The Haunting of Hill House (19 page)

Angry, Eleanor almost shouted. “You think I
want
to see my name scribbled all over this foul house? You think
I
like the idea that I’m the center of attention?
I
’m not the spoiled baby, after all—
I
don’t like being singled out—”

“Asking for help, did you notice?” Theodora said lightly. “Perhaps the spirit of the poor little companion has found a means of communication at last. Maybe she was only waiting for some drab, timid—”

“Maybe it was only addressed to me because no possible appeal for help could get through that iron selfishness of yours; maybe I might have more sympathy and understanding in one minute than—”

“And maybe, of course, you wrote it to yourself,” Theodora said again.

After the manner of men who see women quarreling, the doctor and Luke had withdrawn, standing tight together in miserable silence; now, at last, Luke moved and spoke. “That’s enough, Eleanor,” he said, unbelievably, and Eleanor whirled around, stamping. “How dare you?” she said, gasping. “How
dare
you?”

And the doctor laughed, then, and she stared at him and then at Luke, who was smiling and watching her. What is wrong with me? she thought. Then—but they think Theodora did it on purpose, made me mad so I wouldn’t be frightened; how shameful to be maneuvered that way. She covered her face and sat down in her chair.

“Nell, dear,” Theodora said, “I
am
sorry.”

I must say something, Eleanor told herself; I must show them that I am a good sport, after all; a good sport; let them think that I am ashamed of myself. “
I
’m sorry,” she said. “I was frightened.”

“Of course you were,” the doctor said, and Eleanor thought, How simple he is, how transparent; he believes every silly thing he has ever heard. He thinks, even, that Theodora shocked me out of hysteria. She smiled at him and thought, Now I am back in the fold.

“I really thought you were going to start shrieking,” Theodora said, coming to kneel by Eleanor’s chair. “
I
would have, in your place. But we can’t afford to have you break up, you know.”

We can’t afford to have anyone but Theodora in the center of the stage, Eleanor thought; if Eleanor is going to be the outsider, she is going to be it all alone. She reached out and patted Theodora’s head and said, “Thanks. I guess I was kind of shaky for a minute.”

“I wondered if you two were going to come to blows,” Luke said, “until I realized what Theodora was doing.”

Smiling down into Theodora’s bright, happy eyes, Eleanor thought, But that isn’t what Theodora was doing at all.

Time passed lazily at Hill House. Eleanor and Theodora, the doctor and Luke, alert against terror, wrapped around by the rich hills and securely set into the warm, dark luxuries of the house, were permitted a quiet day and a quiet night—enough, perhaps, to dull them a little. They took their meals together, and Mrs. Dudley’s cooking stayed perfect. They talked together and played chess; the doctor finished
Pamela
and began on
Sir Charles Grandison
. A compelling need for occasional privacy led them to spend some hours alone in their separate rooms, without disturbance. Theodora and Eleanor and Luke explored the tangled thicket behind the house and found the little summerhouse, while the doctor sat on the wide lawn, writing, within sight and hearing. They found a walled-in rose garden, grown over with weeds, and a vegetable garden tenderly nourished by the Dudleys. They spoke often of arranging their picnic by the brook. There were wild strawberries near the summerhouse, and Theodora and Eleanor and Luke brought back a handkerchief full and lay on the lawn near the doctor, eating them, staining their hands and their mouths; like children, the doctor told them, looking up with amusement from his notes. Each of them had written—carelessly, and with little attention to detail—an account of what they thought they had seen and heard so far in Hill House, and the doctor had put the papers away in his portfolio. The next morning—their third morning in Hill House—the doctor, aided by Luke, had spent a loving and maddening hour on the floor of the upstairs hall, trying, with chalk and measuring tape, to determine the precise dimensions of the cold spot, while Eleanor and Theodora sat cross-legged on the hall floor, noting down the doctor’s measurements and playing tictac-toe. The doctor was considerably hampered in his work by the fact that, his hands repeatedly chilled by the extreme cold, he could not hold either the chalk or the tape for more than a minute at a time. Luke, inside the nursery doorway, could hold one end of the tape until his hand came into the cold spot, and then his fingers lost strength and relaxed helplessly. A thermometer, dropped into the center of the cold spot, refused to register any change at all, but continued doggedly maintaining that the temperature there was the same as the temperature down the rest of the hall, causing the doctor to fume wildly against the statisticians of Borley Rectory, who had caught an eleven-degree drop. When he had defined the cold spot as well as he could, and noted his results in his notebook, he brought them downstairs for lunch and issued a general challenge to them, to meet him at croquet in the cool of the afternoon.

