Transcript

Chapter VII · Sinister House

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Chapter seven of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This Clebrivox recording is in the
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public domain, read by Ben Tucker, Chapter seven thoroughly ashamed too. That's
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the word. Books which teach etiquette of the drawing room had better put in
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a special clause to warn students against behaving before their hosts, as if they
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were seeing the hideous family specter pass along the wall of the dwellings in which
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they are being entertained. My behavior could hardly have been courteous, and a
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look I caught in Giles's eye once or twice made me fairly cringed with shame.
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I dared not look at Julia. Not once during supper did I catch
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her eye. As for Eric, he was quiet, but no more so
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than usual. Yet I think his smiles were only a subdued reflection of Julia's
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excessive merriment. Giles was, of course the life of the table, life
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with a good deal of stinging snap in it. If only I could have
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consoled myself with conviction that there was an undercurrent of something mysterious. But I
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assure you there was not the slightest sign of such a thing. Annette thought
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I wasn't very well, that's all my sudden understandings and my horrid vision.
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I might as well have had a stomach ache just the same, deep down
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in my heart or stomach, if you will, I knew I had not
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been dreaming, and also that I had suffered from no ordinary ill turn.
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My weird experience was I knew overlaid with my usual habits of thought and expression,
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I had been the first to deny them too. Yet that experience had
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startled into shivering sensitiveness, an unfamiliar nerve within me, one of which I
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had not learned control, thanks to my own rational way of living and to
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the conduct of those about me at table. The thrill of it was subsiding,
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but it had been laid bare, It had been awakened. It was
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tuned to respond to the slightest vibrations, and it was not to leave me
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long and quiet. On the wall of the dining room opposite me there hung
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a long, rich curtain. I think I knew there was a door behind
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it, though how I knew I cannot say at any rate. I am
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not by nature inquisitive, and I have never wondered into what passage, closet
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or room it gave access I found during supper that if I looked at that
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curtain, the new nerve trembled within me. This was inexplicable. There was
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little enough design on the cloth, no shape I could recognize, faded,
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heavy gold embroidery that stood out only faintly from the deep blue velvet. Yet
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I found I could not look at that curtain for long without beginning to shiver
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inside. Mind you, I was crushed enough. I controlled myself. I
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did not tell anybody what I felt. Heaven forbid, I didn't even let
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anyone catch me looking at it. But once or twice I caught Eric looking
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very sharply at it, and very intently, as if he were trying to
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place a noise that came from behind it. That made me feel queer too.
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Now, when we rose from the table, Eric went straight to that
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curtain. I began to shudder as with an a dew. Bobby began to
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whimper, though he had been well behaved throughout the meal. Eric drew the
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curtain a little to one side. I saw the door knob, and I
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saw Eric put his hand on it and turn it. He bent his head
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to the panel of the door, as if listening. He pushed the door
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gently, but it did not open. Suddenly, like a flash, Julia
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rushed up to him, put her small hand over his on the knob,
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and, laughing but quite pale, said, now, my dear, remember
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what you promised me about that room. She couldn't have moved his hand from
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the knob, however, Was it because of that? She began backing slowly
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from him? Was it because of that her face took on the haggard look
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I had seen on it before. For my own part, I began to
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feel cold again, and in spite of all my efforts to control myself,
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I shivered so that my teeth chattered. I could have jumped at Eric and
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thrown him from that door. At that moment, Giles caught sight of Eric.
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Where does that door lead to greer, he called out, going over
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to stand beside him. I have often been curious about it. Julius stamped
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her foot and gave a shrill laugh. I will not have you men fooling
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round that horrid place, she said, And then she told us that the
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shape of the room was so ugly that she could not bear it. That
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from the first she had made up her mind never to have it opened.
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That she had thrown a lot of their useless and broken down furniture into it
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and locked it up. It hasn't been cleaned for ages, she said to
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Giles, and you would hate it as much as I do. Then to
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Eric, why do you think of opening that place to night? Dear?
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Let us all go into the other room and have our coffee. Well,
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said Eric, I thought I heard something in there. It was a great
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relief to me to see him take his hand from the knob. Yet,
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in spite of my own sensations, I couldn't help wondering why he should grant
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Julia's request with such reluctance, For he was reluctant. He let go the
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knob very slowly, and even after he had done so, he still held
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the curtain from the door and stood looking very hard at the panels. Why,
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said Julia, it's probably a squirrel. He won't do any harm in
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there. Let him run around a bit. Come away now into the front
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room, all of you. She was actually trying to coax him. Never
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before had I seen him arry an instant to grant the least of her requests.
