Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (Horror Classic)

Why am I here? she thought helplessly and at once; why am I here? The gate was tall and ominous and heavy, set strongly into a stone wall which went off through the trees. Even from the car she could see the padlock and the chain that was twisted around and through the bars. Beyond the gate she could see only that the road continued, turned, shadowed on either side by the still, dark trees.

Since the gate was so clearly locked—locked and double-locked and chained and barred; who, she wondered, wants so badly to get in?—she made no attempt to get out of her car, but pressed the horn, and the trees and the gate shuddered and withdrew slightly from the sound. After a minute she blew the horn again and then saw a man coming towards her from inside the gate; he was as dark and unwelcoming as the padlock, and before he moved towards the gate he peered through the bars at her, scowling.

‘What you want?’ His voice was sharp, mean.

‘I want to come in, please. Please unlock the gate.’

‘Who say?’

‘Why——’ She faltered. ‘I’m supposed to come in,’ she said at last.

‘What for?’

‘I am expected.’ Or am I? she wondered suddenly; is this as far as I go?

‘Who by?’

She knew, of course, that he was delighting in exceeding his authority, as though once he moved to unlock the gate he would lose the little temporary superiority he thought he had—and what superiority have I? she wondered; I am outside the gate, after all. She could already see that losing her temper, which she did rarely because she was so afraid of being ineffectual, would only turn him away, leaving her still outside the gate, railing futilely. She could even anticipate his innocence if he were reproved later for this arrogance—the maliciously vacant grin, the wide, blank eyes, the whining voice protesting that he would have let her in, he planned to let her in, but how could he be sure? He had his orders, didn’t he? And he had to do what he was told? He ’d be the one to get into trouble, wouldn’t he, if he let in someone wasn’t supposed to be inside? She could anticipate his shrug, and, picturing him, laughed, perhaps the worst thing she could have done.

Eyeing her, he moved back from the gate. ‘You better come back later,’ he said, and turned his back with an air of virtuous triumph.

‘Listen,’ she called after him, still trying not to sound angry, ‘I am one of Doctor Montague’s guests; he will be expecting me in the house—please listen to me!’

He turned and grinned at her. ‘They couldn’t rightly be expecting you,’ he said, ‘seeing as you’re the only one’s come , so far.’

‘Do you mean that there’s no one in the house?’

‘No one I know of. Maybe my wife, getting it fixed up. So they couldn’t be there exactly expecting you, now could they?’

She sat back against the car seat and closed her eyes. Hill House, she thought, you’re as hard to get into as heaven.

‘I suppose you know what you’re asking for, coming here? I suppose they told you, back in the city? You hear anything about this place?’

‘I heard that I was invited here as a guest of Doctor Montague’s. When you open the gates I will go inside.’

‘I’ll open them; I’m going to open them. I just want to be sure you know what’s waiting for you in there. You ever been here before? One of the family, maybe?’ He looked at her now, peering through the bars, his jeering face one more barrier, after padlock and chain. ‘I can’t let you in till I’m sure , can I? What’d you say your name was?’

She sighed. ‘Eleanor Vance.’

‘Not one of the family then, I guess. You ever hear anything about this place?’

It’s my chance, I suppose, she thought; I’m being given a last chance. I could turn my car around right here and now in front of these gates and go away from here, and no one would blame me. Anyone has a right to run away. She put her head out through the car window and said with fury, ‘My name is Eleanor Vance. I am expected in Hill House. Unlock those gates at once.’

‘All right, all right .’ Deliberately, making a wholly unnecessary display of fitting the key and turning it, he opened the padlock and loosened the chain and swung the gates just wide enough for the car to come through. Eleanor moved the car slowly, but the alacrity with which he leaped to the side of the road made her think for a minute that he had perceived the fleeting impulse crossing her mind; she laughed, and then stopped the car because he was coming towards her—safely, from the side.

‘You won’t like it,’ he said. ‘You’ll be sorry I ever opened that gate.’

‘Out of the way, please,’ she said. ‘You’ve held me up long enough.’

‘You think they could get anyone else to open this gate? You think anyone else’d stay around here that long, except me and my wife? You think we can’t have things just about the way we want them, long as we stay around here and fix up the house and open the gates for all you city people think you know everything?’

‘Please get away from my car.’ She dared not admit to herself that he frightened her, for fear that he might perceive it; his nearness, leaning against the side of the car, was ugly, and his enormous resentment puzzled her; she had certainly made him open the gate for her, but did he think of the house and gardens inside as his own? A name from Dr Montague’s letter came into her mind, and she asked curiously, ‘Are you Dudley, the caretaker?’

‘Yes, I’m Dudley, the caretaker.’ He mimicked her. ‘Who else you think would be around here?’

The honest old family retainer, she thought, proud and loyal and thoroughly unpleasant. ‘You and your wife take care of the house all alone?’

‘Who else?’ It was his boast, his curse, his refrain.

She moved restlessly, afraid to draw away from him too obviously, and yet wanting, with small motions of starting the car, to make him stand aside. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to make us very comfortable, you and your wife,’ she said, putting a tone of finality into her voice. ‘Meanwhile, I’m very anxious to get to the house as soon as possible.’

He snickered disagreeably. ‘ Me , now,’ he said, ‘me, I don’t hang around here after dark.’

Grinning, satisfied with himself, he stood away from the car, and Eleanor was grateful, although awkward starting the car under his eye; perhaps he will keep popping out at me all along the drive, she thought, a sneering Cheshire Cat, yelling each time that I should be happy to find anyone willing to hang around this place, until dark, anyway. To show that she was not at all affected by the thought of the face of Dudley the caretaker between the trees she began to whistle, a little annoyed to find that the same tune still ran through her head. ‘Present mirth hath present laughter . . .’ And she told herself crossly that she must really make an effort to think of something else; she was sure that the rest of the words must be most unsuitable, to hide so stubbornly from her memory, and probably wholly disreputable to be caught singing on her arrival at Hill House.

Over the trees, occasionally, between them and the hills, she caught glimpses of what must be the roofs, perhaps a tower, of Hill House. They made houses so oddly back when Hill House was built, she thought; they put towers and turrets and buttresses and wooden lace on them, even sometimes Gothic spires and gargoyles; nothing was ever left undecorated. Perhaps Hill House has a tower, or a secret chamber, or even a passageway going off into the hills and probably used by smugglers—although what could smugglers find to smuggle around these lonely hills? Perhaps I will encounter a devilishly handsome smuggler and . . .