by Paul Gallico
They sat then, side by side on the green wooden bench, in the midst of the sensuous colours and ravishing perfumes, the aristocrat and the charwoman, and conversed. They were worlds apart in everything but the simplicity of their humanity, and so they were really not apart at all. For all his title and eminent position, the marquis was a lonely widower, his children married and scattered. And what was Mrs Harris but an equally lonely widow, but with the courage to embark upon one great adventure to satisfy her own craving for beauty and elegance. They had much in common these two.
Besides her geraniums, Mrs Harris remarked, she also received cut flowers from time to time with which to brighten her little basement flat, from clients about to leave for a weekend in the country, or who received presents of fresh flowers and would make it a point to present Mrs Harris with their old and half-wilted blooms. ‘I get them ’ome as fast as ever I can,’ she explained, ‘cut off their stems and put them in a fresh jug of water with a penny at the bottom.’
The marquis looked astounded at this piece of intelligence.
‘ ’Ow, didn’t you know?’ Mrs Harris said. ‘If you put a copper in the water with wilted flowers it brings them right back.’
The marquis, full of interest, said: ‘Well now, it is indeed true that one is never too old to learn.’ He went on to another subject that had interested him. ‘And you say that Mademoiselle Natasha has become your friend?’
‘She’s a dear,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘not at all like you might expect, high and mighty with all the fuss that’s made over her. She’s as unspoiled as your own daughter would be. They’re all me friends, I do believe - that nice young Monsieur Fauvel, the cashier - it’s his ’ouse I am stopping at - and that poor Mme Colbert— ’
‘Eh,’ said the marquis, ‘and who is Madame Colbert?’
It was Mrs Harris’s turn to look surprised. ‘’Ow, surely you know Madame Colbert - the manageress - the one who tells you whether you can come in or not. She’s a real love. Imagine putting Ada ’Arris right in with all the toffs.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said the marquis with renewed interest, ‘that one. A rare person, a woman of courage and integrity. But why poor?’
Mrs Harris waggled her rear end more comfortably into the bench to enjoy a jolly good gossip. Why, this French gentleman was just like anybody else back home when it came to interest in titbits about other people’s trouble and miseries. Her voice became happily confidential as she tapped him on the arm and answered: ‘ ’Ow, but of course you wouldn’t know about her poor ’usband.’
‘Oh,’ said the Marquis, ‘she has a husband then? What is the difficulty, is he ill?’
‘Not exactly,’ replied Mrs Harris. ‘Madame Colbert wouldn’t dream of telling anybody about it but, of course, she’s told me. A woman who’s buried a husband as I ’ave can understand things. Twenty-five years in the same office ’e was— ’
‘Your husband?’ asked the marquis.
‘No, no, Madame Colbert’s, the brains of his office he is. But every time he comes up for a big job they give it to some count or some rich man’s son until his ’eart is near broken and Madame Colbert’s too.’
The marquis felt a curious tingling at the base of his scalp as a faint glimmer of light began to dawn. Mrs Harris’s voice for a moment mimicked some of the bitterness contained in that of Mme Colbert’s as she said: ‘There’s another chance for him now and no one to speak up for him or give him a ’and. Madame Colbert’s crying her poor dear eyes out.’
A little smile that was almost boyish illuminated the stern mouth of the old marquis. ‘Would Madame Colbert’s husband by any chance have the name of Jules?’
Mrs Harris stared at him in blank amazement, as though he were a magician. ‘Go on!’ she cried, ‘ ’ow did you know? That’s ’is name, Jules, do you know him? Madame Colbert says ’e’s got more brains in his little finger than all the rest of them in their striped pants.’
The marquis suppressed a chuckle and said: ‘Madame Colbert may be right. There can be no question as to the intelligence of a man who has the good sense to marry such a woman.’ He sat in silent thought for a moment and then fishing into an inside pocket produced a card case from which he extracted a finely-engraved card and wrote on the back a brief message with an old-fashioned fountain pen. He waved the card dry and then presented it to Mrs Harris. ‘Will you remember to give this to Madame Colbert the next time you see her.’
Mrs Harris inspected the card with unabashed interest. The engraved portion read ‘Le Marquis Hypolite de Chassagne, Conseiller Extraordinaire au Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Quai d’Orsay,’ which meant nothing to her except that her friend was a nob with a title. She turned it over, but the message thereon was scribbled in French and she did not understand that either. ‘Right-o,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a ’ead like a sieve, but I won’t forget.’
