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 brass 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 compassion 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 cluster 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 snatched 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 for 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 accumulate 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