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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6027.txt b/6027.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82e5bef --- /dev/null +++ b/6027.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1715 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Closed Room, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: In the Closed Room + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Illustrator: Jessie Wilcox Smith + +Posting Date: September 1, 2012 [EBook #6027] +Release Date: July, 2004 +First Posted: October 29, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLOSED ROOM *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Charles +Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + + +IN THE CLOSED ROOM + +by + +FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT + +Author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Little Princess + + + +Illustrations by + +Jessie Willcox Smith + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +The playing today was even a lovelier, happier thing than it had +ever been before . . . . Frontispiece + +She often sat curving her small long fingers backward + +They gazed as if they had known each other for ages of years + +"Come and play with me" + +She must go and stand at the door and press her cheek against the +wood and wait--and listen + +She began to mount the stairs which led to the upper floors + +The ledge of the window was so low that a mere step took her +outside + +"I'm going up to play with the little girl, mother . . . You +don't mind, do you?" + + + + +PART ONE + + +In the fierce airless heat of the small square room the child +Judith panted as she lay on her bed. Her father and mother slept +near her, drowned in the heavy slumber of workers after their +day's labour. Some people in the next flat were quarrelling, +irritated probably by the appalling heat and their miserable +helplessness against it. All the hot emanations of the sun-baked +city streets seemed to combine with their clamour and unrest, and +rise to the flat in which the child lay gazing at the darkness. +It was situated but a few feet from the track of the Elevated +Railroad and existence seemed to pulsate to the rush and roar of +the demon which swept past the windows every few minutes. No one +knew that Judith held the thing in horror, but it was a truth +that she did. She was only seven years old, and at that age it is +not easy to explain one's self so that older people can +understand. + +She could only have said, "I hate it. It comes so fast. It is +always coming. It makes a sound as if thunder was quite close. I +can never get away from it." The children in the other flats +rather liked it. They hung out of the window perilously to watch +it thunder past and to see the people who crowded it pressed +close together in the seats, standing in the aisles, hanging on +to the straps. Sometimes in the evening there were people in it +who were going to the theatre, and the women and girls were +dressed in light colours and wore hats covered with white +feathers and flowers. At such times the children were delighted, +and Judith used to hear the three in the next flat calling out to +each other, "That's MY lady! That's MY lady! That one's mine!" + +Judith was not like the children in the other flats. She was a +frail, curious creature, with silent ways and a soft voice and +eyes. She liked to play by herself in a corner of the room and to +talk to herself as she played. No one knew what she talked about, +and in fact no one inquired. Her mother was always too busy. When +she was not making men's coats by the score at the whizzing +sewing machine, she was hurriedly preparing a meal which was +always in danger of being late. There was the breakfast, which +might not be ready in time for her husband to reach his "shop" +when the whistle blew; there was the supper, which might not be +in time to be in waiting for him when he returned in the evening. +The midday meal was a trifling matter, needing no special +preparation. One ate anything one could find left from supper or +breakfast. + +Judith's relation to her father and mother was not a very +intimate one. They were too hard worked to have time for domestic +intimacies, and a feature of their acquaintance was that though +neither of them was sufficiently articulate to have found +expression for the fact--the young man and woman felt the child +vaguely remote. Their affection for her was tinged with something +indefinitely like reverence. She had been a lovely baby with a +peculiar magnolia whiteness of skin and very large, sweetly +smiling eyes of dark blue, fringed with quite black lashes. She +had exquisite pointed fingers and slender feet, and though Mr. +and Mrs. Foster were--perhaps fortunately--unaware of it, she had +been not at all the baby one would have expected to come to life +in a corner of the hive of a workman's flat a few feet from the +Elevated Railroad. + +"Seems sometimes as if somehow she couldn't be mine," Mrs. Foster +said at times. "She ain't like me, an' she ain't like Jem Foster, +Lord knows. She ain't like none of either of our families I've +ever heard of--'ceptin' it might be her Aunt Hester--but SHE died +long before I was born. I've only heard mother tell about her. +She was a awful pretty girl. Mother said she had that kind of +lily-white complexion and long slender fingers that was so supple +she could curl 'em back like they was double-jointed. Her eyes +was big and had eyelashes that stood out round 'em, but they was +brown. Mother said she wasn't like any other kind of girl, and +she thinks Judith may turn out like her. She wasn't but fifteen +when she died. She never was ill in her life--but one morning she +didn't come down to breakfast, and when they went up to call her, +there she was sittin' at her window restin' her chin on her hand, +with her face turned up smilin' as if she was talkin' to some +one. The doctor said it had happened hours before, when she had +come to the window to look at the stars. Easy way to go, wasn't +it?" + +Judith had heard of her Aunt Hester, but she only knew that she +herself had hands like her and that her life had ended when she +was quite young. Mrs. Foster was too much occupied by the +strenuousness of life to dwell upon the passing of souls. To her +the girl Hester seemed too remote to appear quite real. The +legends of her beauty and unlikeness to other girls seemed rather +like a sort of romance. + +As she was not aware that Judith hated the Elevated Railroad, so +she was not aware that she was fond of the far away Aunt Hester +with the long-pointed fingers which could curl backwards. She did +not know that when she was playing in her corner of the room, +where it was her way to sit on her little chair with her face +turned towards the wall, she often sat curving her small long +fingers backward and talking to herself about Aunt Hester. But +this--as well as many other things--was true. It was not +secretiveness which caused the child to refrain from speaking of +certain things. She herself could not have explained the reasons +for her silence; also it had never occurred to her that +explanation and reasons were necessary. Her mental attitude was +that of a child who, knowing a certain language, does not speak +it to those who have never heard and are wholly ignorant of it. +She knew her Aunt Hester as her mother did not. She had seen her +often in her dreams and had a secret fancy that she could dream +of her when she wished to do so. She was very fond of dreaming of +her. The places where she came upon Aunt Hester were strange and +lovely places where the air one breathed smelled like flowers and +everything was lovely in a new way, and when one moved one felt +so light that movement was delightful, and when one wakened one +had not quite got over the lightness and for a few moments felt +as if one would float out of bed. + +The healthy, vigourous young couple who were the child's parents +were in a healthy, earthly way very fond of each other. They had +made a genuine love match and had found it satisfactory. The +young mechanic Jem Foster had met the young shop-girl Jane Hardy, +at Coney Island one summer night and had become at once enamoured +of her shop-girl good looks and high spirits. They had married as +soon as Jem had had the "raise" he was anticipating and had from +that time lived with much harmony in the flat building by which +the Elevated train rushed and roared every few minutes through +the day and a greater part of the night. They themselves did not +object to the "Elevated"; Jem was habituated to uproar in the +machine shop, in which he spent his days, and Jane was too much +absorbed in the making of men's coats by the dozens to observe +anything else. The pair had healthy appetites and slept well +after their day's work, hearty supper, long cheerful talk, and +loud laughter over simple common joking. + +"She's a queer little fish, Judy," Jane said to her husband as +they sat by the open window one night, Jem's arm curved +comfortably around the young woman's waist as he smoked his pipe. +"What do you think she says to me to-night after I put her to +bed?" + +"Search ME!" said Jem oracularly. + +Jane laughed. + +"'Why,' she says, 'I wish the Elevated train would stop.' + +"'Why?' says I. + +"'I want to go to sleep,' says she. 'I'm going to dream of Aunt +Hester.'" + +"What does she know about her Aunt Hester," said Jem. "Who's been +talkin' to her?" + +"Not me," Jane said. "She don't know nothing but what she's +picked up by chance. I don't believe in talkin' to young ones +about dead folks. 'Tain't healthy." + +"That's right," said Jem. "Children that's got to hustle about +among live folks for a livin' best keep their minds out of +cemeteries. But, Hully Gee, what a queer thing for a young one to +say." + +"And that ain't all," Jane went on, her giggle half amused, half +nervous. "'But I don't fall asleep when I see Aunt Hester,' says +she. 'I fall awake. It's more awake there than here.' + +"'Where?' says I, laughing a bit, though it did make me feel +queer. + +"'I don't know' she says in that soft little quiet way of hers. +'There.' And not another thing could I get out of her." + +On the hot night through whose first hours Judith lay panting in +her corner of the room, tormented and kept awake by the constant +roar and rush and flash of lights, she was trying to go to sleep +in the hope of leaving all the heat and noise and discomfort +behind, and reaching Aunt Hester. If she could fall awake she +would feel and hear none of it. It would all be unreal and she +would know that only the lightness and the air like flowers and +the lovely brightness were true. Once, as she tossed on her +cot-bed, she broke into a low little laugh to think how untrue +things really were and how strange it was that people did not +understand--that even she felt as she lay in the darkness that +she could not get away. And she could not get away unless the +train would stop just long enough to let her fall asleep. If she +could fall asleep between the trains, she would not awaken. But +they came so quickly one after the other. Her hair was damp as +she pushed it from her forehead, the bed felt hot against her +skin, the people in the next flat quarreled more angrily, Judith +heard a loud slap, and then the woman began to cry. She was a +young married woman, scarcely more than a girl. Her marriage had +not been as successful as that of Judith's parents. Both husband +and wife had irritable tempers. Through the thin wall Judith +could hear the girl sobbing angrily as the man flung himself out +of bed, put on his clothes and went out, banging the door after +him. + +"She doesn't know," the child whispered eerily, "that it isn't +real at all." + +There was in her strange little soul a secret no one knew the +existence of. It was a vague belief that she herself was not +quite real--or that she did not belong to the life she had been +born into. Her mother and father loved her and she loved them, +but sometimes she was on the brink of telling them that she could +not stay long--that some mistake had been made. What mistake--or +where was she to go to if she went, she did not know. She used to +catch her breath and stop herself and feel frightened when she +had been near speaking of this fantastic thing. But the building +full of workmen's flats, the hot room, the Elevated Railroad, the +quarrelling people, were all a mistake. Just once or twice in her +life she had seen places and things which did not seem so +foreign. Once, when she had been taken to the Park in the Spring, +she had wandered away from her mother to a sequestered place +among shrubs and trees, all waving tender, new pale green, with +the leaves a few early hot days had caused to rush out and +tremble unfurled. There had been a stillness there and scents and +colours she knew. A bird had come and swung upon a twig quite +near her and, looking at her with bright soft full eyes, had sung +gently to her, as if he were speaking. A squirrel had crept up +onto her lap and had not moved when she stroked it. Its eyes had +been full and soft also, and she knew it understood that she +could not hurt it. There was no mistake in her being among the +new fair greenness, and the woodland things who spoke to her. +They did not use words, but no words were needed. She knew what +they were saying. When she had pushed her way through the +greenness of the shrubbery to the driveway she had found herself +quite near to an open carriage, which had stopped because the +lady who sat in it was speaking to a friend on the path. She was +a young woman, dressed in delicate spring colours, and the little +girl at her side was dressed in white cloth, and it was at the +little girl Judith found herself gazing. Under her large white +hat and feathers her little face seemed like a white flower. She +had a deep dimple near her mouth. Her hair was a rich coppery red +and hung heavy and long about her cheeks and shoulders. She +lifted her head a little when the child in the common hat and +frock pressed through the greenness of the bushes and she looked +at Judith just as the bird and the squirrel had looked at her. +They gazed as if they had known each other for ages of years and +were separated by nothing. Each of them was quite happy at being +near the other, and there was not in the mind of either any +question of their not being near each other again. The question +did not rise in Judith's mind even when in a very few minutes the +carriage moved away and was lost in the crowd of equipages +rolling by. + +At the hottest hours of the hot night Judith recalled to herself +the cool of that day. She brought back the fresh pale greenness +of the nook among the bushes into which she had forced her way, +the scent of the leaves and grass which she had drawn in as she +breathed, the nearness in the eyes of the bird, the squirrel, and +the child. She smiled as she thought of these things, and as she +continued to remember yet other things, bit by bit, she felt less +hot--she gradually forgot to listen for the roar of the +train--she smiled still more--she lay quite still--she was +cool--a tiny fresh breeze fluttered through the window and played +about her forehead. She was smiling in soft delight as her +eyelids drooped and closed. + +"I am falling awake," she was murmuring as her lashes touched her +cheek. + +Perhaps when her eyes closed the sultriness of the night had +changed to the momentary freshness of the turning dawn, and the +next hour or so was really cooler. She knew no more heat but +slept softly, deeply, long--or it seemed to