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

by Paul Gallico

  Mrs Harris stood, ashen-faced, and repeated, ‘I’m an interferin’ old bitch.’ And then said, ‘I’ve done it now, ’aven’t I?’

  But the loneliest figure was that of little Henry, who stood in the centre of the room, the large eyes and the too-large head now filled with more wisdom and sadness than had ever been collected there, while he said, ‘Blimey, I wouldn’t want ’im for a dad.’

  Mrs Schreiber went over, took the child in her arms and wept over him.

  But Mrs Harris, faced with the last and total collapse of all her dreams and illusions, was far too shattered even to weep.

  MRS HARRIS’S mind, which previously had tricked her so naughtily into believing that Kentucky Claiborne would receive his child with open arms and from then on exude nothing but sweetness and light, now did her a kindness. It simply blanked out completely. It permitted her to get to her room, take off her clothes, don a nightdress, and get into bed, and thereafter drew a merciful curtain over all that had happened. Had it not done so, the fierce pride of Mrs Harris would not have been able to have borne the humiliation she had undergone and the collapse of the beautiful dreams of a good life for a little boy that she had nourished for so long, and to which she had given so much of herself. She lay with her eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling, seeing, hearing, and saying nothing.

  It was Mrs Butterfield’s shrill scream of fear and anguish upon making the discovery that gave the alarm and brought Mrs Schreiber rushing into the kitchen.

  ‘Oh Ma’am,’ said Mrs Butterfield after she had been calmed somewhat, ‘it’s Ada. Something’s wrong with ’er - something ’orrible. She just lies there kind of like she’s ’arf dead and won’t say a word.’

  Mrs Schreiber took one look at the small, wispy figure tucked away in the bed, looking even smaller and wispier now that all the air of her ebullient ego had been let out of her, made one or two attempts to rouse her and when they failed, rushed to her husband, and telephoned to Dr Jonas, the family physician.

  The doctor arrived and did those professional things he deemed necessary, and then came out to the Schreibers. ‘This woman has had a severe shock of some kind,’ he said. ‘Do you know anything about her?’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Mr Schreiber, and then launched into the story of what had happened, culminating with the scene with the unwilling father.

  The doctor nodded and said, ‘Yes, I can see. Well, we shall have to wait. Sometimes this is Nature’s way of compensating for the unbearable. She seems to have a good deal of vitality, and in my opinion it will not be too long before she begins to come out of it.’

  But it was a week before the fog which had descended upon Mrs Harris began to lift, and the impetus for its dispelling arose in a somewhat extraordinary manner.

  The Schreibers were hardly able to endure waiting, because of what had taken place in the interim and the new state of affairs which they were dying to impart to Mrs Harris, certain that if once she returned to herself it would contribute to her rapid convalescence.

  It began with a telephone call for Mrs Harris shortly before lunch one day, and which Mrs Schreiber answered. Mr Schreiber was likewise present, as his office was not far from his home and he liked to return for lunch. What seemed to be a most elegant and cultured English voice said, ‘I beg your pardon, but might I have a word with Mrs Harris?’

  Mrs Schreiber said, ‘Oh dear, I am afraid not. You see, she’s ill. Who is this, please?’

  The voice echoed her, ‘Oh dear,’ and added, ‘ill, you say? This is Bayswater speaking - John Bayswater of Bayswater, London. Nothing serious, I trust.’

  Mrs Schreiber in an aside to her husband said, ‘It’s someone for Mrs Harris by the name of Bayswater,’ then into the phone, ‘Are you a friend of hers?’

  Mr Bayswater replied, ‘I believe I may count myself such. She requested me to telephone her on my next visit to New York, and certainly my employer, the Marquis de Chassagne, the French Ambassador, will be anxious about her. I am his chauffeur.’

  Mrs Schreiber remembered now, and with her hand over the mouthpiece quickly transferred the information to her husband.

  ‘Have him come up,’ said Mr Schreiber. ‘What harm can it do? And maybe it could do her some good - you never know.’

  Twenty minutes later an anxious Mr Bayswater, elegant in his grey whipcord uniform, his smart chauffeur’s cap in one hand, appeared at the door of the Schreiber apartment and was ushered by them into Mrs Harris’s bedroom, with the worried and, since Mrs Harris’s illness, perpetually snuffling Mrs Butterfield looming in the background.

