The House of a Thousand Candles, Meredith Nicholson [13 inch ebook reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Meredith Nicholson
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He met her through an old friend of his—
Miss Evans, known as Sister Theresa. Miss Devereux
is Sister Theresa’s niece.”
I whistled. I had a dim recollection that during my
grandfather’s long widowerhood there were occasional
reports that he was about to marry. The name of Miss
Evans had been mentioned in this connection. I had
heard it spoken of in my family, and not, I remembered,
with much kindness. Later, I heard of her joining a
Sisterhood, and opening a school somewhere in the
West.
“And Miss Devereux—is she an elderly nun, too?”
“I don’t know how elderly she is, but she isn’t a nun
at present. Still, she’s almost alone in the world, and
she and Sister Theresa are very intimate.”
“Pass the will again, Pickering, while I make sure
I grasp these diverting ideas. Sister Theresa isn’t the
one I mustn’t marry, is she? It’s the other ecclesiastical
embroidery artist—the one with the x in her
name, suggesting the algebra of my vanishing youth.”
I read aloud this paragraph:
Provided, further, that in the event of the marriage of
said John Glenarm to the said Marian Devereux, or in
the event of any promise or contract of marriage between
said persons within five years from the date of said John
Glenarm’s acceptance of the provisions of this will, the
whole estate shall become the property absolutely of St.
Agatha’s School, at Annandale, Wabana County, Indiana,
a corporation under the laws of said state.
“For a touch of comedy commend me to my grandfather!
Pickering, you always were a well-meaning
fellow—I’ll turn over to you all my right, interest and
title in and to these angelic Sisters. Marry! I like the
idea! I suppose some one will try to marry me for my
money. Marriage, Pickering, is not embraced in my
scheme of life!”
“I should hardly call you a marrying man,” he observed.
“Perfectly right, my friend! Sister Theresa was considered
a possible match for my grandfather in my
youth. She and I are hardly contemporaries. And the
other lady with the fascinating algebraic climax to her
name—she, too, is impossible; it seems that I can’t get
the money by marrying her. I’d better let her take it.
She’s as poor as the devil, I dare say.”
“I imagine not. The Evanses are a wealthy family,
in spots, and she ought to have some money of her own
if her aunt doesn’t coax it out of her for educational
schemes.”
“And where on the map are these lovely creatures to
be found?”
“Sister Theresa’s school adjoins your preserve; Miss
Devereux has I think some of your own weakness for
travel. Sister Theresa is her nearest relative, and she
occasionally visits St. Agatha’s—that’s the school.”
“I suppose they embroider altar-cloths together and
otherwise labor valiantly to bring confusion upon Satan
and his cohorts. Just the people to pull the wool over
the eyes of my grandfather!”
Pickering smiled at my resentment.
“You’d better give them a wide berth; they might
catch you in their net. Sister Theresa is said to have
quite a winning way. She certainly plucked your grandfather.”
“Nuns in spectacles, the gentle educators of youth
and that sort of thing, with a good-natured old man for
their prey. None of them for me!”
“I rather thought so,” remarked Pickering—and he
pulled his watch from his pocket and turned the stem
with his heavy fingers. He was short, thick-set and
sleek, with a square jaw, hair already thin and a close-clipped
mustache. Age, I reflected, was not improving
him.
I had no intention of allowing him to see that I was
irritated. I drew out my cigarette case and passed it
across the table,
“After you! They’re made quite specially for me in
Madrid.”
“You forget that I never use tobacco in any form.”
“You always did miss a good deal of the joy of living,”
I observed, throwing my smoking match into his
waste-paper basket, to his obvious annoyance. “Well,
I’m the bad boy of the story-books; but I’m really sorry
my inheritance has a string tied to it. I’m about out
of money. I suppose you wouldn’t advance me a few
thousands on my expectations—”
“Not a cent,” he declared, with quite unnecessary
vigor; and I laughed again, remembering that in my
old appraisement of him, generosity had not been represented
in large figures. “It’s not in keeping with
your grandfather’s wishes that I should do so. You
must have spent a good bit of money in your tiger-hunting
exploits,” he added.
“I have spent all I had,” I replied amiably. “Thank
God I’m not a clam! I’ve seen the world and paid for
it. I don’t want anything from you. You undoubtedly
share my grandfather’s idea of me that I’m a wild man
who can’t sit still or lead an orderly, decent life; but
I’m going to give you a terrible disappointment. What’s
the size of the estate?”
Pickering eyed me—uneasily, I thought—and began
playing with a pencil. I never liked Pickering’s hands;
they were thick and white and better kept than I like
to see a man’s hands.
“I fear it’s going to be disappointing. In his trust-company
boxes here I have been able to find only about
ten thousand dollars’ worth of securities. Possibly—
quite possibly—we were all deceived in the amount of
his fortune. Sister Theresa wheedled large sums out of
him, and he spent, as you will see, a small fortune on
the house at Annandale without finishing it. It wasn’t
a cheap proposition, and in its unfinished condition it is
practically valueless. You must know that Mr. Glenarm
gave away a great deal of money in his lifetime. Moreover,
he established your father. You know what he
left—it was not a small fortune as those things are
reckoned.”
