September 3, 2025 • 24 mins
What is it about that old house down the road that unnerves Pierre and his wife, Annette? The owners, Eric and Julia, appear to be a lovely couple, yet an unsettling aura of malevolence surrounds them. While Eric seems to radiate a supernatural darkness wherever he goes, Julia bears mysterious injuries that hint at a deeper horror. Are Erics sinister vibes the true source of her suffering, or is there something even more terrifying lurking within the walls of their home? (Summary by Ben Tucker)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter ten of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker,
Chapter ten. By the time we were back in the
gloomy house behind the hemlocks, it was seven o'clock. Annette
at once told Giles that if he meant to stay
and watch, she had better make a fire in the
living room, and, without stopping to think how difficult it
(00:23):
might be for him to help himself, thus we groped
our way upstairs and into Julia's room. Julia was lonesome
and very weak, but all was not abandoned in that house.
The old servant downstairs in the kitchen was making a
hot soup for Julia's supper, and Annette despatched me to
fetch it. Upon returning with it to the chamber, I
found that Annette had lighted a lamp by the bed,
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had smoothed out the pillows, and was talking quietly with
her patient. The room was cold, of course, and still
far from being cheerful, for the bright lamp was heavily shaded,
and the gas flickered in the drafts. I had no
sooner given the soup over to my wife than Julia
asked for news of Eric, and I must tell her
that I had yet to find him. At that she
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tried to get out of bed, but Annette restrained her.
But you will find him, Pierre, she begged me. He
must not be left alone. I am not sick. That
is only my body, his mind, his spirit. He will
not tell me I cannot help him, because, oh you
know why, Pierre. But you, he cannot help you, Julia.
(01:28):
All she said was together. She wasn't rambling, but she
was terribly excited. I tried to convince her that it
would be dangerous to her to bring him back to
the house. She understood, but she had a secret faith
of some sort in Eric's being able to save her,
even though his mere presence in her room that night
might deliver her to death at the hands of his familiars.
(01:50):
She was of two minds. I promised to find Eric,
but I did not promise to bring him back to
the house, and I am not sure that she exacted
that definitely out of me, Annette followed me out into
the hall and whispered to me to stop in the
kitchen for something to eat. Whether I felt hungry or not.
Make Giles eat something too. She added, When I was
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half way downstairs, she leaned over from above to ask
me where I should take Eric if I found him,
to the Carraway club, I whispered back. She had since
told me that she felt better to know that I
should not bring him back to the house. She both
believed and did not believe. If you don't find him,
come back here, sure, she said, as she turned into
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the chamber. On my way to the kitchen, I glanced
into the living room for Giles. There was no warmth
or charm in the place. He had lit the gas
and was sitting before the grate, in which a miserable,
lightless fire was smoldering. We couldn't eat much, but we
found some wine in the kitchen, and each drank a glassful.
To tell the truth, I was glad to get away
from my wife's cousin. He was depressed and sullen as
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well he might be. I don't know what it was
kept him in the house unless he shared with the
rest of us the feeling that something as usual was
going to happen there. That night, I hunted high and
low for Eric in the ford. I went mile after
mile along every road I thought he could have taken
and farther than I thought he could have progressed. I
even went to the village of Stanton, but there I
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found the village store and the post office closed for
the night, and the cross roads were deserted. I went
to the caraway club, all dark and deserted. The caretaker
looked at me as if I were Satan blowing in
on the wind. He had not seen Eric. I told
him I might be back later, and not to keep
me waiting too long outside in the cold. Again and again,
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I stopped the car and called as loudly as I
could across the fields that lay invisible in the darkness. Lonely,
and when swept on either side of the road, I
left the car and felt my way through paths along
the edge of the cliffs, even down by the river bed,
falling and hurting myself more than once. It was all
of no avail. Near midnight, I returned to the house,
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chilled to the bone, disheartened and gloomy in my mind.
I both hoped and feared to find Eric there, but
he had not returned. Giles was still before the cold,
smoldering fire in the living room, to which the gaslight
gave no look of charm. Nothing, Giles told me, had
happened in the house. Annette had not come downstairs. No
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sound came from above. The silence in the desolate room
was depressing. I heard only the rattle of a dead
branch against one of the windows now, and then the
steady roar of the high wind and the chimney and
about the house, and the continuous banging of that loosened
and forgotten shudder. That thing, said, Giles, will drive me mad.
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I made a move to go out on the Verandah,
no use, Pierre, I've been out there. You can't reach
it from outside. Gotta get at it from inside through
the bluebeard room, he groaned. Ah, Giles, I whispered, you too,
begin to feel something in this house. I feel death
and desolation about it. He muttered. I'm damn cold, and
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I can't make this fire burn. I made no move
to help him. Let the cold and the bleakness get
in their work on him. For my part, though I
had yelled myself hoarse over all the countryside and had
returned forlorn and tired, I felt the house was harmless. Warily,
I sat on the sofa where the night before I
had sat motionless with fear under the rose colored hanging
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in the hallway, yellowish and faded in the dingy gas
light that fell on it. From the living room, I
saw drafts of air pass like waves. I heard the
roaring of the wind and the banging of that inaccessible shutter.
