The Little Red Chimney Part 7

The force gasped at her temerity. They had heard he was a horrid old man; but the youngest observed wisely that probably he wouldn't bite.

Miss Bentley, however, having recently developed a b.u.mp of discretion, did first consult Dr. Prue in the matter, who responded, "Why certainly, I see no objection to your asking to see the book. Mr. Knight is a harmless, studious man. I have met him on two occasions when I was called in to attend his housekeeper, Mrs. Sampson, and he was courtesy itself. I will go with you and introduce you, if you like."

Virginia, hanging around and overhearing, begged to be allowed to go too. "I'd love to see the inside of his house," she urged.

She was a.s.sured she would find it stupid, but this was as nothing compared with the glory of entering the abode of the Miser in company with her ladyship, and the other pigeons looking enviously on outside.

Dr. Prue, of course, had no time to waste, so Margaret Elizabeth hastened to find her pad and pencil, and across the street they went forthwith. The Miser was discovered in his library, a s.p.a.cious, shabby room, yet not too shabby for dignity, full of valuable and even rare things, such as old prints and engravings, and most of all of books, which overflowed their shelves in a scholarly disorder not unfamiliar to Margaret Elizabeth.

With businesslike brevity Dr. Vandegrift presented her cousin and her credentials to Mr. Knight, who, with a quaint and formal courtesy, was happy to oblige the daughter of an author so distinguished in his chosen field.

Miss Bentley in her turn presented, with suitable gravity, Miss Virginia Brooks, who promised to be quiet as a mouse, and whose eyes betrayed her disappointment on discovering the inside of the Miser's house to be so much like any other.

After the necessary stir attending upon the finding of the desired volume, and getting settled to work, profound quiet again rested upon the library. Margaret Elizabeth wrote busily, her book propped upon a small stand before her, while across the room Virginia softly turned the leaves of a huge volume of engravings, pausing now and then to rest her cheek in her palm and regard the Miser steadily for a moment.

The master of the library had the air of having forgotten their presence altogether. Aided by a microscope, with a grave absorbed face, he studied and compared a series of prints spread before him. So quiet was it all, that the crackle and purr of the coal fire in the old-fashioned grate made itself quite audible, and the leisurely tick of the clock in the hall marked time solemnly.

Margaret Elizabeth's interest in Vedantic Philosophy began after a time to wane, and she allowed her attention to wander about the room, from object to object, until it concentrated upon the student himself. Was he really a miser? she wondered. He did not look it. His was rather the face of an ascetic. Suddenly it flashed into her mind that here was the sad, grey man of that unforgettable conversation in the park.

Virginia slipped down and came to her side. "Is there really a room full of gold?" she whispered.

Margaret Elizabeth shook her head sternly. It was time they were going.

Her hand was tired. She would ask permission to come again. As she returned her book to the shelf, she displaced a smaller one, a shabby leather-bound book, at which she scarcely glanced, but upon which Virginia seized.

"The Candy Man has one like this," she said. "Such a funny name! See?

Only his is Vol. one and this is Vol. two."

Miss Bentley cared not at all what strange books the Candy Man owned, and said so, frowning so severely you could scarcely have believed her to be the same person who only a few minutes later was thanking the Miser with such alluring grace of manner.

She was welcome to come when she chose, she was a.s.sured, with grave politeness. His library was at her disposal.

"You have many beautiful things," said Margaret Elizabeth. "This portrait above the mantel, for instance, seems to me very interesting."

The portrait in question was rather a splendid one of a military-looking man probably in his thirties. One of the best examples of Jouett's work it was generally considered, Mr. Knight explained, and said to have been an admirable likeness of his uncle, General Waite, at the time it was painted.

It was inexplicable that as Margaret Elizabeth gazed up at the general the eyes beneath the stern brows should become the eyes of the Candy Man. But her exasperation at this absurd illusion pa.s.sed quickly into horrified embarra.s.sment, when Virginia, edging toward the master of the house, asked explosively, "Say, have you really got a room full of gold?"

"There is one thing certain, you can never go there with me again," said Miss Bentley, on their way across the street.

"But Aleck said----" began the culprit.

"Never mind what he said. Aleck is a very ignorant little boy. People don't keep gold in rooms. If they have it they put it in the bank or send it to the mint."

CHAPTER EIGHT

_In which the Miser's past history is touched upon; which shows how his solitude is again invaded, and how he makes a new friend._

"There isn't any mystery about _him_, so far as I know," said the Reporter, who was seated as usual upon the carriage block. The Candy Wagon continued to act as a magnet for him, and in season and out his genial presence confronted the Candy Man.

If his emphasis upon the p.r.o.noun was noticed, it was ignored. The mystery was, the Candy Man replied, how with such a face he could be a miser.

