Cluny Brown

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Praise for the Writing of Margery Sharp

“A highly gifted woman … a wonderful entertainer.” —
The New Yorker

“One of the most gifted writers of comedy in the civilized world today.” —
Chicago Daily News

“[Sharp's] dialogue is brilliant, uncannily true. Her taste is excellent; she is an excellent storyteller.” —Elizabeth Bowen

Britannia Mews

“As an artistic achievement … first-class, as entertainment … tops.” —
The Boston Globe

The Eye of Love

“A double-plotted … masterpiece.” —John Bayley,
Guardian Books of the Year

Martha, Eric, and George

“Amusing, enjoyable, Miss Sharp is a born storyteller.” —
The Times
(London)

The Gypsy in the Parlour

“Unforgettable … There is humor, mystery, good narrative.” —
Library Journal

The Nutmeg Tree

“A sheer delight.” —New York Herald Tribune

Something Light

“Margery Sharp has done it again! Witty, clever, delightful, entertaining.” —
The Denver Post

Cluny Brown

A Novel

Margery Sharp

TO

GEOFFREY CASTLE

Chapter 1

I

Thinking of Cluny Brown, Mr. Porritt, a successful plumber, allowed himself to be carried past his 'bus stop and in consequence missed the Sunday dinner awaiting him at his sister's. It was not much loss. The food would be all right, for Addie had her virtues, but she was too much of a harper. At the moment she was harping on Cluny Brown.

Paying an extra penny, Mr. Porritt got off the 'bus at Notting Hill Gate. There was still ample time to return to Marble Arch and proceed as usual down the Edgware Road, but a spirit of independence moved him to turn instead into Kensington Gardens. He hadn't been inside the Gardens for more than a year—not, in fact, since the day of his wife's funeral, when he went on a long dogged tramp through all the London parks getting his mind used to the fact that Mrs. Porritt was no more. It took some doing—they had been married twenty-six years and never a hard word; but somewhere along the road Arnold Porritt came to an interim agreement with Providence. He would go on as before, doing his duty as a plumber, and his duty by Cluny Brown, and if at the last he and his Floss were not reunited, he would make trouble. Mr. Porritt was a man with a strong sense of justice.

The day, for February, was uncommonly mild. Hardy persons sat on seats outside the Orangery, their faces to the sun, their backs to brickwork that had faced the sun for three centuries; it was always warmer there than anywhere else in the Gardens. After circling the lawn Mr. Porritt too set his foot upon this terrace; since no bench was entirely vacant, he chose one accommodating a solitary lady. To Mr. Porritt's eye she was no longer young, and could never have been attractive; the glancing eye of the lady noted Mr. Porritt as definitely quaint; and each would have been extremely surprised to learn the other's opinion.

The lady had a book on her knee, but Mr. Porritt had left his paper in the 'bus, and was thus defenceless against the well-known effects of proximity in a public park. Within five minutes the desire to confide in a stranger became irresistible. He uttered a preliminary cough, and remarked that it was uncommon mild for the time of year.

“Deliciously,” said the lady. Her voice, and that one word, assured Mr. Porritt she
was
a lady, a fact which her hat and make-up had caused him to doubt.

“Makes me wish my niece was here,” said Mr. Porritt.

“Yes, children love the Gardens,” agreed the lady affably.

“She's no child,” said Mr. Porritt.

The lady gave him an encouraging look. She was waiting for a young man who she intended should become her lover, and thought it would be rather piquant to be discovered in conversation with any one so quaint, so unexpected, so altogether out-of-her-picture as Mr. Porritt. Even as she smiled fragments of dialogue were forming in her mind—
“But people always talk to me!
” she would say.
“I feel like that man in Kipling who sat still and let the animals run over him
.” Or was Kipling just a little bit—dating?
“Like that man in the jungle
” perhaps—and leave his provenance vague.…

“She's twenty,” pursued Mr. Porritt. “An orphan. My wife's sister's. Sometimes I don't rightly know how to handle her.”

“Twenty is a difficult age.”

“She ain't exactly difficult. It's more—” Mr. Porritt frowned. He pondered, he cogitated, groping as he had so often done before after the root of the trouble. Cluny Brown was good-tempered, willing, as much sense as most girls—

“Is she pretty?”

“Plain as a boot.”

“Attractive?”