her afterwards that +she had slept long--as if she had drifted far away in dreamless +peace. + +She remembered no dream, saw nothing, felt nothing until, as it +seemed to her, in the early morning, she opened her eyes. All was +quite still and clear--the air of the room was pure and sweet. +There was no sound anywhere and, curiously enough, she was not +surprised by this, nor did she expect to hear anything disturbing. + +She did not look round the room. Her eyes remained resting upon +what she first saw--and she was not surprised by this either. A +little girl about her own age was standing smiling at her. She +had large eyes, a deep dimple near her mouth, and coppery red +hair which fell about her cheeks and shoulders. Judith knew her +and smiled back at her. + +She lifted her hand--and it was a pure white little hand with +long tapering fingers. + +"Come and play with me," she said--though Judith heard no voice +while she knew what she was saying. "Come and play with me." + +Then she was gone, and in a few seconds Judith was awake, the air +of the room had changed, the noise and clatter of the streets +came in at the window, and the Elevated train went thundering by. +Judith did not ask herself how the child had gone or how she had +come. She lay still, feeling undisturbed by everything and +smiling as she had smiled in her sleep. + +While she sat at the breakfast table she saw her mother looking +at her curiously. + +"You look as if you'd slept cool instead of hot last night," she +said. "You look better than you did yesterday. You're pretty +well, ain't you, Judy?" + +Judith's smile meant that she was quite well, but she said +nothing about her sleeping. + +The heat did not disturb her through the day, though the hours +grew hotter and hotter as they passed. Jane Foster, sweltering at +her machine, was obliged to stop every few minutes to wipe the +beads from her face and neck. Sometimes she could not remain +seated, but got up panting to drink water and fan herself with a +newspaper. + +"I can't stand much more of this," she kept saying. "If there +don't come a thunderstorm to cool things off I don't know what +I'll do. This room's about five hundred." + +But the heat grew greater and the Elevated trains went thundering +by. + +When Jem came home from his work his supper was not ready. Jane +was sitting helplessly by the window, almost livid in her pallor. +The table was but half spread. + +"Hullo," said Jem; "it's done you up, ain't it?" + +"Well, I guess it has," good-naturedly, certain of his sympathy. +"But I'll get over it presently, and then I can get you a cold +bite. I can't stand over the stove and cook." + +"Hully Gee, a cold bite's all a man wants on a night like this. +Hot chops'd give him the jim-jams. But I've got good news for +you--it's cheered me up myself." + +Jane lifted her head from the chair back. + +"What is it?" + +"Well, it came through my boss. He's always been friendly to me. +He asks a question or so every now and then and seems to take an +interest. To-day he was asking me if it wasn't pretty hot and +noisy down here, and after I told him how we stood it, he said he +believed he could get us a better place to stay in through the +summer. Some one he knows has had illness and trouble in his +family and he's obliged to close his house and take his wife away +into the mountains. They've got a beautiful big house in one of +them far up streets by the Park and he wants to get caretakers in +that can come well recommended. The boss said he could recommend +us fast enough. And there's a big light basement that'll be as +cool as the woods. And we can move in to-morrow. And all we've +got to do is to see that things are safe and live happy." + +"Oh, Jem!" Jane ejaculated. "It sounds too good to be true! Up by +the Park! A big cool place to live!" + +"We've none of us ever been in a house the size of it. You know +what they look like outside, and they say they're bigger than +they look. It's your business to go over the rooms every day or +so to see nothing's going wrong in them--moths or dirt, I +suppose. It's all left open but just one room they've left locked +and don't want interfered with. I told the boss I thought the +basement would seem like the Waldorf-Astoria to us. I tell you I +was so glad I scarcely knew what to say." + +Jane drew a long breath. + +"A big house up there," she said. "And only one closed room in +it. It's too good to be true!" + +"Well, whether it's true or not we'll move out there to-morrow," +Jem answered cheerfully. "To-morrow morning bright and early. The +boss said the sooner the better." + + +A large house left deserted by those who have filled its rooms +with emotions and life, expresses a silence, a quality all its +own. A house unfurnished and empty seems less impressively +silent. The fact of its devoidness of sound is upon the whole +more natural. But carpets accustomed to the pressure of +constantly passing feet, chairs and sofas which have held human +warmth, draperies used to the touch of hands drawing them aside +to let in daylight, pictures which have smiled back at thinking +eyes, mirrors which have reflected faces passing hourly in +changing moods, elate or dark or longing, walls which have echoed +back voices--all these things when left alone seem to be held in +strange arrest, as if by some spell intensifying the effect of +the pause in their existence. + +The child Judith felt this deeply throughout the entirety of her +young being. + +"How STILL it is," she said to her mother the first time they +went over the place together. + +"Well, it seems still up here--and kind of dead," Jane Foster +replied with her habitual sociable half-laugh. "But seems to me +it always feels that way in a house people's left. It's cheerful +enough down in that big basement with all the windows open. We +can sit in that room they've had fixed to play billiards in. We +shan't hurt nothing. We can keep the table and things covered up. +Tell you, Judy, this'll be different from last summer. The Park +ain't but a few steps away an' we can go and sit there too when +we feel like it. Talk about the country--I don't want no more +country than this is. You'll be made over the months we stay +here." + +Judith felt as if this must veritably be a truth. The houses on +either side of the street were closed for the summer. Their +occupants had gone to the seaside or the mountains and the +windows and doors were boarded up. The street was a quiet one at +any time, and wore now the aspect of a street in a city of the +dead. The green trees of the Park were to be seen either gently +stirring or motionless in the sun at the side of the avenue +crossing the end of it. The only token of the existence of the +Elevated Railroad was a remote occasional hum suggestive of the +flying past of a giant bee. The thing seemed no longer a roaring +demon, and Judith scarcely recognized that it was still the +centre of the city's rushing, heated life. + +The owners of the house had evidently deserted it suddenly. The +windows had not been boarded up and the rooms had been left in +their ordinary condition. The furniture was not covered or the +hangings swathed. Jem Foster had been told that his wife must put +things in order. + +The house was beautiful and spacious, its decorations and +appointments were not mere testimonies to freedom of expenditure, +but expressions of a dignified and cultivated thought. Judith +followed her mother from room to room in one of her singular +moods. The loftiness of the walls, the breadth and space about +her made her, at intervals, draw in her breath with pleasure. The +pictures, the colours, the rich and beautiful textures she saw +brought to her the free--and at the same time soothed--feeling +she remembered as the chief feature of the dreams in which she +"fell awake." But beyond all other things she rejoiced in the +height and space, the sweep of view through one large room into +another. She continually paused and stood with her face lifted +looking up at the pictured things floating on a ceiling above +her. Once, when she had stood doing this long enough to forget +herself, she was startled by her mother's laugh, which broke in +upon the silence about them with a curiously earthly sound which +was almost a shock. + +"Wake up, Judy; have you gone off in a dream? You look all the +time as if you was walking in your sleep." + +"It's so high," said Judy. "Those clouds make it look like the sky." + +"I've got to set these chairs straight," said Jane. "Looks like +they'd been havin' a concert here. All these chairs together an' +that part of the room clear." + +She began to move the chairs and rearrange them, bustling about +cheerfully and talking the while. Presently she stooped to pick +something up. + +"What's this," she said, and then uttered a startled exclamation. +"Mercy! they felt so kind of clammy they made me jump. They HAVE +had a party. Here's some of the flowers left fallen on the +carpet." + +She held up a cluster of wax-white hyacinths and large heavy +rosebuds, faded to discoloration. + +"This has dropped out of some set piece. It felt like cold flesh +when I first touched it. I don't like a lot of white things +together. They look too kind of mournful. Just go and get the +wastepaper basket in the library, Judy. We'll carry it around to +drop things into. Take that with you." + +Judith carried the flowers into the library and bent to pick up +the basket as she dropped them into it. + +As she raised her head she found her eyes looking directly into +other eyes which gazed at her from the wall. They were smiling +from the face of a child in a picture. As soon as she saw them +Judith drew in her breath and stood still, smiling, too, in +response. The picture was that of a little girl in a floating +white frock. She had a deep dimple at one corner of her mouth, +her hanging hair was like burnished copper, she held up a slender +hand with pointed fingers and Judith knew her. Oh! she knew her +quite well. She had never felt so near any one else throughout +her life. + +"Judy, Judy!" Jane Foster called out. "Come here with your +basket; what you staying for?" + +Judith returned to her. + +"We've got to get a move on," said Jane, "or we shan't get +nothin' done before supper time. What was you lookin' at?" + +"There's a picture in there of a little girl I know," Judith +said. "I don't know her name, but I saw her in the Park once +and--and I dreamed about her." + +"Dreamed about her? If that ain't queer. Well, we've got to hurry +up. Here's some more of them dropped flowers. Give me the +basket." + +They went through the whole house together, from room to room, up +the many stairs, from floor to floor, and everywhere Judith felt +the curious stillness and silence. It can not be doubted that +Jane Foster felt it also. + +"It is the stillest house I was ever in," she said. "I'm glad +I've got you with me, Judy. If I was sole alone I believe it 'ud +give me the creeps. These big places ought to have big families +in them." + +It was on the fourth floor that they came upon the Closed Room. +Jane had found some of the doors shut and some open, but a turn +of the handle gave entrance through all the unopened ones until +they reached this one at the back on the fourth floor. + +"This one won't open," Jane said, when she tried the handle. Then +she shook it once or twice. "No, it's locked," she decided after +an effort or two. "There, I've just remembered. There's one kept +locked. Folks always has things they want locked up. I'll make +sure, though." + +She shook it, turned the handle, shook again, pressed her knee +against the panel. The lock resisted all effort. + +"Yes, this is the closed one," she made up her mind. "It's locked +hard and fast. It's the closed one." + +It was logically proved to be the closed one by the fact that she +found no other one locked as she finished her round of the +chambers. + +Judith was a little tired before they had done their work. But +her wandering pilgrimage through the large, silent, deserted +house had been a revelation of new emotions to her. She was +always a silent child. Her mind was so full of strange thoughts +that it seemed unnecessary to say many words. The things she +thought as she followed her from room to room, from floor to +floor, until they reached the locked door, would have amazed and +puzzled Jane Foster if she had known of their existence. Most of +all, perhaps, she would have been puzzled by the effect the +closed door had upon the child. It puzzled and bewildered Judith +herself and made her feel a little weary. + +She wanted so much to go into the room. Without in the least +understanding the feeling, she was quite shaken by it. It seemed +as if the closing of all the other rooms would have been a small +matter in comparison with the closing of this one. There was +something inside which she wanted to see--there was something--somehow +there was something which wanted to see her. What a pity that the door +was locked! Why had it been done? She sighed unconsciously several +times during the evening, and Jane Foster thought she was tired. + +"But you'll sleep cool enough to-night, Judy," she said. "And get +a good rest. Them little breezes that comes rustling through the +trees in the Park comes right along the street to us." + +She and Jem Foster slept well. They spent the evening in the +highest spirits and--as it seemed to them--the most luxurious +comfort. The space afforded them by the big basement, with its +kitchen and laundry and pantry, and, above all, the specially +large room which had been used for billiard playing, supplied +actual vistas. For the sake of convenience and coolness they used +the billiard room as a dormitory, sleeping on light cots, and +they slept with all their windows open, the little breezes +wandering from among the trees of the Park to fan them. How they +laughed and enjoyed themselves over their supper, and how they +stretched themselves out with sighs of joy in the darkness as +they sank into the cool, untroubled waters of deep sleep. + +"This is about the top notch," Jem murmured as he lost his hold +on the world of waking life and work. + +But though she was cool, though she was undisturbed, though her +body rested in absolute repose, Judith did not sleep for a long +time. She lay and listened to the quietness. There was mystery in +it. The footstep of a belated passer-by in the street woke +strange echoes; a voice heard in the distance in a riotous shout +suggested weird things. And as she lay and listened, it was as if +she were not only listening but waiting for something. She did +not know at all what she was waiting for, but waiting she was. + +She lay upon her cot with her arms flung out and her eyes wide +open. What was it that she wanted--that which was in the closed +room? Why had they locked the door? If they had locked the doors +of the big parlours it would not have mattered. If they had +locked the door of the library--Her mind paused--as if for a +moment, something held it still. Then she remembered that to have +locked the doors of the library would have been to lock in the +picture of the child with the greeting look in her eyes and the +fine little uplifted hand. She was glad the room had been left +open. But the room up-stairs--the one on the fourth floor--that +was the one that mattered most of all. She knew that to-morrow +she must go and stand at the door and press her cheek against the +wood and wait--and listen. Thinking this and knowing that it must +be so, she fell--at last--asleep. + + + +PART TWO + + +Judith climbed the basement stairs rather slowly. Her mother was +busy rearranging the disorder the hastily