Chapter VI

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter six of Sinister House by LelandHall. The LibriVox recording is in the
public domain, read by Ben Tucker. Almost staggering through the darkness, I
made my way back to the ford. Annette was nervous and shaky. I
startled her, coming up out ofthe darkness without any light. I hemmed
and hawed for I could not speak, and cranked the car, making up

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my mind to get the thing.The three miles home on a flat tire,
but Annette rebelled at that. Whydidn't you get a light from the
house as you started out to do, She asked me, with unmistakable irritation.
You're crazy to think of going homeon a flat tire. I can't
stand it. Why didn't you getthe light? What's the matter with you?
And then leaning closer to me inthe darkness and almost whispering, what's

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the matter in the house? Eric'scome home? I replied, Well,
what of that? What's the matterwith him? It's Julia, for Heaven's
sake, Say something, what's wrongwith Julia? But I couldn't explain.
I hadn't the courage. The enginewas running with a great racket, and
the front lights shone far down theroad, making bright whatever they touched upon,

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but leaving all else doubly black.By contrast, a fitful wind was
blowing, and I was more depressedin spirits than I had ever been before.
Somehow, though I had climbed intothe seat and had grasped the safety
lever, I could not bring myselfto start the car. It was altogether
a horrid couple of minutes. Naturally, Annette was mystified. But when I

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swore I would not go back tothat house to night, she almost lost
her temper. What nonsense, sheexclaimed, I won't ride home with you
on a flat tire if you can'tmind it in the dark. I'll go
and get a light myself. Youmight be a little more considerate, Pierre.
Here, I am shivering with thecold. Bobby needs to supper.
I'm hungry too, and yet youwon't make a move to get us home.

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Well, I'll catch our deaths sittinghere in this cold fog. It
did seem foolish after all, Andfinally I went up the driveway again,
stumbled along to the house and knockedon the door. I heard a scream,
faint and quickly choked, but nonethe less, real it was probably
Julia startled out of her self control. To my surprise, Giles opened the
door, prompted by an instinctive feelingthat I must bring cheerfulness into that house.

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I hailed him in a hearty voice, then called down anathema on tires
and demanded a light in tones thatfilled up the long rose colored, shadowy
hallway and must have struck the earsof Eric and his bride. Pleasantly,
Eric came out from the living roomand Julia followed him. He had honest,
cordial words of welcome for me,but it was Julia who almost hysterically
commanded me to stay and sup withthem. I was taken off my guard

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through the door. Whence they hadboth issued I caught a glimpse of the
candle lit living room, of itsodd, old fashioned furniture, its small,
deep colored rugs, its dark hangings, and just a yellow flame or
two of the fire burning in thelittle grate. But I was ill at
ease. My nerves were shaking.I didn't like the house, warm as
it felt, and picturesque and cozyas it looked to my eyes. Yet

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before I knew it, Julia hadme by the arm and was leading me
back down the driveway, pulling mealong in a great hurry to get to
the ford out in the blackness,and commandeer Anette and Bobby. All the
way. She kept up a chatteringabout how cold it was, how hungry
we must be, and how incelebration of Eric's home coming, we must
stay and help them make merry.Under the run of this somewhat too urgent

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hospitality, I felt the strain ofdespair. I knew that Julia actually had
need of us in that house tonight, for some terrible reason I could
not hope to fathom. I madeup my mind that as much as we
should be acting our parts in ignorance, we would not go back on her.
We could at least stand by.So I was cheerful with Annette and
enthusiastic for a good, warm supperthere and then. And Annette could not

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but accept this odd turn. Weroused Bobby and went back to the house,
Julia keeping up with my wife thenervous talk that on the way out
she had loosened on me. Aswe approached the door left open through which
the faint rosy light came out intothe dark, my boy began to twist
and turn in my arms without hissupper. He was fretful and nervous,
and he was frightened by the nighttoo. Indeed, as I carried him

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up the two steps of the porch, he began to kick me and to
pound my shoulder with tightly clenched littlefists. As yet he made no outcry,
but I felt the wind gathering forcein his little chest. And when
we got inside the house and Iset him down in the hall, there
was something in the way he grabbedmy legs and hid his face against them
that made me fear for the worst. This was received in full measure.

