"How would it do for a smoking-room?"
"Just the very place; only, you know, Roger, you must not think of
smoking in the house. I am almost afraid having just a plain common man
around, let alone a smoking-man, will upset Aunt Hannah. She is New
England--Vermont New England boiled down."
"You leave Aunt Hannah to me; I shall find her tender side. I am going
to ask her about the old sea-captain and the yellow calico."
"Not yellow calico--blue chintz."
"Well, yellow _shell_, then."
"No, no! don't mix it up so; you won't know yourself what to expect, and
that's half the fun."
"Now you tell me again exactly what to expect; to tell the truth, I
didn't half hear about it the other day; I was woolgathering. It was
something queer that happened when you were a child, wasn't it?"
"Something that began to happen long before that, and kept happening,
and may happen again; but I hope not."
"What was it?"
"I wonder if the other people in the car can hear us?"
"I fancy not; we don't hear them--not consecutively, at least."
"Well, mother was born in Vermont, you know; she was the only child by a
second marriage. Aunt Hannah and Aunt Maria are only half-aunts to me,
you know."
"I hope they are half as nice as you are."
"Roger, be still; they certainly will hear us."
"Well, don't you want them to know we are married?"
"Yes, but not just married. There's all the difference in the world."
"You are afraid we look too happy!"
"No; only I want my happiness all to myself."
"Well, the little room?"
"My aunts brought mother up; they were nearly twenty years older than
she. I might say Hiram and they brought her up. You see, Hiram was
bound out to my grandfather when he was a boy, and when grandfather died
Hiram said he 's'posed he went with the farm, 'long o' the critters,'
and he has been there ever since. He was my mother's only refuge from
the decorum of my aunts. They are simply workers. They make me think of
the Maine woman who wanted her epitaph to be, 'She was a _hard_ working
woman.'"
"They must be almost beyond their working-days. How old are they?"
"Seventy, or thereabouts; but they will die standing; or, at least, on a
Saturday night, after all the house-work is done up. They were rather
strict with mother, and I think she had a lonely childhood. The house is
almost a mile away from any neighbors, and off on top of what they call
Stony Hill. It is bleak enough up there even in summer.
"When mamma was about ten years old they sent her to cousins in
Brooklyn, who had children of their own, and knew more about bringing
them up. She stayed there till she was married; she didn't go to Vermont
in all that time, and of course hadn't seen her sisters, for they never
would leave home for a day. They couldn't even be induced to go to
Brooklyn to her wedding, so she and father took their wedding-trip up
there."
"And that's why we are going up there on our own?"
"Don't, Roger; you have no idea how loud you speak."
"You never say so except when I am going to say that one little word."
"Well, don't say it, then, or say it very, very quietly."
"Well, what was the queer thing?"
"When they got to the house, mother wanted to take father right off into
the little room; she had been telling him about it, just as I am going
to tell you, and she had said that of all the rooms, that one was the
only one that seemed pleasant to her. She described the furniture and
the books and paper and everything, and said it was on the north side,
between the front and back room. Well, when they went to look for it,
there was no little room there; there was only a shallow china-closet.
She asked her sisters when the house had been altered and a closet made
of the room that used to be there. They both said the house was exactly
as it had been built--that they had never made any changes, except to
tear down the old wood-shed and build a smaller one.
"Father and mother laughed a good deal over it, and when anything was
lost they would always say it must be in the little room, and any
exaggerated statement was called 'little-roomy.' When I was a child I
thought that was a regular English phrase, I heard it so often.
"Well, they talked it over, and finally they concluded that my mother
had been a very imaginative sort of a child, and had read in some book
about such a little room, or perhaps even dreamed it, and then had 'made
believe,' as children do, till she herself had really thought the room
was there."
"Why, of course, that might easily happen."
"Yes, but you haven't heard the queer part yet; you wait and see if you
can explain the rest as easily.
"They stayed at the farm two weeks, and then went to New York to live.
When I was eight years old my father was killed in the war, and mother
was broken-hearted. She never was quite strong afterwards, and that
summer we decided to go up to the farm for three months.
"I was a restless sort of a child, and the journey seemed very long to
me; and finally, to pass the time, mamma told me the story of the
little room, and how it was all in her own imagination, and how there
really was only a china-closet there.