I shivered with bodily cold, but I knew there was
nothing in the house at present to fear. The very
desolation made me feel safe. Somewhere a clock struck one Still,
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there was no sound from upstairs. Are we going to
sit like this all night? Giles grumbled, Why don't you
stretch out on this sofa and try to sleep. I
can't sleep with that shudder banging. Cover your head with
sofa pillows. He made no reply. The slow minutes dragged on.
I would to heaven. I had some whiskey, he said,
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after a while. No use to hunt for it in
this house. I had been surprised enough to find even wine.
Eric never drank, never smoked, never swore, queer, queer, not
like the rest of us. I fell to thinking about him.
I concluded he was something of an ascetic, made human
and vulnerable by the one great love in his life.
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Yet I had to grant that I felt in him
a great tenderness towards everything ardent, visionary too. Some thing,
some one had checked him, done him deep in all
but mortal harm. Julia could heal, but she I turned
up my coat collar and shoved my stiff hands deeper
into my pockets. Julia must be sleeping. What should I
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say to her? If she woke and asked for her husband?
How could I reassure her where was he? Had he
fallen in the darkness and twisted his leg? The sound
of the wind began to irritate me, and the banging
of the shutter got on my nerves as it got
on Giles's. What did Julia fear in that room? That
she would not have it opened in those dreary minutes?
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If ever, my imagination, were it too wild, would have
evoked evil and unearthly things might have pictured before me
the dark, gruesome interior of that room, perhaps a suicide
hanging from the ceiling, vague in the darkness, yet visibly
swaying on the cord. It was never my imagination that
found evil in the house. To night, there was not
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the faintest thrill, and that new nerve of mine the
house was not as it had been. The evil was
gone from it. The gentle sensitive master was lost in
the night and had left his dwelling bleak, lonely but safe.
If only the wind would rest for a while, and
that nerve racking banging cease. I jumped up and began
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pacing the floor. Giles poked at the fire, a longing
to speak with my way. Life grew stronger and stronger
in me. If I could talk only five minutes with
a net, the remainder of the night would pass more cheerfully.
Had she heard me return in the car and had
not called me, no, I had tried to make no noise.
Maybe she was anxious about me. I started myself thinking
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that perhaps Eric's familiars had come back without him and
had done mischief upstairs. No sound from up there for hours,
not a step on the floor, not the creak of
a door's opening, not the murmur of a voice. Maybe
a neette was cold. I stood this as long as
I could, and then I took off my boots and
stole up the stairs. It was dark and drafty in
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the upper hallway. I went on tiptoe to the door
of the room in which I knew. Julia lay and
listened for some sound. Nothing. I started to go down again,
but I couldn't. Annette, I whispered, Annette. I listened again,
no response. Slowly and without a sound, I opened the
door and looked into the chamber. In a big chair
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by the side of the bed, away from the door,
sat my wife, bundled in her heavy coat. The bright
light from the lamp streamed over her hands, which lay
up turned upon the knitting in her lap. Her head
had fallen back against the top of the chair in shadow.
She was fast asleep. Julia lay fast asleep in the bed,
turned on her side, away from a net, her cheek
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resting on both her hands. I could hardly see their breathing.
There was little movement in the room. The fluttering of
the gas flame, the curtains blowing in from the window,
which was opened not more than an inch, the ruffling
now and then of the triangular bit of sheet that
hung over the edge of the bed. That was all.
It was no use to wake them. I closed the
(09:44):
door as quietly as I could, But as I did so,
I had the feeling that I was closing it upon
a scene set for a drama. Ready and waiting, but
not to be disturbed until the acting should begin. And
just then, for the first time in that long night,
my nerve of horror shuddered within me. I was all
but overcome with forebodings. I thought I heard a moan
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from the room of sleep, on which I had closed
the door. I paused. I thought I heard a new,
strange sound. It was the beating of my own heart.
As I stole down stairs again like a murderer for stealth,
the clock struck two. When I took my place again
on the sofa, I felt the house was no longer safe.
(10:27):
The banging of the shutter terrified me. I hid my
face in my hands. Instantly, I thought A voice rang
shatteringly loud in my ears, crying, we will kill her.
To night, I sprang to my feet. In the doorway
stood Eric. He looked as if something in the night
had wrung the blood out of him. His hair was
wild about his pale face. His clothes were all deranged
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and in some places torn. My first thought was to
throw him out of the house, his own house. The
murderous cry I had heard told me that his familiars
had come back with him. I had no doubt they
were already above in the chamber of RESTful sleep. They
had yelled out on their way up the stairs. But
as I looked at Eric, a mild gentleness in his
face cast a spell over me and restrained me. He
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began to speak strange words in an extraordinarily subdued voice.
I have been walking in the wind. Out of the whirlwind.
A voice spake unto me, saying, the law of man
cannot lay a finger upon thee. Nor hast thou sinned
against the law of God. Inasmuch as thou wast patient
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in his sight, so will he care for thee. Yet
though thou carriest thy burden to a secret part of
the earth, and there bury it, it shall not be forgotten.
