In the course of two days Mr. Palford, having given his client the
benefit of his own exact professional knowledge of the estate of
Temple Barholm and its workings and privileges as far as he found them
transferable and likely to be understood, returned to London, breathing
perhaps something like a sigh of relief when the train steamed out
of the little station. Whatsoever happened in days to come, Palford &
Grimby had done their most trying and awkward duty by the latest Temple
Barholm. Bradford, who was the steward of the estate, would now take
him over, and could be trusted to furnish practical information of any
ordinary order.
It did not appear to Mr. Palford that the new inheritor was particularly
interested in his possessions or exhilarated by the extraordinary turn
in his fortunes. The enormity of Temple Barholm itself, regarded as a
house to live in in an everyday manner, seemed somewhat to depress him.
When he was taken over its hundred and fifty rooms, he wore a detached
air as he looked about him, and such remarks as he made were of an
extraordinary nature and expressed in terms peculiar to America. Neither
Mr. Palford nor Burrill understood them, but a young footman who was
said to have once paid a visit to New York, and who chanced to be in the
picture-gallery when his new master was looking at the portraits of
his ancestors, over-hearing one observation, was guilty of a convulsive
snort, and immediately made his way into the corridor, coughing
violently. From this Mr. Palford gathered that one of the transatlantic
jokes had been made. That was the New York idea--to be jocular. Yet he
had not looked jocular when he had made the remark which had upset the
equilibrium of the young footman. He had, in fact, looked reflective
before speaking as he stood and studied a portrait of one of his
ancestors. But, then, he had a trick of saying things incomprehensibly
ridiculous with an unmoved expression of gravity, which led Palford to
feel that he was ridiculous through utter ignorance and was not aware
that he was exposing the fact. Persons who thought that an air of
seriousness added to a humorous remark were especially annoying to the
solicitor, because they frequently betrayed one into the position
of seeming to be dull in the matter of seeing a point. That, he had
observed, was often part of the New York manner--to make a totally
absurdly exaggerated or seemingly ignorance-revealing observation, and
then leave one's hearer to decide for himself whether the speaker was an
absolute ignoramus and fool or a humorist.
More than once he had somewhat suspected his client of meaning to “get
a rise out of him,” after the odious manner of the tourists described
in “The Innocents Abroad,” though at the same time he felt rather
supportingly sure of the fact that generally, when he displayed
ignorance, he displayed it because he was a positive encyclopedia of
lack of knowledge.
He knew no more of social customs, literature, and art than any other
street lad. He had not belonged to the aspiring self-taught, who
meritoriously haunt the night schools and free libraries with a view
to improving their minds. If this had been his method, he might in one
sense have been more difficult to handle, as Palford had seen the
thing result in a bumptiousness most objectionable. He was markedly not
bumptious, at all events.
A certain degree of interest in or curiosity concerning his ancestors
as represented in the picture-gallery Mr. Palford had observed. He had
stared at them and had said queer things--sometimes things which perhaps
indicated a kind of uneducated thought. The fact that some of them
looked so thoroughly alive, and yet had lived centuries ago, seemed
to set him reflecting oddly. His curiosity, however, seemed to connect
itself with them more as human creatures than as historical figures.
“What did that one do?” he inquired more than once. “What did he start,
or didn't he start anything?”
When he disturbed the young footman he had stopped before a dark man in
armor.
“Who's this fellow in the tin overcoat?” he asked seriously, and
Palford felt it was quite possible that he had no actual intent of being
humorous.
“That is Miles Gaspard Nevil John, who fought in the Crusades with
Richard Coeur de Lion,” he explained. “He is wearing a suit of armor.”
By this time the footman was coughing in the corridor.
“That's English history, I guess,” Tembarom replied. “I'll have to get a
history-book and read up about the Crusades.”
He went on farther, and paused with a slightly puzzled expression before
a boy in a costume of the period of Charles II.
“Who's this Fauntleroy in the lace collar?” he inquired. “Queer!” he
added, as though to himself. “I can't ever have seen him in New York.”
And he took a step backward to look again.
“That is Miles Hugo Charles James, who was a page at the court of
Charles II. He died at nineteen, and was succeeded by his brother Denzel
Maurice John.”