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When Eric, always up to thattime a great favorite with him, tried
playfully to catch him up in hisarms. Bobby let out shriek after shriek,
a sound too much of terror forme to think it an outburst of
temper. Papa, Papa, hescreamed, take me away from him,
Take me away. Eric was naturallyamazed and hurt, and I was at
a loss as to how to makethings more pleasant. Nothing can make a

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child courteous of his instinct sets inthe other direction. Bobby had no idea
of concealing his sudden aversion to hisbeloved uncle Eric. While Eric knelt down
beside him to question the cause ofthis painful manifestation, Bobby only screamed alouder
to Papa to keep Uncle Eric away, Keep him away from me, Keep
him away. It hurts. Issomething hurting him? Eric asked me quietly.

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I guess he's just a tired,hungry boy. I answered, what
hurts you, my son? Whathurts you? Eric stood back against the
wall, a tall, somber figure. As soon as he did this,
the tension of Bobby's nerves seemed tobe relaxed. Though he gave me no
answer to my question, but witha little shudder, hugged my knees tighter.
When I tried to take off mycoat. We had another scene.
Then, Eric said, in alow, troubled voice, he seems to

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be frightened of me. For Heaven'ssake, Pierre, is there anything wrong
about me? To night, Ifrightened Julia terribly. I can't get over
it. No wonder, I said, without thinking of my words. You
came sneaking up to the window outof the dark, Julia told you.
He asked, suggesting by his mannerthat Julia and I had a secret understanding

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out of which he was left.Julia had, not, as you know,
said a word of it to me. I am glad. I told
him frankly I had seen him myself, and that I had taken him for
a prowler bent on mischief. Onmischief, he cried, on mischief.
To Julia, Oh my god,I heard her singing, and I wanted
to feast my eyes on her withouther knowing. But it wasn't that.
For a long time. After sherecognized me. It was worse with her.

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A blind man could have felt it. She shuddered in my arms,
as if I were a thing ofterror to her. She tried tried not
to push me away. I had, altogether too vivid an impression of what
my own eyes had seen to enjoythis personal revelation. It was hard to
give my voice an encouraging ring whenI tried to assure him that he imagined

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too much. That's nonsense, Isaid, you're trying to tell me Julia
was trying not to push you away. She must have been fooling, fooling,
he groaned. But I didn't lethim go on. And as for
my son, here I added,Annett's just read him that gruesome story about
the Laura Lion has got him plumbscared. He's heard of the singing you

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know, Julia's phrase about the singinghouse. And when he heard Julia's voice
out there in the dark, heprobably thought there was a spellbinder here that
wants to eat him. He doesnot know, Eric, old man,
that only the ladies do such horridthings. Eric muttered, and then cleared
his throat. There's something about me, Pierre, I know it. There's

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something about me. I used tothink that Julia. I can feel it.
Look at the child here and hasbeen trying to push Julia away,
though it laughed loudly at this notion. Later, when we were all in
the warm living room awaiting supper,I could see that it had got a
hold on him. It must havebeen his own thought that held us also
strangely aloof from him. He mightas well have stood within a ring of

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malevolence. His isolation was all butpalpable, and in the midst of those
who loved him too. Everybody inthe room but Giles, seemed screwed up
to a high pitch and laughed andtalked with an unnatural animation. Directing question
said Eric, as if consciously tryingto pierce whatever it was wringing him off
from us. He habitually, socourteous, tried to send his answers back

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to us through the evil thing thatset him apart. He tried it first,
too, to walk among us,But whenever he came into our midst,
Bobby's aversion broke out in frightened whimperingsand agitation, so that to smooth
things over, Eric was compelled tostand outside the group. I can see
him now, leaning against the frameof the window through which he had made
his way in from the garden,his face taking on a serious set look,

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quite different from the mobile sadness ofhis natural expression. The uneven light
from the branch of candles over bythat window, now deepening, now relieving,
the shadows round his eyes, andas his eyes grew hard, glinting
back from them. It was withthe expression of a man setting himself to
make a bitter, deadly struggle thathe watched Julia playing like a gentle lunatic,

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with little Bobby standing between my knees. Poor Julia, slender and like
a girl in her white dress,flitting through the warm room from one to
the other of us. I couldnot bear to look at that delicate,
gentle face, or into those cleargray eyes in which I had so lately
seen the shadow of an unspeakable horror. My heart ached for her, though
I hardly knew why. Bobby's behaviorto her husband, must have been like