Giles and I looked at him in silence. You can
hardly imagine the effect of his words and his manner
upon us. While he went on talking like a prophet
from an ancient time, I caught no sense in his words,
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which veiled rather than made clear, something about his responsibilities
under the justice laws of heaven, and about his wife Julia,
who as a human companion, remained more dear to him
than the purest bliss in sanctimony he could dream of,
and he talked as if this style of expression were
the most familiar and the most natural to him. At last,
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he must have read our bewilderment and our discomfiture in
our eyes, which remained fastened upon his face. He broke
off his rapt discourse, and, stepping quietly into the room,
begged us to excuse his diffuseness, and ask us if
we had been sleeping. I could not but wonder if
the knight had changed him into a mild idiot. Damnation sleeping,
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cried the matter of fact, Giles. In this desolate house,
listen that shudder's been banging without let up. How can
a man sleep in such a racket? Eric recognized the
sound and looked at me. Can you not fasten it? Pierre, no,
eric I answered, walking out of the spell his words
had cast over me, and eyeing him curiously. We can
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not reach it from the outside. Never mind the damned thing,
Gild growled. Indeed, gentlemen, replied Eric, I would not have
you disturbed. Thus, I regret that you have not been
able to sleep, watching the house in my absence too,
But I think we can fasten it. He went on,
from the inside. Quietly, he fingered over the keys on
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a ring he had taken from his pocket. While he
was doing so, I heard the dull sound of footfalls
on the floor above my head. The planks creaked. My
heart grew faint within me. But Eric went on quietly
this key. Selecting a bright yale key that glistened even
under the dingy gaslight, I found by chance to day
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it will, I feel sure, open the door for you, gentlemen,
you know what door, I might say, the door to
your repose. The whole house seemed to me full of
secret horrors. I heard the sound of voices above me.
Terror invaded me, and I took a step forward. Eric,
misinterpreting my action, said courteously, no, not you nor I either,
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For as you know, I promised my wife Julia that
while she is in the house, she is still here?
Is she not? But you, mister Pharaoh. He walked over
to Giles and gave him the keys. You, he went,
unkindly and without a trace of emotion. Who are pleased
to stir up the dead this night? They will come
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to you. Take the key, Do not be afraid. Let
us go together and fasten the shutter. Then you will
sleep soundly, and perhaps for a long time. I would
I could sleep. A blast of wind swept through the
room and nearly tore the straining, whistling blue gas flame
from the burner. Very distinctly, I heard a moan from upstairs.
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Giles got up and accepted the key upon my word.
He said, sleep or no sleep, we can have a
look at that room. We all heard at that moment
the sound of his stay Eric weeping. That said, Eric,
simply is my wife Julia. She can not sleep at
night when I am in the house. She needs you, Eric,
I cried out. He looked at me in mild surprise.
(15:14):
Oh no, he answered, gently, not me. Come, mister Pharaoh.
We shall need a light. There is a lamp in
the dining room. Come. They went away together. I had
been perhaps three or four minutes alone, somehow unable to move,
when I heard the rapid stamping of a foot on
the floor of the room above me. I rushed to
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the stairway. Just as I reached the top, a neett
flung open the door of Julia's chamber and ran out
into the hall, crying loudly, help Pierre, come quick. Together
we pushed back into the room where the scene had
been made ready the acting had begun. Julia lay rigid
on the bed, her head bent back as if a
heavy hand were at her throat. With her arms, she
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kept up a weak movement, as if she were trying
to repel something from before her face. Her gasping for
breath was frightful to hear. Annette went to one side
of the bed, I to the other. I could see
that Julia's eyes were half opened, but they were glazed.
Annette tried to lift her in hopes that would ease
her struggle for breath, but it did no good. We
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were powerless to help or relieve. Go for the doctor quick,
Annette called to me in anguish. As I started to go,
Julia began trying to speak. I leaned over her and
put my head close to her lips. I felt awful
things crawling on my face, like the feet of giant moths.
What is it, Julia? I sobbed. She made a sound
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as of words, but I could not catch her meaning.
She is trying to say something about a room. Annette whispered,
she has been trying to say it for a long time.
Oh dear, what does the porch ow mean, go for
the doctor, Pierre, go for the doctor. She is dying.
She cannot live like this again. I started, but Julia
wrestled and Annette's arms, and my wife called to me,
fearing she could not hold her. Suddenly I guessed what
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Julia might mean by the room. I ran for the stairs.
Half way down, something caught me from behind, round the
neck and under the chin, so that I lost my
balance and fell forward to the lower floor, hardly conscious
of the sharp pain in my head and in my elbow.
I struggled to my feet against something beating the air
about me. Staggered on along the corridor and gained the
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dining room. The door to the forbidden room was open.
I went in in the harsh light of the unshaded
lamp Eric held. I saw vaguely that it was a
large room, the largest in the house, and that the
walls were paneled in wood. Eric was standing by the fireplace.
Giles was kneeling by the wall, fingering something in one
of the panels. Waving my arms round my head to
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keep off the things that were bent upon strangling me,
I made my way towards the two men. I tried
to call out to them, but my voice was stifled
in my throat. Giles, still unconscious of my approach, said triumphantly, Ah,
there it is, And just as I came up behind Eric,
a long panel in the wall swung open like a door.
