Cluny Brown (12 page)

“What's biting you?” asked Cluny kindly.

“I have the wind up,” stated Adam Belinski.

Cluny looked at him uncertainly. Though his English was so good, he did sometimes make mistakes, and for a moment she wondered whether the distress were physical. But he suddenly stretched himself with great vigour, not at all like a man in pain.

“Do you mean you're frightened of something?” asked Cluny incredulously.

“Of everything,” said Mr. Belinski. “I am afraid to the marrow of my bones, and
of
the marrow of my bones, which I feel gradually turning to a white soup. I feel my brain turning to sweetbreads. I am losing my virility. If you were to boil me down as I stand, you would get a cup of chicken-broth. You observe how all my metaphors come from the table. That is another symptom. I am always eating. If you have not noticed the change in me, you must be blind.”

“Well, you haven't got any fatter,” said Cluny. “Mrs. Maile was remarking on it.”

He looked at her with dislike.

“You are probably one of the stupidest girls in the world, which with a face like that is little short of dishonest. If you cannot understand me, at least do not make idiotic remarks. I talk to you because I have no alternative, as I would to a black cat.”

“Now I'll say something,” retorted Cluny. “If I was a cat, I wouldn't listen.”

Mr. Belinski took no notice of this whatever. He put his hands on the window-sill and leaned out, as though addressing a mob; and in spite of her veiled threat Cluny obligingly sat down on the steps in a mob of one.

“What you are now privileged to hear,” said Mr. Belinski loudly, “is a statement of the soul. You do not talk about your souls in this country, but to Poles they are important. Here I am, then, and my soul with me. Instead of bread and black coffee we consume the
vol-au-vents
of Mrs. Maile. We sleep between fine sheets, and our clothes are brushed by Mr. Syrett. Do not mistake me: we have no contempt for luxury: luxury is a fine thing. But it should not be daily. We pray, give us this day our daily bread—not our daily
caneton à la presse
. Luxury should be the
détente
after work, the riot after abstinence, one should not become used to it.”

“You're wrong about one thing,” interrupted Cluny. “It isn't Mrs. Maile who does the cooking, it's Cook.”

“Be quiet.”

“You may as well get it straight.”

“Be quiet! There is also,” continued Mr. Belinski, “the luxury of being always with the well-bred, with people who give way, who consider one's pride, are delicate, till one no longer has need of one's weapons and throws them away. Till one begins to think, where else shall I find people so kind, so gentle? Where else shall I find this luxury I am used to? And then, if one is lucky, one gets the wind up. Cluny Brown, I am getting used to being here.”

There was a long silence. Cluny, who had listened with great attention, nodded her head.

“That's just how I feel about being a parlour-maid.”

“You are quite impossible,” said Mr. Belinski.

“But it
is
the same,” persisted Cluny. “Mrs. Maile's been here thirty years, not that I suppose she wanted anything else, she hankers a bit after Torquay, but that's just talk. But look at me. I didn't want to go into service. I stood up to Uncle Arn and everything. And now it doesn't seem so bad. I'm getting used to it.”

“You don't matter,” said Belinski gloomily.

“I matter to me.”

“That is not the point. I matter because of my work, and I am not working. It is like living with a wolf. I ask you, what am I to do?”

Cluny heaved a sigh. She knew he wasn't asking her really, he was asking Fate, the universe, his own Polish soul; but she did her best. And at least she was practical.

“If you're stuck for your fare, I can lend you a quid.”

Belinski looked at her, threw back his head, and uttered a melodramatic crow of laughter, like a man laughing in the face of the ironic gods. Then he looked at Cluny again, and said hastily:—

“I will not take it now, but if I need it, I will ask.”

IV

Cluny's contribution to this debate was not entirely ingenuous. “I'm getting used to it,” said she; in truth she was not so much getting used to service as ignoring it. Her domestic duties simply formed the background to a variety of interesting preoccupations, of which Mr. Belinski was not even the chief. (For instance, the above-reported tête-à-tête, which to many a well-bred, personable young woman would have been an event of the first water, to be brooded upon, kept secret, perhaps entered in a diary, registered with Cluny Brown as a passing chat.) The focus of her mind was the tragic chemist; she thought of Mr. Wilson all the more because she could not see him, whereas she saw Mr. Belinski every day—made his bed, sorted his linen, watched him eat his dinner. Titus Wilson had the attraction of the inaccessible; and to Cluny's intense chagrin, looked like keeping it.

