THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES
Annandale derives its chief importance from the fact
that two railway lines intersect there. The Chicago
Express paused only for a moment while the porter deposited
my things beside me on the platform. Light
streamed from the open door of the station; a few
idlers paced the platform, staring into the windows of
the cars; the village hackman languidly solicited my
business. Suddenly out of the shadows came a tall,
curious figure of a man clad in a long ulster. As I
write, it is with a quickening of the sensation I received
on the occasion of my first meeting with Bates. His
lank gloomy figure rises before me now, and I hear his
deep melancholy voice, as, touching his hat respectfully,
be said:
“Beg pardon, sir; is this Mr. Glenarm? I am Bates
from Glenarm House. Mr. Pickering wired me to meet
you, sir.”
“Yes; to be sure,” I said.
The hackman was already gathering up my traps,
and I gave him my trunk-checks.
“How far is it?” I asked, my eyes resting, a little regretfully,
I must confess, on the rear lights of the vanishing
train.
“Two miles, sir,” Bates replied. “There’s no way
over but the hack in winter. In summer the steamer
comes right into our dock.”
“My legs need stretching; I’ll walk,” I suggested,
drawing the cool air into my lungs. It was a still, starry
October night, and its freshness was grateful after the
hot sleeper. Bates accepted the suggestion without
comment. We walked to the end of the platform, where
the hackman was already tumbling my trunks about,
and after we had seen them piled upon his nondescript
wagon, I followed Bates down through the broad quiet
street of the village. There was more of Annandale
than I had imagined, and several tall smoke-stacks
loomed here and there in the thin starlight.
“Brick-yards, sir,” said Bates, waving his hand at
the stacks. “It’s a considerable center for that kind of
business.”
“Bricks without straw?” I asked, as we passed a
radiant saloon that blazed upon the board walk.
“Beg pardon, sir, but such places are the ruin of
men,”—on which remark I based a mental note that
Bates wished to impress me with his own rectitude.
He swung along beside me, answering questions with
dogged brevity. Clearly, here was a man who had reduced
human intercourse to a basis of necessity. I was
to be shut up with him for a year, and he was not likely
to prove a cheerful jailer. My feet struck upon a graveled
highway at the end of the village street, and I
heard suddenly the lapping of water.
“It’s the lake, sir. This road leads right out to the
house,” Bates explained.
I was doomed to meditate pretty steadily, I imagined,
on the beauty of the landscape in these parts, and I
was rejoiced to know that it was not all cheerless prairie
or gloomy woodland. The wind freshened cud blew
sharply upon us off the water.
“The fishing’s quite good in season. Mr. Glenarm
used to take great pleasure in it. Bass,—yes, sir. Mr.
Glenarm held there was nothing quite equal to a black
bass.”
I liked the way the fellow spoke of my grandfather.
He was evidently a loyal retainer. No doubt he could
summon from the past many pictures of my grandfather,
and I determined to encourage his confidence.
Any resentment I felt on first hearing the terms of
my grandfather’s will had passed. He had treated me
as well as I deserved, and the least I could do was to
accept the penalty he had laid upon me in a sane and
amiable spirit. This train of thought occupied me as
we tramped along the highway. The road now led away
from the lake and through a heavy wood. Presently, on
the right loomed a dark barrier, and I put out my hand
and touched a wall of rough stone that rose to a height
of about eight feet.
“What is this, Bates?” I asked.
“This is Glenarm land, sir. The wall was one of
your grandfather’s ideas. It’s a quarter of a mile long
and cost him a pretty penny, I warrant you. The road
turns off from the lake now, but the Glenarm property
is all lake front.”
So there was a wall about my prison house! I grinned
cheerfully to myself. When, a few moments later, my
guide paused at an arched gateway in the long wall,
drew from his overcoat a bunch of keys and fumbled at
the lock of an iron gate, I felt the spirit of adventure
quicken within me.
The gate clicked behind us and Bates found a lantern
and lighted it with the ease of custom.
“I use this gate because it’s nearer. The regular entrance
is farther down the road. Keep close, sir, as the
timber isn’t much cleared.”
The undergrowth was indeed heavy, and I followed
the lantern of my guide with difficulty. In the darkness
the place seemed as wild and rough as a tropical wilderness.
“Only a little farther,” rose Bates’ voice ahead of
me; and then: “There’s the light, sir,”—and, lifting
my eyes, as I stumbled over the roots of a great tree, I
saw for the first time the dark outlines of Glenarm
House.
“Here we are, sir!” exclaimed Bates, stamping his
feet upon a walk. I followed him to what I assumed to
be the front door of the house, where a lamp shone
brightly at either side of a massive entrance. Bates
flung it open without ado, and I stepped quickly into
a great hall that was lighted dimly by candles fastened
into brackets on the walls.
“I hope you’ve not expected too much, Mr. Glenarm,”
said Bates, with a tone of mild apology. “It’s very incomplete
for living purposes.”
“Well, we’ve got to make the best of it,” I answered,
though without much cheer. The sound of our steps
reverberated and echoed in the well of a great staircase.
There was not, as far as I could see, a single article of
furniture in the place.
“Here’s something you’ll like better, sir,”—and Bates
paused far down the hall and opened a door.
A single candle made a little pool of light in what I
felt to be a large room. I was prepared for a disclosure
of barren ugliness, and waited, in heartsick foreboding,
for the silent guide to reveal a dreary prison.
