flat.”
“And talked business all the time!” said Gregory, bitterly.
“Good lord, woman, what did you expect, directly after breakfast?”
“But you’ve just quoted it as—well, never mind.…” Gregory gave it up as hopeless. “I was only going to ask what you are doing about Deauville. Monsieur Georges is agitating and we can’t put it off much longer. Besides, we shall have to think about getting somebody else here.”
“I’ve decided to send Mrs. Best.”
“You’re not going to send me, after all?”
“How can I, and leave myself here without a stock-keeper and without you?” said Bevan, impatiently. “You’ll have to carry on with Miss Doon’s work as well as your own and we must train somebody to replace her. Irene Best can go to the new branch—you’ll have to run through the work very carefully with her, but she knows quite enough about it—and Rachel Gay can pick up her showroom routine easily enough.”
“Rachel Gay —to have charge of the showroom!”
“Yes, why not?”
She looked at him oddly. “Nothing. Only I should have thought that Victoria ought to have had it. Won’t it look rather like favouritism?”
“Rachel Gay is a favourite with everybody,” said Bevan, curtly. “Even in a crowd of catty women I don’t believe there’s a soul who’d grudge her promotion—Victoria David least of all.”
“It was only that Victoria came a little before Rachel; but still—you know best. Will you get someone to replace Irene?”
“Not till the summer’s over. We’re slack enough as it is, goodness knows, and we shall probably go bust with the Press screaming their heads off over this wretched affair.”
“I don’t think we shall,” said Gregory, shrewdly. “Clients don’t mind publicity of this sort—not our kind of clients, anyway. They’re keeping off now, till Doon’s buried and so on—they couldn’t very well do anything else; but if you ask me, as soon as the inquest’s over they’ll start pouring in, trying to get the girls to talk and tell them tit-bits; if we handle it carefully it may not be a bad thing for us in the end. Of course it’s very dreadful about Doon and I’m very sorry,” she added perfunctorily, “but one can’t help recognizing that a bit of a fillip is just what we need, right in the middle of August; and that’s what her death may give us.”
Bevan gave her his sideways glance and smiled into her hard grey eyes. “You’re a strange girl,” he said; “in some ways you’re as sentimental as a schoolgirl and in others you’re as hard as nails—but you certainly are a help to a man at a time like this. I don’t know what the devil I should have done without you. Now, look here: you must tell the girls what you’ve just been saying to me… go out and see them now. Afterwards, send Mrs. Best in here, and I shall want to see Rachel after that—don’t say what about. But first of all get them together and have a word with them; tell them that this publicity must be turned to advantage if they don’t want to ruin the shop—and find themselves all out of jobs. Arrange with them how to deal with questions—try to fix up an atmosphere of regret, and so on, without too much of the funereal. The whole thing is ghastly and depressing, of course, but there’s no point in our making it worse. Personally, I’m afraid it will kill us, for this season, anyway, but you may be right. I hope to God you are!”
Here was a mission after Gregory’s own heart and she held court at one end of the empty salon , under a crystal chandelier. To divest the interview of too much air of authority which she knew would be bitterly resented, she seated herself on a small gilt table and swung her legs in quite a jolly schoolgirl fashion; but alas! the sight of the scraggy ankles above her tight, neat shoes inspired nothing but a nervy revulsion, and the long neck with its prominent lump in the centre seemed to the girls to twist and turn like a
“And talked business all the time!” said Gregory, bitterly.
“Good lord, woman, what did you expect, directly after breakfast?”
“But you’ve just quoted it as—well, never mind.…” Gregory gave it up as hopeless. “I was only going to ask what you are doing about Deauville. Monsieur Georges is agitating and we can’t put it off much longer. Besides, we shall have to think about getting somebody else here.”
“I’ve decided to send Mrs. Best.”
“You’re not going to send me, after all?”
“How can I, and leave myself here without a stock-keeper and without you?” said Bevan, impatiently. “You’ll have to carry on with Miss Doon’s work as well as your own and we must train somebody to replace her. Irene Best can go to the new branch—you’ll have to run through the work very carefully with her, but she knows quite enough about it—and Rachel Gay can pick up her showroom routine easily enough.”
“Rachel Gay —to have charge of the showroom!”
“Yes, why not?”
She looked at him oddly. “Nothing. Only I should have thought that Victoria ought to have had it. Won’t it look rather like favouritism?”
“Rachel Gay is a favourite with everybody,” said Bevan, curtly. “Even in a crowd of catty women I don’t believe there’s a soul who’d grudge her promotion—Victoria David least of all.”
“It was only that Victoria came a little before Rachel; but still—you know best. Will you get someone to replace Irene?”
“Not till the summer’s over. We’re slack enough as it is, goodness knows, and we shall probably go bust with the Press screaming their heads off over this wretched affair.”
“I don’t think we shall,” said Gregory, shrewdly. “Clients don’t mind publicity of this sort—not our kind of clients, anyway. They’re keeping off now, till Doon’s buried and so on—they couldn’t very well do anything else; but if you ask me, as soon as the inquest’s over they’ll start pouring in, trying to get the girls to talk and tell them tit-bits; if we handle it carefully it may not be a bad thing for us in the end. Of course it’s very dreadful about Doon and I’m very sorry,” she added perfunctorily, “but one can’t help recognizing that a bit of a fillip is just what we need, right in the middle of August; and that’s what her death may give us.”
Bevan gave her his sideways glance and smiled into her hard grey eyes. “You’re a strange girl,” he said; “in some ways you’re as sentimental as a schoolgirl and in others you’re as hard as nails—but you certainly are a help to a man at a time like this. I don’t know what the devil I should have done without you. Now, look here: you must tell the girls what you’ve just been saying to me… go out and see them now. Afterwards, send Mrs. Best in here, and I shall want to see Rachel after that—don’t say what about. But first of all get them together and have a word with them; tell them that this publicity must be turned to advantage if they don’t want to ruin the shop—and find themselves all out of jobs. Arrange with them how to deal with questions—try to fix up an atmosphere of regret, and so on, without too much of the funereal. The whole thing is ghastly and depressing, of course, but there’s no point in our making it worse. Personally, I’m afraid it will kill us, for this season, anyway, but you may be right. I hope to God you are!”
Here was a mission after Gregory’s own heart and she held court at one end of the empty salon , under a crystal chandelier. To divest the interview of too much air of authority which she knew would be bitterly resented, she seated herself on a small gilt table and swung her legs in quite a jolly schoolgirl fashion; but alas! the sight of the scraggy ankles above her tight, neat shoes inspired nothing but a nervy revulsion, and the long neck with its prominent lump in the centre seemed to the girls to twist and turn like a
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