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

his

perfidy was bound to disclose itself eventually. Glancing

around at him when he was off guard I surprised

a look of utter dejection upon his face as he stood with

folded arms behind my chair.

 

He flushed and started, then put his hand to his forehead.

 

“I met with a slight accident this morning, sir. The

hickory’s very tough, sir. A piece of wood flew up and

struck me.”

 

“Too bad!” I said with sympathy. “You’d better

rest a bit this afternoon.”

 

“Thank you, sir; but it’s a small matter—only, you

might think it a trifle disfiguring.”

 

He struck a match for my cigarette, and I left without

looking at him again. But as I crossed the threshold

of the library I formulated this note: “Bates is a

liar, for one thing, and a person with active enemies for

another; watch him.”

 

All things considered, the day was passing well

enough. I picked up a book, and threw myself on a comfortable

divan to smoke and reflect before continuing my

explorations. As I lay there, Bates brought me a telegram,

a reply to my message to Pickering. It read:

 

“Yours announcing arrival received and filed.”

 

It was certainly a queer business, my errand to Glenarm.

I lay for a couple of hours dreaming, and counted

the candles in the great crystal chandelier until my eyes

ached. Then I rose, took my cap, and was soon tramping

off toward the lake.

 

There were several small boats and a naphtha launch

in the boat-house. I dropped a canoe into the water and

paddled off toward the summer colony, whose gables and

chimneys were plainly visible from the Glenarm shore.

 

I landed and roamed idly over leaf-strewn walks past

nearly a hundred cottages, to whose windows and verandas

the winter blinds gave a dreary and inhospitable

air. There was, at one point, a casino, whose broad veranda

hung over the edge of the lake, while beneath, on

the water-side, was a boat-house. I had from this point

a fine view of the lake, and I took advantage of it to

fix in my mind the topography of the region. I could

see the bold outlines of Glenarm House and its red-tile

roofs; and the gray tower of the little chapel beyond

the wall rose above the wood with a placid dignity.

Above the trees everywhere hung the shadowy smoke of

autumn.

 

I walked back to the wharf, where I had left my

canoe, and was about to step into it when I saw, rocking

at a similar landing-place near-by, another slight

craft of the same type as my own, but painted dark

maroon. I was sure the canoe had not been there when

I landed. Possibly it belonged to Morgan, the caretaker.

I walked over and examined it. I even lifted it

slightly in the water to test its weight. The paddle lay

on the dock beside me and it, too, I weighed critically,

deciding that it was a trifle light for my own taste.

 

“Please—if you don’t mind—”

 

I turned to stand face to face with the girl in the red

tam-o’-shanter.

 

“I beg your pardon,” I said, stepping away from the

canoe.

 

She did not wear the covert coat of the morning, but

a red knit jacket, buttoned tight about her. She was

young with every emphasis of youth. A pair of dark

blue eyes examined me with good-humored curiosity.

She was on good terms with the sun—I rejoiced in the

brown of her cheeks, so eloquent of companionship with

the outdoor world—a certificate indeed of the favor of

Heaven. Show me, in October, a girl with a face of

tan, whose hands have plied a paddle or driven a golf-ball

or cast a fly beneath the blue arches of summer,

and I will suffer her scorn in joy. She may vote me

dull and refute my wisest word with laughter, for hers

are the privileges of the sisterhood of Diana; and that

soft bronze, those daring fugitive freckles beneath her

eyes, link her to times when Pan whistled upon his reed

and all the days were long.

 

She had approached silently and was enjoying, I felt

sure, my discomfiture at being taken unawares.

 

I had snatched off my cap and stood waiting beside

the canoe, feeling, I must admit, a trifle guilty at being

caught in the unwarrantable inspection of another person’s

property—particularly a person so wholly pleasing

to the eye.

 

“Really, if you don’t need that paddle any more—”

 

I looked down and found to my annoyance that I held

it in my hand—was in fact leaning upon it with a cool

air of proprietorship.

 

“Again, I beg your pardon,” I said. “I hadn’t expected—”

 

She eyed me calmly with the stare of the child that

arrives at a drawing-room door by mistake and scrutinizes

the guests without awe. I didn’t know what I had

expected or had not expected, and she manifested no

intention of helping me to explain. Her short skirt

suggested fifteen or sixteen—not more—and such being

the case there was no reason why I should not be master

of the situation. As I fumbled my pipe the hot coals

of tobacco burned my hand and I cast the thing from

me.

