The Unknown Mr. Brown (21 page)

“Dear me, what slovenly habits for this hour of day,” he observed, eyeing her state of undress with interest. Is the house on fire?”

“Of course not, but I want to find Kate. I’ve had the most extraordinary letter from Mr. Chappie,” she replied. “You wouldn’t
believe,
Robert, what seems to have been simmering in that man’s mind!”

“What, old Chappie?”

“No, of course not—Mr.
Brown
! I’m to meet him on Monday at half-past eleven to discuss certain propositions.”

“H’m ... sounds fishy to me. He’s probably a dirty old man. May I see the letter?”

“No, you may not—not before Kate’s read it, anyway. You’ll only make fun of it. Where is she?”

“At the bottom of the garden, I believe, pulling lettuces for your lunch.”

She found Kate in the vegetable garden, inspecting the lettuces with a dissatisfied eye and bemoaning the fact that most of them had been eaten by slugs.

“I don’t know why I keep that boy on,” she complained. “He’s never here when he’s wanted and when he is he skimps his work.”

“Never mind the slugs—read this!” Victoria said, thrusting Mr. Chappie’s letter into her hands. “I always told you I would meet Mr. Brown one day, and now it’s coming true.”

“H’m ...” Kate murmured, much as Robert had done when she had reached the end. “Several conclusions could be drawn from this. Well, Victoria, are you going? He doesn’t give you much time, I must say.”

“But of course! Haven’t I been waiting for this moment ever since it all began?”

“Yes, I suppose so. I didn’t really think it would happen, you know. I’ve never quite been able to swallow Mr. Brown.”

“Because you thought he was just a figurehead—something to represent a trust and nothing more.”

“Yes, I expect I did. Victoria, do you think you’re wise? You’ve made so many images, so many happy-ever-after endings ... sometimes it’s best to keep one’s dreams intact.” Kate sounded uneasy and her eyes were grave, but Victoria, although a little damped by this guarded reception, was too excited to let doubts disturb her.

“Dear Kate, this
is
the happy ending,” she said. “Whoever he may be, Mr. Brown has kept and educated me and now it seems he has planned for me too. The least I can do is to listen to his proposals and fall in with them if I can.”

“Listen, yes, but think twice before agreeing. However much you may have benefited by his generosity, he doesn’t own you,” Kate said a little dryly. “Has Robert seen this letter?”

“No. Anyway, it’s nothing to do with him.”

“He mightn’t agree with that. Anyway, I think we’ll let him read it. His advice on legal matters is to be respected.”

But Robert had no advice to offer. Indeed he adopted a somewhat frivolous attitude when later, Victoria, bathed and dressed, joined the cousins on the patio for mid-morning coffee. He insisted on reading the letter aloud, interspersed with conjectures and speculations as wild and unlikely as any Victoria might have thought up, until she was reduced to giggles and Kate to exasperation.

“But seriously, Rob, don’t you think she should insist on more definite details concerning these vague propositions before committing herself to an interview that might prove embarrassing?” Kate said. “I think she should have more time. It’s extremely short notice considering the many opportunities there have been in the past. Ring up and make another date, Victoria.”

“Nonsense!” Robert said unhelpfully. “The gentleman might change his mind. Anyway, there won’t be anyone in the office on a Saturday. As it happens I have an appointment with old Chappie myself on Monday, so Victoria can drive up with me, which will save her finding her own way.”

“Oh, in that case I shall have fewer doubts. You can always insist on meeting the gentleman yourself, can’t you?” said Kate, sounding relieved, but Victoria, who did not take at all kindly to this unexpected turn of events, said quickly:

“I think you’ve just made that up, Robert, What business could you possibly have with Chappie, Chappie & Ponsonby?”

“Business that will, I trust, prove pleasantly lucrative. You must have forgotten that barristers have to depend on solicitors for their briefs,” Robert replied with a touch of amusement, and she coloured.

“Oh! Well, I’d just as soon go up by train.”

