by Paul Gallico
Little Henry did not reply, but only nodded gravely, and with his sad, wise eyes, studied the antics of the group in order that later he might blend the more perfectly with them.
It would be more suspenseful and dramatic to be able to report that Mrs Harris’s plans were scuppered, or even scrambled by the usual malevolent fates, but the point is they simply were not.
Smoothly, efficiently, and without a hitch, they moved from Waterloo to Southampton, from Southampton to the tender, and from the tender to the great black, porthole studded wall crowned by cream superstructure and gay red funnel of the s.s. Ville de Paris. Whenever anyone remotely resembling a ticket collector, conductor, Immigration or Customs official appeared in the offing, quietly and inconspicuously little Henry became a temporary member of the family of a Professor Albert R. Wagstaff, teacher of medieval literature at Bonanza College, Bonanza, Wyoming. With her unerring instinct Mrs Harris had even managed to select an absent-minded professor for the deal.
If Dr Wagstaff was at times not quite certain whether his family consisted of six or seven members, he was also equally befuddled as to the number of pieces of luggage accompanying him. Each time he counted the articles they added up to a different sum, until his irritated wife shouted, ‘Oh, for God’s sakes, Albert, stop counting! It’ll either be there or it won’t.’
In his usual state of terror where Mrs Wagstaff was concerned, Dr Wagstaff said, ‘Yes, dear,’ and immediately stopped counting not only the luggage, but children, even though from time to time there did seem to be one extra. Thus little Henry’s task was made comparatively simple, and as said before, there were no hitches.
One moment containing a slight measure of tension occurred when the three of them - Mrs Harris, Mrs Butterfield and little Henry - were safely ensconced in Tourist Cabin No. A.134, a roomy enough and rather charmingly decorated enclosure with two lower and upper berths, closet space, and a bathroom opening off, when heavy footsteps were heard pounding down the companionway and there came a sharp and peremptory knock upon the door.
Mrs Butterfield’s florid countenance turned pink, which was the best she could do in the way of going pale. She gave a little shriek and sat down, perspiring and fanning. ‘Lor’,’ she quavered, ‘it’s all up with us!’
‘Shut up,’ ordered Mrs Harris fiercely, and then whispered to little Henry, ‘Just you go into that nice barfroom, dearie, and sit down on the seat, and be quiet as a mouse, while we see who’s come to disturb two defenceless lydies travelling to America. You can do your duty if you like.’
When Henry had vanished into the bathroom in a matter of seconds, Mrs Harris opened the cabin door to be confronted by a sweating and frayed-looking steward in white coat with the collar unbuttoned. He said, ‘Excuse me to disturb, I ’ave come to collect your steamship tickets.’
With one eye on Mrs Butterfield, who now had changed colour from pink to magenta, and appeared on the verge of apoplexy, Mrs Harris said, ‘Of course you ’ave,’ and diving into her reticule, produced them. ‘ ’Ot, ain’t it?’ she said pleasantly. ‘My friend ’ere’s in a proper sweat.’
‘Ah oui,’ the steward assented, ‘I make it cooler for you,’ and switched on the electric fan.
‘Lots of people,’ said Mrs Harris. This was like pushing a button releasing the steward’s neurosis, and he suddenly shouted and waved his arms. ‘Oui, oui, oui - people, people, people. Everywhere people. They make you to be crazy.’
‘It’s the kids that’s the worst, ain’t it?’ said Mrs Harris.
This appeared to be an even more potent button. ‘Oh la, la,’ shouted the steward, and waved his arms some more. ‘You ’ave seen? Keeds, keeds, keeds, everywhere keeds. I go crazy with keeds.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘I never seen so many. You never know where they are or where they ain’t. I don’t know how you keep track of ’em all.’
The steward said, ‘C’ est vrai. Sometimes is not possible.’ Having blown off steam, he recovered himself and said, ‘Sank you, ladies. You wish for anything, ring for Antoine. Your stewardess’s name is Arline. She look after you,’ and he went away.
Mrs Harris opened the bathroom door, looked in and said, ‘All done? That’s a dear. You can come out now.’
Little Henry asked, ‘Do I duck in there every time there’s a knock?’
