The Sundial

by Shirley Jackson

“What on earth for?” said Mrs. Willow blankly.

  “Some people shoot lions,” the girl said pleasantly, “and some people do not shoot lions. My father is one of the people who do.”

  Aunt Fanny leaned forward. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “My home. In Massachusetts.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “By plane. My father left for Africa yesterday and before he left he wrote this letter to Mrs. Halloran asking if she would put me up until he gets back because the people I was supposed to stay with had a death in the family and so my father put me on the plane and said Mrs. Halloran had written him once asking him to come for a visit and he supposed the invitation was still open and there wasn’t time to telegraph or anything because we thought I would be here practically by the time the telegram arrived. We did not know,” the girl went on, “that I would get off the plane and have to take a two-hour bus trip and then a taxi from your village and then climb over a locked gate and walk in these shoes up a thousand miles of drive and then bang on the front door till I was tired and finally walk in here and come to this room where I heard voices and then stand here answering a million silly questions before anyone even told me I could put my suitcase down but now I think I will put my suitcase down and take off my shoes and then if you have any more questions—”

  “It’s because we thought you were a ghost,” Arabella explained helpfully.

  “A ghost? Why would I be a ghost?”

  “We have had a death in this family, too,” Aunt Fanny said. “You have come to a house of mourning, child. But I am sure that my brother will welcome you, even in his grief.”

  “You really climbed over the gate?” Essex asked.

  “When I am visiting a place,” Gloria said, “I don’t like being locked out, even if they don’t know I’m coming.”

  _____

  “The least your father could do,” Mrs. Halloran said pleasantly to Gloria at the breakfast table, “is bring me back a lion.”

  _____

  “We used to do it when we were girls,” Mrs. Willow said. “It’s very easy, and very accurate. And of course, needing information the way we do—”

  “My father—”

  “I’m not saying a word against him, dearie. Only he does seem kind of . . . vague. Inconclusive. What we want to know is who, what, where, when, and how. And this is how to do it.”

  “I am not sure,” Aunt Fanny said, “that my father would agree . . .”

  “Only trouble is,” Mrs. Willow said, “and of course it’s not really a trouble, but we need a virgin.”

  “That is a subject,” Mrs. Halloran said with unseemly haste, “which, if pursued, could only develop into low comedy. I suggest we turn our minds to something else at once.”

  “We used to do it when we were girls,” Mrs. Willow said in explanation. She pulled a small table away from the wall and set it near the fire, checking earnestly to make sure that there was no glare of reflected light. Next to the table she put a straight, stiff chair, which had perhaps never been sat upon before. It came from a dark corner of the drawing room, and was upholstered in dead green satin. Its legs were carved and gilded; it was clearly uncomfortable and slippery. “The mirror,” Mrs. Willow said. “Bring the one on the wall there, Essex.” She laughed. “It’s reflected all of us so many times it must know our faces by now.” Essex brought the mirror, awkwardly; when he took it down from the wall it was unexpectedly heavy, and Mrs. Willow had to leap forward to catch it before it fell. Mrs. Halloran, stony-faced, looked for a minute at the darker spot on the silvered wallpaper which the mirror had left behind.

  “Some of these things,” Mrs. Halloran said, “have not been moved since the house was built.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Mrs. Willow agreed amiably. “You should have this room done over, dear. It’s perfectly impossible.” Then, reflecting, she went on, “Although that sounds silly, now, doesn’t it? Because even if you wanted to do it over, why bother? For such a short time, probably, I mean, and afterward, of course, there won’t be anyone to do it.”

  “I have always liked it the way it is,” Mrs. Halloran said.

  Mrs. Willow and Essex put the mirror down onto the table and it reflected dutifully the carved cupids and painted clouds of the ceiling. The heavy frame of the mirror was gilded, and there was an expensive fault in the glass, so that a wave seemingly passed across it, altering the cupid faces and giving a look of sea-depth; Mrs. Willow had taken from the kitchen a small can of imported olive oil, and now she carefully poured a little onto the mirror, and it spread and ran and flattened, and the mirror caught light and shone. “Now,” Mrs. Willow said, looking around the room.

