The Haunting of Hill House Read online

  “I don’t like the younger sister,” Theodora said. “First she stole her sister’s lover, and then she tried to steal her sister’s dishes. No, I don’t like her.”

  “Hill House has an impressive list of tragedies connected with it, but then, most old houses have. People have to live and die somewhere, after all, and a house can hardly stand for eighty years without seeing some of its inhabitants die within its walls. After the death of the older sister, there was a lawsuit over the house. The companion insisted that the house was left to her, but the younger sister and her husband maintained most violently that the house belonged legally to them and claimed that the companion had tricked the older sister into signing away property which she had always intended leaving to her sister. It was an unpleasant business, like all family quarrels, and as in all family quarrels incredibly harsh and cruel things were said on either side. The companion swore in court—and here, I think, is the first hint of Hill House in its true personality—that the younger sister came into the house at night and stole things. When she was pressed to enlarge upon this accusation, she became very nervous and incoherent, and finally, forced to give some evidence for her charge, said that a silver service was missing, and a valuable set of enamels, in addition to the famous set of gold-rimmed dishes, which would actually be a very difficult thing to steal, when you think about it. For her part, the younger sister went so far as to mention murder and demand an investigation into the death of old Miss Crain, bringing up the first hints of the stories of neglect and mismanagement. I cannot discover that these suggestions were ever taken seriously. There is no record whatever of any but the most formal notice of the older sister’s death, and certainly the villagers would have been the first to wonder if there had been any oddness about the death. The companion won her case at last, and could, in my opinion, have won a case for slander besides, and the house became legally hers, although the younger sister never gave up trying to get it. She kept after the unfortunate companion with letters and threats, made the wildest accusations against her everywhere, and in the local police records there is listed at least one occasion when the companion was forced to apply for police protection to prevent her enemy from attacking her with a broom. The companion went in terror, seemingly; her house burgled at night—she never stopped insisting that they came and stole things—and I read one pathetic letter in which she complained that she had not spent a peaceful night in the house since the death of her benefactor. Oddly enough, sympathy around the village was almost entirely with the younger sister, perhaps because the companion, once a village girl, was now lady of the manor. The villagers believed—and still believe, I think—that the younger sister was defrauded of her inheritance by a scheming young woman. They did not believe that she would murder her friend, you see, but they were delighted to believe that she was dishonest, certainly because they were capable of dishonesty themselves when opportunity arose. Well, gossip is always a bad enemy. When the poor creature killed herself—”

  “Killed herself?” Eleanor, shocked into speech, half rose. “She had to kill herself?”

  “You mean, was there another way of escaping her tormentor? She certainly did not seem to think so. It was accepted locally that she had chosen suicide because her guilty conscience drove her to it. I am more inclined to believe that she was one of those tenacious, unclever young women who can hold on desperately to what they believe is their own but cannot withstand, mentally, a constant nagging persecution; she had certainly no weapons to fight back against the younger sister’s campaign of hatred, her own friends in the village had been turned against her, and she seems to have been maddened by the conviction that locks and bolts could not keep out the enemy who stole into her house at night—”

  “She should have gone away,” Eleanor said. “Left the house and run as far as she could go.”

  “In effect, she did. I really think the poor girl was hated to death; she hanged herself, by the way. Gossip says she hanged herself from the turret on the tower, but when you have a house like Hill House with a tower and a turret, gossip would hardly allow you to hang yourself anywhere else. After her death, the house passed legally into the hands of the Sanderson family, who were cousins of hers and in no way as vulnerable to the persecutions of the younger sister, who must have been a little demented herself by that time. I heard from Mrs. Sanderson that when the family—it would have been her husband’s parents—first came to see the house, the younger sister showed up to abuse them, standing on the road to howl at them as they went by, and found herself packed right off to the local police station. And that seems to be the end of the younger sister’s part in the story: from the day the first Sanderson sent her packing to the brief notice of her death a few years later, she seems to have spent her time brooding silently over her wrongs, but far away from the Sandersons. Oddly enough, in all her ranting, she insisted always on one point—she had not, would not, come into this house at night, to steal or for any other reason.”

  “Was anything ever really stolen?” Luke asked.

  “As I told you, the companion was finally pressed into saying that one or two things seemed to be missing, but could not say for sure. As you can imagine, the story of the nightly intruder did a good deal to enhance Hill House’s further reputation. Moreover, the Sandersons did not live here at all. They spent a few days in the house, telling the villagers that they were preparing it for their immediate occupancy, and then abruptly cleared out, closing the house the way it stood. They told around the village that urgent business took them to live in the city, but the villagers thought they knew better. No one has lived in the house since for more than a few days at a time. It has been on the market, for sale or rent, ever since. Well, that is a long story. I need more brandy.”

