The chief objection to Temple Barholm in Tembarom's mind was that it
was too big for any human use. That at least was how it struck him. The
entrance was too big, the stairs were too wide, the rooms too broad
and too long and too high to allow of eyes accustomed to hall bedrooms
adjusting their vision without discomfort. The dining-room in which the
new owner took his first meal in company with Mr. Palford, and attended
by the large, serious man who wore no livery and three tall footmen who
did, was of a size and stateliness which made him feel homesick for
Mrs. Bowse's dining-room, with its two hurried, incompetent, and
often-changed waitresses and its prevailing friendly custom of pushing
things across the table to save time. Meals were quickly disposed of at
Mrs. Bowse's. Everybody was due up-town or down-town, and regarded food
as an unavoidable, because necessary, interference with more urgent
business. At Temple Barholm one sat half the night--this was the
impression made upon Tembarom--watching things being brought in and
taken out of the room, carved on a huge buffet, and passed from one man
to another; and when they were brought solemnly to you, if you turned
them down, it seemed that the whole ceremony had to be gone through with
again. All sorts of silver knives, forks, and spoons were given to one
and taken away, and half a dozen sorts of glasses stood by your plate;
and if you made a move to do anything for yourself, the man out of
livery stopped you as though you were too big a fool to be trusted.
The food was all right, but when you knew what anything was, and were
inclined to welcome it as an old friend, it was given to you in some
way that made you get rattled. With all the swell dishes, you had
no butter-plate, and ice seemed scarce, and the dead, still way the
servants moved about gave you a sort of feeling that you were at a
funeral and that it wasn't decent to talk so long as the remains were
in the room. The head-man and the foot-men seemed to get on by signs,
though Tembarom never saw them making any; and their faces never changed
for a moment. Once or twice he tried a joke, addressing it to Mr.
Palford, to see what would happen. But as Mr. Palford did not seem to
see the humor of it, and gave him the “glassy eye,” and neither the
head-man nor the footmen seemed to hear it, he thought that perhaps they
didn't know it was a joke; and if they didn't, and they thought anything
at all, they must think he was dippy. The dinner was a deadly, though
sumptuous, meal, and long drawn out, when measured by meals at Mrs.
Bowse's. He did not know, as Mr. Palford did, that it was perfect, and
served with a finished dexterity that was also perfection.
Mr. Palford, however, was himself relieved when it was at an end. He had
sat at dinner with the late Mr. Temple Barholm in his day, and had seen
him also served by the owners of impassive countenances; but he had been
aware that whatsoever of secret dislike and resentment was concealed by
them, there lay behind their immovability an acceptance of the fact
that he represented, even in his most objectionable humors, centuries of
accustomedness to respectful service and of knowledge of his right and
power to claim it. The solicitor was keenly aware of the silent comments
being made upon the tweed suit and brown necktie and on the manner in
which their wearer boldly chose the wrong fork or erroneously made use
of a knife or spoon. Later in the evening, in the servants' hall, the
comment would not be silent, and there could be no doubt of what
its character would be. There would be laughter and the relating
of incidents. Housemaids and still-room maids would giggle, and
kitchen-maids and boot-boys would grin and whisper in servile tribute to
the witticisms of the superior servants.
After dinner the rest of the evening could at least be spent in talk
about business matters. There still remained details to be enlarged upon
before Palford himself returned to Lincoln's Inn and left Mr. Temple
Barholm to the care of the steward of his estate. It was not difficult
to talk to him when the sole subject of conversation was of a business
nature.
Before they parted for the night the mystery of the arrangements made
for Strangeways had been cleared. In fact, Mr. Temple Barholm made no
mystery of them. He did not seem ignorant of the fact that what he had
chosen to do was unusual, but he did not appear hampered or embarrassed
by the knowledge. His remarks on the subject were entirely civil and
were far from actually suggesting that his singular conduct was purely
his own business and none of his solicitor's; but for a moment or so
Mr. Palford was privately just a trifle annoyed. The Hutchinsons had
traveled from London with Strangeways in their care the day before. He
would have been unhappy and disturbed if he had been obliged to travel
with Mr. Palford, who was a stranger to him, and Miss Hutchinson had
a soothing effect on him. Strangeways was for the present comfortably
installed as a guest of the house, Miss Hutchinson having talked to the
housekeeper, Mrs. Butterworth, and to Pearson. What the future held for
him Mr. Temple Barholm did not seem to feel the necessity of going into.
