Francie Comes Home: One Last Adventure

by Emily Hahn

  “Oh, we are, we are,” Erancie assured him. “It’s much better like this and we can divide up the jobs, can’t we?”

  Bruce sounded mollified. “We’d better get together on it first thing in the morning. I’m staying in the hotel myself; we’re talking on the house phone in case you didn’t realize it.”

  “What could be more convenient?” said Francie. Mrs. Ryan seemed to be glued to her magazine. Her lack of interest was ostentatious.

  “We can all meet at breakfast if you say so,” continued Bruce, “and start out together. I take it you’re going to the Merchandise Mart right away, according to plan?”

  Francie broke off to consult with Florence; Yes, she reported, they would be visiting the Mart. They might as well go all together in one of the cars.

  It was enough to put Mrs. Ryan’s earlier hints out of anybody’s head. Anyway Francie forgot all about them, for the time. She went straight to sleep.

  “Wow!” she said.

  Acting like a rubberneck tourist in a comedy, she pretended to be unable to see the top of the building: she leaned further and further back. She was really impressed by the Mart. Mrs. Ryan watched her and smiled with a touch of pride.

  “It’s really something,” she admitted. “It’s the biggest place of its kind in the world, I’m told.”

  “But why hasn’t everybody heard of it?” asked Francie. “You’d think it would be much more famous than the Empire State or one of those.”

  Mrs. Ryan said, “Oh, it’s not a skyscraper. It’s just that it covers such an enormous area, and deals with such a special sort of merchandise, that it’s interesting to people in the trade. Outside of wholesale and retail furniture dealers, who cares? I admit it is fascinating, but still it’s strictly for people like us.”

  Bruce Munson had gone to park the car; now he joined them and agreed with Francie. “If they threw open the place to the public, I bet it would be swamped with sightseers,” he said, ushering them through the entrance. “But the dealers wouldn’t want too many sight-seers around, getting in the way and learning trade secrets. You need an introduction to get in as it is. The only parties they encourage are students who are specially interested in furnishings; art students and architects and designers and suchlike.… Yes, it’s not bad, is it?”

  Francie paused again to stare around at the high ceilings of the ground floor.

  “If this kind of thing interests you, you’d better take a look at the house directory,” he continued. “It’s one of the boasts of the boys who run this place that you can do an entire house out of this building, every single item you can think of, including the central heating.”

  “The other thing we always tell newcomers is that you could live here,” said Mrs. Ryan, like a chorus. “You wouldn’t have to go out of the place.”

  “Actually?”

  “Not actually, of course. It’s not a hotel. But goodness knows there are enough beds and stuff to keep you comfortable,” said Florence.

  Lucky said, “I often think of doing it. Just imagine being locked in at night with nothing to help you out but maybe a diamond to cut the plate glass with. Suppose you had the run of the whole place. You’d have your choice of the best beds in the world, and in the morning you could stroll down and get your hair cut in the barber shop, and have a shoe-shine. Oh, and before that you’d take a bath, practically anywhere in one of the model bathrooms, and then cheerfully down to the dining room for breakfast.”

  “It really is a pretty fully equipped place,” said Mrs. Ryan. “The idea of it was to make buying more convenient for out-of-town retailers like us. In the old days we used to waste hours and hours getting from one district to another. I remember how I had to go way downtown for lamps, and way uptown for textiles—that sort of thing, and if you knew how long it takes to move around in this town! But you haven’t had a genuine look yet, has she, Bruce? Now let’s see.” She looked at her wrist watch. “We had better get going: I haven’t got a lot of time as it is.”

  Bruce had a suggestion all ready. If Mrs. Ryan had a date, as she said she had, why shouldn’t he take Francie around with him? He wanted to call on two people up in the textiles, and another in the furniture, and so on, but they wouldn’t be involved interviews and Francie might as well accompany him; then they could meet down on the first floor at lunch time. This was agreed, and Florence went her way.

