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

by Paul Gallico

  Mr and Mrs Schreiber held several conferences together on the subject, and then one evening Mrs Butterfield and Mrs Harris were called into Mr Schreiber’s study, where they found the couple seated, looking portentous.

  ‘Dear Mrs Harris and dear Mrs Butterfield, don’t stand, do sit down please,’ said Mrs Schreiber. ‘My husband and I have something to discuss with you.’

  The two Englishwomen exchanged glances and then gingerly occupied the edges of two chairs, and Mrs Schreiber said, ‘Mr Schreiber and I have taken a small cottage in Maine by the sea for little Henry and ourselves, where we intend to spend several months and rest quietly. Mr Schreiber is very tired after the work of reorganizing his company and we don’t wish to do any entertaining. We can leave our flat here in the hands of our staff, but we were wondering whether you and Mrs Butterfield wouldn’t accompany us to Forest Harbour and look after little Henry and myself while we are there. Nothing would make us happier.’

  The two women exchanged looks again, and Mr Schreiber said, ‘You don’t have to worry about your visitors’ visas - I got friends in Washington who can get you a six months’ extension. I was going to do that anyway.’

  ‘And afterwards in the fall when we come back, well, we rather hoped you’d stay with us too,’ Mrs Schreiber continued. And then in a rush blurted, ‘We hoped somehow we might persuade you to stay with us for always. You see, little Henry loves you both, and - so do we - I mean, we feel we owe you a debt of gratitude we can never repay. If it hadn’t been for you we never should have had little Henry for our very own, and he already means more to us than my husband and I are able to say. We just don’t ever want you to go. You won’t have to work hard, and you can always make your home with us. Will you stay? Will you come with us this summer?’

  In the silence that ensued after this plea the two Londoners exchanged looks for the third time, and Mrs Butterfield’s chins began to quiver, but Mrs Harris as spokesman and captain of the crew remained more in control, though she too was visibly touched by the offer. ‘Lor’ bless you both for your kindness,’ she said, ‘Violet and I have been discussing nothing else for days. We’re ever so sorry - we carn’t.’

  Mr Schreiber looked genuinely nonplussed. ‘Discussing it for days?’ he said. ‘Why, we’ve only sprung it on you now. We haven’t known about it ourselves until just recent— ’

  ‘We’ve seen it coming,’ said Mrs Harris, and Mrs Butterfield, all her chins throbbing now, put a corner of her apron to one eye and said, ‘Such dear, kind people.’

  ‘You mean you knew all about the house we’ve taken in the country and that we’d want you and Mrs Butterfield to come with us there?’ Mrs Schreiber asked in astonishment.

  Mrs Harris was not at all abashed. She replied, ‘One ’ears things about the ’ouse. Little pitchers have big ears, and rolling stones have bigger ones. What is there to talk about in servants’ ’all except what goes on in the front of the ’ouse?’

  ‘Then you won’t stay?’ said Mrs Schreiber, a note of unhappiness in her voice.

  ‘Love,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘there’s nuffink we wouldn’t want to do for you to repay you for your kindness to us, and for giving little ’Enry a ’ome and a chance in life, but we’ve talked it over - we carn’t, we just carn’t.’

  Mr Schreiber, who saw his wife’s disappointment, said, ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like America?’

  ‘Lor’ love yer,’ said Mrs Harris fervently, ‘it ain’t that. It’s wonderful. There’s nuffink like it anywhere else in the world. Ain’t that so, Violet?’

  Mrs Butterfield’s emotions were such that she was able to do no more than nod acquiescence.

  ‘Well then, what is it?’ persisted Mr Schreiber. ‘If it’s more money you want, we could— ’

  ‘Money!’ exclaimed Mrs Harris aghast. ‘We’ve had too much already. We wouldn’t take another penny off you. It’s just - just that we’re ’omesick.’

  ‘Homesick,’ Mr Schreiber echoed, ‘with all you’ve got over here? Why, we’ve got everything.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘We’ve got too much of everything ’ere - we’re ’omesick for less. Our time is up. We want to go back to London.’ And suddenly, as though it came forth from the deep and hidden wells of her heart, she cried with a kind of anguish that touched Mrs Schreiber and penetrated even to her husband, ‘Don’t ask us to stay, please - or ask us why.’

