Yellow Room Read Online Free

And that smell makes me sick. I’m giving you notice this minute, Miss Spencer.”
    Carol fought off the nightmare sensation that was beginning to paralyze her.
    “Now look, Freda,” she said reasonably, her face a little set, “you can’t leave. Not right away, anyhow. I can’t call a taxi. The cars in the garage have no gasoline and no batteries. They’re jacked up anyhow. There’s not even a train until tonight.”
    Maggie took hold then.
    “Don’t be a little fool, Freda,” she said. “I expect Mrs. Norton’s ordered the groceries. You take off your hat and coat, and I’ll make hot coffee. We’ll all feel better then.”
    A hasty inspection of the supply closet revealed no groceries, however. There was an empty coffee can and the heel of a loaf of bread. In the refrigerator were a couple of eggs, a partly used jar of marmalade, and a few slices of bacon on a plate. Maggie’s face was grim. She looked up at the eight-day kitchen clock, which was still going.
    “If that lazy George Smith’s here we can send him into town,” she said. “Go out and see if you can find him, Nora. He’s the gardener—or he says he is.”
    She ordered Freda to the cellar for coal, and under protest Freda went. Carol sat down on a kitchen chair while Maggie looked at her with concern.
    “You’re too young to have all this wished on you,” she said, with the familiarity of her twenty years of service. “Don’t take it too hard. Somebody’s sick at Lucy’s, most likely. I don’t know why your mother got this idea anyhow. Mr. Greg won’t come. He’d got only thirty days and probably he’ll want to get married. It’s a pity,” she added grimly, “that you and Mr. Don didn’t get married before he left.”
    Because Carol was tired and worried, tears came into her eyes. She brushed them away impatiently.
    “That’s all over, Maggie,” she said. “We have to carry on.”
    Then Freda came back, gingerly carrying a pail partly filled with coal, and Maggie started to light a fire. The odor—whatever it was—was not strong here, but when Maggie poured a little kerosene onto the coals and dropped a match onto it, Carol realized the odor was much the same. Perhaps Lucy had started the furnace fire that way.
    Nora came back, shivering, from the grounds. “I don’t see anybody,” she reported. “The grass has been cut here and there, but there’s nobody out there.”
    She huddled by the stove, and Carol got up abruptly.
    “Something’s happened to Lucy,” she said. “Take over, Maggie, and get started. I’ll go down to the village and find out what’s wrong. I’ll order some groceries too. The Miller market will be open now.”
    “One of the girls can do it,” Maggie objected.
    But Carol refused. She was worried about Lucy. Also she knew what was needed, and how to find it. And—although she did not say it—she wanted to get out of the house. Always before when she came it had been warm and welcoming, but that day it was different. It felt, she thought shiveringly, like a tomb.

3
    S HE WAS STILL SHIVERING as she got her bag from the entrance hall. She did not put on her hat. She left the front door open to let in more air, and stood outside looking about her.
    There was no sign that George Smith had done much. Branches from the great pines littered the turnaround of the drive, and where the hill rose abruptly behind it the tool house appeared to be closed and locked. But the day was brilliantly bright, a bed of peonies by the grass terrace at the side of the house was beginning to show radiant pink and white blossoms, and a robin was sitting back on its tail and pulling vigorously at a worm. It was familiar and friendly, and she started briskly down the hill.
    This was a mistake. She had not changed her shoes, and walking was not easy. The gravel had been raked into the center of the drive to avoid washing away in the winter rains and thaws, and the hard base underneath was rough. It was no use going to