The sun went down smoothly behind the hills, slipping almost eagerly, at last, into the pillowy masses. There were already long shadows on the lawn as Eleanor and Theodora came up the path towards the side verandah of Hill House, blessedly hiding its mad face in the growing darkness.

‘There’s someone waiting there,’ Eleanor said, walking more quickly, and so saw Luke for the first time. Journeys end in lovers meeting, she thought, and could only say inadequately, ‘Are you looking for us?’

He had come to the verandah rail, looking down at them in the dusk, and now he bowed with a deep welcoming gesture, ‘ “These being dead,” ’ he said, ‘ “then dead must I be.” Ladies, if you are the ghostly inhabitants of Hill House, I am here for ever.’

He’s really kind of silly, Eleanor thought sternly, and Theodora said, ‘Sorry we weren’t here to meet you; we’ve been exploring.’

‘A sour old beldame with a face of curds welcomed us, thank you,’ he said. ‘ “Howdy-do,” she told me, “I hope I see you alive when I come back in the morning and your dinner’s on the sideboard.” Saying which, she departed in a late-model convertible with First and Second Murderers.’

‘Mrs Dudley,’ Theodora said. ‘First Murderer must be Dudley-at-the-gate; I suppose the other was Count Dracula. A wholesome family.’

‘Since we are listing our cast of characters,’ he said, ‘my name is Luke Sanderson.’

Eleanor was startled into speaking. ‘Then you’re one of the family? The people who own Hill House? Not one of Doctor Montague’s guests?’

‘I am one of the family; some day this stately pile will belong to me; until then, however, I am here as one of Doctor Montague’s guests.’

Theodora giggled. ‘We,’ she said, ‘are Eleanor and Theodora, two little girls who were planning a picnic down by the brook and got scared home by a rabbit.’

‘I go in mortal terror of rabbits,’ Luke agreed politely. ‘May I come if I carry the picnic basket?’

‘You may bring your ukulele and strum to us while we eat chicken sandwiches. Is Doctor Montague here?’

‘He’s inside,’ Luke said, ‘gloating over his haunted house.’

They were silent for a minute, wanting to move closer together, and then Theodora said thinly, ‘It doesn’t sound so funny, does it, now it’s getting dark?’

‘Ladies, welcome.’ And the great front door opened. ‘Come inside. I am Doctor Montague.’

The four of them stood, for the first time, in the wide, dark entrance hall of Hill House. Around them the house steadied and located them, above them the hills slept watchfully, small eddies of air and sound and movement stirred and waited and whispered, and the centre of consciousness was somehow the small space where they stood, four separated people, and looked trustingly at one another.

‘I am very happy that everyone arrived safely, and on time,’ Doctor Montague said. ‘Welcome, all of you, welcome to Hill House—although perhaps that sentiment ought to come more properly from you, my boy? In any case, welcome, welcome. Luke, my boy, can you make a martini?’

Dr Montague raised his glass and sipped hopefully, and sighed. ‘Fair,’ he said. ‘Only fair, my boy. To our success at Hill House, however.’

‘How would one reckon success, exactly, in an affair like this?’ Luke inquired curiously.

The doctor laughed. ‘Put it, then,’ he said, ‘that I hope that all of us will have an exciting visit and my book will rock my colleagues back on their heels. I cannot call your visit a vacation, although to some it might seem so, because I am hopeful of your working—although work, of course, depends largely upon what is to be done, does it not? Notes,’ he said with relief, as though fixing upon one unshakable solidity in a world of fog, ‘notes. We will take notes—to some, a not unbearable task.’

‘So long as no one makes any puns about spirits and spirits,’ Theodora said, holding out her glass to Luke to be filled.

‘Spirits?’ The doctor peered at her. ‘Spirits? Yes, indeed. Of course, none of us . . .’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘Certainly not,’ he said and took three quick agitated sips at his cocktail.

‘Everything’s so strange,’ Eleanor said. ‘I mean, this morning I was wondering what Hill House would be like, and now I can’t believe that it’s real, and we’re here.’

They were sitting in a small room, chosen by the doctor, who had led them into it, down a narrow corridor, fumbling a little at first, but then finding his way. It was not a cosy room, certainly. It had an unpleasantly high ceiling, and a narrow tiled fireplace which looked chill in spite of the fire which Luke had lighted at once; the chairs in which they sat were rounded and slippery, and the light coming through the coloured beaded shades of the lamps sent shadows into the corners. The overwhelming sense of the room was purple; beneath their feet the carpeting glowed in dim convoluted patterns, the walls were papered and gilt, and a marble cupid beamed fatuously down at them from the mantel. When they were silent for a moment the quiet weight of the house pressed down from all around them. Eleanor, wondering if she were really here at all, and not dreaming of Hill House from some safe spot impossibly remote, looked slowly and carefully around the room, telling herself that this was real, these things existed, from the tiles around the fireplace to the marble cupid; these people were going to be her friends. The doctor was round and rosy and bearded and looked as though he might be more suitably established before a fire in a pleasant little sitting-room, with a cat on his knee and a rosy little wife to bring him scones and jam, and yet he was undeniably the Dr Montague who had guided Eleanor here, a little man both knowledgeable and stubborn. Across the fire from the doctor was Theodora, who had gone unerringly to the most nearly comfortable chair, had wriggled herself into it somehow with her legs over the arm and her head tucked in against the back; she was like a cat, Eleanor thought, and clearly a cat waiting for its dinner. Luke was not still for a minute, but moved back and forth across the shadows, filling glasses, stirring the fire, touching the marble cupid; he was bright in the firelight, and restless. They were all silent, looking into the fire, lazy after their several journeys, and Eleanor thought, I am the fourth person in this room; I am one of them; I belong.

‘Since we are all here,’ Luke said suddenly, as though there had been no pause in the conversation, ‘shouldn’t we get acquainted? We know only names, so far. I know that it is Eleanor, here, who is wearing a red sweater, and consequently it must be Theodora who wears yellow——’

‘Doctor Montague has a beard,’ Theodora said, ‘so you must be Luke.’

‘And you are Theodora,’ Eleanor said, ‘because I am Eleanor.’ An Eleanor, she told herself triumphantly, who belongs, who is talking easily, who is sitting by the fire with her friends.