“I feel as if I'd had a dream about him sometime or other,” said
Tembarom, and he stood still a few seconds before he passed on. “Perhaps
I saw something like him getting out of a carriage to go into the Van
Twillers' fancy-dress ball. Seems as if I'd got the whole show shut up
in here. And you say they're all my own relations?” Then he laughed. “If
they were alive now!” he said. “By jinks!”
His laughter suggested that he was entertained by mental visions. But he
did not explain to his companion. His legal adviser was not in the least
able to form any opinion of what he would do, how he would be likely to
comport himself, when he was left entirely to his own devices. He
would not know also, one might be sure, that the county would wait with
repressed anxiety to find out. If he had been a minor, he might have
been taken in hand, and trained and educated to some extent. But he was
not a minor.
On the day of Mr. Palford's departure a thick fog had descended and
seemed to enwrap the world in the white wool. Tembarom found it close to
his windows when he got up, and he had dressed by the light of tall wax
candles, the previous Mr. Temple Barholm having objected to more modern
and vulgar methods of illumination.
“I guess this is what you call a London fog,” he said to Pearson.
“No, not exactly the London sort, sir,” Pearson answered. “A London fog
is yellow--when it isn't brown or black. It settles on the hands and
face. A fog in the country isn't dirty with smoke. It's much less
trying, sir.”
When Palford had departed and he was entirely alone, Tembarom found a
country fog trying enough for a man without a companion. A degree of
relief permeated his being with the knowledge that he need no
longer endeavor to make suitable reply to his solicitor's efforts at
conversation. He had made conversational efforts himself. You couldn't
let a man feel that you wouldn't talk to him if you could when he was
doing business for you, but what in thunder did you have to talk about
that a man like that wouldn't be bored stiff by? He didn't like New
York, he didn't know anything about it, and he didn't want to know, and
Tembarom knew nothing about anything else, and was homesick for the very
stones of the roaring city's streets. When he said anything, Palford
either didn't understand what he was getting at or he didn't like it.
And he always looked as if he was watching to see if you were trying to
get a joke on him. Tembarom was frequently not nearly so much inclined
to be humorous as Mr. Palford had irritably suspected him of being. His
modes of expression might on numerous occasions have roused to mirth
when his underlying idea was almost entirely serious. The mode of
expression was merely a result of habit.
Mr. Palford left by an extremely early train, and after he was gone,
Tembarom sat over his breakfast as long as possible, and then, going to
the library, smoked long. The library was certainly comfortable, though
the fire and the big wax candles were called upon to do their best to
defy the chill, mysterious dimness produced by the heavy, white wool
curtain folding itself more and more thickly outside the windows.
But one cannot smoke in solitary idleness for much more than an hour,
and when he stood up and knocked the ashes out of his last pipe,
Tembarom drew a long breath.
“There's a hundred and thirty-six hours in each of these days,” he said.
“That's nine hundred and fifty-two in a week, and four thousand and
eighty in a month--when it's got only thirty days in it. I'm not going
to calculate how many there'd be in a year. I'll have a look at the
papers. There's Punch. That's their comic one.”
He looked out the American news in the London papers, and sighed hugely.
He took up Punch and read every joke two or three times over. He did not
know that the number was a specially good one and that there were some
extremely witty things in it. The jokes were about bishops in gaiters,
about garden-parties, about curates or lovely young ladies or rectors'
wives and rustics, about Royal Academicians or esthetic poets. Their
humor appealed to him as little and seemed as obscure as his had seemed
to Mr. Palford.
“I'm not laughing my head off much over these,” he said. “I guess I'm
not on to the point.”
He got up and walked about. The “L” in New York was roaring to and fro
loaded with men and women going to work or to do shopping. Some of them
were devouring morning papers bearing no resemblance to those of London,
some of them carried parcels, and all of them looked as though they were
intent on something or other and hadn't a moment to waste. They were all
going somewhere in a hurry and had to get back in time for something.
When the train whizzed and slackened at a station, some started up,
hastily caught their papers or bundles closer, and pushed or were pushed
out on the platform, which was crowded with other people who rushed to
get in, and if they found seats, dropped into them hastily with an air
of relief. The street-cars were loaded and rang their bells loudly,
trucks and carriages and motors filled the middle of the thoroughfares,
and people crowded the pavements. The store windows were dressed up for
Christmas, and most of the people crowded before them were calculating
as to what they could get for the inadequate sums they had on hand.
