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 assets, 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-assertion 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 assert 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 class, 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 passed 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 illustrated 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 ejaculated 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.
"Good," he answered, the devout admiration of her tone rather puzzling
him. "It ain't that. I just want to see the thing through. I dropped
into it by accident, and then I dropped into this by accident, and
that made it as easy as falling off a log. I believe he's going to get
well sometime. I guess I kind of like him because he holds on to me so
and believes I'm just It. Maybe it's because I'm stuck on myself."
His visit to Strangeways was longer than usual that afternoon. He
explained the situation to him so that he understood it sufficiently
not to seem alarmed by it. This was one of the advances Tembarom had
noticed recently, that he was less easily terrified, and seemed
occasionally to see facts in their proper relation to one another.
Sometimes the experiments tried on him were successful, sometimes they
were not, but he never resented them.
"You are trying to help me to remember," he said once. "I think you
will sometime."
"Sure I will," said Tembarom. "You're better every day."
Pearson was to remain in charge of him until toward the end of the
London visit. Then he was to run up for a couple of days, leaving in
his place a young footman to whom the invalid had become accustomed.
The visit to London was to Miss Alicia a period of enraptured
delirium. The beautiful hotel in which she was established, the
afternoons at the Tower, the National Gallery, the British Museum, the
evenings at the play, during which one saw the most brilliant and
distinguished actors, the mornings in the shops, attended as though
one were a person of fortune, what could be said of them? And the
sacred day on which she saw her Majesty drive slowly by, glittering
helmets, splendid uniforms, waving plumes, and clanking swords
accompanying and guarding her, and gentlemen standing still with their
hats off, and everybody looking after her with that natural touch of
awe which royalty properly inspires! Miss Alicia's heart beat rapidly
in her breast, and she involuntarily made a curtsey as the great lady
in mourning drove by. She lost no shade of any flavor of ecstatic
pleasure in anything, and was to Tembarom, who knew nothing about
shades and flavors, indeed a touching and endearing thing.
He had never got so much out of anything. If Ann had just been there,
well, that would have been the limit. Ann was on her way to America
now, and she wouldn't write to him or let him write to her. He had to
make a fair trial of it. He could find out only in that way, she said.
It was not to be denied that the youth and longing in him gave him
some half-hours to face which made him shut himself up in his room and
stare hard at the wall, folding his arms tightly as he tilted his
chair.
There arrived a day when one of the most exalted shops in Bond Street
was invaded by an American young man of a bearing the peculiarities of
which were subtly combined with a remotely suggested air of knowing
that if he could find what he wanted, there was no doubt as to his
power to get it. What he wanted was not usual, and was explained with
a frankness which might have seemed unsophisticated, but, singularly,
did not. He wanted to have a private talk with some feminine power in
charge, and she must be some one who knew exactly what ladies ought to
have.
Being shown into a room, such a feminine power was brought to him and
placed at his service. She was a middle-aged person, wearing
beautifully fitted garments and having an observant eye and a
dignified suavity of manner. She looked the young American over with a
swift inclusion of all possibilities. He was by this time wearing
extremely well-fitting garments himself, but she was at once aware
that his tailored perfection was a new thing to him.
He went to his point without apologetic explanation.
"You know all the things any kind of a lady ought to have," he said--
"all the things that would make any one feel comfortable and as if
they'd got plenty? Useful things as well as ornamental ones?"
"Yes, sir," she replied, with rising interest. "I have been in the
establishment thirty years."
"Good business," Tembarom replied. Already he felt relieved. "I've got
a relation, a little old lady, and I want her to fix herself out just
as she ought to be fixed. Now, what I'm afraid of is that she won't
get everything she ought to unless I manage it for her somehow
beforehand. She's got into a habit of-- well, economizing. Now the
time's past for that, and I want her to get everything a woman like
you would know she really wants, so that she could look her best,
living in a big country house, with a relation that thinks a lot of
her."
He paused a second or so, and then went further, fixing a clear and
astonishingly shrewd eye upon the head of the department listening to
him.
"I found out this was a high-class place," he explained. "I made sure
of that before I came in. In a place that was second or third class
there might be people who'd think they'd caught a 'sucker' that would
take anything that was unloaded on to him, because he didn't know. The
things are for Miss Temple Barholm, and she DOES know. I shall ask her
to come here herself to-morrow morning, and I want you to take care of
her, and show her the best you've got that's suitable." He seemed to
like the word; he repeated it--"Suitable," and quickly restrained a
sudden, unexplainable, wide smile.
