Form, color, drama, and divers other advantages are necessary to the
creation of an object of interest. Presenting to the world none of these
assets, Miss Alicia had slipped through life a scarcely remarked unit.
No little ghost of prettiness had attracted the wandering eye, no
suggestion of agreeable or disagreeable power of self-assertion had
arrested attention. There had been no hour in her life when she had
expected to count as being of the slightest consequence. When she had
knocked at the door of the study at Rowcroft Vicarage, and “dear papa”
had exclaimed irritably: “Who is that? Who is that?” she had always
replied, “It is only Alicia.”
This being the case, her gradual awakening to the singularity of her new
situation was mentally a process full of doubts and sometimes of alarmed
bewilderments. If in her girlhood a curate, even a curate with prominent
eyes and a receding chin, had proposed to her that she should face with
him a future enriched by the prospect of being called upon to bring up
a probable family of twelve on one hundred and fifty pounds a year, with
both parish and rectory barking and snapping at her worn-down heels, she
would have been sure to assert tenderly that she was afraid she was “not
worthy.” This was the natural habit of her mind, and in the weeks which
followed the foggy afternoon when Tembarom “staked out his claim” she
dwelt often upon her unworthiness of the benefits bestowed upon her.
First the world below-stairs, then the village, and then the county
itself awoke to the fact that the new Temple Temple Barholm had “taken
her up.” The first tendency of the world below-stairs was to resent the
unwarranted uplifting of a person whom there had been a certain luxury
in regarding with disdain and treating with scarcely veiled lack of
consideration. To be able to do this with a person who, after all was
said and done, was not one of the servant class, but a sort of lady of
birth, was not unstimulating. And below-stairs the sense of personal
rancor against “a 'anger-on” is strong. The meals served in Miss
Alicia's remote sitting-room had been served at leisure, her tea had
rarely been hot, and her modestly tinkled bell irregularly answered.
Often her far from liberally supplied fire had gone out on chilly days,
and she had been afraid to insist on its being relighted. Her sole
defense against inattention would have been to complain to Mr. Temple
Barholm, and when on one occasion a too obvious neglect had obliged her
to gather her quaking being together in mere self-respect and say, “If
this continues to occur, William, I shall be obliged to speak to Mr.
Temple Barholm,” William had so looked at her and so ill hid a secret
smile that it had been almost tantamount to his saying, “I'd jolly well
like to see you.”
And now! Sitting at the end of the table opposite him, if you please!
Walking here and walking there with him! Sitting in the library or
wherever he was, with him talking and laughing and making as much of her
as though she were an aunt with a fortune to leave, and with her making
as free in talk as though at liberty to say anything that came into her
head! Well, the beggar that had found himself on horseback was setting
another one galloping alongside of him. In the midst of this natural
resentment it was “a bit upsetting,” as Burrill said, to find it dawning
upon one that absolute exactness of ceremony was as much to be required
for “her” as for “him.” Miss Alicia had long felt secretly sure that
she was spoken of as “her” in the servants' hall. That businesslike
sharpness which Palford had observed in his client aided Tembarom always
to see things without illusions. He knew that There was no particular
reason why his army of servants should regard him for the present as
much more than an intruder; but he also knew that if men and women had
employment which was not made hard for them, and were well paid for
doing, they were not anxious to lose it, and the man who paid their
wages might give orders with some certainty of finding them obeyed. He
was “sharp” in more ways than one. He observed shades he might have been
expected to overlook. He observed a certain shade in the demeanor of the
domestics when attending Miss Alicia, and it was a shade which marked
a difference between service done for her and service done for himself.
This was only at the outset, of course, when the secret resentment was
felt; but he observed it, mere shade though it was.
He walked out into the hall after Burrill one morning. Not having yet
adjusted himself to the rule that when one wished to speak to a man one
rang a bell and called him back, fifty times if necessary, he walked
after Burrill and stopped him.
