Yellow Room Read Online Free PDF Page A

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?”
    “We’ll manage. No telephone of course, and no cars or lights yet. Otherwise we’re all right. How are you?”
    “Fine. I find the waiting hard, of course, but I have to remember that I am not alone in that. Can I do anything now?”
    She told him she could get along, and watched him going down the drive, swinging the stick he always carried, but with his back straight and his head held high. She looked after him, distressed for them both, that he should believe and she could not, that to him Don was still a living force and to her he was becoming only a memory. She was deeply depressed when she got back to the house.
    She found Maggie at the stove, with a kettle boiling and her face smeared with soot.
    “I got the furnace started,” she said cheerfully. “Otherwise those fools of girls would still be hugging this fire. And I started Freda at your room. Soon as she’s made the bed—”
    Carol dumped her groceries on the table.
    “Lucy Norton’s broken her leg, Maggie. She’s in the hospital.”
    Maggie turned, her face shocked.
    “The poor thing! How did it happen?”
    “Here in this house.” Carol sat down and kicked off her pumps. “She fell down the stairs. There’s a silly story going around that she found someone upstairs and tried to get away.”
    “When was all this?” Maggie, practical as ever, was opening the new pound of coffee.
    “Last Friday night or early Saturday morning. The lights were off, of course.” She looked at her feet. They were hurting, and she picked up one and began to rub it thoughtfully. “George is there too. He’s had his appendix out.”
    “For God’s sake!” said Maggie, her poise finally forsaking her. “Something scared him too?”
    There was no time to answer.
    There was a wild scream from somewhere upstairs, and a minute later Freda half ran, half fell toward the back staircase, and promptly fainted on the kitchen floor.
    Later Carol was to remember that faint of Freda’s as the beginning of the nightmare, to see herself bending over the girl, whose small face was ashy gray and the palm of one hand oddly blackened, of trying to prevent Nora from dousing her with a pan of water from the sink, and of catching Maggie’s eyes as she straightened.
    “Something’s scared her too,” said Maggie ominously. “Too much scaring around here, to my way of thinking.”
    Nora was still clutching the pan.
    “Maybe she saw a mouse,” she said. “She’s deathly afraid of mice.”
    “We’d better leave her flat,” Carol said. “Go up and get her a blanket, Nora. The floor’s cold. You’ll find them in the linen closet.”
    She bent over and felt the girl’s pulse. It was rapid but strong, and a little color was coming back into her face. Carol herself felt rather dizzy. She stepped into her pumps and looked at Maggie.
    “What’s that on her head?”
    Maggie bent over and looked.
    “Seems like soot,” she said. “Maybe she was lighting your fire. I’d better go and look. The place could burn up while we’re standing here.”
    She did not go, however. Freda was stirring. She opened pale-blue eyes and looked around her uncertainly.
    “What happened?” she said. “I must have fainted or something.”
    “If you didn’t you gave a good imitation of it,” said Maggie dryly. “You scared the insides out of us. Better lie still for a while. You’re all right.”
    Freda was far from all right. With returning consciousness came memory, and without warning she burst into loud hysterical crying.
    “I want to go home,” she said between wails. “I never did want to come