The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(113)

Not sure whether to ask after her would harm or benefit the girl Millicent Pole, she selected two dresses for parade. A very thin girl, haughty, with a neat little head and large shoulder blades came wearing the first, a creation in black and white; she languished across with a hand on where one hip should have been, and her head turned as if looking for the other, confirming Dinny in the aversion she already had from the dress. Then, in the second dress, of sea green and silver, the one that she really liked except for its price, came Millicent Pole. With professional negligence she took no glance at the client, as who should say: ‘What do you think! If you lived in underclothes all day – and had so many husbands to avoid!’ Then, in turning, she caught Dinny’s smile, answered it with a sudden startled brightness, and moved across again, languid as ever. Dinny got up, and going over to that figure now standing very still, took a fold of the skirt between finger and thumb, as if to feel its quality.

‘Nice to see you again.’

The girl’s loose flower-like mouth smiled very sweetly. ‘She’s marvellous!’ thought Dinny.

‘I know Miss Pole,’ she said to the saleswoman. ‘That dress looks awfully nice on her.’

‘Oh! but Madam, it’s your style completely. Miss Pole has a little too much line for it. Let me slip it on you.’

Not sure that she had been complimented, Dinny said:

‘I shan’t be able to decide today; I’m not sure I can afford it.’

‘That is quite all right, Madam. Miss Pole, just come in here and slip it off, and we’ll slip it on Madam.’

In there the girl slipped it off. ‘Even more marvellous,’ thought Dinny: ‘Wish I looked as nice as that in undies,’ and suffered her own dress to be removed.

‘Madam is beautifully slim,’ said the saleswoman.

‘Thin as a rail!’

‘Oh, no, Madam is well covered.’

‘I think she’s just right!’ The girl spoke with a sort of eagerness. ‘Madam has style.’

The saleswoman fastened the hook.

‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘A little fullness here, perhaps; we can put that right.’

‘Rather a lot of my skin,’ murmured Dinny.

‘Oh! But so becoming, with a skin like Madam’s.’

‘Would you let me see Miss Pole in that other frock – the black and white?’

This she said, knowing that the girl could not be sent to fetch it in her underclothes.

‘Certainly; I’ll get it at once. Attend to Madam, Miss Pole.’

Left to themselves, the two girls stood smiling at each other.

‘How do you like it now you’ve got it, Millie?’

‘Well, it isn’t all I thought, Miss.’

‘Empty?’

‘I expect nothing’s what you think it. Might be a lot worse, of course.’

‘It was you I came in to see.’

‘Did you reely? But I hope you’ll have the dress, Miss – suits you a treat. You look lovely in it.’

‘They’ll be putting you in the sales department, Millie, if you don’t look out.’

‘Oh! I wouldn’t go there. It’s nothing but a lot of soft sawder.’

‘Where do I unhook?’

‘Here. It’s very economic – only one. And you can do it for yourself, with a wriggle. I read about your brother, Miss. I do think that’s a shame.’

‘Yes,’ said Dinny, and stood stony in her underclothes. Suddenly she stretched out her hand and gripped the girl’s. ‘Good luck, Millie!’

‘And good luck to you, Miss!’

They had just unclasped hands when the saleswoman came back.

‘I’m so sorry to have bothered you,’ smiled Dinny, ‘but I’ve quite made up my mind to have this one, if I can afford it. The price is appalling.’

‘Do you think so, Madam? It’s a Paris model. I’ll see if I can get Mr Better to do what he can for you – it’s your frock. Miss Pole, find Mr Better for me, will you?’

The girl, now in the black and white creation, went out.

Dinny, who had resumed her dress, said:

‘Do your mannequins stay long with you?’

‘Well, no; in and out of dresses all day, it’s rather a restless occupation.’

‘What becomes of them?’

‘In one way or another they get married.’

How discreet! And soon after, Mr Better – a slim man with grey hair and perfect manners – having said he would reduce the price ‘for Madam’ to what still seemed appalling, Dinny went out into the pale November sunlight saying she would decide tomorrow. Six hours to kill. She walked North-East towards the Meads, trying to soothe her own anxiety by thinking that everyone she passed, no matter how they looked, had anxieties of their own. Seven million people, in one way or another all anxious. Some of them seemed so, and some did not. She gazed at her own face in a shop window, and decided that she was one of those who did not; and yet how horrid she felt! The human face was a mask, indeed! She came to Oxford Street and halted on the edge of the pavement, waiting to cross. Close to her was the bony white-nosed head of a van horse. She began stroking its neck, wishing she had a lump of sugar. The horse paid no attention, nor did its driver. Why should they? From year’s end to year’s end they passed and halted, halted and passed through this maelstrom, slowly, ploddingly, without hope of release, till they both fell down and were cleared away. A policeman reversed the direction of his white sleeves, the driver jerked his reins, and the van moved on, followed by a long line of motor vehicles. The policeman again reversed his sleeves and Dinny crossed, walked on to Tottenham Court Road, and once more stood waiting. What a seething and intricate pattern of creatures, and their cars, moving to what end, fulfilling what secret purpose? To what did it all amount? A meal, a smoke, a glimpse of so-called life in some picture palace, a bed at the end of the day. A million jobs faithfully and unfaithfully pursued, that they might eat, and dream a little, and sleep, and begin again. The inexorability of life caught her by the throat as she stood there, so that she gave a little gasp, and a stout man said: