The spring, when they traveled back to the north, was so perceptibly
nearer that the fugitive soft days strayed in advance at intervals that
were briefer. They chose one for their journey, and its clear sunshine
and hints at faint greenness were so exhilarating to Miss Alicia that
she was a companion to make any journey an affair to rank with
holidays and adventures. The strange luxury of traveling in a reserved
first-class carriage, of being made timid by no sense of unfitness of
dress or luggage, would have filled her with grateful rapture; but Rose,
journeying with Pearson a few coaches behind, appeared at the carriage
window at every important station to say, “Is there anything I may
do for you, ma'am?” And there really never was anything she could do,
because Mr. Temple Barholm remembered everything which could make her
comfort perfect. In the moods of one who searches the prospect for
suggestions as to pleasure he can give to himself by delighting a
dear child, he had found and bought for her a most elegant little
dressing-bag, with the neatest of plain-gold fittings beautifully
initialed. It reposed upon the cushioned seat near her, and made her
heart beat every time she caught sight of it anew. How wonderful it
would be if poor dear, darling mama could look down and see everything
and really know what happiness had been vouchsafed to her unworthy
child!
Having a vivid recollection of the journey made with Mr. Palford,
Tembarom felt that his whole world had changed for him. The landscape
had altered its aspect. Miss Alicia pointed out bits of freshening
grass, was sure of the breaking of brown leaf-buds, and more than
once breathlessly suspected a primrose in a sheltered hedge corner. A
country-bred woman, with country-bred keenness of eye and a country-bred
sense of the seasons' change, she saw so much that he had never known
that she began to make him see also. Bare trees would be thick-leaved
nesting-places, hedges would be white with hawthorn, and hold blue eggs
and chirps and songs. Skylarks would spring out of the fields and soar
into the sky, dropping crystal chains of joyous trills. The cottage
gardens would be full of flowers, there would be poppies gleaming
scarlet in the corn, and in buttercup-time all the green grass would be
a sheet of shining gold.
“When it all happens I shall be like a little East-Sider taken for a
day in the country. I shall be asking questions at every step,” Tembarom
said. “Temple Barholm must be pretty fine then.”
“It is so lovely,” said Miss Alicia, turning to him almost solemnly,
“that sometimes it makes one really lose one's breath.”
He looked out of the window with sudden wistfulness.
“I wish Ann--” he began and then, seeing the repressed question in her
eyes, made up his mind.
He told her about Little Ann. He did not use very many words, but
she knew a great deal when he had finished. And her spinster soul was
thrilled. Neither she nor poor Emily had ever had an admirer, and it was
not considered refined for unsought females to discuss “such subjects.”
Domestic delirium over the joy of an engagement in families in which
daughters were a drug she had seen. It was indeed inevitable that there
should be more rejoicing over one Miss Timson who had strayed from the
fold into the haven of marriage than over the ninety-nine Misses Timson
who remained behind. But she had never known intimately any one who was
in love--really in love. Mr. Temple Barholm must be. When he spoke of
Little Ann he flushed shyly and his eyes looked so touching and nice.
His voice sounded different, and though of course his odd New York
expressions were always rather puzzling, she felt as though she saw
things she had had no previous knowledge of--things which thrilled her.
“She must be a very--very nice girl,” she ventured at length. “I am
afraid I have never been into old Mrs. Hutchinson's cottage. She is
quite comfortably off in her way, and does not need parish care. I wish
I had seen Miss Hutchinson.”
“I wish she had seen you,” was Tembarom's answer.
Miss Alicia reflected.
“She must be very clever to have such--sensible views,” she remarked.
If he had remained in New York, and there had been no question of his
inheriting Temple Barholm, the marriage would have been most suitable.
But however “superior” she might be, a vision of old Mrs. Hutchinson's
granddaughter as the wife of Mr. Temple Barholm, and of noisy old Mr.
Hutchinson as his father-in-law was a staggering thing.
“You think they were sensible?” asked Tembarom. “Well, she never did
anything that wasn't. So I guess they were. And what she says GOES. I
wanted you to know, anyhow. I wouldn't like you not to know. I'm too
fond of you, Miss Alicia.” And he put his hand round her neat glove and
squeezed it. The tears of course came into her tender eyes. Emotion of
any sort always expressed itself in her in this early-Victorian manner.
“This Lady Joan girl,” he said suddenly not long afterward, “isn't she
the kind that I'm to get used to--the kind in the pictorial magazine
Ann talked about? I bought one at the news-stand at the depot before
we started. I wanted to get on to the pictures and see what they did to
me.”
He found the paper among his belongings and regarded it with the
expression of a serious explorer. It opened at a page of illustrations
of slim goddesses in court dresses. By actual measurement, if regarded
according to scale, each was about ten feet high; but their long lines,
combining themselves with court trains, waving plumes, and falling
veils, produced an awe-inspiring effect. Tembarom gazed at them in
absorbed silence.
“Is she something like any of these?” he inquired finally.
