Free Bond Street Story by Norman Collins Page B

“It’s come.”
    Mr. Privett, however, was only half awake.
    â€œGive it to me,” he said. “Let’s have it.”
    And then, having inspected it carefully, he looked up at her.
    â€œThat’s it,” he said. “It’s from Rammell’s all right.”
    The back of Mr. Privett’s hand bore a large criss-cross of sticking plaster. And, at the sight of it, Mrs. Privett’s heart leapt. She realized suddenly that Mr. Privett’s accident was a blessing. Downright providential. It could not have been timed more perfectly. Because up to that moment she hadn’t quite known how Irene was going to take the letter. As it was, everything would be simple.
    â€œ ... and with your father in that state,” she told her, “we can’t do anything to upset him. He knows it’s come because he’s seen it. Just you open it. I want to know what it says.”
    But Irene was only half-awake, too. She was still flushed with sleep. And a bit sulky.
    â€œOh, you open it, Mum,” she said. “I can’t be bothered.”
    Using one of Irene’s own nail files, Mrs. Privett ripped it open. And having read it through once, she read it over again just to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything.
    It told Irene to present herself at the staff entrance in Hurst Place at three o’clock next Friday. There was even a little map at the top right-hand corner of the notepaper with an arrow pointing to the staff entrance so that she couldn’t go wrong.
    In addition to the appointment letter itself, Irene was asked to bring along her school-leaving certificate and a copy of the same certificate made out in her own handwriting for the Rammell files. The bit about the files was, however, only a half truth. It was the handwriting rather than the copy that Rammell’s wanted. Rammell’s had been caught out before by young ladies who couldn’t for the life of them make out a bill that anyone in the counting house was able to decipher.
    Mrs. Privett suddenly stiffened. Friday at three the letter said. That in itself was a challenge. It gave Mrs. Privett precisely three and a half days in which to get things ready. And it would be touch and go. She had just remembered that Irene hadn’t got anything that was suitable for a staff interview.
    There was the plain blue dress that she had worn for the Eleanor Atkinson school-leaving party. But that was too simple. Too plainly cut. It would make Rammell’s underrate Irene. Regard her as no more than some sort of infant apprentice. Then there was her flowered one with the short sleeves. But that was completely wrong. It would give the Staff Supervisor the impression that Irene wasn’t really serious. Only a sort of socialite play-girl from Kentish Town. Of course, there was always Irene’s brown. But Irene, heaven knows why, had never really liked it.And in any case it was old. That settled it. Because the one thing for which Mrs. Privett would never have forgiven herself would have been to send Irene along looking as if she actually
needed
the job.
    There was clearly nothing for it, therefore, but to run up something. Nothing was ever made, or sewn, or stitched together in the Privett household. It was always run up. And Mrs. Privett was taking no chances. She went herself to the newsagents. In the result, copies of
Woman, Woman’s Own
and little paper envelopes stamped with the names of Butterick, Simplicity and McCall were mingled with sheets of magenta-coloured note-paper bearing Irene’s own idea of what a dress ought to look like. It was getting on for evening before a compromise was reached.
    Then, first thing on the Tuesday, Mrs. Privett dashed out to Daniels’ in the Kentish Town Road to buy the material. One way or another, she bought quite a lot of stuff at Daniels’. She was a valued customer. But she was never able to admit to Mr. Privett that she so much as went near the