Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York (35 page)

Even such minor items as whether Mr Pilkerton would have 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.’

E
VEN
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.

‘ ’Old the fort for a minute,’ she said to Mrs Butterfield, ‘while I look what’s become of me trunk.’

‘You won’t be gettin’ off the boat will yer?’ said Mrs Butterfield in alarm - but Mrs Harris was already out of the door.

Down the passageway a bit, to the accompaniment of the clink of glasses, shrieks of laughter, and cries of farewell from parties in near-by cabins, Mrs Harris said, ‘Whew. I didn’t know how I was goin’ to get away to arsk you - was it a ’airpin?’

In reply Mr Bayswater reached into the pocket of his uniform where a bulge somewhat interfered with its elegant line, and handed Mrs Harris a small package. It contained a bottle of Eau de Cologne, and represented a major effort on the part of the chauffeur, for it was the first such purchase and the first such gift he had ever made to a woman in his life. Affixed to the outside of it with a rubber band was a large and formidable-looking black wire hairpin.

Mrs Harris studied the specimen. ‘Lumme,’ she said, ‘ain’t it a whopper?’

Mr Bayswater nodded. ‘There she is. Something like that gets into a Rolls and it can sound like your rear end’s dropping out. I’d never have looked for it if it hadn’t been for you. The scent’s for you.’

Mrs Harris said, ‘Thank you, John. And I’ll keep the ’airpin as a souvenir. I suppose we’d better go back.’

But Mr Bayswater was not yet finished, and now he fussed and stirred uneasily with a hand in his pocket, and finally said, ‘Ah - Ada, there was something else I wanted to give you, if you wouldn’t mind.’ He then withdrew his hand
from his pocket and disclosed therein something that Mrs Harris had no difficulty in recognizing with even an odd little thrill of forewarning as to what it might be about.

‘They’re the keys of my flat,’ said Mr Bayswater. ‘I was wondering if sometime you might have a moment to look in for me, just to make sure everything’s all right - sixty-four Willmott Terrace, Bayswater Road, Bayswater.’

Mrs Harris looked down at the keys in Mr Bayswater’s palm and felt a curious warmth surging through her such as she had not known since she was a young girl.

Mr Bayswater too was feeling very odd, and perspiring slightly under his linen collar. Neither of them was aware of the symbolism of the handing over of the keys, but both felt as though they were in the grip of something strange, momentous, and pleasant.

Mrs Harris took them out of his hand, and they felt hot to the touch as he had been clutching them. ‘Coo,’ she said, ‘by now I’ll bet the plyce could do with a bit of a turn out. Do you mind if I dust about a bit?’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean
that
,’ said Mr Bayswater, ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you. It was just that I felt that if you might look in occasionally - well then - I’d know everything was all right.’

‘You’ll be a long time away, won’t you?’ said Mrs Harris.

‘Not so long,’ said Mr Bayswater, ‘I’ll be home in another six months. I’ve given my notice.’