The attending lady's name was Mrs. Mellish. Thirty years' experience
had taught her many lessons. She was a hard woman and a sharp one, but
beneath her sharp hardness lay a suppressed sense of the perfect in
taste. To have a customer with unchecked resources put into her hands
to do her best by was an inspiring incident. A quiver of enlightenment
had crossed her countenance when she had heard the name of Temple
Barholm. She had a newspaper knowledge of the odd Temple Barholm
story. This was the next of kin who had blacked boots in New York, and
the obvious probability that he was a fool, if it had taken the form
of a hope, had been promptly nipped in the bud. The type from which he
was furthest removed was that of the fortune-intoxicated young man who
could be obsequiously flattered into buying anything which cost money
enough.
"Not a thing's to be unloaded on her that she doesn't like," he added,
"and she's not a girl that goes to pink teas. She's a--a--lady --and
not young--and used to quiet ways."
The evidently New York word "unload" revealed him to his hearer as by
a flash, though she had never heard it before.
"We have exactly the things which will be suitable, sir," she said. "I
think I quite understand." Tembarom smiled again, and, thanking her,
went away still smiling, because he knew Miss Alicia was safe.
There were of course difficulties in the way of persuading Miss Alicia
that her duty lay in the direction of spending mornings in the most
sumptuous of Bond Street shops, ordering for herself an entire
wardrobe on a basis of unlimited resources. Tembarom was called upon
to employ the most adroitly subtle reasoning, entirely founded on his
"claim" and her affectionate willingness to give him pleasure.
He really made love to her in the way a joyful young fellow can make
love to his mother or his nicest aunt. He made her feel that she
counted for so much in his scheme of enjoyment that to do as he asked
would be to add a glow to it.
"And they won't spoil you," he said. "The Mellish woman that's the
boss has promised that. I wouldn't have you spoiled for a farm," he
added heartily.
And he spoke the truth. If he had been told that he was cherishing her
type as though it were a priceless bit of old Saxe, he would have
stared blankly and made a jocular remark. But it was exactly this
which he actually clung to and adored. He even had a second private
interview with Mrs. Mellish, and asked her to "keep her as much like
she was" as was possible.
Stimulated by the suppressed touch of artistic fervor, Mrs. Mellish
guessed at something even before her client arrived; but the moment
she entered the showroom all was revealed to her at once. The very
hint of flush and tremor in Miss Alicia's manner was an assistance.
Surrounded by a small and extremely select court composed of Mrs.
Mellish and two low-voiced, deft-handed assistants, it was with a fine
little effort that Miss Alicia restrained herself from exterior
suggestion of her feeling that there was something almost impious in
thinking of possessing the exquisite stuffs and shades displayed to
her in flowing beauty on every side. Such linens and batistes and
laces, such delicate, faint grays and lavenders and soft-falling
blacks! If she had been capable of approaching the thought, such
luxury might even have hinted at guilty splendor.
Mrs. Mellish became possessed of an "idea" To create the costume of an
exquisite, early-Victorian old lady in a play done for the most
fashionable and popular actor manager of the most "drawing-room" of
West End theaters, where one saw royalty in the royal box, with
bouquets on every side, the orchestra breaking off in the middle of a
strain to play "God Save the Queen," and the audience standing up as
the royal party came in -- that was her idea. She carried it out,
steering Miss Alicia with finished tact through the shoals and rapids
of her timidities. And the result was wonderful; color,--or, rather,
shades, -- textures, and forms were made subservient by real genius.
Miss Alicia -- as she was turned out when the wardrobe was complete --
might have been an elderly little duchess of sweet and modest good
taste in the dress of forty years earlier. It took time, but some of
the things were prepared as though by magic, and the night the first
boxes were delivered at the hotel Miss Alicia, on going to bed, in
kneeling down to her devotions prayed fervently that she might not be
"led astray by fleshly desires," and that her gratitude might be
acceptable, and not stained by a too great joy "in the things which
corrupt."
