Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York (9 page)

They now understood one another as did old friends who had much in life behind them.

‘I wouldn’t let on to anyone else,’ Mrs Harris confessed from the comfort of her new-found friendship, ‘but I was frightened to death to come ’ere.’

The old man looked at her in astonishment - ‘You? Frightened?’

‘Well,’ Mrs Harris confided, ‘you know the French …’

The gentleman emitted a sigh. ‘Ah yes. I know them very well. Still there is nothing now but for you to choose the gown that you like the best. It is said the collection this spring is superb.’

There was a stir and a rustle. A chic, expensively-dressed woman came in acolyted by two sales ladies and made for the seat beside Mrs Harris where the brown rexine handbag containing the latter’s fortune reposed momentarily.

Mrs Harris snatched it away with an ‘Oops, dearie, sorry!’ then brushed the seat of the chair with her hand smiling cheerily said: ‘There you are now. All ready for you.’

The woman who had close-set eyes and a too small mouth sat down with a jangle of gold bracelets, and immediately Mrs Harris felt herself enveloped in a cloud of the most delectable and intoxicating perfume. She leaned closer to the woman for a better sniff and said with sincere admiration: ‘My, you do smell good.’

The newcomer made a testy motion of withdrawal and a line appeared between the narrow eyes. She was looking towards the door as though searching for someone.

It would be time to begin soon. Mrs Harris felt as eager and excited as a child and mentally apostrophized herself: ‘Look at you, Ada ’Arris! Whoever would have thought you’d be sitting in the parlour at Dior’s in Paris one day, buying a dress with all the toffs? And yet ’ere you are, and noffink can stop you now—’

But the woman next to her, the wife of a speculator, had found whom she sought - Madame Colbert, who had just emerged from the dressing rooms leading off from the stairs, and she beckoned her over, speaking sharply and loudly to her in French as she neared: ‘What do you mean by seating a vulgar creature like this next to me? I wish her
removed at once. I have a friend coming later who will occupy her chair.’

Mme Colbert’s heart sank. She knew the woman and the breed. She bought not for love of clothes, but for the ostentation of it. Nevertheless she spent money. To temporize, Mme Colbert said: ‘I am sorry, madame, but I have no recollection of reserving this seat for a friend of yours, but I will look.’

‘It is not necessary to look. I told you I wished this seat for a friend. Do as I say at once. You must be out of your mind to place such a person next to me.’

The old gentleman next to Mrs Harris was beginning to colour, the crimson rising from the neckline of his collar and spreading to his ears. His blue eyes were turning as frosty as his white fringe.

For a moment Mme Colbert was tempted. Surely the little cleaning woman from London would understand if she explained to her that there had been an error in the reservations and the seat was taken. She would be able to see just as much from the head of the stairs. Her glance travelled to Mrs Harris sitting there in her shabby coat and preposterous hat. And the object of this contretemps, not understanding a word of the conversation, looked up at her with her sunniest and most trusting apple-cheeked smile. ‘Ain’t you a dear to put me ’ere with all these nice people,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t be ’appier if I was a millionaire.’

A worried-looking man in striped trousers and frock coat appeared at the head of the salon. The angry woman called to him: ‘Monsieur Armand; come here at once, I wish to speak to you. Mme Colbert has had the impertinence to seat me next to this dreadful woman. Am I forced to put up with this?’

Flustered by the vehemence of the attack, M. Armand took one look at Mrs Harris and then to Mme Colbert he
made secret ousting movements with his hands and said: ‘Well, well. You heard. Get rid of her at once.’

The angry red in the face of the fierce old gentleman turned to purple, he half arose from his chair, his mouth opening to speak when Mme Colbert preceded him.

Many thoughts and fears had raced through the French-woman’s mind, her job, prestige of the firm, possible loss of a wealthy client, consequences of defiance of authority. Yet she also knew that though M. Armand was her superior, on this floor she was in supreme command. And now that the unwitting Mrs Harris was the subject of a cruel attack the manageress experienced more than ever the feeling of kinship and sisterhood with this strange visitor from across the Channel returning overpoweringly. Whatever happened, oust her she could not and would not. It would be like beating an innocent child. She thrust out her firm round chin at M. Armand and declared: ‘Madame has every right to be seated there. She has journeyed here from London especially to buy a dress. If you wish her removed, do it yourself, for I will not.’

