The House of a Thousand Candles. Meredith Nicholson
“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 safeguarded legally, that if the congregation ever intrusted its spiritual welfare to a minister named Reginald, Harold or Claude, an amount equal to his gift, with interest, should be paid to the Massachusetts Humane Society.
The thought of him touched me now. I was glad to feel that his money had never been a lure to me; it did not matter whether his estate was great or small, I could, at least, ease my conscience by obeying the behest of the old man whose name I bore, and whose interest in the finer things of life and art had given him an undeniable distinction.
“I should like to know something of Mr. Glenarm’s last days,” I said abruptly.
“He wished to visit the village where he was born, and Bates, his companion and servant, went to Vermont with him. He died quite suddenly, and was buried beside his father in the old village cemetery. I saw him last early in the summer. I was away from home and did not know of his death until it was all over. Bates came to report it to me, and to sign the necessary papers in probating the will. It had to be done in the place of the decedent’s residence, and we went together to Wabana, the seat of the county in which Annandale lies.”
I was silent after this, looking out toward the sea that had lured me since my earliest dreams of the world that lay beyond it.
“It’s a poor stake, Glenarm,” remarked Pickering consolingly, and I wheeled upon him.
“I suppose you think it a poor stake! I suppose you can’t see anything in that old man’s life beyond his money; but I don’t care a curse what my inheritance is! I never obeyed any of my grandfather’s wishes in his lifetime, but now that he’s dead his last wish is mandatory. I’m going out there to spend a year if I die for it. Do you get my idea?”
“Humph! You always were a stormy petrel,” he sneered. “I fancy it will be safer to keep our most agreeable acquaintance on a strictly business basis. If you accept the terms of the will—”
“Of course I accept them! Do you think I am going to make a row, refuse to fulfil that old man’s last wish! I gave him enough trouble in his life without disappointing him in his grave. I suppose you’d like to have me fight the will; but I’m going to disappoint you.”
He said nothing, but played with his pencil. I had never disliked him so heartily; he was so smug and comfortable. His office breathed the very spirit of prosperity. I wished to finish my business and get away.
“I suppose the region out there has a high death-rate. How’s the malaria?”
“Not alarmingly prevalent, I understand. There’s a summer resort over on one side of Lake Annandale. The place is really supposed to be wholesome. I don’t believe your grandfather had homicide in mind in sending you there.”
“No, he probably thought the rustication would make a man of me. Must I do my own victualing? I suppose I’ll be allowed to eat.”
“Bates can cook for you. He’ll supply the necessities. I’ll instruct him to obey your orders. I assume you’ll not have many guests—in fact,”—he studied the back of his hand intently—“while that isn’t stipulated, I doubt whether it was your grandfather’s intention that you should surround yourself—”
“With boisterous companions!” I supplied the words in my cheerfullest tone. “No; my conduct shall be exemplary, Mr. Pickering,” I added, with affable irony.
He picked up a single sheet of thin type-written paper and passed it across the table. It was a formal acquiescence in the provisions of the will. Pickering had prepared it in advance of my coming, and this assumption that I would accept the terms irritated me. Assumptions as to what I should do under given conditions had always irritated me, and accounted, in a large measure, for my proneness to surprise and disappoint people. Pickering summoned a clerk to witness my signature.
“How soon shall you take possession?” he asked. “I have to make a record of that.”
“I shall start for Indiana to-morrow,” I answered.
“You are prompt,” he replied, deliberately folding in quarters the paper I had just signed. “I hoped you might dine with me before going out; but I fancy New York is pretty tame after the