The House of a Thousand Candles Part 3

Bates now appeared.

"Beg pardon, sir; but your room's ready whenever you wish to retire."

I looked about in search of a clock.

"There are no timepieces in the house, Mr. Glenarm. Your grandfather was quite opposed to them. He had a theory, sir, that they were conducive, as he said, to idleness. He considered that a man should work by his conscience, sir, and not by the clock--the one being more exacting than the other."

I smiled as I drew out my watch--as much at Bates' solemn tones and grim lean visage as at his quotation from my grandsire. But the fellow puzzled and annoyed me. His un.o.btrusive black clothes, his smoothly-brushed hair, his shaven face, awakened an antagonism in me.

"Bates, if you didn't fire that shot through the window, who did--will you answer me that?"

"Yes, sir; if I didn't do it, it's quite a large question who did. I'll grant you that, sir."

I stared at him. He met my gaze directly without flinching; nor was there anything insolent in his tone or att.i.tude. He continued: "I didn't do it, sir. I was in the pantry when I heard the crash in the refectory window. The bullet came from out of doors, as I should judge, sir."

The facts and conclusions were undoubtedly with Bates, and I felt that I had not acquitted myself creditably in my effort to fix the crime on him. My abuse of him had been tactless, to say the least, and I now tried another line of attack.

"Of course, Bates, I was merely joking. What's your own theory of the matter?"

"I have no theory, sir. Mr. Glenarm always warned me against theories. He said--if you will pardon me-- there was great danger in the speculative mind."

The man spoke with a slight Irish accent, which in itself puzzled me. I have always been attentive to the peculiarities of speech, and his was not the brogue of the Irish servant cla.s.s. Larry Donovan, who was English-born, used on occasions an exaggerated Irish dialect that was wholly different from the smooth liquid tones of Bates. But more things than his speech were to puzzle me in this man.

"The person in the canoe? How do you account for her?" I asked.

"I haven't accounted for her, sir. There's no women on these grounds, or any sort of person except ourselves."

"But there are neighbors--farmers, people of some kind must live along the lake."

"A few, sir; and then there's the school quite a bit beyond your own west wall."

His slight reference to my proprietorship, my own wall, as he put it, pleased me.

"Oh, yes; there is a school--girls?--yes; Mr. Pickering mentioned it. But the girls hardly paddle on the lake at night, at this season--hunting ducks--should you say, Bates?"

"I don't believe they do any shooting, Mr. Glenarm. It's a pretty strict school, I judge, sir, from all accounts."

"And the teachers--they are all women?"

"They're the Sisters of St. Agatha, I believe they call them. I sometimes see them walking abroad. They're very quiet neighbors, and they go away in the summer usually, except Sister Theresa. The school's her regular home, sir. And there's the little chapel quite near the wall; the young minister lives there; and the gardener's the only other man on the grounds."

So my immediate neighbors were Protestant nuns and school-girls, with a chaplain and gardener thrown in for variety. Still, the chaplain might be a social resource. There was nothing in the terms of my grandfather's will to prevent my cultivating the acquaintance of a clergyman. It even occurred to me that this might be a part of the game: my soul was to be watched over by a rural priest, while, there being nothing else to do, I was to give my attention to the study of architecture. Bates, my guard and housekeeper, was brushing the hearth with deliberate care.

"Show me my cell," I said, rising, "and I'll go to bed."

He brought from somewhere a great bra.s.s candelabrum that held a dozen lights, and explained: "This was Mr. Glenarm's habit. He always used this one to go to bed with. I'm sure he'd wish you to have it, sir."

I thought I detected something like a quaver in the man's voice. My grandfather's memory was dear to him. I reflected, and I was moved to compa.s.sion for him.

"How long were you with Mr. Glenarm, Bates?" I inquired, as I followed him into the hall.

"Five years, sir. He employed me the year you went abroad. I remember very well his speaking of it. He greatly admired you, sir."

He led the way, holding the cl.u.s.ter of lights high for my guidance up the broad stairway.

The hall above shared the generous lines of the whole house, but the walls were white and hard to the eye. Rough planks had been laid down for a floor, and beyond the light of the candles lay a dark region that gave out ghostly echoes as the loose boards rattled under our feet.

"I hope you'll not be too much disappointed, sir," said Bates, pausing a moment before opening a door. "It's all quite unfinished, but comfortable, I should say, quite comfortable."

"Open the door!"

He was not my host and I did not relish his apology. I walked past him into a small sitting-room that was, in a way, a miniature of the great library below. Open shelves filled with books lined the apartment to the ceiling on every hand, save where a small fireplace, a cabinet and table were built into the walls. In the center of the room was a long table with writing materials set in nice order. I opened a handsome case and found that it contained a set of draftsman's instruments.