  “Low comedy,” Mrs. Halloran murmured. “Essex, do you volunteer?”

  “I have an antipathy to mirrors,” Essex said.

  “What do I have to do?” Gloria came forward. “Just look in the glass?”

  “As though it were a window,” Mrs. Willow said, and Gloria sat down gingerly on the green satin chair.

  Gloria giggled, and Mrs. Willow put her hand on Gloria’s head, protectively, and said in a steady tone, “Rest your arms on the table on either side of the window. Put your face down close to the window and keep your eyes wide. Try not to blink. Try not to think. We will all be very quiet, and in a little while you will see through the window to what is on the other side. When you see something there, just tell us simply what you see.”

  “Suppose I don’t see anything?”

  “Then someone else will try. We used to do this all the time, dear, when we were girls. Now, everyone, sit well away from Gloria, so you will not cast a shadow. And be quiet, if you please.”

  Mrs. Halloran, with the air of one divorcing herself from a dull parlor trick, although one which had been perfectly acceptable when she was a girl, sat in her usual chair by the fire, and Essex sat near her. Julia and Arabella sat together, prettily, upon a rose-colored sofa near the fire, and Miss Ogilvie took a place in a far corner, as befitted one in a humble station and not expected to be the first to face any danger. Mrs. Willow and Aunt Fanny hovered near Gloria, silently pressing one another to move back. Gloria leaned her head forward, and her long hair fell down along either cheek.

  “It hurts your eyes,” she said.

  “Gloria,” Mrs. Willow said hypnotically, “you are looking through a window, a strange window because it looks out onto a world you have never seen before. It is dark there now, perhaps, because on the other side they still have not found the way to the window, but remember, when they know the window is there they will come to speak to us. You are waiting at this window to be given a vital message. Be alert, child, be ready; remember that you are on guard at this window and when they come you must be prepared to see them.”

  “Please don’t breathe on my neck,” Gloria said.

  “Gloria,” Aunt Fanny said, “can you see my father? Tall, very pale?”

  “I can see the sundial, I think,” Gloria said hesitantly. “No, it is not the sundial. It is a white rock. There is water around it—no grass. It is like the sundial because it stands there alone with grass all around it, but it is only a white rock.”

  “A trysting place,” said Mrs. Willow with satisfaction.

  “Not on my land,” Mrs. Halloran said firmly.

  “Now the rock is a mountain. And the grass is tops of trees. There is water running down the mountain; it is a waterfall. Like one of those toys—everything shifts and changes, and by the time I see something it is gone. Now it is the sun, very bright. It hurts my eyes. A fire. White. All over, covering everything, even the trees and the waterfall. And colors, red and black. I’ve got to close my eyes.” She put both hands over her eyes and Mrs. Willow sighed.

  “It was my father, almost certainly,” Aunt Fanny said. “Very
bright.”

  Gloria leaned forward again and said, “It’s still there, only getting darker. Circles of color, blacker and blacker. No, no, stop,” she said, and she half-rose, her face close to the mirror. “I don’t want to watch,” she said, staring. “Like eyes, eyes all looking, they are going to get out—they are going to get out—shut the window against them, quick—shut the mirror, before they get out! No, wait,” and without looking away she waved Mrs. Willow back, “it’s quiet now. They can’t get out. The others are there. Standing, in a row. Looking at us. They want something.”

  “Who do they want?” It was Miss Ogilvie from her corner, straining against her chair as though tied.

  “It is the house. They were standing all in a row and now it is the windows of the house; it looks tiny. It looks like a tiny picture, barely colored. The sun is not shining. There is a bird walking down the terrace, even from here I can see how bright he is, red and blue and green, like jewels.”

  “We have never had peacocks on the terrace,” Mrs. Halloran said. “My father-in-law thought them feeble-minded.”

