Evidence of Things Seen Read Online Free Page A

sitting room, and found the hasp tight in its socket; when she levered it up, and swung the flat door towards her, not a breath of air came down from above. Not a breath of air could come down, as she discovered when she had climbed the steep flight and emerged into hot dimness; the one low window, which faced to the east, was not only shut; it was sealed with a cobweb. But it was otherwise quite clean, as was the rest of the raftered place; even the floorboards were fairly free of dust—what she could see of them; for the attic, to her surprise, was far from empty. Miss Radford seemed to have left not only a lot of old furniture in the place, but a large trunk. There were some framed pictures, too, standing with their faces against the wall; and there was a big old wardrobe with a drawer under it—a drawer so crammed with books and papers that it could not be entirely closed.
    The furniture was horrid stuff, ornate and plush-covered; the pictures shiny chromos, of no possible value; the trunk an old-fashioned monster, initialed E. R. H. Its lock hung open. Clara, wondering whether summer tenants were not supposed to need attic room, lifted its lid, and was instantly smothered by an overpowering odor of mothball. Really, this was too bad of Miss Radford; she had left all her winter things in the cottage. Dresses and underclothing; a shawl-like garment; and there in a corner some knitting and a work bag!
    Feeling rather disgusted with her landlady, Clara got down on the floor and dragged open the long drawer under the wardrobe. Velvet-bound photograph albums, some old songs in flowery paper covers, old magazines and novels. Clara had never heard of the novels; The Sorrows of Satan, Chandos, Beauty’s Daughters , but she thought they must surely go back to a day earlier than Miss Radford’s own. She pushed the drawer in as far as it would go, got up from the floor, and swung open the doors of the wardrobe.
    Here, if you please, was a summer wardrobe! Silk, gingham, voile—straw hats on a shelf. A faded dress and a sunbonnet, purple, with a small black sprig.
    These could not be Miss Radford’s clothes; none of the things in the attic were Miss Radford’s. They were her dead sister’s, from the trunk to the furniture, from the sentimental songs and novels to the garments in the wardrobe. Nothing to frighten anybody in that harmless fact, though Miss Radford might have had the common politeness to dispose of the relics before her tenants came in. But that limp purple dress, that sunbonnet hanging by its knotted strings—Clara had seen them, or their phantom replicas, before.
    She stood looking at them, or rather she stood looking at nothing, in the pose of one who waits, listens, is afraid to turn. Then at last she pushed the doors to, and went across the attic to the stairs with her back straight, her shoulders rigid, her chin high. She descended, latched the attic door behind her, and walked quickly into and through her own bedroom to the flagstone outside its back door. She sat down on it, breathing hard.
    Well; she could write to or telephone the agent and ask to have the things removed; but hadn’t she better wait and consult with the Herons before entering upon what might be a controversy? Had she really seen—at some distance—a sunbonnet and a dress like those repulsive-looking things in the wardrobe? Was she getting sunbonnets on the brain?
    At least she could get away from them, and from the cottage, for a while. She had an errand; she must get that man of Mrs. Simms’ to look at the latch, and while he was about it he could attend to some doors that stuck. The Herons would not like their bedroom and bathroom doors to stick.
    Clara used her car only when she was forced to use it; she liked walking, and now set out on her walk to the Simmses’ farm. She went down the little hill behind the cottage, past the windows of the two ground-floor bedrooms, past the kitchen