For Many a Long Day by Anne Doughty Read Free Book Online

trestle tables and well-wrapped shrub roses parked against them. She glanced across at the splashes of colour, an equal and opposite grey sadness clutching at her. How often had she gone to walk among those same trestle tables in her lunch hour, looking at similar plants and just occasionally allowing herself to buy one she could slip for cuttings, growing them on in her own garden till such time as she and George would make their garden together. She couldn’t take wee plants to Canada, so there’d be no point in making any more.
    She edged her way through the market andwas just rounding the corner into Scotch Street when she heard the clatter of hooves. She stopped and waited while three heavy Shire horses pulling grocery vans emerged one by one from the yard behind the tall, red-brick frontage of the Co-op. They blocked her path till there was a gap in the traffic coming up Scotch Street and they were able to turn right down Thomas Street on their way to begin their morning rounds in the villages to the west of the city.
    She freewheeled the remaining short distance to Freeburns High Class Drapers, its wide, plate glass windows dazzling now in the morning light. She wheeled her bicycle up a narrow entry between high brick walls, pushed open the door into a crowded yard and parked it against a mangle left to rust beside the door of what had once been the privy. She had barely crossed the stone floor of the maid’s scullery and set foot on the servant’s staircase when a familiar voice echoed from the floor above.
    ‘Ah, Miss Scott, you have
arrived
.’
    ‘Good morning, Miss Walker,’ she replied politely, as she climbed the narrow stair, perfectly aware of the older woman’s half-concealed glance at the fob watch pinned to the ample bosom of her severe black dress.
    Ellie did not possess a watch, but she knew the cathedral clock had not yet struck the half-hour. She followed the dark figure across a landing stacked tothe ceiling with cardboard boxes and into a small, congested room, known as ‘the Staff-room’ which also served as an additional store for bales of cloth and yet more boxes of extra stock. She hung up her bag on the hook provided, took out her comb, ran it quickly through her hair and straightened her blouse and skirt.
    Now in her sixties, Miss Walker was a tall, unbending woman with steel grey hair and eyes so pale they seemed to lack any colour at all. She had been senior assistant at Freeburns for the last thirty-five years. Her greatest virtue was the meticulous attention she gave to any piece of information that passed before her eyes, accompanied by an enormous memory for detail. Her greatest vice was a complete lack of forgiveness for anyone not similarly gifted.
    She stared at Ellie as if unwilling to accept, for the moment, the girl was presenting no opportunity for the sharp comments she felt entitled, and indeed required, to make on any aspect of her punctuality, appearance or demeanour. She compensated herself for this lost opportunity by a quite unnecessary asperity in conveying her instructions.
    ‘I’ve made a list of replacement stock, Miss Scott. As soon as Miss Hutchinson favours us with her presence, I want you to collect the boxes and take them downstairs. You will need to do them one at a time behind the counter so that there are noboxes sitting on the floor when customers are …’
    Though Ellie had heard the instruction a hundred times before, she assumed a gravely attentive expression, but this time Miss Walker was forced to break off as the door flew open. A tall, round-faced girl burst into the room, dark curls sticking damply to her flushed cheeks. From the floor below, the former kitchen clock ran through its preliminary wheezings. After a moment of complete silence, its tinny notes rose up through the stairwell. Though muffled by the barricades of cardboard boxes piled high on the landing outside, its message was clear enough. Eight thirty. They listened in silence as