The Angel in the Corner Read Online Free Page A

elder of the two women, stood up, honest and square, and so unrelievedly plain that it was a miracle she had ever been taken on to
Lady Beautiful
. However, Virginia knew that she was more use there than a dozen of the fetching girls whom her mother hailed as geniuses one week and fired the next.
    ‘We can finish this afternoon,’ she said, wanting lunch herself. ‘There’s plenty of time.’
    Helen frowned, as Judy and Marigold moved towards the door. She did not like her staff to leave the room until she dismissed them.
    ‘Please come,’ Virginia said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve got a job.’ She had not meant to say it here in front of the others, who would exclaim, and want to hear more; but, as often happened, she had blundered into telling something she had planned to recount in a quiet moment, over a corner table, with all her words for it prepared.
    As she feared, the two women stopped on their way to the door. They knew and liked Virginia well enough to be interested in what she did. ‘A job!’ Marigold said. ‘How exciting. What is it – on a paper?’
    ‘Yes. Well, not exactly. At least, it’s on a paper, but it’s not a job really, just part of the college training.’
    ‘What a good idea,’ Marigold said, her clever face crinkled into an encouraging smile. ‘What’s the paper?’
    ‘Well,’ Virginia knew how the words were going to sound and be received in this pretentious room, ‘it’s called the
Northgate Gazette.’
    ‘The
Northgate Gazette.’
Her mother cocked her head as if she had not heard aright, and sounded out the words as if they were a foreign language. ‘That sounds quite enchanting. Tell us more. Stand still, Jinny, and don’t fidget about the room. Tell us about it. First, what is Northgate?’ She put inverted commas round the name, as if it were a word Virginia had made up.
    Virginia glanced at the others. ‘It’s a suburb. One of the outer suburbs.’
    Seeing Helen’s critically-raised eyebrows, Judy wanted to say something that would enable her indirectly to oppose Helen. ‘That’s grand for you, Jinny,’ she said, clasping her notebook to her wide chest. ‘It will be a wonderful experience. You’re reporting for them, is that it? What’s their circulation? Some of these local papers have a huge readership.’
    ‘This isn’t very big, I don’t think,’ Virginia admitted, ‘judging from the size of the staff.’ She had to be honest with Judy, but when she saw the amused look on her mother’s face she began to exaggerate stubbornly, until the
Northgate Gazette
began to look like a rival to the
Manchester Guardian
.
    Helen was neither deceived nor impressed. ‘A job is a job, I suppose,’ she said. ‘It will keep you in nylons, at least. What are they paying you?’
    ‘I told you, it’s only part of the training. They don’t pay anything.’
    ‘
I
see.’ Helen’s patronizing lilt closed the subject. When they went out to lunch Helen did not ask any more about the
Northgate Gazette
, and Virginia did not want to talk about it.
    *
    Later that day, as Virginia turned into the archway at the entrance to the mews, a man turned into it from the opposite direction. He was wearing a black overcoat and a new black hat, which had not yet accommodated itself to his small head. It was the man she had met the other night, the doctor who had stopped working on his car to look at her.
    ‘Hullo.’ His face had been set, as if he were thinking while he walked, but it dissolved into a smile when he saw her. ‘Going home?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So am I.’
    They could think of nothing more to say until they reached his doorway. He did not immediately take out his key, and she thought that he was trying to think of something to say to detain her.
    ‘Do you have a job?’ he asked. ‘I mean, are you on your way home from work?’
    Virginia told him briefly about the college and the
Northgate Gazette
. He had tolerant brown eyes and a slightly crooked