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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1921-11-18, Page 7NOVEMBER 18, 1921. a lady before in his life and he fa* nix ouzo* a'. i • T. Tembarom. By -. Hodgson Burnett as If you were a godetess. Go the billiard -room this *stem, and . all'•a woman can. Gol' ,And she tually stamped her foot on the pet. Joan's thunderecolored eyes see to grow larger els she stared at Her breast lifted itself, and her f slowly turned pale. Perhaps—else thought it wildly—people sometimes Frances did die of feelings like this. "He would crawl at your feet," her mother went on, pursuing what she felt sure was her atdvantage. She was so sure of it that she added words only a• fool or a woman half hysteric with rage would have added. "You nsi-live in te very house ou (Continued from laweek) ould have limedin with Jem Temp lagle • on "You bhink you can take advantage .g veno!yom" tho,dnrnme he could have of that!" she said. "Don't trust your- self too far. Do you imagine that She saw the crassness of her blun- just when all might go well for .me had the next moment. If she had el will allow you to spoil everything?" had anadvantage, she had to it. "How can I spoil everything?" Wickedly, without a touch of mirth, Soto-� ulursg cu s d0 tit sumo -f us rue. „�' erattemorEpuct., tt FITS and Bite—dm loon ear- 1 home treatment. t�eea• BU��rsrrAsaqe�4 7�oetwonnls from Wrpooh „f n orM orra-Wifn eon rlu+ae it'a11 wed Atdcrea aura. rl `�`' tortca her. 2607 f3►Jatu a �ts -3. U aulo-uutas.B, TOrssacp Toronto --William Briggs.. B behaving asJoan laughed in her face. " y K you have been be- "Jew's house and Jem's money— having since we came here—refusing and the New York newsboy in his to make a home for yourself; by shoes," she flung at her. "T. Tem - hanging around my neck so that it b 1' will appear that any one who takes arum to the with unto one fay down me must take hatu also:' ono a deathbed. T. Tembarom!" was "There are servants outside," Joan i• her,Lady Mallowge houghtng aga ny warned her. -Joan slipped into a chair and dropped "You shall not stop me!" cried Lady !alallowe, her head and hidden face on the table "You cannt stop yourself;" said'"Ohl 'Mot)terl !Mother!" she ended Joan. "That is the worst of it. It "Oh! Jem! Jem!" Was she sobbing h ore trying tome to is bad enough when we stand and hies sobbing back? There was no time to at each other in a stage whisper; be lost. Her another had -never but when you lose control ver your- known a scene to end in this way self and raise your voice--" before. "I eame in .here to tell you that "Crying!" there was absolute spite this is your last chance. I shall never in her voice. "That shows you know . give you another. Do you know how what you are in for, at all events. old you are?" But I've said my last word.* What I shall soon be twenty-seven," does it matter to me, after all? Joan answered. "I wish I were a You're in the trap. I'm not. Get out hundred. Then it would all be over." as best you can. I've done with you." "But it will not be over for years She turned her back and went out and years and years," her another of the room—as she had come into flung back at her. "Have you forgot- it—with a sweep Joan would have ten that the very rags you wear are smiled at as rather vulgar if she had not paid for?" seen it. As a child in the nursery, "No, I have not forgotten." The she had often seen that her ladyship scene was working itself up on the was vulgar. old lines, as Joan had' known it would. But she did not see the sweep be - Her mother never failed to say the cause her face was hidden. Some - same things, every time such a scene thing in her had broken this time, took place. ; as her mother had felt. That bitter, "You will get no more such rags— sordid truth, driven home as it had paid or unpaid for. What do you ex2 been, had done it. Who had time to pect to do? You don't know how to remember denials, or lies proved to be work, and if you did no decent wo- lies? Nobody in the world. Who had man would employ you. You are too time to give to the defense of a dead good-looking and too bad-tempered." man? There was not time enough to Joan knew she was perfectly right. give to living ones. It was true— Knowing it, she remained silent, and true! When a man is dead, it is too her silence added to -her mother's late. The wall had built itself until helpless rage. She moved a step near- it reached her sky; but it was not er to her and flung the javelin whieh the wall she bent her head and sob - she always knew would strike deep. bed over. It was that suddenly she "You h-ve made yourself a laugh-- had seen again Jem's face as he had ing-stock for all London for years. stood with slow-growing pallor, and You are 1..ad about a man who dis- looked round at the ring of eyes which graced an ! ruined himself." ' stared at him; Jem's fetce as he strode it She saw the javelin quiver as it by her without a glance and went out struck; but .loan's voice as it answer- of the room. She forgot everything ed her hada quality of low and dead -else on earth. She forgot where she ly steadiness. was. She was eighteen -again, and "You hay.2 said that a thousand she sobbed in her arms as eighteen times, and ono will say it another sobs when its heart is torn from it. thousand—though you know the . "Oh Jem! Jem," she cried. "If story was a ]ie and was proved to be you were only in the same world with one." / me! If you were just in the same Lady Mallowe knew her way thor-world!" oughly. She had forgotten all else, indeed. Who remembers the denials? What She forgot too long. She did not the world remembers is that Jem ' know how long. It seemed that no Temple Barholm was stamped as a more than a few minutes had passed cheat and a trickster. No one has•before she was without warning time to remember the other thing. struck with the shock of feeling that He is dead—dead! When a man's ; some one was in the room with her, dead it's too late." standing near her, looking at her. She She was desperate enough to drive , had been orad not to remember that her javelin home deeper than she had . exactly this thing would be sure to ever chanced to drive it before. The happen, by some abominable chance. truth—the awful truth she uttered ` Her movement as she rose was al - shook Joan from hear to foot. She most violent, she could not hold, her - sprang up and stood before her in self still, and her face was horribly heart -wrung fury. i wet with shameless, unconcealable "Oh! You are a hideously cruel ; tears. Shameless she felt them-inde- woman!" she cried. They say even cent—a sort of nudity of the soul, If tigers care for their young! But you it had been a servant who had in- -you can say that to me. 'When a tnided, or if it had been Palliser it man's dead, it's too late.'" would have been intolerable enough. "It is too late—it is too late!" .Lady But it was T. Tembarom who con- Mallowe persisted. Why had not she fronted her with hia common face, struck this note before? It was moved mysteriously by some feeling breaking her will: "I would say any- she resented even more than she re - thing to bring you to your senses." sented his presence. He was too Joan bhgan to move restlessly to grossly ignorant to know that a man and fro. "Oh, what a fool I am!" ahe ex- claimed. "As if you could understand —as if you ccoQuld care!" Struggle as she might to be defiant. make some apology. she was breaking, Lady Mallowe re- "Say! Lady Joan!" he began. "I peated to herself. She followed her beg your pardon. I didn't want to as a hunter might have followed a butt in." young leopardess with a wound in its "Then go away," she commanded. flank. "Instantly instantly." "I came. here because it is your last She knew he must see that she chance. Palliser knew what he was spoke almost, through her teeth in saying when he made a joke of it just her effort to control her sobbing now. He knew it wasn't- a joke. You .breath. But he made no move toward anlghthavebeenthe Duchess ofWerth- leaving her. He even drew nearer, shire; You might have been Lady St. looking at her in •a sort of meditative Maur, with a husband with millions. obstinate way. And here you are. You know what's "N -no," he replied, deliberately. "I before you—when I am out of the guess—I won't." trap." "You won't?" Lady Joan repeated Joan laughed. It was a wild little after him: "Then I will." laugh and she felt there was no sense He made a stride forward and laid in it. his hand on her arm. "I might apply for a place in Miss "No. Not on your life. You won't, Alicia's Home for Decayed Gentle- either—if I can help it. And you're women," she said. going to let me help it." Ladyall Mallowe nodded her head fier- .Almost any one but herself—any eely one, at least, who did not resent his "Apply, then. There will be no very existence—would have felt the place for you in the borne I am going drop in his voice which suddenly to live in," she retorted. struck the note of boyish, friendly ap- JoaCn ceased moving about. She peal in the last sentence. "You're was about to hear the one argument going to let me," he repeated. that was new. She stood looking dodo at the dar- "You may as well tell me," she said ing, unconscious hand on her arm. wearily. "I suppose," she said, with cutting slowness, "that you do not even know that you are insolent. Take your hand away," in arrogant command. He removed it with an unabashed half -smile. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I didn't even know I'd put it there. It was a break—but I wanted to keep you," That he not only wanted to keep her of breeding, having entered by chance would have turned and gone away, professing not to have seen. He seem- ed to think—the dolt!—that he must "I have had a letter from Sir Moses Itfonaldini. He is to be at Broome Haughton. He is going there pur- posely to meet me. What he writes can mean only one thing. Ile means to ask nit} to marry him. I'm your mother, end Pm nearly twenty years older than you; but you see that I'm out of the trap first-" "I knew you would be," answered Jean. "He detests you," Lady Msliowo went on."Be will not heal of your living with us—or even near ns. • He says you are old enough to take care of yourself. Take my advice. I am doing you a good tarn in giving it. This New York newsboy is mad over you. If he hadn't been we should have been bundled out of the 'house before .this. H* never has spoken to !