Cluny Brown

by Margery Sharp

  “At Friars, of course,” said Andrew. “Working on a new book.”

  “You mean you’ve left him there?”

  “Of course,” said Andrew, rather impatiently. “He’s perfectly all right. It was a sound scheme to get him down, but we overdid the deadly peril.”

  “You’ll look well if you get back and find him kidnapped,” said John gloomily.

  He seemed to be in a gloomy mood, but since they made it a point of honour never to question each other, Andrew ignored it and went out to tea with a man who kept a left-wing bookshop. Apart from his editorial work, Andrew sometimes thought of keeping a left-wing bookshop himself, as he also thought of going into publishing proper, or making films, and a great deal of his time in London was spent eating meals, preferably on an expense account, with friends already engaged in one or other of these vocations. He returned about six and went out again, leaving John still lounging by the fire; returned finally at midnight to find his friend in precisely the same position. But this time there was a difference in his clothes. During the interval he had changed from flannels to tails. A white carnation was dying in his buttonhole. Andrew thought this strange.

  “Been out?” he asked casually.

  John nodded.

  “Good show?”

  “I haven’t been to a show,” said John.

  Andrew poured himself a glass of beer. They didn’t question each other—but he sat down on the table and waited, in case John was working up to get something off his chest. It flashed through his mind that perhaps his friend had joined the Oxford Group.

  “I have just,” said John Frewen, “asked Betty to marry me.”

  II

  Andrew put down his glass with great care, taking pains to set it in the exact middle of the table-centre.

  “That was a bold act,” he said. “Is she going to?”

  “Don’t be a damned fool. Would I be here if she were?”

  “Depends how it took you,” said Andrew, suddenly feeling quite bright and conversational. “You might have come back to brood on it a bit. Or you might want to give me the big news. Or—”

  “Shut up,” said John Frewen.

  The bluntness of a friend in pain is never hurtful. Andrew poured out a second glass of beer and silently proffered it.

  “You might say something,” complained John.

  “My dear chap, what can I say? I’m beastly sorry, if that’s any use.”

  “It isn’t. You’ve no idea how ghastly I feel. It’s like the moment before a car smashj only going on and on. You can’t imagine it.”

  Andrew detected a first spark of spiritual pride, which he made haste to fan.

  “I can see you’ve taken an awful knock. What did she say?”

  “Nothing much. I can’t remember her exact words. Something like, ‘What a fool idea, darling’—darling!—and then I asked if I could get her a taxi, and she said no, thanks, she thought she’d join up with the Mallinsons. They were at the next table, butting in all the time. The last thing I saw of her,” said John bitterly, “she was doing the Lambeth Walk. Oi.”

  Andrew felt extraordinarily sympathetic.

  “She’s got the worst manners of any girl I know,” he said.

  “That’s exactly what I think. I mean, it’s not as though I were an absolute outsider.…”

  “She ought to have felt extremely bucked. The trouble is, every one’s made such, an absurd fuss of her since she was about ten years old that now she’s simply unbearable.”

  This abuse of the beloved made them both feel pleasantly judicious and detached. John Frewen was able to take a swallow of beer.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ve often thought,” went on Andrew. “Betty’s just the sort of girl to have a marvellous time for years and years, and then never get married at all.”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t want to get married.”

  “She mayn’t now, but she will. What’s she to do? She hasn’t any brains, she can’t start a career. She’ll turn into one of those haggish females who get up parties for charity balls.”

  For a moment they both contemplated this picture with grim satisfaction. But it didn’t convince. With the best will in the world, neither could foresee any future for the Honourable Elizabeth Cream that was not brilliant, enviable, and undeserved.

