Cluny Brown

by Margery Sharp

  They drank the young couple’s health in a bottle of port, Hilda and Cluny partaking with their betters; and in the general atmosphere of rejoicing and congratulation the other four all turned to Cluny with their raised glasses, as much as to say, “You’re next.”

  Chapter 26

  I

  Monday was a day of bustle, with an early lunch, for Belinski was leaving by the two-o’clock train; the housekeeper also prepared, with her own hands, an elegant little snack to sustain him on the journey. But even in the kitchen they had more to think of than Mr. Belinski, for immediately after breakfast there arrived Mr. Wilson’s errand boy with a note for Cluny Brown. (Mr. Wilson himself had of course got back the day before, and very properly spent the evening with his mother.) The note was brief, but very much to the point: he had seen Mr. Porritt, who was in good health and sent his love, and he, Mr. Wilson, proposed, with Mrs. Maile’s permission, to call at Friars Carmel that evening at six. Cluny stared at it so long that Hilda, through whose hands it had first passed, quite lost patience and at last simply read it over her shoulder.

  “Well, Cluny Brown!” she exclaimed. “Well, Cluny Brown!”

  “I suppose I’d better answer it,” said Cluny slowly.

  “Certain sure you had. The boy’s waiting.”

  Hilda began to giggle uncontrollably. Cluny shot her a repressive glance and stalked into the housekeeper’s room to lay the missive before Mrs. Maile. Her behaviour was indeed quite admirable; there was not the least secrecy about her, no reluctance to display what was after all her first love-letter. Mrs. Maile read it with approval.

  “Certainly, my dear,” she said. “Six o’clock is a very convenient time—and you may see him in here.”

  Cluny nodded dumbly. The housekeeper was pleased to see she looked properly impressed by the gravity of the event. And what an event it was! Casting her mind back over thirty years, Mrs. Maile could not remember one of her girls doing better than the postmaster at Carmel: and here was Cluny Brown (quite untrained, thought the housekeeper automatically) about to be cocked up in a chemist’s shop!

  “You may offer him a glass of port,” said Mrs. Maile.

  Cluny nodded again.

  “If you haven’t any suitable paper,” finished Mrs. Maile, quite carried away, “you may write the answer here.”

  Cluny sat down and wrote it, under the housekeeper’s eye. Mrs. Maile read it over for her, altered the spelling of the word “receive,” and herself sealed the envelope. The officious Hilda, hovering outside the door, snatched it and ran with it to the boy. Every one was as helpful as possible—and Hilda especially, who even in the midst of this excitement did not fail to remind her friend that Professor was goin’, and they ought to be on the look out for’n. “Where is he?” asked Cluny quickly. “In the garden,” said Hilda. “Now’s too soon, silly, us’ll catch’n just before he departs.” But whether or not Cluny took this in, Hilda could not be sure; for her friend was evidently (and naturally) in a proper miz-maze.

  II

  Despite her impatience to show Betty Friars Carmel from top to bottom, Lady Carmel was taking the Professor for a last walk round the gardens first.

  “It is such a pity,” she lamented, “that you won’t see them in the summer!”

  “Who knows?” responded Belinski brightly. “I may come back.”

  For one moment Lady Carmel had a dreadful vision of him turning up just in time for the honeymoon—and having to be taken to Bath or London by herself and Sir Henry. She said hastily:—

  “I expect you’ll like America very much. It must be such a wonderful country, I’ve always quite longed to go there; They say, of course, that one can’t judge it for at least three months, or preferably six.…”

  Belinski halted between the box borders (in the very spot where she had instructed him to borrow Andrew’s dinner-jacket) and spoke with great earnestness.

  “Of one thing I am sure, Lady Carmel: nowhere in America, nowhere in the world, will I find people so good and gracious as you. It is not possible. When I think how you received me, and of all the trouble I have given you—”

  “Oh, no!” cried Lady Carmel. “You’ve been no trouble at all!” This was practically true; he hadn’t been, until the last few weeks; and now, when he was about to go—when he was about to go three thousand miles—Lady Carmel’s soft heart quite melted. “It’s been a great pleasure,” she said sincerely, “we’ve all enjoyed your company so much. My husband is really distressed at your leaving us. You must write to us often, and tell us all you do.”

