Shirley Jackson - The haunting of Hill house
The haunting of Hill house by Shirley Jackson
For Leonard Brown
CHAPTER 1
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under
conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are
supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself
against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty
years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued
upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were
sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of
Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Dr. John Montague was a doctor of philosophy; he had taken his
degree in anthropology, feeling obscurely that in this field he might
come closest to his true vocation, the analysis of supernatural
manifestations. He was scrupulous about the use of his title
because, his investigations being so utterly unscientific, he hoped
to borrow an air of respectability, even scholarly authority, from
his education. It had cost him a good deal, in money and pride,
since he was not a begging man, to rent Hill House for three
months, but he expected absolutely to be compensated for his pains
by the sensation following upon the publication of his definitive
work on the causes and effects of psychic disturbances in a house
commonly known as "haunted." He had been looking for an
honestly haunted house all his life. When he heard of Hill House
he had been at first doubtful, then hopeful, then indefatigable; he
was not the man to let go of Hill House once he had found it.
Dr. Montague's intentions with regard to Hill House derived
from the methods of the intrepid nineteenth-century ghost hunters;
he was going to go and live in Hill House and see what happened
there. It was his intention, at first, to follow the example of the
anonymous Lady who went to stay at Ballechin House and ran a
summer-long house party for skeptics and believers, with croquet
and ghost-watching as the outstanding attractions, but skeptics,
believers, and good croquet players are harder to come by today;
Dr. Montague was forced to engage assistants. Perhaps the
leisurely ways of Victorian life lent themselves more agreeably
to the devices of psychic investigation, or perhaps the painstaking
documentation of phenomena has largely gone out as a means of
determining actuality; at any rate, Dr. Montague had not only to
engage assistants but to search for them.
Because he thought of himself as careful and conscientious, he
spent considerable time looking for his assistants. He combed the
records of the psychic societies, the back files of sensational newspapers,
the reports of parapsychologists, and assembled a list of
names of people who had, in one way or another, at one time or
another, no matter how briefly or dubiously, been involved in
abnormal events. From his list he first eliminated the names of
people who were dead. When he had then crossed off the names of
those who seemed to him publicity-seekers, of subnormal Intelligence,
or unsuitable because of a clear tendency to take the center
of the stage, he had a list of perhaps a dozen names. Each of these
people, then, received a letter from Dr. Montague extending an
invitation to spend all or part of a summer at a comfortable
country house, old, but perfectly equipped with plumbing, electricity,
central heating, and clean mattresses. The purpose of their
stay, the letters stated clearly, was to observe and explore the
various unsavory stories which had been circulated about the
house for most of its eighty years of existence. Dr. Montague's
letters did not say openly that Hill House was haunted, because
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Dr. Montague was a man of science and until he had actually
experienced a psychic manifestation in Hill House he would not
trust his luck too far. Consequently his letters had a certain
ambiguous dignity calculated to catch at the imagination of a
very special sort of reader. To his dozen letters, Dr. Montague had
four replies, the other eight or so candidates having presumably
moved and left no forwarding address, or possibly having lost
interest in the supernormal, or even, perhaps, never having existed
at all. To the four who replied, Dr. Montague wrote again, naming
a specific day when the house would be officially regarded as ready
for occupancy, and enclosing detailed directions for reaching it,
since, as he was forced to explain, information about finding the
house was extremely difficult to get, particularly from the rural
community which surrounded it. On the day before he was to
leave for Hill House, Dr. Montague was persuaded to take into his
select company a representative of a family who owned the house,
and a telegram arrived from one of his candidates, backing out
with a clearly manufactured excuse. Another never came or wrote,
perhaps because of some pressing personal problem which had
intervened. The other two came.
2
Eleanor Vance was thirty-two years old when she came to Hill
House. The only person in the world she genuinely hated, now that
her mother was dead, was her sister. She disliked her brother-inlaw
and her five-year-old niece, and she had no friends. This was
owing largely to the eleven years she had spent caring for her
invalid mother, which had left her with some proficiency as a nurse
and an inability to face strong sunlight without blinking. She could
not remember ever being truly happy in her adult life; her years
with her mother had been built up devotedly around small guilts
and small reproaches, constant weariness, and unending despair.