"She told it with all the particulars; and even to me, who knew
beforehand that the room wasn't there, it seemed just as real as could
be. She said it was on the north side, between the front and back rooms;
that it was very small, and they sometimes called it an entry. There was
a door also that opened out-of-doors, and that one was painted green,
and was cut in the middle like the old Dutch doors, so that it could be
used for a window by opening the top part only. Directly opposite the
door was a lounge or couch; it was covered with blue chintz--India
chintz--some that had been brought over by an old Salem sea-captain as a
'venture.' He had given it to Maria when she was a young girl. She was
sent to Salem for two years to school. Grandfather originally came from
Salem."
"I thought there wasn't any room or chintz."
"_That is just it._ They had decided that mother had imagined it all,
and yet you see how exactly everything was painted in her mind, for she
had even remembered that Hiram had told her that Maria could have
married the sea-captain if she had wanted to!
"The India cotton was the regular blue-stamped chintz, with the peacock
figure on it. The head and body of the bird were in profile, while the
tail was full front view behind it. It had seemed to take mamma's fancy,
and she drew it for me on a piece of paper as she talked. Doesn't it
seem strange to you that she could have made all that up, or even
dreamed it?
"At the foot of the lounge were some hanging-shelves with some old books
on them. All the books were leather-colored except one; that was bright
red, and was called the _Ladies' Album_. It made a bright break between
the other thicker books.
"On the lower shelf was a beautiful pink sea-shell, lying on a mat made
of balls of red-shaded worsted. This shell was greatly coveted by
mother, but she was only allowed to play with it when she had been
particularly good. Hiram had showed her how to hold it close to her ear
and hear the roar of the sea in it.
"I know you will like Hiram, Roger, he is quite a character in his way.
"Mamma said she remembered, or _thought_ she remembered, having been
sick once, and she had to lie quietly for some days on the lounge; then
was the time she had become so familiar with everything in the room, and
she had been allowed to have the shell to play with all the time. She
had had her toast brought to her in there, with make-believe tea. It was
one of her pleasant memories of her childhood; it was the first time she
had been of any importance to anybody, even herself.
"Right at the head of the lounge was a light-stand, as they called it,
and on it was a very brightly polished brass candlestick and a brass
tray, with snuffers. That is all I remember of her describing, except
that there was a braided rag rug on the floor, and on the wall was a
beautiful flowered paper--roses and morning-glories in a wreath on a
light-blue ground. The same paper was in the front room."
"And all this never existed except in her imagination?"
"She said that when she and father went up there, there wasn't any
little room at all like it anywhere in the house; there was a
china-closet where she had believed the room to be."
"And your aunts said there had never been any such room?"
"That is what they said."
"Wasn't there any blue chintz in the house with a peacock figure?"
"Not a scrap, and Aunt Hannah said there had never been any that she
could remember; and Maria just echoed her--she always does that. You
see, Aunt Hannah is an up-and-down New England woman. She looks just
like herself; I mean, just like her character. Her joints move up and
down or backward and forward in a plain square fashion. I don't believe
she ever leaned on anything in her life, or sat in an easy-chair. But
Maria is different; she is rounder and softer; she hasn't any ideas of
her own; she never had any. I don't believe she would think it right or
becoming to have one that differed from Aunt Hannah's, so what would be
the use of having any? She is an echo, that's all.
"When mamma and I got there, of course I was all excitement to see the
china-closet, and I had a sort of feeling that it would be the little
room after all. So I ran ahead and threw open the door, crying, 'Come
and see the little room.'
"And, Roger," said Mrs. Grant, laying her hand in his, "there really was
a little room there, exactly as mother had remembered it. There was the
lounge, the peacock chintz, the green door, the shell, the
morning-glory and rose paper, _everything exactly as she had described
it to me_."
"What in the world did the sisters say about it?"
"Wait a minute and I will tell you. My mother was in the front hall
still talking with Aunt Hannah. She didn't hear me at first, but I ran
out there and dragged her through the front room, saying, 'The room _is_
here--it is all right.'
"It seemed for a minute as if my mother would faint. She clung to me in
terror. I can remember now how strained her eyes looked and how pale she
was.
"I called out to Aunt Hannah and asked her when they had had the closet
taken away and the little room built; for in my excitement I thought
that that was what had been done.
"'That little room has always been there,' said Aunt Hannah, 'ever since
the house was built.'
