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my identity; and I did like the humor

and whims of Mr. Glenarm. The housekeeping, after

we came out here, wasn’t so pleasant”—he looked at his

hands ruefully—“but this joke of Mr. Glenarm’s making

a will and then going to Egypt to see what would

happen—that was too good to miss. And when the

heir arrived I found new opportunities of practising

amateur theatricals; and Pickering’s efforts to enlist

me in his scheme for finding the money and making me

rich gave me still greater opportunities. There were

times when I was strongly tempted to blurt the whole

thing; I got tired of being suspected, and of playing

ghost in the wall; and if Mr. Glenarm hadn’t got here

just as he did I should have stopped the fight and

proclaimed the truth. I hope,” he said, turning to

me, “you have no hard feelings, sir.” And he threw

into the “sir” just a touch of irony that made us all

roar.

 

“I’m certainly glad I’m not dead,” declared my grandfather,

staring at Bates. “Life is more fun than I ever

thought possible. Bless my soul!” he said, “if it isn’t a

shame that Bates can never cook another omelette for

me!”

 

We sent Bates back with my grandfather from the

boat-house, and Stoddard, Larry and I started across the

ice; the light coating of snow made walking comparatively

easy. We strode on silently, Stoddard leading.

Their plan was to take an accommodation train at the

first station beyond Annandale, leave it at a town forty

miles away, and then hurry east to an obscure place in

the mountains of Virginia, where a religious order

maintained a house. There Stoddard promised Larry

asylum and no questions asked.

 

We left the lake and struck inland over a rough country

road to the station, where Stoddard purchased tickets

only a few minutes before the train whistled.

 

We stood on the lonely platform, hands joined to

hands, and I know not what thoughts in our minds and

hearts.

 

“We’ve met and we’ve said good-by in many odd corners

of this strange old world,” said Larry, “and God

knows when we shall meet again.”

 

“But you must stay in America—there must be no

sea between us!” I declared.

 

“Donovan’s sins don’t seem heinous to me! It’s simply

that they’ve got to find a scapegoat,”—and Stoddard’s

voice was all sympathy and kindness. “It will

blow over in time, and Donovan will become an enlightened

and peaceable American citizen.”

 

There was a constraint upon us all at this moment of

parting—so many things had happened that day—and

when men have shared danger together they are bound

by ties that death only can break. Larry’s effort at

cheer struck a little hollowly upon us.

 

“Beware, lad, of women!” he importuned me.

 

“Humph! You still despise the sex on account of

that affair with the colleen of the short upper lip.”

 

“Verily. And the eyes of that little lady, who guided

your grandfather back from the other world, reminded

me strongly of her! Bah, these women!”

 

“Precious little you know about them!” I retorted.

 

“The devil I don’t!”

 

“No,” said Stoddard, “invoke the angels, not the

devil!”

 

“Hear him! Hear him! A priest with no knowledge

of the world.”

 

“Alas, my cloth! And you fling it at me after I have

gone through battle, murder and sudden death with you

gentlemen!”

 

“We thank you, sir, for that last word,” said Larry

mockingly. “I am reminded of the late Lord Alfred:

 

“I waited for the train at Coventry;

I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,

To watch the three tall spires—’ “

 

he quoted, looking off through the twilight toward St.

Agatha’s. “I can’t see a blooming spire!”

 

The train was now roaring down upon us and we

clung to this light mood for our last words. Between

men, gratitude is a thing best understood in silence;

and these good friends, I knew, felt what I could not

say.

 

“Before the year is out we shall all meet again,” cried

Stoddard hopefully, seizing the bags.

 

“Ah, if we could only be sure of that!” I replied. And

in a moment they were both waving their hands to me

from the rear platform, and I strode back homeward

over the lake.

 

A mood of depression was upon me; I had lost much

that day, and what I had gained—my restoration to the

regard of the kindly old man of my own blood, who had

appealed for my companionship in terms hard to deny—

seemed trifling as I tramped over the ice. Perhaps

Pickering, after all, was the real gainer by the day’s

event. My grandfather had said nothing to allay my

doubts as to Marion Devereux’s strange conduct, and

yet his confidence in her was apparently unshaken.

 

I tramped on, and leaving the lake, half-unconsciously

struck into the wood beyond the dividing wall, where

snow-covered leaves and twigs rattled and broke under

my tread. I came out into an open space beyond St.

Agatha’s, found the walk and turned toward home.

 

As I neared the main entrance to the school the door

opened and a woman came out under the overhanging

lamp. She carried a lantern, and turned with a hand

outstretched to some one who followed her with careful

steps.

 

“Ah, Marian,” cried my grandfather, “it’s ever the

task of youth to light the way of age.”

CHAPTER XXIX

AND SO THE LIGHT LED ME

 

He had been to see Sister Theresa, and Marian was

walking with him to the gate. I saw her quite plainly

in the light that fell from the lamp overhead. A long

cloak covered her, and a fur toque capped her graceful

head. My grandfather and his guide were apparently

in high spirits. Their laughter smote harshly upon me.

