The Haunting of Hill House (28 page)

“Why?” Eleanor looked down and saw the dizzy fall of the tower below her, the iron stairway clinging to the tower walls, shaking and straining under Luke’s feet, the cold stone floor, the distant, pale, staring faces. “How can I get down?” she asked helplessly. “Doctor—how can I get down?”

“Move very slowly,” he said. “Do what Luke tells you.”

“Nell,” Theodora said, “don’t be frightened. It will be all right, really.”

“Of course it will be all right,” Luke said grimly. “Probably it will only be
my
neck that gets broken. Hold on, Nell; I’m coming onto the platform. I want to get past you so you can go down ahead of me.” He seemed hardly out of breath, in spite of climbing, but his hand trembled as he reached out to take hold of the railing, and his face was wet. “Come on,” he said sharply.

Eleanor hung back. “The last time you told me to go ahead you never followed,” she said.

“Perhaps I will just push you over the edge,” Luke said. “Let you smash down there on the floor. Now behave yourself and move slowly; get past me and start down the stairs. And just hope,” he added furiously, “that I can resist the temptation to give you a shove.”

Meekly she came along the platform and pressed herself against the hard stone wall while Luke moved cautiously past her. “Start down,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Precariously, the iron stairway shaking and groaning with every step, she felt her way. She looked at her hand on the railing, white because she was holding so tight, and at her bare feet going one at a time, step by step, moving with extreme care, but never looked down again to the stone floor. Go down very slowly, she told herself over and over, not thinking of more than the steps which seemed almost to bend and buckle beneath her feet, go down very very very slowly. “Steady,” Luke said behind her. “Take it easy, Nell, nothing to be afraid of, we’re almost there.”

Involuntarily, below her, the doctor and Theodora held out their arms, as though ready to catch her if she fell, and once when Eleanor stumbled and missed a step, the handrail wavering as she clung to it, Theodora gasped and ran to hold the end of the stairway. “It’s all right, my Nellie,” she said over and over, “it’s all right, it’s all right.”

“Only a little farther,” the doctor said.

Creeping, Eleanor slid her feet down, one step after another, and at last, almost before she could believe it, stepped off onto the stone floor. Behind her the stairway rocked and clanged as Luke leaped down the last few steps and walked steadily across the room to fall against a chair and stop, head down and trembling still. Eleanor turned and looked up to the infinitely high little spot where she had been standing, at the iron stairway, warped and crooked and swaying against the tower wall, and said in a small voice, “I ran up. I ran up all the way.”

Mrs. Montague moved purposefully forward from the doorway where she and Arthur had been sheltering against the probable collapse of the stairway. “Does anybody agree with me,” she asked with great delicacy, “in thinking that this young woman has given us quite enough trouble tonight?
I,
for one, would like to go back to bed, and so would Arthur.”

“Hill House—” the doctor began.

“This childish nonsense has almost certainly destroyed any chance of manifestations
tonight,
I can tell you. I certainly do not look to see any of our friends from beyond after
this
ridiculous performance, so if you will all excuse me—and if you are
sure
that you are finished with your posturing and performing and waking up busy people—I will say good night. Arthur.” Mrs. Montague swept out, dragon rampant, quivering with indignation.

“Luke was scared,” Eleanor said, looking at the doctor and at Theodora.

“Luke was most certainly scared,” he agreed from behind her. “Luke was so scared he almost didn’t get himself down from there. Nell, what an imbecile you are.”

“I would be inclined to agree with Luke.” The doctor was displeased, and Eleanor looked away, looked at Theodora, and Theodora said, “I suppose you
had
to do it, Nell?”

“I’m all right,” Eleanor said, and could no longer look at any of them. She looked, surprised, down at her own bare feet, realizing suddenly that they had carried her, unfeeling, down the iron stairway. She thought, looking at her feet, and then raised her head. “I came down to the library to get a book,” she said.