"'But mamma said there wasn't any little room here, only a china-closet,
when she was here with papa,' said I.
"'No, there has never been any china-closet there; it has always been
just as it is now,' said Aunt Hannah.
"Then mother spoke; her voice sounded weak and far off. She said,
slowly, and with an effort, 'Maria, don't you remember that you told me
that there had _never been any little room here_? and Hannah said so
too, and then I said I must have dreamed it?'
"'No, I don't remember anything of the kind,' said Maria, without the
slightest emotion. 'I don't remember you ever said anything about any
china-closet. The house has never been altered; you used to play in this
room when you were a child, don't you remember?'
"'I know it,' said mother, in that queer slow voice that made me feel
frightened. 'Hannah, don't you remember my finding the china-closet
here, with the gilt-edge china on the shelves, and then _you_ said that
the _china-closet_ had always been here?'
"'No,' said Hannah, pleasantly but unemotionally--'no, I don't think you
ever asked me about any china-closet, and we haven't any gilt-edged
china that I know of.'
"And that was the strangest thing about it. We never could make them
remember that there had ever been any question about it. You would think
they could remember how surprised mother had been before, unless she had
imagined the whole thing. Oh, it was so queer! They were always
pleasant about it, but they didn't seem to feel any interest or
curiosity. It was always this answer: 'The house is just as it was
built; there have never been any changes, so far as we know.'
"And my mother was in an agony of perplexity. How cold their gray eyes
looked to me! There was no reading anything in them. It just seemed to
break my mother down, this queer thing. Many times that summer, in the
middle of the night, I have seen her get up and take a candle and creep
softly down-stairs. I could hear the steps creak under her weight. Then
she would go through the front room and peer into the darkness, holding
her thin hand between the candle and her eyes. She seemed to think the
little room might vanish. Then she would come back to bed and toss about
all night, or lie still and shiver; it used to frighten me.
"She grew pale and thin, and she had a little cough; then she did not
like to be left alone. Sometimes she would make errands in order to send
me to the little room for something--a book, or her fan, or her
handkerchief; but she would never sit there or let me stay in there
long, and sometimes she wouldn't let me go in there for days together.
Oh, it was pitiful!"
"Well, don't talk any more about it, Margaret, if it makes you feel so,"
said Mr. Grant.
"Oh yes, I want you to know all about it, and there isn't much more--no
more about the room.
"Mother never got well, and she died that autumn. She used often to
sigh, and say, with a wan little laugh, 'There is one thing I am glad
of, Margaret: your father knows now all about the little room.' I think
she was afraid I distrusted her. Of course, in a child's way, I thought
there was something queer about it, but I did not brood over it. I was
too young then, and took it as a part of her illness. But, Roger, do you
know, it really did affect me. I almost hate to go there after talking
about it; I somehow feel as if it might, you know, be a china-closet
again."
"That's an absurd idea."
"I know it; of course it can't be. I saw the room, and there isn't any
china-closet there, and no gilt-edged china in the house, either."
And then she whispered, "But, Roger, you may hold my hand as you do
now, if you will, when we go to look for the little room."
"And you won't mind Aunt Hannah's gray eyes?"
"I won't mind _anything_."
It was dusk when Mr. and Mrs. Grant went into the gate under the two old
Lombardy poplars and walked up the narrow path to the door, where they
were met by the two aunts.
Hannah gave Mrs. Grant a frigid but not unfriendly kiss; and Maria
seemed for a moment to tremble on the verge of an emotion, but she
glanced at Hannah, and then gave her greeting in exactly the same
repressed and non-committal way.
Supper was waiting for them. On the table was the _gilt-edged china_.
Mrs. Grant didn't notice it immediately, till she saw her husband
smiling at her over his teacup; then she felt fidgety, and couldn't eat.
She was nervous, and kept wondering what was behind her, whether it
would be a little room or a closet.
After supper she offered to help about the dishes, but, mercy! she might
as well have offered to help bring the seasons round; Maria and Hannah
couldn't be helped.
So she and her husband went to find the little room, or closet, or
whatever was to be there.
Aunt Maria followed them, carrying the lamp, which she set down, and
then went back to the dish-washing.
Margaret looked at her husband. He kissed her, for she seemed troubled;
and then, hand in hand, they opened the door. It opened into a
_china-closet_. The shelves were neatly draped with scalloped paper; on
them was the gilt-edged china, with the dishes missing that had been
used at the supper, and which at that moment were being carefully washed
and wiped by the two aunts.
