Chapter V

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter five, A Sinister House byLeland Hall. This LibriVox recordings in the
public domain, read by Ben Tucker, Chapter five. My temper was harrowed.
The picture I carried in my mindof Julia, pale and exhausted,
lying on the couch before the openwindow over the river, away from the
sunbeams, and with no glittering responsein her hair to the blue western light

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of early morning, was one tostir in a man more nervous than I,
that rising of feeling as against somethingwrong. Indeed, I was so
upset that I managed to put oneover on my wife, whom I found
pairing cucumbers in the kitchen, andwhom I treated with great firmness, ending
all resistance with the flat statement thatJulia was all in and no fit subject

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to be told that her husband carriednightmares round with him. As for Giles,
he kept to his room all themorning, but at lunch he fairly
put us through an inquisition. Hewanted to know about Eric, who he
was, where came from, andwhat he did. We couldn't tell him
much. In fact, we didn'tknow anything about Eric. In that way.
Eric appeared to have a little money. He had spoken to me of

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real estate in Chicago once, andI always supposed his income came from that,
and I supposed likewise that he hadjust been to Chicago to see about
it. I don't know how itwas that Giles put the little we knew
and the much we did not knowabout Eric in an unpleasant light. He
did just that in a rather nastyway. That is, he made Eric
out a man of mystery. Furthermore, Giles's sympathy for Julia was very intense,

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and that too somehow deepened the shadowon Eric about her. He apparently
knew far more than we had everknown, though he utterly ignored our questions.
Anette was pleased to frame up alittle mystery round Julia, then it
was rather in the way of ajoke, and chiefly to protect Eric,
who, after all, if hiswife was going to be sickly and nervous,
had a claim on us for sympathytoo. Giles's aspersions on the character

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of Eric seemed to me quite unjustified. I brought to his attention the evidence
of Julia's own behavior and condition,which still I took to have their main
cause in her grief at parting fromEric. But Giles scoffed at that,
and in my own heart I hadalready begun to feel a restless doubt.
I was glad that afternoon to makea bluff of having to go over the

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ford again, and to get awayfrom Giles's pestiferous questions about my friend.
But at the table he had,as it were, struck us with a
poison point, and the venom mademe uncomfortable with the thought that all might
not be right and natural. Inthe house where Eric and Julia lived,
I saw Giles go banging off byhimself at night. He told us that

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he had called at missus Greer's latein the afternoon, and had been informed
by the servant that Missus Greer hadgone at once to bed after her ill
turn of the morning, and thatshe had fallen into a deep sleep,
from which she had not then waked. Later in the evening I telephoned,
even then she had not stirred inher bed. Giles calms the sleep of
a ghastly exhaustion, hard headed ashe remained all through the affair, and

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often as he reprimanded me for imaginingthings about the house. Strangely enough,
it was he who first suggested tome that there was something uncanny in this
business of Julia's ill turns. Itwas amazing how Julia was herself again the
very next day. Yet I sawa new look in her face. It
wasn't only a look, there wasa slight drawing of the lips you see
on the faces of persons who wereconcentrating all their energies to meet a prolonged

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strain on their nervous force. Hermanner changed too. She was not standoffish,
but a little on her guard.As for Eric, during the next
six weeks, he became more andmore reserved. He grew thinner too,
and his face, too had aholy, somber expression. I noticed that
he was reserved even with Julia,and while his attentions to her seemed no

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less actuated by an unusually passionate anddevoted love, they were more controlled and
perhaps more formal. His hair,already touched with gray when I first saw
him, became almost white at thetemples and over the ears. I took
it he was worrying over Julia's health. There was no doubt that she fell
off when he was round, andeach time he went away, she regained

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a little less before he came back. Whatever was going on between them,
Annette and I knew it was noneof our business. So long as the
weather stayed fine. We had ourown, happy, outdoor lives to lead.
We had our children before it,and my vacation. It was nothing
to either of us what Giles didwith himself. We thought it very odd
that he tolerated for his be solong. We more than tolerated him.

