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

seeking some colorless thing to say when she

spoke over her shoulder:

 

“You are very kind, but I am not in the least afraid,

Mr. Glenarm.”

 

“But there is something I wish to say to you. I

should like—”

 

She slackened her step.

 

“Yes.”

 

“I am going away.”

 

“Yes; of course; you are going away.”

 

Her tone implied that this was something that had

been ordained from the beginning of time, and did not

matter.

 

“And I wish to say a word about Mr. Pickering.”

 

She paused and faced me abruptly. We were at the

edge of the wood, and the school lay quite near. She

caught the cloak closer about her and gave her head a

little toss I remembered well, as a trick compelled by the

vagaries of woman’s head-dress.

 

“I can’t talk to you here, Mr. Glenarm; I had no intention

of ever seeing you again; but I must say this—”

 

“Those notes of Pickering’s—I shall ask Mr. Glenarm

to give them to you—as a mark of esteem from me.”

 

She stepped backward as though I had struck her.

 

“You risked much for them—for him”—I went on.

 

“Mr. Glenarm, I have no intention of discussing that,

or any other matter with you—”

 

“It is better so—”

 

“But your accusations, the things you imply, are unjust,

infamous!”

 

The quaver in her voice shook my resolution to deal

harshly with her.

 

“If I had not myself been a witness—” I began.

 

“Yes; you have the conceit of your own wisdom, I

dare say.”

 

“But that challenge to follow you, to break my pledge;

my running away, only to find that Pickering was close

at my heels; your visit to the tunnel in search of those

notes—don’t you know that those things were a blow

that hurt? You had been the spirit of this woodland to

me. Through all these months, from the hour I watched

you paddle off into the sunset in your canoe, the thought

of you made the days brighter, steadied and cheered me,

and wakened ambitions that I had forgotten—abandoned

—long ago. And this hideous struggle here—it seems

so idle, so worse than useless now! But I’m glad I followed

you—I’m glad that neither fortune nor duty kept

me back. And now I want you to know that Arthur

Pickering shall not suffer for anything that has happened.

I shall make no effort to punish him; for your

sake he shall go free.”

 

A sigh so deep that it was like a sob broke from her.

She thrust forth her hand entreatingly.

 

“Why don’t you go to him with your generosity?

You are so ready to believe ill of me! And I shall not

defend myself; but I will say these things to you, Mr.

Glenarm: I had no idea, no thought of seeing him at

the Armstrongs’ that night. It was a surprise to me,

and to them, when he telegraphed he was coming. And

when I went into the tunnel there under the wall that

night, I had a purpose—a purpose—”

 

“Yes?” she paused and I bent forward, earnestly

waiting for her words, knowing that here lay her great

offending.

 

“I was afraid—I was afraid that Mr. Glenarm might

not come in time; that you might be dispossessed—lose

the fight, and I came back with Mr. Pickering because

I thought some dreadful thing might happen here—to

you—”

 

She turned and ran from me with the speed of the

wind, the cloak fluttering out darkly about her. At the

door, under the light of the lamp, I was close upon her.

Her hand was on the vestibule latch.

 

“But how should I have known?” I cried. “And you

had taunted me with my imprisonment at Glenarm;

you had dared me to follow you, when you knew that

my grandfather was living and watching to see whether

I kept faith with him. If you can tell me—if there

an answer to that—”

 

“I shall never tell you anything—more! You were so

eager to think ill of me—to accuse me!”

 

“It was because I love you; it was my jealousy of that

man, my boyhood enemy, that made me catch at any

doubt. You are so beautiful—you are so much a part

of the peace, the charm of all this! I had hoped for

spring—for you and the spring together!”

 

“Oh, please—!”

 

Her flight had shaken the toque to an unwonted angle;

her breath came quick and hard as she tugged at

the latch eagerly. The light from overhead was full

upon us, but I could not go with hope and belief struggling

unsatisfied in my heart. I seized her hands and

sought to look into her eyes.

 

“But you challenged me—to follow you! I want to

know why you did that!”

 

She drew away, struggling to free herself

 

“Why was it, Marian?”