We three men stood facing the full sized portrait of
(18:06):
a woman. It was physically repulsive, morally odious. I looked
at little but the face, the lidless, flat eyes, the
cruel yet simpering malice. I recognized them. For a couple
of seconds we stood without moving. Then Eric swung the
lamp high above his shoulder and hurled it at the canvas.
(18:27):
The chimney crashed. There was a spurt of brownish yellow flame,
and as the instant darkness settled, a piercing scream behind us,
and the dull sound of a body fallen to the floor.
My eyes were at first blind in the sudden gloom,
but I smelt the oily smoke of the extinguished lamp,
and I heard, even above the roar of the wind,
Eric's loud and rapid breathing, like the panting of a dog.
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In a moment or two, I felt him brush by me,
and as I began to see again, I made him
out kneeling beside a white figure on the floor, vague
and hardly distinguishable, I knew it was Julia. He picked
her up in his arms and carried her towards the
dining room door. I followed them as closely as I could,
anxious and full of fear, for Julia was moaning, and
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I knew that the as yet invisible powers of malice
had left me to fasten themselves once more on her.
Eric carried her along the hallway and started up the stairs. Annette,
who had run down into the lower hallway, went up
backwards ahead of him, trying to pull him forward, while
I followed just below him and supporting him. When in
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the face of those malignant fiends that were opposing him,
he all but fell back. I never knew whether he
felt or saw them. He may have thought that Julia
was struggling in his arms only in a delirium. He
swayed from side to side, leaning now against the wall,
now against the frail banister, which bent out perilously under
his weight and threatened to give way. Sometimes he had
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to fight half a minute to gain a step. Though
Annette was pulling him forward and I was bracing him
from behind never have I been witness of such a struggle.
The invisible odds were all but too much for us.
It was like a man striving to swim against a
powerful current. And how Eric, not a physically strong man,
progressed against it, I cannot say. At the top of
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the stairs, he reeled and nearly fell, but Annette clutched
him and managed to drag him into the chamber. He
laid Julia down on the bed. She poor victim, was
almost exhausted. She put her hands weakly to her throat,
and her moans grew more feeble. A bright shaft of
light from the lamp fell across the sheet over her breast.
The gas flame flickered in the draft. I stood close
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beside Eric, looking down at her, while Annette, having found
and folded a piece of paper, was fanning her as
if that would make her breathing easier. They were doing
their utmost to strangle her. As yet I had not
seen them, but I had felt their hands. I knew
they were at their devilish work. Julia's weaker and weaker
movements were too eloquent for me to be in doubt,
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but she was losing strength. At last, she lay motionless
in her bed. And then I thought I saw something,
A spectral hand at her slender throat, A faint point
of light, crossing and recrossing her breast, as swiftly as
a spider weaves about its prey. Eric said, in a cold,
strained voice, she is dying. And he threw himself on
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his knees beside the bed. No, Eric, God help you.
She is being murdered by the evil that haunts you,
I whispered, bending to his ear. Julia lay so still,
I thought she was already gone. But no, at the
doorway of death. She turned, opened her eyes and looked
at her husband. She whispered, her lips hardly moving. I
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have loved you, I trust you. But the two fiends
became incandescent. I saw them try to throw themselves upon her.
They got in each other's way, but Julia, with the
last strength she had, swept them as with her arm,
sat up in bed and cried out in a loud voice, Eric,
tell me who are they? You and I together we
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shall defeat them. Her strength was then exhausted, and she
fell over against him. He clasped her head to his
breast as if he would save her. Merely by enfolding
her in his arms. But I saw the malignant toue
lope round the head of the bed and try to
tear her from him. Could he see them, I do
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not know, Though he raised his head as if to
face them. I think his eyes were sightless. Hold A snart,
he said, and his voice was full of the bitterest hatred.
You will burn in hell for this. At last, a
terrible burst of wind ripped out the gas, and in
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the darkened room the shapes of Holda and Morgan's snart
glowed cold like phosphorus. They desisted from their murderous work.
Cowled by his voice. They stood above him as he
knelt by the bed with Julia in his arms, balked
on the verge of retreat, motionless save for the flickering
of their outlines. The cold that touched me from them
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was like the cold of ether on the skin. I
heard Julia's faint voice. Who was that evil woman? Eric
took a deep breath, held it an instant, then still,
with his face upturned and his eyes like those of
blind persons that look towards what they do not see,
he said, she was my wife. They stepped back, from him.
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I know your wickedness. Hold a snart, you know my crime.
I will lay both for judgment before my wife Julia.
He half rose from his knees, lifting Julia with him,
and shouted, get out of this cursed house. I know
now that since a certain hour in the past, Eric
had never feared them living. He did not fear them dead.
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But I for an awful minute, I held my breath.
But they went away, as if caught in a whirlwind.
The door slammed behind them. I heard a hideous shrill
whistle in the hallway. I heard the crash of broken
glass downstairs. A shriek of hatred died away in the night. Outside.
(24:22):
The wind made only a low moan. The house and
the room were silent. A clock struck three enden of
Chapter ten.
