The Haunting of Hill House (6 page)

There was some elaborate joke going on between the man eating and the girl behind the counter; when she set Eleanor's coffee down she glanced at him and half-smiled, and he shrugged, and then the girl laughed. Eleanor looked up, but the girl was examining her fingernails and the man was wiping his plate with bread. Perhaps Eleanor's coffee was poisoned; it certainly looked it. Determined to plumb the village of Hillsdale to its lowest depths, Eleanor said to the girl, “I'll have one of those doughnuts too, please,” and the girl, glancing sideways at the man, slid one of the doughnuts onto a dish and set it down in front of Eleanor and laughed when she caught another look from the man.

“This is a pretty little town,” Eleanor said to the girl. “What is it called?”

The girl stared at her; perhaps no one had ever before had the audacity to call Hillsdale a pretty little town; after a moment the girl looked again at the man, as though calling for confirmation, and said, “Hillsdale.”

“Have you lived here long?” Eleanor asked. I'm not going to mention Hill House, she assured Dr. Montague far away, I just want to waste a little time.

“Yeah,” the girl said.

“It must be pleasant, living in a small town like this. I come from the city.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you like it here?”

“It's all right,” the girl said. She looked again at the man, who was listening carefully. “Not much to do.”

“How large a town is it?”

“Pretty small. You want more coffee?” This was addressed to the man, who was rattling his cup against his saucer, and Eleanor took a first, shuddering sip of her own coffee and wondered how he could possibly want more.

“Do you have a lot of visitors around here?” she asked when the girl had filled the coffee cup and gone back to lounge against the shelves. “Tourists, I mean?”

“What for?” For a minute the girl flashed at her, from what might have been an emptiness greater than any Eleanor had ever known. “Why would anybody come
here?
” She looked sullenly at the man and added, “There's not even a movie.”

“But the hills are so pretty. Mostly, with small out-of-the-way towns like this one, you'll find city people who have come and built themselves homes up in the hills. For privacy.”

The girl laughed shortly. “Not
here
they don't.”

“Or remodeling old houses—”

“Privacy,” the girl said, and laughed again.

“It just seems surprising,” Eleanor said, feeling the man looking at her.

“Yeah,” the girl said. “If they'd put in a movie, even.”

“I thought,” Eleanor said carefully, “that I might even look around. Old houses are usually cheap, you know, and it's fun to make them over.”

“Not around here,” the girl said.

“Then,” Eleanor said, “there are no old houses around here? Back in the hills?”

“Nope.”

The man rose, taking change from his pocket, and spoke for the first time. “People
leave
this town,” he said. “They don't
come
here.”

When the door closed behind him the girl turned her flat eyes back to Eleanor, almost resentfully, as though Eleanor with her chatter had driven the man away. “He was right,” she said finally. “They go away, the lucky ones.”

“Why don't
you
run away?” Eleanor asked her, and the girl shrugged.

“Would I be any better off?” she asked. She took Eleanor's money without interest and returned the change. Then, with another of her quick flashes, she glanced at the empty plates at the end of the counter and almost smiled. “He comes in every day,” she said. When Eleanor smiled back and started to speak, the girl turned her back and busied herself with the cups on the shelves, and Eleanor, feeling herself dismissed, rose gratefully from her coffee and took up her car keys and pocketbook. “Good-by,” Eleanor said, and the girl, back still turned, said, “Good luck to you. I hope you find your house.”