He left him behind as a subject, and went on talking cheerfully of other
things almost as if he had forgotten him.
They had their coffee in the library, and afterward sat at the
writing-table and looked over documents and talked until Mr. Palford
felt that he could quite decorously retire to his bedroom. He was glad
to be relieved of his duties, and Tembarom was amiably resigned to
parting with him.
Tembarom did not go up-stairs at once himself. He sat by the fire and
smoked several pipes of tobacco and thought things over. There were
a lot of things to think over, and several decisions to make, and he
thought it would be a good idea to pass them in review. The quiet of
the dead surrounded him. In a house the size of this the servants
were probably half a mile away. They'd need trolleys to get to one, he
thought, if you rang for them in a hurry. If an armed burglar made a
quiet entry without your knowing it, he could get in some pretty rough
work before any of the seventy-five footmen could come to lend a hand.
He was not aware that there were two of them standing in waiting in the
hall, their powdered heads close together, so that their whispers and
chuckles could be heard. A sound of movement in the library would have
brought them up standing to a decorous attitude of attention conveying
to the uninitiated the impression that they had not moved for hours.
Sometimes as he sat in the big morocco chair, T. Tembarom looked grave
enough; sometimes he looked as though he was confronting problems which
needed puzzling out and with which he was not making much headway;
sometimes he looked as though he was thinking of little Ann Hutchinson,
and not infrequently he grinned. Here he was up to the neck in it, and
he was darned if he knew what he was going to do. He didn't know a soul,
and nobody knew him. He didn't know a thing he ought to know, and he
didn't know any one who could tell him. Even the Hutchinsons had never
been inside a place like Temple Barholm, and they were going back to
Manchester after a few weeks' stay at the grandmother's cottage.
Before he had left New York he had seen Hadman and some other fellows
and got things started, so that there was an even chance that the
invention would be put on its feet. He had worked hard and used his own
power to control money in the future as a lever which had proved to be
exactly what was needed.
Hadman had been spurred and a little startled when he realized the
magnitude of what really could be done, and saw also that this slangy,
moneyed youth was not merely an enthusiastic fool, but saw into business
schemes pretty sharply and was of a most determined readiness. With this
power ranging itself on the side of Hutchinson and his invention, it was
good business to begin to move, if one did not want to run a chance of
being left out in the cold.
Hutchinson had gone to Manchester, and there had been barely time for
a brief but characteristic interview between him and Tembarom, when he
rushed back to London. Tembarom felt rather excited when he remembered
it, recalling what he had felt in confronting the struggles against
emotion in the blunt-featured, red face, the breaks in the rough voice,
the charging up and down the room like a curiously elated bull in a
china shop, and the big effort to restrain relief and gratitude the
degree of which might seem to under-value the merits of the invention
itself.
Once or twice when he looked serious, Tembarom was thinking this
over, and also once or twice when he grinned. Relief and gratitude
notwithstanding, Hutchinson had kept him in his place, and had not
made unbounded efforts to conceal his sense of the incongruity of his
position as the controller of fortunes and the lord of Temple Barholm,
which was still vaguely flavored with indignation.
When he had finished his last pipe, Tembarom rose and knocked the ashes
out of it.
“Now for Pearson,” he said.
He had made up his mind to have a talk with Pearson, and there was no
use wasting time. If things didn't suit you, the best thing was to see
what you could do to fix them right away--if it wasn't against the law.
He went out into the hall, and seeing the two footmen standing waiting,
he spoke to them.
“Say, I didn't know you fellows were there,” he said. “Are you waiting
up for me? Well, you can go to bed, the sooner the quicker. Good night.”
And he went up-stairs whistling.
The glow and richness and ceremonial order of preparation in his
bedroom struck him as soon as he opened the door. Everything which could
possibly have been made ready for his most luxurious comfort had been
made ready. He did not, it is true, care much for the huge bed with its
carved oak canopy and massive pillars.
“But the lying-down part looks about all right,” he said to himself.
The fine linen, the soft pillows, the downy blankets, would have allured
even a man who was not tired. The covering had been neatly turned back
and the snowy whiteness opened. That was English, he supposed. They
hadn't got on to that at Mrs. Bowse's.
