Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York (22 page)

As usually occurred on these voyages, Mrs Harris soon found herself a member of a tight little British island which formed itself in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean aboard this floating hotel. It consisted of an elderly and elegant chauffeur, two mechanics from a British firm sent to America to study missile assembly, and a couple from Wolverhampton going over to visit their daughter who had married a GI, and their grandchild. Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield made up the set. They were all at the same table, and soon had their deck chairs next to one another. Basically they all spoke the same language and liked and understood one another.

If Mrs Harris was the life of this party - which indeed she was - the chauffeur, Mr John Bayswater ‘
of
Bayswater’, as he himself would say, ‘and no finer district in London,’ was the unquestioned leader of the coterie, and looked up to by all.

To begin with, he was not only a chauffeur of long experience - thirty-five years - a small, sixtyish, grey-haired man whose clothes were well cut and in impeccable taste, but he was also a Rolls chauffeur. In all of his life he had never sat in or driven a car of any other make, he had not even so much as ever looked under the bonnet of one. They simply did not exist for him. There was only one car manufactured, and that was the Rolls. A bachelor, he had had a succession of these motor cars instead of wives or mistresses, and they took up his entire time and attention.

But if this were not sufficient
cachet
, he was also now going out to America as the chauffeur of the Marquis Hypolite de Chassagne, newly appointed Ambassador for France in the United States.

He was a happy and contented man, was Mr John Bayswater, for in the hold of the
Ville de Paris
there travelled the newest, the finest, the most modern and most gleaming Rolls-Royce in two tones of sky and smoke blue, body by Hooper, that he had ever driven. To celebrate the crowning of his diplomatic career by his appointment as Ambassador to the United States, the Marquis, who had been educated in England and had never got over his fondness for British cars, had treated himself to the finest Rolls that his independent wealth could buy.

When it came to the question of a chauffeur, the Rolls people had been able to secure for him the services of John Bayswater, who had once accompanied the British Ambassador to the United States on the same kind of job, one of the most respected and trusted of Rolls-trained drivers.

Mr Bayswater’s estimate of a good or bad job was based not on the employer for whom he worked, but the nature, kind, and quality of the Rolls-Royce entrusted to his care. If the Marquis’s appointment was the cap to his career, so was the new job to Mr Bayswater, since he had been commissioned by the Rolls-Royce Company to go into their factory and himself select the chassis and engine. That the Marquis had likewise turned out to be an all right chap and an understanding man as an employer was just so much money for jam.

But there was yet another reason why Mr Bayswater could assume and hold the leadership in his little group, and that was that of all of them he was the only one who had ever been out to America before. In fact he had made the
trip twice - once with a ’47 Silver Wraith, a sweet job he had loved dearly, and again with a ’53 Silver Cloud, of which he was not quite so enamoured, but which he knew needed him, and all the more in the strange country.

And it was precisely this knowledge of Mr Bayswater’s of the procedural ceremony upon entering the free and democratic United States of America which put the windup Mrs Harris and indicated to her the extent of the trap into which she had led little Henry, Mrs Butterfield, and herself.

The conversation came about as indicated during the absence of Mrs Butterfield from the deck chairs, and the couple from Wolverhampton, Mr and Mrs Tidder, were expounding on the trials they had had to endure at the hands of American officials before a visitors’ visa was granted them to set foot in America. Mrs Harris listened sympathetically, for she had been through the same routine: injections, fingerprints, names of references, financial situation, endless forms to be filled in, and seemingly equally endless interrogations.

‘Goodness me,’ said Mrs Tidder, whose husband was a retired Civil Servant, ‘you would have thought we were going over to burgle a piece of the country.’ Then she sighed, ‘Oh well, I suppose one musn’t complain. They gave us our visas, and it’s all over now.’

Mr Bayswater put down a copy of the Rolls-Royce monthly bulletin he had been studying, but with half an ear cocked to the conversation, and snorted, ‘Ho-ho, is that what you think? Wait until you come up against the American Immigration Inspectors - they’ll put you through it. I’ll never forget the first time I came over. It was after the war. They had me sweating. You ever heard of Ellis Island? It’s a kind of a gaol where they can pop you if they don’t
like the look of your face. Wait till you sit down to have a chat with those lads. If there’s so much as a bit of a blur on your passport, or a comma misplaced, you’re for it.’

Mrs Tidder gave a little cry of dismay. ‘Oh dear, is that really so?’

At the pit of Mrs Harris’s stomach a small, cold stone was forming which she tried to ignore. She said to Mrs Tidder, ‘Garn - I don’t believe it. It’s just people talking. It’s a free country, ain’t it?’