Because the next step in their acquaintance should obviously have been a chance encounter in the lanes: Miss Brown surprised, Mr. Wilson deferential; request from Mr. Wilson to accompany Miss Brown on her walk, and at the end of it an appointment for the week after. But these moves, as well-known and respectable in domestic circles as the Ruy Lopez opening at chess, were made impossible by the circumstance that Cluny's afternoon off, Wednesday, and Mr. Wilson's early closing, Thursday, did not coincide.

There is nothing so intractable as a calendar.

Still, shops are open to all. What need to wait on chance? Disguised as a customer, Cluny could revisit her glimpse of the moon without any loss of dignity, and indeed did so on the Wednesday following. But she took Roddy with her, and dogs were not allowed in. There was a drinking-bowl for them by the step, punctiliously filled with clean water, but not even the Colonel's Roddy might cross the threshold. Cluny had to tie him up outside, and his offended howls almost drowned her request for toothpaste. No conversation was possible, and Cluny got out of the shop as fast as she could and made for open country without—literally—a word to throw to a dog.

But it was Roddy, after all, who set matters in train again. Actually upon a Thursday, the generous animal came lolloping over to Friars Carmel on his own initiative, waving his beautiful tail, leaping up at Hilda and Cluny, and knocking down a jar of preserved plums which the former happened to have in her hand. The two girls looked at each other in dismay.

“Talk o' bulls in china shops!” cried Hilda. “Cluny Brown, now you be for it!”

“He's got to go back,” said Cluny desperately, “or they'll never let me have him again. Roddy, go home!”

Roddy waved his tail and bounded towards the pantry. Cluny caught his collar just in time.

“I'll have to take him back,” she said. “Mailey and Syrett won't be down for an hour. I'll run all the way.”

“What about Cook's plums? They be out of the store-room, and Mailey's got the key.”

Cluny thought rapidly. They had the kitchen to themselves, all three seniors being engaged, as was usual at that hour, in taking their rests.

“There's a jar on our window-sill with moss in it. Wash it out and put the plums in that. The floor's quite clean. If there's not enough juice, use the pineapple left over from our dinner. If the lid won't fit, say you opened it ready.”

This masterly plan filled Hilda with admiration, and she at once rushed upstairs. Cluny, still grabbing Roddy's collar with one hand, removed her apron with the other and rushed out. They ran all the way to the Hall—across fields, over banks, through hedges, into the stables, where Cluny hustled Roddy inside his pen, secured the gate, embraced him over it, and left him. Halfway back her wind not unnaturally failed; she had to sit down a minute on the crosspiece of a stile, and while she was sitting there Mr. Wilson came along the lane.

V

“Good afternoon,” said Mr. Wilson, enquiringly. He seemed to know it wasn't her day off.

“Good afternoon,” panted Cluny. “I've been on an errand.” This was better than saying she'd been illicitly returning the Colonel's Labrador, but it put her, as she at once realized, under the suspicion of loitering. It was strange how Mr. Wilson's presence seemed to act like a magnifying-glass on the least unevenness of conduct. “I ran,” added Cluny.

“You appear to be out of breath,” said Mr. Wilson.

He approached the stile. He wore a raincoat and a soft cap, both of excellent quality, and beautifully polished black boots. Cluny felt very conscious of her own dishevelment.

“It's pretty round here, isn't it?” she said nervously.

“A very beautiful countryside. It must be a great pleasure to you when you go walking.”

“I go a walk every Wednesday afternoon.”

So far their conversation had followed the conventional path, presenting no difficulty to either. Now they were pulled up, they had to make a détour.

“We close on Thursday,” said the chemist.

“Yes, I know,” said Cluny.

“Otherwise we might have chanced to meet.”

“It's nice to have some one to walk with.”

