Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York (36 page)

Mrs Harris looked horrified. ‘Given your notice, John! Why, whatever’s got into you? What will the Marquis do?’

‘He understands,’ said Bayswater somewhat mysteriously. ‘A friend of mine is taking over.’

‘But the car,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘ought you to be leaving it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Mr Bayswater. ‘Maybe one ought to take things a little easier. The affair of the hairpin came
as a bit of a shock to me. Opened my eyes somewhat. It’s time I was thinking of retiring, anyway. I’ve saved up all the money I shall ever need. I’d only signed to come out for a year. If I stay away longer I find I get a bit homesick for Bayswater.’

‘Like me,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘and Willis Gardens. Cosy, that’s what it is, at night with the curtains drawn and Mrs Butterfield in for a cuppa tea.’ And then instinctively but unconsciously paraphrasing, ‘There’s no plyce like it.’

‘Will I be seeing you when I get back?’ asked Mr Bayswater, the question showing his state of mind, since he had just turned over the keys to his flat.

‘If you ’appen to come by,’ said Mrs Harris with equal and elaborate falseness, since she now held his keys in her own gnarled hand. ‘Number five’s the number, Willis Gardens, Battersea. I’m always in after seven, except Thursdays when Mrs Butterfield and I go to the flicks. But if you’d like to drop me a postcard we could make it another night.’

‘No fear,’ said Mr Bayswater. ‘I will. Well, I suppose we’d better be getting back to the rest.’

‘Yes, I guess we ’ad.’

They went. In Mrs Harris’s hand was the earnest and the promise that some day in the not too far distant future she would see him again. And in the emptiness of Mr Bayswater’s pocket where the keys no longer were, was the guarantee that with them in her possession he would see Ada Harris back home.

As they came back into the cabin Mr Schreiber was just finishing putting little Henry through his catechism for the benefit of the Marquis. For the first time it seemed to Mrs Harris that she saw the difference in the child, the sturdiness that had come to his figure, and the fact that all
the wariness and expectation of cuffs and blows had left his expression. Little Henry had never been a coward or a sniveller - his had been the air of one expecting the worst, and usually getting it. So soon, and already he was a whole boy; not too much longer and he would be on his way to becoming a whole man. Mrs Harris was not versed in official prayers of gratitude, and her concept of the Deity was somewhat muddled and ever-changing, but he loomed up to her as benign now, as kind and loving as ever she could conceive of someone. And to her concept of that figure which looked rather like the gentle, bearded figure of the Lord depicted on religious postcards, she said an inward, ‘Thank you.’

‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ asked Mr Schreiber.

‘A baseball player,’ replied little Henry.

‘What position?’ asked Mr Schreiber.

Little Henry had to reflect over that one for a moment, and then said, ‘Middle fielder.’

‘Centre fielder,’ corrected Mr Schreiber. ‘That’s right. All the great hitters played in the outfield - Ruth, Cobb, Di Maggio, Meusel. What team you going to play on?’

Little Henry knew that one all right. ‘The New York Yankees,’ he said.

‘See?’ said Mr Schreiber, glowing. ‘A regular American already.’

The hooter hooted three times, there was a trampling of feet on the companionway without and an attendant passed by banging on a gong and shouting, ‘Visitors ashore, please. All ashore that’s going ashore.’ Now as they moved to the door with Mrs Butterfield sobbing audibly, the farewells were redoubled: ‘Goodbye Mrs Harris. God bless you,’ cried Mrs Schreiber. ‘Don’t forget to look who’s living in our apartment.’

‘Goodbye, Madame,’ said the Marquis, bent over her, took her hand in his and brushed it with his white moustache. ‘You should be a very happy woman for the happiness you have brought to others - including, I might add, to me. All in all, it was a real lark. I have told everyone my grandson has returned to his father in England, so there will be no further difficulties.’

‘Goodbye - good luck!’ echoed all the Browns.

‘Goodbye - good luck!’ said Mr Schreiber. ‘You need anything, you write and tell me. Don’t forget, we got a branch office over there. They can fix you up any time.’

Little Henry went up to them with a new shyness, for in spite of everything, his experiences and his experience, he was still a small boy, and emotions, particularly those strongly felt, embarrassed him. He could not see into his future, but there was no doubt in his mind as to the present, as well as the past from which these two women had rescued him, even though the memory of his life with the Gussets was already beginning to fade.

But Mrs Butterfield had no such inhibitions. She gathered little Henry to her, drowning his face in her billowy bosom and interfering seriously with his breathing as she hugged, cuddled, wept and sobbed over him, until finally Mrs Harris had to say to her, ‘Come on, dearie. Don’t carry on so. ’E isn’t a baby any more - ’e’s a man now,’ and thus earning more gratitude from the boy even than for his rescue.

He went to Mrs Harris and throwing his arms about her neck whispered, ‘Goodbye Auntie Ada. I love you.’

And those were the last words spoken as they filed out, and until they all stood at the end of the pier and watched the magnificent liner back out into the busy North River, brass portholes reflecting the hot July sun, and the thousand faces dotting the gleaming white of the decks and
super-structure. Somewhere forward would be the dots that represented Mrs Butterfield and Mrs Harris. The great siren of the liner bayed three times in farewell, and the Marquis Hypolite de Chassagne pronounced a kind of a valedictory.

‘If I had my way,’ he said, ‘I would rear a statue in a public square to women like that, for they are the true heroines of life. They do their duty day in, day out, they struggle against poverty, loneliness, and want, to preserve themselves and raise their families, but still they are able to laugh, to smile, to find time to indulge in dreams.’ The Marquis paused, reflected a moment, sighed and said, ‘And this is why I would rear them their statue, for the courage of these dreams of beauty and romance that still persist. And see,’ he concluded, ‘the wondrous result of such dreaming.’

The
Queen Elizabeth
bayed again. She was now broad-side to the pier, and in midstream. Her screws threshed and she began to glide down towards the sea. The Marquis raised his hat.

Aboard the liner Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield, the eyes of both reddened with tears now, repaired to their cabin, whence came their steward.

‘Twigg’s the name,’ he said. ‘I’m your steward. Your stewardess is Evans. She’ll be along in a minute.’ He gazed at the banked-up flowers. ‘Cor blimey if it don’t look as if somebody died in ’ere.’

‘Coo,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘you watch yer lip or you’ll find out ’oo died in ’ere. Them flowers is from the French Ambassador, I’ll ’ave you know.’

‘ ’Ello, ’ello,’ said the steward as the familiar accent fell upon his ears, and not at all abashed by the reproof, ‘Don’t tell me now, but let me guess - Battersea, I’ll wager. I’m from Clapham Common meself. You never know ’oo yer meets travellin’ these days. I’ll ’ave yer tickets, please.’ And
then as he departed, ‘Cheer-oh, lydies. You can rely on Bill Twigg and Jessie Evans to look after yer. Yer couldn’t be on a better ship.’

Mrs Harris sat on her bed and sighed with contentment. ‘Clapham Common’ had fallen gently and gratefully upon her ears too. ‘Lor’ love yer, Violet,’ she said, ‘ain’t it good to be ’ome?’

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