Cluny Brown

by Margery Sharp

  “All right, you didn’t,” retracted Mr. Porritt. “I believe you. But as for him—”

  “He isn’t!” cried Cluny. “You only just saw him, and I was there hours!”

  “And it don’t take hours to fix a sink!” shouted Mr. Porritt.

  “I had to have a wash, didn’t I? I nearly had a bath, too—”

  “You nearly what?”

  “Had a bath. He said I could. It was lovely.”

  “If I’d known that—” roared Mr. Porritt; and paused, because people were beginning to look at them. But his blood boiled. He had by this time entirely forgotten what Mr. Ames really looked like; he saw instead a huge bloated figure of wicked luxury. Cluny saw a kind little elderly gent; the midway truth eluded them both. But on the balance Mr. Porritt had acted on the safer hypothesis. “If I hadn’t come!” he muttered continually, as they got into motion again; and the thought appalled him. It was by mere chance that he had left the Trumpers hours before his usual time; by mere chance that he had glanced at the order-book and seen the entry in Cluny’s fist. After that of course he was bound to go after, to see that she didn’t make a mess of things; but if he hadn’t—

  “Can’t we take a ’bus?” asked Cluny suddenly.

  She looked awful, all eyes and nose; once again in Mr. Porritt’s breast every other emotion gave place to sheer astonishment. What did they see in her? What could any one see in her? Floss, he recollected, used to stand up for the lass, saying she wasn’t as plain as people made out; but that was Floss all over. Kind. And Cluny had been fond of her; it was only since Floss went that Cluny had got so out of hand. “She’s beyond me,” thought Mr. Porritt unhappily. He’d stood up for Cluny against the Trumpers, but in his heart he knew they were right: the girl had to be taught her place.

  As they reached the ’bus stop, Mr. Porritt came to a decision. He turned to Cluny and bent on her a long, solemn look.

  “One thing this has settled,” said Mr. Porritt. “Into service you go.”

  Chapter 3

  I

  Nothing could be easier, in that year 1938, than for a girl to go into good service. The stately homes of England gaped for her. Cluny Brown, moreover, possessed special advantages: height, plainness (but combined with a clear skin) and a perfectly blank expression. This last attribute was not permanent, but the lady at the registry office did not know, and she saw in Cluny the very type of that prized, that fast-disappearing genus, the Tall Parlour-maid. Addie Trumper too knew what was what; she had been in good service herself, and with footmen practically extinct felt there was no table in the land too high for Cluny to aspire to. Addie Trumper was in her glory—her advice taken, the whole affair put under her management. She sat beside Cluny in the registry office like an exhibitor of prize livestock.

  “We must remember,” said Miss Postgate repressively, “that your niece is completely inexperienced.”

  “So’s most, these days,” retorted Addie.

  The two women measured each other: Miss Postgate, head and owner of a famous establishment, who when she died was to leave the sum of twenty-two thousand pounds, and Addie Trumper from Portobello Road.

  “That is quite true,” conceded Miss Postgate. “Now I have here a place in Devonshire—”

  Cluny Brown made no remark at all. After two days of unremitting and stormy protest she had acknowledged defeat; but she was still bewildered by it. That her Uncle Arn no longer wanted her was incredible; and indeed Mr. Porritt, hard-pressed, admitted that he would be sorry to see her go. (“In a way,” he added hastily.) Who, demanded Cluny, would answer the telephone for him? Mr. Porritt, remembering what had happened when she answered it on Sunday, said no doubt he would manage. And who would mend his socks? Addie Trumper would. Addie was also finding a respectable woman to come and do for him, and he could take his dinner whenever he liked in Portobello Road. Addie Trumper, thought Cluny, was properly getting her claws in; and she turned on Addie such a look of plain hatred that it was a good thing Miss Postgate didn’t see.

  “Two other maids,” Miss Postgate was saying, “under an excellent housekeeper—a small establishment of the best sort. I know her personally. And as she knows me personally, that would solve the question of references. Friars Carmel is of course right in the country—”

  “All the better,” put in Mrs. Trumper.

