...Lucy, in a very old shapeless coat and skirt, a shabby felt hat, dirty string gloves, dragging a large bag of some evil-smelling stuff, was not an object of aesthetic pleasure. Then Mlle Duchaux's hard eye observed her well-groomed hair and well-cut, well-cleaned shoes and her well-fitting stockings and recognised her at once for what she was.
The hard eye belongs to a French woman, a retired governess, who had trained many an upper-class English family’s children, and it fell upon Lucy, the daughter of a well-off family in the English countryside during World War II. Lucy was dragging around a bag of fertilizer as she was a hearty, determined young woman who was keen on doing her bit for the war effort whether that involved looking after a garden or working at a hospital. This is from the book Marling Hall by Angela Thirkell which was published in 1942.
Lucy’s clothing was a mess precisely because she was working hard at something, and because of her general indifference to clothing, yet notice that she still wore a skirt and not pants. Only actively partaking in the dirtiest of farmwork would have made pants appropriate at this point in time. The retired governess recognized the shabby clothing was not on account of Lucy’s inability to afford anything better; Lucy’s shoes and her stockings and her hair indicated that she could afford what she wanted. And the retired governess, who had served the upper-classes, knew exactly the subtleties of dress which set off the well-off from the rest of society.
Angela Thirkell began writing novels set in the English countryside in the 1930s and she was still writing in the 1950s. Virago has republished her books: https://www.virago.co.uk/?s=thirkell