“And I’d just as soon you didn’t. No, no, my child, you must humour me in this. I can assure you I have no intention of cramping your style when we get there, but it’s making rather heavy weather, don’t you think, to arrive at the same destination by separate routes just to be awkward—besides, it will clearly relieve Kate’s mind,” he said and she could do no less than give in, albeit with deep misgivings. If her anxiety to oblige Mr. Brown sprang largely from a desire to escape from Robert, it was not going to help her resolution to have him virtually handing her over.

“Well,” said Kate briskly, “that’s one thing settled to my satisfaction. I shall feel much happier knowing Robert will be holding a watching brief for you, my dear. He may seem to be treating this business rather casually, but he won’t let you sign away your freedom. Now, if you want to find a quiet spot for your picnic before trippers get there first, you ought to be starting. Don’t stay out too long, will you? It may be working up for a storm.”

“Oh, no—not today!” Victoria exclaimed, springing to her feet with alacrity, glad that she could escape from them both and recapture in private the first fine flavour of her small miracle. “There’s not a cloud in the sky, and nothing is going to spoil my red-letter day.”

“Famous last words,” Robert murmured as she ran into the house. “Let’s hope Providence is too occupied with higher things to be tempted.”

CHAPTER TEN

ALAS for Victoria’s confident predictions, the day was to end in near disaster. She had driven along by-roads and narrow lanes that were strange to her once the village was left behind before finding a suitable spot in which to picnic. She was governed by the age-old urge to find something better round the next corner and by the time hunger had driven them to stop by a stretch of woodland which promised shade and solitude she had little notion of where they were.

It was a delightful wood with grassy rides which enticed them further and further into its unknown depths, and so isolated from the familiar world did it seem, Victoria would not have been surprised to come upon the gingerbread house which had lured Hansel and Gretel to their encounter with the witch. She felt quite relieved when the ride opened out suddenly into a cheerful little glade which boasted a mossy carpet to sit on and sunlight filtering invitingly through the high trees. Even Timmy seemed glad to abandon exploration for the moment and eat his lunch in the safety of the less shadowy clearing.

By the time they had finished their lunch it had become very close and still, but the tracery of leaves and branches above them allowed glimpses of the sky too small for any warning signs of a change in the weather. Victoria lay back on the warm dry moss, stretching her limbs drowsily and closing her eyes to evoke more clearly the images she had fashioned for herself throughout the years. After Monday there would be no need to dream, no need to wonder ... no need, even, to remember that she had been fooled into false hopes on account of five dozen roses sent by another man. This was a train of thought, however, that led to mental pictures which only proved disturbing, for Robert’s image, she found, became superimposed on that other, reducing it to wraithlike proportions. She tried not to think of him, to comfort herself with the knowledge that Mr. Brown seemed to be offering a way of escape from the painful stirrings of first love, but it was Robert’s face she remembered last as she fell asleep, his voice following her into her dreams, saying with that mocking tenderness which meant so little: “Do you find it so difficult to see me in the light of a lover?”

A distant roll of thunder woke her, or perhaps it was the first chill drops of rain stinging her warm bare flesh which startled her into awareness of the coming storm. The wood seemed to have undergone a frightening change while she slept; the little glade was no longer friendly and dappled with sunshine, the rides that led out of it were dark tunnels disappearing into a maw of blackness and, overhead, wind rocked the branches of the high trees in a frenzied dance of menace. Victoria looked round quickly for Timmy, wondering why he had not wakened her. He was nowhere to be seen in the small clearing and she began calling impatiently as she packed away the picnic things. Progress was necessarily slow for a five-year-old with a slight limp and they were undoubtedly in for a soaking before the road and the car would be reached. Her annoyance grew as she got no response; it was no time to be hiding and playing tricks on her, but as the minutes passed and no answering shout rewarded her, annoyance turned to alarm. She did not know how long she had slept, and if the boy had wandered off to explore the wood on his own, he might well be lost or, even worse, have fallen and hurt himself.

