The House of a Thousand Candles - Meredith Nicholson (top 50 books to read txt) 📗
- Author: Meredith Nicholson
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felt sure, had not attended church since the last time
his family had dragged hint to choral vespers.
It was comforting to know that here was, at least, one
place of peace within reach of Glenarm House. But I
may be forgiven, I hope, if my mind wandered that
morning, and my thoughts played hide-and-seek with
memory. For it was here, in the winter twilight, that
Marian Devereux had poured out her girl’s heart in a
great flood of melody. I was glad that the organ was
closed; it would have wrung my heart to hear a note
from it that her hands did not evoke.
When we came out upon the church porch and I stood
on the steps to allow Larry to study the grounds, one of
the brown-robed Sisterhood spoke my name.
It was Sister Theresa.
“Can you come in for a moment?” she asked.
“I will follow at once,” I said.
She met me in the reception-room where I had seen
her before.
“I’m sorry to trouble you on Christmas Day with my
affairs, but I have had a letter from Mr. Pickering, saying
that he will he obliged to bring suit for settlement
of my account with Mr. Glenarm’s estate. I needn’t
say that this troubles me greatly. In my position a lawsuit
is uncomfortable; it would do a real harm to the
school. Mr. Pickering implies in a very disagreeable
way that I exercised an undue influence over Mr. Glenarm.
You can readily understand that that is not a
pleasant accusation.”
“He is going pretty far,” I said.
“He gives me credit for a degree of power over others
that I regret to say I do not possess. He thinks, for instance,
that I am responsible for Miss Devereux’s attitude
toward him—something that I have had nothing
whatever to do with.”
“No, of course not.”
“I’m glad you have no harsh feeling toward her. It
was unfortunate that Mr. Glenarm saw fit to mention
her in his will. It has given her a great deal of notoriety,
and has doubtless strengthened the impression in
some minds that she and I really plotted to get as much
as possible of your grandfather’s estate.”
“No one would regret all this more than my grandfather,
—I am sure of that. There are many inexplicable
things about his affairs. It seems hardly possible
that a man so shrewd as he, and so thoughtful of the
feelings of others, should have left so many loose ends
behind him. But I assure you I am giving my whole
attention to these matters, and I am wholly at your
service in anything I can do to help you.”
“I sincerely hope that nothing may interfere to prevent
your meeting Mr. Glenarm’s wish that you remain
through the year. That was a curious and whimsical
provision, but it is not, I imagine, so difficult.”
She spoke in a kindly tone of encouragement that
made me feel uneasy and almost ashamed for having
already forfeited my claim under the will. Her beautiful
gray eyes disconcerted me; I had not the heart to
deceive her.
“I have already made it impossible for me to inherit
under the will,” I said.
The disappointment in her face rebuked me sharply.
“I am sorry, very sorry, indeed,” she said coldly.
“But how, may I ask?”
“I ran away, last night. I went to Cincinnati to see
Miss Devereux.”
She rose, staring in dumb astonishment, and after a
full minute in which I tried vainly to think of something
to say, I left the house.
There is nothing in the world so tiresome as explanations,
and I have never in my life tried to make them
without floundering into seas of trouble.
PICKERING SERVES NOTICE
The next morning Bates placed a letter postmarked
Cincinnati at my plate. I opened and read it aloud to
Larry:
On Board the Heloise
December 25, 1901.
John Glenarm, Esq.,
Glenarm House,
Annandale, Wabana Co., Indiana:
DEAR SIR—I have just learned from what I believe to
be a trustworthy source that you have already violated
the terms of the agreement under which you entered into
residence on the property near Annandale, known as
Glenarm House. The provisions of the will of John Marshall
Glenarm are plain and unequivocal, as you undoubtedly
understood when you accepted them, and your absence,
not only from the estate itself, but from Wabana
County, violates beyond question your right to inherit.
I, as executor, therefore demand that you at once vacate
said property, leaving it in as good condition as when
received by you. Very truly yours,
Arthur Pickering,
Executor of the Estate of John Marshall Glenarm.
“Very truly the devil’s,” growled Larry, snapping
his cigarette case viciously.
“How did he find out?” I asked lamely, but my heart
sank like lead. Had Marian Devereux told him! How
else could he know?
“Probably from the stars—the whole universe undoubtedly
saw you skipping off to meet your lady-love.
Bah, these women!”
“Tut! They don’t all marry the sons of brewers,”
I retorted. “You assured me once, while your affair
with that Irish girl was on, that the short upper lip
made Heaven seem possible, but unnecessary; then the
next thing I knew she had shaken you for the bloated
masher. Take that for your impertinence. But perhaps
it was Bates?”
I did not wait for an answer. I was not in a mood
for reflection or nice distinctions. The man came in
just then with a fresh plate of toast.
“Bates, Mr. Pickering has learned that I was away
from the house on the night of the attack, and I’m ordered
off for having broken my agreement to stay here.
