The Unknown Mr. Brown (6 page)

“Neither did he. Old man Farmer had a taste for roving, I understand, and seldom saw his son. Farthings belonged to an aunt of Robert’s who used to have him for the school holidays. She was a maiden lady with no family ties and left it to him when she died together with all the treasures she had collected over the years.”

“And he’s never lived here?”

“Only as a boy for holidays. Of course he intended settling here when he married and using the town flat as a convenience for work, but Irene had other ideas. She insisted on a house in London and wanted Robert to sell Farthings and buy a place in some fashionable resort where she could entertain her weekend guests with a nice display of chic. Such a silly thing to quarrel about.”

“And Robert wouldn’t?”

No. He didn’t insist that they lived here if Irene didn’t care for it, but he wouldn’t agree to selling. There was no reason why Irene should have made an issue of it except that she was vain and spoilt and had always had her own way. But she did, and when threats and recriminations failed to move him she upped and ran off with this frightful young man and lived to regret it, I’m glad to say.”

“So you ill-wished her,” Victoria said, and Kate looked quite startled.

“Yes, perhaps I did,” she admitted ruefully. “Does that exonerate your own revengeful thoughts?”

No, but it makes me feel less foolish for having had them. She can’t have cared for him very much, can she, to demand her pound of flesh just to gratify a whim?”

I don t think Irene would ever care for anyone as much as herself, but she was quite proud of having hooked Robert who was much sought after and never doubted she could twist him round her little finger.”

“But the perspicacious Mr. Farmer so adept at putting his finger on any flaw in evidence—shouldn’t he have seen through her?”

“Still not allowing poor Robert any human weaknesses? When a man as heartwhole as Robert becomes emotionally involved for the first time he’s no wiser or less vulnerable than the rest of us, and Irene was very lovely.”

“So he let you have Farthings instead,” Victoria said, her first suspicions returning. “Perhaps it’s the case of an ill wind.”

“Perhaps it is, but that’s another story,” Kate replied rather sharply, and got up to lean out of a window to call to her son playing with his bricks on the lawn. It was a definite intimation that confidences were at an end and Victoria was too wise to persist, but she wondered again if Kate, so calm and well adjusted, was biding her time until Robert should come to share her view that compromise was no bad substitute for the unattainable. But what of Robert, so deep in love once, it seemed, that he could scarcely have been aware of another woman’s feelings for him? Could he ever recapture what he had felt for Irene, or would he just be content with second-best and a wife who would not expect too much of him?

When Robert next came down he was tired and overworked following a gruelling session in the courts and spent most of his time stretched out on one of Kate’s lilos in a sunny corner of the patio. Perhaps, Victoria thought, she was looking at him with new eyes as a result of Kate’s disclosures, but she found herself experiencing a most unfamiliar desire to afford him small attentions, even to dispersing the headache, which she was sure caused that little frown of discomfort, by smoothing it away as she did for Timmy after a bout of crying. She restrained herself, however, from such an uncharacteristic offer which would surely be received with derisive comment, but Kate watched her with amusement, gratified to note that the silly child had evidently profited by her casual hints. She hoped Robert would not nip a better relationship in the bud by administering one of his set-downs, but although he caught her eye with a quizzical glance from time to time, he forbore to tease.

When she left them, however, to plan the evening meal with Elspeth, he opened his eyes and enquired lazily: “What’s come over you, Victoria Mary Hayes? Do I imagine a brief cessation of hostilities or have you just run out of ammunition?”

“You won’t provoke me, Robert, not today when the sun shines and you’re enjoying a hard-earned rest,” she countered, smiling at him while she mentally decided that she rather liked his cold, clever features in-repose.

“Won’t I? How disappointing. You rise so beautifully when you think I’m laughing at you.”

“But half the time you are, aren’t you.”

“Only with amused affection.”

“Affection?”

“Don’t sound so incredulous—I’m not entirely devoid of the more tender emotions.” He spoke with a tinge of the old mockery, but she did not counter with her usual scorn.

“Perhaps I haven’t had a chance to know you as you really are. It’s awfully easy to take people at face value, isn’t it?” she said with an unfamiliar touch of shyness, and his face immediately resumed its mask of hardness.

