The Milliner's Secret (4 page)

‘Have you gone nuts?’ Donal demanded from the doorway.

‘I’m being Marlene Dietrich in
Shanghai Express
.’

‘You sound like my sister Doreen after she had her tonsils out. Please, let’s go.’

Her last act was to grab a handbag off a hook on the door. Olive green, cheap leather, but she needed something to carry her winnings home in.

As the train pulled out of London Bridge station, she and Donal travelling third-class to save money, Cora studied her borrowed feathers in the window’s reflection. There’d be a price to pay for this. There always was.

Ticket number 22 had been pulled from the hat in the company canteen last Friday, during the afternoon break. Pettrew & Lofthouse was progressive, allowing staff twenty minutes off during the long second shift. Giant teapots would pour out strong tea, resembling a line of silver swans dipping their beaks to feed. You could choose either a currant bun or a slice of bread-and-butter with your tea. When her winning ticket was pulled out, Cora had pushed back her chair, her bun half eaten, and struck up a Charleston in the middle of the floor. It was a dance her mother had taught her, and it lived inside her feet, ready to burst out at the smallest provocation. Scuffing and kicking, flashing her hands towards the iron-vaulted ceiling, she’d played to her audience. Even the cool regard of Old Pettrew and his fellow directors had failed to quell her.

‘Go on, Cora, give us a shimmy!’ her friends had roared, the moment she began to flag, and she would have done, had she not been brought out of her trance by a loud ‘Ahem, Miss Masson?’ It was her section forelady, Miss McCullum, indicating Cora should precede her out of the door.

In her private office, Miss McCullum had said, ‘Cora, that display was most improper.’

‘I know, miss, but I’m celebrating.’

‘Quite so, but Pettrew & Lofthouse holds to the values of its founders. Singing quietly while we work is one thing. Impressions of Josephine Baker over the teacups is not what I expect from you.’

Cora conceded, though she really wanted to say,
Then you don’t know me very well, do you?

There was a brief silence while Miss McCullum consulted some recess of her mind. ‘You have won a place on the Derby Day outing, but are you certain you wish to take an afternoon’s holiday?’

Cora blinked. What a stupid question.

‘We’ve been keeping an eye on you, Miss Lofthouse and I.’

Miss Lofthouse was sister to the joint-chairman and a director. ‘What sort of eye?’ Cora demanded warily.

‘We consider you a candidate for promotion, as demonstrated by the recent discretionary pay increase we awarded you.’

‘Oh.’ Cora didn’t understand ‘discretionary’, but last month, four shillings extra had appeared in her pay packet. Kindly meant, no doubt, but not as welcome as the forelady might imagine. News of pay rises always leaked out and favouritism was poison in a close-knit environment. As for promotion, that meant walking up and down the aisles, checking her friends’ work, carrying the can for their mistakes as well as her own. All for a bit of extra money she’d likely never see anyway.

Miss McCullum continued crisply, ‘I tell you in confidence, Cora, that my position in ladies’ soft felt may soon fall vacant.’ A raised eyebrow invited response, but Cora couldn’t think of one. Everyone knew that foremen and ladies had to have been millinery apprentices, schooled in the arts of blocking and fine finishing. Pettrew & Lofthouse hats adorned the heads of politicians, lords and ladies, even royalty. The directors were gentlemen, arriving for work in chauffeur-driven cars – except for Miss Lucilla Lofthouse, who came on a bicycle. But that, apparently, was because she’d been a suffragette and was still making a point. Supervisors spoke with rounded vowels and correctly applied aitches. And they dressed the part. Take Miss McCullum’s cigar-brown costume and lace collar, the spectacles suspended from a thin gold chain. Whenever she walked into the make-room, where Cora worked, everyone stopped talking.

‘I’ve only ever worked on ladies’ felt and woven straw,’ Cora blurted out. ‘And I never could block a hat, not one anybody would want on their head, because I’m cack-handed.’ She waved her left hand. ‘They forced me to be right-handed at school, so now I can’t do anything properly, not even peel a spud. A potato, I mean. And I’ve never touched buckram nor sisal, nor plush. I’m just a trimmer. I couldn’t be forelady.’
I’m not a lady
.