‘Not when you’re trying to get into it,’ Mr Bayswater observed. ‘Proper Spanish Inquisition, that’s what it is. “Who are you? Where are you from? How much have you got? Who are you with? Where are you going? When? Why? For how long? Have you ever committed a crime? Are you a Communist? If not, then what are you? Why? Haven’t you got a home in England - what are you coming over here for?” Then they start in on your papers. Heaven ’elp you if there’s anything wrong with them. You can cool your heels behind bars on their ruddy Island until someone comes and fetches you out.’

The stone at the pit of Mrs Harris’s tum grew a little larger, colder, and harder to ignore. She asked, trying to make her question sound casual, ‘Are they like that with kids too? The Americans I knew in London were always good to kids.’

‘Ha!’ snorted Mr Bayswater again, ‘not these chaps.’ And then with another of his rare cultural lapses he said, ‘They eats kids. A baby in arms is like a bomb to them. If they don’t see the name and birth certificate and proper papers for them they don’t get through. When the time comes they herd you into the main lounge, and there you are. Queue up until you sit at a desk with a chap in uniform like a prison warder on the other side, with eyes that look right through
you, and you’d better give the right answers. I see one family held up for three hours because some clerk on the other side had made a mistake in one kid’s papers. That’s the kind of thing they
love
to catch you out on. And after that the Customs - they’re almost as bad. Phew! I’ll tell you.’

The stone was now as large as a melon and as cold as a lump of ice. ‘Excuse me,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘I don’t think I’m feeling quite well. I think I’ll go down to my cabin for a bit of a lie-down.’

And so there it was. For twelve unhappy hours Mrs Harris kept the ghastly news and problem bottled up inside her, during which time she also managed to increase its scope and embroider its dangers. And Mr Bayswater’s erudite reference to the Spanish Inquisition, which to Mrs Harris brought up pictures of dungeons, the rack, and tortures with hot pincers, did nothing to alleviate her uneasiness.

Anything British or even French she would have felt herself, as a London char, equipped to cope with, but Mr Bayswater had revealed an implacability about the American Immigration Service and the red tape surrounding entry into the country which, while it might have been somewhat exaggerated, nevertheless left her with a feeling of complete helplessness. There would be no hurly-burly such as had obtained on the station platform at Waterloo and the embarkation pier at Southampton, no friendly, easy-going British Immigration Officers with sympathy for a harassed family man, no attaching of himself by little Henry to the brood of pleasant and absent-minded Professor Wagstaff, no little tricks, no concealments. The fact was that little Henry, having no papers of any kind whatsoever, was going to be nabbed.

What appalled Mrs Harris was not so much the picture of Mrs Butterfield and herself languishing behind bars
in that place of the dread name of Ellis Island, changed, it is true, since Bayswater’s day to Staten Island and which appeared to be something in the nature of a German or Russian concentration camp, but rather the far more harrowing thought of little ’Enry being impounded and shipped back to London to the mercies of the Gusset family, while she and Mrs Butterfield would not be there to protect or comfort the youngster. She fretted herself into a state of near exhaustion trying to think of some way that little ’Enry might avoid the tight immigration net that Mr Bayswater had outlined, but could find none. The way Mr Bayswater had put it, not a mouse could get itself into the United States of America without proper credentials.

For herself she did not care, but it was not only little ’Enry who would be in dire trouble; she had likewise led her good friend, poor, timorous Mrs Butterfield, into a situation which might well result in her becoming dangerously ill with fright. And then there were likewise the Schreibers. What would Mrs Schreiber do when she, Ada Harris, was carried off to gaol at just the moment when Mrs Schreiber needed her the most?

There was no doubt but Ada Harris was for it, and needed help badly. But to whom to turn? Certainly not Mrs Butterfield, and she did not wish to alarm the Schreibers until it was absolutely necessary. Her mind then leaped to the one man of experience that she knew - Mr Bayswater - who, although he was the kind of bachelor she knew to be unalterably confirmed, had shown himself slightly partial to her and had already treated her to several ports and lemon in the cocktail lounge before dinner.

So that night when dinner was over and they were repairing up to the smoking room for coffee and a cigarette,
Mrs Harris whispered, ‘Could I ’ave a word with you, Mr Bayswater? You being such a travelled man, I need your advice.’

‘Of course, Mrs Harris,’ Mr Bayswater replied courteously, ‘I should be happy to give you the benefit of my experience. What was it you wished to know?’

‘I think we’d better go up on deck, perhaps, where it’s quiet and nobody’s around,’ she said.

