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  Shall I speak to her and suggest a night school?

  MEW

  BT/MEW

  EVERYMAN’S STORES

  For use in inter-departmental correspondence only

  From  G Grant

  To Staff Supervisor

  October 9th, 1931

  SubjectJunior Clerk, 537 (H Fane), Book Floor, Clerical

  Memo

  Certainly not. We have too many shorthand typists and not enough intelligent assistants.

  When Miss Pim returns to her duties, arrange for Miss Fane to have a few weeks on the Selling Staff in the Book Department. She might then go on to the Library.

  Please obtain reports on her work from time to time and pass them to me.

  MGG

  SN/MGG

  23 Burford Street

  October 11th

  Dearest Family,

  What’s all this about my being Alone in London? What have you been reading? And what made you think of those possible friends for me who might be lurking, unfriended, in Everyman’s? I’m not in the least solitary, you know, except on purpose.

  But I like being alone now and then. Not morbidly, just quite simply, like Kipling’s cat. It’s a useful, inexpensive taste. It’d be so inconvenient to be like one of the few young people in the Minerva who spent every Friday evening in terror that she’d be left alone for an hour over the week-end. The whole lounge used to echo with her miserable telephoning.

  No, I haven’t been to see Aunt Bertha. And I’m most certainly not going just at present. She doesn’t know I’m in London. And I’d be obliged if you’d not tell her. I haven’t the sort of hat that’d keep me in countenance in Cadogan Square. And even if I had the hat, no coat and gloves and shoes, and handbag and umbrella would coincide enough for a poor relation to visit a very rich one without discomfort.

  There are lots of ex-Oxford people in London, you know, and I see them occasionally, more often by accident than by telephone. And, anyway, I know they’re there if I feel social. So you needn’t worry.

  About my room. I think it’s a successful change. There’s so much more fun in being on one’s own than herded, and as a place it’s amusing. Warm, you know, because it’s not very big, and odd because it’s below the street level, though it’s not a basement, of course, because I have a perfectly good window that opens. It’s wire-­netted to prevent cats from coming in, and that’s a blessing. Much as I adore cats, I don’t find myself drawn to the average London slum-stinker. (Not that Burford Street’s a slum. Far from it: it’s a most respectable, clerkly neighbourhood.)

  Basil says that he spent a very interesting evening at University Close this week. Do I recognise the festival described in Thursday’s letter, when Daddy and Basil held a two-hour discussion on pre-Hellenic civilisations and you thought out three ways of arranging the drawing­-room furniture when the spring-cleaning came round?

  The water for my hot-bottle is boiling, so I’ll stop. Notice how I surround myself with all the comforts of home.

  Very much love to you both,

  Hilary

  23 Burford Street

  October 12th

  Really Early

  (Before getting up.)

  Darling,

  How sweet of you to write at once. Yes, it would be grand if I’d really impressed the Minor Prophet favourably, wouldn’t it? But so far he’s vouchsafed no sign.

  I was slightly cowed by your lecture on efficiency. But, you know, I am efficient in important things: it’s only that I do so grudge spending energy on mechanical work. I have to spend so much more of it than other people, and I do the work so much worse in the end. It’s galling, to say the least of it, to do badly what an elementary school child half my age would do really well. So I try. I try incredibly hard, to be quite honest. I see that labels have to be well written – by somebody. Only I doubt if that person is – or can be – me. I’m getting quite good, though, at Neat Printing.

  It’s when the future seems to present an unending vista of neatly printed labels that I quail. However …

  It’s an enormous relief to know that your cold’s better. I was horror-struck yesterday by the thought that it might be turning into flu: I remembered Mistress MacQueen and the two husbands she had buried. So easy just to let you slip away with pneumonia.