 

She laughed a little and watched the pipe bound from

the dock into the water.

 

“Too bad!” she said, her eyes upon it; “but if you

hurry you may get it before it floats away.”

 

“Thank you for the suggestion,” I said. But I did

not relish the idea of kneeling on the dock to fish for a

pipe before a strange school-girl who was, I felt sure,

anxious to laugh at me.

 

She took a step toward the line by which her boat was

fastened.

 

“Allow me.”

 

“If you think you can—safely,” she said; and the

laughter that lurked in her eyes annoyed me.

 

“The feminine knot is designed for the confusion of

man,” I observed, twitching vainly at the rope, which

was tied securely in unfamiliar loops.

 

She was singularly unresponsive. The thought that

she was probably laughing at my clumsiness did not

make my fingers more nimble.

 

“The nautical instructor at St. Agatha’s is undoubtedly

a woman. This knot must come in the post-graduate

course. But my gallantry is equal, I trust, to your

patience.”

 

The maid in the red tam-o’-shanter continued silent.

The wet rope was obdurate, the knot more and more

hopeless, and my efforts to make light of the situation

awakened no response in the girl. I tugged away at the

rope, attacking its tangle on various theories.

 

“A case for surgery, I’m afraid. A truly Gordian knot,

but I haven’t my knife.”

 

“Oh, but you wouldn’t!” she exclaimed. “I think I

can manage.”

 

She bent down—I was aware that the sleeve of her

jacket brushed my shoulder—seized an end that I had

ignored, gave it a sharp tug with a slim brown hand and

pulled the knot free.

 

“There!” she exclaimed with a little laugh; “I might

have saved you all the bother.”

 

“How dull of me! But I didn’t have the combination,”

I said, steadying the canoe carefully to mitigate the

ignominy of my failure.

 

She scorned the hand I extended, but embarked with

light confident step and took the paddle. It was growing

late. The shadows in the wood were deepening; a

chill crept over the water, and, beyond the tower of the

chapel, the sky was bright with the splendor of sunset.

 

With a few skilful strokes she brought her little craft

beside my pipe, picked it up and tossed it to the wharf.

 

“Perhaps you can pipe a tune upon it,” she said, dipping

the paddle tentatively.

 

“You put me under great obligations,” I declared.

“Are all the girls at St. Agatha’s as amiable?”

 

“I should say not! I’m a great exception—and—I

really shouldn’t be talking to you at all! It’s against

the rules! And we don’t encourage smoking.”

 

“The chaplain doesn’t smoke, I suppose.”

 

“Not in chapel; I believe it isn’t done! And we

rarely see him elsewhere.”

 

She had idled with the paddle so far, but now lifted

her eyes and drew back the blade for a long stroke.

 

“But in the wood—this morning—by the wall!”

 

I hate myself to this day for having so startled her.

The poised blade dropped into the water with a splash;

she brought the canoe a trifle nearer to the wharf with

an almost imperceptible stroke, and turned toward me

with wonder and dismay in her eyes.

 

“So you are an eavesdropper and detective, are you?

I beg that you will give your master my compliments!

I really owe you an apology; I thought you were a gentleman!”

she exclaimed with withering emphasis, and

dipped her blade deep in flight.

 

I called, stammering incoherently, after her, but her

light argosy skimmed the water steadily. The paddle

rose and fell with trained precision, making scarcely a

ripple as she stole softly away toward the fairy towers

of the sunset. I stood looking after her, goaded with

self-contempt. A glory of yellow and red filled the west.

Suddenly the wind moaned in the wood behind the line

of cottages, swept over me and rippled the surface of the

lake. I watched its flight until it caught her canoe and

I marked the flimsy craft’s quick response, as the shaken

waters bore her alert figure upward on the swell, her

blade still maintaining its regular dip, until she disappeared

behind a little peninsula that made a harbor near

the school grounds.

 

The red tam-o’-shanter seemed at last to merge in the

red sky, and I turned to my canoe and paddled cheerlessly

home.