The House Of A Thousand Candles/Chapter 17

There was further information I wished to obtain, and I did not blush to pluck it from Stoddard before I let him go that night. Olivia Gladys Armstrong lived in Cincinnati; her father was a wealthy physician at Walnut Hills. Stoddard knew the family, and I asked questions about them, their antecedents and place of residence that were not perhaps impertinent in view of the fact that I had never consciously set eyes on their daughter in my life. As I look back upon it now my information secured at that time, touching the history and social position of the Armstrongs of Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, seems excessive, but the curiosity which the Reverend Paul Stoddard satisfied with so little trouble to himself was of immediate interest and importance. As to the girl in gray I found him far more difficult. She was Marian Devereux; she was a niece of Sister Theresa; her home was in New York, with another aunt, her parents being dead; and she was a frequent visitor at St. Agatha’s.

The wayward Olivia and she were on excellent terms, and when it seemed wisest for that vivacious youngster to retire from school at the mid-year recess Miss Devereux had accompanied her home, ostensibly for a visit, but really to break the force of the blow. It was a pretty story, and enhanced my already high opinion of Miss Devereux, while at the same time I admired the unknown Olivia Gladys none the less.

When Stoddard left me I dug out of a drawer my copy of John Marshall Glenarm’s will and re-read it for the first time since Pickering gave it to me in New York. There was one provision to which I had not given a single thought, and when I had smoothed the thin type-written sheets upon the table in my room I read it over and over again, construing it in a new light with every reading.

“Bully for the old boy!” I muttered finally, folding the copy with something akin to reverence for my grandfather’s shrewdness in closing so many doors upon his heirs. It required no lawyer to interpret this paragraph. If I could not secure his estate by settling at Glenarm for a year I was not to gain it by marrying the alternative heir. Here, clearly, was not one of those situations so often contrived by novelists, in which the luckless heir presumptive, cut off without a cent, weds the pretty cousin who gets the fortune and they live happily together ever afterward. John Marshall Glenarm had explicitly provided against any such frustration of his plans.

“Bully for you, John Marshall Glenarm!” I rose and bowed low to his photograph.

On top of my mail next morning lay a small envelope, unstamped, and addressed to me in a free running hand.

“Ferguson left it,” explained Bates.

I opened and read:

I whistled softly. My feelings toward Sister Theresa had been those of utter repugnance and antagonism. I had been avoiding her studiously and was not a little surprised that she should seek an interview with me. Quite possibly she wished to inquire how soon I expected to abandon Glenarm House; or perhaps she wished to admonish me as to the perils of my soul. In any event I liked the quality of her note, and I was curious to know why she sent for me; moreover, Marian Devereux was her niece and that was wholly in the Sister’s favor.

At four o’clock I passed into St. Agatha territory and rang the bell at the door of the building where I had left Olivia the evening I found her in the chapel. A Sister admitted me, led the way to a small reception-room where, I imagined, the visiting parent was received, and left me. I felt a good deal like a school-boy who has been summoned before a severe master for discipline. I was idly beating my hat with my gloves when a quick step sounded in the hall and instantly a brown-clad figure appeared in the doorway.

“Mr. Glenarm?”

It was a deep, rich voice, a voice of assurance, a voice, may I say? of the world,—a voice, too, may I add? of a woman who is likely to say what she means without ado. The white band at her forehead brought into relief two wonderful gray eyes that were alight with kindliness. She surveyed me a moment, then her lips parted in a smile.

“This room is rather forbidding; if you will come with me—”

She turned with an air of authority that was a part of her undeniable distinction, and I was seated a moment later in a pretty sitting-room, whose windows gave a view of the dark wood and frozen lake beyond.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Glenarm, that you are not disposed to be neighborly, and you must pardon me if I seem to be pursuing you.”

Her smile, her voice, her manner were charming. I had pictured her a sour old woman, who had hidden away from a world that had offered her no pleasure.

“The apologies must all be on my side, Sister Theresa. I have been greatly occupied since coming here,— distressed and perplexed even.”

“Our young ladies treasure the illusion that there are ghosts at your house” she said, with a smile that disposed of the matter.

She folded her slim white hands on her knees and spoke with a simple directness.

“Mr. Glenarm, there is something I wish to say to you, but I can say it only if we are to be friends. I have feared you might look upon us here as enemies.”

“That is a strong word,” I replied evasively.

“Let me say to you that I hope very much that nothing will prevent your inheriting all that Mr. Glenarm wished you to have from him.”

“Thank you; that is both kind and generous,” I said with no little surprise.

“Not in the least. I should be disloyal to your grandfather, who was my friend and the friend of my family, if I did not feel kindly toward you and wish you well. And I must say for my niece—”

“Miss Devereux.” I found a certain pleasure in pronouncing her name.

“Miss Devereux is very greatly disturbed over the good intentions of your grandfather in placing her name in his will. You can doubtless understand how uncomfortable a person of any sensibility would be under the circumstances. I’m sorry you have never met her. She is a very charming young woman whose happiness does not, I may say, depend on other people’s money.”

She had never told, then! I smiled at the recollection of our interviews.

“I am sure that is true, Sister Theresa.”

“Now I wish to speak to you about a matter of some delicacy. It is, I understand perfectly, no business of mine how much of a fortune Mr. Glenarm left. But this matter has been brought to my attention in a disagreeable way. Your grandfather established this school; he gave most of the money for these buildings. I had other friends who offered to contribute, but he insisted on doing it all. But now Mr. Pickering insists that the money—or part of it at least—was only a loan.”

“Yes; I understand.”