  It’s a mercy that Arnold Grieves is back; much less dreary and laborious for you. And I’m glad that he likes your book so much. But I don’t think you ought to give up golf at the week-end even for the blessedly important final proofs of The Prime Factors in Pre-Natal Metabolism. You don’t get enough fresh air as it is. (Though heaven knows that nobody’s practice is further from his precept than a really eminent surgeon’s.) What you really want, of course, is a secretary – but I don’t suggest myself for the job. You need Mechanical Efficiency in the highest degree. Why not find someone who will type very fast and set out your figures regimentally for you? You’ve no idea what a comfort it would be. Wait till I come to Edinburgh. I’ll find you an unprepossessing pearl.

  The main point is that I implore you not to overwork. And – but it’s after eight o’clock, and I ought not only to be up and eating my breakfast, but actually on my way to the bus stop.

  I’ll finish this later, when I’ve written another thousand labels.

  Bless you.

  (I shall be quite IMPOSSIBLY LATE …)

  Later – I was. And my name went down in a book which Mr Simpson bore away with him, I believe to check with the clocking machine’s damning record. I fancy there’s a penalty, but so far Nemesis has not shown herself.

  EVERYMAN’S STORES

  For use in inter-departmental correspondence only

  From Staff Supervisor

  To Clerk537, H Fane

  Book Floor

  October 12th, 1931

  SubjectTransfer to Selling Staff

  Memo

  Miss Pim, whom you are replacing, will be returning to her duties on Wednesday, October 14th.

  You will then be required to serve in the Book Department.

  Kindly see Sister Smith about your transfer to Selling Staff and arrange for a staff dress (Blue, model B.501 Junior Saleswoman) to be put through on a rush order.

  Also note that your number will be changed from C.537 to S. (T) 801.

  MEW

  BT/MEW

  Hilary to Basil (Contd.)

  23 Burford Street

  My dear, things have happened. Oh, nothing spectacular. And quite unconnected with the Minor Prophet’s visitation, I’m afraid. Merely what they call a ‘Meemo’ (with the ‘e’ long as in the pronoun). It comes from the Staff Supervisor: it says I must go and sell books next week, and therefore must have a new dress and a new number. All quite willy-nilly, of course.

  I don’t object, particularly. After all, I can’t go lower (unless they make me a cleaner and tell me to scrub floors). So let’s suppose I’m going higher. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for the upheaval, though, except that the Appendicitis Case is coming back after six weeks exactly, as you said. Anyway, they haven’t sacked me in consequence. Which is something.

  And I escaped from my labels for an hour this morning. Half of the time went in waiting to see Sister, who says that she ‘hasn’t the ghost of a notion why they’re changing me and wouldn’t tell me if she had. The idea!’ And she did wish I’d try to be a bit more sociable. She wouldn’t forbid me lunching out, if I must do it, but why didn’t I use the Canteen more? I’d get a real good diet there and the other girls would help to take my attention off myself. She knew what it was: I felt a bit out of things. But I must be careful not to give myself airs, though I might come from a better home than most. And I ought to have an arch support put in my left shoe, otherwise my foot would be flat in a week. And before I went into the Shop would I please to kindly have my hair trimmed and my stockings drawn tight with the seam straight. I gather that a hole in either heel is a capital offence. Heaven help me, Basil. I shan’t survive
a week.

  Sister Smith inspects the Selling Staff from time to time; I suppose to gauge the depth of rouge on the cheeks and the flatness of the feet. All my points went down again to-day on another card, and the date on which I’m to get my new dress went with them. They take two days to make it. Rush Order. And in six months, Sister says, I’ll be due for another. ‘It may go for another three if you’re careful.’ I doubt it. If I don’t spill my tea over it, someone else will.

  But Sister Smith said it was my duty to the firm to get the last inch of wear out of that dress. Then, before I could be expected to agree, someone was dragged up to her door in a faint. She said: ‘Dear, dear. That’s the third this morning. This heat is not seasonable. Will you kindly move so that I can get at the Medicine Cupboard.’ So I went.

  I spent most of my lunch hour over that dress. (Staff Discount is only to be had between nine and ten or one and two.) I walked into the Inexpensive Gown Department on my way out (in my hat and coat) and said that I wanted something very special, because I didn’t know how to begin about the Staff Dress. They fetched a Sales Manager to me, quite in a flutter. (Marvellous to be called ‘Moddom’ again, Basil!) But it didn’t last. When she found out what I wanted she wasn’t at all pleased. Apparently it damages the dignity to entertain employees unawares. She gave me just one look and called the youngest child in the department, indicating me with a little finger. And sailed away.