The breakfast at Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house was over, and the boarders
had gone on cars or elevated trains to their day's work. Mrs. Bowse
was getting ready to go out and do some marketing. Julius and Jim were
down-town deep in the work pertaining to their separate “jobs.” They'd
go home at night, and perhaps, if they were in luck, would go to a
“show” somewhere, and afterward come and sit in their tilted chairs in
the hall bedroom and smoke and talk it over. And he wouldn't be there,
and the Hutchinsons' rooms would be empty, unless some new people were
in them. Galton would be sitting among his papers, working like mad. And
Bennett--well, Bennett would be either “getting out his page,” or would
be rushing about in the hundredth streets to find items and follow up
weddings or receptions.
“Gee!” he said, “every one of them trying their best to put something
over, and with so much to think of they've not got time to breathe! It'd
be no trouble for THEM to put in a hundred and thirty-six hours. They'd
be darned glad of them. And, believe me, they'd put something over,
too, before they got through. And I'm here, with three hundred and fifty
thousand dollars a year round my neck and not a thing to spend it on,
unless I pay some one part of it to give me lessons in tatting. What is
tatting, anyhow?”
He didn't really know. It was vaguely supposed to imply some intensely
feminine fancy-work done by old ladies, and used as a figure of speech
in jokes.
“If you could ride or shoot, you could amuse yourself in the country,”
Palford had said.
“I can ride in a street-car when I've got five cents,” Tembarom had
answered. “That's as far as I've gone in riding--and what in thunder
should I shoot?”
“Game,” replied Mr. Palford, with chill inward disgust. “Pheasants,
partridges, woodcock, grouse--”
“I shouldn't shoot anything like that if I went at it,” he responded
shamelessly. “I should shoot my own head off, or the fellow's that stood
next to me, unless he got the drop on me first.”
He did not know that he was ignominious. Nobody could have made it clear
to him. He did not know that there were men who had gained distinction,
popularity, and fame by doing nothing in particular but hitting things
animate and inanimate with magnificent precision of aim.
He stood still now and listened to the silence.
“There's not a sound within a thousand miles of the place. What do
fellows with money DO to keep themselves alive?” he said piteously.
“They've got to do SOMETHING. Shall I have to go out and take a walk, as
Palford called it? Take a walk, by gee!”
He couldn't conceive it, a man “taking a walk” as though it were
medicine--a walk nowhere, to reach nothing, just to go and turn back
again.
“I'll begin and take in sewing,” he said, “or I'll open a store in the
village--a department store. I could spend something on that. I'll ask
Pearson what he thinks of it--or Burrill. I'd like to see Burrill if I
said that to him.”
He decided at last that he would practise his “short” awhile; that would
be doing something, at any rate. He sat down at the big writing-table
and began to dash off mystic signs at furious speed. But the speed did
not keep up. The silence of the great room, of the immense house, of all
the scores of rooms and galleries and corridors, closed in about him. He
had practised his “short” in the night school, with the “L” thundering
past at intervals of five minutes; in the newspaper office, with all the
babel of New York about him and the bang of steam-drills going on
below in the next lot, where the foundation of a new building was being
excavated; he had practised it in his hall bedroom at Mrs. Bowse's,
to the tumultuous accompaniment of street sounds and the whizz and
TING-A-LING of street-cars dashing past, and he had not been disturbed.
He had never practised it in any place which was silent, and it was the
silence which became more than he could stand. He actually jumped out
of his chair when he heard mysterious footsteps outside the door, and a
footman appeared and spoke in a low voice which startled him as though
it had been a thunderclap.
“A young person with her father wants to see you, sir,” he announced. “I
don't think they are villagers, but of the working-class, I should say.”
“Where are they?”
“I didn't know exactly what to do, sir, so I left them in the hall. The
young person has a sort of quiet, determined way--”
“Little Ann, by gee!” exclaimed Tembarom with mad joy, and shot out of
the room.
The footman--he had not seen Little Ann when she had brought
Strangeways--looked after him and rubbed his chin.
“Wouldn't you call that a rummy sort for Temple Barholm?” he said to one
of his fellows who had appeared in the hall near him.
“It's not my sort,” was the answer. “I'm going to give notice to old
Butterworth.”
