The Haunting of Hill House (26 page)

She sat down on the narrow green bank and put her chin on her knees; I will not forget this one moment in my life, she promised herself, listening to their voices and their footsteps coming slowly down the hill. “Hurry up,” she said, turning her head to look for Theodora. “I—” and was silent. There was no one on the hill, nothing but the footsteps coming clearly along the path and the faint mocking laughter.

“Who—?” she whispered. “Who?”

She could see the grass go down under the weight of the footsteps. She saw another grasshopper leap wildly away, and a pebble jar and roll. She heard clearly the brush of footsteps on the path and then, standing back hard against the bank, heard the laughter very close; “Eleanor, Eleanor,” and she heard it inside and outside her head; this was a call she had been listening for all her life. The footsteps stopped and she was caught in a movement of air so solid that she staggered and was held. “Eleanor, Eleanor,” she heard through the rushing of air past her ears, “Eleanor, Eleanor,” and she was held tight and safe. It is not cold at all, she thought, it is not cold at all. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the bank and thought, Don’t let me go, and then, Stay, stay, as the firmness which held her slipped away, leaving her and fading; “Eleanor, Eleanor,” she heard once more and then she stood beside the brook, shivering as though the sun had gone, watching without surprise the vacant footsteps move across the water of the brook, sending small ripples going, and then over onto the grass on the other side, moving slowly and caressingly up and over the hill.

Come back, she almost said, standing shaking by the brook, and then she turned and ran madly up the hill, crying as she ran and calling, “Theo? Luke?”

She found them in the little group of trees, leaning against a tree trunk and talking softly and laughing; when she ran to them they turned, startled, and Theodora was almost angry. “What on earth do you want this time?” she said.

“I waited for you by the brook—”

“We decided to stay here where it was cool,” Theodora said. “We thought you heard us calling you. Didn’t we, Luke?”

“Oh, yes,” said Luke, embarrassed. “We were sure you heard us calling.”

“Anyway,” Theodora said, “we were going to come along in a minute. Weren’t we, Luke?”

“Yes,” said Luke, grinning. “Oh, yes.”

“Subterranean waters,” the doctor said, waving his fork.

“Nonsense. Does Mrs. Dudley do all your cooking? The asparagus is more than passable. Arthur, let that young man help you to asparagus.”

“My dear.” The doctor looked fondly upon his wife. “It has become our custom to rest for an hour or so after lunch; if you—”

“Certainly not. I have far too much to do while I am here. I must speak to your cook, I must see that my room is aired, I must ready planchette for another session this evening; Arthur must clean his revolver.”

“Mark of a fighting man,” Arthur conceded. “Firearms always in good order.”

“
You
and
these
young people may rest, of course. Perhaps you do not feel the urgency which I do, the terrible compulsion to aid whatever poor souls wander restlessly here; perhaps you find me foolish in my sympathy for them, perhaps I am even ludicrous in your eyes because I can spare a tear for a lost abandoned soul, left without any helping hand; pure love—”

“Croquet?” Luke said hastily. “Croquet, perhaps?” He looked eagerly from one to another. “Badminton?” he suggested. “Croquet?”

“Subterranean waters?” Theodora added helpfully.

“No fancy sauces for
me,
” Arthur said firmly. “Tell my fellows it’s the mark of a cad.” He looked thoughtfully at Luke. “Mark of a cad. Fancy sauces, women waiting on you.
My
fellows wait on themselves. Mark of a man,” he said to Theodora.

“And what else do you teach them?” Theodora asked politely.

“Teach? You mean—do they learn anything, my fellows? You mean—algebra, like? Latin? Certainly.” Arthur sat back, pleased. “Leave all that kind of thing to the teachers,” he explained.

“And how many fellows are there in your school?” Theodora leaned forward, courteous, interested, making conversation with a guest, and Arthur basked; at the head of the table Mrs. Montague frowned and tapped her fingers impatiently.

“How many? How many. Got a crack tennis team, you know.” He beamed on Theodora. “Crack. Absolutely top-hole. Not counting milksops?”

“Not counting,” said Theodora, “milksops.”

