Chapter-7
It was the day of the grandmamma’s departure. Heidi and Clara were very sad and they had been crying the whole night. They woke up early morning to spend a few hours with her as her departure was scheduled in the afternoon. The three of them talked all the morning with their eyes wet. Early afternoon, the carriage came and finally Grandmamma left. The house felt as lonely as ever to both the girls and they felt as if the last person to love them on the earth were no longer near them. Clara and Heidi did not know what to do with themselves. Heidi lost all her happiness once again.
She would sit alone in her room with her hands over her eyes, as if shut out sunshine. It filled her with an overwhelming homesickness.
Suddenly the environment of the house began to change and some strange things started to happen in the house. People started to feel scared alone in the house. If any of the servants including Miss Rottenmeier had to go from one room to another, each one asked the other to go with him or her. So, each one of them moved in pair throughout the house.
The reason behind this scariness spread in the house was the mysterious front door. Every morning, the servants had been finding the front door open. No one was able to guess who was doing this. The door had two locks and both were bolted every night. Still, day after day the same thing happened. The opened front door was terrifying the house mates now.
Finally, John and Sebastian decided to solve the mystery. They decided to stay downstairs and see what was happening.
After the dinner that night, John and Sebastian kept sitting at the dining table while others went upstairs and slept. John settled himself in an armchair and slept. Sebastian dozed off too a few minutes later at his place. The clock striking twelve woke up John. He hurried himself to wake up Sebastian who was in a strong sleep. Finally, he succeeded in waking him up.
Sebastian decided to go outside near the front door and check himself. So, he lit up a candle and started his way towards the door with John staying behind. He came out of the room into the passage. He was trying to keep the candle still with trembling hands. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew off the candle. Sebastian realized the wind came from his side and was surprised to see the front door already opened. Then something in the stairs caught his eyes and soon he turned around and came back running towards the room. He entered the room and bolted the room from inside. His legs were shaking and he was pale white. This surprised John.
What happened? Why are you so pale? What did you see outside?” asked John.
“When I reached outside, the candle blew off on its own and the front door was already wide open. Then, I saw a white figure on the stairs and as I saw it, the thing vanished at once,” replied Sebastian in a trembling voice.
This shook John with fear too and they both decided to stay locked inside the room until the sunlight entered the house. They kept sitting wide awake with no one daring to close his eyes even once. In the morning when Miss Rottenmeier came down, she found the two men sitting in the corner of the room.
They both told the whole story and about the white figure. Miss Rottenmeier’s fear towards this mysterious door grew even more. First she decided to write a letter to Mr. Sesemann to come back but she knew that he would not listen to it and won’t come back as for him it would be nonsense. She asked John and Sebastian to leave her alone. Then, she sat down thinking of some idea for the problem.
She realized that first she should make the children aware about the problem in the house as they were still unknown about the mysterious opening of the door. She headed straight towards Clara’s room and told her about the unwanted night guest in the house. Clara asked her to write to her father at once that she wanted him back as soon as possible. Miss Rottenmeier gathered some courage to write to Mr. Sesemann about it as she could convince him using Clara. Clara demanded Miss Rottenmeier not to leave her alone even for a second. In the letter, she specially mentioned about Clara’s degrading health due to the mysterious events in the house as she knew this would pull Mr. Sesemann home faster.
She succeeded in mentioning about Clara’s health in the letter and Mr. Sesemann came home two days later. As soon as he entered the house, he saw the frightened faces of all the people. This made him take the ghost seriously than his business. And within a few minutes of his arrival, Mr. Sesemann called his friend, Dr. Classen, requesting him to arrive immediately. He asked him to get his clothes as he had to spend the night at Mr. Sesemann’s house. He assured the housemates that nothing would trouble them anymore and he would catch the ghost by the next day.
The doctor arrived in the evening. When Mr. Sesemann told him that the house was haunted he burst out in laughter and told that Mr. Sesemann had gone insane himself. But Dr. Classen was convinced till the dinner was finished. John and Sebastian helped Mr. Sesemann convincing Dr. Classen with their dreadful night in the room.
Mr. Sesemann took out his pistol from his cupboard and along with Dr. Classen went to the same room where John and Sebastian were kept themselves locked the whole night. Both men sat down to wait but till midnight nothing happened.
A few minutes after the clock had struck 12 o’ clock, something alarmed Dr. Classen.
“Did you hear something, Sesemann?” asked the doctor.