‘Therefore you are wearing the red sweater,’ Theodora explained to her soberly.

‘I have no beard,’ Luke said, ‘so he must be Doctor Montague.’

‘I have a beard,’ Dr Montague said, pleased, and looked around at them with a happy beam. ‘My wife,’ he told them, ‘likes a man to wear a beard. Many women, on the other hand, find a beard distasteful. A clean-shaven man—you’ll excuse me, my boy—never looks fully dressed, my wife tells me.’ He held out his glass to Luke.

‘Now that I know which of us is me,’ Luke said, ‘let me identify myself further. I am, in private life—assuming that this is public life and the rest of the world is actually private—let me see, a bullfighter. Yes. A bullfighter.’

‘I love my love with a B,’ Eleanor said in spite of herself, ‘because he is bearded.’

‘Very true.’ Luke nodded at her. ‘That makes me Doctor Montague. I live in Bangkok, and my hobby is bothering women.’

‘Not at all,’ Dr Montague protested, amused. ‘I live in Belmont.’

Theodora laughed and gave Luke that quick, understanding glance she had earlier given Eleanor. Eleanor, watching, thought wryly that it might sometimes be oppressive to be for long around one so immediately in tune, so perceptive, as Theodora. ‘I am by profession an artist’s model,’ Eleanor said quickly, to silence her own thoughts. ‘I live a mad, abandoned life, draped in a shawl and going from garret to garret.’

‘Are you heartless and wanton?’ Luke asked. ‘Or are you one of the fragile creatures who will fall in love with a lord’s son and pine away?’

‘Losing all your beauty and coughing a good deal?’ Theodora added.

‘I rather think I have a heart of gold,’ Eleanor said reflectively. ‘At any rate, my affairs are the talk of the cafés.’ Dear me, she thought. Dear me.

‘Alas,’ Theodora said, ‘I am a lord’s daughter. Ordinarily I go clad in silk and lace and cloth of gold, but I have borrowed my maid’s finery to appear among you. I may of course become so enamoured of the common life that I will never go back, and the poor girl will have to get herself new clothes. And you, Doctor Montague?’

He smiled in the firelight. ‘A pilgrim. A wanderer.’

‘Truly a congenial little group,’ Luke said approvingly. ‘Destined to be inseparable friends, in fact. A courtesan, a pilgrim, a princess, and a bullfighter. Hill House has surely never seen our like.’

‘I will give the honour to Hill House,’ Theodora said. ‘I have never seen its like.’ She rose, carrying her glass, and went to examine a bowl of glass flowers. ‘What did they call this room, do you suppose?’

‘A parlour, perhaps,’ Dr Montague said. ‘Perhaps a boudoir. I thought we would be more comfortable in here than in one of the other rooms. As a matter of fact, I think we ought to regard this room as our centre of operations, a kind of common room; it may not be cheerful——’

‘Of course it’s cheerful,’ Theodora said staunchly. ‘There is nothing more exhilarating than maroon upholstery and oak panelling, and what is that in the corner there? A sedan chair?’

‘Tomorrow you will see the other rooms,’ the doctor told her.

‘If we are going to have this for a rumpus room,’ Luke said, ‘I propose we move in something to sit on. I cannot perch for long on anything here; I skid,’ he said confidentially to Eleanor.

‘Tomorrow,’ the doctor said. ‘Tomorrow, as a matter of fact, we will explore the entire house and arrange things to please ourselves. And now, if you have all finished, I suggest that we determine what Mrs Dudley has done about our dinner.’

Theodora moved at once and then stopped, bewildered. ‘Someone is going to have to lead me,’ she said. ‘I can’t possibly tell where the dining-room is.’ She pointed. ‘That door leads to the long passage and then into the front hall,’ she said.

The doctor chuckled. ‘Wrong, my dear. That door leads to the conservatory.’ He rose to lead the way. ‘I have studied a map of the house,’ he said complacently, ‘and I believe that we have only to go through the door here, down the passage, into the front hall, and across the hall and through the billiard room to find the dining-room. Not hard,’ he said, ‘once you get into practice.’

‘Why did they mix themselves up so?’ Theodora asked. ‘Why so many little odd rooms?’

‘Maybe they liked to hide from each other,’ Luke said.

‘I can’t understand why they wanted everything so dark,’ Theodora said. She and Eleanor were following Dr Montague down the passage, and Luke came behind, lingering to look into the drawer of a narrow table, and wondering aloud to himself at the valance of cupid-heads and ribbon-bunches which topped the panelling in the dark hall.

‘Some of these rooms are entirely inside rooms,’ the doctor said from ahead of them. ‘No windows, no access to the outdoors at all. However, a series of enclosed rooms is not altogether surprising in a house of this period, particularly when you recall that what windows they did have were heavily shrouded with hangings and draperies within, and shrubbery without. Ah.’ He opened the passage door and led them into the front hall. ‘Now,’ he said, considering the doorways opposite, two smaller doors flanking the great central double door; ‘Now,’ he said, and selected the nearest. ‘The house does have its little oddities,’ he continued, holding the door so that they might pass through into the dark room beyond. ‘Luke, come and hold this open so I can find the dining-room.’ Moving cautiously, he crossed the dark room and opened a door, and they followed him into the pleasantest room they had seen so far, more pleasant, certainly, because of the lights and the sight and smell of food. ‘I congratulate myself,’ he said, rubbing his hands happily. ‘I have led you to civilisation through the uncharted wastes of Hill House.’

‘We ought to make a practice of leaving every door wide open.’ Theodora glanced nervously over her shoulder. ‘I hate this wandering around in the dark.’

‘You’d have to prop them open with something, then,’ Eleanor said. ‘Every door in this house swings shut when you let go of it.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Dr Montague said. ‘I will make a note. Door stops.’ He moved happily towards the sideboard, where Mrs Dudley had set a warming oven and an impressive row of covered dishes. The table was set for four, with a lavish display of candles and damask and heavy silver.

‘No stinting, I see,’ Luke said, taking up a fork with a gesture which would have confirmed his aunt’s worst suspicions. ‘We get the company silver.’

‘I think Mrs Dudley is proud of the house,’ Eleanor said.

