Moonrise Over the Mountains

by Lilian Peake

  Ten minutes after her arrival, the summons came. Ewan’s secretary phoned. “Mr. Pascall wishes to see you straight away, Miss Stuart.”

  As Gayle walked along the corridor of the administrative block, she felt as if she were about to face a firing squad. Was this the end? Would there be no need for her to wonder any longer how to tell Ewan Pascall, ‘I won’t be staying for the last month of my notice, so tomorrow will be my last day here. I’m sorry to leave you without a buyer, but...’?

  Would he be saying it for her, saving her the trouble? At first, after Miss Potter had announced her arrival and closed the door of Ewan’s room, leaving them alone, Ewan did not even look up. He merely motioned her with a terse nod towards a chair.

  She sat down and looked lingeringly round die room. This is the last time, she thought, I’ll be in this room, the last time perhaps that I’ll see Ewan Pascall ... The thought made her look at him, to try to memorise his features, the texture of his skin—and she caught his eyes moving away from her.

  When she thought he had forgotten she was there, he asked, “Why did you leave Montreux without me when I expressly told you to wait?”

  “I’m sorry.” She worried at her new engagement ring.

  “In so much of a hurry to see your fiancé, you couldn’t wait?”

  The question was reasonable, but the tone in which it was asked was spiked.

  “Yes,” Gayle lied defiantly. She moved her hand to push back her hair and he caught the sparkle of the ring.

  “Your father told me his news—and yours. Since I congratulated him, I suppose I must congratulate you, too.” The words were flat and cold.

  “If it goes against the grain,” she said evenly, “I shall quite understand if you don’t.”

  “Considering,” he said sharply, “all that has happened between us and considering your transgressions connected with your work here, and bearing in mind what I’m about to say to you, I suggest it would be better if we dispensed with the sarcasm.”

  She coloured deeply. “I—didn’t mean to be sarcastic.”

  “No?” He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs and clasped his hands loosely. “I shall now tell you what I would have told you on the flight home, if you’d waited for me. I’ve found another woman to take over your job. She starts tomorrow.”

  The colour, which had been high in Gayle’s cheeks, drained away. “So I’m—” Her dry lips were reluctant to form the words. “So I’m out? Today’s my last day?”

  “If the new buyer is starting tomorrow, it therefore follows, doesn’t it, that you finish today?”

  “Need you,” she whispered, “be so brutal about it?”

  “I’m sorry,” he rasped, “if I lack the finesse with which you think I should make such an announcement.”

  “It’s not every day,” she said miserably, “I get thrown out of my job.”

  “Who said I’m throwing you out?”

  This was worse. “You’re—you’re demoting me? Putting me back to being an ordinary assistant?” She stood up. “It was your fault all along,” she accused. “You pushed me into the position despite the fact that I said I knew I couldn’t do it. You made me take it on, and now I’m going to suffer because of your misjudgment. I told you I’d be no good. So now I’ve proved I’m a failure, to cover your mistake, you, the owner, the man who must never be wrong, you take away my job.”

  “If,” he said with exaggerated patience, “you would cut out the hysterics and self-pity, not no mention the abuse you’re flinging at me, and keep that accursed fighting spirit of yours under control...” He waited, frowning, until she sat down.

  “You may know there’s a Pascall store in a number of provincial towns?” She nodded. He named a town about twelve miles away. “I’m moving you there. The buyer was unsatisfactory, so she was dismissed—”

  ”Just like that?” Gayle was so appalled she could not help saying, “Should I tell myself, there but for fortune—?”

  “In a moment, Miss Stuart,” he spoke each word clearly and angrily, “fortune will not be on your side. You will be out—out, you understand?”

  She bit her lip and looked down. An apology was due, but she could not bring herself to make one.

  “I’m moving you there,” he repeated. “The dress department is in disorder because of the utter incompetence of the recent buyer. I consider that you have the necessary ability to tackle the job.”