“But I guess a plain little old New York sleep will do,” he said.
“Temple Barholm or no Temple Barholm, I guess they can't change that.”
Then there sounded a quiet knock at the door. He knew who it would
turn out to be, and he was not mistaken. Pearson stood in the corridor,
wearing his slightly anxious expression, but ready for orders.
Mr. Temple Barholm looked down at him with a friendly, if unusual, air.
“Say, Pearson,” he announced, “if you've come to wash my face and put my
hair up in crimping-pins, you needn't do it, because I'm not used to it.
But come on in.”
If he had told Pearson to enter and climb the chimney, it cannot be said
that the order would have been obeyed upon the spot, but Pearson would
certainly have hesitated and explained with respectful delicacy the fact
that the task was not “his place.” He came into the room.
“I came to see, if I could do anything further and--” making a
courageous onslaught upon the situation for which he had been preparing
himself for hours--“and also--if it is not too late--to venture to
trouble you with regard to your wardrobe.” He coughed a low, embarrassed
cough. “In unpacking, sir, I found--I did not find--”
“You didn't find much, did you?” Tembarom assisted him.
“Of course, sir,” Pearson apologized, “leaving New York so hurriedly,
your--your man evidently had not time to--er--”
Tembarom looked at him a few seconds longer, as if making up his mind to
something. Then he threw himself easily into the big chair by the fire,
and leaned back in it with the frankest and best-natured smile possible.
“I hadn't any man,” he said. “Say, Pearson,” waving his hand to another
chair near by, “suppose you take a seat.”
Long and careful training came to Pearson's aid and supported him, but
he was afraid that he looked nervous, and certainly there was a lack of
entire calm in his voice.
“I--thank you, sir,--I think I'd better stand, sir.”
“Why?” inquired Tembarom, taking his tobacco-pouch out of his pocket and
preparing to fill another pipe.
“You're most kind, sir, but--but--” in impassioned embarrassment--“I
should really PREFER to stand, sir, if you don't mind. I should feel
more--more at 'ome, sir,” he added, dropping an h in his agitation.
“Well, if you'd like it better, that's all right,” yielded Mr. Temple
Barholm, stuffing tobacco into the pipe. Pearson darted to a table,
produced a match, struck it, and gave it to him.
“Thank you,” said Tembarom, still good-naturedly. “But there are a few
things I've GOT to say to you RIGHT now.”
Pearson had really done his best, his very best, but he was terrified
because of the certain circumstances once before referred to.
“I beg pardon, sir,” he appealed, “but I am most anxious to give
satisfaction in every respect.” He WAS, poor young man, horribly
anxious. “To-day being only the first day, I dare say I have not been
all I should have been. I have never valeted an American gentleman
before, but I'm sure I shall become accustomed to everything QUITE
soon--almost immediately.”
“Say,” broke in Tembarom, “you're 'way off. I'm not complaining. You're
all right.”
The easy good temper of his manner was so singularly assuring that
Pearson, unexplainable as he found him in every other respect, knew that
this at least was to be depended upon, and he drew an almost palpable
breath of relief. Something actually allured him into approaching what
he had never felt it safe to approach before under like circumstances--a
confidential disclosure.
“Thank you, sir: I am most grateful. The--fact is, I hoped especially to
be able to settle in place just now. I--I'm hoping to save up enough to
get married, sir.”
“You are?” Tembarom exclaimed. “Good business! So was I before all
this”--he glanced about him--“fell on top of me.”
“I've been saving for three years, sir, and if I can know I'm a
permanency--if I can keep this place--”
“You're going to keep it all right,” Tembarom cheered him up with. “If
you've got an idea you're going to be fired, just you forget it. Cut it
right out.”
“Is--I beg your pardon, sir,” Pearson asked with timorous joy, “but is
that the American for saying you'll be good enough to keep me on?”
Mr. Temple Barholm thought a second.
“Is 'keep me on' the English for 'let me stay'?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we're all right. Let's start from there. I'm going to have a
heart-to-heart talk with you, Pearson.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Pearson in a deferential murmur. But if he was
not dissatisfied, what was going to happen?
“It'll save us both trouble, and me most. I'm not one of those clever
Clarences that can keep up a bluff, making out I know things I don't
know. I couldn't deceive a setting hen or a Berlin wool antimacassar.”
