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Title: The House of a Thousand Candles
Author: Meredith Nicholson
Release Date: May 26, 2004 [EBook #12441]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES ***
Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao
The House of a Thousand Candles
Meredith Nicholson
The House of a Thousand Candles
By
Meredith Nicholson
Author of The Main Chance
Zelda Dameron, Etc.
With Illustrations by
Howard Chandler Christy
“So on the morn there fell new tidings and other adventures”
Malory
1905
November
To Margaret My Sister
CONTENTS
I The Will of John Marshall Glenarm
II A Face at Sherry’s
III The House of a Thousand Candles
IV A Voice From the Lake
V A Red Tam-O’-Shanter
VI The Girl and the Canoe
VII The Man on the Wall
VIII A String of Gold Beads
IX The Girl and the Rabbit
X An Affair With the Caretaker
XI I Receive a Caller
XII I Explore a Passage
XIII A Pair of Eavesdroppers
XIV The Girl in Gray
XV I Make an Engagement
XVI The Passing of Olivia
XVII Sister Theresa
XVIII Golden Butterflies
XIX I Meet an Old Friend
XX A Triple Alliance
XXI Pickering Serves Notice
XXII The Return of Marian Devereux
XXIII The Door of Bewilderment
XXIV A Prowler of The Night
XXV Besieged
XXVI The Fight in the Library
XXVII Changes and Chances
XXVIII Shorter Vistas
XXIX And So the Light Led Me
The House of a Thousand Candles
THE WILL OF JOHN MARSHALL GLENARM
Pickering’s letter bringing news of my grandfather’s
death found me at Naples early in October. John
Marshall Glenarm had died in June. He had left a
will which gave me his property conditionally, Pickering
wrote, and it was necessary for me to return immediately
to qualify as legatee. It was the merest luck
that the letter came to my hands at all, for it had been
sent to Constantinople, in care of the consul-general
instead of my banker there. It was not Pickering’s
fault that the consul was a friend of mine who kept
track of my wanderings and was able to hurry the
executor’s letter after me to Italy, where I had gone to
meet an English financier who had, I was advised, unlimited
money to spend on African railways. I am an
engineer, a graduate of an American institution familiarly
known as “Tech,” and as my funds were running
low, I naturally turned to my profession for employment.
But this letter changed my plans, and the following
day I cabled Pickering of my departure and was outward
bound on a steamer for New York. Fourteen
days later I sat in Pickering’s office in the Alexis Building
and listened intently while he read, with much
ponderous emphasis, the provisions of my grandfather’s
will. When he concluded, I laughed. Pickering was a
serious man, and I was glad to see that my levity pained
him. I had, for that matter, always been a source of
annoyance to him, and his look of distrust and rebuke
did not trouble me in the least.
I reached across the table for the paper, and he gave
the sealed and beribboned copy of John Marshall Glenarm’s
will into my hands. I read it through for myself,
feeling conscious meanwhile that Pickering’s cool gaze
was bent inquiringly upon me. These are the paragraphs
that interested me most:
I give and bequeath unto my said grandson, John Glenarm,
sometime a resident of the City and State of New
York, and later a vagabond of parts unknown, a certain
property known as Glenarm House, with the land thereunto
pertaining and hereinafter more particularly described,
and all personal property of whatsoever kind
thereunto belonging and attached thereto—the said realty
lying in the County of Wabana in the State of Indiana—
upon this condition, faithfully and honestly performed:
That said John Glenarm shall remain for the period
of one year an occupant of said Glenarm House and my
lands attached thereto, demeaning himself meanwhile in
an orderly and temperate manner. Should he fail at any
time during said year to comply with this provision, said
property shall revert to my general estate and become,
without reservation, and without necessity for any process
of law, the property, absolutely, of Marian Devereux, of
the County and State of New York.
“Well,” he demanded, striking his hands upon the
arms of his chair, “what do you think of it?”
For the life of me I could not help laughing again.
There was, in the first place, a delicious irony in the
fact that I should learn through him of my grandfather’s
wishes with respect to myself. Pickering and
I had grown up in the same town in Vermont; we had
attended the same preparatory school, but there had
been from boyhood a certain antagonism between us.
He had always succeeded where I had failed, which is to
say, I must admit, that he had succeeded pretty frequently.
When I refused to settle down to my profession,
but chose to see something of the world first,
Pickering gave himself seriously to the law, and there
was, I knew from the beginning, no manner of chance
that he would fail.
