The Unknown Mr. Brown (5 page)

“Warned you of what?”

‘That the cousin who owns this house was Mr. Farmer.”

“I’m afraid it never occurred to me that you would be interested.”

“But you must have known he was involved in my father’s case.”

Kate’s eyes rested on her thoughtfully for a moment and her eyebrows rose a fraction.

“Yes, of course I knew, but you were a child at the time, and I didn’t suppose you’d even remember him.”

“Not remember! It’s true I was too young to understand the rights and wrongs of the affair, but Mr. Robert Farmer I’ve not forgotten. He made a nonsense of my evidence and enjoyed every minute of it.”

“Dear me!” said Kate mildly. “I’d no idea you still cherished a grievance. I can understand that the experience must have been bewildering and alarming, but you must surely realise now that there was nothing personal in Robert’s methods of cross-examination and the only enjoyment he would derive would be the satisfaction in establishing and winning his case. You’ve never mentioned him before Victoria, and I didn’t suppose you’d even remember his name.”

“I used, when I was younger,” said Victoria reminiscently, “to make up splendid stories of dire retribution overtaking Mr. Farmer. Like Mr. Brown, he stuck in my mind, but for rather different reasons.” She spoke with an effort to minimise any suggestion that Kate had been remiss, by admitting to childish fantasies as if they were well behind her, but for once Kate did not respond with her usual amused tolerance.

“It’s to be hoped then that you’re adult enough by now to have grown out of such pastimes,” she said a little sharply. “Mr. Brown, I suppose, is fair game since he chooses to pander to your fancies by remaining invisible, but Robert is a different kettle of fish and I’m very fond of him. I’m sorry that you evidently can’t bring yourself to think more kindly of him, since he will be coming down here quite often, I hope, but you can always keep out of his way.”

“I’m sorry,” Victoria apologised. “I didn’t mean to be personal in any way. It was so unexpected meeting him again and finding you were both related that it threw me a little. I hope I wasn’t rude.”

“Oh, no, just a little prickly and on your dignity. It’s a sure way to bring out the worst in Robert, let me warn you, so if you don’t want him to tease, stop trailing your coat.”

“Do I do that?”

“Well, perhaps not consciously, but Robert’s a bad person to tangle with when it comes to disagreement, as you must have discovered years ago, so be careful.” Kate spoke with a return of her old affectionate lightness and Victoria wondered if she had imagined that touch of resentment earlier, but she remembered Kate’s pleasure in the week-end and Elspeth’s unspoken approval and thought more humbly of her own objections. Since she was fond of Kate and knew something of her earlier tragedy she could not feel that a man as cold and sharp-tongued as Robert Farmer was right for her, but if Kate’s inclinations lay in that direction, then the least she could do was to accept his occasional presence at Farthings with a good grace.

It was not so easy, however, to remain impartially in the background. Robert, whose last-minute descents upon them became more frequent as summer approached, showed a perverse liking for her company when Kate was not available, and although she did not flatter herself that his casual attentions were inspired by anything other than a desire to provoke her into argument for the pleasure of proving her wrong, she found herself having unexpected moments of doubt when he chose, instead, to charm her.

“Why are you so quick to take my harmless pleasantries amiss?” he asked her once, and was intrigued as Kate so often was by her grave deliberation before replying.

“Possibly because I’m never sure that your pleasantries
are
harmless, Mr. Farmer,” she said then, and his eyebrows lifted.

“Dear me! I don’t seem to be making much headway, do I? And can’t you bring yourself to address me less formally?” he said, and she twisted round on the garden bench to regard him with more indifference than she felt.

“I will call you Robert if you prefer it,” she answered with rather prim composure, “but I hardly think that you would concern yourself over making headway or not.”

“Wouldn’t you? But then you don’t know me very well, do you?”

“Well enough. You forget I’ve already had a taste of your humours in court.”

They had been sunning themselves on the sheltered patio behind the house waiting for Kate to summon them in for tea and without any warning his fingers closed on her shoulder in a none too gentle grip.

“The taste you had then, my child, was mild compared to what you would get now,” he retorted, and the lazy banter had gone from his voice. “I would advise you to think twice before trying to get your own back with childish attempts to sting me. My sting can be a deal more deadly than yours, so don’t tempt fate.”

