"Reading that novel put me wise to things in a new way. She"s been wiping her feet on me hard for a good while, and I sort of made up my mind I"d got to let her until I was sure where I was. I won"t say I didn"t mind it, but I could stand it. But that night she caught me looking at her, the way she looked back at me made me see all of a sudden that it would be easier for her if I told her straight that she was mistaken."
"That she is mistaken in thinking--?"
"What she does think. She wouldn"t have thought it if the old lady hadn"t been driving her mad by hammering it in. She"d have hated me all right, and I don"t blame her when I think of how poor Jem was treated; but she wouldn"t have thought that every time I tried to be decent and friendly to her I was b.u.t.ting in and making a sick fool of myself. She"s got to stay where her mother keeps her, and she"s got to listen to her. Oh, h.e.l.l! She"s got to be told!"
The duke set the tips of his fingers together.
"How would you do it?" he inquired.
"Just straight," replied T. Tembarom. "There"s no other way."
From the old worldling broke forth an involuntary low laugh, which was a sort of cackle. So this was what he was coming to.
"I cannot think of any devious method," he said, "which would make it less than a delicate thing to do. A beautiful young woman, whose host you are, has flouted you furiously for weeks, under the impression that you are offensively in love with her. You propose to tell her that her judgment has betrayed her, and that, as you say, `There"s nothing doing.""
"Not a darned thing, and never has been," said T. Tembarom. He looked quite grave and not at all embarra.s.sed. He plainly did not see it as a situation to be regarded with humor.
"If she will listen--" the duke began.
"Oh, she"ll listen," put in Tembarom. "I"ll make her."
His was a self-contradicting countenance, the duke reflected, as he took him in with a somewhat long look. One did not usually see a face built up of boyishness and maturity, simpleness which was baffling, and a good nature which could be hard. At the moment, it was both of these last at one and the same time.
"I know something of Lady Joan and I know something of you," he said, "but I don"t exactly foresee what will happen. I will not say that I should not like to be present."
"There"ll be n.o.body present but just me and her," Tembarom answered.
CHAPTER x.x.x
The visits of Lady Mallowe and Captain Palliser had had their features. Neither of the pair had come to one of the most imposing "places" in Lancashire to live a life of hermit-like seclusion and dullness. They had arrived with the intention of availing themselves of all such opportunities for entertainment as could be guided in their direction by the deftness of experience. As a result, there had been hospitalities at Temple Barholm such as it had not beheld during the last generation at least. T. Tembarom had looked on, an interested spectator, as these festivities had been adroitly arranged and managed for him. He had not, however, in the least resented acting as a sort of figurehead in the position of sponsor and host.
"They think I don"t know I"m not doing it all myself," was his easy mental summing-up. "They"ve got the idea that I"m pleased because I believe I"m It. But that"s all to the merry. It"s what I"ve set my mind on having going on here, and I couldn"t have started it as well myself. I shouldn"t have known how. They"re teaching me. All I hope is that Ann"s grandmother is keeping tab."
"Do you and Rose know old Mrs. Hutchinson?" he had inquired of Pearson the night before the talk with the duke.
"Well, not to say exactly know her, sir, but everybody knows of her.
She is a most remarkable old person, sir." Then, after watching his face for a moment or so, he added tentatively, "Would you perhaps wish us to make her acquaintance for-- for any reason?"
Tembarom thought the matter over speculatively. He had learned that his first liking for Pearson had been founded upon a rock. He was always to be trusted to understand, and also to apply a quite unusual intelligence to such matters as he became aware of without having been told about them.
"What I"d like would be for her to hear that there"s plenty doing at Temple Barholm; that people are coming and going all the time; and that there"s ladies to burn--and most of them lookers, at that," was his answer.
How Pearson had discovered the exotic subtleties of his master"s situation and mental att.i.tude toward it, only those of his cla.s.s and gifted with his occult powers could explain in detail. The fact exists that Pearson did know an immense number of things his employer had not mentioned to him, and held them locked in his bosom in honored security, like a little gentleman. He made his reply with a polite conviction which carried weight.
