Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York (20 page)

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.

I
T
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. Everything’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’.

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?’