“Mr. Pickering tells me that he has no alternative in the matter; that the law requires him to collect this money as a debt due the estate.”

“That is undoubtedly true, as a general proposition. He told me in New York that he had a claim against you for fifty thousand dollars.”

“Yes; that is the amount. I wish to say to you, Mr. Glenarm, that if it is necessary I can pay that amount.”

“Pray do not trouble about it, Sister Theresa. There are a good many things about my grandfather’s affairs that I don’t understand, but I’m not going to see an old friend of his swindled. There’s more in all this than appears. My grandfather seems to have mislaid or lost most of his assets before he died. And yet he had the reputation of being a pretty cautious business man.”

“The impression is abroad, as you must know, that your grandfather concealed his fortune before his death. The people hereabouts believe so; and Mr. Pickering, the executor, has been unable to trace it.”

“Yes, I believe Mr. Pickering has not been able to solve the problem,” I said and laughed.

“But, of course, you and he will coöperate in an effort to find the lost property.”

She bent forward slightly; her eyes, as they met mine, examined me with a keen interest.

“Why shouldn’t I be frank with you, Sister Theresa? I have every reason for believing Arthur Pickering a scoundrel. He does not care to coöperate with me in searching for this money. The fact is that he very much wishes to eliminate me as a factor in the settlement of the estate. I speak carefully; I know exactly what I am saying.”

She bowed her head slightly and was silent for a moment. The silence was the more marked from the fact that the hood of her habit concealed her face.

“What you say is very serious.”

“Yes, and his offense is equally serious. It may seem odd for me to be saying this to you when I am a stranger; when you may be pardoned for having no very high opinion of me.”

She turned her face to me,—it was singularly gentle and refined,—not a face to associate with an idea of self-seeking or duplicity.

“I sent for you, Mr. Glenarm, because I had a very good opinion of you; because, for one reason, you are the grandson of your grandfather,”—and the friendly light in her gray eyes drove away any lingering doubt I may have had as to her sincerity. “I wished to warn you to have a care for your own safety. I don’t warn you against Arthur Pickering alone, but against the countryside. The idea of a hidden fortune is alluring; a mysterious house and a lost treasure make a very enticing combination. I fancy Mr. Glenarm did not realize that he was creating dangers for the people he wished to help.”

She was silent again, her eyes bent meditatively upon me; then she spoke abruptly.

“Mr. Pickering wishes to marry my niece.”

“Ah! I have been waiting to hear that. I am exceedingly glad to know that he has so noble an ambition. But Miss Devereux isn’t encouraging him, as near as I can make out. She refused to go to California with his party—I happen to know that.”

“That whole California episode would have been amusing if it had not been ridiculous. Marian never had the slightest idea of going with him; but she is sometimes a little—shall I say perverse?—”

“Please do! I like the word—and the quality!”

“—and Mr. Pickering’s rather elaborate methods of wooing—”

“He’s as heavy as lead!” I declared.

“—amuse Marian up to a certain point; then they annoy her. He has implied pretty strongly that the claim against me could be easily adjusted if Marian marries him. But she will never marry him, whether she benefits by your grandfather’s will or however that may be!”

“I should say not,” I declared with a warmth that caused Sister Theresa to sweep me warily with those wonderful gray eyes. “But first he expects to find this fortune and endow Miss Devereux with it. That is a part of the scheme. And my own interest in the estate must be eliminated before he can bring that condition about. But, Sister Theresa, I am not so easily got rid of as Arthur Pickering imagines. My staying qualities, which were always weak in the eyes of my family, have been braced up a trifle.”

“Yes.” I thought pleasure and hope were expressed in the monosyllable, and my heart warmed to her.

“Sister Theresa, you and I are understanding each other much better than I imagined we should,”—and we both laughed, feeling a real sympathy growing between us.

“Yes; I believe we are,”—and the smile lighted her face again.

“So I can tell you two things. The first is that Arthur Pickering will never find my grandfather’s lost fortune, assuming that any exists. The second is that in no event will he marry your niece.”

“You speak with a good deal of confidence,” she said, and laughed a low murmuring laugh. I thought there was relief in it. “But I didn’t suppose Marian’s affairs interested you.”

“They don’t, Sister Theresa. Her affairs are not of the slightest importance,—but she is!”

There was frank inquiry in her eyes now.

“But you don’t know her,—you have missed your opportunity.”

“To be sure, I don’t know her; but I know Olivia Gladys Armstrong. She’s a particular friend of mine,—we have chased rabbits together, and she told me a great deal. I have formed a very good opinion of Miss Devereux in that way. Oh, that note you wrote about Olivia’s intrusions beyond the wall! I should thank you for it,—but I really didn’t mind.”

“A note? I never wrote you a note until to-day!”

“Well, some one did!” I said; then she smiled.

“Oh, that must have been Marian. She was always Olivia’s loyal friend!”

“I should say so!”

Sister Theresa laughed merrily.

“But you shouldn’t have known Olivia,—it is unpardonable! If she played tricks upon you, you should not have taken advantage of them to make her acquaintance. That wasn’t fair to me!”

“I suppose not! But I protest against this deportation. The landscape hereabouts is only so much sky, snow and lumber without her.”

“We miss her, too,” replied Sister Theresa. “We have less to do!”

“And still I protest!” I declared, rising. “Sister Theresa, I thank you with all my heart for what you have said to me,—for the disposition to say it! And this debt to the estate is something, I promise you, that shall not trouble you.”

“Then there’s a truce between us! We are not enemies at all now, are we?”

“No; for Olivia’s sake, at least, we shall be friends.”

I went home and studied the time-table.