  For how could she explain, even to the Schreibers who knew and had lived in and loved London themselves, their longing for the quieter, softer tempo of that great, grey, sprawling city where they had been born and reared?

  The tall, glittering skyscrapers of New York raised one’s eyes into the heavens, the incredible crash and bustle and thunder of the never-still traffic, and the teeming canyons at the bottom of the mountainous buildings excited and stimulated the nerves and caused the blood to pump faster, the glorious shops and theatres, the wonders of the supermarkets, were sources of never-ending excitement to Mrs Harris. How, then, explain their yearning to be back where grey, drab buildings stretched for seemingly never-ending blocks, or turned to quaint, quiet, tree-lined squares, or streets where every house was painted a different colour?

  How to make their friends understand that excitement too long sustained loses its pitch, that they yearned for the quiet and the comforting ugliness of Willis Gardens, where the hooves of the old horse pulling the flower vendor’s dray in the spring sounded cloppety-cloppety-cloppety in the quiet, and the passage of a taxicab was almost an event?

  What was there to compare, Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield had decided, in all this rush, scurry, litter, and hurry, this neon-lit, electricity-blazing city where they had indeed been thrilled to have been a part of it for a short time, with the quiet comfort of cups of tea that they drank together on alternate evenings in their little basement flats in their own particular little corner of London?

  Nor could they, without hurting the feelings of these good people, tell them that they were desperately missing quite a different kind of excitement, and that was the daily thrill of their part-time work.

  In London each day brought them something different, some new adventure, some new titbit of gossip, something good happened, something bad, some cause for mutual rejoicing or mutual indignation. They served not one but each a dozen or more clients of varying moods and temperaments. Each of these clients had a life, hopes, ambitions, worries, troubles, failures, and triumphs, and these Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield shared for an hour or two a day. Thus instead of one, each of them lived a dozen vicarious lives, lives rich and full, as their part-time mistresses and masters confided in them, as was the custom in London between employer and daily woman.

  What would Major Wallace’s new girl be like, the one he had carefully explained as his cousin just arrived from Rhodesia, but whom Mrs Harris knew he had encountered at the ‘Antelope’ two nights before? What new demands of service to be joyously, fiercely, and indignantly resisted would the Countess Wyszcinska present on the morrow? Did the Express have a juicy scandal story of how Lord Whosit had been caught by his wife canoodling with Pamela Whatsit among the potted palms at that gay Mayfair party? Mrs Fford Ffoulkes, she of the twin Fs and the social position of a witty and attractive divorcée, would have been there, and the next afternoon when Mrs Harris arrived to ‘do’ for her between the hours of three and five she would have the story of what really happened, and some of the riper details that the Express had been compelled by the laws of libel to forgo.

  Then there was the excitement connected with her other bachelor client, Mr Alexander Hero, whose business it was to poke his nose into haunted houses, who maintained a mysterious laboratory at the back of his house in Eaton Mews, and whom she looked after and mothered, in spite of the fact that she was somewhat afraid of him. But there was a gruesome thrill in being connected with someone who was an associate of ghosts, and she revelled in it.

  Even such minor items as whether Mr Pilkerton would h
ave located his missing toupee, the progress of convalescence of the Wadhams’ orange-coloured toy poodle, a dear little dog who was always ill, and whether Lady Dant’s new dress would be ready in time for the Hunt Ball, made each day an interesting one for them.

  And furthermore there was the excitement of the sudden decision to discard a client who had gone sour on them or overstepped some rule of deportment laid down by the chars’ union, and the great adventure of selecting a new one to take his or her place; the call at the employment office or Universal Aunts, the interrogating of the would-be client, the final decision, and then the thrill of the first visit to the new flat, a veritable treasure palace of new things to be snooped at and gone over.

  What was there in New York, even though it was the greatest city in the world, to compare with that?