“This is a pretty good place for servants, ain't it?” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good pay, good food, not too much to do?”
“Certainly, sir,” Burrill replied, somewhat disturbed by a casualness
which yet suggested a method of getting at something or other.
“You and the rest of them don't want to change, do you?”
“No, sir. There is no complaint whatever as far as I have heard.”
“That's all right.” Mr. Temple Barholm had put his hands into his
pockets, and stood looking non-committal in a steady sort of way.
“There's something I want the lot of you to get on to--right away. Miss
Temple Barholm is going to stay here. She's got to have everything just
as she wants it. She's got to be pleased. She's the lady of the house.
See?”
“I hope, sir,” Burrill said with professional dignity, “that Miss Temple
Barholm has not had reason to express any dissatisfaction.”
“I'm the one that would express it--quick,” said Tembarom. “She wouldn't
have time to get in first. I just wanted to make sure I shouldn't have
to do it. The other fellows are under you. You've got a head on your
shoulders, I guess. It's up to you to put 'em on to it. That's all.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Burrill.
His master went back into the library smiling genially, and Burrill
stood still a moment or so gazing at the door he closed behind him.
Be sure the village, and finally circles not made up of cottagers, heard
of this, howsoever mysteriously. Miss Alicia was not aware that the
incident had occurred. She could not help observing, however, that the
manners of the servants of the household curiously improved; also, when
she passed through the village, that foreheads were touched without
omission and the curtseys of playing children were prompt. When she
dropped into a cottage, housewives polished off the seats of chairs
vigorously before offering them, and symptoms and needs were explained
with a respectful fluency which at times almost suggested that she might
be relied on to use influence.
“I'm afraid I have done the village people injustice,” she said
leniently to Tembarom. “I used to think them so disrespectful and
unappreciative. I dare say it was because I was so troubled myself. I'm
afraid one's own troubles do sometimes make one unfair.”
“Well, yours are over,” said Tembarom. “And so are mine as long as you
stay by me.”
Never had Miss Alicia been to London. She had remained, as was
demanded of her by her duty to dear papa, at Rowcroft, which was in
Somersetshire. She had only dreamed of London, and had had fifty-five
years of dreaming. She had read of great functions, and seen pictures
of some of them in the illustrated papers. She had loyally endeavored
to follow at a distance the doings of her Majesty,--she always spoke
of Queen Victoria reverentially as “her Majesty,”--she rejoiced when
a prince or a princess was born or christened or married, and believed
that a “drawing-room” was the most awe-inspiring, brilliant, and
important function in the civilized world, scarcely second to
Parliament. London--no one but herself or an elderly gentlewoman of her
type could have told any one the nature of her thoughts of London.
Let, therefore, those of vivid imagination make an effort to depict
to themselves the effect produced upon her mind by Tembarom's casually
suggesting at breakfast one morning that he thought it might be rather
a good “stunt” for them to run up to London. By mere good fortune she
escaped dropping the egg she had just taken from the egg-stand.
“London!” she said. “Oh!”
“Pearson thinks it would be a first-rate idea,” he explained. “I guess
he thinks that if he can get me into the swell clothing stores he can
fix me up as I ought to be fixed, if I'm not going to disgrace him. I
should hate to disgrace Pearson. Then he can see his girl, too, and I
want him to see his girl.”
“Is--Pearson--engaged?” she asked; but the thought which was repeating
itself aloud to her was “London! London!”
“He calls it 'keeping company,' or 'walking out,'” Tembarom answered.
“She's a nice girl, and he's dead stuck on her. Will you go with me,
Miss Alicia?”
“Dear Mr. Temple Barholm,” she fluttered, “to visit London would be a
privilege I never dreamed it would be my great fortune to enjoy--never.”
“Good business!” he ejaculated delightedly. “That's luck for me. It gave
me the blues--what I saw of it. But if you are with me, I'll bet it'll
be as different as afternoon tea was after I got hold of you. When shall
we start? To-morrow?”
