Mrs Harris Goes To Paris And Mrs Harris Goes To New York Part 13

Although she might have done so and saved herself a lot of time and energy, Mrs Harris refused to descend to anything so crude as ringing up the scattered Browns on the telephone and asking them if they had ever served in the U.S. Air Force in Great Britain and married a waitress by the name of Pansy Cott. Instead, she paid them personal visits, sometimes managing to check off two and three in a day.

Familiar with the London tubes, the New York subway systems held no terrors for her, but the buses were something else again, and used to London civility, she soon found herself embroiled with one of the occupational neurotics at the helm of one of the north-bound monsters who, trying to make change, operate his money-gobbling gadget, open and close doors, shout out street numbers, and guide his vehicle through the tightly-packed lanes of Yellow Cabs, limousines, and two-toned cars, bawled at her to get to the rear of the bus or get the h.e.l.l off, he didn't care which.

'Is that 'ow it is?' Mrs Harris snapped at him. 'You know what would happen to you if you spoke to me like that in London? You'd find yerself on your b.u.m sitting in the middle of the King's Road, that's what you would.'

The bus driver heard a not unfamiliar accent and turned around to look at Mrs Harris. 'Listen, lady,' he said, 'I been over there with the Seebees. All them guys over there gotta do is drive the bus.'

Injustice worked upon people of her own kind always touched Mrs Harris's sympathy. She patted the driver on the shoulder and said, 'Lor' love yer, it ain't no way to speak to a lydy, but it ain't human either for you to be doing all that - I'd blow up meself if I had to. We wouldn't stand for that in London either - trying to make a bloomin' machine out of a human being.'

The driver stopped his bus, turned around and regarded Mrs Harris with amazement. 'Say,' he said, 'you really think that? I'm sorry I spoke out of turn, but sometimes I just gotta blow my top. Come along, I'll see that you get a seat.' He left the wheel, quite oblivious to the fact that he was tying up traffic for twenty blocks behind him, took Mrs Harris by the hand, edged her through the crowded bus and said, 'OK one of you mugs, get up and give this little lady a seat. She's from London. Whaddayou want her to do - get a lousy impression of New York?'

There were three volunteers. Mrs Harris sat down and made herself comfortable. 'Thanks, ducks,' she grinned as the driver said, 'OK Ma?' and went forward to his wheel again. He felt warm inside, like a Boy Scout who had done his good deed for the day. This feeling lasted all of ten blocks.

In a short time Mrs Harris both saw and learned more about New York and New Yorkers and the environs of its five boroughs than most New Yorkers who had spent a lifetime in that city.

There was a George Brown who lived near Fort George in Upper Manhattan not far from the Hudson, and for the first time Mrs Harris came upon the magnificent view of that stately river, with the sheer walls of the Jersey Palisades rising opposite, and through another who dwelt near Spuyten Duyvel she learned something of this astonis.h.i.+ng, meandering creek which joined the Hudson and East Rivers and actually and physically made an island of Manhattan.

A visit to another Brown at the exactly opposite end of Manhattan, Bowling Green, introduced her to the Battery, that incredible plaza overwhelmed by the skysc.r.a.pers of the financial district, at the end of which the two mighty arms of water - East and North Rivers as the Hudson is there called - merged into the expanse of the Upper Bay with such sea-going traffic of ocean liners, freighters, tugs, ferry boats, yachts, and whatnot afloat as Mrs Harris could not have imagined occupied one body of water. Not even through Limehouse Reach and the Wapping Docks back home was water traffic so thick.

For the first time in her life Mrs Harris felt dwarfed and overpowered. London was a great, grey, sprawling city, larger even than this one, but it did not make one feel so small, so insignificant, and so lost. One could get one's head up, somehow. Far up in the sky, so high that only an aeroplane could look down upon them, the matchless skysc.r.a.pers, each with a flag or a plume of steam or smoke at its peak, filled the eye and the mind to the point of utter bewilderment. What kind of a world was this? Who were these people who had reared these towers? Through the canyons rushed and rumbled the traffic of heavy drays, trucks, and gigantic double lorries with trailers, taxicabs beeped their horns, policemen's whistles shrilled, the s.h.i.+pping moaned and hooted - and, in the midst of this stood little Ada Harris of Battersea, alone, not quite undaunted.

