T. Tembarom Part 30

"Oh, please, Mr. Temple Barholm!" she fluttered, proceeding to explain hurriedly, as though he without doubt understood the situation. "I should of course have gone away at once after the late Mr. Temple Barholm died, but--but I really had nowhere to go--and was kindly allowed to remain until about two months ago, when I went to make a visit. I fully intended to remove my little belongings before you arrived, but I was detained by illness and could not return until this morning to pack up. I understood you were in the park, and I remembered I had left my knitting-bag here." She glanced nervously about the room, and seemed to catch sight of something on a remote corner table. "Oh, there it is. May I take it?" she said, looking at him appealingly. "It was a kind present from a dear lost friend, and-- and--" She paused, seeing his puzzled and totally non-comprehending air. It was plainly the first moment it had dawned upon her that he did not know what she was talking about. She took a small, alarmed step toward him.

"Oh, I BEG your pardon," she exclaimed in delicate anguish. "I'm afraid you don't know who I am. Perhaps Mr. Palford forgot to mention me. Indeed, why should he mention me? There were so many more important things. I am a sort of distant--VERY distant relation of yours. My name is Alicia Temple Barholm."

Tembarom was relieved. But she actually hadn't made a move toward the knitting-bag. She seemed afraid to do it until he gave her permission.

He walked over to the corner table and brought it to her, smiling broadly.

"Here it is," he said. "I'm glad you left it. I'm very happy to be acquainted with you, Miss Alicia."

He was glad just to see her looking up at him with her timid, refined, intensely feminine appeal. Why she vaguely brought back something that reminded him of Ann he could not have told. He knew nothing whatever of types early-Victorian or late.

He took her hand, evidently to her greatest possible amazement, and shook it heartily. She knew nothing whatever of the New York street type, and it made her gasp for breath, but naturally with an allayed terror.

"Gee!" he exclaimed whole-heartedly, "I'm glad to find out I've got a relation. I thought I hadn't one in the world. Won't you sit down?" He was drawing her toward his own easy-chair. But he really didn't know, she was agitatedly thinking. She really must tell him. He seemed so good tempered and--and DIFFERENT. She herself was not aware of the enormous significance which lay in that word "different." There must be no risk of her seeming to presume upon his lack of knowledge.

"It is MOST kind of you," she said with grateful emphasis, "but I mustn't sit down and detain you. I can explain in a few words--if I may."

He positively still held her hand in the oddest, natural, boyish way, and before she knew what she was doing he had made her take the chair- -quite MADE her.

"Well, just sit down and explain," he said. "I wish to thunder you would detain me. Take all the time you like. I want to hear all about it--honest Injun."

There was a cushion in the chair, and as he talked, he pulled it out and began to arrange it behind her, still in the most natural and matter-of-fact way--so natural and matter-of-fact, indeed, that its very natural matter-of-factedness took her breath away.

"Is that fixed all right?" he asked.

Being a little lady, she could only accept his extraordinary friendliness with grateful appreciation, though she could not help fluttering a little in her bewilderment.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Temple Barholm," she said.

He sat down on the square ottoman facing her, and leaned forward with an air of making a frank confession.

"Guess what I was thinking to myself two minutes before you came in? I was thinking, `Lord, I'm lonesome--just sick lonesome!' And then I opened my eyes and looked-- and there was a relation! Hully gee! I call that luck!"

"Dear me!" she said, shyly delighted. "DO you, Mr. Temple Barholm-- REALLY?"

Her formal little way of saying his name was like Ann's.

"Do I? I'm tickled to death. My mother died when I was ten, and I've never had any women kin-folks."

"Poor bo--" She had nearly said "Poor boy!" and only checked the familiarity just in time--" Poor Mr. Temple Barholm!"

"Say, what are we two to each other, anyhow?" He put it to her with great interest.

"It is a very distant relationship, if it is one at all," she answered. "You see, I was only a second cousin to the late Mr. Temple Barholm, and I had not really the SLIGHTEST claim upon him." She placed pathetic emphasis on the fact. "It was most generous of him to be so kind to me. When my poor father died and I was left quite penniless, he gave me a--a sort of home here."

"A sort of home?" Tembarom repeated.

"My father was a clergyman in VERY straitened circ.u.mstances. We had barely enough to live upon--barely. He could leave me nothing. It actually seemed as if I should have to starve --it did, indeed." There was a delicate quiver in her voice. "And though the late Mr. Temple Barholm had a great antipathy to ladies, he was so--so n.o.ble as to send word to me that there were a hundred and fifty rooms in his house, and that if I would keep out of his way I might live in one of them."

"That was n.o.ble," commented her distant relative.

"Oh, yes, indeed, especially when one considers how he disliked the opposite s.e.x and what a recluse he was. He could not endure ladies. I scarcely ever saw him. My room was in quite a remote wing of the house, and I never went out if I knew he was in the park. I was most careful. And when he died of course I knew I must go away."

Tembarom was watching her almost tenderly.

"Where did you go?"

"To a kind clergyman in Shropshire who thought he might help me."

"How was he going to do it?"

She answered with an effort to steady a somewhat lowered and hesitating voice.

"There was near his parish a very nice--charity,"--her breath caught itself pathetically,--"some most comfortable almshouses for decayed gentlewomen. He thought he might be able to use his influence to get me into one." She paused and smiled, but her small, wrinkled hands held each other closely.

Tembarom looked away. He spoke as though to himself, and without knowing that he was thinking aloud.

"Almshouses!" he said. "Wouldn't that jolt you!" He turned on her again with a change to cheerful concern. "Say, that cushion of yours ain't comfortable. I 'm going to get you another one." He jumped up and, taking one from a sofa, began to arrange it behind her dexterously.

"But I mustn't trouble you any longer. I must go, really," she said, half rising nervously. He put a hand on her shoulder and made her sit again.

"Go where?" he said. "Just lean back on that cushion, Miss Alicia. For the next few minutes this is going to be MY funeral."

She was at once startled and uncomprehending. What an extraordinary expression! What COULD it mean?

"F--funeral?" she stammered.

Suddenly he seemed somehow to have changed. He looked as serious as though he was beginning to think out something all at once. What was he going to say?

"That's New York slang," he answered. "It means that I want to explain myself to you and ask a few questions."

"Certainly, certainly, Mr. Temple Barholm."

He leaned his back against the mantel, and went into the matter practically.

"First off, haven't you ANY folks?" Then, answering her puzzled look, added, "I mean relations."

Miss Alicia gently shook her head.

"No sisters or brothers or uncles or aunts or cousins?"

She shook her head again.

He hesitated a moment, putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again awkwardly as he looked down at her.

"Now here's where I'm up against it," he went on. "I don't want to be too fresh or to b.u.t.t in, but--didn't old Temple Barholm leave you ANY money?"

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Dear me! no! I couldn't possibly EXPECT such a thing."

He gazed at her as though considering the situation. "Couldn't you?"