|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 31
"I didn't know but she would object to sleeping in that room, as
long as Aunt Harriet died there such a little time ago," faltered
Amanda.
"Well!" said Sophia, "of all the silly notions! If you are going
to pick out rooms in this house where nobody has died, for the
boarders, you'll have your hands full. Grandfather Ackley had
seven children; four of them died here to my certain knowledge,
besides grandfather and grandmother. I think Great-grandmother
Ackley, grandfather's mother, died here, too; she must have; and
Great-grandfather Ackley, and grandfather's unmarried sister,
Great-aunt Fanny Ackley. I don't believe there's a room nor a bed
in this house that somebody hasn't passed away in."
"Well, I suppose I am silly to think of it, and she had better go
in there," said Amanda.
"I know she had. The northeast room is small and hot, and she's
stout and likely to feel the heat, and she's saved money and is
able to board out summers, and maybe she'll come here another year
if she's well accommodated," said Sophia. "Now I guess you'd
better go in there and see if any dust has settled on anything
since it was cleaned, and open the west windows and let the sun in,
while I see to that cake."
Amanda went to her task in the southwest chamber while her sister
stepped heavily down the back stairs on her way to the kitchen.
"It seems to me you had better open the bed while you air and dust,
then make it up again," she called back.
"Yes, sister," Amanda answered, shudderingly.
Nobody knew how this elderly woman with the untrammeled imagination
of a child dreaded to enter the southwest chamber, and yet she
could not have told why she had the dread. She had entered and
occupied rooms which had been once tenanted by persons now dead.
The room which had been hers in the little house in which she and
her sister had lived before coming here had been her dead mother's.
She had never reflected upon the fact with anything but loving awe
and reverence. There had never been any fear. But this was
different. She entered and her heart beat thickly in her ears.
Her hands were cold. The room was a very large one. The four
windows, two facing south, two west, were closed, the blinds also.
The room was in a film of green gloom. The furniture loomed out
vaguely. The gilt frame of a blurred old engraving on the wall
caught a little light. The white counterpane on the bed showed
like a blank page.
Amanda crossed the room, opened with a straining motion of her thin
back and shoulders one of the west windows, and threw back the
blind. Then the room revealed itself an apartment full of an aged
and worn but no less valid state. Pieces of old mahogany swelled
forth; a peacock-patterned chintz draped the bedstead. This chintz
also covered a great easy chair which had been the favourite seat
of the former occupant of the room. The closet door stood ajar.
Amanda noticed that with wonder. There was a glimpse of purple
drapery floating from a peg inside the closet. Amanda went across
and took down the garment hanging there. She wondered how her
sister had happened to leave it when she cleaned the room. It was
an old loose gown which had belonged to her aunt. She took it
down, shuddering, and closed the closet door after a fearful glance
into its dark depths. It was a long closet with a strong odour of
lovage. The Aunt Harriet had had a habit of eating lovage and had
carried it constantly in her pocket. There was very likely some of
the pleasant root in the pocket of the musty purple gown which
Amanda threw over the easy chair.
Amanda perceived the odour with a start as if before an actual
presence. Odour seems in a sense a vital part of a personality.
It can survive the flesh to which it has clung like a persistent
shadow, seeming to have in itself something of the substance of
that to which it pertained. Amanda was always conscious of this
fragrance of lovage as she tidied the room. She dusted the heavy
mahogany pieces punctiliously after she had opened the bed as her
sister had directed. She spread fresh towels over the wash-stand
and the bureau; she made the bed. Then she thought to take the
purple gown from the easy chair and carry it to the garret and put
it in the trunk with the other articles of the dead woman's
wardrobe which had been packed away there; BUT THE PURPLE GOWN WAS
NOT ON THE CHAIR!
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|