The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [114]
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Who let you in here?”
“Why, Joe showed me in. He told me to wait,” she replied, standing up. “Madame Elise said there might be a job.”
“A job?” Mrs. Masters’s sharp eyes raked her from head to foot, and Missie knew she had priced her new coat and her tired hat and cracked leather shoes, and understood exactly where she was on the human monetary scale. Mrs. Masters looked like the kind of woman who prided herself on never letting anyone put anything over on her, and her eyes were permanently suspicious.
“And what can you do?” she asked haughtily.
Missie quickly abandoned the idea of telling her about the sweatshops and said instead, “I don’t have much experience, ma’am, but I learned to sew from the nuns at school.” She crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping the nuns would forgive her the lie.
“Nuns, eh?” Mrs. Masters was suddenly interested, “Of course they’re still the best teachers. A lot of our girls are convent trained. Show me,” she commanded, holding out her hands, and Missie peeled off her gloves, wishing her hands didn’t look so red and chapped from all the washing and cleaning.
Mrs. Masters felt them and her nose wrinkled with disgust. “Too rough! We use only the finest, most expensive fabrics here: fragile silks and chiffons, laces, silver and bead embroidery. Why, these hands would wreck anything they came in touch with. No, I’m sorry, it’s just not good enough. Good-bye, Miss …”
“O’Bryan,” Missie finished forlornly. She waited for a moment, hoping for a reprieve, but Mrs. Masters had already turned her back and was examining fabric samples under the light from the window.
Joe, the old man guarding the back door, looked up from his Racing Form. “No luck?” he asked sympathetically. “Well, maybe next time. Hey, when you go by, tell Bill on the front door there’s no runner called Mawchop in the two-thirty at Palisades.”
Missie nodded. It was beginning to rain and she turned up her coat collar dispiritedly, wondering where she could try next. She turned the corner and walked to the front steps, remembering her message for the doorman.
“Hey, hey, you!” He came flying down the steps again. “You, drooping like a wishbone, come here!”
“I must have got your message wrong,” she said, lifting her head to look at him. “Joe says there is no Mawchop running in the two-thirty at Palisades.”
“Not Palisades, Saratoga, the idiot! But it’s not Joe I’m wantin’, it’s you. Madame sent me after ya. Seems like she asked Masters where ya were and said she wanted to see ya herself. Right away.”
Missie stared at him hopefully. “But why?”
He winked. “Who knows? Maybe she thinks you’re a lady in disguise and will buy her entire spring collection. Anyways, it’s up the front steps this time and into the salon. Hurry up now, ya don’t want to keep Madame Elise waiting if ya know what’s good for ya.”
Bill hurried her through the marble hall up a flight of purple-carpeted steps into the salon and Missie stared around her, awed. It was an enormous room with graceful arched windows draped in stiff lilac taffeta, walls paneled in mauve silk and silver sconces with the palest pink shades. There were soft gray carpets and groups of pretty gilt sofas and chairs upholstered in moiré silk in every shade from purple to lilac, and cascades of specially dyed matching flowers were displayed on carved giltwood console tables along the walls. Three crystal chandeliers were reflected in the banks of mirrors, and two small lilac-gray poodles were sleeping on a purple velvet cushion at Madame Elise’s side.
Madame Elise, wearing a cloud of violet chiffon, sat on a thronelike gold sofa at the far end of the room. “Viens, come here,” she called. “Quickly, child, I don’t have all day.” Her shrewd gray eyes narrowed as she watched Missie hurry toward her, stumbling nervously.
“Mon Dieu, les chausseurs—the shoes.” She groaned. “Take them off immédiatement. You will ruin my beautiful gray carpet!”
Missie slipped