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She had not yet the power or the knowledge to dress effectively, but she was already learning intuitively such things as harmony and colour-values. She gave an eye to neatness and cleanliness, and knew how to riddle the costumes of girls of her own class, beginning with May Pearcey. She also was becoming aware of all Miss Jubb's deficiencies.
And that was a further cause for delight, since Miss Jubb's mouth dropped open at the news and she could hardly speak to her two girls for the rest of the afternoon. Sally, chuckling to herself, and every now and then grimacing at May Pearcey, abandoned herself to anticipations of the evening.
The three of them spent the day in the little workroom, which managed by the end of the afternoon to be the coldest and the closest room in the neighbourhood, perhaps owing to Miss Jubb's use of a defective stove for heating, and her own radical immunity from chilblains. After tea Sally went straight to Hornsey Road.
She had explained her non-arrival of the previous night to May, and had removed her grievance with a recital of all she had done during the stolen day. She had endured Miss Jubb's sour scrutiny of her hair, which was accomplished without comment. And she had almost, but not quite, told Miss Jubb of her proposed change.
She had planned to see Toby; but if Toby was going to be a lout she might just as well show him she didn't care. "All right," she said. "Look here, if I'm not there by half-past seven, you'll know I've been kept mother's kept me. See?" "Mother!" laughed May. "Well, I'll be there quarter-past. See! Shouldn't come any further, case old Mother Jubb's lookin' out the window.
After she had seen her mother in the hospital Sally was again aware of that sinking feeling of having time to fill a feeling of emptiness of immediate plan, which she had felt in Hyde Park on the Monday. At seven she was to see Toby outside the house. It was not yet five. What was she to do? Not go back to Miss Jubb's, that was certain!
For several days Sally did not see the young man, and so she half forgot him, lost him in the mixture of her more pressing preoccupations. Every morning she rose at eight o'clock, after her mother had left the house for her first situation, and then, breakfasting slowly, she had just time to reach Miss Jubb's by nine.
Old six-foot. Old match-legs. She'd got a nose in everybody's business. Mind she didn't get it pulled!... But what a lovely room! Must have cost pounds and pounds! All grey-blue even to the little ornaments on the mantelpiece, all except the black tiger. Fancy working in a place like this! Different to Miss Jubb's!
Having half-determined to snare him, Sally was herself snared by the gins of love. She was hard, but she was soft. She was cold, but she was warm. And as each day she used the sewing machine or roughly stitched the raw material for Miss Jubb's costumes, Sally always looked to the nights. When it rained, and she had to stay indoors, she chafed irritably and went early to bed.
She had told Toby about Madame Gala, and how he could come to fetch her Saturdays, and they'd have the afternoons together. Sally was brimming with plans. In the middle of them there came a knock at Miss Jubb's door. Miss Jubb went, thinking it might be a customer. But she came back again in a minute, with a face even longer than it had been since she heard Sally's news.
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