Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York (13 page)

As for Natasha, she felt herself pushed out of André Fauvel’s life by the very thing for which she so much yearned, his middle-class respectability. He would never dream of marrying one such as her, presumably spoiled, flighty, steeped in publicity, dowerless. No, never. He would choose some good, simple, middle-class daughter of a friend, or acquaintance, or perhaps his absent sister would choose her for him. He would settle down to the tranquillity of an unexciting married life and raise many children. How she wished that she could be that wife and lead that tranquil life by his side and bear for him those children.

The band beat out a tingling Cha-cha-cha. A bottle of champagne stood opened on the table. They were between courses awaiting the arrival of a super Châteaubriand. All about them voices were raised in merriment and laughter, and the three sat enveloped in thick silence.

Shaking off the shadow that had fallen athwart her and feeling the wonderful excitement of life and beauty that was all about them, Mrs Harris suddenly became aware of the condition of her two companions and tried to do something about it. ‘Ain’t you two going to dance?’ she asked.

M. Fauvel blushed and mumbled something about not having danced for a long time. He would have loved nothing
better, but he had no wish to compel Natasha to endure an embrace that must be repulsive to her.

‘I do not feel like dancing,’ said Mlle Petitpierre. She would have given anything to have been on the floor with him at that moment, but would not embarrass him after his obvious reluctance to have anything to do with her beyond the normal requirements of duty and politeness.

But Mrs Harris’s keen ears had already caught the hollowness of their voices with the unmistakable note of misery contained therein, and her shrewd eyes darted from one to the other appraising them.

‘Look ’ere,’ she said, ‘wot’s the matter wiv you two?’

‘But nothing.’

‘Of course, nothing.’

In their efforts to prove this M. Fauvel and Mlle Petitpierre simultaneously broke into bright and brittle chatter aimed at Mrs Harris while they avoided one another’s eyes and which they kept up for a minute until it suddenly petered out and the silence resettled itself more thickly.

‘Blimey,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘of all the fools, me. I thought you two ’ad it settled between you long ago.’ She turned to M. Fauvel and asked: ‘Ain’t you got no tongue in your ’ead? What are you waitin’ for?’

M. Fauvel flushed as brightly crimson as the electric light bulb above his head ‘But - but - I - I— ’ he stammered, ‘she would never.’

Mrs Harris turned to Natasha. ‘Can’t you ’elp ’im a bit? In my day when a young lydy had her ’eart set on a fellow she’d let him know soon enough. ’Ow do you think I got me own ’usband?’

There was a white light above the beautiful dark, glossy head of the girl, and now she turned as pale as its incandescence.

‘But André does not— ’ she whispered.

‘Garn,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘ ’E does too - and so do you. I’ve got eyes in me ’ead. You’re both in love. What’s keepin’ you apart?’

Simultaneously M. Fauvel and Mlle Petitpierre began:

‘He wouldn’t— ’

‘She couldn’t— ’

Mrs Harris chuckled wickedly. ‘You’re in love, ain’t you? ’Oo can’t do wot?’

For the first time the two young people looked one another directly in the eyes and saw what lay there. Caught up in one another’s gaze, which they could not relinquish, into their faces at last came the clarifying expressions of hope and love. Two tears formed at the corners of Natasha’s exquisite eyes and glistened there.

‘And now, if you’ll excuse me for a minute,’ Mrs Harris announced significantly, ‘I’ll just go and pay a little visit to me aunt.’ She rose and went off in the direction of the pavilion.

When she returned a good fifteen minutes later, Natasha was locked in M. Fauvel’s arms on the dance floor, her head pillowed on his chest and her face was wet with tears. But when they saw she had returned to the table, they came running to her and threw their arms about her. M. Fauvel kissed one withered–apple cheek, Natasha the other, and then the girl put both arms around Mrs Harris’s neck and wept there for a moment murmuring: ‘My dear, I am so happy, André and I are going to— ’

‘Go on,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘what a surprise ! ’Ow about a bit of bubbly to celebrate?’

They all lifted their glasses and thereafter it was the gayest, brightest, happiest night that Mrs Harris had ever known in her whole life.

A
ND
so the day dawned at last when ‘Temptation’ was finished and it came time for Mrs Harris to take possession of her treasure swathed in reams of tissue paper and packed in a glamorous cardboard box with the name ‘
DIOR
’ printed on it in golden letters as large as life.

There was quite a little gathering for her in the Salon of Dior’s in the late morning - she was leaving on an afternoon plane - and from somewhere a bottle of champagne had appeared. Mme Colbert was there, Natasha and M. Fauvel, and all of the fitters, cutters, and seamstresses who had worked so hard and faithfully to finish her dress in record time.

They drank her health and safe journey, and there were gifts for her, a genuine crocodile leather handbag from a grateful Mme Colbert, a wrist watch from an equally grateful M. Fauvel, and gloves and perfume from the more than grateful Natasha.

The manageress took Mrs Harris in her arms, held her closely for a moment, kissed her, and whispered in her ear: ‘You have been very very lucky for me, my dear. Soon
perhaps I shall be able to write to you of a big announcement concerning my husband.’

Natasha hugged her too and said: ‘I shall never forget you, or that I shall owe all my happiness to you. André and I will marry in the autumn. I shall make you godmother to our first child.’

M. André Fauvel kissed her on the cheek and fussed over her, advising her to take good care of herself on the return trip, and then with the true concern of a man whose business is with cash asked: ‘You are sure now that you have your money to pay the duty in a safe place? You have it well hidden away, no? It is better you have it not in the purse where it might be snatched.’