departing servants had +left. Their departure had indeed been made in sufficient haste to +have left behind the air of its having been flight. There was a +great deal to be done, and Jane Foster, moving about with broom +and pail and scrubbing brushes, did not dislike the excitement of +the work before her. Judith's certainty that she would not be +missed made all clear before her. If her absence was observed her +mother would realize that the whole house lay open to her and +that she was an undisturbing element wheresoever she was led +either by her fancy or by circumstance. If she went into the +parlours she would probably sit and talk to herself or play +quietly with her shabby doll. In any case she would be finding +pleasure of her own and would touch nothing which could be +harmed. + +When the child found herself in the entrance hall she stopped a +few moments to look about her. The stillness seemed to hold her +and she paused to hear and feel it. In leaving the basement +behind, she had left the movement of living behind also. No one +was alive upon this floor--nor upon the next--nor the next. It +was as if one had entered a new world--a world in which something +existed which did not express itself in sound or in things which +one could see. Chairs held out their arms to emptiness--cushions +were not pressed by living things--only the people in the +pictures were looking at something, but one could not tell what +they were looking at. + +But on the fourth floor was the Closed Room, which she must go +to--because she must go to it--that was all she knew. + +She began to mount the stairs which led to the upper floors. Her +shabby doll was held against her hip by one arm, her right hand +touched the wall as she went, she felt the height of the wall as +she looked upward. It was such a large house and so empty. Where +had the people gone and why had they left it all at once as if +they were afraid? Her father had only heard vaguely that they had +gone because they had had trouble. + +She passed the second floor, the third, and climbed towards the +fourth. She could see the door of the Closed Room as she went up +step by step, and she found herself moving more quickly. Yes, she +must get to it--she must put her hand on it--her chest began to +rise and fall with a quickening of her breath, and her breath +quickened because her heart fluttered--as if with her haste. She +began to be glad, and if any one could have seen her they would +have been struck by a curious expectant smile in her eyes. + +She reached the landing and crossed it, running the last few +steps lightly. She did not wait or stand still a moment. With the +strange expectant smile on her lips as well as in her eyes, she +put her hand upon the door--not upon the handle, but upon the +panel. Without any sound it swung quietly open. And without any +sound she stepped quietly inside. + +The room was rather large and the light in it was dim. There were +no shutters, but the blinds were drawn down. Judith went to one +of the windows and drew its blind up so that the look of the +place might be clear to her. There were two windows and they +opened upon the flat roof of an extension, which suggested +somehow that it had been used as a place to walk about in. This, +at least, was what Judith thought of at once--that some one who +had used the room had been in the habit of going out upon the +roof and staying there as if it had been a sort of garden. There +were rows of flower pots with dead flowers in them--there were +green tubs containing large shrubs, which were dead also--against +the low parapet certain of them held climbing plants which had +been trained upon it. Two had been climbing roses, two were +clematis, but Judith did not know them by name. The ledge of the +window was so low that a mere step took her outside. So taking +it, she stood among the dried, withered things and looked in +tender regret at them. + +"I wish they were not dead," she said softly to the silence. "It +would be like a garden if they were not dead." + +The sun was hot, but a cool, little breeze seemed straying up +from among the trees of the Park. It even made the dried leaves +of the flowers tremble and rustle a little. Involuntarily she +lifted her face to the blue sky and floating white clouds. They +seemed so near that she felt almost as if she could touch them +with her hand. The street seemed so far--so far below--the whole +world seemed far below. If one stepped off the parapet it would +surely take one a long time to reach the earth. She knew now why +she had come up here. It was so that she might feel like this--as +if she was upheld far away from things--as if she had left +everything behind--almost as if she had fallen awake again. There +was no perfume in the air, but all was still and sweet and clear. + +Suddenly she turned and went into the room again, realizing that +she had scarcely seen it at all and that she must see and know +it. It was not like any other room she had seen. It looked more +simple, though it was a pretty place. The walls were covered with +roses, there were bright pictures, and shelves full of books. +There was also a little writing desk and there were two or three +low chairs, and a low table. A closet in a corner had its door +ajar and Judith could see that inside toys were piled together. +In another corner a large doll's house stood, looking as if some +one had just stopped playing with it. Some toy furniture had been +taken out and left near it upon the carpet. + +"It was a little girl's room," Judith said. "Why did they close +it?" + +Her eye was caught by something lying on a sofa--something +covered with a cloth. It looked almost like a child lying there +asleep--so fast asleep that it did not stir at all. Judith moved +across to the sofa and drew the cloth aside. With its head upon a +cushion was lying there a very large doll, beautifully dressed in +white lace, its eyes closed, and a little wreath of dead flowers +in its hair. + +"It looks almost as if it had died too," said Judith. + +She did not ask herself why she said "as if it had died +too"--perhaps it was because the place was so still--and +everything so far away--that the flowers had died in the strange, +little deserted garden on the roof. + +She did not hear any footsteps--in fact, no ghost of a sound +stirred the silence as she stood looking at the doll's sleep--but +quite quickly she ceased to bend forward, and turned round to +look at something which she knew was near her. There she was--and +it was quite natural she should be there--the little girl with +the face like a white flower, with the quantity of burnished +coppery hair and the smile which deepened the already deep dimple +near her mouth. + +"You have come to play with me," she said. + +"Yes," answered Judith. "I wanted to come all night. I could not +stay down-stairs." + +"No," said the child; "you can't stay down-stairs. Lift up the +doll." + +They began to play as if they had spent their lives together. +Neither asked the other any questions. Judith had not played with +other children, but with this one she played in absolute and +lovely delight. The little girl knew where all the toys were, and +there were a great many beautiful ones. She told Judith where to +find them and how to arrange them for their games. She invented +wonderful things to do--things which were so unlike anything +Judith had ever seen or heard or thought of that it was not +strange that she realized afterwards that all her past life and +its belongings had been so forgotten as to be wholly blotted out +while she was in the Closed Room. She did not know her playmate's +name, she did not remember that there were such things as names. +Every moment was happiness. Every moment the little girl seemed +to grow more beautiful in the flower whiteness of her face and +hands and the strange lightness and freedom of her movements. +There was an ecstasy in looking at her--in feeling her near. + +Not long before Judith went down-stairs she found herself +standing with her outside the window in among the withered +flowers. + +"It was my garden," the little girl said. "It has been so hot and +no one has been near to water them, so they could not live." + +She went lightly to one of the brown rose-bushes and put her +pointed-fingered little hand quite near it. She did not touch it, +but held her hand near--and the leaves began to stir and uncurl +and become fresh and tender again, and roses were nodding, +blooming on the stems. And she went in the same manner to each +flower and plant in turn until all the before dreary little +garden was bright and full of leaves and flowers. + +"It's Life," she said to Judith. Judith nodded and smiled back at +her, understanding quite well just as she had understood the eyes +of the bird who had swung on the twig so near her cheek the day +she had hidden among the bushes in the Park. + +"Now, you must go," the little girl said at last. And Judith went +out of the room at once--without waiting or looking back, though +she knew the white figure did not stir till she was out of sight. + +It was not until she had reached the second floor that the change +came upon her. It was a great change and a curious one. The +Closed Room became as far away as all other places and things had +seemed when she had stood upon the roof feeling the nearness of +the blueness and the white clouds--as when she had looked round +and found herself face to face with the child in the Closed Room. +She suddenly realized things she had not known before. She knew +that she had heard no voice when the little girl spoke to +her--she knew that it had happened, that it was she only who had +lifted the doll--who had taken out the toys--who had arranged the +low table for their feast, putting all the small service upon +it--and though they had played with such rapturous enjoyment and +had laughed and feasted--what had they feasted on? That she could +not recall--and not once had she touched or been touched by the +light hand or white dress--and though they seemed to express +their thoughts and intentions freely she had heard no voice at +all. She was suddenly bewildered and stood rubbing her hand over +her forehead and her eyes--but she was happy--as happy as when +she had fallen awake in her sleep--and was no more troubled or +really curious than she would have been if she had had the same +experience every day of her life. + +"Well, you must have been having a good time playing up-stairs," +Jane Foster said when she entered the big kitchen. "This is going +to do you good, Judy. Looks like she'd had a day in the country, +don't she, Jem?" + +Through the weeks that followed her habit of "playing up-stairs" +was accepted as a perfectly natural thing. No questions were +asked and she knew it was not necessary to enter into any +explanations. + +Every day she went to the door of the Closed Room and, finding it +closed, at a touch of her hand upon the panel it swung softly +open. There she waited--sometimes for a longer sometimes for a +shorter time--and the child with the coppery hair came to her. +The world below was gone as soon as she entered the room, and +through the hours they played together joyously as happy children +play. But in their playing it was always Judith who touched the +toys--who held the doll---who set the little table for their +feast. Once as she went down-stairs she remembered that when she +had that day made a wreath of roses from the roof and had gone to +put it on her playmate's head, she had drawn back with deepened +dimple and, holding up her hand, had said, laughing: "No. Do not +touch me." + +But there was no mystery in it after all. Judith knew she should +presently understand. + +She was so happy that her happiness lived in her face in a sort +of delicate brilliance. Jane Foster observed the change in her +with exceeding comfort, her view being that spacious quarters, +fresh air, and sounder sleep had done great things for her. + +"Them big eyes of hers ain't like no other child's eyes I've ever +seen," she said to her husband with cheerful self-gratulation. +"An' her skin's that fine an' thin an' fair you can jest see +through it. She always looks to me as if she was made out of +different stuff from me an' you, Jem. I've always said it." + +"She's going to make a corking handsome girl," responded Jem with +a chuckle. + +They had been in the house two months, when one afternoon, as she +was slicing potatoes for supper, Jane looked round to see the +child standing at the kitchen doorway, looking with a puzzled +expression at some wilted flowers she held in her hand. Jane's +impression was that she had been coming into the room and had +stopped suddenly to look at what she held. + +"What've you got there, Judy?" she asked. + +"They're flowers," said Judith, her eyes still more puzzled. + +"Where'd you get 'em from? I didn't know you'd been out. I +thought you was up-stairs." + +"I was," said Judith quite simply. "In the Closed Room." + +Jane Foster's knife dropped into her pan with a splash. + +"Well," she gasped. + +Judith looked at her with quiet eyes. + +"The Closed Room!" Jane cried out. "What are you saying? You +couldn't get in?" + +"Yes, I can." + +Jane was conscious of experiencing a shock. She said afterwards +that suddenly something gave her the creeps. + +"You couldn't open the door," she persisted. "I tried it again +yesterday as I passed by--turned the handle and gave it a regular +shove and it wouldn't give an inch." + +"Yes," the child answered; "I heard you. We were inside then." + +A few days later, when Jane weepingly related the incident to +awe-stricken and sympathizing friends, she described as +graphically as her limited vocabulary would allow her to do so, +the look in Judith's face as she came nearer to her. + +"Don't tell me there was nothing happening then," she said. "She +just came up to me with them dead flowers in her hand an' a kind +of look in her eyes as if she was half sorry for me an' didn't +know quite why. + +"'The door opens for me,' she says. 'That's where I play every +day. There's a little girl comes and plays with me. She comes in +at the window, I think. She is like the picture in the room where +the books are. Her hair hangs down and she has a dimple near her +mouth.' + +"I couldn't never tell any one what I felt like. It was as if I'd +got a queer fright that I didn't understand. + +"'She must have come over the roof from the next house,' I says. +'They've got an extension too--but I thought the people were gone +away.' + +"'There are flowers on our roof,' she said. 'I got these there.' +And that puzzled look came into her eyes again. 'They were +beautiful when I got them--but as I came down-stairs they died.' + +"'Well, of all the queer things,' I said. She put out her hand +and touched my arm sort of lovin' an' timid. + +"'I wanted to tell you to-day, mother,' she said. 'I had to tell +you to-day. You don't mind if I go play with her, do you? You +don't mind?' + +"Perhaps it was because she touched me that queer little loving +way--or was it the way she looked--it seemed like something came +over me an' I just grabbed her an' hugged her up. + +"'No,' I says. 