‘Indeed, you are many years from such a position. I was about to say that Miss Lofthouse and I have considered creating a subordinate post, that of assistant forelady, and we consider you suitable for such a role. You would learn on the job.’

What had that got to do with her going to the Derby, Cora wondered? The question must have shown because Miss McCullum said, ‘Absenting yourself in pursuit of rowdy pleasure ill befits a future supervisor. You will wish to withdraw from the party, I dare say.’

Seriously? In talking of future promotion, the forelady was dangling a very thin jam sandwich on the end of a very long fishing rod, whereas the Derby was six days off, and the best fun Cora was likely to have all year. She wouldn’t say it to Miss McCullum, but the work here was stupefyingly boring. Always the same grosgrain ribbon to work with, always in navy, gravy or bottle green. Once in a while, a new line might demand a rosette or even a tiny feather, but Pettrew’s hats were essentially dull. Oh, yes, smart and hard-wearing, but dull. That was the point of them.

‘There’s a world out there, Miss McCullum, with wonderful colours in it. I want a bit of time off, so I get to see them.’

The eyes beneath the level brows turned cool. All Cora knew of the very private Jean McCullum was that she’d followed the Lofthouse family from Scotland when they bought out the old firm of Pettrew’s. Miss McCullum shared the family’s unadorned Methodism, so would never raise her voice or resort to intemperate language, but she could convey a sermon just by looking at you. And the brown dress made Cora feel that her own red polka-dot and yellow cardigan was shouting something undignified.

‘By “time off”, Cora. I presume you mean “freedom”?’

‘Nothing wrong with that.’

‘No.’ Miss McCullum clicked her tongue. ‘Under firm regulation, freedom is a good thing. And this is my point. Name another respectable trade where a girl such as yourself can rise to a level where she may eventually draw a salary of two hundred pounds a year. As much as a well-paid man. Don’t settle for a life of low-paid manual labour, Cora. Seize your chances.’

‘I do seize them.’

‘The
right
chances. I began at the milliner’s bench too. And Miss Lofthouse is one of only a handful of female board directors in the whole of London, and she’s a trained milliner. You could be a forelady by the age of thirty. You’d not run from that?’

Cora didn’t know. Her thirties felt centuries off. But Derby Day was here now. Her gaze strayed to the window, to a vista of scudding clouds even factory smoke couldn’t dim. Who liked rules, except the people who made them? Everyone had ideas about what she should do with her life and they all led her through the factory gate. She knew Miss McCullum was being kind and didn’t want to seem ungrateful. So why not tell the truth? ‘I fancy my chances in Paris, Miss McCullum.’

‘Paris? Goodness, why?’

‘
Love me Tonight
.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s a film. And you have to see
Roberta
with Irene Dunne. So glamorous. The dresses, the hats . . . I’d be in Heaven in Paris.’

‘Films are not real life, Cora.’

‘Oh, they are, Miss McCullum. They’re other people’s lives, that’s all.’

‘You really want to live somebody else’s life?’

‘Every minute of every day.’

Miss McCullum blinked. ‘I don’t think you can have thought it through, dear. Assuming you arrived in Paris, what would you do?’

‘I can sing a bit, and you’ve seen me dance. I could go on the stage, like my mum.’

‘No. You aren’t small or pretty enough.’

Cora nearly opened her mouth to point out that that hadn’t stopped Joan Crawford, but in the end, said nothing. Being an actress was a red herring. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, only that she couldn’t bear the idea of growing old at a workbench, or marrying some bloke called Albert or Bill just to get away from her dad’s fists and the factory whistle.

Now, as the Epsom-bound train chugged past the cramped backyards of New Cross, Forest Hill, Croydon, Cora reran that conversation and finished it: ‘The thing is, I don’t
want
to stay at Pettrew’s. I want to go to Paris. Or Timbuktu or China. Anywhere, Miss McCullum. But I haven’t got the courage. I’m a coward, see, like Granny Flynn says: stuck like a hobnail in a crack in the pavement.’