Miss Alicia looked through her glasses.
“Far more beautiful, I believe,” she answered. “These are only
fashion-plates, and I have heard that she is a most striking girl.”
“A beaut' from Beautsville!” he said. “So that's what I'm up against! I
wonder how much use that kind of a girl would have for me.”
He gave a good deal of attention to the paper before he laid it aside.
As she watched him, Miss Alicia became gradually aware of the existence
of a certain hint of determined squareness in his boyish jaw. It was
perhaps not much more than a hint, but it really was there, though she
had not noticed it before. In fact, it usually hid itself behind his
slangy youthfulness and his readiness for any good cheer.
One may as well admit that it sustained him during his novitiate and
aided him to pass through it without ignominy or disaster. He was
strengthened also by a private resolve to bear himself in such a manner
as would at least do decent credit to Little Ann and her superior
knowledge. With the curious eyes of servants, villagers, and secretly
outraged neighborhood upon him, he was shrewd enough to know that he
might easily become a perennial fount of grotesque anecdote, to be used
as a legitimate source of entertainment in cottages over the consumption
of beans and bacon, as well as at great houses when dinner-table talk
threatened to become dull if not enlivened by some spice. He would not
have thought of this or been disturbed by it but for Ann. She knew, and
he was not going to let her be met on her return from America with what
he called “a lot of funny dope” about him.
“No girl would like it,” he said to himself. “And the way she said she
'cared too much' just put it up to me to see that the fellow she cares
for doesn't let himself get laughed at.”
Though he still continued to be jocular on subjects which to his valet
seemed almost sacred, Pearson was relieved to find that his employer
gradually gave himself into his hands in a manner quite amenable. In the
touching way in which nine out of ten nice, domesticated American males
obey the behests of the women they are fond of, he had followed Ann's
directions to the letter. Guided by the adept Pearson, he had gone to
the best places in London and purchased the correct things, returning to
Temple Barholm with a wardrobe to which any gentleman might turn at any
moment without a question.
“He's got good shoulders, though he does slouch a bit,” Pearson said to
Rose. “And a gentleman's shoulders are more than half the battle.”
What Tembarom himself felt cheered by was the certainty that if Ann
saw him walking about the park or the village, or driving out with Miss
Alicia in the big landau, or taking her in to dinner every evening, or
even going to church with her, she would not have occasion to flush at
sight of him.
The going to church was one of the duties of his position he found
out. Miss Alicia “put him on” to that. It seemed that he had to present
himself to the villagers “as an example.” If the Temple Barholm pews
were empty, the villagers, not being incited to devotional exercise by
his exalted presence, would feel at liberty to remain at home, and in
the irreligious undress of shirt-sleeves sit and smoke their pipes, or,
worse still, gather at “the Hare and Hounds” and drink beer. Also, it
would not be “at all proper” not to go to church.
Pearson produced a special cut of costume for this ceremony, and
Tembarom walked with Miss Alicia across the park to the square-towered
Norman church.
In a position of dignity the Temple Barholm pews over-looked the
congregation. There was the great square pew for the family, with two
others for servants. Footmen and house-maids gazed reverentially at
prayer-books. Pearson, making every preparation respectfully to declare
himself a “miserable sinner” when the proper moment arrived, could
scarcely re-strain a rapid side glance as the correctly cut and fitted
and entirely “suitable” work of his hands opened the pew-door for Miss
Alicia, followed her in, and took his place.
Let not the fact that he had never been to church before be counted
against him. There was nothing very extraordinary in the fact. He had
felt no antipathy to church-going, but he had not by chance fallen under
proselyting influence, and it had certainly never occurred to him that
he had any place among the well-dressed, comfortable-looking people
he had seen flocking into places of worship in New York. As far as
religious observances were concerned, he was an unadulterated heathen,
and was all the more to be congratulated on being a heathen of genial
tendencies.
The very large pew, under the stone floor of which his ancestors had
slept undisturbedly for centuries, interested him greatly. A recumbent
marble crusader in armor, with feet crossed in the customary manner,
fitted into a sort of niche in one side of the wall. There were carved
tablets and many inscriptions in Latin wheresoever one glanced. The
place was like a room. A heavy, round table, on which lay prayer-books,
Bibles, and hymn-books, occupied the middle. About it were arranged
beautiful old chairs, with hassocks to kneel on. Toward a specially
imposing chair with arms Miss Alicia directed, him with a glance. It was
apparently his place. He was going to sit down when he saw Miss Alicia
gently push forward a hassock with her foot, and kneel on it, covering
her face with her hands as she bent her head. He hastily drew forth his
hassock and followed her example.
