An American Girl in London

XII

ITOLD Lady Torquilin that the expression struck me as profane.

'How ridiculous you are, child! It's a good old English word. Nobody will understand you if you talk about your "rubbers" in this country. "Goloshes," certainly. G-o-l-o-s-h-e-s, "goloshes." Now, go directly and put them on, and don't be impertinent about the English language in England, whatever you may be out of it!'

I went away murmuring, '"G-o-l-o-s-h-e-s, goloshes"! What a perfectly awful – literally unutterable word! No, I love Lady Torquilin, and I like her England, but I'll never, never, never say "goloshes"! I'd almost rather swear!' And as I slipped on the light, thin, flexible articles manufactured, I believe, in Rochester, N.Y., and privately compared them with the remarkable objects worn by the British nation for the purpose of keeping its feet dry, the difference in the descriptive terms gave me a certain satisfaction.

Lady Torquilin and I were going shopping. I had been longing to shop in London ever since I arrived, but, as Lady Torquilin remarked, my trunks seemed to make it almost unreasonable. So up to this time I had been obliged to content myself with looking at the things in the windows, until Lady Torquilin said she really couldn't spend so much time in front of shop-windows – we had better go inside. Besides, she argued, of course there was this to be said – if you bought a good thing, there it was – always a good thing! I And it isn't as if you were obliged to pinch, my dear. I would be the last one to counsel extravagance,' said Lady Torquilin. 'Therefore we'll go to the cheapest place first' – and we got an omnibus. It seemed full of people who were all going to the cheapest place, and had already come, some of them a long way, to go to it, judging by their fares. They were not poor people, nor respectably-darned people, nor shabby-genteel people. Some of them looked like people with incomes that would have enabled them to avoid the cheapest place, and some gave you the idea that, if it were not for the cheapest place, they would not look so well. But they had an invariable expression of content with the cheapest place, or appreciation of it, that made me quite certain they would all get out when we stopped there; and they did.

We went in with a throng that divided and hurried hither and thither through long 'departments,' upstairs and down, past counters heaped with cheapnesses, and under billowing clouds and streaming banners of various colours, marked 1s. 1d. and 11d. in very black letters on a very white ground. The whole place spoke of its cheapness, invited you to approach and have your every want supplied at the lowest possible scale of profit – for cash. Even the clerks – as we say in America, incorrectly, I believe – the people behind the counter suggested the sweet reasonableness of the tariff; not that I mean anything invidious, but they seemed to be drawn from an unpretending, inexpensive class of humanity. The tickets claimed your attention everywhere, and held it, the prices on them were so remarkably low; and it was to me at first a matter of regret that they were all attached to articles I could not want under any circumstances. For, the moment I went in. I succumbed to the cheapest place; I desired to avail myself of it to any extent – to get the benefit of those fascinating figures personally and immediately. I followed Lady Torquilin with eagerness, exclaiming: but nothing would induce her to stop anywhere; she went straight for the trifles she wanted, and I perforce after her. 'There are some things, my dear,' she said, when we reached the right counter, 'that one must come here for, but beyond those few odds and ends – well, I leave you to judge for yourself.'

This was calculated to dash a person's enthusiasm, and mine was dashed at once. There is nothing, in shopping, like a friend's firm and outspoken opinion, to change your views. I began to think unfavourably of the cheapest place immediately, and during the twenty-five minutes of valuable time which Lady Torquilin spent, in addition to some small silver, upon a box of pink paper trimmings for pudding-dishes, I had arrived at a state of objection to the cheapest place, which intensified as we climbed more stairs, shared more air with the British Public of the cheapest place, and were jostled at more counters. 'For,' Lady Torquilin said, 'now that we are here, though I loathe coming, except that it's something you ought to do, we really might as well see what there is!' – and she found that there were quite a number of little things at about a shilling and a ha'penny that she absolutely needed, and would have to pay 'just double for, my dear, anywhere else.' By that time my objection became active, and embraced the cheapest place and everything connected with it, quite unreasonably. For there was no doubt about the genuineness of the values offered all over its counters, or about the fact that the clerks were doing the best they could to sell seven separate shillings'-worth at the same moment to different individuals, or of the respectability of the seven people who were spending the seven shillings. It would have been a relief, indeed, to have detected something fraudulent among the bargains, or some very great adventuress among the customers. It was the deadly monotony of goodishness and cheapishness in everything and everybody that oppressed you. There were no heights of excellence and no contrasting depths – all one level of quality wherever you looked – so that the things they sold at the cheapest place – sold with mechanical respect, and as fast as they could tie them up – seemed to lack all individuality, and to have no reason for being, except to become parcels. There was none of the exultation of bargain-getting; the bargains were on a regular system of fixed laws – the poetic delight of an unexpected 'reduction' was wholly absent. The cheapest place resolved itself into a vast, well-organised Opportunity, and inside you saw the British Public and the Opportunity together.