‘She doesn’t intend to give us a poor table, at any rate,’ the doctor said, peering into the warming oven. This is an excellent arrangement, I think. It gets Mrs Dudley well away from here before dark and enables us to have our dinners without her uninviting company.’

‘Perhaps,’ Luke said, regarding the plate which he was filling generously, ‘perhaps I did good Mrs Dudley—why must I continue to think of her, perversely, as good Mrs Dudley?—perhaps I really did her an injustice. She said she hoped to find me alive in the morning, and our dinner was in the oven; now I suspect that she intended me to die of gluttony.’

‘What keeps her here?’ Eleanor asked Dr Montague. ‘Why do she and her husband stay on, alone in this house?’

‘As I understand it, the Dudleys have taken care of Hill House ever since anyone can remember; certainly the Sandersons were happy enough to keep them on. But tomorrow——’

Theodora giggled. ‘Mrs Dudley is probably the only true surviving member of the family to whom Hill House really belongs. I think she is only waiting until all the Sanderson heirs—that’s you, Luke—die off in various horrible ways, and then she gets the house and the fortune in jewels buried in the cellar. Or maybe she and Dudley hoard their gold in the secret chamber, or there’s oil under the house.’

‘There are no secret chambers in Hill House,’ the doctor said with finality. ‘Naturally, that possibility has been suggested before, and I think I may say with assurance that no such romantic devices exist here. But tomorrow——’

‘In any case, oil is definitely old hat, nothing at all to discover on the property these days,’ Luke told Theodora. ‘The very least Mrs Dudley could murder me for in cold blood is uranium.’

‘Or just the pure fun of it,’ Theodora said.

‘Yes,’ Eleanor said, ‘but why are we here?’

For a long minute the three of them looked at her, Theodora and Luke curiously, the doctor gravely. Then Theodora said, ‘Just what I was going to ask. Why are we here? What is wrong with Hill House? What is going to happen?’

‘Tomorrow——’

‘No,’ Theodora said, almost petulantly. ‘We are three adult, intelligent people. We have all come a long way, Doctor Montague, to meet you here in Hill House; Eleanor wants to know why, and so do I.’

‘Me too,’ Luke said.

‘Why did you bring us here, Doctor? Why are you here yourself? How did you hear about Hill House, and why does it have such a reputation and what really goes on here? What is going to happen?’

The doctor frowned unhappily. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and then, when Theodora made a quick, irritated gesture, he went on, ‘I know very little more about the house than you do, and naturally I intended to tell you everything I do know; as for what is going to happen, I will learn that when you do. But tomorrow is soon enough to talk about it, I think; daylight——’

‘Not for me,’ Theodora said.

‘I assure you,’ the doctor said, ‘that Hill House will be quiet tonight. There is a pattern to these things, as though psychic phenomena were subject to laws of a very particular sort.’

‘I really think we ought to talk it over tonight,’ Luke said.

‘We’re not afraid,’ Eleanor added.

The doctor sighed again. ‘Suppose,’ he said slowly, ‘you heard the story of Hill House and decided not to stay. How would you leave, tonight?’ He looked around at them again, quickly. ‘The gates are locked. Hill House has a reputation for insistent hospitality; it seemingly dislikes letting its guests get away. The last person who tried to leave Hill House in darkness—it was eighteen years ago, I grant you—was killed at the turn in the driveway, where his horse bolted and crushed him against the big tree. Suppose I tell you about Hill House, and one of you wants to leave? Tomorrow, at least, we could see that you got safely to the village.’

‘But we’re not going to run away,’ Theodora said. ‘I’m not, and Eleanor isn’t, and Luke isn’t.’

‘Stoutly, upon the ramparts,’ Luke agreed.

‘You are a mutinous group of assistants. After dinner, then. We will retire to our little boudoir for coffee and a little of the good brandy Luke has in his suitcase, and I will tell you all I know about Hill House. Now, however, let us talk about music, or painting, or even politics.’

‘I had not decided,’ the doctor said, turning the brandy in his glass, ‘how best to prepare the three of you for Hill House. I certainly could not write you about it, and I am most unwilling now to influence your minds with its complete history before you have had a chance to see for yourselves.’ They were back in the small parlour, warm and almost sleepy. Theodora had abandoned any attempt at a chair and had put herself down on the hearthrug, cross-legged and drowsy. Eleanor, wanting to sit on the hearthrug beside her, had not thought of it in time and had condemned herself to one of the slippery chairs, unwilling now to attract attention by moving and getting herself awkwardly down on to the floor. Mrs Dudley’s good dinner and an hour’s quiet conversation had evaporated the faint air of unreality and constraint; they had begun to know one another, recognise individual voices and mannerisms, faces and laughter; Eleanor thought with a little shock of surprise that she had been in Hill House only for four or five hours, and smiled a little at the fire. She could feel the thin stem of her glass between her fingers, the stiff pressure of the chair against her back, the faint movements of air through the room which were barely perceptible in small stirrings of tassels and beads. Darkness lay in the corners, and the marble cupid smiled down on them with chubby good humour.

‘What a time for a ghost story,’ Theodora said.

‘If you please.’ The doctor was stiff. ‘We are not children trying to frighten one another,’ he said.

‘Sorry.’ Theodora smiled up at him. ‘I’m just trying to get myself used to all of this.’

‘Let us,’ said the doctor, ‘exercise great caution in our language. Preconceived notions of ghosts and apparitions——’

‘The disembodied hand in the soup,’ Luke said helpfully.

‘My dear boy. If you please. I was trying to explain that our purpose here, since it is of a scientific and exploratory nature, ought not to be affected, perhaps even warped, by half-remembered spooky stories which belong more properly to a—let me see—a marshmallow roast.’ Pleased with himself, he looked around to be sure that they were all amused. ‘As a matter of fact, my researches over the past few years have led me to certain theories regarding psychic phenomena which I have now, for the first time, an opportunity of testing. Ideally, of course, you ought not to know anything about Hill House. You should be ignorant and receptive.’

‘And take notes,’ Theodora murmured.