Without ever wanting to become reserved and shy, she had spent
so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to
talk, even casually, to another person without self-consciousness
and an awkward inability to find words. Her name had turned up
on Dr. Montague's list because one day, when she was twelve years
old and her sister was eighteen, and their father had been dead for
not quite a month, showers of stones had fallen on their house,
without any warning or any indication of purpose or reason,
dropping from the ceilings rolling loudly down the walls, breaking
windows and pattering maddeningly on the roof. The stones
continued intermittently for three days, during which time Eleanor
and her sister were less unnerved by the stones than by the
neighbors and sightseers who gathered daily outside the front door,
and by their mother's blind, hysterical insistence that all of this was
due to malicious, backbiting people on the block who had had it in
for her ever since she came. After three days Eleanor and her sister
were removed to the house of a friend, and the stones stopped
falling, nor did they ever return, although Eleanor and her sister
and her mother went back to living in the house, and the feud with
the entire neighborhood was never ended. The story had been
forgotten by everyone except the people Dr. Montague consulted;
it had certainly been forgotten by Eleanor and her sister, each of
whom had supposed at the time that the other was responsible.
During the whole underside of her life, ever since her first
memory, Eleanor had been waiting for something like Hill
House. Caring for her mother, lifting a cross old lady from her
chair to her bed, setting out endless little trays of soup and oatmeal,
steeling herself to the filthy laundry, Eleanor had held fast to the
belief that someday something would happen. She had accepted
the invitation to Hill House by return mail, although her brotherin-
law had insisted upon calling a couple of people to make sure
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that this doctor fellow was not aiming to introduce Eleanor to
savage rites not unconnected with matters Eleanor's sister deemed
it improper for an unmarried young woman to know. Perhaps,
Eleanor's sister whispered in the privacy of the marital bedroom,
perhaps Dr. Montague-if that really was his name, after allperhaps
this Dr. Montague used these women for some-well--
experiments. You know-experiments, the way they do. Eleanor's sister
dwelt richly upon experiments she had heard these doctors did.
Eleanor had no such ideas, or, having them, was not afraid.
Eleanor, in short, would have gone anywhere.
Theodora-that was as much name as she used; her sketches were
signed "Theo" and on her apartment door and the window of her
shop and her telephone listing and her pale stationery and the
bottom of the lovely photograph of her which stood on the mantel,
the name was always only Theodora-Theodora was not at all like
Eleanor. Duty and conscience were, for Theodora, attributes
which belonged properly to Girl Scouts. Theodora's world was
one of delight and soft colors; she had come onto Dr. Montague's
list because-going laughing into the laboratory, bringing with
her a rush of floral perfume-she had somehow been able, amused
and excited over her own incredible skill, to identify correctly
eighteen cards out of twenty, fifteen cards out of twenty, nineteen
cards out of twenty, held up by an assistant out of sight and
hearing. The name of Theodora shone in the records of the
laboratory and so came inevitably to Dr. Montague's attention.
Theodora had been entertained by Dr. Montague's first letter and
answered it out of curiosity (perhaps the wakened knowledge in
Theodora which told her the names of symbols on cards held out of
sight urged her on her way toward Hill House), and yet fully
intended to decline the invitation. Yet-perhaps the stirring,
urgent sense again-when Dr. Montague's confirming letter
arrived, Theodora had been tempted and had somehow plunged
blindly, wantonly, into a violent quarrel with the friend with
whom she shared an apartment. Things were said on both sides
which only time could eradicate; Theodora had deliberately and
heartlessly smashed the lovely little figurine her friend had carved
of her, and her friend had cruelly ripped to shreds the volume of
Alfred de Musset which had been a birthday present from
Theodora, taking particular pains with the page which bore
Theodora's loving, teasing inscription. These acts were of course
unforgettable, and before they could laugh over them together
time would have to go by; Theodora had written that night,
accepting Dr. Montague's invitation, and departed in cold silence
the next day.