(/RINEYouCamtetBt4 Sun YES New Eyes Oat yen can Promote at Clean, veeldiT f ecdltlea lake Marine Eye Remedy Night end Morning." keep yew Styes Mts. neer Ane N'saltkr. W roe for Free Lye Care Boot:, Nabs rye Itasdy C0.,e Gat Otis strsr..Ctkise but bitandedto d w was apparent. 'His air was neither rough nor brutal but he had ingeniously placed himself in the outjet between, the big table and the way to the do . He put his hands •ih Me pockets in his vulgar, unconscious way, and watched her. "Say; Lady Joan!" he brolc0 forth, in the freak outburst of a man who wants to get something over. "I should be a fool if I didn't see that you're up against it --;card! What's the matter?" His voice dropped a- gain. There was soliething in the drop this time which—perhaps because of her recent emotion—sounded to her almost -as if he were asking the ques- tion with the protecting sympathy of the tone one would use in speaking to a child. How dare he! But it. came home to her that Jem had once said "What's the matter?" to her iu the same way. "Do youthink it likely that I should confide in you?" she said, and inward- ly quaked at the memory as she said it. • 'No," he answered, considers g the matter gravely. "It's not likel' the why things look to you now. But if you knew me better_perhapd it would be likely." "I once explained to you that. I do not intend to know you better," she gave. answer. He nodded acquiescently. "Yes. I got on to that. And it's because it's up to me that I came out here to tell you something I want you to know before you go away. I'm going to confide in you." "Cannot even you see that I am not in the mood to accept confidences?" she exclainied. "Yes, I can. But you're going to accept this one," steadily. "No," as she made a swift movement. 'I'm not going to clear the way till I've done." I insist!" she cried. "If you were—" He put out his hand, but not to touch her. "I know what you're going to say. If I were a gentleman—. Well, .tm not laying claim to that—but I'm a sort of a man, anyhow, though you mayn't think it. And you're going to listen." She began to stare at him. It was not the ridiculous boyish drop in his voice which arrested .her attention. It was a fantastic, incongruous, wholly indifferent thing. He had suddenly dropped his slouch and stood upright. Did he realize that he had slung his words at her as if they were an order given with the ring of authority? "I've not bucked against anything you've said or done since you've been here," he went on, speaking fast and grimly. "I didn't mean to. I had my reasons. There were things that I'd have given a good deal to say to you and ask you about, but you wouldn't let me. You wouldn't give me a chance to square things for you —if they could be squared. You threw me down every time 1 tried!" He was too wildly incomprehensible with his changes from humanness to folly. Remembering what he had at- tempted to say on the day he had followed her in the avenue, she was inflamed again. "What in the name of New York slang does that mean?" she de- manded. "Never mind New York," he ans- wered, cool as well as grim. "A fel- low that's learned slang in the streets has learned something else as well. He's learned to keep his eyes open. He's on to a way of seeing 'things. And what I've seen is that you're so doggone miserable that—that you're almost down and out." This time she spoke to him in the voice with the quality of deadliness in it which she had used to her mo- ther, • "Do you think that because you are in your own house you can be as in- trusively insulting as you choose?" she said. "No, I don't," he answered. "What 1 think is quite different. I think that if a manhasa house of his own, and there's any one in big trouble under the roof of it—a woman most of all —he's a cheap skate if he don't get busy and try to help—just plain, straight help." He saw in her eyes all her concen- trated disdain of him, but he went on, still obstinate and cool and grim. "I guess 'help' is too big a word just yet. That may come later, and it mayn't. What I'm going to try at now is making it easier for you—just easier." Her contemptuous gesture register- ed no impression on him as he paused a moment and looked fixedly at her. "You just hate me, don't you?" it was a mere statement which couldn't have been more impersonal to him- self if he had been made of wood. "That's all right. I seem like a low- down intruder to you. Well, that's all right, too: But what ain't all right is what your mother has set you on to thinking about me. You'd never have thought it yourself. You'd have known better." "What," fiercely, "is that?" "That I'm mutt enough to have a mash on you." The common slangy crassness of it was a kind of shock. She caught her breath and merely stared at him. But he was not staring at her; he was simply looking straight into her face, and it -amazingly flashed upon her that the extraordinary words were so entirely unembarrassed and direct that theywere actually not offensive. He