Of course he was doing his best to please her. Of all the "Ladies," it seemed evident that he was most attracted by her. He tried to talk to her despite her unending rebuffs, he followed her about and endeavored to interest her, he presented a hide-bound unsensitiveness when she did her worst. Perhaps he did not even know that she was being icily rude. He was plainly "making up to her" after the manner of his cla.s.s.
He was perhaps playing the part of the patient adorer who melted by n.o.ble long-suffering in novels distinguished by heroes of humble origin.
She had reached the village when the rain changed its mind, and without warning began to pour down as if the black cloud pa.s.sing overhead had suddenly opened. She was wondering if she would not turn in somewhere for shelter until the worst was over when a door opened and Tembarom ran out with an umbrella.
"Come in to the Hibblethwaites cottage, Lady Joan," he said. "This will be over directly."
He did not affectionately hustle her in by the arm as he would have hustled in Miss Alicia, but he closely guarded her with the umbrella until he guided her inside.
"Thank you," she said.
The first object she became aware of was a thin face with pointed chin and ferret eyes peering at her round the end of a sofa, then a sharp voice.
"Tak" off her cloak an" shake th" rain off it in th" wash "us"," it said. "Mother an" Aunt Susan"s out. Let him unb.u.t.ton it fer thee."
"I can unb.u.t.ton it myself, thank you," said Lady Joan. Tembarom took it when she had unb.u.t.toned it. He took it from her shoulders before she had time to stop him. Then he walked into the tiny "wash "us" and shook it thoroughly. He came back and hung it on a chair before the fire.
Tummas was leaning back in his pillows and gazing at her.
"I know tha name," he said. "He towd me," with a jerk of the head toward Tembarom.
"Did he?" replied Lady Joan without interest.
A flaringly ill.u.s.trated New York paper was spread out upon his sofa.
He pushed it aside and pulled the shabby atlas toward him. It fell open at a map of North America as if through long habit.
"Sit thee down," he ordered.
Tembarom had stood watching them both.
"I guess you"d better not do that," he suggested to Tummas.
"Why not? " said the boy, sharply. "She"s th" wench he was goin" to marry. It"s th" same as if he"d married her. If she wur his widder, she"d want to talk about him. Widders allus wants to talk. Why shouldn"t she? Women"s women. He"d ha" wanted to talk about her."
"Who is `he"?" asked Joan with stiff lips.
"The Temple Barholm as" "d be here if he was na."
Joan turned to Tembarom.
"Do you come here to talk to this boy about HIM?" she said. "How dare you!"
Tummas"s eyes snapped; his voice snapped also.
"He knew next to nowt about him till I towd him," he said. "Then he came to ax me things an" foind out more. He knows as much as I do now.
Us sits here an" talks him over."
Lady Joan still addressed Tembarom.
"What interest can you have in the man who ought to be in your place?"
she asked. "What possible interest?"
"Well," he answered awkwardly, "because he ought to be, I suppose.
Ain"t that reason enough?"
He had never had to deal with women who hated him and who were angry and he did not know exactly what to say. He had known very few women, and he had always been good- natured with them and won their liking in some measure. Also, there was in his att.i.tude toward this particular woman a baffled feeling that he could not make her understand him. She would always think of him as an enemy and believe he meant things he did not mean. If he had been born and educated in her world, he could have used her own language; but he could use only his own, and there were so many things he must not say for a time at least.
"Do you not realize," she said, "that you are presuming upon your position--that you and this boy are taking liberties?"
Tummas broke in wholly without compunction.
"I"ve taken liberties aw my loife," he stated, "an" I"m goin" to tak"
"em till I dee. They"re th" on"y things I can tak", lyin" here crippled, an" I"m goin" to tak" "em."
"Stop that, Tummas! " said Tembarom with friendly authority. "She doesn"t catch on, and you don"t catch on, either. You"re both of you "way off. Stop it!"
"I thought happen she could tell me things I didn"t know," protested Tummas, throwing himself back on his pillows. "If she conna, she conna, an" if she wunnot, she wunnot. Get out wi" thee!" he said to Joan. "I dunnot want thee about th" place."
"Say," said Tembarom, "shut up!"
"I am going," said Lady Joan and turned to open the door.
The rain was descending in torrents, but she pa.s.sed swiftly out into its deluge walking as rapidly as she could. She thought she cared nothing about the rain, but it dashed in her face and eyes, taking her breath away, and she had need of breath when her heart was beating with such fierceness.
"If she wur his widder," the boy had said.
Even chance could not let her alone at one of her worst moments. She walked faster and faster because she was afraid Tembarom would follow her, and in a few minutes she heard him splashing behind her, and then he was at her side, holding the umbrella over her head.
"You"re a good walker," he said, "but I"m a sprinter. I trained running after street cars and catching the "L" in New York."
She had so restrained her miserable hysteric impulse to break down and utterly humiliate herself under the unexpected blow of the episode in the cottage that she had had no breath to spare when she left the room, and her hurried effort to escape had left her so much less that she did not speak.
"I"ll tell you something," he went on. "He"s a little freak, but you can"t blame him much. Don"t be mad at him. He"s never moved from that corner since he was born, I guess, and he"s got nothing to do or to think of but just hearing what"s happening outside. He"s sort of crazy curious, and when he gets hold of a thing that suits him he just holds on to it till the last bell rings."
She said nothing whatever, and he paused a moment because he wanted to think over the best way to say the next thing.
"Mr. James Temple Barholm "--he ventured it with more delicacy of desire not to seem to "take liberties" than she would have credited him with--"saw his mother sitting with him in her arms at the cottage door a week or so after he was born. He stopped at the gate and talked to her about him, and he left him a sovereign. He"s got it now. It seems a fortune to him. He"s made a sort of idol of him. That"s why he talks like he does. I wouldn"t let it make me mad if I were you."
He did not know that she could not have answered him if she would, that she felt that if he did not stop she might fling herself down upon the wet heather and wail aloud.
"You don"t like me," he began after they had walked a few steps farther. "You don"t like me."
This was actually better. It choked back the sobs rising in her throat. The stupid shock of it, his tasteless foolishness, helped her by its very folly to a sort of defense against the disastrous wave of emotion she might not have been able to control. She gathered herself together.
"It must be an unusual experience," she answered.
"Well, it is--sort of," he said, but in a manner curiously free from fatuous swagger. "I"ve had luck that way. I guess it"s been because I"d GOT to make friends so as I could earn a living. It seems sort of queer to know that some one"s got a grouch against me that--that I can"t get away with."
She looked up the avenue to see how much farther they must walk together, since she was not "a sprinter" and could not get away from him. She thought she caught a glimpse through the trees of a dog-cart driven by a groom, and hoped she had not mistaken and that it was driving in their direction.