The Haunting of Hill House (27 page)

“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.

“My dear,” the doctor said, “I am certain that none of us would knowingly have interfered.”

“Mocking and jeering, were you not? Skeptical, with planchette's very words before your eyes? Those young people pert and insolent?”

“Mrs. Montague, really . . .” said Luke, but Mrs. Montague brushed past him and sat herself down, her lips tight and her eyes blazing. The doctor sighed, started to speak, and then stopped. Turning away from his wife, he gestured Luke back to the chess table. Apprehensively, Luke followed, and Arthur, wriggling in his chair, said in a low voice to Theodora, “Never seen her so upset, you know. Miserable experience, waiting for planchette. So easily offended, of course. Sensitive to atmosphere.” Seeming to believe that he had satisfactorily explained the situation, he sat back and smiled timidly.

Eleanor was hardly listening, wondering dimly at the movement in the room. Someone was walking around, she thought without interest; Luke was walking back and forth in the room, talking softly to himself; surely an odd way to play chess? Humming? Singing? Once or twice she almost made out a broken word, and then Luke spoke quietly; he was at the chess table where he belonged, and Eleanor turned and looked at the empty center of the room, where someone was walking and singing softly, and then she heard it clearly:

Why, I know that, she thought, listening, smiling, to the faint melody; we used to play that game; I remember that.

“It's simply that it's a most delicate and intricate piece of machinery,” Mrs. Montague was saying to Theodora; she was still angry, but visibly softening under Theodora's sympathetic attention. “The slightest air of disbelief offends it, naturally. How would
you
feel if people refused to believe in
you
?”

The voice was light, perhaps only a child's voice, singing sweetly and thinly, on the barest breath, and Eleanor smiled and remembered, hearing the little song more clearly than Mrs. Montague's voice continuing about planchette.

She heard the little melody fade, and felt the slight movement of air as the footsteps came close to her, and something almost brushed her face; perhaps there was a tiny sigh against her cheek, and she turned in surprise. Luke and the doctor bent over the chessboard, Arthur leaned confidingly close to Theodora, and Mrs. Montague talked.

None of them heard it, she thought with joy; nobody heard it but me.

Eleanor closed the bedroom door softly behind her, not wanting to awaken Theodora, although the noise of a door closing would hardly disturb anyone, she thought, who slept so soundly as Theodora; I learned to sleep very lightly, she told herself comfortingly, when I was listening for my mother. The hall was dim, lighted only by the small nightlight over the stairs, and all the doors were closed. Funny, Eleanor thought, going soundlessly in her bare feet along the hall carpet, it's the only house I ever knew where you don't have to worry about making noise at night, or at least about anyone knowing it's you. She had awakened with the thought of going down to the library, and her mind had supplied her with a reason: I cannot sleep, she explained to herself, and so I am going downstairs to get a book. If anyone asks me where I am going, it is down to the library to get a book because I cannot sleep.

It was warm, drowsily, luxuriously warm. She went barefoot and in silence down the great staircase and to the library door before she thought, But I can't go in there; I'm not allowed in there—and recoiled in the doorway before the odor of decay, which nauseated her. “Mother,” she said aloud, and stepped quickly back. “Come along,” a voice answered distinctly upstairs, and Eleanor turned, eager, and hurried to the staircase. “Mother?” she said softly, and then again, “Mother?” A little soft laugh floated down to her, and she ran, breathless, up the stairs and stopped at the top, looking to right and left along the hallway at the closed doors.

“You're here somewhere,” she said, and down the hall the little echo went, slipping in a whisper on the tiny currents of air. “Somewhere,” it said. “Somewhere.”

Laughing, Eleanor followed, running soundlessly down the hall to the nursery doorway; the cold spot was gone, and she laughed up at the two grinning faces looking down at her. “Are you in here?” she whispered outside the door, “are you in here?” and knocked, pounding with her fists.