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

stay within doors. But a man’s got to subject

himself to the sun and wind. Even a good wetting

now and then is salutary.”

 

“I try to get out every day,” I answered. “But I’ve

chiefly limited myself to the grounds.”

 

“Well, it’s a fine estate. The lake is altogether

charming in summer. I quite envy you your fortune.”

 

He walked with a long swinging stride, his hands

thrust deep into his overcoat pockets. It was difficult

to accept the idea of so much physical strength being

wasted in the mere business of saying prayers in a girls’

school. Here was a fellow who should have been captain

of a ship or a soldier, a leader of forlorn hopes. I

felt sure there must be a weakness of some sort in him.

Quite possibly it would prove to be a mild estheticism

that delighted in the savor of incense and the mournful

cadence of choral vespers. He declined a cigar and this

rather increased my suspicions.

 

The village hack, filled with young women, passed at

a gallop, bound for the station, and we took off our hats.

 

“Christmas holidays,” explained the chaplain. “Practically

all the students go home.”

 

“Lucky kids, to have a Christmas to go home to!”

 

“I suppose Mr. Pickering got away last night?” he

observed, and my pulse quickened at the name.

 

“I haven’t seen him yet,” I answered guardedly.

 

“Then of course he hasn’t gone!” and these words,

uttered in the big clergyman’s deep tones, seemed wholly

plausible. There was, to be sure, nothing so unlikely as

that Arthur Pickering, executor of my grandfather’s

estate, would come to Glenarm without seeing me.

 

“Sister Theresa told me this morning he was here.

He called on her and Miss Devereux last night. I

haven’t seen him myself. I thought possibly I might

run into him in the village. His car’s very likely on the

station switch.”

 

“No doubt we shall find him there,” I answered easily.

 

The Annandale station presented an appearance of

unusual gaiety when we reached the main street of the

village. There, to be sure, lay a private car on the

siding, and on the platform was a group of twenty or

more girls, with several of the brown-habited Sisters of

St. Agatha. There was something a little foreign in

the picture; the girls in their bright colors talking

gaily, the Sisters in their somber garb hovering about,

suggesting France or Italy rather than Indiana.

 

“I came here with the idea that St. Agatha’s was a

charity school,” I remarked to the chaplain.

 

“Not a bit of it! Sister Theresa is really a swell, you

know, and her school is hard to get into.”

 

“I’m glad you warned me in time. I had thought of

sending over a sack of flour occasionally, or a few bolts

of calico to help on the good work. You’ve saved my

life.”

 

“I probably have. I might mention your good intentions

to Sister Theresa.”

 

“Pray don’t. If there’s any danger of meeting her

on that platform—”

 

“No; she isn’t coming down, I’m sure. But you

ought to know her—if you will pardon me. And Miss

Devereux is charming—but really I don’t mean to be

annoying.”

 

“Not in the least. But under the circumstances—

the will and my probationary year—you can understand—”

 

“Certainly. A man’s affairs are his own, Mr. Glenarm.”

 

We stepped upon the platform. The private car was

on the opposite side of the station and had been

switched into a siding of the east and west road. Pickering

was certainly getting on. The private car, even

more than the yacht, is the symbol of plutocracy, and

gaping rustics were evidently impressed by its grandeur.

As I lounged across the platform with Stoddard, Pickering

came out into the vestibule of his car, followed by

two ladies and an elderly gentleman. They all descended

and began a promenade of the plank walk.

 

Pickering saw me an instant later and came up hurriedly,

with outstretched hand.

 

“This is indeed good fortune! We dropped off here

last night rather unexpectedly to rest a hot-box and

should have been picked up by the midnight express for

Chicago; but there was a miscarriage of orders somewhere

and we now have to wait for the nine o’clock, and

it’s late. If I’d known how much behind it was I

should have run out to see you. How are things going?”

 

“As smooth as a whistle! It really isn’t so bad when

you face it. And the fact is I’m actually at work.”

 

“That’s splendid. The year will go fast enough,

never fear. I suppose you pine for a little human society

now and then. A man can never strike the right

medium in such things. In New York we are all rushed

to death. I sometimes feel that I’d like a little rustication

myself. I get nervous, and working for corporations

is wearing. The old gentleman there is Taylor,

president of the Interstate and Western. The ladies

are his wife and her sister. I’d like to introduce

you.” He ran his eyes over my corduroys and leggings

amiably. He had not in years addressed me so pleasantly.

 

Stoddard had left me to go to the other end of the

platform to speak to some of the students. I followed

Pickering rather loathly to where the companions of

his travels were pacing to and fro in the crisp morning

air.

 

I laugh still whenever I remember that morning at

Annandale station. As soon as Pickering had got me

well under way in conversation with Taylor, he excused

himself hurriedly and went off, as I assumed, to be sure

the station agent had received orders for attaching the

private car to the Chicago express. Taylor proved to be

a supercilious person—I believe they call him Chilly

Billy at the Metropolitan Club—and our efforts to converse

were pathetically unfruitful. He asked me the

value of land in my county, and as my ignorance on this

subject was vast and illimitable, I could see that he was

forming a low opinion of my character and intelligence.

