Yellow Room (3 page)

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, and 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.

S
HE 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.

Carol stared at him.

“It wasn’t a ghost if it opened the front door,” she said. “If the whole town knows about it, my maids will hear it sooner or later.” She remembered Freda with a sense of helplessness. “It was a tramp, of course. Who else could it be? Unless she dreamed the whole business.”

“Well, she sure enough broke her leg.”

The market was still empty. She was aware that Harry was watching her with a mixture of curiosity and the deference he reserved for his summer people. She rallied herself.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “We’re all fond of her. I’ll see her as soon as I can. But a tramp—!”

“Anything missing from the place?” he inquired.

“I haven’t really looked. I don’t think so. We never leave much.”

He cleared his throat.

“Might as well tell you,” he said. “There was a light in the upper corner room of yours late that night. The one that looks this way. I was driving home, and I saw it myself. Looked like a candle, only Lucy says she wasn’t in there.”

“In the yellow room? Are you sure?”

“Sure as I’m standing here. After half past twelve it was.”

She gave her order finally, and went out with her head whirling. But there was no time to see Lucy Norton then, or George either. She went to the office of the telephone company, only to find that there was less than no hope. As usual, she was told there was a war on and, in effect, what was she, a patriot or not? She was able to have the electric current turned on, and at the service station to find someone to put her small car in running order.

It seemed to her that everyone she saw looked at her with more than normal interest. Lucy’s story had evidently spread and probably grown.

This was verified when she met the village chief of police at the corner. His name was Floyd, a big man with a sagging belt which carried the automatic he invariably wore as a badge of office, and with small shrewd deep-set eyes. He grinned as he shook hands with her.

“Glad you’re back,” he said. “We’d heard you weren’t coming.”

“Mother thought Gregory would like it.”

“Bit quiet for him, I’d think. Unless Lucy Norton’s ghost gets after him.”

He laughed, his big body shaking. She had known him all her life, and the very fact that he could laugh was a relief. She found herself smiling.

“If there was anyone it may have been a tramp. Harry Miller says William found the front door of the house open.”

He laughed again.

“No tramps around here, Miss Carol. Ten miles from a railroad! What would they be doing here? They’d starve to death.”

She left him still grinning, and went on her way. She ordered coal, she bought some candy at the drugstore as a peace offering for the two recalcitrant girls, and at last she got a local taxi, picked up part of her order at the market, and drove home. She did not go to the house at once, however. She sent the taxi on with the groceries, and herself got out at the garage and unlocked the doors. The cars were there, mounted on blocks, her small car, her mother’s limousine, and Gregory’s old abandoned roadster. They looked strange under their dust sheets, but nothing had been disturbed.

She left the door open for the men from the service station, and went back to the drive, to find there what she had dreaded for so long.

Colonel Richardson was waiting for her. He was standing in the roadway, his tall figure erect, the wind blowing his heavy white hair. A veteran of two wars, he was colonel to every one, and—except for his obsession about his son—universally beloved. With his smile Carol’s apprehensions left her.

“Hello,” he said genially. “Come and greet an old man. I didn’t know you were coming so soon.”

She went over and kissed him, and he patted her shoulder.

“Look as though you could stand some good Maine air,” he said, surveying her. “I only heard about Lucy Norton yesterday. Too bad. She’s a fine woman. How are you getting along?”