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a knife thrust in her breast,and she set herself to winning the little
fellow from his fear for her husband'ssake, I do not doubt, laughing
with unnatural eagerness, trembling and nervous, always playing bravely to simulate gayety,
though she could not hide her agitation. She threw herself lightly on the floor
beside me and began quizzing him,patting his hands, mocking him, challenging

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him until she brought a smile tohis little face. Annette, who I
could see was made very uncomfortable bythe rudeness of her only son, stood
over the three of us and laughedand coaxed with us. Well. It
may have been a pretty scene toone looking in from the outside, but
I was anything but happy. Julia'stenseness was harrowing, and her determination to

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win Bobby over and walk him rightup to Eric. Somehow threw me into
the state of a too anxious onlookerat a desperately vital game. I found
myself as it were, pressing mylittle son away from me to her,
and holding my breath over every inchshe drew him from the protection of my
knees. It was a slow andnerve racking business. She drew him truly,
only an inch or two at atime, and always he would have

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fallen back against me had I notkept my hands ready to block the way
of his retreat. Was it cruelto the child? We did not then
know what evil Julia single handed wasfighting. One look at her face would
have aroused your sympathy. We didnot mean to offer my boy as a
The thought is too terrible. Ihappened to glance towards Eric. God knows

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he was susceptible, unable to bearthe sight of this wrestle of wills to
force a way to him. Hehad turned his face from us, and
still by the window, was lookingfixedly out upon the lawn. Suddenly,
and I know of no reason whyit should have been so, at that
moment it flashed upon me that hewas the goat in all this. He
was the unfortunate object of the malevolenceI had felt about the place. This

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came to me very clearly. Whateverthe evil was, it was attempting to
blockade him, to shut him fromhis wife, his friends, from the
tenderness on which alone he could thrive. Here in his own house, just
returned from an absence, he stoodisolated, the beings who loved him,
fended from him by a virulent,powerful, evil spirit. I had seen

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inflexible and bitter determination on his face. He could fight for himself, could
protect himself. But this thing wastrying to attack us, Julia, Bobby,
Me, even Annette. It wasjabbing us, thrusting us back from
him, and he had just begunto know it or to feel it.
I had a fit of almost fury. I jumped from my chair. Julia

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lost her balance and fell on herside, away from me. I strode
towards Eric, grabbing my boy bythe arm and dragging him along with me
clear of the floor. I saidto him, sharply, no more of
this nonsense. You shall kiss youruncle Eric and tell him you are sorry
for making such a rumpus. Stopyour yelling. Heavens, how he yelled,
not a scene to soothe the mother'sheart. Eric turned suddenly towards us

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and raised his clenched fists above hishead. His face was distorted, but
it was neither his gesture, whichGod knows was of desperate rage against some
evil thing, not against Bobby andme, nor the frightful look on his
face which stopped me dead short.I saw, wait a moment. My
blood turns cold as I write.I wished to set down precisely every detail
as I can remember. I musthave been holding Bobby well off the ground,

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for as my hand that held himwent suddenly powerless, I heard him
fall in a heap on the floor, heard the thwack of his little boots,
his yelling was hushed to silence,and then I heard no that thing
was. I was standing in themiddle of the room, about seven feet
from Eric. He was still overagainst the curtains by the window, the
kindles at his right casting a dancinglight upon his ashen distorted face and his

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wild arms. Mind you, thiswas all in a second or two.
Bobby lay crumpled at my feet.The two women were behind me in Giles
in an attitude of lounging, fromwhich my extraordinary behavior was to make him
spring was on a sofa pulled outabout three feet from the wall to my
left, leaving a freeway along thatwall. Stepping from in front of Eric,

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against whom it must have been invisible, A vague shape passed like a
blur across the candle light, andthen transparent, yet visible in its whole
length against the dark hangings of thewall. It walked along the side of
the room behind Giles and out thedoor into the dim rose colored hallway.
I say it walked, but reallyit moved in some half human, half

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fiendish gait, slowly yet in springs. It was the shape of a tall
woman. Though its eyes had nosubstance. They had form, dreadfully flat,
and color a washed out chalky blue. They were of the kind that
in a living, warm body,never revolve in their sockets, the gaze
of which is directed by a turnof the whole head. And as this

