Read Shadows of the Workhouse Online
Authors: Jennifer Worth
Shadows of the Workhouse (17 page)
“Allow me,” he said courteously, and helped her to put it on. He put his hand on her arm and led her to the door. He turned and thanked Sister for allowing him such an excellent guide, who he was quite sure would be most helpful and informative. He opened the door for Jane with a slightly old-fashioned bow and murmured: “After you, madam.”
They returned at tea time and he was full of praise, saying how informative Jane had been, and how greatly he valued the time she had so graciously spared him. Asked if he would like more conducted tours of the district, he said that there was no limit to his thirst for knowledge. Asked if he was quite happy with Jane as his escort – would he prefer a trained midwife on another occasion – he became profuse in stating his preference for Jane, who, he declared, was the perfect guide. Her erudition and encyclopedic knowledge of the topography and sociology of the area were more than he had dared hope for.
Jane appeared to accept her new role as guide for the Reverend Mr Applebee-Thornton, and carried out her duties with her customary attention to detail. Sister Julienne advised her to take a map, and to keep notes of what they had seen.
A week or two later, at lunch, Sister enquired how things were going. Jane replied eagerly, “Well, Pippin wants . . . ”
She turned a deep red and her hands flew to her mouth. Stuttering, she tried to excuse herself. “I don’t mean to be impertinent, Sister, but he asked me to call him Pippin. I said I couldn’t presume to be so familiar, but he said that all his friends call him Pippin, and he would be hurt if I didn’t.”
To this. Sister replied, with exaggerated solemnity, that Jane had done the right thing, and must certainly call him Pippin, if that was his wish.
That same evening we were in the bicycle shed. Sister Julienne was mending a puncture, and I was tightening my brakes. To my great surprise, she said, “Where do you get your clothes from, Jennifer?” With the tyre lever grasped firmly in her small hand, Sister ripped off the outer tube.
“Well, I have a dressmaker. I don’t usually go for off-the-peg stuff.”
“But what store would you recommend for good clothes?”
I thought for a while. Sister plunged the inner tube into a bowl of water. “Liberty’s, I suppose, in Regent Street.”
“Ah yes, Liberty’s. That sounds most suitable.” She was turning the inner tube thoughtfully in the water, looking for bubbles.
“Jane needs some new clothes. I am going to tell her to get some. I wonder, Jenny, would it be too much to ask you to go with her? I’m sure she would value your advice. You need spare no expense, because Jane earns money but she never spends it.”
No one could ever resist an appeal from Sister Julienne – certainly not me. More surprises were in store.
“And who is your hairdresser?”
“I always go to Chez Jacques in Regent Street, which just happens to be opposite Liberty’s.”
Her eyes lit up. She had found the puncture now; the water was bubbling. But her real interest seemed to be in my hairdresser.
“Just opposite! Now, that’s marvellous. It couldn’t be more convenient. If you are in the area, could you take Jane to the hairdresser? She always cuts her hair herself, but I am sure she would look prettier if a good hairdresser attended to her.”
Now, none of my nearest and dearest would suggest that I am quick off the mark when it comes to matchmaking. My poor mind doesn’t work that way. Slow, they call me. But on that occasion the penny dropped. “It would be a pleasure, Sister. Just leave Jane in my hands.”
Jane was dingy, drab and plain. Her clothes were about the worst I have ever seen. Her shoes were heavy, black lace-ups. Her stockings – tea-coloured lisle – were baggy. Her hair always looked a mess, and her skin was grey and deeply lined. To smarten her up would be quite a job.
After breakfast the next morning, Sister Julienne said: “Jane, you need some new clothes. Go with Jennifer this afternoon and she will choose some for you. You also need a haircut.”
Jane meekly replied: “Yes, Sister.”
It may seem extraordinary to speak to an adult in such a manner, but there was no other way of dealing with Jane. She was incapable of making even the smallest decision for herself and had to be directed in everything. I took my cue from Sister. I had thought carefully, and decided that a new look for Jane would have to be subtle. If I tried to dress her up like a fashion plate, the result might be disastrous. But first, the hairdresser.