The very next day occurred Rose. She was the young person to whom
Pearson was engaged, and it appeared that if Miss Alicia would make up
her mind to oblige Mr. Temple Barholm by allowing the girl to come to
her as lady's-maid, even if only temporarily, she would be doing a
most kind and charitable thing. She was a very nice, well-behaved
girl, and unfortunately she had felt herself forced to leave her place
because her mistress's husband was not at all a nice man. He had shown
himself so far from nice that Pearson had been most unhappy, and Rose
had been compelled to give notice, though she had no other situation
in prospect and her mother was dependent on her. This was without
doubt not Mr. Temple Barholm's exact phrasing of the story, but it was
what Miss Alicia gathered, and what moved her deeply. It was so cruel
and so sad! That wicked man! That poor girl! She had never had a
lady's-maid, and might be rather at a loss at first, but it was only
like Mr. Temple Barholm's kind heart to suggest such a way of helping
the girl and poor Pearson.
So occurred Rose, a pretty creature whose blue eyes suppressed
grateful tears as she took Miss Alicia's instructions during their
first interview. And Pearson arrived the same night, and, waiting upon
Tembarom, stood before him, and with perfect respect, choked.
"Might I thank you, if you please, sir," he began, recovering himself-
-"might I thank you and say how grateful--Rose and me, sir--" and
choked again.
"I told you it would be all right," answered Tembarom. "It is all
right. I wish I was fixed like you are, Pearson."
When the Countess of Mallowe called, Rose had just dressed Miss Alicia
for the afternoon in one of the most perfect of the evolutions of Mrs.
Mellish's idea. It was a definite creation, as even Lady Mallowe
detected the moment her eyes fell upon it. Its hue was dull, soft
gray, and how it managed to concede points and elude suggestions of
modes interred, and yet remain what it did remain, and accord
perfectly with the side ringlets and the lace cap of Mechlin, only
dressmaking genius could have explained. The mere wearing of it gave
Miss Alicia a support and courage which she could scarcely believe to
be her own. When the cards of Lady Mallowe and Lady Joan Fayre were
brought up to her, she was absolutely not really frightened; a little
nervous for a moment, perhaps, but frightened, no. A few weeks of
relief and ease, of cheery consideration, of perfectly good treatment
and good food and good clothes, had begun a rebuilding of the actual
cells of her.
Lady Mallowe entered alone. She was a handsome person, and
astonishingly young when considered as the mother of a daughter of
twenty-seven. She wore a white veil, and looked pink through it. She
swept into the room, and shook hands with Miss Alicia with delicate
warmth.
"We do not really know each other at all," she said. "It is
disgraceful how little relatives see of one another."
The disgrace, if measured by the extent of the relationship, was not
immense. Perhaps this thought flickered across Miss Alicia's mind
among a number of other things. She had heard "dear papa" on Lady
Mallowe, and, howsoever lacking in graces, the vicar of Rowcroft had
not lacked an acrid shrewdness. Miss Alicia's sensitively self-
accusing soul shrank before a hasty realization of the fact that if he
had been present when the cards were brought up, he would, on glancing
over them through his spectacles, have jerked out immediately: "What
does the woman want? She's come to get something." Miss Alicia wished
she had not been so immediately beset by this mental vision.
Lady Mallowe had come for something. She had come to be amiable to
Miss Temple Barholm and to establish relations with her.
"Joan should have been here to meet me," she explained. "Her
dressmaker is keeping her, of course. She will be so annoyed. She
wanted very much to come with me."
It was further revealed that she might arrive at any moment, which
gave Miss Alicia an opportunity to express, with pretty grace, the
hope that she would, and her trust that she was quite well.
"She is always well," Lady Mallowe returned. "And she is of course as
interested as we all are in this romantic thing. It is perfectly
delicious, like a three- volumed novel."
"It is romantic," said Miss Alicia, wondering how much her visitor
knew or thought she knew, and what circumstances would present
themselves to her as delicious.
"Of course one has heard only the usual talk one always hears when
everybody is chattering about a thing," Lady Mallowe replied, with a
propitiating smile. "No one really knows what is true and what isn't.
But it is nice to notice that all the gossip speaks so well of him. No
one seems to pretend that he is anything but extremely nice himself,
notwithstanding his disadvantages."
She kept a fine hazel eye, surrounded by a line which artistically
represented itself as black lashes, steadily resting on Miss Alicia as
she said the last words.
"He is," said Miss Alicia, with gentle firmness, "nicer than I had
ever imagined any young man could be--far nicer."
Lady Mallowe's glance round the luxurious private sitting-room and
over the perfect "idea" of Mrs. Mellish was so swift as to be almost
imperceptible.
"How delightful!" she said. "He must be unusually agreeable, or you
would not have consented to stay and take care of him."