  “I will write to you every week, on Sundays,” promised Belinski.

  They finished the tour quite mournfully, and with many more expressions of mutual regard. Belinski then sought out his principal benefactor, Andrew, not only to thank him in the warmest terms, but also to find out how much he should give in tips. “I wish to give largely,” explained Belinski. “I am probably the only Pole they will ever see, and I wish to leave a good memory.” But he had been at Friars Carmel over three months, and valeted by Syrett all the while; when Andrew mentioned an appropriate figure, remembering Cluny and Hilda as well, Belinski looked uneasy. He had only his hundred pounds, not intact, and he was going to America; for a few moments prudence and generosity strove painfully in his breast. But he was a man of great resource and no inhibitions; and in the end solved the dilemma very happily, by borrowing from Andrew himself. “I will pay you back in dollars,” explained Mr. Belinski, “and thus you will probably gain on the exchange.”

  Andrew’s ideas of tipping were generous, and when the interesting moment for disbursement arrived Belinski made as good an impression as he had desired. Syrett’s best wishes were heartfelt, Hilda went puce with pleasure—and then bolted off to look for Cluny Brown. For Cluny was nowhere to be seen, she was going to miss the Professor after all. The last moments were passing, the last farewells drew to a close in the hall—still Hilda rushed about looking for Cluny Brown. She found her in, of all places, their bedroom, just standing by the window, doing nothing, not even looking out.

  “He’s goin’!” cried Hilda. “He’s given I five pounds—run, Cluny, or you’ll miss’n!”

  Cluny gave her a quick, startled look, and ran.

  III

  Of the extraordinary events that immediately followed Ernest Beer was the only witness; for the car was halfway down the drive when Mr. Belinski suddenly told him to stop. He did so; a moment later Cluny Brown ran up and stood panting as the Professor opened the door. “Nearly missed’n,” thought Ernest Beer—his mind working on the same lines as Hilda’s. But no tip passed. Nothing seemed to be happening. Mr. Beer squinted over his shoulder and saw the Professor lean forward and remain motionless—no movement of hand to pocket. “Mean,” thought Mr. Beer. And Cluny also remained quite still, staring back at the Professor: they might both have been struck by lightning. Then Mr. Belinski spoke.

  “Oh, get in,” said Mr. Belinski.

  That was all. As Ernest Beer afterwards reported, Cluny got in and sat down without a word. He thought she was stealing a ride to the village, and if it got her into trouble, that was her look-out. However, when he stopped outside Wilson’s, the Professor told him to go on, which he did. He couldn’t hear what was said inside the car, and his impression was they didn’t say anything. On reaching the station Cluny Brown got out as well, and went on to the platform—and that was the last Mr. Beer saw of her. Not till the London train had come and gone did he call out to the stationmaster to hurry her up; learning that she had gone off in the train he ejaculated “Good riddance,” and drove stolidly back. Such was his meagre account of the vanishing of Cluny Brown, and Lady Carmel was completely bewildered by it.

  “Andrew,” she said, “ring up the station at once. There must be some message, and Beer’s too stupid to remember. She can’t just have gone!”

  But it appeared that she had. Andrew talked to the station-master for five minutes, and received a very curious impression. The
man had seen them both; he found the Professor an empty first-class carriage and put him in with his bags; for a few moments while the train waited he had noticed Cluny Brown standing by the carriage-door, over which the Professor leant out. They were not talking to each other. Then just as the whistle was blown the Professor opened the door and Cluny Brown got in. She hadn’t taken a ticket, and she had no luggage. She had, in short, just gone.…

  “I don’t understand,” said Lady Carmel. She looked anxiously at her son. “Andrew, was there—was there anything between them?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Andrew. “There couldn’t be. He was making a fool of himself over Betty.”

  “And Mrs. Maile told me she was as good as engaged to Mr. Wilson, and was most in earnest about it! She must be mad!”

  Andrew shrugged his shoulders. In spite of his greater worldly experience, he was just as much at a loss as his mother; but it was not he who would have to write to Mr. Porritt, and he could regard Cluny’s departure with comparative equanimity. Lady Carmel, seriously troubled, had a long talk with Mrs. Maile, and then one with Hilda; neither of whom could give her the least help. Cluny Brown had apparently been happy in her work, happy, above all, in the attachment of Mr. Wilson. On this point the housekeeper laid particular stress, not scrupling to describe it as a stroke of luck as splendid as astonishing. “And she never seemed to take any … special interest in the Professor?” asked Lady Carmel helplessly. “No,” sobbed Hilda, “her just baited he a morsel, dear soul!”