It seemed to shut me out—to lift a barrier against me.

The world lay there within the radius of that swaying

light, and I hung aloof, hearing her voice and jealous of

the very companionship and sympathy between them.

 

But the light led me. I remembered with bitterness

that I had always followed her—whether as Olivia,

trailing in her girlish race across the snow, or as the

girl in gray, whom I had followed, wondering, on that

night journey at Christmas Eve; and I followed now.

The distrust, my shattered faith, my utter loneliness,

could not weigh against the joy of hearing that laugh

of hers breaking mellowly on the night.

 

I paused to allow the two figures to widen the distance

between us as they traversed the path that curved

away toward the chapel. I could still hear their voices,

and see the lantern flash and disappear. I felt an impulse

to turn back, or plunge into the woodland; but I

was carried on uncontrollably. The light glimmered,

and her voice still floated back to me. It stole through

the keen winter dark like a memory of spring; and so

her voice and the light led me.

 

Then I heard an exclamation of dismay followed by

laughter in which my grandfather joined merrily.

 

“Oh, never mind; we’re not afraid,” she exclaimed.

 

I had rounded the curve in the path where I should

have seen the light; but the darkness was unbroken.

There was silence for a moment, in which I drew quite

near to them.

 

Then my grandfather’s voice broke out cheerily.

 

“Now I must go back with you! A fine person you

are to guide an old man! A foolish virgin, indeed, with

no oil in her lamp!”

 

“Please do not! Of course I’m going to see you quite

to your own door! I don’t intend to put my hand to

the lantern and then turn back!”

 

“This walk isn’t what it should be,” said my grandfather,

“we’ll have to provide something better in the

spring.”

 

They were still silent and I heard him futilely striking

a match. Then the lantern fell, its wires rattling

as it struck the ground, and the two exclaimed with renewed

merriment upon their misfortune.

 

“If you will allow me!” I called out, my hand fumbling

in my pocket for my own match-box.

 

I have sometimes thought that there is really some

sort of decent courtesy in me. An old man caught in

a rough path that was none too good at best! And a

girl, even though my enemy! These were, I fancy, the

thoughts that crossed my mind.

 

“Ah, it’s Jack!” exclaimed my grandfather. “Marian

was showing me the way to the gate and our light went

out.”

 

“Miss Devereux,” I murmured. I have, I hope, an

icy tone for persons who have incurred my displeasure,

and I employed it then and there, with, no doubt, its

fullest value.

 

She and my grandfather were groping in the dark for

the lost lantern, and I, putting out my hand, touched

her fingers.

 

“I beg your pardon,” she murmured frostily.

 

Then I found and grasped the lantern.

 

“One moment,” I said, “and I’ll see what’s the trouble.”

 

I thought my grandfather took it, but the flame of

my wax match showed her fingers, clasping the wires of

the lantern. The cloak slipped away, showing her arm’s

soft curve, the blue and white of her bodice, the purple

blur of violets; and for a second I saw her face, with a

smile quivering about her lips. My grandfather was

beating impatiently with his stick, urging us to leave the

lantern and go on.

 

“Let it alone,” he said. “I’ll go down through the

chapel; there’s a lantern in there somewhere.”

 

“I’m awfully sorry,” she remarked; “but I recently

lost my best lantern!”

 

To be sure she had! I was angry that she should so

brazenly recall the night I found her looking for Pickering’s

notes in the passage at the Door of Bewilderment!

 

She had lifted the lantern now, and I was striving to

touch the wax taper to the wick, with imminent danger

to my bare fingers.

 

“They don’t really light well when the oil’s out,” she

observed, with an exasperating air of wisdom.

 

I took it from her hand and shook it close to my ear.

 

“Yes; of course, it’s empty,” I muttered disdainfully.

 

“Oh, Mr. Glenarm!” she cried, turning away toward

my grandfather.

 

I heard his stick beating the rough path several yards

away. He was hastening toward Glenarm House.

 

“I think Mr. Glenarm has gone home.”

 

“Oh, that is too bad!” she exclaimed.

 

“Thank you! He’s probably at the chapel by this

time. If you will permit me—”

 

“Not at all!”

 

A man well advanced in the sixties should not tax his

arteries too severely. I was quite sure that my grandfather

ran up the chapel steps; I could hear his stick

beating hurriedly on the stone.

 

“If you wish to go farther”—I began.

 

I was indignant at my grandfather’s conduct; he had

deliberately run off, leaving me alone with a young

woman whom I particularly wished to avoid.

 

“Thank you; I shall go back now. I was merely walking

to the gate with Mr. Glenarm. It is so fine to have

him back again, so unbelievable!”

 

It was just such a polite murmur as one might employ

in speaking to an old foe at a friend’s table.

 

She listened a moment for his step; then, apparently

satisfied, turned back toward St. Agatha’s. I followed,

uncertain, hesitating, marking her definite onward

flight. From the folds of the cloak stole the faint perfume

of violets. The sight of her, the sound of her

voice, combined to create—and to destroy!—a mood

with every step.

 

I was

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