It was well known that Old Madam would not have anyone who might be working at Elena’s stinted of a good meat meal in the middle of the day, which she called “an economy in the end.” The number of helpings was never restricted, and the meat was always followed by a substantial pudding.
Lydia at first watched with amazement the two accomplished young women from the millinery, both of them pale London girls, send up their plates twice or three times, in eager response to Mrs. Entwhistle’s invitation.
Miss Graham, always at her desk, and the little needlewoman who attended to alterations, were the only girls on the premises not selected, partly on account of good looks.
“A pretty saleswoman sets off the goods,” was another of Old Madam’s reported aphorisms. “Prettiness” was the keynote of the establishment, and with this end in view, Christian names were always used in business hours.
Rosie Graham told Lydia that Miss Ryott’s name, Georgina, not considered an ornamental one by Madame Elena, had been abbreviated to Gina, as having a pleasant soupçon of Italian romance. Gina, in fact, rather looked the part. She was a tall girl, of a full figure, with crape-black hair rolled back from a round, cream-coloured face, dark-brown eyes and beautiful teeth.
Gina only painted her lips a very little.
Miss Saxon, the other show-room “young lady” on the other hand, who said that her name was Marguerite, painted her face, as well as her lips, most artistically. She was flaxen-haired and very slim, with babyish blue eyes and a tiny mouth. She was always called for by Madame Elena to show off any toilette de jeune fille.
Lydia found it easy to believe that the staff was made up of young women taken from a class superior to that of the ordinary London shop-girl. That was Old Madam’s policy.
At intervals, Madame Ribeiro, always unannounced, drove up to the shop entrance of “Elena’s,” in her little old-fashioned, closed carriage, and walked slowly through the show-room, up the shallow steps that led to millinery, and into the small alcove, glass-panelled, where sat Madame Elena, poring over large tomes, or sometimes inditing scrawled communications on large, mauve-coloured sheets of notepaper, with “Elena” carelessly running across the top corner of the page in big purple lettering.
Old Madam never distinguished Lydia by any special notice on these occasions. She generally remained with Madame Elena for half an hour or so, and sometimes the latter would strike her little bronze bell, and ask, “Marguerite, chérie” or “Gina, my child” to bring in afternoon tea for Madam.