Hutchinson and Little Ann were waiting in the hall. Hutchinson was
looking at the rich, shadowy spaces about him with a sort of proud
satisfaction. Fine, dark corners with armored figures lurking in
them, ancient portraits, carved oak settles, and massive chairs and
cabinets--these were English, and he was an Englishman, and somehow felt
them the outcome of certain sterling qualities of his own. He looked
robustly well, and wore a new rough tweed suit such as one of the gentry
might tramp about muddy roads and fields in. Little Ann was dressed
in something warm and rough also, a brown thing, with a little close,
cap-like, brown hat, from under which her red hair glowed. The walk in
the cold, white fog had made her bloom fresh, soft-red and white-daisy
color. She was smiling, and showing three distinct dimples, which
deepened when Tembarom dashed out of the library.
“Hully gee!” he cried out, “but I'm glad to see you!”
He shook hands with both of them furiously, and two footmen stood and
looked at the group with image-like calm of feature, but with curiously
interested eyes. Hutchinson was aware of them, and endeavored to present
to them a back which by its stolid composure should reveal that he knew
more about such things than this chap did and wasn't a bit upset by
grandeur.
“Hully gee!” cried Tembarom again, “how glad I am! Come on in and sit
down and let's talk it over.”
Burrill made a stately step forward, properly intent on his duty, and
his master waved him back.
“Say,” he said hastily, “don't bring in any tea. They don't want it.
They're Americans.”
Hutchinson snorted. He could not stand being consigned to ignominy
before the footmen.
“Nowt o' th' sort,” he broke forth. “We're noan American. Tha'rt losing
tha head, lad.”
“He's forgetting because he met us first in New York,” said Little Ann,
smiling still more.
“Shall I take your hat and cane, sir?” inquired Burrill, unmovedly, at
Hutchinson's side.
“He wasn't going to say anything about tea,” explained Little Ann as
they went into the library. “They don't expect to serve tea in the
middle of the morning, Mr. Temple Barholm.”
“Don't they?” said Tembarom, reckless with relieved delight. “I thought
they served it every time the clock struck. When we were in London it
seemed like Palford had it when he was hot and when he was cold and when
he was glad and when he was sorry and when he was going out and when he
was coming in. It's brought up to me, by jinks! as soon as I wake, to
brace me up to put on my clothes--and Pearson wants to put those on.”
He stopped short when they reached the middle of the room and looked her
over.
“O Little Ann!” he breathed tumultuously. “O Little Ann!”
Mr. Hutchinson was looking about the library as he had looked about the
hall.
“Well, I never thought I'd get inside Temple Barlholm in my day,” he
exclaimed. “Eh, lad, tha must feel like bull in a china shop.”
“I feel like a whole herd of 'em,” answered Tembarom. Hutchinson nodded.
He understood.
“Well, perhaps tha'll get over it in time,” he conceded, “but it'll take
thee a good bit.” Then he gave him a warmly friendly look. “I'll lay
you know what Ann came with me for to-day.” The way Little Ann looked at
him--the way she looked at him!
“I came to thank you, Mr. Temple Barholm,” she said--“to thank you.” And
there was an odd, tender sound in her voice.
“Don't you do it, Ann,” Tembarom answered. “Don't you do it.”
“I don't know much about business, but the way you must have worked, the
way you must have had to run after people, and find them, and make then
listen, and use all your New York cleverness--because you ARE clever.
The way you've forgotten all about yourself and thought of nothing but
father and the invention! I do know enough to understand that, and it
seems as if I can't think of enough to say. I just wish I could tell you
what it means to me.” Two round pearls of tears brimmed over and fell
down her cheeks. “I promised mother FAITHFUL I'd take care of him and
see he never lost hope about it,” she added, “and sometimes I didn't
know whatever I was going to do.”
It was perilous when she looked at one like that, and she was so little
and light that one could have snatched her up in his arms and carried
her to the big arm-chair and sat down with her and rocked her backward
and forward and poured forth the whole thing that was making him feel as
though he might explode.
Hutchinson provided salvation.
“Tha pulled me out o' the water just when I was going under, lad. God
bless thee!” he broke out, and shook his hand with rough vigor. “I
signed with the North Electric yesterday.”