She began running a little way down each ride, calling his name, then thrust her way through the tangle of bushes and undergrowth that ended in the clearing, brambles tearing at her bare legs while whip-like branches snapped back in her face as she tried to part them. It seemed to her hours while she searched and called, running this way and that with panic mounting at every step. It was so dark now in the wood that it was difficult to recognize the outlines of paths and although the rain still held off the thunder grew louder and nearer while lightning streaked through the trees making grotesque shapes of their writhing branches. As she pushed her way back to the edge of the clearing, she stumbled over something which immediately fastened itself round her legs with such terrifying suddenness that she gave a scream.

“Did you think I was a bear?” said Timmy’s voice with a complete absence of distress, and she shook him quite roughly to ease her racing heartbeats.

“Have you been hiding here all the time?” she demanded furiously, and he gave her a complacent affirmative. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

“Yes, but I thought I’d give you a fright.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she answered impatiently, then hugged him to her as the storm broke in good earnest directly over their heads. Rain fell with a torrential violence and in a moment they were soaked through; lightning seemed to run down the trunks of trees like fiery snakes and the noise was deafening. Even Timmy lost some of his brashness and clung to her, beginning to whimper, and although she was not normally affected by storms, she experienced a few seconds of atavistic terror. The wood seemed alive with a primaeval fury, threatening to crush them both for their wanton trespass and, as though some unseen force could read her thoughts, there came an answering crack from the heavens, as a ball of fire descended, splitting the trunk of a fir tree from top to bottom. Victoria just had time to thrust the boy back into the bushes before the tree fell with a crash across the clearing, demolishing the picnic basket beneath its weight.

“Was that a thunderbolt?” asked Timmy, awed but still curious.

“I shouldn’t think so, but a tree was struck and I think we’d better get out of here,” Victoria answered, hoping her voice did not betray her fear.

There were several rides converging on the clearing and for a moment Victoria stood in doubt. The tree which now lay across the open space altered its perspective and in the noise and confusion everything looked different. She thought she remembered that clump of willows on the right as they had come out into the little glade, but halfway down the ride she wasn’t so sure. The wood seemed full of willow and the ride more twisting than she remembered, but she pressed on, hoping with every turn to come upon the road. The ground was already waterlogged beneath their feet and every so often they stumbled and fell, trapped by unseen ruts and holes. The boy was beginning to flag and his sense of adventure was already quenched.

“We’re nearly there,” she assured Timmy as she hastened her steps, but when they rounded the next bend she stopped dead with a little cry of dismay. The path straggled on for a little way, then petered out in a density of trees and bramble which stretched away on all sides as far as the eye could see. The ride had led them back into the very heart of the wood.

“Where’s the road?” asked Timmy blankly.

“Where indeed!” she replied with much bitterness.

“You
said
we’d find the road, Toria. Why isn’t it here?” he persisted, beginning to whine.

“Because it’s somewhere else,” she replied with some tartness. “We’ll just have to retrace our steps and try another ride—this doesn’t lead anywhere.”

“It’s all your fault—and you said you knew the way,” wailed Timmy, beginning to cry, and sat down firmly in the mud.

“Well, I thought I did, but I chose the wrong ride. Now be a brave boy, darling, and stop crying. We’ll have a rest before we turn, but we have to go back. You wouldn’t like to stay here all night, would you?” She had gone down on her knees in the muddy wetness to coax and comfort the child, feeling badly in need of comfort herself. Would Kate be worrying yet on account of the storm? Had she and Robert settled their affairs during the respite she had given them? Would anything ever be the same again after meeting Mr. Brown on Monday? But Monday seemed a long way off in her present predicament and Mr. Brown as strange and unfriendly as the dark, wet wood which threatened to imprison them ...

She had no idea how long it took them to retrace their steps, but back again in the clearing, she sat the boy down under the shelter of some bushes while she vainly tried to remember their direction. She had already lost a sandal and she took the other one off and threw it away, too tired by now to care whether her bare feet would carry her any further.