I groaned aloud.

"Mr. Glenarm preferred this room for working. The tools were his very own, sir."

"The devil they were!" I exclaimed irascibly. I s.n.a.t.c.hed a book from the nearest shelf and threw it open on the table. It was The Tower: Its Early Use for Purposes of Defense. London: 1816.

I closed it with a slam.

"The sleeping-room is beyond, sir. I hope--"

"Don't you hope any more!" I growled; "and it doesn't make any difference whether I'm disappointed or not."

"Certainly not, sir!" he replied in a tone that made me ashamed of myself.

The adjoining bedroom was small and meagerly furnished. The walls were untinted and were relieved only by prints of English cathedrals, French chateaux, and like suggestions of the best things known to architecture. The bed was the commonest iron type; and the other articles of furniture were chosen with a strict regard for utility. My trunks and bags had been carried in, and Bates asked from the door f or my commands.

"Mr. Glenarm always breakfasted at seven-thirty, sir, as near as he could hit it without a timepiece, and he was quite punctual. His ways were a little odd, sir. He used to prowl about at night a good deal, and there was no following him."

"I fancy I shan't do much prowling," I declared. "And my grandfather's breakfast hour will suit me exactly, Bates."

"If there's nothing further, sir--"

"That's all;--and Bates--"

"Yes, Mr. Glenarm."

"Of course you understand that I didn't really mean to imply that you had fired that shot at me?"

"I beg you not to mention it, Mr. Glenarm."

"But it was a little queer. If you should gain any light on the subject, let me know."

"Certainly, sir."

"But I believe, Bates, that we'd better keep the shades down at night. These duck hunters hereabouts are apparently reckless. And you might attend to these now, --and every evening hereafter."

I wound my watch as he obeyed. I admit that in my heart I still half-suspected the fellow of complicity with the person who had fired at me through the dining-room window. It was rather odd, I reflected, that the shades should have been open, though I might account for this by the fact that this curious unfinished establishment was not subject to the usual laws governing orderly housekeeping. Bates was evidently aware of my suspicions, and he remarked, drawing down the last of the plain green shades: "Mr. Glenarm never drew them, sir. It was a saying of his, if I may repeat his words, that he liked the open. These are eastern windows, and he took a quiet pleasure in letting the light waken him. It was one of his oddities, sir."

"To be sure. That's all, Bates."

He gravely bade me good night, and I followed him to the outer door and watched his departing figure, lighted by a single candle that he had produced from his pocket.

I stood for several minutes listening to his step, tracing it through the hall below--as far as my knowledge of the house would permit. Then, in unknown regions, I could hear the closing of doors and drawing of bolts. Verily, my jailer was a person of painstaking habits.

I opened my traveling-case and distributed its contents on the dressing-table. I had carried through all my adventures a folding leather photograph-holder, containing portraits of my father and mother and of John Marshall Glenarm, my grandfather, and this I set up on the mantel in the little sitting-room. I felt to-night as never before how alone I was in the world, and a need for companionship and sympathy stirred in me. It was with a new and curious interest that I peered into my grandfather's shrewd old eyes. He used to come and go fitfully at my father's house; but my father had displeased him in various ways that I need not recite, and my father's death had left me with an estrangement which I had widened by my own acts.

Now that I had reached Glenarm, my mind reverted to Pickering's estimate of the value of my grandfather's estate. Although John Marshall Glenarm was an eccentric man, he had been able to acc.u.mulate a large fortune; and yet I had allowed the executor to tell me that he had died comparatively poor. In so readily accepting the terms of the will and burying myself in a region of which I knew nothing, I had cut myself off from the usual channels of counsel. If I left the place to return to New York I should simply disinherit myself. At Glenarm I was, and there I must remain to the end of the year; I grew bitter against Pickering as I reflected upon the ease with which he had got rid of me. I had always satisfied myself that my wits were as keen as his, but I wondered now whether I had not stupidly put myself in his power.

CHAPTER V.

A RED TAM-O'-SHANTER.

I looked out on the bright October morning with a renewed sense of isolation. Trees crowded about my windows, many of them still wearing their festal colors, scarlet and brown and gold, with the bright green of some sulking companion standing out here and there with startling vividness. I put on an old corduroy outing suit and heavy shoes, ready for a tramp abroad, and went below.

