Cluny Brown (11 page)

“Hello,” she said pleasantly. “Want to wash?”

“No, thanks,” said Andrew. “Are you the one who hoovers the east corridor?”

Cluny at once looked defensive.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I'm Cluny Brown. And I'm being as quiet as I can.”

“Well, I'm sorry, but it still makes a row. It wakes the Professor every morning. Can't you muffle it?”

“No,” said Cluny. “It's the way it works—like Hilda breathing.”

“Oh, damn,” said Andrew.

He looked so put out that Cluny felt sorry for him. She cogitated.

“There's one way,” she said at length. “I could just not
do
the corridor.…”

“Won't that get you into a row?”

“I'm always in rows,” said Cluny, reassuringly. “One more won't make any odds. You needn't know anything.”

Andrew regarded her with more interest.

“That's very decent of you. But' why are you always in rows?”

“Mrs. Maile's training me,” explained Cluny, without rancour.

“If she bullyrags, I'll speak to my mother.”

Cluny had been only six weeks at Friars Carmel, but that was long enough to have taught her the unwisdom of such a course; she thought it nice of Mr. Andrew to suggest it, but also rather simple. However, the incident as a whole amused her, and as soon as she had finished upstairs she went off to discuss it with Hilda in the laundry. Hilda was ironing; her own things and Cluny's were finished, because she always did them first, while she was fresh; now she was engaged on a night-dress of Lady Carmel's. Cluny cast an eye over it, half-expecting to see a coronet or two, but no, it was perfectly plain, and rather like those still laid away in Aunt Floss's bureau. Sir Henry wore nightshirts, and Andrew blue poplin pyjamas.

“Hilda,” said Cluny, “I've been talking to Mr. Andrew.”

“Get along!” said Hilda admiringly.

“He's upset about the hoover in the East, on account of the Professor. What's the matter with the Professor? Is he ill? He doesn't look ill.”

“He's had an operation. I shouldn't wonder if it was for gall-stones,” said Hilda. “See how I've done your knickers.”

She had done them beautifully, pleats from the waist and the frill all goffered. She had become very attached to Cluny, and this was her way of showing it. Admiring the result, Cluny suddenly remembered an oft-repeated injunction of her late aunt's: always have your underclothes nice, in case you get run over by a 'bus. But there seemed little danger of such an accident at Friars Carmel—even on the main road.

II

This road, with its implication of going to the chemist's, now occupied a large place in Cluny's thoughts; for she had lost no time in extracting from Hilda and Mrs. Maile the history of the Wilsons, and it turned out to be even as tragic as she had guessed.

The facts were these. Mrs. Wilson had been born at Friars Carmel; while in service at Exeter she married a Scottish gardener, who took her to the Midlands; on his death she settled in Nottingham with her son Titus, whose brilliant career (scholarship after scholarship) there culminated in his own chemist's shop. Titus Wilson was a flourishing and a lucky man; successful in love as in all else, he became affianced to a beautiful Miss Drury. They waited for two years, methodically and happily preparing their future home; for both were prudent; and a week before the wedding Miss Drury was injured in a traffic accident, survived four days in great pain, and died.

Titus Wilson's subsequent conduct revealed a strength of emotion unsuspected even by his mother. He was a broken man. He still ran his business efficiently, because efficiency was in his blood and bones, but ambition seemed to have died. One day about six months later he asked his mother whether she would not like to return to Devon. This had been a long-cherished wish of Mrs. Wilson's, and she said that she would. Titus did the thing thoroughly by taking her back to Friars Carmel. He deliberately buried himself. But the sale of the Nottingham business had left him sufficient capital to make a good start; besides giving Friars Carmel a better chemist's than it had ever dreamed of, he gradually acquired the custom of all the big houses round about. It was easier to send to Wilson's than to write to the Stores; where his predecessor sold corn-plasters to the servants, Titus Wilson was soon selling expensive soap to their employers. Doctors and farmers found him equally reliable in the matter of a prescription or a fertilizer; a shed behind the shop developed into a sort of agricultural branch. Almost in spite of himself, Mr. Wilson prospered. In six years he made no friends and few acquaintances, but Friars Carmel became rather proud of him.

