love with the young man at her side. “It was no trouble, Herbert, no trouble at all,” Ewan said. “It was a pleasant—distraction after a busy but enjoyable evening.”
Gayle flushed. Did he need to be so insulting about those kisses they had exchanged?
“Forgive me for intruding,” Ewan went on. “If I’d known you had company—” He looked hard at Gayle. “But your daughter invited me in. I assumed you would be alone.”
“Gayle, love,” her father reproved, “you knew Mel and Rhoda would be here.”
His daughter said nothing. Instead she smiled triumphantly at her employer and clung all the tighter to her surprised and delighted boy-friend’s arm.
“Would you like some coffee, Mr. Pascall,” she asked, “or a drink?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Do stay for a chat, now you’re here, Mr. Pascall,” Herbert urged.
But Ewan declined the invitation. Nothing would persuade him.
“Gayle, dear?” Herbert motioned to his daughter, reminding her of her role as hostess.
With a show of reluctance, Gayle disentangled herself from Melvin mid followed Ewan along the hall. As she showed him out, her smile was brilliant. I’ve won, it said. I’ve put myself out of your reach—and restored my self-respect. I’m not yours for the asking, am I?
“Goodnight, Ewan,” she murmured, smiling at him with a touch of impudence.
“Goodnight, Miss Stuart,” he replied stiffly, and walked out.
Gayle slept badly that night, turning and twisting as if she were back in Ewan’s arms. She dreamt that he let her go, pushing her savagely from him, although she pleaded with him to take her back. But he walked away and the dream turned into a nightmare ...
The first dress was returned next day. It was carried in in its original wrapping in the hand of a complaining customer. “I washed it according to instructions,” she said, “and it shrank. Now I can’t wear it. Just look at it!”
The dress hung limply from the woman’s hands. Gayle was puzzled and secretly blamed the woman for her careless handling of the garment, but agreed to return the money. Later, another woman came in with a similar complaint, this time adding the startling information that the colours had run into each other. This Gayle could see for herself.
When a third customer marched up to the counter complaining about her purchase, Gayle grew deeply anxious. It seemed that not only had the dress shrunk, but the colours had run into other clothes with which it had come into contact, thus spoiling them, too. The woman was only partially satisfied when she walked out with her money in her hand.
It was during the afternoon that Miss Potter phoned. “Mr. Pascall wants you at once, Miss Stuart. He said you’re to drop everything and come.”
Ewan stood when She entered, but only because his anger would not permit him to remain seated. Gone was the man who had kissed her so ardently the night before. Gone were the eyes which, in the gracious drawing-room of his home, had seemed with their warmth and admiration to find her so desirable.
He was distant and cold, and there was not a spark of triumph left in the girl who had smiled at him so provocatively on the doorstep as they had said goodnight. Now she hardly dared to meet his eyes. She knew why he had sent for her, she knew he had found her out.
‘That telephone,” he said, between his teeth and rapping on the desk, “has almost driven me mad! Complaining customers, whining women, irate and fuming about some blasted dresses they bought—oh, so cheaply—in your department. Cheaper than usual, they told me, cheaper than all the other clothes you sell. No wonder they were cheap, they said, the way those dresses shrank and ran and spoilt all the other clothes in the sinks and washing machines. It’s a wonder, they said, you—I, Miss Stuart—had the cheek to sell them. If they’d known, they wouldn’t have taken them, they said, if they had been given away free. So sit down, Miss Stuart. You and I are going to have a little talk. I think some explanation is due, and, by God, it had better be good!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Gayle knew she was on trial. The fight was on—for survival, for her job, even, if demoted, for a place on the staff. But how could she defend herself? However good her advocacy, however convincing her explanations and excuses, she didn’t really stand a chance.
“Mr. Pascall,” her voice was cracked and quavering, “please try to understand. I did it in the interests of the firm.”
“You really must be joking!” He brought his fist into heavy contact with the desk top. “Do you really drink I’m gullible enough to believe that? Be honest and admit it was done in the interests, not of the firm, not even of your own department, but purely and simply as a means of boosting your sales figures which I had already warned you were appallingly low. In fact, it was done solely in the interests of Miss Gayle Stuart.”
She had to acknowledge the truth. It had, after all, been flung at her like a handful of sand in her face, blinding her. She closed her eyes, unable to stand the sight of his anger. “I was afraid,” she whispered.
“Of what?”
“Losing my job. You’ve said so often that buyers are judged by their takings, the profits they show.”
“But you went completely against store policy. Not only that, against my explicit instructions. Didn’t you know that when you were found out—which was inevitable, however much you may have fooled yourself that it wouldn’t happen—your job would be in jeopardy?”
She said, shaking her head as she spoke, “I just didn’t think I would be found out. I’m sorry.” She waited for him to speak, but he did not. “You can’t deny that sales did improve.”
“While the quality dropped.”