The road leading away from the gas station and the church was very poor indeed, deeply rutted and rocky. Eleanor's little car stumbled and bounced, reluctant to go farther into these unattractive hills, where the day seemed quickly drawing to an end under the thick, oppressive trees on either side. They do not really seem to have much traffic on this road, Eleanor thought wryly, turning the wheel quickly to avoid a particularly vicious rock ahead; six miles of this will not do the car any good; and for the first time in hours she thought of her sister and laughed. By now they would surely know that she had taken the car and gone, but they would not know where; they would be telling each other incredulously that they would never have suspected it of Eleanor. I would never have suspected it of myself, she thought, laughing still; everything is different, I am a new person, very far from home. “In delay there lies no plenty; . . . present mirth hath present laughter. . . .” And she gasped as the car cracked against a rock and reeled back across the road with an ominous scraping somewhere beneath, but then gathered itself together valiantly and resumed its dogged climb. The tree branches brushed against the windshield, and it grew steadily darker; Hill House likes to make an entrance, she thought; I wonder if the sun ever shines along here. At last, with one final effort, the car cleared a tangle of dead leaves and small branches across the road, and came into a clearing by the gate of Hill House.

Why am I here? she thought helplessly and at once; why am I here? The gate was tall and ominous and heavy, set strongly into a stone wall which went off through the trees. Even from the car she could see the padlock and the chain that was twisted around and through the bars. Beyond the gate she could see only that the road continued, turned, shadowed on either side by the still, dark trees.

Since the gate was so clearly locked—locked and double-locked and chained and barred; who, she wondered, wants so badly to get in?—she made no attempt to get out of her car, but pressed the horn, and the trees and the gate shuddered and withdrew slightly from the sound. After a minute she blew the horn again and then saw a man coming toward her from inside the gate; he was as dark and unwelcoming as the padlock, and before he moved toward the gate he peered through the bars at her, scowling.

“What
you
want?” His voice was sharp, mean.

“I want to come in, please. Please unlock the gate.”

“Who say?”

“Why—” She faltered. “I'm supposed to come in,” she said at last.

“What for?”

“I am expected.” Or am I? she wondered suddenly; is this as far as I go?

“Who by?”

She knew, of course, that he was delighting in exceeding his authority, as though once he moved to unlock the gate he would lose the little temporary superiority he thought he had—and what superiority have I? she wondered; I am
outside
the gate, after all. She could already see that losing her temper, which she did rarely because she was so afraid of being ineffectual, would only turn him away, leaving her still outside the gate, railing futilely. She could even anticipate his innocence if he were reproved later for this arrogance—the maliciously vacant grin, the wide, blank eyes, the whining voice protesting that he
would
have let her in, he
planned
to let her in, but how could he be sure? He had his orders, didn't he? And he had to do what he was told?
He
'd be the one to get in trouble, wouldn't he, if he let in someone who wasn't supposed to be inside? She could anticipate his shrug, and, picturing him, laughed, perhaps the worst thing she could have done.

Eying her, he moved back from the gate. “You better come back later,” he said, and turned his back with an air of virtuous triumph.

“Listen,” she called after him, still trying not to sound angry, “I am one of Doctor Montague's guests; he will be expecting me in the house—please
listen
to me!”

He turned and grinned at her. “They couldn't rightly be
expecting
you,” he said, “seeing as you're the only one's
come,
so far.”

“Do you mean that there's no one in the house?”

“No one
I
know of. Maybe my wife, getting it fixed up. So they couldn't be there exactly
expecting
you, now
could
they?”

She sat back against the car seat and closed her eyes. Hill House, she thought, you're as hard to get into as heaven.

“I suppose you know what you're
asking
for, coming here? I suppose they told you, back in the city? You
hear
anything about this place?”

“I heard that I was invited here as a guest of Doctor Montague's. When you open the gates I will go inside.”

“I'll open them; I'm going to open them. I just want to be sure you know what's waiting for you in there. You ever been here before? One of the family, maybe?” He looked at her now, peering through the bars, his jeering face one more barrier, after padlock and chain. “I can't let you in till I'm
sure
, can I? What'd you say your name was?”

She sighed. “Eleanor Vance.”

“Not one of the family then, I guess. You ever hear anything about this place?”

It's my chance, I suppose, she thought; I'm being given a last chance. I could turn my car around right here and now in front of these gates and go away from here, and no one would blame me. Anyone has a right to run away. She put her head out through the car window and said with fury, “My name is Eleanor Vance. I am expected in Hill House. Unlock those gates at once.”

