Cluny Brown

by Margery Sharp

  “Let’s go birds’-nesting,” said Betty. “Andrew, what a time you must have had here as a boy!”

  “It wasn’t bad.”

  “By which he means,” said Belinski, looking at Betty ironically, “that the beauty of his early surroundings is still the strongest influence of his life. He has the heart of a vegetable.”

  “Where were you brought up, Professor?”

  “In a succession of flats, each one smaller than the last, in Warsaw, where my father was a school teacher. He also took resident pupils, so that I had to sleep in the eating room.”

  “It doesn’t sound very gay.”

  “It was not gay, but it was interesting. There were always people talking till midnight. Sometimes they threatened to commit suicide, sometimes they discussed politics or their love-affairs. As a consequence I grew up with the heart, as the mind, of an artist. I think it has made me a very interesting man,” said Belinski simply.

  They had reached the edge of the spinney and there turned, looking back at the group on the terrace. The figures of Sir Henry and the Colonel did not stir, but as they watched Lady Carmel rose to her feet.

  “Your mother’s moving,” said Betty.

  “She’s going to look at the greenhouses,” said Andrew. “She always does.”

  “And what does your father always do?” asked Belinski.

  “As soon as he wakes up, he’ll go and look at the stables.”

  “And they have been doing so for fifty years?”

  “I suppose for as long as they’ve known the Colonel. Why not?” asked Andrew, rather sharply.

  “Why not, indeed? In fifty years’ time you will no doubt always walk up to this wood. I am happy to assist at the birth of a tradition.”

  Andrew turned to Betty and asked her whether she would like to go on through the spinney, or back to the house. Betty chose the house. Walking back between the two men, she began to chatter, about Cynthia who was to be her bosom friend, about Cynthia’s rabbits, about the guinea-pigs she had kept in her youth. Just before they reached the brook, however, she broke off and said to Belinski:—

  “Apologize.”

  He looked at her with not quite convincing astonishment.

  “For what?”

  “For being so clever.”

  “Because I made an interesting ethnological observation—”

  “Apologize!”

  “You are quite right,” said Belinski unexpectedly. “I am in very bad taste. Andrew, I am sorry.”

  “Oh, damn,” said Andrew. He looked from Betty to Belinski, who were now regarding each other very amiably, for their sudden bicker seemed to have put them on a more intimate footing, and went on across the bridge. The other two followed close on his heels—rather dutifully, Andrew felt, with a propitiating docility, as though he needed humouring. Betty slipped her hand through his arm, and Belinski, on his other side, made flattering comments on English domestic architecture. Andrew did not know why he wanted to swear again, but he did.

  III

  “Here come your youngsters,” said the Colonel, opening his eyes. “Henry, that’s a very pretty girl.”

  “Pretty as a picture,” said Sir Henry.

  Colonel Duff-Graham continued to observe the approaching trio.

  “That foreign chap,” he said suddenly. “Find him much trouble about the place?”

  Sir Henry looked surprised.

  “The Professor? Lord, no. He’s writing a book.”

  The Colonel nodded solemnly. To him, as to his old friend, authorship put a man, if not quite outside the pale of common humanity, at least into a special class—like vegetarians. But he was pleased to have had an author at his table, especially one guaranteed by the respectable title of “Professor”; and he felt that his party had gone off unusually well.

  IV

  Cluny returned to the house feeling slightly apprehensive, for her excursion had not in fact been sanctioned by Mrs. Maile: she had simply run out. It was rash to go to the Colonel’s at all, when she knew the family was lunching there, and rasher still to let Roddy off his lead. However, Lady Carmel returned, and no summons followed, and by seven o’clock, when it was time to take round the water-cans, Cluny was breathing more easily.

  She liked taking the cans round. Her sociable nature welcomed any personal contact, even if it consisted of no more than a shout to the Professor, who was usually in his dressing-room, or a decorous “Your hot, water, my lady,” to Lady Carmel; so the extra can for Miss Cream was a positive source of pleasure. “You ought to see her in her dressing-gown!” said Cluny—perhaps rashly, since she said it to Mr. Belinski; but indeed Betty Cream in a cloud of blue chiffon was a very lovely sight. She had just slipped into it, standing with one foot bare and one thrust into a cherry-coloured slipper, when Cluny entered the room that same evening.