It was humiliating, disastrous. Nothing was said at breakfast, and Eleanor was served coffee and eggs and rolls just like the others. She was allowed to linger over her coffee with the rest of them, observe the sunlight outside, comment upon the good day ahead; for a few minutes she might have been persuaded to believe that nothing had happened. Luke passed her the marmalade, Theodora smiled at her over Arthur’s head, the doctor bade her good morning. Then, after breakfast, after Mrs. Dudley’s entrance at ten, they came without comment, following one another silently, to the little parlor, and the doctor took his position before the fireplace. Theodora was wearing Eleanor’s red sweater.

“Luke will bring your car around,” the doctor said gently. In spite of what he was saying, his eyes were considerate and friendly. “Theodora will go up and pack for you.”

Eleanor giggled. “She can’t. She won’t have anything to wear.”

“Nell—” Theodora began, and stopped and glanced at Mrs. Montague, who shrugged her shoulders and said, “I examined the room.
Naturally
. I can’t imagine why none of
you
thought to do it.”

“I was going to,” the doctor said apologetically. “But I thought—”

“You
always
think, John, and that’s your trouble.
Naturally
I examined the room at once.”

“Theodora’s room?” Luke asked. “I wouldn’t like to go in there again.”

Mrs. Montague sounded surprised. “I can’t think why not,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“I went in and looked at my clothes,” Theodora said to the doctor. “They’re perfectly fine.”

“The room needs dusting,
naturally,
but what can you expect if you lock the door and Mrs. Dudley cannot—”

The doctor’s voice rose over his wife’s. “—cannot tell you how sorry I am,” he was saying. “If there is ever anything I can do . . .”

Eleanor laughed. “But I can’t leave,” she said, wondering where to find words to explain.

“You have been here quite long enough,” the doctor said.

Theodora stared at her. “I don’t need your clothes,” she said patiently. “Didn’t you just hear Mrs. Montague? I don’t need your clothes, and even if I
did
I wouldn’t wear them now; Nell, you’ve got to go away from here.”

“But I can’t leave,” Eleanor said, laughing still because it was so perfectly impossible to explain.

“Madam,” Luke said somberly, “you are no longer welcome as my guest.”

“Perhaps Arthur
had
better drive her back to the city. Arthur could see that she gets there safely.”

“Gets where?” Eleanor shook her head at them, feeling her lovely heavy hair around her face. “Gets where?” she asked happily.

“Why,” the doctor said, “home, of course,” and Theodora said, “Nell, your own little place, your own apartment, where all your things are,” and Eleanor laughed.

“I haven’t any apartment,” she said to Theodora. “I made it up. I sleep on a cot at my sister’s, in the baby’s room. I haven’t any home, no place at all. And I can’t go back to my sister’s because I stole her car.” She laughed, hearing her own words, so inadequate and so unutterably sad. “I haven’t any home,” she said again, and regarded them hopefully. “No home. Everything in all the world that belongs to me is in a carton in the back of my car. That’s all I have, some books and things I had when I was a little girl, and a watch my mother gave me. So you see there’s no place you can send me.”

I could, of course, go on and on, she wanted to tell them, seeing always their frightened, staring faces. I could go on and on, leaving my clothes for Theodora; I could go wandering and homeless, errant, and I would always come back here. It would be simpler to let me stay, more sensible, she wanted to tell them, happier.

“I want to stay here,” she said to them.

“I’ve already spoken to the sister,” Mrs. Montague said importantly. “I must say, she asked first about the car. A vulgar person; I told her she need have no fear. You were very wrong, John, to let her steal her sister’s car and come here.”

“My dear,” Dr. Montague began, and stopped, spreading his hands helplessly.

“At any rate, she is expected. The sister was most annoyed at me because they had planned to go off on their vacation today, although why she should be annoyed at
me
. . .” Mrs. Montague scowled at Eleanor. “I do think someone ought to see her safely into their hands,” she said.

The doctor shook his head. “It would be a mistake,” he said slowly. “It would be a mistake to send one of us with her. She must be allowed to forget everything about this house as soon as she can; we cannot prolong the association. Once away from here, she will be herself again; can you find your way home?” he asked Eleanor, and Eleanor laughed.

“I’ll go and get that packing done,” Theodora said. “Luke, check her car and bring it around; she’s only got one suitcase.”

