In the Closed Room Read online

and live happy."

  "Oh, Jem!" Jane ejaculated. "It sounds too good to be true! Up bythe Park! A big cool place to live!"

  "We've none of us ever been in a house the size of it. You knowwhat they look like outside, and they say they're bigger thanthey look. It's your business to go over the rooms every day orso to see nothing's going wrong in them--moths or dirt, Isuppose. It's all left open but just one room they've left lockedand don't want interfered with. I told the boss I thought thebasement would seem like the Waldorf-Astoria to us. I tell you Iwas so glad I scarcely knew what to say."

  Jane drew a long breath.

  "A big house up there," she said. "And only one closed room init. It's too good to be true!"

  "Well, whether it's true or not we'll move out there to-morrow,"Jem answered cheerfully. "To-morrow morning bright and early. Theboss said the sooner the better."

  A large house left deserted by those who have filled its roomswith emotions and life, expresses a silence, a quality all itsown. A house unfurnished and empty seems less impressivelysilent. The fact of its devoidness of sound is upon the wholemore natural. But carpets accustomed to the pressure ofconstantly passing feet, chairs and sofas which have held humanwarmth, draperies used to the touch of hands drawing them asideto let in daylight, pictures which have smiled back at thinkingeyes, mirrors which have reflected faces passing hourly inchanging moods, elate or dark or longing, walls which have echoedback voices--all these things when left alone seem to be held instrange arrest, as if by some spell intensifying the effect ofthe pause in their existence.

  The child Judith felt this deeply throughout the entirety of heryoung being.

  "How STILL it is," she said to her mother the first time theywent over the place together.

  "Well, it seems still up here--and kind of dead," Jane Fosterreplied with her habitual sociable half-laugh. "But seems to meit always feels that way in a house people's left. It's cheerfulenough down in that big basement with all the windows open. Wecan sit in that room they've had fixed to play billiards in. Weshan't hurt nothing. We can keep the table and things covered up.Tell you, Judy, this'll be different from last summer. The Parkain't but a few steps away an' we can go and sit there too whenwe feel like it. Talk about the country--I don't want no morecountry than this is. You'll be made over the months we stayhere."

  Judith felt as if this must veritably be a truth. The houses oneither side of the street were closed for the summer. Theiroccupants had gone to the seaside or the mountains and thewindows and doors were boarded up. The street was a quiet one atany time, and wore now the aspect of a street in a city of thedead. The green trees of the Park were to be seen either gentlystirring or motionless in the sun at the side of the avenuecrossing the end of it. The only token of the existence of theElevated Railroad was a remote occasional hum suggestive of theflying past of a giant bee. The thing seemed no longer a roaringdemon, and Judith scarcely recognized that it was still thecentre of the city's rushing, heated life.

  The owners of the house had evidently deserted it suddenly. Thewindows had not been boarded up and the rooms had been left intheir ordinary condition. The furniture was not covered or thehangings swathed. Jem Foster had been told that his wife must putthings in order.

  The house was beautiful and spacious, its decorations andappointments were not mere testimonies to freedom of expenditure,but expressions of a dignified and cultivated thought. Judithfollowed her mother from room to room in one of her singularmoods. The loftiness of the walls, the breadth and space abouther made her, at intervals, draw in her breath with pleasure. Thepictures, the colours, the rich and beautiful textures she sawbrought to her the free--and at the same time soothed--feelingshe remembered as the chief feature of the dreams in which she"fell awake." But beyond all other things she rejoiced in theheight and space, the sweep of view through one large room intoanother. She continually paused and stood with her face liftedlooking up at the pictured things floating on a ceiling aboveher. Once, when she had stood doing this long enough to forgetherself, she was startled by her mother's laugh, which broke inupon the silence about them with a curiously earthly sound whichwas almost a shock.

  "Wake up, Judy; have you gone off in a dream? You look all thetime as if you was walking in your sleep."

  "It's so high," said Judy. "Those clouds make it look like the sky."

  "I've got to set these chairs straight," said Jane. "Looks likethey'd been havin' a concert here. All these chairs together an'that part of the room clear."

  She began to move the chairs and rearrange them, bustling aboutcheerfully and talking the while. Presently she stooped to picksomething up.

  "What's this," she said, and then uttered a startled exclamation."Mercy! they felt so kind of clammy they made me jump. They HAVEhad a party. Here's some of the flowers left fallen on thecarpet."

  She held up a cluster of wax-white hyacinths and large heavyrosebuds, faded to discoloration.

  "This has dropped out of some set piece. It felt like cold fleshwhen I first touched it. I don't like a lot of white thingstogether. They look too kind of mournful. Just go and get thewastepaper basket in the library, Judy. We'll carry it around todrop things into. Take that with you."

  Judith carried the flowers into the library and bent to pick upthe basket as she dropped them into it.

  As she raised her head she found her eyes looking directly intoother eyes which gazed at her from the wall. They were smilingfrom the face of a child in a picture. As soon as she saw themJudith drew in her breath and stood still, smiling, too, inresponse. The picture was that of a little girl in a floatingwhite frock. She had a deep dimple at one corner of her mouth,her hanging hair was like burnished copper, she held up a slenderhand with pointed fingers and Judith knew her. Oh! she knew herquite well. She had never felt so near any one else throughouther life.

  "Judy, Judy!" Jane Foster called out. "Come here with yourbasket; what you staying for?"

  Judith returned to her.

  "We've got to get a move on," said Jane, "or we shan't getnothin' done before supper time. What was you lookin' at?"

  "There's a picture in there of a little girl I know," Judithsaid. "I don't know her name, but I saw her in the Park onceand--and I dreamed about her."

  "Dreamed about her? If that ain't queer. Well, we've got to hurryup. Here's some more of them dropped flowers. Give me thebasket."

  They went through the whole house together, from room to room, upthe many stairs, from floor to floor, and everywhere Judith feltthe curious stillness and silence. It can not be doubted thatJane Foster felt it also.

  "It is the stillest house I was ever in," she said. "I'm gladI've got you with me, Judy. If I was sole alone I believe it 'udgive me the creeps. These big places ought to have big familiesin them."

  It was on the fourth floor that they came upon the Closed Room.Jane had found some of the doors shut and some open, but a turnof the handle gave entrance through all the unopened ones untilthey reached this one at the back on the fourth floor.

  "This one won't open," Jane said, when she tried the handle. Thenshe shook it once or twice. "No, it's locked," she decided afteran effort or two. "There, I've just remembered. There's one keptlocked. Folks always has things they want locked up. I'll makesure, though."

  She shook it, turned the handle, shook again, pressed her kneeagainst the panel. The lock resisted all effort.

  "Yes, this is the closed one," she made up her mind. "It's lockedhard and fast. It's the closed one."

  It was logically proved to be the closed one by the fact that shefound no other one locked as she finished her round of thechambers.

  Judith was a little tired before they had done their work. Buther wandering pilgrimage through the large, silent, desertedhouse had been a revelation of new emotions to her. She wasalways a silent child. Her mind was so full of strange thoughtsthat it seemed unnecessary to say many words. The things shethought as she followed her from room to room, from floor tofloor, until they reached the locked door,
would have amazed andpuzzled Jane Foster if she had known of their existence. Most ofall, perhaps, she would have been puzzled by the effect theclosed door had upon the child. It puzzled and bewildered Judithherself and made her feel a little weary.

  She wanted so much to go into the room. Without in the leastunderstanding the feeling, she was quite shaken by it. It seemedas if the closing of all the other rooms would have been a smallmatter in comparison with the closing of this one. There wassomething inside which she wanted to see--there was something--somehowthere was something which wanted to see