“Do you keep your sting in your tail, like the scorpion, Mr. Farmer?” she said, unable to resist retaliating even while she knew she was no match for him.

“That you will doubtless find out in due course, Miss Hayes,” he replied, mocking her, but with an underlying note of warning, and Victoria was relieved when Kate appeared to announce that tea was ready.

As always when Kate was present, the tempo changed to a pleasant impression of family unity. Victoria could forget her easily aroused hostility, listening to their warm exchanges and watching Robert’s ease and patience with the little boy. Timmy plainly adored him and sometimes she would catch Kate looking at her son and her cousin with a rueful expression as if she were regretting some unexplained decision in the past.

“Robert’s very fond of Timmy, isn’t he?” she said to Kate when they were alone again.

“Well, he’s Timmy’s godfather, so I suppose there’s a special bond,” Kate answered tranquilly. “Timmy, of course, is too young to miss a father he never knew and Robert makes a very good stand-in.”

“Would you marry again, Kate?” Victoria asked, remembering Elspeth’s hints, but Kate, if she was aware of the obvious train of thought, avoided any direct admission.

“I don’t know,” she answered placidly. ‘Timmy will need a father when he’s grown beyond my capabilities, but marriage embraces more than that.”

Victoria’s eyes were at once apologetic. “Yes, of course. And when one has loved very much once, it wouldn’t, I imagine, be easy to put up with second best.”

Kate glanced at her with amusement. “Easier than you think, my dear. Compromise isn’t such a bad thing if you look it squarely in the face. Jim—my husband—and I were very happy during the short time we had together, but I was in love with someone else when I married him. Don’t look so shocked, Victoria, the world isn’t really well lost for love, you know, and it’s silly to go crying for the moon when a lesser light will suit very well.”

Victoria said nothing while she tried to readjust her ideas. She had taken for granted that Kate’s marriage had been a love-match, and she was still young enough to feel cheated out of a romantic ending.

“This other man—why didn’t you marry him?” she asked. “Had he got a wife already?”

“No, but he was engaged to somebody else, and I’ve never believed much happiness would come from breaking up a love affair.”

“So you married your Jim to make things final. No going back.”

“There’s never any going back whatever you may decide.”

“Isn’t there? No second chances? No opportunities to begin again?”

“Well, that might depend on circumstances, I suppose. I doubt, in my own case, whether my decision made' much difference except to me, as the other engagement came to nothing.”

“What a waste of noble intentions! If only you’d waited, Kate!” Victoria sounded so outraged that Kate had to laugh.

“Nothing of the kind,” she retorted with some briskness. “I was never very good at waiting and Jim made me an excellent husband. I’ve never had regrets, so don’t go investing me with a tragic past to lend colour to those imageries of yours. Stick to your creations for Mr. Brown which will never give you cause for disillusionment, since it seems unlikely that you will meet him in the flesh.”

“But I will one day,” Victoria said softly, diverted as Kate had intended back to her own affairs. “In fifteen months the Trust will be wound up and I’ll be responsible to no one for my bed and board. He can hardly refuse a meeting then to round things off —besides, however old or busy he may be, he must surely have some spark of natural curiosity as to how his human experiment has turned out.”

“Well, time will show,” said Kate, refusing as usual to commit herself, “but don’t build too much on conventional happy endings. I fancy your Mr. Brown is not over-much concerned with the human angle or he would have made himself known before now.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right, but I shall track him down somehow. Apart from anything else, I couldn’t bear to spend the rest of my life with my own curiosity unsatisfied,” Victoria said, and although she would have liked to return to the more present subject of Kate’s affairs, she had too much sensibility to probe.

They did not see much of Robert for some time, for the courts kept him busy and an ever-growing practice made demands which Kate said put an unnecessary strain on a man who could well afford to turn down briefs.

“Well, I suppose he needs the money. It must take quite a packet to pay for all those expensive aids to gracious living,” Victoria said, and Kate gave her a sidelong look.

“You sound censorious,” she said mildly. “There’s nothing pretentious about Robert’s mode of living. He just has a taste for quality and since he can afford the best he naturally sees that he gets it.”

