The Haunting of Hill House (24 page)

Peace, Eleanor thought concretely; what I want in all this world is peace, a quiet spot to lie and think, a quiet spot up among the flowers where I can dream and tell myself sweet stories.

“I,” Arthur said richly, “shall make my headquarters in the small room just this side of the nursery, well within shouting distance. I shall have with me a drawn revolver—do not take alarm, ladies; I am an excellent shot—and a flashlight, in addition to a most piercing whistle. I shall have no difficulty summoning the rest of you in case I observe anything worth your notice, or I require—ah—company. You may all sleep quietly, I assure you.”

“Arthur,” Mrs. Montague explained, “will patrol the house. Every hour, regularly, he will make a round of the upstairs rooms; I think he need hardly bother with the downstairs rooms tonight, since
I
shall be up here. We have done this before, many times. Come along, everyone.” Silently they followed her up the staircase, watching her little affectionate dabs at the stair rail and the carvings on the walls. “It is such a blessing,” she said once, “to know that the beings in this house are only waiting for an opportunity to tell their stories and free themselves from the burden of their sorrow. Now. Arthur will first of all inspect the bedrooms. Arthur?”

“With apologies, ladies, with apologies,” Arthur said, opening the door of the blue room, which Eleanor and Theodora shared. “A dainty spot,” he said plummily, “fit for two such charming ladies; I shall, if you like, save you the trouble of glancing into the closet and under the bed.” Solemnly they watched Arthur go down onto his hands and knees and look under the beds and then rise, dusting his hands. “Perfectly safe,” he said.

“Now, where am I to be?” Mrs. Montague asked. “Where did that young man put my bags?”

“Directly at the end of the hall,” the doctor said. “We call it the nursery.”

Mrs. Montague, followed by Arthur, moved purposefully down the hall, passed the cold spot in the hall, and shivered. “I will certainly need extra blankets,” she said. “Have that young man bring extra blankets from one of the other rooms.” Opening the nursery door, she nodded and said, “The bed looks quite fresh, I must admit, but has the room been aired?”

“I told Mrs. Dudley,” the doctor said.

“It smells musty. Arthur, you will have to open that window, in spite of the cold.”

Drearily the animals on the nursery wall looked down on Mrs. Montague. “Are you sure . . .” The doctor hesitated, and glanced up apprehensively at the grinning faces over the nursery door. “I wonder if you ought to have someone in here with you,” he said.

“My dear.” Mrs. Montague, good-humored now in the presence of those who had passed beyond, was amused. “How many hours—how many,
many
hours—have I sat in purest love and understanding, alone in a room and yet never alone? My dear, how can I make you perceive that there is no danger where there is nothing but love and sympathetic understanding? I am here to
help
these unfortunate beings—I am here to extend the hand of heartfelt fondness, and let them know that there are still
some
who remember, who will listen and weep for them; their loneliness is over, and I—”

“Yes,” the doctor said, “but leave the door open.”

“Unlocked, if you insist.” Mrs. Montague was positively magnanimous.

“I shall be only down the hall,” the doctor said. “I can hardly offer to patrol, since that will be Arthur’s occupation, but if you need anything I can hear you.”

Mrs. Montague laughed and waved her hand at him. “These others need your protection so much more than I,” she said. “I will do what I can, of course. But they are so very,
very
vulnerable, with their hard hearts and their unseeing eyes.”

Arthur, followed by a Luke looking very much amused, returned from checking the other bedrooms on the floor and nodded briskly at the doctor. “All clear,” he said. “Perfectly safe for you to go to bed now.”

“Thank you,” the doctor told him soberly and then said to his wife, “Good night. Be careful.”

“Good night,” Mrs. Montague said, and smiled around at all of them. “Please don’t be afraid,” she said. “No matter what happens, remember that I am here.”

“Good night,” Theodora said, and “Good night” said Luke, and with Arthur behind them assuring them that they might rest quietly, and not to worry if they heard shots, and he would start his first patrol at midnight, Eleanor and Theodora went into their own room, and Luke on down the hall to his. After a moment the doctor, turning reluctantly away from his wife’s closed door, followed.

“Wait,” Theodora said to Eleanor, once in their room. “Luke said they want us down the hall; don’t get undressed and be quiet.” She opened the door a crack and whispered over her shoulder, “I swear that old biddy’s going to blow this house wide open with that perfect love business; if I ever saw a place that had no use for perfect love, it’s Hill House. Now. Arthur’s closed his door. Quick. Be quiet.”

