The great doors were opened and the phalanx of grim-faced viragos cantered through the breach and down the marble steps; it took a good five minutes for the whole formation to pass him as the Ruritanian lieutenant-colonel, standing well clear, reviewed it. Well done, ladies, he said to himself: off to as fine a flying start as I have seen these dozen years.
This he knew was merely the advance guard; supplementary troops would continue to arrive in large numbers for the next hour, in slightly lesser numbers up until lunchtime, and in still considerable force throughout the afternoon. The elite regiment of the first day would be replaced by the only slightly less determined battalions of the second and subsequent days, but look at it as one would, the scene at Goode’s for the next ten days would be, not to put too fine a point on it, a battlefield; honours would be won, and indeed merited; trophies would be displayed; lives might not be lost but wounds of one kind or another would most certainly be sustained; the sale was now in progress.
Each floor of the great building revealed substantially the same sight: of hundreds of women, all caution, all dignity abandoned, fighting for their rights to possession of frocks, skirts, jerseys, shoes, blouses and hats at greatly reduced prices. Who could blame them, who so much as criticise? They were driven not by any impulse so mere as greed or vanity, but by a biological law which impelled them to make themselves fine; and now they hoped to fulfil its diktat without at the same time making themselves broke. They were treading the ancient and ever-fine line; a few of them were bound, by reason either of superior taste or of extraordinary luck, or both, to succeed in the enterprise. It was with such hopes that they came in their hundreds from distant Kogarah, faraway Warrawee, impossible Longueville and Wollstonecraft too, and the lieutenant-colonel wished them godspeed.
The echt North Shore matron was here; and so was Joy; and so was Myra, with commissions from Doreen as well as a few requirements of her own. The mother of Frank’s boss’s notorious sons was here and so were the sons themselves, all headed straight for Children’s Shoes; and Mrs. Miles had been prevailed upon by Lisa to at least look at the Sportswear and Casuals with a view to spending her twenty pounds on some new clothes for herself which she could simply put on her back with no more ado, and above all no slavery over a hot and vexing sewing machine. “It’s practically as cheap in the end, Mum,” said Lisa, “because there’s my staff discount on top.” So they were to meet in the lunch hour and review the situation to date.
Eva, Trudi, Anna and Marietta got here well within the first two hours of opening, and Dawn arrived just before lunch. She entered in the wake of Lady Pyrke, who had annually for the past thirty years or more arrived at just this hour on just this day for the purpose of acquiring one dozen new sets of under-wear, heavily discounted; this solemnity accomplished, she would walk, steadily oblivious of the heat and the crowds, all the way to the Queen’s Club where she would have a little poached fish and a long sleep, a copy of Time and Tide open on her lap. Her chauffeur had instructions to call for her at three.
The only exception to the scene of lawful bedlam was, of course, Model Gowns; there the flag of decorum might never be lowered. Those who might not be intimidated by their first glance at the prices would be by an indefinable something in the eye of Magda. She knew at the slightest glance who her potential customers were: she knew not only who would buy this year, but also who might, with the right encouragement, return again to buy next; and she knew who would never buy. Upon Joy she might faintly have smiled; upon Dawn, she would barely perceptibly have frowned. As it was, here, just before three o’clock, were Mrs. Martin Wallruss and Mrs. Bruce Pogue, who having lunched together at Romano’s were moving in for the season’s final kill: three frocks for the price of two, with parties in their dozens still to come. The last column in Magda’s stock book began to fill up nicely, and Lisa, glancing across from the midst of the mayhem at Ladies’ Cocktail, wondered in anguish if she would ever see Lisette again.