"Has Burrill got to come back and pour that out?" he asked, with an awkward gesture toward the tea-tray. "Has he just GOT to?"
"Oh, no, unless you wish it," she answered. "Shall--may I give it to you?"
"Will you?" he exclaimed delightedly. "That would be fine. I shall feel like a regular Clarence."
She was going to sit at the table in a straight-backed chair, but he sprang at her.
"This big one is more comfortable," he said, and he dragged it forward and made her sit in it. "You ought to have a footstool," he added, and he got one and put it under her feet. "There, that"s all right."
A footstool, as though she were a royal personage and he were a gentleman in waiting, only probably gentlemen in waiting did not jump about and look so pleased. The cheerful content of his boyish face when he himself sat down near the table was delightful.
"Now," he said, "we can ring up for the first act."
She filled the tea-pot and held it for a moment, and then set it down as though her feelings were too much for her.
"I feel as if I were in a dream," she quavered happily. "I do indeed."
"But it"s a nice one, ain"t it? " he answered. "I feel as if I was in two. Sitting here in this big room with all these fine things about me, and having afternoon tea with a relation! It just about suits me.
It didn"t feel like this yesterday, you bet your life!"
"Does it seem--nicer than yesterday?" she ventured. "Really, Mr.
Temple Barholm?"
"Nicer!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "It"s got yesterday beaten to a frazzle."
It was beyond all belief. He was speaking as though the advantage, the relief, the happiness, were all on his side. She longed to enlighten him.
"But you can"t realize what it is to me," she said gratefully, "to sit here, not terrified and homeless and--a beggar any more, with your kind face before me. Do forgive me for saying it. You have such a kind young face, Mr. Temple Barholm. And to have an easy-chair and cushions, and actually a buffet brought for my feet! " She suddenly recollected herself. "Oh, I mustn"t let your tea get cold," she added, taking up the tea-pot apologetically. "Do you take cream and sugar, and is it to be one lump or two?"
"I take everything in sight," he replied joyously, "and two lumps, please."
She prepared the cup of tea with as delicate a care as though it had been a sacramental chalice, and when she handed it to him she smiled wistfully.
"No one but you ever thought of such a thing as bringing a buffet for my feet--no one except poor little Jem," she said, and her voice was wistful as well as her smile.
She was obviously unaware that she was introducing an entirely new acquaintance to him. Poor little Jem was supposed to be some one whose whole history he knew.
"Jem?" he repeated, carefully transferring a piece of hot b.u.t.tered crumpet to his plate.
"Jem Temple Barholm," she answered. "I say little Jem because I remember him only as a child. I never saw him after he was eleven years old."
"Who was he?" he asked. The tone of her voice, and her manner of speaking made him feel that he wanted to hear something more.
She looked rather startled by his ignorance. "Have you-- have you never heard of him?" she inquired.
"No. Is he another distant relation?"
Her hesitation caused him to neglect his crumpet, to look up at her.
He saw at once that she wore the air of a sensitive and beautifully mannered elderly lady who was afraid she had made a mistake and said something awkward.
"I am so sorry," she apologized. "Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned him."
"Why shouldn"t he be mentioned?"
She was embarra.s.sed. She evidently wished she had not spoken, but breeding demanded that she should ignore the awkwardness of the situation, if awkwardness existed.
"Of course--I hope your tea is quite as you like it--of course there is no real reason. But--shall I give you some more cream? No? You see, if he hadn"t died, he--he would have inherited Temple Barholm."
Now he was interested. This was the other chap.
"Instead of me?" he asked, to make sure. She endeavored not to show embarra.s.sment and told herself it didn"t really matter--to a thoroughly nice person. But--
"He was the next of kin--before you. I"m so sorry I didn"t know you hadn"t heard of him. It seemed natural that Mr. Palford should have mentioned him."
"He did say that there was a young fellow who had died, but he didn"t tell me about him. I guess I didn"t ask. There were such a lot of other things. I"d like to hear about him. You say you knew him?"
"Only when he was a little fellow. Never after he grew up. Something happened which displeased my father. I"m afraid papa was very easily displeased. Mr. Temple Barholm disliked him, too. He would not have him at Temple Barholm."
"He hadn"t much luck with his folks, had he?" remarked Tembarom.
"He had no luck with any one. I seemed to be the only person who was fond of him, and of course I didn"t count."
"I bet you counted with him," said Tembarom.
"I do think I did. Both his parents died quite soon after he was born, and people who ought to have cared for him were rather jealous because he stood so near to Temple Barholm. If Mr. Temple Barholm had not been so eccentric and bitter, everything would have been done for him; but as it was, he seemed to belong to no one. When he came to the vicarage it used to make me so happy. He used to call me Aunt Alicia, and he had such pretty ways." She hesitated and looked quite tenderly at the tea-pot, a sort of shyness in her face. "I am sure," she burst forth, "I feel quite sure that you will understand and won"t think it indelicate; but I had thought so often that I should like to have a little boy--if I had married," she added in hasty tribute to propriety.
Tembarom"s eyes rested on her in a thoughtfulness openly touched with affection. He put out his hand and patted hers two or three times in encouraging sympathy.
"Say," he said frankly, "I just believe every woman that"s the real thing"d like to have a little boy--or a little girl--or a little something or other. That"s why pet cats and dogs have such a cinch of it. And there"s men that"s the same way. It"s sort of nature."
"He had such a high spirit and such pretty ways," she said again. "One of his pretty ways was remembering to do little things to make one comfortable, like thinking of giving one a cushion or a buffet for one"s feet. I noticed it so much because I had never seen boys or men wait upon women. My own dear papa was used to having women wait upon him--bring his slippers, you know, and give him the best chair. He didn"t like Jem"s ways. He said he liked a boy who was a boy and not an affected nincomp.o.o.p. He wasn"t really quite just." She paused regretfully and sighed as she looked back into a past doubtlessly enriched with many similar memories of "dear papa." "Poor Jem! Poor Jem!" she breathed softly.
Tembarom thought that she must have felt the boy"s loss very much, almost as much as though she had really been his mother; perhaps more pathetically because she had not been his mother or anybody"s mother.
He could see what a good little mother she would have made, looking after her children and doing everything on earth to make them happy and comfortable, just the kind of mother Ann would make, though she had not Ann"s steady wonder of a little head or her shrewd farsightedness. Jem would have been in luck if he had been her son. It was a darned pity he hadn"t been. If he had, perhaps he would not have died young.
"Yes," he answered sympathetically, "it"s hard for a young fellow to die. How old was he, anyhow? I don"t know."
"Not much older than you are now. It was seven years ago. And if he had only died, poor dear! There are things so much worse than death."
"Worse!"
"Awful disgrace is worse," she faltered. She was plainly trying to keep moisture out of her eyes.
"Did he get into some bad mix-up, poor fellow?" If there had been anything like that, no wonder it broke her up to think of him.
It surely did break her up. She flushed emotionally.
"The cruel thing was that he didn"t really do what he was accused of,"