“There’s someone waiting there,” Eleanor said, walking more quickly, and so saw Luke for the first time. Journeys end in lovers meeting, she thought, and could only say inadequately, “Are you looking for us?”

He had come to the veranda rail, looking down at them in the dusk, and now he bowed with a deep welcoming gesture, “ ‘These being dead,’ ” he said, “ ‘then dead must I be.’ Ladies, if you are the ghostly inhabitants of Hill House, I am here forever.”

He’s really kind of silly, Eleanor thought sternly, and Theodora said, “Sorry we weren’t here to meet you; we’ve been exploring.”

“A sour old beldame with a face of curds welcomed us, thank you,” he said. “ ‘Howdy-do,’ she told me, ‘I hope I see you alive when I come back in the morning and your dinner’s on the sideboard.’ Saying which, she departed in a late-model convertible with First and Second Murderers.”

“Mrs. Dudley,” Theodora said. “First Murderer must be Dudley-at-the-gate; I suppose the other was Count Dracula. A wholesome family.”

“Since we are listing our cast of characters,” he said, “my name is Luke Sanderson.”

Eleanor was startled into speaking. “Then you’re one of the family? The people who own Hill House? Not one of Doctor Montague’s guests?”

“I am one of the family; someday this stately pile will belong to me; until then, however, I am here as one of Doctor Montague’s guests.”

Theodora giggled. “We,” she said, “are Eleanor and Theodora, two little girls who were planning a picnic down by the brook and got scared home by a rabbit.”

“I go in mortal terror of rabbits,” Luke agreed politely. “May I come if I carry the picnic basket?”

“You may bring your ukulele and strum to us while we eat chicken sandwiches. Is Doctor Montague here?”

“He’s inside,” Luke said, “gloating over his haunted house.”

They were silent for a minute, wanting to move closer together, and then Theodora said thinly, “It doesn’t sound so funny, does it, now it’s getting dark?”

“Ladies, welcome.” And the great front door opened. “Come inside. I am Doctor Montague.”

“I am very happy that everyone arrived safely, and on time,” Doctor Montague said. “Welcome, all of you, welcome to Hill House—although perhaps that sentiment ought to come more properly from you, my boy? In any case, welcome, welcome. Luke, my boy, can you make a martini?”

“How would one reckon success, exactly, in an affair like this?” Luke inquired curiously.

The doctor laughed. “Put it, then,” he said, “that I hope that all of us will have an exciting visit and my book will rock my colleagues back on their heels. I cannot call your visit a vacation, although to some it might seem so, because I am hopeful of your working—although work, of course, depends largely upon what is to be done, does it not? Notes,” he said with relief, as though fixing upon one unshakable solidity in a world of fog, “notes. We will take notes—to some, a not unbearable task.”

“So long as no one makes any puns about spirits and spirits,” Theodora said, holding out her glass to Luke to be filled.

“Spirits?” The doctor peered at her. “Spirits? Yes, indeed. Of course, none of us . . .” He hesitated, frowning. “Certainly not,” he said and took three quick agitated sips at his cocktail.

“Everything’s so strange,” Eleanor said. “I mean, this morning I was wondering what Hill House would be like, and now I can’t believe that it’s real, and we’re here.”

They were sitting in a small room, chosen by the doctor, who had led them into it, down a narrow corridor, fumbling a little at first, but then finding his way. It was not a cozy room, certainly. It had an unpleasantly high ceiling, and a narrow tiled fireplace which looked chill in spite of the fire which Luke had lighted at once; the chairs in which they sat were rounded and slippery, and the light coming through the colored beaded shades of the lamps sent shadows into the corners. The overwhelming sense of the room was purple; beneath their feet the carpeting glowed in dim convoluted patterns, the walls were papered and gilt, and a marble cupid beamed fatuously down at them from the mantel. When they were silent for a moment the quiet weight of the house pressed down from all around them. Eleanor, wondering if she were really here at all, and not dreaming of Hill House from some safe spot impossibly remote, looked slowly and carefully around the room, telling herself that this was real, these things existed, from the tiles around the fireplace to the marble cupid; these people were going to be her friends. The doctor was round and rosy and bearded and looked as though he might be more suitably established before a fire in a pleasant little sitting room, with a cat on his knee and a rosy little wife to bring him jellied scones, and yet he was undeniably the Dr. Montague who had guided Eleanor here, a little man both knowledgeable and stubborn. Across the fire from the doctor was Theodora, who had gone unerringly to the most nearly comfortable chair, had wriggled herself into it somehow with her legs over the arm and her head tucked in against the back; she was like a cat, Eleanor thought, and clearly a cat waiting for its dinner. Luke was not still for a minute, but moved back and forth across the shadows, filling glasses, stirring the fire, touching the marble cupid; he was bright in the firelight, and restless. They were all silent, looking into the fire, lazy after their several journeys, and Eleanor thought, I am the fourth person in this room; I am one of them; I belong.