'Ere is your chainge, madam,' said the hollow-eyed young woman who had been waiting upon Lady Torquilin in the matter of a letter-weight and a Japanese umbrella. 'Thank you,' said Lady Torquilin. 'I'm afraid you get very tired, don't you, before the day is over?' my friend asked the young woman, with as sweet a smile as she could have given anybody. The young woman smiled back again, and said, 'Very, madame'; but that was all, for three other people wanted her. I put this in because it is one of the little things she often says that show the niceness of Lady Torquilin.

'Now, what do you think of the cheapest place?' asked Lady Torquilin as we walked together in the Edgware Road. I told her as I have told you. 'H'mph!' said she. 'It's not a shop I like myself, but that's what I call being too picksome! You get what you want, and if you don't want it you leave it, and why should you care! Now, by way of variety, we'll go to the dearest place;' and the omnibus we got into rattled off in the direction of Bond Street. It struck me then, and often since, how oddly different London is from an American city to go shopping in. At home the large, important stores are pretty much together, in the business part of the city, and anybody can tell from the mere buildings what to expect in the way of style and price. In London you can't tell at all, and the well-known shops are scattered over square miles of streets, by twos and threes, in little individual towns, each with its own congregation of smaller shops, and its own butchers and bakers and newsstands, and post-office and squares and 'places,' and blind alleys and strolling cats and hand organs; and to get from one to another of the little towns it is necessary to make a journey in an omnibus. Of course, I know there are a few places preeminent in reputation and 'form' and price – above all in price – which gather in a few well-known streets; but life in all these little centres which make up London would be quite complete without them. They seem to exist for the benefit of that extravagant element here that has nothing to do with the small respectable houses and the little domestic squares, but hovers over the city during the time of year when the sun shines and the fogs are not, living during that time in notable localities, under the special inspection of the 'Morning Post.' The people who really live in London – the people of the little centres – can quite well ignore these places; they have their special shop in Uxbridge Road or St. Paul's Churchyard, and if they tire of their own particular local cut, they can make morning trips from Uxbridge Road to the High Street, Kensington, or from either to Westboume Grove. To Americans this is very novel and amusing, and we get a great deal of extra pleasure out of shopping in London in sampling, so to speak, the different submunicipalities.

While I was thinking these things, Lady Torquilin poked me with her parasol from the other end of the omnibus. 'Tell him to stop!' she said, and I did; at least, the gentleman in the corner made the request for me. That gentleman in the corner is a feature of your omnibus system, I think. His arm, or his stick, or his umbrella, is always at the service of any lady who wants the bell rung. It seems to be a duty that goes with the corner seat, cheerfully accepted by every man that sits there.

We had arrived in Bond Street, at the dearest place. From what Lady Torquilin told me, I gathered that Bond Street was a regular haunt for dearest places; but it would be impossible for any stranger to suppose so from walking through it – it is so narrow and crooked and irregular, and the shops are so comparatively insignificant after the grand sweep of Regent Street and the wide variety of the circuses. For one, I should have thought circuses would be the best possible places for business in London, not only because the address is so easily remembered, but because once you get into them they are so extremely difficult to get out of. However, a stranger never can tell.

Inside, the dearest place was a stronger contrast to the cheapest place than I could describe by any antithesis. There was an exclusive emptiness about it that seemed to suggest a certain temerity in coming in, and explained, considered commercially, why the rare visitors should have such an expensive time of it. One or two tailor-made ladies discussed something in low tones with an assistant, and beside these there was nobody but a couple of serious-minded shopwalkers, some very elegant young ladies-in-waiting, and the dummies that called your attention to the fashions they were exhibiting. The dummies were headless, but probably by the variety of their clothes they struck you as being really the only personalities in the shop. We looked at some of them before advancing far into the august precincts of the dearest place, and Lady Torquilin had a sweeping opinion of them. 'Hideous! I call them,' she said; but she said it in rather a hushed tone, quite different from the one she would have used in the cheapest place, and I am sure the shopwalker did not overhear. 'Bulgarian atrocities! How in the world people imagine such things! And as to setting to work to make them – '

I can't say I agreed with Lady Torquilin, for there was a distinct idea in all the dresses, and a person always respects an idea, whether it is pretty or not; but neither can I profess an admiration for the fashions of the dearest place. They were rather hard and unsympathetic; they seemed to sacrifice everything to be in some degree striking; their motto seemed to be, 'Let us achieve a difference' – presumably from the fashions of places that were only dear in the comparative degree. While we were looking at them, one of the pale young women strolled languidly up and remarked, with an absent expression, that one of them was 'considered a smart little gown, moddam!' 'Smart enough, I daresay,' said Lady Torquilin, with a slightly invidious emphasis on the adjective; whereat the young woman said nothing, but looked volumes of repressed astonishment at the ignorance implied. Lady Torquilin went on to describe the kind of dress I thought of buying.

