第46章

"Shall I get your bath ready, sir?" inquired Pearson."Do you like it hot or cold, sir?"Tembarom drew a relieved breath.He hadn't dropped dead and he hadn't had a fit, and here was one of the things a man did when he valeted you--he got your bath ready.A hasty recollection of the much-used, paint-smeared tin bath on the fourth floor of Mrs.Bowse's boarding-house sprang up before him.Everybody had to use it in turn, and you waited hours for the chance to make a dash into it.No one stood still and waited fifteen minutes until you got good and ready to tell him he could go and turn on the water.Gee whizz!

Being relieved himself, he relieved Pearson by telling him he might "fix it" for him, and that he would have hot water.

"Very good, sir.Thank you, sir," said Pearson, and silently left the room.

Then Tembarom got up from his chair and began to walk about rather restlessly.A new alarm seized him.Did Pearson expect to WASH him or to stand round and hand him soap and towels and things while he washed himself?

If it was supposed that you hadn't the strength to turn the faucets yourself, it might be supposed you didn't have the energy to use a flesh-brush and towels.Did valeting include a kind of shampoo all over?

"I couldn't stand for that," he said."I'd have to tell him there'd been no Turkish baths in mine, and I'm not trained up to them.When I've got on to this kind of thing a bit more, I'll make him understand what I'm NOT in for; but I don't want to scare the life out of him right off.He looks like a good little fellow."But Pearson's duties as valet did not apparently include giving him his bath by sheer physical force.He was deft, calm, amenable.He led Tembarom down the corridor to the bath-room, revealed to him stores of sumptuous bath-robes and towels, hot- and cold-water faucets, sprays, and tonic essences.He forgot nothing and, having prepared all, mutely vanished, and returned to the bedroom to wait--and gaze in troubled wonder at the speckled tweed cutaway.There was an appalling possibility--he was aware that he was entirely ignorant of American customs--that tweed was the fashionable home evening wear in the States.Tembarom, returning from his bath much refreshed after a warm plunge and a cold shower, evidently felt that as a costume it was all that could be desired.

"Will you wear--these, sir,--this evening?" Pearson suggested.

It was suggestive of more than actual inquiry.If he had dared to hope that his manner might suggest a number of things! For instance, that in England gentlemen really didn't wear tweed in the evening even in private.That through some unforeseen circumstances his employer's evening-dress suit had been delayed, but would of course arrive to-morrow!

But Tembarom, physically stimulated by hot and cold water, and relief at being left alone, was beginning to recover his natural buoyancy.

"Yes, I'll wear 'em," he answered, snatching at his hairbrush and beginning to brush his damp hair.It was a wooden-backed brush that Pearson had found in his Gladstone bag and shudderingly laid in readiness on the dressing-table."I guess they're all right, ain't they?""Oh, quite right, sir, quite," Pearson ventured--"for morning wear.""Morning?" said Tembarom, brushing vigorously."Not night?""Black, sir," most delicately hinted Pearson, "is--more usual--in the evening--in England." After which he added, "So to speak," with a vague hope that the mollifying phrase might counteract the effect of any apparently implied aspersion on colors preferred in America.

Tembarom ceased brushing his hair, and looked at him in good-natured desire for information.

"Frock-coats or claw-hammer?" he asked.Despite his natural anxiety, and in the midst of it, Pearson could not but admit that he had an uncondemnatory voice and a sort of young way with him which gave one courage.But he was not quite sure of "claw-hammer.""Frock-coats for morning dress and afternoon wear, sir," he ventured.

"The evening cut, as you know, is--"

"Claw-hammer.Swallow-tail, I guess you say here," Tembarom ended for him, quite without hint of rancor, he was rejoiced to see.

"Yes, sir," said Pearson.

The ceremony of dressing proved a fearsome thing as it went on.

Pearson moved about deftly and essayed to do things for the new Mr.

Temple Barholm which the new Mr.Temple Barholm had never heard of a man not doing for himself.He reached for things Pearson was about to hand to him or hold for him.He unceremoniously achieved services for himself which it was part of Pearson's manifest duty to perform.They got into each other's way; there was even danger sometimes of their seeming to snatch things from each other, to Pearson's unbounded horror.Mr.Temple Barholm did not express any irritation whatsoever misunderstandings took place, but he held his mouth rather close-shut, and Pearson, not aware that he did this as a precaution against open grinning or shouts of laughter as he found himself unable to adjust himself to his attendant's movements, thought it possible that he was secretly annoyed and regarded the whole matter with disfavor.But when the dressing was at an end and he stood ready to go down in all his innocent ignoring of speckled tweed and brown necktie, he looked neither flurried nor out of humor, and he asked a question in a voice which was actually friendly.It was a question dealing with an incident which had aroused much interest in the servants' hall as suggesting a touch of mystery.

"Mr.Strangeways came yesterday all right, didn't he?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir," Pearson answered."Mr.Hutchinson and his daughter came with him.They call her `Little Ann Hutchinson.' She's a sensible little thing, sir, and she seemed to know exactly what you'd want done to make him comfortable.Mrs.Butterworth put him in the west room, sir, and I valeted him.He was not very well when he came, but he seems better to-day, sir, only he's very anxious to see you.""That's all right," said Tembarom."You show me his room.I'll go and see him now."And being led by Pearson, he went without delay.