CHAPTER IV.
AN INTERVIEW WITH MR. SLAUGHTER.
That was a curious day. More things happened on it than on any day of my life before. It was the beginning of everything and the end of some things. From morning to night there was continual movement like in the transformation scene in a pantomime. When, since one was born, nothing has taken place, and nothing changed, it makes such a difference.
I got up feeling dreadfully stale; an up-all-night sort of feeling. Not that I ever have been up all night; but I know what the sensation is like because of the descriptions I have read. Miss Ashton was disagreeable, and the girls were snappish—even Lucy Carr was short; and, I daresay, I was not too nice. But then there often is a little show of temper in the morning; it is human nature. They had all begun when I got down to breakfast, and, of course, I got black looks for that. I caught sight of Emily Purvis as I sat down. She nodded; but it struck me that she was not looking brilliant, any more than I was.
Breakfast stuck in my throat. The butter was bad as usual—cheap margarine just rank enough to make pastry taste. The bread seemed as if it had been cut for hours, it was so hard and dry. I did manage to swallow a mouthful of tea; but the water was smoked, and I do not like condensed milk which is just going off, so I could not do much even with that. On the whole I did not feel any better for the meal when I got into the shop. I am not sure that I did not feel worse; and I knew I should be sinking before dinner came. Mr. Broadley began at me at once. He set me re-packing a whole lot of stock, which he declared I had not put tidily away; which was perfectly untrue, because, as a matter of fact, it was Miss Nichols who had had it last, and it was she who had put it back again. And, anyhow, some of those trimmings, when they have been once shown, will not set neatly; they are like hats, they cannot be made to go just so.
It was past eleven, and I had not had a single customer; it was miserable weather, and perhaps that had something to do with it, because scarcely a soul came into the shop. Mr. Broadley kept me at putting the shelves in order, almost as if I had been stock-taking. Not that I cared, for I hate doing nothing; especially as, if you so much as speak to one of the other young ladies, he is fit to murder you; that is the worst of your married shopwalkers, directly a girl opens her mouth he jumps down it. Still, I did not like it all the same; because I was getting tired, and hungry too; and, when you are hungry, the only way to stave the feeling off is to be kept busy serving; then you cannot stop to think what you would like to eat.
At last, just as a customer entered the shop, and was coming toward me, up sailed Mr. Broadley.
“Miss Blyth, you’re wanted in the office.”
My heart dropped down with a thump. I had half expected it all along, but now that it had come I went queer all over. I had to catch hold of the counter to keep up straight. Miss Nichols, seeing how it was with me, whispered as she went past:
“It’s all right, Pollie, don’t you worry, it’s nothing. Buck up, old girl.”
It was nice of her to try to cheer me up; but there was a choking something in my throat which prevented me from thanking her. Broadley was at me again.