“Since we are all here,” Luke said suddenly, as though there had been no pause in the conversation, “shouldn’t we get acquainted? We know only names, so far. I know that it is Eleanor, here, who is wearing a red sweater, and consequently it must be Theodora who wears yellow—”

“Doctor Montague has a beard,” Theodora said, “so you must be Luke.”

“And you are Theodora,” Eleanor said, “because I am Eleanor.” An Eleanor, she told herself triumphantly, who belongs, who is talking easily, who is sitting by the fire with her friends.

“Therefore you are wearing the red sweater,” Theodora explained to her soberly.

“I have no beard,” Luke said, “so he must be Doctor Montague.”

“I have a beard,” Dr. Montague said, pleased, and looked around at them with a happy beam. “My wife,” he told them, “likes a man to wear a beard. Many women, on the other hand, find a beard distasteful. A clean-shaven man—you’ll excuse me, my boy—never looks fully dressed, my wife tells me.” He held out his glass to Luke.

“Now that I know which of us is me,” Luke said, “let me identify myself further. I am, in private life—assuming that this is public life and the rest of the world is actually private—let me see, a bullfighter. Yes. A bullfighter.”

“I love my love with a B,” Eleanor said in spite of herself, “because he is bearded.”

“Very true.” Luke nodded at her. “That makes me Doctor Montague. I live in Bangkok, and my hobby is bothering women.”

“Not at all,” Dr. Montague protested, amused. “I live in Belmont.”

Theodora laughed and gave Luke that quick, understanding glance she had earlier given Eleanor. Eleanor, watching, thought wryly that it might sometimes be oppressive to be for long around one so immediately in tune, so perceptive, as Theodora. “I am by profession an artist’s model,” Eleanor said quickly, to silence her own thoughts. “I live a mad, abandoned life, draped in a shawl and going from garret to garret.”

“Are you heartless and wanton?” Luke asked. “Or are you one of the fragile creatures who will fall in love with a lord’s son and pine away?”

“Losing all your beauty and coughing a good deal?” Theodora added.

“I rather think I have a heart of gold,” Eleanor said reflectively. “At any rate, my affairs are the talk of the cafés.” Dear me, she thought. Dear me.

“Alas,” Theodora said, “I am a lord’s daughter. Ordinarily I go clad in silk and lace and cloth of gold, but I have borrowed my maid’s finery to appear among you. I may of course become so enamored of the common life that I will never go back, and the poor girl will have to get herself new clothes. And you, Doctor Montague?”

He smiled in the firelight. “A pilgrim. A wanderer.”

“Truly a congenial little group,” Luke said approvingly. “Destined to be inseparable friends, in fact. A courtesan, a pilgrim, a princess, and a bullfighter. Hill House has surely never seen our like.”

“I will give the honor to Hill House,” Theodora said. “I have never seen its like.” She rose, carrying her glass, and went to examine a bowl of glass flowers. “What did they call this room, do you suppose?”

“A parlor, perhaps,” Dr. Montague said. “Perhaps a boudoir. I thought we would be more comfortable in here than in one of the other rooms. As a matter of fact, I think we ought to regard this room as our center of operations, a kind of common room; it may not be cheerful—”

“Of course it’s cheerful,” Theodora said stanchly. “There is nothing more exhilarating than maroon upholstery and oak paneling, and what is that in the corner there? A sedan chair?”

“Tomorrow you will see the other rooms,” the doctor told her.

“If we are going to have this for a rumpus room,” Luke said, “I propose we move in something to sit on. I cannot perch for long on anything here; I skid,” he said confidentially to Eleanor.

“Tomorrow,” the doctor said. “Tomorrow, as a matter of fact, we will explore the entire house and arrange things to please ourselves. And now, if you have all finished, I suggest that we determine what Mrs. Dudley has done about our dinner.”

Theodora moved at once and then stopped, bewildered. “Someone is going to have to lead me,” she said. “I can’t possibly tell where the dining room is.” She pointed. “That door leads to the long passage and then into the front hall,” she said.

The doctor chuckled. “Wrong, my dear. That door leads to the conservatory.” He rose to lead the way. “I have studied a map of the house,” he said complacently, “and I believe that we have only to go through the door here, down the passage, into the front hall, and across the hall and through the billiard room to find the dining room. Not hard,” he said, “once you get into practice.”

“Why did they mix themselves up so?” Theodora asked. “Why so many little odd rooms?”

“Maybe they liked to hide from each other,” Luke said.

“I can’t understand why they wanted everything so dark,” Theodora said. She and Eleanor were following Dr. Montague down the passage, and Luke came behind, lingering to look into the drawer of a narrow table, and wondering aloud to himself at the valance of cupid-heads and ribbon-bunches which topped the paneling in the dark hall.