“It seems foolish,” he explained, “to spend a morning as glorious as this has been looking at a frigid place on a floor. We must plan to spend more time outside”—and was mildly surprised when they laughed.

“Is there still a world somewhere?” Eleanor asked wonderingly. Mrs. Dudley had made them a peach shortcake, and she looked down at her plate and said, “I am sure Mrs. Dudley goes somewhere else at night, and she brings back heavy cream each morning, and Dudley comes up with groceries every afternoon, but as far as I can remember there is no other place than this.”

“We are on a desert island,” Luke said.

“I can’t picture any world but Hill House,” Eleanor said.

“Perhaps,” Theodora said, “we should make notches on a stick, or pile pebbles in a heap, one each day, so we will know how long we have been marooned.”

“How pleasant not to have any word from outside.” Luke helped himself to an enormous heap of whipped cream. “No letters, no newspapers; anything might be happening.”

“Unfortunately—” the doctor said, and then stopped. “I beg your pardon,” he went on. “I meant only to say that word
will
be reaching us from outside, and of course it is not unfortunate at all. Mrs. Montague—my wife, that is—will be here on Saturday.”

“But when is Saturday?” Luke asked. “Delighted to see Mrs. Montague, of course.”

“Day after tomorrow.” The doctor thought. “Yes,” he said after a minute, “I believe that the day after tomorrow is Saturday. We will know it is Saturday, of course,” he told them with a little twinkle, “because Mrs. Montague will be here.”

“I hope she is not holding high hopes of things going bump in the night,” Theodora said. “Hill House has fallen far short of its original promise, I think. Or perhaps Mrs. Montague will be greeted with a volley of psychic experiences.”

“Mrs. Montague,” the doctor said, “will be perfectly ready to receive them.”

“I wonder,” Theodora said to Eleanor as they left the lunch table under Mrs. Dudley’s watchful eye, “why everything
has
been so quiet. I think this waiting is nerve-racking, almost worse than having something happen.”

“It’s not us doing the waiting,” Eleanor said. “It’s the house. I think it’s biding its time.”

“Waiting until we feel secure, maybe, and then it will pounce.”

“I wonder how long it can wait.” Eleanor shivered and started up the great staircase. “I am almost tempted to write a letter to my sister. You know—‘Having a perfectly
splendid
time here in jolly old Hill House. . . . ’ ”

“ ‘You really must plan to bring the whole family next summer,’” Theodora went on. “ ‘We sleep under blankets every night. . . . ’ ”

“ ‘The air is so bracing, particularly in the upstairs hall. . . . ’ ”

“ ‘You go around all the time just glad to be alive. . . . ’ ”

“ ‘There’s something going on every minute. . . . ’ ”

“ ‘Civilization seems so far away. . . . ’ ”

Eleanor laughed. She was ahead of Theodora, at the top of the stairs. The dark hallway was a little lightened this afternoon, because they had left the nursery door open and the sunlight came through the windows by the tower and touched the doctor’s measuring tape and chalk on the floor. The light reflected from the stained-glass window on the stair landing and made shattered fragments of blue and orange and green on the dark wood of the hall. “I’m going to sleep,” she said. “I’ve never been so lazy in my life.”

“I’m going to lie on my bed and dream about streetcars,” Theodora said.

It had become Eleanor’s habit to hesitate in the doorway of her room, glancing around quickly before she went inside; she told herself that this was because the room was so exceedingly blue and always took a moment to get used to. When she came inside she went across to open the window, which she always found closed; today she was halfway across the room before she heard Theodora’s door slam back, and Theodora’s smothered “Eleanor!” Moving quickly, Eleanor ran into the hall and to Theodora’s doorway, to stop, aghast, looking over Theodora’s shoulder. “What
is
it?” she whispered.