‘Notes. Yes, indeed. Notes. However, I realise that it is most impractical to leave you entirely without background information, largely because you are not people accustomed to meeting a situation without preparation.’ He beamed at them slyly. ‘You are three wilful, spoiled children who are prepared to nag me for your bedtime story.’ Theodora giggled, and the doctor nodded at her happily. He rose and moved to stand by the fire in an unmistakable classroom pose; he seemed to feel the lack of a blackboard behind him, because once or twice he half turned, hand raised, as though looking for chalk to illustrate a point. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we will take up the history of Hill House.’ I wish I had a notebook and a pen, Eleanor thought, just to make him feel at home. She glanced at Theodora and Luke and found both their faces fallen instinctively into a completely rapt classroom look; high earnestness, she thought; we have moved into another stage of our adventure.

‘You will recall,’ the doctor began, ‘the houses described in Leviticus as “leprous,” tsaraas, or Homer’s phrase for the underworld: aidao domos, the house of Hades; I need not remind you, I think, that the concept of certain houses as unclean or forbidden—perhaps sacred—is as old as the mind of man. Certainly there are spots which inevitably attach to themselves an atmosphere of holiness and goodness; it might not then be too fanciful to say that some houses are born bad. Hill House, whatever the cause, has been unfit for human habitation for upwards of twenty years. What it was like before then, whether its personality was moulded by the people who lived here, or the things they did, or whether it was evil from its start are all questions I cannot answer. Naturally I hope that we will all know a good deal more about Hill House before we leave. No one knows, even, why some houses are called haunted.’

‘What else could you call Hill House?’ Luke demanded.

‘Well—disturbed, perhaps. Leprous. Sick. Any of the popular euphemisms for insanity; a deranged house is a pretty conceit. There are popular theories, however, which discount the eerie, the mysterious; there are people who will tell you that the disturbances I am calling “psychic” are actually the result of subterranean waters, or electric currents, or hallucinations caused by polluted air; atmospheric pressure, sun spots, earth tremors all have their advocates among the sceptical. People,’ the doctor said sadly, ‘are always so anxious to get things out into the open where they can put a name to them, even a meaningless name, so long as it has something of a scientific ring.’ He sighed, relaxing, and gave them a little quizzical smile. ‘A haunted house,’ he said. ‘Everyone laughs. I found myself telling my colleagues at the university that I was going camping this summer.’

‘I told people I was participating in a scientific experiment,’ Theodora said helpfully. ‘Without telling them where or what, of course.’

‘Presumably your friends feel less strongly about scientific experiments than mine. Yes.’ The doctor sighed again. ‘Camping. At my age. And yet that they believed. Well.’ He straightened up again and fumbled at his side, perhaps for a yardstick. ‘I first heard about Hill House a year ago, from a former tenant. He began by assuring me that he had left Hill House because his family objected to living so far out in the country, and ended by saying that in his opinion the house ought to be burned down and the ground sowed with salt. I learned of other people who had rented Hill House, and found that none of them had stayed more than a few days, certainly never the full terms of their leases, giving reasons that ranged from the dampness of the location—not at all true, by the way; the house is very dry—to a pressing need to move elsewhere, for business reasons. That is, every tenant who has left Hill House hastily has made an effort to supply a rational reason for leaving, and yet every one of them has left. I tried, of course, to learn more from these former tenants, and yet in no case could I persuade them to discuss the house; they all seemed most unwilling to give me information and were, in fact, reluctant to recall the details of their several stays. In only one opinion were they united. Without exception, every person who has spent any length of time in this house urged me to stay as far away from it as possible. Not one of the former tenants could bring himself to admit that Hill House was haunted, but when I visited Hillsdale and looked up the newspaper records——’

‘Newspapers?’ Theodora asked. ‘Was there a scandal?’

‘Oh, yes,’ the doctor said. ‘A perfectly splendid scandal, with a suicide and madness and lawsuits. Then I learned that the local people had no doubts about the house. I heard a dozen different stories, of course—it is really unbelievably difficult to get accurate information about a haunted house; it would astonish you to know what I have gone through to learn only as much as I have—and as a result I went to Mrs Sanderson, Luke’s aunt, and arranged to rent Hill House. She was most frank about its undesirability——’

‘It’s harder to burn down a house than you think,’ Luke said.

‘—but agreed to allow me a short lease to carry out my researches, on condition that a member of the family be one of my party.’

‘They hope,’ Luke said solemnly, ‘that I will dissuade you from digging up the lovely old scandals.’

‘There. Now I have explained how I happen to be here, and why Luke has come. As for you two ladies, we all know by now that you are here because I wrote you, and you accepted my invitation. I hoped that each of you might, in her own way, intensify the forces at work in the house; Theodora has shown herself possessed of some telepathic ability, and Eleanor has in the past been intimately involved in poltergeist phenomena——’

‘I?’

‘Of course.’ The doctor looked at her curiously. ‘Many years ago, when you were a child. The stones——’

Eleanor frowned, and shook her head. Her fingers trembled around the stem of her glass, and then she said, ‘That was the neighbours. My mother said the neighbours did that. People are always jealous.’

‘Perhaps so.’ The doctor spoke quietly and smiled at Eleanor. ‘The incident has been forgotten long ago, of course; I only mentioned it because that is why I wanted you in Hill House.’

‘When I was a child,’ Theodora said lazily, ‘——“many years ago,” Doctor, as you put it so tactfully—I was whipped for throwing a brick through a greenhouse roof. I remember I thought about it for a long time, remembering the whipping but remembering also the lovely crash, and after thinking about it very seriously I went out and did it again.’

‘I don’t remember very well,’ Eleanor said uncertainly to the doctor.

‘But why? Theodora asked. ‘I mean, I can accept that Hill House is supposed to be haunted, and you want us here, Doctor Montague, to help keep track of what happens—and I bet besides that you wouldn’t at all like being here alone—but I just don’t understand. It’s a horrible old house, and if I rented it I’d scream for my money back after one fast look at the front hall, but what’s here? What really frightens people so?’

‘I will not put a name to what has no name,’ the doctor said. ‘I don’t know.’

‘They never even told me what was going on,’ Eleanor said urgently to the doctor. ‘My mother said it was the neighbours, they were always against us because she wouldn’t mix with them. My mother——’

Luke interrupted her, slowly and deliberately. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that what we all want is facts. Something we can understand and put together.’

