The Cockaynes in Paris Part 4

"I ought," briefly responded c.o.c.kayne; and then he rapidly continued, in order to ward off the fire he knew his smart rejoinder would provoke--

"Tell me where it was, my dear. Suppose we go and look at it together. I saw myself some exquisite Greek compositions in the Rue de la Paix, which both myself and Carrie admired immensely."

"Greek fiddlesticks! I want no Greek, nor any other old-fashioned ornaments, Mr. c.o.c.kayne. One would think you were married to the oldest female inhabitant, by the way you talk; or that I had stepped out of the Middle Ages; or that I and Sphinx were twins. But you must be so very clever, with your elevation of the working-cla.s.ses, and those prize Robinson Crusoes you gave to the Ragged-school children--which you know you got trade price."

"Well, well," poor c.o.c.kayne feebly expostulated, "if it's not far, let us go and see the brooch."

"There, mamma!" cried both Sophonisba and Theodosia in one breath.

"Mind, the one with the three diamonds."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MUSEE DU LUXEMBOURG.]

Mrs. c.o.c.kayne being of an exceedingly yielding temperament, allowed herself to be mollified, and sailed out of the hotel, with the blue veil hanging from her hat down her back, observing by the way that she should like to box those impudent Frenchmen's ears who were lounging about the doorway, and who, she was sure, were looking at her. Mr.

c.o.c.kayne was unfortunate enough to opine that his wife was mistaken, and that the Frenchmen in question were not even looking in her direction.

"Of course not, Mr. c.o.c.kayne," said the lady; "who would look at me, at my time of life?"

"Nonsense! I didn't mean that," said Mr. c.o.c.kayne, now a little gruffly, for there was a limit even to _his_ patience.

"It is difficult to tell what you mean. I don't think you know yourself, half your time."

Thus agreeably beguiling the way, the pair walked to the shop in the Rue de la Paix, where the lady had seen a brooch entirely to her mind. It was the large enamel rose-leaf, with three charming dew-drops in the shape of brilliants.

"They speak English, I hope," said Mr. c.o.c.kayne. "We ought to have brought Sophonisba with us."

"Sophonisba! much use _her_ French is in this place. She says their French and the French she learnt at school are two perfectly different things. So you may make up your mind that all those extras for languages you paid for the children were so much money thrown away."

"That's a consoling reflection, now the money's gone," quoth Mr.

c.o.c.kayne.

They then entered the shop. A very dignified gentleman, with exquisitely arranged beard and moustache, and dressed unexceptionably, made a diplomatic bow to Mr. c.o.c.kayne and his wife. c.o.c.kayne, without ceremony, plunged _in medias res_. He wanted to look at the rose-leaf with the diamonds on it. The gentleman in black observed that it became English ladies' complexion "a ravir."

It occurred to Mr. c.o.c.kayne, as it has occurred to many Englishmen in Paris, that he might make up for his ignorance of French by speaking in a voice of thunder. He seemed to have come to the conclusion that the French were a deaf nation, and that they talked a language which he did not understand in order that he might bear their deafness in mind. For once in her life Mrs. c.o.c.kayne held the same opinion as her husband. She accordingly, on her side, made what observations she chose to address to the dignified jeweller in her loudest voice. The jeweller smiled good naturedly, and pattered his broken English in a subdued and deferential tone. As Mr. c.o.c.kayne found that he did not get on very well, or make his meaning as clear as crystal by bawling, and as he found that the polite jeweller could jerk out a few broken phrases of English, the bright idea struck him that he, Mr. c.o.c.kayne, late of Lambeth, would make his meaning plainer than a pike-staff by speaking broken English also. The jeweller was puzzled, but he was very patient; and as he kept pa.s.sing one bracelet after another over the arm of Mrs. c.o.c.kayne, quite captivated that lady.

"He seems to think we're going to buy all the shop," growled c.o.c.kayne.