Mrs Harris guessed she was being discussed and identified too the city of her birth, but took no hint as to the import of the discussion. She gathered that Mme Colbert had acquainted the gentleman in the frock coat with the story of her ambitions. She therefore favoured him with her most engaging smile and, in addition, tipped him a large and knowing wink.

The old gentleman had in the meantime resumed both his seat and his normal colour, but he was staring at Mme Colbert, his face lit up with a kind of fierce and angry joy. He had momentarily forgotten Mrs Harris in his discovery of something new, or rather on the contrary, something very old and almost forgotten - a Frenchwoman of selfless courage, honour, and integrity.

As for M. Armand, he hesitated - and was lost. Mme Colbert’s firm stand as well as Mrs Harris’s wink had unnerved him. Some of Dior’s best clients, he was aware, were frequently most odd-appearing and eccentric women. Mme Colbert was supposed to know what she was doing. Throwing up his hands in a gesture of surrender, he fled the battlefield.

The wife of the speculator snapped: ‘You will hear further about this. I think, Mme Colbert, this will cost you your position,’ got up, and stalked from the room.

‘Ah, but I think it will not!’ The speaker was now the old gentleman with the tufted eyebrows, fiercely prominent nose, and the rosette of the Légion d’Honneur in his buttonhole. He arose and declaimed somewhat dramatically: ‘I am proud to have been a witness that the spirit of true democracy is not entirely extinguished in France and that decency and honour still have some adherents. If there are any difficulties over this I will speak to the patron myself.’

Mme Colbert glanced at him and murmured: ‘Monsieur is very kind.’ She was bewildered, sick at heart, and not a little frightened, as she peered momentarily into the dark abyss of the future - Jules passed over again, a broken man, she dismissed from her job and no doubt blacklisted by a malicious woman.

A girl stationed at the door called out: ‘Number wan, “Nocturne”,’ as a model in a beige suit with wide lapels and flaring skirt minced into the room.

A little shriek of excitement was torn from Mrs Harris. ‘Lumme. It’s begun!’

In spite of her state of mind Mme Colbert felt suddenly an inexplicable welling up in her of love for the charwoman and bending over her she gave her a little squeeze. ‘Look well now,’ she said, ‘so that you may recognise your heart’s desire.’

T
HEREAFTER
, for the next hour and a half, before the enthralled eyes of Mrs Harris, some ten models paraded one hundred and twenty specimens of the highest dressmaker’s art to be found in most degenerately civilised city in the world.

They came in satins, silks, laces, wools, jerseys, cottons, brocades, velvets, twills, broadclothes, tweeds, nets, organzas, and muslins—

They showed frocks, suits, coats, capes, gowns, clothes for cocktails, for the morning, the afternoon, for dinner parties, and formal and stately balls and receptions.

They entered trimmed with fur, bugle beads, sequins, embroidery with gold and silver thread, or stiff with brocades, the colours were wonderfully gay and clashed in daring combinations; the sleeves were long, short, medium, or missing altogether. Necklines ranged from choke to plunge, hemlines wandered at the whim of the designer. Some hips were high, others low, sometimes the breasts were emphasized, sometimes neglected or wholly concealed. The theme of the show was the high waist and hidden hips.
There were hints and forecasts of the sack and trapeze to come. Every known fur from Persian lamb, mink, and nutria to Russian baumarten and sable were used in trimming or in the shape of stoles or jackets.

It was not long before Mrs Harris began to become accustomed to this bewildering array of richness and finery and soon came to recognise the various models upon their appearance in rotation.