  Andrew’s situation was now extremely trying. He had come up to London in two minds—he might propose to Betty or he might not; John Frewen’s essay decided him, perhaps illogically, that he would; and having once come to this decision he was in a fever of impatience. He desired to propose to Betty immediately. Against this was the feeling that she might be in a refusing mood, and a natural reluctance to appear to be taking his place in a queue. The wench thought quite enough of herself already; to have two proposals on two consecutive days would set her up beyond bearing. (Andrew was often surprised at the clear-sightedness with which he saw Betty’s faults.) However, he took the preliminary step of telephoning her, and was shaken to learn that she hadn’t a free five minutes for the next week. She was rehearsing for a Pageant of Fair Women. “Good God!” exclaimed Andrew disgustedly; and only just brought himself to ask her to dinner when the beastly thing was over.

  III

  Like most young and therefore self-centred persons, Andrew rarely gave a thought to scenes he had left behind, and this was especially the case when that scene was Friars Carmel. He did not wonder what was happening there without him, because he could not imagine anything happening at all. In a way this belief was justified: the life of the old house ran deep and slow, Andrew’s presence was the sun on its waters, and when it was withdrawn the surface took on a uniform tint: dullness rocked like a halcyon on its tranquil bosom. Without Andrew all interests, and all conversation, suddenly narrowed, until often at table there was no conversation at all; the telephone ceased to ring, and lights were out by eleven o’clock.

  But the dullness wasn’t dull to Lady Carmel, waiting for her son to come back, busy with all sorts of maternal plans, and Sir Henry had just got hold of the address of a very old friend in Zanzibar. As for the Professor, his reputation for quietness was by now so well established that neither Sir Henry nor Lady Carmel ever doubted his perfect satisfaction. He missed Andrew, of course, as was only suitable, and Lady Carmel made a special effort to take tea with him every day, even if it meant coming in early from her rock-garden, or her duck pond, or her greenhouse, and Sir Henry taught him piquet. They thoroughly approved of him; and Andrew, could he have witnessed these mild amenities, would have approved also, and with an equal confidence in the general content.

  In point of fact Mr. Belinski rapidly became so desperate as to throw a copy of Gulliver’s Travels from the stable window and hit Cluny Brown on the head.

  “Hi!” called Cluny, naturally indignant. “What d’you think you’re doing?”

  Mr. Belinski did not even apologize. Cluny promptly picked up the book and shied it back. This relieved her feelings, and as she was not really hurt annoyance rapidly gave place to curiosity. On closer inspection she saw that the Professor was seriously put out.

  “What’s biting you?” asked Cluny kindly.

  “I have the wind up,” stated Adam Belinski.

  Cluny looked at him uncertainly. Though his English was so good, he did sometimes make mistakes, and for a moment she wondered whether the distress were physical. But he suddenly stretched himself with great vigour, not at all like a man in pain.

  “Do you mean you’re frightened of something?” asked Cluny incredulously.

  “Of everything,” said Mr. Belinski. “I am afraid to the marrow of my bones, and of the marrow of my bones, which I feel gradually turning to a white soup. I feel my brain turning to sweetbreads. I am losing my virility. If you were to boil me down as I stand, you would get a cup of chicken-broth. You observe how all my metaphors come from the table. That is another symptom. I am always eating. If you have not noticed the change in me, you must be blind.”

  “Well, you
haven’t got any fatter,” said Cluny. “Mrs. Maile was remarking on it.”

  He looked at her with dislike.

  “You are probably one of the stupidest girls in the world, which with a face like that is little short of dishonest. If you cannot understand me, at least do not make idiotic remarks. I talk to you because I have no alternative, as I would to a black cat.”

  “Now I’ll say something,” retorted Cluny. “If I was a cat, I wouldn’t listen.”

  Mr. Belinski took no notice of this whatever. He put his hands on the window-sill and leaned out, as though addressing a mob; and in spite of her veiled threat Cluny obligingly sat down on the steps in a mob of one.

  “What you are now privileged to hear,” said Mr. Belinski loudly, “is a statement of the soul. You do not talk about your souls in this country, but to Poles they are important. Here I am, then, and my soul with me. Instead of bread and black coffee we consume the vol-au-vents of Mrs. Maile. We sleep between fine sheets, and our clothes are brushed by Mr. Syrett. Do not mistake me: we have no contempt for luxury: luxury is a fine thing. But it should not be daily. We pray, give us this day our daily bread—not our daily caneton à la presse. Luxury should be the détente after work, the riot after abstinence, one should not become used to it.”

