Transcript

Chapter III · Sinister House

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Chapter three of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This LibriVox recording is in the
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public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, Chapter three. As I have told
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you, our house has every modern convenience. We have electric door bells at
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every door. But whoever gave those resounding thwacks the seamed resounding, I assure
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you, at that weird hour of the night and in that storm, was
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probably unable in the dark to find the button. So my mind reasoned in
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a second or two. You know, pounding on a door is a very
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threatening noise, and I confess I was startled. Annette was really alarmed.
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For a long while. She would not loose my hand, but kept dragging
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at me, and I was very awkward trying to find the button of the
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lamp to my left. Once a little light in the room, however,
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she became cautious and alert. She would not let me leave my bed.
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Both of us sat up and very strained. We listened for the blows to
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come again. It seemed a long time that we waited. It was probably
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not more than a couple of minutes. At any rate. No sound but
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the roaring of the wind, the driving of the rain, and the flapping
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of the curtain by the open window assailed our ears. Suddenly, I jumped
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out of bed and determined to find who had roused us, so made my
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way without slippers or gown into the northeast room, from the window of which
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I could lean out and spy. I didn't switch on any light, because,
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as Annette said, that would have made me too good a target for
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any one below. As I stumbled along, I heard my little sun begin
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to cry, an unusual sound in our house and disconcerting at that hour.
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From the north window, I could see nothing in the blackness of the night.
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I opened it cautiously, without making a sound, and leaned out.
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The very wall of the house beneath me was invisible. I might have been
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leaning over an unfathomable abyss, but through the noise of rain and wind,
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my ear caught the sound of footsteps, heavy and slow on the granolithic walk.
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Who's there, I challenged loudly, to my utter amazement. The voice
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which answered me hushed, but autumn from out of the storm was familiar.
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Ah, Pierre, I got you up. I'm sorry. I watched your
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light from half a mile down the road, hoping it would not go out.
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I was just going on for the love of heaven, eric I shouted
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back, I'll be down in two shakes of a lamb's tail, darting back
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to my room for my slippers. I switched on the living room lights from
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upstairs, and then I rushed down to let him in. He stepped over
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the threshold, dripping wet. I saw in a glance that his clothes were
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soaked through they hung down heavily from his shoulders. I caught a glimpse,
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too, of a heavy dress suit case he left outside on the porch.
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What's the matter, eric I asked him, more than ever, surprised to
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see standing before me a man I thought was a thousand miles away. Nothing's
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the matter, he replied in his melodious and somewhat sad voice. He took
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off his hat with an apologetic, sidelong smile. The rain ran in streams
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from it. I didn't mean to rout you out, but somehow it's such
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a devilish knight, and I wanted to get home quickly. There's nothing the
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matter with Julia, is there, I asked, suddenly, and without thinking,
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with Julia, he cried, his look transfixing me, and his deep
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set brown eyes terribly anxious and searching. I am an idiot, of course,
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not we left her not two hours ago, never saw her looking so
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well, never saw her livelier. That relieved him. He undid a button
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or two of his coat. I always noticed how lean and sensitive his hands
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were, and reached in for a handkerchief to mop his face. What an
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expressive wet face it was. He cleared his throat, putting his fingers to
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his mouth as he did so, in a gesture characteristically apologetic. He was
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a tall, wiry, gaunt fellow whose face fairly burned with eagerness at times.
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Though he was a man of few words, rather mute, I suppose
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he was self effacing and extremely considerate of others, rather than apologetic. Certainly,
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there was no suggestion of weakness about him. He wasn't assertive or aggressive,
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but he had unusual power of endurance, both physical and I found out
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later mental weeks afterwards, Giles said of him that he was tempered in a
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white hot resentment. But Giles was an incorrigible phrase maker. Eric seemed to
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me just an attractive, magnetic, dark eyed fellow, taller and thinner than
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the average, and a good deal more What the women call sympathetic resentment was
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the last thing in the world I should have associated with Eric Greer. Ah,
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Well, I am rambling. Eric had never before been in our house
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without his wife, and I've felt as if he were lonesome all the time.
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My son upstairs kept yelling as if he were scared out of his life.
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It was like Eric to take upon himself the blame of this, but
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I deprecated his apologies. One was always doing that with Eric. He told
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me then that he had found himself in Buffalo with three days on his hands,
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and had determined to take a flying trip to his home and his wife.
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I can't bear being away from her, he added, but with no
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trace of apology. There He burned when he spoke of his wife. And
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it's such a rotten night. I just got into Foresby from New York.
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There was no cab at the station, and I started to walk it.
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When I saw the light in your window. I hoped i'd get to your
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house before you had gone to bed, and that well, I have only
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thirty six hours to spend with Julia at the best, and I thought you'd
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perhaps run me over in your car. He would have driven himself over,
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But I knew he couldn't manage a ford very well, and besides, I
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was glad to do him a favor, so I rushed upstairs to dress.