"How vulgar you are! Lambeth manners don't do in Paris. Mr. c.o.c.kayne."

"But they seem to like Lambeth sovereigns, anyhow," was the aggravating rejoinder.

"If you're going to talk like that, I'll leave the shop, and not have anything."

This was a threat the lady did not carry out. She bore the enamel rose-leaf--the leaf with the three diamonds, as her daughters had affectionately reminded her--off in triumph, having promised that delightful man, the jeweller, to return and have a look at the bracelets another day. She was quite enchanted with the low bow the jeweller gave her as he closed his handsome plate-gla.s.s door. He might have been a duke or a prince, she said.

"Or a footman," Mr. c.o.c.kayne added. "I don't call all that bowing and sc.r.a.ping business."

When Mr. and Mrs. c.o.c.kayne returned to the Grand Hotel, they found their daughters Sophonisba and Theodosia in a state of rapture.

"Mamma, mamma!" cried Sophonisba, holding up a copy of _La France,_ an evening paper, "you know that splendid shop we pa.s.sed to-day, under the colonnades by the Louvre Hotel, where there was that deep blue _moire_ you said you should so much like if you could afford it. Well, look here, there is a '_Grande Occasion_' there!" and the enraptured girl pointed to letters at least two inches high, printed across the sheet of the newspaper. "Look! a 'Grande Occasion!'"

"And pray what's that, Sophy?" Mrs. c.o.c.kayne asked. "What grand occasion, I should like to know."

"Dear me, mamma," Theodosia murmured, "it means an excellent opportunity."

"My dear," Mrs. c.o.c.kayne retorted severely to her child, "I didn't have the advantage of lessons in French, at I don't know how many guineas a quarter; nor, I believe, did your father; nor did we have occasion to teach ourselves, like Miss Sharp."

"Well, look here, mamma," Miss Sophonisba said, her eyes sparkling and her fingers trembling as they ran down line after line of the advertis.e.m.e.nt that covered the whole back sheet of the newspaper. "You never saw such bargains. The prices are positively ridiculous. There are silks, and laces, and muslins, and grenadines, and alpacas, and shawls, and cloaks, and plain _sultanes_, and I don't know what, all at such absurdly low prices that I think there must be some mistake about it."

"Tut," Mr. c.o.c.kayne said; "one of those 'awful sacrifices' and bankrupt stock sales, like those we see in London, and the bills of which are thrown into the letter-box day after day."

"You are quite mistaken, papa dear, indeed you are," Theodosia said; "we have asked the person in the _Bureau_ down stairs, and she has told us that these '_Grandes Occasions_' take place twice regularly every year, and that people wait for them to make good bargains for their summer things and for their winter things."

The lady in the _Bureau_ was right. The prudent housewives of Paris take advantage of these "_Grandes Occasions_" to make their summer and winter purchases for the family. In the spring-time, when the great violet trade of Paris brightens the corners of the streets, immense advertis.e.m.e.nts appear in all the daily and weekly papers of Paris, headed by gigantic letters that the fleetest runner may read, announcing extraordinary exhibitions, great exhibitions, and unprecedented spring shows. "Poor Jacques" offers 3000 cashmere shawls at twenty-seven francs each, 2000 silk dresses at twenty-nine francs, and 1000 at thirty-nine francs. "Little Saint Thomas," of the Rue du Bac, has 90,000 French linos, 1000 "Jacquettes gentleman," 500 Zouaves, and 1000 dozen cravats--all at extraordinary low prices. Poor Jacques draws public attention to the "incomparable cheapness" of his immense operations: while Little St. Thomas declares that his a.s.sortment of goods is of "exceptional importance," and that he is selling his goods at a cheapness _hors ligne_. For a nation that has twitted the English with being a race of shop-keepers, our friends the Parisians who keep shops are not wanting in devotion to their own commercial interests. Indeed, there is a strong commercial sense in thousands of Parisians who have no shutters to take down. Take for instance the poetical M. Alphonse Karr, whose name has pa.s.sed all over Europe as the charming author of A Journey round my Garden. Nothing can be more engaging than the manner in which M. Karr leads his readers about with him among his flowers and the parasites of his garden. He falls into raptures over the petals of the rose, and his eye brightens tenderly over the June fly. One would think that this garden-traveller was a very ethereal personage, and that milk and honey and a few sweet roots would satisfy his simple wants, and that he had no more idea of trafficking in a market than a hard man of business has in spending hours watching a beetle upon a leaf. But let not the reader continue to labour under this grievous mistake.

