The Unknown Mr. Brown (18 page)

“It’s not a bad thing to one’s credit if it eases the mind and it’s scarcely becoming in you to take me to task in the circumstances. Whatever Farmer’s intentions may have been, Kate was happy enough in their association until you came.”

She stared up at him, her eyes suddenly clouded with the old doubts, and when she spoke her voice had lost its assurance.

“Do you think she’s in love with him, John?” she asked, and he gave a little shrug.

“I don’t know. It’s always possible that the situation suited them both so long as there was no need to make decisions, but women can be possessive, even if they’re not in love, and it can’t have been very pleasant for Kate to have to acknowledge a shifting interest under her very nose. You should think of your own part in the affair, Victoria, before you accuse me of being chicken-hearted.” She went a little white, but her eyes were steady.

“Yes, I suppose I deserved that, but you don’t know the ins and outs of that business,” she replied. “I should have kept my head and written off the fruits of that weekend for what they were, instead of—”

“Instead of what, my child?”

“Oh, not what you were thinking. I didn’t jump into bed with Robert, neither, to be honest, did he ask me to.”

“It wasn’t what I was thinking at all. You were going to say, I fancy, instead of falling in love with him,” John replied gently, and her eyes filled with sudden tears.

“All right, and if I did?” she answered swiftly. “At least I’ve never admitted as much to Kate. She may suspect a mild affair and have the normal feminine reaction, but she has no reason to suppose I would take Robert from her—just the opposite. Kate is quite safe from losing Robert if she wants him.”

He observed her thoughtfully but with a more professional eye, noting that her face was a little thinner and she was making an effort to control her voice.

“You should get away,” he said. “Find another job until you’re your own mistress and can please yourself.”

“How can I? Mr. Brown won’t hear of a change and it’s no good running away. The allowance has always been paid to whoever was in charge of me and now it comes through Kate. I could hardly expect to find a job which would keep and house me as I am trained for nothing that’s marketable.”

“Yes, I see. A strange man, your benefactor—possibly a mild pathological case, if one but knew. What reason did you give for wishing to leave?”

“Oh, just that the place didn’t suit me. Kate wouldn’t sack me, so I had to be a bit vague.”

“It didn’t occur to you to give the real reason?”

“The real reason?”

“Emotional disturbance—even, being the object of unwelcome attentions. I would have thought in the light of this gentleman’s apparent views on unsuitable admirers it would have been your strongest card.” There was a definite twinkle in his eye as he spoke and she gave him that slow, engaging smile.

“Yes, it would, wouldn’t it?” she said. “And I could come clean with impunity as Mr. Brown is a stranger and doesn’t know any of us. I could confess without naming any names that I’d had the misfortune to fall for a man whose intentions were none too clear and would he please see fit to remove me from temptation.”

“Very masterly! I can see your imagination will never let you down in a crisis,” he said with some dryness, and her eyes immediately became grave.

“It isn’t all imagination,” she told him frankly. “I have a horrid feeling that if the week-end hadn’t ended as it did, I might have been persuaded to whatever course Robert had in mind for the future. Now you know what I wouldn’t confess to another living soul, John, but doctors are safe, like priests and lawyers, aren’t they?”

“Yes, my dear, and I’m honoured by your confidence,” he said a shade formally, and wondered for the first time if he had misjudged Robert Farmer. For all his dislike, he did not think he was the type of man who would seduce a
young girl in his cousin’s employ. It was more likely that he realised the child was becoming fonder of him than he wished and for that very reason was keeping away.

“Thank you,” she said, and reached up a hand to him. “Dear John ... I do hope things turn out well for you. Even if Kate is still fond of Robert in that way, she’s very practical when it comes to deciding what’s best for Timmy, and a doctor would be far more satisfactory as a father than an up-and-coming barrister with his nose forever stuck in his briefs from morning to night.”

At this he burst out laughing and got into his car.

“Well, I don’t know that that’s a very encouraging comparison, but I’ll take it in the spirit in which it was meant. Look after yourself, Victoria, and remember the world is seldom well lost for love,” he said, turning on the ignition.