'So as you come back. So as you come back.' + +"And to think!" And Jane rocked herself sobbing. + +A point she dwelt on with many tears was that the child seemed in +a wistful mood and remained near her side--bringing her little +chair and sitting by her as she worked, and rising to follow her +from place to place as she moved from one room to the other. + +"She wasn't never one as kissed you much or hung about like some +children do--I always used to say she was the least bother of any +child I ever knew. Seemed as if she had company of her own when +she sat in her little chair in the corner whispering to herself +or just setting quiet." This was a thing Jane always added during +all the years in which she told the story. "That was what made me +notice. She kept by me and she kept looking at me different from +any way I'd seen her look before--not pitiful exactly--but +something like it. And once she came up and kissed me and once or +twice she just kind of touched my dress or my hand--as I stood by +her. SHE knew. No one need tell me she didn't." + +But this was an error. The child was conscious only of a tender, +wistful feeling, which caused her to look at the affectionate +healthy young woman who had always been good to her and whom she +belonged to, though she remotely wondered why--the same +tenderness impelled her to touch her arm, hand and simple dress, +and folding her arms round her neck to kiss her softly. It was an +expression of gratitude for all the rough casual affection of the +past. All her life had been spent at her side--all her life on +earth had sprung from her. + +When she went up-stairs to the Closed Room the next day she told +her mother she was going before she left the kitchen. + +"I'm going up to play with the little girl, mother," she said. +"You don't mind, do you?" + +Jane had had an evening of comfortable domestic gossip and joking +with Jem, had slept, slept soundly and eaten a hearty breakfast. +Life had reassumed its wholly normal aspect. The sun was shining +hot and bright and she was preparing to scrub the kitchen floor. +She believed that the child was mistaken as to the room she had +been in. + +"That's all right," she said, turning the hot water spigot over +the sink so that the boiling water poured forth at full flow into +her pail, with clouds of steam. "But when I've done my scrubbing +I'm comin' up to see if it IS the Closed Room you play in. If it +is, I guess you'd better play somewhere else--and I want to find +out how you get that door open. Run along if you like." + +Judith came back to her from the door. "Yes," she said, "come and +see. But if she is there," putting her hand on Jane's hip gently, +"you mustn't touch her." + +Jane turned off the hot water and stared. + +"Her!" + +"The little girl who plays. _I_ never touch her. She says I must +not." + +Jane lifted her pail from the sink, laughing outright. + +"Well, that sounds as if she was a pretty airy young one," she +said. "I guess you're a queer little pair. Run on. I must get at +this floor." + +Judith ran up the three flights of stairs lightly. She was glad +she had told her mother, though she wondered vaguely why it had +never seemed right to tell her until last night, and last night +it had seemed not so much necessary as imperative. Something had +obliged her to tell her. The time had come when she must know. +The Closed Room door had always shut itself gently after Judith +had passed through it, and yesterday, when her mother passing by +chance, had tried the handle so vigorously, the two children +inside the room had stood still gazing at each other, but neither +had spoken and Judith had not thought of speaking. She was out of +the realm of speech, and without any sense of amazement was aware +that she was out of it. People with voices and words were in that +faraway world below. + +The playing to-day was even a lovelier, happier thing than it had +ever been before. It seemed to become each minute a thing farther +and farther away from the world in the streets where the Elevated +Railroad went humming past like a monster bee. And with the sense +of greater distance came a sense of greater lightness and +freedom. Judith found that she was moving about the room and the +little roof garden almost exactly as she had moved in the waking +dreams where she saw Aunt Hester--almost as if she was floating +and every movement was ecstasy. Once as she thought this she +looked at her playmate, and the child smiled and answered her as +she always did before she spoke. + +"Yes," she said; "I know her. She will come. She sent me." + +She had this day a special plan with regard to the arranging of +the Closed Room. She wanted all the things in it--the doll--the +chairs--the toys--the little table and its service to be placed +in certain positions. She told Judith what to do. Various toys +were put here or there--the little table was set with certain +dishes in a particular part of the room. A book was left lying +upon the sofa cushion, the large doll was put into a chair near +the sofa, with a smaller doll in its arms, on the small writing +desk a letter, which Judith found in a drawer--a half-written +letter--was laid, the pen was left in the ink. It was a strange +game to play, but somehow Judith felt it was very pretty. When it +was all done--and there were many curious things to do--the +Closed Room looked quite different from the cold, dim, orderly +place the door had first opened upon. Then it had looked as if +everything had been swept up and set away and covered and done +with forever--as if the life in it had ended and would never +begin again. Now it looked as if some child who had lived in it +and loved and played with each of its belongings, had just +stepped out from her play--to some other room quite near--quite +near. The big doll in its chair seemed waiting--even listening to +her voice as it came from the room she had run into. + +The child with the burnished hair stood and looked at it with her +delicious smile. + +"That is how it looked," she said. "They came and hid and covered +everything--as if I had gone--as if I was Nowhere. I want her to +know I come here. I couldn't do it myself. You could do it for +me. Go and bring some roses." + +The little garden was a wonder of strange beauty with its masses +of flowers. Judith brought some roses from the bush her playmate +pointed out. She put them into a light bowl which was like a +bubble of thin, clear glass and stood on the desk near the +letter. + +"If they would look like that," the little girl said, "she would +see. But no one sees them like that--when the Life goes away with +me." + +After that the game was finished and they went out on the roof +garden and stood and looked up into the blue above their heads. +How blue--how blue--how clear--how near and real! And how far and +unreal the streets and sounds below. The two children stood and +looked up and laughed at the sweetness of it. + +Then Judith felt a little tired. + +"I will go and lie down on the sofa," she said. + +"Yes," the little girl answered. "It's time for you to go to +sleep." + +They went into the Closed Room and Judith lay down. As she did +so, she saw that the door was standing open and remembered that +her mother was coming up to see her and her playmate. + +The little girl sat down by her. She put out her pretty fine hand +and touched Judith for the first time. She laid her little +pointed fingers on her forehead and Judith fell asleep. + + +It seemed only a few minutes before she wakened again. The little +girl was standing by her. + +"Come," she said. + +They went out together onto the roof among the flowers, but a +strange--a beautiful thing had happened. The garden did not end +at the parapet and the streets and houses were not below. The +little garden ended in a broad green pathway--green with thick, +soft grass and moss covered with trembling white and blue +bell-like flowers. Trees--fresh leaved as if spring had just +awakened them--shaded it and made it look smiling fair. Great +white blossoms tossed on their branches and Judith felt that the +scent in the air came from them. She forgot the city was below, +because it was millions and millions of miles away, and this was +where it was right to be. There was no mistake. This was real. +All the rest was unreal--and millions and millions of miles away. + +They held each other's slim-pointed hands and stepped out upon +the broad, fresh green pathway. There was no boundary or end to +its beauty, and it was only another real thing that coming +towards them from under the white, flowering trees was Aunt +Hester. + + +In the basement Jane Foster was absorbed in her labours, which +were things whose accustomedness provided her with pleasure. She +was fond of her scrubbing, she enjoyed the washing of her dishes, +she definitely entertained herself with the splash and soapy foam +of her washtubs and the hearty smack and swing of her ironing. In +the days when she had served at the ribbon counter in a +department store, she had not found life as agreeable as she had +found it since the hours which were not spent at her own private +sewing machine were given to hearty domestic duties providing +cleanliness, savoury meals, and comfort for Jem. + +She was so busy this particular afternoon that it was inevitable +that she should forget all else but the work which kept her on +her knees scrubbing floors or on a chair polishing windows, and +afterwards hanging before them bits of clean, spotted muslin. + +She was doing this last when her attention being attracted by +wheels in the street stopping before the door, she looked out to +see a carriage door open and a young woman, dressed in exceptionally +deep mourning garb, step onto the pavement, cross it, and ascend the +front steps. + +"Who's she?" Jane exclaimed disturbedly. "Does she think the +house is to let because it's shut?" A ring at the front door bell +called her down from her chair. Among the duties of a caretaker +is naturally included that of answering the questions of +visitors. She turned down her sleeves, put on a fresh apron, and +ran up-stairs to the entrance hall. + +When she opened the door, the tall, young woman in black stepped +inside as if there were no reason for her remaining even for a +moment on the threshold. + +"I am Mrs. Haldon," she said. "I suppose you are the caretaker?" + +Haldon was the name of the people to whom the house belonged. Jem +Foster had heard only the vaguest things of them, but Jane +remembered that the name was Haldon, and remembering that they +had gone away because they had had trouble, she recognized at a +glance what sort of trouble it had been. Mrs. Haldon was tall and +young, and to Jane Foster's mind, expressed from head to foot the +perfection of all that spoke for wealth and fashion. Her garments +were heavy and rich with crape, the long black veil, which she +had thrown back, swept over her shoulder and hung behind her, +serving to set forth, as it were, more pitifully the white +wornness of her pretty face, and a sort of haunting eagerness in +her haggard eyes. She had been a smart, lovely, laughing and +lovable thing, full of pleasure in the world, and now she was so +stricken and devastated that she seemed set apart in an awful +lonely world of her own. + +She had no sooner crossed the threshold than she looked about her +with a quick, smitten glance and began to tremble. Jane saw her +look shudder away from the open door of the front room, where the +chairs had seemed left as if set for some gathering, and the +wax-white flowers had been scattered on the floor. + +She fell into one of the carved hall seats and dropped her face +into her hands, her elbows resting on her knees. + +"Oh! No! No!" she cried. "I can't believe it. I can't believe +it!" + +Jane Foster's eyes filled with good-natured ready tears of +sympathy. + +"Won't you come up-stairs, ma'am?" she said. "Wouldn't you like +to set in your own room perhaps?" + +"No! No!" was the answer. "She was always there! She used to come +into my bed in the morning. She used to watch me dress to go out. +No! No!" + +"I'll open the shutters in the library," said Jane. + +"Oh! No! No! No! She would be sitting on the big sofa with her +fairy story-book. She's everywhere--everywhere! How could I come! +Why did I! But I couldn't keep away! I tried to stay in the +mountains. But I couldn't. Something dragged me day and night. +Nobody knows I am here!" She got up and looked about her again. +"I have never been in here since I went out with HER," she said. +"They would not let me come back. They said it would kill me. And +now I have come--and everything is here--all the things we lived +with--and SHE is millions and millions--and millions of miles +away!" + +"Who--who--was it?" Jane asked timidly in a low voice. + +"It was my little girl," the poor young beauty said. "It was my +little Andrea. Her portrait is in the library." + +Jane began to tremble somewhat herself. "That--?" she began--and +ended: "She is DEAD?" + +Mrs. Haldon had dragged herself almost as if unconsciously to the +stairs. She leaned against the newel post and her face dropped +upon her hand. + +"Oh! I don't KNOW!" she cried. "I cannot believe it. How COULD it +be? She was playing in her nursery--laughing and playing--and she +ran into the next room to show me a flower--and as she looked up +at me--laughing, I tell you--laughing--she sank slowly down on +her knees--and the flower fell out of her hand quietly--and +everything went out of her face--everything was gone away from +her, and there was never anything more--never!" + +Jane Foster's hand had crept up to her throat. She did not know +what made her cold. + +"My little girl--" she began, "her name is Judith--" + +"Where is she?" said Mrs. Haldon in a breathless way. + +"She is up-stairs," Jane answered slowly. "She goes--into that +back room--on the fourth floor--" + +Mrs. Haldon turned upon her with wide eyes. + +"It is locked!" she said. "They put everything away. I have the +key." + +"The door opens for her," said Jane. "She goes to play with a +little girl--who comes to her. I think she comes over the roof +from the next house." + +"There is no child there!" Mrs. Haldon shuddered. But it was not +with horror. There was actually a wild dawning bliss in her face. +"What is she like?" + +"She is like the picture." Jane scarcely knew her own monotonous +voice. The world of real things was being withdrawn from her and +she was standing without its pale--alone with this woman and her +wild eyes. She began to shiver because her warm blood was growing +cold. "She is a child with red hair--and there is a deep dimple +near her mouth. Judith told me. You must not touch her." + +She heard a wild gasp--a flash of something at once anguish and +rapture blazed across the haggard, young face--and with a +swerving as if her slight body had been swept round by a sudden +great wind, Mrs. Haldon turned and fled up the stairs. + +Jane Foster followed. The great wind swept her upward too. She +remembered no single intake or outlet of breath until she was +upon the fourth floor. + +The door of the Closed Room stood wide open and Mrs. Haldon was +swept within. + +Jane Foster saw her stand in the middle of the room a second, a +tall, swaying figure. She whirled to look about her and flung up +her arms with an unearthly rapturous, whispered cry: + +"It is all as she left it when she ran to me and fell. She has +been here--to show me it is not so far!" + +She sank slowly upon her knees, wild happiness in her face--wild +tears pouring down it. + +"She has seen her!" And she stretched forth yearning arms towards +the little figure of Judith, who lay quiet upon the sofa in the +corner. "Your little girl has seen her--and I dare not waken her. +She is asleep." + +Jane stood by the sofa--looking down. When she bent and touched +the child the stillness of the room seemed to have got into her +blood. + +"No," she said, quivering, but with a strange simplicity. "No! +not asleep! It was this way with her Aunt Hester." + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's In the Closed Room, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLOSED ROOM *** + +***** This file should be named 6027.txt or 6027.