M. Karr is quite up to the market value of every bud that breaks within the charmed circle of his garden at Nice.

He cultivates the poetry for his books, but he does not neglect his ledger. In the spring, when, according to Mr. Tennyson, "a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast," and "young men's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love," M. Alphonse Karr, poet and florist, opens his flower-shop.

Carrie had taken up the newspaper which had moved the enthusiasm of her elder sisters. Her eyes fell on the following advertis.e.m.e.nt:--

"By an arrangement agreed upon, M. ALPHONSE KARR, of Nice,

sends direct, gratuitously, and post free, either a box containing Herbes aux Turguoises, or a magnificent bouquet of Parma Violets, to every person who, before the end of March, shall become a subscriber to the monthly review ent.i.tled Life in the Country. A specimen number will be sent on receipt of fifteen sous in postage stamps."

This is Alphonse Karr's magnificent spring a.s.sortment--his Grand Occasion.

"So you see, Mr. c.o.c.kayne," said his wife, "this Mr. Karr, whose book about the garden--twaddle, _I_ call it--you used to think so very fine and poetic, is just a market-gardener and nothing more. He is positively an advertising tradesman."

"Nothing more, mamma, I a.s.sure you," said Sophonisba. "I remember at school that one of the French young ladies, Mademoiselle de la Rosiere, told me that when her sister was married, the bride and all the bridesmaids had Alphonse Karr's _bouquets_. It seems that the mercenary creature advertises to sell ball or wedding _bouquets_, which he manages to send to Paris quite fresh in little boxes, for a pound apiece."

"Do you hear that?" said Mrs. c.o.c.kayne, addressing her husband. "This is your pet, sir, who was so fond of his beetles! Why, the man would sell the nightingales out of his trees, if he could catch them, I've no doubt."

"The story is a little jarring, I confess," Pater said. "But after all, why shouldn't he sell the flowers also, when he sells the pretty things he writes about them?"

"Upon my word, you're wonderful. You try to creep out of everything. But what is that you were reading, my dear Sophonisba, about the _grande occasion_ near the Louvre Hotel? I dare say it's a great deal more interesting than Mr. Karr and his violets. I haven't patience with your papa's affectation. What was it we saw, my dear, in the Rue Saint Honore? The 'b.u.t.terfly's Chocolate'?"

"Yes, mamma," Theodosia answered. "_Chocolat du Papillon_. Yes; and you know, mamma, there was the linen-draper's with the sign _A la Pensee_. I never heard such ridiculous nonsense."

"Yes; and there was another, my dear," said Mrs. c.o.c.kayne, "'To the fine Englishwoman,' or something of that sort."

"Oh, those two or three shops, mamma," said Sophonisba, "dedicated _A la belle Anglaise!_ Just think what people would say, walking along Oxford Street, if they were to see over a hosier's shop, written in big, flaring letters, 'To the beautiful Frenchwoman!"

Mr. c.o.c.kayne laughed. Mrs. c.o.c.kayne saw nothing to laugh at. She maintained that it was a fair way of putting the case.

Mr. c.o.c.kayne said that he was not laughing at his wife, but at some much more ridiculous signs which had come under his notice.

"What do you say," he asked, "to a linen-draper's called the 'Siege of Corinth?' or the 'Great Conde?' or the 'Good Devil'?"