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We learned to put up with histempers, to take him at his best.
We should have been glad to takeJulia with us on our outings now
and then, but I can't rememberthat she ever made one with us at
that time. I wonder why.I know she needed company. Though our
children are a bit noisy, sheloved them and they would have done her
good. I remember thinking that theywould be better company for a woman in

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her state than Giles could be.But though ji Eles was nervous and restless,
there was something resolute and straightforward abouthim, which may have been I
used to think what helped her bestto pass the hours of her separation from
Eric. I let it go atthat, failing utterly to realize how at
that time she needed for a friend. Just such a man as Giles,
one who would keep her mind busyand bury her thoughts. The house,

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which most of force Bey considered anunwholesome place, fell under a deeper shadow.
Julia entertained fewer and fewer guests there, and towards the end before she
and Eric left it for good andall, Giles and my wife and I
were almost the only neighbors who wentthere. Nothing could throw Giles into a
more furious tantrum than Annette's antipathy tothe house. He liked the house himself,

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but in his self assumed role ofdetective in regard to Eric, he
was always seeking to know what hadbrought Eric to it. That used to
irritate me. I thought it unfairto Eric, I said to him again
and again. He took it becauseJulia liked it at first sight. Invariably
he would reply that I didn't explainwhat had brought Eric to this god forsaken
part of the world in the firstplace. On one occasion, Annette,

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stung by his ungracious allusions to foresby, gave him back an unusually vivid account
of Julia's spooky reception by the housein question, A house which had a
spirit in it, maybe two orthree, that flung open the windows and
sang to unsuspecting victims to tempt theminto it. Tumble down, old haunted
shanty, she said, fit foran insane asylum, or for the company

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of artists. Of course, dearGiles and artistic people. Eric must have
been crazy to get it for her. Giles grew very icy. You cannot
be expected to see the spiritual charmin such places in Nette, Yes,
said Annette, with a little tossof her head. So Julia once told
me, And no house ever sangto me either, And if one did,
I hope I'd have sense enough tostay out of it. Giles pounded

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on the table. We were stillat lunch. But what I want to
know, he roared, in hisbest style. Why he brought her here
in the first place? Where doeshe come from? What brought a man
like him down to this flat,deadly part of God's earth? Maybe he
too heard the singing over the longdistance wire to New York, I answered,

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trying to smooth things out. Ourlittle Bobby was at the table.
He adored Eric and Julia, andhe seemed to have caught the idea of
the conversation as children will, andto have taken an interest in it childlike
too. He began softly at first, but with increasing clamor and violent approaches
to his mother's face to ask overand over again, Ma, Ma,
what brought Uncle Eric to the singinghouse? Ma? Ma? What brought

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Uncle Eric to the singing House?It got fearfully on Giles's nerves. Hush,
said his mother, Hush, hush, and then unwinding his two arms
with impatience. If you don't stopyour noise this minute, Robert, you
shall go to bed without any suppertonight. He got down from his mother's
lap then and crawled under the table. We tried to regain our composure,

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but unobserved that lad of mine gotround to Giles and tugging at his coat
for attention. I wonder how maliciouschildren are, demanded his answer, cousin,
Giles, what brought Uncle Eric tothe singing house? Giles sprang up
in a fury. Nothing you good, pest, nothing good, he shouted,
and went raging out of the room. I think that at first singing
house suggested to Bobby merely his cuckooclock. He had always been enchanted and

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a bit frightened by the flying openof the little door, the inexplicably sudden
apparition of the wooden songster, itssong, and its equally sudden silence and
disappearance. Many children tire of thisregular self performing miracle, and most boys
will sooner or later have the thingapart. Bobby, on the contrary,
would have been aghast at the merethought of dismembering even a wooden bird.