Both of them tried to hear something and suddenly they looked at each other with fear. It was the sound of a door opening and they knew that it was none other that the front door. Mr. Sesemann pulled out his gun and started moving forward. They reached the door of the room when Mr. Sesemann asked, “Are you afraid of Doctor?”
“No, I guess. But we had better be careful,” replied Classen.
Dr. Classen took a candle and Sesemann followed him. They reached the room and saw the door opened with moonlight coming into the room and the white figure standing near the door. The figure stood motionless.
“Who is it? Who are you?” asked Dr Classen in a trembling tone.
The figure turned around and gave a little cry. And by the sound Dr. Sesemann knew who it was. He quickly went to switch on the lights.
It was Heidi. Both the men kept looking at each other and the girl for a while before they could speak something.
Sesemann went close to the girl and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Heidi answered.
Dr. Classen understood that he had found a case for himself. He asked Mr. Sesemann to leave the child alone. He held Heidi’s hand and took her back to her room while Sesemann sat on the dining table.
The doctor lifted Heidi onto the bed. He examined Heidi’s eyes. He sat beside her and checked her nerves too which were beating faster. He rubbed her hand to make her pulse calm down and waited until she was more of herself.
Then he asked, “Heidi, where were you going?”
“Nowhere,” whispered Heidi, “I don’t remember when I went downstairs. I was just there!”
The doctor could feel the shivering in Heidi’s hand which he was holding so tight.
“I see,” he said, “Did you have some dream, which was very much real to you?”
“Yes, I have this dream every night. I see that I am at my grandfather’s place but when I wake up, I find myself here at Frankfurt,” she said with some sadness in her eyes. A lump came in her throat and she tried to swallow it.
The doctor thought for a while and asked again, “Where did you live with your grandfather?”
“He lives in the mountain,” she replied.
“So, you didn’t enjoy living there with him?” asked the doctor.
“Oh no, it was always fun. I always miss the place,” she replied.
The doctor kept holding her hand until she calmed down and soon she fell asleep. He laid her on the pillow and covered her with the blanket.
Mr. Sesemann had been waiting anxiously for the doctor past one hour. Finally, Dr. Classen came downstairs.
He came and sat next to Mr. Sesemann. “The child walks in her sleep. I am sure that she is the one who has been opening the door at the night. But the other important thing is that she is terribly homesick and has grown weak. She should be sent back to her native mountain. She misses the place and that’s the best way she will be cured.”
Without wasting a second on his thoughts he promised the doctor to send Heidi home to her grandfather at once.
The two kept talking till late night as Mr. Sesemann was worried about telling Clara about everything. He did not wait till the morning and went straight to Clara’s room where he found her already awake. She was very distressed when her father told her all about Heidi’s problem and what Dr. Classen had suggested. He made Clara understand that how necessary it was to send Heidi home. Although she tried to change her father’s mind yet she knew that it was not for Heidi’s good anymore to stay there. To make her daughter happy, Mr. Sesemann promised her a holiday to Switzerland if she would not make any fuss about Heidi’s departure.
After convincing Clara, Mr. Sesemann woke up Miss Rottenmeier and told her to wake up Heidi and prepare her for her journey. She went and woke up Heidi. She quickly packed her clothes in a bag and made her change her clothes. Heidi was confused as why she was being made to wear her Sunday clothes in the middle of the night. She kept asking Miss Rottenmeier but there was no response. At last when Sebastian entered Heidi’s room, he told her that she was being sent back to the mountains. She was wildly happy on hearing this. She jumped off from her bed at once and was ready to leave. When she came down, she saw Clara waiting for her. They both hugged each other. Clara had a basket that contained the soft white rolls for Heidi’s granny. Heidi came outside the house where a carriage was waiting for her. She was lifted into the carriage. There, she saw a trunk full of clothes and gifts kept on the corner of the seat. Then, Sebastian climbed up the carriage and got beside her. Soon, the carriage began to roll and Heidi began to weep with joy seeing back at all her housemates.
They had to spend one night at Basle. Then they reached Mayenfeld by travelling several hours by train. They moved out of the platform and were finding someone who could tell the safest way to Dorfli. They found a man cart who agreed to take Heidi and her trunk with him. Before making Heidi climb the cart, Sebastian gave her a packet telling her that it was a present for her grandfather from Mr. Sesemann. He quietly kept the packet at the bottom of the basket and asked her to give to her grandfather carefully. The man then swung himself up beside and the cart rolled off towards the mountain.