  Lady Carmel went upstairs to the girls’ room. There bewilderment finally overcame her—bewilderment and distress, for she found Cluny’s little floral arrangements, the jam-jars filled with moss, the flowers in the cracked vases, inexpressibly touching. They spoke such a simplicity, such an innocence of mind. “A child!” thought Lady Carmel. And everything was in its place, brush and comb and face-cloth, all Cluny’s clothes, her cotton nightgown, lovingly offered by Hilda, folded on the pillow. Indeed what Lady Carmel was seeing was no more than a cast skin, sloughed as easily; or the white shards of a hatched egg; but this she did not know. She turned to the mantelpiece, and there—the final mystery—met the stolid gaze of Mr. Porritt, and Aunt Floss, and Mrs. Brown. They were exactly the photographs one would expect, and hope, to find in a parlour-maid’s room; but not in the room of a parlour-maid who had just fled with a Polish Professor. At Mr. Porritt in particular Lady Carmel gazed for several minutes, perceiving in him the very type of a class she knew how to prize: respectable, respectful, and self-respecting. She would have employed him without hesitation. She had employed his niece, and this was what came of it.

  “I cannot understand,” said Lady Carmel aloud.

  She wasn’t the first, and she wasn’t the last. As far as Friars Carmel was concerned, they never did understand. Cluny Brown had come, and was gone; as Cook said, she had always seemed rather pro tem. Hilda at least mourned her sincerely, and for a long while after certain exotic phrases, lingering in her speech, were a memorial to her friend. She taught Gary to say “Oh yeah.” Mrs. Maile wrote Postgate’s a rather reserved letter, and engaged through them a parlour-maid of sixty who was at least thoroughly trained. To save him worry, Sir Henry was told that Cluny had suddenly been called to her uncle’s sick-bed. Andrew and Betty wondered a little, and in their own preoccupations soon forgot all about Cluny Brown.

  As for Mr. Wilson, he arrived that evening at six and was received by both Lady Carmel and Mrs. Maile. After hearing what little they could tell he went away again so silent, so forbidding in either grief or anger—for they could not guess which—that neither dared ask whether he intended to pursue Cluny Brown to London, or whether he had blotted her name from the human register.

  Chapter 27

  I

  Cluny, jumping into the train just as it started, was thrown into the seat opposite Belinski’s; he reached out and slammed the door; and there they were, alone, together.

  Some minutes passed before either spoke. Cluny looked slightly dazed, as though her body had moved more swiftly than her mind, and she hadn’t yet had time to catch up with it. She leant her head against the cushions and shut her eyes, presenting the remarkable picture of a girl in a parlour-maid’s uniform, hatless, apparently asleep in a first-class carriage. Belinski stared at the sweep of her dark lashes on her white cheeks and for a moment saw nothing else. It was a moment that came to all who ever considered Cluny Brown beautiful: a moment of revelation. If it didn’t come, she remained plain. (Mr. Ames had had it, Betty Cream almost; and they alone of her early acquaintances could understand the reputation she later acquired.) So Belinski gazed, with something like astonishment, because here had been beauty, and he had not perceived it. It had not influenced him. He had acted under a compulsion which he was only beginning to name.

  Cluny opened her eyes and gave him a tentative smile. She said:—

  “I haven’t a ticket.”

  “We can pay at the other end,” said Belinski.

  “I can’t.…”

  “Well, I can.”

  This brief and practical exchange brought them both as it were to the surface; almost immediately Belinski spoke again.

  “I suppose you know I’m going to America?”

  “No, are you?” said Cluny.

  “Where did you think I was going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know why you are here?”

  “You told me to come,” said Cluny reasonably.

  “Well, I could scarcely leave you behind,” argued Mr. Belinski. “At any rate, take off that idiotic apron.”

