Cluny Brown (28 page)

“You got started,” pointed out Cluny—not reproachfully, but because every detail was of such absorbing interest.

“Yes, but I was already wondering what it was I had left behind. I should have come back for you. Perhaps sometimes you will have to run after me again, because I do not yet know how my constancy is. But I have a feeling that I shall be quite constant to you. It's fine,” said Mr. Belinski.

He regarded Cluny with deep satisfaction, and she nodded gravely.

“I'll always come after you.”

“As I say, perhaps there will be no need. Perhaps you have just witnessed my last … excursion.” He released her hand and leant back and grinned at her. “Cluny Brown, what have you been thinking about me?”

“About you, or—?”

“You know what I mean. About me and Miss Cream.”

“Well,” said Cluny carefully, “she
is
so beautiful.… I mean, I didn't wonder you lost your head. But I never thought anything would come of it.”

“You weren't jealous?”

“No. Because she's so beautiful,” explained Cluny again. “Besides, I didn't know then. I mean, I didn't know about us.”

“You were too much taken up with your Savonarola. My darling, you have had such a narrow escape it is quite appalling to think of. You'd have married him.”

“No, I shouldn't.”

“You would. You were in love with your prig of a chemist. You learnt pieces of poetry for him—and made me help you. If I can put up with that,” exclaimed Mr. Belinski irrationally, “no doubt I can put up with anything, and you have got me under your thumb. Cluny Brown, I forbid you to see him again!”

Cluny looked rather worried.

“Well, I've got to write to him.…”

“Why?”

“I've got to send him a postal order. I never paid him for Uncle Arn's eggs.”

All at once, at the mere mention of his name, it was as though Mr. Porritt had entered the carriage. Cluny sat up. None of her recent actions had seemed in the least reprehensible, or even unusual to her, until this moment, when she suddenly saw them through Mr. Porritt's eyes. There was no doubt that Mr. Porritt would view them very unfavourably indeed. Cluny was still unaware of what exactly had passed between him and Mr. Wilson; but the fact that anything had passed at all was enough to alter the whole character of her home-coming.… She put out her hand again, this time in a gesture of appeal.

“What is it, my love?” asked Mr. Belinski.

“Uncle Arn,” breathed Cluny.

“But there is no need to see your uncle at all, if you do not wish it.”

“Isn't there?”

“None in the world. We will go and stay at an hotel somewhere until we can get married, and then we will go to America.”

Cluny hesitated. So much in this plan appealed to her, chimed with her longing to embark at once on her new life, without fuss, without the handling and petty rubs of an argument which could end only one way, and so, like so many domestic arguments, would be futile as well as hurtful. And why not? Wouldn't it be better, after all, to present Mr. Porritt with a
fait accompli
such as his stern sense could not reject? Why not? She was indeed under certain obligations to him: she owed him, putting the matter at its lowest, for eighteen years' keep; but with a detachment as complete as it was unresentful Cluny realized that if Mr. Porritt had done his duty by her, it was because he was a man to whom duty was the root of self-respect, and self-respect the condition of a tolerable life. The affection he had given her was largely passive, but probably quite as much as she deserved, for there was no doubt that she had often been a great nuisance to him; for the affection Cluny could have given Mr. Porritt he had simply no use. He had as it were no place for it, the death of his wife had closed too large a portion of his heart. “He won't miss me,” thought Cluny sadly. “He'll just worry a bit.…”

So why go to String Street? Why not just cut it out?

Cluny hesitated. It was, though she did not realize it, a moment of testing; but as she sat with her hand in Belinski's the current between them flowed ever stronger, filling her with confidence, with kindness. She couldn't go off and leave Uncle Arn just like that. She wasn't going to start her new life by running away from the first difficulty. Better to take things as they came and deal with them as best she could, and (if she could) leave Uncle Arn with his sense of duty unimpaired.

“We'll go to String Street,” said Cluny, on a long sigh. “I dare say it won't be so bad. I dare say we'll quite enjoy it.”

Adam Belinski drew steadily at her hand, drew her on to the seat beside him.

“You are my brave dear,” he said. “I can see you are going to be very good for me.”

