THE SHOP.
No; it was clear that nothing could be done with her bedroom. That
was a case for pure and unmitigated endurance. Mona felt thankful,
as she looked round in the morning sunshine, that she had not brought
with her any of the pictures and pots and artistic draperies without
which young people find it almost impossible to travel nowadays. The
heavy cumbrous furniture might possibly have been subdued into
insignificance; but any moderately æsthetic colour would have been
drowned in the harsh dominant note shrieked out by the old-world
wall-paper.
She adhered rigidly to her resolution that last night's "howl" was to
be the "beginning and the end of it"; but as she leaned back on the
stiff, hard pillows, her hands clasped behind her head, she looked
the whole situation fairly in the face. It was not an inviting
prospect by any means, but she was still young and enthusiastic, and
resolution was strong within her.
"Good workmen do good work in any sphere," she thought, "and bad
workmen do bad work in any sphere. It lies with myself. The game is
all in my own hands. Heaven help me!"
"I hope you slept well," said her cousin, as she entered the parlour
for breakfast.
"I never slept better in my life," said Mona cordially.
"That's right!" and Rachel, who had suffered sundry qualms of doubt
in the small hours of the morning, who had even drifted within a
measurable distance of the appalling heresy that blood might not
always and under all circumstances be thicker than water, was not a
little comforted and strengthened in her old belief. It did still
require an effort of faith to conceive that she would ever feel as
much at her ease with Mona as she had done with her niece: but then,
on the other hand, Mona was so very stylish--"quite the lady"; and if
she did not prove much of a hand at trimming bonnets, her manner was
certainly cut out for "standing behind the counter."
"Were you meaning to go out this forenoon?" asked Rachel.
"I will do whatever you like. I have not made any plans."
"I was thinking it's such a fine day I might go over to
Kirkstoun--it's only a mile and a quarter from here. Mrs Smith, a
friend of mine there, lost her mother a few weeks ago, and I've never
got to see her since. Her husband's cousin was married on my sister
Jane, so she won't think it very neighbourly my never going near her."
"How very unpleasant for Jane!" was Mona's first thought. "I hope
her husband's cousin was not very heavy;" but aloud she said--
"And you would like me to sit in the shop while you are away? I
will, with pleasure. It will be quite amusing."
"No, you don't need to sit in the shop. As like as not nobody will
be in; but you never can tell. You can sit at the window in the
front parlour, and watch the people passing, and if the bell rings
you'll be sure to hear it. If there does anybody come, Sally can
tell you the price of anything you don't know."
"Thank you."
"Of course, I might take you with me and lock the door, or leave
Sally to mind the shop. I'm sure Mrs Smith would be delighted to see
you at any other time, but she being in affliction like----"
"Oh, of course. She would much rather have you to herself. Anybody
would under the circumstances."
"That's just it. If the weather keeps up so that we can wear our
best things, I'll take you round to call on all my friends next week.
There's really no pleasure in it when you've to tuck up your dress
and take off your waterproof at every door."
"That is very true," said Mona cordially. "There is no pleasure in
wearing pretty things unless one can do it in comfort; and when I don
my best bib and tucker, I like to show them to advantage. I am
afraid, though," she added, with real regret, "I have not got a dress
you will care for much."
"Oh, I daresay you'll do very well. The great thing is to look the
lady."
They went on with breakfast in silence, but presently Rachel resumed--
"I daresay you'd like to go out on the braes, or down on the beach
this afternoon. Now I wonder if there is any one could go with you?
There's Mary Jane Anderson across the way; she's always ready to
oblige me, but they've a dressmaker in the house just now."
"Oh, I think we won't trouble Miss Anderson this afternoon, thank
you, dear. I love to explore new places for myself, and I will give
you all my original impressions when I come in. I can't tell you
what a treat it is to me to live by the sea. I am sure I should find
it company enough at any time."
"Well, it's a great thing to be easily pleased. My dear"--Rachel
hesitated--"if anybody should come in, you won't say anything about
your meaning to be a doctor?"
Mona was much amused. "I should never even think of such a thing,"
she said. "You may depend upon me, cousin Rachel, not to mention the
fact to any one so long as I am with you."
They rose from the table, and after a great deal of preparation
Rachel set out in her "best things," without fear of rain.
"Mind you make yourself comfortable," she said, reopening the door
after she had closed it behind her. "I daresay you'll like the
rocking-chair, and you'll find some bound volumes of the _Sunday at
Home_ in the parlour."
"Thank you," said Mona; "I do like a rocking-chair immensely."
The first thing she did, however, when her cousin was gone, was to
get half-a-dozen strong pieces of firewood from Sally, and prop open
all the windows in the house. Then she proceeded to make a prolonged
and leisurely survey of the shop.