  Cluny always took a good look at Miss Cream; now, for the first time, her curiosity aroused by the events of the afternoon, Miss Cream took a good look at Cluny. She was an extremely competent judge of another woman’s appearance: almost impartial, since her own looks defied competition, with standards high but catholic. But Cluny puzzled her. Beautiful eyes, a good skin—yet not the faintest chance of ever qualifying as a Lovely; tall, and height was coming in again, but either gawkily built or made to look so by her dress. Clothes would matter a lot to her, if she could achieve the unusual without collapsing into the art-and-craft. Miss Cream surveyed this conflicting evidence, threw it away, and jumped to the correct verdict that no catalogue of attributes could explain Cluny Brown’s chief and rare quality: she looked like some one.

  In Cluny’s own circles, as has been seen, this was not an asset at all; in Miss Cream’s it was cardinal. In the three years since she had come out she had seen scores and scores of nicely dressed débutantes coming out after her, none of whom looked like anything in the world but nicely dressed débutantes. Even the plain ones were not plain enough to be striking, and the pretty were all pretty in the same way. “In my way,” thought Betty dispassionately; only in her this conventional English beauty was raised to its highest point. She perceived, for a fleeting moment, a bond of union between herself and the tall dark girl with the water-can: they were neither of them dependent on external circumstances. In her own case these were highly favourable, but they were not all-important. Her beauty was inextinguishable; and it was equally plain that neither domestic service nor its repressive uniform had been able to extinguish the peculiar quality possessed by Cluny Brown.

  Betty sat down on the bed and put on her other slipper. She said:—

  “I saw you out with Roddy.”

  Cluny beamed.

  “Isn’t he beautiful? We meant to go another way, but he bolted. He likes to get me in the brook.”

  “Does he ever?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Cluny. “But I soon dry off. It makes a change.” She lifted the china jug from the basin and set the brass one in its place. “Shall I pour this out for you?”

  “Good heavens, no,” said Betty impatiently. Most intelligent persons with whom Cluny came in contact felt a vague dissatisfaction with whatever Cluny was doing: Betty now felt it absurd that she should be messing about with water-cans. (Cook had made one of her few but apt remarks on this very point: she said Cluny always looked pro tem.) This feeling was so strong that after only a moment’s hesitation Betty was led to break one of the first social laws—never interfere with some one else’s maids.

  “Do you like this sort of job?” she asked baldly.

  “No,” said Cluny. “But it’s good for me.”

  Their common youth made any further explanation unnecessary. It was not so long since Betty had been taking a domestic-science course, because that was considered good for her. She said energetically:—

  “There must be lots of other things you could do. For instance, if you’re so fond of dogs, you could be a kennel-maid.”

  Cluny at once looked pleased and enthusiastic, as she always did when any one
would talk to her about herself. It was easy to attach too much importance to this expression. Betty tucked her feet under the folds of her blue gown (like a goddess sitting in a lotus) and considered the matter with growing interest.

  “I’ve a cousin who breeds Cockers, to begin with,” she said. “He knows absolutely every one. And there’s the woman in Mount Street where Mother got her poodle—”

  “Oh, has your mother a poodle?” cried Cluny.

  “Two. She over-feeds them. It’s criminal.”

  Cluny looked aghast. She herself always went to fetch Roddy with a pocketful of biscuit, for along with her Cockney impulse to pick things went the Cockney impulse to give animals things to eat. However, she was very quick in the uptake.

  “There’s nothing worse,” she lamented, shaking her head. “Especially if they don’t get much exercise.”

  “They get none, unless I’m there. You know, I believe you’re simply cut out for a kennel-maid.” Betty did at that moment see Cluny very clearly in a long white coat, leading a Cocker spaniel up to get First Prize; and the picture looked much more natural than Cluny in cap and apron. “If you like, I’ll write round and make enquiries. I’ll write to my cousin tonight.”

