The House of a Thousand Candles - Meredith Nicholson (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

CHAPTER I

THE WILL OF JOHN MARSHALL GLENARM

 

Pickering’s letter bringing news of my grandfather’s

death found me at Naples early in October. John

Marshall Glenarm had died in June. He had left a

will which gave me his property conditionally, Pickering

wrote, and it was necessary for me to return immediately

to qualify as legatee. It was the merest luck

that the letter came to my hands at all, for it had been

sent to Constantinople, in care of the consul-general

instead of my banker there. It was not Pickering’s

fault that the consul was a friend of mine who kept

track of my wanderings and was able to hurry the

executor’s letter after me to Italy, where I had gone to

meet an English financier who had, I was advised, unlimited

money to spend on African railways. I am an

engineer, a graduate of an American institution familiarly

known as “Tech,” and as my funds were running

low, I naturally turned to my profession for employment.

 

But this letter changed my plans, and the following

day I cabled Pickering of my departure and was outward

bound on a steamer for New York. Fourteen

days later I sat in Pickering’s office in the Alexis Building

and listened intently while he read, with much

ponderous emphasis, the provisions of my grandfather’s

will. When he concluded, I laughed. Pickering was a

serious man, and I was glad to see that my levity pained

him. I had, for that matter, always been a source of

annoyance to him, and his look of distrust and rebuke

did not trouble me in the least.

 

I reached across the table for the paper, and he gave

the sealed and beribboned copy of John Marshall Glenarm’s

will into my hands. I read it through for myself,

feeling conscious meanwhile that Pickering’s cool gaze

was bent inquiringly upon me. These are the paragraphs

that interested me most:

 

I give and bequeath unto my said grandson, John Glenarm,

sometime a resident of the City and State of New

York, and later a vagabond of parts unknown, a certain

property known as Glenarm House, with the land thereunto

pertaining and hereinafter more particularly described,

and all personal property of whatsoever kind

thereunto belonging and attached thereto—the said realty

lying in the County of Wabana in the State of Indiana—

upon this condition, faithfully and honestly performed:

 

That said John Glenarm shall remain for the period

of one year an occupant of said Glenarm House and my

lands attached thereto, demeaning himself meanwhile in

an orderly and temperate manner. Should he fail at any

time during said year to comply with this provision, said

property shall revert to my general estate and become,

without reservation, and without necessity for any process

of law, the property, absolutely, of Marian Devereux, of

the County and State of New York.

 

“Well,” he demanded, striking his hands upon the

arms of his chair, “what do you think of it?”

 

For the life of me I could not help laughing again.

There was, in the first place, a delicious irony in the

fact that I should learn through him of my grandfather’s

wishes with respect to myself. Pickering and

I had grown up in the same town in Vermont; we had

attended the same preparatory school, but there had

been from boyhood a certain antagonism between us.

He had always succeeded where I had failed, which is to

say, I must admit, that he had succeeded pretty frequently.

When I refused to settle down to my profession,

but chose to see something of the world first,

Pickering gave himself seriously to the law, and there

was, I knew from the beginning, no manner of chance

that he would fail.

 

I am not more or less than human, and I remembered

with joy that once I had thrashed him soundly

at the prep school for bullying a smaller boy; but our

score from school-days was not without tallies on his

side. He was easily the better scholar—I grant him

that; and he was shrewd and plausible. You never

quite knew the extent of his powers and resources, and

he had, I always maintained, the most amazing good

luck—as witness the fact that John Marshall Glenarm

had taken a friendly interest in him. It was wholly

like my grandfather, who was a man of many whims,

to give his affairs into Pickering’s keeping; and I could

not complain, for I had missed my own chance with

him. It was, I knew readily enough, part of my punishment

for having succeeded so signally in incurring

my grandfather’s displeasure that he had made it necessary

for me to treat with Arthur Pickering in this

matter of the will; and Pickering was enjoying the

situation to the full. He sank back in his chair with

an air of complacency that had always been insufferable

in him. I was quite willing to be patronized by a man

of years and experience; but Pickering was my own

age, and his experience of life seemed to me preposterously

inadequate. To find him settled in New York,

where he had been established through my grandfather’s

generosity, and the executor of my grandfather’s estate,

was hard to bear.

 

But there was something not wholly honest in my

mirth, for my conduct during the three preceding years

had been reprehensible. I had used my grandfather

shabbily. My parents died when I was a child, and he

had cared for me as far back as my memory ran. He

had suffered me to spend without restraint the fortune

left by my father; he had expected much of me, and I

had grievously disappointed him. It was his hope that

I should devote myself to architecture, a profession for

which he had the greatest admiration, whereas I had

insisted on engineering.

 

I am not writing an apology for my life, and I shall

not attempt to extenuate my conduct in going abroad

at the end of my course at Tech and, when I made

Laurance Donovan’s acquaintance, in setting off with

him on a career of adventure. I do not regret, though

possibly it would be more to my credit if I did, the

months spent leisurely following the Danube east of

the Iron Gate—Laurance Donovan always with me,

while we urged the villagers and inn-loafers to all manner

of sedition, acquitting ourselves so well that, when

we came out into the Black Sea for further pleasure,

Russia did us the honor to keep a spy at our heels. I

should like, for my own satisfaction, at least, to set

down an account of certain affairs in which we were

concerned at Belgrad, but without Larry’s consent I

am not at liberty to do so. Nor shall I take time here

to describe our travels in Africa, though our study of

the Atlas Mountain dwarfs won us honorable mention

by the British Ethnological Society.

 

These were my yesterdays; but to-day I sat in Arthur

Pickering’s office in the towering Alexis Building, conscious

of the muffled roar of Broadway, discussing the

terms of my Grandfather Glenarm’s will with a man

whom I disliked as heartily as it is safe for one man to

dislike another. Pickering had asked me a question,

and I was suddenly aware that his eyes were fixed upon

me and that he awaited my answer.

 

“What do I think of it?” I repeated. “I don’t know

that it makes any difference what I think, but I’ll tell

you, if you want to know, that I call it infamous, outrageous,

that a man should leave a ridiculous will of

that sort behind him. All the old money-bags who pile

up fortunes magnify the importance of their money.

They imagine that every kindness, every ordinary courtesy

shown them, is merely a bid for a slice of the cake.

I’m disappointed in my grandfather. He was a splendid

old man, though God knows he had his queer ways.

I’ll bet a thousand dollars, if I have so much money in

the world, that this scheme is yours, Pickering, and not

his. It smacks of your ancient vindictiveness, and John

Marshall Glenarm had none of that in his blood. That

stipulation about my residence out there is fantastic.

I don’t have to be a lawyer to know that; and no doubt

I could break the will; I’ve a good notion to try it,

anyhow.”

 

“To be sure. You can tie up the estate for half

a dozen years if you like,” he replied coolly. He did

not look upon me as likely to become a formidable

litigant. My staying qualities had been proved weak

long ago, as Pickering knew well enough.

 

“No doubt you would like that,” I answered. “But

I’m not going to give you the pleasure. I abide by the

terms of the will. My grandfather was a fine old gentleman.

I shan’t drag his name through the courts,

not even to please you, Arthur Pickering,” I declared

hotly.

 

“The sentiment is worthy of a good man, Glenarm,”

he rejoined.

 

“But this woman who is to succeed to my rights—I

don’t seem to remember her.”

 

“It is not surprising that you never heard of her.”

 

“Then she’s not a connection of the family—no long-lost

cousin whom I ought to remember?”

 

“No; she