My Mrs. Brown Read Online Free Page A

beauty parlor, and in the movies back in the day of Grace Kelly. The woman answering the door was tall and blond, skin the color of vanilla ice cream. She towered, and confidently, in impossibly high heels, and was dressed in a lightweight black cashmere turtleneck and a black pencil skirt to the knee with a slight, but decided, flounce behind.
    The seamstress in Mrs. Brown was riveted by the well-sewn constraint of this tailored flounce and observed it closely when the young woman turned and walked back into the house, telling her to follow.
    â€œSo rude of me not to introduce myself at the door, but it is cold out there today, it is much warmer in the city,” the young woman said, extending her delicate hand to Mrs. Brown. The heavy link bracelet of a large gold watch brushed cold on Mrs. Brown’s wrist.
    â€œMy name is Rachel Ames and I was Mrs. Groton’s assistant until her death and you must be . . .”
    God help us, Rachel thought. Who is this slender, little tobacco-gray wren of a sixty-something-year-old woman shaking nervously in the foyer of the great house? She thought she must be the cleaning lady, except she’d met the cleaning lady and this wasn’t the woman, was it?
    Her day was hectic, and overwhelming. The pressure had been mounting ever since Delphine Staunton, the expert from Lambton’s, the posh international auction house, had arrived to conduct the Groton inventory. You know the type? They are arch and ornery, mistrusting, always challenging the authenticity of everything and everyone in the name of getting provenance right. Maybe their jobs depend on such relentless expertise, but it makes them seem sometimes like such snobs.
    â€œAh, yes,” Rachel said aloud, realizing who this was. “The lady from the thrift shop. Thank you for coming, there is so much for us to do today. May I take your coat, Mrs. . . .?”
    â€œBrown,” Mrs. Brown answered. “Mrs. Brown, but I’m not the lady you mean from the thrift shop . . .”
    â€œYou aren’t the lady from the thrift shop? Then who are you?” Rachel asked. She was worried she had allowed a stranger into the house.
    â€œI mean,” Mrs. Brown said, her voice quivering.
    She was astounded. First by the palatial foyer she found herself in. Then there was the sweeping staircase. All the way up to the second floor the walls were covered in heavy-framed paintings of people as historic looking as the portraits you find on currency.
    â€œYes, Mrs. Brown?” Rachel said, crossing her arms over her chest.
    â€œI’m just here to help Mrs. Wood; she’s the one you will want to be talking to from the thrift shop; she runs the place. Mrs. Wood isn’t here yet?”
    Rachel smiled kindly, the way well-brought-up people used to and some still do. Rachel intuited Mrs. Brown’s nervousness as appreciation for the great house.
    â€œDid you know Mrs. Groton, Mrs. Brown?” she asked, walking deeper into the foyer.
    Mrs. Brown followed. She had never seen anything as dazzling as this house. It was stunning, in every sense.
    â€œMrs. Brown?”
    â€œMa’am?”
    â€œI wonder, did you know Mrs. Groton?”
    Rachel paused in front of a large ancestral portrait of an elegant older lady. She was majestically elongated, her white hair piled softly on her head. She wore a cream-colored chiffon tea dress to the ground. Her hands held three long-stemmed white roses. The woman’s eyes were porcelain blue, but melancholy. Their gaze locked with yours.
    â€œI didn’t know Mrs. Groton personally, no, ma’am, of course I didn’t,” Mrs. Brown said. “Except every summer during the Rose Festival I always made it to the front of the line to watch her walk from this house over to the tent on opening day.”
    Rachel listened.
    â€œShe was so clean, Miss Ames, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who was so clean. Or