The Unknown Mr. Brown (19 page)

“I wish,” she observed after days of exhausting heat, “we could have one good, cracking storm and have done with it.”

“That, perhaps, is being held in reserve,” Kate answered ambiguously, using the polite, measured tones she had employed since their disastrous altercation, and Victoria’s enquiring glance held a modicum of wariness.

“Was that a metaphorical observation?” she asked, trying to match Kate’s casual coolness.

“You can take it how you like,” Kate replied, raising her eyebrows. “Perhaps I was simply anticipating a final clearing of the air.”

Victoria, taking the remark literally, asked quickly: “Have you heard from the solicitors, then?”

“Not yet, but I’ve heard from Robert. He’ll be down this week-end.”

“Oh!”

“Perhaps,” observed Kate, catching a suggestion of dismay in the exclamation, “you’ve had time to regret your hasty intervention on my behalf. It’s a pity your excellent Miss Scott lives so far away in Wales or you might have begged a bed for the week-end.”

“I’m not,” replied Victoria, stung to retaliation, “in the least anxious to avoid a meeting with Robert, but if I’m going to be in the way I can quite well make myself scarce.”

“What nonsense! If you’re going to be tiresomely tactful without any encouragement you’ll simply embarrass us both. Now, run along and get Timmy up from his rest. After tea we’ll play Happy Families and allow him to cheat a little because he’s being extra good.”

As the week drew to a close, Victoria found herself looking forward to Robert’s visit with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Whatever his intentions might once have been he was, she knew, much too experienced and worldly-wise to allow awkwardness to spoil his week-end, neither was he likely to commit the folly of arriving with floral tributes as a peace-offering. She wondered whether he would allude at all to his last visit or whether absence and time for more sober reflection had turned his thoughts back to Kate. It was, she realised with a sudden sharp awareness, very likely the last time she would see him, for soon Mr. Brown must make his intentions known. When next he came she would be gone and life at Farthings would go on without her. For one panic-stricken moment she wished with all her heart that she could have been gone before the ordeal of another meeting, but by constantly reminding herself how successfully he had made a fool of her, she was able to whip up a comforting illusion of indifference.

Robert was expected in time for dinner on Friday and all day the house had exuded an air of occasion. Elspeth, miraculously restored to good humour, was clearly determined to show her approval by excelling herself in culinary skill, and set Victoria to work washing the best china and polishing silver between numerous errands to the village for forgotten delicacies. Timmy, finding himself neglected in consequence, caused a minor panic by taking himself off unaccompanied down the hill, to be brought back by John Squires, who had chanced to spot him making a determined assault on a neighbour’s strawberry beds. The doctor was not unwilling, Victoria thought, to find a legitimate excuse for calling after his last unhappy visit and Kate could do no less than offer him a glass of sherry together with demure surprise at his absence. She seemed a little piqued when he observed that Victoria was looking washed out and airily blamed the weather, adding innocently that Elspeth was killing the fatted calf in honour of Robert’s arrival and poor Victoria was being run off her feet with last-minute preparations.

“Oh, I see. And is it an occasion of any special significance? I thought, since he’s practically part of the family he’s used to just taking pot luck,” John said casually, but his eyes still rested thoughtfully on Victoria’s averted face and Kate gave a small, indecisive shrug.

“Yes, well ... he hasn’t been down for some time and you know what Elspeth is. Nothing’s too good for Mr. Rab and we’re all of us a bit in need of cheering up,” she replied, and his eyebrows lifted.

“Really? This young woman looks more in need of a tonic than a gay week-end. Come to my surgery next time you’re in the village, Victoria, and I’ll give you a prescription,” he said.

“I’ve no doubt she’ll pick up once she’s away from here,” Kate observed before Victoria could reply, and he smiled, but his eyes were a little rueful as he said to Victoria:

“So you took my advice, and it’s done the trick?”

“I don’t know. We’re still waiting to hear,” Victoria replied, not caring very much for the trend the conversation was taking, and Kate said as she observed the doctor’s quick frown:

“Don’t you think you were rather rash to meddle John? Whatever Victoria may have told you, she was settled enough here until her head was turned by a couple of well-intentioned admirers.” She spoke quite pleasantly, even with a touch of amused indulgence, but Victoria sprang to her feet, the colour standing out sharply on her cheekbones.