Victoria glanced across at her in surprise, imagining a touch of resentment in her reply.

“I didn’t mean to be. I was only countering your suggestion that he could afford to turn down briefs,” she said.

“Well, so he can. He inherited quite a sizeable fortune from his father who made money in oil and could pick and choose without running himself ragged.”

Victoria’s eyes widened. It was true that such indications of Robert’s well-lined pockets were sober and unobtrusive, but she had rubbed shoulders too long with Madame’s richer pupils not to appreciate the cost of such niceties.

“Perhaps he can’t resist living up to his reputation and keeping in the public eye,” she suggested without any intention of sounding critical, but Kate frowned.

“I wish you liked Robert better,” she said. “His manner can be misleading, but he’s a tender-hearted creature at bottom. He’s been a very good friend to Timmy and me.”

“Yes, I know.”

“He should, have married, of course, but he took that business of Irene pretty hard. Apart from throwing his affections back in his face she made a laughing stock of him running off with that frightful pop heart-throb, and Robert’s a proud man. It’s partly the reason he works so unnecessarily hard, I often think. Stops you from brooding at first and then becomes a habit.”

“Kate—have you ever thought—” Victoria began impulsively, but checked herself as she caught Kate’s cool glance. Friendship had ripened pleasantly between them during the past weeks, but Kate was rarely addicted to confidences.

“I’ve thought a lot of things too trivial to be of value,” she said, neatly evading a direct answer, “but one thing I
can
tell you without betraying any promises, which might make you feel more kindly towards Robert. You primarily have him to thank for being here.”

“What on earth can you mean, Kate? We met by chance in Gruse and it was chance again that Robert turned out to be a connecting link.”

“Not entirely. He knew I might run across you in such a small place and suggested you might be suitable for Timmy. I was to form my own judgment and act accordingly.”

“But how on earth could he know I was there?”

“He presumably made enquiries. Chappie & Ponsonby have put work in his way from time to time and he’s on good terms with the old gentleman. Don’t you remember I told you at the time I had a cousin who might put in a good word should your Mr. Brown prove difficult?”

“Yes, I do, but I never dreamed—and I thought the cousin was a woman, anyway. How very odd that he should have remembered all this time.”

“Not really. I told you Robert has an unsuspected soft centre and he was upset by the case at the time. No one could foresee that your father would take the way out that he did, but it left a nasty taste, all mixed up with the mess of Robert’s own affairs.”

Victoria was silent. It was surprising to learn Robert must have kept track of her from time to time, and for the first time, she began to think of him as a human being who could be subject to hurt like any other.

“Well,” said Kate who had been watching her swift changes of expression with interest, “have I succeeded in getting you to have second thoughts?”

“Second thoughts?”

“More adult ones, shall we say, than those you’ve cherished since the age of fourteen.”

“Yes, it
was
childish. I suppose, comforting myself with imaginary scenes of dire retribution was as silly as inventing impossible images for Mr. Brown,” Victoria said, trying to laugh at her fancies, and Kate smiled.

“Mr. Brown was a natural in view of the circumstances, but I wonder why Robert stuck in your mind with equal vividness,” she observed a little dryly, and Victoria frowned.

“I suppose because he made a deep impression on me at a time when everything familiar seemed suddenly to be swept away,” she said slowly. “There has to be a villain in all self-respecting fairy-tales, as you should know, and Mr. Robert Farmer filled the part to a T.”

“While Mr. Fairy-godfather Brown reigned smug and aloof on his pedestal.”

“Yes, perhaps he is a bit smug,” agreed Victoria seriously, “but I expect you get that way if you dwell upon Olympus.”

“Very likely. Well, at least you can absolve Robert of that. He may be provocative, and often infuriating, but he’s never smug,” Kate said, and Victoria asked a little tentatively:

“Why are you trying so hard to convince me, Kate? It can’t really matter to Robert whether I like him or not.”

“I daresay it doesn’t, but it matters to me. I like harmony in the home and since Farthings belongs to Robert he’s entitled to treat it as such.”

“Yes, of course, I keep forgetting. Farthings doesn’t seem at all the sort of place an oil magnate would have chosen to settle down in.”