The Little Stranger

  I explained again about Graham’s emergency case and the call having been passed on to me. She said, as her brother had, ‘Well, it’s good of you to have come all this way. Betty hasn’t been with us very long; less than a month. Her family live over on the other side of Southam, just too far for us to think of bothering them. The mother, anyway, is by all accounts a bit of a bad lot … She started complaining about her stomach last night, and when she seemed no better this morning, well, I thought we ought to make sure. Will you look at her right away? She’s just up here.’

  She turned as she spoke, moving off on her muscular legs; and the dog and I followed. The room she took me into was right at the end of the corridor, and might once, I thought, have been a housekeeper’s parlour. It was smaller than the kitchen, but like the rest of the basement it had a stone floor and high, stunted windows, and the same drab institutional paint. There was a narrow grate, swept clean, a faded armchair and a table, and a metal-framed bed—the kind which, when not in use, can be folded and tucked out of sight in a cavity in the cupboard behind it. Lying beneath the covers of this bed, dressed in a petticoat or sleeveless nightdress, was a figure so small and slight I took it at first to be that of a child; looking closer, I saw it to be an undergrown teenage girl. She made an attempt to push herself up when she saw me in the doorway, but fell pathetically back against her pillow as I approached. I sat on the bed at her side and said, ‘Well, you’re Betty, are you? My name’s Dr Faraday. Miss Ayres tells me you’ve had a tummy ache. How are you feeling now?’

  She said, in a bad country accent, ‘Please, Doctor, I’m awful poorly!’

  ‘Have you been sick at all?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Any diarrhoea? You know what that is?’

  She nodded; then shook her head again.

  I opened up my bag. ‘All right, let’s have a look at you.’

  She parted her childish lips just far enough to let me slip the bulb of the thermometer under her tongue, and when I drew down the neck of her nightdress and set the chilly stethoscope to her chest, she flinched and groaned. Since she came from a local family, I had probably seen her before, if only to give her her school vaccination; but I had no memory of it now. She was an unmemorable sort of girl. Her colourless hair was bluntly cut, and fastened with a grip at the side of her forehead. Her face was broad, her eyes wide-spaced; the eyes themselves were grey and, like many light eyes, rather depthless. Her cheek was pale, only darkening slightly in a blush of self-consciousness when I put up her nightdress to examine her stomach, exposing her dingy flannel knickers.

  As soon as I placed my fingers lightly on the flesh above her navel, she gave a gasp, crying out—almost screaming. I said soothingly, ‘All right. Now, where does it hurt most? Here?’

  She said, ‘Oh! All over!’

  ‘Does the pain come sharply, like a cut? Or is it more like an ache, or a burn?’

  ‘It’s like an ache,’ she cried, ‘with cuts all in it! But it’s burning, too! Oh!’ She screamed again, opening her mouth wide at last, revealing a healthy tongue and throat and a row of little crooked teeth.

  ‘All right,’ I said again, pulling her nightie back down. And after a moment’s thought I turned to Caroline—who had been standing in the open doorway with the Labrador beside her, looking anxiously on—and said, ‘Could you leave me alone with Betty for a minute, please, Miss Ayres?’

  She frowned at the seriousness of my tone. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She made a gesture to the dog, and took him out into the passage. When the door was closed behind her I put away my stethoscope and thermometer, and closed my bag with a snap. I looked at the pale-faced girl and said quietly, ‘Now then, Betty. This puts me in a ticklish position. For there’s Miss Ayres out there, who’s gone to an awful lot of trouble to try and make you better; and here am I, knowing for a fact that there’s nothing at all I can do for you.’

  She stared at me. I said more plainly, ‘Do you think I don’t have more important things to do on my day off than come chasing five miles out of Lidcote to look after naughty little girls? I’ve a good mind to send you to Leamington to have your appendix out. There’s nothing wrong with you.’

  Her face turned scarlet. She said, ‘Oh, Doctor, there is!’

  ‘You’re a good actress, I’ll give you that. All that screaming and thrashing about. But if I want play-acting, I’ll go to the theatre. Who do you think’s going to pay me now, hey? I don’t come cheap, you know.’

