“As for your mother’s health, Maggie,” said Molly, who was no longer pacing, so that she should hold one spot and stare at her friend with a piercing gaze, “most of her troubles are self-inflected. I suspect she makes herself sick for the sole purpose of sending for my father. But he never minds it. Perhaps you haven’t noticed it, Maggie, but they are in love.”
“I will not dispute the fact that my mother is the occasional hypochondriac.”
“And it is a terrible thing, as well, to lose one’s sisters. You know I too lost my own sister only two years ago.”
Maggie dipped her eyes in melancholy memory. “They say that I may have lost a brother as well — that my sister Octavia had a twin. Once when Mamma was delirious with fever, she muttered something to this effect. But then she later disavowed it.”
“Whether it be two siblings or three, the sadness is the same, Maggie. It is a sadness that wants to be overcome by the joy of my father’s ascendance in your mother’s heart and in your heart too, if you will but allow it. And as for my father, I cannot tell you how it stabs my own heart for you to say the things you say about him.”
Now Carrie, the peacemaker, interceded: “Maggie isn’t saying she loathes your father, Molly. Only that there are aspects to his character to which she cannot comfortably reconcile herself.”
“Being a quack and a fraud,” jerked out Maggie, “is not an ‘aspect of character.’ It is a crime.”
“He is not a quack and a fraud!” cried Molly. “He is merely uncredentialed.”
Maggie replied in a sulky under voice: “I would rather he not be uncredentialed. For without the proper documents, he will never make enough money to provide for my mother as she deserves.”
Molly’s mouth fell into a gape. “Then that is what this boils down to. That my father isn’t rich enough for your mother.”
“Not precisely,” replied Maggie. “But it would certainly help matters if he were more prosperous. It would counter a number of deficiencies on his side.”
Carrie wasn’t certain if it was Molly whose fingers went first to pull Maggie’s hair, or Maggie who clawed at Molly’s in defensive anticipation. But the outcome was the same.
And it was all rather appalling.
Chapter Seven
San Francisco, April 1906
Miss Colthurst looked up at the clock on the wall and tutted.
11:20.
She summoned her head salesclerk in ribbons, Jane Higgins, and addressed her fretfully: “Any sign of them?”
Jane shook her head.
“It’s nearly lunch,” said the harried floor-walker. “I’ve had to pull two girls from Hosiery and another from Misses’ Ready-to-Wear. This leaves us short in both of those departments. But that isn’t my greatest concern. I’m worried something serious might have happened to them.”
Jane was looking at the clock herself. It hung over the pass-through to Men’s Furnishings and carried the name of the department store in bold script: Pemberton, Day & Co. “I’m a little worried myself, Miss Colthurst. When Mag telephoned to me this morning, she said they didn’t anticipate being too late, but that was over two hours ago.”
“Surely there’s some logical explanation, though I must say that this just isn’t like them — and all three at the same time!”
Jane glanced at the counter directly behind her. There was a customer standing there looking around for someone to wait on her. Her hat was so ridiculously aigretted that Jane could not stop herself from saying, “Let me help this woman with the private aviary, and then I’ll tell you what I think is going on.”
Miss Colthurst shook her head. “You needn’t bother. Miss Thrasher has given me her theory, which will probably be the same as yours. See to the customer. Miss Thrasher! Miss Thrasher, come over here! I’d like a private word, my dear.”
Ruth, who was working behind the Gloves counter nearby, pushed open the little gate next to her and was at her supervisor’s side in that next instant. Vivian Colthurst was standing in the middle of the Ladies’ Apparel showroom. Cash girls were flying by on their roller skates and giving the room the feeling of a festive roller rink. “Yes, Miss Colthurst?”
“I was going to — why, that’s a lovely lavender tie. Did you get it here?”
Ruth smiled. “I did. Thank you for noticing, Miss C.”
Miss Colthurst winked. “When it’s only the two of us, Ruth, you may call me by my Christian name.”
“Yes, of course, Vivian,” said Ruth, as Miss Colthurst straightened her favorite shop girl’s necktie with solicitous hands. “Carrie — Miss Hale—saw it on the bargain table and thought it would go very nicely with this shirtwaist.”
“It does indeed. Our Miss Hale has impeccable taste. With the lavender and the pink, Ruth, you are looking quite hydrangeaish today.”
Ruth blushed. “I never know exactly how I look unless somebody tells me. I don’t have that feminine knack for the harmonizing of apparel that most of my female co-workers have.”
“Which is why I keep you in Gloves where you can do the least harm!” teased the floor-walker, winking again, this time more playfully.
“You wished to see me about something?”
“Oh yes.” Miss Colthurst patted her slightly unraveling pompadour into submission. “Ruth, oh my good Lord, this is absolutely the worst possible day for any act of truancy on the part of your three friends. You see, I hadn’t wished to spread it about because it was only a select number of you girls whom I intended to recommend, but circumstances now require me to make a clean breast of it.”
“A clean breast of what?”
“Oh bother, you have a customer.”
“Oh, it’s only Mrs. Withers. I’ll be with you in a moment, Mrs. Withers.”
“Hum. Mrs. Withers.” Miss Colthurst nodded pregnantly while pursing her lips.
Ruth drew closer for the purpose of conveying a confidence: “Nearly every other morning I have to contend with that fool woman for longer than I can stand it. She tries on the black lisles and then she tries on the imitation suedes and then she tries on the dogskins, and then just as I’m ready to scream, she ambles off without buying a single pair. I think shopping without buying is her favorite pastime.”
Miss Colthurst shook her head. “It isn’t her pastime, Ruth. It’s her job. She’s a private shopper for I. Magnin’s.”
“A pri—?”
“A spy! She thinks she’s clever and has been able to hide this fact from us. But everybody knows. Everybody except, apparently, you, Ruth. And so now so do you. So let’s just make her wait until Satan puts on woolens, shall we?” Ruth noted a mischievous twinkle in her supervisor’s eye; she smiled and nodded conspiratorially.
Now Miss Colthurst sighed…rather noisily.
“I have had much better mornings. My toothache has returned, which always puts me in a dreadful mood.” Miss Colthurst took a deep breath. “Here’s the situation: there are five men due here early this afternoon from the Katz Advertising Agency. Mr. Pemberton has fired the somnolent Mr. Leeds, our advertising manager, and given the wide-awake Katz agency our account. That’s the way things are being done with the big stores these days — even stores without advertising managers who’ve been known to fall asleep while standing fully erect. There is to be no more internal advertising, but there will be advertising, and a great deal of it, thanks to the vigorous efforts of the smart young men who run that enterprising concern. Well, the agency wants to start things off with a big bang. It wants to place photo advertisements in the Chronicle and the Call and the Examiner, and in several magazines that have a large readership throughout northern California. It’s quite an outlay of money for the store, but Mr. Pemberton is convinced it will be worth it, since sales have been in such a terrible slump lately. You there! Mrs. Withers! You cannot be putting your hands behind the counter like that. The absolute nerve of that woman. Miss Guinter, would you please wait on Miss Withers…before I lose the last ounce of my sanity right here in the middle of — what was I saying?”