There was the girl who walked slinky-sly with her stomach protruding a good six inches before her, and the petite one with the come-hither eyes and provocative mouth. There was the model who seemed to be plain until Mrs Harris noted her carriage and quiet air of elegance, and another who was just sufficiently on the plump side to convey the idea to a stout customer. There was the girl with her nose in the air and disdain at her lips, and an opposite type, a red-haired minx who wooed the whole salon as she made her rounds.

And then, of course, there was the one and only Natasha, the star. It was the custom in the salon to applaud when a creation made a particular hit, and Mrs Harris’s palms, horny from application to scrubbing brush and mop, led the appreciation each time Natasha appeared looking lovelier than the last. Once, during one of her appearances, the charwoman noticed a tall, blond, pale young man with an odd scar on his face standing outside, staring hungrily as Natasha made an entrance and said to herself: ‘Coo, he ain’t arf in love with her, he ain’t …’

She was in love herself, was Mrs Harris, with Natasha, with Mme Colbert, but above all with life and the wonderful thing it had become. The back of her card was already covered with pencilled numbers of frocks and dresses and frantic notes, messages and reminders to herself that she
would never be able to decipher. How could one choose between them all?

And then Natasha glided into the salon wearing an evening gown, Number 89, called ‘Temptation’. Mrs Harris had just a fleeting instant in which to note the enraptured expression on the face of the young man by the door before he turned away quickly as though that was what he had come for, and then it was all up with her. She was lost, dazzled, blinded, overwhelmed by the beauty of the creation. This was
IT
!!! Thereafter there were yet to come further stunning examples of evening gowns until the traditional appearance of the bridal costume brought the show to a close, but the char saw none of them. Her choice was made. Feverish excitement accelerated her heartbeat. Desire coursed like fire in her veins.

‘Temptation’ was a black velvet gown, floor length, encrusted half-way from the bottom up with a unique design picked out in beads of jet that gave to the skirt weight and movement. The top was a froth of cream, delicate pink, and white chiffon, tulle and lace from which arose the ivory shoulders and neck and dreamy-eyed dark head of Natasha.

Rarely had a creation been better named. The wearer appeared like Venus arising from the pearly sea, and likewise she presented the seductive figure of a woman emerging from tousled bedclothes. Never had the upper portion of the female form been more alluringly framed.

The salon burst into spontaneous applause at Natasha’s appearance and the clacking of Mrs Harris’s palms rounded like the beating upon boards with a broomstick.

Cries and murmurs of ‘
La, la!
’ and ‘
Voyez, c’est formidable!
’ arose on all sides from the males present while the fierce old gentleman thumped his cane upon the floor and beamed with ineffable pleasure. The garment covered Natasha most
decently and morally and yet was wholly indecent and overwhelmingly alluring.

Mrs Harris was not aware that there was anything extraordinary as to the choice she had made. For she was and eternally would be a woman. She had been young once and in love. She had had a husband to whom her young heart had gone out and to whom she had wished to give and be everything. Life in that sense had not passed her by. He had been shy, embarrassed, tongue-tied, yet she had heard the love words forced haltingly from his lips whispered into her ear. Incongruously, at that moment she thought of the photograph upon her dressing table with herself in the tiered muslin dress that had seemed so grand then, only now she saw herself clad in ‘Temptation’ in the picture instead.

The bridal model showed herself perfunctorily; the gathering, buzzing as it emerged from the two salons were sucked towards the exit leading to the grand staircase where, lined up like ravens, the
vendeuses,
the black-clad sales women with their little sales books under their arms waited to pounce upon their customers.

Mrs Harris, her small blue eyes glittering like aquamarines, found Mme Colbert. ‘Number eighty-nine, Temptytion,’ she cried, and then added, ‘oh Lor’, I ’ope it don’t cost more’n what I’ve got.’

Mme Colbert smiled a thin, sad smile. She might almost have guessed it. ‘Temptation’ was a poem created in materials by a poet of women, for a young girl in celebration of her freshness and beauty and awakening to the mysterious power of her sex. It was invariably demanded by the faded, the middle-aged, the verging-on-passé women. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘we will go to the back and I will have it brought to you.’