  It was a long time before Francie was to forget the impact of that morning’s wandering, examining, and listening. Bruce seemed to be acquainted with a lot of the superior-looking young men and women who presided over sumptuous floors of furniture, kitchen outfits, textiles, plumbing, and all the other appurtenances of houses. She trailed meekly after him through long, long hallways between plate glass, and waited obediently in spacious “pretend” rooms behind the glass until it suited Bruce to introduce her and let her in on the conversation of the initiates, which even then was largely mysterious to her. She learned more of the reasons for these elaborate displays.

  “It’s actually a matter of square feet, pure and simple,” explained one exquisite young man, whose blond good looks rendered his quick intelligence incongruous. “You see, your main problem these days in selling tables or beds or break-fronts is a question of display: where are you going to get the room to show them to the customers? Even retailers like Marshall Field, who don’t carry as much as we do, are pressed for space. You go into any of their furniture departments and you’ll see what I mean; they’re driven to using illustrated catalogues half the time, and shoving one chair in as a sample of a whole class of goods. Almost everybody else in any other line has it pretty good compared with us decorators. For instance, you can show five thousand hats in the space it takes to show one breakfront. Yes,” he said rather grimly as Francie gasped, “it makes you think, doesn’t it? Well, that’s why we people just had to work out a place like this. I wouldn’t like to tell you how many square feet my own firm rents here, and certainly you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what it all costs—not just the space, but all the electricity and cleaning and labor of arranging, especially considering we’ve got to put on new shows every so often. But we’ve got to have our show window; we can’t expect the buyers to visit all the factories, can we? They used to, just the same, and the scramble was pitiful.”

  Bruce said feelingly, “You aren’t kidding. I’ve had to do some of that in my time.”

  While they talked business, Francie wandered about admiringly, noticing how cunningly floor space was divided into rooms, each of which was given over to a different style of decoration. She explained to the blond young man that she had always been especially interested in textiles, and he replied that though his people didn’t themselves manufacture such things, they did their selecting from other companies on lower floors, whose specialty was curtain material and upholstery. She found herself envious of these privileged people who could wander as they liked in this extraordinary world, picking just what they wanted to work out their ideas. A few of the quoted prices surprised her; they seemed less than she would have expected.

  “Wholesale, you know,” Lucky reminded her. “These people are strictly for the dealers and decorators. You know the rules, don’t you? They aren’t allowed to sell direct to the ultimate consumer.”

  “But even so, they’re a lot cheaper than you’d think they would be from the prices at Fredericks & Worpels,” said Francie.

  Bruce and the young blond looked at each other and laughed. “She’s hep,” said Bruce. “You don’t get ahead of Francie very often.… Well, my child,” he added, “I’ll tell you a secret. Any small, select place like F. and W. is going to cost you more, article for article, than a big downtown store. Yes, for the exact article, most likely. And why? Because of that same problem, space. However, before you make up your mind to do all your shopping henceforth in a big downtown emporium, remember that we don’t often duplicate their stock. We try not to; we try to substitute exclusive models, and thus make up to the custom
ers for the extra expense.”

  “You’ve got to know your stuff before you go into a relatively cheap place and start buying, or you’ll run into trouble,” said the other man. “You know about borax, don’t you? Borax is what we call the really shoddy jobs. Sofas and tables made out of wood that ought to have gone into orange crates, chairs with their seats held on by thumbtacks. That kind of thing. In the picture it may look good, but it isn’t. You see it illustrated in the give-away ads; two hundred soap coupons gets you a lovely bedroom suite absolutely stark, staring free—that kind of thing. That’s borax.”

  “I’ll try to remember,” said Francie.

  They moved on to a smaller department where Bruce introduced Francie to Mrs. Redfern, a tall, elegant gray-haired lady who evidently knew him well.