“If you’ll excuse me, Rate, I’ll go and get Timmy cleaned up for lunch. I don’t think John would be very interested in my hypothetical admirers,” she said.

“Was that quite fair?” the doctor asked when the sound of her hurried flight up the corner staircase had died away, and Kate lowered her eyes.

“No, it wasn’t,” she said, and got up to refill bath their glasses, spilling a few drops of sherry because her hand was not quite steady. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, John, unless this oppressive heat is getting us all down. Perhaps it’s I and not Victoria who’s in need of medical advice.”

“Would you take it, Kate?”

“It would depend on the remedy, wouldn’t it?”

“Perhaps the remedy is simpler and pleasanter than you think.”

She sat down again, sipping her sherry rather quickly, and regarded him with troubled enquiry, but the old warmth was back in her eyes.

“I—I’ve been unfair to you, John,” she said then. “Victoria took me to task and we quarrelled over you, since then we don’t seem able to get back on the old footing, but she was right. Is it possible to be jealous but heartwhole at the same time, do you suppose?”

“One can feel possessive about a person without wishing to be possessed in return, I imagine, which might result in a sort of dog-in-the-manger form of jealousy,” he replied with some dryness, and she made a wry face at him.

“Not a very attractive picture,” she said. “I’ve always prided myself on being free of the more obvious weaknesses of my sex, but it seems I am wrong.”

“Dear Kate, don’t scorn your very natural imperfections—they make you so much more approachable,” he said, and she looked at him with startled eyes.

“Approachable? But I’m the least self-satisfied of people!” she exclaimed, sounding quite hurt.

“Very true, but that’s not quite what I meant. I was only implying that I find a touch of feminine inconsistency in you encouraging. Long associations, however unsentimental, have deep roots. Would you have married Farmer?” She finished the last of her sherry and placed the empty glass on a table beside her with careful deliberation.

“Perhaps,” she said, sounding a little regretful. “It was such a pleasant, undemanding relationship ... we made a family without the ties of necessity and—and it was so good for Timmy to have a man about the place. I just drifted.”

“And now?”

She sighed, looking a little rueful. “And now there’s Victoria, and I’ve no means of gauging how deep that’s gone. Robert played a silly trick which had unfortunate results and perhaps it jolted her out of a mood that was merely infatuation, in which case, it was just as well. The young have tender feelings, but not a great sense of proportion. It takes time to get one’s emotional sights into focus.”

“Not necessarily. That young woman, thanks to her unusual circumstances, has acquired quite a philosophy. Does Farmer know she’s leaving you?”

“Not unless she told him when she wrote, and I don’t imagine she did.”

“H’m ... interesting to observe the reaction.”

“It will be more than interesting if he suspects his name has been introduced for the purpose of softening up Mr. Brown,” Kate retorted with a brisk return to tactness, and John got to his feet saying it was time he was off.

“Don’t
you
lose your sense of proportion, my dear,” he said with a twinkle. “It isn’t likely Victoria would have given anything away other than her own feelings. She’s hardly on confidential terms with her Invisible Man.”

“No, I suppose not, I’m beginning to suspect he’s really at the root of half the trouble,” Kate snapped back impatiently. “If he’d declared himself in the first place and given the poor child some sort of anchorage for her starved affections, she wouldn’t have fallen for the first man to take a flattering interest in her. Mr. Brown, whoever he may be, has a lot to answer for in my opinion, and it would give me great pleasure to tell him so to his face.”

“A sentiment I heartily endorse,” he replied with a grin. “It seems unlikely either of us will get the chance, however, since I have a shrewd suspicion that he intends to remain a mystery to the end. Good-bye for now, dear, troubled Kate, and whatever this weekend may bring, let things take their course. You know where to find me if I’m wanted.”

As evening approached Victoria found herself listening for the sound of a car drawing up at the gates which would give her time to make herself scarce and allow Kate to offer a welcome in private, but after all, she was caught unprepared. She had run downstairs in her slip to retrieve the dress she had been ironing in the kitchen and forgotten at the very moment Robert walked into the house.

