Dorinda knew quite well. She wasn’t Dorinda Brown-she was an Appanage, an outward and visible sign of the Oakleys’ financial standing. They could no more go out to dinner with a shabby secretary than with shabby liveries or an elderly broken-down car. Her Scottish pride stiffened.
And then she became aware that Mrs. Oakley was frightened. She was actually leaning forward, and the hand on the arm of her chair shook.
“Miss Brown-please don’t be offended. You are quite a young girl-why should you mind if we give you a frock?”
A real person had emerged from behind the frills. Not a very grown-up person-not at all accustomed to letting go of its props, and very shaky without them. Dorinda’s sweet temper reasserted itself. She said,
“But of course, Mrs. Oakley-it’s very kind of you.”
When Mrs. Oakley had gone to bed she rang up Justin Leigh.
“Look here, I’m coming up to town tomorrow… Yes, I know you thought you’d got rid of me-I did too. But you haven’t. There’s going to be a reprieve-or perhaps you’ll feel as if it was a relapse.”
Justin’s voice sounded cool and amused.
“I don’t know that I should go as far as that. Is this leading up to the fact that you will lunch with me tomorrow if I press you very hard?”
“Yes-at one o’clock. Because I’m being sent up to buy a dress to dine out in on Saturday, and if we lunch together I can show you what I’ve got, and if you thought it wouldn’t do, I could go back and change it.”
“Nothing doing. I don’t know where you’re in the habit of lunching with Tip and Buzzer, but in my high-toned circles you can’t try things on between courses.”
Dorinda gave a sort of wail.
“Justin, sometimes I do think you are a beast!”
“Far from it-I am a noble hero. I shall wangle my lunch-hour between twelve and one and meet you at-where are you going?”
“Mrs. Oakley said any one of these…” She read from a list of names.
“All right, we’ll take the big shop first. It will be easier for you to wait about for me there-let’s say the glove counter. A connoisseur’s eye can then direct your choice. What time do you get up?”
Dorinda was thrilled.
“Oh, Justin-will you really? I get up at half past ten. But that doesn’t matter-I’ve got things to do for Mrs. Oakley. I can put in the time all right-in fact I shall want it. I’m to be at Mr. Oakley’s office at a quarter past two, and he’ll drive me down. It will be more peaceful than it was today-at least I hope so.”
“Why, what happened today?”
She began to tell him about Marty and her brooch. If she made an amusing story of it, perhaps Justin would laugh. It appeared quite soon that he wouldn’t. He actually sounded angry as he exclaimed,
“Your great-grandmother’s brooch!”
“The only one I’ve got,” said Dorinda ruefully. “I shall have to buy a gold safety-pin to fasten the things that just have to be fastened. I know where I can get one for seven-and-six.”
“Then it won’t be gold.”
Dorinda giggled.
“You’re so lordly. It won’t be real of course-only rolled.”
Justin lost his temper quite suddenly. She had never heard him do it before, and it surprised her very much. The odd thing was that she heard it go, like something breaking at the other end of the line. He couldn’t have banged a door, but there was that kind of effect about it. After which he said in quite a violent tone, “I never heard such nonsense in my life!” and jammed the receiver back. Dorinda went to bed a good deal heartened.
Chapter VII
Miss Maud Silver was choosing wool for a set of infant’s vests. After the khaki and Air Force yarn she had knitted up during the war, to say nothing of useful grey stockings for her niece Ethel’s three boys, it was a real pleasure to handle these soft blush-pink balls-all ready wound, and so much better than you could wind it yourself. Ethel’s eldest brother, who had been abroad for so long, had come home some months ago, and his wife was expecting her first child. Quite an excitement in the family, because they had been married for ten years and the empty nursery had begun to have a discouraging effect upon Dorothy. Miss Silver felt that something rather special in the way of vests would be appropriate. This pale pink wool was a most charming colour, and so soft and light. She paid for her purchase, and stood waiting for her change and the parcel.
The wool was heaped in a profusion of delightful shades upon a large three-tiered stand where four departments met. Straight down the way she was facing there were stockings, gloves, handkerchiefs-behind her a long vista of inexpensive gowns. To the right, past a stand festooned with umbrellas, she had a view of pull-overs and knitwear. Whilst to her left a display of glass flowers, bead chains, and necklets conducted the eye to the millinery department. Miss Silver thought it all looked very bright and pretty. It was nice to see the shops filled up again after the lean years when even the cleverest window-dressing would not make things go round.
Someone else was admiring the chains and necklets. There were little bunches of flowers in glass and bright enamel- violets, daisies, a spray of holly, a spray of mimosa. The girl who was looking at them lingered over the mimosa. She had rather bright golden-brown hair, with eye-lashes of exactly the same colour, and she was wearing a loose coat of honey-coloured tweed. It was rather shabby, but it had been well cut, and it suited her. Miss Silver thought the mimosa spray would look very well on it. The girl evidently thought so too. She looked, and looked again, and then with a regretful sigh prepared to pass on.
It was just at that moment that a number of people began to stream forward from the stocking counter in the direction of Millinery. To do this they had to pass the girl in the tweed coat. She became entangled amongst them. Miss Silver watched with interest and attention. The attention became very alert. She saw the girl in the tweed coat disengage herself and move in the direction of the handkerchief counter. Miss Silver observed a small dark woman in the group emerge upon the other side of it and go up to the assistant behind the counter. She appeared to say something in rather a hurried manner, after which she hastened in the wake of her companions and was lost to view.
Miss Silver turned to receive her parcel and her change. She then hurried in the direction of Handkerchiefs. She was not in time. Dorinda Brown, with an expression of astonishment upon her face, was being shepherded down the aisle by a very imposing shopwalker. As they turned first to the left, and then to the right, and then to the left again, this look changed to one of frowning intensity. She didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t like it. Why should she be asked to step round to the manager’s office? She didn’t want to see him, and she could think of no possible reason why he should want to sec her.
They arrived at a door of marvellously polished wood, so bright that you could see your face in it, and the next moment Dorinda was walking into a very grand office with a large and quite bald-headed man sitting at a table and looking coldly at her through horn-rimmed glasses, while a voice from behind her said,
“Shoplifting, sir.”
A wave of indignant scarlet rushed right up to the roots of Dorinda’s hair. You may have the sweetest temper in the world, but to be called a thief by a perfectly strange shopwalker is just pure dynamite. The temper went sky-high, and Dorinda stamped her foot and said, “How dare you!”
The manager appeared to be completely unimpressed. He said in what Dorinda considered a very offensive voice, “Will you hand the things over, or will you be searched?” The voice over the top of Dorinda’s head said, “I expect they’ll be in the pockets of her coat.” At this moment Miss Silver walked into the room without knocking-a dowdy little woman who looked as if she might have been somebody’s governess during the early years of the century. She wore a serviceable black cloth coat which had only done two winters, and a little yellow fur tippet of uncertain ancestry. Her hat, which had been new in the autumn, was of the kind which looks the same age for about ten years and then falls to pieces. It was made of black felt with a purple velvet starfish in front and a niggle of black and purple ribbon running all round the crown. Under the hat Miss Silver’s neatly coiled mousy hair preserved the early Edwardian fashion. An Alexandra fringe in a net cage surmounted her neat elderly features and the small greyish hazel eyes which, according to Detective Sergeant Abbott of Scotland Yard, always saw a little more than there was to see.