The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson (good ebook reader .TXT) đź“–
- Author: Meredith Nicholson
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exhausted, and the pipes were taken up before I began
to build. I should never have thought of that tunnel in
the world if the trench hadn’t suggested it. I merely
deepened and widened it a little and plastered it with
cheap cement as far as the chapel, and that little room
there where I put Pickering’s notes had once been the
cellar of a house built for the superintendent of the gas
plant. I had never any idea that I should use that passage
as a means of getting into my own house, but Marian
met me at the station, told me that there was trouble
here, and came with me through the chapel into the
cellar, and through the hidden stairway that winds
around the chimney from that room where we keep the
candlesticks.”
“But who was the ghost?” I demanded, “if you were
really alive and in Egypt?”
Bates laughed now.
“Oh, I was the ghost! I went through there occasionally
to stimulate your curiosity about the house.
And you nearly caught me once!”
“One thing more, if we’re not wearing you out—I’d
like to know whether Sister Theresa owes you any
money.”
My grandfather turned upon Pickering with blazing
eyes.
“You scoundrel, you infernal scoundrel, Sister
Theresa never borrowed a cent of me in her life! And
you have made war on that woman—”
His rage choked him.
He told Bates to close the door of the steel chest, and
then turned to me.
“Where are those notes of Pickering’s?” he demanded;
and I brought the packet.
“Gentlemen, Mr. Pickering has gone to ugly lengths
in this affair. How many murders have you gentlemen
committed?”
“We were about to begin actual killing when you arrived,”
replied Larry, grinning.
“The sheriff got all his men off the premises more or
less alive, sir,” said Bates.
“That is good. It was all a great mistake—a very
great mistake,”—and my grandfather turned to Pickering.
“Pickering, what a contemptible scoundrel you are!
I lent you that three hundred thousand dollars to buy
securities to give you better standing in your railroad
enterprises, and the last time I saw you, you got me to
release the collateral so you could raise money to buy
more shares. Then, after I died”—he chuckled—“you
thought you’d find and destroy the notes and that would
end the transaction; and if you had been smart enough
to find them you might have had them and welcome.
But as it is, they go to Jack. If he shows any mercy
on you in collecting them he’s not the boy I think he is.”
Pickering rose, seized his hat and turned toward the
shattered library-door. He paused for one moment, his
face livid with rage.
“You old fool!” he screamed at my grandfather.
“You old lunatic, I wish to God I had never seen you!
No wonder you came back to life! You’re a tricky old
devil and too mean to die!”
He turned toward me with some similar complaint
ready at his tongue’s end; but Stoddard caught him by
the shoulders and thrust him out upon the terrace.
A moment later we saw him cross the meadow and
hurry toward St. Agatha’s.
CHANGES AND CHANCES
John Marshall Glenarm had probably never been so
happy in his life as on that day of his amazing home-coming.
He laughed at us and he laughed with us, and
as he went about the house explaining his plans for its
completion, he chaffed us all with his shrewd humor
that had been the terror of my boyhood.
“Ah, if you had had the plans of course you would
have been saved a lot of trouble; but that little sketch
of the Door of Bewilderment was the only thing I left,
—and you found it, Jack—you really opened these good
books of mine.”
He sent us all away to remove the marks of battle, and
we gave Bates a hand in cleaning up the wreckage—
Bates, the keeper of secrets; Bates, the inscrutable and
mysterious; Bates, the real hero of the affair at Glenarm.
He led us through the narrow stairway by which he
had entered, which had been built between false walls,
and we played ghost for one another, to show just how
the tread of a human being around the chimney sounded.
There was much to explain, and my grandfather’s
contrition for having placed me in so hazardous a predicament
was so sincere, and his wish to make amends
so evident, that my heart warmed to him. He made me
describe in detail all the incidents of my stay at the
house, listening with boyish delight to my adventures.
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed over and over again.
And as I brought my two friends into the story his delight
knew no bounds, and he kept chuckling to himself;
and insisted half a dozen times on shaking hands with
Larry and Stoddard, who were, he declared, his friends
as well as mine.
The prisoner in the potato cellar received our due attention;
and my grandfather’s joy in the fact that an
agent of the British government was held captive in
Glenarm House was cheering to see. But the man’s detention
was a grave matter, as we all realized, and made
imperative the immediate consideration of Larry’s future.
“I must go—and go at once!” declared Larry.
“Mr. Donovan, I should feel honored to have you remain,”
said my grandfather. “I hope to hold Jack
here, and I wish you would share the house with us.”