“All right, all
right
.” Deliberately, making a wholly unnecessary display of fitting the key and turning it, he opened the padlock and loosened the chain and swung the gates just wide enough for the car to come through. Eleanor moved the car slowly, but the alacrity with which he leaped to the side of the road made her think for a minute that he had perceived the fleeting impulse crossing her mind; she laughed, and then stopped the car because he was coming toward her—safely, from the side.

“You won't like it,” he said. “You'll be sorry I ever opened that gate.”

“Out of the way, please,” she said. “You've held me up long enough.”

“You think they could get anyone else to open this gate? You think anyone else'd stay around here that long, except me and my wife? You think we can't have things just about the way we want them, long as we stay around here and fix up the house and open the gates for all you city people think you know everything?”

“Please get away from my car.” She dared not admit to herself that he frightened her, for fear that he might perceive it; his nearness, leaning against the side of the car, was ugly, and his enormous resentment puzzled her; she had certainly made him open the gate for her, but did he think of the house and gardens inside as his own? A name from Dr. Montague's letter came into her mind, and she asked curiously, “Are you Dudley, the caretaker?”

“Yes, I'm Dudley, the caretaker.” He mimicked her. “Who else you think would be around here?”

The honest old family retainer, she thought, proud and loyal and thoroughly unpleasant. “You and your wife take care of the house all alone?”

“Who else?” It was his boast, his curse, his refrain.

She moved restlessly, afraid to draw away from him too obviously, and yet wanting, with small motions of starting the car, to make him stand aside. “I'm sure you'll be able to make us very comfortable, you and your wife,” she said, putting a tone of finality into her voice. “Meanwhile, I'm very anxious to get to the house as soon as possible.”

He snickered disagreeably. “
Me,
now,” he said, “me, I don't hang around here after dark.”

Grinning, satisfied with himself, he stood away from the car, and Eleanor was grateful, although awkward starting the car under his eye; perhaps he will keep popping out at me all along the drive, she thought, a sneering Cheshire Cat, yelling each time that I should be happy to find anyone willing to hang around this place, until dark, anyway. To show that she was not at all affected by the thought of the face of Dudley the caretaker between the trees she began to whistle, a little annoyed to find that the same tune still ran through her head. “Present mirth hath present laughter . . .” And she told herself crossly that she must really make an effort to think of something else; she was sure that the rest of the words must be most unsuitable, to hide so stubbornly from her memory, and probably wholly disreputable to be caught singing on her arrival at Hill House.

Over the trees, occasionally, between them and the hills, she caught glimpses of what must be the roofs, perhaps a tower, of Hill House. They made houses so oddly back when Hill House was built, she thought; they put towers and turrets and buttresses and wooden lace on them, even sometimes Gothic spires and gargoyles; nothing was ever left undecorated. Perhaps Hill House has a tower, or a secret chamber, or even a passageway going off into the hills and probably used by smugglers—although what could smugglers find to smuggle around these lonely hills? Perhaps I will encounter a devilishly handsome smuggler and . . .

She turned her car onto the last stretch of straight drive leading her directly, face to face, to Hill House and, moving without thought, pressed her foot on the brake to stall the car and sat, staring.

The house was vile. She shivered and thought, the words coming freely into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once.

No Human eye can isolate the unhappy coincidence of line and place which suggests evil in the face of a house, and yet somehow a maniac juxtaposition, a badly turned angle, some chance meeting of roof and sky, turned Hill House into a place of despair, more frightening because the face of Hill House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of a cornice. Almost any house, caught unexpectedly or at an odd angle, can turn a deeply humorous look on a watching person; even a mischievous little chimney, or a dormer like a dimple, can catch up a beholder with a sense of fellowship; but a house arrogant and hating, never off guard, can only be evil. This house, which seemed somehow to have formed itself, flying together into its own powerful pattern under the hands of its builders, fitting itself into its own construction of lines and angles, reared its great head back against the sky without concession to humanity. It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for love or for hope. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house; Hill House would stay as it was until it was destroyed.