Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-12-14

|
ing bare, unfinished room, precisely
like any other empty room?'
| "But | should set about furnishing it at
once"
"Let US come away" I said, gently re-
moving her dear obstinate hand from the
lock; 81 repeat have feeling about that
room that would prevent my ever being
happy in it," and added lightly, "Don't
let my Eve spoil our paradise by longing
after the forbidden fruit"
But Grace said quietly: at was not
Adam who forbade Eve to eat of the fruit.
If it had been, can't see that there would
have been any great harm in disobeying
him." And we said no more about the
locked door, but cloud had come between
US, and the unalloyed sweetness of our first
happiness was lost.
One day, few weeks after this folly,
when l was beginning to hope that my
wife had forgotten her curiosity, saw
from her constrained and uneasy manner
that something had happened to disturb
her.
"My dear Grace you certainly are not
happy this morning-will you not tell me
what ails your" ! asked.
Her voice trembled and her face flushed
as she replied: Humphrey, l did not
think you could tell me an untruth"
"lly child, what dc you mean? We are
playing at cross purposes. Be so good as
to explain your meaning, that we may not
misunderstood each other tor moment"
you told me that the big bedroom you
kept locked was empty"
$50 it IS" | said, growing impatient at
this childish scene; "but what is the I'M
truth have told you? ?"
"Why, the room is not empty. l can
prove what l say"
THE room not empty! Nonsense |
keep the key, and no one but myself has
entered it these two years"
Glow can you persist in such an I'M
truth, Humphrey? | am not ashamed to
confess that looked through the keyhole
I wonder did not do it beforehand l
saw in the middle of the room, between the
door and the window, an enormous old bed.
could only see the two footposts, but they
went up to the ceiling, and the foot-board
was high and richly carved, and the cur
tains gloomy, dark green. So you have
deceived me about the room, and am
afraid there is some secret connected with
it that you dare not tell me. What ais
you, Humphrey ~ and my wife rose with
a terrified exclamation, for | thought was
fainting, and all the life seemed to have
gone out of the air.
"Grace," | said, when l had shaken off
the sense of oppression, ''let US go at once
to that unlucky room, and settle this pre-
posterous dispute. You say that the room
has furniture in it; say that it is empty.
We will see which Of us is right, and then
we will never mention the subject again !"
and asked my wife to come with me and
assure herself that the room was as | said,
absolutely bare and unfinished. My hand
shook as 1 turned the key, and finging
the door open till it strained on its hinges,
we entered the room together.
Grace shrank back with low cry, and
covered her face with her hands.
"Where is it gone to, the great bed that
saw standing on this very spot? cannot
have been deceived. Oh, Humphrey why
do you play me such cruel tricks? You
terrify me-"
my little wife, l said, assuming an air
of cheerfulness | was far from feeling,
"this comes of what l must call you over
weening curiosity. If my dear girl had
been content to let me keep this door
locked she would not have grown so curl
Gus that her little brain is almost turned,
and she has taken to seeing house-wifely
spectral illusions of domestic furniture.
Depend upon it, what you think you saw
was nothing but the creature of your own
imagination, that has dwelt so long on the
idea of furnishing the room that you have
only to peep through the keyhole, and,
hey, presto the thing is done, and beds
and tables start forward at your bidding.
But henceforward you can enter the room
as often as you like, only we will not live
in it, and | will not have it furnished"
This appeared to satisfy Grace, and
though could not fully persuade her that
the great bed she had seen when she
peeped through the keyhole was an illu-
sion begotten of curiosity and lively i'm
agination, yet with the door of the room
unlocked she felt that she had some con-
troll over any tricks | might play her in
the future.
was deeply disturbed by what she had
told me. | had not breathed word to my
wife about the destruction of the ancestral
bed. Mrs. Barrett was dead before we
were married, and had changed my serv-
ants since her death, and, as we saw moth
ing of our neighbors, Grace could not have
heard from any one of the CHASTITY old bed
which, nevertheless, she had accurately
described to me.
| could never tell her the truth now.
1t would shake her nerves and impress
her with the idea that there was some
thing weird about the house. I wished l
had not destroyed the old bed. Better far
that she should have known the gloomy
reality than behold presentment of it
that was neither an embodiment of mem
DRY nor a vivid picturing of it from i'm
agination. tried if | could summon up a
like hallucination, but in vain. Though
my memory of the ancient bed was perfect,
and every detail stamped on my mind,
never could I call it up before my ex-
ternal vision, however earnestly | tried to
do so.
Grace completely regained her accus-
toned cheerfulness, and in the spring was
busy making thousand little preparations
for the expected arrival of an infant,
which was to surpass any yet born into
this world. could hardly believe the
gentle obstinacy of my wife, when after all
l had said about the empty room she asked
me one day if she might not make it into
a nursery.
"Do you not remember, dear, that said
we would not furnish that room? ?" said.
''Oh, Of course, not furnish it; nursery
needs no furniture; but it is much the
most cheerful and sunny room in the
house"
And again had to appear inhuman and
refuse my little wife trivial request.
One morning as | sat in my room busy
with my accounts, Grace came to tell me
that she was going to drive to the country
town, some eight miles distant, for round
of shopping, such as her soul loved.
said that if she would wait till the next
day | should be able to take her myself,
! but she tapped the barometer on the wall,
that had stood at some time at "set fair, "
and assured me it would rain tomorrow,
and that she must avail herself of the fine
weather to-day So awav drove my xalf-