Her sixteen-year-old blush repeated itself.
“I feel so sorry. It seems almost undignified to mention it, but--I
fear I should not look smart enough for London. My wardrobe is so very
limited. I mustn't,” she added with a sweet effort at humor, “do the new
Mr. Temple Barholm discredit by looking unfashionable.”
He was more delighted than before.
“Say,” he broke out, “I'll tell you what we'll do: we'll go together and
buy everything 'suitable' in sight. The pair of us'll come back here as
suitable as Burrill and Pearson. We'll paint the town red.”
He actually meant it. He was like a boy with a new game. His sense of
the dreariness of London had disappeared. He knew what it would be like
with Miss Alicia as a companion. He had really seen nothing of the place
himself, and he would find out every darned thing worth looking at, and
take her to see it--theaters, shops, every show in town. When they left
the breakfast-table it was agreed upon that they would make the journey
the following day.
He did not openly refer to the fact that among the plans for their round
of festivities he had laid out for himself the attending to one or
two practical points. He was going to see Palford, and he had made an
appointment with a celebrated nerve specialist. He did not discuss this
for several reasons. One of them was that his summing up of Miss Alicia
was that she had had trouble enough to think over all her little life,
and the thing for a fellow to do for her, if he liked her, was to
give her a good time and make her feel as if she was at a picnic right
straight along--not let her even hear of a darned thing that might worry
her. He had said comparatively little to her about Strangeways. His
first mention of his condition had obviously made her somewhat nervous,
though she had been full of kindly interest. She was in private not
sorry that it was felt better that she should not disturb the patient
by a visit to his room. The abnormality of his condition seemed just
slightly alarming to her.
“But, oh, how good, how charitable, you are!” she had murmured.
“Good,” he answered, the devout admiration of her tone rather puzzling
him. “It ain't that. I just want to see the thing through. I dropped
into it by accident, and then I dropped into this by accident, and that
made it as easy as falling off a log. I believe he's going to get well
sometime. I guess I kind of like him because he holds on to me so and
believes I'm just It. Maybe it's because I'm stuck on myself.”
His visit to Strangeways was longer than usual that afternoon. He
explained the situation to him so that he understood it sufficiently not
to seem alarmed by it. This was one of the advances Tembarom had noticed
recently, that he was less easily terrified, and seemed occasionally
to see facts in their proper relation to one another. Sometimes the
experiments tried on him were successful, sometimes they were not, but
he never resented them.
“You are trying to help me to remember,” he said once. “I think you will
sometime.”
“Sure I will,” said Tembarom. “You're better every day.”
Pearson was to remain in charge of him until toward the end of the
London visit. Then he was to run up for a couple of days, leaving in his
place a young footman to whom the invalid had become accustomed.
The visit to London was to Miss Alicia a period of enraptured delirium.
The beautiful hotel in which she was established, the afternoons at the
Tower, the National Gallery, the British Museum, the evenings at the
play, during which one saw the most brilliant and distinguished actors,
the mornings in the shops, attended as though one were a person of
fortune, what could be said of them? And the sacred day on which she
saw her Majesty drive slowly by, glittering helmets, splendid uniforms,
waving plumes, and clanking swords accompanying and guarding her, and
gentlemen standing still with their hats off, and everybody looking
after her with that natural touch of awe which royalty properly
inspires! Miss Alicia's heart beat rapidly in her breast, and she
involuntarily made a curtsey as the great lady in mourning drove by. She
lost no shade of any flavor of ecstatic pleasure in anything, and was to
Tembarom, who knew nothing about shades and flavors, indeed a touching
and endearing thing.
He had never got so much out of anything. If Ann had just been there,
well, that would have been the limit. Ann was on her way to America now,
and she wouldn't write to him or let him write to her. He had to make a
fair trial of it. He could find out only in that way, she said. It
was not to be denied that the youth and longing in him gave him some
half-hours to face which made him shut himself up in his room and stare
hard at the wall, folding his arms tightly as he tilted his chair.
