The Unknown Mr. Brown Read online

  “Exactly,” Mr. Ponsonby observed with satisfaction, and rose hastily to his feet after another and more pointed look at his watch. “Now, everything is quite clear in your mind, I trust. Arrangements have already been made with the Paris end and the excellent Miss Scott has her instructions regarding travel and any personal requirements, so you have nothing to worry about. One day, my dear young lady, you will be grateful for these advantages.”

  “Perhaps,” she agreed politely but without conviction. “I can only hope that if I ever do get around to meeting Mr. Brown, he will feel he’s had his money’s worth.”

  So Victoria had completed the educational programme laid down for her and the faceless image of Mr. Brown receded once more into the background. She dutifully resumed the obligatory correspondence, reporting progress, and trying to convey her impressions of this new life in more colourful terms than the stilted accounts of her schooldays in England, but it was difficult to maintain contact with a person one had never met, and who never replied, and her letters became briefer and duller as time went on.

  And so the year had slipped away with so much to offer that was new and delightful that the days seemed scarcely long enough. Victoria made few intimate friends among her fellow pupils who seemed to be always newly arrived, or finished and leaving, transformed at great expense into polished young ladies ready to reward their parents’ efforts by attracting suitable husbands. Sometimes she wondered whether the unknown Mr. Brown was conducting some cranky experiment and had some such plans for her, but it seemed unlikely unless he was proposing to take her into his home and launch her upon society, which was more unlikely still.

  All too soon the time had approached when she, like the other girls, would be packing up to go home, and her thoughts turned once more to the question of earning a living. She could not feel that the social accomplishments insisted upon by Madame would stand her in much stead with prospective employers when set against a lack of more rudimentary abilities. Deportment and a sense of chic were all very well for those destined to grace society, but for her, a course at a training college might have been more useful. Still, she was emancipated enough now to be grateful for that year of leisurely transition from child to adult. Her French was very passable, she could discuss the Arts intelligently, and she had learnt discrimination in the choice of food and wine. If she did not rate herself very highly in the matter of chic, having only a passing interest in fashion, she had learnt to make the best of her appearance.

  Altogether, thought Victoria, having completed an assessment of her possible assets with modest satisfaction, she had not done too badly by Mr. Brown, though it seemed a pity to have acquired the superficial trappings of a finished young lady when there seemed little chance of profiting by them.

  She would, she supposed, be returning to the bungalow and Scottie’s chaperonage until such time when Mr. Brown should consider her competent to earn a living but it was Scottie herself who determined the immediate future. She was, she wrote, shortly to go into hospital for an operation, and since convalescence was likely to be lengthy, and it was not considered suitable for Victoria to live alone, the bungalow was to be let furnished temporarily. The lawyers were making arrangements with a small hostel in the Swiss Alps which took in a few advanced students for a limited period during the winter sports season, and Victoria must consider herself fortunate that such an opportunity should come her way.

  The first weeks in that small, unfashionable winter resort high up in the Alps were a revelation, for after the discreet supervision of Madame’s select establishment, the freedom provided by the little hostel was both unexpected and stimulating. Victoria proved herself an apt pupil in the arts of skiing and skating and although, as in Paris, she made few intimate friends of her own age, she became pleasurably acquainted with a young widow who was stopping at the nearby hotel with her small rather delicate son in hopes that he would benefit by the invigorating mountain air.

  The boy, who was slightly lame, had taken an immediate fancy to Victoria who he seemed to regard as not very much older than his own five years, and an attachment sprang up between all three.

  “You should be flattered. Timmy isn’t given to crushes,” Kate Allen had said at one of their early meetings, but did not add that she herself had felt drawn to this solitary girl with the enquiring eyes and delicately angled face, looking so impossibly slender in her tight black ski suit.

