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

‘Good Lord,’ Theodora said, looking sideways at Eleanor. ‘How perfectly enchanting. A positive bower.’

‘I set dinner on the dining-room sideboard at six sharp,’ Mrs Dudley said. ‘You can serve yourselves. I clear up in the morning. I have breakfast ready for you at nine. That’s the way I agreed to do.’

‘You’re frightened,’ Theodora said, watching Eleanor.

‘I can’t keep the rooms up the way you’d like, but there’s no one else you could get that would help me. I don’t wait on people. What I agreed to, it doesn’t mean I wait on people.’

‘It was just when I thought I was all alone,’ Eleanor said.

‘I don’t stay after six. Not after it begins to get dark.’

‘I’m here now,’ Theodora said, ‘so it’s all right.’

‘We have a connecting bathroom,’ Eleanor said absurdly. ‘The rooms are exactly alike.’

Green dimity curtains hung over the windows in Theodora’s room, the wallpaper was decked with green garlands, the bedspread and quilt were green, the marble-topped dresser and the huge wardrobe were the same. ‘I’ve never seen such awful places in my life ,’ Eleanor said, her voice rising.

‘Like the very best hotels,’ Theodora said, ‘or any good girls’ camp.’

‘I leave before dark comes,’ Mrs Dudley went on.

‘No one can hear you if you scream in the night,’ Eleanor told Theodora. She realised that she was clutching at the door-knob and, under Theodora’s quizzical eye, unclenched her fingers and walked steadily across the room. ‘We’ll have to find some way of opening these windows,’ she said.

‘So there won’t be anyone around if you need help,’ Mrs Dudley said. ‘We couldn’t hear you, even in the night. No one could.’

‘All right now?’ Theodora asked, and Eleanor nodded.

‘No one lives any nearer than the town. No one else will come any nearer than that.’

‘You’re probably just hungry,’ Theodora said. ‘And I’m starved myself.’ She set her suitcase on the bed and slipped off her shoes. ‘ Nothing ,’ she said, ‘upsets me more than being hungry; I snarl and snap and burst into tears.’ She lifted a pair of softly tailored slacks out of the suitcase.

‘In the night,’ Mrs Dudley said. She smiled. ‘In the dark,’ she said, and closed the door behind her.

After a minute Eleanor said, ‘She also walks without making a sound.’

‘Delightful old body.’ Theodora turned, regarding her room. ‘I take it back, that about the best hotels,’ she said. ‘It’s a little bit like a boarding school I went to for a while.’

‘Come and see mine,’ Eleanor said. She opened the bathroom door and led the way into her blue room. ‘I was all unpacked and thinking about packing again when you came.’

‘Poor baby. You’re certainly starving. All I could think of when I got a look at the place from outside was what fun it would be to stand out there and watch it burn down. Maybe before we leave . . .’

‘It was terrible, being here alone.’

‘You should have seen that boarding school of mine during vacations.’ Theodora went back into her own room and, with the sense of movement and sound in the two rooms, Eleanor felt more cheerful. She straightened her clothes on the hangers in the wardrobe and set her books evenly on the bed-table. ‘You know,’ Theodora called from the other room, ‘it is kind of like the first day at school; everything’s ugly and strange, and you don’t know anybody, and you’re afraid everyone’s going to laugh at your clothes.’

Eleanor, who had opened the dresser drawer to take out a pair of slacks, stopped and then laughed and threw the slacks on the bed.

‘Did I understand correctly,’ Theodora went on, ‘that Mrs Dudley is not going to come if we scream in the night?’

‘It was not what she agreed to. Did you meet the amiable old retainer at the gate?’

‘We had a lovely chat. He said I couldn’t come in and I said I could and then I tried to run him down with my car but he jumped. Look, do you think we have to sit around here in our rooms and wait? I’d like to change into something comfortable—unless we dress for dinner, do you think?’

‘I won’t if you won’t.’

‘I won’t if you won’t. They can’t fight both of us. Anyway, let’s get out of here and go exploring; I would very much like to get this roof off from over my head.’

‘It gets dark so early, in these hills, with all the trees . . .’ Eleanor went to the window again, but there was still sunlight slanting across the lawn.

‘It won’t be really dark for nearly an hour. I want to go outside and roll on the grass.’

Eleanor chose a red sweater, thinking that in this room in this house the red of the sweater and the red of the sandals bought to match it would almost certainly be utterly at war with each other, although they had been close enough yesterday in the city. Serves me right anyway, she thought, for wanting to wear such things; I never did before. But she looked oddly well, it seemed to her as she stood by the long mirror on the wardrobe door, almost comfortable. ‘Do you have any idea who else is coming?’ she asked. ‘Or when?’

‘Doctor Montague.’ Theodora said. ‘I thought he’d be here before anyone else.’

‘Have you known Doctor Montague long?’

‘Never met him,’ Theodora said. ‘Have you?’

‘Never. You almost ready?’

‘All ready.’ Theodora came through the bathroom door into Eleanor’s room; she is lovely, Eleanor thought, turning to look; I wish I were lovely. Theodora was wearing a vivid yellow shirt, and Eleanor laughed and said, ‘You bring more light into this room than the window.’

Theodora came over and regarded herself approvingly in Eleanor’s mirror. ‘I feel,’ she said, ‘that in this dreary place it is our duty to look as bright as possible. I approve of your red sweater; the two of us will be visible from one end of Hill House to the other.’ Still looking into the mirror, she asked, ‘I suppose Doctor Montague wrote to you?’

‘Yes.’ Eleanor was embarrassed. ‘I didn’t know, at first, whether it was a joke or not. But my brother-in-law checked up on him.’

‘You know,’ Theodora said slowly, ‘up until the last minute—when I got to the gates, I guess—I never really thought there would be a Hill House. You don’t go around expecting things like this to happen.’

‘But some of us go around hoping,’ Eleanor said.

Theodora laughed and swung around before the mirror and caught Eleanor’s hand. ‘Fellow babe in the woods,’ she said, ‘let’s go exploring.’

‘We can’t go far away from the house——’

‘I promise not to go one step farther than you say. Do you think we have to check in and out with Mrs Dudley?’

‘She probably watches every move we make, anyway; it’s probably part of what she agreed to.’

‘Agreed to with whom, I wonder? Count Dracula?’

‘You think he lives in Hill House?’

‘I think he spends all his week-ends here; I swear I saw bats in the woodwork downstairs. Follow, follow.’

They ran downstairs, moving with colour and life against the dark woodwork and the clouded light of the stairs, their feet clattering, and Mrs Dudley stood below and watched them in silence.

‘We’re going exploring, Mrs Dudley,’ Theodora said lightly. ‘We’ll be outside somewhere.’

‘But we’ll be back soon,’ Eleanor added.

‘I set dinner on the sideboard at six o’clock,’ Mrs Dudley explained.

Eleanor, tugging, got the great front door open; it was just as heavy as it looked, and she thought, We will really have to find some easier way to get back in. ‘Leave this open,’ she said over her shoulder to Theodora. ‘It’s terribly heavy. Get one of those big vases and prop it open.’