  The littlest things were dragging Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield homeward. Never had food been presented more enticingly yet, alas, more impersonally, than in the giant supermarket where they shopped. Every chop, every lettuce leaf, every gleaming, scrubbed carrot, had its cellophane envelope on its shining counter, washed, wrapped, packed, ticketed, priced, displayed, untouched by human hands. What both Mrs Butterfield and Mrs Harris longed for was the homeliness of Warbles’, the corner grocer’s shop with its display of tired greens, dispirited cabbages, and overblown sprouts, but smelling of spices and things well-remembered, and presided over by fat Mr Warbles himself. They wanted to see Mr Hagger, the butcher, slice off a chop, fling it on to the scales with a ‘There you are, dear, as fine a bit of English lamb as ever you’ll set your teeth in. One and tuppence-ha’penny, please,’ wrap it in a piece of last month’s newspaper and hand it over the counter with the air of one bestowing a great gift.

  They had sampled all of the fabulous means of snacking in New York - the palatial Child’s with their griddle cakes and maple syrup, to which Mrs Harris became passionately addicted, the automats where robots miraculously produced cups of coffee, and even the long drugstore counters where white-coated attendants squirted soda-water into chocolate syrup, and produced triple- and quadruple-tiered sandwiches of regal splendour. But the two women born within the sound of Bow Bells, and whom London fitted like a well-worn garment, found themselves yearning for the clatter of a Lyons’ Corner House, or the warm redolency and pungent aroma of a fish and chip shop.

  The bars and grills on Lexington and Third Avenues they sometimes visited for a nip were glittering places of mirror glass, mahogany, and gilt, each with a free television show included, but the Mesdames Harris and Butterfield longed for the drab mustiness of the ‘Crown’ close to their demesne, and the comfort of its public bar, where two ladies could sit quietly sipping beer or gin, indulging in refined conversation, or an occasional game of darts.

  The police of New York were strong, handsome men, mostly Irish, but they just weren’t Bobbies. Mrs Harris remembered with ever-increasing nostalgia the pauses for chats about local affairs with P.C. Hooter, who was both guardian and neighbourhood psychiatrist, of their street.

  The sounds, the smells and rhythms, the skies, the sunsets, and the rains of London were all different from those of the fabulous city of New York, and she craved for all of them. She yearned even to be lost and gasping in a good old London pea-soup fog.

  But how convey all this to the Schreibers?

  Perhaps the Schreibers with their own memories of a beloved and happy stay in London were more sensitive than she had thought, for they heeded her cry and questioned her no more. Mr Schreiber only sighed and said, ‘Well, I suppose when you gotta go, you gotta go. I’ll fix it up for you.’

  EVEN though it takes place almost weekly in New York, there is always something, exciting and dramatic about the sailing of a great liner, and in particular the departure of that hugest of all ships ever to sail the seven seas, the Queen Elizabeth.

  Especially in the summertime, when Americans swarm to the Continent for their holidays, is the hubbub and hurly-burly at its peak, with the approaches to Pier 90 beneath the elevated highway at Fiftieth Street packed solid with Yellow Cabs and stately limousines delivering passengers and their luggage. The pier is a turmoil of travellers and porters, and aboard the colossal steamer there appears to be one huge party going on, cut into smaller ones only by the walls of the companionways and cabins, as in each room departing passengers entertain their friends with champagne, whisky, and canapés.

  There is a particular, infectious gaiety about these farewell parties aboard ship, a true manifestation of a holiday spirit, and of all those taking place on the Queen Elizabeth on her scheduled summer sailing of the 16th of July, none was gayer, happier or more infectious than that which took place in Cabin A.59, the largest and best apartment in Tourist-Class, where at three o’clock in the afternoon prior to the five o’clock sailing, Mesdames Harris and Butterfield held court from amidst a welter of orchids and roses.

  Reporters do not visit Tourist-Class on sailing day, reserving their attentions for the celebrities certain to be spotted in the luxury quarters. In this case they missed a bet, and just as well, for the guests collected at Mrs Harris’s sailing party were not only celebrated but heterogeneous. There was, for instance, the French Ambassador to the United States, the Marquis Hypolite de Chassagne, accompanied by his chauffeur, Mr John Bayswater of Bayswater, London.