The great library seemed larger than ever when I beheld it in the morning light. I opened one of the French windows and stepped out on a stone terrace, where I gained a fair view of the exterior of the house, which proved to be a modified Tudor, with battlements and two towers. One of the latter was only half-finished, and to it and to other parts of the house the workmen's scaffolding still clung. Heaps of stone and piles of lumber were scattered about in great disorder. The house extended partly along the edge of a ravine, through which a slender creek ran toward the lake. The terrace became a broad balcony immediately outside the library, and beneath it the water bubbled pleasantly around heavy stone pillars. Two pretty rustic bridges spanned the ravine, one near the front entrance, the other at the rear. My grandfather had begun his house on a generous plan, but, buried as it was among the trees, it suffered from lack of perspective. However, on one side toward the lake was a fair meadow, broken by a water-tower, and just beyond the west dividing wall I saw a little chapel; and still farther, in the same direction, the outlines of the buildings of St. Agatha's were vaguely perceptible in another strip of woodland.

The thought of gentle nuns and school-girls as neighbors amused me. All I asked was that they should keep to their own side of the wall.

I heard behind me the careful step of Bates.

"Good morning, Mr. Glenarm. I trust you rested quite well, sir."

His figure was as austere, his tone as respectful and colorless as by night. The morning light gave him a pallid cast. He suffered my examination coolly enough; his eyes were, indeed, the best thing about him.

"This is what Mr. Glenarm called the platform. I believe it's in Hamlet, sir."

I laughed aloud. "Elsinore: A Platform Before the Castle."

"It was one of Mr. Glenarm's little fancies, you might call it, sir."

"And the ghost--where does the murdered majesty of Denmark lie by day?"

"I fear it wasn't provided, sir! As you see, Mr. Glenarm, the house is quite incomplete. My late master had not carried out all his plans."

Bates did not smile. I fancied he never smiled, and I wondered whether John Marshall Glenarm had played upon the man's lack of humor. My grandfather had been possessed of a certain grim, ironical gift at jesting, and quite likely he had amused himself by experimenting upon his serving man.

"You may breakfast when you like, sir,"--and thus admonished I went into the refectory.

A newspaper lay at my plate; it was the morning's issue of a Chicago daily. I was, then, not wholly out of the world, I reflected, scanning the head-lines.

"Your grandfather rarely examined the paper. Mr. Glenarm was more particularly interested in the old times. He wasn't what you might call up to date--if you will pardon the expression, sir."

"You are quite right about that, Bates. He was a medievalist in his sympathies."

"Thank you for that word, sir; I've frequently heard him apply it to himself. The plain omelette was a great favorite with your grandfather. I hope it is to your liking, sir."

"It's excellent, Bates. And your coffee is beyond praise."

"Thank you, Mr. Glenarm. One does what one can, sir."

He had placed me so that I faced the windows, an attention to my comfort and safety which I appreciated. The broken pane told the tale of the shot that had so narrowly missed me the night before.

"I'll repair that to-day, sir," Bates remarked, seeing my eyes upon the window.

"You know that I'm to spend a year on this place; I a.s.sume that you understand the circ.u.mstances," I said, feeling it wise that we should understand each other.

"Quite so, Mr. Glenarm."

"I'm a student, you know, and all I want is to be left alone."

This I threw in to rea.s.sure myself rather than for his information. It was just as well, I reflected, to a.s.sert a little authority, even though the fellow undoubtedly represented Pickering and received orders from him.

"In a day or two, or as soon as I have got used to the place, I shall settle down to work in the library. You may give me breakfast at seven-thirty; luncheon at one-thirty and dinner at seven."

"Those were my late master's hours, sir."

"Very good. And I'll eat anything you please, except mutton broth, meat pie and canned strawberries. Strawberries in tins, Bates, are not well calculated to lift the spirit of man."

"I quite agree with you, sir, if you will pardon my opinion."

"And the bills--"

"They are provided for by Mr. Pickering. He sends me an allowance for the household expenses."

"So you are to report to him, are you, as heretofore?"

I blew out a match with which I had lighted a cigar and watched the smoking end intently.

"I believe that's the idea, sir."

It is not pleasant to be under compulsion--to feel your freedom curtailed, to be conscious of espionage. I rose without a word and went into the hall.

"You may like to have the keys," said Bates, following me. "There's two for the gates in the outer wall and one for the St. Agatha's gate; they're marked, as you see. And here's the hall-door key and the boat-house key that you asked for last night."

After an hour spent in unpacking I went out into the grounds. I had thought it well to wire Pickering of my arrival, and I set out for Annandale to send him a telegram. My spirit lightened under the influences of the crisp air and cheering sunshine. What had seemed strange and shadowy at night was clear enough by day.

I found the gate through which we had entered the grounds the night before without difficulty. The stone wall was a.s.suredly no flimsy thing. It was built in a thoroughly workmanlike manner, and I mentally computed its probable cost with amazement. There were, I reflected, much more satisfactory ways of spending money than in building walls around Indiana forests. But the place was mine, or as good as mine, and there was no manner of use in quarreling with the whims of my dead grandfather. At the expiration of a year I could tear down the wall if I pleased; and as to the incomplete house, that I should sell or remodel to my liking.