“What does it
look
like?” Theodora’s voice rose crazily. “What does it
look
like, you fool?”

And I won’t forgive her
that,
either, Eleanor thought concretely through her bewilderment. “It looks like paint,” she said hesitantly. “Except”—realizing—“except the smell is awful.”

“It’s blood,” Theodora said with finality. She clung to the door, swaying as the door moved, staring. “Blood,” she said. “All over. Do you see it?”

“Of course I see it. And it’s not
all
over. Stop making such a fuss.” Although, she thought conscientiously, Theodora was making very little of a fuss, actually. One of these times, she thought, one of us
is
going to put her head back and really howl, and I hope it won’t be me, because I’m trying to guard against it; it
will
be Theodora who . . . And then, cold, she asked, “Is that more writing on the wall?”—and heard Theodora’s wild laugh, and thought, Maybe it will be me, after all, and I can’t afford to. I must be steady, and she closed her eyes and found herself saying silently, O stay and hear, your true love’s coming, that can sing both high and low. Trip no further, pretty sweeting; journeys end in lovers meeting . . .

“Yes indeed, dear,” Theodora said. “I don’t know how you managed it.”

Every wise man’s son doth know. “Be sensible,” Eleanor said. “Call Luke. And the doctor.”

“Why?” Theodora asked. “Wasn’t it to be just a little private surprise for me? A secret just for the two of us?” Then, pulling away from Eleanor, who tried to hold her from going farther into the room, she ran to the great wardrobe and threw open the door and, cruelly, began to cry. “My clothes,” she said. “My clothes.”

Steadily Eleanor turned and went to the top of the stairs. “Luke,” she called, leaning over the banisters. “Doctor.” Her voice was not loud, and she had tried to keep it level, but she heard the doctor’s book drop to the floor and then the pounding of feet as he and Luke ran for the stairs. She watched them, seeing their apprehensive faces, wondering at the uneasiness which lay so close below the surface in all of them, so that each of them seemed always waiting for a cry for help from one of the others; intelligence and understanding are really no protection at all, she thought. “It’s Theo,” she said as they came to the top of the stairs. “She’s hysterical. Someone—something—has gotten red paint in her room, and she’s crying over her clothes.” Now I could not have put it more fairly than that, she thought, turning to follow them. Could I have put it more fairly than that? she asked herself, and found that she was smiling.

Theodora was still sobbing wildly in her room and kicking at the wardrobe door, in a tantrum that might have been laughable if she had not been holding her yellow shirt, matted and stained; her other clothes had been torn from the hangers and lay trampled and disordered on the wardrobe floor, all of them smeared and reddened. “What is it?” Luke asked the doctor, and the doctor, shaking his head, said, “I would swear that it was blood, and yet to get so much blood one would almost have to . . .” and then was abruptly quiet.

All of them stood in silence for a moment and looked at HELP ELEANOR COME HOME ELEANOR written in shaky red letters on the wallpaper over Theodora’s bed.

This time I am ready, Eleanor told herself, and said, “You’d better get her out of here; bring her into my room.”

“My clothes are ruined,” Theodora said to the doctor. “Do you see my clothes?”

The smell was atrocious, and the writing on the wall had dripped and splattered. There was a line of drops from the wall to the wardrobe—perhaps what had first turned Theodora’s attention that way—and a great irregular stain on the green rug. “It’s disgusting,” Eleanor said. “Please get Theo into my room.”

Luke and the doctor between them persuaded Theodora through the bathroom and into Eleanor’s room, and Eleanor, looking at the red paint (It must be paint, she told herself; it’s simply
got
to be paint; what else
could
it be?), said aloud. “But
why?
”—and stared up at the writing on the wall. Here lies one, she thought gracefully, whose name was writ in blood; is it possible that I am not quite coherent at this moment?

“Is she all right?” she asked, turning as the doctor came back into the room.

“She will be in a few minutes. We’ll have to move her in with you for a while, I should think; I can’t imagine her wanting to sleep in
here
again.” The doctor smiled a little wanly. “It will be a long time, I think, before she opens another door by herself.”

“I suppose she’ll have to wear my clothes.”

“I suppose she will, if you don’t mind.” The doctor looked at her curiously. “This message troubles you less than the other?”