 

“Because I wanted—”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I wanted you to come, Squire Glenarm!”

 

Thrice spring has wakened the sap in the Glenarm

wood since that night. Yesterday I tore March from

the calendar. April in Indiana! She is an impudent

tomboy who whistles at the window, points to the sunshine

and, when you go hopefully forth, summons the

clouds and pelts you with snow. The austere old woodland,

wise from long acquaintance, finds no joy in her.

The walnut and the hickory have a higher respect for

the stormier qualities of December. April in Indiana!

She was just there by the wall, where now the bluebird

pauses dismayed, and waits again the flash of her golden

sandals. She bent there at the lakeside the splash of

a raindrop ago and tentatively poked the thin, brittle

ice with the pink tips of her little fingers. April in the

heart! It brings back the sweet wonder and awe of those

days, three years ago, when Marian and I, waiting for

June to come, knew a joy that thrilled our hearts like

the tumult of the first robin’s song. The marvel of it

all steals over me again as I hear the riot of melody in

meadow and wood, and catch through the window the

flash of eager wings.

 

My history of the affair at Glenarm has overrun the

bounds I had set for it, and these, I submit, are not

days for the desk and pen. Marian is turning over the

sheets of manuscript that lie at my left elbow, and demanding

that I drop work for a walk abroad. My

grandfather is pacing the terrace outside, planning, no

doubt, those changes in the grounds that are his constant

delight.

 

Of some of the persons concerned in this winter’s

tale let me say a word more. The prisoner whom Larry

left behind we discharged, after several days, with all

the honors of war, and (I may add without breach of

confidence) a comfortable indemnity. Larry has made

a reputation by his book on Russia—a searching study

into the conditions of the Czar’s empire, and, having

squeezed that lemon, he is now in Tibet. His father

has secured from the British government a promise of

immunity for Larry, so long as that amiable adventurer

keeps away from Ireland. My friend’s latest letters to

me contain, I note, no reference to The Sod.

 

Bates is in California conducting a fruit ranch, and

when he visited us last Christmas he bore all the marks

of a gentleman whom the world uses well. Stoddard’s

life has known many changes in these years, but they

must wait for another day, and, perhaps, another historian.

Suffice it to say that it was he who married us

—Marian and me—in the little chapel by the wall, and

that when he comes now and then to visit us, we renew

our impression of him as a man large of body and of

soul. Sister Theresa continues at the head of St. Agatha’s,

and she and the other Sisters of her brown-clad

company are delightful neighbors. Pickering’s failure

and subsequent disappearance were described sufficiently

in the newspapers and his name is never mentioned at

Glenarm.

 

As for myself—Marian is tapping the floor restlessly

with her boot and I must hasten—I may say that I am

no idler. It was I who carried on the work of finishing

Glenarm House, and I manage the farms which my

grandfather has lately acquired in this neighborhood.

But better still, from my own point of view, I maintain

in Chicago an office as consulting engineer and I have

already had several important commissions.

 

Glenarm House is now what my grandfather had

wished to make it, a beautiful and dignified mansion.

He insisted on filling up the tunnel, so that the Door of

Bewilderment is no more. The passage in the wall and

the strong box in the paneling of the chimney-breast

remain, though the latter we use now as a hiding-place

for certain prized bottles of rare whisky which John

Marshall Glenarm ordains shall be taken down only on

Christmas Eves, to drink the health of Olivia Gladys

Armstrong. That young woman, I may add, is now a

belle in her own city, and of the scores of youngsters all

the way from Pittsburg to New Orleans who lay siege

to her heart, my word is, may the best man win!

 

And now, at the end, it may seem idle vanity for a

man still young to write at so great length of his own

affairs; but it must have been clear that mine is the

humblest figure in this narrative. I wished to set forth

an honest account of my grandfather’s experiment in

looking into this world from another, and he has himself

urged me to write down these various incidents

while they are still fresh in my memory.

 

Marian—the most patient of women—is walking toward

the door, eager for the sunshine, the free airs of

spring, the blue vistas lakeward, and at last I am ready

to go.

 

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by Meredith Nicholson

 

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