Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York

by Paul Gallico

  At the conclusion of her narrative she looked over at the little apple-cheeked char with a new warmth and tenderness in her own eyes and said, ‘Oh, if only there were someone like you in New York to help me out, even if just for a little until I could get settled.’

  There then fell a silence, during which time Henrietta Schreiber looked across the table at Ada Harris, and Ada Harris over the empty teacups regarded Henrietta Schreiber. Neither said anything. It would not have been possible by any scientific precision instrument known to man to have measured any appreciable interval as to which of them was hit by the great idea first. If such a thing were possible, the two pennies dropped at one and the same moment. But neither said anything.

  Mrs Harris arose, clearing the tea-things, and said, ‘Well, I’d best be gettin’ on with me work, ’adn’t I?’ and Mrs Schreiber said, ‘I suppose I ought to look over the things I mean to take with me.’ They both then turned to what they had to do. Usually when they were in the flat together they nattered, or rather, Mrs Harris did and Mrs Schreiber listened, but this time the little char worked in thoughtful silence, and so did Mrs Schreiber.

  That night when Mrs Harris forgathered with Mrs Butterfield she said, ‘ ’Old on to your hair, Vi, I’ve got something to tell you. We’re going to America!’

  Mrs Butterfield’s scream of alarm rang through the area with such violence that doors and windows were opened to check its source. After Mrs Harris had fanned her back to coherence she cried, ‘ ’Ave you gone out of yer mind? Did you say we’re going?’

  Mrs Harris nodded complacently. ‘I told yer to ’ang on to yer hair,’ she said. ‘Mrs Schreiber’s going to ask me to go along with her until she can get settled into ’er new plyce in New York. I’m going to tell ’er I will, but not unless she tykes you along as cook. Together we’re going to find little ’Enry’s father!’

  That night when Mr Schreiber came home Henrietta broke a long period of taciturnity on her part by saying, ‘Joel, don’t be angry with me, but I have an absolutely hopelessly mad idea.’

  In his present state of euphoria nothing was likely to anger Mr Schreiber. He said, ‘Yes, dear, what is it?’

  ‘I’m going to ask Mrs Harris to come to New York with us.’

  Schreiber was not angry, but he was certainly startled. He said, ‘What?’

  ‘Only for a few months perhaps, until we get settled in and I can find someone. You don’t know how wonderful she is, and how she keeps this place. She knows how I like things. Oh Joel, I’d feel so - secure.’

  ‘But would she come?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Henrietta replied, ‘but - but I think so. If I offered her a lot of money she’d have to come, wouldn’t she? And I think she might just because she likes me, if I begged her.’

  Mr Schreiber looked doubtful for a moment and said, ‘A Cockney char in a Park Avenue penthouse?’ But then he softened and said, ‘If it’ll make you feel better, Baby, go ahead. Anything you want now, I want you should have.’

  EXACTLY fourteen and a half hours after Mrs Harris had told Mrs Butterfield she was about to be propositioned by Mrs Schreiber to go to America, it happened. Mrs Schreiber proposed the very next morning, shortly after Mrs Harris had arrived, and was enthusiastically accepted upon one condition - namely, that Mrs Butterfield be included in the party, and at a wage equal to that promised to Mrs Harris.

  ‘She’s me oldest friend,’ explained Mrs Harris. ‘I’ve never been away from London more than a week at a time in me life. If I ’ad ’er with me I wouldn’t feel so lonely. Besides, she’s a ruddy good cook - cooked for some of the best ’ouses before she retired from steady work. You ask old Sir Alfred Welby who he got ’is gout from.’

  Mrs Schreiber was almost beside herself with joy at the prospect of not only having Mrs Harris to look after her during the first months of her return to the United States, but also at one and the same time acquiring a good cook who would get on well with the little char and keep her from getting too lonely. She knew Mrs Butterfield and liked her, for she had subbed for Mrs Harris during the latter’s expedition to Paris to acquire her Dior dress. ‘But do you think she would come?’ she asked of Mrs Harris anxiously.