“I didn’t see it that way. I asked the manufacturer if he could make me up some cheaper dresses. He showed me some material and I approved of it and we fixed on a price.” Her eyes appealed to him. “The style was simple and saleable. How was I to know the fabric would shrink and the colours run?”
“It’s obvious you were misled. They took advantage of your inexperience. You can’t blame the firm. They’re out to make a profit like the rest of us.”
Her lips quivered. “I told you I was no good for the job, Mr. Pascall. You didn’t believe me. You pushed me into it—”
”When you’ve finished, Miss Stuart...” She looked down. “If you had not gone against my instructions, it wouldn’t have happened.”
She shook her head, biting her lip, but the tears would come. “As a result,” he went on relentlessly, “this store has lost the respect of a large number of customers, not to mention loss of goodwill, and goodwill, Miss Stuart, in case you don’t know, is a vital—and saleable—commodity.”
“It would have worked out all right,” she sobbed, “if the manufacturer hadn’t fooled me. The dresses sold. They didn’t hang about like the more expensive stuff.”
“For some reason,” he rose and confronted her, ignoring her tears, “I can’t seem to get through to you. Don’t you realise that if a department store of high standard begins to lower—that standard, the customers recognize it and resent it? They talk amongst themselves—you must have heard them in other shops. ‘This place isn’t what it used to be,’ they say. ‘All you get here now is rubbish, not worth having’.”
She stood up. She had lost her case. Now she waited for the verdict—and the sentence.
Ewan felt in his pocket and gave her his handkerchief. “Mop your tears. You can’t go back into the store with a couple
of rivers running down your cheeks.”
She could not smile, not when she was about to be sentenced to life imprisonment, because that was what it would be if she were never to see Ewan Pascall again. As she used his handkerchief, she knew it was no longer possible to deny the truth she had been trying desperately to hide from herself. His kisses in the car last night had not been enough. She wanted his kisses—and no other man’s—for the rest of her life.
The verdict? “What are you going to do about me, Mr. Pascall?” Her voice wavered.
There was a long pause, then, “We all make mistakes, Miss Stuart. Even I.”
“Meaning you made a mistake with me?”
He did not reply, but held out his hand and she put his handkerchief into it. “Hadn’t you better get back to your work?” was all he said.
So she was still on trial. The pronouncement of the sentence had been postponed, but for how long she did not care to guess. The judgment might come at any timer.
That evening, when the store had closed and the staff had gone home, Gayle phoned Rhoda and asked if she would give her father a meal.
“There’s some paper work I must catch up on,” Gayle explained. “I’ve had one or two—setbacks today.”
She could not explain even to Rhoda, kind and sympathetic though she was, that her conversation with her employer had so disheartened her, she had had neither the energy nor the motivation to tackle the work in store hours.
“Of course, Gayle,” Rhoda said at once. “He can come and share a meal with Melvin and me. Want to speak to Mel?”
Mel said, “Working late? Just as well we haven’t got a date, isn’t it? I’ve got an evening class tonight. See you tomorrow? Shall we go out somewhere?”
Gayle said that as far as she knew she was free. It was difficult infusing enthusiasm into her voice, but she managed it. Her father, when she phoned him, said he didn’t mind going to Rhoda’s. It was good of Rhoda, he commented, but he didn’t know why she bothered about him so much.
Gayle smiled when he had gone. How, she wondered, had he ever got around to proposing to her mother? He had been many years younger then, but she doubted if he had changed much in essence. He would have been the kind of young man, she was sure, who, in falling in love with a girl, would think so little of his own attractions, it would probably have never occurred to him to realise that the girl he loved could possibly love him back! Now, many years later, it was Rhoda who loved him—Gayle was sure of that—and yet her father could not see it.
Sometimes, she had to admit, she wondered what it was in herself that attracted Melvin. According to Ewan Pascall, she was like her father in so many ways, perhaps this was another of them! She contemplated herself in the mirror behind her desk. Round face, well-shaped mouth. Eyes? Long-lashed, grey and intensely serious, little enough, though, to attract a man.
One vital element was missing, and this she acknowledged with a touch of apprehension—the glow and radiance of a girl in love, a girl with a ready-made boy-friend next door, patiently waiting to become her husband.
Gayle pulled the pile of papers towards her, letters to be answered, orders to be entered in the appropriate book, complaints and yet more complaints from customers about those unfortunate dresses.
Now it was her turn to make a complaint. She started to draft a letter to the firm who had supplied those dresses. She would tell the sales rep how he, indirectly, had nearly cost her her job.
Half-way through the letter she put her pen down. What was the use? The mistake had been made, the damage had been done and she must take the blame. As the buyer she was responsible for everything that was sold in her section, and she had failed.
Her head lowered on to her arms which were folded on the desk. She turned her cheek and rested it against her wrists.
Her eyes closed. There were facts she had to face—that she was not in love with Mel and did not want to marry him. With her father and his mother happily confident that the wedding would take place before many months had passed, how could she tell him—or them—of her change of heart?
There was another fact staring her in the face. Ewan Pascall had come to mean more to her than any other man she knew. That she could never mean anything to him she had long ago accepted. But it did not make the situation any easier to bear.