‘First,’ the doctor said, ‘I am going to ask you all a question. Do you want to leave? Do you advise that we pack up now and leave Hill House to itself, and never have anything more to do with it?’

He looked at Eleanor, and Eleanor put her hands together tight; it is another chance to get away, she was thinking, and she said, ‘No,’ and glanced with embarrassment at Theodora. ‘I was kind of a baby this afternoon,’ she explained. ‘I did let myself get frightened.’

‘She’s not telling all the truth,’ Theodora said loyally. ‘She wasn’t any more frightened than I was; we scared each other to death over a rabbit.’

‘Horrible creatures, rabbits,’ Luke said.

The doctor laughed. ‘I suppose we were all nervous this afternoon, anyway. It is a rude shock to turn that corner and get a clear look at Hill House.’

‘I thought he was going to send the car into a tree,’ Luke said.

‘I am really very brave now, in a warm room with a fire and company,’ Theodora said.

‘I don’t think we could leave now if we wanted to.’ Eleanor had spoken before she realised clearly what she was going to say, or what it was going to sound like to the others; she saw that they were staring at her, and laughed and added lamely, ‘Mrs Dudley would never forgive us.’ She wondered if they really believed that that was what she had meant to say, and thought, Perhaps it has us now, this house, perhaps it will not let us go.

‘Let us have a little more brandy,’ the doctor said, ‘and I will tell you the story of Hill House.’ He returned to his classroom position before the fireplace and began slowly, as one giving an account of kings long dead and wars long done with; his voice was carefully unemotional. ‘Hill House was built eighty-odd years ago,’ he began. ‘It was built as a home for his family by a man named Hugh Crain, a country home where he hoped to see his children and grandchildren live in comfortable luxury, and where he fully expected to end his days in quiet. Unfortunately Hill House was a sad house almost from the beginning; Hugh Crain’s young wife died minutes before she first was to set eyes on the house, when the carriage bringing her here overturned in the driveway, and the lady was brought—ah, lifeless, I believe is the phrase they use—into the home her husband had built for her. He was a sad and bitter man, Hugh Crain, left with two small daughters to bring up, but he did not leave Hill House.’

‘Children grew up here?’ Eleanor asked incredulously.

The doctor smiled. ‘The house is dry, as I said. There were no swamps to bring them fevers, the country air was thought to be beneficial to them, and the house itself was regarded as luxurious. I have no doubt that two small children could play here, lonely perhaps, but not unhappy.’

‘I hope they went wading in the brook,’ Theodora said. She stared deeply into the fire. ‘Poor little things. I hope someone let them run in that meadow and pick wildflowers.’

‘Their father married again,’ the doctor went on. ‘Twice more, as a matter of fact. He seems to have been—unlucky in his wives. The second Mrs Crain died of a fall, although I have been unable to ascertain how or why. Her death seems to have been as tragically unexpected as her predecessor’s. The third Mrs Crain died of what they used to call consumption, somewhere in Europe; there is, somewhere in the library, a collection of postcards sent to the two little girls left behind in Hill House from their father and their stepmother travelling from one health resort to another. The little girls were left here with their governess until their stepmother’s death. After that Hugh Crain declared his intention of closing Hill House and remaining abroad, and his daughters were sent to live with a cousin of their mother’s, and there they remained until they were grown up.’

‘I hope Mama’s cousin was a little jollier than old Hugh,’ Theodora said, still staring darkly into the fire. ‘It’s not nice to think of children growing up like mushrooms, in the dark.’

‘They felt differently,’ the doctor said. ‘The two sisters spent the rest of their lives quarrelling over Hill House. After all his high hopes of a dynasty centred here, Hugh Crain died somewhere in Europe, shortly after his wife, and Hill House was left jointly to the two sisters, who must have been quite young ladies by then; the older sister had, at any rate, made her début into society.’

‘And put up her hair, and learned to drink champagne and carry a fan . . .’

‘Hill House was empty for a number of years, but kept always in readiness for the family; at first in expectation of Hugh Crain’s return, and then, after his death, for either of the sisters who chose to live there. Somewhere during this time it was apparently agreed between the two sisters that Hill House should become the property of the older; the younger sister had married——’

‘Aha,’ Theodora said. ‘The younger sister married. Stole her sister’s beau, I’ve no doubt.’

‘It was said that the older sister was crossed in love,’ the doctor agreed, ‘although that is said of almost any lady who prefers, for whatever reason, to live alone. At any rate, it was the older sister who came back here to live. She seems to have resembled her father strongly; she lived here alone for a number of years, almost in seclusion, although the village of Hillsdale knew her. Incredible as it may sound to you, she genuinely loved Hill House and looked upon it as her family home. She eventually took a girl from the village to live with her, as a kind of companion; so far as I can learn there seems to have been no strong feeling among the villagers about the house then, since old Miss Crain—as she was inevitably known—hired her servants in the village, and it was thought a fine thing for her to take the village girl as a companion. Old Miss Crain was in constant disagreement with her sister over the house, the younger sister insisting that she had given up her claim on the house in exchange for a number of family heirlooms, some of considerable value, which her sister then refused to give her. There were some jewels, several pieces of antique furniture, and a set of gold-rimmed dishes, which seemed to irritate the younger sister more than anything else. Mrs Sanderson let me rummage through a box of family papers, and so I have seen some of the letters Miss Crain received from her sister, and in all of them those dishes stand out as the recurrent sore subject. At any rate, the older sister died of pneumonia here in the house, with only the little companion to help her—there were stories later of a doctor called too late, of the old lady lying neglected upstairs while the younger woman dallied in the garden with some village lout, but I suspect that these are only scandalous inventions; I certainly cannot find that anything of the sort was widely believed at the time, and in fact most of the stories seem to stem directly from the poisonous vengefulness of the younger sister, who never rested in her anger.’

‘I don’t like the younger sister,’ Theodora said. ‘First she stole her sister’s lover, and then she tried to steal her sister’s dishes. No, I don’t like her.’

