Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York

by Paul Gallico

  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.’

  THEREAFTER, 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.’

  She led her through grey doors into another part of the building, through endless meadows of the soft grey carpeting until at last Mrs Harris came into yet another world that was almost stifling with excitement.

  She found herself in a curtained-off cubicle on a corridor that seemed to be a part of an endless maze of similar corridors and cubicles. Each cubicle held a woman like a queen bee in a cell, and through the corridors rushed the worker bees with the honey - armfuls of frilly, frothy garments in colours of plum, raspberry, tamarind, and peach, gentian-flower, cowslip, damask rose, and orchid, to present them where they had been ordered for trial and further inspection.

  Here was indeed woman’s secret world, where gossip and the latest scandal was exchanged, the battlefield where the struggle against the ravages of age was carried on with the weapons of the dressmaker’s art and where fortunes were spent in a single afternoon.

  Here, attended by sales women, seamstresses, cutters, fitters, and designers, who hovered about them with tape, scissors, basting needle and thread, and mouths full of pins, rich French women, rich American women, rich German women, super-rich South American women, titled women from England, maharanees from India, and even, it was rumoured, the wife or two of an ambassador or commissar from Russia,
spent their afternoons - and their husband’s money.

  And here too, in the midst of this thrilling and entrancing hive, surrounded by her own entourage, stood the London charwoman, encased in ‘Temptation’ - whom it fitted astonishingly, yet logically, since she too was slender, thinned by occupational exercise and too little food.

  She issued from the wondrous, frothy foam of seashell pink, sea-cream and pearl white like - Ada ’Arris from Battersea. The creation worked no miracles except in her soul. The scrawny neck and greying head that emerged from the shoulder décolleté of the gown, the weathered skin, small button-bright blue eyes, and apple cheeks contrasted with the classic fall of jet-encrusted black velvet panels were grotesque - but still, not wholly so, for the beautiful gown as well as the radiance of the person in it yet managed to lend an odd kind of dignity to this extraordinary figure.

  For Mrs Harris had attained her Paradise. She was in a state of dreamed-of and longed-for bliss. All of the hardships, the sacrifices, the economies, and hungers and doings-without she had undergone faded into insignificance. Buying a Paris dress was surely the most wonderful thing that could happen to a woman.

  Mme Colbert was consulting a list ‘Ah, oui,’ she murmured, ‘the price is five hundred thousand francs.’ The apple cheeks of Mrs Harris paled at this announcement. There was not that much money in the whole world. ‘That is five hundred English pounds,’ Mme Colbert continued, which is one thousand four hundred American dollars, and with our little discount for cash— ’

  Mrs Harris’s yell of triumph interrupted her. ‘Blimey! That’s exactly what I’ve got. I’ll ’ave it! Can I pye for it now?’ and moving stiffly beneath the crinolines, jet, and interior reinforcements of the dress, she reached for her purse.

  ‘Of course - if you wish. But I do not like to handle such an amount of cash. I will ask M. Fauvel to descend,’ Mme Colbert replied and reached for a telephone.

  A few minutes later, the young, blond, M. André Fauvel appeared in the cubicle, where the shrewd appraising eyes recognised him at once as the man who had gazed with such a hopelessly lovelorn expression upon Natasha.

  As for M. Fauvel, he looked upon Mrs Harris rising out of ‘Temptation’, registering sheer and almost unconcealed horror at the picture of this earthy person desecrating the gown modelled in the collection by his goddess. To the inflamed mind of young Fauvel it was as though one of the girls from the Rue Blanche or the Place Pigalle had wrapped herself in the flag of France.

  The creature smiled at him, revealing missing and imperfect teeth and wrinkling the cheeks so that they looked like fruit shrunken by frost, as she said: ‘It’s all ’ere ducks. Fourteen hundred dollars, and that’s me last penny. Strewth!’ And she handed him the sheaf of dollars.

  Mme Colbert caught the look upon the face of the young accountant She could have told him this was something they went through a hundred times each week, watching exquisite creations meant for beautiful women carried off by raddled old frumps. She touched his arm gently, distracting him, and explained in a few swift sentences in French. It failed to abate his anger at seeing the outer shell of his beloved so mocked and burlesqued.

  ‘It don’t need no altering,’ Mrs Harris was saying. ‘I’ll take it just as it is. ’Ave it wrapped for me.’

  Mme Colbert smiled. ‘But, my dear, surely you must know we cannot let you have this dress. This is the model and there is yet another month of summer showings. We will make you one, of course, exactly like—’

  Alarm squeezed the heart of Mrs Harris as the import of what Mme Colbert was saying struck home. ‘Lumme! Myke me one—’ she repeated, and suddenly looking like an older travesty of herself, asked, ‘ ’ow long does it take?’

  Mme Colbert felt alarm now too: ‘Ten days to two weeks ordinarily - but for you we would make an exception and rush it through in a week—’

  The awful silence following upon this revelation was broken by the cry torn from the depth of Mrs Harris - ‘But don’t you understand? I can’t stay in Paris. I’ve just enough money to get me ’ome! It means I can’t ’ave it!’ She saw herself back in the gloomy Battersea flat, empty-handed, possessed only of her useless money. What did she want with all that money? It was ownership of ‘Temptation’ for which she craved, body and soul, even though she never again put it on her back.

