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

CHAPTER XV

I MAKE AN ENGAGEMENT

 

The south-bound train had not arrived and as I

turned away the station-agent again changed its time

on the bulletin board. It was now due in ten minutes.

A few students had boarded the Chicago train, but a

greater number still waited on the farther platform.

The girl in gray was surrounded by half a dozen students,

all talking animatedly. As I walked toward them

I could not justify my stupidity in mistaking a grown

woman for a school-girl of fifteen or sixteen; but is was

the tam-o’-shanter, the short skirt, the youthful joy in

the outdoor world that had disguised her as effectually

as Rosalind to the eyes of Orlando in the forest of Arden.

She was probably a teacher—quite likely the

teacher of music, I argued, who had amused herself

at my expense.

 

It had seemed the easiest thing in the world to approach

her with an apology or a farewell, but those few

inches added to her skirt and that pretty gray toque

substituted for the tam-o’-shanter set up a barrier that

did not yield at all as I drew nearer. At the last moment,

as I crossed the track and stepped upon the other

platform, it occurred to me that while I might have

some claim upon the attention of Olivia Gladys Armstrong,

a wayward school-girl of athletic tastes, I had

none whatever upon a person whom it was proper to

address as Miss Armstrong—who was, I felt sure, quite

capable of snubbing me if snubbing fell in with her

mood.

 

She glanced toward me and bowed instantly. Her

young companions withdrew to a conservative distance;

and I will say this for the St. Agatha girls: their manners

are beyond criticism, and an affable discretion is

one of their most admirable traits.

 

“I didn’t know they ever grew up so fast—in a day

and a night!”

 

I was glad I remembered the number of beads in her

chain; the item seemed at once to become important.

 

“It’s the air, I suppose. It’s praised by excellent

critics, as you may learn from the catalogue.”

 

“But you are going to an ampler ether, a diviner air.

You have attained the beatific state and at once take

flight. If they confer perfection like an academic degree

at St. Agatha’s, then—”

 

I had never felt so stupidly helpless in my life.

There were a thousand things I wished to say to her;

there were countless questions I wished to ask; but her

calmness and poise were disconcerting. She had not,

apparently, the slightest curiosity about me; and there

was no reason why she should have—I knew that well

enough! Her eyes met mine easily; their azure depths

puzzled me. She was almost, but not quite, some one I

had seen before, and it was not my woodland Olivia.

Her eyes, the soft curve of her cheek, the light in

her hair—but the memory of another time, another

place, another girl, lured only to baffle me.

 

She laughed—a little murmuring laugh.

 

“I’ll never tell if you won’t,” she said.

 

“But I don’t see how that helps me with you?”

 

“It certainly does not! That is a much more serious

matter, Mr. Glenarm.”

 

“And the worst of it is that I haven’t a single thing

to say for myself. It wasn’t the not knowing that was

so utterly stupid—”

 

“Certainly not! It was talking that ridiculous twaddle.

It was trying to flirt with a silly school-girl. What

will do for fifteen is somewhat vacuous for—”

 

She paused abruptly, colored and laughed.

 

“I am twenty-seven!”

 

“And I am just the usual age,” she said.

 

“Ages don’t count, but time is important. There are

many things I wish you’d tell me—you who hold the

key of the gate of mystery.”

 

“Then you’ll have to pick the lock!”

 

She laughed lightly. The somber Sisters patrolling

the platform with their charges heeded us little.

 

“I had no idea you knew Arthur Pickering—when

you were just Olivia in the tam-o’-shanter.”

 

“Maybe you think he wouldn’t have cared for my

acquaintance—as Olivia in the tam-o’-shanter. Men

are very queer!”

 

“But Arthur Pickering is an old friend of mine.”

 

“So he told me.”

 

“We were neighbors in our youth.”

 

“I believe I have heard him mention it.”

 

“And we did our prep school together, and then

parted!”

 

“You tell exactly the same story, so it must be true.

He went to college and you went to Tech.”

 

“And you knew him—?” I began, my curiosity thoroughly

aroused.

 

“Not at college, any more than I knew you at Tech.”

 

“The train’s coming,” I said earnestly, “and I wish

you would tell me—when I shall see you again!”

 

“Before we part for ever?” There was a mischievous

hint of the Olivia in short skirts in her tone.

 

“Please don’t suggest it! Our times have been

strange and few. There was that first night, when you

called to me from the lake.”

 

“How impertinent! How dare you—remember that?”