  “Those two poor little girls,” Eleanor said, looking into the fire. “I can’t forget them, walking through these dark rooms, trying to play dolls, maybe, in here or those bedrooms upstairs.”

  “And so the old house has just been sitting here.” Luke put out a tentative finger and touched the marble cupid gingerly. “Nothing in it touched, nothing used, nothing here wanted by anyone any more, just sitting here thinking.”

  “And waiting,” Eleanor said.

  “And waiting,” the doctor confirmed. “Essentially,” he went on slowly, “the evil is the house itself, I think. It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives, it is a place of contained ill will. Well. Tomorrow you will see it all. The Sandersons put in electricity and plumbing and a telephone when they first thought to live here, but otherwise nothing has been changed.”

  “Well,” Luke said after a little silence, “I’m sure we will all be very comfortable here.”

  5

  Eleanor found herself unexpectedly admiring her own feet. Theodora dreamed over the fire just beyond the tips of her toes, and Eleanor thought with deep satisfaction that her feet were handsome in their red sandals; what a complete and separate thing I am, she thought, going from my red toes to the top of my head, individually an I, possessed of attributes belonging only to me. I have red shoes, she thought—that goes with being Eleanor; I dislike lobster and sleep on my left side and crack my knuckles when I am nervous and save buttons. I am holding a brandy glass which is mine because I am here and I am using it and I have a place in this room. I have red shoes and tomorrow I will wake up and I will still be here.

  “I have red shoes,” she said very softly, and Theodora turned and smiled up at her.

  “I had intended—” and the doctor looked around at them with bright, anxious optimism—“I had intended to ask if you all played bridge?”

  “Of course,” Eleanor said. I play bridge, she thought; I used to have a cat named Dancer; I can swim.

  “I’m afraid not,” Theodora said, and the other three turned and regarded her with frank dismay.

  “Not at all?” the doctor asked.

  “I’ve been playing bridge twice a week for eleven years,” Eleanor said, “with
my mother and her lawyer and his wife—I’m sure you must play as well as that.”

  “Maybe you could teach me?” Theodora asked. “I’m quick at learning games.”

  “Oh, dear,” the doctor said, and Eleanor and Luke laughed.

  “We’ll do something else instead,” Eleanor said; I can play bridge, she thought; I like apple pie with sour cream, and I drove here by myself.

  “Backgammon,” the doctor said with bitterness.

  “I play a fair game of chess,” Luke said to the doctor, who cheered at once.

  Theodora set her mouth stubbornly. “I didn’t suppose we came here to play games,” she said.

  “Relaxation,” the doctor said vaguely, and Theodora turned with a sullen shrug and stared again into the fire.

  “I’ll get the chessmen, if you’ll tell me where,” Luke said, and the doctor smiled.

  “Better let me go,” he said. “I’ve studied a floor plan of the house, remember. If we let you go off wandering by yourself we’d very likely never find you again.” As the door closed behind him Luke gave Theodora a quick curious glance and then came over to stand by Eleanor. “You’re not nervous, are you? Did that story frighten you?”

  Eleanor shook her head emphatically, and Luke said, “You looked pale.”

  “I probably ought to be in bed,” Eleanor said. “I’m not used to driving as far as I did today.”

  “Brandy,” Luke said. “It will make you sleep better. You too,” he said to the back of Theodora’s head.

  “Thank you,” Theodora said coldly, not turning. “I rarely have trouble sleeping.”

  Luke grinned knowingly at Eleanor, and then turned as the doctor opened the door. “My wild imagination,” the doctor said, setting down the chess set. “What a house this is.”

  “Did something happen?” Eleanor asked.

  The doctor shook his head. “We probably ought to agree, now, not to wander around the house alone,” he said.

  “What happened?” Eleanor asked.

  “My own imagination,” the doctor said firmly. “This table all right, Luke?”

  “It’s a lovely old chess set,” Luke said. “I wonder how the younger sister happened to overlook it.”

  “I can tell you one thing,” the doctor said, “if it was the younger sister sneaking around this house at night, she had nerves of iron. It watches,” he added suddenly. “The house. It watches every move you make.” And then, “My own imagination, of course.”

  In the light of the fire Theodora’s face was stiff and sulky; she likes attention, Eleanor thought wisely and, without thinking, moved and sat on the floor beside Theodora. Behind her she could hear the gentle sound of chessmen being set down on a board and the comfortable small movements of Luke and the doctor taking each other’s measure, and in the fire there were points of flame and little stirrings. She waited a minute for Theodora to speak, and then said agreeably, “Still hard to believe you’re really here?”

  “I had no idea it would be so dull,” Theodora said.

  “We’ll find plenty to do in the morning,” Eleanor said.