  ‘At the drop of a brick,’ replied the latter. ‘Adventurous, that’s what she is. Always wantin’ to rush off into the unknown. Sometimes I can ’ardly keep ’er back. Oh, she’ll come all right. Just you leave it to me to put it to ’er in the right way.’

  Mrs Schreiber was delighted to do so, and they began to discuss details of departure - Mr Schreiber was planning to sail in the French liner Ville de Paris from Southampton within ten days - as though everything was all set and arranged for the two of them.

  Mrs Harris chose the psychological moment to move to the attack upon her friend, namely, the witching hour of that final mellow cup of tea they shared before retiring, and this time in Mrs Butterfield’s ample kitchen, well stocked with cakes and biscuits, jams and jellies, for as her figure indicated, Mrs Butterfield liked to eat well.

  At first it seemed as though Mrs Harris had committed a tactical error in approaching her friend on her own home ground instead of getting her away from her familiar surroundings, for Mrs Butterfield was adamant in her refusal to budge and appeared to have an answer to every argument put forth by Mrs Harris.

  ‘What?’ she cried. ‘Me go to America at my age, where they do all that inflation and shooting and young people killing one another with knives? Don’t you read the papers? And let me tell you something else, if you go it’ll be the death of you, Ada ’Arris - and don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Mrs Harris tried the financial offensive. ‘But Violet, look at the money she’s offered to pay you - American wages, a hundred quid a month and keep. You don’t earn that much in three months ’ere. You could rent your flat while you was away, yer widow’s pension’d be piling up, you’d have no expenses of any kind - why, you’d like as not have five hundred quid by the time you came ’ome. Look what a ’oliday you could ’ave with that. Or put it into Premium Bonds and win a thousand quid more. You’d never ’ave to do another stroke of work.’

  ‘Money ain’t everything,’ Mrs Butterfield countered. ‘You’d know that, Ada ’Arris, if you read your Bible more. The root of all evil, that’s what it is. Who’s got the most trouble in this world, who’s always being dragged into Court and getting their nymes in the papers? Millionaires. I can make enough for me needs right ’ere, and that’s where I’m stayin’. Anyway, I wouldn’t go to that Soda and Gomorrow, what they say New York is, for five hundred quid a month.’

  Mrs Harris moved up her inter-continental missile with megaton warhead. ‘What about little ’Enry?’ she said.

  Mrs Butterfield regarded her friend with some alarm. ‘What about ’im?’ she asked, to gain time, for in the excitement and terror of Mrs Harris’s proposition she had quite forgotten who and what lay behind it all.

  ‘To find ’is dad and give the poor little tyke a decent life, that’s what’s all about ’im, Violet Butterfield, and I’m surprised and ashymed at you forgettin’. If you’ve ’eard it once, you ’ve ’eard me say a ’undred times, if I could only get to America I’d find ’is dad and tell ’im where ’is kid was and what was ’appening to ’im. Well now, ’ere’s our chance to go and do just that, and you ask me what about little ’Enry! Don’t you love ’im?’

  This was almost attacking below the belt, and Mrs Butterfield let out a howl of protest. ‘Ow, Ada, ’ow can you say such a thing? You know I do. Ain’t I always feeding ’im up and cuddling ’im like a mother?’

  ‘But don’t you want to see ’im ’appy and safe with ’is father?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Mrs Butterfield, and then produced to her own great surprise out of her own locker an atomic-ray defence, which nullified Mrs Harris’s attack. ‘Oo’s to look after ’im while you’re away if I go too? What’s the use of you turning up ’is old man only to ’ave ’im come over ’ere and find the poor little tyke sta
rved to death? One of us ’as got to stay ’ere.’

  There was intrinsically so much logic in this statement that for the moment Mrs Harris was nonplussed and could not think of an answer, and so with an extraordinary heaviness about her heart she looked down into her teacup and said simply, ‘I do wish you’d come to America with me, Vi.’

  It was now Mrs Butterfield’s turn to look at her friend with astonishment. Sincerity brought forth an equal measure of sincerity in herself. Gone now were all the subterfuges and she replied, ‘I don’t want to go to America - I’m afraid to go.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Mrs Harris.