In her despair and the desire to escape from her problems, she slept—and dreamed. She dreamt that Ewan was coming towards her with compassion in his eyes; that he lifted her with tenderness and-held her in his arms. He understood, he said, how she felt, but she must take heart and never give in. Before long the different aspects of her work would fall into place. Then she would wonder why she had ever thought it difficult. He believed in her and had never doubted her.
“Tired, Miss Stuart?” His voice at her side woke her. The lack of sympathy in his tone brought her eyes open. She lifted her head, still heavy with the residue of sleep unindulged. In his eyes were the remains of the coldness they had held when she had left him at the door of his office.
Where was the compassion of her dream, the tenderness of his glance, the comfort of his arms? She stopped in her tracks to heaven to which her dream had been leading, turned and retraced her steps to the nightmare of reality. Dreams should be banned, she thought, in a daze of sleepy stupidity. They were unfair to human beings. There ought to be some way of turning off a dream like switching off a television set when the play or film became too impossible to believe in.
“Tired?” she echoed, shrugging. “Maybe I am. I don’t know.” But she did know. She knew but she could not tell. How could she say, You’re the cause of my distress. You’re where my unhappiness begins and ends. It’s not my job I could tackle that with reasonable efficiency if anyone but you were in charge.
Her arms remained folded on the desk, but her head, although not resting on them, hung low so that her hair fell forward, sweeping the desk top. For a long time he watched her, saying nothing, thinking—what?
His words told her and they made her despair increase. “A buyer needs stamina, Miss Stuart. She must be tough to survive the fashion jungle, the commercial rat race. Anywhere, and at any time, there is someone waiting to step into a buyer’s shoes. The dismissal rate in your particular category is high.”
“As if,” she murmured, “I didn’t know. As if you hadn’t rubbed it in until I’m sick of the sound of the words!”
“I’m sorry.”
Her head, lifted, her face pale, her eyes burning. “You’re not, you’re glad! You only said it to prove to me something I’m already too well aware of—that I’m no good. But you persuaded me against my will. Up to now you’ve refused to admit you were wrong. Now perhaps you’re beginning to realise it.”
“I still have faith in you. I still believe you can do that job.”
“Blind faith,” she muttered.
“Look, we’re getting nowhere. And you shouldn’t be here doing overtime.”
“Another subtle way of telling me how inefficient I am? That I should have finished my work in store hours? Anyway, don’t worry, I won’t charge you for the overtime I do, because that would be making you pay for my inefficiency.”
“For God’s sake, woman, stop pitying and denigrating yourself! Is this your coat? Put it on. You’re coming with me.”
“No. I’m staying here and working. You can’t stop me. I’m a buyer, I hold a responsible position, I’m important to the firm, I’m high up in the hierarchy...” Her tongue would not stop, her brain churned out the words and her lips delivered them like a computer that had been wrongly programmed and grown confused with meaningless messages.
“Have you had your say? Right. I am now going to play the heavy employer. Here’s your coat, here’s your handbag. Get out of this office!”
It was impossible to defy him any longer. She obeyed and heard him Iodic the door She hurried towards the entrance but he caught her up. His hand clamped on to her shoulder and he forced her into the opposite direction.
; She tried to get away. “I’m going home.”
“You can struggle as much as you like, it will make no difference. You’re coming with me. We’re leaving the store through the back way. My car’s parked there. I’m taking you home—my home. So, Miss Stuart, just stop talking and keep walking.”
In the car she lapsed into a sulky silence. He did not attempt to break it. In the house, in the spacious, stately drawingroom, he gave her a drink.
Without the company of the others who had been, with her the last time she had been there, the room seemed overwhelming. While he watched, she inspected the books, some of them, she guessed, ancient and priceless. Ornaments—rare and intricate, porcelain, glass, silver—filled a series of inset shelves. These she scrutinised, too, anything rather than have to talk to her host whose eyes were following every movement she made.
Unexpectedly she turned. “Why have you brought me here, to give me a pep talk which might help to increase that ‘stamina’ I lack? To teach me a buyer’s job as you once said you would? Or even to break it to me gently that I’m on my way out?”
“Wrong three times. You’re not even warm. Guess again.” She .shook her head. “All right, I’ll tell you. I wanted your company.”
That did not please her, either. Instead it made her bitter. “You’re lonely? Missing Miss Grierson? You want to hold me as you did in the car the other night, close your eyes and kiss me, pretending I’m Carla, your fiancée?”
He put down his glass, walked across to her, took away her drink and said, his eyes slits, “Know what I do to bitchy women? This!” His fingers closed on her arms and he jerked her close. “I hold them, as I did you the other night. I kiss them, as I did you in the car—and I keep my eyes open!”
He took his kiss and then another, each one harder to resist, until finally she lay supine in his arms. He looked down into her face and a smile touched his lips. “Now say you’re sorry and stop behaving like a frustrated, embittered shrew.”