  Victoria had been not only flattered but ready to return the compliment in full measure. Timmy, flaxen-haired and smoothly pink, had engaging ways. She thought his mother fussed a little unduly, but upon learning later something of Kate’s history she supposed it was only natural. Jim Allen had been tragically killed in a motor accident before his son was born and Kate who had been with him blamed herself bitterly, not only for insisting on accompanying him against his better judgment, but for the child’s slight infirmity which she believed to be a direct result. Kate, who had taken to inviting the girl over to the hotel for tea or aperitifs, was never very forthcoming about her own affairs, but Victoria understood that she had been left rather badly off and now lived in an old Sussex farmhouse and wrote books for children to augment her income. It seemed a little sad to Victoria that Kate with her gift for home-making and regrets for the denial of other children should resign herself to widowhood at the early age of thirty, but although she was too sensitive to another’s reserve to elicit confidences that were not freely offered, she hoped very much there was some man in Kate’s life who was waiting to fill the gap.

  Kate, on the other hand, soon knew all about her Mr. Brown, and his strange beneficence. She remembered the Hayes scandal, but the case had made little impression on her at the time, coinciding as it had with her own personal tragedy, and had only been brought to mind by a casual reference before she left England, suggesting that she might get acquainted should she happen to run across the girl.

  Christmas had come and gone and with it many of the tourists and soon Victoria realised with a pang, the Allens would be leaving, too. The boy had certainly benefited from the mountain air but, said Kate a shade wryly, it was time she got down to work again and replenished her dwindling coffers.

  They were sitting on the terrace of the small hotel watching the beginners on the nursery slopes staggering about and falling down, Victoria with amused recollection of her own first efforts. She had progressed quickly to better things, being light and supple with an excellent sense of balance, thanks, no doubt, to Madame’s tedious insistence on deportment, but for her, too, the interlude was coming to an end and only that morning she had received disturbing news from, Scottie. Although the operation had been over and done with months ago, convalescence had been retarded with several small setbacks, and now Scottie wrote from the nursing home to which she had once more returned, explaining with her usual calm acceptance that as it was considered likely that she would remain a semi-invalid for the rest of her life, it would seem wise in the circumstances to accept her sister’s offer of a permanent home in Wales. She had already informed the solicitors who would be making fresh arrangements for Victoria, and although she much regretted being unable to complete her undertaking with Mr. Brown, doubtless it was all for the best.

  “Well,” said Kate when she had digested the news, “so your Mr. Brown will have to think again, won’t he? Perhaps at long last, he will decide to reap the benefits of his unsolicited philanthropy and invite you to share his hearth and home and be a comfort to his old age.”

  “Oh, do you really think so? It would, of course, be the natural way to repay himself for all his expense and trouble.”

  “No, I don’t,” Kate answered rather sharply. “If his thoughts were running in those channels he would have made his intentions clear long ago. You should have grown out of romantic fantasies of father-figures and star-crossed lovers awaiting rewards. For all you know, your Mr. Brown may be no one person, but a hard-headed syndicate of old cronies of your father’s with a debt to pay. Have yo
u thought of that?”

  “Often. It’s the most likely explanation, isn’t it? Still, when one is growing up, it’s important to have something or someone to fix one’s sights on, and it was much more satisfying to invent images for Mr. Brown than to think of him just as a Trust,” Victoria answered, and there was a touch of apology in Kate’s smile.

  “Yes, it must have been. Well, what are your own ideas in view of this latest development?”

  “To find a job, obviously, and since poor Scottie’s no longer available to make a home for me, Mr. Brown may have to revise his antediluvian ideas.”

  “Antediluvian?”

  “Well, stuffy, anyway, considering the times and my situation. So far, any suggestions to become self-supporting haven’t met with much success.”

  “And what would you like to do?”

  Victoria twined one long, black-clad leg around the other and gazed out across the snowy slopes with that enquiring consideration which always intrigued Kate.

  “Oh, impossible things, of course. Becoming a great ballerina, discovering a lost land, riding the winner of the National to victory — fantasies with the ignoble end in view of cocking snooks at Mr. Brown,” she answered.

  “In point of fact, I suppose my qualifications can’t have a very high rating commercially, but there must be someone somewhere willing to employ me after such an expensive education.”