  “My dears, if you’d only been in a few minutes ago!” said this lady vivaciously. “I’ve just been playing hostess to a couple of sweet old dears with a permit to sight-see, and they were incredible. You see this display?” She indicated a corner of the showroom where a refectory table in pale birchwood was laid with mats, china, and glass. Two chairs were drawn up to the imaginery meal, and they didn’t match, though the color of the wood blended pleasingly. “One often arranges dining-room furniture like that,” Mrs. Redfern explained to Francie. “It saves space to use only one chair of a set instead of four or six, and to show two or three different types of chair. You’d think anybody could figure that out—but no. One of these ladies was staring around in an awed way, and when she noticed those chairs she said, ‘Oh, is that what they’re doing now?’ She was so pleased at discovering a new style that I didn’t have the heart to disillusion her, and she’s probably on her way home now to throw out all her matching chairs. They take everything you say for gospel if you’re a decorator. Sometimes the responsibility frightens me.”

  “That’s a good-looking piece,” said Bruce suddenly. Francie, following his gaze, saw a tall, broad desk standing open and revealing several rows of tiny, brass-handled drawers.

  “Not bad,” admitted Mrs. Redfern. “I haven’t had any genuine requests for it, though. People aren’t educated to that standard.”

  Bruce said curiously, “Since when have you been selling antiques?”

  “It’s not. You’re fooled by the work,” said Mrs. Redfern triumphantly. “That’s a reproduction. William and Mary, you know.”

  Bruce said he knew, and he walked over to study it at close range. Francie came along. It was indeed a pretty piece of furniture, standing more than five-feet high. “Give you three guesses what I’m thinking,” he said in low voice.

  Francie said promptly, “Act One: Jack’s study.”

  “That’s it,” said Lucky. “It’s just right. Mrs. Redfern,” he said, raising his voice, “what would be the cost of a thing like this in the trade?”

  Mrs. Redfern said, “Why Bruce, you don’t want that. Mrs. Fredericks won’t touch reproductions.”

  To Francie’s surprise, Bruce replied, “I’m not asking on my account, but Miss Nelson’s. She thinks she can use it, and don’t forget, she’s one of us. So how much?”

  “I’d have to figure it more closely when I look at the books, but it would be around three hundred,” said Mrs. Redfern.

  Lucky turned to Francie and said, “You want to think it over, don’t you? You don’t want to decide now.” Puzzled, she said good-by and thanks to Mrs. Redfern, and let herself be shown out of the showroom.

  “What was the idea?” she demanded as they walked away.

  He said, “I’m not quite sure if I can work it out, but I think if we play our cards right, we can get that desk for the play.”

  “But you let her think I was in the desk-selling business. Why?”

  Bruce said, “Just one of the conventions, Baby. Now you leave it to me, Francie. You still have a lot to learn.”

  Oh well. As long as she didn’t really have to pay for anything, she thought, it would probably be all right. No doubt they had both seen the last of the William and Mary desk, and Bruce was quite right: she did have a lot to learn. Anyway, now he was talking about something different, and it was time to start looking at things again.

  They saw hundreds of carpets. They examined lamps until Francie felt she couldn’t possibly ever look at another lamp again with anything like a seeing eye. Bruce said that buyers often had a similar experience. “As a matter of fact, it’s led to a new way of merchandising that isn’t so tiresome as this. Even old hands at buying have found out they get a better idea of what is likely to catch on with the public when they see a lamp in place, as it were—sitting on a table or a stand with a window behind it, and curtains, and a room around it. When they are arranged row on row, it’s awfully hard to get the idea. One company I know just happened to put a few lamps in their display, though actually they weren’t interested in lamps; they sold dining-room furniture and nothing else but. But so many buyers fell for the lamps they’d picked out—buyers who must have seen the same thing a dozen times in the regular lamp places on the other floors, you understand—that the manager decided to branch out and make it a regular part of his stock, and his sale of lamps alone nowadays, quite apart from the rest of the turnover, amounts to ten thousand dollars. Just a little side item like that. He said it more than pays the electricity bill.”