Silently, making no sound on the hall carpeting, they hurried in their stocking feet down the hall to the doctor’s room. “Hurry,” the doctor said, opening the door just wide enough for them to come in, “be quiet.”

“It’s not safe,” Luke said, closing the door to a crack and coming back to sit on the floor, “that man’s going to shoot somebody.”

“I don’t like it,” the doctor said, worried. “Luke and I will stay up and watch, and I want you two ladies in here where we can keep an eye on you. Something’s going to happen,” he said. “I don’t like it.”

“I just hope she didn’t go and make anything mad, with her planchette,” Theodora said. “Sorry, Doctor Montague. I don’t intend to speak rudely of your wife.”

The doctor laughed, but stayed with his eye to the door. “She originally planned to come for our entire stay,” he said, “but she had enrolled in a course in yoga and could not miss her meetings. She is an excellent woman in most respects,” he added, looking earnestly around at them. “She is a good wife, and takes very good care of me. She does things splendidly, really. Buttons on my shirts.” He smiled hopefully. “This”—and he gestured in the direction of the hall—“
this
is practically her only vice.”

“Perhaps she feels she is helping you with your work,” Eleanor said.

The doctor grimaced, and shivered; at that moment the door swung wide and then crashed shut, and in the silence outside they could hear slow rushing movements as though a very steady, very strong wind were blowing the length of the hall. Glancing at one another, they tried to smile, tried to look courageous under the slow coming of the unreal cold and then, through the noise of wind, the knocking on the doors downstairs. Without a word Theodora took up the quilt from the foot of the doctor’s bed and folded it around Eleanor and herself, and they moved close together, slowly in order not to make a sound. Eleanor, clinging to Theodora, deadly cold in spite of Theodora’s arms around her, thought, It knows my name, it knows my name this time. The pounding came up the stairs, crashing on each step. The doctor was tense, standing by the door, and Luke moved over to stand beside him. “It’s nowhere near the nursery,” he said to the doctor, and put his hand out to stop the doctor from opening the door.

“How weary one gets of this constant pounding,” Theodora said ridiculously. “Next summer, I must really go somewhere else.”

“There are disadvantages everywhere,” Luke told her. “In the lake regions you get mosquitoes.”

“Could we have exhausted the repertoire of Hill House?” Theodora asked, her voice shaking in spite of her light tone. “Seems like we’ve had this pounding act before; is it going to start everything all over again?” The crashing echoed along the hall, seeming to come from the far end, the farthest from the nursery, and the doctor, tense against the door, shook his head anxiously. “I’m going to have to go out there,” he said. “She might be frightened,” he told them.

Eleanor, rocking to the pounding, which seemed inside her head as much as in the hall, holding tight to Theodora, said, “They know where we are,” and the others, assuming that she meant Arthur and Mrs. Montague, nodded and listened. The knocking, Eleanor told herself, pressing her hands to her eyes and swaying with the noise, will go on down the hall, it will go on and on to the end of the hall and turn and come back again, it will just go on and on the way it did before and then it will stop and we will look at each other and laugh and try to remember how cold we were, and the little swimming curls of fear on our backs; after a while it will stop.

“It never hurt
us,
” Theodora was telling the doctor, across the noise of the pounding. “It won’t hurt
them.
”

“I only hope she doesn’t try to
do
anything about it,” the doctor said grimly; he was still at the door, but seemingly unable to open it against the volume of noise outside.

“I feel positively like an old hand at this,” Theodora said to Eleanor. “Come closer, Nell; keep warm,” and she pulled Eleanor even nearer to her under the blanket, and the sickening, still cold surrounded them.

Then there came, suddenly, quiet, and the secret creeping silence they all remembered; holding their breaths, they looked at one another. The doctor held the doorknob with both hands, and Luke, although his face was white and his voice trembled, said lightly, “Brandy, anyone? My passion for spirits—”

“No.” Theodora giggled wildly. “Not that pun,” she said.

“Sorry. You won’t believe me,” Luke said, the brandy decanter rattling against the glass as he tried to pour, “but I no longer think of it as a pun. That is what living in a haunted house does for a sense of humor.” Using both hands to carry the glass, he came to the bed where Theodora and Eleanor huddled under the blanket, and Theodora brought out one hand and took the glass. “Here,” she said, holding it to Eleanor’s mouth. “Drink.”