“Good business!” said Tembarom. “Now I'm in on the ground floor with
what's going to be the biggest money-maker in sight.”
“The way tha talked New York to them chaps took my fancy,” chuckled
Hutchinson. “None o' them chaps wants to be the first to jump over the
hedge.”
“We've got 'em started now,” exulted Tembarom.
“Tha started 'em,” said Hutchinson, “and it's thee I've got to thank.”
“Say, Little Ann,” said Tembarom, with sudden thought, “who's come into
money now? You'll have it to burn.”
“We've not got it yet, Mr. Temple Barholm,” she replied, shaking
her head. “Even when inventions get started, they don't go off like
sky-rockets.”
“She knows everything, doesn't she?” Tembarom said to Hutchinson. “Here,
come and sit down. I've not seen you for 'steen years.”
She took her seat in the big arm-chair and looked at him with softly
examining eyes, as though she wanted to understand him sufficiently to
be able to find out something she ought to do if he needed help.
He saw it and half laughed, not quite unwaveringly.
“You'll make me cry in a minute,” he said. “You don't know what it's
like to have some one from home and mother come and be kind to you.”
“How is Mr. Strangeways?” she inquired.
“He's well taken care of, at any rate. That's where he's got to thank
you. Those rooms you and the housekeeper chose were the very things for
him. They're big and comfortable, and 'way off in a place where no one's
likely to come near. The fellow that's been hired to valet me valets him
instead, and I believe he likes it. It seems to come quite natural to
him, any how. I go in and see him every now and then and try to get
him to talk. I sort of invent things to see if I can start him thinking
straight. He's quieted down some and he looks better. After a while I'm
going to look up some big doctors in London and find out which of
'em's got the most plain horse sense. If a real big one would just get
interested and come and see him on the quiet and not get him excited, he
might do him good. I'm dead stuck on this stunt I've set myself--getting
him right. It's something to work on.”
“You'll have plenty to work on soon,” said Little Ann. “There's a lot
of everyday things you've got to think about. They may seem of no
consequence to you, but they ARE, Mr. Temple Barholm.”
“If you say they are, I guess they are,” he answered. “I'll do anything
you say, Ann.”
“I came partly to tell you about some of them to-day,” she went on,
keeping the yearningly thoughtful eyes on him. It was rather hard for
her, too, to be firm enough when there was so much she wanted to say and
do. And he did not look half as twinkling and light-heartedly grinning
as he had looked in New York.
He couldn't help dropping his voice a little coaxingly, though Mr.
Hutchinson was quite sufficiently absorbed in examination of his
surroundings.
“Didn't you come to save my life by letting me have a look at you,
Little Ann--didn't you?” he pleaded.
She shook her wonderful, red head.
“No, I didn't, Mr. Temple Barholm,” she answered with Manchester
downrightness. “When I said what I did in New York, I meant it. I
didn't intend to hang about here and let you--say things to me. You
mustn't say them. Father and me are going back to Manchester in a
few days, and very soon we have to go to America again because of the
business.”
“America!” he said. “Oh, Lord!” he groaned. “Do you want me to drop down
dead here with a dull, sickening thud, Ann?”
“You're not going to drop down dead,” she replied convincedly. “You're
going to stay here and do whatever it's your duty to do, now you've come
into Temple Barholm.”
“Am I?” he answered. “Well, we'll see what I'm going to do when I've had
time to make up my mind. It may be something different from what you'd
think, and it mayn't. Just now I'm going to do what you tell me. Go
ahead, Little Ann.”
She thought the matter over with her most destructive little air of
sensible intentness.
“Well, it may seem like meddling, but it isn't,” she began rather
concernedly. “It's just that I'm used to looking after people. I wanted
to talk to you about your clothes.”
“My clothes?” he replied, bewildered a moment; but the next he
understood and grinned. “I haven't got any. My valet--think of T. T.
with a valet!--told me so last night.”
“That's what I thought,” she said maternally. “I got Mrs. Bowse to write
to me, and she told me you were so hurried and excited you hadn't time
for anything.”
“I just rushed into Cohen's the last day and yanked a few things off the
ready-made counter.”
She looked him over with impersonal criticism.
“I thought so. Those you've got on won't do at all.”
Tembarom glanced at them.
“That's what Pearson says.”