I am not more or less than human, and I remembered
with joy that once I had thrashed him soundly
at the prep school for bullying a smaller boy; but our
score from school-days was not without tallies on his
side. He was easily the better scholar—I grant him
that; and he was shrewd and plausible. You never
quite knew the extent of his powers and resources, and
he had, I always maintained, the most amazing good
luck—as witness the fact that John Marshall Glenarm
had taken a friendly interest in him. It was wholly
like my grandfather, who was a man of many whims,
to give his affairs into Pickering’s keeping; and I could
not complain, for I had missed my own chance with
him. It was, I knew readily enough, part of my punishment
for having succeeded so signally in incurring
my grandfather’s displeasure that he had made it necessary
for me to treat with Arthur Pickering in this
matter of the will; and Pickering was enjoying the
situation to the full. He sank back in his chair with
an air of complacency that had always been insufferable
in him. I was quite willing to be patronized by a man
of years and experience; but Pickering was my own
age, and his experience of life seemed to me preposterously
inadequate. To find him settled in New York,
where he had been established through my grandfather’s
generosity, and the executor of my grandfather’s estate,
was hard to bear.
But there was something not wholly honest in my
mirth, for my conduct during the three preceding years
had been reprehensible. I had used my grandfather
shabbily. My parents died when I was a child, and he
had cared for me as far back as my memory ran. He
had suffered me to spend without restraint the fortune
left by my father; he had expected much of me, and I
had grievously disappointed him. It was his hope that
I should devote myself to architecture, a profession for
which he had the greatest admiration, whereas I had
insisted on engineering.
I am not writing an apology for my life, and I shall
not attempt to extenuate my conduct in going abroad
at the end of my course at Tech and, when I made
Laurance Donovan’s acquaintance, in setting off with
him on a career of adventure. I do not regret, though
possibly it would be more to my credit if I did, the
months spent leisurely following the Danube east of
the Iron Gate—Laurance Donovan always with me,
while we urged the villagers and inn-loafers to all manner
of sedition, acquitting ourselves so well that, when
we came out into the Black Sea for further pleasure,
Russia did us the honor to keep a spy at our heels. I
should like, for my own satisfaction, at least, to set
down an account of certain affairs in which we were
concerned at Belgrad, but without Larry’s consent I
am not at liberty to do so. Nor shall I take time here
to describe our travels in Africa, though our study of
the Atlas Mountain dwarfs won us honorable mention
by the British Ethnological Society.
These were my yesterdays; but to-day I sat in Arthur
Pickering’s office in the towering Alexis Building, conscious
of the muffled roar of Broadway, discussing the
terms of my Grandfather Glenarm’s will with a man
whom I disliked as heartily as it is safe for one man to
dislike another. Pickering had asked me a question,
and I was suddenly aware that his eyes were fixed upon
me and that he awaited my answer.
“What do I think of it?” I repeated. “I don’t know
that it makes any difference what I think, but I’ll tell
you, if you want to know, that I call it infamous, outrageous,
that a man should leave a ridiculous will of
that sort behind him. All the old money-bags who pile
up fortunes magnify the importance of their money.
They imagine that every kindness, every ordinary courtesy
shown them, is merely a bid for a slice of the cake.
I’m disappointed in my grandfather. He was a splendid
old man, though God knows he had his queer ways.
I’ll bet a thousand dollars, if I have so much money in
the world, that this scheme is yours, Pickering, and not
his. It smacks of your ancient vindictiveness, and John
Marshall Glenarm had none of that in his blood. That
stipulation about my residence out there is fantastic.
I don’t have to be a lawyer to know that; and no doubt
I could break the will; I’ve a good notion to try it,
anyhow.”
“To be sure. You can tie up the estate for half
a dozen years if you like,” he replied coolly. He did
not look upon me as likely to become a formidable
litigant. My staying qualities had been proved weak
long ago, as Pickering knew well enough.
“No doubt you would like that,” I answered. “But
I’m not going to give you the pleasure. I abide by the
terms of the will. My grandfather was a fine old gentleman.
I shan’t drag his name through the courts,
not even to please you, Arthur Pickering,” I declared
hotly.
“The sentiment is worthy of a good man, Glenarm,”
he rejoined.
“But this woman who is to succeed to my rights—I
don’t seem to remember her.”
“It is not surprising that you never heard of her.”
“Then she’s not a connection of the family—no long-lost
cousin whom I ought to remember?”
“No; she
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