Pearson swallowed something with effort.
“You see, I fell into this thing KERCHUNK, and I'm just RATTLED--I'm
rattled.” As Pearson slightly coughed again, he translated for him,
“That's American for 'I don't know where I'm at'.”
“Those American jokes, sir, are very funny indeed,” answered Pearson,
appreciatively.
“Funny!” the new Mr. Temple Barholm exclaimed even aggrievedly. “If you
think this lay-out is an American joke to me, Pearson, there's where
you're 'way off. Do you think it a merry jest for a fellow like me to
sit up in a high chair in a dining-room like a cathedral and not know
whether he ought to bite his own bread or not? And not dare to stir
till things are handed to him by five husky footmen? I thought that
plain-clothes man was going to cut up my meat, and slap me on the back
if I choked.”
Pearson's sense of humor was perhaps not inordinate, but unseemly mirth,
which he had swallowed at the reference to the setting hen and the
Berlin wool antimacassar, momentarily got the better of him, despite
his efforts to cough it down, and broke forth in a hoarse, ill-repressed
sound.
“I beg pardon, sir,” he said with a laudable endeavor to recover his
professional bearing. “It's your--American way of expressing it which
makes me forget myself. I beg pardon.”
Tembarom laughed outright boyishly.
“Oh, cut that out,” he said. “Say, how old are you?”
“Twenty-five, sir.”
“So am I. If you'd met me three months ago, beating the streets of New
York for a living, with holes in my shoes and a celluloid collar on,
you'd have looked down on me. I know you would.”
“Oh, no, sir,” most falsely insisted Pearson.
“Oh, yes, you would,” protested Tembarom, cheerfully. “You'd have said
I talked through my nose, and I should have laughed at you for dropping
your h's. Now you're rattled because I'm Mr. Temple Temple Barholm; but
you're not half as rattled as I am.”
“You'll get over it, sir, almost immediately,” Pearson assured him,
hopefully.
“Of course I shall,” said Tembarom, with much courage. “But to start
right I've got to get over YOU.”
“Me, sir?” Pearson breathed anxiously.
“Yes. That's what I want to get off my chest. Now, first off, you came
in here to try to explain to me that, owing to my New York valet having
left my New York wardrobe behind, I've not got anything to wear, and so
I shall have to buy some clothes.”
“I failed to find any dress-shirts, sir,” began Pearson, hesitatingly.
Mr. Temple Barholm grinned.
“I always failed to find them myself. I never had a dress-shirt. I never
owned a suit of glad rags in my life.”
“Gl--glad rags, sir?” stammered Pearson, uncertainly.
“I knew you didn't catch on when I said that to you before dinner.
I mean claw-hammer and dress-suit things. Don't you be frightened,
Pearson. I never had six good shirts at once, or two pair of shoes, or
more than four ten-cent handkerchiefs at a time since I was born. And
when Mr. Palford yanked me away from New York, he didn't suspect a
fellow could be in such a state. And I didn't know I was in a state,
anyhow. I was too busy to hunt up people to tell me, because I was
rushing something important right through, and I couldn't stop. I just
bought the first things I set eyes on and crammed them into my trunk.
There, I guess you know the most of this, but you didn't know I knew you
knew it. Now you do, and you needn't be afraid to hurt my feelings by
telling me I haven't a darned thing I ought to have. You can go straight
ahead.”
As he leaned back, puffing away at his pipe, he had thrown a leg over
the arm of his chair for greater comfort, and it really struck his valet
that he had never seen a gentleman more at his ease, even one who WAS
one. His casual candidness produced such a relief from the sense of
strain and uncertainty that Pearson felt the color returning to his
face. An opening had been given him, and it was possible for him to do
his duty.
“If you wish, sir, I will make a list,” he ventured further, “and the
proper firms will send persons to bring things down from London on
appro.”
“What's 'appro' the English for?”
“Approval, sir.”
“Good business! Good old Pearson!”
“Thank you, sir. Shall I attend to it to-night, to be ready for the
morning post?”
“In five minutes you shall. But you threw me off the track a bit. The
thing I was really going to say was more important than the clothes
business.”
There was something else, then, thought Pearson, some other unexpected
point of view.
“What have you to do for me, anyhow?”
“Valet you, sir.”
“That's English for washing my face and combing my hair and putting my
socks on, ain't it?”