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He turned to Giles and said to him with a laugh, that had
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a note of grimness in it. Well, I can't get into it anyhow,
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so we might as well go on. Then it came out, Julia,
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snatching the story from her husband's lips and laughing over it, that she
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had not found a bolt on this side of the door safeguard enough against some
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one's opening it, perhaps quite innocently, and she had sent to New York
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for a locksmith to come and set a Yale lock on it, and she
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promptly mislaid the key. Eric concluded all this was in itself innocent enough,
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but that new nerve of mine wouldn't cease shivering until they had all stepped away
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from the door. And then I almost jumped a foot into the air when
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Giles roared out the name of Bluebeard. There's another fearful story for you.
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Of course, we had told it to Bobby many times. He was familiar
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with all the details of it. I think to my stars that a net
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had already made off with him down the corridor towards the living room. Julia
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darted ahead of us men and joined my wife. We followed them down the
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narrow rosy way. Eric was half smiling again, but there wasn't much lightness
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face. I remember he told Giles as we went along that the only irrational
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thing he had ever discovered in Julia was her attitude towards that room. Against
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it, she had taken a sudden and inflexible aversion for which he could conceive
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of no reason. It wasn't a hideous room, and it gave on the
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river too, But she had even exacted from him a promise never to open
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the door of it while she was in the house. When we were all
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in the living room, Giles began to tease Julia a little bit about such
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things as forbidden rooms. Julia was very smart and quick with him, and
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Giles was splendid at raillery. While they were at it, I slipped out
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quietly into the hall, took a big candle, and went out to put
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a patch into the blown out shoe of my ford. I made no noise,
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for I did not want wish to interrupt the others. The front door
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closed behind me without a sound, and I was greatly relieved to be alone.
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Even in the dark night. I was glad there was the patchwork to
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be done. There's nothing like a familiar, unpleasant job to keep the mind
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from brooding. The little light from the candle I carried went with me through
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the black archway of hemlocks like a warm, though feeble friend. I laughed
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to hear myself talk to it. When I set it down on the running
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board of the car. I did my work carefully and well. I put
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my mind wholly on it. I knew just what I was up against,
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and that was a comfort. Yet I couldn't have been myself, because when
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just as I was making ready to pump up the mended tire, I thought
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I heard the sound of footsteps coming up from under the hemlocks, the cold
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sweat broke out all over me. I listened and strained my eyes. For
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a hundred dollars, I could not have picked up the candle and walked to
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the place where I fancied the sound had come. I just stood still,
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thoroughly scared. In a moment or two, I heard the same sound again.
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It's a wonder to me. I didn't turn and run. Something white
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was moving up towards me from the driveway. The sight of it took all
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power of motion from my legs. It took the strength from under my stomach,
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and that organ felt as if it had dropped a foot inside me.
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When the thing came nearer and I recognized Julia, I could not speak for
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the huskiness in my throat. There I stood beside the ford in my shirt
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sleeves, the pump dangling from one hand, and there she stood beside me
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in her white evening dress. And the only light in all the world to
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shine on us, too, was from the candle on the running board.
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Pierre, she said, without waiting for me to speak, do you think
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I'm crazy? I tried to call her name, but a queer noise came
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out of my restricted throat. Do you think I'm crazy? She repeated,
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What a question? I said? At last, we were both hardly more
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than whispering. Never mind, do you answer me? For Heaven's sake,
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of course not, Julia, dear good, she said. Then she came
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very close to me and whispered, neither do I think you are? I
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know you saw something in my house to night. She took my sleeve and
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looked up at me, but her face was not more than a deep shadow.
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I was afraid her skirt would catch fire. It was very near the
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candle flame. I bent down and moved the candle, and our shadows vague
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and enormous on the mass of foliage behind us made a gigantic swing. Tell
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me, she went on, still whispering. How many did you see?