  Mrs Harris had been taking mild nourishment, tea and bread and butter or light biscuits, but otherwise had given no sign of recognition of anyone about her.

  Mr Bayswater, it seemed, had been a very worried man over a period, and it was this worry which had brought him to New York. The most perfect Rolls to which he had ever been wedded had developed a mysterious noise in its innards, a noise barely audible to any but the trained ear of Mr Bayswater, to whom it sounded like the crackling of mid-summer thunder, and whom it was driving up the wall. It was unbearable to him that this should happen in a Rolls, and even more so in one he had had the honour to select and test himself.

  All his skill, knowledge, acumen, and experience of years had not enabled him to locate the seat of this disturbance, and thereafter for him there had been no rest or solace, and he had brought the car to New York for a more thorough stripping down and examination at the Rolls Service Station there. He had delivered the machine to the garage and thought that in a chat with Mrs Harris he might relieve his mind of the burdens imposed upon it by this imperfection.

  But now that he stood looking down upon this pale ghost of a woman, the apple cheeks shrunken and the heretofore naughty, snapping, and merry little eyes clouded over, all thoughts of the stricken Rolls were swept from his head and for the first time in many, many years he was conscious of a new kind of heartache. He went over to her bedside, sat down, took one of her hands in his, quite oblivious to the watching Schreibers and Mrs Butterfield, and lapsing as he was inclined to when under a great emotional strain, ‘’Ere, ’ere Ada, this will never do. What’s all this about?’

  Something in his voice penetrated. Perhaps it was the two dropped aitches which turned the key in the lock and opened the door for Mrs Harris. She lifted her head and looked directly into the elegant and austere face of Mr Bayswater, noted the curly grey hair, almost patrician nose and thin lips, and said in a weak voice, ‘ ’Ullo, John. What brings you up ’ere?’

  ‘Business,’ replied Mr Bayswater. ‘You told me to get on the blower if I came this way. I did, and they told me you weren’t too perky. What’s it all about?’

  They all thrust to the fore now, Mrs Butterfield yammering, ‘Ow Ada, thank the Good Lord you’re better,’ Mrs Schreiber crying, ‘Oh Mrs Harris, how wonderful! You’re better, aren’t you? We’ve been so worried,’ and Mr Schreiber shouting, ‘Mrs Harris! Mrs Harris, listen! Everything’s all right - we’ve got the most wonderful news for you!’

  The face and the voice of Mr Bayswater had indeed put Mrs Harris’s cart back on the road by recalling the most delectable drive up from Washington with him, and an even more delectable stop at a famous roadside restaurant on the way, where she had had a most extraordinarily tasty soup of clams, leeks, potatoes, and cream, called New England clam chowder. It would have been better for her had she been able to live within these memories a little longer, but alas, the cries of the others soon broke the spell and brought her back to the realisation of the catastrophe she had precipitated. She covered her face with her hands and cried, ‘No, no! Go away - I can’t face anyone. I’m silly, interferin’ old woman who spoils everything she lays her ’ands on. Please go away.’

  But Mr Schreiber was not to be denied now. He pushed forward saying, ‘But you don’t understand, Mrs Harris – something terrific has happened since you’ve been - I mean since you haven’t been well. Something absolutely
stupendous! We’re adopting little Henry! He’s ours. He’s going to stay with us, if you don’t mind. You know we love the kid and he loves us. He’ll have a good home with us and grow up into a fine man.’

  Mrs Harris was yet very ill in her soul and thus only half heard what Mr Schreiber was saying, but since it seemed to have something to do with little Henry, and he sounded cheerful and happy about it, she took her hands from her face and gazed about her, looking greatly like an unhappy little monkey.

  ‘It was Henrietta’s idea,’ Mr Schreiber explained, ‘and right away the next day I got hold of Kentucky and had another talk with him. He ain’t a bad guy when you get to know him more. It’s just he don’t like kids. He’s got a thing about he’d lose his following if it came out he’d been married and divorced abroad and had a kid who was half English. So I said if he wouldn’t have any objections we’d like to adopt the kid, Henrietta and I, and bring him up like our own son.’

  ‘ “You’re an interferin’ old bitch. Take the brat back to England,” ’e sez to me,’ quoted Mrs Harris. ‘ ’Is own father.’

