by Paul Gallico
‘Five quid,’ echoed Mrs Harris, ‘after an ’unch like that? Fifty!’
At the mendon of this sum Mrs Butterfied looked as though she were going to faint. Pallor spread from chin to chin, until it covered all three. She quivered with emotion. ‘Fifty quid,’ she whispered, in case anyone should be listening to such folly. ‘Fifty quid!’
‘At five to one, that would be two hundred and fifty pounds,’ asserted Mrs Harris calmly.
Mrs Butterfield’s normal pessimism assailed her again. ‘But what if she loses?’
‘It can’t,’ said Mrs Harris imperturbably. ‘ ’Ow can it?’
By this time they were at the window. While Mrs Butter-field’s eyes threatened to pop out of the folds of her face, Mrs Harris opened her battered brown handbag, extracted a sheaf of money, and said: ‘Fifty quid on Howt Cowter, number six, to win.’
Mechanically the ticket-seller repeated: ‘Haute Couture, number six, fifty pounds to win,’ and then, startled by the amount, bent down to look through the wire screen at the heavy better. His eyes looked into the glowing blue beads of Mrs Harris, and the apparition of the little char startled him into an exclamation of ‘Blimey’, which he quickly corrected into ‘Good luck, madam’, and pushed the ticket to her. Mrs Harris’s hand was not even trembling as she took it, but Mrs Butterfield stared at it as though it were a snake that might bite her. The two went off to the trackside to attend the fulfilment of the promised miracle.
The tragedy that they then witnessed was brief and conclusive. ‘Haute Couture’ led the first time around, running easily and smoothly, like the thoroughbred lady she was, but at the last turn she was assailed suddenly by an uncontrollable itch. She ran out into the middle of the track, sat down and scratched it to her relief and satisfaction. When she had finished, so was the race - and Mrs Harris.
It was not so much the loss of her hard-earned, hard-saved, so-valued fifty pounds that upset Mrs Harris and darkened her otherwise ebullient spirits in the following days, as the evidence that the policeman-magistrate God was uppermost, and that He was out of sorts with her. She had evidently misread his intentions, or perhaps it was only her own idea to take a plunge, and the Creator did not hold with this. He had sent swift and sure punishment in the form of a heavenly flea. Did it mean that He was not going to allow Mrs Harris to have her dress after all? Was she wishing for something so foolish and out of keeping with her position that He had chosen this method to indicate His disapproval?
She went about her work torn by this new problem, moody and preoccupied, and, of course, just because her Preceptor seemed to be against the idea, it made desire for the dress all the greater. She was of the breed who could defy even her Maker if it was necessary, though, of course, she had no notion that one could win out over Him. He was all-powerful, and His decisions final, but that did not say that Mrs Harris had to like them, or take them lying down.
The following week, when returning one evening from work, her eyes cast down due to the oppression that sat upon her, they were caught by a glitter in the gutter, as of a piece of glass reflecting in the lamplight overhead. But when she bent down, it was not a piece of glass at all, but a diamond clip, and one, as she saw at once, from the platinum frame and the size of the stones, of considerable value.
This time she had no truck either with hunches or communications. The thought that this piece of jewellery might be ten times the worth of the dress she longed for never entered her head. Because she was who she was and what she was, she responded almost automatically; she wended her way to the nearest police station and turned the article in, leaving her name and address, and a description of where she had found it. Within a week she was summoned back to the police station, where she received the sum of twenty-five pounds reward from the grateful owner of the lost clip.
And now all oppression was lifted from the soul of Mrs Harris, for the stern Magistrate Above had taken off His wig, reversed it and donned it as the beard of Santa Claus, and she was able to interpret both that which had happened to her, and the Divine Intention. He had returned half her money to show that He was no longer angry with her, and that if she were faithful and steadfast she might have her dress - but she was no longer to gamble; the missing twenty-five pounds said that. It was to be earned by work, sweat, and self-denial. Well, in the joy that filled her, she was prepared to give all that.