  She shook her head and looked away. “Thank you for your apparently unshaken belief in my capabilities—which I don’t happen to share—but you’ve probably forgotten that I’m working out my notice. In a month’s time—”

  ”Your resignation was self-imposed. I’ve torn it up.”

  “But I—” She suppressed her protest If she was being moved to another store, what was the point of telling him now that she preferred to make a complete break from the firm? The whole object of such an action would have been to avoid seeing Ewan Pascall—or the chance of seeing him—every day.

  “All right,” she conceded, “but if you insist on keeping me on your payroll, I think I should tell you—tell you—” She could not hold his gaze as she made her confession. She stared at her ring instead. “After you told me not to, I stocked some cheaper dresses, which means that once again I went against store policy.” Now it would come, the anger followed by the ending of her employment with the firm.

  “I’m glad you told me,” he said quietly, “although I already knew.”

  Her head came up. So he knew, all the time they had been away he had known. “How—?”

  “After the first time you transgressed, I kept a strict eye on your department. I inspected the stock at frequent intervals after the store had closed. While you were away recovering from your fall I discovered the rack of cheaper dresses.”

  “But,” she was bewildered, “you didn’t tell me...”

  “No, because the quality of the garments was passable—just. So I decided to let you have a little rope—”

  ”Sufficient to hang myself, I suppose.”

  The look he gave her forced an apology from her. He went on, a little more coldly than before, “The store to which I’m sending you does not have the higher standards of this one. The area in which it stands is different, the customers not so affluent. They haven’t so much money to spend, therefore the goods on sale must be cheaper. I think you would fit in better there.” Idly, he picked up a letter from his desk, folded it and pushed it into an envelope. “I realised some time ago that deep down you resented the type of customer you should be catering for in this particular store.” He looked up quickly. “Am I right?”

  “I’m trying to get them back,” she answered miserably. “I’ve been to fashion shows, ordered a few expensive dresses, contacted Carla’s old customers...”

  “But your heart isn’t in it. Be honest.”

  She was silent.

  “I’m sorry, Gayle, but we can’t alter store policy piecemeal, letting individual departments adopt their own standards. If one day the management decides to change its policy, it will be carried out over the store as a whole. I couldn’t go on allowing one young woman with—well, call it initiative, call it impudence, it comes to the same thing, to go on taking the law into her own hands.”

  Gayle could not speak. His tone, which had softened fractionally, had undermined her self-control and her lip was quivering. “Will you,” he asked, “be able to make the journey each day?” She nodded. “How, by train?” She nodded again.

  He waited a long time for her to speak—or was it, perhaps, for her to get a grip on her emotions? Whatever it was, he was as still as she was.

  She stood up to leave. “You start tomorrow morning,” he said. “It’s a Saturday, so you’ll be busy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  It was not possible even to look at him now, because the tears were on the edge of spilling over. Quietly, without a word of farewell, she left him.

  Gayle had to get up early next morning
to make the journey to Pascall’s store in the next town.

  “It’s not so bad at this time of the year,” her father said, “but it won’t be so good on dark winter mornings.”

  When Gayle had told him that Ewan Pascall had moved her he said he already knew. Mr. Pascall had called him into his office first thing that morning and had told him what he intended to do.

  Gayle thought unhappily, I wish Ewan trusted me as much as he trusts my father. I can do nothing right, she told herself rebelliously, and Dad can do nothing wrong. Then she chided herself for experiencing a feeling that was tantamount to jealousy. She should be delighted that after so many years of service to the firm, her father was so highly valued by the management, by the owner himself.

  The dress section of the new store was, as Ewan had warned, in disorder. Trying to put her troubles behind her, Gayle tackled the job with a resolution bordering on frenzy. She worked herself into a state of near-exhaustion. That was the only way she could find to rid herself of the misery that would not let her go.

