Chapter Thirty Three. Against the Rules.

“Miss Rolfe, Mr Cunnington wants you in the counting-house,” exclaimed a youth approaching Marion just after ten o’clock the following morning. She had been in the department early, and was busy re-arranging an autumn costume upon a stand, with a ticket bearing the words, “Paris model, 49 shillings, 11 pence.”

The dread words that broke upon her ear caused her young heart to sink within her. As she feared, she was “carpeted.”

To be absent at night without leave was the “sack” at a moment’s notice to any of Cunnington’s girls. There was no leniency in that respect as in certain other large stores in London which I could name, where the girls are so very badly paid that it is a scandal and disgrace to the smug, church-going shareholders who grow fat upon their dividends. But who among those who bold shares in the big drapery concerns of London, or who among the millions of customers on the look-out for bargains at sales, care a jot for the poor girl-assistant, the drudgery she has to undergo, or the evils she suffers by the iniquitous system of “living-in?”

It is a dull, drab life indeed, the life of the London shop, with its fortnight’s holiday each year and its constant strain of the telling of untruths in order to sell goods. But the supply of shop labour is always greater than the demand. Girls and youths are always coming up from the country in constant streams, “cribbing,” as it is called—or on the lookout for a berth—and as soon as a girl loses her freshness, or a man’s hair begins to show silver threads, he is thrown out in favour of a youth—from Scotland or Wales by preference.

London, alas! little dreams of the callous heartlessness of employers in the drapery trade.

Marion knew this. Since she had been at Cunnington’s her eyes had been opened to the scant consideration she need expect. Girls who had worked in her department had been discharged merely because, suffering from a cold or from the stress of overwork, they had been absent a couple of days. And all the information vouchsafed them was that the firm could not afford to support invalids. Once, indeed, she had sat beside a dying girl in the Brompton Hospital—a girl to whom the close, vitiated atmosphere of the shop had brought consumption, and she had been sent forth, at a moment’s notice, homeless, and to die.

And so, when the youth made the announcement, she knit her brows, brushed the hair from her brow, placed down the pincushion in her hand, and followed him through the several shops into another building where Mr Cunnington’s private room was situated.

In the outer office of the counting-house several persons, buyers, callers, and others, were waiting audience with the chief.

One girl, a saucy, dark-haired assistant in the ribbons, exclaimed:

“Hullo, Rolfe! What are you up for?”

Marion flushed slightly, and answered:

“I—I hardly know.”

“Well, I’m going in for a rise, and if the guv’nor don’t give it to me I’m going to Westoby’s to-morrow. I’ve got a good crib there. My young man is shop-walker, so I’ll get on like a house on fire.”

“Westoby’s is a lot better than here,” remarked a pale-faced male assistant. “I was there for a sale once. I only wish they’d have kept me.”

“I’ve heard that the food is wretched,” remarked Marion, for the sake of something to say.

“It isn’t good,” declared the young man, “but the girls get lots more freedom. They do as they like almost. Old Westoby don’t care, as long as the business pays. It’s a public company, like this, but they do a bit lower-class trade, which means more ‘spiffs.’”

“I haven’t made a quid this last three months out of ‘spiffs’,” declared the ribbon-girl. “That’s why I want a rise.”

Marion smiled within herself, for beyond the glass partition were quite a dozen girls, all of them young, several quite good-looking, waiting to see if any berths were vacant, and ready that very hour to take the ribbon-girl’s place—and hers.

Every girl who came up to London went first to Cunnington’s, for the assistants there were declared to be of better class than those of the other drapery houses that jostle each other on the north side of Oxford Street.

Marion waited, full of deep anxiety. Every detail of that midnight interview with the man who held controlling interest in the huge concern came back to her—his clever attempt to ingratiate himself with her in order to learn Maud’s secret, and her curt dismissal when she had met his request with point-blank refusal.

One by one the applicants for a hearing were received by Mr Cunnington, again emerging from his room, some dark and angry, and others smiling and happy. At last her turn came, and she walked into the small office with the severe-looking writing-table and the dark blue carpet.

The dark-bearded man, by whose enterprise that big business had been built up, turned in his chair and faced her.

“Miss Rolfe!” he exclaimed. “Ah! yes,” and he referred to a memorandum upon his desk. “You were absent without leave last night, the housekeeper reports. You are aware of rule seventy-three—eh?”

“Most certainly, sir,” was the trembling girl’s reply, for this meant to her all her future, and more. It meant Max’s love. “But I think I ought to explain that—”

“I have no time, miss, for explanations. You know the rule. When you were engaged here you signed it, and therefore I suppose you’ve read it. It states as follows: ‘Any assistant absent after eleven o’clock without previously obtaining signed leave from Mr Hemmingway or myself will be discharged on the following day.’ The firm have, therefore, dispensed with your services. As regards character, Miss Rolfe, please understand that the firm is silent.”