‘No, pet,’ Mrs Harris replied, ‘not any more. From now on it will be all right.’
Which indeed it was, since Mrs Harris had planted her psychological seed at the right time and in the right soil. In the evening an Antoine even more frayed arrived to turn down the beds. There was little Henry with Mrs Butterfield and Mrs Harris. The steward looked at the child and said, ‘ ’Ullo, ’oo’s this?’
Mrs Harris now not gentle, friendly, and conversational as she had been before, said, ‘ ’Ullo yourself. What do you mean, ’oo’s this? This is little ’Enry, me sister’s boy. I’m taking ’im to America to ’er. She’s got a job as waitress in Texas.’
The steward still looked baffled. ‘But he was not here before, was he?’
Mrs Harris bristled. ‘ ’E wasn’t what? ’Ow do you like that? The child’s the happle of me eye and never been out of me sight since we left Battersea.’
The steward wavered. He said, ‘Oui, madame, but—’
‘But nothing,’ snapped Mrs Harris, attacking with asperity, ‘it ain’t our fault you Frenchies get excited over nothing and lose your ’eads, come in ’ere shouting about people and kids. You said yourself you couldn’t remember all the kids. Well, don’t you go forgetting little ’Enry ’ere, or we’ll ’ave to ’ave a word with one of the officers.’
The steward capitulated. It had been an unusually trying sailing. Down the next hall there was an American family which still did not seem to be able to agree on the number of pieces of luggage and the number of children accompanying them. Besides which he had already turned in his tickets to the Purser. The women seemed like honest types, and obviously the child was with them and must have come through Immigration. Long years at sea and coping with passengers had taught him the philosophy of leaving well enough alone, and not bringing about investigations.
‘Oui, oui, oui, Madame,’ he soothed, ‘of course I remember heem. ’Ow you call heem - little Henri? You try not to make a mess in the cabin for Antoine, we’ll all have very ’appy voyage.’
He did the beds and went out. From then on little Henry was a full-fledged passenger of the s.s. Ville de Paris, with all the privileges and perquisites pertaining thereto. Nobody ever questioned his presence.
Back at number seven Willis Gardens, Battersea, the sole repercussion from Mrs Harris’s tremendous coup, which saw little ’Enry removed for ever from the custody of the Gussets, and now afloat on the briny, took place upon the return of Mr Gusset from another of his slightly shady transactions in Soho. Mrs Gusset, who was sparing her feet with a session in the rocking chair while the elder Gusset children coped with dinner in the kitchen, lowered the Evening News as her better half appeared and said, ‘ ’Enry’s been missing since this morning. I think maybe he’s run away.’
‘ ’As ’e?’ replied Mr Gusset. ‘That’s good.’ Then snatching the paper from her fingers, he commanded, ‘Up you get, old lady,’ ensconced himself in the vacated rocker and applied himself to the early racing results in the newspaper.
‘OH dear,’ said Henrietta Schreiber suddenly, ‘I wonder if I’ve done the right thing?’ She was sitting in front of her mirror in her cabin, putting the final touches to her face. Beside her lay an engraved card of invitation which stated that Pierre René Dubois, Captain of the s.s. Ville de Paris, would be honoured by the company of Mr and Mrs Joel Schreiber for cocktails in his cabin at seven-thirty that evening. The ship’s clock was already showing the hour seven thirty-five.
‘What’s that?’ said her husband who, properly accoutred in black tie, had been waiting for ten minutes. ‘Sure, sure. You look fine. I promise you, Momma, you never looked better.
But I think we ought to go now. The French Ambassador’s going to be there the steward said.’
‘No, no,’ said Henrietta, ‘I don’t mean me, I mean about Mrs Harris.’
‘What about Mrs Harris? Is something the matter?’
‘No - I’m just wondering if we’ve done right taking her and Mrs Butterfield out of their element. They’re so very London, you know. People over here understand about chars and their ways, but— ’
‘You mean they’ll laugh at us because we’ve got a couple of Cockneys?’
‘Oh no,’ protested Mrs Schreiber. ‘Why nobody would laugh at Mrs Harris.’ She made another attempt upon her eyebrows. ‘It’s just I wouldn’t want her to be frightened. Who could she talk to? Who could she have for friends? And you know what snobs people are.’
