The House Of A Thousand Candles/Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXVII
CHANGES AND CHANCES
John Marshall Glenarm had probably never been so happy in his life as on that day of his amazing home-coming. He laughed at us and he laughed with us, and as he went about the house explaining his plans for its completion, he chaffed us all with his shrewd humor that had been the terror of my boyhood.
“Ah, if you had had the plans of course you would have been saved a lot of trouble; but that little sketch of the Door of Bewilderment was the only thing I left,—and you found it, Jack,—you really opened these good books of mine.”
He sent us all away to remove the marks of battle, and we gave Bates a hand in cleaning up the wreckage,—Bates, the keeper of secrets; Bates, the inscrutable and mysterious; Bates, the real hero of the affair at Glenarm.
He led us through the narrow stairway by which he had entered, which had been built between false walls, and we played ghost for one another, to show just how the tread of a human being around the chimney sounded. There was much to explain, and my grandfather’s contrition for having placed me in so hazardous a predicament was so sincere, and his wish to make amends so evident, that my heart warmed to him. He made me describe in detail all the incidents of my stay at the house, listening with boyish delight to my adventures.
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed over and over again. And as I brought my two friends into the story his delight knew no bounds, and he kept chuckling to himself; and insisted half a dozen times on shaking hands with Larry and Stoddard, who were, he declared, his friends as well as mine.
The prisoner in the potato cellar received our due attention; and my grandfather’s joy in the fact that an agent of the British government was held captive in Glenarm House was cheering to see. But the man’s detention was a grave matter, as we all realized, and made imperative the immediate consideration of Larry’s future.
“I must go—and go at once!” declared Larry.
“Mr. Donovan, I should feel honored to have you remain,” said my grandfather. “I hope to hold Jack here, and I wish you would share the house with us.”
“The sheriff and those fellows won’t squeal very hard about their performances here,” said Stoddard. “And they won’t try to rescue the prisoner, even for a reward, from a house where the dead come back to life.”
“No; but you can’t hold a British prisoner in an American private house for ever. Too many people know he has been in this part of the country; and you may be sure that the fight here and the return of Mr. Glenarm will not fail of large advertisement. All I can ask of you, Mr. Glenarm, is that you hold the fellow a few hours after I leave, to give me a start.”
“Certainly. But when this trouble of yours blows over, I hope you will come back and help Jack to live a decent and orderly life.”
My grandfather spoke of my remaining with a warmth that was grateful to my heart; but the place and its associations had grown unbearable. I had not mentioned Marian Devereux to him, I had not told him of my Christmas flight to Cincinnati; for the fact that I had run away and forfeited my right made no difference now, and I waited for an opportunity when we should be alone to talk of my own affairs.
At luncheon, delayed until mid-afternoon, Bates produced champagne, and the three of us, worn with excitement and stress of battle, drank a toast, standing, to the health of John Marshall Glenarm.
“My friends,”—the old gentleman rose and we all stood, our eyes bent upon him in, I think, real affection,—“I am an old and foolish man. Ever since I was able to do so I have indulged my whims. This house is one of them. I had wished to make it a thing of beauty and dignity, and I had hoped that Jack would care for it and be willing to complete it and settle here. The means I employed to test him were not, I admit, worthy of a man who intends well toward his own flesh and blood. Those African adventures of yours scared me, Jack; but to think”—and he laughed—“that I placed you here in this peaceful place amid greater dangers probably than you ever met in tiger-hunting! But you have put me to shame. Here’s health and peace to you!”
“So say we all!” cried the others.
“One thing more,” my grandfather continued, “I don’t want you to think, Jack, that you would really have been cut off under any circumstances if I had died while I was hiding in Egypt. What I wanted, boy, was to get you home! I made another will in England, where I deposited the bulk of my property before I died, and did not forget you. That will was to protect you in case I really died!”—and he laughed cheerily.
The others left us—Stoddard to help Larry get his things together—and my grandfather and I talked for an hour at the table.
