Mrs.Braddle saw it as the villagers saw it--excited, curious, secretly hopeful of undue lavishness from "a chap as had nivver had brass before an' wants to chuck it away for brag's sake," or somewhat alarmed at the possible neglecting of customs and privileges by a person ignorant of memorial benefactions.She saw it as the servants saw it--secretly disdainful, outwardly respectful, waiting to discover whether the sacrifice of professional distinction would be balanced by liberties permitted and lavishness of remuneration and largess.She saw it also from her own point of view--that of a respectable cottage dweller whose great-great-grandfather had been born in a black-and-white timbered house in a green lane, and who knew what were "gentry ways" and what nature of being could never even remotely approach the assumption of them.She had seen Tembarom more than once, and summed him up by no means ill-naturedly.
"He's not such a bad-lookin' chap.He is na short-legged or turn-up-nosed, an' that's summat.He con stride along, an' he looks healthy enow for aw he's thin.A thin chap nivver looks as common as a fat un.
If he wur pudgy, it ud be a lot more agen him.""I think, perhaps," amiably remarked the duke, sipping his beef tea, "that you had better not call him a `chap,' Braddle.The late Mr.
Temple Barholm was never referred to as a `chap' exactly, was he?"Mrs.Braddle gave vent to a sort of internal-sounding chuckle.She had not meant to be impertinent, and she knew her charge was aware that she had not, and that he was neither being lofty or severe with her.
"Eh, I'd 'a'loiked to ha' heard somebody do it when he was nigh," she said."Happen I'd better be moindin' ma P's an' Q's a bit more.But that's what this un is, yore Grace.He's a `chap' out an' out.An'
theer's some as is sayin' he's not a bad sort of a chap either.
There's lots o' funny stories about him i' Temple Barholm village.He goes in to th' cottages now an' then, an' though a fool could see he does na know his place, nor other people's, he's downreet open-handed.
An' he maks foak laugh.He took a lot o' New York papers wi' big pictures in 'em to little Tummas Hibblethwaite.An' wot does tha think he did one rainy day? He walks in to the owd Dibdens' cottage, an'
sits down betwixt 'em as they sit one each side o' th' f're, an' he tells 'em they've got to cheer him up a bit becos he's got nought to do.An' he shows 'em th' picter-papers, too, an' tells 'em about New York, an' he ends up wi' singin' 'em a comic song.They was frightened out o' their wits at first, but somehow he got over 'em, an' made 'em laugh their owd heads nigh off."Her charge laid his spoon down, and his shrewd, lined face assumed a new expression of interest.
"Did he! Did he, indeed!" he exclaimed."Good Lord! what an exhilarating person! I must go and see him.Perhaps he'd make me laugh my `owd head nigh off.' What a sensation! "There was really immense color in the anecdotes and in the side views accompanying them; the routing out of her obscurity of the isolated, dependent spinster relative, for instance.Delicious! The man was either desperate with loneliness or he was one of the rough-diamond benefactors favored by novelists, in which latter case he would not be so entertaining.Pure self-interest caused the Duke of Stone quite unreservedly to hope that he was anguished by the unaccustomedness of his surroundings, and was ready to pour himself forth to any one who would listen.There would be originality in such a situation, and one could draw forth revelations worth forming an audience to.He himself had thought that the volte-face such circumstances demanded would surely leave a man staring at things foreign enough to bore him.This, indeed, had been one of his cherished theories; but the only man he had ever encountered who had become a sort of millionaire between one day and another had been an appalling Yorkshire man, who had had some extraordinary luck with diamond-mines in South Africa, and he had been simply drunk with exhilaration and the delight of spending money with both hands, while he figuratively slapped on the back persons who six weeks before would have kicked him for doing it.
This man did not appear to be excited.The duke mentally rocked with gleeful appreciation of certain things Mrs.Braddle detailed.She gave, of course, Burrill's version of the brief interview outside the dining-room door when Miss Alicia's status in the household bad been made clear to him.But the duke, being a man endowed with a subtle sense of shades, was wholly enlightened as to the inner meaning of Burrill's master.
"Now, that was good," he said to himself, almost chuckling."By the Lord! the man might have been a gentleman."When to all this was added the story of the friend or poor relative, or what not, who was supposed to be "not quoite reet i' th' yed," and was taken care of like a prince, in complete isolation, attended by a valet, visited and cheered up by his benefactor, he felt that a boon had indeed been bestowed upon him.It was a nineteenth century "Mysteries of Udolpho" in embryo, though too greatly diluted by the fact that though the stranger was seen by no one, the new Temple Barholm made no secret of him.
If he had only made a secret of him, the whole thing would have been complete.There was of course in the situation a discouraging suggestion that Temple Barholm MIGHT turn out to be merely the ordinary noble character bestowing boons.
"I will burn a little candle to the Virgin and offer up prayers that he may NOT.That sort of thing would have no cachet whatever, and would only depress me," thought his still sufficiently sinful Grace.
"When, Braddle, do you think I shall be able to take a drive again?"he asked his nurse.
Braddle was not prepared to say upon her own responsibility, but the doctor would tell him when he came in that afternoon.