Miss Alicia looked startled, and Mrs. Hibblethwaite was plainly fl.u.s.tered tremendously. She quite lost her temper.
"Eh," she exclaimed, "tha wants tha young yed knocked off, Tummas Hibblethwaite. He"s fair daft about th" young gentleman as--as was killed. He axes questions mony a day till I"d give him th" stick if he wasna a cripple. He moithers me to death."
"I"ll bring you some of those New York papers to look at," Tembarom said to the boy as he went away.
He walked back through the village to Temple Barholm, holding Miss Alicia"s elbow in light, affectionate guidance and support, a little to her embarra.s.sment and also a little to her delight. Until he had taken her into the dining-room the night before she had never seen such a thing done. There was no over- familiarity in the action. It merely seemed somehow to suggest liking and a wish to take care of her.
"That little fellow in the village," he said after a silence in which it occurred to her that he seemed thoughtful, "what a little freak he is! He"s got an idea that there"s a picture in the gallery that"s said to look like Jem Temple Barholm when he was a boy. Have you ever heard anything about it? He says a servant told his mother it was there."
"Yes, there is one," Miss Alicia answered. "I sometimes go and look at it. But it makes me feel very sad. It is the handsome boy who was a page in the court of Charles II. He died in his teens. His name was Miles Hugo Charles James. Jem could see the likeness himself.
Sometimes for a little joke I used to call him Miles Hugo."
"I believe I remember him," said Tembarom. "I believe I asked Palford his name. I must go and have a look at him again. He hadn"t much better luck than the fellow that looked like him, dying as young as that."
CHAPTER XVII
Form, color, drama, and divers other advantages are necessary to the creation of an object of interest. Presenting to the world none of these a.s.sets, 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-a.s.sertion 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 a.s.sert 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 cla.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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.