The House Of Mirrors

Montague in just eleven pages. The story is told (of course!) by the fire with drinks in hand. The salient points: Hill House was built by an unreconstructed Puritan named Hugh Crain. His young wife died moments before she would have seen Hill House for the first time. His second wife died of a fall-cause unknown. His two little girls remained in Hill House until the death of Crain's third wife (nothing there-that wife died in Europe), and were then sent to a cousin. They spent the rest of their lives quarreling over ownership of the mansion. Later, the older sister returns to Hill House with a companion, a young girl from the village. The companion becomes particularly important because it is in her that Hill House seems most specifically to mirror Eleanor's own life. Eleanor too was a companion, during her mother's long terminal illness. Following the death of old Miss Crain, there are stories of neglect; "of a doctor called too late," Montague says, "of the old lady lying neglected upstairs while the younger woman dallied in the garden with some village lout . . .БЂ«More bitter feeling followed the death of the old Miss Crain ...»