CHAPTER XXXVIII
The Duke of Stone had been sufficiently occupied with one of his
slighter attacks of rheumatic gout to have been, so to speak, out of
the running in the past weeks. His indisposition had not condemned him
to the usual dullness, however. He had suffered less pain than was
customary, and Mrs. Braddle had been more than usually interesting in
conversation on those occasions when, in making him very comfortable
in one way or another, she felt that a measure of entertainment would
add to his well-being. His epicurean habit of mind tended toward
causing him to find a subtle pleasure in the hearing of various
versions of any story whatever. His intimacy with T. Tembarom had
furnished forth many an agreeable mental repast for him. He had had T.
Tembarom's version of himself, the version of the county, the version
of the uneducated class, and his own version. All of these had had
varying shades of their own. He had found a cynically fine flavor in
Palliser's version, which he had gathered through talk and processes
of exclusion and inclusion.
"There is a good deal to be said for it," he summed it up. "It's
plausible on ordinary sophisticated grounds. T. Tembarom would say,
`It looks sort of that way."'
As Mrs. Braddle had done what she could in the matter of expounding
her views of the uncertainties of the village attitude, he had
listened with stimulating interest. Mrs. Braddle's version on the
passing of T. Tembarom stood out picturesquely against the background
of the version which was his own--the one founded on the singular
facts he had shared knowledge of with the chief character in the
episode. He had not, like Miss Alicia, received a communication from
Tembarom. This seemed to him one of the attractive features of the
incident. It provided opportunity for speculation. Some wild
development had called the youngster away in a rattling hurry. Of what
had happened since his departure he knew no more than the villagers
knew. What had happened for some months before his going he had
watched with the feeling of an intelligently observant spectator at a
play. He had been provided with varied emotions by the fantastic
drama. He had smiled; he had found himself moved once or twice, and he
had felt a good deal of the thrill of curious uncertainty as to what
the curtain would rise and fall on. The situation was such that it was
impossible to guess. Results could seem only to float in the air. One
thing might happen; so might another, so might a dozen more. What he
wished really to attain was some degree of certainty as to what was
likely to occur in any case to the American Temple Barholm.
He felt, the first time he drove over to call on Miss Alicia, that his
indisposition and confinement to his own house had robbed him of
something. They had deprived him of the opportunity to observe shades
of development and to hear the expressing of views of the situation as
it stood. He drove over with views of his own and with anticipations.
He had reason to know that he would encounter in the dear lady
indications of the feeling that she had reached a crisis. There was a
sense of this crisis impending as one mounted the terrace steps and
entered the hall. The men-servants endeavored to wipe from their
countenances any expression denoting even a vague knowledge of it. He
recognized their laudable determination to do so. Burrill was
monumental in the unconsciousness of his outward bearing.
Miss Alicia, sitting waiting on Fate in the library, wore precisely
the aspect he had known she would wear. She had been lying awake at
night and she had of course wept at intervals, since she belonged to
the period the popular female view of which had been that only the
unfeeling did not so relieve themselves in crises of the affections.
Her eyelids were rather pink and her nice little face was tired.
"It is very, very kind of you to come," she said, when they shook
hands. "I wonder "--her hesitance was touching in its obvious appeal
to him not to take the wrong side,--"I wonder if you know how deeply
troubled I have been?"
"You see, I have had a touch of my abominable gout, and my treasure of
a Braddle has been nursing me and gossiping," he answered. "So, of
course I know a great deal. None of it true, I dare say. I felt I must
come and see you, however."
He looked so neat and entirely within the boundaries of finished and
well-dressed modernity and every-day occurrence, in his perfectly
fitting clothes, beautifully shining boots, and delicate fawn gaiters,
that she felt a sort of support in his mere aspect. The mind connected
such almost dapper freshness and excellent taste only with
unexaggerated incidents and a behavior which almost placed the stamp
of absurdity upon the improbable in circumstance. The vision of
disorderly and illegal possibilities seemed actually to fade into an
unreality.
"If Mr. Palford and Mr. Grimby knew him as I know him --as--as you
know him--" she added with a faint hopefulness.
"Yes, if they knew him as we know him that would make a different
matter of it," admitted the duke, amiably. But, thought Miss Alicia,
he might only have put it that way through consideration for her
feelings, and because he was an extremely polished man who could not
easily reveal to a lady a disagreeable truth. He did not speak with
the note of natural indignation which she thought she must have
detected if he had felt as she felt herself. He was of course a man
whose manner had always the finish of composure. He did not seem
disturbed or even very curious--only kind and most polite.