“Well, sir, it means doing all you require, and being always in
attendance when you change.”
“How much do you get for it?”
“Thirty shillings a week, sir.”
“Say, Pearson,” said Tembarom, with honest feeling, “I'll give you sixty
shillings a week NOT to do it.”
Calmed though he had felt a few moments ago, it cannot be denied that
Pearson was aghast. How could one be prepared for developments of such
an order?
“Not to do it, sir!” he faltered. “But what would the servants think if
you had no one to valet you?”
“That's so. What would they think?” But he evidently was not dismayed,
for he smiled widely. “I guess the plainclothes man would throw a fit.”
But Pearson's view was more serious and involved a knowledge of not
improbable complications. He knew “the hall” and its points of view.
“I couldn't draw my wages, sir,” he protested. “There'd be the greatest
dissatisfaction among the other servants, sir, if I didn't do my duties.
There's always a--a slight jealousy of valets and ladies'-maids. The
general idea is that they do very little to earn their salaries. I've
seen them fairly hated.”
“Is that so? Well, I'll be darned!” remarked Mr. Temple Barholm. He
gave a moment to reflection, and then cheered up immensely.
“I'll tell you how we'll fix it. You come up into my room and bring your
tatting or read a newspaper while I dress.” He openly chuckled. “Holy
smoke! I've GOT to put on my shirt and swear at my collar-buttons
myself. If I'm in for having a trained nurse do it for me, it'll give me
the Willies. When you danced around me before dinner--”
Pearson's horror forced him to commit the indiscretion of interrupting.
“I hope I didn't DANCE, sir,” he implored. “I tried to be extremely
quiet.”
“That was it,” said Tembarom. “I shouldn't have said danced; I meant
crept. I kept thinking I should tread on you, and I got so nervous
toward the end I thought I should just break down and sob on your bosom
and beg to be taken back to home and mother.”
“I'm extremely sorry, sir, I am, indeed,” apologized Pearson, doing his
best not to give way to hysterical giggling. How was a man to keep a
decently straight face, and if one didn't, where would it end? One thing
after another.
“It was not your fault. It was mine. I haven't a thing against you.
You're a first-rate little chap.”
“I will try to be more satisfactory to-morrow.”
There must be no laughing aloud, even if one burst a blood-vessel. It
would not do. Pearson hastily confronted a vision of a young footman
or Mr. Burrill himself passing through the corridors on some errand
and hearing master and valet shouting together in unseemly and wholly
incomprehensible mirth. And the next remark was worse than ever.
“No, you won't, Pearson,” Mr. Temple Barholm asserted. “There's where
you're wrong. I've got no more use for a valet than I have for a pair of
straight-front corsets.”
This contained a sobering suggestion.
“But you said, sir, that--”
“Oh, I'm not going to fire you,” said Tembarom, genially. “I'll 'keep
you on', but little Willie is going to put on his own socks. If the
servants have to be pacified, you come up to my room and do anything
you like. Lie on the bed if you want to; get a jew's-harp and play on
it--any old thing to pass the time. And I'll raise your wages. What do
you say? Is it fixed?”
“I'm here, sir, to do anything you require,” Pearson answered
distressedly; “but I'm afraid--”
Tembarom's face changed. A sudden thought had struck him.
“I'll tell you one thing you can do,” he said; “you can valet that
friend of mine.”
“Mr. Strangeways, sir?”
“Yes. I've got a notion he wouldn't mind it.” He was not joking now. He
was in fact rather suddenly thoughtful.
“Say, Pearson, what do you think of him?”
“Well, sir, I've not seen much of him, and he says very little, but I
should think he was a GENTLEMAN, sir.”
Mr. Temple Barholm seemed to think it over.
“That's queer,” he said as though to himself. “That's what Ann said.”
Then aloud, “Would you say he was an American?”
In his unavoidable interest in a matter much talked over below stairs
and productive of great curiosity Pearson was betrayed. He could not
explain to himself, after he had spoken, how he could have been such a
fool as to forget; but forget himself and the birthplace of the new Mr.
Temple Barholm he did.
“Oh, no, sir,” he exclaimed hastily; “he's QUITE the gentleman, sir,
even though he is queer in his mind.” The next instant he caught himself
and turned cold. An American or a Frenchman or an Italian, in fact, a
native of any country on earth so slighted with an unconsciousness so
natural, if he had been a man of hot temper, might have thrown something
at him or kicked him out of the room; but Mr. Temple Barholm took his
pipe out of his mouth and looked at him with a slow, broadening smile.