  “At home there would be people around, and lots of talking and laughing and lights and excitement—”

  “I suppose I don’t need such things,” Eleanor said, almost apologetically. “There never was much excitement for me. I had to stay with Mother, of course. And when she was asleep I kind of got used to playing solitaire or listening to the radio. I never could bear to read in the evenings because I had to read aloud to her for two hours every afternoon. Love stories”—and she smiled a little, looking into the fire. But that’s not all, she thought, astonished at herself, that doesn’t tell what it was like, even if I wanted to tell; why am I talking?

  “I’m terrible, aren’t I?” Theodora moved quickly and put her hand over Eleanor’s. “I sit here and grouch because there’s nothing to amuse me; I’m very selfish. Tell me how horrible I am.” And in the firelight her eyes shone with delight.

  “You’re horrible,” Eleanor said obediently; Theodora’s hand on her own embarrassed her. She disliked being touched, and yet a small physical gesture seemed to be Theodora’s chosen way of expressing contrition, or pleasure, or sympathy; I wonder if my fingernails are clean, Eleanor thought, and slid her hand away gently.

  “I am horrible,” Theodora said, good-humored again. “I’m horrible and beastly and no one can stand me. There. Now tell me about yourself.”

  “I’m horrible and beastly and no one can stand me.”

  Theodora laughed. “Don’t make fun of me. You’re sweet and pleasant and everyone likes you very much; Luke has fallen madly in love with you, and I am jealous. Now I want to know more about you. Did you really take care of your mother for many years?”

  “Yes,” Eleanor said. Her fingernails were dirty, and her hand was badly shaped and people made jokes about love because sometimes it was funny. “Eleven years, until she died three months ago.”

  “Were you sorry when she died? Should I say how sorry I am?”

  “No. She wasn’t very happy.”

  “And neither were you?”

  “And neither was I.”

  “But what about now? What did you do afterward, when you were free at last?”

  “I sold the house,” Eleanor said. “My sister and I each took whatever we wanted from it, small things; there was really nothing much except little things my mother had saved—my father’s watch, and some old jewelry. Not at all like the sisters of Hill House.”

  “And you sold everything else?”

  “Everything. Just as soon as I could.”

  “And then of course you started a gay, mad fling that brought you inevitably to Hill House?”

  “Not exactly.” Eleanor laughed.

  “But all those wasted years! Did you go on a cruise, look for exciting young men, buy new clothes . . . ?”

  “Unfortunately,” Eleanor said dryly, “there was not at all that much money. My sister put her share into the bank for her little girl’s education. I did buy some clothes, to come to Hill House.” People like answering questions about themselves, she thought; what an odd pleasure it is. I would answer anything right now.

  “What will you do when you go back? Do you have a job?”

  “No, no job right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “I know what I’ll do.” Theodora stretched luxuriously. “I’ll turn on every light in our apartment and just bask.”

  “What is your apartment like?”

  Theodora shrugged. “Nice,” she said. “We found an old place and fixed it up ourselves. One big room, and a couple of small bedrooms, nice kitchen—we painted it red and white and made over a lot of old furniture we dug up in junk shops—one really nice table, with a marble top. We both love doing over old things.”

  “Are you married?” Eleanor asked.

  There was a little silence, and then Theodora laughed quickly and said, “No.”

  “Sorry,” Eleanor said, horribly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to be curious.”

  “You’re funny,” Theodora said and touched Eleanor’s cheek with her finger. There are lines by my eyes, Eleanor thought, and turned her face away from the fire. “Tell me where you live,” Theodora said.

  Eleanor thought, looking down at her hands which were badly shaped. We could have afforded a laundress, she thought; it wasn’t fair. My hands are awful. “I have a little place of my own,” she said slowly. “An apartment, like yours, only I live alone. Smaller than yours, I’m sure. I’m still furnishing it—buying one thing at a time, you know, to make sure I get everything absolutely right. White curtains. I had to look for weeks before I found my little stone lions on each corner of the mantel, and I have a white cat and my books and records and pictures. Everything has to be exactly the way I want it, because there’s only me to use it; once I had a blue cup with stars painted on the inside; when you looked down into a cup of tea it was full of stars. I want a cup like that.”

  “Ma
ybe one will turn up someday, in my shop,” Theodora said. “Then I can send it to you. Someday you’ll get a little package saying ‘To Eleanor with love from her friend Theodora,’ and it will be a blue cup full of stars.”

  “I would have stolen those gold-rimmed dishes,” Eleanor said, laughing.

  “Mate,” Luke said, and the doctor said, “Oh dear, oh dear.”

  “Blind luck,” Luke said cheerfully. “Have you ladies fallen asleep there by the fire?”