She went wrong in the matter of clothes, aspiring after elegance and missing it through a fundamental lack of distinction, and also through inability to concentrate her effects. Her dresses consisted of ten thousand details held together by no unity of conception. Thin gold chains wandered, apparently purposeless, over her rich form; they would disappear like a railway in a cutting and then pop out unexpectedly in another part of the lush rolling countryside. The contours of her visible garments gave the impression that the concealed system of underskirts, cache-corsets, corsets, lingerie, hose and suspenders was of the most complicated, innumerable and unprecedented variety. And indeed she was one of those women who, for the performance of the morning and the evening rites, trebly secure themselves by locks and bolts and blinds from the slightest chance of a chance of the peril of the world's gaze.
The purchase of the typewriting business by Felix had changed Miss Grig's life from top to bottom. It had transformed her from a relic festering in sloth and frustration into the eager devotee of a sane and unassailable cult. The business was her perversity, her passion. It was her mystic husband, fecundating her with vital juices, the spouse to whom she joyously gave long nights of love. Apart from the business, and possibly her brother, she had no real thoughts. The concern as it existed in Lilian's time was her creation. She would sacrifice anything to it, her own health and life, even the lives and health of tender girls. Yes, and she would sacrifice her conscience to it. She would cheat for it. The charges for typewriting were high--for she had established a tradition of the highest-class work and rates to match--but this did not prevent her from seizing any excuse to inflate the bills. The staff said that her malpractices sufficed every year to pay the rent. And she was never more priestess-like, more lofty and grandiose, than when falsifying an account.
Lilian found her seated alone in fluent dignity at the great desk.
"Yes, Miss Grig?"
"May I enquire," asked Miss Grig in grave accents not of reproach but of pain, "why you did not put in an appearance yesterday, Miss Share?"
"Well, madam," Lilian answered with surprise and gentle rebuttal, "I stayed here all the night before and I was so tired I slept all day. I didn't wake up until it would have been too late to come."
"But you knew I was unwell, and that I should count on you upper girls to fill my place. Or you should have known. What if you were tired? You are young and strong; you could have stood it easily enough, and there was much work to be done. In a crisis we don't think about being tired. We just keep on. And even if you did sleep all day, I suppose it never occurred to you in the evening that someone would be needed to take charge during last night. The least you could have done would have been to run up and see how things were. But no! You didn't even do that! Shall I tell you who did take charge last night? Miss Jackson. She'd been on duty the whole day yesterday. She stayed all night till six o'clock. And she was back again at nine o'clock this morning--twenty-five minutes before you. And when I told her to go back home, she positively refused. She defied me. That's what I call the true spirit, my dear Lilian."
Miss Grig ceased; only her lustrous reproachful eyes continued the harangue. She had shown no anger. She had appealed to Miss Share's best instincts.
The address "my dear Lilian" caused misgivings in the employee's bosom. Lilian knew that it was Felix and not Miss Grig who had admitted her to employment, and that Miss Grig had been somewhat opposed to the engagement. She also guessed that Miss Grig objected to her good looks, and was always watchful for an occasion to illustrate her theory that a girl might be too good-looking. And the tone of the words "my dear Lilian" had menace in its appealing, sad sweetness. Miss Grig had been known to deviate without warning into frightful inclemency, and she always implacably got the last ounce out of her girls.
The culprit offered no defence. There was no defence. Assuredly she ought to have run up on the previous evening. Miss Grig had spoken truth--the notion of running up had simply not occurred to the preoccupied Lilian. Nevertheless, while saying naught, she kept thinking resentfully: "Here I worked over twenty hours on end and this is my reward--a slating! This is my reward--a nice old slating!" With fallen face and drooping lower lip she moved to leave. She was ready to cry.