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ Mr Schreiber said. ‘He isn’t making any trouble. It all works out one hundred per cent for everybody. The kid’s an American citizen, so he’s got a right to be here. Kentucky’s his legal father, and the evidence is right there in the Air Force files. We’ve written to England to get a birth certificate for the little fellow. There’ll be no trouble with anybody because, as his father, Claiborne’s got the right to have him here with him. The legal beagles are making out the adoption papers, and he’s going to sign ’em as soon as they’re ready.’

  Some penetration had been achieved now, for Mrs Harris turned a slightly more cheerful countenance to Mr Schreiber and said, ‘Are you sure? ’E’d ’ave a good ’ome with you.’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ cried Mr Schreiber, delighted that he had registered. ‘I’m telling you, the guy was tickled to death to get rid - I mean, he’s glad too that the kid’s going to be with us.’

  Mrs Schreiber thought that Mrs Harris had gone through enough for that particular period, nudged her husband and said, ‘We can talk more about it later, Joel - maybe Mrs Harris would like to be alone with her friend for a bit now.’ Mr Schreiber, film magnate, detective, and District Attorney, showed himself to be an exemplary husband as well by getting it in one and saying, ‘Sure, sure. We’ll run along now.’

  When they had gone, Mrs Butterfield too having tactfully withdrawn, Mr Bayswater said, ‘Well, there you are. It’s turned out all right, hasn’t it?’

  A remnant of the black wave of disillusionment that had engulfed her swept over Mrs Harris again, for it had been such a beautiful dream, and she had steeped herself in it for so long. ‘I’m a fool,’ she said. ‘An interferin’ busy-body who ain’t got the brynes to mind ’er own business. I’ve done nothink but cause everybody trouble. Me, who was so cocksure about turnin’ up little ’Enry’s father in America. Lor’, what a bloody mess I’ve made of things.’

  Mr Bayswater went to give her a little pat on her hand, and was surprised to find he was still holding it clutched in his, so he gave it a squeeze instead, and said, ‘Go on with you. You shouldn’t talk like that. It looks to me as though you managed to turn up not one but two fathers for little ’Enry. Two for the price of one isn’t so bad.’

  The merest whisper of a smile softened Mrs Harris’s face for the first time, but she was not going to let go her megrims and guilt-feelings quite so easily. ‘It could’ve turned out ’orrible,’ she said, ‘if it ’adn’t been for Mr Schreiber. What would’ve become of the little fellow if it ’adn’t been for ’im?’

  ‘What would have become of the little fellow if it hadn’t been for you?’ said Mr Bayswater, and smiled down at her.

  Mrs Harris smiled back and said, ‘What brings you up to New York, John?’

  Now his troubles came sweeping back over Mr Bayswater, and his elegant frame in the whipcord uniform gave a slight shudder, and he passed the back of his hand over his brow. ‘It’s the Rolls,’ he said. ‘She’s developed a noise in her and I can’t find it. I’m like to go out of me mind - that is to say, go out of my mind. I’ve been at it for over a week now and can’t find it. It isn’t in the gear-box, and it isn’t in the silencer or the oil bath air cleaner. I’ve had the rear axle down, and it isn’t there. I’ve looked through the hydraulic system, and taken down the engine. It isn’t in the distributor head, and there’s nothing the matter with the water pump. Sometimes you get a click in the fan belt, but it isn’t that.’

  ‘What’s it like?’ Mrs Harris asked, thus showing herself to be a woman who could be interested in a man’s world as well.

  ‘Well, it isn’t exactly a tapping or a clicking, nor would I say it was exactly a knocking or a scraping - nor even a ticking or a pipping,’ explained Mr Bayswater, ‘but it’s there. I can ’ear it. You shouldn’t hear anything in a Rolls-Royce - not my Rolls-Royce. It’s under the seat somewhere, but not exactly - rather more at the back, and it’s driving me up the wall. It’s somehow as if the Good Lord had said, “You there, so proud and stuck-up about your automobile - perfect you said it was. I’ll show you perfect. Let’s see you get around this, Mr Stuck-up.” It ain’t that I’m stuck-up,’ explained Mr Bayswater, ‘it’s just that I love Rolls cars. All me life I’ve never loved anything else. All me life I’ve been looking for the perfect one, and this was it - until now.’

