Christmas Carol Read Free Page A

for the light switch and found it, and
electric bulbs glowed in the crystal chandelier that hung in the
center of the ceiling. “Just as I thought. No one is here. Nor in
the bathroom, either. Nor in the dressing room.” Carol moved from
bath to mirrored dressing room and back to the bedroom, still
talking to herself.
    “Lady Augusta was the kind of personality
that impresses itself on everything around it and hangs on after
death. That’s what I’m reacting to. Tomorrow I’ll tell Nell to open
the windows in here and do a thorough cleaning to get rid of the
last traces of the old girl, including that awful lavender perfume
of hers.”
    Carol started for the hall, then paused.
Though she knew it was impossible because she had just searched the
suite, a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades warned
that there was someone else in the bedroom with her. She spun
around, but the room was still empty. From somewhere a cold draft
blew across her ankles and she caught a whiff of lavender
fragrance. Quickly she turned off the light, stepped into the hall,
and shut the door firmly behind her. Then she hurried to the end of
the hall, where the stairs to the upper floors were. She refused to
look back as she went upward toward her own room.
    It had once been a governess’s room, and thus
fell into an indeterminate status between outright servants’
quarters and a chamber that might have been given to an
insignificant guest when Marlowe House was overcrowded. The room
was at the front of the house, and a pair of windows allowed Carol
a view of the square, which in summer was pleasant enough with
trees, grass, and a flower garden, all confined within a
wrought-iron fence. At the moment a small fir tree in the center of
the square was decorated for Christmas. Its colored lights shone
merrily through the early evening fog and drizzle. The weather was
more like Halloween than Christmastime. It was a fine night for
ghosts, if Carol had believed in them. She did not. There was
little Carol did believe in anymore. She closed the curtains
against the cheerful holiday display.
    Nell, the chambermaid, had already been in to
start a fire in the old fireplace to take the chill off the room.
The flames threw dancing shadows across the ceiling and the walls.
It was a simple room, with an old-fashioned four-poster bed that
had once boasted frayed velvet hangings. The dust and the musty
odor of the antique fabric had periodically sent her into fits of
sneezing, so Carol had personally removed the hangings shortly
after her arrival at Marlowe House. Besides the bed, the room also
contained a chest of drawers, a desk and chair, and an upholstered
wing chair next to the fireplace. A floor lamp, a footstool, and a
small table, all of them set next to the wing chair, completed the
furnishings. The bathroom was three doors down the hall.
    Carol did not care that the room was bare of
pretty objects, that the bed looked naked without its hangings, or
that the old Turkish carpet and the green bedspread were both
threadbare. She could think of no good reason to spend her
hard-earned money on frivolous decorations. The Spartan bareness of
her room suited her repressed spirit—though she would not have said
she was repressed. Carol thought of herself as sensible in the face
of adversity.
    Having no further obligations for that
evening, she changed from her plain, dark dress and low-heeled
pumps into a flannel nightgown and a warm bathrobe.
    “Here’s your dinner, Miss Simmons.” Nell
appeared with a tray. “Oh, are you ready for bed so soon? I wish
you would come down to eat with the rest of us. It’s ever so much
more pleasant in the kitchen, and warmer, too. You’ll freeze way up
here all alone.”
    “No, I won’t.” Carol motioned to her to put
the tray on the table next to the wing chair. “That will be all,
Nell.”
    “You oughten to be alone so much.” Nell took
no offense at the similarity of Carol’s tone to the way in