It was an afternoon in late winter, and I had just come up from
luncheon, when Mrs. Vanderbridge asked me to empty an old desk in one of
the upstairs rooms. "I am sending all the furniture in that room away,"
she said, "it was bought in a bad period, and I want to clear it out and
make room for the lovely things we picked up in Italy. There is nothing
in the desk worth saving except some old letters from Mr. Vanderbridge's
mother before her marriage."
I was glad that she could think of anything so practical as furniture,
and it was with relief that I followed her into the dim, rather musty
room over the library, where the windows were all tightly closed. Years
ago, Hopkins had once told me, the first Mrs. Vanderbridge had used this
room for a while, and after her death her husband had been in the habit
of shutting himself up alone here in the evenings. This, I inferred, was
the secret reason why my employer was sending the furniture away. She
had resolved to clear the house of every association with the past.
For a few minutes we sorted the letters in the drawers of the desk, and
then, as I expected, Mrs. Vanderbridge became suddenly bored by the task
she had undertaken. She was subject to these nervous reactions, and I
was prepared for them even when they seized her so spasmodically.
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