“Am I to gather Kate has been talking?” he asked with a touch of distaste.

“Well, I think she thought I had the wrong idea of you. She only told me very briefly about that old affair—just to prove how wrong one’s judgment could be. Kate’s very fond of you, you know.”

“Yes, Miss Prim, I do know, and don’t let undigested notions run away with you. You’re a little young to be sitting in judgment on your elders and betters, anyway,” he retorted with a decided bite to his voice, but although she coloured a little, she smiled back at him with a serene refusal to be snubbed.

“I won’t be put in my place by that old cliché. Perhaps you haven’t realised I’ll be twenty next week. In another year even Mr. Brown will have to acknowledge my adult status,” she said, and he smiled back at her a shade wryly.

“Touché,” he murmured, raising a hand to sketch a vague salute. “What a pity we invariably have to come back to the egregious Mr. Brown as arbiter.”

“Well, he is for the time being, but why should you care?”

“I can’t say I do very much, but I find his recurrence as a theme somewhat tedious.”

“Well, he’s a theme I’ve grown so accustomed to that I shall quite miss him when he disappears from the background,” Victoria said, sounding both regretful and a little surprised, and Robert gave her a sharp glance.

“I believe you will. Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for a nameless deity who supplies one with security without any obligation,” he observed with some dryness, and she looked slightly shocked.

“Oh, but I have obligations and, even if I didn’t get a sharp reminder when I’m remiss in reporting progress, I should feel a personal responsibility towards him,” she said quickly. “I hope, when the time comes, he’ll come out of hiding and let me thank him properly.”

“Aha!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “I believe, despite the lack of evidence, that you’ve been fostering romantic notions all along. Mr. Brown is the Frog Prince, or Beauty’s Beast who will claim his reward in the usual way and suffer disenchantment for his pains.”

“What
are
you talking about? I’ll admit at first I had rosy hopes of getting adopted and becoming an old man’s darling, but I never went further than that!”

“Didn’t you, now? Well, there’s yet time for a reshuffle. Since, as you have pointed out, you’ve already reached the years of discretion, adoption must have gone by the board, but there’s still the other alternative. What would you say if you found that marriage had been the end product in mind all along?”

“It would depend entirely on whether I found him acceptable or not,” Victoria answered with engaging primness, and he laughed.

“But you might consider it—as a token repayment for benefits received, shall we say?”

“Oh, you’re being absurd! Whoever he may be, he’d scarcely cherish dreams of marrying a complete stranger seen only once as an unprepossessing schoolgirl!”

“Well, by the laws of average you will marry some worthy young man, and solve both your own and your unknown benefactor’s problems,” Robert said, raising his long body from its recumbent position with an impatient jerk and getting to his feet.

“How cross you sound, suddenly,” she said, her eyes on his elongated shadow stretching across the paving stones as he stood looking down at her. “You don’t know me at all well, really, do you? No better than Mr. Brown does.”

“Be damned to Mr. Brown! Can’t we have any discussion without coming back to him?” Robert snapped, and reaching down a hand, pulled her smartly to her feet. It was the first time he had ever touched her and, perhaps because their recent exchanges had been devoid of that more usual undercurrent of hostility, she became aware of him in an entirely different dimension.

“No, you don’t,” Robert said, anticipating flight, and his fingers tightened on her shoulders. But she had made no attempt to break away, and stood there passively with her face uplifted. “After all, you’re full of surprises, as befits a true daughter of Eve,” he murmured with unexpected tenderness, and bent his dark head to kiss her with gentle insistence.

The sun was already gone from the patio leaving behind a sudden coolness to remind them that summer had not yet come and Kate’s voice from the doorway had a matching crispness.

“You’d better come in now, both of you, it’s getting chilly,” she said, and Victoria slipped a little awkwardly from Robert’s grasp and began picking up the scattered cushions.

“Dear Kate, do I detect a note of disapproval in your untimely summons?” Robert asked on a teasing note which held no embarrassment.

“Not at all. Perhaps I should have coughed discreetly in the best tradition,” she replied lightly, but she did not smile and Victoria, standing irresolutely with the pile of gaily coloured cushions clasped to her chest, remembered too late her own suspicions regarding Kate’s feelings.

“Can I do anything to help Elspeth?” she asked rather hurriedly.