  The mention of money frightened her. She said with genuine anxiety, ‘I am poorly! I am! I did feel sick last night. I felt sick horrible. And I thought—’

  ‘What? That you’d like a nice day in bed?’

  ‘No! You in’t being fair! I did feel poorly. And I just thought—’ And here her voice began to thicken, and her grey eyes filled with tears. ‘I just thought,’ she repeated, unsteadily, ‘that if I was as poorly as that, then—then perhaps I ought to go home for a bit. Till I got better.’

  She turned her face from me, blinking. The tears rose in her eyes, then ran in two straight lines down her little girl’s cheeks. I said, ‘Is that what this is all about? You want to go home? Is that it?’—and she put her hands across her face and cried properly.

  A doctor sees lots of tears; some more affecting than others. I really did have a heap of chores at home, and was not at all amused to have been dragged away from them for nothing. But she looked so young and pathetic, I let her have the cry out. Then I touched her shoulder and said firmly, ‘Come on now, that’s enough. Tell me what the trouble is. Don’t you like it here?’

  She produced a limp blue handkerchief from under her pillow, and blew her nose.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Why not? Is the work too hard?’

  She gave a hopeless shrug. ‘The work’s all right.’

  ‘You don’t do it all by yourself though, surely?’

  She shook her head. ‘There’s Mrs Bazeley comes in, every day till three; every day bar Sunday. She does the washing and the cooking, and I does everything else. A man has a go at the gardens, sometimes. Miss Caroline does a bit …’

  ‘That doesn’t sound too bad.’

  She didn’t answer. So I pressed on. Did she miss her parents?—She pulled a face at that idea. Did she miss a boyfriend?—She pulled a worse face at that.

  I picked up my bag. ‘Well, I can’t help you if you won’t say.’

  And seeing me start to rise, she said at last, ‘It’s just, this house!’

  ‘This house? Well, what about it?’

  ‘Oh, Doctor, it in’t like a proper house at all! It’s too big! You have to walk a mile to get anywhere; and it’s so quiet, it gives you the creeps. It’s all right in the daytimes, when I’m working, and Mrs Bazeley’s here. But at night, I’m all on me own. There in’t a sound! I have horrible dreams … And it wouldn’t be so bad, but they make me go up and down that set of old back stairs. There’s so many corners, and you don’t know what’s round ’em. I think I shall die of fright sometimes!’

  I said, ‘Die of fright? In this lovely house? You’re lucky to have the chance to live here. Think of it like that.’

  ‘Lucky!’ she said in disbelief. ‘All me friends say I’m mad to have gone into service. They laugh at me, at home! I never get to see no one. I never get to go out. Me cousins’ve all got factory jobs. And I could’ve had one, too—only, me dad won’t let me! He don’t like it. He says the factories make the girls too wild. He says I must stop here for a year first, and learn housework and nice ways. A year! I shall be dead of horror, I know I shall. Either that, or dead of shame. You ought to see the awful old dress and cap they makes me wear! Oh, Doctor, it in’t fair!’

  She had made a sodden ball of her handkerchief, and, as she spoke, threw it to the floor.

  I leaned and picked it back up. ‘Dear me, what a tantrum … A year will pass quickly, you know. When you’re older, it’ll seem like nothing.’

>   ‘Well, I in’t old now, am I!’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’m fourteen. I might as well be ninety, stuck here!’

  I laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, come on. Now, what are we going to do about this? I ought to earn my fee somehow, I suppose. Do you want me to say something to the Ayreses? I’m sure they don’t want you to be unhappy.’

  ‘Oh, they just want me to do me work.’

  ‘Well, how about if I were to have a word with your parents?’

  ‘That’s a laugh! Me mam spends half her time out with other fellers; she don’t care where I am. Me dad’s useless. All he does is shout his head off. It’s just shouting and rowing all day long. Then he turns round and takes me mam back, every time! He’s only put me into service so I won’t turn out like her.’

  ‘Well, why on earth do you want to go home? You sound better off here.’

  ‘I don’t want to go home,’ she said. ‘I just—Oh, I’m just fed up!’