“Walled up alive.” Eleanor began to laugh again at their stone faces. “Walled up alive,” she said. “I want to stay here.”

They made a solid line along the steps of Hill House, guarding the door. Beyond their heads she could see the windows looking down, and to one side the tower waited confidently. She might have cried if she could have thought of any way of telling them why; instead, she smiled brokenly up at the house, looking at her own window, at the amused, certain face of the house, watching her quietly. The house was waiting now, she thought, and it was waiting for her; no one else could satisfy it. “The house wants me to stay,” she told the doctor, and he stared at her. He was standing very stiff and with great dignity, as though he expected her to choose him instead of the house, as though, having brought her here, he thought that by unwinding his directions he could send her back again. His back was squarely turned to the house, and, looking at him honestly, she said, “I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry, really.”

“You’ll go to Hillsdale,” he said levelly; perhaps he was afraid of saying too much, perhaps he thought that a kind word, or a sympathetic one, might rebound upon himself and bring her back. The sun was shining on the hills and the house and the garden and the lawn and the trees and the brook; Eleanor took a deep breath and turned, seeing it all. “In Hillsdale turn onto Route Five going east; at Ashton you will meet Route Thirtynine, and that will take you home. For your own safety,” he added with a kind of urgency, “for your own safety, my dear; believe me, if I had foreseen this—”

“I’m really terribly sorry,” she said.

“We can’t take chances, you know,
any
chances. I am only beginning to perceive what a terrible risk I was asking of you all. Now . . .” He sighed and shook his head. “You’ll remember?” he asked. “To Hillsdale, and then Route Five—”

“Look.” Eleanor was quiet for a minute, wanting to tell them all exactly how it was. “I wasn’t afraid,” she said at last. “I really wasn’t afraid. I’m fine now. I was—happy.” She looked earnestly at the doctor.
“Happy,”
she said. “I don’t know what to say,” she said, afraid again that she was going to cry. “I don’t want to go away from here.”

“There might be a next time,” the doctor said sternly. “Can’t you understand that we
cannot
take that chance?”

Eleanor faltered. “Someone is praying for me,” she said foolishly. “A lady I met a long time ago.”

The doctor’s voice was gentle, but he tapped his foot impatiently. “You will forget all of this quite soon,” he said. “You must forget everything about Hill House. I was so wrong to bring you here,” he said.

“How long
have
we been here?” Eleanor asked suddenly.

“A little over a week. Why?”

“It’s the only time anything’s ever happened to me. I liked it.”

“That,” said the doctor, “is why you are leaving in such a hurry.”

Eleanor closed her eyes and sighed, feeling and hearing and smelling the house; a flowering bush beyond the kitchen was heavy with scent, and the water in the brook moved sparkling over the stones. Far away, upstairs, perhaps in the nursery, a little eddy of wind gathered itself and swept along the floor, carrying dust. In the library the iron stairway swayed, and light glittered on the marble eyes of Hugh Crain; Theodora’s yellow shirt hung neat and unstained, Mrs. Dudley was setting the lunch table for five. Hill House watched, arrogant and patient. “I won’t go away,” Eleanor said up to the high windows.

“You
will
go away,” the doctor said, showing his impatience at last. “Right now.”

Eleanor laughed, and turned, holding out her hand. “Luke,” she said, and he came toward her, silent. “Thank you for bringing me down last night,” she said. “That was wrong of me. I know it now, and you were very brave.”

“I was indeed,” Luke said. “It was an act of courage far surpassing any other in
my
life. And I am glad to see you going, Nell, because I would certainly never do it again.”

“Well, it seems to
me,
” Mrs. Montague said, “if you’re going you’d better get on with it. I’ve no quarrel with saying good-by, although I personally feel that you’ve all got an exaggerated view of this place, but I
do
think we’ve got better things to do than stand here arguing when we all know you’ve
got
to go. You’ll be a time as it is, getting back to the city, and your sister waiting to go on her vacation.”

Arthur nodded. “Tearful farewells,” he said. “Don’t hold with them, myself.”

Far away, in the little parlor, the ash dropped softly in the fireplace. “John,” Mrs. Montague said, “possibly it
would
be better if Arthur—”