21. A Visit

By Shirley Jackson

First published as "The Lovely House" in 1950 and later reprinted  under the title "A Visit."  While a short story, Biblioasis reprinted it as a cute little book that's part of a series known as, A Ghost Story for Christmas, all of them designed and illustrated by Seth.  It's an attempt to revive a Victorian tradition of reading ghost stories on Christmas Eve.

So this technically counts as a book, right? I might as well end the year with a holiday book, though the actual story doesn't have anything to do with Christmas, nor winter, for that matter.

Margaret is invited to stay at her friend's estate for the summer holidays.  Carla and her parents, Mr and Mrs Rhodes, seem normal and welcoming enough, though Margaret is clearly not from money, but this difference is barely mentioned.  The house is filled with beautiful tapestries with at least one in every room, all embroidered by Carla's mother and the past generations of Rhodes women who have lived in that house.

Carla keeps talking wistfully and/or excitedly about her brother's impending visit, and he finally arrives one day with a friend.  Carla's brother is known only as "the captain", while Margaret finds it peculiar that no one calls the captain's friend by his name, so she asks him and he tells her that his name is Paul.  Margaret also later discovers an old eccentric aunt who keeps to herself (and her cat) high up in the tower.  There are hints that one or more of the characters are merely an apparition as the story goes on.  

The story is very sparsely written, and yet, even though every word is accounted for, it's what's left out that evokes a feeling of oddness and mystery, as befits a Jackson narrative.  But I wouldn't say that "A Visit" was very creepy nor unsettling, not at all like Jackson's other stories.  However, what I found most odd was that in the book, Carla's family name is Rhodes, while the Wikipedia keeps calling Carla's family as the Montagues.