Chapter ten of Sinister House by Leland Hall. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker,
Chapter ten. By the time we were back in the
gloomy house behind the hemlocks, it was seven o'clock. Annette
at once told Giles that if he meant to stay
and watch, she had better make a fire in the
living room, and, without stopping to think how difficult it
(00:23):
might be for him to help himself, thus we groped
our way upstairs and into Julia's room. Julia was lonesome
and very weak, but all was not abandoned in that house.
The old servant downstairs in the kitchen was making a
hot soup for Julia's supper, and Annette despatched me to
fetch it. Upon returning with it to the chamber, I
found that Annette had lighted a lamp by the bed,
(00:45):
had smoothed out the pillows, and was talking quietly with
her patient. The room was cold, of course, and still
far from being cheerful, for the bright lamp was heavily shaded,
and the gas flickered in the drafts. I had no
sooner given the soup over to my wife than Julia
asked for news of Eric, and I must tell her
that I had yet to find him. At that she
(01:06):
tried to get out of bed, but Annette restrained her.
But you will find him, Pierre, she begged me. He
must not be left alone. I am not sick. That
is only my body, his mind, his spirit. He will
not tell me I cannot help him, because, oh you
know why, Pierre. But you, he cannot help you, Julia.
(01:28):
All she said was together. She wasn't rambling, but she
was terribly excited. I tried to convince her that it
would be dangerous to her to bring him back to
the house. She understood, but she had a secret faith
of some sort in Eric's being able to save her,
even though his mere presence in her room that night
might deliver her to death at the hands of his familiars.
(01:50):
She was of two minds. I promised to find Eric,
but I did not promise to bring him back to
the house, and I am not sure that she exacted
that definitely out of me, Annette followed me out into
the hall and whispered to me to stop in the
kitchen for something to eat. Whether I felt hungry or not.
Make Giles eat something too. She added, When I was
(02:10):
half way downstairs, she leaned over from above to ask
me where I should take Eric if I found him,
to the Carraway club, I whispered back. She had since
told me that she felt better to know that I
should not bring him back to the house. She both
believed and did not believe. If you don't find him,
come back here, sure, she said, as she turned into
(02:31):
the chamber. On my way to the kitchen, I glanced
into the living room for Giles. There was no warmth
or charm in the place. He had lit the gas
and was sitting before the grate, in which a miserable,
lightless fire was smoldering. We couldn't eat much, but we
found some wine in the kitchen, and each drank a glassful.
To tell the truth, I was glad to get away
from my wife's cousin. He was depressed and sullen as
(02:53):
well he might be. I don't know what it was
kept him in the house unless he shared with the
rest of us the feeling that something as usual was
going to happen there. That night, I hunted high and
low for Eric in the ford. I went mile after
mile along every road I thought he could have taken
and farther than I thought he could have progressed. I
even went to the village of Stanton, but there I
(03:14):
found the village store and the post office closed for
the night, and the cross roads were deserted. I went
to the caraway club, all dark and deserted. The caretaker
looked at me as if I were Satan blowing in
on the wind. He had not seen Eric. I told
him I might be back later, and not to keep
me waiting too long outside in the cold. Again and again,
(03:34):
I stopped the car and called as loudly as I
could across the fields that lay invisible in the darkness. Lonely,
and when swept on either side of the road, I
left the car and felt my way through paths along
the edge of the cliffs, even down by the river bed,
falling and hurting myself more than once. It was all
of no avail. Near midnight, I returned to the house,
(03:55):
chilled to the bone, disheartened and gloomy in my mind.
I both hoped and feared to find Eric there, but
he had not returned. Giles was still before the cold,
smoldering fire in the living room, to which the gaslight
gave no look of charm. Nothing, Giles told me, had
happened in the house. Annette had not come downstairs. No
(04:17):
sound came from above. The silence in the desolate room
was depressing. I heard only the rattle of a dead
branch against one of the windows now, and then the
steady roar of the high wind and the chimney and
about the house, and the continuous banging of that loosened
and forgotten shudder. That thing, said, Giles, will drive me mad.
(04:38):
I made a move to go out on the Verandah,
no use, Pierre, I've been out there. You can't reach
it from outside. Gotta get at it from inside through
the bluebeard room, he groaned. Ah, Giles, I whispered, you too,
begin to feel something in this house. I feel death
and desolation about it. He muttered. I'm damn cold, and
(05:00):
I can't make this fire burn. I made no move
to help him. Let the cold and the bleakness get
in their work on him. For my part, though I
had yelled myself hoarse over all the countryside and had
returned forlorn and tired, I felt the house was harmless. Warily,
I sat on the sofa where the night before I
had sat motionless with fear under the rose colored hanging
(05:23):
in the hallway, yellowish and faded in the dingy gas
light that fell on it. From the living room, I
saw drafts of air pass like waves. I heard the
roaring of the wind and the banging of that inaccessible shutter.
I shivered with bodily cold, but I knew there was
nothing in the house at present to fear. The very
desolation made me feel safe. Somewhere a clock struck one Still,
(05:49):
there was no sound from upstairs. Are we going to
sit like this all night? Giles grumbled, Why don't you
stretch out on this sofa and try to sleep. I
can't sleep with that shudder banging. Cover your head with
sofa pillows. He made no reply. The slow minutes dragged on.