“I have thought that many things might happen here,” I said, watching his fine, slim fingers, as he polished his eye-glasses, then rested his elbows on the table and smiled at me. “I thought for a while that I should certainly be shot; then at times I was afraid I might not be; but your return in the flesh was something I never considered among the possibilities. Bates fooled me. That talk I overheard between him and Pickering in the church porch that foggy night was the thing that seemed to settle his case; then the next thing I knew he was defending the house at the serious risk of his life; and I was more puzzled than ever.”
“Yes, a wonderful man, Bates. He always disliked Pickering, and he rejoiced in tricking him.”
“Where did you pick Bates up? He told me he was a Yankee, but he doesn’t act or talk it.”
My grandfather laughed. “Of course not! He’s an Irishman and a man of education—but that’s all I know about him, except that he is a marvelously efficient servant.”
My mind was not on Bates. I was thinking now of Marian Devereux. I could not go on further with my grandfather without telling him how I had run away and broken faith with him, but he gave me no chance.
“You will stay on here,—you will help me to finish the house?” he asked with an unmistakable eagerness of look and tone.
It seemed harsh and ungenerous to tell him that I wished to go; that the great world lay beyond the confines of Glenarm for me to conquer; that I had lost as well as gained by those few months at Glenarm House, and wished to go away. It was not the mystery, now fathomed, nor the struggle, now ended, that was uppermost in my mind and heart, but memories of a girl who had mocked me with delicious girlish laughter,—who had led me away that I might see her transformed into another, more charming, being. It was a comfort to know that Pickering, trapped and defeated, was not to benefit by the bold trick she had helped him play upon me. His loss was hers as well, and I was glad in my bitterness that I had found her in the passage, seeking for plunder at the behest of the same master whom Morgan, Ferguson and the rest of them served.
The fight was over and there was nothing more for me to do in the house by the lake. After a week or so I should go forth and try to win a place for myself. I had my profession; I was an engineer, and I did not question that I should be able to find employment. As for my grandfather, Bates would care for him, and I should visit him often. I was resolved not to give him any further cause for anxiety on account of my adventurous and roving ways. He knew well enough that his old hope of making an architect of me was lost beyond redemption—I had told him that—and now I wished to depart in peace and go to some new part of the world, where there were lines to run, tracks to lay and bridges to build.
These thoughts so filled my mind that I forgot he was patiently waiting for my answer.
“I should like to do anything you ask; I should like to stay here always, but I can’t. Don’t misunderstand me. I have no intention of going back to my old ways. I squandered enough money in my wanderings, and I had my joy of that kind of thing. I shall find employment somewhere and go to work.”
“But, Jack,”—he bent toward me kindly,—“Jack, you mustn’t be led away by any mere quixotism into laying the foundation of your own fortune. What I have is yours, boy. What is in the box in the chimney is yours now—to-day.”
“I wish you wouldn’t! You were always too kind, and I deserve nothing, absolutely nothing.”
“I’m not trying to pay you, Jack. I want to ease my own conscience, that’s all.”
“But money can do nothing for mine,” I replied, trying to smile. “I’ve been dependent all my days, and now I’m going to work. If you were infirm and needed me, I should not hesitate, but the world will have its eyes on me now.”
“Jack, that will of mine did you a great wrong; it put a mark upon you, and that’s what hurts me, that’s what I want to make amends for! Don’t you see? Now don’t punish me, boy. Come! Let us be friends!”
He rose and put out his hands.
“I didn’t mean that! I don’t care about that! It was nothing more than I deserved. These months here have changed me. Haven’t you heard me say I was going to work?”
And I tried to laugh away further discussion of my future.
“It will be more cheerful here in the spring,” he said, as though seeking an inducement for me to remain. “When the resort colony down here comes to life the lake is really gay.”
I shook my head. The lake, that pretty cupful of water, the dip and glide of a certain canoe, the remembrance of a red tam-o’-shanter merging afar off in an October sunset—my purpose to leave the place strengthened as I thought of these things. My nerves were keyed to a breaking pitch and I turned upon him stormily.
“So Miss Devereux was the other person who shared your confidence! Do you understand,—do you appreciate the fact that she was Pickering’s ally?”
