A VOICE FROM THE LAKE
I ran to the window and peered out into the night.
The wood through which we had approached the house
seemed to encompass it. The branches of a great tree
brushed the panes. I was tugging at the fastening of
the window when I became aware of Bates at my elbow.
“Did something happen, sir?”
His unbroken calm angered me. Some one had fired
at me through a window and I had narrowly escaped
being shot. I resented the unconcern with which this
servant accepted the situation.
“Nothing worth mentioning. Somebody tried to assassinate
me, that’s all,” I said, in a voice that failed
to be calmly ironical. I was still fumbling at the catch
of the window.
“Allow me, sir,”—and he threw up the sash with an
ease that increased my irritation.
I leaned out and tried to find some clue to my assailant.
Bates opened another window and surveyed the
dark landscape with me.
“It was a shot from without, was it, sir?”
“Of course it was; you didn’t suppose I shot at myself,
did you?”
He examined the broken pane and picked up the bullet
from the table.
“It’s a rifle-ball, I should say.”
The bullet was half-flattened by its contact with the
wall. It was a cartridge ball of large caliber and might
have been fired from either rifle or pistol.
“It’s very unusual, sir!” I wheeled upon him angrily
and found him fumbling with the bit of metal, a
troubled look in his face. He at once continued, as
though anxious to allay my fears. “Quite accidental,
most likely. Probably boys on the lake are shooting at
ducks.”
I laughed out so suddenly that Bates started back in
alarm.
“You idiot!” I roared, seizing him by the collar with
both hands and shaking him fiercely. “You fool! Do the
people around here shoot ducks at night? Do they
shoot water-fowl with elephant guns and fire at people
through windows just for fun?”
I threw him back against the table so that it leaped
away from him, and he fell prone on the floor.
“Get up!” I commanded, “and fetch a lantern.”
He said nothing, but did as I bade him. We traversed
the long cheerless hall to the front door, and I sent him
before me into the woodland. My notions of the geography
of the region were the vaguest, but I wished to
examine for myself the premises that evidently contained
a dangerous prowler. I was very angry and my
rage increased as I followed Bates, who had suddenly
retired within himself. We stood soon beneath the
lights of the refectory window.
The ground was covered with leaves which broke
crisply under our feet.
“What lies beyond here?” I demanded.
“About a quarter of mile of woods, sir, and then the
lake.”
“Go ahead,” I ordered, “straight to the lake.”
I was soon stumbling through rough underbrush similar
to that through which we had approached the house.
Bates swung along confidently enough ahead of me,
pausing occasionally to hold back the branches. I began
to feel, as my rage abated, that I had set out on a foolish
undertaking. I was utterly at sea as to the character of
the grounds; I was following a man whom I had not
seen until two hours before, and whom I began to suspect
of all manner of designs upon me. It was wholly
unlikely that the person who had fired into the windows
would lurk about, and, moreover, the light of the lantern,
the crack of the leaves and the breaking of the
boughs advertised our approach loudly. I am, however,
a person given to steadfastness in error, if nothing else,
and I plunged along behind my guide with a grim determination
to reach the margin of the lake, if for no
other reason than to exercise my authority over the
custodian of this strange estate.
A bush slapped me sharply and I stopped to rub the
sting from my face.
“Are you hurt, sir?” asked Bates solicitously, turning
with the lantern.
“Of course not,” I snapped. “I’m having the time
of my life. Are there no paths in this jungle?”
“Not through here, sir. It was Mr. Glenarm’s idea
not to disturb the wood at all. He was very fond of
walking through the timber.”
“Not at night, I hope! Where are we now?”
“Quite near the lake, sir.”
“Then go on.”
I was out of patience with Bates, with the pathless
woodland, and, I must confess, with the spirit of John
Marshall Glenarm, my grandfather.
We came out presently upon a gravelly beach, and
Bates stamped suddenly on planking.
“This is the Glenarm dock, sir; and that’s the boat-house.”
He waved his lantern toward a low structure that rose
dark beside us. As we stood silent, peering out into the
starlight, I heard distinctly the dip of a paddle and the
soft gliding motion of a canoe.
“It’s a boat, sir,” whispered Bates, hiding the lantern
under his coat.
I brushed past him and crept to the end of the dock.
The paddle dipped on silently and evenly in the still
water, but the sound grew fainter. A canoe is the most
graceful, the most sensitive, the most inexplicable contrivance
of man. With its paddle you may dip up stars
along quiet shores or steal into the very harbor of
dreams. I knew that furtive splash instantly, and knew
that a trained hand wielded the paddle. My boyhood
summers in the Maine woods were not, I frequently
find, wholly wasted.
The owner of the canoe had evidently stolen close to
the Glenarm dock, and had made off when alarmed by
the noise of our approach through the wood.
“Have you a boat here?”
“The boat-house is locked and I haven’t the key with
me, sir,” he replied without excitement.
“Of course you haven’t it,” I snapped, full of anger
at his tone of irreproachable respect, and at my own
helplessness. I had not even seen the place by daylight,
and the woodland behind me and the lake at my feet
were things of shadow and mystery. In my rage I
stamped my foot.
“Lead the way back,” I roared.
I had turned toward the woodland when suddenly
there stole across the water a voice,—a woman’s voice,
deep, musical and deliberate.
“Really, I shouldn’t be so angry if I were you!” it
said, with a lingering note on the word angry.
“Who are you? What are you doing there?” I bawled.
“Just enjoying a little tranquil thought!” was the
drawling, mocking reply.
Far out upon the water I heard the dip and glide of
the canoe, and saw faintly its outline for a moment;
then it was gone. The lake, the surrounding wood, were
an unknown world,—the canoe, a boat of dreams. Then
again came the voice:
“Good night, merry gentlemen!”
“It was a lady, sir,” remarked Bates, after we had
waited silently for a full minute.
“How clever you are!” I sneered. “I suppose ladies
prowl about here at night, shooting ducks or into people’s
houses.”
“It would seem quite likely, sir.”
I should have liked to cast him into the lake, but be
was already moving away, the lantern swinging at his
side. I followed him, back through the woodland to the
house.
My spirits quickly responded to the cheering influence
of the great library. I stirred the fire on the
hearth into life and sat down before it, tired from my
tramp. I was mystified and perplexed by the incident
that had already marked my coming. It was possible,
to be sure, that the bullet which narrowly missed my
head in the little dining-room had been a wild shot that
carried no evil intent. I dismissed at once the idea that
it might have been fired from the lake; it had crashed
through the glass with too much force to have come so
far; and, moreover, I could hardly imagine even a rifle-ball’s
finding an unimpeded right of way through so
dense a strip of wood. I found it difficult to get rid of
the idea that some one had taken a pot-shot at me.
The woman’s mocking voice from the lake added to
my perplexity. It was not, I reflected, such a voice as
one might expect to hear from a country girl; nor could
I imagine any errand that would excuse a woman’s
presence abroad on an October night whose cool air inspired
first confidences with fire and lamp. There was
something haunting in that last cry across the water;
it kept repeating itself over and over in my ears. It
was a voice of quality, of breeding and charm.
“Good night, merry gentlemen!”
In Indiana, I reflected, rustics, young or old, men or
women, were probably not greatly given to salutations
of just this temper.
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 unobtrusive 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 attitude. 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 class. 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 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.