"I cannot tell you how HAPPY I am to have been asked to stay with him,
Lady Mallowe," Miss Alicia replied, the gentle firmness becoming a
soft dignity.
"Which of course shows all the more how attractive he must be. And in
view of the past lack of advantages, what a help you can be to him! It
is quite wonderful for him to have a relative at hand who is an
Englishwoman and familiar with things he will feel he must learn."
A perhaps singular truth is that but for the unmistakable nature of
the surroundings she quickly took in the significance of, and but for
the perfection of the carrying out of Mrs. Mellish's delightful idea,
it is more than probable that her lady-ship's manner of approaching
Miss Alicia and certain subjects on which she desired enlightenment
would have been much more direct and much less propitiatory.
Extraordinary as it was, "the creature"--she thought of Tembarom as
"the creature"-- had plainly been so pleased with the chance of being
properly coached that he had put everything, so to speak, in the
little old woman's hands. She had got a hold upon him. It was quite
likely that to regard her as a definite factor would only be the part
of the merest discretion. She was evidently quite in love with him in
her early-Victorian, spinster way. One had to be prudent with women
like that who had got hold of a male creature for the first time in
their lives, and were almost unaware of their own power. Their very
unconsciousness made them a dangerous influence.
With a masterly review of these facts in her mind Lady Mallowe went on
with a fluent and pleasant talk, through the medium of which she
managed to convey a large number of things Miss Alicia was far from
being clever enough to realize she was talking about. She lightly
waved wings of suggestion across the scene, she dropped infinitesimal
seeds in passing, she left faint echoes behind her-- the kind of
echoes one would find oneself listening to and trying to hear as
definitely formed sounds. She had been balancing herself on a
precarious platform of rank and title, unsupported by any sordid
foundation of a solid nature, through a lifetime spent in London. She
had learned to catch fiercely at straws of chance, and bitterly to
regret the floating past of the slightest, which had made of her a
finished product of her kind. She talked lightly, and was sometimes
almost witty. To her hearer she seemed to know every brilliant
personage and to be familiar with every dazzling thing. She knew well
what social habits and customs meant, what their value, or lack of
value, was. There were customs, she implied skilfully, so established
by time that it was impossible to ignore them. Relationships, for
instance, stood for so much that was fine in England that one was
sometimes quite touched by the far-reachingness of family loyalty. The
head of the house of a great estate represented a certain power in the
matter of upholding the dignity of his possessions, of caring for his
tenantry, of standing for proper hospitality and friendly family
feeling. It was quite beautiful as one often saw it. Throughout the
talk there were several references to Joan, who really must come in
shortly, which were very interesting to Miss Alicia. Lady Joan, Miss
Alicia heard casually, was a great beauty. Her perfection and her
extreme cleverness had made her perhaps a trifle difficile. She had
not done--Lady Mallowe put it with a lightness of phrasing which was
delicacy itself-- what she might have done, with every exalted
advantage, so many times. She had a profound nature. Here Lady Mallowe
waved away, as it were, a ghost of a sigh. Since Miss Temple Barholm
was a relative, she had no doubt heard of the unfortunate, the very
sad incident which her mother sometimes feared prejudiced the girl
even yet.
"You mean--poor Jem!" broke forth involuntarily from Miss Alicia's
lips. Lady Mallowe stared a little.
"Do you call him that?" she asked. "Did you know him, then?"
"I loved him," answered Miss Alicia, winking her eyes to keep back the
moisture in them, "though it was only when he was a little boy."
"Oh," said Lady Mallowe, with a sudden, singular softness, "I must
tell Joan that."
Lady Joan had not appeared even after they had had tea and her mother
went away, but somehow Miss Alicia had reached a vaguely yearning
feeling for her and wished very much the dressmaker had released her.
She was quite stirred when it revealed itself almost at the last
moment that in a few weeks both she and Lady Mallowe were to pay a
visit at no great distance from Temple Barholm itself, and that her
ladyship would certainly arrange to drive over to continue her
delightful acquaintance and to see the beautiful old place again.
"In any case one must, even if he lived in lonely state, pay one's
respects to the head of the house. The truth is, of course, one is
extremely anxious to meet him, and it is charming to know that one is
not merely invading the privacy of a bachelor," Lady Mallowe put it.
"She'll come for YOU," Little Ann had soberly remarked.
Tembarom remembered the look in her quiet, unresentful blue eyes when
he came in to dinner and Miss Alicia related to him the events of the
afternoon.