  The distress on the handsome features of the elderly chauffeur touched Mrs Harris’s heart and made her forget her own troubles, and she wished genuinely to be able to comfort him as he somehow had managed to comfort her. Some long-ago memory was nibbling at her newly awakened and refreshed mind, and it suddenly gave her a sharp nip. ‘I ’ad a lady once I did for some years ago,’ she said, ‘a proper Mrs Rich-Bitch she was. She ’ad a Rolls and a chauffeur, and one day I heard ’er say, “James, there’s something rattling in the back of the car. Find it before I ’as a nervous breakdown.” Coo, ’e nearly went orf ’is loaf tryin’ to locate it. ’Ad the car took apart and put together twice, and then come across it by accident. You know what it was?’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Bayswater. ‘What was it?’

  ‘One of ’er hairpins that fell out and slipped down be’ind the seat. But that couldn’t be it, could it? The Marquis don’t wear ’airpins.’

  Mr Bayswater had a lapse, a real, fat, juicy lapse. ‘Blimey,’ he cried, ‘Gaw bleedin’ blimey!’ and on his face was the look of the condemned who hears that he has been reprieved by the Governor. ‘I think you’ve got it! The Marquis doesn’t wear hairpins, but last week I drove Madame Mogahdjibh, the wife of the Syrian Ambassador, home after a party. She was loaded with them - big black ones. Ada, my girl, here’s the smack you didn’t get on the boat,’ and he leaned down and kissed her brow, then leaped to his feet and said, ‘I’m going to find out. I’ll be seeing you,’ and rushed from the room.

  Left to herself Mrs Harris reflected upon this matter of perfection for which humans seem to strive, as exemplified by Mr Bayswater’s distress over something that had come to shatter the perfection of the finest car in the world, and she thought that perhaps perfection belonged only to that Being on High who sometimes seemed friendly to humans, and sometimes less so, and at other times even a little jealous.

  Had she been asking too much? ‘Yes’, something inside Mrs Harris answered vehemently, ‘far too much.’ It had not been only fairy godmother she had been trying to play, it had been almost God, and the punishment that had followed had been swift and sure. And then her thoughts turned back to her Dior dress which had been so exquisite and so perfect, and the ugly burnt-out panel that was in it to remind her that though the dress itself had been spoiled, out of the experience had come something even better in the shape of some wonderful friendships.

  And from thence it was but a step to the comfort that if she had been less than successful in her avowed mission of reuniting little Henry with his father,
it had not been wholly a failure. Nothing in life ever was a complete and one hundred per cent success, but often one could well afford to settle for less, and this would seem to be the greatest lesson one could learn in life. Little Henry was out of the hands of the unspeakable Gussets, he had acquired adoptive parents who loved him and would help him to grow into a good and fine man; she herself had experienced and learned to feel an affection for a new land and a new people. Thus to grouse and grumble and carry on in the face of such bounty now suddenly took on the colour of darkest ingratitude. The Schreibers so happy, little Henry equally so - how dare she not be happy herself because her ridiculous and vainglorious little dream had been exploded.

  ‘Ada ’Arris,’ she said to herself, ‘you ought to be ashymed of yerself, lyin’ about ’ere on yer back when there’s work to be done.’ She called out aloud, ‘Violet.’

  Mrs Butterfield came galumphing into the room like an overjoyed hippopotamus. ‘Did you call me, dearie? Lor’ bless us, but if you ain’t lookin’ like yer old self again.’

  ‘ ’Ow about making me a cuppa tea, love?’ said Mrs Harris. ‘I’m gettin’ up.’

  THE early summer enchantment of May and June in New York, with girls out in their light summer dresses, the parks in full bloom, and the skies clear and sunny, had given way to the sweltering, uncomfortable humidity and heatwaves of July. The Schreiber household was running like clockwork, with a permanent staff now trained and disciplined by Mrs Harris, the final formalities by which the Schreibers became the adopted parents and guardians of Henry Brown completed, and the child installed in his own quarters in the Schreiber house. The passage of time was bringing nearer two events about which something would have to be done.

  One of them was the arrival of vacation time, the annual exodus from the hot city to the more temperate climes of mountains or seashore, and the other was the approaching expiration on the 17th of July of the visitors’ visas to the United States of the dames Butterfield and Harris.