That was it, was it? It wasn't only a matter of listening to a sermon;
you had to do things. He had better watch out and see that he didn't
miss anything. She didn't know it was his first time, and it might worry
her to the limit if he didn't put it over all right. One of the things
he had noticed in her was her fear of attracting attention by failing to
do exactly the “proper thing.” If he made a fool of himself by kneeling
down when he ought to stand up, or lying down when he ought to sit,
she'd get hot all over, thinking what the villagers or the other people
would say. Well, Ann hadn't wanted him to look different from other
fellows or to make breaks. He'd look out from start to finish. He
directed a watchful eye at Miss Alicia through his fingers. She remained
kneeling a few moments, and then very quietly got up. He rose with her,
and took his big chair when she sat down. He breathed more freely when
they had got that far. That was the first round.
It was not a large church, but a gray and solemn impression of dignity
brooded over it. It was dim with light, which fell through stained-glass
memorial windows set deep in the thick stone walls. The silence
which reigned throughout its spaces seemed to Tembarom of a new kind,
different from the silence of the big house. The occasional subdued
rustle of turned prayer-book leaves seemed to accentuate it; the
most careful movement could not conceal itself; a slight cough was
a startling thing. The way, Tembarom thought, they could get things
dead-still in English places!
The chimes, which had been ringing their last summons to the tardy,
slackened their final warning notes, became still slower, stopped.
There was a slight stir in the benches occupied by the infant school. It
suggested that something new was going to happen. From some unseen place
came the sound of singing voices--boyish voices and the voices of men.
Tembarom involuntarily turned his head. Out of the unseen place came a
procession in white robes. Great Scott! every one was standing up! He
must stand up, too. The boys and men in white garments filed into their
seats. An elderly man, also in white robes, separated himself from them,
and, going into his special place, kneeled down. Then he rose and began
to read:
“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness--”
Tembarom took the open book which Miss Alicia had very delicately pushed
toward him. He read the first words,--that was plain sailing,--then he
seemed to lose his place. Miss Alicia turned a leaf. He turned one also.
“Dearly beloved brethren--”
There you were. This was once more plain sailing. He could follow it.
What was the matter with Miss Alicia? She was kneeling again, everybody
was kneeling. Where was the hassock? He went down upon his knees, hoping
Miss Alicia had not seen that he wasn't going to kneel at all. Then when
the minister said “Amen,” the congregation said it, too, and he came in
too late, so that his voice sounded out alone. He must watch that. Then
the minister knelt, and all the people prayed aloud with him. With the
book before him he managed to get in after the first few words; but he
was not ready with the responses, and in the middle of them everybody
stood up again. And then the organ played, and every one sang. He
couldn't sing, anyhow, and he knew he couldn't catch on to the kind of
thing they were doing. He hoped Miss Alicia wouldn't mind his standing
up and holding his book and doing nothing. He could not help seeing that
eyes continually turned toward him. They'd notice every darned break he
made, and Miss Alicia would know they did. He felt quite hot more than
once. He watched Miss Alicia like a hawk; he sat down and listened to
reading, he stood up and listened to singing; he kneeled, he tried to
chime in with “Amens” and to keep up with Miss Alicia's bending of head
and knee. But the creed, with its sudden turn toward the altar, caught
him unawares, he lost himself wholly in the psalms, the collects left
him in deep water, hopeless of ever finding his place again, and the
litany baffled him, when he was beginning to feel safe, by changing from
“miserable sinners” to “Spare us Good Lord” and “We beseech thee to hear
us.” If he could just have found the place he would have been all
right, but an honest anxiety to be right excited him, and the fear of
embarrassing Miss Alicia by going wrong made the morning a strenuous
thing. He was so relieved to find he might sit still when the sermon
began that he gave the minister an attention which might have marked
him, to the chance beholder, as a religious enthusiast.
By the time the service had come to an end the stately peace of the
place had seemed to sink into his being and become part of himself.
The voice of the minister bestowing his blessing, the voices of the
white-clothed choir floating up into the vaulted roof, stirred him to a
remote pleasure. He liked it, or he knew he would like it when he knew
what to do. The filing out of the choristers, the silent final prayer,
the soft rustle of people rising gently from their knees, somehow
actually moved him by its suggestion of something before unknown. He was
a heathen still, but a heathen vaguely stirred.
He was very quiet as he walked home across the park with Miss Alicia.
“How did you enjoy the sermon?” she asked with much sweetness.
“I 'm not used to sermons, but it seemed all right to me,” he answered.
“What I've got to get on to is knowing when to stand up and when to sit
down. I wasn't much of a winner at it this morning. I guess you noticed
that.”
But his outward bearing had been much more composed than his inward
anxiety had allowed him to believe. His hesitations had not produced the
noticeable effect he had feared.
“Do you mean you are not quite familiar with the service?” she said.
Poor dear boy! he had perhaps not been able to go to church regularly at
all.
“I'm not familiar with any service,” he answered without prejudice. “I
never went to church before.”
She slightly started and then smiled.
“Oh, you mean you have never been to the Church of England,” she said.
Then he saw that, if he told her the exact truth, she would be
frightened and shocked. She would not know what to say or what to think.
To her unsophisticated mind only murderers and thieves and criminals
NEVER went to church. She just didn't know. Why should she? So he smiled
also.
“No, I've never been to the Church of England,” he said.