Free The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald

useful services. Plain Washing Taken In (this was on the ground floor, where the boiler was), Music Correctly Taught, Herbal Remedies. ‘You don’t want to try those,’ said Daisy. But Mrs Saunders had already been
to pass the time of day with the herbalist. She was able to report that he had nothing but doses of groundsel, for bringing it on, and penny royal, in plain envelopes, for bringing it off. Nothing for a woman of her age.
    After less than a year, Daisy handed in her notice at Lambert’s, and started a new job, still in clerical, at Sedley’s Cartons. That, too, did not last many months. Had there been anything wrong with her work? No, said Daisy, unmoved, they couldn’t fault her there. Mrs Saunders sighed. ‘Well, you told me Mr Lambert couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Didn’t he take any notice of poor Ellie’s wedding-ring?’ ‘Lord, mother, that’s only for the tram,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s just for travelling. I take it off at work. Lambert knows I’m fifteen, and he knows I’m not married. We won’t talk about Lambert any more.’
    â€˜What about Mr Sedley?’
    â€˜He’s worse,’ said Daisy. ‘He’s carny.’
    â€˜Carny’ was a word which nobody in London south of the river used lightly. Nobody, either, would have thought of Daisy as difficult, or hard to suit, or even particular. She was, on the contrary, generous, and described as the kind of girl who’d give you the teeth out of her head, if she could get them loose. It was only that she didn’t want decisions made for her by old Mr Lambert, still less by young Sedley.
    There were a lot of people out of work now, more than she ever remembered. She made out she was a school-leaver, and got a recommendation from Father Haggett at the Anglo-Catholic Mission church of St James the Less. He felt for his parishioners, and was ready to sign anything, within reason, to help them to earn. With this she got a washing-up job, but at seven shillings a week only, with threepence held back in case of breakages.
    Daisy loved her mother, who was the only relative she had, but she supposed it might be said that she killed her. In the spring of 1909 the Selfridge Department Store opened in Oxford Street. A circular was printed—everyone saw it,
because it was posted up in every window. Daisy read it in the Women’s Penny Reading Room at the back of the church hall. ‘We wish it to be clearly understood that our invitation to the opening of Selfridge’s, is to the whole British public and to visitors from overseas—that no cards of admission are required—that all are welcome—and that the pleasures of shopping as well as those of sight-seeing begin from the Opening Hour. Everything is NEW except the splendid old time-tried principles that must govern it—integrity, sincerity, liberality in dealing and courteous service.’
    The magnificent building, with its columned frontage and pillared vistas, had gone up, said the circular, within a year, employing fifteen hundred men during this sad time of depression. There were lifts, worked by electricity. ‘I’ll take you to have a look at it if you like,’ Daisy told her mother. ‘It’ll be my half-day.’ Mrs Saunders had been up to the West End often enough, but never into a large store. The notion of going there under the wing of her tall, good-looking daughter drove her nearly crazy with joy, but she did not drop her defences.
    â€˜I don’t mind, if you happen to be going that way,’ she said.
    They took a tram to Victoria, and then the open-top motor-bus, nipping up the stairs like larks ascendant to get the two front seats on the left-hand side where they would see most, defying the dark greyish clouds to break. Oxford Street was almost at a standstill, blocked with horses and motors. They got out at Ruscoe’s, the humble draper’s