T. Tembarom. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ the relation was a distant one. Until this investigation began the family knew nothing of him. The inquiry has been a tiresome one. I trust I am reaching the end of it. We have given nearly two years to following this clue.”

      “What for?” burst forth Tembarom, sitting upright.

      “Because it was necessary to find either George Temple Barholm or his son, if he had one.”

      “I'm his son, all right, but he died when I was eight years old,” Tembarom volunteered. “I don't remember much about him.”

      “You remember that he was not an American?”

      “He was English. Hated it; but he wasn't fond of America.”

      “Have you any papers belonging to him?”

      Tembarom hesitated again.

      “There's a few old letters—oh, and one of those glass photographs in a case. I believe it's my grandfather and grandmother, taken when they were married. Him on a chair, you know, and her standing with her hand on his shoulder.”

      “Can you show them to me?” Palford suggested.

      “Sure,” Tembarom answered, getting up from his seat “They're in my room. I turned them up yesterday among some other things.”

      When he left them, Mr. Palford sat gently rubbing his chin. Hutchinson wanted to burst forth with questions, but he looked so remote and acidly dignified that there was a suggestion of boldness in the idea of intruding on his reflections. Hutchinson stared at him and breathed hard and short in his suspense. The stiff old chap was thinking things over and putting things together in his lawyer's way. He was entirely oblivious to his surroundings. Little Ann went on with her mending, but she wore her absorbed look, and it was not a result of her work.

      Tembarom came back with some papers in his hand. They were yellowed old letters, and on the top of the package there was a worn daguerreotype-case with broken clasp.

      “Here they are,” he said, giving them to Palford. “I guess they'd just been married,” opening the case. “Get on to her embroidered collar and big breast-pin with his picture in it. That's English enough, isn't it? He'd given it to her for a wedding-present. There's something in one of the letters about it.”

      It was the letters to which Mr. Palford gave the most attention. He read them and examined post-marks and dates. When he had finished, he rose from his chair with a slightly portentous touch of professional ceremony.

      “Yes, those are sufficiently convincing. You are a very fortunate young man. Allow me to congratulate you.”

      He did not look particularly pleased, though he extended his hand and shook Tembarom's politely. He was rigorously endeavoring to conceal that he found himself called upon to make the best of an extremely bad job. Hutchinson started forward, resting his hands on his knees and glaring with ill-suppressed excitement.

      “What's that for?” Tembarom said. He felt rather like a fool. He laughed half nervously. It seemed to be up to him to understand, and he didn't understand in the least.

      “You have, through your father's distant relationship, inherited a very magnificent property—the estate of Temple Barholm in Lancashire,” Palford began to explain, but Mr. Hutchinson sprang from his chair outright, crushing his paper in his hand.

      “Temple Barholm!” he almost shouted, “I dunnot believe thee! Why, it's one of th' oldest places in England and one of th' biggest. Th' Temple Barholms as didn't come over with th' Conqueror was there before him. Some of them was Saxon kings! And him—” pointing a stumpy, red finger disparagingly at Tembarom, aghast and incredulous—“that New York lad that's sold newspapers in the streets—you say he's come into it?”

      “Precisely.” Mr. Palford spoke with some crispness of diction. Noise and bluster annoyed him. “That is my business here. Mr. Tembarom is, in fact, Mr. Temple Temple Barholm of Temple Barholm, which you seem to have heard of.”

      “Heard of it! My mother was born in the village an' lives there yet. Art tha struck dumb, lad!” he said almost fiercely to Tembarom. “By Judd! Tha well may be!”

      Tembarom was standing holding the back of a chair. He was pale, and had once opened his mouth, and then gulped and shut it. Little Ann had dropped her sewing. His first look had leaped to her, and she had looked back straight into his eyes.

      “I'm struck something,” he said, his half-laugh slightly unsteady. “Who'd blame me?”

      “You'd better sit down,” said Little Ann. “Sudden things are upsetting.”

      He did sit down. He felt rather shaky. He touched himself on his chest and laughed again.

      “Me!” he said. “T. T.! Hully gee! It's like a turn at a vaudeville.”

      The sentiment prevailing in Hutchinson's mind seemed to verge on indignation.

      “Thee th' master of Temple Barholm!” he ejaculated. “Why, it stood for seventy thousand pound' a year!”

      “It did and it does,” said Mr. Palford, curtly. He had less and less taste for the situation. There was neither dignity nor proper sentiment in it. The young man was utterly incapable of comprehending the meaning and proportions of the extraordinary event which had befallen him. It appeared to present to him the aspect of a somewhat slangy New York joke.

      “You do not seem much impressed, Mr. Temple Barholm,” he said.

      “Oh, I'm impressed, all right,” answered Tembarom, “but, say, this thing can't be true! You couldn't make it true if you sat up all night to do it.”

      “When I go into the business details of the matter tomorrow morning you will realize the truth of it,” said Mr. Palford. “Seventy thousand pounds a year—and Temple Barholm—are not unsubstantial facts.”

      “Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, my lad—that's what it stands for!” put in Mr. Hutchinson.

      “Well,” said Tembarom, “I guess I can worry along on that if I try hard enough. I mayn't be able to keep myself in the way I've been used to, but I've got to make it do.”

      Mr. Palford stiffened. He did not know that the garish, flippant-sounding joking was the kind of defense the streets of New York had provided Mr. Temple Barholm with in many an hour when he had been a half-clad newsboy with an empty stomach, and a bundle of unsold newspapers under his arm.

      “You are jocular,” he said. “I find the New Yorkers are given to being jocular—continuously.”

      Tembarom looked at him rather searchingly. Palford wouldn't have found it possible to believe that the young man knew all about his distaste and its near approach to disgust, that he knew quite well what he thought of his ten-dollar suit, his ex-newsboy's diction, and his entire incongruousness as a factor in any circumstances connected with dignity and splendor. He would certainly not have credited the fact that though he had not the remotest idea what sort of a place Temple Barholm was, and what sort of men its long line of possessors had been, he had gained a curious knowledge of their significance through the mental attitude of their legal representative when he for a moment failed to conceal his sense of actual СКАЧАТЬ