The chief objection to Temple Barholm in Tembarom's mind was that it was too big for any human use.That at least was how it struck him.
The entrance was too big, the stairs were too wide, the rooms too broad and too long and too high to allow of eyes accustomed to hall bedrooms adjusting their vision without discomfort.The dining-room in which the new owner took his first meal in company with Mr.Palford, and attended by the large, serious man who wore no livery and three tall footmen who did, was of a size and stateliness which made him feel homesick for Mrs.Bowse's dining-room, with its two hurried, incompetent, and often-changed waitresses and its prevailing friendly custom of pushing things across the table to save time.Meals were quickly disposed of at Mrs.Bowse's.Everybody was due up-town or down-town, and regarded food as an unavoidable, because necessary, interference with more urgent business.At Temple Barholm one sat half the night-- this was the impression made upon Tembarom--watching things being brought in and taken out of the room, carved on a huge buffet, and passed from one man to another; and when they were brought solemnly to you, if you turned them down, it seemed that the whole ceremony had to be gone through with again.All sorts of silver knives, forks, and spoons were given to one and taken away, and half a dozen sorts of glasses stood by your plate; and if you made a move to do anything for yourself, the man out of livery stopped you as though you were too big a fool to be trusted.The food was all right, but when you knew what anything was, and were inclined to welcome it as an old friend, it was given to you in some way that made you get rattled.
With all the swell dishes, you had no butter-plate, and ice seemed scarce, and the dead, still way the servants moved about gave you a sort of feeling that you were at a funeral and that it wasn't decent to talk so long as the remains were in the room.The head-man and the foot-men seemed to get on by signs, though Tembarom never saw them making any; and their faces never changed for a moment.Once or twice he tried a joke, addressing it to Mr.Palford, to see what would happen.But as Mr.Palford did not seem to see the humor of it, and gave him the "glassy eye," and neither the head-man nor the footmen seemed to hear it, he thought that perhaps they didn't know it was a joke; and if they didn't, and they thought anything at all, they must think he was dippy.The dinner was a deadly, though sumptuous, meal, and long drawn out, when measured by meals at Mrs.Bowse's.He did not know, as Mr.Palford did, that it was perfect, and served with a finished dexterity that was also perfection.
Mr.Palford, however, was himself relieved when it was at an end.He had sat at dinner with the late Mr.Temple Barholm in his day, and had seen him also served by the owners of impassive countenances; but he had been aware that whatsoever of secret dislike and resentment was concealed by them, there lay behind their immovability an acceptance of the fact that he represented, even in his most objectionable humors, centuries of accustomedness to respectful service and of knowledge of his right and power to claim it.The solicitor was keenly aware of the silent comments being made upon the tweed suit and brown necktie and on the manner in which their wearer boldly chose the wrong fork or erroneously made use of a knife or spoon.Later in the evening, in the servants' hall, the comment would not be silent, and there could be no doubt of what its character would be.There would be laughter and the relating of incidents.Housemaids and still-room maids would giggle, and kitchen-maids and boot-boys would grin and whisper in servile tribute to the witticisms of the superior servants.
After dinner the rest of the evening could at least be spent in talk about business matters.There still remained details to be enlarged upon before Palford himself returned to Lincoln's Inn and left Mr.
Temple Barholm to the care of the steward of his estate.It was not difficult to talk to him when the sole subject of conversation was of a business nature.
Before they parted for the night the mystery of the arrangements made for Strangeways had been cleared.In fact, Mr.Temple Barholm made no mystery of them.He did not seem ignorant of the fact that what he had chosen to do was unusual, but he did not appear hampered or embarrassed by the knowledge.His remarks on the subject were entirely civil and were far from actually suggesting that his singular conduct was purely his own business and none of his solicitor's; but for a moment or so Mr.Palford was privately just a trifle annoyed.The Hutchinsons had traveled from London with Strangeways in their care the day before.He would have been unhappy and disturbed if he had been obliged to travel with Mr.Palford, who was a stranger to him, and Miss Hutchinson had a soothing effect on him.Strangeways was for the present comfortably installed as a guest of the house, Miss Hutchinson having talked to the housekeeper, Mrs.Butterworth, and to Pearson.What the future held for him Mr.Temple Barholm did not seem to feel the necessity of going into.He left him behind as a subject, and went on talking cheerfully of other things almost as if he had forgotten him.
They had their coffee in the library, and afterward sat at the writing-table and looked over documents and talked until Mr.Palford felt that he could quite decorously retire to his bedroom.He was glad to be relieved of his duties, and Tembarom was amiably resigned to parting with him.