A church clock struck eleven. ‘Lor’!’ she exclaimed, ‘I ’aven’t been watching the time. I’ll be lyte for me fitting.’ She leaped up from the bench, cried: ‘So long, ducks, don’t forget to put the penny in the jug for the flowers,’ and was off. The marquis remained sitting on the bench in the sun looking after her, an expression of rapt and total admiration on his face.
During Mrs Harris’s fitting that morning Mme Colbert dropped into the cubicle to see how things were going and assisted the seamstress with a hint here and a suggestion there when Mrs Harris suddenly gave a little shriek. ‘Lumme! I almost forgot. ’Ere ’e said I was to give you this.’ She secured her ancient handbag, rummaged in it and finally produced the card and handed it to Mme Colbert.
The manageress turned first red and then deathly pale as she examined the paste-board and the message on the reverse. The fingers holding the card began to shake. ‘Where did you get this?’ she whispered. ‘Who gave it to you?’
Mrs Harris looked concerned ‘The old gent. The one that was sitting next to me with the red thing in ’is button’ole that day at the collection. I met ’im in the Flower Market and ’ad a bit of a chat with ’im. It ain’t bad news, is it?’
‘Oh, no, no,’ murmured Mme Colbert, her voice trembling with emotion and hardly able to hold back the tears. Suddenly and inexplicably she went to Mrs Harris, took her in her arms and held her tightly for a moment. ‘Oh, you wonderful, wonderful woman,’ she cried, and then turned and fled from the cubicle. She went into another booth, an empty one, where she could be alone to put her head down upon her arms and cry unashamedly with the joy of the message which had read: ‘Please ask your husband to come to see me tomorrow. I may be able to help him - Chassagne.’
ON the last night of Mrs Harris’s magical stay in Paris, M. Fauvel had planned a wonderful party for her and Natasha, an evening out with dinner at the famous restaurant ‘Pré Catalan’ in the Bois de Boulogne. Here in the most romantic setting in the world, seated in the open-air beneath the spreading boughs of a venerable hundred-and-sixty-year-old beech tree, illuminated by fairy lights strung between the leafy branches, and with gay music in the background, they were to feast on the most delicious and luxurious of foods and drink the finest wines that M. Fauvel could procure.
And yet, what should have been the happiest of times for the three started out as an evening of peculiar and penetrating sadness.
M. Fauvel looked distinguished and handsome in dinner jacket in the lapel of which was the ribbon of the military medal he had won. Natasha had never looked more ravishing in an evening dress of pink, grey, and black, cut to show off her sweet shoulders and exquisite back. Mrs Harris came as she was except for a fresh, somewhat daringly peek-a-boo lace blouse she had bought with some of her remaining English pounds.
Her sadness was only an overlay on the delight and excitement of the place and the hour, and the most thrilling thing of all that was to happen tomorrow. It was due to the fact that all good things must come to an end and that she must be leaving these people of whom in a short time she had grown so extraordinarily fond.
But the unha
ppiness that gripped M. Fauvel and Mlle Petitpierre was of heavier, gloomier, and thicker stuff. Each had reached the conclusion that once Mrs Harris departed, this idyll which had brought them together and thrown them for a week into one another’s company, would be at an end.
Natasha was no stranger to the ‘Pré Catalan’. Countless times she had been taken there to dine and dance by wealthy admirers who meant nothing to her, who held her clutched to them in close embrace upon the dance floor and who talked interminably of themselves over their food. There was only one person now she wished to dance with ever again, whom she desired to hold her close, and this was the unhappy-looking young man who sat opposite her and did not offer to do so.
Ordinarily in any country two young people have little difficulty in exchanging signals, messages, and eventually finding one another, but when in France they have emerged, so to speak, from the same class and yet are still constrained by the echoes of this class strange obstacles can put themselves in the way of an understanding. For all of the night, the lights, the stars, and the music, M. Fauvel and Mlle Petitpierre were in danger of passing one another by.
For as he gazed upon the girl, his eyes misty with love, M. Fauvel knew that this was the proper setting for Natasha - here she belonged amidst the light-hearted and the wealthy. She was not for him. He had never been to this colourful restaurant before in the course of the modest life he led and he was now more than ever convinced that it was only because of Madame Harris that Natasha endured him. He was aware that a curious affection had grown up between that glamorous creature, Dior’s star model, and the little cleaning woman. But then he had grown very fond of Mrs Harris himself. There was something about this Englishwoman that seemed to drive straight to the heart.
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.
AND 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.’