  Her face had darkened, in pure frustration. She looked less like a child now, and more like some faintly dangerous young animal. But she saw me watching her, and the trace of temper began to fade. She grew sorry for herself again—sighing unhappily, and closing her swollen eyes. We sat for a moment without speaking, and I glanced around me at that drab, almost underground room. The silence was so pure, it felt pressurised: she was right, at least, about that. The air was cool, but curiously weighted; one was aware somehow of the great house above—aware, even, of the creeping chaos of nettle and weed that lay just beyond it.

  I thought of my mother. She was probably younger than Betty when she first went out to Hundreds Hall.

  I got to my feet. ‘Well, my dear, I’m afraid we all have to put up with things we don’t much care for, from time to time. That’s called life; and there’s no cure for it. But how about this? You stay in bed for the rest of the day, and we’ll think of it as a holiday. I won’t tell Miss Ayres that you’ve been shamming; and I’ll send you out some stomach mixture—you can look at the bottle and remember how close you came to losing your appendix. But I will ask Miss Ayres if there isn’t a way they can make things a bit more cheerful for you here. And meanwhile, you can give the place another chance. What do you say?’

  She gazed at me for a second with her depthless grey eyes; then nodded. She said, in a pathetic whisper, ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

  I left her turning over in the bed, exposing the white nape of her neck and the small sharp blades of her narrow shoulders.

  The passage was empty when I stepped into it, but, as before, at the sound of the closing door the dog started barking; there was a flurry of paws and claws and he came bowling out of the kitchen. But he came less frantically this time, and his excitement soon subsided, until he was happy to let me pat him and pull his ears. Caroline appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a tea-cloth—working the cloth between her fingers in a brisk, housewifely way. On the wall beyond her, I noticed, there was still that box of call-bells and wires: the imperious little machine designed to summon a staff of servants to the grander realm above.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asked, as the dog and I moved towards her.

  I said without hesitation, ‘Some slight gastric trouble, that’s all. Nothing serious, but you were quite right to call me in. One can’t be too careful with stomach problems, especially in this weather. I’ll send you over a prescription, and you might as well go easy on her for a day or two … But there’s one other thing.’ I had reached her side now, and lowered my voice. ‘I get the idea she’s pretty homesick. That hasn’t struck you?’

  She frowned. ‘She’s seemed all right so far. She’ll need time to settle in, I suppose.’

  ‘And she sleeps down here at night, I gather, all on her own? That must be lonely for her. She mentioned a set of back stairs, said she finds them creepy—’

  Her look cleared, grew almost amused. ‘Oh, that’s the trouble, is it? I thought she was above nonsense like that. She seemed a sensible enough thing when she first came out here. But you can never tell with country girls: they’re either hard as nails, wringing chickens’ necks and so on; or going off into fits, like Guster. I expect she’s seen too many unpleasant films. Hundreds is quiet, but there’s nothing queer about it.’

  I said, after a second, ‘You’ve lived here all your life, of course. You couldn’t find some way to reassure her?’

  She folded her arms. ‘Start reading her bedtime stories, perhaps?’

  ‘She’s awfully young, Miss Ayres.’

  ‘Well, we don’t treat her badly, if that’s what you’re thinking! We pay her more than we can afford. She eats the same food as us. Really, in lots of ways she’s better off than we are.’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘your brother said something like that.’

  I spoke coldly, and she coloured, not very becomingly, the blush rising into her throat and struggling patchily across her dry-looking cheeks. She turned her gaze from mine, as if in an effort to hold on to her patience. When she spoke again, however, her voice had softened a little.

  She said, ‘We’d do a great deal to keep Betty happy, if you want to know the truth. The fact is, we can’t afford to lose her. Our daily woman does what she can, but this house needs more than one servant, and we’ve found it almost impossible to get girls in the past few years; we’re just too far from the bus-routes and things like that. Our last maid stayed three days. That was back in January. Until Betty arrived, I was doing most of the work myself … But I’m glad she’s all right. Truly.’