  Kate smiled without making any immediate comment, and sat turning over a half-formed project in her mind, then she said casually:

  “Would you care to give the Allens a trial if it could be arranged?”

  The girl’s thin face became instantly so alive with naive delight that for a moment Kate regretted having made an offer which might well be vetoed in other quarters.

  “Work for you, Mrs. Allen?” Victoria exclaimed ecstatically. “But that would be pure heaven! What would I do? When could I start?”

  “Gently, child, it’s only a tentative suggestion to fill in time while you were looking around for something more suitable. You mightn’t find life at Farthings such heaven after the advantages of being finished abroad. We live very quietly and don’t entertain.”

  Victoria regarded her with grave, suddenly unchildlike eyes, the vivacity dying out of her face, leaving it blank and a little pinched.

  “But don’t you understand?” she said like an anxious child. “I’m grateful, of course, for what has been done for me, but I’ve never had any feeling of permanence. You treat me as a person, you see, and Farthings sounds like a real home.”

  “Yes,” Kate answered with gentleness, “I think it has that quality. I only rent it, you know, but it’s mine for as long as I need it.”

  “Need it? But won’t you always need a home for Timmy?”

  “Yes, of course, but one day he’ll grow up and I won’t want to be tied to one place for ever. In the meantime Farthings serves us very well, but there are domestic problems. Timmy needs companionship while I’m working and my old Elspeth who’s been with us since he was born has enough to do with cooking and running the house to be at the beck and call of a child. He doesn’t need a nanny now but someone young enough to play with him as well as teach him his alphabet. You and he seemed to click at once. Do you think you could be happy being a general dogsbody for a time?”

  “I don’t need to think. I can imagine nothing more—more rewarding than to share in your family life at Farthings for a little while. Oh, damn, there’s Mr. Brown!”

  For a moment Kate looked up, startled, half expecting to see an elderly stranger bearing down upon them, then she laughed.

  “Don’t cross your bridges. Just write, to the solicitors and state your wishes. After all, you’re nearly twenty and entitled to order your own life within reason,” she said.

  “Yes, I am, aren’t I? But they don’t treat me as an adult. They won’t consider my wishes if they’ve got other plans.”

  “Well, you can but write and find out. I’m quite willing to present myself and my credentials for their inspection if necessary.”

  “Do you know any influential people—the sort, I mean, to impress lawyers?” Victoria asked hopefully, and Kate laughed.

  “One or two, I expect,” she said. “The cousin from whom I rent my house would doubtless put in a word if asked, but you must put your own case first. After all, it’s possible that your Mr. Brown is faced with a problem owing to this fresh development. You can hardly stop on here indefinitely now that your education is finished.”

  “Mr. Brown is never faced with problems, and if he was, Mr. Chappie or Mr. Ponsonby would devise means to iron them out with prompt dispatch. It’s being borne in on me of late that they must have made a very good thing out of Mr. Brown’s little ploy all these years,” said Victoria astutely, and Kate’s eyebrows went up.

  “Very likely, but one must assume that rich eccentrics expect to pay for their whims, so run along and get that letter off before it’s too late to alter plans.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  BUT as the days went by with no reply to her letter, Victoria’s spirits sank. At first she had consoled herself with the thought that negotiations would have to be effected with Mr. Brown who might well be at the other ends of the earth engaged on one of those nameless projects which Mr. Ponsonby had said covered such a wide field, but when, still without news, the day came for the Allens to leave for England, their departure seemed to put an end to her hopes.

  “After all, it was only a dream,” she said as she bade them goodbye, and Kate gave her a quick kiss.

  “Cheer up! One’s never sure what’s round the corner, and for all you know, your Mr. Brown may be laid up with some dire complaint and unable to conduct any business,” she said lightly, and was amused to see Victoria’s face undergo one of its lightning transitions.

  “I never thought of that!” she exclaimed. “Oh, poor Mr. Brown! And all this time I’ve been thinking unworthy things about him. I must write at once, and tell the lawyers not to worry him.”