“They're not the right shape,” she explained. “I know what a gentleman's
clothes mean in England, and--” her face flushed, and sudden, warm
spirit made her speak rather fast--“I couldn't ABIDE to think of you
coming here and--being made fun of--just because you hadn't the right
clothes.”
She said it, the little thing, as though he were hers--her very own, and
defend him against disrespect she WOULD. Tembarom, being but young
flesh and blood, made an impetuous dart toward her, and checked himself,
catching his breath.
“Ann,” he said, “has your grandmother got a dog?”
“Y-e-s,” she said, faltering because she was puzzled.
“How big is he?”
“He's a big one. He's a brindled bulldog. Why?”
“Well,” he said, half pathetic, half defiant, “if you're going to come
and talk to me like that, and look like that, you've got to bring that
bull along and set him on me when I make a break; for there's nothing
but a dog can keep me where you want me to stay--and a big one at that.”
He sat down on an ottoman near her and dropped his head on his hands. It
was not half such a joke as it sounded.
Little Ann saw it wasn't and she watched him tenderly, catching her
breath once quickly. Men had ways of taking some things hard and feeling
them a good bit more than one would think. It made trouble many a time
if one couldn't help them to think reasonable.
“Father,” she said to Hutchinson.
“Aye,” he answered, turning round.
“Will you tell Mr. Temple Barholm that you think I'm right about giving
him his chance?”
“Of course I think she's right,” Hutchinson blustered, “and it isn't the
first time either. I'm not going to have my lass married into any family
where she'd be looked down upon.”
But that was not what Little Ann wanted; it was not, in fact, her
argument. She was not thinking of that side of the situation.
“It's not me that matters so much, Father,” she said; “it's him.”
“Oh, is it?” disagreed Hutchinson, dictatorially. “That's not th' road
I look at it. I'm looking after you, not him. Let him take care of
himself. No chap shall put you where you won't be looked up to, even if
I AM grateful to him. So there you have it.”
“He can't take care of himself when he feels like this,” she answered.
“That's WHY I'm taking care of him. He'll think steadier when he's
himself again.” She put out her hand and softly touched his shoulder.
“Don't do that,” she said. “You make me want to be silly.” There was a
quiver in her voice, but she tried to change it. “If you don't lift
your head,” she added with a great effort at disciplinarian firmness, “I
shall have to go away without telling you the other things.”
He lifted his head, but his attempt at a smile was not hilarious.
“Well, Ann,” he submitted, “I've warned you. Bring along your dog.”
She took a sheet of paper out of one of the neat pockets in her rough,
brown coat.
“I just wrote down some of the very best tailors' addresses--the very
best,” she explained. “Don't you go to any but the very best, and be
a bit sharp with them if they're not attentive. They'll think all the
better of you. If your valet's a smart one, take him with you.”
“Yes, Ann,” he said rather weakly. “He's going to make a list of things
himself, anyhow.”
“That sounds as if he'd got some sense.” She handed him the list of
addresses. “You give him this, and tell him he must go to the very best
ones.”
“What do I want to put on style for?” he asked desperately. “I don't
know a soul on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.”
“You soon will,” she replied, with calm perspicacity. “You've got too
much money not to.”
A gruff chuckle made itself heard from Hutchinson's side of the room.
“Aye, seventy thousand a year'll bring th' vultures about thee, lad.”
“We needn't call them vultures exactly,” was Little Ann's tolerant
comment; “but a lot of people will come here to see you. That was one of
the things I thought I might tell you about.”
“Say, you're a wonder!”
“I'm nothing of the sort. I'm just a girl with a bit of common
sense--and grandmother's one that's looked on a long time, and she sees
things. The country gentlemen will begin to call on you soon, and then
you'll be invited to their houses to meet their wives and daughters, and
then you'll be kept pretty busy.”
Hutchinson's bluff chuckle broke out again.
“You will that, my lad, when th' match-making mothers get after you.
There's plenty on 'em.”
“Father's joking,” she said. Her tone was judicially unprejudiced.
“There are young ladies that--that'd be very suitable. Pretty ones and
clever ones. You'll see them all.”
“I don't want to see them.”
“You can't help it,” she said, with mild decision. “When there
are daughters and a new gentleman comes into a big property in the
neighborhood, it's nothing but natural that the mothers should be a bit
anxious.”