“Kate said the same thing to me once, so you must think alike on certain matters, mustn’t you?” she replied, sounding suddenly quite gay, and he made a wry face out of the window and drove away without comment.

July brought a return of more settled weather and Victoria, when Timmy did not need her, found compensation for the rejection of her plans by working in the garden, weeding and trying to catch up on the vigorous signs of Sam’s neglect. But if the warm summer days restored her to an acceptance of her situation, they did little to soothe Elspeth’s temper and she remarked rather acidly after some trivial domestic argument one morning that it was high time Mr. Rab paid them a visit and put an end to moods and contrariness, for, said she, it was plain as the nose on your face that the house hadn’t been the same since he was last down and if Mrs. Allen was too stiff-necked to invite him then Victoria should do it instead.

“Oh, no, it’s not my place,” Victoria answered primly, but received a withering look in exchange.

“Hoots! Do you think I don’t ken what goes on in this house, under my verra nose?” she retorted, her native burr becoming very apparent. “Since you saw fit to quarrel with the gentleman and send him from the house without his supper it’s for you to swallow your pride and call him back. You can tell Mr. Rab that Mrs. Allen is missing him and it’s time Timmy had that present he was promised a long time since.”

Victoria obediently wrote to Robert, adopting Elspeth’s suggestions and rather overdoing Kate’s need of his company. She also wrote to Mr. Brown reiterating her desire to leave Farthings and remembering the doctor’s advice, set down a candid analysis of the regrettable state of her heart. It was not, she thought upon re-reading this effusion, a very lucid explanation of the situation, since Robert must necessarily remain anonymous and it was difficult to bare one’s soul to a perfect stranger who, for all she knew, might not even trouble to read the letter.

It was Kate who heard first, and as she passed the letter to Victoria across the breakfast table it seemed plain from her expression that she was both hurt and displeased.

“I thought we had agreed to forget this business and carry on as before,” she said. “Why have you stirred up fresh trouble?”

Victoria made no reply until she had digested the ambiguous contents of Mr. Chappie’s careful communication, then she skid quietly:

“I suppose they wanted to be sure I wasn’t just romancing. There’s no suggestion of blame where you’re concerned, Kate. They only want assuring that you consider the situation warrants the inconvenience of making other arrangements.”

“And were you romancing? Since, with typical legal caution, they are careful to avoid direct accusations, it’s not very clear what the situation amounts to. Had you implied that you were being subjected to unwelcome attentions?”

“No—no, of course not! I—I simply tried to explain my real reasons for wanting to leave without involving anyone.”

“Which are?”

“But you know, Kate. It clearly cut no ice to say the place didn’t suit me, so I thought I’d better come clean.”

“And lay the blame at Robert’s door, I suppose, by way of clinching the matter. Why in that case, have you written asking him to come down?”

“Have you heard from Robert, then?” Victoria asked.

“He rang up last night about another matter and mentioned it in passing.”

“Oh!”

“Your invitation hardly accords very well with the tale you seem to have spun for Mr. Brown’s benefit, does it?”

“Oh, Kate, can’t you
see
?” Victoria exclaimed, wishing she had never paid attention to either John Squires’ or Elspeth’s counsel. “I only tried to convince him that I’d got myself into an emotional tangle, and I wrote to Robert because I thought he might be stopping away on account of that and it wasn’t fair to you.”

“Somewhat muddled reasoning, but I suppose I must accept it. Are you sure you’re not trying to deceive yourself because you’re still smarting from that unfortunate affair of the roses?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t so unfortunate as it appeared at the time. Unkind practical jokes have a very salutary effect on emotional misconceptions,” Victoria replied with gentle evasion, and Kate sighed.

“Yes,” she said, “I can understand that. Still, you’ve had time to reconsider, and though I hold no brief for silly pranks there must have been some good reason to trigger off that one.”

“Such as?”

Kate hesitated.