  Then they would have come upon Mr Joel Schreiber, President of North American Pictures and Television Company Inc., recently celebrated for his signing of Kentucky Claiborne to a ten-million-dollar contract, accompanied by his wife, Henrietta, and their newly adopted son, Henry Brown Schreiber, aged almost nine.

  A fortunate thing indeed that the sharp-eyed minions of the New York press did not see this family, else they would have some questions to ask of how the erstwhile son of Lord Dartington of Stowe and grandson of the Marquis de Chassagne, whose arrival in the United States had been signalised with story and photograph, had suddenly meta-morphosed into the adopted son of Mr and Mrs Schreiber.

  Further, among the guests were a Mr Gregson, a Miss Fitt, and a Mrs Hodge, respectively butler, parlourmaid, and cook of the household staff of the Schreibers.

  And finally the party was completed by a number of the George Browns of New York who had fallen for Mrs Harris, and whom during the course of her search she had added to her ever-growing collection of international friends. There was Mr George Brown, the barker, very spruce in an alpaca suit, with a gay band on his straw boater; Captain George Brown, master of the Siobhan O’Ryan, his muscles bulging through his blue Sunday suit, towing his little wife behind him somewhat in the manner of a dinghy; there was the elegant Mr George Brown of Gracie Square; two Browns from the Bronx; the nostalgic chocolate-coloured one from Harlem; one from Long Island, and a family of them from Brooklyn.

  The true identity of little Henry’s father had been kept a secret, but Mrs Harris had apprised them all of the happy ending to the affair, and they had come to celebrate this conclusion and see her off.

  If the centres of attraction, Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield, had worn all of the sprays of purple orchids sent them by their guests, they would have staggered under the load. As it was, Mrs Harris’s sense of protocol decreed that they should wear the offering of the Marquis de Chassagne, whose orchids were white and bound with ribbons which mingled the colours of France, Great Britain, and the United States. Waiters kept the champagne flowing and the canapés moving.

  Drink, and in particular the bubbly wine, is a necessity at these affairs, for the conversation just before departure tends to stultify, when people rather incline to repeat the same things over and over again.

  Mr Schreiber repeated to the Marquis, ‘The kid’s going to be a great ball player. I’m telling you. He’s got an eye like Babe Ruth had. I threw him my sinker the other day, figuring he’d be lucky to get a piece of it. You know what he did?’

  ‘No,’ said the Marquis.

  ‘He takes a cut like Di Maggio used to and hoists the apple into the next lot
. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Astonishing,’ said the Marquis, who had not understood a word that Mr Schreiber had said, beyond meaning that Henry had performed another prodigy of some kind, and remembering that the President of the United States himself seemed to be impressed with the young man’s athletic abilities.

  ‘Give my regards to Leicester Square,’ said Mr George Brown of Harlem. ‘Some day I’m going back there. It was good to us boys in the war.’

  ‘If I ever run across the George Brown that took a powder on the kid, I’ll poke him one just for luck,’ promised the Coney Island Brown.

  ‘You soi’nly desoive a lotta credit,’ repeated the Brooklyn Browns.

  ‘Some day we’re gonna come over there and look you up,’ prophesied a Brown from the Bronx.

  ‘I suppose White’s and Buck’s are just the same,’ sighed the Gracie Square Brown. ‘They’ll never change.’

  ‘Dear,’ said Mrs Schreiber for the fourth time, ‘when you go past our flat on Eaton Square, throw in a kiss for me. I wonder who’s living there now?’ And then wistfully as she thought of the good days that had been when life was not so complicated, ‘Maybe you’ll even go there and work for them. I’ll never forget you or what you did for us. Don’t forget to write and tell me how everything is.’

  Bayswater hovered on the outskirts rather silently and seemingly lost, for what with little Henry, who somehow no longer looked so little, his body having begun to grow to his head size, and all the sadness having been wiped for ever out of his eyes, hugging the two women, and the others all making a fuss over them, it seemed impossible to get close to give Mrs Harris what he had for her.

  Yet somehow he contrived to catch her eye and hold it for a moment while he raised his own eyebrows and moved one shoulder imperceptibly in the direction of the door, but sufficient for Mrs Harris to get the message and escape momentarily from the cordon.