Cluny Brown

by Margery Sharp

  “I wish you to accept these, as a small token of my esteem.”

  Mrs. Maile stiffened. As she told Mr. Syrett afterwards, she could hardly believe her ears. Even for a foreigner, it didn’t seem sensible. She looked at Belinski suspiciously.

  “I’m sure it’s very kind of you—”

  “Not at all. It is you who have been kind to me.”

  “—but I hardly think,” said Mrs. Maile—and paused. She really didn’t know what she hardly thought, and the Professor’s earnest stare was making her feel quite silly. He said firmly:—

  “It is the custom, in Poland, to make gifts at Christmas time.”

  “So it is here,” said Mrs. Maile, with more confidence. “Only it isn’t Christmas.”

  “But last Christmas, I was not here,” explained Mr. Belinski.

  The housekeeper paused again. A woman of sense, this specious argument did not for a moment take her in, but she was increasingly aware not only of the Professor’s eyes on her, but also of the eyes of Mr. Syrett and the girls. (Cluny as a matter of fact was not looking at Mrs. Maile at all, she was seizing the opportunity to eat a few almonds, but the housekeeper did not know.) If she felt silly, it was possible that she appeared silly—which was something no housekeeper could afford. At all costs the situation had to be ended; and as the quickest way of doing so Mrs. Maile took the stockings into her own hands and thanked the Professor for his gift.

  She did more than that. Visited by a genuine inspiration, she thanked him in French.

  “Je vous remercie mille fois,” pronounced Mrs. Maile.

  The effect was sensational—not indeed upon Belinski, who was used to servants speaking French when they didn’t speak German—but upon Mr. Syrett and Hilda and Cluny Brown. They hardly, saw Mr. Belinski depart, they were gazing, but now with admiration, at the accomplished housekeeper.

  “Dear me,” said Mr. Syrett, “dear me, Mrs. Maile, I had no idea you could parley-vous.”

  “I learnt French as a girl,” replied Mrs. Maile modestly.

  She did not add that she had learnt exactly three phrases, the other two being “Quelle heure est-il?” and “Comment vous allez-vous?”; but with the air of a Cincinnatus returning to his plough went back to the fire and took up her end of the sheet. The rest of the evening she was in an unusually good humour; in fact the whole incident had pleased her very much.

  Chapter 16

  I

  Mr. Belinski’s prospects continued to brighten. At Andrew’s suggestion he cabled to Miss Dunnett giving his Friars Carmel address, and a day or two later received a cable back. “CONGRATULATIONS,” it said, “RAVE NOTICES ANTICIPATE GOOD SALES”; and this shout of encouragement from across the Atlantic stimulated the Professor quite as much as his new wealth. He began work on his new book about Balzac and the Countess Hanska, wrote six hours a day and was often late for meals. He told Andrew that under some such simple title as Genius and Sex, or perhaps Sex and Genius, he anticipated for it even raver notices and better sales. Andrew rather dubiously agreed, at the same time throwing in a word or two on the prostitution of talent; for he felt a certain (Lord-of-the-Manorish) responsibility for whatever was written under his roof. The Professor, however, was not deterred.

  “It is surely better that people should hear of Balzac, even through the medium of his amours, than that they should not hear of him at all?”

  “I suppose it is,” said Andrew—still dubiously. “Though not if you leave them thinking of him as a super man-about-town and nothing else.”

  “Even that is to the good,” argued Belinski. “To know merely that such a man has lived enlarges the experience. I shall send a few, no doubt, from the Countess Hanska to the Comédie Humaine; but even those who stop at the Countess will know something they did not know before. And fortunately Balzac was such a vulgar fellow himself, one need have no scruples.”

  Andrew abandoned the argument. He disagreed; nothing could make him approve this extraordinary downhill rush of a fine critical talent; but he did at the same time acknowledge that to Adam Belinski the material he worked in was thoroughly alive. Alive and kicking. He might vulgarize Balzac, but he wouldn’t mummify him. He took liberties with him as with a personal friend, whereas Andrew defended him out of academic piety.