'Certainly, moddam! Will you take a seat, moddam? Something quite simple I think you said, moddam, and in muslin. I'll be with you in one moment, moddam.' And the young woman crawled away with the negligence that became the dearest place. After an appreciable time she returned with her arms full of what they used to call, so very correctly, 'furbelows,' in spotted and flowered muslins.

'Dearie me!' said Lady Torquilin. 'That's precisely what I wore when I was a girl!'

'Yes, moddam!' said the young woman, condescending to the ghost of a smile. 'The old styles are all comin' in again' – at which burst of responsiveness she suddenly brought herself up sharply, and assumed a manner which forbade you to presume upon it.

I picked up one of the garlanded muslins and asked the price of it. It had three frills round the bottom and various irrelevant ribbon-bows.

'Certainly, moddam! One moment, moddam!' as she looked at the ticket attached.

'This one is seventeen guineas, moddam. Silk foundation. A Paris model, moddam, but I dare say we could copy it for you for less.'

Lady Torquilin and I made a simultaneous movement, and looked at each other in the expressive way that all ladies understand who go shopping with each other.

'Thanks!' I said. 'It is much too expensive for me.'

'We have nothing of this style under fifteen guineas, moddam,' replied the young woman, with a climax of weary frigidity. 'Then, shall we go?'

I asked Lady Torquilin – and we went.

'What a price!' said Lady Torquilin, as we left the dearest place behind us.

I said I thought it was an insult – eighty-five dollars for a ready-made sprigged muslin dress! – to the intelligence of the people who were expected to buy it. That, for my part, I should feel a distinct loss of self-respect in buying anything at the dearest place. What would I be paying for?

'For being able to say that it came from the dearest place,' said Lady Torquilin. 'But I thought you Americans didn't mind what anything cost.'

That misconception of Lady Torquilin's is a popular one, and I was at some pains to rectify it. 'We don't,' I said, 'if we recognise the fairness of it; but nobody resents being imposed upon more than an American, Lady Torquilin. We have our idiots, like other nations, and I daresay a good many of them come to London every year and deal exclusively at the dearest place; but as a nation, though we don't scrimp we do like the feeling that we are paying for value received.'

'Well,' said Lady Torquilin, 'I believe that is the case. I know Americans talk a great deal about the price of things – more, I consider, than is entertaining sometimes.' I said I knew they did – it was a national fault – and what did Lady Torquilin think the dress I had on cost, just to compare it with that muslin, and Chicago was by no means a cheap place for anything. Lady Torquilin said she hadn't an idea – our dollars were so difficult to reckon in; but what did I think hers came to – and not a scrap of silk lining about it. And so the time slipped away until we arrived in the neighbourhood of Cavendish Square, at what Lady Torquilin called 'the happy medium,' where the windows were tempting, and the shopwalker smiled, and the lady-in-waiting was a person of great dignity, in high, black sleeves, with a delightful French accent when she talked, which she very seldom forgot, and only contradicted when she said ''Ow' and ''elliotrope,' and where things cost just about what they did in America.

I have gone very patiently ever since to the happy medium, partly to acquire the beautiful composure of the lady-in-waiting, partly to enjoy the respect which all Americans like so much in a well-conducted English shop, and partly because at the happy medium they understand how to turn shopping into the pleasant artistic pastime it ought to be, which everybody in America is in far too much of a hurry to make a fortune and retire to do for his customers. I am on the most agreeable footing with the lady in the sleeves now, and I have observed that, as our acquaintance progresses, her command of English consonantal sounds remarkably increases. But I have never been able to reconcile myself, even theoretically, either to the cheapest place, in the Edgware Road, or the dearest place, in Bond Street.

XIII

AS a nation I can't bear 'em – individually, I like 'em fairly well,' read out Lady Torquilin from a letter at breakfast. 'Bless me!' my friend went on, 'she's talking about Americans, and she's coming to see "your specimen" – meaning you, child – this very afternoon.'

