A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

The girl protested. "It's as much as my life is worth to put my head inside the door!"

Her superior looked at her with that fine irony which only the powerful can afford. "I suppose you expect me to do your fetching and carrying," she was beginning, when a voice from the corner made her turn. By this time the girl with the saucepans had succeeded in making the sink and the wooden racks stand still instead of swooping and whirling round her. "Don't get no chair for me, Mrs. Black!" she urged. "I don't want to sit down. It was only a feeling of giddiness like, and if we gets a chair we'll have them fellows in here after it again!"

This seemed the general opinion of the room and Mrs. Black endorsed it.

"You might have the politeness to thank Mrs. Heyham!" she told the sufferer, and then turning to Mary, "What we have to put up with from that kitchen you'd never believe! Why, the girls don't dare go into the pantry to eat their dinner for fear of their impertinence! And good room as this is, it isn't a place for eating, with all the steam and the dirty plates. It puts you off!"

"But they oughtn't to eat in here!" Mary looked round with dismay.

It appeared that the washing-up girls were not supposed, strictly, to take their meals in the building at all, they were supposed to go home. But some of them lived far away, so Mrs. Black, if it hadn't been for the kitchen, would have let them have a bit of dinner in the pantry. The company allowed their employees to have food at half price. The waitresses ate their meals in the serving-room, or they could use the cloak-room, but they didn't care to have the washing-up girls about. They felt that what they had been through others could go through. Not that they were unkind girls, but that was how they saw it.

Again Mary felt very glad that she had come. She did not like annoying people and seeming inquisitive, but she was prepared to put up with anything that would really lead to good. And it was clear to her that there was a great deal that a tactful woman could do here. Some place must be managed where these poor girls could eat their dinner in peace, and they ought to sit at their work. She would tell Miss Percival to note those two points.

As they passed through the restaurant on the way out, Mary saw Florrie standing by one of the tables. Florrie smiled—she had an attractive smile—and Mary nodded and smiled back. She told herself that she would remember Florrie's name.

Mrs. Black took them to the door and said good-bye to them with a wonderful brightening and softening of manner. The gratitude which she expressed with great fervour was clearly not feigned, merely diverted from the providence which had brought her so creditably through a trying time. It would have been easier if she had known what Mrs. Heyham was after. Inspectors she could manage, none better, whether they were enemies from outside or so-called friends from headquarters, but Mary had puzzled her. She oughtn't perhaps to have let on about the girls' dinner, but she hadn't been able to resist the chance of a possible score off the kitchen. Mrs. Heyham herself was all right, she felt sure, but she didn't trust that secretary person. However, it was no use worrying—she banished any remaining uneasiness, when the visitors had gone, by telling Florrie to change her apron at once and never let Mrs. Black see her in such a rag again.

Mary settled herself comfortably in the car. "Of course this has been the most interesting day," she said. "It won't be so amusing when we've been to a dozen of them. I suppose they are all very much alike."