  It was very odd. No two people could have been less alike, but Cluny suddenly found herself reminded by Miss Cream of Aunt Addie Trumper. She hesitated.

  “What,” she asked uneasily, “does a kennel-maid do?”

  “All sorts of things. There’s grooming and feeding and exercising, and cleaning out kennels, and worming, and you’d probably learn to strip and trim as well.”

  “And all just dogs?”

  “Of course. If you’re so fond of them—”

  “I am fond of them. But I don’t know that I want just dogs,” explained Cluny.

  “There’d be people as well, naturally. And you’d go to all the shows—”

  “Dog shows?”

  “Of course—and meet all the other dog people. My cousin loves it.”

  “I expect he’s fonder of dogs than I am,” said Cluny apologetically, “because myself I think I’d go nuts.”

  With a friendly smile she left the room and galloped off to fill the other cans. (Cluny’s habit of galloping down the long corridors was something Mrs. Maile had not yet got her out of.) She did not give Miss Cream’s proposition another thought—Cluny knew by instinct that whatever else she was, she wasn’t one of the dog people—but she recognized the prompting good-nature. She felt she hadn’t done Miss Cream justice, a feeling which, being proud, she very much disliked.

  Cluny always left the pantry door open, in case anything should be going on outside. Now she heard Mr. Belinski speak to Sir Henry in the hall, then come upstairs, and when he reached the top she put out her head.

  “Here a minute!” called Cluny.

  Mr. Belinski came into the pantry. Cluny turned off the taps and faced him seriously.

  “You know you’re always calling me a cat? I was, a bit. About Miss Cream. And I was wrong, because she’s sweet.”

  “She has been sweet to you?” asked Mr. Belinski jealously. “How?”

  “Oh, she wants me to be a kennel-maid,” said Cluny carelessly. “But that’s not the point, what I mean is, you’re right about her golden nature.”

  Belinski propped himself against the draining board and looked at her attentively.

  “Is this your blessing you are giving me?”

  “Oh, rats,” said Cluny. “It’s nothing to do with me, it’s just that if I make a mistake I like to own up. She saw me with Roddy and thought maybe I’d like to be a kennel-maid, and if so she’d ask about. That’s taking trouble, and shows a kind heart.”

  “Her heart is not kind,” said Belinski sombrely. “It is without kindness or unkindness, like the heart of a flower.”

  But Cluny, her debt paid, had no time to listen to this sort of thing.

  “Swell,” said she. “You might take your can along, I’ve got to wait.”

  V

  Cluny had by this time learned to wait at table very well: her long arms worked quickly and deftly, she never so much as brushed a shoulder, she removed all plates at precisely the right moment; all she lacked was the quality of unobtrusiveness. In a way she had been far less obtrusive in her early days of fork dropping, such an accident being automatically ignored; now she was present not only in the room, but also in the consciousness of the diners. Betty Cream was still wondering why she wouldn’t be a kennel-maid; Andrew could not forget her parallel between the state of Europe and the state of things below stairs; Belinski felt her benevolent eye upon his amatory progress. The elders were less affected, but it was noticeable that whereas Lady Carmel still called her Brown, Sir Henry addressed her as Cluny. Literally addressed her, for in the middle of the sweet he suddenly remembered the outstanding incident of the afternoon.

  “Cluny, don’t let that animal get too much for you,” ordered Sir Henry.

  “No, sir,” said Cluny.

  “You haven’t the weight to stand up to him. How much do you weigh?”

  “Nine-stone-two,” replied Cluny. “Mostly bone.”

  “Well, Roddy’s all of forty pound. You remember that.”

  “I will,” said Cluny. “There was a dog on the railway—”

  “Brown!” said Mr. Syrett sharply.

  Cluny turned, and misread his expression.

  “He only went round with a collecting box,” she said reassuringly; and moved back to her place.

  Chapter 19

  I

  And what, in the meantime, of Mr. Porritt without Cluny?

  Truth to tell, Mr. Porritt hardly missed her at all.