"If we only knew where he was!" she began again. "If we only knew
where Mr. Strangeways was!"
"My impression is that Messrs. Palford & Grimby will probably find
them both before long," he consoled her. "They are no doubt exciting
themselves unnecessarily."
He was not agitated at all; she felt. it would have been kinder if he
had been a little agitated. He was really not the kind of person whose
feelings appeared very deep, being given to a light and graceful
cynicism of speech which delighted people; so perhaps it was not
natural that he should express any particular emotion even in a case
affecting a friend--surely he had been Temple's friend. But if he had
seemed a little distressed, or doubtful or annoyed, she would have
felt that she understood better his attitude. As it was, he might
almost have been on the other side--a believer or a disbeliever--or
merely a person looking on to see what would happen. When they sat
down, his glance seemed to include her with an interest which was
sympathetic but rather as if she were a child whom he would like to
pacify. This seemed especially so when she felt she must make clear to
him the nature of the crisis which was pending, as he had felt when he
entered the house.
"You perhaps do not know"--the appeal which had shown itself in her
eyes was in her voice--"that the solicitors have decided, after a
great deal of serious discussion and private inquiry in London, that
the time has come when they must take open steps."
"In the matter of investigation?" he inquired.
"They are coming here this afternoon with Captain Palliser to--to
question the servants, and some of the villagers. They will question
me," alarmedly.
"They would be sure to do that,"--he really seemed quite to envelop
her with kindness--"but I beg of you not to be alarmed. Nothing you
could have to say could possibly do harm to Temple Barholm." He knew
it was her fear of this contingency which terrified her.
"You do feel sure of that?" she burst forth, relievedly. "You do--
because you know him?"
"I do. Let us be calm, dear lady. Let us be calm."
"I will! I will!" she protested. "But Captain Palliser has arranged
that a lady should come here--a lady who disliked poor Temple very
much. She was most unjust to him."
"Lady Joan Fayre?" he suggested, and then paused with a remote smile
as if lending himself for the moment to some humor he alone detected
in the situation.
"She will not injure his cause, I think I can assure you."
"She insisted on misunderstanding him. I am so afraid--"
The appearance of Pearson at the door interrupted her and caused her
to rise from her seat. The neat young man was pale and spoke in a
nervously lowered voice.
"I beg pardon, Miss. I beg your Grace's pardon for intruding, but--"
Miss Alicia moved toward him in such a manner that he himself seemed
to feel that he might advance.
"What is it, Pearson? Have you anything special to say?"
"I hope I am not taking too great a liberty, Miss, but I did come in
for a purpose, knowing that his Grace was with you and thinking you
might both kindly advise me. It is about Mr. Temple Barholm, your
Grace--" addressing him as if in involuntary recognition of the fact
that he might possibly prove the greater support.
"Our Mr. Temple Barholm, Pearson? We are being told there are two of
them." The duke's delicate emphasis on the possessive pronoun was
delightful, and it so moved and encouraged sensitive little Pearson
that he was emboldened to answer with modest firmness:
"Yes,--ours. Thank you, your Grace."
"You feel him yours too, Pearson?" a shade more delightfully still.
"I--I take the liberty, your Grace, of being deeply attached to him,
and more than grateful."
"What did you want to ask advice about?"
"The family solicitors. Captain Palliser and Lady Joan Fayre and Mr.
and Miss Hutchinson are to be here shortly, and I have been told I am
to be questioned. What I want to know, your Grace, is--" He paused,
and looked no longer pale but painfully red as he gathered himself
together for his anxious outburst--"Must I speak the truth?"
Miss Alicia started alarmedly.
The duke looked down at the delicate fawn gaiters covering his fine
instep. His fleeting smile was not this time an external one.
"Do you not wish to speak the truth, Pearson?"
Pearson's manner could have been described only as one of obstinate
frankness.
"No, your Grace. I do not! Your Grace may misunderstand me--but I do
not!"
His Grace tapped the gaiters with the slight ebony cane he held in his
hand.
"Is this "--he put it with impartial curiosity--"because the truth
might be detrimental to our Mr. Temple Barholm?"
"If you please, your Grace," Pearson made a firm step forward, "what
is the truth?"