“Would you call me a gentleman, Pearson?” he asked.
Of course there was no retrieving such a blunder, Pearson felt, but--
“Certainly, sir,” he stammered. “Most--most CERTAINLY, sir.”
“Pearson,” said Tembarom, shaking his head slowly, with a grin so
good-natured that even the frankness of his words was friendly humor
itself--“Pearson, you're a liar. But that doesn't jolt me a bit. I dare
say I'm not one, anyhow. We might put an 'ad' in one of your papers and
find out.”
“I--I beg your pardon, sir,” murmured Pearson in actual anguish of mind.
Mr. Temple Barholm laughed outright.
“Oh, I've not got it in for you. How could you help it?” he said. Then
he stopped joking again. “If you want to please ME,” he added with
deliberation, “you look after Mr. Strangeways, and don't let anything
disturb him. Don't bother him, but just find out what he wants. When he
gets restless, come and tell me. If I'm out, tell him I'm coming back.
Don't let him worry. You understand--don't let him worry.”
“I'll do my best--my very best, sir,” Pearson answered devoutly. “I've
been nervous and excited this first day because I am so anxious to
please--everything seems to depend on it just now,” he added, daring
another confidential outburst. “But you'll see I do know how to keep my
wits about me in general, and I've got a good memory, and I have learned
my duties, sir. I'll attend to Mr. Strangeways most particular.”
As Tembarom listened, and watched his neat, blond countenance, and
noted the undertone of quite desperate appeal in his low voice, he was
thinking of a number of things. Chiefly he was thinking of little Ann
Hutchinson and the Harlem flat which might have been “run” on fifteen
dollars a week.
“I want to know I have some one in this museum of a place who'll
UNDERSTAND,” he said--“some one who'll do just exactly what I say and
ask no fool questions and keep his mouth shut. I believe you could do
it.”
“I'll swear I could, sir. Trust me,” was Pearson's astonishingly
emotional and hasty answer.
“I'm going to,” returned Mr. Temple Barholm. “I've set my mind on
putting something through in my own way. It's a queer thing, and most
people would say I was a fool for trying it. Mr. Hutchinson does, but
Miss Hutchinson doesn't.”
There was a note in his tone of saying “Miss Hutchinson doesn't” which
opened up vistas to Pearson--strange vistas when one thought of old Mrs.
Hutchinson's cottage and the estate of Temple Barholm.
“We're just about the same age,” his employer continued, “and in a sort
of way we're in just about the same fix.”
Their eyes looked into each other's a second; but it was not for Pearson
to presume to make any comment whatsoever upon the possible nature of
“the fix.” Two or three more puffs, and Mr. Temple Barholm spoke again.
“Say, Pearson, I don't want to butt in, but what about that little bunch
of calico of yours--the one you're saving up for?”
“Calico, sir?” said Pearson, at sea, but hopeful. Whatsoever the new Mr.
Temple Barholm meant, one began to realize that it was not likely to be
unfriendly.
“That's American for HER, Pearson. 'Her' stands for the same thing both
in English and American, I guess. What's her name and where is she?
Don't you say a word if you don't want to.”
Pearson drew a step nearer. There was an extraordinary human atmosphere
in the room which caused things to begin to go on in his breast. He had
had a harder life than Tembarom because he had been more timid and less
buoyant and less unselfconscious. He had been beaten by a drunken mother
and kicked by a drunken father. He had gone hungry and faint to the
board school and had been punished as a dull boy. After he had struggled
into a place as page, he had been bullied by footmen and had had his
ears boxed by cooks and butlers. Ladies'-maids and smart housemaids had
sneered at him, and made him feel himself a hopeless, vulgar little worm
who never would “get on.” But he had got on, in a measure, because he
had worked like a slave and openly resented nothing. A place like this
had been his fevered hope and dream from his page days, though of course
his imagination had not encompassed attendance on a gentleman who had
never owned a dress-shirt in his life. Yet gentleman or no gentleman, he
was a Temple Barholm, and there was something about him, something human
in his young voice and grin and queer, unheard-of New York jokes, which
Pearson had never encountered, and which had the effect of making him
feel somehow more of a man than his timorous nature had ever allowed of
his feeling before. It suggested that they were both, valet and master,
merely masculine human creatures of like kind. The way he had said “Miss
Hutchinson” and the twinkle in his eye when he'd made that American
joke about the “little bunch of calico”! The curious fact was that thin,
neat, white-blooded-looking Pearson was passionately in love. So he took
the step nearer and grew hot and spoke low.