“But, Mr Cunnington,” cried the girl, “I was absent at the express request of Mr Statham. He wished to see me.” The head of the firm frowned slightly, answering:

“I have no desire to enter into the reasons of your absence. You could easily have asked for leave. If Mr Statham had wished to see you, he would have sent me a note, no doubt. It was at his request I engaged you, I recollect. Therefore, I think that the least said regarding last night the better.”

“But Mr Statham promised me he would send you a message this morning,” the girl declared in her distress.

“Parker, has Mr Statham been on the ’phone this morning?” asked Mr Cunnington of the young man seated near him.

“No, sir,” was the prompt reply.

“But will you not ask him?” cried the girl. “He promised me he would communicate with you.”

Mr Cunnington hesitated for a moment. He reflected that the girl was a protégée of the millionaire. Therefore he gave Parker orders to ring up the man whose millions controlled the concern.

Marion waited in breathless anxiousness. The secretary asked for Mr Statham, and spoke to him, inquiring if he knew anything of Miss Rolfe’s absence from the firm’s dormitory on the previous night. “Mr Statham says, sir,” said Parker at last, “that he is too busy to be troubled with the affaire of any of Cunnington’s shop-assistants.”

The reply filled Mr Cunnington with suspicion. It showed him plainly that Statham had at least no further interest in the girl, and that her discharge would be gratifying.

“You hear the reply,” he said to her. “That is enough.” And he scribbled something upon a piece of paper. “Take it to the cashier, and he will pay your wages up to date.”

“Then I am discharged!” asked the girl, crimsoning—“sent out from your establishment without a character?”

“By reason of your own action,” was the rough reply. “You know the rules. Please leave. I am far too busy to argue.”

“But Mr Statham wrote asking me to call and see him. I have his letter here.”

“I have no desire or inclination to enter into Mr Statham’s affairs,” Cunnington replied. “You are discharged for being absent at night without leave. Will you go, Miss Rolfe?” he asked angrily.

“Mr Cunnington,” she said, quite quietly, “you misjudge me entirely. Mr Statham asked me to call upon him in secret, because he desired me to give him some private information. He promised at the same time to send you word, so that my absence should not be mentioned. You are a man of honour, with daughters of your own,” she went on appealingly. “Because I refused to betray a friend of mine, a woman, he has refused to stretch forth a hand to save me from the disgrace of this discharge,” and tears welled in her fine eyes as she spoke.

“It is a matter that does not concern me in the least, Miss Rolfe, Mr Statham put you here, and if he wishes for your discharge I have nothing to say in the matter. Good morning.”

And he turned from her and busied himself with the heap of papers on his desk.

She did not move. She stood as one turned to stone. Therefore he touched the electric button beneath the arm of his chair, and a clerk appeared.

“Send in Mortimer,” he said coldly, disregarding the girl’s presence. Then Marion, seeing that all appeal was in vain, turned upon her heel and went out—broken and bitter—a changed woman.

Mr Cunnington turned and watched her disappearing. Suddenly, as though half uncertain whether his action might not be criticised by Statham, he exclaimed:

“Call that young lady back!”

Marion returned, her face full of anger and dignity.

“Do I really understand you that Mr Statham invited you to his house?” he asked her. “I mean that you received letters from him?”

“Yes.”

The dark-bearded man, alert and businesslike, eyed her critically, and asked:

“You have those letters, I presume.”

“Certainly. I have them here,” was her reply, as she fumbled in the pocket of her black skirt. “I refused to call upon him, but he pressed me so much that I felt it imperative. He has been so very good to me that I feared to displease him.”

And she placed several letters upon Mr Cunnington’s desk.

“I see they are marked ‘private,’” he said, with a good deal of curiosity. “Have I your permission to glance at them?”

“Certainly,” was the cool reply. “You refuse to hear me, therefore I am compelled to give you proof.”

The man opened them one after the other, scanned them, and placed them aside. Statham’s refusal to answer the query upon the telephone was for him all-sufficient.

“You had better leave these letters with me, Miss Rolfe,” he said decisively, for he saw that at all hazards he must obtain that correspondence and hand it back to the writer.

“But—”

“There are no buts,” he exclaimed, quickly interrupting her. “Had Mr Statham desired you to remain in our service he would have replied to that effect. Come, you are wasting my time. Good morning.”

And a moment later, almost before she was aware of it, Marion found herself outside the room, with the door closed behind her.

She was no longer in the service of Cunnington’s. She had been discharged in disgrace.

What would Charlie say? What explanation could she offer to Max?