The Unknown Mr. Brown (15 page)

“And her thoughts presumably fixed on you.”

“Oh, no. Irene may have been piqued by our long friendship, but she never considered me worth a jealous pang—besides, the name of the mysterious recipient of five dozen highly-priced roses was plainly written above the address and, being a new one to Irene, set her agog with speculation.”

“Very likely, since women are never content to relinquish old claims, but it’s scarcely a matter of much moment, is it?”

“Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” Kate said rather deliberately after a glance at his face, “that Victoria received five dozen roses from Mr. Brown on her birthday, but only a card from you.”

“Well, what of it?” Robert retorted, and turned to replenish his glass so that she had no means of reading anything from his expression.

“What of it? Well, surely there must be an explanation, unless you were just amusing yourself at her expense, which wouldn’t have been very nice. What
are
you up to, Rob? Flowers purporting to come from a stranger you’ve always rather ridiculed, and now picking the one week-end to appear yourself, when I’m conveniently out of the way.

“That was just the luck of the draw—I’d really no idea you were in London,” he answered casually. “As for the flowers, it seemed a pity not to give Mr. Brown s image a boost by crediting him with something warmer than the dictates of cold charity.”

All at once Kate was angry. She knew from past experience that she would learn nothing from Robert by calling him to account, but she had a sudden clear picture of the soft radiance lighting up Victoria’s face as she looked down at the roses in her arms and said wonderingly. “They’ve crowned my whole day ...” and suddenly itched to pick a quarrel with him. “Cold charity is at least more honest than an attempt to bamboozle an unsuspecting innocent for one’s private amusement,” she snapped at him. “You must have a peculiar sense of humour, Robert, if playing tricks of this sort affords you entertainment.”

I think,” he replied with the sudden icy politeness of a stranger, “we won’t pursue this subject any further. I have nothing to say that would satisfy you at this juncture, neither am I prepared to justify my actions. However, I would strongly advise you to keep your knowledge to yourself unless you’re out to make trouble.”

“I wouldn’t dream of reducing that bright bubble of happiness to the ugly reality of an ill-timed jest for my own satisfaction, but watch your step, my dear. It isn’t wise to tread on dreams lightly and the young have a right to theirs however foolish they may seem to others,” Kate said, and jumped, spilling her drink on her smart new suit as Victoria’s voice said from the bottom of the staircase:

Thank you, Kate, but I’d rather know. It’s much more humiliating to be bolstered up with fairy tales to save one’s pride than to face the fact that one has been made a fool of.”

There was an instant of shocked silence. Kate dabbed ineffectually at the stain on her skirt while she sought vainly for the right words: Robert, standing by the fireplace, put his half-empty glass down on the mantelshelf, creating a staccato sharpness of sound, but otherwise did not move, and Victoria remained where she was at the foot of the stairs. Her face was rather white, its planes and angles sharply accentuated giving her a curiously fragile look, but she held herself very erect with an odd kind of stillness which was strangely moving.

“How much have you heard?” Kate asked at last realizing the futility of trying to cover up with soothing improvisations.

“Oh, everything, I think,” Victoria answered still in those cool, unhurried tones. “I listened, you know. I listened quite deliberately. I was coming down to tell you Timmy was ready to be tucked up and I heard you reproving Robert for coming down this week-end and I thought he might say something which would give me a clue to—to certain things I wanted to know. Then you sidetracked him with your discovery about the roses, so I just sat at the top of the stairs till you had both finished. As you said yourself, Kate, it wasn’t a very nice trick to play, knowing how much I’ve always hoped for some sign of interest from Mr. Brown, but I suppose I was fair game. Robert, I realise now, is fond of playing tricks to pass the time, but I won’t be had again. Will you go up to Timmy? He’s looking forward to his bedtime story.”

Robert still said nothing, and Kate got slowly to her feet, uncertain whether it was best to leave them alone, or try to minimise the consequences of a crisis she had unwittingly brought about.

“Victoria ...” she began hesitantly as she crossed the room “... it’s no use saying I’m sorry you overheard our conversation, but you mustn’t think you were being made a fool of. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for Robert’s odd behaviour, so don’t ...” She tailed off rather lamely and Victoria prompted politely: “Don’t what?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing I can possibly advise in the circumstances. I’ll be in the nursery if you want me, but I won’t come down till I’m called,” Kate replied, adding over her shoulder as she passed Victoria at the foot of the stairs: “And you’d better make your excuses good, Robert, if you want to keep your newly-won advantage.”