  Mrs Butterfield’s astonishment turned now to amazement. ‘What!’ she cried. ‘You, Ada ’Arris, afraid! Why, I’ve known you for more than thirty-five years, and you’ve never been afraid of anything in your life.’

  ‘I am now,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘It’s a big step. It’s a strange country. It’s a long way off. Who’s to look after me if anything happens? I wish you were coming with me. One never knows, does one?’

  It might have sounded like irony, this sudden switch in the accustomed roles of the two women: Mrs Harris the adventurous optimist suddenly turned into a kind of Butterfield timorous pessimist. But the truth was that there was no irony whatsoever in her remark. It was just that the realization had suddenly come upon her of the enormity of the undertaking into which she had thrust herself so light-heartedly and with her usual sense of excitement and adventure. New York was not only a long way off, it would be totally different from anything she had ever experienced. True, Paris had been utterly foreign, but if you looked at a map, Paris was just across the street. America would be English-speaking, it was true, and yet in another sense more foreign than France, or perhaps even China. She was going to uproot herself from that wonderfully secure and comfortably-fitting London which had sheltered her for all her life and about whose streets and rhythm and noises and manifold moods she knew her way blindfolded. And she was no longer young. She knew of the many British wives who, having married Americans, had come running home, unable to adjust themselves to American life. She was sixty-one, a sixty-one that felt full of energy and brimming with life it is true, but one never did know, did one? Supposing she fell ill? Who in a strange land would provide the necessary link between herself and her beloved London? Yes, for that instant she was truly and genuinely afraid, and it showed in her eyes. Violet Butterfield saw it there.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the fat woman, and her round chins began to quiver, ‘do you mean it, Ada? Do you really need me?’

  Mrs Harris eyed her friend, and knew that she really did want this big, bulky, helpless but comfortable woman to lean on a little. ‘Yes, love,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘I do.’

  ‘Then I’ll come with you,’ said Mrs Butterfield, and began to bawl. Mrs Harris started to cry too, and immediately the two women were locked in one another’s arms, weeping together for the next few minutes, and having a most lovely time.

  The die, however, had been cast, and the trip was on.

  Anyone who knew the worth of Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield to their clients would not have been surprised had they come into Belgravia to have found large sections of this exclusive area decorated with black crêpe hung out after the two widows had notified their clients that within one week’s time they were departing for the United States and would not be available for at least three months thereafter, and perhaps longer.

  However, such is the toughness of the human spirit, as well as the frame, and likewise so stunning the news and excitement engendered by the fact that Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield were going out to what some of them still persisted in referring to as ‘the colonies’, that the blow was taken more or less in stride.

  Had the two women merely announced a one- or twoday, or a week’s hiatus, there would then have been such revolutions in the area as to shake every mews, crescent, square, and lane - but three months meant forever, and constituted one of the hazards of modern living. With a sigh most of them resigned themselves to renewed visits to the employment office, and a further period of trial and error until another such gem as Mrs Harris or Mrs Butterfield could be found.

  EVER afterwards Mrs Harris swore that the thought of kidnapping little Henry from the disgusting Gussets, stowing him away aboard the Ville de Paris, and taking him bodily to his father in America would never have occurred to her but for the astonishing coincidence of the episode in the home of the Countess Wyszcinska, whose London pied-à-terre in Belgrave Street Mrs Harris brightened between the hours of five and six. It was that same Countess with whom she had had the contretemps over the new Hoover and who, contrary to the gloomy prognostications of Mrs Butterfield, had known what was good for her and produced one.

  Thus, she was in the flat of the Countess when a parcel arrived for that august lady from her eighteen-year-old nephew in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The contents of the parcel proved to be the most awful eyesore the Countess had ever beheld - a horribly encrusted beer stein with an imitation silver lid and ‘Souvenir of Milwaukee’ emblazoned on its side. Unfortunately, so thoroughly had this revolting objet d’art been wrapped in and stuffed out with old newspapers that it had arrived in unbroken condition.

