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

CHAPTER XIII

A PAIR OF EAVESDROPPERS

 

When I came down after dressing for dinner, Bates

called my attention to a belated mail. I pounced eagerly

upon a letter in Laurance Donovan’s well-known

hand, bearing, to my surprise, an American stamp and

postmarked New Orleans. It was dated, however, at

Vera Cruz, Mexico, December fifteenth, 1901.

 

DEAR OLD MAN: I have had a merry time since I saw you

in New York. Couldn’t get away for a European port

as I hoped when I left you, as the authorities seemed to

be taking my case seriously, and I was lucky to get off

as a deck-hand on a south-bound boat. I expected to get a

slice of English prodigal veal at Christmas, but as things

stand now, I am grateful to be loose even in this God-forsaken

hole. The British bulldog is eager to insert its

teeth in my trousers, and I was flattered to see my picture

bulletined in a conspicuous place the day I struck Vera

Cruz. You see, they’re badgering the Government at

home because I’m not apprehended, and they’ve got to

catch and hang me to show that they’ve really got their

hands on the Irish situation. I am not afraid of the

Greasers—no people who gorge themselves with bananas

and red peppers can be dangerous—but the British consul

here has a bad eye and even as I write I am dimly conscious

that a sleek person, who is ostensibly engaged in

literary work at the next table, is really killing time while

he waits for me to finish this screed.

 

No doubt you are peacefully settled on your ancestral

estate with only a few months and a little patience between

you and your grandfather’s shier. You always were

a lucky brute. People die just to leave you money, whereas

I’ll have to die to get out of jail.

 

I hope to land under the Stars and Stripes within a few

days, either across country through El Paso or via New

Orleans—preferably the former, as a man’s social position

is rated high in Texas in proportion to the amount of reward

that’s out for him. They’d probably give me the

freedom of the state if they knew my crimes had been the

subject of debate in the House of Commons.

 

But the man across the table is casually looking over

here for a glimpse of my signature, so I must give him

a good one just for fun. With best wishes always,

Faithfully yours,

GEORGE WASHINGTON SMITH.

 

P. S—I shan’t mail this here, but give it to a red-haired

Irishman on a steamer that sails north to-night. Pleasant,

I must say, this eternal dodging! Wish I could share your

rural paradise for the length of a pipe and a bottle! Have

forgotten whether you said Indian Territory or Indiana,

but will take chances on the latter as more remotely suggesting

the aborigines.

 

Bates gave me my coffee in the library, as I wished

to settle down to an evening of reflection without delay.

Larry’s report of himself was not reassuring. I knew

that if he had any idea of trying to reach me he would

not mention it in a letter which might fall into the

hands of the authorities, and the hope that he might

join me grew. I was not, perhaps, entitled to a companion

at Glenarm under the terms of my exile, but as

a matter of protection in the existing condition of affairs

there could be no legal or moral reason why I

should not defend myself against my foes, and Larry

was an ally worth having.

 

In all my hours of questioning and anxiety at Glenarm

I never doubted the amiable intentions of my

grandfather. His device for compelling my residence

at his absurd house was in keeping with his character,

and it was all equitable enough. But his dead hand had

no control over the strange issue, and I felt justified in

interpreting the will in the light of my experiences. I

certainly did not intend to appeal to the local police authorities,

at least not until the animus of the attack on

me was determined.

 

My neighbor, the chaplain, had inadvertently given

me a bit of important news; and my mind kept reverting

to the fact that Morgan was reporting his injury to

the executor of my grandfather’s estate in New York.

Everything else that had happened was tame and unimportant

compared with this. Why had John Marshall

Glenarm made Arthur Pickering the executor of his

estate? He knew that I detested him, that Pickering’s

noble aims and high ambitions had been praised by my

family until his very name sickened me; and yet my

own grandfather had thought it wise to intrust his fortune

and my future to the man of all men who was

most repugnant to me. I rose and paced the floor in

anger.

 

Instead of accepting Pickering’s word for it that the

will was all straight, I should have employed counsel

and taken legal advice before suffering myself to be

rushed away into a part of the world I had never visited

before, and cooped up in a dreary house under the eye

of a somber scoundrel who might poison me any day, if

he did not prefer to shoot me in my sleep. My rage

must fasten upon some one, and Bates was the nearest

target for it. I went to the kitchen, where he usually

spent his evenings, to vent my feelings upon him, only

to find him gone. I climbed to his room and found it

empty. Very likely he was off condoling with his friend

and fellow conspirator, the caretaker, and I fumed with

rage and disappointment. I was thoroughly tired, as

tired as on days when I had beaten my way through

tropical jungles without food or water; but I wished,

in my impotent anger against I knew not what agencies,

to punish myself, to induce an utter weariness that

would drag me exhausted to bed.

 

The snow in the highway was well beaten down and

I swung off countryward past St. Agatha’s. A gray

mist hung over the fields in whirling clouds, breaking

away occasionally and showing the throbbing winter

stars. The walk, and my interest in the alternation of

starlighted and mist-wrapped landscape won me to a

better state of mind, and after tramping a couple of

miles, I set out for home. Several times on my tramp

I had caught myself whistling the air of a majestic

old hymn, and smiled, remembering my young friend

Olivia, and her playing in the chapel. She was an

amusing child; the thought of her further lifted my

spirit; and I turned into the school park as I passed

the outer gate with a half-recognized wish to pass near

the barracks where she spent her days.

 

At the school-gate the lamps of a carriage suddenly

blurred in the mist. Carriages were not common in this

region, and I was not surprised to find that this was the

familiar village hack that met trains day and night at

Glenarm station. Some parent, I conjectured, paying a

visit to St. Agatha’s; perhaps the father of Miss Olivia

Gladys Armstrong had come to carry her home for a

stricter discipline than Sister Theresa’s school afforded.

 

The driver sat asleep on his box, and I passed him

and went on into the grounds. A whim seized me to

visit the crypt of the chapel and examine the opening

to the tunnel. As I passed the little group of school-buildings

a man came hurriedly from one of them and

turned toward the chapel.

 

I first thought it was Stoddard, but I could not make

him out in the mist and I waited for him to put twenty

paces between us before I followed along the path that

led from the school to the chapel.

 

He strode into the chapel porch with an air of assurance,

and I heard him address some one who had been

waiting. The mist was now so heavy that I could not

see my hand before my face, and I stole forward until

I could hear the voices of the two men distinctly.

 

“Bates!”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

I heard feet scraping on the stone floor of the porch.

 

“This is a devil of a place to talk in but it’s the best

we can do. Did the young man