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“Well, isn’t that a turn-up for the books.”

She looked up as Gladys rolled over, wide-eyed, and said, “You’ve been so quiet, Izzie, I didn’t know that you knew Lady Alexandra.”

“Lady Alexandra?” she asked.

“You don’t know?” asked Gladys.

“Evidently not.”

“She’s the daughter of some earl or another. You’d think that they would have put her in some sort of officer role, but maybe they’re waiting until she’s out of training,” said Gladys.

“Are you talking about Lady Alexandra?” asked Valerie, whose bunk was two down the row. “I heard she was here, but I thought she would be more elegant than that.”

“She’s perfectly elegant, and not only that, she’s my friend. I won’t hear another word against her,” said Izzie fiercely.

Valerie raised her hands. “I never meant any offense.”

When Valerie turned her back, Gladys leaned over the gap between Izzie’s bed and her own and said, “That serves Valerie right. She’s the most frightful gossip. You should hear some of the things she says about the girls.”

Izzie simply stared at her, hardly able to believe that Gladys was passing judgment on another woman’s tendency to gossip.

“I heard you talking about altering Lady Alexandra’s uniform,” Gladys continued. “Could you do the same for me?”

Izzie opened her mouth to say no but then she stopped herself. Gladys wanted her uniform altered, and why shouldn’t she?

“Yes. I can do that.”

Gladys grinned. “Thank you! I hate how the skirt bags around my waist. I keep having to haul it up on parade.”

“I’ll need to finish Lady Alexandra’s things first, but then I can take in your skirt. It will probably come to a few shillings, but I’ll give you a proper price when I take a look at it.”

“Oh, thank you!” Gladys chirped again.

Izzie turned back to her bunk, a slow smile spreading across her face as she realized she’d just figured out a way to earn a bit of money toward the purchase of the shop while she was a WAAF. As her mother had always said, every little bit helped.

7 January 1942

Dear Izzie,

I was beginning to worry that you hadn’t gone off to training to be a WAAF but instead were conducting a wild love affair with a devastatingly handsome man who had convinced you to run off with him. (Perhaps an American. I imagine we’ll begin to see some of their kind on our shores soon, given that they’re now in this wretched war.)

I am both disappointed and heartened to find out that you have, in fact, been diligently working to become a WAAF! I can’t decide if all the drills and classes you’ve been put through sound like fun or hard work. Either way, I imagine that you are doing just fine for yourself.

As an acknowledgment of the great sacrifice you have made in writing to me about something other than the shop, here is my report.

Aside from my impressive progress with Miss Reid, I think you will be pleased to hear that I have dealt with the Miss Keynes situation. There were a few tense moments when she came into the shop on Tuesday to pick up her skirt. However, I boldly held it hostage and told her that she would not be having it until she had paid the balance of her account. She was almost as horrified as when I told her that moving forward she would also be required to pay a deposit of half at the commissioning of any future garments and pay the balance when she picked up the garment. (This is a policy I have decided to put into place for all customers, not just Miss Keynes.)

As you can imagine, the lady was not pleased that I had taken a stand against her bad behavior and she went away in a huff. However, by the end of the working day she had returned with forty-three pounds and four shillings, which you will be happy to know clears her debt entirely. She made some noise about never being treated so poorly in her life, but she left with her skirt, so I imagine she is happy enough.

After the roaring success of dealing with Miss Keynes, I have begun to ring round to the ladies holding our other delinquent accounts—or at least the ones I could find in the shop’s records. (Did you know that Mrs. Lang’s account is not paid by her husband but by a Mr. Talworth? What a scandal if that ever made its way out among the housewives of Maida Vale!) There has been some grumbling and some complaints about the war making things so much more difficult, but I am happy to say that most of the ladies have seen sense and agreed to settle their accounts.

By my calculations, we should be up nearly five hundred pounds in uncollected payments by the end of the fortnight. It is not a sustainable business strategy, naturally, but every little bit helps.

As I have been sorting things out, I’ve been thinking about what you said about customers not coming in as much as they once did because of needing to hoard one’s coupons. While we certainly face a challenge with how many garments our customers can purchase each season or even each year, surely there is no reason we can’t increase the number of customers to the shop. To that end, I must ask if you have ever considered taking out advertisements? Miss Reid deigned to speak to me enough to tell me that she doesn’t remember our mother ever trying advertising. I thought perhaps we could place a notice in The Lady or the Tatler and Bystander—or both? I suppose Vogue might be a bit ambitious right now, but I don’t see any issue with dreaming of one day.

I should also mention, I found some old correspondence from a Mr. Manon, the man at the bank who helped me open the shop’s account before I left home. Did you ever hear our mother mention Mr. Manon from Whitmore’s or the account more recently? The letter I found was two years old…

Yours,