“Her name is Rose Merrick, sir, and she's in place in London. She's
lady's-maid to a lady of title, and it isn't an easy place. Her lady has
a high temper, and she's economical with her servants. Her maid has
to sew early and late, and turn out as much as if she was a whole
dressmaking establishment. She's clever with her needle, and it would
be easier if she felt it was appreciated. But she's treated haughty
and severe, though she tries her very best. She has to wait up half
the night after balls, and I'm afraid it's breaking her spirit and
her health. That's why,--I beg your pardon, sir,” he added, his voice
shaking--“that's why I'd bear anything on earth if I could give her a
little home of her own.”
“Gee whizz!” ejaculated Mr. Temple Barholm, with feeling. “I guess you
would!”
“And that's not all, sir,” said Pearson. “She's a beautiful girl, sir,
with a figure, and service is sometimes not easy for a young woman
like that. His lordship--the master of the house, sir,--is much too
attentive. He's a man with bad habits; the last lady's-maid was sent
away in disgrace. Her ladyship wouldn't believe she hadn't been forward
when she saw things she didn't like, though every one in the hall knew
the girl hated his bold ways with her, and her mother nearly broke her
heart. He's begun with Rose, and it just drives me mad, sir, it does!”
He choked, and wiped his forehead with his clean handkerchief. It was
damp, and his young eyes had fire in them, as Mr. Temple Barholm did not
fail to observe.
“I'm taking a liberty talking to you like this, sir,” he said. “I'm
behaving as if I didn't know my place, sir.”
“Your place is behind that fellow, kicking him till he'll never sit down
again except on eider-down cushions three deep,” remarked Mr. Temple
Barholm, with fire in his eyes also. “That's where your place is. It's
where mine would be if I was in the same house with him and caught him
making a goat of himself. I bet nine Englishmen out of ten would break
his darned neck for him if they got on to his little ways, even if they
were lordships themselves.”
“The decent ones won't know,” Pearson said. “That's not what happens,
sir. He can laugh and chaff it off with her ladyship and coax her round.
But a girl that's discharged like that, Rose says, that's the worst of
it: she says she's got a character fastened on to her for life that no
respectable man ought to marry her with.”
Mr. Temple Barholm removed his leg from the arm of his chair and got up.
Long-legged, sinewy, but somewhat slouchy in his badly made tweed suit,
sharp New York face and awful American style notwithstanding, he still
looked rather nice as he laid his hand on his valet's shoulder and gave
him a friendly push.
“See here,” he said. “What you've got to say to Rose is that she's just
got to cut that sort of thing out--cut it right out. Talking to a man
that's in love with her as if he was likely to throw her down because
lies were told. Tell her to forget it--forget it quick. Why, what does
she suppose a man's FOR, by jinks? What's he FOR?”
“I've told her that, sir, though of course not in American. I just swore
it on my knees in Hyde Park one night when she got out for an hour. But
she laid her poor head on the back of the bench and cried and wouldn't
listen. She says she cares for me too much to--”
Tembarom's hand clutched his shoulder. His face lighted and glowed
suddenly.
“Care for you too much,” he asked. “Did she say that? God bless her!”
“That's what I said,” broke in Pearson.
“I heard another girl say that--just before I left New York--a girl
that's just a wonder,” said his master. “A girl can be a wonder, can't
she?”
“Rose is, sir,” protested Pearson. “She is, indeed, sir. And her eyes
are that blue--”
“Blue, are they?” interrupted Tembarom. “I know the kind. I'm on to the
whole thing. And what's more, I'm going to fix it. You tell Rose--and
tell her from me--that she's going to leave that place, and you're going
to stay in this one, and--well, presently things'll begin to happen.
They're going to be all right--ALL RIGHT,” he went on, with immensely
convincing emphasis. “She's going to have that little home of her own.”