Accustomed as she was to shopping in London, where the large and
constant turnover, the regular "clearing sales," and the unremitting
competition, combine to keep the goods fresh and modern, where the
smallest crease or dust-mark on any article is a sufficient reason
for a substantial reduction in its price, she was simply appalled at
the crushed, dusty, expensive, old-fashioned goods that formed the
greater part of her cousin's stock-in-trade.
"I shudder to think what these things may have cost to begin with,"
she said, straightening herself up at last with a heavy sigh; "but I
should like to see the person who would take the whole thing, lock,
stock, and barrel, in exchange for a five-pound note!"
She had just come to this conclusion when the shop-bell rang, and an
elderly woman came in.
"Good morning," said Mona pleasantly.
The woman stared. She did not wish to be rude, but on the other hand
she did not wish to be ridiculous, and such gratuitous civility from
a stranger, in the discharge of an everyday matter of business,
seemed to her nothing short of that; so she was silent.
"A yard o' penny elastic," she said, when she had sufficiently
recovered from her surprise to speak.
Mona bowed, and took down the box from its place on the shelf.
"If ye've no' got onything better than ye had the last time,"
continued the woman, looking suspiciously at the battered pasteboard
box, "I'll no trouble ye. It lookit weel eneuch, but it a' gaed
intae bits the meenit it was touched."
Mona examined the contents of the box critically.
"I certainly cannot recommend this," she said. "It's too old.
We"--she suppressed a laugh that nearly choked her, as she found the
familiar expression on her lips--"we shall be getting some in next
week."
"It's twa month sin' I got the last," said the woman severely. "It
doesna seem vera business-like tae be sellin' the same stuff yet."
"That is true," said Mona frankly. "It must have been overlooked. I
suppose there are other shops in the town where you can get what you
want. If not, you can depend on getting it here this day week. Can
I show you anything else?" "Not that there is a single thing in the
shop I can show with much satisfaction to myself," she added mentally.
The woman frowned.
"I want some knittin'-needles the size o' that," she said, laying a
half-finished stocking on the counter.
Mona drew a long breath of relief. Knitting-needles could not go bad
like elastic; and if they were rusty, she could rub them up with
emery-paper.
She opened the box with considerable satisfaction, but to her dismay
she found needles of all sizes mixed up in inextricable confusion,
and the bit of notched metal with which she had seen shopkeepers
determine the size was missing. She knew this exacting old woman
would never allow her to depend on her eye, and she hunted here,
there, and everywhere, in vain. She preserved her calmness
outwardly, but her forehead was moist with anxiety, when at length,
mere by good luck than good guidance, she opened the cash-drawer and
found in it the missing gauge. Poor Mona! She experienced the same
sense of relief that she had sometimes felt in the anatomy-room, when
a nerve, of which she had given up all hope, appeared sound and
entire in her dissection.
With some difficulty she found four needles of the same size, and
wrapping them neatly in paper, she gave them to her customer. She
was proceeding to open the door, but the old woman seemed to have
something more to say.
"I aye like to gie my custom to Miss Simpson," she said, "But what
like way is this tae manage? And ye seem tae be new tae the business
yersel'."
"I am," said Mona, "but I am very willing to learn. If you will have
a little patience, you will find that in time I shall improve."
She spoke with absolute sincerity. She had forgotten that her life
stretched out beyond the limits of this narrow shop; she felt herself
neither more nor less than what she was at the moment--a very
inefficient young shopkeeper.
"Weel, there's nae sayin'. I'll be back this day week for that
elastic;" and Mona bowed her first customer out.
She stood for a minute or two, with her eyes fixed on the floor, in a
brown study.
"Well," she said at last, "if any lady or gentleman thinks that
shopkeeping is child's-play, I am prepared to show that lady or
gentleman a thing or two!"
She had scarcely seated herself behind the counter, when the bell
rang again, and this time the customer appeared to be a servant-girl.
In spite of her tawdry dress, Mona took a fancy to her face at once,
the more so as it did not seem to bespeak a very critical mind. In
fact, it was the customer who was ill at ease on this occasion, and
who waited shyly to be spoken to.
"What can I do for you?" asked Mona.
"I want a new haat."
Only for one moment had Mona thoughts of referring her to the nearest
clergyman. Then she realised the situation.
"Oh!" she said. This was still a heavy responsibility. "Do you know
exactly what you want, or would you like to see what we can suggest?"
"I'd like tae see what ye've got."
"Is the hat for week-days or for Sundays?"
"For the Sabbath. Miss Simpson had some big red roses in the window
a while back. I thocht ane or twa o' them wad gang vera weel wi'
this feather."
Mona took the small paper parcel in her hand, and gave her attention
as completely to its contents as she had ever done to a microscopic
section. It had been an ostrich-feather at some period of its
existence, but it bore more resemblance to a herring-bone now.
