Yellow Room Read online

  Virginia eyed her.

  “She and Greg are a pretty close corporation, aren’t they?”

  Carol smiled.

  “I came along later,” she said. “Rather as an unpleasant surprise, I gather. Yes, they’re fond of each other.”

  Virginia was not listening. She was looking at a photograph of Greg, tall and handsome in his flying clothes and helmet. Her truculence had gone now. She put out her cigarette and glanced rather helplessly at Carol.

  “There’s something wrong,” she said. “Something’s happened to him. Ever since he left after his last leave his letters have been different. I suppose men can fall out of love as well as in.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Carol said, with spirit. “If ever I saw a man who had gone overboard completely it was Greg. Of course his letters are different. They had to be read by a censor. You know that.”

  But Virginia was not convinced.

  “They have girls out there,” she said. “Nurses, Wacs, all sorts. He may have found someone he likes. He’s no child. He’s thirty-four, and he’s been around. You know him.”

  Carol knew him, she admitted to herself. She had always adored him, his good looks, his debonair manners, even the lightness with which he threw off his occasional lapses. It had been she, years ago, who had slipped to him the headache tablets or even the Scotch which braced him the morning after so that he could face the family. And she had understood him better than Elinor.

  “You’d better grow up soon,” she had told him one morning, standing long-legged and gawky by his bed. He grinned at her.

  “Why?” he inquired. “God, what awful mess is this?” He took it, grimacing. “It’s fun to be young, Carol. Or it was last night.”

  She roused herself when she reached Boston. She managed to get to the North Station in a taxi which threatened to break down at any moment, and she found there three tired and discouraged women servants who had had no dinner and were standing by the bags they had carried themselves. Only Maggie, the cook, gave her a thin smile.

  “Well, we’ve got this far, Miss Carol,” she said. “And if you know where we can get a cup of coffee—”

  She got them fed after some difficulty, sitting with them at the table and trying to swallow a dry cheese sandwich. They cheered considerably after the food.

  There were no porters to be had. They lugged their bags to the train and got aboard. It had taken on the aspects of adventure to the two younger girls, especially since Carol was with them. But when she tried to enter her drawing room the door was locked, and the porter said it was already occupied. It was useless to protest. If two tickets had been sold for the same room, you could blame the war and anyone who protested was unpatriotic.

  She smoked a cigarette in the women’s room before she crawled resignedly into her lower berth. She supposed everything was all right. Elinor would be at home by this time, and Virginia would have heard from Gregory. But her depression continued. Partly of course it was the thought of men fighting and dying all over the world. Partly it was the belonging to what her friends called the “new poor” and having a mother who refused to change her standard of living. And partly it was an odd sense of apprehension, compounded partly of her dislike for returning to Crestview, where before the war Don Richardson had courted her so gaily and won her so easily. To escape she tried to plan about the house. Lucy had had too short notice to have done much, but at least she would be there, small, brisk and efficient. In that hopeful mood she finally went to sleep, and it persisted even when at six the next morning they got out onto a chilly station platform and looked for the taxi Lucy was to send.

  There was no taxi there, only a sleepy station agent who regarded the summer people as unavoidable nuisances and disappeared as soon as the train moved on. There was a small restaurant not far away, and after a wait they got some coffee. But no taxi arrived, and at last Carol managed to locate one for the ten-mile drive.

  It was cold. The girls shivered in their summer coats, and Carol herself felt discouraged. She did her best to keep up their morale, pointing out the fresh green of the trees and when they reached it the beauty of the sea.

  “Look,” she said. “There’s a seal. They’re usually gone by this time. I suppose with no motorboats around—”

  “It’s awfully lonely,” said Freda. Freda was the housemaid, young and rather timid. “I feel all cut off from everything.”

  “You feel cool too, don’t you?” said Maggie briskly. “After the fuss you made about the heat. Just feel the air! Ain’t it something?”

  There was of course plenty of air, all of it icy, and Freda shivered.