Mr. Porritt, who thought he had answered this question already, merely shook his head; and the lady smiled. She was plain herself, but no one could call her unattractive. (Mr. Porritt could have, of course, but the question was not likely to arise.)

“Then perhaps she has an inferiority complex?”

“Not her,” said Mr. Porritt. He knew nothing about complexes, but any idea of inferiority was so wide of the mark that it suddenly showed up, by contrast, the very thing he had been after. “The trouble with young Cluny,” said Mr. Porritt, “is she don't seem to know her place.”

At last it was out, Cluny Brown's crime; and her uncle could never have put into words—not even to a stranger, not even in a park—the uneasiness it caused him. To know one's place was to Arnold Porritt the basis of all civilized, all rational life: keep to your class, and you couldn't go wrong. A good plumber, backed by his Union, could look a Duke in the eye; and a good dustman, backed by
his
Union, could look Mr. Porritt in the eye. Dukes of course had no Union, and it was Mr. Porritt's impression that they were lying pretty low.

“But what is her place?” asked the lady, looking amused.

Mr. Porritt thought this a remarkably foolish question: any one looking at
him,
he considered, should at once recognize his niece's place. But he had a fine answer ready, a proper bomb-shell, which he was by no means unwilling to explode.

“I'll tell you where it ain't: it ain't the Ritz,” said Mr. Porritt; and astonished himself all over again. For that was what young Cluny had done, only a day or two before: she had gone and had tea at the Ritz, all on her own, to see what it was like. Two-and-a-tanner it cost her, and not even bloater-paste. Told him herself, making no secret of her daftness, no idea, it seemed, she'd done anything out of the way. Mr. Porritt was pleased to see that his new acquaintance (for all
her
daftness) looked properly taken aback. “And that's Cluny all over,” he finished, in gloomy triumph. “Just no idea what's what.”

“Cluny?” repeated the lady.

“Cluny Brown. Short for Clover,” explained Mr. Porritt. He paused, to see whether a tall young man, just then approaching, meant to sit down on their seat. But the lady (who had observed the new-comer a moment in advance) leaned forward with increasing animation.

“Do you know,” she said rapidly, “I think your niece sounds exceptionally charming. You mustn't suppress her, you must help her to develop. She may be a really special personality.”

Then she turned with a start, and saw the young man smiling down on them, and Mr. Porritt at once realized it was time to take himself off.

II

“Who the hell was that?” asked the young man, sitting down.

The lady made a comical face.

“I haven't the faintest idea. People always talk to me in parks. I feel like that man in the jungle who sat still and let the animals run over him.”

“One of these days you'll find yourself assaulted.”

“My dear, you know I only attract the respectable.”

They both laughed. The young man looked after the diminishing figure of Mr. Porritt and shook his head.

“The old rip! Did he tell you his wife doesn't understand him?”

“Not at all. I've been hearing all about his niece, a young person named Cluny Brown, short for Clover, who went to tea at the Ritz.”

“Darling, you're wonderful!” said the young man. “What a line! But why the Ritz?”

“Because she doesn't know her place.”

“How shocking. Shocking Cluny Brown! I'd like to meet her.”

This being out of the question, the lady was able to say that she would too; and then feeling that Cluny had been talked of long enough, and was even becoming a nuisance, demanded to be taken to lunch.

III

It was half past two when Mr. Porritt walked into his brother-in-law Trumper's house in Portobello Road. The open front-door, and a trowel stuck in a border, showed that Trumper had started a bit of gardening and given it up. Within, the narrow hall smelt strongly of linoleum and brasspolish, and Mr. Porritt, sniffing appreciatively, did his sister justice. She knew how to keep a house. Neat as a new pin. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Mr. Porritt hung up his cap and went into the front room, and there sat Trumper, shirt-sleeved, reading the
News of the World
.

“Got here,” said Mr. Porritt.

“Thought you'd bin run over,” said Trumper.

“Wrong 'bus,” explained Mr. Porritt.

“Had your dinner?”

“Snack,” said Mr. Porritt.

He sat down and removed his boots, placing them neatly on the lower shelf of a bamboo whatnot. The top of the whatnot bore a chenille mat, a brass tray, a brass pot, in the pot a fine rubber plant; the whole standing just where it ought, plumb in the centre of the bow-window.