A "GRANDE OCCASION."
"Well, these Paris tradespeople are the most extraordinary persons in the world," cried Sophonisba's mamma, and the absolute ruler of Mr. Cockayne. "I confess I can't make them out. They beat me. My dear, they are the most independent set I ever came across. They don't seem to care whether you buy or you don't; and they ask double what they intend to take."
"What is the matter now, my dear?" Mr. Cockayne ventured, in an unguarded moment, to ask, putting aside for a moment Mr. Bayle St. John's scholarly book on the Louvre.
"At any rate, Mr. Cockayne, we do humbly venture to hope that you will be able to spare us an hour this morning to accompany us to the Magasins du Louvre. We would not ask you, but we have been told the crowd is so great that ladies alone would be torn to pieces."
"I forget how many thousands a day, papa dear," Sophonisba mercifully interposed, "but a good many, visit these wonderful shops. I confess I never saw anything like even the outside of them. The inside must be lovely."
"I have no doubt they are, my dear," Mr. Cockayne observed. "They were built about ten years ago. The foundations were——"
"There," cried Mrs. Cockayne, rising, "there, your papa is off with his lecture. I shall put on my bonnet." And Mrs. Cockayne swept grandly from the room.
Mrs. Cockayne re-entered the room with her bonnet on; determination was painted on the lady's countenance. Cockayne should not escape this time. He should be led off like a lamb to the slaughter. Were not the silks marked at ridiculously low prices? Was not the shawl-room a sight more than equal to anything to be seen in any other part of Paris? Was not the folding department just as much a sight of Paris as that wretched collection of lumber in the Hôtel Cluny?
Some wives had only to hint to have; but that was not the case with the hapless Mrs. Cockayne. She was sure nobody could be more economical than she was, both for herself and the children, and that was her reward. She had to undergo the most humiliating process of asking point-blank; even when twenty or thirty thousand pairs of gloves were to be sold at prices that were unheard of! Men were so stupid in their meanness!
"Buy the shop," Mr. Cockayne angrily observed.
Perhaps Mr. Cockayne would be pleased to inform his lawful wife and the unfortunate children who were subjected by fate to his cruel tyranny—perhaps he would inform them when it would be convenient for him to take them home. His insults were more than his wife could bear.
"What's the matter now?" asked the despairing Cockayne, rubbing his hat with his coat-sleeve.
"Mamma dear, papa is coming with us," Sophonisba expostulated.
"Well, I suppose he is. It has not quite come to that yet, my dear. I am prepared for anything, I believe; but your father will, I trust, not make us the laughing-stock of the hotel."
"I am ready," said Cockayne, grimly, between his teeth.
"I am obliged, you see, children, to speak," icily responded the lady he had sworn to love and cherish. "Hints are thrown away. I must suffer the indignity for your sakes, of saying to your father, I shall want some money for the purchases your mother wants to make for you. It is not the least use going to this Grande Occasion, or whatever they call it, empty-handed."
"Will you allow me time to get change?" And Mr. Cockayne headed the procession through the hotel court-yard to the Boulevards.
"Walk with your father," the outraged lady said to Sophonisba. "It's positively disgraceful, straggling out in this way. But I might have known what it was likely to be before I left home."
Mr. Cockayne, as was his wont, speedily re-assumed his equanimity, and chatted pleasantly with Sophonisba as they walked along the Rue de la Paix, across the Place Vendôme, into the Rue Castiglione. Mrs. Cockayne followed with Theodosia; Carrie had begged to be left behind, to write a long letter to her intellectual friend, Miss Sharp.
Mr. Cockayne stopped before the door of Mr. John Arthur.
"What on earth can your father want here?" said Mrs. Cockayne, pausing at the door, while her husband had an interview with Mr. John Arthur within.
Theodosia, peering through the window, answered, "He is getting change, mamma dear."
"At last!"
Mr. Cockayne issued radiant from Mr. John Arthur's establishment.
"There," said he to his wife, in his heartiest voice; "there, my dear, buy what you and the girls want."
"I will do the best I can with it. Perhaps we can manage our shopping without troubling you."
"It's not the least trouble in the world," gaily said Cockayne, putting that bright face of his on matters.
"I thought you had some idea of going to the Museum of Artillery this afternoon, to see whether or not you approved of the French guns."
Mr. Cockayne laughed at the sarcasm, and again gave Sophonisba his arm, and went under the colonnades of the Rue de Rivoli, wondering, by the way, why people stared at him in his plaid suit, and at his daughter in her brown hat and blue veil. Mrs. Cockayne wondered likewise. The French were the rudest people on the face of the earth, and not the politest, as they had the impudence to assert.
When the party reached the colonnades of the Grand Hôtel du Louvre, they found themselves in the midst of a busy scene.
