Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [55]
Grace found she was looking forward to this temporary place of employ, for she was already tired of being a mute, of being permanently grief-stricken and of walking around half blind, peering at people through black veiling. Besides, department stores looked such enticing places. She had passed them often enough, but never been inside one, for stern uniformed men stood at the entrances and, if you looked poor or inadequate, refused to open the doors and tried to turn you away by hard looks or shouts of ‘Be off!’ Department stores were not – usually – for the likes of Grace.
The following morning, twelve workers from the Unwin Undertaking Establishment were walked in crocodile fashion by Mr George Unwin from Edgware Road to Oxford Circus. They arrived there at seven o’clock when, as predicted by Mr Unwin, there was already a queue of potential customers outside. A good number of these were ladies’ maids or menservants with lists from their mistresses of garments required, or notes asking that a store dressmaker should call upon them personally.
As they passed in front of the store’s vast gas-lit windows, those in the crocodile line admired the mannequins who, wearing the latest in mourning garments, stood distraught in a number of different situations. One model was shown gracefully descending a staircase, another was gazing mournfully out of an open window, a third was reading a ‘last letter’ before a fireplace. Each window scene, Grace thought admiringly, told a little story in its own right. Passing the store, the Unwin workers went along an alleyway and through the staff entrance at the far side. The rather shabby quarters here led through into the shop itself, where all gazed in awe at the soft furnishings, multiple gas lights, thick carpet, velvet curtains and general air of opulence. There was even a grand piano standing near the entrance in order to play contemplative music and soothe the shoppers’ melancholy.
This was what it was like to be rich, Grace thought, looking around her. Not merely to have food and shelter, but to be able to live with luxurious trappings and an abundance of possessions, to own as many clothes as one wanted . . . to wander through stores like this, pointing at things and having your maid scurry to get them for you.
Mr Sylvester Unwin had been told by his cousin that Grace Parkes, sister of the more valuable Lily, would be coming to work temporarily in the store, but this had not caused him a moment’s unrest. The swindle they were perpetrating against the Parkes was, to him, a thing apart. Besides, he reasoned, the Unwins were doing the sisters (both probably a little simple, he thought) a favour in taking them in and giving them shelter. What sort of a life would they have had otherwise? How would they have coped with such a fortune? Sooner or later someone would have taken it from them; this way they were spared even knowing they’d had it. And thus he reasoned his path to a clear conscience.
Before the store opened, Mr Sylvester Unwin stood halfway up the sweeping staircase which led to Footwear and Accessories, surveying both his old and new staff with some satisfaction. Those who had arrived from his cousin’s business would not, of course, be allowed to actually serve customers, but would make themselves useful telling lady customers how extremely well a garment suited them, by tearing off lengths of brown paper for wrapping, tying up parcels with string, and coming and going with bills and receipts from the cash desks. The cash desks, he reflected complacently, rang from morning until night; they had never seen so much activity. Of course, it was terrible that Prince Albert had been cut down in his prime but, at least as far as the owner of London’s premier mourning store and his cousin were concerned, it had its compensations.
Sylvester Unwin waited for complete silence from those standing below him on the shop floor, then bade a pompous good morning and said he had some very important things to say,