Transcript

Chapter II · Sinister House

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Chapter two of Sinister House by Leland Hull. The LibriVox recording is in the
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public domain, read by Ben Tucker. Chapter two, No dear, I
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said to Annette that night we came from dining with a surprisingly happy bachelor Julia.
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I found out nothing more about the house. Some time before, I
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may add here we had gleaned from an old store keeper in Stanton, within
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the bounds of which it stood, that it had been built for a summer
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house by an eccentric old man, very religious, Morgan Snart by name.
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We thought the name had an evil sound, but the old fellow had been
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apparently more than respectable, and he had not been near the place for many
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years before he died, not at any rate, since his daughter Holda had
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married. Holda was dead too, had died just on top of her father.
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According to the old storekeeper, she had taken to religion even more entirely
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than her father had, and he guessed from what he had heard the village
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people say, she had seen the light, powerful, strong. Though the
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memory of them was rather drab, they were wholly enough, as Annette said,
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they were too good to be denied heaven, and must have been wholly
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folded up in bliss, a conclusion disappointing to us, who were given to
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thinking that the errant, damned soul of at least a murderer must be haunting
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the place. I was rather puzzled to have my wife bring up the subject
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of the house again. We had come to accept the fact that Julia and
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Eric loved it, even though we didn't, And thinking of this, I
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asked Annette abruptly, whatever had set her to suspecting the house again? Oh?
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Nothing, she replied thoughtfully. I wasn't suspecting Julia's been so attached to
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it, and what you said about Eric's leaving her in such a gloomy place,
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I suppose. I wonder, Pierre, if you and I are you
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remember cousin Giles thought it was a charming old place. Perhaps we're not educated
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to see in those old places what other people see. Let's get some books
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on architecture and read it up, and then our eyes will be opened.
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Of course, I shouldn't think for a moment of bringing up my children in
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such an unsanitary old shanty. I can't help it. I think it's damp
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and horrid and gloomy there now heavens Annette I cried, turning to face her.
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What's the matter? I knew that she was quite stirred up about something.
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Usually she was gracious enough to refer to Nettie and little Bobby as our
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children. Oh nothing, she said, again, with the airy inflection women
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use when they think it hardly necessary to take their husbands into their confidence.
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Nonsense, I replied, firmly, but kindly. Something's made you mad.
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She turned, surprised round eyes at me. It has too, I went
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on, why, Pierre, she said, innocent as a lamb, just
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because I suggest that we improve our minds. But what I asked, surer
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than ever made you think of such a thing. Well, it could be
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done, couldn't it. Do you think, dear, that I am not
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naturally ambitious? This was supreme pity. Do you think that I do not
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want the best for my children and myself? And you, dear? If
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there's something in architecture more than we think, we ought to get busy and
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learn about it. Cousin Giles tells me that my sense of beauty is undeveloped.
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Heaven knows what he'd say about yours, dear, but he's in the
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family, and I don't mind him. Now we'll get to the heart of
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this, I said, smiling. It's nothing to get to the heart of
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Annette went on serenely. It's simply that old house. I told Julia.
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I thought it a horrid old place. Annette, well, not baldly like
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that, of course it was. When we came. I well, I
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invited Julia to come and stay with us while Eric's away. You know,
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I said, we have a nice, sunny, spare room, and I
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think it would do you much more good than to stay shut up in a
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gloomy old house like this. Well, that was going some and then she
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was very top lofty. No, I interrupted, not top lofty, not
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Julia, Yes, Pierre, will you let me finish? I tell you.
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She was very top lofty. Oh, she said, just like that.