  “It is walking down the terrace and now down the steps onto the lawn. Blue, and green. Tiny, and bright. It is coming straight down the lawn, right at me. I think it sees me and is coming right at me. It has a sharp nose and red eyes and it is smiling, bright and colored and coming faster—make him stop—make him go away—it’s hideous—make him go away!”

  Gloria wrenched away from the table and covered her eyes. Mrs. Willow patted her shoulder and said, “A little brandy, Essex, please,” and looked over Gloria’s shoulder into the mirror skimmed with oil, reflecting distorted cupids and dirty clouds.

  “I am sure that it was my father,” Aunt Fanny said. “I would not look into that mirror, of course, but it is not necessary. I know that it was my father, and he has come to see if we are mindful of his instructions. Don’t be afraid,” she said to Gloria. “That was my father you saw.”

  “It was awful,” Gloria said.

  “He was always a very strict man,” Aunt Fanny said, “but good to his children. If I had been in your place, Gloria, I should have said something, or at least made some gesture to show you recognized him. Because of course he has his feelings, too.”

  5

  “You are not familiar, I think,” Essex said slowly, “with a kind of unholy, unspeakable longing? I mention it to you because I think you may be the only person here who is capable of recognizing such an emotion. It is not a pretty thing to feel.”

  “Perhaps you might teach me,” Arabella said.

  “It is a longing so intense that it creates what it desires, it cannot endure any touch of correction; it is, as I say, unspeakable.”

  “No,” said Arabella, “I do not think I can remember that I ever felt anything like that.”

  “It is unholy because it is heretic. It is foul. It is abominable to need something so badly that you cannot picture living without it. It is a contradiction to the condition of mankind.”

  “I have always lived very well, you see,” Arabella said. “My mother has made a particular point of seeing that I lacked for nothing.”

  “I dread that it may be only a longing for annihilation. No person who has seen his own face plain can want to live longer.”

  “Well, I can’t understand that. I mean, I can understand a person’s not liking his own face, but people can’t help their faces, after all. I know I always feel very sorry for girls who are not nice-looking. And I’m sure I think you’ve got a very pleasant face.”

  “The sight of one’s own heart is degrading; people are not meant to look inward—that’s why they’ve been given bodies, to hide their souls.”

  “Of course, I was very lucky, and please don’t think I believe it was anything but luck; beauty is only an accident, like the way a person is born.”

  “I am filthy, sickened, beastly. I have seen myself plain.”

  “My sister Julia, on the other hand—”

  “I am rotten; that is why I am so frightened—I am terribly afraid that this hope which Aunt Fanny—”

  “Aunt Fanny,” said Arabella, “you’re talking about Aunt Fanny? But I thought all your unspeakable thoughts were about me.”

  _____

  “Well, I don’t care what the old biddy says,” Julia said, taking the turn by the gates in a wide sweep of the steering wheel, and barely slowing the car, “I’d go anywhere I pleased.”

  “It’s very difficult,” Miss Ogilvie said hesitantly. “That is, she does mind, and being dependent, I suppose it’s the least we can do, not asking to have the gates unlocked.”

  “Not me,” Julia said. “You saw the way I take care of things; I just told him it was all right with the old lady, and maybe he thought I was taking you two to church or something, because he wouldn’t dare to keep me inside.”

  “I merely do not choose, often, to leave my home,” Aunt Fanny observed from the back seat. “Your modern automobiles . . . particularly this one; Julia, do you mind moving just a little more slowly? Automobiles, and noise and dust and strange people . . . I prefer a somewhat less feverish life, thank you.”

  “What will she say when she hears you two have been gallivanting around?” Julia asked, peering at them in the rear-view mirror.

  “I do not gallivant around,” Aunt Fanny said, and Miss Ogilvie said, “We didn’t think she’d have to know. Unless you tell her.”

  “I keep your secrets,” Julia said darkly, “and you keep mine.”