In the district surrounding 135th Street and Lenox Avenue, known as Harlem, all the Browns were chocolate coloured, but nonetheless sympathetic to Mrs Harris's quest. Several of them had been to England with the Army or Air Force and welcomed Mrs Harris as a reminder of a time and place when all men were considered equal under n.a.z.i bombs, and colour was no bar to bravery. One of them, out of sheer nostalgia, insisted upon her having a pink gin with him. None of them had married Pansy Cott.

Via several George Browns who lived in the Brighton district Mrs Harris became acquainted with the eastern boundary of the United States, or rather, at that point, New York - the sh.o.r.e with its long, curving, green combers rolling in to crash upon the beaches of that vast and raucous amus.e.m.e.nt park - Coney Island.

There the Brown she was tailing that day turned out to be a barker at a girlie sideshow. A tall fellow in a loud silk s.h.i.+rt and straw boater, with piercing eyes that held one transfixed, he stood on a platform outside a booth on which there were rather repulsive oleos of ladies with very little clothing on, and shouted down a precis of the attractions within to the pa.s.sing throngs.

Mrs Harris's heart sank at the thought that such a one might be the father of little Henry. Yet in the vulgarity of the amus.e.m.e.nt park she felt not wholly out of place, for with the cries of the barkers, the snapping of rifles in the shooting gallery, the rus.h.i.+ng roar of the thrill rides, and the tinny cacophony of the carousel music it reminded her of Battersea Festival Gardens, or any British funfair, doubled.

Between spiels George Brown, barker, listened to her story with attention and evident sympathy, for when she had finished he said, 'It ain't me, but I'd like to find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and punch him one on the nose. If you ask me, he married the girl and took a powder. I know a lot of guys like that.'

Mrs Harris defended little Henry's father vigorously, but the barker remained sceptical. He said, 'Take my advice, ma'am, and don't trust none of them GIs. I know them.' Mr Brown had never been in England, but his grandmother had been English and this formed a bond between Mrs Harris and himself. He said, 'Would you like to come back and meet the girls? They're as nice a bunch of kids as you could want. I'll pa.s.s you into the show first.'

Mrs Harris spent a pleasant half hour watching Mr Brown's a.s.sortment of 'kids' doing b.u.mps, grinds, hulas, and cooch dances, after which she was introduced to them and found, as Brown had said, that they were as described, good-natured, modest about their art, and far cleaner in speech than many of the celebrities who came to the Schreiber parties. She went home after an interesting evening, but no nearer finding the man she sought, though the barker promised to keep an eye out for him.

She learned to like many parts of Brooklyn, where her search took her, for the older and quieter portions of this borough on the other side of the East River, where the brownstone houses stuck against the side of one another, as like peas in a pod for block upon block, sometimes shaded by trees, reminded her somewhat of London far away across the sea.

Since she took the Browns as they came, one George she found was a s.h.i.+ps' chandler who lived over his shop on the waterfront of the Lower East Side. Here again she was an infinitesimal speck in the grand canyons of the downtown skysc.r.a.pers, but standing on the cobbled pave by the docks that smelled of tar and spices, she looked up to the great arches and wondrous spiderweb tracery of the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, across which rumbled electric trains and heavy traffic with such a shattering roar that it seemed to be the voices of those vast spans themselves shouting down to her.

On a visit to the Staten Island George Browns via the Staten Island Ferry, Mrs Harris found one of them to be a tug-boat captain working for the Joseph P. O'Ryan Towing Company, in command of the twin diesel-engined tug Siobhan O'Ryan Siobhan O'Ryan, who was just leaving to go on duty as Mrs Harris arrived.

