Temple Barholm

“ A mass of earth and debris of all sorts suddenly gives way, burying half-a-dozen men. Two or three are dug out dead, the others not reached. There was no time to spare to dig for dead men. Some one had seen Temple Barholm near the place; he was seen no more. Ergo, he was buried with the rest. At that time, those who knew him in England felt it was the best thing that could have happened to him. It would have been if his valet had not confessed his trick, and old Temple Barholm had not died. ”

“ That little note of involuntary defense was a dangerous thing for Tembarom. He drew nearer.
“You don't want them to take me for a fool, Little Ann. You're standing up for me; that's it.”
“You can stand up for yourself, Mr. Temple Barholm, if you're not taken by surprise,” she said confidently. “If you understand things a bit, you won't be.” ”

“ Avenues and vistas were necessary—avenues through which the steps of Palford and Grimby might wander, vistas which they might explore with hesitating, investigating glances. So far, the scene remained unpromisingly blank. The American Temple Barholm had simply disappeared, as had his mysterious charge. Steps likely to lead to definite results can scarcely be taken hopefully in the case of a person who has seemed temporarily to cease to exist. ”

“ Never had Palford & Grimby on their hands a client who seemed so entirely alone. What, Mr. Palford asked himself, would he do in the enormity of Temple Barholm, which always struck one as being a place almost without limit. But that, after all, was neither here nor there. There he was. You cannot undertake to provide a man with relatives if he has none, or with acquaintances if people do not want to know him. His past having been so extraordinary, the neighborhood would naturally be rather shy of him. ”

“ You admit that Jem Temple Barholm is alive?” and realized his asinine error before the words were fully spoken.
The realization was the result of the square-shouldered swing with which T. Tembarom turned round, and the expression of his eyes as they ran over him.
“Admit!” he said. “Admit hell! He's up-stairs,” with a slight jerk of his head in the direction of the ceiling.
The duke alone did not gasp. He laughed slightly.
“We've just got here. He came down from London with me, and Sir Ormsby Galloway.” And he said it not to Palliser but to Palford and Grimby. ”

“ Palliser, it is true, suggested it was Tembarom's “cheek” which stood him in good stead. The young man from behind the counter in a Liverpool or Blackburn shop would probably have been frightened to death and afraid to open his mouth in self-revelation, whereas Temple Barholm was so entirely a bounder that he did not know he was one, and was ready to make an ass of himself to any extent. The frankest statement of the situation, if any one had so chosen to put it, would have been that he was regarded as a sort of court fool without cap or bells. ”

“ Temple Barholm intimated to you, a man of almost unlimited means has command of resources which it might not be easy to contend with if he had reason to feel himself injured.”
The fact that Captain Palliser had in a bitterly frustrated moment allowed himself to be goaded into losing his temper, and “giving away” to Tembarom the discovery on which he had felt that he could rely as a lever, did not argue that a like weakness would lead him into more dangerous indiscretion. ”

“ Temple Barholm,” she replied, shaking her head. “Even when inventions get started, they don't go off like sky-rockets.”
“She knows everything, doesn't she?” Tembarom said to Hutchinson. “Here, come and sit down. I've not seen you for 'steen years.”
She took her seat in the big arm-chair and looked at him with softly examining eyes, as though she wanted to understand him sufficiently to be able to find out something she ought to do if he needed help. ”

“ Palford's summing up of him was that he was of a type with which nothing palliative could be done. There he was. As unavoidable circumstances forced one to take him,—commonness, slanginess, appalling ignorance, and all,—one could not leave him. Fortunately, no respectable legal firm need hold itself sponsor for a “next of kin” provided by fate and the wilds of America.
The Temple Barholm estate had never, in Mr. Palford's generation, been specially agreeable to deal with. The late Mr. Temple Temple Barholm had been a client of eccentric and abominable temper. ”

