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She had not kept those advertisements: she had not liked the look of them. Mother wouldn't know. She must do it at once. A bold plan had come into her mind. She was near the end of her second year with Miss Jubb. She could go into the West End if only she looked nice enough.
There would be time for that later. If she told her now there would only be trouble, and Sally was tired of trouble. When she had explained to Miss Jubb, and had left Miss Jubb on Saturday week, she would airily say to her mother: "I got a job in the West End, now." See ma jump! Sally was conscious for the first time of a slightly sinking heart. Suppose she didn't suit Madame Gala?
She looked round the room in scorn at the dull, shabby bed, and the meagre furniture, and at the little old woman who sat by the empty fireplace with so miserable an air of confirmed poverty. She looked higher, at Miss Jubb, and saw afresh the stupid incompetence of such a creature. Even old Perce and Mrs.
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.
This was because she was so careful, and because they knew no better than she did what women may and may not wear with propriety. The backs of all skirts coming from Miss Jubb drooped lower than the fronts. Her bodices always went wrong upon the shoulders. She was great on tucks. But she was cheap, and she was Sybil-like in her mysterious assurance.
She longed again for Toby's arms to be round her, pressing her face into the pillow to comfort herself with the pretence that he was still there. Exhausted, she slept. xvi All the next day she could not work for preoccupation with her happiness. She was mad with it, and reckless in her madness. It even, when rebuke came from Miss Jubb, gave her courage to mention Madame Gala.
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.
Her white face was as if it had become plump, so immediately did happiness transfigure her. And she looked at silly old Miss Jubb, and soppy May, and thought how they had no lovers. May had her boys she could keep them. Sally had Toby. Toby was not a boy: he was a man. He shaved; she had felt the roughness of his chin.
She did not like Miss Jubb, who was a thin-faced and fussy person who always wore a grey pinafore and felt that her untidy grey hair looked as though it might hint a sorrow rather than betray advancing years. Miss Jubb was full of the futile vanity of the elderly spinster, her mouth full of pins, and her head full of paper patterns.
For Miss Jubb had a sharp tongue, and although she took the pins out of her mouth before she talked she showed that they had left their influence upon her tongue, which was sharp to a fault.
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