He would have kissed her, but at that moment the train stopped, and some people got in. But Adam and Cluny did not mind. They had entered upon such good fortune that kissing was relatively unimportant.

II

Cluny got out at Paddington feeling extraordinarily happy. She did not feel different: on the contrary, she felt more like herself, as though she had at last stopped acting a difficult part. There had been no conscious play-acting in her relations with Mr. Wilson—but she had played up to him. She would never have to play up to Belinski; anyway she couldn't, because he was too clever. Nor would he ever ask her who she thought she was, because to him—and to him alone, so far as Cluny could see—everything she did, thought or said appeared perfectly natural.…

She looked slightly different, however, for Belinski had pulled a dark red scarf from his suitcase for her to wind around her head, and it became her. She looked taller than ever, just as odd, but striking: a porter said “Taxi?” to her in the most natural way. But they didn't need a taxi to go to String Street, they left Belinski's luggage in the cloak-room and turned out of the station on foot. Cluny sniffed appreciatively at the familiar London air.

“Devon was beautiful,” said she, “but I couldn't have stayed there always.”

“Of course you could not. Shall we ever stay anywhere always?”

“I don't know. It doesn't matter,” said Cluny Brown. “Wherever we are—”

She paused, and stopped dead. They were passing a public-house, on whose threshold stood a weazened old man with a mug of beer in one hand and a dog in the other. The animal was so small that it fitted quite comfortably into his palm: it was black and fluffy, with a neatly curled plume of tail and very bright eyes.

“Mr. Belinski!” said Cluny, pulling at his sleeve.

“You had better begin calling me Adam,” said Mr. Belinski. “What is it?”

“Adam, look at that puppy!”

The old man, observing their interest, at once set it down on the pavement. It staggered a few steps, and sat. Even after four months' association with a well-bred dog like Roderick, Cluny was able to gaze on it with rapture.

“Do you want it?” asked Belinski casually.

“Yes, please!” gasped Cluny. “Ask him if it's to sell.…”

It was; its price was one pound. This wasn't much, indeed, for a pure-bred male Pekingese and the companion of a man's declining years, but even Cluny felt doubtful. The puppy she had once, so briefly, owned already cost but half a crown.

“Offer him ten bob,” she whispered.

But Belinski said he would not haggle over the first present he had ever made her, and offered fifteen-and-six, and at this figure the animal changed hands. It was all done so swiftly, so simply, that Cluny could hardly believe her good luck: even with the little creature tucked safely in her arms she kept stopping to marvel and exclaim; she might, thought Belinski, have been given the moon.

“But why should you not have a dog, if you want one?” he asked. “That was what I never could understand.”

Cluny shook her head gravely.

“I couldn't understand why I couldn't do half the things I wanted to. There never seemed to be a proper reason: it was just because people didn't want to do the things themselves. Look at Uncle Arn.”

The thought of Uncle Arn impelled Cluny to shift the puppy to one arm and take Belinski's hand. They walked hand in hand down String Street, and knocked on the door. Mr. Porritt was at home, and very much surprised to see them.

Chapter 28

I

“It's me, Uncle Arn,” said Cluny Brown.

For some moments Mr. Porritt simply stood and looked at her. His mind never worked very swiftly, and the unexpected appearance of a niece presumed to be in Devonshire gave him almost too much food for thought. (It was characteristic of him also that he got down to these thoughts at once, there on the doorstep, without even telling her to come in.) Only four days ago he would have supposed that she had got the sack; the very recent visit of Mr. Wilson offered an alternate explanation, that she had come to ask his consent to her marriage—wasteful, indeed, when you looked at the train fare, but right and proper at that; what absolutely stumped him was the presence of a strange man who (if number two held good) ought to have been Mr. Wilson or no one, and wasn't Mr. Wilson. So Mr. Porritt stood and turned all this over in his mind, until Cluny grew impatient.

“Let's, come in, Uncle Arn!” she cried; and gave him an affectionate shove.

Mr. Porritt moved back; Cluny pulled Adam Belinski in after her and shut the door. Under the bright light the plumber gave him a close look; his first and damning thought was that he couldn't place him. Cluny meanwhile kissed her uncle heartily, and with a backward jerk of the head performed the necessary introduction.