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One? I answered, feeling I don't know why. Shamefaced, I thought,
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so the woman yes. I began to be calmed by her matter of
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factness. While I could not but feel she was highly wrought. Her voice,
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her manner, and her quiet actions assured me that she faced whatever the
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situation was without dismay. It was a business to make the heart sick,
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but in the certainty that it existed, I found something soothing. After a
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moment or two of silence, I asked, is there more than one?
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Two? She answered, an old man. Besides, he isn't so so
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vile, but he makes it all the harder for me. She comes first,
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he comes later. She shan't do it alone. Ever, Do what
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Julia alone? I asked, the words catching in my throat and almost strangling
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me. Kill me, Julia replied quietly. I thought she might be going
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to faint. Her voice was so low that I had better have worried about
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myself. It was I who was nearest quaking. My blood was like ice
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water in my veins, I longed to run with her back to the warm
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house, haunted, though I believed it to be to sit near warm fire,
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to escape from our cold, loneliness and our soundless, grotesque, vast
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black shadows. But when she next spoke, her words stiffened me with the
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thought that ever again, to escape from this horror must be at the price
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of quitting her. They have nearly done for me. She said, you
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have come in the nick of time, for God's sake. Then I cried
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out, leave this dreadful house. It is not the house Pierre. I
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don't know what I was thinking of. I had perhaps no connected thoughts and
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no suspicion. I just spoke. I just said Eric, Eric. Julia
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repeated after me, and I felt as if my mind had been split from
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my body. So instantly did a million terrible and vague thoughts spring up and
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multiply in it. Julia was shivering against me, and I said, you
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are cold. Then I put my coat round her. For ten minutes she
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talked to me, not rapidly and consecutively, but in sentences, or even
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fragments of sentences, some of which were like sparks to the tender of my
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imagination. While others left me still in the dark. Julia was proud and
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high spirited. It was not easy for her to ask help of me in
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her more than distressful situation. I think, however, she wanted me to
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understand. She needed, let us say, my comradeship and what might lie
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ahead of her As to her own conduct up to the present that I could
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see had been governed by her entire and unquestioning love of Eric, which was
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also the source of that strength of hers more valiant and enduring than I or
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anyone else can appreciate. For instance, she and her husband had not been
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settled in the house a week before she acknowledged to herself that there was an
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influence in the place, not natural and not good, which was trying to
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alienate her from her husband's companionship. It was insidious, but it was real.
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She had had even a vague suspicion that the evil something emanated from Eric,
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but this was so intolerable that by sheer force of will, she banished
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it utterly from her mind. She faced the possibility that the house was haunted.
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This was, she thought at the time, a grotesque and an unsubstantiated
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fear. She fancied, she felt things. That was all. She had
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bad dreams. She was in danger of letting her imagination run away with her.
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Up to the time that Eric first went away, she could not say
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that she had really seen anything, just once or twice, the outline perhaps
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of a woman, no body, no substance. But this had appeared in
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the middle of the night while Eric slept peacefully at her side. She held
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his evidence against the soundness of her own mind. The feebly, restraining touch
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of cold finger tips on her face when she turned towards her husband she took
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as a symptom of slightly disordered circulation. Never then had she thought of telling
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Eric she should have been ashamed for one thing after urging him to take that
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particular house. Then too, there was it was, something was vile.
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She should have suffered almost anything, rather than let Eric even hear of it.
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I knew, we all knew that Eric was to be protected, and
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I used to think that he was protecting her. When Eric went away the
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first time, she meant to stay alone in that house and defeat whatever haunted
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it. She had already begun to suspect that the secret ghost of evil had
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decoyed her into it in the first place. Decoyed was Annett's word. I
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remembered. She was not then afraid. But the ghost had left her alone.
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During the time of his absence. She had not once felt the pressure
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of the evil thing. Only when Eric came back. The thought of this
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unnerved her somewhat. She apprehended that what she said might make me think evil
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of Eric, whereas there was nothing evil in Eric. He was entirely without
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blame. He was entirely innocent. One of the most terrible things she had
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had to bear was his misunderstanding of her behavior. She had had to protect
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herself against violent onslaught. The the thing that had been most vicious when she
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tried to approach her husband had been violent to when her husband approached her.
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She had to acknowledge she had become afraid that the nearness of her husband was
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becoming more and more dreadful to her. She had fought thought with all her
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strength to keep beside him, to preserve their intimacy. She couldn't explain to
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Eric. It was all unbelievable. She could substantiate nothing. Eric saw nothing.