  “I shouldn’t bother,” Kate retorted somewhat dryly. “I doubt if they would be impressed by a belated concern for their client. You have, I fancy, a secret fondness for this unknown patron, Victoria, or is it just wishful thinking?”

  Victoria stood considering with that grave deliberation which she employed at times before answering the question.

  “Perhaps,” she said then. “Perhaps everyone needs a figurehead—a kind of touchstone against adversity. I hardly knew my father, you see, for I so seldom saw him. I admired him tremendously from a distance, but he wasn’t much more real than Mr. Brown, so if ever I do meet Mr. Brown, I shall find something to like in him—even to love, if necessary.”

  “In that case content yourself with your own creations, the reality may turn out to be a big let-down,” Kate retorted with some crispness, and as the sound of approaching sleighbells announced that the hour of departure was upon them, Victoria turned to her with a forlorn attempt to smile.

  “Oh, I shall miss you—you and Timmy, and all the fun we’ve had. Perhaps it was a pity we met, after all.”

  “Nonsense, child! Even if you aren’t allowed to accept employment with me we shall meet when you’re back in England. You can at least come on a visit to Farthings and we’ll pick up the threads again.”

  “That will be nice,” Victoria replied politely but without conviction. Then Timmy created a timely diversion by clutching Victoria tightly round the legs and bursting into anguished wails.

  “Don’t want to go home ... don’t want to leave T—Toria ... I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!” he shouted, scarlet in the face, and by the time his mother and Victoria had soothed him into a hiccoughing state of compliance, there was no margin left for prolonged farewells.

  Victoria picked up the bundle of English periodicals which Kate had left behind for her and sat down to idle away the time, reluctant to return to the hostel. Most of the glossies were filled with seasonable snapshots of notable winter sports enthusiasts holida
ying at the more fashionable resorts. Under one of them a familiar name caught her eye and she read the caption: Mr. Robert Farmer, who has recently added fresh laurels to his legal reputation, relaxing in the sun. Mr. Robert Farmer was certainly relaxing with a glamorous blonde alongside, but since an enormous straw sombrero was tipped well over his face, he could have been anyone, thought Victoria, and upon picking up Country Life, was irritated to find that he figured here too. Our candid camera catches Mr. Robert Farmer in holiday mood on the slopes at St. Moritz, she was informed cosily. A little bird whispers that this brilliant young junior Counsel might be thinking of settling down, so we may expect to hear an important announcement soon. So he hadn’t married after all, thought Victoria, hoping the little bird might still be a forerunner of disaster, at the same time examining the photograph for remembered characteristics, but here, too, Mr. Farmer was effectively disguised by a large pair of dark glasses. It was odd how the mention of him could still rankle, she reflected as she made her way back to the hostel, and was thankful that this modest little holiday resort was not smart enough to attract a more publicized clientele.

  There was a postcard from Kate at the end of the week announcing their safe arrival, but nothing from Chappie, Chappie & Ponsonby, and Victoria sat down to pen a tactful reminder that she was still awaiting instructions and were they aware that the hostel would shortly be closing down for its spring respite before the start of the climbing season?

  When at last the reply came, she opened it with no anticipation of agreement, but whether her arguments had at last found favour, or whether Kate’s efforts had proved more persuasive and her credentials suitably impressive, permission was granted for a trial run agreed upon with Mrs. Allen on certain terms. There followed precise instructions as to dates of departure and modes of travel and concluded with prim good wishes for the future.

  From then on the days seemed to fly past and all too soon she was making her farewells and discovering with some surprise that she would be missed. For a moment as her plane took off from the airport, she experienced regret for those carefree months which would never come again and could be grateful now for that meticulous attention to her father’s wishes which at the time had seemed so pointless. Later as the plane passed over the English coast and touched down on English soil, such philosophic musings vanished on a wave of eager anticipation. She was a child again, returning for the holidays, but this time it was a real homecoming. There was Kate waiting at the barrier and signalling frantically and all around her was the almost forgotten buzz of English voices and the inevitable patter and hissing of English rain.