  “I would never think of behaving in the same way,” added Belinski reassuringly, “to John Milton.…”

  He sent another cable to America and received an enthusiastic reply; for half a week he worked with fury; at the end of which period Balzac, the Countess, and the whole United States were wiped from his consciousness by the arrival of Betty Cream.

  II

  It will be remembered that when Betty and Mr. Belinski originally met, the latter was still emotionally in thrall to Maria Dillon: he had not really seen Betty at all. Now his heart was vacant, his eyes were open, and the consequences inevitable.

  Andrew drove over to Carmel to meet her, and on the brief journey back asked her in so many words why she had come. What was sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose; he was merely imitating her own candour; and Betty as candidly replied.

  “Because I like the country in spring. I like your mother and father.”

  “That’s fine,” said Andrew. “I needn’t ask you not to sunbathe, because it won’t be warm enough.”

  Betty looked genuinely apologetic.

  “I’m sorry about that, darling. I was just a brat. And I’d got in with a lot of nudists.”

  “Nudists?”

  “The body-beautiful crowd. Only most of their bodies weren’t beautiful, they were rather shocking. I only went once, and it was actually just after I’d been here and you were all so stuffy; in fact, you drove me into a nudist camp.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Andrew. “Forget it.”

  “I have. I’m not morbid.” There was a slight pause; then Betty looked at him thoughtfully and said, “Why did you think I was coming?”

  Andrew kept his eyes on the road.

  “I had no idea, and that’s why I asked. I shouldn’t have thought about it at all, except for the fact that you knew in town you’d be down here, and never mentioned it.”

  “I forgot.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “Very well, then,” said Betty, “I’ll tell you. When you asked me to marry you—and it’s you who’ve brought this up, Andrew, not me—I’d just had Lady Carmel’s letter. I could hardly tell you about it then, could I? I could hardly say, ‘No thank you, darling, by the way your mother’s just invited me to stay.’ So I didn’t mention it. Then afterwards you were quite normal again, you didn’t seem in the least upset, and I thought how idiotic to miss a week in Devon on account of your non-existent feelings. So I accepted. I didn’t see you again till the night we had supper with John, and he has feelings, so I didn’t mention it, again.”

  Like all Betty’s explanations, it was highly plausible. There wasn’t a hole anywhere. It was even, quite possibly, true.

  “Thanks,” said Andrew. “What a simple little thing you are!”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And you’ve just come down for a simple rural outing.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Andrew.

  They had reached the lodge gates and turned up the drive. Betty added a film of powder to the rose-petal texture of her nose and adjusted her hat. It was a simple hat, of dark-blue felt with a wide drooping brim. Her suit was of dark blue tweed worn over an egg-shell blue blouse that was not exactly a shirt, but still very simple. On her left shoulder was pinned a simple bunch of geranium made of pink cotton.

  Andrew looked down at her feet. She had on a pair of low-heeled brogues, and very fine woollen stockings.

  “Oh, Lord!” said Andrew to himself; but whether in admiration or mockery—or even apprehension—even he could not have told.

  Lady Carmel was waiting for them in the drawing-room, her welcome kind and placid as always; Belinski, who was there too, reacted more violently. H
e could not leap to his feet, since he was already on them, but he gave the impression of leaping. He then froze. His body in fact performed a motion very similar to that of a Guardsman’s hand when brought to the salute. His gaze became glassy; and Betty’s laugh relieved a slight but definite tension.

  “We’ve met before,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”

  “No,” said Belinski. “That is, I remember you were there, but I cannot have remembered you, or I would have thought of nothing else since.”

  If there was one thing Betty could do on her head, it was handle a compliment.

  “You were so absorbed in the conversation,” she said lightly; and turned back to Lady Carmel. “They were all talking politics,” she explained, “Andrew and John and Mr. Belinski. I’m simply no good at politics at all.”

  But Mr. Belinski would not let this pass. Indeed, he seemed to feel her explanation as an insult.

  “It was not the politics,” he assured her earnestly. “No politics could have distracted me like that. If you wish to know—”

  “Come and have tea, my dear,” said Lady Carmel.