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The greater the effort she made to draw near him. On the other
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hand, the more that malevolent thing became incandescent, she was terrified by the
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visible appearance she was losing her strength. Eric was in an anguish of mind.
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He said little, but she knew that he could explain her conduct only
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one way. He thought that she was losing her love for him, that
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he was unpleasant to her, And she could do nothing but protest in words,
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her will to act, Her insatiable desire to act aborted through fear.
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She simply was powerless to explain to Eric. There was something so loathsome,
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the malice of that fiend, that she could not speak of it to Eric,
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whose ultra sensitive nature would have been sickened and revolted beyond endurance. Once
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she had tried, I knew the name. She had heard it too.
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Yes, once she had mentioned it to Eric, the effect upon him was
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indescribable. She would not speak of it to him again. No, she
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would not leave the house. It was plain to her that the house was
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not infected. The source of the evil was in She couldn't utter that,
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but I guessed what she had in mind. Undoubtedly the evil was, for
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some unknown and unimaginable reason, strongest in that house. But what a veil
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to go elsewhere with Eric, the secret ghost would follow him. Did I
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not remember Annette had said that Eric had brought nightmares to my son. There
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would be nightmares everywhere for Julia. If the horror were to be utterly routed,
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then it must be overcome in its strongth what she cried out in torment.
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Has this specter to do with Eric? And what has Eric to do
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with this house? She made a movement of despair with her arms, grotesquely
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and furtively, imitated by the huge black shadows on the foliage of the hemlocks.
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I believe, Julia, I replied, trying to speak calmly, that
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Eric is the final object of its malevolence, that Eric is the marked victim.
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I believe that it is pursuing the only course that can end in mortal
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torture to him. I know it, she said, with a sob me
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principally, But everyone who loves him. He has so few friends, only
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you. She took me by the arm and leaned close to whisper in my
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ear. Children, they all used to love Eric. I am insane with
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fear for them. You must not bring Bobby to the house again, I
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shuddered in a moment's revulsion of feeling, I swore to myself I would see
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Eric dead on the gran elithic walk to my house rather than let him cross
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the threshold again. What terrible knowledge and experience had not these few weeks brought
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to Julia and to me, Great heavens, There was the hellish mockery of
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our furtive black shadows, a devilish soundless, lightless burlesque of our gestures before
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the candle. But what a reality in our fear and despair. The feeble
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restraining drawing of clammy fingers over Julia's cheek had become the clutch of cold ghost
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hands at her throat. They had been at my boy, those hands,
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and the suspicion of the source of that evil, once banished, intolerable to
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the mind, had become Eric must speak, I called out. Julia laid
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her hand over my mouth that blasphemed the man who, in spite of all
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she had undergone, remained to her dearest of all things upon the earth.
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Don't, she whispered? Oh, don't perhaps something in his life? You
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don't know him as I know him, too terrible, for I cannot dig
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him open like a grave. We cannot rifle him. Say nothing, Say
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nothing to Eric, and due time he is great souled, and due time
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his time. There was an end to our talk. We started back to
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the house, but I had the tire still to pump. I begged her
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to go on without me, for the wind was cold and she was most
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denly clad, but she insisted upon standing by while I pumped. The exercise
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brought up my spirits a little. I asked her to try a hand,
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not wholly jokingly, but knowing the exercise would warm her as it had warmed
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me. Yet she hardly heard me. She did not speak again until we
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went together up the steps to the front door, and then it was to
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implore me to respect Eric's dumb grief. We entered the rose colored hallway.
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Before we reached the door to the living room, Eric had come out to
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meet us. He looked anxiously at Julia, my dearest girl. He said,
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reproachfully out of doors this cold night without a rap. Never mind,
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Eric, dear, I have been helping Pierre mind the tire. She went
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gaily into the living room, and I, rubbing my hands Eric's touch affectionately
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upon my shoulder, followed her. It was late, and when Annette saw
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me come in, she immediately stood up and prepared to go home. Julia
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would have had us all stay. She wanted company. Giles, too,
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feeling I dare say that he had been cheated of Julia's society, was all
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four settling down into another hour's talk. But Annette was right, She's always
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right. We had to go on for Bobby's sake, for nothing else.
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All right, dear, I called out cheerfully, and for a second I
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could not believe that the cheerful voice and the homely words were my own.