  “I’ll be glad to get into a warm house,” she said. “Where are we? At the North Pole?”

  Nora, the parlormaid-waitress, had kept quiet. She was not much of a talker at any time, but she looked blue around the lips and Carol felt uneasy. If the girls didn’t stay—

  “Mrs. Norton will have breakfast ready,” she said. “The house will be warm too. And the lilacs ought to be lovely still. They come out late here.”

  No one said anything. The taxi had passed Colonel Richardson’s cottage and turning in at the drive was winding its way up the hill to the house. Carol began to have a feeling of home-coming as the familiar road unwound. They passed the garage and the old stable, unused for years; not, she remembered, since Gregory had kept a saddle mare there and she her pony. She took off her hat and let the air blow through her dark hair.

  “Look, there are some lilacs,” she said, hoping for a cheerful response. No one said anything. They made the last turn and before them lay the house, big and massive and white. It faced out over the harbor, but the entrance was at the rear, with the service wing to the left and what had been her father’s study to the right. She saw the two younger women eying it.

  “It looks big,” Nora said, doubt in her voice.

  “It’s not as large as it looks,” Carol said briskly. “It’s built around an open court. I wonder what has happened to Lucy?”

  Except that the winter storm doors and windows had been removed, the house looked strangely unoccupied. The front door was closed, and no small brisk figure rushed to greet them. They got out and Carol paid off the taxi, but there was still no sign of movement in the house. Also to her amazement she found the door locked, and while the women stood disconsolately among their bags and the car departed with a swish of gravel she got out her keys. The door opened, she stepped inside, to be greeted only by freezing air and a vague, rather unpleasant odor.

  The women followed her in, looking sulky.

  “I can’t imagine what has happened,” she said. “Mrs. Norton must be sick. If you get a fire started in the kitchen, Maggie, I’ll telephone and find out.”

  She put her hat and bag on the console table in the hall. It was impossible to take off her coat, and except for Maggie, starting toward her kitchen, nobody had moved. The two girls stood as if poised for flight.

  “What’s the smell?” Freda said. “It’s like something’s been burned.”

  “Leave the door open,” Carol said impatiently. “Mrs. Norton has been here. She may have scorched something. Go on back with Maggie.”

  She went along the passage around the patio to the library. The old study was untouched, and the covers were still on the hall chairs at the foot of the wide staircase at the side of the house. But the covering was off the shallow pool in the patio, and the shutters off the French doors and windows opening on it. To her relief she found that at least an attempt had been made to make the library livable. The rug was down, the dust covers were gone, some of the photographs and ornaments were in place, and a log fire had been laid, ready for lighting.

  She put a match to it and straightened, feeling somewhat better as the dry logs caught. But the odor—whatever it was—had penetrated even here. She opened the French door onto the terrace and stood there looking out. The air was fresh, and the view had always rested her. The islands were green jewels in the blue water, a
nd a mile or so away she could see the town of Bayside, small and prim among its trees. She drew a long breath and turned to the telephone.

  It was not there. She gazed in dismay at the desk where it had stood. The silver cigarette box was there as always. The little Battersea patch case was in its place, as was the desk pad and the old Sheffield inkstand with the candles to melt the wax and the snuffers to extinguish them. But the telephone was gone.

  Something else was there, however, which made her stop and stare. On the ash tray lay a partially smoked cigarette, and there was lipstick on it.

  Lucy Norton neither smoked nor used lipstick, and Carol looked down at it incredulously. Then she smiled. Of course someone had dropped in. Marcia Dalton perhaps, or Louise Stimson. Almost any of the women of the summer colony, climbing the hill and coming in to rest, could have left it. Nevertheless, her feeling of uneasiness returned. She moved swiftly through the adjoining living room and dining room to the pantry and kitchen. Maggie had taken an apron from her suitcase and was tying around her ample waist. The two girls were standing like a coroner’s jury, reserving decision.