  Horrible, dreadful, common woman, thought M. André. Serves you right, and I shall enjoy handing your vulgar money back to you.

  Thereupon, to the horror of all, they saw two tears form at the corners of her eyes, followed by others that coursed down the red-veined cheeks as Mrs Harris stood there in the midst of them, in the exquisite ball gown, miserable, abandoned, desperately unhappy.

  And M. André Fauvel, accountant and money-man, supposedly with heart of stone, suddenly felt himself moved as he had never thought possible, deeply and unbearably touched and, with one of those flashes of insight of which the French are so capable, knew that it was the hopeless love he felt for the girl Natasha whose sweet and dear body had inhabited this garment that had brought him so suddenly to an understanding of the tragedy of this stranger who, on the brink of realising her greatest desire, was to suffer frustration.

  Thereupon he dedicated his next remark to that girl who would never know how much or greatly he had loved her, or that he had loved her at all, for that matter. He presented himself to Mrs Harris with a formal little bow: ‘If madame would care, I invite her to come to my home and remain with me during this period as my guest. It is not much - only a small house, but my sister has had to go to Lille and there would be room—’

  His reward was almost immediate in the expression that came over the little woman’s face and her cry of ‘Oh Lor’ love yer! Do yer really mean it?’ and the odd gesture of Mme Colbert which might have been the brushing away of something from the corner of her eyes as she said - ‘Oh André, vous êtes un ange!’

  But then Mrs Harris gave a little shriek. ‘Oh lumme - my jobs …’

  ‘Haven’t you a friend,’ suggested Mme Colbert helpfully, ‘someone who would help you out while you were away?’

  ‘Mrs Butterfield,’ Mrs Harris replied immediately - ‘but a whole week—’

  ‘If she is a real friend she will not mind,’ Mme Colbert counselled. ‘We could send her a telegram from you.’

  Mrs Butterfield would not mind, particularly when she heard all about it, Mrs Harris felt certain. Her conscience smote her when she thought of Pamela Penrose and her important producer friends and her career. Yet there was ‘Temptation’. ‘I’ll do it,’ she cried. ‘I’ve got to ’ave it.’

  Thereupon to her excitement and delight, her horde of fitters, cutters, dressmakers, and seamstresses descended upon her with tape, pattern muslin, pins, basting thread, scissors, and all the wondrous exciting paraphernalia that was connected with making up the most expensive dress in the world.

  By late afternoon, when at last Mrs Harris was done with measuring and fitting, the most remote corner of the establishment had heard the tale of the London charwoman who had saved her wages and journeyed to Paris to buy herself a Dior dress and she was in the way of becoming something of a celebrity. Members of the staff from the lowest to the highest, including the Patron himself, had managed an excuse to pass by the cubicle to catch a glimpse of this remarkable Englishwoman.

  And later, while for the last time Mrs Harris was encased in the model, Natasha herself, clad in a neat cocktail frock, for she was about to start out on a round of evening’s engagements, came and saw nothing unusual or grotesque in the figure of the charwoman in the beautiful creation, for she had heard the story and felt herself touched by it. She understood Mrs Harris. ‘I am so glad you have chosen that one,’ she said simply.

  When the latter suddenly said - ‘Coo, ’owever am I going to get to this Mr Fauvel. He gave me ’is address, but I wouldn’t know where it was—’ Natasha was the first to offer to take her thither.

  ‘I have a leetle car; I will drive you there myself
. Let me see where it is.’

  Mrs Harris handed her the card M. Fauvel had given her with the address, ‘Number 18, Rue Dennequin.’ Natasha wrinkled her pretty forehead over the name. ‘Monsieur André Fauvel,’ she repeated. ‘Now where have I seen that name before?’

  Madame Colbert smiled indulgently - ‘It is only the accountant of our company, chérie,’ she said, ‘he is the one who pays out your salary.’

  ‘Tiens!’ laughed Natasha - ‘One might love such a one. Very well, Madame Harris, when you are ready I will take you to heem.’

  THUS it was that, shortly after six, Mrs Harris found herself in Natasha’s sporty little Simca, negotiating the traffic rapids of the Étoile and then sailing down the broad stream of the Avenue de Wagram, bound for the home of M. Fauvel. A telegram had already been dispatched to London, asking her friend to cope with her clients as best she could until her return; a telegram calculated to shake Mrs Butterfield to her very marrow, emanating from Paris as it did. But Mrs Harris cared not. She was still exploring Paradise.

  Number 18 rue Dennequin was a small, two-storey grey house with mansard roof, built in the nineteenth century. When they rang the doorbell, M. Fauvel cried: ‘Entrez, entrez - come in,’ from within, believing it to be Mrs Harris by herself. They pushed through the door that was ajar and found themselves in a home in exactly that state of chaos to be expected when a bachelor’s sister has gone away leaving explicit instructions with the daily cleaning woman, who would naturally choose that moment to become ill.

  Dust lay thick; nothing had been touched for a week; books and clothes were scattered about. It took no trick of the imagination to estimate the piled-up dishes in the kitchen sink, the greasy pans on the stove, as well as the condition of the bathroom and the unmade beds above.