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I had been out in another world. So we left Julia alone with her
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husband. What else we left with her? Only I could imagine. And
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I carried into our living room that night for the first time, a worry
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that as I took my easy chair grew heavier, not lighter. Annette betook
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herself at once upstairs with Bobby. Giles began walking up and down, his
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chin in his hand automatically. I filled my pipe, and I didn't know
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whether I was an idiot, a good fellow, or a conspirator. I'd
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left behind me more than a vivid picture. I'd left a shocking reality.
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I'd left a delicate, charming woman, defenseless against powers, bent on doing
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her mischief, perhaps the one irremediable mischief. That very night. You will
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understand that I was unpleasantly nervous, well, just as if nothing had happened.
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Annette came down, lit the fire on the hearth for us, and
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brought in some beer from the kitchen. Then she sat down and said,
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quite calmly, I will never take my boy into that dreadful house again.
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Huh, Giles grunted scornfully. Are you crazy too? No, I said
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emphatically, she isn't. She's perfectly right. But Giles went on, as
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if I had said nothing, that boy of yours should be spanked for behaving
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as he did, A good whipping now and then would take such nonsense out
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of him. So that was all it meant to Giles, a fit of
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unruly temper and a spoiled child. I started to give him a call down,
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Giles, you think your darn smart? That word tripped me up.
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Well, go on, what have you got to say? Nothing out with
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it? Annette looked at me anxiously. Once or twice already she had laid
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her hand on my forehead to find if I had a fever. She could
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see that I wasn't myself. She tried to change the drift of our talk.
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I don't think she said that Robert is the only one who was rude
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there tonight. It was hardly courteous of Julie to run off and leave me
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alone as she did. And after her urging me to stay too, don't,
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Annette, I cried, for Heaven's sake, don't. I got up
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and paced the room a couple of times, and I guess Annette didn't know
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what to make of me. Finally, sitting down again, I said to
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Giles as calmly and impressively as I could, that house is haunted. He
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merely laughed loudly and called me a poor simpleton. And I added the ghosts
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that haunted are trying to murder Julia Greer. That at last impressed him,
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but not as I had thought it would do. His face became hard,
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and fixing me with his eyes, he said, in a cynical tone,
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the one word ghosts. He put a world of meaning into his tone.
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It was not ghosts in that house that were hurting Julia. The fear that
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I might have betrayed Eric made me light headed. I loved that man and
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pitied him. Ghosts, I affirmed, who are they? To night,
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I said, I heard the name Snart. At that, Annette leaned forward
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and whispered, not really, so, cried Giles in a flash. You've
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heard that unsavory name before a man named Morgan Snart built the house, Annett
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explained, with a troubled look at me. Good, said Charles. I've
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tried to find out from Greer who built that house. He is not the
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man to ask Morgan's Snart. I mustn't forget that he took a little book
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from his pocket and wrote the name down in it, talking to me sarcastically
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all the time. And of course he was insane, This Morgan Snart a
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murderer, a suicide or something. It's only such unfortunates that come back to
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earth, isn't it, Pierre? Nothing else would do? He scribbled away.
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I don't know anything about him, I grumbled, except that he's dead,
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Yes, of course dead to That's the perfect idea of a ghost,
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isn't it, Pierre? And then, closing the little book with a slap,
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he said cuttingly, I tell you my idea of a ghost is something
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quite different. Dead men rise up, never read even your poets. Ghosts
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breed in the living. That's where we'll catch them. He stood up and
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started for the little room under the stair, looking at his watch. What
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are you going to do, Giles, I asked, it's only eleven.
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I'm going to telephone to a friend of mine in New York, a lawyer.
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I don't suppose your ghosts ever walk much before midnight, do they.
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Maybe we'll lay this one before the witching hour strikes. I sprang up.
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For the love of Mike, Giles, I cried, stop this damn mockery.
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You think I'm nuts, all right, But I tell you there's a
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woman in that rotten old house that I have entire confidence in. Julia,
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he said coolly. She is a rational and an invincible woman. You are
25:37
sure of that, are you, I asked, equally, calm perfectly.
25:42
Well, then Julia may have something to say that will change your opinions.
25:48
I shall have something to say, he answered, scornfully that will change yours.
25:53
End of Chapter seven