Donal and Cora bought passes for the public grandstand. Standing only, but you got a decent view of the racecourse. The other side of the white rails was The Hill, where the public roamed for free, a mosaic of spectators, cars and open-top red double-deckers. Sunlight bounced mercilessly off metal and Cora was glad of her shadowy veil. ‘What race is next?’ she asked Donal. A squadron of jockeys was cantering towards the backfield.

Donal checked his card. ‘That’ll be the two thirty going down to the start. Half an hour to the big one.’ The betting rings were heaving, tic-tac men signalling coded messages. Odds were being bellowed, starting prices chalked up, rubbed out, rewritten. Each time the price of a horse changed, a roar went up. She’d given Donal two pounds. They’d each bought their fares and grandstand passes and kept back a few shillings to feed themselves. Everything she had left was going on one horse, to win.

‘Here’s the plan,’ she shouted, over the roar that heralded the start of the two thirty. ‘You get us a drink and something to eat and I’ll maggot into the crowd. I’m going to find out which horse is the best outsider for the Derby Stakes.’

‘Outsider? Are you sure?’

‘I like outsiders, Donal. I feel like one myself.’

As Cora got near the runners’ and riders’ board, the two-thirty thundered past. Deafening, and when the winners were declared, the crowds went wild. It was a quarter of an hour before the boards were wiped clean and the Derby runners were chalked up. She read the list.

Cash Book and Perifox were joint favourites at seven to one. After that, it was Le Ksar and Goya II at nine to one. Cora rolled their names on her tongue, waiting for the jolt that would tell her she’d pronounced the name of the winner. Her eye stopped at number ten: Mid-day Sun. She felt . . . not electricity, just an emotion, the roots of which she couldn’t find.

Mid-day Sun was on at 100 to seven, as was a filly, Gainsborough Lass. Those were mile-long odds. She looked for Donal, but all she could see were men and women scanning their race cards. She’d have to make her own choice. Her eye kept going back to Mid-day Sun. One hundred to seven,
if
he won. For a stake of two pounds ten, she’d win . . . she felt her brain grinding . . . between thirty and forty pounds. That would get her away from her father and keep her while she found herself a more pleasant job.
Cora, you can stop getting your hopes up
, she admonished herself. The chance of Mid-day Sun winning the Derby was about the same as her dad coming home with a fish-and-chip supper and a big bunch of flowers. Even so, she couldn’t shift the fizzy-sick feeling in her stomach.

A man in a group in front of her was saying that his choice, Perifox, came from Kentucky and that he liked the going firm. Kentucky . . . was that a posh name for Kent? Cora dug her heels into the grass. It felt pretty firm. What about Mid-day Sun? Did he like firm going? She stamped and a yowl filled her ear. She turned to see a man in full morning dress hopping in apparent agony. She moved towards him, ready to catch his top hat if it fell off. He glared at her. ‘Why the devil did you stamp on my foot?’

‘To know if the ground was hard or not.’

‘The heel of your shoe is, I promise you.’

She was desperate to apologise, but all she managed was an inappropriate grin. He was ridiculously good-looking. Light-haired, brown eyes, with a glint of green. Hazel, a colour she’d always craved for herself. His mouth was long and firm with the promise of humour, though she’d have to wait for proof as his teeth were clenched. It said volumes about her background that she was admiring a man for being well-shaven and clean, but so it was. How often did she look at a man’s collar and find it pearly white, unless it had just come through Granny Flynn’s laundry? How often did she see a suit that fitted, none of the seams gasping for breath? A dark grey morning coat, top hat with a black band – good enough to be from Pettrew’s – and striped twill trousers advanced the impression of good breeding. The most striking thing about him was his beauty.
Beauty.
She’d never used that word about a man, ever. Suddenly, she had a feeling she’d seen him before.