“Please sit here, sir,” said Bates, “while I make a
better light.”
He moved through the dark room with perfect ease,
struck a match, lighted a taper and went swiftly and
softly about. He touched the taper to one candle after
another,—they seemed to be everywhere,—and won
from the dark a faint twilight, that yielded slowly to a
growing mellow splendor of light. I have often watched
the acolytes in dim cathedrals of the Old World set
countless candles ablaze on magnificent altars,—always
with awe for the beauty of the spectacle; but in this
unknown house the austere serving-man summoned
from the shadows a lovelier and more bewildering enchantment.
Youth alone, of beautiful things, is lovelier
than light.
The lines of the walls receded as the light increased,
and the raftered ceiling drew away, luring the eyes upward.
I rose with a smothered exclamation on my lips
and stared about, snatching off my hat in reverence as
the spirit of the place wove its spell about me. Everywhere
there were books; they covered the walls to the
ceiling, with only long French windows and an enormous
fireplace breaking the line. Above the fireplace a
massive dark oak chimney-breast further emphasized
the grand scale of the room. From every conceivable
place—from shelves built for the purpose, from brackets
that thrust out long arms among the books, from a
great crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling, and
from the breast of the chimney—innumerable candles
blazed with dazzling brilliancy. I exclaimed in wonder
and pleasure as Bates paused, his sorcerer’s wand in
hand.
“Mr. Glenarm was very fond of candle-light; he
liked to gather up candlesticks, and his collection is
very fine. He called his place ‘The House of a Thousand
Candles.’ There’s only about a hundred here;
but it was one of his conceits that when the house was
finished there would be a thousand lights, he had quite
a joking way, your grandfather. It suited his humor
to call it a thousand. He enjoyed his own pleasantries,
sir.”
“I fancy he did,” I replied, staring in bewilderment.
“Oil lamps might be more suited to your own taste,
sir. But your grandfather would not have them. Old
brass and copper were specialties with him, and he had
a particular taste, Mr. Glenarm had, in glass candlesticks.
He held that the crystal was most effective of
all. I’ll go and let in the baggageman and then serve
you some supper.”
He went somberly out and I examined the room with
amazed and delighted eyes. It was fifty feet long and
half as wide. The hard-wood floor was covered with
handsome rugs; every piece of furniture was quaint or
interesting. Carved in the heavy oak paneling above
the fireplace, in large Old English letters, was the inscription:
The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord
and on either side great candelabra sent long arms
across the hearth. All the books seemed related to architecture;
German and French works stood side by side
among those by English and American authorities. I
found archaeology represented in a division where all
the titles were Latin or Italian. I opened several cabinets
that contained sketches and drawings, all in careful
order; and in another I found an elaborate card
catalogue, evidently the work of a practised hand. The
minute examination was too much for me; I threw
myself into a great chair that might have been spoil
from a cathedral, satisfied to enjoy the general effect.
To find an apartment so handsome and so marked by
good taste in the midst of an Indiana wood, staggered
me. To be sure, in approaching the house I had seen
only a dark bulk that conveyed no sense of its character
or proportions; and certainly the entrance hall
had not prepared me for the beauty of this room. I was
so lost in contemplation that I did not hear a door open
behind me. The respectful, mournful voice of Bates
announced:
“There’s a bite ready for you, sir.”
I followed him through the hall to a small high-wainscoted
room where a table was simply set.
“This is what Mr. Glenarm called the refectory. The
dining-room, on the other side of the house, is unfinished.
He took his own meals here. The library was the
main thing with him. He never lived to finish the house,
—more’s the pity, sir. He would have made something
very handsome of it if he’d had a few years more. But
he hoped, sir, that you’d see it completed. It was his
wish, sir.”
“Yes, to be sure,” I replied.
He brought cold fowl and a salad, and produced a
bit of Stilton of unmistakable authenticity.
“I trust the ale is cooled to your liking. It’s your
grandfather’s favorite, if I may say it, sir.”
I liked the fellow’s humility. He served me with a
grave deference and an accustomed hand. Candles in
crystal holders shed an agreeable light upon the table;
the room was snug and comfortable, and hickory logs
in a small fireplace crackled cheerily. If my grandfather
had designed to punish me, with loneliness as
his weapon, his shade, if it lurked near, must have
been grievously disappointed. I had long been inured
to my own society. I had often eaten my bread alone,
and I found a pleasure in the quiet of the strange unknown
house. There stole over me, too, the satisfaction
that I was at last obeying a wish of my grandfather’s,
that I was doing something he would have me do. I
was touched by the traces everywhere of his interest
in what was to him the art of arts; there was something
quite fine in his devotion to it. The little refectory
had its air of distinction, though it was without
decoration. There had been, we always said in the
family, something whimsical or even morbid in my
grandsire’s devotion to architecture; but I felt that it
had really appealed to something dignified and noble
in his own mind and character, and a gentler mood
than I had known in years possessed my heart. He had
asked little of me, and I determined that in that little
I would not fail.
Bates gave me my coffee, put matches within reach
and left the room. I drew out my cigarette case and
was holding it half-opened, when the glass in the window
back of me cracked sharply, a bullet whistled over
my head, struck the opposite wall and fell, flattened
and marred, on the table under my hand.