There arrived a day when one of the most exalted shops in Bond Street
was invaded by an American young man of a bearing the peculiarities of
which were subtly combined with a remotely suggested air of knowing that
if he could find what he wanted, there was no doubt as to his power to
get it. What he wanted was not usual, and was explained with a frankness
which might have seemed unsophisticated, but, singularly, did not. He
wanted to have a private talk with some feminine power in charge, and
she must be some one who knew exactly what ladies ought to have.
Being shown into a room, such a feminine power was brought to him and
placed at his service. She was a middle-aged person, wearing beautifully
fitted garments and having an observant eye and a dignified suavity of
manner. She looked the young American over with a swift inclusion of
all possibilities. He was by this time wearing extremely well-fitting
garments himself, but she was at once aware that his tailored perfection
was a new thing to him.
He went to his point without apologetic explanation.
“You know all the things any kind of a lady ought to have,” he
said--“all the things that would make any one feel comfortable and as if
they'd got plenty? Useful things as well as ornamental ones?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, with rising interest. “I have been in the
establishment thirty years.”
“Good business,” Tembarom replied. Already he felt relieved. “I've got
a relation, a little old lady, and I want her to fix herself out just
as she ought to be fixed. Now, what I'm afraid of is that she won't get
everything she ought to unless I manage it for her somehow beforehand.
She's got into a habit of--well, economizing. Now the time's past for
that, and I want her to get everything a woman like you would know she
really wants, so that she could look her best, living in a big country
house, with a relation that thinks a lot of her.”
He paused a second or so, and then went further, fixing a clear and
astonishingly shrewd eye upon the head of the department listening to
him.
“I found out this was a high-class place,” he explained. “I made sure of
that before I came in. In a place that was second or third class there
might be people who'd think they'd caught a 'sucker' that would take
anything that was unloaded on to him, because he didn't know. The things
are for Miss Temple Barholm, and she DOES know. I shall ask her to come
here herself to-morrow morning, and I want you to take care of her, and
show her the best you've got that's suitable.” He seemed to like the
word; he repeated it--“Suitable,” and quickly restrained a sudden,
unexplainable, wide smile.
The attending lady's name was Mrs. Mellish. Thirty years' experience
had taught her many lessons. She was a hard woman and a sharp one, but
beneath her sharp hardness lay a suppressed sense of the perfect in
taste. To have a customer with unchecked resources put into her hands to
do her best by was an inspiring incident. A quiver of enlightenment had
crossed her countenance when she had heard the name of Temple Barholm.
She had a newspaper knowledge of the odd Temple Barholm story. This
was the next of kin who had blacked boots in New York, and the obvious
probability that he was a fool, if it had taken the form of a hope, had
been promptly nipped in the bud. The type from which he was furthest
removed was that of the fortune-intoxicated young man who could be
obsequiously flattered into buying anything which cost money enough.
“Not a thing's to be unloaded on her that she doesn't like,” he added,
“and she's not a girl that goes to pink teas. She's a--a--lady--and not
young--and used to quiet ways.”
The evidently New York word “unload” revealed him to his hearer as by a
flash, though she had never heard it before.
“We have exactly the things which will be suitable, sir,” she said. “I
think I quite understand.” Tembarom smiled again, and, thanking her,
went away still smiling, because he knew Miss Alicia was safe.
There were of course difficulties in the way of persuading Miss Alicia
that her duty lay in the direction of spending mornings in the most
sumptuous of Bond Street shops, ordering for herself an entire wardrobe
on a basis of unlimited resources. Tembarom was called upon to employ
the most adroitly subtle reasoning, entirely founded on his “claim” and
her affectionate willingness to give him pleasure.