Jane had never before been inside a West End hairdresser’s and she hung back timidly at the door. But I only had to say, “I’ve made an appointment for you; you’ve got to come in,” and she obeyed meekly.
I had a quiet word with Monsieur Jacques: “A gentle style, to frame the face, nothing exaggerated, no backcombing, something to suit a mature lady of quiet habits.”
Monsieur Jacques nodded gravely, and took up his scissors.
As every woman knows, it’s the cut that counts, and Jacques was a master-cutter. Had he ever achieved anything as spectacular as his reinvention of Jane? Perhaps the enormity of the challenge inspired him, for the result was little short of a miracle. Her natural curls moved in all the right places, her dingy greyness was now a confident iron-grey, with a softening of white at the temples. Jane looked at herself with astonishment in the huge mirrors, and as he flicked a wayward curl with his tail-comb, she actually smiled. Some of the worry left her face and she giggled. “Ooh, is that me?”
At Liberty’s I looked out for a sales assistant who would not intimidate Jane. Some of them can be so smart and sharp they set the teeth on edge. A languid young woman with a drainpipe figure and a contemptuous eye shimmied across the carpet, but I steered Jane towards a homely-looking soul with a tape measure round her neck.
I explained the requirements, and she murmured reassuringly, “The unconscious elegance of a Hebe-Sports, with a little blouse or two. Leave everything to me.” She deftly applied the tape measure to Jane’s bony frame.
As promised, Jane emerged from the changing room transformed by a tailored suit in elegant grey. The tape measure breathed, “The iconic statement of the suit is in keeping with modom’s splendid height. The subtle moulding of the skirt lends softness to the hips. Observe the detail of the pockets, rounding and moulding the line of the hips. Notice how the curve of the collar flatters modom’s superb shoulders.”
All of which was another way of saying that Jane’s gaunt figure and prominent bones had somehow been concealed by the cut of the suit. She stood, meek and silent, passively allowing the collar to be adjusted a fraction of an inch.
One would have thought that the tape measure had by now exhausted her repertoire, but not at all. She was just winding herself up for a virtuoso performance.
“The slender figure and sublime height of modom are perfection for the timeless beauty of the true suit. Observe the effortless grace of modom’s posture -” (Jane was drooping as usual.) “Good clothes reflect the creativity of their creator, striving for the zenith of creation. The true suit is visionary, in a restrained and dignified mode. Modom’s intuitive understanding of the truly chic speaks volumes for her ineffable vision.”
Jane looked utterly bewildered, and even I felt as though I were sinking out of my depth.
The tape measure cast a swift, professional eye over us both, absorbed the fact that we were floundering, and swiftly came in on the attack. “Observe how the silken threads pick out a million dancing lights, and enhance the flickering shades in modom’s beautiful hair.”
I had to agree that the colour certainly matched Jane’s hair, although she stood silent, having no opinion on the subject.
The tape measure now turned to the drainpipe, who had joined us. “And now we must consider the passive and perfect necessity of the little blouse. Quintessentially, tara lawn is the first essential. Such a fine fabric – wouldn’t you agree?”
“Oh, quintessentially essential,” the drainpipe gushed as we crossed the floor to a room filled with blouses.
“The colour at the throat is all important. Modom requires understatement. The bold gesture is not for modom. Dusty pink, I think.”
She pulled from the rail a pink blouse and held it against Jane’s scrawny throat. The result was undeniably pleasing.
“Whilst the blue – muted, of course – draws attention to modom’s fine eyes.” A second blouse was held up. It was true. I had never before noticed how blue Jane’s eyes were.
The tape measure drew forth yet another. “And what does modom say to mellow yellow?”
Jane had nothing to say, but the drainpipe ventured to suggest that perhaps mellow yellow was a little over-emphatic in its proclamation, and would not the merest whisper of lilac speak with quiet authority?