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So you find this house a gloomy, shut up old place. And
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since I had gone that far, I wasn't going to take anything back,
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and I came out flat and told her I thought it was horrid. Then
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she said, but I love it. Thank you a thousand times for asking
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me to stay with you while Eric's gone. You mustn't think, though,
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that this house's lonesome. She gave quite a queer little laugh, and then
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she told me that it was a sweet old place, and she said,
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you don't think, after all that Eric and I've done with it, that
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I want to leave it for a single night, do you? I know
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some of the rooms are shady, but you wouldn't have me drive from our
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nest by a shadow, would you? She got quite excited, so I
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said, I only thought our house would be more cheerful for her in Eric's
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absence, and I admitted that I didn't see in her old place what she
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saw in it. And she just turned her back on me and said,
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I suppose not not like that? I cried for Annette had given the little
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remark a most disagreeable, almost an insolent ring. Yes, Pierre, Annette
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replied with something like indignation. She was very sharp and rather snobbish. I
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know Julia's artistic in all that, but Goodness knows. Though I may be
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only a plain, practical woman, I'm not a country know nothing, and
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she has no right to put on airs with me, just because I don't
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happen to see in her old house what she sees in it. I say,
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frankly, that little else could have made me sorrier than to have my
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wife fall out with Julia Greer. I've never met two persons to whom I
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have been so drawn as to Eric and Julia Greer, and I've heard the
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Nettes say the same thing. For her part, they were so good looking
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and so generous, and they had such warm voices. While I felt much
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the same as a Nette about their house, I could not help confessing that
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compared with them, Annette and I were well, not ordinary, but not
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extraordinary either. It is, of course only fair to a Nette to remind
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you that the distinguished artist Giles Pharaoh was her cousin, not mine. For
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my part, I could name perhaps half a dozen colors, and could recognize
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the names of twice as many more but tons, shades and tints. Not
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that Julia and Eric ever talked of such details with me, but Giles used
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to talk such stuff with them, and they used to be very much interested
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in it. So I told Annette that Julia had meant nothing, that the
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tone might easily be misunderstood, while the words and themselves were entirely innocent.
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After all, no one but Julia could be expected to see in that house
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just what Julia saw. Annette let me rave on a while about beauty,
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and then she asked me if I too found beauty in that old house.
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Yes, I said, valiantly, a certain beauty, Yes I do.
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But I blushed as I said it, and it was so holy sham,
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so holy manly, Annette said that. We both burst out laughing. Suddenlynnette
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stopped, poised a second, and then fled upstairs in her stocking feet,
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shouting down at me. It's raining, great guns, and all the windows
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are open. Go out and bring in the baby carriage. It was raining
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hard and the wind was blowing a gale. I got pretty wet hauling the
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baby carriage back backwards to the front porch, but once there with it,
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I was sheltered, and I stood there a few moments facing north. The
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night was absolutely black, for we had as yet no street lights in the
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outer parts of Forsby the light from the bulb on the porch behind me,
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however, lit up the heavy drops of rain that fell from the coping and
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down the granolithic pathways. I saw long streaks of rain reflect it back now
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and then like steel. Through all the noise of rain and wind, I
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just barely heard the whistle of the last train from the city. The tracks
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were a couple of miles away. Half past twelve, I went in and
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locked up the house for the night. Oh serenity of the sound new house.
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At every stage of my toilet, I thought of it, our neat
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square bedroom with its window east and its two windows south, and all Julia's
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rooms were queer shaped. Our tiled bathroom, with its white enamel, its
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shining nickel, its open plumbing. And I don't believe Eric had a bit
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of shining nickel or open plumbing in his whole place. Our electric light beside
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the beds and over the mirror and everywhere one might want it, And their
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dingy gas and flickering candles. My thoughts went on as I brushed my teeth
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over the bright nickel toothbrush basin the sanitary equipment. If our house was up
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to date and complete, as it always should be, in a house that
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shelters young children, If the Greers had children, now, it wouldn't be
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so lonesome over there. But they'd have to clear the place up more,
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cut down those rotten old trees, and let the sun in all day,
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all round. Funny Julia was as merry as a lark this evening and looked
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as she looked the first day I saw her, before the summer had well
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pulled her down, I guess, and she was as fresh and sparkling as
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the sun on a brook. Aren't you ever coming to bed? Annette called
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to me. I snapped off the light and went into the bedroom. As
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I opened the window, the wind roared in, flapped my pajamas about my
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legs, and hurled the rain half way across the floor. Say Annette,
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I, I don't know about opening this window. Come along the other'll be
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just as bad, and we'll mop up the floor in the morning. Roll
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the rug back, dear, and come to bed. That for good tight
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floors. I got into bed and then snapped out the little table lamp with
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rose colored shade right beside me. The room was instantly in darkness, but
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I was safe in bed, better than dingy gas and flaring candles. Ah,
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old girl. I reached out my hand from the bed for hers.
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That sleepy as she might be or dark, the room never failed to find
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mine and bridge the little space between our beds and a good night clasp.
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Just the same, she murmured sleepily. I'm going to study architecture till I
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see in that house, what Julius sees. I chuckled and pressed her hand
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that you'll never do, my love, good night. I'll never forget how
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Annette pulled on my hand when at that very moment, a banging on the
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front door resounded through the house. End of Chapter two.