“For sad as it all was,” said Mrs. Maile sententiously, “we are very fortunate to have such a good chemist so close at hand. He is very much better than the man at Carmel.”

Cluny listened to this tragic story and pitied Mr. Wilson with all her heart. She also felt very flattered by the notice he had taken of herself.

“I suppose he's hated women ever since?” she suggested hopefully.

“Certainly not. He simply pays no attention to them.”

“Us be just so many images,” put in Hilda, with a certain resentment. “Old Sourface, I call'n.”

“He is an excellent son to his mother, and a very superior man,” pronounced Mrs. Maile, “and that is quite enough about Mr. Wilson.”

If she were speaking to Cluny, she might just as well have spoken to a bloodhound on the trail.

Chapter 11

I

When in London Andrew shared with John Frewen a bachelor apartment in Bloomsbury consisting of one room. It was quite large, it was about as big as the smaller box room at Friars Carmel, and chiefly remarkable for its store of old newspapers. These (a great nuisance to the landlady) were roughly filed in old cardboard boxes, or elsewhere as space permitted—six months'
Evening Standards
under John's mattress, the
New Statesman
under Andrew's—or stacked on the floor, or simply left about. When asked why they kept them all, John and Andrew replied, rather aloofly, “For collation.” It was extremely interesting to see how the same item was treated in, say, the
Times
and the
News Chronicle
. (“But not a
life
interest?” said Betty innocently.) They made notes of the most striking examples, and had an idea of some day publishing their findings to prove whatever the findings proved; and as these notes too were roughly filed, or simply left about, the general effect was one of great intellectual activity. Sometimes the co-editors Box-and-Coxed it, often they were there together, and when Andrew arrived from Devonshire he found his friend already in possession. John, however, appeared surprised to see Andrew, and at once asked where was Mr. Belinski.

“At Friars, of course,” said Andrew. “Working on a new book.”

“You mean you've left him there?”

“Of course,” said Andrew, rather impatiently. “He's perfectly all right. It was a sound scheme to get him down, but we overdid the deadly peril.”

“You'll look well if you get back and find him kidnapped,” said John gloomily.

He seemed to be in a gloomy mood, but since they made it a point of honour never to question each other, Andrew ignored it and went out to tea with a man who kept a left-wing bookshop. Apart from his editorial work, Andrew sometimes thought of keeping a left-wing bookshop himself, as he also thought of going into publishing proper, or making films, and a great deal of his time in London was spent eating meals, preferably on an expense account, with friends already engaged in one or other of these vocations. He returned about six and went out again, leaving John still lounging by the fire; returned finally at midnight to find his friend in precisely the same position. But this time there was a difference in his clothes. During the interval he had changed from flannels to tails. A white carnation was dying in his buttonhole. Andrew thought this strange.

“Been out?” he asked casually.

John nodded.

“Good show?”

“I haven't been to a show,” said John.

Andrew poured himself a glass of beer. They didn't question each other—but he sat down on the table and waited, in case John was working up to get something off his chest. It flashed through his mind that perhaps his friend had joined the Oxford Group.

“I have just,” said John Frewen, “asked Betty to marry me.”

II

Andrew put down his glass with great care, taking pains to set it in the exact middle of the table-centre.

“That was a bold act,” he said. “Is she going to?”

“Don't be a damned fool. Would I be here if she were?”

“Depends how it took you,” said Andrew, suddenly feeling quite bright and conversational. “You might have come back to brood on it a bit. Or you might want to give me the big news. Or—”

“Shut up,” said John Frewen.

The bluntness of a friend in pain is never hurtful. Andrew poured out a second glass of beer and silently proffered it.

“You might say something,” complained John.

“My dear chap, what can I say? I'm beastly sorry, if that's any use.”

“It isn't. You've no idea how ghastly I feel. It's like the moment before a car smashj only going on and on. You can't imagine it.”