“No need to be bashful on my account. It isn’t the first time I’ve been greeted by a lady in her underwear, he observed as she turned to run back upstairs, and at the remembered little flick of mockery in his voice she sat down rather abruptly on the bottom tread.

“I’m not the bashful type,” she managed to retort with a comforting flash of the old spirit, “and I can well believe that you’re fully acquainted with the details of feminine underwear!”

“I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your gift for repartee, I’d feared I might be treated with cool disdain which would have been very dull,” he said, and advancing further into the hall, laid a florist’s beribboned creation on the brassbound chest.

Victoria stared at the flowers in growing indignation and exclaimed: “Oh no!” then became aware of his brows raised in quizzical amusement while he stood looking down at her with eyes that were suddenly a little cool.

“Don’t jump to unwarrantable conclusions,” he said with a very slight drawl. “The flowers are for Kate, on whose behalf you thoughtfully drew my attention to too long an absence.”

“Oh, I see. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll find my frock and go and finish dressing.”

“Find your frock? Are you in the habit of mislaying your garments, or am I to assume I’ve arrived at an inopportune moment and there’s a follower lurking somewhere in hiding?”

“I wish I could truthfully say there was,” she flung back at him, trying to struggle to her feet but finding herself slipping on the polished boards.

“Dear me! And what would Mr. Brown say to that?” he countered, then reached down a helping hand. “Allow me to assist you before that very brief trifle you’re wearing rises any higher for decency or the good of my blood pressure.”

He lifted her up, paying no attention to protests or resistance, but he did not at once let her go and held her lightly but firmly between his hands while his eyes searched her upturned face with a disconcerting hint of tenderness.

“Dear, belligerent Victoria Mary ... had you been bracing yourself against this moment?” he asked her softly. “You should know me better than to suppose I would take advantage of past indiscretions. I have my own way of dealing with awkward situations, so don’t hold my manner against me.”

The hostility which he had aroused in her so deliberately to see her through that moment he had spoken of melted away, leaving her weak and once more vulnerable. If the past indiscretions he had mentioned were intended to refer to a mistaken infatuation on her part or a perverted sense of humour on his she had no means of guessing, but she knew now with depressing certainty that whatever the future held for her, she must go on loving him. Perhaps, she thought with a flash of saving humour, he would one day become just another image on which to feed her imagination, like Mr. Brown. Perhaps she had, from lack of masculine knowledge, already invented a personality for him which did not in fact exist.

“What are you thinking to cause those wrinkles of perplexity?” he asked, and she slipped neatly out of his grasp.

“Nothing of any consequence,” she replied, recovering her composure. “Please go into the parlour and wait for Kate and allow me to finish dressing. Elspeth won’t be pleased if I keep her very special dinner waiting.”

“Oh! Is it a celebration?” he enquired innocently, but there was a look in his eye which boded no good and she stepped aside with relief as Kate came hurrying down the stairs, exclaiming:

“Of course it’s a celebration! You’ve neglected us for too long, Rob, and we’ve become browned off with other’s company. Have you forgotten to put on a dress in your haste to be first with a welcome, Victoria, or am I just out of step with the latest fashion?”

Victoria smiled mechanically without replying and escaped to the kitchen, but as the door closed behind her she heard Robert say still with that note of mockery:

“Do I detect a slight flavour of pussiness, dear cousin, or do I merely flatter my masculine ego?”

Kate made some laughing reply which Victoria did not catch and their voices died away as they went into the parlour and shut the door.

Upstairs in her room Victoria lingered over the finishing touches to her appearance in order to give Kate time for whatever she might have to say to Robert in private, but it soon became clear that Timmy’s demands had taken priority and a visit to the nursery was now in progress, judging by the squeals and laughter drifting down the passage which would leave little margin for confidences before Elspeth sounded the gong for dinner. It was as good a way as any of bridging the gap, Victoria thought as she joined the nursery party, but Timmy, sitting up in bed amidst a litter of string and paper wrappings, gave his mother no time for the tactful explanations she had doubtless reserved for a more propitious moment.

“
You
won’t let my Toria go away, will you, Uncle Rab?” he demanded.