Sipping, not warmed, Eleanor thought, We are in the eye of the storm; there is not much more time. She watched Luke carefully carry a glass of brandy over to the doctor and hold it out, and then, without comprehending, watched the glass slip through Luke’s fingers to the floor as the door was shaken, violently and silently. Luke pulled the doctor back, and the door was attacked without sound, seeming almost to be pulling away from its hinges, almost ready to buckle and go down, leaving them exposed. Backing away, Luke and the doctor waited, tense and helpless.

“It can’t get in,” Theodora was whispering over and over, her eyes on the door, “it can’t get in, don’t let it get in, it can’t get in—” The shaking stopped, the door was quiet, and a little caressing touch began on the doorknob, feeling intimately and softly and then, because the door was locked, patting and fondling the doorframe, as though wheedling to be let in.

“It knows we’re here,” Eleanor whispered, and Luke, looking back at her over his shoulder, gestured furiously for her to be quiet.

It is so cold, Eleanor thought childishly; I will never be able to sleep again with all this noise coming from inside my head; how can these others hear the noise when it is coming from inside my head? I am disappearing inch by inch into this house, I am going apart a little bit at a time because all this noise is breaking me; why are the
others
frightened?

She was aware, dully, that the pounding had begun again, the metallic overwhelming sound of it washed over her like waves; she put her cold hands to her mouth to feel if her face was still there; I have had enough, she thought, I am too cold.

“At the nursery door,” Luke said tensely, speaking clearly through the noise. “At the nursery door; don’t.” And he put out a hand to stop the doctor.

“Purest love,” Theodora said madly, “purest love.” And she began to giggle again.

“If they don’t open the doors—” Luke said to the doctor. The doctor stood now with his head against the door, listening, with Luke holding his arm to keep him from moving.

Now we are going to have a new noise, Eleanor thought, listening to the inside of her head; it is changing. The pounding had stopped, as though it had proved ineffectual, and there was now a swift movement up and down the hall, as of an animal pacing back and forth with unbelievable impatience, watching first one door and then another, alert for a movement inside, and there was again the little babbling murmur which Eleanor remembered; Am I doing it? she wondered quickly, is that me? And heard the tiny laughter beyond the door, mocking her.

“Fe-fi-fo-fum,” Theodora said under her breath, and the laughter swelled and became a shouting; it’s inside my head, Eleanor thought, putting her hands over her face, it’s inside my head and it’s getting out, getting out, getting out—

Now the house shivered and shook, the curtains dashing against the windows, the furniture swaying, and the noise in the hall became so great that it pushed against the walls; they could hear breaking glass as the pictures in the hall came down, and perhaps the smashing of windows. Luke and the doctor strained against the door, as though desperately holding it shut, and the floor moved under their feet. We’re going, we’re going, Eleanor thought, and heard Theodora say, far away, “The house is coming down.” She sounded calm, and beyond fear. Holding to the bed, buffeted and shaken, Eleanor put her head down and closed her eyes and bit her lips against the cold and felt the sickening drop as the room fell away beneath her and then right itself and then turned, slowly, swinging. “God almighty,” Theodora said, and a mile away at the door Luke caught the doctor and held him upright.

“Are you all right?” Luke called, back braced against the door, holding the doctor by the shoulders. “Theo, are you all right?”

“Hanging on,” Theodora said. “I don’t know about Nell.”

“Keep her warm,” Luke said, far away. “We haven’t seen it all yet.” His voice trailed away; Eleanor could hear and see him far away in the distant room where he and Theodora and the doctor still waited; in the churning darkness where she fell endlessly nothing was real except her own hands white around the bedpost. She could see them, very small, and see them tighten when the bed rocked and the wall leaned forward and the door turned sideways far away. Somewhere there was a great, shaking crash as some huge thing came headlong; it must be the tower, Eleanor thought, and I supposed it would stand for years; we are lost, lost; the house is destroying itself. She heard the laughter over all, coming thin and lunatic, rising in its little crazy tune, and thought, No; it is over for me. It is too much, she thought, I will relinquish my possession of this self of mine, abdicate, give over willingly what I never wanted at all; whatever it wants of me it can have.