It was as she was trailing miserably back from the agency, a few flakes of snow just beginning to fall, that she had first found Sinclair’s. Work on the building had still been going on, but the enormous hoarding around it was already plastered in advertisements, and in spite of the cold, people were lingering to read them. But what had made Sophie stop and stare was an enormous sign that read, in scarlet letters, Staff Wanted. Almost in a moment, she had known that sign was meant for her.
The next day she had put up her hair and let down the skirts of her most grown-up gown. She had perched on the edge of a hard chair, carefully answering the questions put to her by Mr Cooper – a serious-looking man with a close-trimmed beard and a severe black suit. She had felt almost absurd relief when he had offered her a position as a salesgirl in the Millinery Department, starting at ten shillings a week – just enough to afford bed and board in a cheap lodging house for working ladies.
It was what Papa would have wanted, she had reflected as she toiled back to her lodgings through the snow. She knew that he would have expected her to buck up and make the best of things, just as people always did in the military tales he loved to relate. Perhaps she might not be facing wild beasts or a native uprising in the jungle, but she could be brave and not make a fuss about embarking on this peculiar new life.
Now, with the hat display almost complete, Sophie paused for a moment and gazed down at the street below her, thronged with Hansom cabs and motor taxis, cycles whizzing daringly between them, and omnibuses, bright with coloured advertisements for Pear’s Soap and Fry’s Chocolate Cream. The pavements were crowded with people and as she watched, Sophie felt a flutter of excitement to see how many of them were casting curious glances up at the huge facade of Sinclair’s.
‘Now, Sophie, there’s no time for dreaming today. That looks very nice but if you’ve finished I wish you’d run some errands for me,’ came Mrs Milton’s voice, and Sophie started guiltily back from the window. ‘These hats need to go down to the dressing rooms on the first floor. They’re for the mannequins to wear in the dress parade.’
Edith, still busy polishing, looked pleased at the sight of Sophie being asked to do something so menial. ‘I’m sure Her Ladyship won’t care for that,’ she whispered loudly to Minnie.
As a matter of fact, Edith was quite wrong, Sophie thought crossly as she went down the stairs, carefully balancing the stack of hat-boxes. The truth was that she was happy to have any chance to look around the store and felt proud that she already knew almost every corner. The mannequins’ dressing room was one place that she had not yet seen, and what was more, she was intrigued by the mannequins themselves – lovely young ladies who had been hired especially for the purpose of modelling frocks and furs and hats. Once the store was open, there would be a dress show once a day, where they would parade before the store’s most important customers in a specially decorated salon in the Ladies’ Fashions Department. The mannequins were called the ‘Captain’s Girls’ as rumour had it that Edward Sinclair had insisted on selecting every one himself. Sophie had heard it said that they were as glamorous as stars of the West End’s chorus lines.
She soon found the dressing room in the maze of staff corridors on the first floor, and tapped politely at the door. Hearing no response, she went inside. Like every room at Sinclair’s, the dressing room was beautifully furnished, with soft chairs, looking-glasses, bright lamps and several rails of beautiful gowns, but it was otherwise empty – with the exception of one dark-haired beauty, who appeared to be half in and half out of an evening dress. There was no doubt that she must be one of the Captain’s Girls. Sophie began to retreat at once.
‘I beg your pardon, I didn’t know anyone was here,’ she murmured, but before she could close the door again, the girl looked up and smiled at her.
‘I say – don’t go!’ she exclaimed in a hearty voice that didn’t match her appearance in the slightest. ‘Come in, do, and maybe you can help me with this ghastly thing. I simply can’t make it fasten.’
Sophie put the hat-boxes down on a table, but as she approached the girl she had to bite back a gasp of amazement. It was as if a goddess had appeared before her, dressed in a white silk petticoat. Tall and statuesque, with a mass of rich, chocolate-brown hair piled on top of her head, enormous, long-lashed dark eyes and a creamy silk-and-velvet complexion, she was by far the most beautiful girl Sophie had ever seen. No wonder Mr Sinclair had chosen her to be one of the Captain’s Girls, she thought, trying not to stare.
‘I can’t seem to get the silly old bodice done up,’ the girl was saying cheerfully, clutching uselessly at the evening dress. ‘Do you think you could help? Oh thanks awfully. This is the frock I’m supposed to be wearing for the first dress show tomorrow, you see. I’m due to go to see Monsieur Pascal, so he can decide on a hairstyle to complement it, and I don’t suppose they’d like it much if I went roaming the place in my petticoats . . . Oh I say, you are doing a good job.’
Sophie had managed to untangle the dress and was looking it over. ‘I think maybe your corset needs to be tighter,’ she suggested.
‘You’re probably right,’ said the girl with a heavy sigh. Now that they were closer together, it was clear that she was younger than Sophie had first thought – perhaps only about sixteen. ‘I can’t bear a tight corset. So hateful not being able to breathe properly – don’t you think? Oh well, you have to suffer for your art I suppose, not that this is exactly what I’d call art, but you know what I mean. At least I’m only going to be doing this for a little while.’ She paused for a moment to gaze at her reflection in the mirror while Sophie tugged hard at the corset strings, and then went on, in a more confidential tone: ‘I’m really just doing it to earn a bit of money while I try and get more work in the theatre. You see, what I really want is to be an actress. I’ve just got my first real part – nothing like proper acting, just singing and dancing in the chorus in a silly show at the Fortune Theatre, but it’s a start.’
She stepped into the rustling silk skirt, and as Sophie lifted it up and fastened the tapes, she continued. ‘I know acting isn’t exactly respectable. My parents absolutely loathe the idea. Father’s awfully cross with me about it. As for Mother, she’s in a terrible pet that one of her friends is going to come in here and see me modelling frocks. They think I ought to be at home doing dreary piano practice and going to tennis parties and waiting for some stuffy fellow to decide to marry me. Could you imagine anything more dull?’ She pulled a face so expressive that Sophie couldn’t help laughing.
‘But then I’ve always known I was meant to tread the boards. It’s just the only thing I could do,’ the girl went on. Then she added hastily, ‘I mean, working here is jolly fine too of course. What do you do? Are you a salesgirl?’
Sophie was doing up the dozens of tiny buttons at the back of the bodice. ‘Yes, in the Millinery Department.’
‘Hats! How jolly! I love a good hat, don’t you? I say, this is rather a nice frock, isn’t it?’
Sophie gazed at the girl’s reflection in the mirror. If she had looked like a goddess before, she looked even more like one now. The gown was pale gold, with a pattern of peacock feathers on the sweeping skirt and a closely fitted bodice elaborately beaded in blue, green and gold. The girl turned first one way and the other, the rustling skirts swinging, and then gave Sophie a wide grin.
‘I think this must be meant for you,’ said Sophie, removing a hat from one of the boxes she had brought – an exquisite creation in green velvet trimmed with peacock feathers.
‘Thanks awfully for your help. I’m Lil by the way – well, Lilian Rose, if you want to be proper.’
‘Sophie Taylor.’