Captain Brown was a pleasant, brawny man of some forty-odd years, with a pleasant wife half his size, who lived in a cheerful flat in St George not far from the ferry landing. They had once had something in common, for the Siobhan O'Ryan Siobhan O'Ryan had been one of the tugs which had nursed the s.s. had been one of the tugs which had nursed the s.s. Ville de Paris Ville de Paris into her berth the day of Mrs Harris's arrival, and the sharp-eyed little char had noted the unusual name painted on the pilot house of the tug, and had remembered it. into her berth the day of Mrs Harris's arrival, and the sharp-eyed little char had noted the unusual name painted on the pilot house of the tug, and had remembered it.

Those Browns too were fascinated by the saga of the deserted boy and Mrs Harris's quest for his father. The upshot was that Captain Brown invited Mrs Harris to come aboard his tug and he would take her for a water-borne ride around Manhattan Island. This she accepted with alacrity, and thereafter was sailed beneath the spans of the great East River bridges, past the gla.s.s-walled buildings of the United Nations to look with awe upon the triple span of the Triborongh Bridge, thence over into the Hudson River and down the Jersey side, pa.s.sing beneath the George Was.h.i.+ngton Bridge and afforded the view unsurpa.s.sed of the cl.u.s.ter of mid-town skysc.r.a.pers - a ma.s.s of masonry so colossal it struck even Mrs Harris dumb, except for a whisper, 'Lor' lumme, yer carn't believe it even when you see it!'

This turned out to be one of the red letter days of her stay in America, but of course it was not the right Mr Brown either.

There was a George Brown in Was.h.i.+ngton Square who painted, another in the garment district of Seventh Avenue who specialised in 'Ladies Stylish Stouts', yet another in Yorkville who operated a delicatessen and urged Mrs Harris to try his pickles - free - and one who owned a house in the refined precincts of Gracie Square, an old gentleman who reminded her somewhat of the Marquis, and who, when he had heard her story, invited her in to tea. He was an American gentleman of the old school who had lived in London for many years in his youth, and wished Mrs Harris to tell him what changes had taken place there.

She found Browns who had been airmen in the war, and soldiers, and sailors, and marines, and many of course who had been too young or too old to fill the bill.

Not all were kind and patient with her. Some gave her a brusque New Yorkese brush-off, saying, 'Whaddaya trying to hand me about being married to some waitress in England? Get lost, w.i.l.l.ya? I got a wife and t'ree kids. Get outta here before you get me in trouble.'

Not all who had been to London were enamoured of that city, and learning that Mrs Harris came from there said that if they never saw that dump again it would be too soon.

She interviewed Browns who were plumbers, carpenters, electricians, taxi drivers, lawyers, actors, radio repairmen, laundrymen, stock-brokers, rich men, middle-cla.s.s men, labouring men, for she had added the City Directory to her telephone list. She rang the door bells in every type and kind of home in every metropolitan neighbourhood, introducing herself with, 'I hope I ain't disturbin' you. My name's 'Arris - Ada 'Arris - I'm from London. I was looking for a Mr George Brown who was in the American Air Force over there and married an old friend of mine, a girl by the name of Pansy Cott. You wouldn't be 'im, would you?'

They never were the one she sought, but in most cases she had to tell the story of the desertion of little Henry, which almost invariably fell upon interested and sympathetic ears, due as much to her personality as anything else, so that when she departed she had the feeling of leaving another friend behind her, and people who begged to be kept in touch.

Few native New Yorkers ever penetrated so deeply into their city as did Mrs Harris, who ranged from the homes of the wealthy on the broad avenues neighbouring Central Park, where there was light and air and the indefinable smell of the rich, to the crooked down-town streets and the slums of the Bowery and Lower East Side.

She discovered those little city states within the city, sections devoted to one nationality - in Yorkville, Little Hungary, the Spanish section, and Little Italy down by Mulberry Street. There was even a George Brown who was a Chinaman and lived on Pell Street in the heart of New York's Chinatown.