  “—but the wages are good. And if you wish your niece to get a thorough training, she couldn’t do better than under Mrs. Maile. I will write at once.” Miss Postgate gathered some papers together to show that the interview was at an end, and turned to Cluny with a pleasant smile. “I won’t say I hope to see you again, Miss Brown, because I don’t. I hope you’ll go to Devonshire and stay there many, many years …”

  “There now!” cried Mrs. Trumper. “Cluny, say thank you!”

  Cluny moistened her lips. She had spoken only once before, to give her age, and Miss Postgate had been favourably impressed both by her deep voice and her subsequent silence.

  “Have you ever read Uncle Tom’s Cabin?” asked Cluny distinctly.

  “No, I don’t think I have,” said Miss Postgate, surprised.

  “You ought,” said Cluny.

  II

  With dreadful smoothness the negotiations proceeded. Miss Postgate wrote to Mrs. Maile; Mrs. Maile, presumably after consultation with her employer, Lady Carmel, promptly replied, enclosing the money for a single third-class fare; Addie Trumper descended on Mr. Porritt’s to superintend the washing, mending and packing of all Cluny’s clothes. Uniform was provided; lucky girl, cried Mrs. Trumper vivaciously, not to have to find her own aprons! Cluny said nothing. During these last days she hardly opened her mouth, and Mr. Porritt was almost as silent. In the evening, when Addie at last took herself off, silence fell like an extinguisher on the once cheerful dwelling in String Street. Each had said his say, at almost too much length, and Mr. Porritt at least was determined not to begin again. But on Cluny’s last evening—exactly eight days after her excursion into studio life—he came in with a small oblong packet and laid it silently before her: it contained three old photographs, of himself, and Floss, and Cluny’s mother, arranged side by side in an English-gilt frame.

  “Oh, Uncle Arn!” cried Cluny.

  “Thought you ought to have ’em,” said Mr. Porritt gruffly. “Couldn’t find one of your Dad.”

  “You’re as good as!” cried Cluny passionately. “Oh, Uncle Arn, why have I got to go?”

  “It’s better,” said Mr. Porritt.

  Cluny looked into his square, puggy, resolute face and saw that nothing on earth would move him. Go she must, into good service in Devonshire. It was her fate. That was what fate had up its sleeve for her. The old questions—Cluny had been aware of them too—were finally answered. Who do you think you are, Cluny Brown? ANSWER: A Tall Parlour-maid.

  “Uncle Arn!” beseeched Cluny. “If I don’t like it, can I come back?”

  “No,” said Mr. Porritt. “Not if you just don’t like it.”

  “Well, if I don’t get enough to eat? If they knock me about?” persisted Cluny desperately.

  “They won’t,” said Mr. Porritt. “If they do, send me a line.”

  Cluny gazed wildly round the room as though it were a Black Maria bearing her to prison. The sight of her personal possessions still strewn about—bits of sewing, her collection of calendars, a book that had to go back to the twopenny library—mocked her with their false air of homeliness; when she looked at the spun-glass bird on top of the clock—preserved from the last Christmas-tree she and Aunt Floss had dressed together—Cluny’s eyes filled with tears. But it was no good; no tears would soften her uncle, now slowly filling his pipe, hardening his heart with the thought that it was all for the best. Cluny picked up the frame of photographs and carefully rewrapped it.

  “It was nice of you to get this for me, anyway. I’ll think of you ever so often.”

  “You keep your mind on your work,” said her stern counsellor.

&nbs
p; Cluny sighed deeply, and coming round behind his chair bent over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Good night, Uncle Arn. You won’t have me to-morrow.”

  “That’s a good lass,” said Mr. Porritt.

  III

  Cluny Brown went upstairs and laboriously, as though gloom were a physical and hampering element, got herself ready for bed. For the first time in her life she sat down to brush her hair: achieved two strokes, and let the brush fall. She could feel gloom rising in the room like water in a cistern; and the homely simile, so suggestive of past happiness, made Cluny feel worse than ever. For the world of plumbing had rejected her. No more would she make out bills for seeing to geyser, or receive by phone exciting intimations of flooded cellar-steps, or dispatch her uncle like a fire-engine to scenes of disaster; no more, in the cosy evenings, would she welcome him back and hear how he had found a mouse in the waste. It was all over; all gone. “Why do young girls leave home?” thought Cluny bitterly. “Because they’re thrown out.”

