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

by Paul Gallico

  Withal, he yet managed to retain a childish charm and innate goodness. He would never scupper a pal or do the dirty on someone who had been kind to him. Someone, for instance, like the two widow charladies, Mrs Ada Harris, and Mrs Violet Butterfield, in whose kitchen he was now momentarily concealed, involved in a thrilling and breathless conspiracy.

  He sat there looking rather like a small gnome, gorging himself on tea and buns to the point of distension (since one of the things life had taught him was whenever he came across any food that appeared to be unattached, the thing to do was to eat it quickly, and as much of it as he could hold), while Mrs Harris unfolded the details of the plot.

  One of Henry’s assets was his taciturnity. Among other things he had learned to keep his mouth shut. He was eloquent rather by means of a pair of huge, dark, sad eyes, eyes filled with knowledge that no little boy of that age should have, and which missed nothing that went on about him.

  Because he was thin and somewhat stunted in growth, his head had the appearance of being too large and old, rather an adult head, with a shock of darkish hair, underneath which was a pale and usually dirty face. It was to his eternal credit that there was still some youth and sweetness left in him - adversity had not made him either mean or vengeful.

  Whatever the steps he took to make life as easy for himself as possible under the circumstances, they were dictated purely by necessity. He rarely spoke, but when he did it was to the point.

  And now as Mrs Harris continued to unfold yet more details of the most fascinating scheme ever devised to free a small boy from hideous tyranny and guarantee him three square meals a day, he sat silently, his mouth stuffed full of bun, but nodding, his huge eyes filled with intelligence and understanding while Mrs Harris enumerated each point of what he was to do when, where, and under various circumstances. In these same eyes was contained also considerable worship of her.

  It was true, he loved the occasional cuddle pillowed upon the pneumatic bosom of Mrs Butterfield, though he did not go for too much of that soft stuff, or would not let himself, but it was he and Mrs Harris who were kindred souls. They recognized something in one another, the independent spirit, the adventurous heart, the unquenchable soul, the ability to stand up to whatever had to be stood up to, and get on.

  Mrs Harris was not one to fuss and gush over him, but she addressed him like an equal, for equal they were in that nether world of hard and unremitting toil to feed and clothe oneself, where life is all struggle and the helping hands are one’s own.

  In so many ways they were alike. For instance, no one had ever heard Henry complain. Whatever happened to him, that’s how things were. No one had ever heard Mrs Harris complain either. Widowed at the age of thirty, she had raised, educated, and married off her daughter, and kept herself and her self-respect, and all on her hands and knees with a scrubbing brush, or bent over mop and duster, or sinks full of dirty dishes. She would have been the last person to have considered herself heroic, but the strain of simple heroism was in her, and Henry had it too. He also had that quick understanding that gets at the heart of the situation. Whereas Mrs Harris had to go into long and elaborate explanations of things to Mrs Butterfield, and she did so with great patience, little Henry usually got it in one, and would nod his acquiescence before Mrs Harris was half way through exposing what she had on her mind.

  Now when Mrs Harris had finished rehearsing step by step how the plan was to work, Mrs Butterfield, who for the first time was hearing what seemed to her to be the concoction of a mad woman, threw her apron over her head and began to rock and moan.

  ‘Ere, ’ere, love, what’s wrong?’ said Mrs Harris. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘Ill,’ cried Mrs Butterfield, ‘I should think so! Whatever it’s called, what you’re doing, it’s a jyle offence. You can’t get away with it. It’ll never work.’

  Little Henry stuffed the last of a sugar bun into his mouth, washed it down with a swig of tea, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and turning his large eyes upon the quivering figure of Mrs Butterfield said simply, ‘Garn, why not?’

  Mrs Harris threw back her head and roared with laughter. ‘Oh ’Enry,’ she said, ‘you’re a man after me own ’eart.’

  LIKE all great ideas and schemes born out of Genius by Necessity, Mrs Harris’s plan to smuggle little Henry aboard the s.s. Ville de Paris at Southampton had the virtue of simplicity, and one to which the routine of boarding the ship with its attendant chaos, as Mr Schreiber had carefully explained to her, lent itself beautifully.

