The girl laughed shortly. ‘Not here they don’t.’
‘Or remodelling old houses——’
‘Privacy,’ the girl said, and laughed again.
‘It just seems surprising,’ Eleanor said, feeling the man looking at her.
‘Yeah,’ the girl said. ‘If they’d put in a movie, even.’
‘I thought,’ Eleanor said carefully, ‘that I might even look around. Old houses are usually cheap, you know, and it’s fun to make them over.’
‘Not around here,’ the girl said.
‘Then,’ Eleanor said, ‘there are no old houses around here? Back in the hills?’
‘Nope.’
The man rose, taking change from his pocket, and spoke for the first time. ‘People leave this town,’ he said. ‘They don’t come here.’
When the door closed behind him the girl turned her flat eyes back to Eleanor, almost resentfully, as though Eleanor with her chatter had driven the man away. ‘He was right,’ she said finally. ‘They go away, the lucky ones.’
‘Why don’t you run away?’ Eleanor asked her, and the girl shrugged.
‘Would I be any better off?’ she asked. She took Eleanor’s money without interest and returned the change. Then, with another of her quick flashes, she glanced at the empty plates at the end of the counter and almost smiled. ‘He comes in every day,’ she said. When Eleanor smiled back and started to speak, the girl turned her back and busied herself with the cups on the shelves, and Eleanor, feeling herself dismissed, rose gratefully from her coffee and took up her car keys and pocketbook. ‘Good-bye,’ Eleanor said, and the girl, back still turned, said, ‘Good luck to you. I hope you find your house.’
V
The road leading away from the gas station and the church was very poor indeed, deeply rutted and rocky. Eleanor’s little car stumbled and bounced, reluctant to go farther into these unattractive hills, where the day seemed quickly drawing to an end under the thick, oppressive trees on either side. They do not really seem to have much traffic on this road, Eleanor thought wryly, turning the wheel quickly to avoid a particularly vicious rock ahead; six miles of this will not do the car any good; and for the first time in hours she thought of her sister and laughed. By now they would surely know that she had taken the car and gone, but they would not know where; they would be telling each other incredulously that they would never have suspected it of Eleanor. I would never have suspected it of myself, she thought, laughing still; everything is different, I am a new person, very far from home. ‘In delay there lies no plenty; . . . present mirth hath present laughter. . . .’ And she gasped as the car cracked against a rock and reeled back across the road with an ominous scraping somewhere beneath, but then gathered itself together valiantly and resumed its dogged climb. The tree branches brushed against the windshield, and it grew steadily darker; Hill House likes to make an entrance, she thought; I wonder if the sun ever shines along here. At last, with one final effort, the car cleared a tangle of dead leaves and small branches across the road, and came into a clearing by the gate of Hill House.
Why am I here? she thought helplessly and at once; why am I here? The gate was tall and ominous and heavy, set strongly into a stone wall which went off through the trees. Even from the car she could see the padlock and the chain that was twisted around and through the bars. Beyond the gate she could see only that the road continued, turned, shadowed on either side by the still, dark trees.
Since the gate was so clearly locked—locked and double-locked and chained and barred; who, she wondered, wants so badly to get in?—she made no attempt to get out of her car, but pressed the horn, and the trees and the gate shuddered and withdrew slightly from the sound. After a minute she blew the horn again and then saw a man coming towards her from inside the gate; he was as dark and unwelcoming as the padlock, and before he moved towards the gate he peered through the bars at her, scowling.
‘What you want?’ His voice was sharp, mean.
‘I want to come in, please. Please unlock the gate.’
‘Who say?’
‘Why——’ She faltered. ‘I’m supposed to come in,’ she said at last.
‘What for?’
‘I am expected.’ Or am I? she wondered suddenly; is this as far as I go?
‘Who by?’
She knew, of course, that he was delighting in exceeding his authority, as though once he moved to unlock the gate he would lose the little temporary superiority he thought he had—and what superiority have I? she wondered; I am outside the gate, after all. She could already see that losing her temper, which she did rarely because she was so afraid of being ineffectual, would only turn him away, leaving her still outside the gate, railing futilely. She could even anticipate his innocence if he were reproved later for this arrogance—the maliciously vacant grin, the wide, blank eyes, the whining voice protesting that he would have let her in, he planned to let her in, but how could he be sure? He had his orders, didn’t he? And he had to do what he was told? He’d be the one to get into trouble, wouldn’t he, if he let in someone wasn’t supposed to be inside? She could anticipate his shrug, and, picturing him, laughed, perhaps the worst thing she could have done.
Eyeing her, he moved back from the gate. ‘You better come back later,’ he said, and turned his back with an air of virtuous triumph.
‘Listen,’ she called after him, still trying not to sound angry, ‘I am one of Doctor Montague’s guests; he will be expecting me in the house—please listen to me!’
He turned and grinned at her. ‘They couldn’t rightly be expecting you,’ he said, ‘seeing as you’re the only one’s come, so far.’
‘Do you mean that there’s no one in the house?’
‘No one I know of. Maybe my wife, getting it fixed up. So they couldn’t be there exactly expecting you, now could they?’
She sat back against the car seat and closed her eyes. Hill House, she thought, you’re as hard to get into as heaven.
‘I suppose you know what you’re asking for, coming here? I suppose they told you, back in the city? You hear anything about this place?’
‘I heard that I was invited here as a guest of Doctor Montague’s. When you open the gates I will go inside.’
‘I’ll open them; I’m going to open them. I just want to be sure you know what’s waiting for you in there. You ever been here before? One of the family, maybe?’ He looked at her now, peering through the bars, his jeering face one more barrier, after padlock and chain. ‘I can’t let you in till I’m sure, can I? What’d you say your name was?’
She sighed. ‘Eleanor Vance.’
‘Not one of the family then, I guess. You ever hear anything about this place?’
It’s my chance, I suppose, she thought; I’m being given a last chance. I could turn my car around right here and now in front of these gates and go away from here, and no one would blame me. Anyone has a right to run away. She put her head out through the car window and said with fury, ‘My name is Eleanor Vance. I am expected in Hill House. Unlock those gates at once.’
‘All right, all right.’ Deliberately, making a wholly unnecessary display of fitting the key and turning it, he opened the padlock and loosened the chain and swung the gates just wide enough for the car to come through. Eleanor moved the car slowly, but the alacrity