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/2/6027/ + +Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Charles +Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: In the Closed Room + +Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6027] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 29, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLOSED ROOM *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +IN THE CLOSED ROOM + +by + +FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT +Author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Little Princess + + + +Illustrations by + +Jessie Willcox Smith + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +The playing today was even a lovelier, happier thing than it had +ever been before . . . . Frontispiece + +She often sat curving her small long fingers backward + +They gazed as if they had known each other for ages of years + +"Come and play with me" + +She must go and stand at the door and press her cheek against the +wood and wait--and listen + +She began to mount the stairs which led to the upper floors + +The ledge of the window was so low that a mere step took her +outside + +"I'm going up to play with the little girl, mother . . . You +don't mind, do you?" + + + + +PART ONE + + +In the fierce airless heat of the small square room the child +Judith panted as she lay on her bed. Her father and mother slept +near her, drowned in the heavy slumber of workers after their +day's labour. Some people in the next flat were quarrelling, +irritated probably by the appalling heat and their miserable +helplessness against it. All the hot emanations of the sun-baked +city streets seemed to combine with their clamour and unrest, and +rise to the flat in which the child lay gazing at the darkness. +It was situated but a few feet from the track of the Elevated +Railroad and existence seemed to pulsate to the rush and roar of +the demon which swept past the windows every few minutes. No one +knew that Judith held the thing in horror, but it was a truth +that she did. She was only seven years old, and at that age it is +not easy to explain one's self so that older people can +understand. + +She could only have said, "I hate it. It comes so fast. It is +always coming. It makes a sound as if thunder was quite close. I +can never get away from it." The children in the other flats +rather liked it. They hung out of the window perilously to watch +it thunder past and to see the people who crowded it pressed +close together in the seats, standing in the aisles, hanging on +to the straps. Sometimes in the evening there were people in it +who were going to the theatre, and the women and girls were +dressed in light colours and wore hats covered with white +feathers and flowers. At such times the children were delighted, +and Judith used to hear the three in the next flat calling out to +each other, "That's MY lady! That's MY lady! That one's mine!" + +Judith was not like the children in the other flats. She was a +frail, curious creature, with silent ways and a soft voice and +eyes. She liked to play by herself in a corner of the room and to +talk to herself as she played. No one knew what she talked about, +and in fact no one inquired. Her mother was always too busy. When +she was not making men's coats by the score at the whizzing +sewing machine, she was hurriedly preparing a meal which was +always in danger of being late. There was the breakfast, which +might not be ready in time for her husband to reach his "shop" +when the whistle blew; there was the supper, which might not be +in time to be in waiting for him when he returned in the evening. +The midday meal was a trifling matter, needing no special +preparation. One ate anything one could find left from supper or +breakfast. + +Judith's relation to her father and mother was not a very +intimate one. They were too hard worked to have time for domestic +intimacies, and a feature of their acquaintance was that though +neither of them was sufficiently articulate to have found +expression for the fact--the young man and woman felt the child +vaguely remote. Their affection for her was tinged with something +indefinitely like reverence. She had been a lovely baby with a +peculiar magnolia whiteness of skin and very large, sweetly +smiling eyes of dark blue, fringed with quite black lashes. She +had exquisite pointed fingers and slender feet, and though Mr. +and Mrs. Foster were--perhaps fortunately--unaware of it, she had +been not at all the baby one would have expected to come to life +in a corner of the hive of a workman's flat a few feet from the +Elevated Railroad. + +"Seems sometimes as if somehow she couldn't be mine," Mrs. Foster +said at times. "She ain't like me, an' she ain't like Jem Foster, +Lord knows. She ain't like none of either of our families I've +ever heard of--'ceptin' it might be her Aunt Hester--but SHE died +long before I was born. I've only heard mother tell about her. +She was a awful pretty girl. Mother said she had that kind of +lily-white complexion and long slender fingers that was so supple +she could curl 'em back like they was double-jointed. Her eyes +was big and had eyelashes that stood out round 'em, but they was +brown. Mother said she wasn't like any other kind of girl, and +she thinks Judith may turn out like her. She wasn't but fifteen +when she died. She never was ill in her life--but one morning she +didn't come down to breakfast, and when they went up to call her, +there she was sittin' at her window restin' her chin on her hand, +with her face turned up smilin' as if she was talkin' to some +one. The doctor said it had happened hours before, when she had +come to the window to look at the stars. Easy way to go, wasn't +it?" + +Judith had heard of her Aunt Hester, but she only knew that she +herself had hands like her and that her life had ended when she +was quite young. Mrs. Foster was too much occupied by the +strenuousness of life to dwell upon the passing of souls. To her +the girl Hester seemed too remote to appear quite real. The +legends of her beauty and unlikeness to other girls seemed rather +like a sort of romance. + +As she was not aware that Judith hated the Elevated Railroad, so +she was not aware that she was fond of the far away Aunt Hester +with the long-pointed fingers which could curl backwards. She did +not know that when she was playing in her corner of the room, +where it was her way to sit on her little chair with her face +turned towards the wall, she often sat curving her small long +fingers backward and talking to herself about Aunt Hester. But +this--as well as many other things--was true. It was not +secretiveness which caused the child to refrain from speaking of +certain things. She herself could not have explained the reasons +for her silence; also it had never occurred to her that +explanation and reasons were necessary. Her mental attitude was +that of a child who, knowing a certain language, does not speak +it to those who have never heard and are wholly ignorant of it. +She knew her Aunt Hester as her mother did not. She had seen her +often in her dreams and had a secret fancy that she could dream +of her when she wished to do so. She was very fond of dreaming of +her. The places where she came upon Aunt Hester were strange and +lovely places where the air one breathed smelled like flowers and +everything was lovely in a new way, and when one moved one felt +so light that movement was delightful, and when one wakened one +had not quite got over the lightness and for a few moments felt +as if one would float out of bed. + +The healthy, vigourous young couple who were the child's parents +were in a healthy, earthly way very fond of each other. They had +made a genuine love match and had found it satisfactory. The +young mechanic Jem Foster had met the young shop-girl Jane Hardy, +at Coney Island one summer night and had become at once enamoured +of her shop-girl good looks and high spirits. They had married as +soon as Jem had had the "raise" he was anticipating and had from +that time lived with much harmony in the flat building by which +the Elevated train rushed and roared every few minutes through +the day and a greater part of the night. They themselves did not +object to the "Elevated"; Jem was habituated to uproar in the +machine shop, in which he spent his days, and Jane was too much +absorbed in the making of men's coats by the dozens to observe +anything else. The pair had healthy appetites and slept well +after their day's work, hearty supper, long cheerful talk, and +loud laughter over simple common joking. + +"She's a queer little fish, Judy," Jane said to her husband as +they sat by the open window one night, Jem's arm curved +comfortably around the young woman's waist as he smoked his pipe. +"What do you think she says to me to-night after I put her to +bed?" + +"Search ME!" said Jem oracularly. + +Jane laughed. + +"'Why,' she says, 'I wish the Elevated train would stop.' + +"'Why?' says I. + +"'I want to go to sleep,' says she. 'I'm going to dream of Aunt +Hester.'" + +"What does she know about her Aunt Hester," said Jem. "Who's been +talkin' to her?" + +"Not me," Jane said. "She don't know nothing but what she's +picked up by chance. I don't believe in talkin' to young ones +about dead folks. 'Tain't healthy." + +"That's right," said Jem. "Children that's got to hustle about +among live folks for a livin' best keep their minds out of +cemeteries. But, Hully Gee, what a queer thing for a young one to +say." + +"And that ain't all," Jane went on, her giggle half amused, half +nervous. "'But I don't fall asleep when I see Aunt Hester,' says +she. 'I fall awake. It's more awake there than here.' + +"'Where?' says I, laughing a bit, though it did make me feel +queer. + +"'I don't know' she says in that soft little quiet way of hers. +'There.' And not another thing could I get out of her." + +On the hot night through whose first hours Judith lay panting in +her corner of the room, tormented and kept awake by the constant +roar and rush and flash of lights, she was trying to go to sleep +in the hope of leaving all the heat and noise and discomfort +behind, and reaching Aunt Hester. If she could fall awake she +would feel and hear none of it. It would all be unreal and she +would know that only the lightness and the air like flowers and +the lovely brightness were true. Once, as she tossed on her +cot-bed, she broke into a low little laugh to think how untrue +things really were and how strange it was that people did not +understand--that even she felt as she lay in the darkness that +she could not get away. And she could not get away unless the +train would stop just long enough to let her fall asleep. If she +could fall asleep between the trains, she would not awaken. But +they came so quickly one after the other. Her hair was damp as +she pushed it from her forehead, the bed felt hot against her +skin, the people in the next flat quarreled more angrily, Judith +heard a loud slap, and then the woman began to cry. She was a +young married woman, scarcely more than a girl. Her marriage had +not been as successful as that of Judith's parents. Both husband +and wife had irritable tempers. Through the thin wall Judith +could hear the girl sobbing angrily as the man flung himself out +of bed, put on his clothes and went out, banging the door after +him. + +"She doesn't know," the child whispered eerily, "that it isn't +real at all." + +There was in her strange little soul a secret no one knew the +existence of. It was a vague belief that she herself was not +quite real--or that she did not belong to the life she had been +born into. Her mother and father loved her and she loved them, +but sometimes she was on the brink of telling them that she could +not stay long--that some mistake had been made. What mistake--or +where was she to go to if she went, she did not know. She used to +catch her breath and stop herself and feel frightened when she +had been near speaking of this fantastic thing. But the building +full of workmen's flats, the hot room, the Elevated Railroad, the +quarrelling people, were all a mistake. Just once or twice in her +life she had seen places and things which did not seem so +foreign. Once, when she had been taken to the Park in the Spring, +she had wandered away from her mother to a sequestered place +among shrubs and trees, all waving tender, new pale green, with +the leaves a few early hot days had caused to rush out and +tremble unfurled. There had been a stillness there and scents and +colours she knew. A bird had come and swung upon a twig quite +near her and, looking at her with bright soft full eyes, had sung +gently to her, as if he were speaking. A squirrel had crept up +onto her lap and had not moved when she stroked it. Its eyes had +been full and soft also, and she knew it understood that she +could not hurt it. There was no mistake in her being among the +new fair greenness, and the woodland things who spoke to her. +They did not use words, but no words were needed. She knew what +they were saying. When she had pushed her way through the +greenness of the shrubbery to the driveway she had found herself +quite near to an open carriage, which had stopped because the +lady who sat in it was speaking to a friend on the path. She was +a young woman, dressed in delicate spring colours, and the little +girl at her side was dressed in white cloth, and it was at the +little girl Judith found herself gazing. Under her large white +hat and feathers her little face seemed like a white flower. She +had a deep dimple near her mouth. Her hair was a rich coppery red +and hung heavy and long about her cheeks and shoulders. She +lifted her head a little when the child in the common hat and +frock pressed through the greenness of the bushes and she looked +at Judith just as the bird and the squirrel had looked at her. +They gazed as if they had known each other for ages of years and +were separated by nothing. Each of them was quite happy at being +near the other, and there was not in the mind of either any +question of their not being near each other again. The question +did not rise in Judith's mind even when in a very few minutes the +carriage moved away and was lost in the crowd of equipages +rolling by. + +At the hottest hours of the hot night Judith recalled to herself +the cool of that day. She brought back the fresh pale greenness +of the nook among the bushes into which she had forced her way, +the scent of the leaves and grass which she had drawn in as she +breathed, the nearness in the eyes of the bird, the squirrel, and +the child. She smiled as she thought of these things, and as she +continued to remember yet other things, bit by bit, she felt less +hot--she gradually forgot to listen for the roar of the +train--she smiled still more--she lay quite still--she was +cool--a tiny fresh breeze fluttered through the window and played +about her forehead. She was smiling in soft delight as her +eyelids drooped and closed. + +"I am falling awake," she was murmuring as her lashes touched her +cheek. + +Perhaps when her eyes closed the sultriness of the night had +changed to the momentary freshness of the turning dawn, and the +next hour or so was really cooler. She knew no more heat but +slept softly, deeply, long--or it seemed to her afterwards that +she had slept long--as if she had drifted far away in dreamless +peace. + +She remembered no dream, saw nothing, felt nothing until, as it +seemed to her, in the early morning, she opened her eyes. All was +quite still and clear--the air of the room was pure and