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There was something abroad in the night that took away all thought of sleep.
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Even Bobby kept up his whimpering, which was very unlike him. I stopped
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in his room a second to tell Annette, who was watching with him,
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that it was Eric who had roused us, and that I was going to
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run him over in the ford. She had already assured herself of the nature
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of our midnight visitor. She thought I was a fool to drive him over
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in such a storm, that it would be much more sensible to keep him
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with us overnight. As a matter of fact, she didn't want to be
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left alone in the house. Bobby had had terrible nightmares. She couldn't wake
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him up. She thought he had a fever. You know how women are,
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even the best of them, like my wife, Just the same.
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I got dressed, forced a dry coat on, Eric cranked up the ford
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and started out in the storm. Eric paid no attention to the roughness of
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the way, while my mind was wholly intent upon steering the light car through
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the heavy mud and keeping her out of ruts. He asked me anxious questions
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about the condition of his wife now and then when we came to a smooth
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stretch, I would say, you know how, with my mind only half
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in it, she's as bright as a cricket. She's improved wonderfully, or
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as a joke, she seems to thrive on your absence. Eric. I
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wonder if that pleased him. Perhaps he didn't hear anything I said. With
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the wind roaring about us. At any rate, he couldn't get enough out
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of me. He even asked me if she was sleeping better. What a
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question from one husband to another, I answered, like a top. I
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never knew she had slept in any other way. All the way, the
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rain was bouncing and running all over the windshield and steaming on the engine hood.
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The wind was trying to tear the top off the car, and the
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whole shebang was rocking and pitching along the road like a bump the bumps at
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Coney Island. Even the lights got to playing tricks. From time to time,
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the rain or something reflected them in a queer way, so that it
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seemed to me as if a ball of light or a sort of thick string
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of it were flying along just ahead of us, now just over the engine,
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now right on the edge of the windshield. It was so queer that
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it made me jumpy and nervous. I found the next morning that the reflector
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in the right lamp was broken. That accounted for it, simply enough.
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But I remember how I jumped when we turned down into Eric's driveway in that
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uncanny light. It was like an eel, then darted ahead of us and
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round the corner as if it were alive. At Eric's request, I stopped
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the car under the hemlocks some little way from the house, and as luck
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would have it, I stalled the engine. Doing so. That left us
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in absolute darkness, and it felt and sounded as if the wind and rain
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doubled their fury. What a friend to man is light. I don't know
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why I insisted on stumbling along with Eric towards where we knew the house must
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be if the storm hadn't blown it from the edge of the cliff into the
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river. We didn't know where to put our feet, and in the darkness,
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the wind sounded like all sorts of unearthly things. Once it was so
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like an anguished human cry that we both stopped trembling. I'm not sure now
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that it wasn't. We kept on going, trying to feel the edge of
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the driveway with our feet. Of course, we couldn't see a sign of
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the house. Finally I said to Eric, this is absurd. I'll go
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back and start the engine. That will give us some light. And you've
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got to wake Julia anyhow, Though he remonstrated, I had already turned when
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I heard the noise of bolts shot back with a loud click. We were
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much nearer the house than we knew. The front door was suddenly thrown up
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open, and I saw Julia standing in the doorway. She wore a long
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white nightgown, and she carried in her hand a lighted candle. She was
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the only visible thing in the night save right before me the clear cut but
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lightless edge of Eric's face. Behind her, there was a sort of rosy
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glow. She must have lighted a lamp back in the narrow hallway, one
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wall of which I remembered was hung with a damask of deep rose color.
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She cried out, who's there, And though she was not more than ten
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feet from us, I could hardly hear her voice over the noise of the
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storm. Eric answered her almost with a sob, and sprang towards her,
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across the lawn and up the steps. He had her caught up in his
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arms in a second, and she let the candle fall. In an instant.
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The night was black again, save for that rosy glow, against which
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I saw their two figures almost as one, shapeless yet strangely heroic, like
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two wanderers, standing embraced on the edge of a cliff, far above the
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fires of earth, slipping and almost falling in the mud. I ran back
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to my ford. I bumped good and hard into a tree trunk before I
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got there, but I had her cranked and backing before they could have thought
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of me. And I doubt if even the glare of my lights over their
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lawn, or the roar of the engine in reverse, recalled to their minds
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that there was such a man as Pierre Smith living in the world. The
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house was still as death when I got back, and I tried to sneak
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into bed without a sound, But the wife of my bosom was on a
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still watch, and in the dark she tried to pump me for all she
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could get, and that being little for her pains, She felt to thinking
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that Eric and Julia were both crazy nuts. Not an elegant phrase, but
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expressive. It was after two before I fell asleep. Just drowsing away,
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I remembered to ask Annette how Bobby was. He had had terrible nightmares,
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but had dropped off to sleep again as soon as Eric and I had left
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the house. He had no fever. End of chapter three,