  They sat down, all except Belinski, who after one more bedazzled glance rushed away to shave. Sir Henry came in and kissed Betty. As he told his wife afterwards, he didn’t know the child very well, but she looked up at him, so he kissed her. Syrett brought in the scones, and within ten minutes the soothing ritual of country-house tea overlaid all recollection of the Professor’s peculiar behaviour. There was plenty to talk about. How was John? asked Lady Carmel; and Betty said he was very well. She described the Pageant of Fair Women, in which Sir Henry took an ingenuous interest. But she had brought with her (as the good guest brings a piece of embroidery) a more fruitful topic still: her mother proposed to decorate her town house with window-boxes; there were eight windows and a porch-top; would Lady Carmel be so very kind as to give a few hints on the most suitable flowers for the different seasons? This was a commission after Lady Carmel’s own heart; she accepted it with delight, happily prophesying that it would take a long time to work out, for she would begin by making lists and end by making charts. “You mustn’t take too much trouble,” said Betty anxiously. “My dear, it will be a pleasure,” said Lady Carmel.

  Andrew sat and listened with sardonic admiration. He had never before seen Betty in this decorous mood; on her previous visit she had behaved, as she said, like a brat, and he had not realized, in the year between, that her cavalier treatment of himself and John Frewen was no longer universal. If one ages a great deal between twenty and twenty-three, one also ages between twenty and twenty-one. Betty Cream had in fact now two sets of manners, one for her contemporaries and one for her elders; possibly in the course of time both would merge into the latter and leave her altogether polite. Andrew did get a glimmering, however, of what really accomplished politeness entailed; those window-boxes, for instance, so exquisitely suited to Lady Carmel’s taste, which were obviously going to prove of such value during the coming week—had Betty “planted” them before she left town? Did her mother really desire them? Or had they been first “planted” on Lady Cream, perhaps in the guise of a kindness to some one setting up a flower shop? What complicated lives women led, reflected Andrew, if they took this business of social relations seriously; what infinite care and foresight they constantly expended! Even their physique was schooled: now, at precisely the right moment, Betty began to look a little tired; it was time for the tea-things to be cleared, and for Lady Carmel to show her her room.…

  “That’s a nice girl,” said Sir Henry, as soon as Betty and his wife had withdrawn. “Pretty as a picture. I’d like to have seen her in that pageant. Did you go?”

  “No,” said Andrew.

  “God bless my soul!” said Sir Henry.

  He looked at his son uneasily. He so rarely gave Andrew advice that he did not know quite how to set about it. A most apposite memory came to his aid.

  “Your mother was in a pageant once, before we were married. She was the goddess Flora and carried an Arum lily. I went.”

  “I hope it was a success, sir.”

  “It would have been, but for the rain. Your poor mother was soaked. But she didn’t mind, because the gardens needed it. I told her—” Sir Henry smiled happily at the memory of his thirty-year-old joke—“I told her it wasn’t an Arum she should have been carrying, it was an umbrella.”

  Andrew smiled too, and walked out of the room.

  III

  As he went upstairs he heard voices on the landing above. Betty Cream, incautiously stepping out of her door to view the lie of the land, had been waylaid by Mr. Belinski.

  “One moment, please!” he implored.

  He had shaved too impetuously and cut his chin; Betty noted the dab of cotton-wool. She had no illusions as to the effect she had produced on him, and genuinely regretted it.

  “I wish to tell you why I did not remember you.”

  “There’s really no need,” Betty assured him.

  “But there is, otherwise you will think me just another of your British fish. It was because I happened to be in love. And I must have been more in love than I thought,” added Mr. Belinski, with an air of surprise. “However, that is all over now, in fact it was over before I came to Friars Carmel, and you must please forgive.”

  “I won’t give it another thought,” promised Betty; at which point Andrew reached the landing. She smiled at him and disappeared into her room. Belinski looked at him without seeing him and walked off towards the east corridor. As promptly as a character in a play Cluny Brown shot out of the housemaid’s pantry with a brass can.