“No. She won’t thank you for getting under her feet when she’s preparing a meal, but you might go up to Timmy and treat him to an extra bedtime story. He’s been feeling a bit neglected,” Kate said. “Robert, you’re looking very tired. Come in and have a whisky and soda to warm you up before supper. I’ve lighted a fire in the parlour.”

Victoria went upstairs and Robert followed his cousin into the small, charmingly panelled room which was used by Kate when she was alone in preference to the larger drawing-room and still retained the old-fashioned name it had been known by in Miss Eva Farmer’s day. He poured himself a drink while Kate, her back turned to him, busied herself unnecessarily with the fire.

“Was that quite fair?” she asked suddenly.

“Kissing your paid employee, you mean?” he said, employing a cool inflection which she knew only too well.

“Don’t be deliberately obtuse,” she answered impatiently. “I wasn’t suggesting that you were amusing yourself with the housemaid, but I’m responsible for Victoria and she’s not been around much.”

“You’re not, you know. Mr. Brown is responsible for her,” Robert retorted provocatively.

“Oh, Mr. Brown! And how do you suppose he will react if he suspects my notable cousin has been making idle passes under my own roof?”

“Your notable cousin doesn’t make idle passes, my love, so stop being angry and doing your best to wreck that nicely burning fire,” he said, and she put down the poker at once and got up from her knees looking a little sheepish.

“Sorry, Rob,” she said, moving over to the tray of drinks to pour herself a sherry, “I’ve no business to take you to task in what is virtually your own house, I suppose, but that little episode looked suspiciously like a pass to me, idle or otherwise.”

He sipped his drink in silence for a moment, regarding her affectionately across the width of the hearth, then he said with a complete change of tone:

“Dear Kate, your concern for your ewe-lamb is very right and proper, but you should know me better after all this time than to suppose I would take unfair advantage. Today I progressed a little way because the sun was shining and your delightful young protégée forgot to keep stoking the ancient fires, but by tomorrow she’ll have had time to reach your own conclusions, and hostility will take over. By the way, did you know your young protégée will be twenty next week?”

“Yes, of course I knew. Could you get down for the night, Rob? I’ve asked John Squires for dinner to try to make the occasion a little festive, but it won’t be very exciting for Victoria.”

“Sorry, it’s impossible mid-week. I’ll send her a birthday card instead.”

“That won’t exactly send her into transports! You might at least manage a handsome floral tribute. Do you know that child’s never had so much as a bunch of violets as a gesture from Mr. Brown? A cheque comes from the solicitors on the appropriate occasions, but never anything personal, so you might trot round to your pet florist who kept Irene so well supplied and give them a nice expensive order.”

“Really, Kate! You do want the best of both worlds, don’t you?” Robert laughed. “If I followed up today’s little pleasantry by sending flowers, it could put all sorts of ideas into her foolish head, as you should be the first to point out.”

“I don’t see why—” Kate began stubbornly, then caught his eye and joined reluctantly in his laughter. “Yes, I see what you mean,” she said. “Oh, well, perhaps when you next come down we’ll have a second party and crack a bottle of champagne. Only—”

“Only what?”

“Nothing that you mightn’t consider an impertinence. Do you ever see Irene now that she’s back in circulation again?”

“That was a very transparent line of thought. Yes, we meet occasionally at parties when I can get to them; yes, she is as lovely and sought after as ever; finally and in the hope of convincing you of complete recovery, I have no regrets except for the wasted years. Does that answer you?”

“Yes, dear Robert, and I won’t worry again. I, too, have regretted the wasted years and grieved for you,” she said just as Victoria ran down the little winding stairs in a corner of the room to tell them that supper was ready. Kate saw her hesitate on the bottom step before she spoke and mistook the quick glance she gave them both for one of belated embarrassment.

“Come and have a quick sherry before we go in,” she said, holding out a welcoming hand. “Robert and I have been reminiscing shamelessly—a sure sign of encroaching age, so one’s told. Robert, fill a glass for the girl and help yourself at the same time. Since it’s Sunday supper and traditionally cold, we won’t incur Elspeth’s wrath by keeping it waiting, so come to the fire and warm up, Victoria—these late spring evenings can catch one out once the sun is down.”