  This angry squib, however, usefully changed the current of her thoughts. What was her uncle’s complaint? Simply—for this was all it boiled down to—that she didn’t know her place. Cluny couldn’t see it. Taking her two outstanding crimes, she couldn’t see why her place should not include the Ritz, if she could afford to pay for her tea there, or Mr. Ames’s party, if he cared to invite her. (That loss still rankled; it was like a door slammed in her face.) And if two such trifles could irritate Mr. Porritt to the point of throwing her out, life with him looked like being one long dog fight. (It never entered Cluny’s head that she might mend her ways.) Good service in Devonshire, on the other hand, offered at least an enlarged horizon, and enlargement of experience generally was what Cluny unconsciously sought. She had been seeking it when she went to the Ritz, and when she drank Mr. Ames’s cocktail, and when—her mind jumped back—she had bought a half-crown puppy in Praed Street. Every one of these essays had led to trouble, especially the puppy, which Mr. Porritt made her give to the milkman. Trouble, in fact, seemed to be her lot; but if more trouble awaited her in Devonshire, at least it would be a new sort.

  As a result of these meditations Cluny got into bed in a much more cheerful frame of mind. She wasn’t resigned, for she was never that, but she felt a certain expectancy. At least something was happening to her, and all her life that was the one thing Cluny Brown consistently desired. Not to be ignored by fate, even at the price of a bludgeoning; not to be mewed up, even from the storm; not peace, in short, but plenty.

  Chapter 4

  I

  In the garden room at Friars Carmel, on the previous Saturday, Lady Carmel was trying to do the flowers. Like a good many Englishwomen of her age and station, she found in this task her one æsthetic outlet, and required no other. Her flower-pieces in the Dutch style were deservedly famous.

  “Please, dear!” she murmured. “Your ash, on the prunus!”

  The person addressed was her son Andrew, recently down from Cambridge, more recently returned from a continental tour, who now sat on the end of the flower table impatiently smoking. He threw down his cigarette and ground it out, with his heel.

  “Mother, will you please listen to me? Because what I’m telling you is fairly important.”

  “I am listening. You’ve invited a friend for a long stay, and I’m sure that will be very nice.”

  “He’s not a friend. He’s an extraordinarily distinguished Polish man of letters.”

  “That makes it all the nicer, dear. We’ll have the Vicar to dine. He nearly went to Poland only two years ago. I’m not being stupid,” added Lady Carmel hastily, “for though he didn’t go in the end he read a lot about it first, in guide-books. Tell me your friend’s name again, dear.”

  “Adam Belinski.” Andrew fetched a deep breath. “He has just come from Germany. He escaped with his life. We don’t want the Vicar to dine, in fact we want as few people as possible to know he’s here.”

  Lady Carmel smiled indulgently. Dear Andrew, she thought, what a boy he still was with his plots and mysteries! And in other ways so grown up, always worrying about politics and the Government! “Dear Andrew!” she said aloud.

  Andrew slipped off the table and began to walk rapidly up and down.

  “I can’t make you realize it, can I?” he said bitterly.

  “Realize what, darling?”

  “What Europe’s like. What everything’s like outside this—this God’s pocket.” He stared through the open door at the smoothly dropping lawn, at the wooded boundary, the protective hills rising beyond. “We’re sitting on the edge of a landslide, and I’ve seen some of the cracks.”

  Lady Carmel looked troubled. It was the thing to do, just then, at any mention of Europe, and indeed there had been moments, with Andrew still abroad, when she felt very troubled indeed. But now the expression was purely automatic, like looking reverent in church. Picking up a bough of rhododendron she tried its effect in a white crackle jar, and at once her brow cleared.

  “For God’s sake,” said Andrew loudly, “leave those things alone!”