  Since the Schreibers were going First-Class and the two women Tourist, they would not be able to travel together, and he had rehearsed for her the details of exactly what they would have to do - the departure by boat-train from Waterloo, the arrival at the pier at Southampton where, after passing through Customs and Immigration, they would board the tender for the trip down the Solent, and thus eventually would enter the side of the liner and be shown to their cabin, and thereafter the French line would take over.

  To these instructions Mrs Harris added a vivid memory of an instance when she had been at Waterloo to take a suburban train, and at one of the gates had witnessed what appeared to be a small-sized riot, with people milling and crowding, children shrieking, etc., and inquiring into the nature of this disturbance had been informed that it was merely the departure of the boat-train at the height of the season.

  As Mrs Harris’s scheme was outlined to her, even that perpetual prophetess of doom, Mrs Butterfield, outdid herself with tremblings, groans, cries, quiverings, claspings of hands together, and callings upon heaven to witness that the only possible result could be that they would all spend the rest of their natural lives in a dungeon, and she, Mrs Violet Butterfield, would have no part of it. She had agreed to embark upon this hare-brained voyage across an ocean waiting to engulf them, to a land where death lurked at every corner, but not to make disaster doubly sure by beginning the trip with a kidnapping and a stowing away.

  Mrs Harris who, once she had what she considered a feasible idea in her head, was not to be turned from it, said, ‘Now, now, Violet - don’t take on so. A stitch in time will help us to cross over those bridges.’ And then with remarkable patience and perseverance managed to overcome practically all her friend’s objections.

  Her intrinsic plan was based upon recollections of childhood visits to Clacton-on-Sea with her Mum and Dad, and the outings they used to enjoy on the excursion steamers to Margate, a luxury they occasionally permitted themselves. Poor and thrifty, her folks could manage the price of two tickets, but not three. When time came to pass through the gates and encounter the ticket-taker, little Ada had been taught to detach herself from her parents and, seeking out a large family with five or more youngsters, join up with them until safely through the gates. Experience had taught them in the Sunday crush the harassed ticket-taker would not be able to distinguish whether it was five or six children who had passed him, and the equally harassed father of the family would not notice that he had suddenly acquired an extra little girl. Once they were inside, by the time paterfamilias, perhaps aware that something was a little unusual about his brood, instituted a nose count, little Ada would have detached herself from this group and joined up with her parents again.

  Moreover, there was a reserve gambit in case a large enough family failed to turn up. Father and mother would pass through on their tickets, and a few seconds later little Ada would let forth a wail, ‘I’m lost! I’m lost! I’ve lost my Mummie!’ By the time this performance had reached its climax and she was restored to her frantic parents, nobody thought of collecting a ticket from her. The excursion proceeded happily.

  Mrs Butterfield, who in her youth had had similar experiences, was forced to concede that neither of these devices had ever failed. She was further put off her prophetic stroke by Mrs Harris’s superior knowledge as a world traveller.

  ‘Don’t forget, dearie,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘it’s a French boat. Muddle, that’s their middle name. They can’t g
et nothing done without carrying on shouting and waving their arms. You’ll see.’

  Mrs Butterfield made one more attempt. ‘But once ’e’s in our room, won’t they find ’im?’ she quavered, her chins shaking.

  Mrs Harris, now slightly impatient, snorted, ‘Lor’, love, use yer loaf. We’ve got a barfroom, ’aven’t we?’

  This was indeed true. So thrilled had Mrs Schreiber been with her luck in acquiring two servants whom she liked and trusted, that she had persuaded her husband to procure for them one of the better rooms available in Tourist-Class on the liner, one of a few with a bathroom connected, and intended for larger families. Mrs Harris had been shown the accommodations on a kind of skeleton plan of the ship, and while she did not exactly know what part the barfroom would play once aboard the lugger, it loomed large in her mind at least as a retreat into which parties could momentarily retire during alarm or crisis.