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thing passed along the wall, itsinsubstantial head was turned at me, so
that I was subjected to a lidlessstare of incredibly sinister malice. I felt
frozen. I believe I saw thisthing. I believe that, in a
horrible amazement, I watched it everyinch of its way till it turned down
the hall corridor in the direction ofthe dining room. It made absolutely no

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sound in its passage, But whatshould have been its feet? I saw
movement under its skirt, like draperiestouched the floor in time with the beat
of Julia's hands. I could notsee Julia, but I believed that at
that moment she was lying prone onthe floor, slowly beating her hands on
the rug each hand Alternately, Icannot remember more details. Giles sprang up

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and put an end to what Iam willing you should call my fit,
by roaring at what the devil areyou looking at? There was something in
his voice that stilled every movement inthe room. My hand, which I
had raised to rush a dank mistfrom before my eyes, was arrested half
way my face. I believe thecandle flames burned suddenly straight into the air
without a tremor, But that musthave been because the uneasy wind had ceased

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for an instant to blow in throughthe window. Still ajar behind Eric,
there was a complete silence too.My extraordinary seizure in Giles's sharp cry probably
frightened everybody I know. Bobby madenot even a whimper, and Julia's monotonous
drumming ceased. We were all spellboundin diverse, strained attitudes. There came

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an answer to giles imperious question.I can't tell you how or whence it
came. Giles had asked me whatI was looking at. In the silence
which followed his sharp question, Aname echoed in my brain. Probably I
did not hear it. I daresay whatever vibration made the impression of that
name in my brain had not rattledthe little bones in my inner ear.

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And that is the way they tellus we receive impressions of sound. Maybe
it wasn't earthly sound. I didn'trate. The name was distinct. It
was snart, and it was followedby a disagreeable sound between a chuckle and
a whine. I think my sonreceived the same impression, for through his
body huddled against my feet, Ifelt a shudder pass. But I never

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spoke to him about that night.I've protected him from any mention of it,
and I faithfully and seriously tried toprotect his mind from every hint of
weirdness and horror whatsoever. Call itthe rattle of leaves on the stark bushes
outside the window. Call it themoan of the wind, the grating of
a hinge somewhere in the remoter quartersof the house. Whatever it was,

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I was so conscious of its meaningthat I asked. Annette told me afterwards
that I spoke like a man ina dream. But I know I had
not been dreaming. Who said that? Who said what? Giles? Word
at me? Who said that name? Who said what name? Are you
crazy? Crazy? Was I crazy? I was to be assuredly by the

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one other person in the room,who was aware of what I had passed
through, that I was not crazy. However, I should have come out
with the name I had heard,had not? Annette cried passionately, mister
Greer, don't look like that.Then it was I realized that I had
been staring at at the wall,say, and that there were other human

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beings in the room beside me.I turned to look at Eric, and
I shall never forget the sight ofhis face, whiter than death, and
gnarled and twisted. His pose wasinhuman, like that of a savage beast.
One after the other of us.He fixed with his eyes, if
one can call eyes, the deepblack holes beneath his brows, behind which
I now know there must at thatmoment, when he was so beset,

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have burned a feeling too terribly profoundto show the faintest glow. I wonder
would it had been better for thatunhappy man had I come out with the
ghastly name, as I had beenon the point of doing. Annette touched
me on the arm. Neither shenor I can remember whether she said it
anything to me or not. Istooped down and picked up my son,
Giles was lending a hand to Julia, and for an instant it struck me

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as funny, this restoration, thissetting up of what had been knocked down
by some unnatural passer by. MaybeI should have laughed aloud, But for
Eric's face, Annette's cry had notchanged it. For months she had called
him Eric to night, she hadcalled out to mister Greer. Was he
then a stranger to us? Allat once? I never felt closer to

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him. I never before wished soardently to befriend a fellow being. You
see, it was that sudden inspirationI had had, the sudden revelation that
had set me to go up toEric with my boy just before the ghost
woman had appeared a flash of understandingthat all the evil about the place was
directed at him, while it attackedJulia, Bobby and me, who were

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most fond of him, in thatmysterious way, the effect of which was
to keep us from him. Iknew that its ultimate victim was Eric himself.
I have since reasoned about what Ifelt vaguely that night, that Eric,
of all men, was most sensitiveto such a form of persecution.
Not only that, but also thathe was impregnable to every other sort of

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malevolent attack. That's what Giles meantby tempered and white hot resentment, I
now know. Meanwhile, with myboy held tightly in my arms, and
my anxious wife at my elbow,I had Eric's face always before me.
The uneasy wind came in through thewindow again and bent the candle flames.
I could not bear it any longer. I handed my son to his mother.