"It would not be necessary for either Rose or me to make old Mrs.
Hutchinson"s acquaintance with a view to informing her of anything which occurs on the estate or in the village, sir," he remarked. "Mrs.
Hutchinson knows more of things than any one ever tells her. She sits in her cottage there, and she just knows things and sees through people in a way that"d be almost unearthly, if she wasn"t a good old person, and so respectable that there"s those that touches their hats to her as if she belonged to the gentry. She"s got a blue eye, sir--"
"Has she?" exclaimed Tembarom.
"Yes, sir. As blue as a baby"s, sir, and as clear, though she"s past eighty. And they tell me there"s a quiet, steady look in it that ill- doers downright quail before. It"s as if she was a kind of judge that sentenced them without speaking. They can"t stand it. Oh, sir! you can depend upon old Mrs. Hutchinson as to who"s been here, and even what they"ve thought about it. The village just flocks to her to tell her the news and get advice about things. She"d know."
It was as a result of this that on his return from Stone Hover he dismissed the carriage at the gates and walked through them to make a visit in the village. Old Mrs. Hutchinson, sitting knitting in her chair behind the abnormally flourishing fuchsias, geraniums, and campanula carpaticas in her cottage-window, looked between the banked- up flower-pots to see that Mr. Temple Barholm had opened her wicket- gate and was walking up the clean bricked path to her front door. When he knocked she called out in the broad Lancashire she had always spoken, "Coom in!" When he entered he took off his hat and looked at her, friendly but hesitant, and with the expression of a young man who has not quite made up his mind as to what he is about to encounter.
"I"m Temple Temple Barholm, Mrs. Hutchinson," he announced.
"I know that," she answered. "Not that tha looks loike th" Temple Barholms, but I"ve been watchin" thee walk an" drive past here ever since tha coom to th" place."
She watched him steadily with an astonishingly limpid pair of old eyes. They were old and young at the same time; old because they held deeps of wisdom, young because they were so alive and full of question.
"I don"t know whether I ought to have come to see you or not," he said.
"Well, tha"st coom," she replied, going on with her knitting. "Sit thee doun and have a bit of a chat."
"Say!" he broke out. "Ain"t you going to shake hands with me?" He held his hand out impetuously. He knew he was all right if she"d shake hands.
"Theer"s nowt agen that surely," she answered, with a shrewd bit of a smile. She gave him her hand. "If I was na stiff in my legs, it"s my place to get up an" mak" thee a curtsey, but th" rheumatics has no respect even for th" lord o" th" manor."
"If you got up and made me a curtsey," Tembarom said, "I should throw a fit. Say, Mrs. Hutchinson, I bet you know that as well as I do."
The shrewd bit of a smile lighted her eyes as well as twinkled about her mouth.
"Sit thee doun," she said again.
So he sat down and looked at her as straight as she looked at him.
"Tha "d give a good bit," she said presently, over her flashing needles, "to know how much Little Ann"s tow"d me about thee."
"I"d give a lot to know how much it"d be square to ask you to tell me about her," he gave back to her, hesitating yet eager.
"What does tha mean by square?" she demanded.
"I mean `fair." Can I talk to you about her at all? I promised I"d stick it out here and do as she said. She told me she wasn"t going to write to me or let her father write. I"ve promised, and I"m not going to fall down when I"ve said a thing."
"So tha coom to see her grandmother?"
He reddened, but held his head up.
"I"m not going to ask her grandmother a thing she doesn"t want me to be told. But I"ve been up against it pretty hard lately. I read some things in the New York papers about her father and his invention, and about her traveling round with him and helping him with his business."
"In Germany they wur," she put in, forgetting herself. "They"re havin"
big doin"s over th" invention. What Joe "u"d do wi"out th" la.s.s I canna tell. She"s doin" every bit o" th" managin" an" contrivin" wi"
them furriners--but he"ll never know it. She"s got a chap to travel wi" him as can talk aw th" languages under th" sun."
Her face flushed and she stopped herself sharply.