sweet. +There was no sound anywhere and, curiously enough, she was not +surprised by this, nor did she expect to hear anything disturbing. + +She did not look round the room. Her eyes remained resting upon +what she first saw--and she was not surprised by this either. A +little girl about her own age was standing smiling at her. She +had large eyes, a deep dimple near her mouth, and coppery red +hair which fell about her cheeks and shoulders. Judith knew her +and smiled back at her. + +She lifted her hand--and it was a pure white little hand with +long tapering fingers. + +"Come and play with me," she said--though Judith heard no voice +while she knew what she was saying. "Come and play with me." + +Then she was gone, and in a few seconds Judith was awake, the air +of the room had changed, the noise and clatter of the streets +came in at the window, and the Elevated train went thundering by. +Judith did not ask herself how the child had gone or how she had +come. She lay still, feeling undisturbed by everything and +smiling as she had smiled in her sleep. + +While she sat at the breakfast table she saw her mother looking +at her curiously. + +"You look as if you'd slept cool instead of hot last night," she +said. "You look better than you did yesterday. You're pretty +well, ain't you, Judy?" + +Judith's smile meant that she was quite well, but she said +nothing about her sleeping. + +The heat did not disturb her through the day, though the hours +grew hotter and hotter as they passed. Jane Foster, sweltering at +her machine, was obliged to stop every few minutes to wipe the +beads from her face and neck. Sometimes she could not remain +seated, but got up panting to drink water and fan herself with a +newspaper. + +"I can't stand much more of this," she kept saying. "If there +don't come a thunderstorm to cool things off I don't know what +I'll do. This room's about five hundred." + +But the heat grew greater and the Elevated trains went thundering +by. + +When Jem came home from his work his supper was not ready. Jane +was sitting helplessly by the window, almost livid in her pallor. +The table was but half spread. + +"Hullo," said Jem; "it's done you up, ain't it?" + +"Well, I guess it has," good-naturedly, certain of his sympathy. +"But I'll get over it presently, and then I can get you a cold +bite. I can't stand over the stove and cook." + +"Hully Gee, a cold bite's all a man wants on a night like this. +Hot chops'd give him the jim-jams. But I've got good news for +you--it's cheered me up myself." + +Jane lifted her head from the chair back. + +"What is it?" + +"Well, it came through my boss. He's always been friendly to me. +He asks a question or so every now and then and seems to take an +interest. To-day he was asking me if it wasn't pretty hot and +noisy down here, and after I told him how we stood it, he said he +believed he could get us a better place to stay in through the +summer. Some one he knows has had illness and trouble in his +family and he's obliged to close his house and take his wife away +into the mountains. They've got a beautiful big house in one of +them far up streets by the Park and he wants to get caretakers in +that can come well recommended. The boss said he could recommend +us fast enough. And there's a big light basement that'll be as +cool as the woods. And we can move in to-morrow. And all we've +got to do is to see that things are safe and live happy." + +"Oh, Jem!" Jane ejaculated. "It sounds too good to be true! Up by +the Park! A big cool place to live!" + +"We've none of us ever been in a house the size of it. You know +what they look like outside, and they say they're bigger than +they look. It's your business to go over the rooms every day or +so to see nothing's going wrong in them--moths or dirt, I +suppose. It's all left open but just one room they've left locked +and don't want interfered with. I told the boss I thought the +basement would seem like the Waldorf-Astoria to us. I tell you I +was so glad I scarcely knew what to say." + +Jane drew a long breath. + +"A big house up there," she said. "And only one closed room in +it. It's too good to be true!" + +"Well, whether it's true or not we'll move out there to-morrow," +Jem answered cheerfully. "To-morrow morning bright and early. The +boss said the sooner the better." + + +A large house left deserted by those who have filled its rooms +with emotions and life, expresses a silence, a quality all its +own. A house unfurnished and empty seems less impressively +silent. The fact of its devoidness of sound is upon the whole +more natural. But carpets accustomed to the pressure of +constantly passing feet, chairs and sofas which have held human +warmth, draperies used to the touch of hands drawing them aside +to let in daylight, pictures which have smiled back at thinking +eyes, mirrors which have reflected faces passing hourly in +changing moods, elate or dark or longing, walls which have echoed +back voices--all these things when left alone seem to be held in +strange arrest, as if by some spell intensifying the effect of +the pause in their existence. + +The child Judith felt this deeply throughout the entirety of her +young being. + +"How STILL it is," she said to her mother the first time they +went over the place together. + +"Well, it seems still up here--and kind of dead," Jane Foster +replied with her habitual sociable half-laugh. "But seems to me +it always feels that way in a house people's left. It's cheerful +enough down in that big basement with all the windows open. We +can sit in that room they've had fixed to play billiards in. We +shan't hurt nothing. We can keep the table and things covered up. +Tell you, Judy, this'll be different from last summer. The Park +ain't but a few steps away an' we can go and sit there too when +we feel like it. Talk about the country--I don't want no more +country than this is. You'll be made over the months we stay +here." + +Judith felt as if this must veritably be a truth. The houses on +either side of the street were closed for the summer. Their +occupants had gone to the seaside or the mountains and the +windows and doors were boarded up. The street was a quiet one at +any time, and wore now the aspect of a street in a city of the +dead. The green trees of the Park were to be seen either gently +stirring or motionless in the sun at the side of the avenue +crossing the end of it. The only token of the existence of the +Elevated Railroad was a remote occasional hum suggestive of the +flying past of a giant bee. The thing seemed no longer a roaring +demon, and Judith scarcely recognized that it was still the +centre of the city's rushing, heated life. + +The owners of the house had evidently deserted it suddenly. The +windows had not been boarded up and the rooms had been left in +their ordinary condition. The furniture was not covered or the +hangings swathed. Jem Foster had been told that his wife must put +things in order. + +The house was beautiful and spacious, its decorations and +appointments were not mere testimonies to freedom of expenditure, +but expressions of a dignified and cultivated thought. Judith +followed her mother from room to room in one of her singular +moods. The loftiness of the walls, the breadth and space about +her made her, at intervals, draw in her breath with pleasure. The +pictures, the colours, the rich and beautiful textures she saw +brought to her the free--and at the same time soothed--feeling +she remembered as the chief feature of the dreams in which she +"fell awake." But beyond all other things she rejoiced in the +height and space, the sweep of view through one large room into +another. She continually paused and stood with her face lifted +looking up at the pictured things floating on a ceiling above +her. Once, when she had stood doing this long enough to forget +herself, she was startled by her mother's laugh, which broke in +upon the silence about them with a curiously earthly sound which +was almost a shock. + +"Wake up, Judy; have you gone off in a dream? You look all the +time as if you was walking in your sleep." + +"It's so high," said Judy. "Those clouds make it look like the sky." + +"I've got to set these chairs straight," said Jane. "Looks like +they'd been havin' a concert here. All these chairs together an' +that part of the room clear." + +She began to move the chairs and rearrange them, bustling about +cheerfully and talking the while. Presently she stooped to pick +something up. + +"What's this," she said, and then uttered a startled exclamation. +"Mercy! they felt so kind of clammy they made me jump. They HAVE +had a party. Here's some of the flowers left fallen on the +carpet." + +She held up a cluster of wax-white hyacinths and large heavy +rosebuds, faded to discoloration. + +"This has dropped out of some set piece. It felt like cold flesh +when I first touched it. I don't like a lot of white things +together. They look too kind of mournful. Just go and get the +wastepaper basket in the library, Judy. We'll carry it around to +drop things into. Take that with you." + +Judith carried the flowers into the library and bent to pick up +the basket as she dropped them into it. + +As she raised her head she found her eyes looking directly into +other eyes which gazed at her from the wall. They were smiling +from the face of a child in a picture. As soon as she saw them +Judith drew in her breath and stood still, smiling, too, in +response. The picture was that of a little girl in a floating +white frock. She had a deep dimple at one corner of her mouth, +her hanging hair was like burnished copper, she held up a slender +hand with pointed fingers and Judith knew her. Oh! she knew her +quite well. She had never felt so near any one else throughout +her life. + +"Judy, Judy!" Jane Foster called out. "Come here with your +basket; what you staying for?" + +Judith returned to her. + +"We've got to get a move on," said Jane, "or we shan't get +nothin' done before supper time. What was you lookin' at?" + +"There's a picture in there of a little girl I know," Judith +said. "I don't know her name, but I saw her in the Park once +and--and I dreamed about her." + +"Dreamed about her? If that ain't queer. Well, we've got to hurry +up. Here's some more of them dropped flowers. Give me the +basket." + +They went through the whole house together, from room to room, up +the many stairs, from floor to floor, and everywhere Judith felt +the curious stillness and silence. It can not be doubted that +Jane Foster felt it also. + +"It is the stillest house I was ever in," she said. "I'm glad +I've got you with me, Judy. If I was sole alone I believe it 'ud +give me the creeps. These big places ought to have big families +in them." + +It was on the fourth floor that they came upon the Closed Room. +Jane had found some of the doors shut and some open, but a turn +of the handle gave entrance through all the unopened ones until +they reached this one at the back on the fourth floor. + +"This one won't open," Jane said, when she tried the handle. Then +she shook it once or twice. "No, it's locked," she decided after +an effort or two. "There, I've just remembered. There's one kept +locked. Folks always has things they want locked up. I'll make +sure, though." + +She shook it, turned the handle, shook again, pressed her knee +against the panel. The lock resisted all effort. + +"Yes, this is the closed one," she made up her mind. "It's locked +hard and fast. It's the closed one." + +It was logically proved to be the closed one by the fact that she +found no other one locked as she finished her round of the +chambers. + +Judith was a little tired before they had done their work. But +her wandering pilgrimage through the large, silent, deserted +house had been a revelation of new emotions to her. She was +always a silent child. Her mind was so full of strange thoughts +that it seemed unnecessary to say many words. The things she +thought as she followed her from room to room, from floor to +floor, until they reached the locked door, would have amazed and +puzzled Jane Foster if she had known of their existence. Most of +all, perhaps, she would have been puzzled by the effect the +closed door had upon the child. It puzzled and bewildered Judith +herself and made her feel a little weary. + +She wanted so much to go into the room. Without in the least +understanding the feeling, she was quite shaken by it. It seemed +as if the closing of all the other rooms would have been a small +matter in comparison with the closing of this one. There was +something inside which she wanted to see--there was something--somehow +there was something which wanted to see her. What a pity that the door +was locked! Why had it been done? She sighed unconsciously several +times during the evening, and Jane Foster thought she was tired. + +"But you'll sleep cool enough to-night, Judy," she said. "And get +a good rest. Them little breezes that comes rustling through the +trees in the Park comes right along the street to us." + +She and Jem Foster slept well. They spent the evening in the +highest spirits and--as it seemed to them--the most luxurious +comfort. The space afforded them by the big basement, with its +kitchen and laundry and pantry, and, above all, the specially +large room which had been used for billiard playing, supplied +actual vistas. For the sake of convenience and coolness they used +the billiard room as a dormitory, sleeping on light cots, and +they slept with all their windows open, the little breezes +wandering from among the trees of the Park to fan them. How they +laughed and enjoyed themselves over their supper, and how they +stretched themselves out with sighs of joy in the darkness as +they sank into the cool, untroubled waters of deep sleep. + +"This is about the top notch," Jem murmured as he lost his hold +on the world of waking life and work. + +But though she was cool, though she was undisturbed, though her +body rested in absolute repose, Judith did not sleep for a long +time. She lay and listened to the quietness. There was mystery in +it. The footstep of a belated passer-by in the street woke +strange echoes; a voice heard in the distance in a riotous shout +suggested weird things. And as she lay and listened, it was as if +she were not only listening but waiting for something. She did +not know at all what she was waiting for, but waiting she was. + +She lay upon her cot with her arms flung out and her eyes wide +open. What was it that she wanted--that which was in the closed +room? Why had they locked the door? If they had locked the doors +of the big parlours it would not have mattered. If they had +locked the door of the library--Her mind paused--as if for a +moment, something held it still. Then she remembered that to have +locked the doors of the library would have been to lock in the +picture of the child with the greeting look in her eyes and the +fine little uplifted hand. She was glad the room had been left +open. But the room up-stairs--the one on the fourth floor--that +was the one that mattered most of all. She knew that to-morrow +she must go and stand at the door and press her cheek against the +wood and wait--and listen. Thinking this and knowing that it must +be so, she fell--at last--asleep. + + + +PART TWO + + +Judith climbed the basement stairs rather slowly. Her mother was +busy rearranging the disorder the hastily departing servants had +left. Their departure had indeed been made in sufficient haste to +have left behind the air of its having been flight. There was a +great deal to be done, and Jane Foster, moving about with broom +and pail and scrubbing brushes, did not dislike the excitement of +the