Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [57]
She was not able to ponder upon the matter longer, however, for the Unwin workers were divided up and she was assigned to a girl wearing a badge which named her as Miss Violet, who was several years older and quite pretty enough in her own right not to resent Grace’s beauty. Miss Violet was one of five lady greeters and her job was to ascertain a customer’s wishes as well as assess their status as soon as they entered the store, for Mr Unwin liked those who were at the top of the social scale to be served only by those similarly placed in the store’s hierarchy.
Grace had not met a young woman like Miss Violet before. Educated and smart, with short hair in a mass of curls (and shiny lips which were not come by entirely naturally), she was one of the new breed of office and shop girls who, not content to sit at home waiting for a man to come along and propose marriage, went out into the world to begin carving a career for themselves. Grace liked her immediately.
‘All you have to do,’ Miss Violet explained, ‘is accompany the customer to wherever I tell you to take them. I might say a department, or I might say a member of staff within that department. I might, on occasion, tell you to take a very important customer to be served by Mr Unwin himself.’
Grace nodded but, as the hated name was mentioned, could not stop a tremor of fear crossing her face.
Miss Violet patted her shoulder. ‘Don’t let him upset you,’ she said. ‘Sly is a bully who picks on someone every day – several people if he’s being particularly horrid.’
‘His name is Sly?’
‘Sylvester, actually, but Sly by name and Sly by nature, eh?’ Miss Violet smiled. ‘I’ll take you around the store now and show you where the different departments are.’
Grace found the amount of stock available in the store quite overwhelming, and as Miss Violet led the way through bodices, boas, bonnets, boots, skirts, shawls, capes, umbrellas, aprons and mantles, her head was spinning before they’d even reached the men’s departments.
‘So many garments; so much black!’ Grace said, and found it a welcome relief when they went into the half-mourning department where grey, lilac and pale mauve predominated.
‘We have so much stock because Mr Unwin hates losing a sale,’ Miss Violet said. ‘I do believe a dart pierces his heart every time someone walks out of the shop without opening their purse.’ She paused beside a discreetly curtained alcove. ‘A new department,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Mourning undergarments.’
‘Undergarments!’ Grace repeated, terribly surprised.
Miss Violet smiled. ‘Indeed. Ladies must show they are suffering right down to their most intimate attire.’
‘And must all those garments be black, too?’ Grace asked, trying to see round the curtain.
Miss Violet shook her head. ‘No. They can be of white lawn trimmed with black lace, and white linen slotted with black ribbon,’ she whispered.
They returned to the main entrance hall to stand beside the grand piano where Miss Violet was usually positioned, hoping to hand-pick the wealthiest-looking customers. Grace, relieved that Mr Unwin was no longer in sight, found she was enjoying herself – although if she could have had a wish it would have been that Lily had been there to see it all, too.
The day passed in a blur of faces and demands. It was mostly maids, menservants and the poorer sorts who came to the store early, but by midday the middle classes had begun stirring themselves to go out and spend conspicuous amounts on showing their affection for Prince Albert. By three o’clock another section of the population arrived as those of the upper classes who hadn’t been quick enough to secure the services of a private dressmaker called at the store on their way to take afternoon tea with their friends and aunts. There were a great many of these upper-class ladies – so many, in fact, that the roadway outside became a seething mass of stamping, neighing horses, broughams and gigs, hackney carriages and traps, and this chaos was added to by a flock of sheep going towards Smithfield Market with two border collies and a farmer.