I would to heaven. I had some whiskey, he said,
(06:10):
after a while. No use to hunt for it in
this house. I had been surprised enough to find even wine.
Eric never drank, never smoked, never swore, queer, queer, not
like the rest of us. I fell to thinking about him.
I concluded he was something of an ascetic, made human
and vulnerable by the one great love in his life.
(06:31):
Yet I had to grant that I felt in him
a great tenderness towards everything ardent, visionary too. Some thing,
some one had checked him, done him deep in all
but mortal harm. Julia could heal, but she I turned
up my coat collar and shoved my stiff hands deeper
into my pockets. Julia must be sleeping. What should I
(06:53):
say to her? If she woke and asked for her husband?
How could I reassure her where was he? Had he
fallen in the darkness and twisted his leg? The sound
of the wind began to irritate me, and the banging
of the shutter got on my nerves as it got
on Giles's. What did Julia fear in that room? That
she would not have it opened in those dreary minutes?
(07:14):
If ever, my imagination, were it too wild, would have
evoked evil and unearthly things might have pictured before me
the dark, gruesome interior of that room, perhaps a suicide
hanging from the ceiling, vague in the darkness, yet visibly
swaying on the cord. It was never my imagination that
found evil in the house. To night, there was not
(07:34):
the faintest thrill, and that new nerve of mine the
house was not as it had been. The evil was
gone from it. The gentle sensitive master was lost in
the night and had left his dwelling bleak, lonely but safe.
If only the wind would rest for a while, and
that nerve racking banging cease. I jumped up and began
(07:55):
pacing the floor. Giles poked at the fire, a longing
to speak with my way. Life grew stronger and stronger
in me. If I could talk only five minutes with
a net, the remainder of the night would pass more cheerfully.
Had she heard me return in the car and had
not called me, no, I had tried to make no noise.
Maybe she was anxious about me. I started myself thinking
(08:17):
that perhaps Eric's familiars had come back without him and
had done mischief upstairs. No sound from up there for hours,
not a step on the floor, not the creak of
a door's opening, not the murmur of a voice. Maybe
a neette was cold. I stood this as long as
I could, and then I took off my boots and
stole up the stairs. It was dark and drafty in
(08:39):
the upper hallway. I went on tiptoe to the door
of the room in which I knew. Julia lay and
listened for some sound. Nothing. I started to go down again,
but I couldn't. Annette, I whispered, Annette. I listened again,
no response. Slowly and without a sound, I opened the
door and looked into the chamber. In a big chair
(09:02):
by the side of the bed, away from the door,
sat my wife, bundled in her heavy coat. The bright
light from the lamp streamed over her hands, which lay
up turned upon the knitting in her lap. Her head
had fallen back against the top of the chair in shadow.
She was fast asleep. Julia lay fast asleep in the bed,
turned on her side, away from a net, her cheek
(09:23):
resting on both her hands. I could hardly see their breathing.
There was little movement in the room. The fluttering of
the gas flame, the curtains blowing in from the window,
which was opened not more than an inch, the ruffling
now and then of the triangular bit of sheet that
hung over the edge of the bed. That was all.
It was no use to wake them. I closed the
(09:44):
door as quietly as I could, But as I did so,
I had the feeling that I was closing it upon
a scene set for a drama. Ready and waiting, but
not to be disturbed until the acting should begin. And
just then, for the first time in that long night,
my nerve of horror shuddered within me. I was all
but overcome with forebodings. I thought I heard a moan
(10:06):
from the room of sleep, on which I had closed
the door. I paused. I thought I heard a new,
strange sound. It was the beating of my own heart.
As I stole down stairs again like a murderer for stealth,
the clock struck two. When I took my place again
on the sofa, I felt the house was no longer safe.
(10:27):
The banging of the shutter terrified me. I hid my
face in my hands. Instantly, I thought A voice rang
shatteringly loud in my ears, crying, we will kill her.
To night, I sprang to my feet. In the doorway
stood Eric. He looked as if something in the night
had wrung the blood out of him. His hair was
wild about his pale face. His clothes were all deranged
(10:48):
and in some places torn. My first thought was to
throw him out of the house, his own house. The
murderous cry I had heard told me that his familiars
had come back with him. I had no doubt they
were already above in the chamber of RESTful sleep. They
had yelled out on their way up the stairs. But
as I looked at Eric, a mild gentleness in his
face cast a spell over me and restrained me. He
(11:11):
began to speak strange words in an extraordinarily subdued voice.
I have been walking in the wind. Out of the whirlwind.
A voice spake unto me, saying, the law of man
cannot lay a finger upon thee. Nor hast thou sinned
against the law of God. Inasmuch as thou wast patient
(11:32):
in his sight, so will he care for thee. Yet
though thou carriest thy burden to a secret part of
the earth, and there bury it, it shall not be forgotten.
