The Haunting of Hill House Read Online Free PDF Page B

invitation of any man, there is still no reason why she should be permitted to take my car with her.”
    “It’s half my car.”
    “Suppose poor little Linnie got sick, up there in the mountains, with nobody around? No doctor?”
    “In any case, Eleanor, I am sure that I am doing what Mother would have thought best. Mother had confidence in me and would certainly never have approved my letting you run wild, going off heaven knows where, in my car.”
    “Or suppose even I got sick, up there in—”
    “I am sure Mother would have agreed with me, Eleanor.”
    “Besides,” Eleanor’s brother-in-law said, struck by a sudden idea, “how do we know she’d bring it back in good condition?”
     
    There has to be a first time for everything, Eleanor told herself. She got out of the taxi, very early in the morning, trembling because by now, perhaps, her sister and her brother-in-law might be stirring with the first faint proddings of suspicion; she took her suitcase quickly out of the taxi while the driver lifted out the cardboard carton which had been on the front seat. Eleanor overtipped him, wondering if her sister and brother-in-law were following, were perhaps even now turning into the street and telling each other, “There she is, just as we thought, the thief, there she is”; she turned in haste to go into the huge city garage where their car was kept, glancing nervously toward the ends of the street. She crashed into a very little lady, sending packages in all directions, and saw with dismay a bag upset and break on the sidewalk, spilling out a broken piece of cheesecake, tomato slices, a hard roll. “Damn you damn you!” the little lady screamed, her face pushed up close to Eleanor’s. “I was taking it home, damn you damn you!”
    “I’m so sorry,” Eleanor said; she bent down, but it did not seem possible to scoop up the fragments of tomato and cheesecake and shove them somehow back into the broken bag. The old lady was scowling down and snatching up her other packages before Eleanor could reach them, and at last Eleanor rose, smiling in convulsive apology. “I’m really so sorry,” she said.
    “Damn you,” the little old lady said, but more quietly. “I was taking it home for my little lunch. And now, thanks to you —”
    “Perhaps I could pay?” Eleanor took hold of her pocketbook, and the little lady stood very still and thought.
    “I couldn’t take money, just like that,” she said at last. “I didn’t buy the things, you see. They were left over.” She snapped her lips angrily. “You should have seen the ham they had,” she said, “but someone else got that . And the chocolate cake. And the potato salad. And the little candies in the little paper dishes. I was too late on every thing. And now . . .” She and Eleanor both glanced down at the mess on the sidewalk, and the little lady said, “So you see, I couldn’t just take money, not money just from your hand, not for something that was left over.”
    “May I buy you something to replace this, then? I’m in a terrible hurry, but if we could find some place that’s open—”
    The little old lady smiled wickedly. “I’ve still got this , anyway,” she said, and she hugged one package tight. “You may pay my taxi fare home,” she said. “Then no one else will be likely to knock me down.”
    “Gladly,” Eleanor said and turned to the taxi driver, who had been waiting, interested. “Can you take this lady home?” she asked.
    “A couple of dollars will do it,” the little lady said, “not including the tip for this gentleman, of course. Being as small as I am,” she explained daintily, “it’s quite a hazard, quite a hazard indeed, people knocking you down. Still, it’s a genuine pleasure to find one as willing as you to make up for it. Sometimes the people who knock you down never turn once to look.” With Eleanor’s help she climbed into the taxi with her packages, and Eleanor took two dollars and a fifty-cent