  Shocked into full attention, Lady Carmel let the branch drop and turning to her son was shocked again by his bitter face. The rebuke died on her lips, she laid her hand gently on his sleeve to make him stand still.

  “What is it, my darling?”

  “But I’ve been telling you!”

  “About your friend? Poor man, if he’s had trouble that’s all the more reason we should be nice to him. Surely, dear, you can, trust us for that.”

  Looking down into her pale, very clear blue eyes, Andrew felt suddenly calmed. There at least was something unchanging, impregnable: the hospitality of his mother’s house.

  “I know, darling. I’m sorry I was rude. But I do want you to realize that having him here would be a—a responsibility.”

  “One is always responsible for one’s guests, dear boy.”

  “A dangerous responsibility. I’ve spoken to Dad, and he doesn’t mind, but I don’t think he takes it seriously. Please listen, Mother: we don’t know whether the Nazis are still after him or not. We don’t think they are, but they may be. If you’d rather not take the risk, it’s perfectly natural, and you’ve only got to say so.”

  In all this fantastic, and to her ears quite incredible, rigmarole, Lady Carmel perceived only one point of importance.

  “But you have invited him.”

  “Yes, darling; and he wouldn’t accept because I hadn’t asked you first.”

  “He sounds a very nice man. And as there are no Nazis round here, I see no reason for putting him off. It would be extremely rude.”

  “Can I go back to London with your invitation?”

  “Certainly, dear. Or I’ll write a note and put it in the post.”

  But Andrew, who was in a mood to make rapid journeys as often as possible, said he would go himself; and kissing his mother with sincere affection, left her to finish her flowers in peace. He felt he had done everything possible; and since no words could have expressed his chagrin had her consent been refused, was not inclined to do more. Striding across the lawn, however, making for the stables, he passed a little ornamental pond alive with ducks. They were splashing and diving, sending up showers of water, and the bright drops rolled like quicksilver off their smooth impervious backs. Andrew had not much sense of humour; but he looked at those ducks and grinned.

  II

  Lady Carmel carried the big staircase bouquet carefully across the hall, mounted to the half-landing, and deposited her burden in its appointed spot. This was a broad window-sill, and with the light falling from behind the flowers there had to be strong deep colours and important shapes. Irises, peonies, foxgloves were all perfect in their season; but nothing, thought Lady Carmel, quite equalled rhododendrons; and they seemed to her so startlingly splendid that she called out to whoever was moving about above, to come down and see.

  It happened to be Mrs. Maile, emerging from the linen cupboard—and a good thing too, tho
ught the housekeeper, who strongly disapproved her ladyship’s habit of calling maids from their work to look at flowers.

  “There, Maile! Did you ever see anything so perfectly beautiful?”

  “No, my lady,” replied Mrs. Maile politely. She was not insensitive to flowers: a centrepiece of pink carnations, in properly polished silver, gave her great pleasure.

  “Everything’s done except the library table,” continued Lady Carmel, “and for that I’ve still to cut; if any one wants me, I shall be out of doors. Oh, Maile!”

  “Yes, my lady?”

  “We’re expecting a friend of Mr. Andrew’s, a foreign gentleman, I think he’s coming in a day or two, to pay us a long visit. He’s been very ill”—into this reasonable fiction had Lady Carmel instinctively translated the fantastic truth—“and needs a rest. Do you think the east room?”

  “The east is very quiet, my lady. And it gets the morning sun.”

  “Then we’ll make it the east. He can have the dressing-room for a study, because I believe he’s some kind of a Professor.”

  “Yes, my lady. And I’ve heard from Postgate’s, my lady: the new young woman will be here on Tuesday.”

  “Splendid,” said Lady Carmel.

  III

  Mrs. Maile continued on her way to the housekeeper’s room, where eleven-o’clock tea had just been brought in for herself and Mr. Syrett. The butler was there already, reading his personal copy of the Times, which he courteously set aside as his colleague entered. He was a short man with an unusually large head and so fine a crop of thick silver hair that bets were frequently laid, among the lesser fry of the kitchen, as to whether or not it was a wig. But no one ever found out.