"Oh, he's a bit nutty, of course. My grandmother says his money came to him unexpectedly and the shock was too much for him. They say he has a notion he is holding it in trust. He is rational enough in every other way, a shrewd investor, in fact. His uncle, General Waite, who left him the money, was a connection of my grandmother's."

"The Miser is a cousin then?"

"Not on your tintype, my friend. Old Knight was a nephew of the general's wife, you see."

"And there were no other heirs?" asked the Candy Man.

"There was an own nephew, I have heard, who mysteriously disappeared shortly before the general's death. I have heard my grandmother mention it, but it was long before my day. Why are you interested?"

Even to himself the Candy Man could not quite explain his interest in this sad and lonely man, except that, as he had told Miss Bentley in their first and only conversation, he had a habit of getting interested in people. For example, in the house where he roomed there was a young couple who just now engaged his sympathies. The husband, a teacher in the Boys' High School, had been ill with typhoid, and the little wife's anxious face haunted the Candy Man. The husband was recovering, but of course the long illness had overtaxed their small resources, and--But, oh dear! weren't there hundreds of such cases? What was the good of thinking about it! Yet suppose there were a Fairy G.o.dmother Society?

The Candy Man was a foolish dreamer, and his favourite dream in these days was of some time sitting beside the Little Red Chimney hearth, and discussing the Fairy G.o.dmother Society with Miss Bentley. These bright dreams, however, were interspersed by moments of extreme depression, in which he cursed the day upon which he had become a Candy Man; moments when the horrified surprise in the eyes of Miss Bentley as she recognised him, rose up to torment him.

It was in one of these that the Reporter had presented himself this time, and when he was gone the Candy Man returned to his gloom. Having nothing else to do just then he opened the shabby book with the funny name, and looked at the crimson flower. Through the stain of the flower he read:

_"If a person is fearful and abject, what else is necessary but to apply for permission to bury him as if he were dead."_

The book had come into his possession by a curious chance not long before, and he treasured it, not so much for its st.u.r.dy philosophy, as because it was in some sort a link to the shadowy past of his early childhood.

The adjectives "fearful" and "abject" brought him up short. What manner of man was he to be so quickly overwhelmed by difficulties? As for being a Candy Man, did he not owe to this despised position his good fortune in meeting Miss Bentley at all?

Somewhere about eight o'clock the next evening, being Sunday, he might have been seen strolling by the house of the Little Red Chimney. That particular architectural feature had lost its ident.i.ty in the shades of evening, but he was indulging the characteristic desire of a lover to gaze at his lady's window under the kindly cover of the night.

The blind was drawn within a few inches of the sill, but these inches allowed him a glimpse of a blazing fire, and while he lingered a shadow flitted across the curtain in its direction, and then another, until in his mind's eye he beheld Margaret Elizabeth and Uncle Bob seated beside the hearth. For aught he knew, it might be Augustus McAllister making an evening call, but the Candy Man was just then too determinedly optimistic to harbour such an idea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MISER]

As he pa.s.sed on he was occupied in trying to picture to himself her ladyship sitting before her fire, but that familiar little grey hat, which was so entirely inappropriate, would persist, in spite of all he could do, in getting into the picture. Only once, when curling plumes took its place, had he seen her without it, and though for an instant he would succeed in removing it, presto! before he knew it, there it was again, jammed down anyhow on her bright hair.

With odds in favour of the hat, the struggle came to a sudden pause at sight of a tall figure leaning heavily and in evident pain against one of the ornamental iron fences which prevailed along this street. At once proffering his a.s.sistance, he recognised Mr. Knight, the Miser.

It was plain the sufferer would have preferred to decline help. It would soon pa.s.s. It was nothing. He had had such attacks before. He spoke brokenly, adding, "I thank you," in a tone of dismissal.

The Candy Man showed himself to be, when occasion demanded, a masterful person. Without arguing the point, he supported the Miser with a firm arm and began to urge him in the direction of his home. Mr. Knight, half fainting as he was, submitted without a word until his door was reached; then, there being no response to his companion's vigorous ring, he murmured something about the servants having gone, and began to fumble in his pocket.

The Candy Man, taking the latch key from his trembling fingers, opened the door, and ignoring the evident expectation conveyed in his renewed thanks, continued to a.s.sert authority, supporting the invalid into his library. "I shall not leave you alone until you are relieved," he said.

Again Mr. Knight submitted to his captor's will, and lying back in his arm-chair directed him to the restorative that was prescribed for these seizures. When it had been administered he lay quiet with closed eyes.

The Candy Man now turned his attention to the fire, which had burned low, coaxing it skilfully out of its sullen apathy. He was brushing up tidily, when Mr. Knight, to whose face the colour was returning, spoke.