Giles and I looked at him in silence. You can
hardly imagine the effect of his words and his manner
upon us. While he went on talking like a prophet
from an ancient time, I caught no sense in his words,
(11:55):
which veiled rather than made clear, something about his responsibilities
under the justice laws of heaven, and about his wife Julia,
who as a human companion, remained more dear to him
than the purest bliss in sanctimony he could dream of,
and he talked as if this style of expression were
the most familiar and the most natural to him. At last,
(12:16):
he must have read our bewilderment and our discomfiture in
our eyes, which remained fastened upon his face. He broke
off his rapt discourse, and, stepping quietly into the room,
begged us to excuse his diffuseness, and ask us if
we had been sleeping. I could not but wonder if
the knight had changed him into a mild idiot. Damnation sleeping,
(12:38):
cried the matter of fact, Giles. In this desolate house,
listen that shudder's been banging without let up. How can
a man sleep in such a racket? Eric recognized the
sound and looked at me. Can you not fasten it? Pierre, no,
eric I answered, walking out of the spell his words
had cast over me, and eyeing him curiously. We can
(13:00):
not reach it from the outside. Never mind the damned thing,
Gild growled. Indeed, gentlemen, replied Eric, I would not have
you disturbed. Thus, I regret that you have not been
able to sleep, watching the house in my absence too,
But I think we can fasten it. He went on,
from the inside. Quietly, he fingered over the keys on
(13:23):
a ring he had taken from his pocket. While he
was doing so, I heard the dull sound of footfalls
on the floor above my head. The planks creaked. My
heart grew faint within me. But Eric went on quietly
this key. Selecting a bright yale key that glistened even
under the dingy gaslight, I found by chance to day
(13:44):
it will, I feel sure, open the door for you, gentlemen,
you know what door, I might say, the door to
your repose. The whole house seemed to me full of
secret horrors. I heard the sound of voices above me.
Terror invaded me, and I took a step forward. Eric,
misinterpreting my action, said courteously, no, not you nor I either,
(14:07):
For as you know, I promised my wife Julia that
while she is in the house, she is still here?
Is she not? But you, mister Pharaoh. He walked over
to Giles and gave him the keys. You, he went,
unkindly and without a trace of emotion. Who are pleased
to stir up the dead this night? They will come
(14:28):
to you. Take the key, Do not be afraid. Let
us go together and fasten the shutter. Then you will
sleep soundly, and perhaps for a long time. I would
I could sleep. A blast of wind swept through the
room and nearly tore the straining, whistling blue gas flame
from the burner. Very distinctly, I heard a moan from upstairs.
(14:50):
Giles got up and accepted the key upon my word.
He said, sleep or no sleep, we can have a
look at that room. We all heard at that moment
the sound of his stay Eric weeping. That said, Eric,
simply is my wife Julia. She can not sleep at
night when I am in the house. She needs you, Eric,
I cried out. He looked at me in mild surprise.
(15:14):
Oh no, he answered, gently, not me. Come, mister Pharaoh.
We shall need a light. There is a lamp in
the dining room. Come. They went away together. I had
been perhaps three or four minutes alone, somehow unable to move,
when I heard the rapid stamping of a foot on
the floor of the room above me. I rushed to
(15:34):
the stairway. Just as I reached the top, a neett
flung open the door of Julia's chamber and ran out
into the hall, crying loudly, help Pierre, come quick. Together
we pushed back into the room where the scene had
been made ready the acting had begun. Julia lay rigid
on the bed, her head bent back as if a
heavy hand were at her throat. With her arms, she
(15:55):
kept up a weak movement, as if she were trying
to repel something from before her face. Her gasping for
breath was frightful to hear. Annette went to one side
of the bed, I to the other. I could see
that Julia's eyes were half opened, but they were glazed.
Annette tried to lift her in hopes that would ease
her struggle for breath, but it did no good. We
(16:17):
were powerless to help or relieve. Go for the doctor quick,
Annette called to me in anguish. As I started to go,
Julia began trying to speak. I leaned over her and
put my head close to her lips. I felt awful
things crawling on my face, like the feet of giant moths.
What is it, Julia? I sobbed. She made a sound
(16:39):
as of words, but I could not catch her meaning.
She is trying to say something about a room. Annette whispered,
she has been trying to say it for a long time.
Oh dear, what does the porch ow mean, go for
the doctor, Pierre, go for the doctor. She is dying.
She cannot live like this again. I started, but Julia
wrestled and Annette's arms, and my wife called to me,
fearing she could not hold her. Suddenly I guessed what
(17:02):
Julia might mean by the room. I ran for the stairs.
Half way down, something caught me from behind, round the
neck and under the chin, so that I lost my
balance and fell forward to the lower floor, hardly conscious
of the sharp pain in my head and in my elbow.
I struggled to my feet against something beating the air
about me. Staggered on along the corridor and gained the
(17:22):
dining room. The door to the forbidden room was open.
I went in in the harsh light of the unshaded
lamp Eric held. I saw vaguely that it was a
large room, the largest in the house, and that the
walls were paneled in wood. Eric was standing by the fireplace.
Giles was kneeling by the wall, fingering something in one
of the panels. Waving my arms round my head to
(17:43):
keep off the things that were bent upon strangling me,
I made my way towards the two men. I tried
to call out to them, but my voice was stifled
in my throat. Giles, still unconscious of my approach, said triumphantly, Ah,
there it is, And just as I came up behind Eric,
a long panel in the wall swung open like a door.
