The Haunting of Hill House (10 page)

“Of
course
it's cheerful,” Theodora said stanchly. “There is nothing more exhilarating than maroon upholstery and oak paneling, and what is that in the corner there? A sedan chair?”

“Tomorrow you will see the
other
rooms,” the doctor told her.

“If we are going to have this for a rumpus room,” Luke said, “I propose we move in something to sit on. I cannot perch for long on anything here; I skid,” he said confidentially to Eleanor.

“Tomorrow,” the doctor said. “Tomorrow, as a matter of fact, we will explore the entire house and arrange things to please ourselves. And now, if you have all finished, I suggest that we determine what Mrs. Dudley has done about our dinner.”

Theodora moved at once and then stopped, bewildered. “Someone is going to have to lead me,” she said. “I can't possibly tell where the dining room is.” She pointed. “
That
door leads to the long passage and then into the front hall,” she said.

The doctor chuckled. “Wrong, my dear. That door leads to the conservatory.” He rose to lead the way. “
I
have studied a map of the house,” he said complacently, “and I believe that we have only to go through the door here, down the passage, into the front hall, and across the hall and through the billiard room to find the dining room. Not hard,” he said, “once you get into practice.”

“Why did they mix themselves up so?” Theodora asked. “Why so many little odd rooms?”

“Maybe they liked to hide from each other,” Luke said.

“
I
can't understand why they wanted everything so dark,” Theodora said. She and Eleanor were following Dr. Montague down the passage, and Luke came behind, lingering to look into the drawer of a narrow table, and wondering aloud to himself at the valance of cupid-heads and ribbon-bunches which topped the paneling in the dark hall.

“Some of these rooms are entirely inside rooms,” the doctor said from ahead of them. “No windows, no access to the outdoors at all. However, a series of enclosed rooms is not altogether surprising in a house of this period, particularly when you recall that what windows they
did
have were heavily shrouded with hangings and draperies within, and shrubbery without. Ah.” He opened the passage door and led them into the front hall. “Now,” he said, considering the doorways opposite, two smaller doors flanking the great central double door; “Now,” he said, and selected the nearest. “The house
does
have its little oddities,” he continued, holding the door so that they might pass through into the dark room beyond. “Luke, come and hold this open so I can find the dining room.” Moving cautiously, he crossed the dark room and opened a door, and they followed him into the pleasantest room they had seen so far, more pleasant, certainly, because of the lights and the sight and smell of food. “I congratulate myself,” he said, rubbing his hands happily. “I have led you to civilization through the uncharted wastes of Hill House.”

“We ought to make a practice of leaving every door wide open.” Theodora glanced nervously over her shoulder. “I
hate
this wandering around in the dark.”

“You'd have to prop them open with something, then,” Eleanor said. “Every door in this house swings shut when you let go of it.”

“Tomorrow,” Dr. Montague said. “I will make a note. Door stops.” He moved happily toward the sideboard, where Mrs. Dudley had set a warming oven and an impressive row of covered dishes. The table was set for four, with a lavish display of candles and damask and heavy silver.

“No stinting, I see,” Luke said, taking up a fork with a gesture which would have confirmed his aunt's worst suspicions. “We get the company silver.”

“I think Mrs. Dudley is proud of the house,” Eleanor said.

“She doesn't intend to give us a poor table, at any rate,” the doctor said, peering into the warming oven. “This is an excellent arrangement, I think. It gets Mrs. Dudley well away from here before dark and enables us to have our dinners without her uninviting company.”

“Perhaps,” Luke said, regarding the plate which he was filling generously, “perhaps I did good Mrs. Dudley—why
must
I continue to think of her, perversely, as
good
Mrs. Dudley?—perhaps I really did her an injustice. She said she hoped to find me alive in the morning, and our dinner was in the oven; now I suspect that she intended me to die of gluttony.”

“What keeps her here?” Eleanor asked Dr. Montague. “Why do she and her husband stay on, alone in this house?”

“As I understand it, the Dudleys have taken care of Hill House ever since anyone can remember; certainly the Sandersons were happy enough to keep them on. But tomorrow—”

Theodora giggled. “Mrs. Dudley is probably the only true surviving member of the family to whom Hill House
really
belongs.
I
think she is only waiting until all the Sanderson heirs—that's you, Luke—die off in various horrible ways, and then she gets the house and the fortune in jewels buried in the cellar. Or maybe she and Dudley hoard their gold in the secret chamber, or there's oil under the house.”