“Oh. Tennis. Golf. Baseball. Track. Cricket.” He smiled slyly. “Didn’t guess we played cricket, did you? Then there’s swimming, and volleyball. Some fellows go out for everything, though,” he told her anxiously. “All-around types. Maybe seventy, altogether.”

“Arthur?” Mrs. Montague could contain herself no longer. “No shop talk, now. You’re on vacation, remember.”

“Yes, silly of me.” Arthur smiled fondly. “Got to check the weapons,” he explained.

“It’s two o’clock,” Mrs. Dudley said in the doorway. “I clear off at two.”

Theodora laughed, and Eleanor, hidden deep in the shadows behind the summerhouse, put her hands over her mouth to keep from speaking to let them know she was there; I’ve got to find out, she was thinking, I’ve got to find out.

“It’s called ‘The Grattan Murders,’ ” Luke was saying. “Lovely thing. I can even sing it if you prefer.”

“Mark of a cad.” Theodora laughed again. “Poor Luke; I would have said ‘scoundrel.’ ”

“If you would rather be spending this brief hour with Arthur . . .”

“Of course I would rather be with Arthur. An educated man is always an enlivening companion.”

“Cricket,” Luke said. “Never would have thought we played cricket, would you?”

“Sing, sing,” Theodora said, laughing.

Luke sang, in a nasal monotone, emphasizing each word distinctly:

When he finished there was a moment’s silence, and then Theodora said weakly, “It’s lovely, Luke. Perfectly beautiful. I will never hear it again without thinking of you.”

“I plan to sing it to Arthur,” Luke said. When are they going to talk about me? Eleanor wondered in the shadows. After a minute Luke went on idly, “I wonder what the doctor’s book will be like, when he writes it? Do you suppose he’ll put us in?”

“You will probably turn up as an earnest young psychic researcher. And I will be a lady of undeniable gifts but dubious reputation.”

“I wonder if Mrs. Montague will have a chapter to herself.”

“And Arthur. And Mrs. Dudley. I hope he doesn’t reduce us all to figures on a graph.”

“I wonder, I wonder,” said Luke. “It’s warm this afternoon,” he said. “What could we do that is cool?”

“We could ask Mrs. Dudley to make lemonade.”

“You know what I want to do?” Luke said. “I want to explore. Let’s follow the brook up into the hills and see where it comes from; maybe there’s a pond somewhere and we can go swimming.”

“Or a waterfall; it looks like a brook that runs naturally from a waterfall.”

“Come on, then.” Listening behind the summerhouse, Eleanor heard their laughter and the sound of their feet running down the path to the house.

“Here’s an interesting thing, here,” Arthur’s voice said in the manner of one endeavoring valiantly to entertain, “here in this book. Says how to make candles out of ordinary children’s crayons.”

“Interesting.” The doctor sounded weary. “If you will excuse me, Arthur, I have all these notes to write up.”

“Sure, Doctor. All got our work to do. Not a sound.” Eleanor, listening outside the parlor door, heard the small irritating noises of Arthur settling down to be quiet. “Not much to do around here, is there?” Arthur said. “How d’you pass the time generally?”

“Working,” the doctor said shortly.

“You writing down what happens in the house?”

“Yes.”

“You got me in there?”

“ No.”

“Seems like you ought to put in our notes from planchette. What are you writing now?”

“Arthur. Can you read, or something?”

“Sure. Never meant to make a nuisance of myself.” Eleanor heard Arthur take up a book, and put it down, and light a cigarette, and sigh, and stir, and finally say, “Listen, isn’t there anything to
do
around here? Where
is
everybody?”

The doctor spoke patiently, but without interest. “Theodora and Luke have gone to explore the brook, I think. And I suppose the others are around somewhere. As a matter of fact, I believe my wife was looking for Mrs. Dudley.”

“Oh.” Arthur sighed again. “Might as well read, I guess,” he said, and then, after a minute, “Say, Doctor. I don’t like to bother you, but listen to what it says here in this book. . . .”

“No,” Mrs. Montague said, “I do
not
believe in throwing young people together promiscuously, Mrs. Dudley. If my husband had consulted
me
before arranging this fantastic house party—”

“Well, now.” It was Mrs. Dudley’s voice, and Eleanor, pressed against the dining-room door, stared and opened her mouth wide against the wooden panels of the door. “I always say, Mrs. Montague, that you’re only young once. Those young people are enjoying themselves, and it’s only natural for the young.”