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He was a sensitive little fellow.He feared the clock at first, and
his curiosity never got liberated from hisfear sufficiently for him to venture a finger
into the black hole, from outof which the bird sprang to sing.
As for what went on behind themdoor after it had closed, the poor
bird in, I am sure hehad lurid imaginings. How deep an impression

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the idea of a whole singing housemade on the child, we did not
suspect. I do not know whathis mind peopled it with besides his uncle
Eric and his aunt Julia. Anyhow, the place began to be somewhat fearful
for him. Whenever we drove pastit in the ford, he drew up
closer to me. He always saton the front seat unless we were out
after dark, and there was Ifelt something communicative in his sphere. At

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one time, Annette and I too, used to tell the little boy spooky
stories just to make his eyes growbig and round. It is an unwise
and a cruel practice with children likehim, and we don't do it any
more. Besides, we know toowell ourselves now how much torture lurks in
a dim and inconceivable thing of terror. But at that time we were both
capable of adding touches of gruesome horrorsto the stories we told him. We

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had no premonition of the lesson wewere to learn, and that very soon,
late one afternoon, we were ina field, the three of us,
well up the river. It wasstill warm, though the sun was
dropping low. It had been hazyall day, and we had been at
peace, untroubled by worry of anysort. Annette had taken along with her
a book of myths and folklore,and had read one or two of them

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to Bobby, who would sit andraptured as long as she would read them.
Just before it was time for usto be starting back home, she
finished that rather revolting one of theLarelai. It was some Larelli in that
version of the story, one witha hearty appetite for human flesh. I
can see the little boy now snuggledvery close under his mother's arm. He
was looking at the pages as sheread them, though he hadn't begun to

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learn his letters. Facing the lastpage of the story, there was a
crude engraving of the fascinating man eatinga lady. Maybe you've seen it.
She sits alone on the top ofa high rock above the river, clothed
only in her long, bright hairand a very scanty smock, which Bobby
probably thought was her bib. Shehad horrid bold eyes, and her mouth
looks well fed. The narrow plateauon which she sits in cumber all round

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her, with thigh bones presumably human, and skulls undoubtedly so. Bobby just
stared at that. He had hadhis finger on every bone, and on
every one of the five strings inthe harp she held in her hand.
I picked up the rugs and thelunch basket and went up to the car
to make all ready for the ridehome. But when I came back down
through the tall dry grass of thefield to summon a net and a boy

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to the car. I found thatthey had not moved to prepare themselves for
the start, that Bobby was reallyafraid to make a move in the twilight
that had already fallen. Upon thedisappearance of the sun, I had to
pick him up in my arms andcarry him to the car. The night
air was already cool. I feltthen that it was wrong to read the
little fellow such horrible stuff, andto let him see such pictures. I

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spanked him in a friendly way andpromised him he should ride home on the
front seat, but that didn't work. He wanted to be close to some
one, and I had scolded himso often forgetting in my way when he
was riding beside me that he knewwell his only hope for snuggling lay in
the back seat. His mother laughedat him, but she took him under
her wing, wrapped him warm againstthe cold breeze, and in the dark

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we started off. We had tenmiles to go down along the river,
from which before long the mists beganto rise, spreading eerily over the marshes
and settling into the hollows of theroad. Silly boy, I heard his
mother say, silly boy, tobe afraid did she sing when she was
hungry? I heard him ask,in his high tense voice, you are

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thinking of little Tommy Tucker, whosang for his supper. I heard her
answer, but what was the loreLie's supper, Mamma? Did she eat
little boys and curls and so on? To Annette, to get the horrid
idea out of his head, resortedto that reprehensible mixture of terrorism with morality
which many mothers administer to their children, as for example, her telling Bobby

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that only naughty people heard the loreLi sing at all, and all naughty
people ought to be eaten if theyweren't. How careful we both are now
to keep the conceptions of horror fromtaking root in the minds of our children.
The night settled darker and darker,and colder and colder. Here and
there we passed through a queer,warm streak in the air. I finally

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told Bobby over my shoulder that therewas no such things as Laura lies anyhow,
But the whole thing was nonsense.But in a few moments I heard
him again, aren't there any larellies on the Hudson, Mamma, No,
dear, there aren't any anywhere,But uncle Eric heard the singing house.
Was there a Laura lie in thesinging house? Was Uncle Eric a

