The Unknown Mr. Brown (14 page)

“Who told you?”

“I forget. My father’s solicitor, probably.”

“Then forget that too. The case was lost before you ever went into the box and your evidence, even had you been better briefed, could have made no difference. It was just a last throw for leniency on the part of the defence, gambling on old Seldon’s distaste for children being forced to give evidence, and it didn’t come off. Had I been able to see you afterwards I could at least have relieved your mind on that score.”

“I wish you had. I wish I’d known that you tried.”

“Would it have made any difference to those uncharitable thoughts you’ve harboured ever since?”

“Yes, I think it would. There was nobody, you see, who seemed to care until Mr. Brown stepped in, and even he wasn’t much use as a comfort, as I never met him.”

“Yes, well ... possibly he was afraid of involving you in some emotional entanglement out of a sense of obligation that you might later regret,” Robert said absently, and she looked at him in surprise.

“Do you know, Robert, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you refer to Mr. Brown as if he was human with possible problems of his own,” she said, and he sent her a quick, rather wary look as though she had caught him out in an unintentional slip.

“Well, if one accepts the fact that your patron is unlikely to be the equivalent of a computer, one must, I suppose, allow him a modicum of natural feelings—but enough of Mr. Brown. Having exchanged a few home truths on the matter of my dubious attentions I insist upon spending the rest of the day in amicable harmony and the hope of furthering my private aims, despite your doubts,” he said, reverting firmly to his more usual manner and holding out a hand for her empty glass.

She thought it wiser not to pursue the ambiguous subject of his private aims by asking awkward questions, but she hoped very much for a return of yesterday’s felicity and knew in her heart that she no longer had any wish to withstand his persuasions.

There were few opportunities, however, for recapturing the mood of yesterday. Rain persisted steadily through the afternoon, putting paid to Robert’s original plan for a trip to the coast and a bathe.

Robert had lighted a small fire in the parlour to offset the gloom of the afternoon, although it was warm enough, and Victoria was grateful for the cosiness and an illusion of continued intimacy, but she could not quite recapture the magic of yesterday which had ended so fittingly with moonlight and the miracle of a shooting star. Robert, too, seemed in no hurry to renew his attentions or, perhaps, he was too wise to try to recall a mood that was already in the past and, although he still contrived to coax responses from her with a skill she was as yet too inexperienced to appreciate, he made no move to kiss her or even to touch her.

Kate, expected back that evening, had been vague about her train and said she would take a taxi up from the station, but Victoria, as time went on, found she had an ear alert for the sounds of arrival distracting her attention from Robert, and when Elspeth brought in the tea, delivering Timmy at the same time, she was grateful for the chance to revert to her more customary place in the household before Kate returned.

Robert watched her with amusement, admiring the determination with which she sought to ignore the subtle implications of the past two days, knowing with increasing tenderness that however in the future she might regret her weakness in accepting his overtures, she would never again be able to whip up that old animosity with quite such uncaring ease.

When tea was finished he obligingly joined in the games Victoria devised for Timmy, sitting on the floor and devoting his attention entirely to his godson. Although the boy received his efforts with satisfaction, his response was a little wary. To him the week-end had not only been a bitter disappointment but filled with uneasy doubts. The godfather so long admired and taken for granted had in his mother’s absence seemed different and rather like a stranger in a grown-up sort of way, and even his dear Toria had become grown-up too and had secrets with his Uncle Rab and not with him. He wished that Uncle John was his godfather, for, though not so entertaining as Uncle Rab, he never laughed at you or made funny jokes you couldn’t understand and he was always exactly the same. He was thinking all these things as they played Snakes and Ladders, a game he had been newly introduced to and hadn’t quite got the hang of, and Robert chose that moment to point out that he had cheated.

“What’s cheated?” he demanded, sounding immediately truculent, for he knew very well it was something bad, even if he didn’t grasp the implication. Robert explained patiently, giving demonstrations with fee counters, making a joke about the snakes which you must always come down because they were slippery so that it was cheating to try to go up them.