“Aye, they'll be anxious enough. Mak' sure o' that,” laughed Hutchinson.
“Is that what you want me to put on style for, Little Ann?” Tembarom
asked reproachfully.
“I want you to put it on for yourself. I don't want you to look
different from other men. Everybody's curious about you. They're ready
to LAUGH because you came from America and once sold newspapers.”
“It's the men he'll have to look out for,” Hutchinson put in, with an
experienced air. “There's them that'll want to borrow money, and them
that'll want to drink and play cards and bet high. A green American
lad'll be a fine pigeon for them to pluck. You may as well tell him,
Ann; you know you came here to do it.”
“Yes, I did,” she admitted. “I don't want you to seem not to know what
people are up to and what they expect.”
That little note of involuntary defense was a dangerous thing for
Tembarom. He drew nearer.
“You don't want them to take me for a fool, Little Ann. You're standing
up for me; that's it.”
“You can stand up for yourself, Mr. Temple Barholm, if you're not taken
by surprise,” she said confidently. “If you understand things a bit, you
won't be.”
His feelings almost overpowered him.
“God bless your dear little soul!” he broke out. “Say, if this goes on,
that dog of your grandmother's wouldn't have a show, Ann. I should bite
him before he could bite me.”
“I won't go on if you can't be sensible, Mr. Temple Barholm. I shall
just go away and not come back again. That's what I shall do.” Her tone
was that of a young mother.
He gave in incontinently.
“Good Lord! no!” he exclaimed. “I'll do anything if you'll stay. I'll
lie down on the mat and not open my mouth. Just sit here and tell me
things. I know you won't let me hold your hand, but just let me hold a
bit of your dress and look at you while you talk.” He took a bit of her
brown frock between his fingers and held it, gazing at her with all his
crude young soul in his eyes. “Now tell me,” he added.
“There's only one or two things about the people who'll come to Temple
Barholm. Grandmother's talked it over with me. She knew all about those
that came in the late Mr. Temple Barholm's time. He used to hate most of
them.”
“Then why in thunder did he ask them to come?”
“He didn't. They've got clever, polite ways of asking themselves
sometimes. He couldn't bear the Countess of Mallowe. She'll come.
Grandmother says you may be sure of that.”
“What'll she come for?”
Little Ann's pause and contemplation of him were fraught with
thoughtfulness.
“She'll come for you,” at last she said.
“She's got a daughter she thinks ought to have been married eight years
ago,” announced Hutchinson.
Tembarom pulled at the bit of brown tweed he held as though it were a
drowning man's straw.
“Don't you drive me to drink, Ann,” he said. “I'm frightened. Your
grandmother will have to lend ME the dog.”
This was a flightiness which Little Ann did not encourage.
“Lady Joan--that's her daughter--is very grand and haughty. She's a
great beauty. You'll look at her, but perhaps she won't look at you. But
it's not her I'm troubled about. I'm thinking of Captain Palliser and
men like him.”
“Who's he?”
“He's one of those smooth, clever ones that's always getting up some
company or other and selling the stock. He'll want you to know his
friends and he'll try to lead you his way.”
As Tembarom held to his bit of her dress, his eyes were adoring ones,
which was really not to be wondered at. She WAS adorable as her soft,
kind, wonderfully maternal girl face tried to control itself so that it
should express only just enough to help and nothing to disturb.
“I don't want him to spoil you. I don't want anything to make
you--different. I couldn't bear it.”
He pulled the bit of dress pleadingly.
“Why, Little Ann?” he implored quite low.
“Because,” she said, feeling that perhaps she was rash--“because if
you were different, you wouldn't be T. Tembarom; and it was T. Tembarom
that--that was T. Tembarom,” she finished hastily.
He bent his head down to the bit of tweed and kissed it.
“You just keep looking after me like that,” he said, “and there's not
one of them can get away with me.”
She got up, and he rose with her. There was a touch of fire in the
forget-me-not blue of her eyes.
“Just you let them see--just you let them see that you're not one they
can hold light and make use of.” But there she stopped short, looking
up at him. He was looking down at her with a kind of matureness in
his expression. “I needn't be afraid,” she said. “You can take care of
yourself; I ought to have known that.”
