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

to them; but the station-master,

the girl at the post-office and the clerks in the

shops treated me with an unmistakable cold reserve.

There was a certain evenness of the chill which they

visited upon me, as though a particular degree of frigidity

had been determined in advance.

 

I shrugged my shoulders and turned toward Glenarm.

My grandfather had left me a cheerful legacy of

distrust among my neighbors, the result, probably, of

importing foreign labor to work on his house. The surly

Morgan had intimated as much; but it did not greatly

matter. I had not come to Glenarm to cultivate the

rustics, but to fulfil certain obligations laid down in

my grandfather’s will. I was, so to speak, on duty, and

I much preferred that the villagers should let me alone.

Comforting myself with these reflections I reached the

wharf, where I saw Morgan sitting with his feet dangling

over the water, smoking a pipe.

 

I nodded in his direction, but he feigned not to see

me. A moment later he jumped into his boat and rowed

out into the lake.

 

When I returned to the house Bates was at work in

the kitchen. This was a large square room with heavy

timbers showing in the walls and low ceiling. There

was a great fireplace having an enormous chimney and

fitted with a crane and bobs, but for practical purposes

a small range was provided.

 

Bates received me placidly.

 

“Yes; it’s an unusual kitchen, sir. Mr. Glenarm

copied it from an old kitchen in England. He took

quite a pride in it. It’s a pleasant place to sit in the

evening, sir.”

 

He showed me the way below, where I found that the

cellar extended under every part of the house, and was

divided into large chambers. The door of one of them

was of heavy oak, bound in iron, with a barred opening

at the top. A great iron hasp with a heavy padlock and

grilled area windows gave further the impression of a

cell, and I fear that at this, as at many other things in

the curious house, I swore—if I did not laugh—thinking

of the money my grandfather had expended in realizing

his whims. The room was used, I noted with pleasure,

as a depository for potatoes. I asked Bates whether

he knew my grandfather’s purpose in providing a cell in

his house.

 

“That, sir, was another of the dead master’s ideas.

He remarked to me once that it was just as well to have

a dungeon in a well-appointed house—his humor again,

sir! And it comes in quite handy for the potatoes.”

 

In another room I found a curious collection of lanterns

of every conceivable description, grouped on

shelves, and next door to this was a store-room filled

with brass candlesticks of many odd designs. I shall not

undertake to describe my sensations as, peering about

with a candle in my hand, the vagaries of John Marshall

Glenarm’s mind were further disclosed to me. It was

almost beyond belief that any man with such whims

should ever have had the money to gratify them.

 

I returned to the main floor and studied the titles of

the books in the library, finally smoking a pipe over a

very tedious chapter in an exceedingly dull work on

Norman Revivals and Influences. Then I went out, assuring

myself that I should get steadily to work in a day

or two. It was not yet eleven o’clock, and time was sure

to move deliberately within the stone walls of my

prison. The long winter lay before me in which I must

study perforce, and just now it was pleasant to view the

landscape in all its autumn splendor.

 

Bates was soberly chopping wood at a rough pile of

timber at the rear of the house. His industry had already

impressed me. He had the quiet ways of an ideal

serving man.

 

“Well, Bates, you don’t intend to let me freeze to

death, do you? There must be enough in the pile there

to last all winter.”

 

“Yes, sir; I am just cutting a little more of the hickory,

sir. Mr. Glenarm always preferred it to beech or

maple. We only take out the old timber. The summer

storms eat into the wood pretty bad, sir.”

 

“Oh, hickory, to be sure! I’ve heard it’s the best firewood.

That’s very thoughtful of you.”

 

I turned next to the unfinished tower in the meadow,

from which a windmill pumped water to the house. The

iron frame was not wholly covered with stone, but material

for the remainder of the work lay scattered at the

base. I went on through the wood to the lake and inspected

the boat-house. It was far more pretentious

than I had imagined from my visit in the dark. It was

of two stories, the upper half being a cozy lounging-room,

with wide windows and a fine outlook over the

water. The unplastered walls were hung with Indian

blankets; lounging-chairs and a broad seat under the

windows, colored matting on the floor and a few prints

pinned upon the Navajoes gave further color to the

place.

