The House Of A Thousand Candles/Chapter 14

My first thought was to find the crypt door and return through the tunnel before Bates reached the house. The chapel was open, and by lighting matches I found my way to the map and panel. I slipped through and closed the opening; then ran through the passage with gratitude for the generous builder who had given it a clear floor and an ample roof. In my haste I miscalculated its length and pitched into the steps under the trap at a speed that sent me sprawling. In a moment more I had jammed the trap into place and was running up the cellar steps, breathless, with my cap smashed down over my eyes.

I heard Bates at the rear of the house and knew I had won the race by a scratch. There was but a moment in which to throw my coat and cap under the divan, slap the dust from my clothes and seat myself at the great table, where the candles blazed tranquilly.

Bates’ step was as steady as ever—there was not the slightest hint of excitement in it—as he came and stood within the door.

“Beg pardon, Mr. Glenarm, did you wish anything, sir?”

“Oh, no, thank you, Bates.”

“I had stepped down to the village, sir, to speak to the grocer. The eggs he sent this morning were not quite up to the mark. I have warned him not to send any of the storage article to this house.”

“That’s right, Bates.” I folded my arms to hide my hands, which were black from contact with the passage, and faced my man servant. My respect for his rascally powers had increased immensely since he gave me my coffee. A contest with so clever a rogue was worth while.

“I’m grateful for your good care of me, Bates. I had expected to perish of discomfort out here, but you are treating me like a lord.”

“Thank you, Mr. Glenarm. I do what I can, sir.”

He brought fresh candles for the table candelabra, going about with his accustomed noiseless step. I felt a cold chill creep down my spine as he passed behind me on these errands. His transition from the rôle of conspirator to that of my flawless servant was almost too abrupt.

I dismissed him as quickly as possible, and listened to his step through the halls as he went about locking the doors. This was a regular incident, but I was aware to-night that he exercised what seemed to me a particular care in settling the bolts. The locking-up process had rather bored me before; to-night the snapping of bolts was particularly trying.

When I heard Bates climbing to his own quarters I quietly went the rounds on my own account and found everything as tight as a drum.

In the cellar I took occasion to roll some barrels of cement into the end of the corridor, to cover and block the trap door. Bates had no manner of business in that part of the house, as the heating apparatus was under the kitchen and accessible by an independent stairway. I had no immediate use for the hidden passage to the chapel—and I did not intend that my enemies should avail themselves of it. Morgan, at least, knew of it and, while he was not likely to trouble me at once, I had resolved to guard every point in our pleasant game.

I was tired enough to sleep when I went to my room, and after an eventless night, woke to a clear day and keener air.

“I’m going to take a little run into the village, Bates,” I remarked at breakfast.

“Very good, sir. The weather’s quite cleared.”

“If any one should call I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned his impenetrable face toward me as I rose. There was, of course, no chance whatever that any one would call to see me; the Reverend Paul Stoddard was the only human being, except Bates, Morgan and the man who brought up my baggage, who had crossed the threshold since my arrival.

I really had an errand in the village. I wished to visit the hardware store and buy some cartridges, but Pickering’s presence in the community was a disturbing factor in my mind. I wished to get sight of him,—to meet him, if possible, and see how a man, whose schemes were so deep, looked in the light of day.

As I left the grounds and gained the highway Stoddard fell in with me.

“Well, Mr. Glenarm, I’m glad to see you abroad so early. With that library of yours the temptation must be strong to 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 business men!” I said reproachfully. I wished to call him a blackguard then and there, and it was on my tongue to do so, but I concluded that to wait until he had shown his hand fully was the better game.

The ladies entered the car and I shook hands with Taylor, who threatened to send me his pamphlet on The Needs of American Shipping, when he got back to New York.

“It’s too bad she wouldn’t go with us. Poor girl! this must be a dreary hole for her; she deserves wider horizons,” he said to Pickering, who helped him upon the platform of the car with what seemed to be unnecessary precipitation.

“You little know us,” I declared, for Pickering’s benefit. “Life at Annandale is nothing if not exciting. The people here are indifferent marksmen or there’d be murders galore.”

“Mr. Glenarm is a good deal of a wag,” explained Pickering dryly, swinging himself aboard as the train started.

“Yes; it’s my humor that keeps me alive,” I responded, and taking off my hat, I saluted Arthur Pickering with my broadest salaam.