The two ladies stood by, making no concealment of their

impatience. Their eyes were upon the girls from St.

Agatha’s on the other platform, whom they could see

beyond me. I had jumped the conversation from Indiana

farm-lands to the recent disorders in Bulgaria,

which interested me more, when Mrs. Taylor spoke

abruptly to her sister.

 

“That’s she—the one in the gray coat, talking to the

clergyman. She came a moment ago in the carriage.”

 

“The one with the umbrella? I thought you said—”

 

Mrs. Taylor glanced at her sister warningly, and

they both looked at me. Then they sought to detach

themselves and moved away. There was some one on

the farther side of the platform whom they wished to see,

and Taylor, not understanding their manoeuver—he was

really anxious, I think, not to be left alone with me—

started down the platform after them, I following. Mrs.

Taylor and her sister walked to the end of the platform

and looked across, a biscuit-toss away, to where Stoddard

stood talking to the girl I had already heard described

as wearing a gray coat and carrying an umbrella.

 

The girl in gray crossed the track quickly and addressed

the two women cordially. Taylor’s back was to

her and he was growing eloquent in a mild well-bred

way over the dullness of our statesmen in not seeing the

advantages that would accrue to the United States in

fostering our shipping industry. His wife, her sister

and the girl in gray were so near that I could hear

plainly what they were saying. They were referring

apparently to the girl’s refusal of an invitation to accompany

them to California.

 

“So you can’t go—it’s too bad! We had hoped that

when you really saw us on the way you would relent,”

said Mrs. Taylor.

 

“But there are many reasons; and above all Sister

Theresa needs me.”

 

It was the voice of Olivia, a little lower, a little more

restrained than I had known it.

 

“But think of the rose gardens that are waiting for

us out there!” said the other lady. They were showing

her the deference that elderly women always have for

pretty girls.

 

“Alas, and again alas!” exclaimed Olivia. “Please

don’t make it harder for me than necessary. But I gave

my promise a year ago to spend these holidays in Cincinnati.”

 

She ignored me wholly, and after shaking hands with

the ladies returned to the other platform. I wondered

whether she was overlooking Taylor on purpose to cut

me.

 

Taylor was still at his lecture on the needs of our

American merchant marine when Pickering passed hurriedly,

crossed the track and began speaking earnestly

to the girl in gray.

 

“The American flag should command the seas. What

we need is not more battle-ships but more freight carriers—”

Taylor was saying.

 

But I was watching Olivia Gladys Armstrong. In a

long skirt, with her hair caught up under a gray toque

that matched her coat perfectly, she was not my Olivia

of the tam-o’-shanter, who had pursued the rabbit; nor

yet the unsophisticated school-girl, who had suffered my

idiotic babble; nor, again, the dreamy rapt organist of

the chapel. She was a grown woman with at least

twenty summers to her credit, and there was about her

an air of knowing the world, and of not being at all a

person one would make foolish speeches to. She spoke

to Pickering gravely. Once she smiled dolefully and

shook her head, and I vaguely strove to remember where

I had seen that look in her eyes before. Her gold beads,

which I had once carried in my pocket, were clasped

tight about the close collar of her dress; and I was glad,

very glad, that I had ever touched anything that belonged

to her.

 

“As the years go by we are going to dominate trade

more and more. Our manufactures already lead the

world, and what we make we’ve got to sell, haven’t we?”

demanded Taylor.

 

“Certainly, sir,” I answered warmly.

 

Who was Olivia Gladys Armstrong and what was

Arthur Pickering’s business with her? And what was

it she had said to me that evening when I had found her

playing on the chapel organ? So much happened that

day that I had almost forgotten, and, indeed, I had

tried to forget I had made a fool of myself for the edification

of an amusing little school-girl. “I see you

prefer to ignore the first time I ever saw you,” she had

said; but if I had thought of this at all it had been

with righteous self-contempt. Or, I may have flattered

my vanity with the reflection that she had eyed me—

her hero, perhaps—with wistful admiration across the

wall.

 

Meanwhile the Chicago express roared into Annandale

and the private car was attached. Taylor watched

the trainmen with the cool interest of a man for whom

the proceeding had no novelty, while he continued to

dilate upon the nation’s commercial opportunities. I

turned perforce, and walked with him back toward the

station, where Mrs. Taylor and her sister were talking

to the conductor.

 

Pickering came running across the platform with several

telegrams in his hand. The express had picked up

the car and was ready to continue its westward journey.

 

“I’m awfully sorry, Glenarm, that our stop’s so

short,”—and Pickering’s face wore a worried look as he

addressed me, his eyes on the conductor.

 

“How far do you go?” I asked.

 

“California. We have interests out there and I have

to attend some stock-holders’ meetings in Colorado in

January.”

 

“Ah, you business men! You