SOMEWHERE along the line without really trying - for Mrs Harris believed that by looking into things too energetically one could sometimes learn too much - the little charwoman had come across two pertinent bits of information. There were currency restrictions which forbade exporting more than ten pounds out of Great Britain and therefore no French shop would accept a large sum of money in pounds, but demanded another currency. So it would have done her no good to have smuggled out such a sum as four hundred and fifty pounds, nor would she have done so.
For Mrs Harris’s code of ethics was both strict and practical. She would tell a fib but not a lie. She would not break the law, but she was not averse to bending it as far as it would go. She was scrupulously honest, but at the same time was not to be considered a mug.
Since pounds were forbidden as well as useless in quantities in Paris, she needed some other medium of exchange and hit upon dollars. And for dollars there was one person to whom she could turn, the friendly, kind, and not-too-bright American lady, Mrs Schreiber.
Mrs Harris conveniently invented a nephew in America who was apparently constitutionally impecunious, a kind of half-wit, unable to support himself and to whom, on a blood-is-thicker-than-water basis, she was compelled to send money. The name Mrs Harris cooked up for him was Albert, and he lived in Chattanooga, a place she bad picked out of the daily America column in the Express. She often held long conversations with Mrs Schreiber about this derelict relative. ‘A good boy, my poor dead sister’s son, but a bit weak in the ’ead, he was.’
Mrs Schreiber who was more than a bit muzzy herself with regard to British currency laws, saw no reason why she should not aid such a good-hearted person as Mrs Harris, and since she was wealthy and possessed an almost limitless supply of dollars, or could get fresh ones whenever she wanted them, Mrs Harris’s slowly accumulating hoard of pounds got themselves translated into American currency. It became an accepted thing week by week, this exchange. Mrs Schreiber likewise paid her in dollars and tipped her in dollars and nobody was any the wiser.
Slowly but surely over a period of two years the wad of five-, ten-, and twenty-dollar bills grew in girth until one fresh morning, early in January, counting her hoard and thumbing her bank book, Mrs Harris knew that she was no longer too far away from the realisation of her dream.
She was well aware that anyone leaving the British Isles to travel abroad must hold a valid British passport, and she consulted Major Wallace as to what was necessary to obtain such a document, receiving explicit information as to where, how, and to whom she must apply in writing.
‘Thinking of going abroad?’ he asked with some amazement and no little alarm, since he considered Mrs Harris’s ministrations indispensable to his comfort and well-being.
Mrs Harris tittered: ‘ ’Oo me? Where would I be going?’ She hastily invented another relative. ‘It’s for me niece. She’s going out to Germany to get married. Nice boy stationed in the Army there.’
And here you can see how Mrs Harris differentiated between a fib and a lie. A fib such as the above did nobody any harm, while a lie was deliberate, told to save yourself or to gain an unfair advantage.
Thus a never-to-be-forgotten moment of preparation was the day the instructions arrived from the Passport Office, a formidable blank to be filled in with ‘4 photographs of the applicant 2 inches by 2 inches in size, etc., etc.’
‘Whatever do you think,’ Mrs Harris confided to her friend Mrs Butterfield in a state of high excitement, ‘I’ve got to ’ave me photograph tyken. They want it for me passport. You’d better come along and hold me ’and.’
The one and
only time that Mrs Harris had ever faced the camera lens was upon the occasion of her wedding to Mr Harris and then she had the stout arm of that stout plumber to support her during the ordeal.
That picture in a flower-painted frame now adorned the table of her little flat. It showed Mrs Harris of thirty years ago, a tiny, thin-looking girl whose plain features were enhanced by the freshness of youth. Her hair was bobbed, the fashion of the day, and she wore a white muslin wedding dress tiered somewhat in the manner of a Chinese pagoda. In her posture there was already some hint of the courage and independence she was to display later when she became widowed. The expression on her face was one of pride in the man she had captured and who stood beside her, a nice-looking boy somewhat on the short side, wearing a dark suit, and with his hair carefully plastered down. As was becoming to his new status he looked terrified. And thereafter nobody had ever again troubled to reproduce Mrs Harris nor had she so much as thought about it.
‘Won’t it cost a packet?’ was Mrs Butterfield’s reaction to the dark side of things.
‘Ten bob for ’arf a dozen,’ Mrs Harris reported. ‘I saw an ad in the paper. I’ll give you one of the extra ones if you like.’
