Part 61 (2/2)
”Has she?” exclaimed Tembarom.
”Yes, sir. As blue as a baby's, sir, and as clear, though she's past eighty. And they tell me there's a quiet, steady look in it that ill- doers downright quail before. It's as if she was a kind of judge that sentenced them without speaking. They can't stand it. Oh, sir! you can depend upon old Mrs. Hutchinson as to who's been here, and even what they've thought about it. The village just flocks to her to tell her the news and get advice about things. She'd know.”
It was as a result of this that on his return from Stone Hover he dismissed the carriage at the gates and walked through them to make a visit in the village. Old Mrs. Hutchinson, sitting knitting in her chair behind the abnormally flouris.h.i.+ng fuchsias, geraniums, and campanula carpaticas in her cottage-window, looked between the banked- up flower-pots to see that Mr. Temple Barholm had opened her wicket- gate and was walking up the clean bricked path to her front door. When he knocked she called out in the broad Lancas.h.i.+re she had always spoken, ”Coom in!” When he entered he took off his hat and looked at her, friendly but hesitant, and with the expression of a young man who has not quite made up his mind as to what he is about to encounter.
”I'm Temple Temple Barholm, Mrs. Hutchinson,” he announced.
”I know that,” she answered. ”Not that tha looks loike th' Temple Barholms, but I've been watchin' thee walk an' drive past here ever since tha coom to th' place.”
She watched him steadily with an astonis.h.i.+ngly limpid pair of old eyes. They were old and young at the same time; old because they held deeps of wisdom, young because they were so alive and full of question.
”I don't know whether I ought to have come to see you or not,” he said.
”Well, tha'st coom,” she replied, going on with her knitting. ”Sit thee doun and have a bit of a chat.”
”Say!” he broke out. ”Ain't you going to shake hands with me?” He held his hand out impetuously. He knew he was all right if she'd shake hands.
”Theer's nowt agen that surely,” she answered, with a shrewd bit of a smile. She gave him her hand. ”If I was na stiff in my legs, it's my place to get up an' mak' thee a curtsey, but th' rheumatics has no respect even for th' lord o' th' manor.”
”If you got up and made me a curtsey,” Tembarom said, ”I should throw a fit. Say, Mrs. Hutchinson, I bet you know that as well as I do.”
The shrewd bit of a smile lighted her eyes as well as twinkled about her mouth.
”Sit thee doun,” she said again.
So he sat down and looked at her as straight as she looked at him.
”Tha 'd give a good bit,” she said presently, over her flas.h.i.+ng needles, ”to know how much Little Ann's tow'd me about thee.”
”I'd give a lot to know how much it'd be square to ask you to tell me about her,” he gave back to her, hesitating yet eager.
”What does tha mean by square?” she demanded.
”I mean `fair.' Can I talk to you about her at all? I promised I'd stick it out here and do as she said. She told me she wasn't going to write to me or let her father write. I've promised, and I'm not going to fall down when I've said a thing.”
”So tha coom to see her grandmother?”
He reddened, but held his head up.
”I'm not going to ask her grandmother a thing she doesn't want me to be told. But I've been up against it pretty hard lately. I read some things in the New York papers about her father and his invention, and about her traveling round with him and helping him with his business.”
”In Germany they wur,” she put in, forgetting herself. ”They're havin'
big doin's over th' invention. What Joe 'u'd do wi'out th' la.s.s I canna tell. She's doin' every bit o' th' managin' an' contrivin' wi'
them furriners--but he'll never know it. She's got a chap to travel wi' him as can talk aw th' languages under th' sun.”
Her face flushed and she stopped herself sharply.
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