Luke Sanderson was a liar. He was also a thief. His aunt, who was
the owner of Hill House, was fond of pointing out that her nephew
had the best education, the best clothes, the best taste, and the
worst companions of anyone she had ever known; she would have
leaped at any chance to put him safely away for a few weeks. The
family lawyer was prevailed upon to persuade Dr. Montague that
the house could on no account be rented to him for his, purposes
without the confining presence of a member of the family during
his stay, and perhaps at their first meeting the doctor perceived in
Luke a kind of strength, or catlike instinct for self-preservation,
which made him almost as anxious as Mrs. Sanderson to have
Luke with him in the house. At any rate, Luke was amused, his
aunt grateful, and Dr. Montague more than satisfied. Mrs.
Sanderson told the family lawyer that at any rate there was
really nothing in the house Luke could steal. The old silver there
was of some value, she told the lawyer, but it represented an almost
insuperable difficulty for Luke: it required energy to steal it and
transform it into money. Mrs. Sanderson did Luke an injustice.
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Luke was not at all likely to make off with the family silver, or Dr.
Montague's watch, or Theodora's bracelet; his dishonesty was
largely confined to taking petty cash from his aunt's pocketbook
and cheating at cards. He was also apt to sell the watches and
cigarette cases given him, fondly and with pretty blushes, by his
aunt's friends. Someday Luke would inherit Hill House, but he
had never thought to find himself living in it.
3
"I just don't think she should take the car, is all," Eleanor's
brother-in-law said stubbornly.
"It's half my car," Eleanor said. "I helped pay for it."
"I just don't think she should take it, is all," her brother-in-law
said. He appealed to his wife. "It isn't fair she should have the use
of it for the whole summer, and us have to do without."
"Carrie drives it all the time, and I never even take it out of the
garage," Eleanor said. "Besides, you'll be in the mountains all
summer, and you can't use it there. Carrie, you know you won't use
the car in the mountains.
"But suppose poor little Linnie got sick or something? And we
needed a car to get her to a doctor?"
"It's half my car," Eleanor said. "I mean to take it."
"Suppose even Carrie got sick? Suppose we couldn't get a doctor
and needed to go to a hospital?"
"I want it. I mean to take it."
"I don't think so." Carrie spoke slowly, deliberately. "We don't
know where you're going, do we? You haven't seen fit to tell us
very much about all this, have you? I don't think I can see my way
clear to letting you borrow my car."
"It's half my car."
"No," Carrie said. "You may not."
"Right." Eleanor's brother-in-law nodded. ".We need it, like
Carrie says."
Carrie smiled slightly. "I'd never forgive myself, Eleanor, if I
lent you the car and something happened. How do we know we
can trust this doctor fellow? You're still a young woman, after all,
and the car is worth a good deal of money."
"Well, now, Carrie, I did call Homer in the credit office, and he
said this fellow was in good standing at some college or other-"
Carrie said, still smiling, "Of course, there is every reason to
suppose that he is a decent man. But Eleanor does not choose to tell
us where she is going, or how to reach her if we want the car back;
something could happen, and we might never know. Even if
Eleanor," she went on delicately, addressing her teacup, "even
if Eleanor is prepared to run off to the ends of the earth at the
invitation of any man, there is still no reason why she should be
permitted to take my car with her."
"Suppose poor little Linnie got sick, up there in the mountains,
with ,nobody around? No doctor?"
"In any case, Eleanor, I am sure that I am doing what Mother
would have thought best. Mother had confidence in me and would
certainly never have approved my letting you run wild, going off
heaven knows where, in my car."
"Or suppose even I got sick, up there in-
"I am sure Mother would have agreed with me, Eleanor."
"Besides," Eleanor's brother-in-law said, struck by a sudden
idea, "how do we know she'd bring it back in good condition?"