  ‘Bitch!’ said the child when she was approximately out of earshot. ‘That Miss Methuen’d slit your throat as soon’s look at you when her corns hurt her. Don’t you mind. Bust … 34. The things she does you’d not believe. Lift your arms, dear. Waist … 26. Here, you’re not breathing.’ Then we started to giggle, and the Sales Manager loomed up round one of the show-cases. The child went on muttering things which may have been measurements into her Sales Book.

  

  ‘Bitch!’ said the child

  My dress was put down as S. (T) 801. Model B. (Rush Order.) Royal Blue. Junior Assistant. I chose the pattern out of the three possible ones. All hideous – jail-plain. Decorative effects are reserved for Senior Saleswomen and you can’t command black satin and ruffles on the tail till you’re a Sales Manager at least. I’ve to go for a fitting to-morrow. (In the lunch hour.)

  The child said I’d be bound to find the life hard on the feet. ‘It’s something cruel, the first week or two. You try Radol. Sit with your feet in boiling water for ten minutes and it helps a lot.’ (Kill or cure, presumably.) ‘You’ll have a bit of bother with your bills, I should think too.’

  I shall. Sales Books have five carbons which must all be shot in different directions, customer, cashier, departmental records … goodness knows where else. The customer is the only obvious person, and she’s apt to crunch it up and leave it underfoot for you to pick up. (I’ve done it so often, in my customer days. But never again.) Then the child stopped in mid-sentence and said she mustn’t waste any more of my time. Actually, she’d seen a customer, and fairly raced across the room to get ahead of the other visible assistant, who was a slow starter. Commission mounts up so.

  So I’ve only got two more days of label-writing, Basil. Can you believe it? And I may be a very good saleswoman and Rise Rapidly. Anything may happen, after all. Turn again, Whittington!45

  Yours, on the ladder,

  Hilary

  PS – What about buying your medical books from Everyman’s? The postage would be a mere trifle. And what is postage compared with our willing, expert service?

  PPS – Mrs Pillington-Smythe has renewed her subscription. There!

  23 Burford Street

  October 14th

  Darling,

  The first day’s over. I’m derelict. My feet are seething in that bowl of Radol and my head is bloody but unbowed.

  

  I started off, in my new Staff Dress and reached the Book Department, locally known as ‘the shop’, radiating brightness and efficiency (according to my lights).

  It was disappointing to find that a day in the shop begins with a duster, just like a day of being Hopper’s girl. And Mr Salt is there to see that you use it. He seemed disposed to be kind to me, though. Which is lucky, as he’s quite an important person, nearly as important as fat Mr Hibbert who is really in charge of the department but spends most of his time sitting in a corner pencilling catalogues. Mr Hibbert’s rather reticent at present, having just had his front teeth out. I always wondered what people did during the interregnum between sets. Mr Hibbert just carries on in a Trappist sort of way.

  So it was Mr Salt who did the honours. It seems that it’s one of his jobs to wield the pencil when underlings call out ‘Sign, please’. He demonstrated the technique for my benefit behind the Children’s Fiction. There’s more in it than you’d think. One mustn’t shout. But one must be heard. ‘Clear, not raucous, Miss Fane. All a question of voice-production.’ He was really very kind, but rather like the White Knight46. You know, lots of patents; ways of fitting carbons47 into Sales Books at speed, working out those nightmarish sales summaries, and finding out the price of second-hand books by the hieroglyphics inside the cover. (T/R means 8/6, Basil. The Key Word’s Palmerston48 in our shop.)

  Then he walked me up and down pointing out landmarks: the Cash Desk, the Pocket Editions, the Latest Fiction, the Select Books of Travel, and the two discreet shelves for the classics and Marie Stopes49. Somebody came up to say that one of his sales girls was ill (had gone to bed with a doctor’s certificate was the term used). But at that point a customer came in: Mr Salt intercepted her: Mr Hibbert took off his bowler. The day had begun.