Mr Bayswater looked a little startled at this, but detached himself from the group and followed Mrs Harris topside to the boat deck of the
Ville de Paris
, where in the starlit darkness, with the great ship leaving a phosphorescent trail behind her, they stood by the rail and looked out over the sea.

They were silent for a moment, and then Mrs Harris said, ‘Lumme, now that I’ve got you ’ere, I don’t know how to begin.’

Really alarmed, Mr Bayswater turned to look at the little char and steel himself. He had preserved his bachelorhood from numerous assaults for some forty-odd years, and did not consider surrendering it now. But all he saw on the face of the small, grey-haired woman standing next to him was concern and unhappiness. She said, ‘I’m in trouble, Mr Bayswater.’

The chauffeur felt a sudden flood of relief, as well as warm, masculine protectiveness. He found that he was even enjoying being there and having her thus appeal to him. It was a most excellent feeling. He said to her, ‘Supposing you tell me all about it, Mrs Harris.’

‘You know the boy,’ she said, ‘little ’Enry, that is?’

Mr Bayswater nodded and replied, ’M - hm, good kid. Keeps his mouth shut.’

‘Well,’ Mrs Harris blurted, ‘he isn’t mine. He’s not anybody’s!’ and then in a torrent the whole story came pouring
forth from her - the Gusset family, the kindly Schreibers, the kidnapping and stowing-away of little ’Enry, and the plan to deliver him to his long-lost father.

When she had finished there was a silence. Then, ‘Blimey,’ said Mr Bayswater, lapsing once again, ‘that’s a nasty one, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve been to America before,’ pleaded Mrs Harris, ‘isn’t there something we could do to hide him or get ’im through?’

‘Not from those blokes,’ said Mr Bayswater. ‘You’ll only make it worse if you do. It’s ten times as bad if they catch you trying to evade them. Look here, what about the father? Couldn’t we telegraph him to come to the pier, then at least he could stand up for the kid and claim him.’

Despite her worries Mrs Harris was not insensible that Mr Bayswater had used the word ‘we’ instead of ‘you’, thus including himself in her dilemma, and it gave her a sudden feeling of returning courage and warmth. ‘But it receded almost immediately as she wailed. ‘But I don’t know ’is address yet. I just fink I know where he is going to live, but I’ve got to find him first, don’t you see? It’s a ’orrible mess.’

Now likewise stymied, Mr Bayswater nodded and agreed, ‘It is that.’

A tear illuminated by starshine rolled down Mrs Harris’s cheek. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she said, ‘I’m a stupid fool’ardy old woman. I should have known better.’

‘Don’t say that,’ said Mr Bayswater, ‘you were only trying to do your best for the kid.’ He fell silent for a moment, thinking, and then said, ‘Look here, Mrs Harris, I know you said you knew my boss, the Marquis - is it true what I heard, that you were invited by him up to the Captain’s cabin for a drink?’

Mrs Harris gave the elegant-looking chauffeur an odd look, and wondered if he was going to go snobby on her. ‘Certainly,’ she replied, ‘and why not? ’E’s an old friend of mine from Paris.’

‘Well then,’ said Mr Bayswater, his idea growing within him to bursting point and the dropping of another aitch, ‘if you know him that well, why don’t you ask ’
IM
?’

‘ ’Im, the Marquis? Why, what good would that do? ’E’s a pal of mine, I wouldn’t want to get ’im sent off to Ellers Island or whatever it’s called.’

‘But don’t you see,’ said Mr Bayswater excitedly, ‘he’s just the very one who could do it. He’s a diplomat.’

Unlike her, for an instant Mrs Harris was obtuse. She said, ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘It means he travels on a special passport, but no one ever even looks at it, no questions asked - V.I.P. and red carpet. I’m telling you, last time I came over with the ’53 Silver Cloud, the one with the weak number three cylinder gasket, it was with Sir Gerald Granby, the British Ambassador. We didn’t half breeze through on the pier. No Immigration or Customs for him. It was “How do you do, Sir Gerald?” and “Welcome to the United States, Sir Gerald. Step this way, Sir Gerald,” and “Never you mind about those bags, Sir Gerald. Is there anything we can do for you, Sir Gerald? Come right through, your car is waiting, Sir Gerald.” That’s how it went, smooth as silk when you’ve got a diplomatic passport and a title. Americans are awfully impressed by titles. Now just you think about my boss. He’s not only the Ambassador himself, but a genuine French Marquis. Coo, they’ll never even notice a kid, and if they do they won’t ask any questions. You ask him. I’ll bet he’d do it for you. He’s a proper gent. Afterwards, when he’s got the kid
through and on to the pier, you can collect him easy as wink and no trouble to anyone. Well, what do you think?’