Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs. Harris Goes to New York (23 page)

Mrs Harris was staring at him now with her mischievous little eyes shining - no longer from tears. ‘Mr Bayswater,’ she cried, ‘I could kiss you.’

For an instant the hardened bachelor’s fears returned to the dignified chauffeur, but in the light of Mrs Harris’s relieved and merry countenance they were dispelled and he patted one of her hands on the rail gently and said, ‘Save the smacker for later, old girl - until we see whether it’s going to come off.’

T
HUS
it was for the second time in twenty-four hours that Mrs Harris found herself narrating the story of little Henry, the missing father, and her escapade, this time into the attentive ear of the Marquis Hypolite de Chassagne, Ambassador and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary from the Republic of France to the United States of America, in the privacy of his First-Class suite aboard the liner.

The white-haired old diplomat listened to the tale without comment or interruption, occasionally pulling at the end of his moustache or stroking the feathers of his tufted eyebrows with the back of a finger. It was difficult to tell from his extraordinarily young-looking and lively blue eyes, or his mouth, often hidden behind his hand, whether he was amused or annoyed at her plea that he attach to his entourage one stateless and paperless British-American semi-orphan and smuggle him into an alien country as his first act as France’s representative.

When Mrs Harris had finished with the tale of her misdeeds, concluding with the advice given her by Mr Bayswater, the Marquis reflected for a moment and then
said, ‘It was a kind and gallant thing for you to do - but a little fool-hardy, do you not think?’

Mrs Harris, sitting on the edge of a chair mentally as well as physically, clasped her hands together and said, ‘Lor’ love me, you’re telling me! I suppose I ought to ’ave me bottom whacked, but, sir, if you’d heard ’is cries when they hit him, and ’im not getting enough to eat, what would you have done?’

The Marquis reflected and sighed. ‘Ah, Madame, you flatter me into responding - the same, I suppose. But we have now all landed ourselves into a pretty pickle.’ It was astonishing how anyone who even for the shortest time became associated with Mrs Harris’s troubles, immediately took to using the pronoun ‘we’ and counting themselves in.

Mrs Harris said eagerly, ‘Mr Bayswater said that diplomats like yourself ’ave special privileges. You’ll get a special carpet to walk on and it’ll be “Yes, Your Excellency. Step this way, Your Excellency. What a nice little boy, Your Excellency,” and before you know it there you’ll be on the pier with little ’Enry, and no questions asked. Then I’ll come and collect the kid, and you’ll ’ave ’is gratitude and mine and his father’s for ever after.’

‘Bayswater seems to know a great deal,’ said the Marquis.

‘Of course ’e does,’ said Mrs Harris, ‘ ’e’s done it before. He said the last time ’e came to America it was with somebody named Sir Gerald Granby, and it was “Yes, Sir Gerald. Step this way, Sir Gerald. Never mind about the passport, Sir Gerald— ” ’

‘Yes, yes,’ agreed the Marquis hastily, ‘I know, I know.’

But the point was that he did not know in actual fact as much as he thought he did about what landing arrangements had been made for him. He was quite well aware that there might be some fuss and ceremony upon his arrival,
but not to what extent, though he was also certain that no one would demand to see his credentials until officially and formally he presented them at the White House. The members of his entourage, his secretary, chauffeur, valet, etc., would receive equal consideration, and it was highly improbable that anyone would observe or question a small boy who seemed to be with him, particularly if he were well-behaved, as Mrs Harris had asserted, and given to keeping his mouth shut.

‘Would yer?’ pleaded Mrs Harris ‘Don’t you suppose you might? You’d take to little ’Enry once you saw him. ’E’s a dear little lad.’

The Marquis made a gesture with his hand and said, ‘Shhh - hush for a moment. I want to think.’

Mrs Harris immediately buttoned up her lips and sat with her hands folded, on the edge of the gilt chair, her feet barely touching the ground, and eyeing the Marquis anxiously out of her little eyes that now had lost their impudence and cunning, and were only anxious and pleading.

The august individual did exactly what he said he was going to do - he sat and thought, but he also felt.

It was a curious thing about Mrs Harris, that she had the power to make people feel the things that she was feeling. In Paris she had let him into the experience of her passion for flowers and beautiful things such as a Dior dress, and the excitement of loving and desiring them. Now here in her simple way she had made him feel her love for a lost child, and the distress that is experienced all too little at the thought of a child suffering. There were millions of children hungry, distressed, and abused throughout the world, and heaven forgive one, one never thought about them, and here
he
was thinking about a little starveling being cuffed on the side of the head by an individual named
Gusset, whom he had never seen and never would see. How did all this concern him? Looking at Mrs Harris sitting opposite him on the anxious seat, seeing the frosted apple cheeks, withered hair, and hands gnarled by toil, he felt that it concerned him very much.

In her own way, during her brief visit to Paris this London char had brought him some happy moments, and even, if one wanted to stretch a point, his ambassadorship might be laid partly at her feet, for she had been instrumental in causing him to aid the husband of a friend she had made in Paris, Monsieur Colbert, into an important post at the Quai d’Orsay, where within a year he had proved to be a sensational success. Credit for his discovery redounded to the Marquis, and might well have played a role in his selection for the coveted and honoured post of Ambassador to the United States. But even more, she had recalled to him the days of his youth, when he had been a student at Oxford and another charlady, one of her breed, had been kind to him in his loneliness.