‘That’s good of you, dearie,’ said Mrs Butterfield and meant it.
‘Ow Lor’.’ The exclamation was torn from Mrs Harris as she was suddenly riven by a new thought. ‘Ow Lor’,’ she repeated, ‘if I’m going to ’ave me photograph tyken, I’ll ’ave to ’ave a new ’at.’
Two of Mrs Butterfield’s chins quivered at the impact of this revelation. ‘Of course you will, dearie, and that will cost a packet.’
Mrs Harris accepted the fact philosophically and even with some pleasure. It had been years since she had invested in a new hat. ‘It can’t be ’elped. Just as well I’ve got some of the stuff.’
The pair selected the following Saturday afternoon, invading the King’s Road to accomplish both errands beginning, of course, with the choice of the hat. There was no doubt, but that Mrs Harris fell in love with it immediately she saw it in the window, but at first turned resolutely away for it was priced at a guinea, while all about it were others on sale, specials at ten and six, and even some at seven and six.
But Mrs Harris would not have been a true London char had she not favoured the one at one guinea, for it had been thought of, designed, and made for members of her profession. The hat was a kind of flat sailor affair of green straw, but what made it distinguished was the pink rose on a short but flexible stem that was affixed to the front. It was, of course, her fondness for flowers and the rose that got Mrs Harris. They went into the shop and Mrs Harris dutifully tried on shapes and materials considered to be within her price range, but her thoughts and her eyes kept roving to the window where the hat was displayed. Finally she could contain herself no longer and asked for it.
Mrs Butterfield examined the price tag with horror. ‘Coo,’ she said, ‘a guinea! It is a waste of money, you that’s been syving for so long.’
Mrs Harris set it upon her head and was lost. ‘I don’t care,’ she said fiercely, ‘I can go a week later.’
If a camera was to fix her features and person for all time, to be carried in her passport, to be shown to her friends, to be preserved in a little frame on Mrs Butterfield’s dressing table, that was how she wanted it, with that hat and no other. ‘I’ll ’ave it,’ she said to the sales girl and produced the twenty-one shillings. She left the shop wearing it contentedly. After all, what was one guinea to someone who was about to invest four hundred and fifty pounds in a dress.
The passport photographer was not busy when they arrived and soon had Mrs Harris posed before the cold eye of his camera while hump-backed he inspected her from beneath the concealment of his black cloth. He then turned on a hot battery of floodlights which illuminated Mrs Harris’s every fold, line, and wrinkle etched into her shrewd and merry little face by the years of toil.
‘And now, madam,’ he said, ‘if you would kindly remove that hat—’
‘Not b——likely,’ said Mrs Harris succinctly, ‘what the ’ell do you think I’ve bought this ’at for if not to wear it in me photograph.’
The photographer said: ‘Sorry, madam, against regulations. The Passport Office won’t accept any photographs with hats on. I can make some specials at two guineas a dozen for you later, with the hat on, if you like.’
Mrs Harris told the photographer a naughty thing to do with his two-guinea specials, but Mrs Butterfield consoled her. ‘Never mind, dearie,’ she said, ‘you’ll have it to wear when you go to Paris. You’ll be right in with the fashion.’
It was on a hazy May morning, four months later, or to be exact two years, seven months, three weeks, and one day following her resolve to own a Dior dress, that Mrs Harris, firm and fully equipped beneath the green hat with the pink rose, was seen off on the bus to the Air Station by a tremulous and nervous Mrs Butterfield. Besides the long and arduously hoarded fortune, the price of the dress, she was equipped with passport, return ticket to Paris, and sufficient funds to get there and back.
The intended schedule of her day included the selection and purchase of her dress, lunch in Paris, a bit of sightseeing, and return by the evening plane.
The clients had all been warned of the unusual event of Mrs Harris’s taking a day off, with Mrs Butterfield substituting, and had reacted in accordance with their characters and natures. Major Wallace was, of course, dubious, since he could not so much as find a clean towel or a pair of socks without the assistance of Mrs Harris, but it was the actress, Miss Pamela Penrose, who kicked up the ugliest fuss, storming at the little char. ‘But that’s horrid of you. You can’t. I won’t hear of it. I pay you, don’t I! I’ve a most important producer coming for drinks here tomorrow. You charwomen are all alike. Never think of anybody but yourselves. I do think, after all I’ve done for you, you might show me a little consideration.’