Thus in a month of tireless searching the George Browns of the metropolitan district provided her with a cross-section of the American people, and one which confirmed the impression she had of them from the soldiers they had sent over to England during the war. By and large they were kind, friendly, warm-hearted, generous, and hospitable. They were all so eager to be helpful, and many a George Brown promised to alert all the known others of his clan in other cities in aid of Mrs Harris's search. So many of them had an appealing, childlike quality of wanting to be loved. She discovered about them a curious paradox: on their streets they were filled with such hurry and bustle that they had no time for anyone, not even to stop for a stranger inquiring the way - they simply hurried on unseeing, unhearing. Any who did stop turned out to be strangers themselves. But in their homes they were kind, charitable, neighbourly, and bountiful, and particularly generous hosts when they learned that Mrs Harris was a foreigner and British, and it was warming to her to discover that the Americans had never forgotten their admiration for the conduct of the English people during the bombing of London.

But there was yet something further that this involuntary exploration of New York did for Mrs Harris. Once she lost her awe of the great heights of the buildings to which she was frequently whisked sickeningly by express elevators that leapt thirty floors before the first stop, as well as the dark, roaring canyons they created of the streets, something of the extraordinary power and grandeur, and in particular the youth of this great city, and the myriad opportunities it granted its citizens to flourish and grow wealthy, impressed itself upon her.

This and her glimpses of other cities made her glad that she had brought little Henry to his country. In him, in his independence of spirit, his cleverness, resourcefulness, and determination, she saw the qualities of youth-not-to-be-denied visible on all sides about her in the great metropolis. For herself it was indeed all too much as scene piled upon scene - Mid-town, East Side, West Side, New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester - and experience upon experience with these friendly, overwhelming Americans, but it was not a life to which she could ever adapt herself. Little Henry, however, would grow into it, and perhaps even make his contribution to it, if he might only be given his chance.

And this, of course, was the continuing worry, for none of this brought her any closer to the conclusion of her search. None of the George Browns was the right one, or could even so much as give her a clue as to where or how he might be found.

And then one day it happened, but it was not she who succeeded - it was none other than Mr Schreiber. He came home one evening and summoned her to his study. His wife was already there, and they were both looking most queer and uneasy. Mr Schreiber cleared his throat several times ostentatiously, and then said, 'Sit down will you, Mrs Harris.' He cleared his throat again even more portentously. 'Well,' he said, 'I think we've got your man.'

AT this abrupt, and though not wholly unexpected, but still startling piece of news, Mrs Harris leapt from the edge of the seat she had taken as though propelled by the point of a tack, and cried, 'Blimey - 'ave you? 'Oo is he? Where is he?' this abrupt, and though not wholly unexpected, but still startling piece of news, Mrs Harris leapt from the edge of the seat she had taken as though propelled by the point of a tack, and cried, 'Blimey - 'ave you? 'Oo is he? Where is he?'

But Mr and Mrs Schreiber did not react to her excitement and enthusiasm. Nor did they smile. Mr Schreiber said, 'You'd better sit down again, Mrs Harris, it's a kind of a funny story. You'll want to take a grip on yourself.'

Something of the mood of her employers now communicated itself to the little charwoman. She peered at them anxiously. She asked, 'What's wrong? Is it something awful? Is 'e in jyle?'

Mr Schreiber played with a paper-cutter and looked down at some papers on his desk before him, and as Mrs Harris followed his gaze she saw that it was U.S. Air Force stationery similar to the kind she had received, plus a photostatic copy of something. Mr Schreiber then said gently, 'I think I'd better tell you, it's - ah - I'm afraid, someone we know. It's Kentucky Claiborne.'

Mrs Harris did not receive the immediate impact of this statement. She merely repeated, 'Kentucky Claiborne little 'Enry's dad?' And then as the implications of the communication hit her with the force of an Atlas missile she let out a howl, 'Ow! What's that you say? 'IM little 'Enry's dad? It can't be true!' little 'Enry's dad? It can't be true!'