  “You’re wrong about one thing,” interrupted Cluny. “It isn’t Mrs. Maile who does the cooking, it’s Cook.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “You may as well get it straight.”

  “Be quiet! There is also,” continued Mr. Belinski, “the luxury of being always with the well-bred, with people who give way, who consider one’s pride, are delicate, till one no longer has need of one’s weapons and throws them away. Till one begins to think, where else shall I find people so kind, so gentle? Where else shall I find this luxury I am used to? And then, if one is lucky, one gets the wind up. Cluny Brown, I am getting used to being here.”

  There was a long silence. Cluny, who had listened with great attention, nodded her head.

  “That’s just how I feel about being a parlour-maid.”

  “You are quite impossible,” said Mr. Belinski.

  “But it is the same,” persisted Cluny. “Mrs. Maile’s been here thirty years, not that I suppose she wanted anything else, she hankers a bit after Torquay, but that’s just talk. But look at me. I didn’t want to go into service. I stood up to Uncle Arn and everything. And now it doesn’t seem so bad. I’m getting used to it.”

  “You don’t matter,” said Belinski gloomily.

  “I matter to me.”

  “That is not the point. I matter because of my work, and I am not working. It is like living with a wolf. I ask you, what am I to do?”

  Cluny heaved a sigh. She knew he wasn’t asking her really, he was asking Fate, the universe, his own Polish soul; but she did her best. And at least she was practical.

  “If you’re stuck for your fare, I can lend you a quid.”

  Belinski looked at her, threw back his head, and uttered a melodramatic crow of laughter, like a man laughing in the face of the ironic gods. Then he looked at Cluny again, and said hastily:—

  “I will not take it now, but if I need it, I will ask.”

  IV

  Cluny’s contribution to this debate was not entirely ingenuous. “I’m getting used to it,” said she; in truth she was not so much getting used to service as ignoring it. Her domestic duties simply formed the background to a variety of interesting preoccupations, of which Mr. Belinski was not even the chief. (For instance, the above-reported tête-à-tête, which to many a well-bred, personable young woman would have been an event of the first water, to be brooded upon, kept secret, perhaps entered in a diary, registered with Cluny Brown as a passing chat.) The focus of her mind was the tragic chemist; she thought of Mr. Wilson all the more because she could not see him, whereas she saw Mr. Belinski every day—made his bed, sorted his linen, watched him eat his dinner. Titus Wilson had the attraction of the inaccessible; and to Cluny’s intense chagrin, looked like keeping it.

  Because the next step in their acquaintance should obviously have been a chance encounter in the lanes: Miss Brown surprised, Mr. Wilson deferential; request from Mr. Wilson to accompany Miss Brown on her walk, and at the end of it an appointment for the week after. But these moves, as well-known and respectable in domestic circles as the Ruy Lopez opening at chess, were made impossible by the circumstance that Cluny’s afternoon off, Wednesday, and Mr. Wilson’s early closing, Thursday, did not coincide.

  There is nothing so intractable as a calendar.

  Still, shops are open to all. What need to wait on chance? Disguised as a customer, Cluny could revisit her glimpse of the moon without any loss of dignity, and indeed did so on the Wednesday following. But she took Roddy with her, and dogs were not allowed in. There was a drinking-bowl for them by the step, punctiliously filled with clean water, but not even the Colonel’s Roddy might cross the threshold. Cluny had to tie him up outside, and his offended howls almost drowned her request for toothpaste. No conversation was possible, and Cluny got out of the shop as fast as she could and made for open country without—literally—a word to throw to a dog.

  But it was Roddy, after all, who set matters in train again. Actually upon a Thursday, the generous animal came lolloping over to Friars Carmel on his own initiative, waving his beautiful tail, leaping up at Hilda and Cluny, and knocking down a jar of preserved plums which the former happened to have in her hand. The two girls looked at each other in dismay.