“ It seemed that he had to present himself to the villagers “as an example.” If the Temple Barholm pews were empty, the villagers, not being incited to devotional exercise by his exalted presence, would feel at liberty to remain at home, and in the irreligious undress of shirt-sleeves sit and smoke their pipes, or, worse still, gather at “the Hare and Hounds” and drink beer. Also, it would not be “at all proper” not to go to church.
Pearson produced a special cut of costume for this ceremony, and Tembarom walked with Miss Alicia across the park to the square-towered Norman church. ”

“ Temple Barholm brought over from New York,” replied Burrill with a stolidity clearly expressive of distaste.
“Indeed, from New York! Why doesn’t one see him?”
“He’s not in a condition to see people, sir,” said Burrill, and Palliser’s slightly lifted eyebrow seeming to express a good deal, he added a sentence, “He’s not all there, sir.”
“From New York, and not all there. What seems to be the matter?” Palliser asked quietly. “Odd idea to bring a lunatic all the way from America. There must be asylums there.” ”

“ They themselves grinned and chuckled and nudged one another, with stares and giggles.
“I am sorry to say that in a great many places the villagers are not nearly so respectful as they used to be,” Miss Alicia explained. “In Rowcroft the children were very remiss about curtseying. It's quite sad. But Mr. Temple Barholm was very strict indeed in the matter of demanding proper respectfulness. He has turned men off their farms for incivility. The villagers of Temple Barholm have much better manners than some even a few miles away.” ”

“ They talked of the Hutchinsons, of the invention, of the business “deals” Tembarom had entered into at the outset, and of their tremendously encouraging result. It was not mere rumor that Hutchinson would end by being a rich man. The girl would be an heiress. How complex her position would be! And being of the elect who unknowingly bear with them the power that “moves the world,” how would she affect Temple Barholm and its surrounding neighborhood? ”

“ Following the dinner party at Stone Hover came many others. All the well-known carriages began to roll up the avenue to Temple Barholm. The Temple Barholm carriages also began to roll down the avenue and between the stone griffins on their way to festive gatherings of varied order. Burrill and the footmen ventured to reconsider their early plans for giving warning. It was not so bad if the country was going to take him up.
“Do you see what is happening?” Lady Mallowe said to Joan. “The man is becoming actually popular.” ”

“ One feels that one scarcely deserves it.”
CHAPTER XXVII
“Mr. Temple Barholm seems in better spirits,” Lady Mallowe said to Captain Palliser as they walked on the terrace in the starlight dusk after dinner.
Captain Palliser took his cigar from his mouth and looked at the glowing end of it.
“Has it struck you that he has been in low spirits?” he inquired speculatively. “One does not usually connect him with depression.”
“Certainly not with depression. He's an extraordinary creature. One would think he would perish from lack of the air he is used to breathing—New York air.” ”

“ There would, of course, be some pleasure in following the matter up and getting more than even with a man who had been insolent to him; but a more practical feature of the case was that if, through his alert observation and shrewd aid, Jem Temple Barholm was restored to his much-to-be-envied place in the world, a far from unnatural result would be that he might feel suitable gratitude and indebted-ness to the man who, not from actual personal liking but from a mere sense of justice, had rescued him. ”

“ Then, after watching his face for a moment or so, he added tentatively, “Would you perhaps wish us to make her acquaintance for—for any reason, sir?”
Tembarom thought the matter over speculatively. He had learned that his first liking for Pearson had been founded upon a rock. He was always to be trusted to understand, and also to apply a quite unusual intelligence to such matters as he became aware of without having been told about them.
“What I’d like would be for her to hear that there’s plenty doing at Temple Barholm; that people are coming and going all the time ”

“ Tembarom replied uncombatively. Tummas’s eyes bored deeper into him.
“Does na tha care?” he demanded.
“What should I care for? Let every fellow enjoy himself his own way.”
“Tha ’rt not a bit like one o’ the gentry,” said Tummas. “Tha ’rt quite a common chap. Tha ’rt as common as me, for aw tha foine clothes.”
“People are common enough, anyhow,” said Tembarom. “There’s nothing much commoner, is there? There’s millions of ’em everywhere—billions of ’em. None of us need put on airs.”
“Tha ’rt as common as me,” said Tummas, reflectively. “An’ yet tha owns Temple Barholm an’ aw that brass. ”