  The domestic offices she used to perform for him were being adequately carried out by Mrs. Trumper’s respectable woman; as for the telephone, he trusted the next-door people with the key, and when they heard the bell ringing they went in and answered it, for a very small consideration. Materially Cluny’s departure had made surprisingly little difference, while the withdrawal of her personality—of her essential Cluniness, so to speak—was a relief. Not every one enjoys being constantly stimulated, and though Mr. Porritt’s protective mechanism was highly developed, Cluny had kept him on the hop. Without her he could settle down into a stolid, drudging, not unhappy round that got him through the days very nicely. Young Cluny had made plumbing seem exciting: well, it wasn’t. It was a serious business that took it out of a man and left him glad to get home to a plain meal and no chatter. Moreover, a burden of responsibility had been lifted from his shoulders; the question of what Cluny was doing, and where, was permanently answered. “Where’s your niece, Mr. Porritt?” the neighbours sometimes asked, during the first week of Cluny’s absence. “She’s gone into service,” replied Mr. Porritt. “She’s in good service, down in Devon.”

  One last trace, however, of Cluny’s influence persisted: she was the origin of a new habit. Every Sunday Mr. Porritt set out for the Trumpers’ an hour earlier, and went for a walk in Kensington Gardens. As the weather warmed he often sat down a bit and had a look at his paper (which he never now left in the ’bus). He usually established himself outside the Orangery, and on one of these occasions was suddenly, and to his great astonishment, addressed by a young man on the other end of the seat.

  “How’s Cluny Brown?” asked the young man.

  Mr. Porritt looked at him suspiciously. To the best of his belief he had never seen the chap before.

  “Your niece who had tea at the Ritz,” added the young man, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  Mr. Porritt thought as fast as he could, and came to the conclusion that this must be some one Cluny had spoken to on the telephone and told a lot of her nonsense. That also made him a client, either actual or prospective. Overcoming his instinctive reserve, therefore, Mr. Porritt replied.

  “She’s gone into service. In Devon.”

  “What a damned shame!” said the young man.

  Client or no client, this was quite enough for Mr. Porritt
; he gave the chap an angry look and withdrew behind his paper. He would have got up, only it was his seat first and he had the better right to it. However, a lady soon came along, and the chap went off with her; and it was not until they were in motion that Mr. Porritt was struck by a puzzling thought. Cluny might have talked to the young man over the phone, and told him about the Ritz; or she might even have met him at the Ritz, and told him about her uncle; but how, in either case, had the young man identified him, Mr. Porritt, as the uncle of Cluny Brown?

  Mr. Porritt looked after the pair curiously; but since the lady wasn’t the lady with whom he had conversed in February (though the man was the same young man) he gathered no clue.

  As a matter of fact, it was largely over Cluny that the young man and the first lady had quarrelled. The name Cluny Brown stuck in his memory; he began to invent anecdotes about her, to build up a fictional character, whom he introduced, now and then, out of season. The lady grew bored with Cluny Brown, and presently found the young man rather boring too, and he never became her lover after all.

  This was the sole contact made by Mr. Porritt with his niece’s larger circle, for though Hilary Ames frequently had trouble with his sink, which was not kept properly clean, he never again rang up the String Street number. There was another man nearer at hand; it was only by hazard, that Sunday, that he had looked for “Plumbers” in the telephone book and a little further on found Mr. Porritt. The image of Cluny continued to haunt him, but so did the image of her uncle: Mr. Ames was at bottom a prudent man. He took up, however, with a tall thin dancing-teacher, rather sallow, whom no one else found particularly attractive, and by giving her a good conceit of herself so improved her style that she entered for a Rumba competition (not with Mr. Ames) and took second place.

  Only once a week, on Sundays, was Cluny remembered completely. Every Sunday at dinner Mr. Trumper, or Addie, would ask, “Heard from young Cluny?”—and Mr. Porritt would say if he had, and give any trifle of news, and for a minute or two they discussed her, agreeing how wise they had all been to send her into good service. “She’s fixed for life,” Mrs. Trumper used to say, complacently. “You did well by her, Arn, and I hope she’s grateful.” Mr. Porritt made no direct reply: none of Cluny’s letters, not even the later, calmer ones, exactly breathed gratitude.