  And how!

  

  I sold books: lots of books. It’s easy enough just to sell them: it only means being attentive and sympathetic and admiring and good-tempered and patient and unobtrusively determined. It’s when you have to add in a hurry: there’s the rub!

   

  Your pencil strays at unfortunate moments: and when you’ve taken ten minutes to tie up a parcel with a fretful customer almost snatching at the string the thing deliberately uncoils itself before he gets it to the lift.

  The efficiency goes first. Then the brightness. Your shoes come undone: hairpins drop out – just like that. Everywhere. The new staff dress begins to droop. You make an effort for a lady with a train to catch and collide with an Olympian.

   

  After that, nothing matters. You are stricken with deafness and palsy at the sound of an order.

  And when it is all over you crawl home and Cut off your Boots.

  Will Radol work miracles? Or shall I go to work in bedroom slippers to-morrow?

  Anyway, I ‘took sixteen pounds’ and Mr Salt’s surprise was very comforting.

  I love you, dear. But, oh, my FEET!

  Hilary

  

  23 Burford Street

  October 17th

  Dearest Family,

  You remember that I came to Everyman’s instead of someone who was ill? Well, the creature’s had appendicitis rather quickly: she came back to work this week. Apparently I’ve managed to satisfy the management, because I’m not being flung out. The first I knew about it was a note transferring me to the Book Department of the Shop. It’s a merciful change from writing people’s addresses on labels, and I think I’m going to like it on the whole.

  I’ve been there since Wednesday, and still feel a little uncertain about the addition of the longer bills. But I can find dictionaries and classics and detective stories and military biographies from their shelves without running to ask Mr Salt.

  He, by the way, is one of the black-coated young men in office there, and he’s given me most of my information. He said on my first morning that I would find the customers very agreeable. People who bought books were so much pleasanter than the ones who bought boots. I should have thought that even they had their off moments for soling and heeling, but I hadn’t the heart to wreck his epigram. His spiritual home is Cambrid
ge, but he’s making a career of Commerce. And I think he quite likes his little distractions by the way. He’s been most helpful, and perfectly right about the customers, so far. They’ve been very nice to me. I’m developing quite a fairy-godmotherish manner towards people looking for birthday presents. I beam on them and lead the way to the gift and special bindings (leather, tooled, from half a guinea upwards). On the other hand, I’m extremely understanding and helpful to the people who begin with, ‘I want you to understand that in these times …’ Better a second-hand sale than none. There’s rather a fascination, of course, in making somebody buy a guinea book when they’d meant to have one at half a crown.

  Something rather amusing happened yesterday. I wasn’t serving anybody, so when an odd customer strayed in I went to him. He’d a yellowish face and an eye-glass and a stick and an Inverness cape and a bull terrier, on a lead as prescribed.

  I thought he was rather comic and old at first, but he had a lot of black hair and a quite undecrepit voice. Hopelessly puzzling. But he asked me for ‘that book on Pre-Hellenic civilisations. You won’t know it. Five years old: published by the University Press: better fetch me the Manager.’

  I said: ‘Do you mean Early Minoan Cults by James Fane?’

  He said: ‘That’s it. That’s it. Bring me a copy. Want a look at it. May not throw any light on …’ He murmured on for a bit without looking at me, but I recognised some phrases belonging to the chapter when Daddy was trying out the dictaphone and we all listened in to the records with great excitement. So I was able to say: ‘I think it does. Chapter Five.’ (Very proud.) He looked at me then. ‘Know about ancient Greece?’ I said no, but I knew that book, and the author’s work.

  ‘Do you, indeed? How’s that?’

  

  I explained, and he twitched his eyes and shook hands with me. Such glory! Everyone in the department was watching. (Though on second thoughts, they may just have thought he was my uncle.) Anyway, I gave him the bill, and he said: ‘Good man that. Send me his next book.’ Then he jerked the bull terrier round and wandered off. Wasn’t it nice? And I’m sure he was somebody of immense importance.