The Marquis thought to himself,
What a good woman is Mrs Harris, and how fortunate I am to know her.
And he thought again,
What an astonishingly pleasant thing it is to have the power to help someone. How young it makes one feel!
and here his thoughts permitted themselves to digress to the change that had come over him since his promotion to this post. Prior to that he had been an old man, resigned to saying farewell to the world and engaged in re-examining and enjoying its beauties for the last time. Now he felt full of energy and bustle and had no thought of quitting this life.

And he had a final and highly satisfactory thought on the subject of what it means to be so old and dignified - namely, that people were a little afraid of you. It meant, he thought with an inward chuckle, and reverting to his British education,
that you could do as you jolly well pleased in almost any situation, and no one would really dare to say anything. Thus he came to the final thought: what was the harm in helping this good person, and what in fact could go wrong with the simplicity of the scheme? He said to Mrs Harris, ‘Very well, I will do as you ask.’

This time Mrs Harris did not indulge in any pyrotechnics of effusiveness of gratitude, but instead as her naughty sense of humour returned to her she grinned at him impishly and said, ‘I knew you would. It ought to be a lark, what? I’ll wash his ’ands and face good, and tell him exactly what ’e’s got to do. You can rely on him - ’e’s sharp as a new pin. ’E don’t say much, but when he does it’s right to the point.’

The Marquis had to smile too. ‘Ah, you did, did you?’ he said. ‘Well, we shall see what kind of trouble I land myself in with this sentimental bit of foolishness.’ Then he said, ‘We are due to dock at ten o’clock in the morning; at nine o’clock there will be some kind of a deputation coming on board to greet me no doubt at Quarantine - the French Consul perhaps - and it would probably be best if the boy were here at that time so that the others became used to seeing him about. I will make arrangements to have you both conducted through to me from Tourist-Class at half past seven in the morning. I will advise my secretary and valet to be discreet.’

Mrs Harris got up and moved to the door. ‘You’re a love,’ she said, and gave him the thumbs-up sign.

The Marquis returned it and said, ‘You are too. It ought to be quite a lark, what?’

S
OMEONE
should have warned the Marquis about the American press, which was aware that the Marquis was the first new Ambassador appointed to the U.S. since de Gaulle came into power; someone likewise should have advised him of and prepared him for the landing arrangements that had been set up for his arrival. The former, however, was completely forgotten, and the latter, through one of those State Department muddles - surely-so-and-so-will-have-notified-the-Ambassador - totally neglected. Everyone thought the other fellow had done it, and nobody had.

The Marquis himself, a man of innate modesty, had never considered his own person of importance, and while he anticipated an official welcome and a facilitating of entry, he expected no more than that, and upon arriving in the morning meant to have Bayswater drive him to Washington as soon as his car was disembarked.

Thus he was wholly unprepared for the jostling horde of ship newsmen, feature writers, reporters, newspaper photographers, newsreel cameramen, radio and television interviewers, technical men, and operators of batteries of
portable television equipment, who came streaming on board from a grimy tug that drew alongside in Quarantine, and came stamping down the companionways and pelting into his suite to demand his presence for an interview in the press conference room on the sun deck.

An equal surprise was the trim white Government cutter which also leeched itself to the side of the
Ville de Paris
, disgorging the official greeter of the City of New York and his henchmen, all wearing red, white, and blue rosettes in their buttonholes, the leaders of both political parties of that same city, along with the Deputy Mayor, the French Consuls of both New York and Washington, members of the permanent staff of the French Legation, half a dozen officials from the State Department, headed by an Under-Secretary of proper rank and protocol to receive an Ambassador, plus a member of the White House staff sent as a personal emissary to welcome him by President Eisenhower.

Most of these somehow managed to crowd into the suite, while a band on the cutter rendered the Marseillaise, and before little Henry could flee into the ‘barfroom’ where he had been warned by Mrs Harris to retire should anything untoward happen before the actual going ashore should take place.

He had been scrubbed and polished for the occasion, thrust into a clean shirt and shorts, which Mrs Harris had provided for him from Marks and Sparks before departure, and sitting on the edge of a chair with his feet likewise encased in new socks and shoes, he looked like quite a nice little boy, and one not out of place in his surroundings.

Before either the Marquis or little Henry knew what was what, or how it happened, they found themselves swept out of the cabin, up the grand staircase, and into the press
conference room crowded to suffocation with inquisitors and facing an absolutely appalling battery of microphones, camera lenses - still, animated, and television - and barrages of questions flung at them like confetti.

‘What about the Russians? Do you think there’ll be peace? What is your opinion of American women? How about de Gaulle? What are you going to do about NATO? Do you wear the bottoms of your pyjamas when you sleep? Do the French want another loan? How old are you? Did you ever meet Khrushchev? Is your wife with you? What about the war in Algeria? What did you get the Legion of Honour for? What do you think about the hydrogen bomb? Is it true that Frenchmen are better lovers than Americans? Is France going to resign from the Monetary Fund? Do you know Maurice Chevalier? Is it true that the Communists are gaining ground in France? What do you think of
Gigi
?’

And amongst those questions shouted by male and female reporters and feature writers yet another: ‘Who’s the kid?’