work before her. Judith's certainty that she would not be +missed made all clear before her. If her absence was observed her +mother would realize that the whole house lay open to her and +that she was an undisturbing element wheresoever she was led +either by her fancy or by circumstance. If she went into the +parlours she would probably sit and talk to herself or play +quietly with her shabby doll. In any case she would be finding +pleasure of her own and would touch nothing which could be +harmed. + +When the child found herself in the entrance hall she stopped a +few moments to look about her. The stillness seemed to hold her +and she paused to hear and feel it. In leaving the basement +behind, she had left the movement of living behind also. No one +was alive upon this floor--nor upon the next--nor the next. It +was as if one had entered a new world--a world in which something +existed which did not express itself in sound or in things which +one could see. Chairs held out their arms to emptiness--cushions +were not pressed by living things--only the people in the +pictures were looking at something, but one could not tell what +they were looking at. + +But on the fourth floor was the Closed Room, which she must go +to--because she must go to it--that was all she knew. + +She began to mount the stairs which led to the upper floors. Her +shabby doll was held against her hip by one arm, her right hand +touched the wall as she went, she felt the height of the wall as +she looked upward. It was such a large house and so empty. Where +had the people gone and why had they left it all at once as if +they were afraid? Her father had only heard vaguely that they had +gone because they had had trouble. + +She passed the second floor, the third, and climbed towards the +fourth. She could see the door of the Closed Room as she went up +step by step, and she found herself moving more quickly. Yes, she +must get to it--she must put her hand on it--her chest began to +rise and fall with a quickening of her breath, and her breath +quickened because her heart fluttered--as if with her haste. She +began to be glad, and if any one could have seen her they would +have been struck by a curious expectant smile in her eyes. + +She reached the landing and crossed it, running the last few +steps lightly. She did not wait or stand still a moment. With the +strange expectant smile on her lips as well as in her eyes, she +put her hand upon the door--not upon the handle, but upon the +panel. Without any sound it swung quietly open. And without any +sound she stepped quietly inside. + +The room was rather large and the light in it was dim. There were +no shutters, but the blinds were drawn down. Judith went to one +of the windows and drew its blind up so that the look of the +place might be clear to her. There were two windows and they +opened upon the flat roof of an extension, which suggested +somehow that it had been used as a place to walk about in. This, +at least, was what Judith thought of at once--that some one who +had used the room had been in the habit of going out upon the +roof and staying there as if it had been a sort of garden. There +were rows of flower pots with dead flowers in them--there were +green tubs containing large shrubs, which were dead also--against +the low parapet certain of them held climbing plants which had +been trained upon it. Two had been climbing roses, two were +clematis, but Judith did not know them by name. The ledge of the +window was so low that a mere step took her outside. So taking +it, she stood among the dried, withered things and looked in +tender regret at them. + +"I wish they were not dead," she said softly to the silence. "It +would be like a garden if they were not dead." + +The sun was hot, but a cool, little breeze seemed straying up +from among the trees of the Park. It even made the dried leaves +of the flowers tremble and rustle a little. Involuntarily she +lifted her face to the blue sky and floating white clouds. They +seemed so near that she felt almost as if she could touch them +with her hand. The street seemed so far--so far below--the whole +world seemed far below. If one stepped off the parapet it would +surely take one a long time to reach the earth. She knew now why +she had come up here. It was so that she might feel like this--as +if she was upheld far away from things--as if she had left +everything behind--almost as if she had fallen awake again. There +was no perfume in the air, but all was still and sweet and clear. + +Suddenly she turned and went into the room again, realizing that +she had scarcely seen it at all and that she must see and know +it. It was not like any other room she had seen. It looked more +simple, though it was a pretty place. The walls were covered with +roses, there were bright pictures, and shelves full of books. +There was also a little writing desk and there were two or three +low chairs, and a low table. A closet in a corner had its door +ajar and Judith could see that inside toys were piled together. +In another corner a large doll's house stood, looking as if some +one had just stopped playing with it. Some toy furniture had been +taken out and left near it upon the carpet. + +"It was a little girl's room," Judith said. "Why did they close +it?" + +Her eye was caught by something lying on a sofa--something +covered with a cloth. It looked almost like a child lying there +asleep--so fast asleep that it did not stir at all. Judith moved +across to the sofa and drew the cloth aside. With its head upon a +cushion was lying there a very large doll, beautifully dressed in +white lace, its eyes closed, and a little wreath of dead flowers +in its hair. + +"It looks almost as if it had died too," said Judith. + +She did not ask herself why she said "as if it had died +too"--perhaps it was because the place was so still--and +everything so far away--that the flowers had died in the strange, +little deserted garden on the roof. + +She did not hear any footsteps--in fact, no ghost of a sound +stirred the silence as she stood looking at the doll's sleep--but +quite quickly she ceased to bend forward, and turned round to +look at something which she knew was near her. There she was--and +it was quite natural she should be there--the little girl with +the face like a white flower, with the quantity of burnished +coppery hair and the smile which deepened the already deep dimple +near her mouth. + +"You have come to play with me," she said. + +"Yes," answered Judith. "I wanted to come all night. I could not +stay down-stairs." + +"No," said the child; "you can't stay down-stairs. Lift up the +doll." + +They began to play as if they had spent their lives together. +Neither asked the other any questions. Judith had not played with +other children, but with this one she played in absolute and +lovely delight. The little girl knew where all the toys were, and +there were a great many beautiful ones. She told Judith where to +find them and how to arrange them for their games. She invented +wonderful things to do--things which were so unlike anything +Judith had ever seen or heard or thought of that it was not +strange that she realized afterwards that all her past life and +its belongings had been so forgotten as to be wholly blotted out +while she was in the Closed Room. She did not know her playmate's +name, she did not remember that there were such things as names. +Every moment was happiness. Every moment the little girl seemed +to grow more beautiful in the flower whiteness of her face and +hands and the strange lightness and freedom of her movements. +There was an ecstasy in looking at her--in feeling her near. + +Not long before Judith went down-stairs she found herself +standing with her outside the window in among the withered +flowers. + +"It was my garden," the little girl said. "It has been so hot and +no one has been near to water them, so they could not live." + +She went lightly to one of the brown rose-bushes and put her +pointed-fingered little hand quite near it. She did not touch it, +but held her hand near--and the leaves began to stir and uncurl +and become fresh and tender again, and roses were nodding, +blooming on the stems. And she went in the same manner to each +flower and plant in turn until all the before dreary little +garden was bright and full of leaves and flowers. + +"It's Life," she said to Judith. Judith nodded and smiled back at +her, understanding quite well just as she had understood the eyes +of the bird who had swung on the twig so near her cheek the day +she had hidden among the bushes in the Park. + +"Now, you must go," the little girl said at last. And Judith went +out of the room at once--without waiting or looking back, though +she knew the white figure did not stir till she was out of sight. + +It was not until she had reached the second floor that the change +came upon her. It was a great change and a curious one. The +Closed Room became as far away as all other places and things had +seemed when she had stood upon the roof feeling the nearness of +the blueness and the white clouds--as when she had looked round +and found herself face to face with the child in the Closed Room. +She suddenly realized things she had not known before. She knew +that she had heard no voice when the little girl spoke to +her--she knew that it had happened, that it was she only who had +lifted the doll--who had taken out the toys--who had arranged the +low table for their feast, putting all the small service upon +it--and though they had played with such rapturous enjoyment and +had laughed and feasted--what had they feasted on? That she could +not recall--and not once had she touched or been touched by the +light hand or white dress--and though they seemed to express +their thoughts and intentions freely she had heard no voice at +all. She was suddenly bewildered and stood rubbing her hand over +her forehead and her eyes--but she was happy--as happy as when +she had fallen awake in her sleep--and was no more troubled or +really curious than she would have been if she had had the same +experience every day of her life. + +"Well, you must have been having a good time playing up-stairs," +Jane Foster said when she entered the big kitchen. "This is going +to do you good, Judy. Looks like she'd had a day in the country, +don't she, Jem?" + +Through the weeks that followed her habit of "playing up-stairs" +was accepted as a perfectly natural thing. No questions were +asked and she knew it was not necessary to enter into any +explanations. + +Every day she went to the door of the Closed Room and, finding it +closed, at a touch of her hand upon the panel it swung softly +open. There she waited--sometimes for a longer sometimes for a +shorter time--and the child with the coppery hair came to her. +The world below was gone as soon as she entered the room, and +through the hours they played together joyously as happy children +play. But in their playing it was always Judith who touched the +toys--who held the doll---who set the little table for their +feast. Once as she went down-stairs she remembered that when she +had that day made a wreath of roses from the roof and had gone to +put it on her playmate's head, she had drawn back with deepened +dimple and, holding up her hand, had said, laughing: "No. Do not +touch me." + +But there was no mystery in it after all. Judith knew she should +presently understand. + +She was so happy that her happiness lived in her face in a sort +of delicate brilliance. Jane Foster observed the change in her +with exceeding comfort, her view being that spacious quarters, +fresh air, and sounder sleep had done great things for her. + +"Them big eyes of hers ain't like no other child's eyes I've ever +seen," she said to her husband with cheerful self-gratulation. +"An' her skin's that fine an' thin an' fair you can jest see +through it. She always looks to me as if she was made out of +different stuff from me an' you, Jem. I've always said it." + +"She's going to make a corking handsome girl," responded Jem with +a chuckle. + +They had been in the house two months, when one afternoon, as she +was slicing potatoes for supper, Jane looked round to see the +child standing at the kitchen doorway, looking with a puzzled +expression at some wilted flowers she held in her hand. Jane's +impression was that she had been coming into the room and had +stopped suddenly to look at what she held. + +"What've you got there, Judy?" she asked. + +"They're flowers," said Judith, her eyes still more puzzled. + +"Where'd you get 'em from? I didn't know you'd been out. I +thought you was up-stairs." + +"I was," said Judith quite simply. "In the Closed Room." + +Jane Foster's knife dropped into her pan with a splash. + +"Well," she gasped. + +Judith looked at her with quiet eyes. + +"The Closed Room!" Jane cried out. "What are you saying? You +couldn't get in?" + +"Yes, I can." + +Jane was conscious of experiencing a shock. She said afterwards +that suddenly something gave her the creeps. + +"You couldn't open the door," she persisted. "I tried it again +yesterday as I passed by--turned the handle and gave it a regular +shove and it wouldn't give an inch." + +"Yes," the child answered; "I heard you. We were inside then." + +A few days later, when Jane weepingly related the incident to +awe-stricken and sympathizing friends, she described as +graphically as her limited vocabulary would allow her to do so, +the look in Judith's face as she came nearer to her. + +"Don't tell me there was nothing happening then," she said. "She +just came up to me with them dead flowers in her hand an' a kind +of look in her eyes as if she was half sorry for me an' didn't +know quite why. + +"'The door opens for me,' she says. 'That's where I play every +day. There's a little girl comes and plays with me. She comes in +at the window, I think. She is like the picture in the room where +the books are. Her hair hangs down and she has a dimple near her +mouth.' + +"I couldn't never tell any one what I felt like. It was as if I'd +got a queer fright that I didn't understand. + +"'She must have come over the roof from the next house,' I says. +'They've got an extension too--but I thought the people were gone +away.' + +"'There are flowers on our roof,' she said. 'I got these there.' +And that puzzled look came into her eyes again. 'They were +beautiful when I got them--but as I came down-stairs they died.' + +"'Well, of all the queer things,' I said. She put out her hand +and touched my arm sort of lovin' an' timid. + +"'I wanted to tell you to-day, mother,' she said. 'I had to tell +you to-day. You don't mind if I go play with her, do you? You +don't mind?' + +"Perhaps it was because she touched me that queer little loving +way--or was it the way she looked--it seemed like something came +over me an' I just grabbed her an' hugged her up. + +"'No,' I says. 