Margaret's husband dropped her hand and looked at her. She was trembling
a little, and turned to him for help, for some explanation, but in an
instant she knew that something was wrong. A cloud had come between
them; he was hurt; he was antagonized.
He paused for an appreciable instant, and then said, kindly enough, but
in a voice that cut her deeply:
"I am glad this ridiculous thing is ended; don't let us speak of it
again."
"Ended!" said she. "How ended?" And somehow her voice sounded to her as
her mother's voice had when she stood there and questioned her sisters
about the little room. She seemed to have to drag her words out. She
spoke slowly: "It seems to me to have only just begun in my case. It was
just so with mother when she--"
"I really wish, Margaret, you would let it drop. I don't like to hear
you speak of your mother in connection with it. It--" He hesitated, for
was not this their wedding-day? "It doesn't seem quite the thing, quite
delicate, you know, to use her name in the matter."
She saw it all now: _he didn't believe her_. She felt a chill sense of
withering under his glance.
"Come," he added, "let us go out, or into the dining-room, somewhere,
anywhere, only drop this nonsense."
He went out; he did not take her hand now--he was vexed, baffled, hurt.
Had he not given her his sympathy, his attention, his belief--and his
hand?--and she was fooling him. What did it mean?--she so truthful, so
free from morbidness--a thing he hated. He walked up and down under the
poplars, trying to get into the mood to go and join her in the house.
Margaret heard him go out; then she turned and shook the shelves; she
reached her hand behind them and tried to push the boards away; she ran
out of the house on to the north side and tried to find in the darkness,
with her hands, a door, or some steps leading to one. She tore her dress
on the old rose-tree, she fell and rose and stumbled, then she sat down
on the ground and tried to think. What could she think--was she
dreaming?
She went into the house and out into the kitchen, and begged Aunt Maria
to tell her about the little room--what had become of it, when had they
built the closet, when had they bought the gilt-edged china?
They went on washing dishes and drying them on the spotless towels with
methodical exactness; and as they worked they said that there had never
been any little room, so far as they knew; the china-closet had always
been there, and the gilt-edged china had belonged to their mother, it
had always been in the house.
"No, I don't remember that your mother ever asked about any little
room," said Hannah. "She didn't seem very well that summer, but she
never asked about any changes in the house; there hadn't ever been any
changes."
There it was again: not sign of interest, curiosity, or annoyance, not
a spark of memory.
She went out to Hiram. He was telling Mr. Grant about the farm. She had
meant to ask him about the room, but her lips were sealed before her
husband.
Months afterwards, when time had lessened the sharpness of their
feelings, they learned to speculate reasonably about the phenomenon,
which Mr. Grant had accepted as something not to be scoffed away, not to
be treated as a poor joke, but to be put aside as something inexplicable
on any ordinary theory.
Margaret alone in her heart knew that her mother's words carried a
deeper significance than she had dreamed of at the time. "One thing I am
glad of, your father knows now," and she wondered if Roger or she would
ever know.
Five years later they were going to Europe. The packing was done; the
children were lying asleep, with their travelling things ready to be
slipped on for an early start.
Roger had a foreign appointment. They were not to be back in America for
some years. She had meant to go up to say good-by to her aunts; but a
mother of three children intends to do a great many things that never
get done. One thing she had done that very day, and as she paused for a
moment between the writing of two notes that must be posted before she
went to bed, she said:
"Roger, you remember Rita Lash? Well, she and Cousin Nan go up to the
Adirondacks every autumn. They are clever girls, and I have intrusted to
them something I want done very much."
"They are the girls to do it, then, every inch of them."
"I know it, and they are going to."
"Well?"
"Why, you see, Roger, that little room--"
"Oh--"
"Yes, I was a coward not to go myself, but I didn't find time, because I
hadn't the courage."
"Oh! _that_ was it, was it?"
"Yes, just that. They are going, and they will write us about it."
"Want to bet?"
"No; I only want to know."
* * * * *
Rita Lash and Cousin Nan planned to go to Vermont on their way to the
Adirondacks. They found they would have three hours between trains,
which would give them time to drive up to the Keys farm, and they could
still get to the camp that night. But, at the last minute, Rita was
prevented from going. Nan had to go to meet the Adirondack party, and
she promised to telegraph her when she arrived at the camp. Imagine
Rita's amusement when she received this message: "Safely arrived; went
to the Keys farm; it is a little room."