“The sheriff and those fellows won’t squeal very hard
about their performances here,” said Stoddard. “And
they won’t try to rescue the prisoner, even for a reward,
from a house where the dead come back to life.”
“No; but you can’t hold a British prisoner in an
American private house for ever. Too many people
know he has been in this part of the country; and you
may be sure that the fight here and the return of Mr.
Glenarm will not fail of large advertisement. All I can
ask of you, Mr. Glenarm, is that you hold the fellow a
few hours after I leave, to give me a start.”
“Certainly. But when this trouble of yours blows
over, I hope you will come back and help Jack to live
a decent and orderly life.”
My grandfather spoke of my remaining with a
warmth that was grateful to my heart; but the place and
its associations had grown unbearable. I had not mentioned
Marian Devereux to him, I had not told him of
my Christmas flight to Cincinnati; for the fact that I
had run away and forfeited my right made no difference
now, and I waited for an opportunity when we should
be alone to talk of my own affairs.
At luncheon, delayed until mid-afternoon, Bates produced
champagne, and the three of us, worn with excitement
and stress of battle, drank a toast, standing, to the
health of John Marshall Glenarm.
“My friends,”—the old gentleman rose and we all
stood, our eyes bent upon him in, I think, real affection,
—“I am an old and foolish man. Ever since I was
able to do so I have indulged my whims. This house
is one of them. I had wished to make it a thing of
beauty and dignity, and I had hoped that Jack would
care for it and be willing to complete it and settle here.
The means I employed to test him were not, I admit,
worthy of a man who intends well toward his own flesh
and blood. Those African adventures of yours scared
me, Jack; but to think”—and he laughed—“that I
placed you here in this peaceful place amid greater dangers
probably than you ever met in tiger-hunting! But
you have put me to shame. Here’s health and peace to
you!”
“So say we all!” cried the others.
“One thing more,” my grandfather continued, “I don’t
want you to think, Jack, that you would really have
been cut off under any circumstances if I had died while
I was hiding in Egypt. What I wanted, boy, was to
get you home! I made another will in England, where
I deposited the bulk of my property before I died, and
did not forget you. That will was to protect you in case
I really died!”—and he laughed cheerily.
The others left us—Stoddard to help Larry get his
things together—and my grandfather and I talked for
an hour at the table.
“I have thought that many things might happen
here,” I said, watching his fine, slim fingers, as he polished
his eye-glasses, then rested his elbows on the table
and smiled at me. “I thought for a while that I should
certainly be shot; then at times I was afraid I might
not be; but your return in the flesh was something I
never considered among the possibilities. Bates fooled
me. That talk I overheard between him and Pickering
in the church porch that foggy night was the thing that
seemed to settle his case; then the next thing I knew he
was defending the house at the serious risk of his life;
and I was more puzzled than ever.”
“Yes, a wonderful man, Bates. He always disliked
Pickering, and he rejoiced in tricking him.”
“Where did you pick Bates up? He told me he was
a Yankee, but he doesn’t act or talk it.”
My grandfather laughed. “Of course not! He’s an
Irishman and a man of education—but that’s all I know
about him, except that he is a marvelously efficient servant.”
My mind was not on Bates. I was thinking now of
Marian Devereux. I could not go on further with my
grandfather without telling him how I had run away
and broken faith with him, but he gave me no chance.
“You will stay on here—you will help me to finish
the house?” he asked with an unmistakable eagerness
of look and tone.
It seemed harsh and ungenerous to tell him that I
wished to go; that the great world lay beyond the confines
of Glenarm for me to conquer; that I had lost as
well as gained by those few months at Glenarm House,
and wished to go away. It was not the mystery, now
fathomed, nor the struggle, now ended, that was uppermost
in my mind and heart, but memories of a girl
who had mocked me with delicious girlish laughter—
who had led me away that I might see her transformed
into another, more charming, being. It was a comfort
to know that Pickering, trapped and defeated, was not
to benefit by the bold trick she had helped him play upon
me. His loss was hers as well, and I was glad in my
bitterness that I had found her in the passage, seeking
for plunder at the behest of the same master whom Morgan,
Ferguson and the rest of them served.
The fight was over and there was nothing more for me
to do in the house by the lake. After a week or so I
should go forth and try to win a place for myself. I
had my profession; I was an engineer, and I did not
question that I should be able to find employment. As
for my grandfather, Bates would care for him, and I
should visit him often. I was resolved not to give him
any further cause for anxiety on account of my adventurous
and roving ways. He knew well enough that his
old hope of making an architect of me was lost beyond
redemption—I had told him that—and now I wished to
depart
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