How do you suppose he heard of it so promptly?”
“From Morgan, quite possibly. I have a letter from
Mr. Pickering myself this morning. Just a moment,
sir.”
He placed before me a note bearing the same date as
my own. It was a sharp rebuke of Bates for his failure
to report my absence, and he was ordered to prepare to
leave on the first of February. “Close your accounts at
the shopkeepers’ and I will audit your bills on my arrival.”
The tone was peremptory and contemptuous. Bates
had failed to satisfy Pickering and was flung off like a
smoked-out cigar.
“How much had he allowed you for expenses, Bates?”
He met my gaze imperturbably.
“He paid me fifty dollars a month as wages, sir, and
I was allowed seventy-five for other expenses.”
“But you didn’t buy English pheasants and champagne
on that allowance!”
He was carrying away the coffee tray and his eyes
wandered to the windows.
“Not quite, sir. You see—”
“But I don’t see!”
“It had occurred to me that as Mr. Pickering’s allowance
wasn’t what you might call generous it was better
to augment it—Well, sir, I took the liberty of advancing
a trifle, as you might say, to the estate. Your
grandfather would not have had you starve, sir.”
He left hurriedly, as though to escape from the consequences
of his words, and when I came to myself
Larry was gloomily invoking his strange Irish gods.
“Larry Donovan, I’ve been tempted to kill that fellow
a dozen times! This thing is too damned complicated
for me. I wish my lamented grandfather had left
me something easy. To think of it—that fellow, after
my treatment of him—my cursing and abusing him
since I came here! Great Scott, man, I’ve been enjoying
his bounty, I’ve been living on his money! And
all the time he’s been trusting in me, just because of
his dog-like devotion to my grandfather’s memory.
Lord, I can’t face the fellow again!”
“As I have said before, you’re rather lacking at times
in perspicacity. Your intelligence is marred by large
opaque spots. Now that there’s a woman in the case
you’re less sane than ever. Bah, these women! And
now we’ve got to go to work.”
Bah, these women! My own heart caught the words.
I was enraged and bitter. No wonder she had been
anxious for me to avoid Pickering after daring me to
follow her!
We called a council of war for that night that we
might view matters in the light of Pickering’s letter.
His assuredness in ordering me to leave made prompt
and decisive action necessary on my part. I summoned
Stoddard to our conference, feeling confident of his
friendliness.
“Of course,” said the broad-shouldered chaplain, “if
you could show that your absence was on business of
very grave importance, the courts might construe in
that you had not really violated the will.”
Larry looked at the ceiling and blew rings of smoke
languidly. I had not disclosed to either of them the
cause of my absence. On such a matter I knew I should
get precious little sympathy from Larry, and I had,
moreover, a feeling that I could not discuss Marian
Devereux with any one; I even shrank from mentioning
her name, though it rang like the call of bugles in
my blood.
She was always before me—the charmed spirit of
youth, linked to every foot of the earth, every gleam of
the sun upon the ice-bound lake, every glory of the winter
sunset. All the good impulses I had ever stifled
were quickened to life by the thought of her. Amid the
day’s perplexities I started sometimes, thinking I heard
her voice, her girlish laughter, or saw her again coming
toward me down the stairs, or holding against the light
her fan with its golden butterflies. I really knew so
little of her; I could associate her with no home, only
with that last fling of the autumn upon the lake, the
snow-driven woodland, that twilight hour at the organ
in the chapel, those stolen moments at the Armstrongs’.
I resented the pressure of the hour’s affairs, and chafed
at the necessity for talking of my perplexities with the
good friends who were there to help. I wished to be
alone, to yield to the sweet mood that the thought of her
brought me. The doubt that crept through my mind
as to any possibility of connivance between her and
Pickering was as vague and fleeting as the shadow of a
swallow’s wing on a sunny meadow.
“You don’t intend fighting the fact of your absence,
do you?” demanded Larry, after a long silence.
“Of course not!” I replied quietly. “Pickering was
right on my heels, and my absence was known to his
men here. And it would not be square to my grandfather,
—who never harmed a flea, may his soul rest in
blessed peace!—to lie about it. They might nail me for
perjury besides.”
“Then the quicker we get ready for a siege the better.
As I understand your attitude, you don’t propose to
move out until you’ve found where the siller’s hidden.
Being a gallant gentleman and of a forgiving nature,
you want to be sure that the lady who is now entitled to
it gets all there is coming to her, and as you don’t trust
the executor, any further than a true Irishman trusts a
British prime minister’s promise, you’re going to stand
by to watch the boodle counted. Is that a correct analysis
of your intentions?”
“That’s as near one of my ideas as you’re likely to
get, Larry Donovan!”
“And if he comes with the authorities—the sheriff
and that sort of thing—we must prepare for such an
emergency,” interposed the chaplain.
“So much the worse for the sheriff and the rest of
them!” I declared.
“Spoken like a man of spirit. And now we’d
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