was merely telling her some- thing in his own way, not eating the least about his own effect, but abso- lutely determined that she should hear and understand it. Her caught breath ended in some- thing which was like a half -laugh. His queen, sharp, incomprehensible face, lie queer, unmoved voice were tib exi -stInnsry'1A ything aiM bad evtrer seas or j1rke and before, "I don't want Mk be b d what J want to ear' may seem kind of that way 4o, yew. But ip ain't. Anyhow, I gusto 4'1I reliefs your Mind. Lady Joaf,..you're a looker— you're a beaut fro* .liesutvdtte. If -1 were your kind, and, things were 'dif- ferent I'd be MST about pro— crazy! But I'm net, your kind --and things are different," He drew a step nearer still to her in his intentness. "They're this differ nt. Why, Lady Joan!. I'm dead stock on another VIA!" She caught her breath again, lean- ing forward. "Another—!" "She says.she'ei'.not a lady; she .threw Me down just because ell this darned money came to me," he .hast- ened on, and Suddenly he Was im- perturbable no longer+ !rut flushed and boyish, and more of New York than ever. "She's a little bit of a quiet thing and she drops, her h'a, but gee—t You're a looker—you're a queen and she's not.. But Little Ann Itutchinson—Why, Lady Joan, as far as this boy's coneerned"—and he oddly touched himself un the breast —"She makes you' look like .thirty cents." Joan quickly at down on the chair she had just left. She rested an el- bow on the table and shaded her face with her hand. She was not laughing; she scarcely knew what she was do- ing or feeling. "You are in love with Ann Hutch- inson," she said, in a low voice. "Am I?" he answered hotly. "Well, I should smile!" He disdained to say more. Then she began to know what she felt. There came -back to her in flashes scenes from the past weeks in which she had done her worst by him; in which she -had swept him a- side, loathed him, set her feet on him, used the devices of an ingenious demon to diconsfit and show him at his poorest and least ready. And he had not been giving a thought to the thing for which she bad striven to punish him. And he plainly did not even hate her. His mind was clear, as water is clear. He had come back to her this evening to do her a good turn—a good turn. knowing what she was capable of in the way of ar- rogance and villainous temper, he had determined to do her—in spite of herself—a good turn. "I don't understand yell," she fal- tered. "I know you don't. But it's only because I'm so dead ea;y to under- stand. There's nothing to find out. I'm just friendly—friendly—that's all." "You would have been friends with me!" she exclaimed. "You would have told me, and I wouldn't let you! Oh!" with an impulsive flinging out of her hand to him, "yon good—good fellow!" "Good be darned!" hr answered, taking the hand at once. "You are good to tell ole! I have behaved like a devil to you. But oh! if you only knew!" His face became mature' again; but he took a most informal seat on the edge of the table near her. "I do know—part of it. That's why I've been trying to be friends with you all the time." He said his next words deliberately. "If 1 was the woman Jem Temple •Barholm had loved wouldn't it have driven me mad to see another man in his place—and remember what was done to him. I never even saw him, but, good God! —she saw his hand clench itself— "when I think of it 1 want to kill somebody! I want to kill half a dozen. Why didn't they know it couldn't be true of a fellow like that!" She sat up stiffly and watched him. "Do—you—feel see that—about him?" "Do I!" red -hotly. "There were men there that knew him! There were women -there that knew him! Why wasn't there jtist one to stand by him? A man that's been square all his life doesn't turn into a card- sharp in a night. Damn foots! i' beg your pardon," hastily. And then as hastily again: "tio, I mean it. Damn fools!" "Oh!" she gasped, just once. Her passionate eyes were suddenly blinded with tears. She caught at his clenched hand and dragged it to her, letting her face drop on it and crying like a child. The way he took her utter breaking down was just like him and like no one else. He put the other hand on her shoulder and spoke to her exactly as he had spoken to Miss Alicia on that first afternoon.a "Don't you mind me. Lady Joan," he said. "Don't you mind me a bit. I'll turn my back. I'll go into the billiard -room and keep them playing until you get away up -stairs. Now we understand each other, it'll be bet- ter for both of us." "No, don't go! Don't!" she begged. "It. is so wonderful to find some one who sees the cruelty of it." She spoke fast and passionately. "No one would listen to any defense of him. My mother simply raved when I said what you are saying." "Do you want"—he put it to her with a curious comprehending of her emotion,—'to talk about him? Would it do you good?" "Yes! Yes! I have never talked to any one. There has hcen no one to listen." "Talk all you want." he answered, with immense gentleness. "I'm here." "I can't understand it even now, but he would not see mel" she broke out. "r was half mad. I wrote, and he would not answer. I