Timmy listened unsmilingly, then firmly announced that if he wanted to go up a snake he would, so there!

“In that case nobody would play with you, so you’d, have to play by yourself,” his godfather retorted good-naturedly, and the boy’s face began to grow scarlet. Victoria, knowing the signs, tried hastily to find excuses for him, but she was too late.

“Don’t care, don’t care! Who wants to play with silly old snakes, anyway?
You’re
a snake, Uncle Rab—a big, ugly, slippery snake, and I hate you!” he shouted, snatching up the board with its remaining counters and hurling them at Robert.

“Now this is where you learn your lesson, young man,” Robert exclaimed, getting to his feet and picking up the child in one swift movement. He sat down in the nearest chair with the boy across his knee and Timmy let out such a roar that Victoria clapped her hands to her ears. He was making so much noise that none of them heard a car draw up outside, but his screams must have sounded alarming to Kate, for she did not wait to pay off the taxi but ran into the house and flung open the door of the parlour just as Robert brought his hand down on the child s wriggling bottom.

“For heaven’s sake! What’s going on?” she demanded breathlessly, and at the sound of her voice, Timmy twisted out of his godfather’s grasp and flung himself upon her, his bellows changing to gulping sobs.

“Oh, dear, oh dear! What a moment to pick for a welcomed return to the bosom of your family,” Robert observed, getting to his feet. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me in the act of administering a long-delayed spanking to your son and heir.”

If Kate heard him she was too concerned with soothing her child to pay very much heed. She was on her knees, with her arms tight round him, trying to elucidate the flood of grievances which poured from him, and her eyes, meeting Victoria’s, were reproachful.

“What have you been doing to him?” she demanded. “He’s feverish and probably has a chill.”

“The feverish appearance is due to temper, not a chill, dear Kate,” Robert interposed, with that suggestion of amused tolerance for human unreason which he could assume so devastatingly at times, and Kate looked at him angrily.

“Then you’ve probably upset him. If I’d known you were thinking of coming down for the day I’d have come back in the morning and none of this would have happened,” she replied with rather a sweeping disregard for cause and effect, and Robert grinned.

“Well, I suppose it’s possible you might have averted trouble, but it would have been a shame to cut your holiday short before you’d even got started. I came down on Friday,” he said quite gently, and she disengaged Timmy’s clinging hands and got slowly to her feet.

“You mean you’ve spent the week-end here?” she said, her voice sounding tight and unfamiliar.

“Yes, do you mind? I wasn’t to know, of course, that you wouldn’t be here, but Victoria kindly made me welcome.”

“I’m sure she did. It’s even possible she made the suggestion herself. She’s been concerned at your absence for some little time,” Kate snapped.

Has she indeed? ’ said Robert with interest, but made no attempt to corroborate or otherwise, and Victoria, convinced now that Kate’s feelings for her cousin went only too plainly rather deeper than friendship, experienced an unreasoning sense of guilt as if she had indeed, been responsible for engineering the visit. This was no time, however, for denials, with Robert standing there, quite undisturbed, and clearly rather enjoying the situation.

“I’m sorry you should think that, Kate,” she said in
a cool little voice. “I had no more idea than you of Robert’s intentions, but since he looks on this as his home and seldom does give notice of his arrival, it never occurred to me to refuse him a bed.”

She was aware that Robert’s eyes were resting on his cousin with a rather enigmatical expression and Kate coloured faintly as if conscious that in the heat of the moment brought about by matronly concern she had spoken without her usual logical calm. She smiled a little ruefully at Victoria.

“Of course it didn’t,” she said: “I’m afraid I spoke without thinking. All the same, Robert should have known better.”

“What! Knocked up the local at that hour of night to take me in in case the neighbours talked?” Robert exclaimed, and Victoria felt greatly relieved when Elspeth, appearing in the doorway to welcome Kate back, arrived in time to catch his remark and said in her nursery voice, and with a significant broadening of accent:

“You’ll surely no be fashin’ yourself with gossiping tongues after all this time, Mrs. Allen. There’s many a week-end Mr. Rab visited here, with only mysel’ to presairve the proprieties, and no talk ever came out of that, to my sairtain knowledge.”