  “I’m afraid some of the telephones have been taken out,” she said with assumed brightness. “Is the one in the kitchen hall still there, Maggie?”

  Maggie opened a door and glanced back.

  “It’s gone,” she said. “Looks like they’ve taken them all.”

  “Good heavens,” Carol said. “What on earth will we do?”

  “Folks lived a long time without them,” Maggie said philosophically. “I guess we’ll manage. What do you think that smell is, Miss Carol? There’s nothing been burned here.”

  It was not bad in the kitchen, although it was noticeable. Not unexpectedly, Freda, the youngest of the three, broke first.

  “I’m not staying,” she said hysterically. “I didn’t plan to be sent to the end of the world, and frozen too. And that smell makes me sick. I’m giving you notice this minute, Miss Spencer.”

  Carol fought off the nightmare sensation that was beginning to paralyze her.

  “Now look, Freda,” she said reasonably, her face a little set, “you can’t leave. Not right away, anyhow. I can’t call a taxi. The cars in the garage have no gasoline and no batteries. They’re jacked up anyhow. There’s not even a train until tonight.”

  Maggie took hold then.

  “Don’t be a little fool, Freda,” she said. “I expect Mrs. Norton’s ordered the groceries. You take off your hat and coat, and I’ll make hot coffee. We’ll all feel better then.”

  A hasty inspection of the supply closet revealed no groceries, however. There was an empty coffee can and the heel of a loaf of bread. In the refrigerator were a couple of eggs, a partly used jar of marmalade, and a few slices of bacon on a plate. Maggie’s face was grim. She looked up at the eight-day kitchen clock, which was still going.

  “If that lazy George Smith’s here we can send him into town,” she said. “Go out and see if you can find him, Nora. He’s the gardener—or he says he is.”

  She ordered Freda to the cellar for coal, and under protest Freda went. Carol sat down on a kitchen chair while Maggie looked at her with concern.

  “You’re too young to have all this wished on you,” she said, with the familiarity of her twenty years of service. “Don’t take it too hard. Somebody’s sick at Lucy’s, most likely. I don’t know why your mother got this idea anyhow. Mr. Greg won’t come. He’d got only thirty days and probably he’ll want to get married. It’s a pity,” she added grimly, “that you and Mr. Don didn’t get married before he left.”

  Because Carol was tired and worried, tears came into her eyes. She brushed them away impatiently.

  “That’s all over, Maggie,” she said. “We have to carry on.”

  Then Freda came back, gingerly carrying a pail partly filled with coal, and Maggie started to light a fire. The odor—whatever it was—was not strong here, but when Maggie poured a little kerosene onto the coals and dropped a match onto it, Carol realized the odor was much the same. Perhaps Lucy had started the furnace fire that way.

  Nora came back, shivering, from the grounds. “I don’t see anybody,” she reported. “The grass has been cut here and there, but there’s nobody out there.”

  She huddled by the stove, and Carol got up abruptly.

  “Something’s happened to Lucy,” she said. “Take over, Maggie, and get started. I’ll go down to the village and find out what’s wrong. I’ll order some groceries too. The Miller market will be open now.”

  “One of the girls can do it,” Maggie objected.

  But Carol refused. She was worried about Lucy. Also she knew what was needed, and how to find it. And—although she did not say it—she wanted to get out of the house. Always before when she came it had been warm and welcoming, but that day it was different. It felt, she thought shiveringly, like a tomb.

  3

  SHE WAS STILL SHIVERING as she got her bag from the entrance hall. She did not put on her hat. She left the front door open to let in more air, and stood outside looking about her.

  There was no sign that George Smith had done much. Branches from the great pines littered the turnaround of the drive, and where the hill rose abruptly behind it the tool house appeared to be closed and locked. But the day was brilliantly bright, a bed of peonies by the grass terrace at the side of the house was beginning to show radiant pink and white blossoms, and a robin was sitting back on its tail and pulling vigorously at a worm. It was familiar and friendly, and she started briskly down the hill.