 

I followed the pebbly shore to the stone wall where

it marked the line of the school-grounds. The wall, I

observed, was of the same solid character here as along

the road. I tramped beside it, reflecting that my grandfather’s

estate, in the heart of the Republic, would some

day give the lie to foreign complaints that we have no

ruins in America.

 

I had assumed that there was no opening in the wall,

but half-way to the road I found an iron gate, fastened

with chain and padlock, by means of which I climbed

to the top. The pillars at either side of the gate were of

huge dimensions and were higher than I could reach.

An intelligent forester had cleared the wood in the

school-grounds, which were of the same general character

as the Glenarm estate. The little Gothic church

near at hand was built of stone similar to that used in

Glenarm House. As I surveyed the scene a number of

young women came from one of the school-buildings

and, forming in twos and fours, walked back and forth

in a rough path that led to the chapel. A Sister clad in a

brown habit lingered near or walked first with one and

then another of the students. It was all very pretty and

interesting and not at all the ugly school for paupers I

had expected to find. The students were not the charity

children I had carelessly pictured; they were not so

young, for one thing, and they seemed to be appareled

decently enough.

 

I smiled to find myself adjusting my scarf and

straightening my collar as I beheld my neighbors for

the first time.

 

As I sat thus on the wall I heard the sound of angry

voices back of me on the Glenarm side, and a crash of

underbrush marked a flight and pursuit. I crouched

down on the wall and waited. In a moment a man

plunged through the wood and stumbled over a low-hanging

vine and fell, not ten yards from where I lay.

To my great surprise it was Morgan, my acquaintance

of the morning. He rose, cursed his ill luck and, hugging

the wall close, ran toward the lake. Instantly the

pursuer broke into view. It was Bates, evidently much

excited and with an ugly cut across his forehead. He

carried a heavy club, and, after listening for a moment

for sounds of the enemy, he hurried after the caretaker.

 

It was not my row, though I must say it quickened

my curiosity. I straightened myself out, threw my legs

over the school side of the wall and lighted a cigar,

feeling cheered by the opportunity the stone barricade

offered for observing the world.

 

As I looked off toward the little church I found two

other actors appearing on the scene. A girl stood in a

little opening of the wood, talking to a man. Her hands

were thrust into the pockets of her covert coat; she wore

a red tam-o’-shanter, that made a bright bit of color in

the wood. They were not more than twenty feet away,

but a wild growth of young maples lay between us,

screening the wall. Their profiles were toward me, and

the tones of the girl’s voice reached me clearly, as she

addressed her companion. He wore a clergyman’s high

waistcoat, and I assumed that he was the chaplain whom

Bates had mentioned. I am not by nature an eavesdropper,

but the girl was clearly making a plea of some

kind, and the chaplain’s stalwart figure awoke in me an

antagonism that held me to the wall.

 

“If he comes here I shall go away, so you may as well

understand it and tell him. I shan’t see him under any

circumstances, and I’m not going to Florida or California

or anywhere else in a private car, no matter who

chaperones it.”

 

“Certainly not, unless you want to—certainly not,”

said the chaplain. “You understand that I’m only giving

you his message. He thought it best—”

 

“Not to write to me or to Sister Theresa!” interrupted

the girl contemptuously. “What a clever man

he is!”

 

“And how unclever I am!” said the clergyman, laughing.

“Well, I thank you for giving me the opportunity

to present his message.”

 

She smiled, nodded and turned swiftly toward the

school. The chaplain looked after her for a few moments,

then walked away soberly toward the lake. He

was a young fellow, clean-shaven and dark, and with a

pair of shoulders that gave me a twinge of envy. I could

not guess how great a factor that vigorous figure was to

be in my own affairs. As I swung down from the wall

and walked toward Glenarm House, my thoughts were

not with the athletic chaplain, but with the girl, whose

youth was, I reflected, marked by her short skirt, the unconcern

with which her hands were thrust into the

pockets of her coat, and the irresponsible tilt of the tam-o’-shanter.

There is something jaunty, a suggestion of

spirit and independence in a tam-o’-shanter, particularly

a red one. If the red tam-o’-shanter expressed, so to

speak, the key-note of St. Agatha’s, the proximity of the

school was not so bad a thing after all.

 

In high good-humor and with a sharp appetite I went

in to luncheon.