Cluny Brown Read Online Free Page A

desire to make love to her was by now extreme, but time was against him. At any moment some of his friends might arrive—the Drake woman, for instance, who always came at least an hour early in order to tell him her troubles … and to drink a preliminary cocktail, and to recline, just as Cluny was doing, on that wide divan.… The memory was so unwelcome that Mr. Ames recognized, with a thrill of pleasure, one of the first symptoms of a genuine affair: the desire to obliterate the past. He could afford to wait—at any rate until the party was over, and Cluny was staying behind to help him clear up. To avoid temptation Mr. Ames therefore thrust himself away from the cushions, and Cluny too started erect in the belief that it was time for another sip. She leant forward to take her glass, their shoulders touched; and at that instant a step sounded in the scullery. Some one had come in through the open back-door, some one was on the threshold of the studio; and remembering the Drake woman’s horrible habit of giving him surprises Mr. Ames forced himself to look round with a pallid smile.
    But it wasn’t the Drake after all. There, with a brow like thunder, stood Mr. Porritt.
    IV
    Cluny, who was really fond of her uncle, jumped up with every sign of pleasure. Mr. Ames rose too, but more slowly. He later made a very good tale of it, but at the time the situation was hardly humorous at all. Mr. Porritt looked curiously formidable.
    â€œUncle Arn!” cried Cluny. “Have you come to see the sink?”
    Mr. Porritt did not reply. Instead he advanced, took the glass out of her hand, smelt it, and threw the contents onto the floor.
    â€œI say!” protested Mr. Ames. (He was a man noted for his presence of mind, his quick wit, his savoir faire; such was the aspect of the plumber that for the moment all three deserted him, and this feeble ejaculation was all he could find.) “I say! What’s wrong?”
    â€œThat is,” replied Mr. Porritt grimly. “Giving a young girl strong drink. Cluny Brown, come here.”
    Cluny obediently approached a step nearer. The scent of sweet geranium hit him like a wave.
    â€œHow did he get you here?” demanded Mr. Porritt.
    â€œHe rang up because his sink was stopped.”
    â€œWhich is no business of yours, as you well know.”
    â€œI thought I could fix a sink. And I did. You take a look,” said Cluny, rather proudly. “Besides, he offered ten bob.”
    â€œTen bob! And you swallowed it?”
    With the mistaken idea of establishing Mr. Ames’s bona fides, Cluny at once produced the note. Luckily Mr. Porritt did not look at it and see it was a pound, but took it too from her hand and cast it down. He was working up to the crucial question.
    â€œHas he done anything to you that I ought to know?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so,” said Cluny.
    This answer, so highly unsatisfactory to both her uncle and the now writhing Mr. Ames, was simply an attempt at the exact truth: Cluny herself thought there was nothing, but what her uncle would think was a different matter.
    â€œThen get your coat,” said Mr. Porritt thickly.
    Cluny looked at Mr. Ames, and the latter, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, went into the bedroom to fetch it. As he opened the door he could feel the plumber’s inimical gaze boring into his back, piercing him, alighting (with furiously unjust suspicion) upon the double bed. Unjust now, at least; for the last few minutes had most thoroughly purged Mr. Ames of every indecorous thought.
    â€œUncle Arn,” said Cluny.
    â€œWell?”
    â€œBefore we go, wouldn’t you like to see the bathroom?”
    Mr. Porritt had never in his life raised his hand to a woman, but he nearly raised it then. And Cluny knew it. Only Mr. Ames’s return saved them both. Cluny seized and dragged on her coat, Mr. Porritt automatically picked up his tool-bag, and they marched together