There has to be a first time for everything, Eleanor told herself. She
got out of the taxi, very early in the morning, trembling because by
now, perhaps, her sister and her brother-in-law might be stirring
with the first faint proddings of suspicion; she took her suitcase
Page 4
quickly out of the taxi while the driver lifted out the cardboard
carton which had been on the front seat. Eleanor overtipped him,
wondering if her sister and brother-in-law were following, were
perhaps even now turning into the street and telling each other,
"There she is, just as we thought, the thief, there she is"; she turned
in haste to go into the huge city garage where their car was kept,
glancing nervously toward the ends of the street. She crashed into a
very little lady, sending packages in all directions, and saw with
dismay a bag upset and break on the sidewalk, spilling out a
broken piece of cheesecake, tomato slices, a hard roll. "Damn you
damn you!" the little lady screamed, her face pushed up close to
Eleanor's. "I was taking it home, damn you damn you!"
"I'm so sorry," Eleanor said; she bent down, but it did not seem
possible to scoop up the fragments of tomato and cheesecake and
shove them somehow back into the broken bag. The old lady was
scowling down and snatching up- her other packages before
Eleanor could reach them, and at last Eleanor rose, smiling in
convulsive apology. "I'm really so sorry," she said.
"Damn you," the little old lady said, but more quietly. "I was
taking it home for my little lunch. And now, thanks to you."
"Perhaps I could pay?" Eleanor took hold of her pocketbook,
and the little lady stood very still and thought.
"I couldn't take money, just like that," she said at last. "I didn't
buy the things, you see. They were left over." She snapped her lips
angrily. "You should have seen the ham they had," she said, "but
someone else got that. And the chocolate cake. And the potato
salad. And the little candies in the little paper dishes. I was too late
on everything. And now.. ." She and Eleanor both glanced down
at the mess on the sidewalk, and the little lady said, "So you see, I
couldn't just take money, not money just from your hand, not for
something that was left over."
"May I buy you something to replace this, then? I'm in a
terrible hurry, but if we could find some place that's open-"
The little old lady smiled wickedly. "I've still got this, anyway,"
she said, and she hugged one package tight. "You may pay my taxi
fare home," she said. "Then no one else will be likely to knock me
down."
"Gladly," Eleanor said and turned to the taxi driver, who had
been waiting, interested. "Can you take this lady home?" she
asked.
"A couple of dollars will do it," the little lady said, "not
including the tip for this gentleman, of course. Being as small as
I am," she explained daintily, "it's quite a hazard, quite a hazard
indeed, people knocking you down. Still, it's a genuine pleasure to
find one as willing as you to make up for it. Sometimes the people
who knock you down never turn once to look." With Eleanor's
help she climbed into the taxi with her packages, and Eleanor took
two dollars and a fifty-cent piece from her pocketbook and handed
them to the little lady, who clutched them tight in her tiny hand.
"All right, sweetheart," the taxi driver said, "where do we go?"
The little lady chuckled. "I'll tell you after we start," she said,
and then, to Eleanor, "Good luck to you, dearie. Watch out from
now on how you go knocking people down."
"Good-by," Eleanor said, "and I'm really very sorry."
"That's fine, then," the little lady said, waving at her as the taxi
pulled away from the curb. "I'll be praying for you, dearie."
Well, Eleanor thought, staring after the taxi, there's one person,
anyway, who will be praying for me. One person anyway.
4
It was the first genuinely shining day of summer, a time of year
which brought Eleanor always to aching memories of her early
childhood, when it had seemed to be summer all the time; she
Page 5
could not remember a winter before her father's death on a cold
wet day. She had taken to wondering lately, during these swiftcounted
years, what had been done with all those wasted summer
days; how could she have spent them so wantonly? I am foolish, she
told herself early every summer, I am very foolish; I am grown up
now and know the values of things. Nothing is ever really wasted,
she believed sensibly, even one's childhood, and then each year,
one summer morning, the warm wind would come down the city
street where she walked and she would be touched with the little
cold thought: I have let more time go by. Yet this morning, driving
the little car which she and her sister owned together, apprehensive
lest they might still realize that she had come after all and just
taken it away, going docilely along the street, following the lines of
traffic, stopping when she was bidden and turning when she could,
she smiled out at the sunlight slanting along the street and thought,
I am going, I am going, I have finally taken a step.
Always before, when she had her sister's permission to drive the
little car, she had gone cautiously, moving with extreme care to
avoid even the slightest scratch or mar which might irritate her
sister, but today, with her carton on the back seat an...
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