The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson (good ebook reader .TXT) đź“–
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the girl at the post-office and the clerks in the
shops treated me with an unmistakable cold reserve.
There was a certain evenness of the chill which they
visited upon me, as though a particular degree of frigidity
had been determined in advance.
I shrugged my shoulders and turned toward Glenarm.
My grandfather had left me a cheerful legacy of
distrust among my neighbors, the result, probably, of
importing foreign labor to work on his house. The surly
Morgan had intimated as much; but it did not greatly
matter. I had not come to Glenarm to cultivate the
rustics, but to fulfil certain obligations laid down in
my grandfather’s will. I was, so to speak, on duty, and
I much preferred that the villagers should let me alone.
Comforting myself with these reflections I reached the
wharf, where I saw Morgan sitting with his feet dangling
over the water, smoking a pipe.
I nodded in his direction, but he feigned not to see
me. A moment later he jumped into his boat and rowed
out into the lake.
When I returned to the house Bates was at work in
the kitchen. This was a large square room with heavy
timbers showing in the walls and low ceiling. There
was a great fireplace having an enormous chimney and
fitted with a crane and bobs, but for practical purposes
a small range was provided.
Bates received me placidly.
“Yes; it’s an unusual kitchen, sir. Mr. Glenarm
copied it from an old kitchen in England. He took
quite a pride in it. It’s a pleasant place to sit in the
evening, sir.”
He showed me the way below, where I found that the
cellar extended under every part of the house, and was
divided into large chambers. The door of one of them
was of heavy oak, bound in iron, with a barred opening
at the top. A great iron hasp with a heavy padlock and
grilled area windows gave further the impression of a
cell, and I fear that at this, as at many other things in
the curious house, I swore—if I did not laugh—thinking
of the money my grandfather had expended in realizing
his whims. The room was used, I noted with pleasure,
as a depository for potatoes. I asked Bates whether
he knew my grandfather’s purpose in providing a cell in
his house.
“That, sir, was another of the dead master’s ideas.
He remarked to me once that it was just as well to have
a dungeon in a well-appointed house—his humor again,
sir! And it comes in quite handy for the potatoes.”
In another room I found a curious collection of lanterns
of every conceivable description, grouped on
shelves, and next door to this was a store-room filled
with brass candlesticks of many odd designs. I shall not
undertake to describe my sensations as, peering about
with a candle in my hand, the vagaries of John Marshall
Glenarm’s mind were further disclosed to me. It was
almost beyond belief that any man with such whims
should ever have had the money to gratify them.
I returned to the main floor and studied the titles of
the books in the library, finally smoking a pipe over a
very tedious chapter in an exceedingly dull work on
Norman Revivals and Influences. Then I went out, assuring
myself that I should get steadily to work in a day
or two. It was not yet eleven o’clock, and time was sure
to move deliberately within the stone walls of my
prison. The long winter lay before me in which I must
study perforce, and just now it was pleasant to view the
landscape in all its autumn splendor.
Bates was soberly chopping wood at a rough pile of
timber at the rear of the house. His industry had already
impressed me. He had the quiet ways of an ideal
serving man.
“Well, Bates, you don’t intend to let me freeze to
death, do you? There must be enough in the pile there
to last all winter.”
“Yes, sir; I am just cutting a little more of the hickory,
sir. Mr. Glenarm always preferred it to beech or
maple. We only take out the old timber. The summer
storms eat into the wood pretty bad, sir.”
“Oh, hickory, to be sure! I’ve heard it’s the best firewood.
That’s very thoughtful of you.”
I turned next to the unfinished tower in the meadow,
from which a windmill pumped water to the house. The
iron frame was not wholly covered with stone, but material
for the remainder of the work lay scattered at the
base. I went on through the wood to the lake and inspected
the boat-house. It was far more pretentious
than I had imagined from my visit in the dark. It was
of two stories, the upper half being a cozy lounging-room,
with wide windows and a fine outlook over the
water. The unplastered walls were hung with Indian
blankets; lounging-chairs and a broad seat under the
windows, colored matting on the floor and a few prints
pinned upon the Navajoes gave further color to the
place.
I followed the pebbly shore to the stone wall where
it marked the line of the school-grounds. The wall, I
observed, was of the same solid character here as along
the road. I tramped beside it, reflecting that my grandfather’s
estate, in the heart of the Republic, would some
day give the lie to foreign complaints that we have no
ruins in America.
I had assumed that there was no opening in the wall,
but half-way to the road I found an iron gate, fastened
with chain and padlock, by means of which I climbed
to the top. The pillars at either side of the gate were of
huge dimensions and were higher than I could reach.