He really made love to her in the way a joyful young fellow can make
love to his mother or his nicest aunt. He made her feel that she counted
for so much in his scheme of enjoyment that to do as he asked would be
to add a glow to it.
“And they won't spoil you,” he said. “The Mellish woman that's the boss
has promised that. I wouldn't have you spoiled for a farm,” he added
heartily.
And he spoke the truth. If he had been told that he was cherishing her
type as though it were a priceless bit of old Saxe, he would have stared
blankly and made a jocular remark. But it was exactly this which he
actually clung to and adored. He even had a second private interview
with Mrs. Mellish, and asked her to “keep her as much like she was” as
was possible.
Stimulated by the suppressed touch of artistic fervor, Mrs. Mellish
guessed at something even before her client arrived; but the moment she
entered the showroom all was revealed to her at once. The very hint of
flush and tremor in Miss Alicia's manner was an assistance. Surrounded
by a small and extremely select court composed of Mrs. Mellish and two
low-voiced, deft-handed assistants, it was with a fine little effort
that Miss Alicia restrained herself from exterior suggestion of
her feeling that there was something almost impious in thinking of
possessing the exquisite stuffs and shades displayed to her in flowing
beauty on every side. Such linens and batistes and laces, such delicate,
faint grays and lavenders and soft-falling blacks! If she had been
capable of approaching the thought, such luxury might even have hinted
at guilty splendor.
Mrs. Mellish became possessed of an “idea” To create the costume of
an exquisite, early-Victorian old lady in a play done for the most
fashionable and popular actor manager of the most “drawing-room” of West
End theaters, where one saw royalty in the royal box, with bouquets on
every side, the orchestra breaking off in the middle of a strain to play
“God Save the Queen,” and the audience standing up as the royal party
came in--that was her idea. She carried it out, steering Miss Alicia
with finished tact through the shoals and rapids of her timidities. And
the result was wonderful; color,--or, rather, shades,--textures, and
forms were made subservient by real genius. Miss Alicia--as she was
turned out when the wardrobe was complete--might have been an elderly
little duchess of sweet and modest good taste in the dress of forty
years earlier. It took time, but some of the things were prepared as
though by magic, and the night the first boxes were delivered at the
hotel Miss Alicia, on going to bed, in kneeling down to her devotions
prayed fervently that she might not be “led astray by fleshly desires,”
and that her gratitude might be acceptable, and not stained by a too
great joy “in the things which corrupt.”
The very next day occurred Rose. She was the young person to whom
Pearson was engaged, and it appeared that if Miss Alicia would make up
her mind to oblige Mr. Temple Barholm by allowing the girl to come to
her as lady's-maid, even if only temporarily, she would be doing a most
kind and charitable thing. She was a very nice, well-behaved girl, and
unfortunately she had felt herself forced to leave her place because her
mistress's husband was not at all a nice man. He had shown himself so
far from nice that Pearson had been most unhappy, and Rose had been
compelled to give notice, though she had no other situation in prospect
and her mother was dependent on her. This was without doubt not Mr.
Temple Barholm's exact phrasing of the story, but it was what Miss
Alicia gathered, and what moved her deeply. It was so cruel and so sad!
That wicked man! That poor girl! She had never had a lady's-maid, and
might be rather at a loss at first, but it was only like Mr. Temple
Barholm's kind heart to suggest such a way of helping the girl and poor
Pearson.
So occurred Rose, a pretty creature whose blue eyes suppressed grateful
tears as she took Miss Alicia's instructions during their first
interview. And Pearson arrived the same night, and, waiting upon
Tembarom, stood before him, and with perfect respect, choked.
“Might I thank you, if you please, sir,” he began, recovering
himself--“might I thank you and say how grateful--Rose and me, sir--”
and choked again.
“I told you it would be all right,” answered Tembarom. “It is all right.
I wish I was fixed like you are, Pearson.”