“That's Mr. Belinski, Uncle Arn, and we're going to be married.”

“You've got the wrong chap,” said Mr. Porritt.

These, the first words he had spoken, had at least the merit of putting the whole matter on a sound, argumentative basis. Having uttered them almost without thought, Mr. Porritt found himself on firm ground, and Cluny for her part saw exactly what she was up against. As for Mr. Belinski, he wisely held himself in reserve.

“Well, you might say you're glad to see us,” remarked Cluny irrelevantly.

“What's that dog doing?” asked Mr. Porritt.

“He's mine. We've just bought him. You can help think of a name.”

Cluny held the puppy up, his four short legs dangling from her palm, and gently approached him to her uncle's face. The puppy hiccuped.

“Going to be sick,” prophesied Mr. Porritt gloomily. “Don't you take him into the kitchen.”

“If I don't go into the kitchen, how can I get us anything to eat?” asked Cluny reasonably; and marched through the door leaving the two men behind.

The extreme narrowness of the hall gave them a forced air of intimacy, as though they were there for some common domestic purpose, such as shifting the hat-stand. Mr. Porritt continued to fix the stranger with an unwinking gaze, to which Mr. Belinski returned a genuinely sympathetic look. He already knew far more about Mr. Porritt than Mr. Porritt was ever to know about him.

“I am sorry that this is such a shock to you,” he said at last. “Indeed, it happened very suddenly. My name is Adam Belinski, I am a Pole, and a writer. But we are going to the United States.”

These statements had the effect upon Mr. Porritt of a mild concussion. They sounded wonderfully clear and plain, but he could attach no meaning to them. He therefore ignored them altogether, and harked back to his original line of thought.

“Where's the other chap?” asked Mr. Porritt.

“Mr. Wilson, the chemist? I imagine he is back at Friars Carmel.”

“I suppose he
was
a chemist?” said Mr. Porritt uneasily.

“Certainly. Of the highest standing.” If it seemed odd to Mr. Belinski that he, as one suitor, should be required to supply the credentials of another, he did not show it. Indeed, he understood very well Mr. Porritt's urgent need for some solid ground. He added helpfully, “Mr. Wilson is probably the best chemist in the neighbourhood, and studied at Nottingham University.”

“Well, then.…” Mr. Porritt fetched a deep snort of breath. “Two days ago comes this other chap, saying he wants to marry her. I tell him to go ahead. Two days after, you come saying you're going to marry her. It don't make sense.”

“We can only offer Mr. Wilson our sympathy.”

“Furthermore,” continued Mr. Porritt, getting into his stride, “if Mr. Wilson's all you say, and it agrees with what I've seen of him, she'd be daft to change her mind, and what's more I won't allow it. Stay and have a bite if you like, but if you don't, no one will take it amiss.”

Before Mr. Belinski could reply to this very fair proposition, however, they were interrupted by Cluny putting her head round the kitchen door.

“Uncle Arn, you've never eaten eight eggs in two days!”

“I gave half a dozen to your Aunt Addie.”

“Well!” cried Cluny. “Mr. Wilson takes all that trouble to bring you fresh country eggs, and you go giving them away! Now there's only one each, and one over.”

“You have it,” said Mr. Porritt.

“Well, you might open some beer while I boil them.”

“I don't feel like beer,” retorted Mr. Porritt. “I'm too put out.”

“Then give Mr. Belinski a glass. I bet you gave Mr. Wilson beer,” said Cluny stubbornly.

II

It was extraordinary how Mr. Wilson had somehow managed to join the party. Cluny, having absently boiled the fourth egg, put it too in a cup: it looked like a fourth place. After all, as she pointed out, if it hadn't been for Mr. Wilson they'd have had nothing to eat. Moreover, he had evidently left a great impression on Mr. Porritt, who delivered what was practically a speech in his praise. Cluny's tender conscience forced her to join in, and Mr. Belinski had at least nothing to say against him. There
was
nothing to say against him. From whatever angle one approached, Mr. Wilson was perfect.