Robert stooped with leisurely deliberation to throw another log on the fire.

“Well ...” he said at last as Victoria did not move, “... hadn’t you better come and sit down? There’s no point in us shouting abuse at one another across the width of the room.”

“I haven’t been shouting, and I see no reason why you should need the support of abuse,” she replied with that strange, unnatural composure, and he frowned, impatient of his careless phrasing.

“Quite right. I was presuming, I’m afraid, on experience of other occasions when sparring matches between us took on rather a flavour of prep-school retaliation,” he said, deliberately using the teasing intonation which used to rile her in the past, hoping to goad her into an outburst which would relieve her feelings.

“Yes, well ...” she said a little absently as if the past no longer greatly mattered, “I daresay I was easy meat, not being at all experienced in the art of repartee, but you hadn’t much in the way of opposition to sharpen your wits on, had you?”

“You think not? Well, Victoria Mary, it may please you to know that I found your repartee exhilarating and by no means adolescent, if that’s what you were implying,” he answered, still with that light raillery, but she looked at him with grave consideration, then said bleakly:

“It doesn’t please me at all. It only points an obvious truth that I was a convenient butt to provide entertainment for your idle moments.”

His manner underwent a subtle change and when next he spoke it was with the measured coolness he employed in court and his face became the cold, clever mask she had first known and disliked.

“If that’s what you think, you can hardly absolve yourself entirely,” he retorted. “You would have been willing enough, I fancy, to come to terms with me had I pressed my advantage this week-end, despite these unflattering opinions. On second thoughts, perhaps I was too forbearing and merely disappointed you.”

He regretted his words as soon as he saw the colour flooding her cheeks and her slender body seeming to shrink from an unexpected blow, but at least, he reflected wryly, he had succeeded in breaking through that alarming composure.

“That of course is what I should have expected from you,” she countered swiftly, and there was already a hint of tears in her voice. “All right, then! I’m too honest or too silly to deny that I was willing to be made love to because I thought ...well, it doesn’t matter now what I thought, but you at least might have had the decency to leave me my illusions ... to pretend, even though it was only make-believe, that you had found me p-pleasing.” She was crying now, quite unaware of it, and he gave a sharp exclamation and crossed the room in two strides to take her by the shoulders.

“You foolish, pig-headed little idiot! What do you suppose I was about if I didn’t find you pleasing?” he exclaimed, shaking her quite hard. “I may have made a mess of the whole damned business, but I wasn’t scheming to seduce you, whatever you may think now.”

“I don’t know what to think,” she said on a note of distraction, and stood very still, weeping on his shoulder for a snatched moment of comfort, then tried to pull away from him.

“No, you don’t,” he said, tightening his grip. “Not until we get this nonsense sorted out. Will you listen, now, while I plead my case?”

She nodded.

“You’ll remember we talked of a time that would be ripe for disenchantment,” he began, leading her to the fire and putting her gently into a chair. “I don’t think that time is quite yet, but I’ll have to take a chance on being premature and crave your indulgence.”

She had stopped crying and was listening to him politely but without much comprehension, and he realised he had made an error in trying to pave the way by wrapping his intentions in a semblance of make-believe when she said in a tired voice:

“You don’t have to go on pandering to my adolescent dream-world. I’m quite capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality, even though I still sometimes like to make images.”

“I’m sure you are. Very well, I won’t waste time any longer trying for the delicate approach. Will you marry me, Victoria Mary Hayes, and try to overcome that aversion for browbeating barristers?”

He had in sheer self-defence dropped back into flippancy to cloak a proposal which might come as something of a shock, but he was unprepared for the naked pain which suddenly darkened her eyes or the swift dismay with which she sprang to her feet.

“That was quite unnecessary, Robert,” she said, and her voice was now completely steady and devoid of tears. “Whatever the unlucky results of this week-end, there’s no occasion to make things worse with gentlemanly offers of rectitude.”

“Good God!” he exclaimed, uncertain at that moment whether to laugh or be angry. “Where on earth do you get such phrases from? I can assure you that gentlemanly offers of rectitude wouldn’t in my opinion be any sort of foundation for a successful marriage, or even as the price of seduction, so don’t go weaving more fantasies to confuse the issue.”