“I certainly do not,” he replied coldly. “I’m surprised to hear you speak so of a woman whom you can scarcely know—”
“Yes, I know her; my God, I have reason to know her! But even when I found her out I did not dream that the plot was as deep as it is. She knew that it was a scheme to test me, and she played me into Pickering’s hands. I saw her only a few nights ago down there in the tunnel acting as his spy, looking for the lost notes that she might gain grace in his eyes by turning them over to him. You know I always hated Pickering,—he was too smooth, too smug, and you and everybody else were for ever praising him to me. He was always held up to me as a model; and the first time I saw Marian Devereux she was with him—it was at Sherry’s the night before I came here. I suppose she reached St. Agatha’s only a few hours ahead of me.”
“Yes. Sister Theresa was her guardian. Her father was a dear friend, and I knew her from her early childhood. You are mistaken, Jack. Her knowing Pickering means nothing,—they both lived in New York and moved in the same circle.”
“But it doesn’t explain her efforts to help him, does it?” I blazed. “He wished to marry her,—Sister Theresa told me that,—and I failed, I failed miserably to keep my obligation here—I ran away to follow her!”
“Ah, to be sure! You were away Christmas Eve, when those vandals broke in. Bates merely mentioned it in the last report I got as I came through New York. That was all right. I assumed, of course, that you had gone off somewhere to get a little Christmas cheer; I don’t care anything about it.”
“But I had followed her—I went to Cincinnati to see her. She dared me to come—it was a trick, a part of the conspiracy to steal your property.”
The old gentleman smiled. It was a familiar way of his, to grow calm as other people waxed angry.
“She dared you to come, did she! That is quite like Marian; but you didn’t have to go, did you, Jack?”
“Of course not; of course I didn’t have to go, but—”
I stammered, faltered and ceased. Memory threw open her portals with a challenge. I saw her on the stairway at the Armstrongs’; I heard her low, soft laughter, I felt the mockery of her voice and eyes! I knew again the exquisite delight of being near her. My heart told me well enough why I had followed her.
“Jack, I’m glad I’m not buried up there in that Vermont graveyard with nobody to exercise the right of guardianship over you. I’ve had my misgivings about you; I used to think you were a born tramp; and you disappointed me in turning your back on architecture,—the noblest of all professions; but this performance of yours really beats them all. Don’t you know that a girl like Marian Devereux isn’t likely to become the agent of any rascal? Do you really believe for a minute that she tempted you to follow her, so you might forfeit your rights to my property?”
“But why was she trying to find those notes of his? Why did she come back from Cincinnati with his party? If you could answer me those things, maybe I’d admit that I’m a fool. Pickering, I imagine, is a pretty plausible fellow where women are concerned.”
“For God’s sake, Jack, don’t speak of that girl as women! I put her in that will of mine to pique your curiosity, knowing that if there was a penalty on your marrying her you would be wholly likely to do it,—for that’s the way human beings are made. But you’ve mixed it all up now, and insulted her in the grossest way possible for a fellow who is really a gentleman. And I don’t want to lose you; I want you here with me, Jack! This is a beautiful country, this Indiana! And what I want to do is to found an estate, to build a house that shall be really beautiful,—something these people hereabouts can be proud of,— and I want you to have it with me, Jack, to link our name to these woods and that pretty lake. I’d rather have that for my neighbor than any lake in Scotland. These rich Americans, who go to England to live, don’t appreciate the beauty of their own country. This landscape is worthy of the best that man can do. And I didn’t undertake to build a crazy house so much as one that should have some dignity and character. That passage around the chimney is an indulgence, Jack,— I’ll admit it’s a little bizarre,—you see that chimney isn’t so big outside as it is in!”—and he laughed and rubbed his knees with the palms of his hands,—“and my bringing foreign laborers here wasn’t really to make it easier to get things done my way. Wait till you have seen the May-apples blossom and heard the robins sing in the summer twilight,—help me to finish the house,—then if you want to leave I’ll bid you God-speed.”
The feeling in his tone, the display of sentiment so at variance with my old notion of him, touched me in spite of myself. There was a characteristic nobility and dignity in his plan; it was worthy of him. And I had never loved him as now, when he finished this appeal, and turned away to the window, gazing out upon the somber woodland.
“Mr. Donovan is ready to go, sir,” announced Bates at the door, and we went into the library, where Larry and Stoddard were waiting.