Andrew detected a first spark of spiritual pride, which he made haste to fan.

“I can see you've taken an awful knock. What did she say?”

“Nothing much. I can't remember her exact words. Something like, ‘What a fool idea, darling'—darling!—and then I asked if I could get her a taxi, and she said no, thanks, she thought she'd join up with the Mallinsons. They were at the next table, butting in all the time. The last thing I saw of her,” said John bitterly, “she was doing the Lambeth Walk. Oi.”

Andrew felt extraordinarily sympathetic.

“She's got the worst manners of any girl I know,” he said.

“That's exactly what I think. I mean, it's not as though I were an absolute outsider.…”

“She ought to have felt extremely bucked. The trouble is, every one's made such, an absurd fuss of her since she was about ten years old that now she's simply unbearable.”

This abuse of the beloved made them both feel pleasantly judicious and detached. John Frewen was able to take a swallow of beer.

“I'll tell you what I've often thought,” went on Andrew. “Betty's just the sort of girl to have a marvellous time for years and years, and then never get married at all.”

“Perhaps she doesn't want to get married.”

“She mayn't now, but she will. What's she to do? She hasn't any brains, she can't start a career. She'll turn into one of those haggish females who get up parties for charity balls.”

For a moment they both contemplated this picture with grim satisfaction. But it didn't convince. With the best will in the world, neither could foresee any future for the Honourable Elizabeth Cream that was not brilliant, enviable, and undeserved.

Andrew's situation was now extremely trying. He had come up to London in two minds—he might propose to Betty or he might not; John Frewen's essay decided him, perhaps illogically, that he would; and having once come to this decision he was in a fever of impatience. He desired to propose to Betty immediately. Against this was the feeling that she might be in a refusing mood, and a natural reluctance to appear to be taking his place in a queue. The wench thought quite enough of herself already; to have two proposals on two consecutive days would set her up beyond bearing. (Andrew was often surprised at the clear-sightedness with which he saw Betty's faults.) However, he took the preliminary step of telephoning her, and was shaken to learn that she hadn't a free five minutes for the next week. She was rehearsing for a Pageant of Fair Women. “Good God!” exclaimed Andrew disgustedly; and only just brought himself to ask her to dinner when the beastly thing was over.

III

Like most young and therefore self-centred persons, Andrew rarely gave a thought to scenes he had left behind, and this was especially the case when that scene was Friars Carmel. He did not wonder what was happening there without him, because he could not imagine anything happening at all. In a way this belief was justified: the life of the old house ran deep and slow, Andrew's presence was the sun on its waters, and when it was withdrawn the surface took on a uniform tint: dullness rocked like a halcyon on its tranquil bosom. Without Andrew all interests, and all conversation, suddenly narrowed, until often at table there was no conversation at all; the telephone ceased to ring, and lights were out by eleven o'clock.

But the dullness wasn't dull to Lady Carmel, waiting for her son to come back, busy with all sorts of maternal plans, and Sir Henry had just got hold of the address of a very old friend in Zanzibar. As for the Professor, his reputation for quietness was by now so well established that neither Sir Henry nor Lady Carmel ever doubted his perfect satisfaction. He missed Andrew, of course, as was only suitable, and Lady Carmel made a special effort to take tea with him every day, even if it meant coming in early from her rock-garden, or her duck pond, or her greenhouse, and Sir Henry taught him piquet. They thoroughly approved of him; and Andrew, could he have witnessed these mild amenities, would have approved also, and with an equal confidence in the general content.

In point of fact Mr. Belinski rapidly became so desperate as to throw a copy of
Gulliver's Travels
from the stable window and hit Cluny Brown on the head.

“Hi!” called Cluny, naturally indignant. “What d'you think you're doing?”

Mr. Belinski did not even apologize. Cluny promptly picked up the book and shied it back. This relieved her feelings, and as she was not really hurt annoyance rapidly gave place to curiosity. On closer inspection she saw that the Professor was seriously put out.