  As the days went by she began to long for the sight—only the sight—of Ewan’s face. I’d be satisfied with that, she told herself despondently. Sometimes when the phone rang, her heart leapt because she thought it might be Ewan asking how she was getting on. But he did not ring.

  One day her father brought home from work a large parcel addressed to her. It had been posted in Montreux and as she opened it she guessed it must have come from Pierre Hirondelle. The wrapping dropped away to reveal a large golden brown shoulder bag in the softest leather Gayle had ever seen. Inside were pockets and compartments and even a matching purse.

  Across both sides there was a printed word, Hirondelle, with a bird in flight—a swallow—underneath it. There was a note which said, ‘To sweet Gayle. Will you remember me with this? No dress, chérie. I do not think your boy-next-door would tolerate your accepting such a gift from a stranger, a stranger who so admires you. Pierre.’

  It was impossible to look at the handbag without pain as well as with admiration and gratitude. She made a halting explanation to her father, then put the bag into its box. She would write and thank Pierre, of course. One day, in the years to come, she might be able to look at it, and even to use it, without anguish at the memories it would arouse. But not yet, not for a long, long time.

  Herbert said, one evening, “Mr. Pascall tells me how well you’re doing at your new job, Gayle.”

  She stared at him. “How does he know? He never comes near the store.”

  “Oh,” Herbert shrugged, “he hears. I expect he makes it his business to—”

  ”Check up,” Gayle broke in bitterly. “To make sure I’m toeing the line—and not slacking.”

  “He’s not like that, dear,” Herbert said gently. “I know him much better than you.”

  Do you? her heart whispered. Do you?

  “I expect,” she murmured, “he’ll be getting married soon. The man his fiancée works for, Pierre Hirondelle—”

  ”The man who sent you that bag?”

  Gayle nodded. “He’s already made her a wedding dress.”

  Herbert looked surprised. “There’s nothing on the store grapevine about it. If his marriage was imminent, I imagine someone would have got hold of the story.”

  But Gayle did not need the store grapevine to tell her what she knew as a fact. Her father had not seen Ewan and Carla together as she had.

  “Only a few weeks,” Herbert said, “until Mel hears his exam results. He’s sure to have passed. Then you can get married, love.”

  “Dad,” Gayle said desperately, “why don’t you and Rhoda get married? It’s wrong that you should have to wait for Mel and me.” Her father shook his head, but Gayle persisted, “You could move into Rhoda’s house and I could stay here. I don’t mind living on my own.”

  But, love, it’s not much longer. We don’t mind waiting. We’re not eager and impatient like a young couple, like you and Melvin should be.” Perhaps Herbert recognised the significance of his last two words, because he said, “You do want to get married, dear, don’t you? Mel’s so fond of you...”

  Gayle covered her face. “Oh, Dad,” she whispered, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know, Gayle?”

  “Don’t talk about it, Dad. It’s my problem and I’ve got to work it out for myself. Please,” she implored as he began to speak, “all I need is time. I’ll find the answer.”

  Herbert sighed and said he supposed he would have to be content with that, but he wished he knew what it was all about.

  Time went by—it was the end of July and the summer sales were at their height—but still Gayle had not found the answer. Her father must have asked Rhoda to tackle his daughter, because she said one evening when Herbert had tactfully joined Mel in the next house.

  “You look so pale, dear. Your father and I know there’s something wrong. Are you finding it a strain waiting for Mel’s results? You’re both young, it’s quite understandable. Why don’t you two get married straight away? It would solve so many problems.”

  “Mel says he must get a better job first, Rhoda, and I agree with him. But he can only do that when the results come through and provided they’re good results.”

  Rhoda took Gayle’s hand. “Do you want me to talk to him, dear? Talk him round? After all, there’s your salary coming in. You could both live on that for a while.”

  It sounded so reasonable Gayle panicked. “No, no, don’t do that, Rhoda. We’re quite prepared to wait.” And wait, her mind repeated dully, and wait and wait and never give up waiting for Ewan Pascall...