An intelligent forester had cleared the wood in the
school-grounds, which were of the same general character
as the Glenarm estate. The little Gothic church
near at hand was built of stone similar to that used in
Glenarm House. As I surveyed the scene a number of
young women came from one of the school-buildings
and, forming in twos and fours, walked back and forth
in a rough path that led to the chapel. A Sister clad in a
brown habit lingered near or walked first with one and
then another of the students. It was all very pretty and
interesting and not at all the ugly school for paupers I
had expected to find. The students were not the charity
children I had carelessly pictured; they were not so
young, for one thing, and they seemed to be appareled
decently enough.
I smiled to find myself adjusting my scarf and
straightening my collar as I beheld my neighbors for
the first time.
As I sat thus on the wall I heard the sound of angry
voices back of me on the Glenarm side, and a crash of
underbrush marked a flight and pursuit. I crouched
down on the wall and waited. In a moment a man
plunged through the wood and stumbled over a low-hanging
vine and fell, not ten yards from where I lay.
To my great surprise it was Morgan, my acquaintance
of the morning. He rose, cursed his ill luck and, hugging
the wall close, ran toward the lake. Instantly the
pursuer broke into view. It was Bates, evidently much
excited and with an ugly cut across his forehead. He
carried a heavy club, and, after listening for a moment
for sounds of the enemy, he hurried after the caretaker.
It was not my row, though I must say it quickened
my curiosity. I straightened myself out, threw my legs
over the school side of the wall and lighted a cigar,
feeling cheered by the opportunity the stone barricade
offered for observing the world.
As I looked off toward the little church I found two
other actors appearing on the scene. A girl stood in a
little opening of the wood, talking to a man. Her hands
were thrust into the pockets of her covert coat; she wore
a red tam-o’-shanter, that made a bright bit of color in
the wood. They were not more than twenty feet away,
but a wild growth of young maples lay between us,
screening the wall. Their profiles were toward me, and
the tones of the girl’s voice reached me clearly, as she
addressed her companion. He wore a clergyman’s high
waistcoat, and I assumed that he was the chaplain whom
Bates had mentioned. I am not by nature an eavesdropper,
but the girl was clearly making a plea of some
kind, and the chaplain’s stalwart figure awoke in me an
antagonism that held me to the wall.
“If he comes here I shall go away, so you may as well
understand it and tell him. I shan’t see him under any
circumstances, and I’m not going to Florida or California
or anywhere else in a private car, no matter who
chaperones it.”
“Certainly not, unless you want to—certainly not,”
said the chaplain. “You understand that I’m only giving
you his message. He thought it best—”
“Not to write to me or to Sister Theresa!” interrupted
the girl contemptuously. “What a clever man
he is!”
“And how unclever I am!” said the clergyman, laughing.
“Well, I thank you for giving me the opportunity
to present his message.”
She smiled, nodded and turned swiftly toward the
school. The chaplain looked after her for a few moments,
then walked away soberly toward the lake. He
was a young fellow, clean-shaven and dark, and with a
pair of shoulders that gave me a twinge of envy. I could
not guess how great a factor that vigorous figure was to
be in my own affairs. As I swung down from the wall
and walked toward Glenarm House, my thoughts were
not with the athletic chaplain, but with the girl, whose
youth was, I reflected, marked by her short skirt, the unconcern
with which her hands were thrust into the
pockets of her coat, and the irresponsible tilt of the tam-o’-shanter.
There is something jaunty, a suggestion of
spirit and independence in a tam-o’-shanter, particularly
a red one. If the red tam-o’-shanter expressed, so to
speak, the key-note of St. Agatha’s, the proximity of the
school was not so bad a thing after all.
In high good-humor and with a sharp appetite I went
in to luncheon.
THE GIRL AND THE CANOE
“The persimmons are off the place, sir. Mr. Glenarm
was very fond of the fruit.”
I had never seen a persimmon before, but I was in a
mood for experiment. The frost-broken rind was certainly
forbidding, but the rich pulp brought a surprise
of joy to my palate. Bates watched me with respectful
satisfaction. His gravity was in no degree diminished
by the presence of a neat strip of flesh-colored court-plaster
over his right eye. A faint suggestion of arnica
hung in the air.
“This is a quiet life,” I remarked, wishing to give
him an opportunity to explain his encounter of the
morning.
“You are quite right, sir. As your grandfather used
to say, it’s a place of peace.”
“When nobody shoots at you through a window,” I
suggested.
“Such a thing is likely to happen to any gentleman,”
he replied, “but not likely to happen more than once, if
you’ll allow the philosophy.”
He did not refer to his encounter with the caretaker,
and I resolved to keep my knowledge of it to myself. I
always prefer to let a rascal hang himself, and here was
a case, I reasoned, where, if Bates were disloyal to the
duties Pickering had imposed upon him, the fact of
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