"That is what Messrs. Palford & Grimby seem determined to find out.
Probably only our Mr. Temple Barholm can tell them."
"Your Grace, what I'm thinking of is that if I tell the truth it may
seem to prove something that's not the truth."
"What kinds of things, Pearson?" still impartially.
"I can be plain with your Grace. Things like this: I was with Mr.
Temple Barholm and Mr. Strangeways a great deal. They'll ask me about
what I heard. They'll ask me if Mr. Strangeways was willing to go away
to the doctor; if he had to be persuaded and argued with. Well, he had
and he hadn't, your Grace. At first, just the mention of it would
upset him so that Mr. Temple Barholm would have to stop talking about
it and quiet him down. But when he improved--and he did improve
wonderfully, your Grace--he got into the way of sitting and thinking
it over and listening quite quiet. But if I'm asked suddenly--"
"What you are afraid of is that you may be asked point-blank questions
without warning?" his Grace put it with the perspicacity of
experience.
"That's why I should be grateful for advice. Must I tell the truth,
your Grace, when it will make them believe things I'd swear are lies--
I'd swear it, your Grace."
"So would I, Pearson." His serene lightness was of the most baffling,
but curiously supporting, order. "This being the case, my advice would
be not to go into detail. Let us tell white lies--all of us--without a
shadow of hesitancy. Miss Temple Barholm, even you must do your best."
"I will try--indeed, I will try!" And the Duke felt her tremulously
ardent assent actually delicious.
"There! we'll consider that settled, Pearson," he said.
"Thank you, your Grace. Thank you, Miss," Pearson's relieved gratitude
verged on the devout. He turned to go, and as he did so his attention
was arrested by an approach he remarked through a window.
"Mr. and Miss Hutchinson are arriving now, Miss," he announced,
hastily.
"They are to be brought in here," said Miss Alicia.
The duke quietly left his seat and went to look through the window
with frank and unembarrassed interest in the approach. He went, in
fact, to look at Little Ann, and as he watched her walk up the avenue,
her father lumbering beside her, he evidently found her aspect
sufficiently arresting.
"Ah!" he exclaimed softly, and paused. "What a lot of very nice red
hair," he said next. And then, "No wonder! No wonder!"
"That, I should say," he remarked as Miss Alicia drew near, "is what I
once heard a bad young man call `a deserving case.'"
He was conscious that she might have been privately a little shocked
by such aged flippancy, but she was at the moment perturbed by
something else.
"The fact is that I have never spoken to Hutchinson," she fluttered.
"These changes are very confusing. I suppose I ought to say Mr.
Hutchinson, now that he is such a successful person, and Temple--"
"Without a shadow of a doubt!" The duke seemed struck by the happiness
of the idea. "They will make him a peer presently. He may address me
as 'Stone' at any moment. One must learn to adjust one's self with
agility. `The old order changeth.' Ah! she is smiling at him and I see
the dimples."
Miss Alicia made a clean breast of it.
"I went to her--I could not help it! " she confessed. "I was in such
distress and dare not speak to anybody. Temple had told me that she
was so wonderful. He said she always understood and knew what to do."
"Did she in this case?" he asked, smiling.
Miss Alicia's manner was that of one who could express the extent of
her admiration only in disconnected phrases.
"She was like a little rock. Such a quiet, firm way! Such calm
certainty! Oh, the comfort she has been to me! I begged her to come
here to-day. I did not know her father had returned."
"No doubt he will have testimony to give which will be of the greatest
assistance," the duke said most encouragingly. "Perhaps he will be a
sort of rock."
"I--I don't in the least know what he will be!" sighed Miss Alicia,
evidently uncertain in her views.
But when the father and daughter were announced she felt that his
Grace was really enchanting in the happy facility of his manner. He at
least adjusted himself with agility. Hutchinson was of course
lumbering. Lacking the support of T. Tembarom's presence and
incongruity, he himself was the incongruous feature. He would have
been obliged to bluster by way of sustaining himself, even if he had
only found himself being presented to Miss Alicia; but when it was
revealed to him that he was also confronted with the greatest
personage of the neighborhood, he became as hot and red as he had
become during certain fateful business interviews. More so, indeed.
"Th' other chaps hadn't been dukes;" and to Hutchinson the old order
had not yet so changed that a duke was not an awkwardly impressive
person to face unexpectedly.