  In the end, Gayle’s health began to suffer. Overwork and near starvation—she never felt hungry these days—were taking their toll and even Mel became concerned. He urged her to give up her job. “Find another where you don’t have to work so hard.”

  “I like working hard,” she said. “I’ve got to work hard!” She ran from the room leaving a bewildered Melvin staring after her.

  The examination results came at last. Mel had passed—with honours. In the midst of the family celebrations—Herbert brought home a bottle of champagne and Rhoda cooked a special meal—Gayle broke down and said she couldn’t marry anybody, least of all Mel...

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gayle dragged herself to work next morning. The tears were hardly dry on her cheeks. She had, she felt, let not only Mel down but her father and her future stepmother, too.

  Mel had taken it badly at first. Then as the evening had gone on, he had grown a little more reconciled. Perhaps Gayle would change her mind, he had said, once their parents were married. Perhaps when he found another job, much better than the one he had now...

  Gayle had been tired at the start of the day, but by the end of it she felt unbearably so. It was twenty minutes to closing time and there was a particularly difficult customer haunting the department, trying on dress after dress. But at last, as Gayle was delving into her almost depleted reserves of energy for reinforcements that simply were not there, the woman said the magic words, “I’ll have this one, please.”

  An assistant wrapped the garment, while Gayle took the customer’s money. The woman walked away, idly swinging the carrier bag with the name Pascall printed flowingly across it.

  Gayle lifted her hands and pressed them against her cheeks, covering her eyes. There was the whole evening in front of her. Somehow she must brace herself to face it. For a few moments she stood there trying to throw off her tiredness.

  Her head lifted—it was an involuntary movement quite beyond her control—and as she looked across the fashion floor, all her body was stilled. Not a muscle moved. Even her heart seemed to pause, then as her lungs inflated on a gasp, her pulses throbbed until they hurt.

  A man was standing near the entrance, watching her. Her heartbeats laboured in agony as their eyes locked and it was impossible to tear hers away.

  So the owner had come. Ewan Pascall was checking up on her. Resentment crept into her g
aze, battling with the pounding joy that raced through her veins at the sight of him. He approached slowly, watching her like a cat a terrified mouse. She thought he was going to speak, reprimand her, tell her to brace herself ... Her fingers gripped the edge of the counter as she fought the faintness that made her sway.

  If he spoke to her harshly, she could not stand it, not now, not when she was so tired, she would break down on duty and that would be terrible. But he turned and walked away as if he had seen all he had needed to see.

  Three minutes later the phone in the buyer’s office rang. “Miss Stuart? Mrs. Richley here.” It was the woman who acted as Ewan’s secretary when he visited the branch. “Message from Mr. Pascall. He says will you please get your coat, collect all your belongings, leaving nothing behind and come straight upstairs to his office.”

  “Now?” Gayle asked unsteadily.

  “Yes, please,” the woman said briskly. “At once.”

  The receiver dropped from Gayle’s hand. If it made a clatter she did not care. So Ewan Pascall, having seen her inefficiency for himself—how she regretted those few unguarded moments—was hounding her out of her job. Stamina, he’d said, was what a buyer needed, and stamina she had now proved was a commodity she did not have. The invitation to his office, the envelope containing her salary in advance, the summary dismissal—it was all in front of her in the next, few minutes.

  As she climbed the stairs—the lift would carry her to her doom too fast—she tried to become reconciled at last to the end of her career with Pascall and Son. It had been inevitable from the start, she told herself resignedly. But, with a broken engagement on her conscience and the need to find another job becoming more imminent as the seconds passed, it made the falling of the final curtain no easier to bear.

  Mrs. Richley gave a brief, businesslike smile. “He says go straight in, dear,” she said. “Don’t knock.”

  The handle turned, the door opened and she was inside Ewan’s room. They stared at each other. His eyes were unreadable, hers wavering and uncertain.