Mr Schreiber eyed her gravely and said, 'I'm sorry. I don't like it any better than you do. He's nothing but an ape. He'll ruin that swell kid.'

Waves of horror coursed through Mrs Harris as she too contemplated the prospect of this child who was just beginning to rise out of the mire falling into the hands of such a one. 'But are you sure?' she asked.

Mr Schreiber tapped the papers in front of him and said, 'It's all there in his Air Force record - Pansy Cott, little Henry, and everyone.'

'But 'ow did you know? 'Oo found out?' cried Mrs Harris, hoping that somewhere, somehow yet a mistake would have occurred which would nullify this dreadful news.

'I did,' said Mr Schreiber. 'I should have been a detective, I always said so - like Sherlock Holmes. I got a kind of a nose for funny business. It was while he was signing his contract.'

Mrs Schreiber said, 'It was really brilliant of Joel.' Then her feelings too got the better of her, and she cried, 'Oh poor dear Mrs Harris, and that poor, sweet child - I'm so sorry.'

'But I don't understand,' said Mrs Harris. 'What's it got to do with 'is contract?'

'When he signed it,' said Mr Schreiber, 'he used his real name, George Brown. Kentucky Claiborne is just his stage name.'

But there was a good deal more to it as Mr Schreiber told the story, and it appeared that he really had displayed ac.u.men and intelligence which would have done credit to a trained investigator. It seemed that when all the final details were settled and Kentucky Claiborne, Mr Hyman, his agent, Mr Schreiber, and the battalions of lawyers for each side gathered together for the signing of the momentous contract and Mr Schreiber cast his experienced eye over it, he came upon the name 'George Brown', typed at the bottom and asked, 'Who's this George Brown feller?'

Mr Hyman spoke up and said, 'That's Kentucky's real name - the lawyers all say he should sign with his real name in case some trouble comes up later.'

Mr Schreiber said that he felt a queer feeling in his stomach - not that for a moment he suspected that Claiborne could possibly be the missing parent. The qualm, he said, was caused by the contemplation of how awful it would be if by some million-to-one chance it might be the case. They went on with the signing then, and when George Brown alias Kentucky Claiborne thrust his arm out of the sleeve of his greasy black leather jacket to wield the pen that would bring him in ten million dollars, Mr Schreiber noticed a number, AF28636794, tattooed on his wrist.

Mr Schreiber had asked, 'What's that there number you've got on your wrist, Kentucky?'

The hillbilly singer, smiling somewhat sheepishly, had replied, 'That's mah serial number when I was in the G.o.ddam Air Force. Ah could never remember it nohow, so Ah had it tattooed.'

With a quick wit and sangfroid that would have done credit to Bulldog Drummond, the Saint, James Bond, or any of the fictional international espionage agents, Mr Schreiber had committed the serial number to memory, written it down as soon as the ceremony was over and he was alone, and had his secretary send it on to Air Force Headquarters in the Pentagon Building in Was.h.i.+ngton. Three days later it was all over: back had come the photostat of the dossier from the Air Force records, and Mr Kentucky Claiborne was unquestionably the George Brown who had married Miss Pansy Amelia Cott at Tunbridge Wells on the 14th of April, 1950, and to whom on the 2nd of September a son was born, christened Henry Semple Brown. To make matters completely binding, a copy of the fingerprints was attached and a photograph of an irritable-looking GI who was incontrovertibly Mr Kentucky Claiborne ten years younger and minus his sideburns and guitar.

Mrs Harris inspected the evidence while her mind slowly opened to the nature and depth of the catastrophe that had suddenly overwhelmed them. The only worse thing that could befall little Henry than to be brought up in the poverty-stricken, loveless home of the Gussets was to be reared by this ignorant, selfish, self-centred boor who despised everything foreign, who had hated little Henry on sight, who hated everything and everyone but himself, who cared for nothing but his own career and appet.i.tes, and who now would have a vast sum of money to splash about and cater for them.

