T. Tembarom. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ and he's not by a fat lot. He tells you what you'll like to hear, and he's not sly; but he can keep a shut mouth. That's Lancashire. Some folks can't do it even when they want to.”

      “His father came from England.”

      “That's where the lad's sense comes from. Perhaps he's Lancashire. He had a lot of good ideas about the way to get at Hadman.”

      A knock at the door broke in upon them. Mrs. Bowse presented herself, wearing a novel expression on her face. It was at once puzzled and not altogether disagreeably excited.

      “I wish you would come down into the dining-room, Little Ann.” She hesitated. “Mr. Tembaron's brought home such a queer man. He picked him up ill in the street. He wants me to let him stay with him for the night, anyhow. I don't think he's crazy, but I guess he's lost his memory. Queerest thing I ever saw. He doesn't know his name or anything.”

      “See here,” broke out Hutchinson, dropping his hands and his paper on his knee, “I'm not going to have Ann goin' down stairs to quiet lunatics.”

      “He's as quiet as a child,” Mrs. Bowse protested. “There's something pitiful about him, he seems so frightened. He's drenched to the skin.”

      “Call an ambulance and send him to the hospital,” advised Hutchinson.

      “That's what Mr. Tembarom says he can't do. It frightens him to death to speak of it. He just clings to Mr. Tembarom sort of awful, as if he thinks he'll save his life. But that isn't all,” she added in an amazed tone; “he's given Mr. Tembarom more than two thousand dollars.”

      “What!” shouted Hutchinson, bounding to his feet quite unconsciously.

      “What!” exclaimed Little Ann.

      “Just you come and look at it,” answered Mrs. Bowse, nodding her head. “There's over two thousand dollars in bills spread out on the table in the dining-room this minute. He had it in a belt pocket, and he dragged it out in the street and would make Mr. Tembarom take it. Do come and tell us what to do.”

      “I'd get him to take off his wet clothes and get into bed, and drink some hot spirits and water first,” said Little Ann. “Wouldn't you, Mrs. Bowse?”

      Hutchinson got up, newspaper in hand.

      “I say, I'd like to go down and have a look at that chap myself,” he announced.

      “If he's so frightened, perhaps—” Little Ann hesitated.

      “That's it,” put in Mrs. Bowse. “He's so nervous it'd make him worse to see another man. You'd better wait, Mr. Hutchinson.”

      Hutchinson sat down rather grumpily, and Mrs. Bowse and Little Ann went down the stairs together.

      “I feel real nervous myself,” said Mrs. Bowse, “it's so queer. But he's not crazy. He's quiet enough.”

      As they neared the bottom of the staircase Little Ann could see over the balustrade into the dining-room. The strange man was sitting by the table, his disordered, black-haired head on his arm. He looked like an exhausted thing. Tembarom was sitting by him, and was talking in an encouraging voice. He had laid a hand on one of the stranger's. On the table beside them was spread a number of bills which had evidently just been counted.

      “Here's the ladies,” said Tembarom.

      The stranger lifted his head and, having looked, rose and stood upright, waiting. It was the involuntary, mechanical action of a man who had been trained among gentlemen.

      “It's Mrs. Bowse again, and she's brought Miss Hutchinson down with her. Miss Hutchinson always knows what to do,” explained Tembarom in his friendly voice.

      The man bowed, and his bewildered eyes fixed themselves on Little Ann.

      “Thank you,” he said. “It's very kind of you. I—I am—in great trouble.”

      Little Ann went to him and smiled her motherly smile at him.

      “You're very wet,” she said. “You'll take a bad cold if you're not careful. Mrs. Bowse thinks you ought to go right to bed and have something hot to drink.”

      “It seems a long time since I was in bed,” he answered her.

      “I'm very tired. Thank you.” He drew a weary, sighing breath, but he didn't move his eyes from the girl's face. Perhaps the cessation of action in certain cells of his brain had increased action in others. He looked as though he were seeing something in Little Ann's face which might not have revealed itself so clearly to the more normal gaze.

      He moved slightly nearer to her. He was a tall man, and had to look down at her.

      “What is your name?” he asked anxiously. “Names trouble me.”

      It was Ann who drew a little nearer to him now. She had to look up, and the soft, absorbed kindness in her eyes might, Tembarom thought, have soothed a raging lion, it was so intent on its purpose.

      “My name is Ann Hutchinson; but never you mind about it now,” she said. “I'll tell it to you again. Let Mr. Tembarom take you up-stairs to bed. You'll be better in the morning.” And because his hollow eyes rested on her so fixedly she put her hand on his wet sleeve.

      “You're wet through,” she said. “That won't do.”

      He looked down at her hand and then at her face again.

      “Help me,” he pleaded, “just help me. I don't know what's happened. Have I gone mad?”

      “No,” she answered; “not a bit. It'll all come right after a while; you'll see.”

      “Will it, will it?” he begged, and then suddenly his eyes were full of tears. It was a strange thing to see him in his bewildered misery try to pull himself together, and bite his shaking lips as though he vaguely remembered that he was a man. “I beg pardon,” he faltered: “I suppose I'm ill.”

      “I don't know where to put him,” Mrs. Bowse was saying half aside; “I've not got a room empty.”

      “Put him in my bed and give me a shake-down on the floor,” said Tembarom. “That'll be all right. He doesn't want me to leave him, anyhow.”

      He turned to the money on the table.

      “Say,” he said to his guest, “there's two thousand five hundred dollars here. We've counted it to make sure. That's quite some money. And it's yours—”

      The stranger looked disturbed and made a nervous gesture.

      “Don't, don't!” he broke in. “Keep it. Some one took the rest. This was hidden. It will pay.”

      “You see he isn't real' out of his mind,” Mrs. Bowse murmured feelingly.

      “No, not real' out of it,” said Tembarom. “Say,”—as an inspiration occurred to him—“I guess maybe Miss Hutchinson will keep it. Will you, Little Ann? You can give it to him when he wants it.”

      “It's a good bit of money,” СКАЧАТЬ