  AS may be imagined, the departure of Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield for the United States was an event that shook the little street in Battersea known as Willis Gardens to its Roman foundations, and all of their friends and neighbours, including the unspeakable Gussets, turned out to bid them Godspeed. Such was the excitement engendered by the arrival of the taxicab at number five, and the piling of ancient trunks and valises on the roof and next the driver’s seat, that no one thought about or noticed the absence of little Henry Brown.

  Like all persons unused to travelling, the two women had taken far more with them than they would ever need, including photographs, ornaments, and little knick-knacks from their homes which meant something to them, and thus the inside of the cab was also stuffed with luggage, leaving, it seemed, barely room for the stout figure of Mrs Butterfield and the spare one of Mrs Harris to squeeze in.

  Apprised that they were actually off to America, the cab driver was deeply impressed, and became most helpful and solicitous, and treated the two ladies with the deference one accords to royalty, lifting and fastening their boxes and suitcases, and playing to the crowd gathered for the farewell with a fine sense of the dramatic.

  Mrs Harris accepted all of the deference done her and the interest and excitement of friends and neighbours with graciousness, mingling affectionate farewells with sharp directions to the cab driver to be careful of this or that piece of baggage, but poor Mrs Butterfield was able to do little more than palpitate, perspire, and fan herself, since she could not rid her mind of the enormity of what they were about to perpetrate, or cease to worry about the immediate future, beginning within the next few minutes, and whether it would come off.

  The attitude of the Gussets was one of grudging interest, coupled with impudence, which bespoke their feeling of good riddance. Among other things, the departure of the two women meant to them an undisturbed period of abuse of the child who had been entrusted to their care.

  It had actually to a great extent been Mrs Harris who had kept their cruelty within bounds, for they were a little afraid of her and knew that she would not hesitate to involve them with the police if there was a case. Now, with pairs of eyes and ears removed from either side of them, they could let themselves go. The Gusset children were going to have a field day, and Mr Gusset, when things had gone wrong with one of his shady deals in Soho and little Henry happened to fall foul of him, was not going to have to restrain himself. The child was in for a sticky time of it, and delight at the departure of his two protectresses was written all over the faces of the Gussets - mother, father, and offspring.

  Finally the last valise had been stowed and secured, the taxi driver had taken his seat behind the wheel and animated the engine, perspiring Mrs Butterfield and sparkling Mrs Harris took their places in the space left for them in the interior of the cab, each clutching a small nosegay of flowers tied with a bit of silver ribbon thrust into their hands at the last moment by friends, and they drove off to a cheer and individual cries of, ‘Good luck!’ - ‘Tyke care of yerselves’ - ‘Send us a postcard’ - ‘Don’t fergit to come back’ - ‘Give me regards to Broadway’ - ‘Don’t forget to write’ and ‘May the Good Lord look after you.’

  The cab gathered momentum, Mrs Butterfield and Mrs Harris turning and looking out through the rear window to see their friends waving and cheering still and gazing after them, with several of the Gusset children cocking a snook in their direction.

  ‘Ow Ada,’ quavered Mrs Butterfield, ‘I’m so frightened. We oughtn’t to be doing it. What if— ?’

  But Mrs Harris who herself had been considerably nervous during the departure and had been playing something of a role, now indeed took command of the expedition and pulled herself together. ‘Be quiet, Vi!’ she commanded. ‘Nuffink’s going to happen. Blimey, dearie, if I didn’t think you were going to give the show away. Now don’t fergit when we get there - you keep your eye peeled out the back.’ Therewith she tapped upon the window behind the driver with a penny, and when that individual cocked a large red ear in the direction of the opening she said, ‘Go round the corner through Gifford Plyce to ’Ansbury Street - there’s a greengrocer there on the corner, his nyme is Warbles.’

  The cab driver chose a bad moment to joke. ‘I thought you lydies said you was going to Hamerica,’ and was surprised at the asperity of the reply he received from Mrs Harris.

  ‘Do as you’re told and you won’t gather no flies,’ she said, for she too was nervous approaching that moment when dreams which seem so easy of realisation are turned into action which very often is not.

  The taxi drew up in front of the shop, where Mr Warbles was on the pavement tearing some tops off carrots for a customer.