  Cluny stood up in the swaying carriage, removed her apron, rolled it up, and tossed it into the rack. Then she sat down again, not beside him, but opposite. They looked at each other earnestly. Beneath the surface constraint a deep current of ease and understanding had begun to flow between them, a sense of naturalness as strong as sweet. For a moment they gave themselves up to it without question. Then Belinski said abruptly:—

  “Something will have to be decided.”

  “Yes,” said Cluny.

  (But it was decided. It had been decided as she stood by the car, in the drive at Friars Carmel.)

  “Do you want to come to America with me?”

  Cluny nodded.

  “That means we get married. They are very particular about that kind of thing.”

  “All right,” said Cluny.

  They sat looking at each other almost solemnly. Belinski reached across and took her hand, and at once the current flowed stronger and sweeter still.

  “I think it is all right,” he said consideringly, “because I have never felt like this about any woman before. I have made love to so many, and I have not made love to you at all, but I have never felt them to be necessary. I could not have gone without you.”

  “You got started,” pointed out Cluny—not reproachfully, but because every detail was of such absorbing interest.

  “Yes, but I was already wondering what it was I had left behind. I should have come back for you. Perhaps sometimes you will have to run after me again, because I do not yet know how my constancy is. But I have a feeling that I shall be quite constant to you. It’s fine,” said Mr. Belinski.

  He regarded Cluny with deep satisfaction, and she nodded gravely.

  “I’ll always come after you.”

  “As I say, perhaps there will be no need. Perhaps you have just witnessed my last … excursion.” He released her hand and leant back and grinned at her. “Cluny Brown, what have you been thinking about me?”

  “About you, or—?”

  “You know what I mean. About me and Miss Cream.”

  “Well,” said Cluny carefully, “she is so beautiful.… I mean, I didn’t wonder you lost your head. But I never thought anything would come of it.”

  “You weren’t jealous?”

  “No. Because she’s so beautiful,” explained Cluny again. “Besides, I didn’t know then. I mean, I didn’t know about us
.”

  “You were too much taken up with your Savonarola. My darling, you have had such a narrow escape it is quite appalling to think of. You’d have married him.”

  “No, I shouldn’t.”

  “You would. You were in love with your prig of a chemist. You learnt pieces of poetry for him—and made me help you. If I can put up with that,” exclaimed Mr. Belinski irrationally, “no doubt I can put up with anything, and you have got me under your thumb. Cluny Brown, I forbid you to see him again!”

  Cluny looked rather worried.

  “Well, I’ve got to write to him.…”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve got to send him a postal order. I never paid him for Uncle Arn’s eggs.”

  All at once, at the mere mention of his name, it was as though Mr. Porritt had entered the carriage. Cluny sat up. None of her recent actions had seemed in the least reprehensible, or even unusual to her, until this moment, when she suddenly saw them through Mr. Porritt’s eyes. There was no doubt that Mr. Porritt would view them very unfavourably indeed. Cluny was still unaware of what exactly had passed between him and Mr. Wilson; but the fact that anything had passed at all was enough to alter the whole character of her home-coming.… She put out her hand again, this time in a gesture of appeal.

  “What is it, my love?” asked Mr. Belinski.

  “Uncle Arn,” breathed Cluny.

  “But there is no need to see your uncle at all, if you do not wish it.”

  “Isn’t there?”

  “None in the world. We will go and stay at an hotel somewhere until we can get married, and then we will go to America.”

  Cluny hesitated. So much in this plan appealed to her, chimed with her longing to embark at once on her new life, without fuss, without the handling and petty rubs of an argument which could end only one way, and so, like so many domestic arguments, would be futile as well as hurtful. And why not? Wouldn’t it be better, after all, to present Mr. Porritt with a fait accompli such as his stern sense could not reject? Why not? She was indeed under certain obligations to him: she owed him, putting the matter at its lowest, for eighteen years’ keep; but with a detachment as complete as it was unresentful Cluny realized that if Mr. Porritt had done his duty by her, it was because he was a man to whom duty was the root of self-respect, and self-respect the condition of a tolerable life. The affection he had given her was largely passive, but probably quite as much as she deserved, for there was no doubt that she had often been a great nuisance to him; for the affection Cluny could have given Mr. Porritt he had simply no use. He had as it were no place for it, the death of his wife had closed too large a portion of his heart. “He won’t miss me,” thought Cluny sadly. “He’ll just worry a bit.…”