  This was a mistake. She had not changed her shoes, and walking was not easy. The gravel had been raked into the center of the drive to avoid washing away in the winter rains and thaws, and the hard base underneath was rough. It was no use going to the garage, she knew. The cars had been put up for the winter. At the entrance gates, however, she hesitated. She could, she knew, telephone from the Richardson cottage, but she did not yet feel able to cope with the colonel and with his talk of Don. And the Ward place, separated from the Crestview by a narrow dirt lane, was as far up the hill as Crestview itself.

  In the end she decided to walk the mile to the market. It was easier going on the streets, and besides she had always liked the town. Its white houses, neat and orderly, its strong sense of self-respect, its New England dignity, all appealed to her. It looked friendly, too, in the morning sun, and her anxieties seemed foolish and slightly ridiculous.

  It was still early. Here and there, it being Monday, washing was already hanging out in the yards, but she saw no one she knew until she limped into the market. Fortunately it was open, and behind the counter Harry Miller was putting on a fresh white coat.

  He looked rather odd when he saw her.

  “How are you, Miss Carol?” he said, as they shook hands. “I heard you were coming. Early, aren’t you, this morning?”

  She smiled as she pulled up a stool and sat down.

  “I had to walk,” she explained. “No car, no telephone, no groceries, and no sense. I forgot to change my shoes.”

  “Sounds like a lot of misery,” said Harry, eying her.

  “It was. It is. Harry, do you know anything about Lucy Norton? She’s not there, and even George Smith isn’t around. I don’t understand it.”

  Harry hesitated.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess you’ve run into a bit of hard luck, Miss Carol. Take George now. He’s in the hospital. Had his appendix out last Thursday. Doing all right though. Kind of proud of it by this time.”

  “I’m sorry. He wasn’t much good, but he was somebody. I’ll go to see him as soon as I get things fixed a bit. What about Lucy?”

  Harry still hesitated. He had always liked Carol. She was just folks like the rest, not like some he could mention. And that morning she was looking young and wind-blown and rather plaintive.

  “About your telephone,” he said evasively. “I guess your mother didn’t pay any attention to the notice. You had to pay all winter even to keep one, and then you
were lucky if you did.”

  “I suppose Mother got one,” Carol said. “We didn’t expect to come, of course. What about Lucy Norton? Is she sick too?”

  “Well, I suppose I’d better tell you,” he said, not too comfortably. “Lucy’s had an accident. She fell down the big staircase at your place and broke her leg. In the middle of the night, too. She might be lying there still if that William who takes down the winter stuff hadn’t come along. Seems like he wanted to borrow some coffee and the kitchen wing was locked. He went around to the front door and found it open. And found Lucy there. She’s at the hospital too. Doing all right, I hear.”

  Carol looked startled.

  “What on earth was Lucy doing on the stairs in the middle of the night? She always sleeps in the service wing.”

  He grinned.

  “Well, that’s a funny thing, Miss Carol. She says somebody was chasing her.”

  Carol stared at him.

  “Chasing her? It doesn’t sound like Lucy.”

  “Does sound foolish, doesn’t it?” he said. “She’s a sensible woman too, like you say. But that’s what she claims. I only know what they’re saying around here. Seems like she says it was cold that night, and she’d got up to get a blanket from some closet or other. The light company hadn’t got around to turning on the electric current, so she took a candle. She got to the closet all right, but just as she was ready to open the door she says somebody reached out and knocked the candle out of her hand. Knocked her down too, and practically ran over her.”

  “It sounds fantastic.”

  “Doesn’t it? They’re calling it Lucy’s ghost around here. Anyhow she was so scared that she picked herself up and made for the stairs. It was black dark, you see, so she fell right down them. It’s a mercy she was found at all. Old William saw the front door wide open and went in, and Lucy Norton was at the foot of the stairs, about crazy with one thing and another. He got Dr. Harrison there and they took her to the hospital. She’s in a plaster cast now,” he added, almost with gusto.