'So as you come back. So as you come back.' + +"And to think!" And Jane rocked herself sobbing. + +A point she dwelt on with many tears was that the child seemed in +a wistful mood and remained near her side--bringing her little +chair and sitting by her as she worked, and rising to follow her +from place to place as she moved from one room to the other. + +"She wasn't never one as kissed you much or hung about like some +children do--I always used to say she was the least bother of any +child I ever knew. Seemed as if she had company of her own when +she sat in her little chair in the corner whispering to herself +or just setting quiet." This was a thing Jane always added during +all the years in which she told the story. "That was what made me +notice. She kept by me and she kept looking at me different from +any way I'd seen her look before--not pitiful exactly--but +something like it. And once she came up and kissed me and once or +twice she just kind of touched my dress or my hand--as I stood by +her. SHE knew. No one need tell me she didn't." + +But this was an error. The child was conscious only of a tender, +wistful feeling, which caused her to look at the affectionate +healthy young woman who had always been good to her and whom she +belonged to, though she remotely wondered why--the same +tenderness impelled her to touch her arm, hand and simple dress, +and folding her arms round her neck to kiss her softly. It was an +expression of gratitude for all the rough casual affection of the +past. All her life had been spent at her side--all her life on +earth had sprung from her. + +When she went up-stairs to the Closed Room the next day she told +her mother she was going before she left the kitchen. + +"I'm going up to play with the little girl, mother," she said. +"You don't mind, do you?" + +Jane had had an evening of comfortable domestic gossip and joking +with Jem, had slept, slept soundly and eaten a hearty breakfast. +Life had reassumed its wholly normal aspect. The sun was shining +hot and bright and she was preparing to scrub the kitchen floor. +She believed that the child was mistaken as to the room she had +been in. + +"That's all right," she said, turning the hot water spigot over +the sink so that the boiling water poured forth at full flow into +her pail, with clouds of steam. "But when I've done my scrubbing +I'm comin' up to see if it IS the Closed Room you play in. If it +is, I guess you'd better play somewhere else--and I want to find +out how you get that door open. Run along if you like." + +Judith came back to her from the door. "Yes," she said, "come and +see. But if she is there," putting her hand on Jane's hip gently, +"you mustn't touch her." + +Jane turned off the hot water and stared. + +"Her!" + +"The little girl who plays. _I_ never touch her. She says I must +not." + +Jane lifted her pail from the sink, laughing outright. + +"Well, that sounds as if she was a pretty airy young one," she +said. "I guess you're a queer little pair. Run on. I must get at +this floor." + +Judith ran up the three flights of stairs lightly. She was glad +she had told her mother, though she wondered vaguely why it had +never seemed right to tell her until last night, and last night +it had seemed not so much necessary as imperative. Something had +obliged her to tell her. The time had come when she must know. +The Closed Room door had always shut itself gently after Judith +had passed through it, and yesterday, when her mother passing by +chance, had tried the handle so vigorously, the two children +inside the room had stood still gazing at each other, but neither +had spoken and Judith had not thought of speaking. She was out of +the realm of speech, and without any sense of amazement was aware +that she was out of it. People with voices and words were in that +faraway world below. + +The playing to-day was even a lovelier, happier thing than it had +ever been before. It seemed to become each minute a thing farther +and farther away from the world in the streets where the Elevated +Railroad went humming past like a monster bee. And with the sense +of greater distance came a sense of greater lightness and +freedom. Judith found that she was moving about the room and the +little roof garden almost exactly as she had moved in the waking +dreams where she saw Aunt Hester--almost as if she was floating +and every movement was ecstasy. Once as she thought this she +looked at her playmate, and the child smiled and answered her as +she always did before she spoke. + +"Yes," she said; "I know her. She will come. She sent me." + +She had this day a special plan with regard to the arranging of +the Closed Room. She wanted all the things in it--the doll--the +chairs--the toys--the little table and its service to be placed +in certain positions. She told Judith what to do. Various toys +were put here or there--the little table was set with certain +dishes in a particular part of the room. A book was left lying +upon the sofa cushion, the large doll was put into a chair near +the sofa, with a smaller doll in its arms, on the small writing +desk a letter, which Judith found in a drawer--a half-written +letter--was laid, the pen was left in the ink. It was a strange +game to play, but somehow Judith felt it was very pretty. When it +was all done--and there were many curious things to do--the +Closed Room looked quite different from the cold, dim, orderly +place the door had first opened upon. Then it had looked as if +everything had been swept up and set away and covered and done +with forever--as if the life in it had ended and would never +begin again. Now it looked as if some child who had lived in it +and loved and played with each of its belongings, had just +stepped out from her play--to some other room quite near--quite +near. The big doll in its chair seemed waiting--even listening to +her voice as it came from the room she had run into. + +The child with the burnished hair stood and looked at it with her +delicious smile. + +"That is how it looked," she said. "They came and hid and covered +everything--as if I had gone--as if I was Nowhere. I want her to +know I come here. I couldn't do it myself. You could do it for +me. Go and bring some roses." + +The little garden was a wonder of strange beauty with its masses +of flowers. Judith brought some roses from the bush her playmate +pointed out. She put them into a light bowl which was like a +bubble of thin, clear glass and stood on the desk near the +letter. + +"If they would look like that," the little girl said, "she would +see. But no one sees them like that--when the Life goes away with +me." + +After that the game was finished and they went out on the roof +garden and stood and looked up into the blue above their heads. +How blue--how blue--how clear--how near and real! And how far and +unreal the streets and sounds below. The two children stood and +looked up and laughed at the sweetness of it. + +Then Judith felt a little tired. + +"I will go and lie down on the sofa," she said. + +"Yes," the little girl answered. "It's time for you to go to +sleep." + +They went into the Closed Room and Judith lay down. As she did +so, she saw that the door was standing open and remembered that +her mother was coming up to see her and her playmate. + +The little girl sat down by her. She put out her pretty fine hand +and touched Judith for the first time. She laid her little +pointed fingers on her forehead and Judith fell asleep. + + +It seemed only a few minutes before she wakened again. The little +girl was standing by her. + +"Come," she said. + +They went out together onto the roof among the flowers, but a +strange--a beautiful thing had happened. The garden did not end +at the parapet and the streets and houses were not below. The +little garden ended in a broad green pathway--green with thick, +soft grass and moss covered with trembling white and blue +bell-like flowers. Trees--fresh leaved as if spring had just +awakened them--shaded it and made it look smiling fair. Great +white blossoms tossed on their branches and Judith felt that the +scent in the air came from them. She forgot the city was below, +because it was millions and millions of miles away, and this was +where it was right to be. There was no mistake. This was real. +All the rest was unreal--and millions and millions of miles away. + +They held each other's slim-pointed hands and stepped out upon +the broad, fresh green pathway. There was no boundary or end to +its beauty, and it was only another real thing that coming +towards them from under the white, flowering trees was Aunt +Hester. + + +In the basement Jane Foster was absorbed in her labours, which +were things whose accustomedness provided her with pleasure. She +was fond of her scrubbing, she enjoyed the washing of her dishes, +she definitely entertained herself with the splash and soapy foam +of her washtubs and the hearty smack and swing of her ironing. In +the days when she had served at the ribbon counter in a +department store, she had not found life as agreeable as she had +found it since the hours which were not spent at her own private +sewing machine were given to hearty domestic duties providing +cleanliness, savoury meals, and comfort for Jem. + +She was so busy this particular afternoon that it was inevitable +that she should forget all else but the work which kept her on +her knees scrubbing floors or on a chair polishing windows, and +afterwards hanging before them bits of clean, spotted muslin. + +She was doing this last when her attention being attracted by +wheels in the street stopping before the door, she looked out to +see a carriage door open and a young woman, dressed in exceptionally +deep mourning garb, step onto the pavement, cross it, and ascend the +front steps. + +"Who's she?" Jane exclaimed disturbedly. "Does she think the +house is to let because it's shut?" A ring at the front door bell +called her down from her chair. Among the duties of a caretaker +is naturally included that of answering the questions of +visitors. She turned down her sleeves, put on a fresh apron, and +ran up-stairs to the entrance hall. + +When she opened the door, the tall, young woman in black stepped +inside as if there were no reason for her remaining even for a +moment on the threshold. + +"I am Mrs. Haldon," she said. "I suppose you are the caretaker?" + +Haldon was the name of the people to whom the house belonged. Jem +Foster had heard only the vaguest things of them, but Jane +remembered that the name was Haldon, and remembering that they +had gone away because they had had trouble, she recognized at a +glance what sort of trouble it had been. Mrs. Haldon was tall and +young, and to Jane Foster's mind, expressed from head to foot the +perfection of all that spoke for wealth and fashion. Her garments +were heavy and rich with crape, the long black veil, which she +had thrown back, swept over her shoulder and hung behind her, +serving to set forth, as it were, more pitifully the white +wornness of her pretty face, and a sort of haunting eagerness in +her haggard eyes. She had been a smart, lovely, laughing and +lovable thing, full of pleasure in the world, and now she was so +stricken and devastated that she seemed set apart in an awful +lonely world of her own. + +She had no sooner crossed the threshold than she looked about her +with a quick, smitten glance and began to tremble. Jane saw her +look shudder away from the open door of the front room, where the +chairs had seemed left as if set for some gathering, and the +wax-white flowers had been scattered on the floor. + +She fell into one of the carved hall seats and dropped her face +into her hands, her elbows resting on her knees. + +"Oh! No! No!" she cried. "I can't believe it. I can't believe +it!" + +Jane Foster's eyes filled with good-natured ready tears of +sympathy. + +"Won't you come up-stairs, ma'am?" she said. "Wouldn't you like +to set in your own room perhaps?" + +"No! No!" was the answer. "She was always there! She used to come +into my bed in the morning. She used to watch me dress to go out. +No! No!" + +"I'll open the shutters in the library," said Jane. + +"Oh! No! No! No! She would be sitting on the big sofa with her +fairy story-book. She's everywhere--everywhere! How could I come! +Why did I! But I couldn't keep away! I tried to stay in the +mountains. But I couldn't. Something dragged me day and night. +Nobody knows I am here!" She got up and looked about her again. +"I have never been in here since I went out with HER," she said. +"They would not let me come back. They said it would kill me. And +now I have come--and everything is here--all the things we lived +with--and SHE is millions and millions--and millions of miles +away!" + +"Who--who--was it?" Jane asked timidly in a low voice. + +"It was my little girl," the poor young beauty said. "It was my +little Andrea. Her portrait is in the library." + +Jane began to tremble somewhat herself. "That--?" she began--and +ended: "She is DEAD?" + +Mrs. Haldon had dragged herself almost as if unconsciously to the +stairs. She leaned against the newel post and her face dropped +upon her hand. + +"Oh! I don't KNOW!" she cried. "I cannot believe it. How COULD it +be? She was playing in her nursery--laughing and playing--and she +ran into the next room to show me a flower--and as she looked up +at me--laughing, I tell you--laughing--she sank slowly down on +her knees--and the flower fell out of her hand quietly--and +everything went out of her face--everything was gone away from +her, and there was never anything more--never!" + +Jane Foster's hand had crept up to her throat. She did not know +what made her cold. + +"My little girl--" she began, "her name is Judith--" + +"Where is she?" said Mrs. Haldon in a breathless way. + +"She is up-stairs," Jane answered slowly. "She goes--into that +back room--on the fourth floor--" + +Mrs. Haldon turned upon her with wide eyes. + +"It is locked!" she said. "They put everything away. I have the +key." + +"The door opens for her," said Jane. "She goes to play with a +little girl--who comes to her. I think she comes over the roof +from the next house." + +"There is no child there!" Mrs. Haldon shuddered. But it was not +with horror. There was actually a wild dawning bliss in her face. +"What is she like?" + +"She is like the picture." Jane scarcely knew her own monotonous +voice. The world of real things was being withdrawn from her and +she was standing without its pale--alone with this woman and her +wild eyes. She began to shiver because her warm blood was growing +cold. "She is a child with red hair--and there is a deep dimple +near her mouth. Judith told me. You must not touch her." + +She heard a wild gasp--a flash of something at once anguish and +rapture blazed across the haggard, young face--and with a +swerving as if her slight body had been swept round by a sudden +great wind, Mrs. Haldon turned and fled up the stairs. + +Jane Foster followed. The great wind swept her upward too. She +remembered no single intake or outlet of breath until she was +upon the fourth floor. + +The door of the Closed Room stood wide open and Mrs. Haldon was +swept within. + +Jane Foster saw her stand in the middle of the room a second, a +tall, swaying figure. She whirled to look about her and flung up +her arms with an unearthly rapturous, whispered cry: + +"It is all as she left it when she ran to me and fell. She has +been here--to show me it is not so far!" + +She sank slowly upon her knees, wild happiness in her face--wild +tears pouring down it. + +"She has seen her!" And she stretched forth yearning arms towards +the little figure of Judith, who lay quiet upon the sofa in the +corner. "Your little girl has seen her--and I dare not waken her. +She is asleep." + +Jane stood by the sofa--looking down. When she bent and touched +the child the stillness of the room seemed to have got into her +blood. + +"No," she said, quivering, but with a strange simplicity. "No! +not asleep! It was this way with her Aunt Hester." + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's In the Closed Room, by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CLOSED ROOM *** + +This file should be named ntcrm10.txt or ntcrm10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, ntcrm11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ntcrm10a.txt + +Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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