Waiting had made Mr Schreiber a little impatient. ‘You should have thought of that before,’ he said. ‘She can talk to Mrs Butterfield, can’t she?’
The corners of Mrs Schemer’s mouth turned down. ‘Don’t be cross with me, Joel. I’m so proud you’re president now of North American and I wanted to do everything to make things right for you in New York - and she’s such a wonderful help. For all I know she may be back there crying her eyes out and frightened to death among a lot of strangers.’
Mr Schreiber went over and gave her an affectionate pat on the shoulders. He said, ‘Well, it’s too late now. But maybe tomorrow I’ll take a walk back to Tourist and see how she’s getting on. How about coming along now, baby? You couldn’t look more beautiful if you worked for another hour. You’ll be the best-looking woman there.’
Henrietta rested her cheek against his hand for a moment and said, ‘Oh Joel, you’re so good to me. I’m sorry I get into such a muddle.’
They emerged from their cabin, where their steward waited to guide them. He took them as far as the private stairway leading to the Captain’s quarters, which they mounted, to be received by another steward who asked their names and then led them to the door of the huge cabin from which emerged that distinctive babble of sounds that denotes a cocktail party in full swing. Embedded in these sounds - the clink of glasses and the cross-currents of conversation - was an impossible sentence which smote the ear of Mrs Schreiber. ‘Lor’ love yer, the Marquis and I are old friends from Paris.’
It was impossible simply because it could not be so, and Mrs Schreiber said to herself, ‘It’s because I was thinking of Mrs Harris just before I came up here.’
The steward stepped through the doorway and announced, ‘Mr and Mrs Joel Schreiber’, which brought forth a drop in the conversation, and the bustle of all the men rising to their feet.
Entering thus late into a cocktail party there is a confusion of sight as well as sound - one sees everyone, and one sees no one. For an appalling moment Mrs Schreiber seemed to be aware of another impossibility, one even more unthinkable than the auditory one she had just experienced. It was Mrs Harris ensconced between the Captain and a distinguished-looking Frenchman with white hair and moustache - Mrs Harris wearing a very smart frock.
The Captain, a handsome man in dress uniform with gold braid, said, ‘Ah, Mr and Mrs Schreiber. So delighted you could come,’ and then with practised hand swung the circle of introductions - names that Mrs Schreiber only half heard until he came to the last two, and no mistake about those: ‘ - His Excellency the Marquis Hypolite de Chassagne, the new French Ambassador to your country, and Madame Harris.’
There was no doubt about it, it was true! Mrs Harris was there, apple-cheeked, beady-eyed, beaming, yet not at all conspicuous, and looking as quietly well-dressed as, if not better than, most of the women in the room. And somehow it was not the presence of Mrs Harris so much, but the matter of her appearance which bewildered Henrietta more than anything. All that went through her mind was, Where have I seen that dress before?
Mrs Harris nodded graciously and then said to the Marquis, ‘That’s ’er I been telling you about. Ain’t she a dear? If it ’adn’t been for ’er, I never could have got the dollars to go to Paris to buy me dress, and now she’s tyking me with ’er to America.’
The Marquis went over to Henrietta Schreiber, took her hand in his and held it to his lips for a moment. ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I am enchanted to meet one with a warm heart that is able to recognize a warm heart and goodness in others. You must be a very kind person.’
This little speech, which established Mrs Schreiber socially for the rest of the voyage, also left her breathless, and she was still staggering under the impact of it all. ‘But - but you know our Mrs Harris?’
‘But of course,’ replied the Marquis. ‘We met at Dior in Paris, and are old friends.’
What had happened was that, having learned from his chauffeur of the presence of Mrs Harris on board in Tourist-Class, he had said to the Captain, who was a friend, ‘Do you know, Pierre, that you have a most remarkable woman on board your ship?’
‘You mean the Countess Touraine?’ asked the Captain, whose business of course it was to study the passenger list. ‘Yes, she is enormously talented, though if I might suggest, a trifle— ’
‘No, no,’ said the Marquis, ‘I am referring to a London scrubwoman - a char, as they call them - who all day long is on her knees scrubbing the floors of her clients in Belgravia, or having her hands in dirty dishwater washing-up after them - but if you looked into her wardrobe you would find hanging there the most exquisite creation from the house of Christian Dior, a dress to the value of four hundred and fifty pounds, which she purchased for herself.’