We three men stood facing the full sized portrait of
(18:06):
a woman. It was physically repulsive, morally odious. I looked
at little but the face, the lidless, flat eyes, the
cruel yet simpering malice. I recognized them. For a couple
of seconds we stood without moving. Then Eric swung the
lamp high above his shoulder and hurled it at the canvas.
(18:27):
The chimney crashed. There was a spurt of brownish yellow flame,
and as the instant darkness settled, a piercing scream behind us,
and the dull sound of a body fallen to the floor.
My eyes were at first blind in the sudden gloom,
but I smelt the oily smoke of the extinguished lamp,
and I heard, even above the roar of the wind,
Eric's loud and rapid breathing, like the panting of a dog.
(18:49):
In a moment or two, I felt him brush by me,
and as I began to see again, I made him
out kneeling beside a white figure on the floor, vague
and hardly distinguishable, I knew it was Julia. He picked
her up in his arms and carried her towards the
dining room door. I followed them as closely as I could,
anxious and full of fear, for Julia was moaning, and
(19:11):
I knew that the as yet invisible powers of malice
had left me to fasten themselves once more on her.
Eric carried her along the hallway and started up the stairs. Annette,
who had run down into the lower hallway, went up
backwards ahead of him, trying to pull him forward, while
I followed just below him and supporting him. When in
(19:32):
the face of those malignant fiends that were opposing him,
he all but fell back. I never knew whether he
felt or saw them. He may have thought that Julia
was struggling in his arms only in a delirium. He
swayed from side to side, leaning now against the wall,
now against the frail banister, which bent out perilously under
his weight and threatened to give way. Sometimes he had
(19:53):
to fight half a minute to gain a step. Though
Annette was pulling him forward and I was bracing him
from behind never have I been witness of such a struggle.
The invisible odds were all but too much for us.
It was like a man striving to swim against a
powerful current. And how Eric, not a physically strong man,
progressed against it, I cannot say. At the top of
(20:15):
the stairs, he reeled and nearly fell, but Annette clutched
him and managed to drag him into the chamber. He
laid Julia down on the bed. She poor victim, was
almost exhausted. She put her hands weakly to her throat,
and her moans grew more feeble. A bright shaft of
light from the lamp fell across the sheet over her breast.
The gas flame flickered in the draft. I stood close
(20:37):
beside Eric, looking down at her, while Annette, having found
and folded a piece of paper, was fanning her as
if that would make her breathing easier. They were doing
their utmost to strangle her. As yet I had not
seen them, but I had felt their hands. I knew
they were at their devilish work. Julia's weaker and weaker
movements were too eloquent for me to be in doubt,
(20:59):
but she was losing strength. At last, she lay motionless
in her bed. And then I thought I saw something,
A spectral hand at her slender throat, A faint point
of light, crossing and recrossing her breast, as swiftly as
a spider weaves about its prey. Eric said, in a cold,
strained voice, she is dying. And he threw himself on
(21:23):
his knees beside the bed. No, Eric, God help you.
She is being murdered by the evil that haunts you,
I whispered, bending to his ear. Julia lay so still,
I thought she was already gone. But no, at the
doorway of death. She turned, opened her eyes and looked
at her husband. She whispered, her lips hardly moving. I
(21:46):
have loved you, I trust you. But the two fiends
became incandescent. I saw them try to throw themselves upon her.
They got in each other's way, but Julia, with the
last strength she had, swept them as with her arm,
sat up in bed and cried out in a loud voice, Eric,
tell me who are they? You and I together we
(22:07):
shall defeat them. Her strength was then exhausted, and she
fell over against him. He clasped her head to his
breast as if he would save her. Merely by enfolding
her in his arms. But I saw the malignant toue
lope round the head of the bed and try to
tear her from him. Could he see them, I do
(22:27):
not know, Though he raised his head as if to
face them. I think his eyes were sightless. Hold A snart,
he said, and his voice was full of the bitterest hatred.
You will burn in hell for this. At last, a
terrible burst of wind ripped out the gas, and in
(22:49):
the darkened room the shapes of Holda and Morgan's snart
glowed cold like phosphorus. They desisted from their murderous work.
Cowled by his voice. They stood above him as he
knelt by the bed with Julia in his arms, balked
on the verge of retreat, motionless save for the flickering
of their outlines. The cold that touched me from them
(23:10):
was like the cold of ether on the skin. I
heard Julia's faint voice. Who was that evil woman? Eric
took a deep breath, held it an instant, then still,
with his face upturned and his eyes like those of
blind persons that look towards what they do not see,
he said, she was my wife. They stepped back, from him.
(23:39):
I know your wickedness. Hold a snart, you know my crime.
I will lay both for judgment before my wife Julia.
He half rose from his knees, lifting Julia with him,
and shouted, get out of this cursed house. I know
now that since a certain hour in the past, Eric
had never feared them living. He did not fear them dead.
(24:02):
But I for an awful minute, I held my breath.
But they went away, as if caught in a whirlwind.
The door slammed behind them. I heard a hideous shrill
whistle in the hallway. I heard the crash of broken
glass downstairs. A shriek of hatred died away in the night. Outside.
(24:22):
The wind made only a low moan. The house and
the room were silent. A clock struck three enden of
Chapter ten.
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