‘Hill House has an impressive list of tragedies connected with it, but then, most old houses have. People have to live and die somewhere, after all, and a house can hardly stand for eighty years without seeing some of its inhabitants die within its walls. After the death of the older sister, there was a lawsuit over the house. The companion insisted that the house was left to her, but the younger sister and her husband maintained most violently that the house belonged legally to them and claimed that the companion had tricked the older sister into signing away property which she had always intended leaving to her sister. It was an unpleasant business, like all family quarrels, and as in all family quarrels incredibly harsh and cruel things were said on either side. The companion swore in court—and here, I think, is the first hint of Hill House in its true personality—that the younger sister came into the house at night and stole things. When she was pressed to enlarge upon this accusation, she became very nervous and incoherent, and finally, forced to give some evidence for her charge, said that a silver service was missing, and a valuable set of enamels, in addition to the famous set of gold-rimmed dishes, which would actually be a very difficult thing to steal, when you think about it. For her part, the younger sister went so far as to mention murder and demand an investigation into the death of old Miss Crain, bringing up the first hints of the stories of neglect and mismanagement. I cannot discover that these suggestions were ever taken seriously. There is no record whatever of any but the most formal notice of the older sister’s death, and certainly the villagers would have been the first to wonder if there had been any oddness about the death. The companion won her case at last, and could, in my opinion, have won a case for slander besides, and the house became legally hers, although the younger sister never gave up trying to get it. She kept after the unfortunate companion with letters and threats, made the wildest accusations against her everywhere, and in the local police records there is listed at least one occasion when the companion was forced to apply for police protection to prevent her enemy from attacking her with a broom. The companion went in terror, seemingly; her house burgled at night—she never stopped insisting that they came and stole things—and I read one pathetic letter in which she complained that she had not spent a peaceful night in the house since the death of her benefactress. Oddly enough, sympathy around the village was almost entirely with the younger sister, perhaps because the companion, once a village girl, was now lady of the manor. The villagers believed—and still believe, I think—that the younger sister was defrauded of her inheritance by a scheming young woman. They did not believe that she would murder her friend, you see, but they were delighted to believe that she was dishonest, certainly because they were capable of dishonesty themselves when opportunity arose. Well, gossip is always a bad enemy. When the poor creature killed herself——’

‘Killed herself?’ Eleanor, shocked into speech, half rose. ‘She had to kill herself?’

‘You mean, was there another way of escaping her tormentor? She certainly did not seem to think so. It was accepted locally that she had chosen suicide because her guilty conscience drove her to it. I am more inclined to believe that she was one of those tenacious, unclever young women who can hold on desperately to what they believe is their own but cannot withstand, mentally, a constant nagging persecution; she had certainly no weapons to fight back against the younger sister’s campaign of hatred, her own friends in the village had been turned against her, and she seems to have been maddened by the conviction that locks and bolts could not keep out the enemy who stole into her house at night——’

‘She should have gone away,’ Eleanor said. ‘Left the house and run as far as she could go.’

‘In effect, she did. I really think the poor girl was hated to death; she hanged herself, by the way. Gossip says she hanged herself from the turret on the tower, but when you have a house like Hill House with a tower and a turret, gossip would hardly allow you to hang yourself anywhere else. After her death, the house passed legally into the hands of the Sanderson family, who were cousins of hers and in no way as vulnerable to the persecutions of the younger sister, who must have been a little demented herself by that time. I heard from Mrs Sanderson that when the family—it would have been her husband’s parents—first came to see the house, the younger sister showed up to abuse them, standing on the road to howl at them as they went by, and found herself packed right off to the local police station. And that seems to be the end of the younger sister’s part in the story: from the day the first Sanderson sent her packing to the brief notice of her death a few years later, she seems to have spent her time brooding silently over her wrongs, but far away from the Sandersons. Oddly enough, in all her ranting, she insisted always on one point—she had not, would not, come into this house at night, to steal or for any other reason.’

‘Was anything ever really stolen?’ Luke asked.

‘As I told you, the companion was finally pressed into saying that one or two things seemed to be missing, but could not say for sure. As you can imagine, the story of the nightly intruder did a good deal to enhance Hill House’s further reputation. Moreover, the Sandersons did not live here at all. They spent a few days in the house, telling the villagers that they were preparing it for their immediate occupancy, and then abruptly cleared out, closing the house the way it stood. They told around the village that urgent business took them to live in the city, but the villagers thought they knew better. No one has lived in the house since for more than a few days at a time. It has been on the market, for sale or rent, ever since. Well, that is a long story. I need more brandy.’

‘Those two poor little girls,’ Eleanor said, looking into the fire. ‘I can’t forget them, walking through these dark rooms, trying to play dolls, maybe, in here or those bedrooms upstairs.’

‘And so the old house has just been sitting here.’ Luke put out a tentative finger and touched the marble cupid gingerly. ‘Nothing in it touched, nothing used, nothing here wanted by anyone any more, just sitting here thinking.’

‘And waiting,’ Eleanor said.

‘And waiting,’ the doctor confirmed. ‘Essentially,’ he went on slowly, ‘the evil is the house itself, I think. It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives, it is a place of contained ill will. Well. Tomorrow you will see it all. The Sandersons put in electricity and plumbing and a telephone when they first thought to live here, but otherwise nothing has been changed.’

‘Well,’ Luke said after a little silence, ‘I’m sure we will all be very comfortable here.’

Eleanor found herself unexpectedly admiring her own feet. Theodora dreamed over the fire just beyond the tips of her toes, and Eleanor thought with deep satisfaction that her feet were handsome in their red sandals; what a complete and separate thing I am, she thought, going from my red toes to the top of my head, individually an I, possessed of attributes belonging only to me. I have red shoes, she thought—that goes with being Eleanor; I dislike lobster and sleep on my left side and crack my knuckles when I am nervous and save buttons. I am holding a brandy glass which is mine because I am here and I am using it and I have a place in this room. I have red shoes and tomorrow I will wake up and I will still be here.

‘I have red shoes,’ she said very softly, and Theodora turned and smiled up at her.

‘I had intended——’ and the doctor looked around at them with bright, anxious optimism—‘I had intended to ask if you all played bridge?’

‘Of course,’ Eleanor said. I play bridge, she thought; I used to have a cat named Dancer; I can swim.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Theodora said, and the other three turned and regarded her with frank dismay.

