第43章

Then he was inside, standing in an enormous hall filled with furnishings such as he had never seen or heard of before.Carved oak, suits of armor, stone urns, portraits, another flight of church steps mounting upward to surrounding galleries, stained-glass windows, tigers' and lions' heads, horns of tremendous size, strange and beautiful weapons, suggested to him that the dream he had been living in for weeks had never before been so much a dream.He had walked about as in a vision, but among familiar surroundings.Mrs.Bowse's boarders and his hall bedroom had helped him to retain some hold over actual existence.But here the reverently saluting villagers staring at him through windows as though he were General Grant, the huge, stone entrance, the drive of what seemed to be ten miles through the park, the gloomy mass of architecture looming up, the regiment of liveried men-servants, with respectfully lowered but excitedly curious eyes, the dark and solemn richness inclosing and claiming him--all this created an atmosphere wholly unreal.As he had not known books, its parallel had not been suggested to him by literature.He had literally not heard that such things existed.Selling newspapers and giving every moment to the struggle for life or living, one did not come within the range of splendors.He had indeed awakened in that other world of which he had spoken.And though he had heard that there was another world, he had had neither time nor opportunity to make mental pictures of it.His life so far had expressed itself in another language of figures.The fact that he had in his veins the blood of the Norman lords and Saxon kings may or may not have had something to do with the fact that he was not abashed, but bewildered.The same factor may or may not have aided him to preserve a certain stoic, outward composure.Who knows what remote influences express themselves in common acts of modern common life? As Cassivellaunus observed his surroundings as he followed in captive chains his conqueror's triumphal car through the streets of Rome, so the keen-eyed product of New York pavement life "took in" all about him.Existence had forced upon him the habit of sharp observance.The fundamental working law of things had expressed itself in the simple colloquialism, "Keep your eye skinned, and don't give yourself away." In what phrases the parallel of this concise advice formulated itself in 55 B.C.no classic has yet exactly informed us, but doubtless something like it was said in ancient Rome.Tembarom did not give himself away, and he took rapid, if uncertain, inventory of people and things.He remarked, for instance, that Palford's manner of speaking to a servant was totally different from the manner he used in addressing himself.It was courteous, but remote, as though he spoke across an accepted chasm to beings of another race.There was no hint of incivility in it, but also no hint of any possibility that it could occur to the person addressed to hesitate or resent.It was a subtle thing, and Tembarom wondered how he did it.

They were shown into a room the walls of which seemed built of books;the furniture was rich and grave and luxuriously comfortable.A fire blazed as well as glowed in a fine chimney, and a table near it was set with a glitter of splendid silver urn and equipage for tea.

"Mrs.Butterworth was afraid you might not have been able to get tea, sir," said the man-servant, who did not wear livery, but whose butler's air of established authority was more impressive than any fawn color and claret enriched with silver could have encompassed.

Tea again? Perhaps one was obliged to drink it at regular intervals.

Tembarom for a moment did not awaken to the fact that the man was speaking to him, as the master from whom orders came.He glanced at Mr.Palford.

"Mr.Temple Barholm had tea after we left Crowly," Mr.Palford said.

"He will no doubt wish to go to his room at once, Burrill.""Yes, sir," said Burrill, with that note of entire absence of comment with which Tembarom later became familiar."Pearson is waiting."It was not unnatural to wonder who Pearson was and why he was waiting, but Tembarom knew he would find out.There was a slight relief on realizing that tea was not imperative.He and Mr.Palford were led through the hall again.The carriage had rolled away, and two footmen, who were talking confidentially together, at once stood at attention.

The staircase was more imposing as one mounted it than it appeared as one looked at it from below.Its breadth made Tembarom wish to lay a hand on a balustrade, which seemed a mile away.He had never particularly wished to touch balustrades before.At the head of the first flight hung an enormous piece of tapestry, its forest and hunters and falconers awakening Tembarom's curiosity, as it looked wholly unlike any picture he had ever seen in a shop-window.There were pictures everywhere, and none of them looked like chromos.Most of the people in the portraits were in fancy dress.Rumors of a New York millionaire ball had given him some vague idea of fancy dress.Alot of them looked like freaks.He caught glimpses of corridors lighted by curious, high, deep windows with leaded panes.It struck him that there was no end to the place, and that there must be rooms enough in it for a hotel.

"The tapestry chamber, of course, Burrill," he heard Mr.Palford say in a low tone.

"Yes, sir.Mr.Temple Barholm always used it."A few yards farther on a door stood open, revealing an immense room, rich and gloomy with tapestry-covered walls and dark oak furniture.Abed which looked to Tembarom incredibly big, with its carved oak canopy and massive posts, had a presiding personality of its own.It was mounted by steps, and its hangings and coverlid were of embossed velvet, time-softened to the perfection of purples and blues.A fire enriched the color of everything, and did its best to drive the shadows away.Deep windows opened either into the leafless boughs of close-growing trees or upon outspread spaces of heavily timbered park, where gaunt, though magnificent, bare branches menaced and defied.Aslim, neat young man, with a rather pale face and a touch of anxiety in his expression, came forward at once.

"This is Pearson, who will valet you," exclaimed Mr.Palford.

"Thank you, sir," said Pearson in a low, respectful voice.His manner was correctness itself.

There seemed to Mr.Palford to be really nothing else to say.He wanted, in fact, to get to his own apartment and have a hot bath and a rest before dinner.

"Where am I, Burrill?" he inquired as he turned to go down the corridor.

"The crimson room, sir," answered Burrill, and he closed the door of the tapestry chamber and shut Tembarom in alone with Pearson.