The Captain was truly intrigued. ‘What is that you say? But that is utterly astounding. You say this person is aboard my ship? But what is she doing? Where could she be going?’
‘Goodness only knows,’ replied the Marquis, ‘what she is after now in America, what it has come into her head to possess. I can only tell you that when a woman such as this makes up her mind to something, nothing can stop her.’ And thereupon he recounted to the Captain the story of Mrs Harris coming to Paris to buy herself a Dior dress, and how no one with whom she had come into contact had quite been the same thereafter.
When the Marquis had finished his tale the Captain, even more intrigued, and his curiosity aroused, had said, ‘And this woman is aboard and you say is a friend of yours? Well then, we shall have her up for a drink. I should be honoured to meet her.’
And thus it was that Mrs Harris had received exactly the same kind of engraved invitation as had gone out to the Schreibers, except that on the card had been written: ‘A steward will come for you to your cabin and lead you to the Captain’s quarters.’
Before Mrs Schreiber was separated from her husband he found time to whisper to her, ‘Looks like you can stop worrying about Mrs Harris, don’t it?’
That composed and self-assured lady was now chattering away happily and unconcernedly with the Captain. It seemed that during her visit to Paris she had been taken to a little restaurant on the Seine which was also a favourite of the Captain’s when he was ashore, and they were comparing notes.
Henrietta’s next seated neighbour said to her, ‘Are you enjoying the voyage, Mrs Schreiber?’ and was somewhat astonished to receive the reply, ‘Oh goodness gracious me! Why, it’s one that I gave her!’ He had, of course, no way of knowing that the dress encasing Mrs Harris was one that Mrs Schreiber had made her a present of several years ago after it had outlived its usefulness, and that she had just recognised it.
EVERYTHING went smoothly on the voyage, lulling Mrs Harris into self-congratulation and a false sense of security. Optimist though she was, life had taught her that frequently when things seem to be going too well, trouble lurked just around the corner. But the routine of the great ship was so wonderful, the food, the company, the entertainments so luxurious, that even Mrs Butterfield had begun to relax in this ambiance and concede that death and destruction might not be quite as imminent as she had imagined.
Three days of all the good things to eat he could stuff into himself, plus su
nshine and the love and spoiling lavished on him by the two women, had already begun to work a change in little Henry, filling him out and somewhat relieving the pinched, pale look.
The s.s. Ville de Paris ploughed steadily without a tremor of motion through flat calm seas, and as Mrs Harris said to herself, everything was tickety-boo - yet disaster was no more than forty-eight hours away, and when she became aware of it, it loomed up as so appalling that she did not even take Mrs Butterfield into her confidence, for fear that in an excess of terror her friend might be tempted to leap overboard.
It all came about through a conversation which took place with the coterie of friends with whom Mrs Harris had surrounded herself, and at which, fortunately, Mrs Butterfield happened not to be present.
As usually occurred on these voyages, Mrs Harris soon found herself a member of a tight little British island which formed itself in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean aboard this floating hotel. It consisted of an elderly and elegant chauffeur, two mechanics from a British firm sent to America to study missile assembly, and a couple from Wolverhampton going over to visit their daughter who had married a GI, and their grandchild. Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield made up the set. They were all at the same table, and soon had their deck chairs next to one another. Basically they all spoke the same language and liked and understood one another.
If Mrs Harris was the life of this party - which indeed she was - the chauffeur, Mr John Bayswater ‘of Bayswater’, as he himself would say, ‘and no finer district in London,’ was the unquestioned leader of the coterie, and looked up to by all.
To begin with, he was not only a chauffeur of long experience - thirty-five years - a small, sixtyish, grey-haired man whose clothes were well cut and in impeccable taste, but he was also a Rolls chauffeur. In all of his life he had never sat in or driven a car of any other make, he had not even so much as ever looked under the bonnet of one. They simply did not exist for him. There was only one car manufactured, and that was the Rolls. A bachelor, he had had a succession of these motor cars instead of wives or mistresses, and they took up his entire time and attention.
