The Sundial by Shirley Jackson Page B

lived very well, you see,” Arabella said. “My mother has made a particular point of seeing that I lacked for nothing.”
    â€œI dread that it may be only a longing for annihilation. No person who has seen his own face plain can want to live longer.”
    â€œWell, 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.”
    â€œThe 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.”
    â€œOf 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.”
    â€œI am filthy, sickened, beastly. I have seen myself plain.”
    â€œMy sister Julia, on the other hand—”
    â€œI am rotten; that is why I am so frightened—I am terribly afraid that this hope which Aunt Fanny—”
    â€œAunt
Fanny
,” said Arabella, “you’re talking about Aunt
Fanny?
But I thought all your unspeakable thoughts were about
me
.”
    _____
    â€œWell,
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.”
    â€œIt’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.”
    â€œNot
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.”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œWhat will she say when she hears you two have been gallivanting around?” Julia asked, peering at them in the rear-view mirror.
    â€œI do not gallivant around,” Aunt Fanny said, and Miss Ogilvie said, “We didn’t think she’d have to know. Unless
you
tell her.”
    â€œI 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