went to his chambers when I heard he was going to leave England. I went to beg him to take .me with him, married or un- married. I would have gone on my knees to him. He was gonel Oh, why?" Why? "You didn't think he'd gone because be didn't love you?" he put it to her quite literally and unsentimentally. "You knew better than that?" "How could I he sure of anything! When he left the room that awful night lie would net look at me! He would not look at mel" "Since I've been here I've been ' reading a lot of novels. and I've found out a lot of things about fellows fMet, are not the common, practical rite Bow, be ween'+. He'd Brad pretty much like A fellow in neY01 a guttas. What's *truck Inc about Oat Bort is tbat they titin* they hath to make noble sacrseces, and they'll just- walk all over a woman because they won't do anything to hurt her. There's not a. bit of eenaa is it, but that was what lie was doing. He believed be was doing the square thing by you— and you may bet your life it hurt him like bell. I beg your, pardon— but that's the word --hut plain hell." °I wad only a girl. He was like iron, He went away alone. He was killed, and when he was dead the truth was told." That's what I've remembered"._-. quite slowly—"every time I've look- ed at you. By gee! I'd have stood anything from a woman that had suffered as nttsgh aa that."' It made her cry—his genuineness— and she did not care in the least that the. tears' streamed down her cheeks. How he had stood things! How he had borne, in that odd, un- impressive way, insolence and ar- rogance for which she ought to have been beaten and blackballed by de- cent society! She could scarcely bear it. Oh! to think it should have been you,' she wept, "just you who un- derstood!" "Well," he answered speculatively, "I mightn't have understood as well if it hadn't been for Ann. By jingo! I used to lie awake at night some- times thinIeinq'supposing it had been Ann and me!' I'd Hort of work it out as it might have happened in New York—at the office of the Sunday Earth. Supposing some fellow that'd had a grouch against me had man- aged it so that Galton thought I'd been getting away with money that didn't belong to me—Axing up my ex- pense account, or worse. And Gal- ton wouldn't listen to what I said, and fired me; and I couldn't get a job anywhere else because I was down and out for good. And nobody would listen. And I was killed with- out clearing myself. And Little Ann was left to stand it—Little Ann! Old Hutchinson wouldn't listen, I know that: And it would. be all abut up burning in her big little heart—burn- ing. And T. T. dead, and not a word to say for himself. Jehoshaphat!"— taking out his handkerchief and touch- ing his forehead—"it used to make the cold sweat start out on me. It's doing dt now. Ann and me might have been Jem and you. That's why I understood." He put out his hand and caught hers and frankly squeezed it—squeez- ed it hard; and the unconventional clutch was a wonderful thing to her. "It's all right now, ain't it?" he said. "We've got it straightened out. You'll not be afraid to come back here if your mother wants you to." He stopped for a moment and then went on with something of hesita- tion: "We don't want to talk about your mother. We can't. But I un- ertand her, too. Folks are different from each other in their ways. She's different from you. I'll—I'!! straight- en it out with her if you like." "Nothing will need straightening out after I tell her that you are go- ing to marry little Ann Hutchinson," said Joan, with a half -smile. "And that you were engaged to her before you saw me." "Well, that does sort of finish things up, doesn't it?" said T. Tembarom. He looked at her so speculatively for a moment after this that she won- dered whether he had something more to say. He had. "There's something I want to ask you," he ventured. "Ask anything." "Do you know any one—just any one—who has a photo—just any old photo—of Jem Temple Barholm?" She was rather puzzled. "Yes. I know a woman Who has worn one for nearly eight years. Do you want to sec it?" "I'd give a good deal to," was his answer. She took a flat locket from her dress and handed it to hiin. "Women don't wear lockets in these days." He could barely hear her voice because it was so low. "But I've never taken it off. I want him near my heart. It's Jem!" He held it on the palm of his hand And stood under the light, studying it asif he wanted to be sure he wouldn't forget it. "It's—sorter like that picture of Miles Hugo, ain't it?" he suggested. ' Continued next week. ?I/ 11irniitlit",11Ii111t10111(1h,;:-ittUltgl.blHttHt11111$11f i1SN111YN cZileavatede c o, ossii ilafue tn. eariata is this iertta►re New Modern© . BRUNSWI.CK for only. $156; Fayour hoitme imfriediately. 7uito% artopayt a nce. ,Wear -Cm vasie-then deme W ' J. Walker P. Son If BEAFOSTH., i\, �tnnfiZimtinwiliilllllfifnuun!/nuuuuf untauTnd a llf alb MAD+ IN CANADA The Big Plug 2Oconts YOU'LL say in; good and you'll appreciate the value you get in the big economical plug. MIISTER PLUG Mfi SOK 51 The First Bottle of Carnol Brought Relief.... 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