“Some of these rooms are entirely inside rooms,” the doctor said from ahead of them. “No windows, no access to the outdoors at all. However, a series of enclosed rooms is not altogether surprising in a house of this period, particularly when you recall that what windows they did have were heavily shrouded with hangings and draperies within, and shrubbery without. Ah.” He opened the passage door and led them into the front hall. “Now,” he said, considering the doorways opposite, two smaller doors flanking the great central double door; “Now,” he said, and selected the nearest. “The house does have its little oddities,” he continued, holding the door so that they might pass through into the dark room beyond. “Luke, come and hold this open so I can find the dining room.” Moving cautiously, he crossed the dark room and opened a door, and they followed him into the pleasantest room they had seen so far, more pleasant, certainly, because of the lights and the sight and smell of food. “I congratulate myself,” he said, rubbing his hands happily. “I have led you to civilization through the uncharted wastes of Hill House.”

“We ought to make a practice of leaving every door wide open.” Theodora glanced nervously over her shoulder. “I hate this wandering around in the dark.”

“You’d have to prop them open with something, then,” Eleanor said. “Every door in this house swings shut when you let go of it.”

“Tomorrow,” Dr. Montague said. “I will make a note. Door stops.” He moved happily toward the sideboard, where Mrs. Dudley had set a warming oven and an impressive row of covered dishes. The table was set for four, with a lavish display of candles and damask and heavy silver.

“No stinting, I see,” Luke said, taking up a fork with a gesture which would have confirmed his aunt’s worst suspicions. “We get the company silver.”

“I think Mrs. Dudley is proud of the house,” Eleanor said.

“She doesn’t intend to give us a poor table, at any rate,” the doctor said, peering into the warming oven. “This is an excellent arrangement, I think. It gets Mrs. Dudley well away from here before dark and enables us to have our dinners without her uninviting company.”

“Perhaps,” Luke said, regarding the plate which he was filling generously, “perhaps I did good Mrs. Dudley—why must I continue to think of her, perversely, as good Mrs. Dudley?—perhaps I really did her an injustice. She said she hoped to find me alive in the morning, and our dinner was in the oven; now I suspect that she intended me to die of gluttony.”

“What keeps her here?” Eleanor asked Dr. Montague. “Why do she and her husband stay on, alone in this house?”

“As I understand it, the Dudleys have taken care of Hill House ever since anyone can remember; certainly the Sandersons were happy enough to keep them on. But tomorrow—”

Theodora giggled. “Mrs. Dudley is probably the only true surviving member of the family to whom Hill House really belongs. I think she is only waiting until all the Sanderson heirs—that’s you, Luke—die off in various horrible ways, and then she gets the house and the fortune in jewels buried in the cellar. Or maybe she and Dudley hoard their gold in the secret chamber, or there’s oil under the house.”

“There are no secret chambers in Hill House,” the doctor said with finality. “Naturally, that possibility has been suggested before, and I think I may say with assurance that no such romantic devices exist here. But tomorrow—”

“In any case, oil is definitely old hat, nothing at all to discover on the property these days,” Luke told Theodora. “The very least Mrs. Dudley could murder me for in cold blood is uranium.”

“Or just the pure fun of it,” Theodora said.

“Yes,” Eleanor said, “but why are we here?”

For a long minute the three of them looked at her, Theodora and Luke curiously, the doctor gravely. Then Theodora said, “Just what I was going to ask. Why are we here? What is wrong with Hill House? What is going to happen?”

“Tomorrow—”

“No,” Theodora said, almost petulantly. “We are three adult, intelligent people. We have all come a long way, Doctor Montague, to meet you here in Hill House; Eleanor wants to know why, and so do I.”

“Me too,” Luke said.

“Why did you bring us here, Doctor? Why are you here yourself? How did you hear about Hill House, and why does it have such a reputation and what really goes on here? What is going to happen?”

The doctor frowned unhappily. “I don’t know,” he said, and then, when Theodora made a quick, irritated gesture, he went on, “I know very little more about the house than you do, and naturally I intended to tell you everything I do know; as for what is going to happen, I will learn that when you do. But tomorrow is soon enough to talk about it, I think; daylight—”

“Not for me,” Theodora said.

“I assure you,” the doctor said, “that Hill House will be quiet tonight. There is a pattern to these things, as though psychic phenomena were subject to laws of a very particular sort.”

“I really think we ought to talk it over tonight,” Luke said.

“We’re not afraid,” Eleanor added.

The doctor sighed again. “Suppose,” he said slowly, “you heard the story of Hill House and decided not to stay. How would you leave, tonight?” He looked around at them again, quickly. “The gates are locked. Hill House has a reputation for insistent hospitality; it seemingly dislikes letting its guests get away. The last person who tried to leave Hill House in darkness—it was eighteen years ago, I grant you—was killed at the turn in the driveway, where his horse bolted and crushed him against the big tree. Suppose I tell you about Hill House, and one of you wants to leave? Tomorrow, at least, we could see that you got safely to the village.”

“But we’re not going to run away,” Theodora said. “I’m not, and Eleanor isn’t, and Luke isn’t.”

“Stoutly, upon the ramparts,” Luke agreed.

“You are a mutinous group of assistants. After dinner, then. We will retire to our little boudoir for coffee and a little of the good brandy Luke has in his suitcase, and I will tell you all I know about Hill House. Now, however, let us talk about music, or painting, or even politics.”