‘Not at all?’ the doctor asked.

‘I’ve been playing bridge twice a week for eleven years,’ Eleanor said, ‘with my mother and her lawyer and his wife—I’m sure you must play as well as that.’

‘Maybe you could teach me?’ Theodora asked. ‘I’m quick at learning games.’

‘Oh, dear,’ the doctor said, and Eleanor and Luke laughed.

‘We’ll do something else instead,’ Eleanor said; I can play bridge, she thought; I like apple pie with sour cream, and I drove here by myself.

‘Backgammon,’ the doctor said with bitterness.

‘I play a fair game of chess,’ Luke said to the doctor, who cheered at once.

Theodora set her mouth stubbornly. ‘I didn’t suppose we came here to play games,’ she said.

‘Relaxation,’ the doctor said vaguely, and Theodora turned with a sullen shrug and stared again into the fire.

‘I’ll get the chessmen, if you’ll tell me where,’ Luke said, and the doctor smiled.

‘Better let me go,’ he said. ‘I’ve studied a floor plan of the house, remember. If we let you go off wandering by yourself we’d very likely never find you again.’ As the door closed behind him Luke gave Theodora a quick curious glance and then came over to stand by Eleanor. ‘You’re not nervous, are you? Did that story frighten you?’

Eleanor shook her head emphatically, and Luke said, ‘You looked pale.’

‘I probably ought to be in bed,’ Eleanor said. I’m not used to driving as far as I did today.’

‘Brandy,’ Luke said. ‘It will make you sleep better. You too,’ he said to the back of Theodora’s head.

‘Thank you,’ Theodora said coldly, not turning. ‘I rarely have trouble sleeping.’

Luke grinned knowingly at Eleanor, and then turned as the doctor opened the door. ‘My wild imagination,’ the doctor said, setting down the chess set. ‘What a house this is.’

‘Did something happen?’ Eleanor asked.

The doctor shook his head. ‘We probably ought to agree, now, not to wander around the house alone,’ he said.

‘What happened?’ Eleanor asked.

‘My own imagination,’ the doctor said firmly. ‘This table all right, Luke?’

‘It’s a lovely old chess set,’ Luke said. ‘I wonder how the younger sister happened to overlook it.’

‘I can tell you one thing,’ the doctor said, ‘if it was the younger sister sneaking around this house at night, she had nerves of iron. It watches,’ he added suddenly. ‘The house. It watches every move you make.’ And then, ‘My own imagination, of course.’

In the light of the fire Theodora’s face was stiff and sulky; she likes attention, Eleanor thought wisely and, without thinking, moved and sat on the floor beside Theodora. Behind her she could hear the gentle sound of chessmen being set down on a board and the comfortable small movements of Luke and the doctor taking each other’s measure, and in the fire there were points of flame and little stirrings. She waited a minute for Theodora to speak, and then said agreeably, ‘Still hard to believe you’re really here?’

‘I had no idea it would be so dull,’ Theodora said.

‘We’ll find plenty to do in the morning,’ Eleanor said.

‘At home there would be people around, and lots of talking and laughing and lights and excitement——’

‘I suppose I don’t need such things,’ Eleanor said, almost apologetically. ‘There never was much excitement for me. I had to stay with Mother, of course. And when she was asleep I kind of got used to playing solitaire or listening to the radio. I never could bear to read in the evenings because I had to read aloud to her for two hours every afternoon. Love stories’—and she smiled a little, looking into the fire. But that’s not all, she thought, astonished at herself, that doesn’t tell what it was like, even if I wanted to tell; why am I talking?

‘I’m terrible, aren’t I?’ Theodora moved quickly and put her hand over Eleanor’s. ‘I sit here and grouch because there’s nothing to amuse me; I’m very selfish. Tell me how horrible I am.’ And in the firelight her eyes shone with delight.

‘You’re horrible,’ Eleanor said obediently; Theodora’s hand on her own embarrassed her. She disliked being touched, and yet a small physical gesture seemed to be Theodora’s chosen way of expressing contrition, or pleasure, or sympathy; I wonder if my fingernails are clean, Eleanor thought, and slid her hand away gently.

‘I am horrible,’ Theodora said, good-humoured again. ‘I’m horrible and beastly and no one can stand me. There. Now tell me about yourself.’

‘I’m horrible and beastly and no one can stand me.’

Theodora laughed. ‘Don’t make fun of me. You’re sweet and pleasant and everyone likes you very much; Luke has fallen madly in love with you, and I am jealous. Now I want to know more about you. Did you really take care of your mother for many years?’

‘Yes,’ Eleanor said. Her fingernails were dirty, and her hand was badly shaped and people made jokes about love because sometimes it was funny. ‘Eleven years, until she died three months ago.’

‘Were you sorry when she died? Should I say how sorry I am?’

‘No. She wasn’t very happy.’

‘And neither were you?’

‘And neither was I.’

‘But what about now? What did you do afterwards, when you were free at last?’

‘I sold the house,’ Eleanor said. ‘My sister and I each took whatever we wanted from it, small things; there was really nothing much except little things my mother had saved—my father’s watch, and some old jewellery. Not at all like the sisters of Hill House.’

‘And you sold everything else?’

‘Everything. Just as soon as I could.’

‘And then of course you started a gay, mad fling that brought you inevitably to Hill House?’

‘Not exactly.’ Eleanor laughed.

‘But all those wasted years! Did you go on a cruise, look for exciting young men, buy new clothes . . . ?’

‘Unfortunately,’ Eleanor said dryly, ‘there was not at all that much money. My sister put her share into the bank for her little girl’s education. I did buy some clothes, to come to Hill House.’ People like answering questions about themselves, she thought; what an odd pleasure it is. I would answer anything right now.

‘What will you do when you go back? Do you have a job?’

‘No, no job right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

‘I know what I’ll do.’ Theodora stretched luxuriously. ‘I’ll turn on every light in our apartment and just bask.’

‘What is your apartment like?’

Theodora shrugged. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘We found an old place and fixed it up ourselves. One big room, and a couple of small bedrooms, nice kitchen—we painted it red and white and made over a lot of old furniture we dug up in junk shops—one really nice table, with a marble top. We both love doing over old things.’