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bad man? And heard her sing? Come? Come, my boy?
He didn't hear anyone sing? Butwho did? Aunt Julia just played?
She did? Then there isn't anyLaura lie in the singing house, no
darling, and there wasn't any singingin it. Then it won't eat Aunt
Julia. Come on, my son, I broke in. I'm so hungry

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that if you keep on talking thisway, I'll eat you. And Papa
can't sing, said my wife,seizing as she always sees the chance to
give me a playful gibe, banga blowout. And we were four miles
from home in the night, alreadyheavy upon us, a forlorn predicament.
I got out, and by thelight of a miserable candle stub, began
my repairs. While I was working, Anette heard, faint in the distance,

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the whistle of the seven thirty trainfrom New York doing foresby at eight
thirty. I wonder if Eric's comingback on that train, she murmured,
with a yawn. And I wonderwhere Giles is getting his supper? Supper?
Is there a more maddening word todistract the mind of a fellow in
my fix. We stayed by theroadside a good half hour, and by
the time we started on again,the night was thick. We were savagely

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hungry, and our nerves were onedge. Fortunately, Bobby soon fell asleep.
We rode on in silence, mymind on the road before me,
often shrouded in the night mist whichtook strange shapes before our lamps, and
my whole body crying out for somethingwarm to eat. But even against Ford's
fate sometimes sets herself just by thegloomy hemlock that bordered the highway when it

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runs by Eric's house. We sufferedanother blow out, I swore, and
stopped the engine immediately. The nightwas black about us. For a moment
I thought it was silent, too, But then my ears caught the sound
of a woman's voice singing. Itcame from somewhere behind those hemlocks, round
which the mist was in a strange, in sinuous movement, without any other
sound to accompany it, without anygleam of light. A voice in the

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blackness so disassociated from human life asto suggest something unearthly, to make matters
worse Bobby, half wakened by thestopping of the car, began to scream
in terror. I hear the singinghouse, I hear the singing house.
Oh mamma, it is going toeat me. It's going to eat me.
It got terribly on my nerves,not only the nerve racking yelling,

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but the association of the faint threadof song with the hideous story of sorcery
and inhuman cruelty. Oh shut up, I shouted at my son in a
temper, as I got myself stifflyout of the car. Screaming subsided at
once into a sort of frightened whimperingthrough which I could still hear, though
very faintly, a note or twoof the song. But he let loose

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again and clutched frantically at his motherwhen she had to move herself and him
in order to let me get atthe necessary implements in the chest under the
back seat. By the certain lightof matches, I struck one after the
other. I found my jack,my tire irons, and my amending tissues,
but no trace of the candle stub. I must have left it at
the place where we had been heldup before. Well, I tried to

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light one of the kerosene lamps.As luck would have it, it was
empty of oil. I tried allthe kerosene lamps. They were all empty,
even the tail light, which Iseldom troubled to light in this remote
part of the world. My cursingwas ardent, but low. There was
something in the blackness of the night. The stars were all obscured by the
haze. There was something in theblackness, I repeat, in the damp,

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heavy clinging of the mist, extrachill by those forever sunless trees,
and in the mysterious and only halfaudible sound of singing coming to us through
the fear haunted thicket, which casta spell over me in mind one.
I was not venturesome enough to shatterwith a loud ringing oath. And there
was Bobby's incessant and agitating whimpering too, a sort of cold rill of fear.

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It was impossible to do my workin the darkness, and I made
up my mind to go to thehouse and ask for a light, rather
than to burn gasoline for half anhour or more and keep the engine running
just for the front lamps. Well, hurry, then, Annette said to
me, half whispering herself, don'tleave me alone in this black hole.
I thought you had some sense,Annette, I growled, crossly, taking

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a long breath, as if Iwere going to plunge into a cold bath.
I stumbled down into the dark driveway. I hadn't felt my way more
than a few steps, however,before, such a heavy feeling, as
if peril were closing in round us, saddled on me that I turned and
went back to the car. Imeant only to reassure net. As a
matter of fact, I made herscream. A second time, I braved
the clammy darkness of the driveway,and this time I came in sight of

