bright after the darkness of the house, and the air was fresh and sweet. Behind them Mrs Dudley moved the vase again, and the big door slammed shut.
‘Lovable old thing,’ Theodora said to the closed door. For a moment her face was thin with anger, and Eleanor thought, I hope she never looks at me like that, and was surprised, remembering that she was always shy with strangers, awkward and timid, and yet had come in no more than half an hour to think of Theodora as close and vital, someone whose anger would be frightening. ‘I think,’ Eleanor said hesitantly, and relaxed, because when she spoke Theodora turned and smiled again, ‘I think that during the daylight hours when Mrs Dudley is around I shall find myself some absorbing occupation far, far from the house. Rolling the tennis court, perhaps. Or tending the grapes in the hothouse.’
‘Perhaps you could help Dudley with the gates.’
‘Or look for nameless graves in the nettle-patch.’
They were standing by the rail of the verandah; from there they could see down the drive to the point where it turned among the trees again, and down over the soft curve of the hills to the distant small line which might have been the main highway, the road back to the cities from which they had come. Except for the wires which ran to the house from a spot among the trees, there was no evidence that Hill House belonged in any way to the rest of the world. Eleanor turned and followed the verandah; it went, apparently, all around the house. ‘Oh, look,’ she said, turning the corner.
Behind the house the hills were piled in great pressing masses, flooded with summer green now, rich, and still. ‘It’s why they called it Hill House,’ Eleanor said inadequately.
‘It’s altogether Victorian,’ Theodora said. ‘They simply wallowed in this kind of great billowing overdone sort of thing and buried themselves in folds of velvet and tassels and purple plush. Anyone before them or after would have put this house right up there on top of those hills where it belongs, instead of snuggling it down here.’
‘If it were on top of the hill everyone could see it. I vote for keeping it well hidden where it is.’
‘All the time I’m here I’m going to be terrified,’ Theodora said, ‘thinking one of those hills will fall on us.’
‘They don’t fall on you. They just slide down, silently and secretly, rolling over you while you try to run away.’
‘Thank you,’ Theodora said in a small voice. ‘What Mrs Dudley has started you have completed nicely. I shall pack and go home at once.’
Believing her for a minute, Eleanor turned and stared, and then saw the amusement on her face and thought, She’s much braver than I am. Unexpectedly—although it was later to become a familiar note, a recognisable attribute of what was to mean ‘Theodora’ in Eleanor’s mind—Theodora caught at Eleanor’s thought, and answered her. ‘Don’t be so afraid all the time,’ she said and reached out to touch Eleanor’s cheek with one finger. ‘We never know where our courage is coming from.’ Then, quickly, she ran down the steps and out on to the lawn between the tall grouped trees. ‘Hurry,’ she called back, ‘I want to see if there’s a brook somewhere.’
‘We can’t go too far,’ Eleanor said, following. Like two children they ran across the grass, both welcoming the sudden openness of clear spaces after even a little time in Hill House, their feet grateful for the grass after the solid floors; with an instinct almost animal, they followed the sound and smell of water. ‘Over here,’ Theodora said, ‘a little path.’
It led them tantalisingly closer to the sound of the water, doubling back and forth through the trees, giving them occasional glimpses down the hill to the driveway, leading them around out of sight of the house across a rocky meadow, and always downhill. As they came away from the house and out of the trees to places where the sunlight could still find them Eleanor was easier, although she could see that the sun was dropping disturbingly closer to the heaped hills. She called to Theodora, but Theodora only called back, ‘Follow, follow,’ and ran down the path. Suddenly she stopped, breathless and tottering, on the very edge of the brook, which had leaped up before her almost without warning; Eleanor, coming more slowly behind, caught at her hand and held her back and then, laughing, they fell together against the bank which sloped sharply down to the brook.
‘They like to surprise you around here,’ Theodora said, gasping.
‘Serve you right if you went diving in,’ Eleanor said. ‘Running like that.’
‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ The water of the brook moved quickly in little lighted ripples; on the other side the grass grew down to the edge of the water and yellow and blue flowers leaned their heads over; there was a rounded soft hill there, and perhaps more meadow beyond, and, far away, the great hills, still catching the light of the sun. ‘It’s pretty,’ Theodora said with finality.
‘I’m sure I’ve been here before,’ Eleanor said. ‘In a book of fairy tales, perhaps.’
‘I’m sure of it. Can you skip rocks?’
‘This is where the princess comes to meet the magic golden fish who is really a prince in disguise——’
‘He couldn’t draw much water, that golden fish of yours; it can’t be more than three inches deep.’
‘There are stepping-stones to go across, and little fish swimming, tiny ones—minnows?’
‘Princes in disguise, all of them.’ Theodora stretched in the sun on the bank, and yawned. ‘Tadpoles?’ she suggested.
‘Minnows. It’s too late for tadpoles, silly, but I bet we can find frogs’ eggs. I used to catch minnows in my hands and let them go.’
‘What a farmer’s wife you might have made.’
‘This is a place for picnics, with lunch beside the brook and hard-boiled eggs.’
Theodora laughed. ‘Chicken salad and chocolate cake.’
‘Lemonade in a Thermos bottle. Spilled salt.’
Theodora rolled over luxuriously. ‘They’re wrong about ants, you know. There were almost never ants. Cows, maybe, but I don’t think I ever did see an ant on a picnic.’
‘Was there always a bull in a field? Did someone always say, “But we can’t go through that field; that’s where the bull is”?’
Theodora opened one eye. ‘Did you use to have a comic uncle? Everyone always laughed, whatever he said? And he used to tell you not to be afraid of the bull—if the bull came after you all you had to do was grab the ring through his nose and swing him around your head?’
Eleanor tossed a pebble into the brook and watched it sink clearly to the bottom. ‘Did you have a lot of uncles?’
‘Thousands. Do you?’
After a minute Eleanor said, ‘Oh, yes. Big ones and little ones and fat ones and thin ones——’
‘Do you have an Aunt Edna?’
‘Aunt Muriel.’
‘Kind of thin? Rimless glasses?’
‘A garnet brooch,’ Eleanor said.
‘Does