Mrs Harris in her romantic fancy had envisioned the unknown, faceless father of little Henry as a man of wealth who would be able to give the child every comfort and advantage; she was shrewd enough to realise that unlimited wealth in the hands of such a person as Claiborne would be deadlier than poison, not only to himself but to the boy. And it was smack into the fire of such a situation and into the hands of such a man that Mrs Harris was plunging little Henry after s.n.a.t.c.hing him from the frying pan of the horrible Gussets. If only she had not given way to the absurd fancy of taking little Henry to America. With the ocean between, he might still have been saved.

Mrs Harris left off inspecting the doc.u.ment, went and sat down again because her legs felt so weak. She said, 'Oh dear - oh dear!' And then, 'Oh Lor', what are we going to do?' Then she asked hoa.r.s.ely, ' 'Ave you told 'im yet?'

Mr Schreiber shook his head and said, 'No, I have not. I thought maybe you'd want to think about it a little. It is you brought the child over here. It's really not up to us. It is you must decide whether you will tell him.'

At least it was a breathing spell. Mrs Harris said, 'Thank you, sir. I'll have to fink,' got up off her chair and left the room.

When she entered the kitchen Mrs b.u.t.terfield looked up and gave a little scream. 'Lor' love us, Ada,' she yelped, 'you're whiter than yer own ap.r.o.n. Something awful 'appened?'

'That's right,' said Mrs Harris.

'They've found little 'Enry's father?'

'Yes,' said Mrs Harris.

'And 'e's dead?'

'No,' wailed Mrs Harris, and then followed it with a string of very naughty words. 'That's just it - 'e ain't. 'E's alive. It's that (further string of naughty words) Kentucky Claiborne.'

Into such depths of despair was Mrs Harris plunged by what seemed to be the utter irretrievability of the situation, the burdens that she had managed to inflict upon those who were kindest to her, and the mess she seemed to have made of things, and in particular the life of little Henry, that she did something she had not done for a long time - she resorted to the talisman of her most cherished possession, her Dior dress. She removed it from the cupboard, laid it out upon the bed and stood looking down upon it, pulling at her lip and waiting to absorb the message it had to give her.

Once it had seemed unattainable and the most desirable and longed-for thing on earth. It had been attained, for there it was beneath her eyes, almost as crisp and fresh and frothy as when it had been packed into her suitcase in Paris.

Once, too, the garment had involved her in a dilemma which had seemed insoluble, and yet in the end had been solved, for there it was in her possession.

And there, too, was the ugly and defiling scar of the burned out velvet panel and beading which she had never had repaired, as a reminder of that which she knew but often forgot, namely that the world and all of which it was composed - nature, the elements, humans - were inimical to perfection, and nothing really ever wholly came off. There appeared to be a limitless number of flies to get into peoples' ointment.

The message of the dress could have been read: want something hard enough and work for it, and you'll get it, but when you get it it will either prove to be not wholly what you wanted, or something will happen to spoil it.

But even as her eyes rested upon the garment which she had once struggled so valiantly to acquire, she knew in her heart that these were other values, and that they simply did not apply to the trouble in which she now found herself. In the dilemma which had arisen at the last moment and which had threatened collapse to the whole adventure of the Dior dress, she had been helped by someone else. In this dilemma which faced her now, whether to turn a child she had grown to love over to a man who was obviously unfit to be his father, or send him back to the horrors of his foster-parents, Mrs Harris knew that no one could help her - not die Schreibers, certainly not Mrs b.u.t.terfield, or even Mr Bayswater, or her friend the Marquis. She would have to make the decision herself, it would have to be made quickly, and whichever, she knew she would probably never have another moment's quiet peace in her own mind. That's what came of mixing into other people's lives.