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the house. I say in sight, because at last my eyes had definite
perception through one of the south windows, against which the curtains had not been
drawn, the uncertain and not verypenetrating light from a branch of candles was
streaming. At first, this washeartening, but almost before I had taken
another step, I stopped short inmy tracks. Against that bar of light,

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I saw distinctly the silhouetted head andshoulders of a man. Had he
not moved, I certainly should havetaken the bulk which revealed him as a
protuberance from the dark mass of shrubsalong that wall of the house, the
outline of which was only half distinctagainst the light. He was standing some
four or five feet from the window, evidently looking in. It was a

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movement nearer that had arrested my attention. One thinks only of wickedness in such
moments. It never occurred to methat the fellow, whoever he was,
might have been drawn towards the windowby the sound of singing, faint but
sweet, that came from the houserecently. As I had been reminded of
the drawing power of the hungry anddestructive Lorelle, I thought only that Julia
was in danger of insult, ofshock, or even of some bodily harm.

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Instantly, my heart beating faster,I confess, I began to steal
up on the villain. I stoodlow over the ground. I myself must
have become invisible in the darkness,while to my eyes he stood a little
more clearly outlined against the night,nearer and nearer. I crept over the
damp grass, with not a soundto betray me. His ears must have

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been filled with the music, howeverblack The thoughts that filled his heart.
He must have been a careless brute, too, for an edging ever nearer
to the window, he put himselfmore and more into the light and into
full view of any one within theroom who might chance to look out through
the window. He rustled the bushesas well. Several times I heard them
snap with a sharp, clear sound. As I approached, the feeling that

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there was evil about him in dangerfor Julia grew so intense in my breast
that I I made up my mindI would strike him from behind with all
my strength, without any preliminary questions. He was, I could see a
taller man than I, and probablymuch stronger. Since I had only my
bare fist to fill him with,I must spring upon him and take him
utterly. By surprise, I knewI must leap when I reached the bushes,

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for I could not hope to creepnearer to him through them without much
crackling, to which not even thesweet singing could have made the prowler deaf.
That singing kept smoothly on. Ihad a feeling that the fellow was
really listening to it, and Iwas glad for it served my purpose.
Just before I decided it was timefor me to make the leap. I
prayed for a more ringing note.My prayer was not granted. Instead,

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I heard the singing shiver to asort of sob. I jumped nevertheless,
for even at that moment I heardmy prey lurch forward. He was actually
rattling the window, which was lowand made in the French fashion to open
like a door. What my halfblinded eyes saw through that window when I
leapt up, I shall never forget. First, let me say I recognized
the man who was rattling it toget in. It was Eric. Then

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within the room I saw Julia,still sitting at the piano, but with
her face turned towards her husband andon it a look of unspeakable horror.
I saw Giles, his back tome, half risen from his chair,
and as if turned to stone bythe expression he saw on Julia's face.
It must have been only for asecond or two, this frozen and horrible

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fixedness within the room. As forJulia, it might have been the shock
of seeing a face peering in ather, even her husband's, so sudden
and like an apparition in the night. But it wasn't that I saw her
move or force herself to move andrise from the piano. Slowly, step
by step, she made her waytowards the window, and on her face
I saw, meanwhile revealed her indomitablespirit, fighting to bring a light of

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recognition to her eyes and outshine luridhorror. There I saw her hands before
her, not as a blind person's, low and searching, but rid straight
out before her, hardened and sharpenedto beat and tear, a ghastly invisible
medium, through which it cost ofan enormous effort. She slowly forced herself
to make way, yet they onlytwitched in small, weak movements, like

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hands locked in a rigor of allbut death. How terribly slow her steps
were, and all the while Iheard Eric rattling the window to get in.
He did get in, but eventhen she could not propel herself towards
him. It was he who rushedtowards her, and he hid her from
me in his embrace. I feltalmost sick. Just before I hurried away,

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my eyes saw Giles risen to hisfeet, his face turned into the
light, amazed and horror struck,even as my own must have been.
End of Chapter five