So she did. She came to see me that very afternoon – the lady who couldn't bear us as a nation, but individually liked us fairly well. Her name was Corke, and she belonged, Lady Torquilin said, to the Corkes. I heard all about her before she came. She was a lady of moderate income, unmarried, about ten years older than I was. She knew all about everything.

'You never saw such a reader, my dear! I won't say it happens often, for that it does not, but Peter Corke has made me feel like a perfect ignoramus.'

'Peter Corke?' I said, with some surprise.

'Too ridiculous, I call it! Her proper name is Catharine Clarissa, but she hates her proper name – sensible girl as she is in every other way – prefers Peter! And if she happens to take a fancy to you, she will tell you all manner of interesting things. For old holes and corners, I always say, go to Peter Corke.'

'I'm glad,' I said, 'that she likes us, individually, fairly well – it's the only way in which I would have any chance! But she won't like my accent.'

'If she doesn't,' Lady Torquilin said, 'I promise you she'll tell you. And you won't mind a bit.'

When Miss Corke arrived I forgot entirely about the doubtfulness of her liking me – I was too much absorbed in liking her. She was rather a small person, with a great deal of dignity in her shoulders and a great deal of humour in her face – the most charming face I have seen in England, and I can't even make an exception in favour of the Princess of Wales. I may tell you that she had delightful twinkling brown eyes, and hair a shade darker, and the colour and health and energy that only an English woman possesses at thirty, without being in the least afraid that you could pick her out in the street, or anywhere – she would not like that – and being put in print, so that people would know her, at all; it's a thing I wouldn't do on any account, knowing her feelings. It is only because I am so well convinced that I can't tell you what she was like that I try, which you may consider a feminine reason, if you want to. Miss Peter Corke's personality made you think at once of Santa Claus and a profound philosopher – could you have a more difficult combination to describe than that? While you listened to a valuable piece of advice from her lips you might be quite certain that she had an orange for you in the hand behind her back; and however you might behave, you would get the orange. Part of her charm was the atmosphere of gay beneficence she carried about with her, that made you want to edge your chair closer to wherever she was sitting; and part of it was the remarkable interest she had in everything that concerned you – a sort of interest that made you feel as if such information as you could give about yourself was a direct and valuable contribution to the sum of her knowledge of humanity; and part of it was the salutary sincerity of everything she had to say in comment, though I ought not to forget her smile, which was a great deal of it. I am sure I don't know why I speak of Miss Peter Corke in the past tense, however. She is not dead – or even married; I cannot imagine a greater misfortune to her large circle of friends in London.

'Two lumps, please,' begged Miss Corke of me in the midst of a succession of inquiries about Lady Torquilin's cough, whether it could possibly be gout, or if she had been indulging in salmon and cucumber lately, in which case it served her perfectly right. 'What a disappointment you are! Why don't you ask me if I like it with all the trimmings?'

'The trimmings?' I repeated.

'Certainly! the sugar and milk! Fancy being obliged to explain Americanisms to an American!' said Miss Corke to Lady Torquilin.

'Is trimmings an Americanism?' I asked. 'I never heard it before. But I dare say it is an expression peculiar to Boston, perhaps.'

'You had better not have any doubt,' said Miss Corke, with mock ferocity, 'of anything you hear in England.'

'I've heard fixings often at home,' I declared, 'but never trimmings.'

'Oh!' remarked Miss Corke, genially; 'then fixings is the correct expression.'

'I don't know,' I said, 'about its being the correct expression. Our washerwoman uses it a good deal.'

'Oh!' said Miss Corke, with an indescribable inflection of amusement; and then she looked at me over the top of her teacup, as much as to say, 'you had better not go too far!'

'Are your father and mother living?' she asked; and just then I noticed that it was twenty minutes past four by the clock. I answered Miss Corke in the affirmative, and naturally I was glad to be able to; but I have often wondered since why that invariable interest in the existence or non-existence of a person's parents should prevail in England as it does. I have seldom been approached by any one in a spirit of kindly curiosity with a different formula. 'Any brothers and sisters?' Miss Corke went on. 'When did you come? Where did you go first? How long do you mean to stay? What have you seen? Did you expect us to be as we are, or do we exceed your expectations? Have you ever travelled alone before? Are you quite sure you like the feeling of being absolutely independent? Don't you love our nice old manners and customs? and won't you wish when you get back that you could put your President on a golden throne, with an ermine robe, and a sceptre in his right hand?'

Miss Corke gave me space between these questions for brief answers, but by the time I looked at the clock again, and saw that it was twenty-five minutes past four, to the best of my recollection, she had asked me twelve. I liked it immensely – it made conversation so easy; but I could not help thinking, in connection with it, of the capacity for interrogation, which I had always heard credited exclusively to Americans.