 

“And there was that other encounter at the chapel

porch. Neither you nor I had the slightest business

there. I admit my own culpability.”

 

She colored again.

 

“But you spoke as though you understood what you

must have heard there. It is important for me to know.

I have a right to know just what you meant by that

warning.”

 

Real distress showed in her face for an instant. The

agent and his helpers rushed the last baggage down the

platform, and the rails hummed their warning of the

approaching train.

 

“I was eavesdropping on my own account,” she said

hurriedly and with a note of finality. “I was there by

intention, and”—there was another hint of the tam-o’-shanter

in the mirth that seemed to bubble for a moment

in her throat—“it’s too bad you didn’t see me, for

I had on my prettiest gown, and the fog wasn’t good for

it. But you know as much of what was said there as I

do. You are a man, and I have heard that you have had

some experience in taking care of yourself, Mr. Glenarm.”

 

“To be sure; but there are times—”

 

“Yes, there are times when the odds seem rather

heavy. I have noticed that myself.”

 

She smiled, but for an instant the sad look came into

her eyes—a look that vaguely but insistently suggested

another time and place.

 

“I want you to come back,” I said boldly, for the

train was very near, and I felt that the eyes of the Sisters

were upon us. “You can not go away where I shall

not find you!”

 

I did not know who this girl was, her home, or her

relation to the school, but I knew that her life and

mine had touched strangely; that her eyes were blue,

and that her voice had called to me twice through the

dark, in mockery once and in warning another time,

and that the sense of having known her before, of having

looked into her eyes, haunted me. The youth in

her was so luring; she was at once so frank and so

guarded—breeding and the taste and training of an

ampler world than that of Annandale were so evidenced

in the witchery of her voice, in the grace and ease that

marked her every motion, in the soft gray tone of hat,

dress and gloves, that a new mood, a new hope and

faith sang in my pulses. There, on that platform, I felt

again the sweet heartache I had known as a boy, when

spring first warmed the Vermont hillsides and the

mountains sent the last snows singing in joy of their

release down through the brook-beds and into the wakened

heart of youth.

 

She met my eyes steadily.

 

“If I thought there was the slightest chance of my

ever seeing you again I shouldn’t be talking to you

here. But I thought, I thought it would be good fun

to see how you really talked to a grown-up. So I am

risking the displeasure of these good Sisters just to test

your conversational powers, Mr. Glenarm. You see how

perfectly frank I am.”

 

“But you forget that I can follow you; I don’t intend

to sit down in this hole and dream about you. You

can’t go anywhere but I shall follow and find you.”

 

“That is finely spoken, Squire Glenarm! But I imagine

you are hardly likely to go far from Glenarm

very soon. It isn’t, of course, any of my affair; and yet

I don’t hesitate to say that I feel perfectly safe from

pursuit!”—and she laughed her little low laugh that

was delicious in its mockery.

 

I felt the blood mounting to my cheek. She knew,

then, that I was virtually a prisoner at Glenarm, and

for once in my life, at least, I was ashamed of my folly

that had caused my grandfather to hold and check me

from the grave, as he had never been able to control me

in his life. The whole countryside knew why I was at

Glenarm, and that did not matter; but my heart rebelled

at the thought that this girl knew and mocked me with

her knowledge.

 

“I shall see you Christmas Eve,” I said, “wherever

you may be.”

 

“In three days? Then you will come to my Christmas

Eve party. I shall be delighted to see you—and

flattered! Just think of throwing away a fortune to

satisfy one’s curiosity! I’m surprised at you, but gratified,

on the whole, Mr. Glenarm!”

 

“I shall give more than a fortune, I shall give the

honor I have pledged to my grandfather’s memory to

hear your voice again.”

 

“That is a great deal—for so small a voice; but

money, fortune! A man will risk his honor readily

enough, but his fortune is a more serious matter. I’m

sorry we shall not meet again. It would be pleasant to

discuss the subject further. It interests me particularly.”

 

“In three days I shall see you,” I said.

 

She was instantly grave.

 

“No! Please do not try. It would be a great mistake.

And, anyhow, you can hardly come to my party

without being invited.”

 

“That matter is closed. Wherever you are on Christmas

Eve I shall find you,” I said, and felt my heart

leap, knowing that I meant what I said.

 

“Good-by,” she said, turning away. “I’m sorry I

shan’t ever chase rabbits at Glenarm any more.”

 

“Or paddle a canoe, or play wonderful celestial music

on