I was restless under this recital. My father’s estate
had been of respectable size, and I had dissipated the
whole of it. My conscience pricked me as I recalled an
item of forty thousand dollars that I had spent—somewhat
grandly—on an expedition that I led, with considerable
satisfaction to myself, at least, through the
Sudan. But Pickering’s words amazed me.
“Let me understand you,” I said, bending toward
him. “My grandfather was supposed to be rich, and
yet you tell me you find little property. Sister Theresa
got money from him to help build a school. How much
was that?”
“Fifty thousand dollars. It was an open account.
His books show the advances, but he took no notes.”
“And that claim is worth—?”
“It is good as against her individually. But she contends—”
“Yes, go on!”
I had struck the right note. He was annoyed at my
persistence and his apparent discomfort pleased me.
“She refuses to pay. She says Mr. Glenarm made her
a gift of the money.”
“That’s possible, isn’t it? He was for ever making
gifts to churches. Schools and theological seminaries
were a sort of weakness with him.”
“That is quite true, but this account is among the
assets of the estate. It’s my business as executor to collect
it.”
“We’ll pass that. If you get this money, the estate is
worth sixty thousand dollars, plus the value of the land
out there at Annandale, and Glenarm House is worth—”
“There you have me!”
It was the first lightness he had shown, and it put me
on guard.
“I should like an idea of its value. Even an unfinished
house is worth something.”
“Land out there is worth from one hundred to one
hundred and fifty dollars an acre. There’s an even
hundred acres. I’ll be glad to have your appraisement
of the house when you get there.”
“Humph! You flatter my judgment, Pickering. The
loose stuff there is worth how much?”
“It’s all in the library. Your grandfather’s weakness
was architecture—”
“So I remember!” I interposed, recalling my stormy
interviews with John Marshall Glenarm over my choice
of a profession.
“In his last years he turned more and more to his
books. He placed out there what is, I suppose, the
finest collection of books relating to architecture to be
found in this country. That was his chief hobby, after
church affairs, as you may remember, and he rode it
hard. But he derived a great deal of satisfaction from
his studies.”
I laughed again; it was better to laugh than to cry
over the situation.
“I suppose he wanted me to sit down there, surrounded
by works on architecture, with the idea that
a study of the subject would be my only resource. The
scheme is eminently Glenarmian! And all I get is a
worthless house, a hundred acres of land, ten thousand
dollars, and a doubtful claim against a Protestant nun
who hoodwinked my grandfather into setting up a
school for her. Bless your heart, man, so far as my inheritance
is concerned it would have been money in my
pocket to have stayed in Africa.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“But the personal property is all mine—anything
that’s loose on the place. Perhaps my grandfather
planted old plate and government bonds just to pique
the curiosity of his heirs, successors and assigns. It
would be in keeping!”
I had walked to the window and looked out across
the city. As I turned suddenly I found Pickering’s
eyes bent upon me with curious intentness. I had never
liked his eyes; they were too steady. When a man always
meets your gaze tranquilly and readily, it is just
as well to be wary of him.
“Yes; no doubt you will find the place literally
packed with treasure,” he said, and laughed. “When
you find anything you might wire me.”
He smiled; the idea seemed to give him pleasure.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else?” I asked. “No
substitute—no codicil?”
“If you know of anything of the kind it’s your duty
to produce it. We have exhausted the possibilities. I’ll
admit that the provisions of the will are unusual; your
grandfather was a peculiar man in many respects; but
he was thoroughly sane and his faculties were all sound
to the last.”
“He treated me a lot better than I deserved,” I said,
with a heartache that I had not known often in my
irresponsible life; but I could not afford to show feeling
before Arthur Pickering.
I picked up the copy of the will and examined it.
It was undoubtedly authentic; it bore the certificate of
the clerk of Wabana County, Indiana. The witnesses
were Thomas Bates and Arthur Pickering.
“Who is Bates?” I asked, pointing to the man’s signature.
“One of your grandfather’s discoveries. He’s in
charge of the house out there, and a trustworthy fellow.
He’s a fair cook, among other things. I don’t know
where Mr. Glenarm got Bates, but he had every confidence
in him. The man was with him at the end.”
A picture of my grandfather dying, alone with a
servant, while I, his only kinsman, wandered in strange
lands, was not one that I could contemplate with much
satisfaction. My grandfather had been an odd little
figure of a man, who always wore a long black coat and a
silk hat, and carried a curious silver-headed staff, and
said puzzling things at which everybody was afraid either
to laugh or to cry. He refused to be thanked for favors,
though he was generous and helpful and constantly
performing kind deeds. His whimsical philanthropies
were often described in the newspapers. He had once
given a considerable sum of money to a fashionable
church in Boston with the express stipulation, which
he
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