When the Countess of Mallowe called, Rose had just dressed Miss Alicia
for the afternoon in one of the most perfect of the evolutions of
Mrs. Mellish's idea. It was a definite creation, as even Lady Mallowe
detected the moment her eyes fell upon it. Its hue was dull, soft gray,
and how it managed to concede points and elude suggestions of modes
interred, and yet remain what it did remain, and accord perfectly with
the side ringlets and the lace cap of Mechlin, only dressmaking genius
could have explained. The mere wearing of it gave Miss Alicia a support
and courage which she could scarcely believe to be her own. When the
cards of Lady Mallowe and Lady Joan Fayre were brought up to her, she
was absolutely not really frightened; a little nervous for a moment,
perhaps, but frightened, no. A few weeks of relief and ease, of cheery
consideration, of perfectly good treatment and good food and good
clothes, had begun a rebuilding of the actual cells of her.
Lady Mallowe entered alone. She was a handsome person, and astonishingly
young when considered as the mother of a daughter of twenty-seven. She
wore a white veil, and looked pink through it. She swept into the room,
and shook hands with Miss Alicia with delicate warmth.
“We do not really know each other at all,” she said. “It is disgraceful
how little relatives see of one another.”
The disgrace, if measured by the extent of the relationship, was not
immense. Perhaps this thought flickered across Miss Alicia's mind among
a number of other things. She had heard “dear papa” on Lady Mallowe,
and, howsoever lacking in graces, the vicar of Rowcroft had not lacked
an acrid shrewdness. Miss Alicia's sensitively self-accusing soul shrank
before a hasty realization of the fact that if he had been present when
the cards were brought up, he would, on glancing over them through his
spectacles, have jerked out immediately: “What does the woman want?
She's come to get something.” Miss Alicia wished she had not been so
immediately beset by this mental vision.
Lady Mallowe had come for something. She had come to be amiable to Miss
Temple Barholm and to establish relations with her.
“Joan should have been here to meet me,” she explained. “Her dressmaker
is keeping her, of course. She will be so annoyed. She wanted very much
to come with me.”
It was further revealed that she might arrive at any moment, which gave
Miss Alicia an opportunity to express, with pretty grace, the hope that
she would, and her trust that she was quite well.
“She is always well,” Lady Mallowe returned. “And she is of course
as interested as we all are in this romantic thing. It is perfectly
delicious, like a three-volumed novel.”
“It is romantic,” said Miss Alicia, wondering how much her visitor knew
or thought she knew, and what circumstances would present themselves to
her as delicious.
“Of course one has heard only the usual talk one always hears when
everybody is chattering about a thing,” Lady Mallowe replied, with a
propitiating smile. “No one really knows what is true and what isn't.
But it is nice to notice that all the gossip speaks so well of him. No
one seems to pretend that he is anything but extremely nice himself,
notwithstanding his disadvantages.”
She kept a fine hazel eye, surrounded by a line which artistically
represented itself as black lashes, steadily resting on Miss Alicia as
she said the last words.
“He is,” said Miss Alicia, with gentle firmness, “nicer than I had ever
imagined any young man could be--far nicer.”
Lady Mallowe's glance round the luxurious private sitting-room and
over the perfect “idea” of Mrs. Mellish was so swift as to be almost
imperceptible.
“How delightful!” she said. “He must be unusually agreeable, or you
would not have consented to stay and take care of him.”
“I cannot tell you how HAPPY I am to have been asked to stay with him,
Lady Mallowe,” Miss Alicia replied, the gentle firmness becoming a soft
dignity.
“Which of course shows all the more how attractive he must be. And in
view of the past lack of advantages, what a help you can be to him!
It is quite wonderful for him to have a relative at hand who is an
Englishwoman and familiar with things he will feel he must learn.”