For a moment, in extenuation, Mrs Harris was tempted to reveal where she was off to and why - and resisted. The love affair between herself and the Dior dress was private. Instead she said soothingly: ‘Now, now, ducks, no need for you to get shirty. Me friend, Mrs Butterfield, will look in on you on her way home tomorrow and give the place a good tidying up. Your producer friend won’t know the difference. Well, dearie, ’ere’s ’oping ’e gives you a good job,’ she concluded cheerily and left Miss Penrose glowering and sulking.
ALL thoughts of the actress, and for that matter all of her meandering back into the past, were driven out of Mrs Harris’s head when with a jerk and a squeal of brakes the cab came to a halt at what must be her destination.
The great grey building that is the House of Christian Dior occupies an entire corner of the spacious Avenue Montaigne leading off the Rond-Point of the Champs-Élysées. It has two entrances, one off the Avenue proper which leads through the Boutique where knick-knacks and accessories are sold at prices ranging from five to a hundred pounds, and another more demure and exclusive one.
The cab driver chose to deposit Mrs Harris at the latter, reserved for the genuinely rich clientele, figuring his passenger to be at the very least an English countess or milady. He charged her no more than the amount registered on the clock and forbore to tip himself more than fifty francs, mindful of the warning of the Airways man. Then crying to her gaily the only English he knew, which was - ‘ ’Ow do you do,’ he drove off leaving her standing on the sidewalk before the place that had occupied her yearnings and dreams and ambitions for the past three years.
And a strange misgiving stirred in the thin breast beneath the brown twill coat. It was no store at all, like Selfridges in Oxford Street, or Marks and Spencer’s where she did her shopping, not a proper store at all, with windows for display and wax figures with pearly smiles and pink cheeks, arms outstretched in elegant attitudes to show off the clothes that were for sale. There was nothing, nothing at all, but some windows shaded by ruffled grey curtains, and a door with an iron grille behind the glass. True, in the keystone abo
ve the arch of the entrance were chiselled the words CHRISTIAN DIOR, but no other identification.
When you have desired something as deeply as Mrs Harris had longed for her Paris dress, and for such a time, and when at last that deep-rooted feminine yearning is about to taste the sweetness of fulfilment, every moment attending its achievement becomes acute and indelibly memorable.
Standing alone now in a foreign city, assailed by the foreign roar of foreign traffic and the foreign bustle of foreign passers-by, outside the great, grey mansion that was like a private house and not a shop at all, Mrs Harris suddenly felt lonely, frightened, and forlorn, and in spite of the great roll of silver-green American dollars in her handbag she wished for a moment that she had not come, or that she had asked the young man from the Airlines to accompany her, or that the taxi driver had not driven away leaving her standing there.
And then, as luck would have it, a car from the British Embassy drove by and the sight of the tiny Union Jack fluttering from the mudguard stiffened her spine and brought determination to her mouth and eyes. She reminded herself who and what she was, drew in a deep breath of the balmy Paris air laced with petrol fumes, and resolutely pushed open the door and entered.
She was almost driven back by the powerful smell of elegance that assailed her once she was inside. It was the same that she smelled when Lady Dant opened the doors to her wardrobe, the same that clung to the fur coat and clothes of the Countess Wyszcinska, for whom she cleaned from four to six in the afternoons, the one she sometimes sniffed in the streets when, as she passed, someone opened the door of a luxurious motor car. It was compounded of perfume and fur and satins, silks and leather, jewellery and face powder. It seemed to arise from the thick grey carpets and hangings, and fill the air of the grand staircase before her.
It was the odour of the rich, and it made her tremble once more and wonder what she, Ada ’Arris, was doing there instead of washing up the luncheon dishes for Mrs Fford Foulks at home, or furthering the career of a real theatrical star like Pamela Penrose by seeing that her flat was neat and tidy when her producer friends came to call.