For a moment as she looked down upon the mute and inanimate garment it appeared to her almost shoddy in the light of the work and energy it had cost her to acquire it. It was only she who had felt pain when the nasty little London actress to whom she had lent the gown in a fit of generosity one night, had returned it to her, its beauty destroyed by her own negligence and carelessness. The dress had felt nothing. But whichever she did with little Henry Brown, whether she revealed him to this monstrously boorish and selfish man as his son, or surrendered him to the hateful Gussets, little Henry would be feeling it for the rest of his life - and so would Ada Harris. There were many situations that a canny, bred-in-London char could by native wit and experience be expected to cope with, but this was not one of them. She did not know what to do, and her talisman provided no clue for her.

The dress broadcast superficial aphorisms: 'Never say die; don't give up the s.h.i.+p; if at first you don't succeed, try, try again; it's a long lane that has no turning; it is always darkest before dawn; the Lord helps those who help themselves.' None of them brought any real measure of solace, none of them solved the problem of a life that was still to be lived - that of little Henry.

She even saw clearly now that she had over-emphasised - others would have called it over-romanticised - the boy's position in the Gusset household. Had he actually been too unhappy? Many a boy had survived kicks and cuffs to become a great man, or at least a good man. Henry had had the toughness and the sweetness of nature to survive. Soon he would have grown too big for Mr Gusset to larrup any further, he would have had schooling, vocational perhaps, got a job, and lived happily enough in the environment into which he had been born, as had she and millions of others of her cla.s.s and situation.

She became overwhelmed suddenly with a sense of her own futility and inadequacy and the enormity of what she had done, and sitting down upon the bed she put her hands before her face and wept. She cried not out of frustration or self-pity, but out of love and other-pity. She cried for a small boy who it seemed, whatever she did, was not to have his chance in the world. The tears seeped through her fingers and fell on to the Dior dress.

THEREAFTER, when she had recovered somewhat, she rejoined Mrs b.u.t.terfield and far, far into that night and long after little Henry had gone to sleep blissfully unconscious of the storm clouds gathering over his head, they debated his fate.

All through the twistings and turning of arguments, hopes, fears, alternating hare-brained plans, and down-to-earth common sense, Mrs b.u.t.terfield stuck to one theme which she boomed with a gloomy reiteration, like an African drum: 'But dearie, 'e's 'is father, after all,' until Mrs Harris, almost at her wits' end from the emotional strain brought on by the revelation cried, 'If you say that once more, Vi, I'll blow me top!' Mrs b.u.t.terfield subsided, but Mrs Harris could see her small mouth silently forming the sentence, 'But 'e is, you know.'

Mrs Harris had been involved in many crises in her life, but never one that had so many facets which tugged her in so many different directions, and which imposed such a strain upon the kind of person she was and all her various natures.

Taken as only a minor example of the kind of things that kept cropping up, she had sworn to get even with Kentucky Claiborne for striking little Henry; but now that Mr Claiborne - or rather, Mr Brown - was little Henry's father, he could hit him as much as he liked.

From the beginning Mrs Harris had set herself stonily against doing what she knew she ought to do, which was to turn little Henry over to his blood and legal father and wash her hands of the affair. The Schreibers had given her the way out. By not telling Claiborne and leaving the matter to her they had indicated their sympathy and that they would not talk - only they, she, and Mrs b.u.t.terfield would ever know the truth.

But what then would become of the boy? Bring him back to the Gussets? But how? Mrs Harris had lived too long in a world of ident.i.ty cards, ration cards, pa.s.sports, permits, licences, a world that in effect said you did not exist unless you had a piece of paper that said you did. Little Henry existed officially in a photostat of the American Air Force records, a London birth certificate, and nowhere else. He had been illegally removed from Britain, and had even more illegally entered the United States. She felt it in her bones that if they tried to get him back the same way they had brought him over they would get caught. She would not have cared for herself, but she could not do it to her already sorely tried friend Violet b.u.t.terfield.