“You did,” he said, smiling; “but you wanted to sort of help me. And
you've done it, by gee! just by saying that thing about T. Tembarom. You
set me right on my feet. That's YOU.”
Before they went away they paid a visit to Strangeways in his remote,
undisturbed, and beautiful rooms. They were in a wing of the house
untouched by any ordinary passing to and fro, and the deep windows
looked out upon gardens which spring and summer would crowd with
loveliness from which clouds of perfume would float up to him on days
when the sun warmed and the soft airs stirred the flowers, shaking
the fragrance from their full incense-cups. But the white fog shut out
to-day even their winter bareness. There were light and warmth inside,
and every added charm of rich harmony of deep color and comfort made
beautiful. There were books and papers waiting to be looked over, but
they lay untouched on the writing-table, and Strangeways was sitting
close to the biggest window, staring into the fog. His eyes looked
hungry and hollow and dark. Ann knew he was “trying to remember”
something.
When the sound of footsteps reached his ear, he turned to look at them,
and rose mechanically at sight of Ann. But his expression was that of a
man aroused from a dream of far-off places.
“I remember you,” he said, but hesitated as though making an effort to
recall something.
“Of course you do,” said Little Ann. “You know me quite well. I brought
you here. Think a bit. Little--Little--”
“Yes,” he broke forth. “Of course, Little Ann! Thank God I've not
forgotten.” He took her hand in both his and held it tenderly. “You have
a sweet little face. It's such a wise little face!” His voice sounded
dreamy.
Ann drew him to his chair with a coaxing laugh and sat down by him.
“You're flattering me. You make me feel quite shy,” she said. “You know
HIM, too,” nodding toward Tembarom.
“Oh, yes,” he replied, and he looked up with a smile. “He is the one who
remembers. You said you did.” He had turned to Tembarom.
“You bet your life I do,” Tembarom answered. “And you will, too, before
long.”
“If I did not try so hard,” said Strangeways, thoughtfully. “It seems
as if I were shut up in a room, and so many things were knocking at the
doors--hundreds of them--knocking because they want to be let in. I am
damnably unhappy--damnably.” He hung his head and stared at the floor.
Tembarom put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a friendly shake.
“Don't you worry a bit,” he said. “You take my word for it. It'll all
come back. I'm working at it myself.” Strangeways lifted his head.
“You are the one I know best. I trust you.” But there was the beginning
of a slight drag in his voice. “I don't always--quite recollect--your
name. Not quite. Good heavens! I mustn't forget that.”
Little Ann was quite ready.
“You won't,” she said, “because it's different from other names. It
begins with a letter--just a letter, and then there is the name. Think.”
“Yes, yes,” he said anxiously.
Little Ann bent forward and fixed her eyes on his with concentrated
suggestion. They had never risked confusing him by any mention of
the new name. She began to repeat letters of the alphabet slowly and
distinctly until she reached the letter T.
“T,” she ended with much emphasis--“R. S. _T_.”
His expression cleared itself.
“T,” he repeated. “T--Tembarom. R, S, T. How clever you are!”
Little Ann's gaze concentrated itself still more intently.
“Now you'll never forget it again,” she said, “because of the T. You'll
say the other letters until you come to it. R, S, T.”
“T. Tembarom,” he ended relievedly. “How you help me!” He took her hand
and kissed it very gently.
“We are all going to help you,” Ann soothed him, “T. Tembarom most of
all.”
“Say,” Tembarom broke out in an aside to her, “I'm going to come here
and try things on him every day. When it seems like he gets on to
something, however little a thing it is, I'm going to follow it up and
see if it won't get somewhere.”
Ann nodded.
“There'll be something some day,” she said. “Are you quite comfortable
here?” she asked aloud to Strangeways.
“Very comfortable, thank you,” he answered courteously. “They are
beautiful rooms. They are furnished with such fine old things. This is
entirely Jacobean. It's quite perfect.” He glanced about him. “And so
quiet. No one comes in here but my man, and he is a very nice chap. I
never had a man who knew his duties better.”
Little Ann and Tembarom looked at each other.
“I shouldn't be a bit surprised,” she said after they had left the room,
“if it wouldn't be a good thing to get Pearson to try to talk to him now
and then. He's been used to a man-servant.”
“Yes,” answered Tembarom. “Pearson didn't rattle HIM, you bet your
life.”