“Though I am not,” continued Mr. Wilson, “a very gay companion for a young lady like yourself.”

Cluny hesitated. It was impossible to contradict him, and equally impossible to explain that in this lack of gaiety—or rather in the cause of it—lay his chief charm. She said, rather uncertainly:—

“I hate people who pretend to be gay when they aren't.”

“There I agree with you. But natural cheerfulness is a very good thing,” insisted Mr. Wilson.

“You can't be cheerful when you've nothing to be cheerful about. I mean, the Lord loves a cheerful giver, and all that, but if a thing's just taken, you haven't a chance. I mean,” plunged Cluny, “when Aunt Floss died, Uncle Arn never pretended to be merry and bright, and no one thought the worse of him.…”

She kept her eyes on the distance as she spoke, but without looking at him she could feel his sudden rigidity. He stood so still, for so long, that she wished with all her heart she had held her tongue.

“You'll have been hearing about me in the village?” said Mr. Wilson at last.

“No, not in the village,” said Cluny quickly. “From Mrs. Maile. I'm sorry if—if you didn't want to be talked about.”

“A man's private affairs are naturally not a subject for discussion.”

“I'm sorry,” said Cluny again. She was indeed; she drooped with sorrow. The chemist, glancing down at her, said more kindly:—

“I doubt you meant no harm.”

This slight encouragement somewhat revived her. Swiftly, before the subject was closed for ever, Cluny said:—

“I do think you were wonderful, leaving everything and coming to live here just because your mother wanted to.”

“It was a matter of indifference to me where I lived. I was naturally glad to gratify her wish.”

Cluny stole a long look at him. He had relaxed again, he was leaning easily against the stile; behind the formality of his speech she now suddenly divined, not strain, but a steady, imperturbable secureness. If you give up enough, what remains is safe.…

“You're all right now, aren't you?” asked Cluny impulsively.

Mr. Wilson nodded. Silence fell between them. Half an hour must have passed since Cluny fled out of the kitchen, Hilda was waiting for her, but she could not tear herself away. Still less could she have put into words the feeling that held her at the stile; as though, a traveller, she had stumbled upon the frontier of a new land, wherein all was safe, ordered, and indestructible, and which she greatly desired to explore.…

“Blest,” said Mr. Wilson—so suddenly that Cluny was quite startled, especially as he paused a moment before going on, measuring out the lines in a deep, solemn voice:—

“Blest, who can unconcernedly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day.”

When he had finished, when Cluny's ear could no longer hold the last vibration of the last word, she drew a long breath.

“That's beautiful,” she said softly.

Mr. Wilson stood up, away from the stile. He was smiling, though sternly, though not at her.

“It took a deal o' learning,” said Mr. Wilson, and walked on down the lane.

VI

When the heir is absent, the great house drowses: such is the law, for great houses and the heirs to them, all the world over. But neither Cluny, nor Mr. Wilson, nor Adam Belinski owed any real allegiance to Friars Carmel, and things went on happening to them whether Andrew was there, or not.

Chapter 12

I

Andrew in London was distressed to find himself thinking at least as much about Betty Cream as about the European situation. She was incomparably the less important subject, but she had somehow got into his mind and wandered about there like a child in a laboratory. He also blamed John Frewen, who had abandoned himself to chagrin, refused to discuss Czechoslovakia, and (against all their principles) required constant sympathy. Andrew was reduced to the banality of telling him to take it like a man, to which John replied that he was taking it like a man, and not like a sexless intellectual. All in all they were not very comfortable together, in eight days they did not collate a single paragraph, and Andrew also suffered from a slight feeling of treachery with regard to his own intentions. This did not prevent him from profiting by his friend's experience: from internal evidence he gathered that John had taken Betty to Claridge's, a place where her attention had always many claims on it: Andrew took her to the Moulin Bleu. John had peacocked forth in tails; Andrew wore his usual tweed jacket. He did not exactly intend to treat Betty rough, but he wasn't going to make too much fuss of her. “No glamour,” thought Andrew sternly; and as a consequence behaved with such unnatural boorishness that Betty at once guessed what was in the wind.