A perhaps singular truth is that but for the unmistakable nature of the
surroundings she quickly took in the significance of, and but for the
perfection of the carrying out of Mrs. Mellish's delightful idea, it
is more than probable that her lady-ship's manner of approaching Miss
Alicia and certain subjects on which she desired enlightenment would
have been much more direct and much less propitiatory. Extraordinary as
it was, “the creature”--she thought of Tembarom as “the creature”--had
plainly been so pleased with the chance of being properly coached that
he had put everything, so to speak, in the little old woman's hands.
She had got a hold upon him. It was quite likely that to regard her as a
definite factor would only be the part of the merest discretion. She was
evidently quite in love with him in her early-Victorian, spinster way.
One had to be prudent with women like that who had got hold of a male
creature for the first time in their lives, and were almost unaware
of their own power. Their very unconsciousness made them a dangerous
influence.
With a masterly review of these facts in her mind Lady Mallowe went on
with a fluent and pleasant talk, through the medium of which she managed
to convey a large number of things Miss Alicia was far from being clever
enough to realize she was talking about. She lightly waved wings of
suggestion across the scene, she dropped infinitesimal seeds in passing,
she left faint echoes behind her--the kind of echoes one would find
oneself listening to and trying to hear as definitely formed sounds. She
had been balancing herself on a precarious platform of rank and title,
unsupported by any sordid foundation of a solid nature, through a
lifetime spent in London. She had learned to catch fiercely at straws of
chance, and bitterly to regret the floating past of the slightest, which
had made of her a finished product of her kind. She talked lightly,
and was sometimes almost witty. To her hearer she seemed to know every
brilliant personage and to be familiar with every dazzling thing. She
knew well what social habits and customs meant, what their value,
or lack of value, was. There were customs, she implied skilfully,
so established by time that it was impossible to ignore them.
Relationships, for instance, stood for so much that was fine in England
that one was sometimes quite touched by the far-reachingness of family
loyalty. The head of the house of a great estate represented a certain
power in the matter of upholding the dignity of his possessions, of
caring for his tenantry, of standing for proper hospitality and friendly
family feeling. It was quite beautiful as one often saw it. Throughout
the talk there were several references to Joan, who really must come
in shortly, which were very interesting to Miss Alicia. Lady Joan,
Miss Alicia heard casually, was a great beauty. Her perfection and her
extreme cleverness had made her perhaps a trifle difficile. She had
not done--Lady Mallowe put it with a lightness of phrasing which was
delicacy itself--what she might have done, with every exalted advantage,
so many times. She had a profound nature. Here Lady Mallowe waved away,
as it were, a ghost of a sigh. Since Miss Temple Barholm was a relative,
she had no doubt heard of the unfortunate, the very sad incident which
her mother sometimes feared prejudiced the girl even yet.
“You mean--poor Jem!” broke forth involuntarily from Miss Alicia's lips.
Lady Mallowe stared a little.
“Do you call him that?” she asked. “Did you know him, then?”
“I loved him,” answered Miss Alicia, winking her eyes to keep back the
moisture in them, “though it was only when he was a little boy.”
“Oh,” said Lady Mallowe, with a sudden, singular softness, “I must tell
Joan that.”
Lady Joan had not appeared even after they had had tea and her mother
went away, but somehow Miss Alicia had reached a vaguely yearning
feeling for her and wished very much the dressmaker had released her.
She was quite stirred when it revealed itself almost at the last moment
that in a few weeks both she and Lady Mallowe were to pay a visit at no
great distance from Temple Barholm itself, and that her ladyship would
certainly arrange to drive over to continue her delightful acquaintance
and to see the beautiful old place again.
“In any case one must, even if he lived in lonely state, pay one's
respects to the head of the house. The truth is, of course, one is
extremely anxious to meet him, and it is charming to know that one is
not merely invading the privacy of a bachelor,” Lady Mallowe put it.
“She'll come for YOU,” Little Ann had soberly remarked.
Tembarom remembered the look in her quiet, unresentful blue eyes when
he came in to dinner and Miss Alicia related to him the events of the
afternoon.