“ A load of responsibility rested upon his shoulders, to which at times he felt himself barely equal, and which men of less tough fibre would have been glad to shift upon others. Naturally, his daily cares made his hours of relaxation all the more pleasant. Mrs. Barholm's influence upon him was a gentle and soothing one, and in Anice he found a subtle inspiration. ”

“ This was in his feeling for Anice.
Duty called Paul frequently to the house, and his position with regard to its inhabitants was necessarily familiar. Mr. Barholm did not spare his curate; he was ready to delegate to him all labor in which he was not specially interested himself, or which he regarded as scarcely worthy of his mettle.
"Grace makes himself very useful in some cases," he would say; "a certain kind of work suits him, and he is able to do himself justice in it. He is a worthy enough young fellow in a certain groove, but it is always best to confine him to that groove." ”

“ I am sure it is always best, that conscientious, thinking people—and Mr. Grace is a thinking man—should have paths of their own."
Mr. Barholm pushed his hair from his forehead. His own obstinacy confronted him sometimes through Anice, in a finer, more baffling form.
"Grace is a young man, my dear," he said, "and—and not a very strong-minded one."
"I cannot believe that is true," said Anice. "I do not think we can blame his mind. It is his body that is not strong. Mr. Grace himself has more power than you and mamma and myself all put together." ”

“ You don’t particularly love me. Well, I guess I’ll toddle.” He arose and stood uncertainly a moment before he moved toward the door.
“What will you do?” asked Ted anxiously. “If—if you get put on ‘pro’ we’ll be in a nasty fix! Hang it, Saunders, you’ve got to do something, you know. Crouch would last about two innings in the Temple game! Why don’t you see Plaister to-morrow and get him to wait another week? After next Saturday it wouldn’t matter.”
“I’ve talked to him until I’m tired,” replied Hal wearily. “It’s no good. Maybe he won’t do it, or maybe I can scrape up the money by Monday. ”

“ Ted laid a hand on the other’s arm and took a [21] firm grip there. “Cut out the mirth,” he said. “You go in and pitch ball, Saunders. Get me? Don’t you dare let up for a second. If we——”
Hal shook him off. “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded. “Sun-stroke? You’re a fine one to make cracks like that! Beat it, kid!”
“Listen to me,” said Ted earnestly, dropping his voice. “If Temple wins this game I’ll go to ‘Jerry’ and tell him what I know. I mean it, Saunders!”
“Why, you little rotter!” gasped the pitcher.
“That’s all right. You heard me. You pitch ball, Saunders!” ”

“ Barholm to his curate, “well! you see Anice understands these people, and they understand her. She has the faculty of understanding them. There is nothing, you may be assured, Grace, like understanding the lower orders, and entering into their feelings.”
There was one member of Riggan society who had ranged himself among Miss Barholm's disciples from the date of his first acquaintance with her, who was her staunch friend and adviser from that time forward—the young master of “th' best tarrier i' Riggan.” ”

“ In the eleventh the strain began to show. Hal passed the first man up, the second hit safely, the third struck out, the fourth laid down a bunt in front of the plate. Temple shouted and raved in delight. But Hal was still master. Another strike-out averted the threatened disaster. Warwick went in in her half with Captain Tempest up. George tried hard to deliver, but made an easy out, third to first. The next batter had no better luck. The third was Billy Whipple. Billy was known as a fair batsman, although to-day he had signally failed. Maybe Loring eased up a trifle. ”

“ Brown."
"I am indeed, Miss Temple. All my friends admit that. But now that you are here—by the way, I came to see Mr. Temple. Is he at home?"
"I am expecting him every moment."
"Oh, well, I'm disappointed; but I guess I will bear up for awhile— until he comes, you know."
"I thought your last interview with him was not so pleasant that you would so soon seek another."
"The fact is, Alma, we both lost our tempers a bit, and no good ever comes of that. You can't conduct business in a heat, you know." ”