  “I’ve seen her!” cried Cluny.

  “Seen whom?” asked Andrew, in a unencouraging tone.

  “Miss Cream. I saw her just now. Isn’t she a dream?”

  Andrew made no reply. He still hoped that they might be embarking upon a week of simple rural pleasures, and no more; but the hope was faint.

  Chapter 17

  I

  Within a few days Friars Carmel, for perhaps the first time in its history, boiled with passion.

  The phrase was Mr. Syrett’s; he uttered it only in the ear of Mrs. Maile, but it was astonishing that such a phrase should enter his mind, let alone pass his lips. “The Professor,” reported Mr. Syrett (returning from the dinner table), “boiled with passion throughout the meal; and moreover is beginning to drink heavy.”

  For a moment Mrs. Maile looked at her colleague as though she suspected him of drinking himself. But a glance acquitted him; he was shaken, but sober.

  “What do you mean, boiled?” asked Mrs. Maile.

  The butler hesitated. He found it hard to put into words the impression of suppressed but growing emotion given off like a gas from the person of Mr. Belinski.

  “He never took his eyes off her,” he said inadequately. “Off Miss Cream.”

  “Then how did he eat his dinner?” riposted Mrs. Maile.

  “He didn’t, not to speak of. That’s what I’m saying.”

  The housekeeper sniffed. She was in a mood to snub Mr. Syrett, because it looked as though his original wild shot (at Announcements, Celebrations and so on) was likely to hit the mark; jealous of his superior perspicacity, she snubbed him while she could.

  “Miss Cream is a very attractive young lady, and naturally takes the eye. But as for boiling with passion—all I can say is, Mr. Syrett, I hope you will not use such language and go putting such ideas into the heads of Hilda or Cluny Brown.”

  The remark was superfluous as well as unjust, for the heads of Hilda and Cluny were full of such ideas already. Love at first sight is always more quickly recognized by the young, because they believe in it: they do not automatically discount its first symptoms, putting down to nerves or the weather the (often similar) derangements induced by passion. Hilda in particular was something of an expert on the subject: it had been a case of love at first sight between herself and her seafarer, who had gazed on her, she told Cluny, with just such a mortal l
ook as the Professor laid on Miss Cream; and all that week at Loo (the seafarer was lodging with Hilda’s aunt, and so was Hilda) never did he take his eyes off her. There was Gary to prove it. This experience made Hilda sentimentally inclined; Cluny, though equally interested, discovered a more ironic attitude, which she made no attempt to conceal. In these days she saw less of the Professor than usual, for he spent little time in the stables; but that was where he was when she was sent to find him, a day or two later, with a message from Lady Carmel.

  Cluny loped into the yard and looked about with quite a feeling of nostalgia. It was only twice or thrice that she had stood there talking to the Professor, but each conversation had been unusual enough—meaty enough—to leave a generally pleasing memory. When she looked up and saw his head sticking out of the window, Cluny thought, “Quite like old times.” Her message temporarily forgotten, she stood waiting for him to see her, and when he did grinned and flung up an arm as though to ward off a second copy of Gulliver.

  But Mr. Belinski had evidently forgotten about it. He looked at her as if she were doing something silly. Cluny’s grin faded.

  “Well?” she said sardonically. “How’s your Polish soul?”

  “Go away,” said Belinski.

  But Cluny stayed where she was, in her old position at the foot of the steps.

  “Mrs. Maile,” she observed conversationally, “thinks you’re looking worse again.”

  “Do you know something that annoys me very much? Your habit of dragging in at every opportunity the opinions of Mrs. Maile. I find it tiresome and vulgar.”

  “I can’t help it,” said Cluny, “she’s like cheese. She gets into everything.”

  “Where is she now?” asked Belinski abruptly. (Whenever he said “she” he meant Betty Cream, and whenever Cluny said “she” she meant Mrs. Maile; but they understood each other perfectly.)

  “Keeping her hand in on Sir Henry.”

  “You are idiotic to be jealous of her. She is good even to old men, because she has a golden nature.”