Rita was amused, because she did not in the least think Nan had been
there. She thought it was a hoax; but it put it into her mind to carry
the joke further by really stopping herself when she went up, as she
meant to do the next week.
She did stop over. She introduced herself to the two maiden ladies, who
seemed familiar, as they had been described by Mrs. Grant.
They were, if not cordial, at least not disconcerted at her visit, and
willingly showed her over the house. As they did not speak of any other
stranger's having been to see them lately, she became confirmed in her
belief that Nan had not been there.
In the north room she saw the roses and morning-glory paper on the wall,
and also the door that should open into--what?
She asked if she might open it.
"Certainly," said Hannah; and Maria echoed, "Certainly."
She opened it, and found the china-closet. She experienced a certain
relief; she at least was not under any spell. Mrs. Grant left it a
china-closet; she found it the same. Good.
But she tried to induce the old sisters to remember that there had at
various times been certain questions relating to a confusion as to
whether the closet had always been a closet. It was no use; their stony
eyes gave no sign.
Then she thought of the story of the sea-captain, and said, "Miss Keys,
did you ever have a lounge covered with India chintz, with a figure of a
peacock on it, given to you in Salem by a sea-captain, who brought it
from India?"
"I dun'no' as I ever did," said Hannah. That was all. She thought
Maria's cheeks were a little flushed, but her eyes were like a
stone-wall.
She went on that night to the Adirondacks. When Nan and she were alone
in their room she said. "By-the-way, Nan, what did you see at the
farm-house? and how did you like Maria and Hannah?"
Nan didn't mistrust that Rita had been there, and she began excitedly to
tell her all about her visit. Rita could almost have believed Nan had
been there if she hadn't known it was not so. She let her go on for some
time, enjoying her enthusiasm, and the impressive way in which she
described her opening the door and finding the "little room." Then Rita
said: "Now, Nan, that is enough fibbing. I went to the farm myself on my
way up yesterday, and there is _no_ little room, and there _never_ has
been any; it is a china-closet, just as Mrs. Grant saw it last."
She was pretending to be busy unpacking her trunk, and did not look up
for a moment; but as Nan did not say anything, she glanced at her over
her shoulder. Nan was actually pale, and it was hard to say whether she
was most angry or frightened. There was something of both in her look.
And then Rita began to explain how her telegram had put her in the
spirit of going up there alone. She hadn't meant to cut Nan out. She
only thought--Then Nan broke in: "It isn't that; I am sure you can't
think it is that. But I went myself, and you did not go; you can't have
been there, for _it is a little room_."
Oh, what a night they had! They couldn't sleep. They talked and argued,
and then kept still for a while, only to break out again, it was so
absurd. They both maintained that they had been there, but both felt
sure the other one was either crazy or obstinate beyond reason. They
were wretched; it was perfectly ridiculous, two friends at odds over
such a thing; but there it was--"little room,"
"china-closet,"--"china-closet," "little room."
The next morning Nan was tacking up some tarlatan at a window to keep
the midges out. Rita offered to help her, as she had done for the past
ten years. Nan's "No, thanks," cut her to the heart.
"Nan," said she, "come right down from that stepladder and pack your
satchel. The stage leaves in just twenty minutes. We can catch the
afternoon express train, and we will go together to the farm. I am
either going there or going home. You better go with me."
Nan didn't say a word. She gathered up the hammer and tacks, and was
ready to start when the stage came round.
It meant for them thirty miles of staging and six hours of train,
besides crossing the lake; but what of that, compared with having a lie
lying round loose between them! Europe would have seemed easy to
accomplish, if it would settle the question.
At the little junction in Vermont they found a farmer with a wagon full
of meal-bags. They asked him if he could not take them up to the old
Keys farm and bring them back in time for the return train, due in two
hours.
They had planned to call it a sketching trip, so they said, "We have
been there before, we are artists, and we might find some views worth
taking, and we want also to make a short call upon the Misses Keys."
"Did ye calculate to paint the old _house_ in the picture?"
They said it was possible they might do so. They wanted to see it,
anyway.
"Waal, I guess you are too late. The _house_ burnt down last night, and
everything in it."