  The blush was fading from her cheek, but her features had sunk slightly and she looked tired. I glanced over her shoulder, to the kitchen table, and saw the heap of vegetables, now washed and peeled. Then I looked at her hands, and noticed for the first time how spoiled they were, the short nails split and the knuckles reddened. That struck me as something of a shame; for they were rather nice hands, I thought.

  She must have seen the direction of my gaze. She moved as if self-conscious, turning away from me, making a ball of the tea-cloth and tossing it neatly into the kitchen so that it landed on the table beside the muddy tray. ‘Let me take you back upstairs,’ she said, with an air of bringing my visit to a close. And we mounted the stone steps in silence—the dog going with us, getting under our feet, sighing and grunting as he climbed.

  But at the turn of the stairs, where the service door led back on to the terrace, we met Roderick, just coming in.

  ‘Mother’s looking for you, Caroline,’ he said. ‘She’s wondering about tea.’ He nodded to me. ‘Hullo, Faraday. Did you reach a diagnosis? ’

  That ‘Faraday’ grated on me somewhat, given that he was twenty-four and I was nearly forty; but before I could answer, Caroline had moved towards him and looped her arm through his.

  ‘Dr Faraday thinks we’re brutes!’ she said, with a little flutter of her eyelids. ‘He thinks we’ve been forcing Betty up the chimneys, things like that.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘It’s an idea, isn’t it?’

  I said, ‘Betty’s fine. A touch of gastritis.’

  ‘Nothing infectious?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘But we’re to take her breakfast in bed,’ Caroline went on, ‘and generally spoil her, for days and days. Isn’t it lucky I know my way about the kitchen? Speaking of which—’ She looked at me properly now. ‘Don’t run away from us, Doctor. Not unless you have to. Stay and have some tea with us, will you?’

  ‘Yes, do stay,’ said Roderick.

  His tone was as limp as ever; but hers seemed genuine enough. I think she wanted to make up for our disagreement over Betty. And partly because I wanted to make up for it too—but mainly, I must admit, because I realised that in staying to tea I’d be able to see more of the house—I said I would. They moved aside for me to go on ahead of them. I went up the last few steps and emerged in a small, bland hallway, and saw the same baize-curtained arch to which I’d been led by the kindly parlourmaid in
1919. Roderick came slowly up the stairs, his sister with her arm still looped through his, but at the top she moved away from him and casually drew the curtain back.

  The passages beyond were dim, and seemed unnaturally bare, but apart from that it was just as I remembered, the house opening up like a fan—the ceiling lifting, the flagged floor becoming marble, the bare gloss service walls giving way to silk and stucco. I immediately looked for the decorative border from which I’d prised that acorn; then my eyes grew used to the gloom and I saw with dismay that a horde of schoolboy vandals might have been at work on the plaster since my first attack on it, for chunks of it had fallen away, and what was left was cracked and discoloured. The rest of the wall was not much better. There were several fine pictures and mirrors, but also darker squares and oblongs where pictures had obviously once hung. One panel of watered silk was ripped, and someone had patched and darned it like a sock.

  I turned to Caroline and Roderick, expecting embarrassment or even some sort of apology; but they led me past the damage as if quite unbothered by it. We had taken the right-hand passage, a completely interior stretch, lit only by the light of the rooms opening off it on one side; and since most of the doors we passed were shut, even on that bright day there were quite deep pools of shadow. The black Labrador, padding through them, appeared to be winking in and out of life. The passage made another ninety-degree turn—to the left, this time—and here at last a door stood properly ajar, letting out a blurred wedge of sunlight. It led to the room, Caroline told me, in which the family spent most of their time, and which had been known for years and years as ‘the little parlour’.

  Of course ‘little’, as I’d already realised, was a relative term at Hundreds Hall. The room was about thirty feet deep and twenty wide, and it was decorated in a rather hectic manner, with more moulded detail on its ceiling and walls, and an imposing marble fireplace. As in the passage, however, much of the detail was chipped or cracked, or had been lost completely. The floorboards, humped and creaking, were covered with overlapping threadbare rugs. A sagging sofa was half hidden by tartan blankets. Two worn velvet wing-backed chairs stood close to the hearth, and sitting on the floor beside one of them was a florid Victorian chamber-pot, filled with water for the dog.