  “Talk o’ bulls in china shops!” cried Hilda. “Cluny Brown, now you be for it!”

  “He’s got to go back,” said Cluny desperately, “or they’ll never let me have him again. Roddy, go home!”

  Roddy waved his tail and bounded towards the pantry. Cluny caught his collar just in time.

  “I’ll have to take him back,” she said. “Mailey and Syrett won’t be down for an hour. I’ll run all the way.”

  “What about Cook’s plums? They be out of the store-room, and Mailey’s got the key.”

  Cluny thought rapidly. They had the kitchen to themselves, all three seniors being engaged, as was usual at that hour, in taking their rests.

  “There’s a jar on our window-sill with moss in it. Wash it out and put the plums in that. The floor’s quite clean. If there’s not enough juice, use the pineapple left over from our dinner. If the lid won’t fit, say you opened it ready.”

  This masterly plan filled Hilda with admiration, and she at once rushed upstairs. Cluny, still grabbing Roddy’s collar with one hand, removed her apron with the other and rushed out. They ran all the way to the Hall—across fields, over banks, through hedges, into the stables, where Cluny hustled Roddy inside his pen, secured the gate, embraced him over it, and left him. Halfway back her wind not unnaturally failed; she had to sit down a minute on the crosspiece of a stile, and while she was sitting there Mr. Wilson came along the lane.

  V

  “Good afternoon,” said Mr. Wilson, enquiringly. He seemed to know it wasn’t her day off.

  “Good afternoon,” panted Cluny. “I’ve been on an errand.” This was better than saying she’d been illicitly returning the Colonel’s Labrador, but it put her, as she at once realized, under the suspicion of loitering. It was strange how Mr. Wilson’s presence seemed to act like a magnifying-glass on the least unevenness of conduct. “I ran,” added Cluny.

  “You appear to be out of breath,” said Mr. Wilson.

  He approached the stile. He wore a raincoat and a soft cap, both of excellent quality, and beautifully polished black boots. Cluny felt very conscious of her own dishevelment.

  “It’s pretty round here, isn’t it?” she said nervously.

  “A very beautiful countryside. It must be a great pleasure to you when you go walking.”

  “I go a walk every Wednesday afternoon.”

  So far their conversation had followed the conventional path, presenting no difficulty to either. Now they were pulled up, the
y had to make a détour.

  “We close on Thursday,” said the chemist.

  “Yes, I know,” said Cluny.

  “Otherwise we might have chanced to meet.”

  “It’s nice to have some one to walk with.”

  “Though I am not,” continued Mr. Wilson, “a very gay companion for a young lady like yourself.”

  Cluny hesitated. It was impossible to contradict him, and equally impossible to explain that in this lack of gaiety—or rather in the cause of it—lay his chief charm. She said, rather uncertainly:—

  “I hate people who pretend to be gay when they aren’t.”

  “There I agree with you. But natural cheerfulness is a very good thing,” insisted Mr. Wilson.

  “You can’t be cheerful when you’ve nothing to be cheerful about. I mean, the Lord loves a cheerful giver, and all that, but if a thing’s just taken, you haven’t a chance. I mean,” plunged Cluny, “when Aunt Floss died, Uncle Arn never pretended to be merry and bright, and no one thought the worse of him.…”

  She kept her eyes on the distance as she spoke, but without looking at him she could feel his sudden rigidity. He stood so still, for so long, that she wished with all her heart she had held her tongue.

  “You’ll have been hearing about me in the village?” said Mr. Wilson at last.

  “No, not in the village,” said Cluny quickly. “From Mrs. Maile. I’m sorry if—if you didn’t want to be talked about.”

  “A man’s private affairs are naturally not a subject for discussion.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Cluny again. She was indeed; she drooped with sorrow. The chemist, glancing down at her, said more kindly:—

  “I doubt you meant no harm.”

  This slight encouragement somewhat revived her. Swiftly, before the subject was closed for ever, Cluny said:—

  “I do think you were wonderful, leaving everything and coming to live here just because your mother wanted to.”