"Yes," she said tentatively. "The feather would have to be done up.
But don't you think it is rather a pity to have both flowers and
feathers in one hat?"
The girl looked aghast. This was heresy indeed.
"The feather's gey thin by itsel'," she said, "but if it was half
covered up wi' the flowers, it'd look more dressed like."
Mona looked at the feather, then at the girl, and then she relapsed
into profound meditation.
"Are you a servant?" she asked presently.
"Ay."
"Here in Borrowness?"
"Na; I've come in for the day tae see my mither. I'm scullery-maid
at the Towers."
"What a pass things must have come to," thought Mona, "that even a
scullery-maid should be allowed to dress like this in a good house!"
"The Towers!" she said aloud. "You have been very lucky to get into
such a place. Why, if you do your best to learn all you can, you
will be a first-rate cook some day."
The girl beamed.
"You know," Mona went on reflectively, "a really first-class London
servant would think it beneath her to wear either feathers or
flowers. She would have a neat little bonnet like this"--she picked
out one of the few desirable articles in the shop--"and she would
have it plainly trimmed with a bit of good ribbon or velvet--so!"
She twisted a piece of velvet round the front of the bonnet and put
it on her own head. Surmounting her trim gown, with its spotless
collar and cuffs, the bonnet looked very well, and to Mona's great
surprise it appealed even to the crude taste of her customer.
"It's gey stylish," said the girl, "an' I suppose it'd come a deal
cheaper?"
"No," said Mona. "It would not come any cheaper at the moment, if
you get a good straw; but it would last as long as half-a-dozen hats
with flowers and feathers. You see, it's like this," she went on,
leaning forward on the counter in her earnestness, "you want to look
like the ladies at the Towers. Well, it is very natural that you
should; we all want to look like the people we admire. The ladies
have good things, and plenty of them; but that requires money, and
those of us who have not got much money must be content to be like
them in one way or the other,--we must either have good things or
plenty of things. A _common_ servant buys cheap satins, and flowers
and laces that look shabby in a week. No one mistakes her for a
lady, and she does not look like a good servant. A really
first-class maid, as I said before, gets a few good simple things,
that wear a long time, and she looks--well--a great deal more like a
lady than the other does!"
The girl hesitated. "I daursay I'd get mair guid o' the bannet," she
said.
"I am sure you would. But I don't want you to decide in a hurry.
Take time to think it over."
"Na, I'll tak' the bannet."
Then ensued a discussion of details, and at last the girl prepared to
go.
"And when you are getting a new dress," said Mona, "get one that will
go well with the bonnet--a plain dark-blue or black serge. You will
never tire of that, and you have no idea how nice you will look in
it."
The girl looked admiringly at Mona's own simple gown, and went away
smiling.
"If all my customers were like that," thought Mona, "I should be
strongly inclined to pitch my tent in Borrowness for the rest of my
natural life."
Truly, it never rains but it pours. Scarcely had Mona closed the
door on customer Number Two, when customer Number Three appeared, and
customer Number Three was a man.
"Good morning," he said courteously.
"Good morning, sir."
"I wonder if you have got such a thing as a really good piece of
india-rubber."
Mona took some in from the window, but it was hard and brittle.
"That is of no use," she said, "but I have some more upstairs."
A few months before, in Tottenham Court Road, she had, as Lucy
expressed it, "struck a rich vein of india-rubber," pliable, elastic,
and neatly bevelled into dainty pieces. Mona had been busy with some
fine histological drawings at the time, and had laid in a small
stock, a sample of which she now produced.
"I think you will find that quite satisfactory," she said, quietly
putting pencil and paper before him.
He tried it.
"Why, I never had such a piece of india-rubber in my life before," he
said, looking up in surprise, and their eyes met with one of those
rare sympathetic smiles which are sometimes called forth by a common
appreciation of even the most trivial things.
"I am taking advantage of a holiday to make some diagrams," he went
on, "and, when one is in a hurry, bread is a very poor makeshift for
india-rubber."
_Diagrams!_ The word sounded like an old friend. Mona quite longed
to know what they were--botanical? anatomical? physiological? She
merely assented in a word, however, and with another courteous "Good
morning" he went away.
"A nice shopkeeper I make," she said scornfully. "Firstly, I promise
to get in new goods without knowing that the proceeding is
practicable. Secondly, I undertake to make a bonnet, which will
doubtless prove to be entirely beyond my powers. Thirdly, I give an
estimate for said bonnet, which won't allow sixpence for the trouble
of trimming. Fourthly, I sell a piece of my own india-rubber without
so much as a farthing of profit. No, my dear girl, it must be
frankly admitted that, on to-day's examination, you have made
something like minus fifty per cent!"