‘Are you married?’ Eleanor asked.

There was a little silence, and then Theodora laughed quickly and said, ‘No.’

‘Sorry,’ Eleanor said, horribly embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to be curious.’

‘You’re funny,’ Theodora said and touched Eleanor’s cheek with her finger. There are lines by my eyes, Eleanor thought, and turned her face away from the fire. ‘Tell me where you live,’ Theodora said.

Eleanor thought, looking down at her hands which were badly shaped. We could have afforded a laundress, she thought; it wasn’t fair. My hands are awful. ‘I have a little place of my own,’ she said slowly. ‘An apartment, like yours, only I live alone. Smaller than yours, I’m sure. I’m still furnishing it—buying one thing at a time, you know, to make sure I get everything absolutely right. White curtains. I had to look for weeks before I found my little stone lions on each corner of the mantel, and I have a white cat and my books and records and pictures. Everything has to be exactly the way I want it, because there’s only me to use it; once I had a blue cup with stars painted on the inside; when you looked down into a cup of tea it was full of stars. I want a cup like that.’

‘Maybe one will turn up some day, in my shop,’ Theodora said. ‘Then I can send it to you. Some day you’ll get a little package saying “To Eleanor with love from her friend Theodora,” and it will be a blue cup full of stars.’

‘I would have stolen those gold-rimmed dishes,’ Eleanor said, laughing.

‘Mate,’ Luke said, and the doctor said, ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

‘Blind luck,’ Luke said cheerfully. ‘Have you ladies fallen asleep there by the fire?’

‘Just about,’ Theodora said. Luke came across the room and held out a hand to each of them to help them up, and Eleanor, moving awkwardly, almost fell; Theodora rose in a quick motion and stretched and yawned. ‘Theo is sleepy,’ she said.

‘I’ll have to lead you upstairs,’ the doctor said. ‘Tomorrow we must really start to learn our way around. Luke, will you screen the fire?’

‘Had we better make sure that the doors are locked?’ Luke asked. ‘I imagine that Mrs Dudley locked the back door when she left, but what about the others?’

‘I hardly think we’ll catch anyone breaking in,’ Theodora said. ‘Anyway, the little companion used to lock her doors, and what good did it do her?’

‘Suppose we want to break out?’ Eleanor asked.

The doctor glanced quickly at Eleanor and then away. ‘I see no need for locking doors,’ he said quietly.

‘There is certainly not much danger of burglars from the village,’ Luke said.

‘In any case,’ the doctor said, ‘I will not sleep for an hour or so yet; at my age an hour’s reading before bedtime is essential, and I wisely brought Pamela with me. If any of you has trouble sleeping, I will read aloud to you. I never yet knew anyone who could not fall asleep with Richardson being read aloud to him.’ Talking quietly, he led them down the narrow hallway and through the great front hall and to the stairs. ‘I have often planned to try it on very small children,’ he went on.

Eleanor followed Theodora up the stairs; she had not realised until now how worn she was, and each step was an effort. She reminded herself naggingly that she was in Hill House, but even the blue room meant only, right now, the bed with the blue coverlet and the blue quilt. ‘On the other hand,’ the doctor continued behind her, ‘a Fielding novel comparable in length, although hardly in subject-matter, would never do for very young children. I even have doubts about Sterne——’

Theodora went to the door of the green room and turned and smiled. ‘If you feel the least bit nervous,’ she said to Eleanor, ‘run right into my room.’

‘I will,’ Eleanor said earnestly. ‘Thank you; good night.’

‘—and certainly not Smollett. Ladies, Luke and I are here, on the other side of the stairway——’

‘What colour are your rooms?’ Eleanor asked, unable to resist.

‘Yellow,’ the doctor said, surprised.

‘Pink,’ Luke said with a dainty gesture of distaste.

‘We’re blue and green down here,’ Theodora said.

‘I will be awake, reading,’ the doctor said. ‘I will leave my door ajar, so I will certainly hear any sound. Good night. Sleep well.’

‘Good night,’ Luke said. ‘Good night, all.’

As she closed the door of the blue room behind her Eleanor thought wearily that it might be the darkness and oppression of Hill House that tired her so, and then it no longer mattered. The blue bed was unbelievably soft. Odd, she thought sleepily, that the house should be so dreadful and yet in many respects so physically comfortable—the soft bed, the pleasant lawn, the good fire, the cooking of Mrs Dudley. The company too, she thought, and then thought, Now I can think about them; I am all alone. Why is Luke here? But why am I here? Journeys end in lovers meeting. They all saw that I was afraid.

She shivered and sat up in bed to reach for the quilt at the foot. Then, half amused and half cold, she slipped out of bed and went, barefoot and silent, across the room to turn the key in the lock of the door; they won’t know I locked it, she thought, and went hastily back to bed. With the quilt pulled up around her she found herself looking with quick apprehension at the window, shining palely in the darkness, and then at the door. I wish I had a sleeping pill to take, she thought, and looked again over her shoulder, compulsively, at the window, and then again at the door, and thought, Is it moving? But I locked it; is it moving?

I think, she decided concretely, that I would like this better if I had the blankets over my head. Hidden deep in the bed under the blankets, she giggled and was glad none of the others could hear her. In the city she never slept with her head under the covers; I have come all this way today, she thought.

Then she slept, secure; in the next room Theodora slept, smiling, with her light on. Farther down the hall the doctor, reading Pamela, lifted his head occasionally to listen, and once went to his door and stood for a minute, looking down the hall, before going back to his book. A nightlight shone at the top of the stairs over the pool of blackness which was the hall. Luke slept, on his bedside table a flashlight and the lucky piece he always carried with him. Around them the house brooded, settling and stirring with a movement that was almost like a shudder.

Six miles away Mrs Dudley awakened, looked at her clock, thought of Hill House, and shut her eyes quickly. Mrs Gloria Sanderson, who owned Hill House and lived three hundred miles away from it, closed her detective story, yawned, and reached up to turn off her light, wondering briefly if she had remembered to put the chain on the front door. Theodora’s friend slept; so did the doctor’s wife and Eleanor’s sister. Far away, in the trees over Hill House, an owl cried out, and towards morning a thin, fine rain began, misty and dull.