The Haunting of Hill House: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

It is Saturday—the day Mrs. Montague is expected to arrive. Eleanor goes alone into the hills, wanting to be alone and away from the darkness of the house. She lies down in the grass, but is unable to be comforted by nature. She picks a daisy and stares into its “dead face” as it dies instantly in her fingers, wondering what she is going to do.

Late that evening, Mrs. Montague arrives with her friend, Arthur Parker. Doctor Montague rushes to greet her, and excitedly introduces her to Theodora, Eleanor, and Luke. It is after dark, and Mrs. Montague chastises the group for not waiting for her for dinner—the doctor confesses he’d given up on Mrs. Montague showing up. The doctor and Luke help Mrs. Montague with her suitcases as she demands to be housed in the “most haunted room.” The doctor tells Luke to take the bags to the nursery.

Mrs. Montague begins chiding her husband for having done no work with a planchette or automatic writing in nearly a week. Montague tries to impress his wife by telling her about the cold spot in the nursery, but she is disappointed that things at the house are not in “order.” She states that she herself is going to “get things going right.” When she orders Arthur to go put the car away in the garage, Luke warns her about their policy of not going outside at night, established after Eleanor and Theodora’s terrifying encounter. Mrs. Montague dismisses Luke as a coward, and so does Arthur; he heads outside to park the car.

As Mrs. Montague and Arthur head into the dining room to fix themselves some dinner, she rails against her husband’s incompetence, bragging about Arthur’s intelligence and interest in the “other world.” Mrs. Montague sets out a plan to sit up all night in the nursery—she says she never sleeps when troubled spirits are about. After dinner, she wants to do a planchette session in a quiet room alone with Arthur. Doctor Montague suggests they use the library. Mrs. Montague orders her husband to take her there at once—she cannot waste too much time on conversation, she says, lest it dull her mind and make her less receptive to the spirits.

Luke, Theodora, Eleanor, and Doctor Montague gather in the parlor, and the doctor begins explaining how planchette works. A device similar to the Ouija Board, it allows for automatic writing—the spirits guide the planchette and write out their thoughts and intentions. The doctor dismisses the planchette as “balderdash” for “schoolgirls.”

Sometime later, Mrs. Montague and Arthur join the group in the parlor, where they announce that the planchette has given them a lot of information about a nun. Doctor Montague questions the validity of planchette, as there is no story of a nun associated with Hill House, but Mrs. Montague insists her methods are correct. She goes on to say that a woman by the name of “Helen, or Helene, or Elena” spoke through planchette and warned of the presence of a monk. Mrs. Montague speculates that a monk and a nun are “walled up” somewhere in the house, and says she wants to dig up the cellar—Doctor Montague reminds her that they are simply renting the place, and have no authority to do so. Mrs. Montague shames her husband for being incurious.

Mrs. Montague pulls out some papers from her automatic writing session and reads them aloud. Apparently, the spirit guiding planchette introduced itself as “Nell Eleanor Nellie Nell Nell,” and said it wanted “home.” When Mrs. Montague asked the spirit why, it replied only “Mother.” Eleanor and Theodora listen in horror. Eleanor is miserable to have been “singled out again” by the presence haunting the house. Eleanor wishes she could have some peace, quiet, and rest.

As the group heads upstairs to bed, Arthur announces that he will patrol the house with his revolver so that everyone can sleep soundly. Mrs. Montague assures the group that the spirits of the house want only to “tell their stories” and free themselves from their “sorrow”; they mean no one any harm. Mrs. Montague fawns about the “unfortunate beings” who need only to be shown some “heartfelt fondness” and be extricated from their loneliness. The rest of the group listens, half-amused and half-impatient.

Everyone bids one another goodnight and retreats to their separate rooms, but Theodora tells Eleanor to wait a minute and to not get undressed—Luke whispered to her earlier that the original four are to meet in the doctor’s room. The girls wait a minute before tiptoeing town the hall to meet with Luke and Montague. Once they’re all together, the doctor announces that he believes something is going to happen tonight—he wants the girls to be with him, where they can all keep an eye on each other. The group makes fun of Mrs. Montague for a moment, and then, sure enough, a crashing sound comes from the hall, blowing the door open and then slamming it shut again.

The group is, at this point, almost amused by these occurrences, and they try to comfort one another by making jokes about the hostility of their summer lodgings. Theodora even makes fun of the house for having “exhausted [its] repertoire,” and repeating the “pounding act” from several nights ago. Eleanor is the only one who is profoundly affected by the happening—she rocks back and forth and presses her hands into her eyes.

As the noise recedes, Luke offers everyone some brandy. They all accept, and Eleanor sips nervously, believing they are only in the “eye of the storm.” Sure enough, the pounding begins again and the door shakes, seeming about to come off its hinges. Theodora tells herself, over and over, that the presence “can’t get in,” but Eleanor, freezing, feels that the house is “breaking” her apart. As the pounding quiets, she predicts that the noise is about to change—sure enough, the babbling laughter starts in the hall. Eleanor briefly wonders if she is the one laughing. Eleanor feels the laughter is inside her own head. Eleanor, feeling mad, decides to give herself over to the house at last.

When Eleanor regains her senses, the room is quiet, and sunlight is coming in through the window. Theodora is leaning over her, and Montague has been to check on his wife and Arthur, who are “sleeping like babies.” Eleanor asks what happened, and her mouth feels stiff as she does. Theodora offers to help her wash her face and prepare her for breakfast.