Tottenham’s is situated in one of the great thoroughfares which lead out of the heart of London, towards one of its huge suburbs. It consists of an immense square pile of building, facing to four different streets, with frontage of plate-glass windows, and masses of costly shawls and silks appearing through. To many people, but these were mostly ladies, Tottenham’s was a kind of fairyland. It represented everything, from substantial domestic linen to fairy webs of lace, which money could buy. In the latter particular, it is true, Tottenham’s was limited; it possessed only the productions of modern fingers, the filmy fabrics of Flanders and France; but its silks, its velvets, its magnificences of shawl and drapery, its untold wealth in the homelier shape of linen and cambric, were unsurpassed anywhere, and the fame of them had spread throughout London, nay, throughout England. The name of this great establishment caused a flutter of feeling through all the Home Counties, and up even to the Northern borders. People sent their orders to Tottenham’s from every direction of the compass. The mass of its clients were, perhaps, not highly fashionable, though even the crême de la crême sometimes made a raid into the vast place, which was reported cheap, and where fashionable mothers were apt to assure each other that people, who knew what was what, might often pick up very nice things indeed at half the price which Élise would ask, not to speak of Worth. Persons who know what Worth has last invented, and how Élise works, have an immense advantage in this way over their humble neighbours. But the humble neighbours themselves were very good customers, and bought more largely, if with less discrimination. And the middle class, like one man, or rather like one woman, patronized Tottenham’s. It bought its gowns there, and its carpets and its thread and needles, everything that is wanted, in a house. It provided its daughters’ trousseaux, and furnished its sons’ houses out of this universal emporium; not the chairs and tables, it is true, but everything else. The arrangements of the interior were so vast and bewildering as to drive a stranger wild, though the habitués glided about from counter to counter with smiling readiness. There were as many departments as in the Home Office, but everybody looked after his own department, which is not generally the case in the Imperial shop; and the hum of voices, the gliding about of many feet, the rustle of many garments, the vague sound and sentiment of a multitude pervaded the alleys of counters, the crowded passages between, where group was jostled by group, and not an inch of space left unoccupied.
Edgar’s entrance into this curious unexplored world, which he had been brought here expressly to “take an interest” in, was made through a private way, through the counting-house, where many clerks sat at their desks, and where all was quiet and still as in a well-ordered merchant’s office. Mr. Tottenham had a large room, furnished with the morocco-covered chairs and writing-tables consecrated to such places, but with more luxury than usual; with Turkey carpets on the floor, and rich crimson curtains framing the great window, which looked into a small court-yard surrounded with blank walls. Here Mr. Tottenham paused to look over a bundle of business letters, and to hear some reports that were brought to him by the heads of departments. These were not entirely about business. Though the communications were made in a low voice, Edgar could not help hearing that Mr. So-and-So was in question here, and Miss Somebody there.
“If something is not done, I don’t think the other young ladies will stand it, Sir,” said a grave elderly gentleman, whom Edgar, eyeing him curiously, felt that he would have taken at least for a Member of Parliament.
“I will look into it, Robinson. You may make your mind quite easy. I will certainly look into it,” said Mr. Tottenham, with such a look as the Chancellor of the Exchequer may put on when he anticipates a failure in the revenue.
“You see, Sir,” added Mr. Robinson, “a piece of scandal about any of the young ladies is bad enough; but when it comes to be the head of a department, or at least, one of the heads—and you remember it was all our opinions that Miss Lockwood was just the fit person for the place. I had a little difficulty myself on the point, for Miss Innes had been longer in the establishment; but as for being ladylike-looking, and a good figure, and a good manner, there could, of course, be no comparison.”
“I will look into it, I will look into it,” said Mr. Tottenham, hurriedly.
The head of a State has to bear many worries, in small things as well as in great; and the head of Tottenham’s was less a constitutional than a despotic ruler. Limited Monarchies do not answer, it must be allowed, on a small scale. The respectable Mr. Robinson withdrew to one side, while other heads of departments approached the Sultan of the Shop. Edgar looked on with some amusement and a good deal of interest. Mr. Tottenham was no longer speculative and viewy. He went into all the business details with a precision which surprised his companion, and talked of the rise in silks, and the vicissitudes in shirtings, with very much more apparent perception of the seriousness of the matter than he had ever evidenced in the other Tottenham’s, the wealthy house in which the shopkeeper lived as princes live. Edgar would have retired when these business discussions, or rather reports and audiences, began; but Mr. Tottenham restrained him with a quick look and gesture, motioning him to a seat close to his own.
“I want you to see what I have to do,” he said in a rapid interjection between one conference and another.
The last of all was a young man, studiously elegant in appearance, and in reality, as Edgar found out afterwards, the fine gentleman of the establishment, who had charge of the recreations of “the assistants,” or rather the employés, which was the word Mr. Watson preferred. Mr. Tottenham’s face lighted up when this functionary approached him with a piece of paper, written in irregular lines, like a programme, in his hand—and it was the programme of the next evening entertainment, to be given in the shop and for the shop. Mr. Watson used no such vulgar phraseology.
“Perhaps, Sir, you will kindly look over this, and favour us with any hint you may think necessary?” he said. “Music is always popular, and as we have at present a good deal of vocal talent among us, I thought it best to utilize it. The part-songs please the young ladies, Sir. It is the only portion of the entertainment in which they can take any active share.”