Keep little Henry to themselves secretly? Even should they with Mr Schreiber's help succeed in getting him back to England - not very likely - the unspeakable Gussets were but one wall removed from them. True, they had not kicked up a fuss over the kidnapping. Obviously there had not been a peep out of them, or Mrs Harris would have heard via the police. But with little Henry back they would most certainly claim him, for he had his uses as a drudge.

She saw likewise how fatally wrong her fantasy had been about little Henry's parents. It was not Pansy Cott who was to blame, but George Brown - mean, ignorant, vengeful, and intrinsically bad. Pansy had simply used her nut and done the child a good turn when she refused to accompany her husband to America. Unquestionably Brown had just not sent her any money for the support of the child.

Yet a decision would have to be made and she, Ada Harris, must accept the responsibility of making it.

Most deeply painful and overriding every other consideration was the love - feminine, human, all-embracing - that she felt for the boy, and her deep-seated wish to see him happy. She had let her life become inextricably entangled with that of the child, and now there was no escaping from it. Like all people who play with fire, she knew that she was in the process of getting herself badly burned.

And through all her arguments, deliberations, and meditations, Mrs b.u.t.terfield boomed her theme: 'But love, after all, 'e is the father. You said how 'appy 'e'd be to 'ave 'is little son back, and 'ow 'e'd soon enough take 'im away from the Gussets. 'E's ent.i.tled to 'ave 'im, ain't 'e?'

This was the bald, staring, naked, unavoidable truth whichever way one twisted, squirmed or turned, and the doc.u.ments in Mr Schreiber's hands put the seal on to it. George Brown and Henry Brown were united by the ties of blood. So now at four o'clock in the morning Mrs Harris gave in. She breathed a great sigh and said with a kind of humility that touched the other woman more than anything in their long friends.h.i.+p, 'I guess you're right, Vi. You've been more right through all of this all along than I have. 'E's got to go to 'is father. We'll tell Mr Schreiber in the morning'.

And now Mrs Harris's battered, tired, and sorely tried mind played her a dirty trick, as so often minds will that have been driven to the limit of endurance. It held out a chimera to her, a wholly acceptable solace to one who was badly in need of it. Now that the decision was made, how did they not know that under the softening influence of a little child, George BrownKentucky Claiborne would not become another person? Immediately and before she was aware of it, Mrs Harris was back again in that fantasy land from which practically all her troubles had sprung.

Everything suddenly resolved itself: ClaiborneBrown had cuffed little Henry when he had thought him an interfering little beggar, but his own son he would take to his bosom. True, he had bellowed his scorn of Limeys - the boy was only half a Limey, the other at least fifty per cent of one hundred per cent American Brown.

All the old day-dreams returned - the grateful father overjoyed at being reunited with his long-lost son, and little Henry brought to a better life than he had ever known before, and certainly this would be true from a financial standpoint; he would never again be hungry, or ragged, or cold; he would be for ever out of the clutches of the unspeakable Gussets; he would be educated in this wonderful and glorious country, and would have his chance in life.

As for George Brown, he needed the softening influence of little Henry as much as the boy needed a father. He would succ.u.mb to the charm of the boy, give up his drinking, reform his ways in order to set his son a good example, and thus become twice the idol of American youth he already was.

The conviction grew upon Mrs Harris that she had fulfilled the role of fairy G.o.dmother after all. She had done what she had set out to do. She had said, 'If I could only get to America I would find little Henry's father.' Well, she had had got to America, she got to America, she had had found the child's father - or at least had been instrumental in his finding - the father found the child's father - or at least had been instrumental in his finding - the father was was a millionaire as she had always known he would be. 'Then dry your tears, Ada Harris, and still your worries, and write at the bottom of the page, "Mission accomplished", smile, and go to bed.' a millionaire as she had always known he would be. 'Then dry your tears, Ada Harris, and still your worries, and write at the bottom of the page, "Mission accomplished", smile, and go to bed.'

It was thus the treacherous mind lulled her and let her go to sleep without ever so much as dreaming what awaited her on the morrow.