The duke's manner of shaking hands with him, however, was even touched
with an amiable suggestion of appreciation of the value of a man of
genius. He had heard of the invention, in fact knew some quite
technical things about it. He realized its importance. He had
congratulations for the inventor and the world of inventions so
greatly benefited.
"Lancashire must be proud of your success, Mr. Hutchinson." How
agreeably and with what ease he said it!
"Aye, it's a success now, your Grace," Hutchinson answered, "but I
might have waited a good bit longer if it hadn't been for that lad an'
his bold backing of me."
"Mr. Temple Barholm?" said the duke.
"Aye. He's got th' way of making folks see things that they can't see
even when they're hitting them in th' eyes. I'd that lost heart I
could never have done it myself."
"But now it is done," smiled his Grace. "Delightful!"
"I've got there--same as they say in New York--I've got there," said
Hutchinson.
He sat down in response to Miss Alicia's invitation. His unease was
wonderfully dispelled. He felt himself a person of sufficient
importance to address even a duke as man to man.
"What's all this romancin' talk about th' other Temple Barholm comin'
back, an' our lad knowin' an' hidin' him away? An' Palliser an' th'
lawyers an' th' police bein' after 'em both?"
"You have heard the whole story?" from the duke.
"I've heard naught else since I come back."
"Grandmother knew a great deal before we came home," said Little Ann.
The duke turned his attention to her with an engaged smile. His look,
his bow, his bearing, in the moment of their being presented to each
other, had seemed to Miss Alicia the most perfect thing. His fine eye
had not obviously wandered while he talked to her father, but it had
in fact been taking her in with an inclusiveness not likely to miss
agreeable points of detail.
"What is her opinion, may I ask?" he said. "What does she say?"
"Grandmother is very set in her ways, your Grace." The limpidity of
her blue eye and a flickering dimple added much to the quaint
comprehensiveness of her answer. "She says the world's that full of
fools that if they were all killed the Lord would have to begin again
with a new Adam and Eve."
"She has entire faith in Mr. Temple Barholm--as you have," put forward
his Grace.
"Mine's not faith exactly. I know him," Little Ann answered, her tone
as limpid as her eyes.
"There's more than her has faith in him," broke forth Hutchinson.
"Danged if I don't like th' way them village chaps are taking it.
They're ready to fight over it. Since they've found out what it's come
to, an' about th' lawyers comin' down, they're talkin' about gettin'
up a kind o' demonstration."
"Delightful!" ejaculated his Grace again. He leaned forward. "Quite
what I should have expected. There's a good deal of beer drunk, I
suppose."
"Plenty o' beer, but it'll do no harm." Hutchinson began to chuckle.
"They're talkin' o' gettin' out th' fife an' drum band an' marchin'
round th' village with a calico banner with `Vote for T. Tembarom'
painted on it, to show what they think of him."
The duke chuckled also.
"I wonder how he's managed it?" he laughed. "They wouldn't do it for
any of the rest of us, you know, though I've no doubt we're quite as
deserving. I am, I know."
Hutchinson stopped laughing and turned on Miss Alicia.
"What's that young woman comin' down here for?" he inquired.
"Lady Joan was engaged to Mr. James Temple Barholm," Miss Alicia
answered.
"Eh! Eh!" Hutchinson jerked out. "That'll turn her into a wildcat,
I'll warrant. She'll do all th' harm she can. I'm much obliged to you
for lettin' us come, ma'am. I want to be where I can stand by him."
"Father," said Little Ann, "what you have got to remember is that you
mustn't fly into a passion. You know you've always said it never did
any good, and it only sends the blood to your head."
"You are not nervous, Miss Hutchinson?" the duke suggested.
"About Mr. Temple Barholm? I couldn't be, your Grace. If I was to see
two policemen bringing him in handcuffed I shouldn't be nervous. I
should know the handcuffs didn't belong to him, and the policemen
would look right-down silly to me."
Miss Alicia fluttered over to fold her in her arms.
"Do let me kiss you," she said. "Do let me, Little Ann!"
Little Ann had risen at once to meet her embrace. She put a hand on
her arm.
"We don't know anything about this really," she said. "We've only
heard what people say. We haven't heard what he says. I'm going to
wait." They were all looking at her,-- the duke with such marked
interest that she turned toward him as she ended. "And if I had to
wait until I was as old as grandmother I'd wait--and nothing would
change my mind."
"And I've been lying awake at night!" softly wailed Miss Alicia.
