The House Of A Thousand Candles/Chapter 15

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 it 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 the organ.”

“Or be an eavesdropper or hear pleasant words from the master of Glenarm—”

“But I don’t know where you are going—you haven’t told me anything—you are slipping out into the world—”

She did not hear or would not answer. She turned away, and was at once surrounded by a laughing throng that crowded about the train. Two brown-robed Sisters stood like sentinels, one at either side, as she stepped into the car. I was conscious of a feeling that from the depths of their hoods they regarded me with un-Christian disdain. Through the windows I could see the students fluttering to seats, and the girl in gray seemed to be marshaling them. The gray hat appeared at a window for an instant, and a smiling face gladdened, I am sure, the guardians of the peace at St. Agatha’s, for whom it was intended.

The last trunk crashed into the baggage car, every window framed for a moment a girl’s face, and the train was gone.