Mrs Harris grinned her wonderfully jagged and impish grin. Well fed for the first time in her life, rested, and happy, she looked younger by decades. She opened her new crocodile bag to show the air-ticket and passport therein, with one single green pound note, a five hundred franc note, and a few left-over French coins to see her to the airport. ‘That’s the lot,’ she said. ‘But it’s plenty to get me back to me duties. There’s nuffink for no one to snatch.’

‘Oh la la! But no!’ cried M. Fauvel, his voice shaken by sudden anguish while a fearful silence fell upon the group in the salon as the shadow of impending disaster made itself felt. ‘I mean the customs duty at the British
douane
. Mon Dieu! Have you not provided? At six shillings in the pound’ - he made a swift calculation - ‘that would be one hundred and fifty pounds. Did you not know you must pay this?’

Mrs Harris looked at him stunned - and aged twenty years. ‘Gor,’ she croaked, ‘hundred and fifty quid. I couldn’t raise a bob to me nyme! - ’Ow, why didn’t somebody tell me? ’Ow was I to know?’

Mme Colbert reacted fiercely. ‘La, what nonsense are you talking, André? Who pays duty any more to customs? You think those titled ladies and rich Americans do? All, all is smuggle, and you too, my little Ada, shall smuggle yours—’

The little blue eyes of Mrs Harris became filled with fear, alarm, suspicion. ‘That would be telling a lie, wouldn’t it?’ she said, looking helplessly from one to the other - ‘I don’t mind telling a fib or two, but I don’t tell lies. That would be bryking the law. I could go to jail for that.’ Then as the true and ghastly import of what M. Fauvel said dawned upon her she quite suddenly sank down into the pile of the grey carpet, covered her face with her workworn hands and sent up a wail of despair that penetrated through the establishment so that the
Great Patron
himself came running in. ‘I can’t ’ave it. It ain’t for such as me. I should ’ave known me place. Tyke it away - give it away, do anything. I’ll go ’ome and forget about it.’

The story of the dilemma ran like wildfire through the building. Experts appeared from all sides to give advice, including that there be a petition directed to the British Ambassador, until it was pointed out that so stern was the British regard for the law that not even the Ambassador or the Queen herself could intervene to have them set aside, even in so worthy a cause—

It was the
Patron
himself, familiar with Mrs Harris’s story who solved the dilemma, severing the Gordian knot with one swift, generous stroke - or thought he had. ‘Reduce the price of the dress to this good woman,’ he ordered accountant Fauvel, ‘and give her the balance in cash to pay the duty.’

‘But sir,’ protested the horrified Fauvel, who now for the first time himself saw the trap into which his benefactress had fallen, ‘it is impossible!’

They all stared at him as though he were a poisonous reptile. ‘Do you not see? Madame had already unwittingly broken British law by exporting the one thousand four hundred dollars, illegally exchanged by her American friend in the United Kingdom. If now she, poor woman, appears at the British customs at the airport declaring a dress worth five hundred pounds and offered a further hundred and fifty pounds in cash to pay the duty, there would be inquiries how she, a British subject, had come by these monies: there would be a scandal—’

They continued to look at the unfortunate accountant as though he were a king cobra, but they also knew that he was right. ‘Let me go ’ome and die,’ wailed Mrs Harris.

Natasha was at her side, her arms about her. Voices rose in a babel of sympathy. Mme Colbert had an inspiration. ‘Wait,’ she cried, ‘I have it.’ She, too, dropped to her knees at Mrs Harris’s side - ‘My dear, will you listen to me? I can help you. I shall be lucky for you, as you have been for me—’

Mrs Harris removed her hands to reveal the face of an old and frightened Capucin monkey. ‘I won’t do nuffink dishonest - or tell no lies.’

‘No, no. Trust me. You shall say nothing but the absolute truth. But you must do exactly how and what I say for, my dear, we
ALL
wish you to have your beautiful dress to take home. Now listen.’ And Mme Colbert, placing her lips close to Mrs Harris’s monkey ear so that no one else might hear, whispered her instructions.

As she stood in the customs hall of London Airport, Mrs Harris felt sure that her thumping heart must be audible to all, yet by the time the pleasant-looking young customs officer reached her, her native-born courage and cheerfulness buoyed her up, and her naughty eyes were even twinkling with an odd kind of anticipatory pleasure.

On the counter before her rested, not the glamorous Dior box, but a large and well-worn plastic suitcase of the cheapest kind. The officer handed her a card on which was printed the list of dutiable articles purchased abroad.

‘You read it to me, duckie,’ Mrs Harris grinned impudently, ‘I left me specs at ’ome.’

The inspector glanced at her sharply once to see whether he was being had; the pink rose on the green hat bobbed at him; he recognised the breed at once. ‘Hullo,’ he smiled. ‘What have
you
been doing over in Paris?’

‘ ’Aving a bit of a ’oliday on me own.’

The customs man grinned. This was a new one on him. The British char abroad. The mop and broom business must be good, he reflected, then inquired routinely: ‘Bring anything back with you?’

Mrs Harris grinned at him. ‘ ’Aven’t I just? A genuine Dior dress called “Temptytion” in me bag ’ere. Five ’undred quid it cost. ’Ow’s that?’

The inspector laughed. It was not the first time he had encountered the London char’s sense of humour. ‘You’ll be the belle of the ball with it, I’ll wager,’ he said, and made a mark with a piece of chalk on the side of the case. Then he sauntered off and presented his card to the next passenger whose luggage was ready.

Mrs Harris picked up her bag and walked - not ran, though it was a great effort not to bolt - to the exit and down the escalator to freedom. She was filled not only with a sense of relief, but righteousness as well. She had told the truth. If, as Mme Colbert had said, the customs officer chose not to believe her, that was not her fault.