“There are no secret chambers in Hill House,” the doctor said with finality. “Naturally, that possibility has been suggested before, and I think I may say with assurance that no such romantic devices exist here. But tomorrow—”

“In any case, oil is definitely old hat, nothing at all to discover on the property these days,” Luke told Theodora. “The very least Mrs. Dudley could murder me for in cold blood is uranium.”

“Or just the pure fun of it,” Theodora said.

“Yes,” Eleanor said, “but why are we here?”

For a long minute the three of them looked at her, Theodora and Luke curiously, the doctor gravely. Then Theodora said, “Just what
I
was going to ask. Why
are
we here? What
is
wrong with Hill House? What is going to happen?”

“Tomorrow—”

“No,” Theodora said, almost petulantly. “We are three adult, intelligent people. We have all come a long way, Doctor Montague, to meet you here in Hill House; Eleanor wants to know why, and so do I.”

“Me too,” Luke said.

“Why did you bring us here, Doctor? Why are you here yourself? How did you hear about Hill House, and why does it have such a reputation and what really goes on here? What is going to
happen?
”

The doctor frowned unhappily. “I don't know,” he said, and then, when Theodora made a quick, irritated gesture, he went on, “I know very little more about the house than you do, and naturally I intended to tell you everything I do know; as for what is going to
happen,
I will learn that when you do. But tomorrow is soon enough to talk about it, I think; daylight—”

“Not for me,” Theodora said.

“I assure you,” the doctor said, “that Hill House will be quiet tonight. There is a pattern to these things, as though psychic phenomena were subject to laws of a very particular sort.”

“I really think we ought to talk it over tonight,” Luke said.

“We're not afraid,” Eleanor added.

The doctor sighed again. “Suppose,” he said slowly, “you heard the story of Hill House and decided not to stay. How would you leave, tonight?” He looked around at them again, quickly. “The gates are locked. Hill House has a reputation for insistent hospitality; it seemingly dislikes letting its guests get away. The last person who tried to leave Hill House in darkness—it was eighteen years ago, I grant you—was killed at the turn in the driveway, where his horse bolted and crushed him against the big tree. Suppose I tell you about Hill House, and one of you wants to leave? Tomorrow, at least, we could see that you got safely to the village.”

“But we're not going to run away,” Theodora said. “I'm not, and Eleanor isn't, and Luke isn't.”

“Stoutly, upon the ramparts,” Luke agreed.

“You are a mutinous group of assistants. After dinner, then. We will retire to our little boudoir for coffee and a little of the good brandy Luke has in his suitcase, and I will tell you all I know about Hill House. Now, however, let us talk about music, or painting, or even politics.”

“I had not decided,” the doctor said, turning the brandy in his glass, “how best to prepare the three of you for Hill House. I certainly could not write you about it, and I am most unwilling now to influence your minds with its complete history before you have had a chance to see for yourselves.” They were back in the small parlor, warm and almost sleepy. Theodora had abandoned any attempt at a chair and had put herself down on the hearthrug, cross-legged and drowsy. Eleanor, wanting to sit on the hearthrug beside her, had not thought of it in time and had condemned herself to one of the slippery chairs, unwilling now to attract attention by moving and getting herself awkwardly down onto the floor. Mrs. Dudley's good dinner and an hour's quiet conversation had evaporated the faint air of unreality and constraint; they had begun to know one another, recognize individual voices and mannerisms, faces and laughter; Eleanor thought with a little shock of surprise that she had been in Hill House only for four or five hours, and smiled a little at the fire. She could feel the thin stem of her glass between her fingers, the stiff pressure of the chair against her back, the faint movements of air through the room which were barely perceptible in small stirrings of tassels and beads. Darkness lay in the corners, and the marble cupid smiled down on them with chubby good humor.

“What a time for a ghost story,” Theodora said.

“If you please.” The doctor was stiff. “We are not children trying to frighten one another,” he said.

“Sorry.” Theodora smiled up at him. “I'm just trying to get myself used to all of this.”

“Let us,” said the doctor, “exercise great caution in our language. Preconceived notions of ghosts and apparitions—”

“The disembodied hand in the soup,” Luke said helpfully.

