An American Girl in London

by Sara Jeannette Duncan

[Original]

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.

[Original]

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——'