“But living under one roof—”

“It’s not as though they weren’t grown up enough to know right from wrong. That pretty Theodora lady is old enough to take care of herself, I’d think, no matter how gay Mr. Luke.”

“I need a dry dishtowel, Mrs. Dudley, for the silverware. It’s a shame, I think, the way children grow up these days knowing everything. There should be more mysteries for them, more things that belong rightly to grownups, that they have to wait to find out.”

“Then they find them out the hard way.” Mrs. Dudley’s voice was comfortable and easy. “Dudley brought in these tomatoes from the garden this morning,” she said. “They did well this year.”

“Shall I start on them?”

“No, oh, no. You sit down over there and rest; you’ve done enough. I’ll put on the water and we’ll have a nice cup of tea.”

“Journeys end in lovers meeting,” Luke said, and smiled across the room at Eleanor. “Does that blue dress on Theo really belong to you? I’ve never seen it before.”

“I am Eleanor,” Theodora said wickedly, “because I have a beard.”

“You were wise to bring clothes for two,” Luke told Eleanor. “Theo would never have looked half so well in my old blazer.”

“I am Eleanor,” Theo said, “because I am wearing blue. I love my love with an E because she is ethereal. Her name is Eleanor, and she lives in expectation.”

She is being spiteful, Eleanor thought remotely; from a great distance, it seemed, she could watch these people and listen to them. Now she thought, Theo is being spiteful and Luke is trying to be nice; Luke is ashamed of himself for laughing at me and he is ashamed of Theo for being spiteful. “Luke,” Theodora said, with a half-glance at Eleanor, “come and sing to me again.”

“Later,” Luke said uncomfortably. “The doctor has just set up the chessmen.” He turned away in some haste.

Theodora, piqued, leaned her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes, clearly determined not to speak. Eleanor sat, looking down at her hands, and listened to the sounds of the house. Somewhere upstairs a door swung quietly shut; a bird touched the tower briefly and flew off. In the kitchen the stove was settling and cooling, with little soft creakings. An animal—a rabbit?—moved through the bushes by the summerhouse. She could even hear, with her new awareness of the house, the dust drifting gently in the attics, the wood aging. Only the library was closed to her; she could not hear the heavy breathing of Mrs. Montague and Arthur over their planchette, nor their little excited questions; she could not hear the books rotting or rust seeping into the circular iron stairway to the tower. In the little parlor she could hear, without raising her eyes, Theodora’s small irritated tappings and the quiet sound of the chessmen being set down. She heard when the library door slammed open, and then the sharp angry sound of footsteps coming to the little parlor, and then all of them turned as Mrs. Montague opened the door and marched in.

“I must say,” said Mrs. Montague on a sharp, explosive breath, “I really must
say
that this is the most
infuriating
—”

“My dear.” The doctor rose, but Mrs. Montague waved him aside angrily. “If you had the
decency
—” she said.

Arthur, coming behind her sheepishly, moved past her and, almost slinking, settled in a chair by the fire. He shook his head warily when Theodora turned to him.

“The common
decency
. After all, John, I
did
come all this way, and so did Arthur, just to help out, and I certainly must say that I never expected to meet with such cynicism and incredulity from
you
, of all people, and
these
—” She gestured at Eleanor and Theodora and Luke. “All I ask, all I
ask
, is some small minimum of trust, just a little bit of sympathy for all I am trying to do, and instead you disbelieve, you scoff, you mock and jeer.” Breathing heavily, red-faced, she shook her finger at the doctor. “Planchette,” she said bitterly, “will not speak to me tonight. Not
one single word
have I had from planchette, as a direct result of your sneering and your skepticism; planchette may very possibly not speak to me for a matter of weeks—it has happened before, I can tell you; it has happened before, when I subjected it to the taunts of unbelievers; I have known planchette to be silent for weeks, and the very
least
I could have expected, coming here as I did with none but the finest motives, was a little respect.” She shook her finger at the doctor, wordless for the moment.