  “Well, for goodness’ sake, I should think it would!” The careless way Bruce was slinging such figures about took Francie’s breath away. She longed for Pop’s presence: he would know how to talk about money to these people. It was stimulating, though, and she was enjoying herself. If she hadn’t been growing increasingly conscious of the height of her heels, she would have enjoyed it still more. As it was, she was very glad indeed when Bruce called a halt and turned her over to Florence Ryan in a sumptuous but rather underlit restaurant on the ground floor.

  “Well, Francie,” said Mrs. Ryan, “do you know all there is to know now about the decorating business?”

  She sounded jauntier than she looked. From her appearance, Francie guessed that her employer had spent at least as strenuous a morning as she herself had. Her hair streaked down into her eyes under her hat, and her mouth drooped in weariness, but her eyes were still bright. Two club sandwiches soon put everything into proper focus again for both of them.

  “I did mean to take you out tonight to a movie or somewhere, but something’s come up,” said Mrs. Ryan apologetically as she took three spoonfuls of sugar in her coffee. “One of the girls I’ve known for years, one of my dearest friends, is in town and she asked me to come and have a bite with her at her hotel, and it’s important that I talk to her. Of course I told her about you, and she has invited you to come along if you like. But I warn you, it’s liable to be dull, just two old women chewing over business, so if you’d rather stay at the hotel and put your feet up, I’ll understand. You don’t have to make up your mind yet. We still have hours to go right here in the Mart.”

  Francie said, “I sort of think I’ll be all right tonight, Mrs. Ryan. Bruce Munson suggested I go out with him, and though I didn’t think it would be very nice to leave you alone, and turned him down, his offer still stands, most likely.”

  “Land sakes, child, you needn’t have put him off on my account. You’re on your own here as much as you like,” said Florence Ryan. “Well then, that’s all right.”

  They ordered their dessert and looked around curiously at the other tables in the restaurant. It might well have been a super sort of room in any of the better-class hotels, Francie thought, but Mrs. Ryan explained that every person in the place had something to do with house decoration. There were buyers there who represented enormous concerns, she said, and there were famous decorators and wholesalers too. It was a really exclusive trade club, she added impressively.

  “And it’s all grown up in the last few years,” she said. “It seems like only yesterday that we people who came up for big buying sprees were like so many insects, swarming around the wholesale-furniture district, eac
h one going his own way and using up goodness knows how much time in getting there. There’s no doubt this system is a great time-saver. Just the same, something’s gone out of life now that it’s all so easy.”

  Francie said, “One of the women I met this morning says she isn’t so sure everybody likes it this way. She says in the old days a woman like her, or you, or me even, looked forward to the week’s buying trip because it was such a change from the old home town. You mixed a lot of personal shopping in with your business, and you got a chance to see the store windows and look at the latest styles, see some plays and buy a hat now and then, and all that. The way it is now, she says, you’re never away from work. You might as well not be in Chicago at all, for all you see of it.”

  Florence Ryan said, “There’s a good deal in that. Still, the Mart is a lot more convenient and there’s no doubt we’ll all be used to it after a few more seasons.”

  “I wanted to tell her there’s no law against setting a few hours aside for your own business,” Francie said. “And there’s still the theater at night, and so on.”

  “We must have our little grumple in this world, I guess.” Mrs. Ryan took the check and peered at it dubiously in the gloom. “Well, are you ready for the fray again? This afternoon you’d better come along with me and learn how to pick out novelties. There’s one floor completely full of the most terrible junk you ever saw in your life.”

  Francie was about to say jokingly that in such a case it was a good thing they didn’t have Anne Clark along, but for some reason she didn’t want to mention Mrs. Clark. Mrs. Ryan’s remarks were still on her mind. That mind took a leap instead, rather mysteriously, and told her that she must put in a telephone call in the evening to reassure Pop and Aunt Norah as to her safe arrival.