“That was different. I’m a widow with a child and old enough to ignore the conventions,” Kate replied, but she sounded as if she knew it to be a weak defence, and Elspeth sniffed.

“Widows are no less immune from gossip as far as I know, and you’re no’ so old that a man wouldna look at you twice,” she retorted tartly, “but let me take this laddie off to his bed now he’s stopped his bawling and you sit down and rest yourself until he’s ready to be tucked up. Run along, Timmy, your mammy’s back safe and sound and she’ll be up in a wee while to read you a story.” Robert, taking the hint, was already filling glasses for the evening aperitif and Timmy allowed himself to be led away without protest. Victoria, anxious not only to fulfil her duties but to leave the two cousins to settle their differences without being hampered by her presence, ran up the little corner staircase as a short cut to the nursery and hoped that Kate’s homecoming hadn’t been spoiled by such an explosive reception.

“That’s better,” Robert said as Kate took off her hat, tossing it carelessly on to the floor, and relaxed in a deep chair with her drink. “I can appreciate that arriving at such an unpropitious moment you were naturally thrown off balance, but you were acting a little out of character, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t. I’ll admit that in the heat of the moment I probably said more than was wise, but I’m concerned for that child’s reputation so long as I’m responsible for her, and you should have had more sense than to invite trouble with the authorities.”

“What authorities? I’m not aware that one requires a licence for week-end visiting.”

“Oh, don’t be so deliberately aggravating! You know very well I was alluding to the solicitors and their charges upon my responsibility. What do you suppose their reaction will be when news of this innocent week-end reaches them?”

“Not so obvious as yours, one must hope. In any case there’s no reason to suppose your absence from home would be unduly noticed.”

“I daresay not, since the girl isn’t without tact and a sense of discretion—still, I can hardly tell her not to mention it when she writes without giving her ideas she’s better without.”

“Then you will have to keep your fingers crossed and rely on that sense of discretion, won’t you?” he replied, sounding, she thought, reprehensibly unconcerned.

“You don’t seem to realise how tricky this situation could be,” she said rather sharply. “It’s not a question of morality or even of outdated conventions, but the peculiar conditions laid down by Mr. Brown. Any minute Victoria could be removed from my care and no reasons given. Old Mr. Chappie made it very plain at the time that a concession had been made in the matter of temporary employment only so long as I complied with certain provisos. It puts me in a very awkward position.”

“Not so awkward as that of poor Victoria Mary should your forebodings come to pass,” he retorted with rather unseemly levity, and she glanced up at him, frowning “Oh, you’re in one of your tiresome moods!” she exclaimed crossly. “I’ve no doubt the whole thing strikes you as a trivial storm in a teacup, which it well may be, but at least you might consider Victoria’s point of view. She’s happy here with a pleasant illusion of home, and wouldn’t take at all kindly to being uprooted again for lack of a little forethought.”

“All of which is unlikely to occur for such far-fetched reasons, but even if it did—” he said, and stopped.

“Yes? Even if it did?”

“It would scarcely be the end of the road for Victoria, only for Mr. Brown,” he concluded softly, and she glanced at him suspiciously.

“What do you mean by that ambiguous remark?” she asked, and went on without waiting for an answer: “Incidentally, I’ve a bone to pick with you—quite a large bone in view of this surprise visit.”

“What have I done now to flaunt the conventions, or is it merely a matter of personal annoyance?”

“Nothing personal as far as I’m concerned, but I happened to run into Irene in London, looking very glamorous and expensive and bursting with well-bred curiosity about your latest conquest.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Only that she apparently happened to meet you one day coming out of Flora’s where you used to spend such a fortune on flowers for her and had the inquisitiveness to go inside and make enquiries. They were most discreet, of course, and mentioned no names, but the address you had written out was still lying on the counter, and since it was only too familiar to Irene, it set her thinking.”