Free The Unknown Mr. Brown by Sara Seale Page B

the accident. I wasn’t very good company then.”
    “Very likely, but you had no reason to blame yourself for the boy’s infirmity.”
    “If I hadn’t insisted on going in the car with Jim that day, Timmy wouldn’t have been born as he was.”
    “That’s only surmise. Shock can certainly cause damage to the unborn child, but no doctor would care to commit himself on the evidence in your case, so bury that bogey where it belongs, in the unalterable past.”
    Victoria had moved away, feeling she was eavesdropping as the conversation became unexpectedly personal, and she stood now in the shadows at the far end of the room, rearranging one of the many bowls of roses.
    If the doctor had momentarily forgotten Victoria’s presence, Kate had been perfectly aware of her tactful withdrawal and the mischief was back in her voice as she said: “You’re quite oblivious of your social obligations when you get on your hobby horse, John. Here’s our birthday girl politely trying to efface herself when you should be paying her compliments instead of forgetting it’s her party.”
    “Victoria is much too sensible to take offence, since I’m neither particularly young or one of her attendant swains,” he answered, quite unabashed.. “But evidently somebody is sufficiently epris to spend a small fortune on flowers. I’ve never seen such an extravagant display of horticulture in all my life. Who is he, Victoria?”
    “Only Mr. Brown, but as he’s never done such a thing before, it’s rather special,” Victoria replied, coming back to join them again.
    “What! The eccentric old gentleman who pays the bills but remains unseen? How very disappointing.”
    “Oh, no,” Victoria said, her eyes bright with her inward thoughts, “it’s crowned the whole day. Nothing that Mr. Brown has ever done for me has given me quite the same pleasure.”
    Kate said rather quickly: “I’m afraid Victoria, for all the advantages of being finished abroad, still tends to cling to her schoolgirl daydreams.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of daydreaming—we all indulge at times—and even to my untutored eye, being finished abroad has paid off handsomely. It’s a pity there’s only myself here to appreciate the results,” John replied with quiet sincerity. Indeed, he thought she looked charming and refreshingly free of the modern tendency to picturesque squalor, sitting there in her white, full-skirted dress, the soft hair with its demure centre parting falling in a shining curve about her neck and shoulders. She was the sort of daughter he would have liked himself, had he not been fated to be childless, and he found himself wondering what sort of a chap this unknown benefactor might be to content himself with periodic reports of progress and nothing more. By the same token his thoughts wandered to the possible effect a young and unspoilt girl might have on a man of Robert Farmer’s calibre. He was aware that Kate’s rather too well-endowed cousin was not without interest in her protégée, and he wondered, with mixed feelings, how long it would be before Kate herself became conscious that she might have dallied too long in making up her mind.
    It was a relief to Victoria that Elspeth chose that moment to announce that dinner was ready, but her pleasure in Kate’s well-intentioned plans to mark the day as something special was beginning to dwindle. It had been a mistake, she thought, to invite the doctor as the sole guest to lend the occasion a party air. She would have been better pleased to sit down with Kate as usual than make up an ill-assorted trio, and although John, doubtless aware that he had started the evening off on the wrong foot, made gallant efforts to amend his shortcomings, she was faintly embarrassed by his avuncular attempts at chivalry. They drank champagne with rather forced gaiety and only Elspeth, summoned to join in a toast to Victoria, treated the occasion as a ceremony. But Elspeth, having excelled