"If you have common sense enough not to keep fussing because the room happens to be the one my aunt died in," said Sophia bluntly.
"Fiddlesticks!" said the widow, Mrs. Elvira Simmons.
That very afternoon she moved into the southwest chamber. The young girl Flora assisted her, though much against her will.
"Now I want you to carry Mrs. Simmons' dresses into the closet in that room and hang them up nicely, and see that she has everything she wants," said Sophia Gill. "And you can change the bed and put on fresh sheets. What are you looking at me that way for?""Oh, Aunt Sophia, can't I do something else?""What do you want to do something else for?"
"I am afraid."
"Afraid of what? I should think you'd hang your head. No; you go right in there and do what I tell you."Pretty soon Flora came running into the sitting-room where Sophia was, as pale as death, and in her hand she held a queer, old-fashioned frilled nightcap.
"What's that?" demanded Sophia.
"I found it under the pillow."
"What pillow?"
"In the southwest room."
Sophia took it and looked at it sternly.
"It's Great-aunt Harriet's," said Flora faintly.
"You run down street and do that errand at the grocer's for me and I'll see that room," said Sophia with dignity. She carried the nightcap away and put it in the trunk in the garret where she had supposed it stored with the rest of the dead woman's belongings.
Then she went into the southwest chamber and made the bed and assisted Mrs. Simmons to move, and there was no further incident.
The widow was openly triumphant over her new room. She talked a deal about it at the dinner-table.
"It is the best room in the house, and I expect you all to be envious of me," said she.
"And you are sure you don't feel afraid of ghosts?" said the librarian.
"Ghosts!" repeated the widow with scorn. "If a ghost comes I'll send her over to you. You are just across the hall from the southwest room.""You needn't," returned Eliza Lippincott with a shudder. "Iwouldn't sleep in that room, after--" she checked herself with an eye on the minister.
"After what?" asked the widow.
"Nothing," replied Eliza Lippincott in an embarrassed fashion.
"I trust Miss Lippincott has too good sense and too great faith to believe in anything of that sort," said the minister.
"I trust so, too," replied Eliza hurriedly.
"You did see or hear something--now what was it, I want to know?"said the widow that evening when they were alone in the parlour.
The minister had gone to make a call.
Eliza hesitated.
"What was it?" insisted the widow.
"Well," said Eliza hesitatingly, "if you'll promise not to tell.""Yes, I promise; what was it?"
"Well, one day last week, just before the school-teacher came, Iwent in that room to see if there were any clouds. I wanted to wear my gray dress, and I was afraid it was going to rain, so Iwanted to look at the sky at all points, so I went in there, and--""And what?"
"Well, you know that chintz over the bed, and the valance, and the easy chair; what pattern should you say it was?""Why, peacocks on a blue ground. Good land, I shouldn't think any one who had ever seen that would forget it.""Peacocks on a blue ground, you are sure?"
"Of course I am. Why?"
"Only when I went in there that afternoon it was not peacocks on a blue ground; it was great red roses on a yellow ground.""Why, what do you mean?"
"What I say."
"Did Miss Sophia have it changed?"
"No. I went in there again an hour later and the peacocks were there.""You didn't see straight the first time."
"I expected you would say that."
"The peacocks are there now; I saw them just now.""Yes, I suppose so; I suppose they flew back.""But they couldn't."
"Looks as if they did."
"Why, how could such a thing be? It couldn't be.""Well, all I know is those peacocks were gone for an hour that afternoon and the red roses on the yellow ground were there instead."The widow stared at her a moment, then she began to laugh rather hysterically.
"Well," said she, "I guess I sha'n't give up my nice room for any such tomfoolery as that. I guess I would just as soon have red roses on a yellow ground as peacocks on a blue; but there's no use talking, you couldn't have seen straight. How could such a thing have happened?""I don't know," said Eliza Lippincott; "but I know I wouldn't sleep in that room if you'd give me a thousand dollars.""Well, I would," said the widow, "and I'm going to."When Mrs. Simmons went to the southwest chamber that night she cast a glance at the bed-hanging and the easy chair. There were the peacocks on the blue ground. She gave a contemptuous thought to Eliza Lippincott.
"I don't believe but she's getting nervous," she thought. "Iwonder if any of her family have been out at all."But just before Mrs. Simmons was ready to get into bed she looked again at the hangings and the easy chair, and there were the red roses on the yellow ground instead of the peacocks on the blue.
She looked long and sharply. Then she shut her eyes, and then opened them and looked. She still saw the red roses. Then she crossed the room, turned her back to the bed, and looked out at the night from the south window. It was clear and the full moon was shining. She watched it a moment sailing over the dark blue in its nimbus of gold. Then she looked around at the bed hangings. She still saw the red roses on the yellow ground.
Mrs. Simmons was struck in her most venerable point. This apparent contradiction of the reasonable as manifested in such a commonplace thing as chintz of a bed-hanging affected this ordinarily unimaginative woman as no ghostly appearance could have done.
Those red roses on the yellow ground were to her much more ghostly than any strange figure clad in the white robes of the grave entering the room.
She took a step toward the door, then she turned with a resolute air. "As for going downstairs and owning up I'm scared and having that Lippincott girl crowing over me, I won't for any red roses instead of peacocks. I guess they can't hurt me, and as long as we've both of us seen 'em I guess we can't both be getting loony,"she said.