He paused a moment for reflection, and then a sudden thought presented
itself to him. “Why, darn it!” he exclaimed, “there must be a whole raft
of little homes that belong to me in one place or another. Why couldn't
I fix you both up in one of them?”
“Oh, sir!” Pearson broke forth in some slight alarm. He went so fast
and so far all in a moment. And Pearson really possessed a neat,
well-ordered conscience, and, moreover, “knew his place.” “I hope I
didn't seem to be expecting you to trouble yourself about me, sir. I
mustn't presume on your kindness.”
“It's not kindness; it's--well, it's just human. I'm going to think this
thing over. You just keep your hair on, and let me do my own valeting,
and you'll see I'll fix it for you somehow.”
What he thought of doing, how he thought of doing it, and what Pearson
was to expect, the agitated young man did not know. The situation was of
course abnormal, judged by all respectable, long-established custom. A
man's valet and his valet's “young woman” were not usually of intimate
interest. Gentlemen were sometimes “kind” to you--gave you half a
sovereign or even a sovereign, and perhaps asked after your mother if
you were supporting one; but--
“I never dreamed of going so far, sir,” he said. “I forgot myself, I'm
afraid.”
“Good thing you did. It's made me feel as if we were brothers.” He
laughed again, enjoying the thought of the little thing who cared for
Pearson “too much” and had eyes that were “that blue.” “Say, I've just
thought of something else. Have you bought her an engagement-ring yet?”
“No, sir. In our class of life jewelry is beyond the means.”
“I just wondered,” Mr. Temple Barholm said. He seemed to be thinking of
something that pleased him as he fumbled for his pocket-book and took a
clean banknote out of it. “I'm not on to what the value of this thing is
in real money, but you go and buy her a ring with it, and I bet she'll
be so pleased you'll have the time of your life.”
Pearson taking it; and recognizing its value in UNreal money, was
embarrassed by feeling the necessity of explanation.
“This is a five-pound note, sir. It's too much, sir, it is indeed. This
would FURNISH THE FRONT PARLOR.” He said it almost solemnly.
Mr. Temple Barholm looked at the note interestedly.
“Would it? By jinks!” and his laugh had a certain softness of
recollection. “I guess that's just what Ann would say. She'd know what
it would furnish, you bet your life!”
“I'm most grateful, sir,” protested Pearson, “but I oughtn't to take
it. Being an American gentleman and not accustomed to English money, you
don't realize that--”
“I'm not accustomed to any kind of money,” said his master. “I'm scared
to be left alone in the room with it. That's what's the matter. If I
don't give some away, I shall never know I've got it. Cheer up, Pearson.
You take that and buy the ring, and when you start furnishing, I'll see
you don't get left.”
“I don't know what to say, sir,” Pearson faltered emotionally. “I don't,
indeed.”
“Don't say a darned thing,” replied Mr. Temple Barholm. And just here
his face changed as Mr. Palford had seen it change before, and as
Pearson often saw it change later. His New York jocular irreverence
dropped from him, and he looked mature and oddly serious.
“I've tried to sort of put you wise to the way I've lived and the things
I HAVEN'T had ever since I was born,” he said, “but I guess you don't
really know a thing about it. I've got more money coming in every year
than a thousand of me would ever expect to see in their lives, according
to my calculation. And I don't know how to do any of the things a fellow
who is what you call `a gentleman' would know how to do. I mean in the
way of spending it. Now, I've got to get some fun out of it. I should
be a mutt if I didn't, so I'm going to spend it my own way. I may make
about seventy-five different kinds of a fool of myself, but I guess I
sha'n't do any particular harm.”
“You'll do good, sir,--to every one.”
“Shall I?”--said Tembarom, speculatively. “Well, I'm not exactly setting
out with that in my mind. I'm no Young Men's Christian Association, but
I'm not in for doing harm, anyway. You take your five-pound note--come
to think of it, Palford said it came to about twenty-five dollars, real
money. Hully gee! I never thought I'd have twenty-five dollars to GIVE
AWAY! It makes me feel like I was Morgan.”
“Thank you, sir; thank you,” said Pearson, putting the note into his
pocket with rapt gratitude in his neat face. “You--you do not wish me to
remain--to do anything for you?”
“Not a thing. But just go and find out if Mr. Strangeways is asleep. If
he isn't and seems restless, I'll come and have a talk with him.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pearson, and went at once.