The Magasins du Louvre stretch far under the Hôtel, from the Rue de Rivoli to the Rue Saint-Honoré. Year after year has the stretching process continued; but now the great company of linen drapers and hosiers have all the space that can be spared them. The endless lines of customers' carriages in the Rue Saint-Honoré and on the Place opposite Prince Napoleon's palace betoken the marvellous trade going on within.
The father of the English family here turned his back upon the great shop, and glancing towards the Louvre and the Church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, exclaimed—"Marvellous scene! A sight not to be equalled in the world. Yonder is the old church, the bell of which tolled the——"
"You're making a laughing-stock of yourself," Mrs. Cockayne exclaims, taking her husband firmly by the arm. "One would think you were an hotel guide, or a walking handbook, or—or a beadle or showman. What do you want to know about the massacre of St. Bartholomew now? There'll not be a mantle or a pair of gloves left. Come in—do! You can go gesticulating about the streets with Carrie to-morrow, if you choose; but do contrive to behave like an ordinary mortal to-day."
Mr. Cockayne resigned himself. He plunged into the magnificent shop. He was dragged into the crowd that was defiling past the fifteen-sous counter, where the goods lay in great tumbled masses on the floor and upon the counter. He was surprised to see the shopmen standing upon the counter, and, with marvellous rapidity, telling off the yards of the cheap fabrics to the ladies and gentlemen who were pressing before them in an unbroken line. Beyond were the packers. Beyond again, was the office where payment was made, each person having a note or ticket, with the article bought, showing the sum due. A grave official marshalled the customer to the pay-place. There was wonderful order in the seeming confusion. The admirable system of the establishment was equal to the emergency. An idea of the continuous flow of the crowd past the silk and mixed fabric counters may be got from the fact that many ladies waited three and four hours for their turn to be served. One Parisian lady told Mrs. Cockayne that, after waiting four hours in the crowd, she had gone home to lunch, and had returned to try her fortune a second time.
Poor Cockayne! He was absolutely bewildered. His endeavours to steer the "three daughters of Albion" who were under his charge, in the right direction, were painful to witness. First he threaded corridors, then he was in the carpet gallery, and now he was in the splendid, the palatial shawl-hall, where elegant ladies were trying on shawls of costly fabric, with that grace and quiet for which Parisians are unmatched.
"This is superb! Oh, this is very, very fine!" cried the ladies. "How on earth shall we find our way out?"
Now they sailed among immensities of silk and satin waves. Now they were encompassed with shawls; and now they were amid colonnades of rolls of carpet.
Mrs. Cockayne stayed here and there to make a purchase, by the help of Sophonisba's French, which was a source of considerable embarrassment to the shopmen. They smiled, but were very polite.
"This is not a shop, it is a palace dedicated to trade," cried Cockayne.
"Stuff and nonsense," was his answer; "take care of the parcels. Yon know better, of course, than the people to whom it belongs."
The Cockaynes found themselves borne by the endless stream of customers into a vast and lofty gallery. Pater paused.
"This is superb! It would have been impossible to realize——"
"Don't be a fool, Cockayne," said his wife; "this is the lace department. We must not go away without buying something."
"Let us try," was saucily answered.
Mrs. Cockayne immediately settled upon some Chantilly, and made her lord, as she expressed it in her pretty way, "pay for his impudence."
The silk gallery was as grand and bewildering as the lace department; and here again were made some extraordinary bargains.
Obliging officials directed the party to the first staircase on the right, or to turn to the left, by the furnishing department. They made a mistake, and found themselves in the salons devoted to made linen, where Mrs. Cockayne hoped her husband would not make his daughters blush with what he considered to be (and he was much mistaken) witty observations. He was to be serious and silent amid mountains of feminine under linen. He was to ask no questions.
In the Saint Honoré gallery—which is the furnishing department—Mr. Cockayne was permitted to indulge in a few passing expressions of wonder. He was hushed in the splendour of the shawl gallery—where all is solid oak and glass and rich gold, and where the wearied traveller through the exciting scene of a Grande Occasion at the marvellous shops of the Louvre, can get a little rest and quiet.
"A wonderful place!" said Pater, as he emerged in the Rue de Rivoli, exhausted.
"And much more sensible than the place opposite," his wife replied, pointing to the palace where the art treasures of Imperial France are imperially housed.
"Grande Occasion!" muttered Mr. Cockayne, when he reached the hotel—"a grand opportunity for emptying one's pocket. The cheapness is positively ruinous. I wonder whether there are any cheap white elephants in Paris?"
"White elephants, Cockayne! White fiddlesticks! I do really think, girls, your father is gradually—mind, I say, gradually—gradually taking leave of his senses."
"La! mamma," unfortunate Carrie interposed, raising her eyes from a volume on Paris in the Middle Ages—"la! mamma, you know that in India——"
"Hold your tongue, Miss—of course I know—and if I didn't, it is not for you to teach me."
Mr. Timothy Cockayne heaved a deep sigh and rang for his bill.
He was to leave for London on the morrow—and his wife and daughters were to find lodgings.