  Mrs Harris said, ‘ ’E would ’ave to be outside,’ and added a naughty word. Just then the greengrocer was hailed from within and answered the call.

  ‘Now!’ Mrs Harris said fiercely to Mrs Butterfield, who was already peering anxiously out of the back window, ‘Do you see anyone?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ quavered Mrs Butterfield. ‘I don’t fink so. Leastways, nobody we know.’

  Mrs Harris leaned forward to the opening in the window and whispered into the large red ear, ‘ ’Onk yer ’orn three times.’

  Mystified and intimidated, the driver did so. From behind some stacked-up crates of cabbages the figure of a small, dark-haired boy came charging, looking neither right nor left, straight for the door of the cab which Mrs Harris now held open. With the combined speed and agility of a ferret, the boy wriggled his way beneath the luggage piled inside the cab and vanished.

  The door slammed shut. ‘Waterloo,’ hissed Mrs Harris into the ear.

  ‘Well I’m bowed,’ said the taxi driver to himself at this curious performance, and put his machine into gear. That the two respectable charladies who were just departing for America from a respectable neighbourhood might be engaging in a casual bit of kidnapping never entered his head.

  IT is a fact that nothing is quite as noticeable as a child that wants to be noticed, but the converse is likewise true, that there is nothing equally self-effacing as a child desiring to be vanished, and who in particular is permitted to operate in a crowd.

  This was a technique known both to Mrs Harris and little Henry, and thus when the Schreibers were seen descending upon them along the bustling station platform at Waterloo, causing Mrs Butterfield to utter a little yelp of terror, it was no problem at all for Mrs Harris to vanish Henry. She gave him a slight pat on his bottom, which was the prearranged signal, at which he simply moved off from them and stood next to somebody else. Since the Schreibers had never seen him before, they now did not see him at all, except as somebody else’s child, standing by a piece of luggage and gazing heavenward, apparently singing hymns to himself.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Mrs Schreiber breathlessly. ‘Is everything all right? I’m sure it will be. Have you ever seen so many people? I did give you your tickets, didn’t I? Oh dear! It’s all so confusing.’

  Mrs Harris tried to soothe her mistress. ‘Now there, dearie,’ she said, ‘don’t you fret. Everythi
ng’s right as rain. We’ll be fine. I’ve got Violet here to look after me.’ The sarcasm was lost on Mrs Butterfield, who only perspired more profusely and fanned herself more freely. It seemed to her that the Schreibers must ask, ‘Who’s that little boy with you?’ even though at the moment he wasn’t.

  Mr Schreiber said, ‘They’re perfectly all right, Henrietta. You forget that Mrs Harris went to Paris and back all by herself, and stayed a week.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mrs Schreiber fluttered, ‘I’m afraid you won’t be allowed to visit us on the ship.’ She blushed suddenly at the implication of the class distinction, both un-American and undemocratic, and then added quickly, ‘You know how they are about letting anyone go from one part of the ship into the other. I mean - if there’s anything you need, of course, you can send us a message - Oh dear— ’

  Mr Schreiber got his wife out of her embarrassment by saying, ‘Sure, sure. They’ll be all right. Come on, Henrietta, we’d better get back to our seats.’

  Mrs Harris gave them the thumbs up as they departed. And as the Schreibers retreated, almost imperceptibly little Henry moved over and was with them again. ‘That was fine, love,’ applauded Mrs Harris. ‘You’re a sharp one. You’ll do.’

  All the while she was speaking her bright, buttony, wicked little eyes were taking in the people surrounding them, travellers as well as friends coming to see them off, and easily separated by the fact that the travellers looked nervous and worried, and the visitors gay and unencumbered.

  Standing in front of an open carriage door several compartments away was a large family of Americans, a father, and mother surrounded by an immense pile of hand luggage, and an indeterminate number of offspring - that is to say, indeterminate between five and six, due to the fact that they were wriggling, jumping about, escaping, playing hide-and-seek, so that not even Mrs Harris was able successfully to count them. After observing them for an instant, Mrs Harris took little Henry by the arm, pointed the group out to him, and leaning down whispered into his ear, ‘Them there’.