“Well,” she replied a little lamely, “he probably thought roses from Mr. Brown would crown the birthday for you, as indeed it did, and if I hadn’t unwittingly caught him out and you hadn’t eavesdropped, you would have gone on living quite happily in your fool’s paradise, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, and that should answer you, Kate. No one but a complete moron is satisfied to go about in blinkers,” Victoria retorted, and Kate, regretting too late her choice of words, folded the lawyer’s letter back into its meticulous creases and sat tapping it irritably against her thumbnail.

“Yes, of course. Well, what do you want me to answer to this?” she said, and her voice was cool and brisk again.

“You could say,” Victoria suggested gravely, “that young girls are sometimes apt to mistake idle attentions for something deeper and you think, in the circumstances, a change would be advisable.”

“And did you?”

“If I did it’s all in the past, but it’s a good enough reason for the lawyers. They can hardly refuse to regard the matter seriously if you back me up.”

“Very well. I wish, though, you could bring yourself to confide in me. Robert has a right to know where he slipped up, quite apart from those wretched roses.”

“If he slipped up at all it was in thinking a proposal of marriage would cancel out other bad jokes,” Victoria answered, and Kate smiled, her resentment ebbing a little.

“Poor Victoria,” she said softly, “I suspect that you care rather more than you’ll admit.”

“I don’t care at all, and if I did I’m not so far gone that I couldn’t get over it.”

“In that case you’ll have no objection if Robert comes down again soon?”

“Of course not. Would I have written to suggest it if I did?”

“I don’t know. I gather you took great pains to put the onus on me.”

“Well, you’ve missed him, haven’t you? He may or may not have stopped away on my account, but, as Elspeth pointed out, it’s not right that the mistress of the house should be deprived of visitors to suit the whims of a paid employee.”

“Dear me!” said Kate quite mildly. “You do seem to have got yourself in a tangle! Who else has been proffering well-meaning advice?”

“Only people who have your well-being at heart.”

“I suppose you mean John. And what was his reason for wanting to get you out of the house? Has he, by any chance, fallen a victim to more youthful charms and distrusts Robert’s evil influence?” Kate spoke with such sudden bitterness that for a moment Victoria could only sit and blink at her.

“
Kate
!” she exclaimed then, her own anger flaring up, “you know very well John’s only got eyes for you. He’s the sort of quixotic fool who’d hand you over to someone else without a struggle if he thought it would make you happier. He probably only wants me out of the way to ease the situation for you.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” Kate said a little stiffly. “All the same, I think you’ve probably been more honest with John than you have with me.”

“And that was possible because he’s only concerned indirectly with my affairs. You should know better than to be jealous on that score, and if you want the truth, I think you treat him abominably! You use him so long as it suits you and trade on his dog-like devotion.”

“Victoria—be careful!” warned Kate, going a little white. “I’ve allowed you the freedom of a friend and an equal since you’ve been here, but I won’t put up with impertinence. I’ll go and reply to that letter now and you can take it to the post when it’s ready. I shall have no difficulty this time in persuading the lawyers that a change is not only advisable but necessary—both from your employer’s point of view and your own. If they are still unwilling to make other arrangements for the little time that’s left, then I must demand an audience with the reluctant Mr. Brown in person—a demand you could well have insisted on yourself in the circumstances had you not been more content to dwell in your cloud-cuckoo-land.” She got up as she finished speaking, the letter in her hand, and left the room, closing the door behind her with a sharp click of finality.

A gust of wind caught the curtains at the open casement windows and sent them spiralling out into the room while in the distance the first faint growl of thunder echoed over the downs, and Victoria, still sitting stiffly in her place at the breakfast table, suddenly bowed her face in her hands. She wept not only for the unthinking dissolution of a friendship, but for the lost felicity of her foolish dreams.

CHAPTER NINE

IT was to be a week of thundery weather with storms that threatened but never came to much, leaving the atmosphere sticky and oppressive. The heavy showers which punctuated the sultry closeness pressing down on the countryside were never long enough to relieve the thirsty earth and only beat down the tall flowers in Kate’s herbaceous border which Victoria had tied up and staked with such care only a week ago.