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

‘thank heaven somebody’s here.’ She realised without surprise that she was speaking as though Mrs Dudley could not hear her, although Mrs Dudley stood, straight and pale, in the hall. ‘Come on up,’ Eleanor said, ‘you’ll have to carry your own suitcase.’ She was breathless and seemed unable to stop talking, her usual shyness melted away by relief. ‘My name’s Eleanor Vance,’ she said, ‘and ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’

      ‘I’m Theodora. Just Theodora. This bloody house——’

      ‘It’s just as bad up here. Come on up. Make her give you the room next to mine.’

      Theodora came up the heavy stairway after Mrs Dudley, looking incredulously at the stained-glass window on the landing, the marble urn in a niche, the patterned carpet. Her suitcase was considerably larger than Eleanor’s, and considerably more luxurious, and Eleanor came forward to help her, glad that her own things were safely put away out of sight. ‘Wait till you see the bedrooms,’ Eleanor said. ‘Mine used to be the embalming room, I think.’

      ‘It’s the home I’ve always dreamed of,’ Theodora said. ‘A little hideaway where I can be alone with my thoughts. Particularly if my thoughts happened to be about murder or suicide or——’

      ‘Green room,’ Mrs Dudley said coldly, and Eleanor sensed, with a quick turn of apprehension, that flippant or critical talk about the house bothered Mrs Dudley in some manner; maybe she thinks it can hear us, Eleanor thought, and then was sorry she had thought it. Perhaps she shivered, because Theodora turned with a quick smile and touched her shoulder gently, reassuringly; she is charming, Eleanor thought, smiling back, not at all the sort of person who belongs in this dreary, dark place, but then, probably, I don’t belong here either; I am not the sort of person for Hill House but I can’t think of anybody who would be. She laughed then, watching Theodora’s expression as she stood in the doorway of the green room.

      ‘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