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The little fellow at first would notlet me go, clung tightly to
me and hid his face against mycoat. But when I said, mother
wants you, he turned quickly toher, where she stood close beside me,
reached out his arms locked them roundher neck like a trap. And
thus the transfer was done. ThenI walked up to Eric and clapped him
on the shoulder automatically, like allhealthy, normal beings, I deny the

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existence of horror, I said,the thing most natural for me to say,
Eric, my friend, I said, brace up. You look as
if you had seen a ghost.The impression in my mind of what I
had myself seen and heard was alreadylaid over with my restored habit of thought.
Eric replied to me in a lowvoice, I saw nothing, Pierre,

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not I. But you heard aname. What was it? As
automatically as a swimmer throws out hisarms when he finds himself in deep water,
I said, nonsense, it wasmy kid's whimpering. Why did I
do that? Why you know,I believe I heard a name. I
could never forget how I heard thatname or what it was. I had

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already made a scene in the drawingroom about it. Yet to Eric,
I denied that I had heard it, denied there was a name. Said
nonsense, it was my kid's whimpering. Oh no, Eric said, oh
no, What would that name havemeant? To Eric? It was just
that I feared, yes, instinctively, feared to know his jaw was set,

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and his lips so tightly closed thatall the red had gone out of
them. Yet I could not helpfeeling that his will was engaged with some
purpose other than self control or selfadjustment, because I never stood by man
so rigidly under discipline of himself.Though my hand was on his shoulder,
I was as remote from him asone is from a lion at the zoo,

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whose terrible fixed eyes and stare cannotbe diverted or altered by any human
trick to catch attention. If Erichad seen nothing and had heard nothing,
then he scented something, had asense of it somehow, and he had
become entirely concentrated, entirely instinct.Giles once said to me, as we

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were talking over this affair later,that hate is the most absorbing passion.
He went on at a great rateabout man's reactions to things that hurt him
mortally, that threatened to spoil whatis dear to him, or to take
something away from him that is necessarynot only to his body, but to
what Giles called his soul as well. The instinct for self preservation, he

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said, is the seat of hatred. But you should have hurt Giles define
self. I myself have never feltmalignant hatred. I suppose I have never
been threatened. That nothing is everattacked with intent to murder the core of
me, my heart of hearts,or what is dear and necessary to it.
I could not if I would crankup an essay on hatred, to

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hate entirely, instinctively and with perfectconcentration. Not even Giles had known what
it was to do that, butEric had. There's Giles's white hot resentment
for you, in stronger words.That's what I began to feel in Eric
as I stood beside him that night, a hatred within him, distorting his

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face and screwing him up into astate of concentrated attention. You remember,
I have told you that he alwayshad seemed alert as against an inexorable hostility,
making him, to my imagination,like lifeons. I had clapped my
hands at in the bronx and nevermade wink an eyelid. Just that,
a terrific and an undying hatred.Well, I went on saying nonsense with

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a more and more absurdly nice kittyair. Twice he started to speak,
but he only opened his lips enoughto take in a breath through his teeth.
His jaw remained set when he didspeak at last. I know he
did not think of my being nearto hear him, but I heard I
begin to suspect he said. Shesaid she would always it's fiendish, but

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she would if she could. Thenhe darted a look at me, and
I just babbled something, as ifI had not heard him at all.
Suddenly the whole expression of his facechanged to one of what the novelists call
infinite longing. I did not needto turn round to know that Julia was
coming up to him. Her eyeswere shining, and I thought she was
laughing happily. It made me feelgood, just as if nothing had happened.

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She reached one hand up to Eric'sshoulder and took me with the other,
and then said, what are youtwo men talking about so seriously?
Here by yourselves, Supper is readyyou, Pierre must be starved. She
looked at me perfectly. Frankly,I was astounded. In spite of myself,
I began to feel that my mindwas queer, that I had imagined

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the whole thing. I felt dazedand also silly. End of Chapter six