  The Countess with an expression of distaste about her aristocratic countenance said, ‘Ugh! What in God’s name?’ And then, aware of Mrs Harris’s interested presence, quickly corrected herself and said, ‘Isn’t it lovely? But I just don’t know where to put it. There’s so much in this little place already. Would you like to take it home with you, Mrs Harris?’

  Mrs Harris said, ‘Wouldn’t I just. “Souvenir of Milwaukee” - I might be going there to visit when I’m in America.’

  ‘Well, just get it out of here - I mean, I’m glad you like it. And throw all that trash away while you’re at it,’ pointing to the papers that had preserved its life. Thereupon the Countess departed, wondering what had got into chars nowadays that they seemed always to be travelling.

  Left to herself, Mrs Harris then indulged in one of her favourite pastimes, which was the reading of old newspapers. One of her greatest pleasures when she went to the fishmonger’s was to read two-year-old pages of the Mirror lying on the counter and used for wrapping.

  Now she picked up a page of a newspaper called The Milwaukee Sentinel, eyed the headline ‘Dominie Seduced Schoolgirl in Hayloft’, enjoyed the story connected therewith, and thereafter leafed through the other pages of the same instrument of public service until she came to one labelled ‘Society Page’, on which she found many photographs of young brides, young grooms-to-be, and young married couples.

  Always interested in weddings, Mrs Harris gave these announcements more undivided attention, until she came upon one which caused her little eyes almost to pop out of her head, and led her to emit a shriek, ‘Ruddy gor’-blimey - it’s ’im! It’s ’appened! I felt it in me bones that something would.’

  What she was looking at was the photograph of a handsome bridal couple over which was the caption, ‘Brown–Tracy Nuptials’, and underneath the story under the dateline of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 23 January: ‘The wedding was celebrated here today at the First Methodist Church on Maple Street, of Miss Georgina Tracey, daughter of Mr and Mrs Frank Tracey of 1327 Highland Avenue, to Mr George Brown, only son of Mr and Mrs Henry Brown of 892 Delaware Road, Madison, Wisconsin. It was the bride’s first marriage, the groom’s second.

  ‘The bride, one of the most popular graduates of East-lake High School, has been a leader in the social activities of the younger debutante set. The groom, aged 34, an electronics engineer, was formerly in the U.S. Air Force, stationed in England. The couple will make their home in Kenosha, Wisconsin.’

  Clutching the paper fiercely between her thin, veined hands, Mrs Harris performed a little solo dance about the Countess’s drawing room, shouting, ‘It’s ’im! It’s ’im! I’ve found little ’Enry’s father!’ There was not the least shadow of doubt in her mind. He was handsome; he resembled little ’Enry in that
he had two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and ears; he was of the right age; he was well-to-do, had a noble look about his eyes, as Mrs Harris had imagined him, and now he was married to a fine-looking girl, who would be just the mother for little ’Enry. Popular the paper said she was, but Mrs Harris also noted that she had a good, open countenance, and nice eyes. What clinched it and made it certs was the name of Mr Brown’s father - Henry Brown: of course the grandchild would be named after him.

  Mrs Harris ceased her dance, looked down upon the precious photograph and said, ‘George Brown, you’re going to get your baby back,’ and at that moment, for the first time, the thought of abstracting little ’Enry from the Gussets and of taking him to his father immediately smote her between the eyes. True, she didn’t have his address, but there would be no difficulty in locating him once she got herself and little ’Enry to Kenosha, Wisconsin. If this was not a sign from On High as to where her duty lay and what she ought to do about it, Mrs Harris did not know signs from Above, which she had been encountering and interpreting more or less successfully ever since she could remember.

  Little Henry Brown was aged eight in terms of the tenure of his frail body, eighty in the light of the experience of the harsh and unhappy world into which that body had been ushered. In his brief sojourn he had learned all of the tricks of the persecuted - to lie, to evade, to steal, to hide - in short, to survive. Thrown on his own in the concrete desert of the endless pavements of London, he very early acquired the quickness of mind and the cunning needed to outwit the wicked.