  _____

  Although the fact had probably not influenced the first Mr. Halloran in his choice of a site for his house, the village had been, shortly before his time, very much the subject of sensational publicity. Young Harriet Stuart, it was generally believed, had one morning arisen unusually early in the Stuart house just outside the village, and taken up a hammer with which she murdered her father, her mother, and her two younger brothers, putting an abrupt end to the Stuart family tree. Fall River, Massachusetts, was nothing to the villagers near Mr. Halloran’s proposed big house; Harriet Stuart was their enshrined murderess. During Harriet’s arrest and trial, the villagers met more strangers than had ever come their way before, and after Harriet’s acquittal it was customary for almost daily groups of tourists to get off the bus in front of the Carriage Stop Inn, and wander, guided by a villager, up the half mile to the Stuart house, where they were occasionally rewarded by a fleeting glimpse of Harriet’s housekeeper and guardian, an aunt who must sometimes have wondered if Harriet’s hammer days were over, working in the garden or taking in the groceries. Sometimes the most persistent, staying past the departure of the second bus (and thus making necessary a night spent in the arms of the Carriage Stop Inn) were able to catch sight of a tall figure dressed in black, moving past the upper windows of the house.

  The village story, no matter who was lucky enough to capture the tourists, seldom varied: “They couldn’t prove it on her, see, because no one knew why she did it, and being fifteen years old and all, she got off. They said at the time it was a crazy idea she was even put on trial, because no jury in their right minds could see her sitting there, quiet and sad and looking like any young kid, and really believe she did it. We knew her around the village—she was born here, after all, and her two brothers besides, and even we couldn’t think, sometimes, she was up to it. Now right here, right along these bushes here by the road, is where she fell when she said she was running for help, and here’s where they found the hammer later, and she said it was a tramp chasing her, one got in through the back cellar window and he must have dropped the hammer here. She run all the way down the road to Parker’s Bakery yelling for help. Later we’ll go round the back and look through the fence and you can see the window she said the tramp got in at, even though they said, the prosecution, it hadn’t been opened for years, but the defense got an expert said there were clear signs someone had been walking around the cel
lar near the window. Right there, that window on the second floor third from the end, that was the window of the room where her mother and father slept and they say she sleeps in there now—remorse, or something. Or maybe it just has the best bed, though not many people would want to sleep in that bed, I guess—it’s where she did them in, you know. The two boys were around back, we can see their window when we go around. Her room was on the very end, down there, and they say she got up when it was still dark and she had the hammer with her—took it to bed with her the night before, you know—and came right down the hall to her parent’s bedroom and wham! Then, across the hall to the boys. Wham again. Nothing to it, says Harriet. Then, down the stairs, and down the front walk, left the gate open, fell into the bushes back where I showed you, dropped the hammer, and down the road in her nightgown to Parker’s Bakery; Bill Parker, he didn’t believe her at first—she yelled him out of bed and he put his head out of the window and told her to go home. Then she told him again and he got some pants on and got up Straus the butcher and old Watkins and they went up—before you take the bus you go see old Watkins; he’ll tell you what it looked like when they got up here. One funny thing—she was barefoot and all cut and scratched from the bushes when Mrs. Parker took her in, but no blood on her. The prosecution, they said she couldn’t hardly do such a set of things as that without getting blood on her, and they say she did it and then washed herself and put on a clean nightgown. The prosecution said she burned the bloody nightgown in the stove, but the defense, they got in an expert said it wasn’t nothing but old rags in the stove, even though no one said why anyone wanted to go burning old rags; round here, we mostly take our old junk over to the dump, although you ask my wife, she’ll tell you she wears our old rags.

  “No one ever knew, though. She got off, and she came back here to the house where she was born, and she lives there now. Goes out for walks at night, they say, although me, I wouldn’t like to meet her—can’t tell what might happen if she come to take a dislike to you. Funny thing, though, Straus—he’s the butcher—says they never order meat, though they used to. A vegetarian, Harriet Stuart.