The tape-measure raised her manicured hands. “Lilac! Heavenly lilac! How could I forget?”
She signalled to the drainpipe, who trickled away and returned with a third blouse, of perfect fit and colour. Jane looked charming in all of them.
The tape-measure was rhapsodic. “Ah! the perfection of lilac. Queen Mary’s favourite colour, and modom’s truest friend. Lilac is a poem, a fragrance, a hint of nothingness. Modom cannot possibly miss heavenly lilac from her wardrobe.”
These women certainly gave value for money and we took the lot.
Shoes, gloves, handbag and some decent stockings were all chosen in the same manner, and we were on our way east of Aldgate, back to Poplar.
Was Pippin likely to be aware of all the intense female activity that had been going on for his delight and diversion? Was he likely to see any difference? The sad answer to both these questions was probably “No”. I have yet to meet a man who can give you even the vaguest description of what a woman was wearing ten minutes after she left his company. He would probably say, with an airy wave of the hand, “Oh, she was looking lovely in a green floaty thing,” when she was wearing tight-fitting blue!
Jane changed for lunch and therefore it was to an all-female audience that she displayed the results of our outing. Cries of “Lovely”, “transformed”, “fab hair-do”, went up all around, and Jane looked surprised, quietly gratified by all the compliments. Sister Julienne allowed herself a meaningful wink as she whispered to me, “Well done.”
Pippin came at 2 p.m. prompt, and exhibited no surprise at Jane’s appearance. Perhaps he saw no change! They left together for Mile End, the northerly border of our district.
Let us not enquire too closely into these guided walking tours, conceived and executed with a view to benefiting the native people of Sierra Leone. To do so would be a lapse of good taste. Suffice it to say that the two-week stay at the Rectory was lengthened to six and that, day by day, bit by bit, Jane began to look more relaxed and happy, and less chronically nervous.
Pippin came to lunch one Sunday a few weeks later, and towards the end of the meal he said, “I will have to be leaving you all soon. My six-month furlough draws to its close, and I must return to the duties God has been pleased to entrust to me in Sierra Leone. Before I leave England I must spend a few weeks with my aged father in Herefordshire. These visits are not always easy for me, because we do not always see eye to eye, especially over the treatment of the native African. My father, now aged ninety, was an army officer in the African wars of the 1880s, and his principles I regard as harsh, whereas he regards mine as weak and mollycoddling. It can be very difficult.”
He turned to Sister Julienne. “I was wondering, Sister, if you could possibly spare Jane for a couple of weeks to come with me? I feel that a feminine influence would ease the tension in an all-male household. With her charm and tact, and her gentle disposition, I feel that she could mollify my father in ways that I never could with my blunderings. Jane has already agreed to come if you can spare her. And I, for my part, would be eternally grateful.” Jane’s hand was resting on the table; he touched it lightly, and gave it a little squeeze.
She blushed and murmured: “Oh! Pip.”
The visit started badly because the old colonel called Jane “a raw-boned horse” and Pippin was furious and would have walked out of the house without even unpacking. But Jane laughed and said she had been called worse than that in her time. Pippin raged on about “that impossible old man” until Jane went up to him, placed her fingers on his lips, and whispered: “Just be thankful that you have a father at all, dear.”
In an agony of self-reproach he caught hold of her wrists and drew her to him. “May God forgive me. I am not worthy of you.” He kissed her gently. “All my sins will be redeemed by your suffering, my wise and perfect love.”
Later that evening the Colonel returned to horses when he referred to “that little filly of yours”. Pippin stiffened, but his father carried on, “She’s got good legs. Always a sign of pedigree in a horse or a woman. You can tell the breeding by the shape of the ankle.”
The weeks passed well and the Colonel took to Jane. Her quietness appealed to him and he approved of her self-effacing habits. He barked at his son one evening: “Well, there’s one thing to say. That little filly of yours is not going to drive you mad with a lot of silly chatter. Never could abide those magpie women, m’self; yackety-yackety-yak, all day long.”
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