“I’m sorry you should think so poorly of my efforts to be practical. I was merely trying to relieve you of a misplaced sense of duty, and there’s nothing particularly fanciful in that,” she said, and he regarded her in thoughtful silence for a moment, cursing the impulse which had led him to speak against his better judgment, and wondering how best to deal with an intelligence temporarily closed to reason.

“You have a most curious trick of relapsing into slightly pompous pedantry on certain occasions,” he observed, hoping to give her time to readjust her ideas, but she looked at him as if he had been guilty of some trivial irrelevance and replied without humour:

“Then I must have caught the trick from you. After all, I haven’t had much chance since coming to Farthings of associating with men of my own age and habits of speech, have I?”

“All right, you’ve made your point,” Robert said, and the bite was back in his voice. “I realise that it could be said that I’ve taken advantage of your rather unique situation, but there’s no need to throw it in my face. It seems I’ve misjudged both the moment and your own rather misleading behaviour, so we’ll shelve your answer until a more propitious time.”

“My answer?”

“Perhaps you’ve already forgotten that little item, or wasn’t it important? Never mind, the time wasn’t ripe, so we’ll let
that pass, but there’s one
thing I
would
like to
know. Was I only deceiving myself by imagining a change of heart in you?” His voice softened as he asked the question, the ghost of that tender smile touching his lips, and for a moment Victoria wavered. It would be so easy to abandon resistance and shut one’s eyes both to disillusioning reality and to the pricklings of conscience, but because her conscience had never been entirely easy in regard to Kate, she could only answer him indirectly by blurting out as she had once before:

“And what of Kate?”

“Kate?” He frowned impatiently. “Oh yes, Kate ... It was a pity you had to find out about those roses, but if you hadn’t succumbed to temptation and eavesdropped on our conversation, you’d have been none the wiser, so don’t blame poor Kate for giving the show away.”

She, in turn, supposed him to have purposely sidetracked her, but the casual mention of that most bitter hurt to her pride successfully silenced any qualms of conscience in regard to Kate.

“Why?” she asked. “Why did you have to play such a pointless practical joke on me? To make fun of me by letting me believe in something that wasn’t true was not only stupid but heartless.”

“Stupid, possibly, but not intentionally heartless,” he replied, but there was little of warmth in his voice now, only a cool note of tolerance as if he was humouring an unreasonable child and, like a child, she stamped her foot at him.

‘That’s no excuse and no answer either,” she flashed out. “If I could understand what prompted you—but I can’t.”

“Can’t you? Well, no, how should you? Let’s say, then, that it seemed a pity not to endow unimaginative Mr. Brown with a little fictional awareness of his more tender obligations in view of past omissions, and you must admit, Victoria Mary, that true or false, the result was fully justified.”

“Don’t go on addressing me in that silly manner as if my names as well as my greenness amused you,” she snapped back, sounding, at last, more like her usual self. “Nothing’s justified as it’s turned out, unless you count your success in making a fool of me, and for that I can’t forgive you.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said, sounding suddenly tired and not very interested. “Well, I’ll just have to make the best of it, won’t I?”

“Is that all you care?” she asked, but if he caught the tentative plea for assurance in her voice he ignored it.

“You’re not, I fancy, in the right mood to assess degrees of emotion, so the answer had better be yes, I care to the extent of not wishing to hurt you unnecessarily, but I’m too old and seasoned not to have learned acceptance. You might with good effect apply a little of the same philosophy to your own situation when you’ve got over your disappointment regarding Mr. Brown. There are worse things in life than the loss of one’s youthful illusions.”

“None of which explains anything,” she protested, striving to capture a shred of dignity. “It’s very easy to wrap things up in a lot of high-sounding nonsense that doesn’t mean a thing, but you owe me more than that, Robert. So far, you’ve offered me nothing definite to come to terms with.”

“I’ve offered you marriage, but perhaps you don’t consider that definite enough,” he replied quite gently.

“But that,” she countered quickly before her resistance could be further weakened, “was probably a hoax. It was all a hoax, wasn’t it? The roses, the surprise weekend, even the moonlight and the shooting star—everything laid on to lend enchantment where none existed.”

He made a small involuntary movement towards her then thrust his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned back against the mantelshelf.

“You must, of course, draw your own conclusions about that,” he said with cool deliberation. “I’m not prepared to make palatable concessions as a sop to hurt feelings. You must take me as you find me, my dear, or not at all.”