“My dear boy.
If
you please. I was trying to explain that our purpose here, since it is of a scientific and exploratory nature, ought not to be affected, perhaps even warped, by halfremembered spooky stories which belong more properly to a—let me see—a marshmallow roast.” Pleased with himself, he looked around to be sure that they were all amused. “As a matter of fact, my researches over the past few years have led me to certain theories regarding psychic phenomena which I have now, for the first time, an opportunity of testing. Ideally, of course, you ought not to know anything about Hill House. You should be ignorant and receptive.”

“And take notes,” Theodora murmured.

“Notes. Yes, indeed. Notes. However, I realize that it is most impractical to leave you entirely without background information, largely because you are not people accustomed to meeting a situation without preparation.” He beamed at them slyly. “You are three willful, spoiled children who are prepared to nag me for your bedtime story.” Theodora giggled, and the doctor nodded at her happily. He rose and moved to stand by the fire in an unmistakable classroom pose; he seemed to feel the lack of a blackboard behind him, because once or twice he half turned, hand raised, as though looking for chalk to illustrate a point. “Now,” he said, “we will take up the history of Hill House.” I wish I had a notebook and a pen, Eleanor thought, just to make him feel at home. She glanced at Theodora and Luke and found both their faces fallen instinctively into a completely rapt classroom look; high earnestness, she thought; we have moved into another stage of our adventure.

“You will recall,” the doctor began, “the houses described in Leviticus as ‘leprous,'
tsaraas,
or Homer's phrase for the underworld:
aidao domos,
the house of Hades; I need not remind you, I think, that the concept of certain houses as unclean or forbidden—perhaps sacred—is as old as the mind of man. Certainly there are spots which inevitably attach to themselves an atmosphere of holiness and goodness; it might not then be too fanciful to say that some houses are born bad. Hill House, whatever the cause, has been unfit for human habitation for upwards of twenty years. What it was like before then, whether its personality was molded by the people who lived here, or the things they did, or whether it was evil from its start are all questions I cannot answer. Naturally I hope that we will all know a good deal more about Hill House before we leave. No one knows, even, why some houses are called haunted.”

“What else
could
you call Hill House?” Luke demanded.

“Well—disturbed, perhaps. Leprous. Sick. Any of the popular euphemisms for insanity; a deranged house is a pretty conceit. There are popular theories, however, which discount the eerie, the mysterious; there are people who will tell you that the disturbances I am calling ‘psychic' are actually the result of subterranean waters, or electric currents, or hallucinations caused by polluted air; atmospheric pressure, sun spots, earth tremors all have their advocates among the skeptical. People,” the doctor said sadly, “are always so anxious to get things out into the open where they can put a name to them, even a meaningless name, so long as it has something of a scientific ring.” He sighed, relaxing, and gave them a little quizzical smile. “A haunted house,” he said. “Everyone laughs. I found myself telling my colleagues at the university that I was going camping this summer.”

“I told people I was participating in a scientific experiment,” Theodora said helpfully. “Without telling them where or what, of course.”

“Presumably your friends feel less strongly about scientific experiments than mine. Yes.” The doctor sighed again. “Camping. At my age. And yet
that
they believed. Well.” He straightened up again and fumbled at his side, perhaps for a yardstick. “I first heard about Hill House a year ago, from a former tenant. He began by assuring me that he had left Hill House because his family objected to living so far out in the country, and ended by saying that in his opinion the house ought to be burned down and the ground sowed with salt. I learned of other people who had rented Hill House, and found that none of them had stayed more than a few days, certainly never the full terms of their leases, giving reasons that ranged from the dampness of the location—not at all true, by the way; the house is very dry—to a pressing need to move elsewhere, for business reasons. That is, every tenant who has left Hill House hastily has made an effort to supply a rational reason for leaving, and yet every one of them has left. I tried, of course, to learn more from these former tenants, and yet in no case could I persuade them to discuss the house; they all seemed most unwilling to give me information and were, in fact, reluctant to recall the details of their several stays. In only one opinion were they united. Without exception, every person who has spent any length of time in this house urged me to stay as far away from it as possible. Not one of the former tenants could bring himself to admit that Hill House was haunted, but when I visited Hillsdale and looked up the newspaper records—”