The Little Stranger

  She raised her other hand to her face, trying to escape from their gazes.

  ‘They’re all looking at me. What are they looking for?’

  I squeezed her fingers. ‘Be brave.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can be.’

  ‘Yes, you can. Look at me. I’m here. I shan’t leave you.’

  ‘No, don’t leave me!’ she said, turning her face to me, gripping my hand as if the idea startled her.

  The church-bell was tolling as we crossed the churchyard, unnaturally loud and plaintive in the crisp, windless air. Caroline kept her head lowered, her arm linked heavily with mine, but once we had entered the church itself she grew calmer, for then it was simply a question of getting through the service, making the correct responses and so on, and she did that in the efficient, perfunctory way she had done all the other tasks and duties of the past few days. She even joined in with the hymns. I had never heard her sing before. She sang as she spoke, tunefully, the words coming clean and whole from her well-shaped mouth.

  The service was not a long one, but the vicar, Mr Spender, had known Mrs Ayres for many years, and gave a feeling little speech about her. He called her ‘an old-fashioned lady’—just the phrase I’d heard other people use. He said she was ‘part of a different, more gracious age’, as if she’d been rather older than she was, almost the last of her generation. He remembered the death of her daughter, Susan; he was sure, he said, that most of us remembered it, too. Mrs Ayres, he reminded us, had walked behind her child’s coffin that day, and it seemed to him that, in her heart, she must have continued to walk behind it every day of her life. Our consolation now, in the tragedy of her death, was to know that she had joined it.

  I glanced across the congregation as he spoke, and saw many people nodding sadly at his words. None of them, of course, had seen Mrs Ayres in her final few weeks, when she had been in the grip of a delusion so powerful, so grotesque, it had seemed almost to cast a spell of gloom and torment over the solid inanimate objects around her. But as we made our way out to the churchyard, to the opened family plot, it seemed to me that perhaps Spender was right. There was no spell, there was no shadow, there was no kind of mystery. Things were very simple. Caroline stood beside me, blameless; Hundreds, a thing of brick and mortar, was blameless too; and Mrs Ayres, unhappy Mrs Ayres, was to be reunited with her lost little girl at last.

  The prayers were said, the coffin was lowered, and we moved away from the grave. People began to approach Caroline, wanting to exchange a few words of condolence with her. Jim Seeley and his wife shook her hand. They were followed by Maurice Babb, the builder, and then by Graham and Anne. They stayed with her for several minutes, and while they spoke I saw that Seeley had hung back and was looking my way. After a slight hesitation I stepped aside to join him.

  ‘A grim day,’ he murmured. ‘How’s Caroline holding up?’

  I said, ‘All things considered, pretty well. A bit withdrawn, that’s all.’

  He gazed over at her. ‘Bound to be. I expect it’s now she’ll start to feel it. But you’re looking after her.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Yes, other people have commented on that. I think I’m to congratulate you, in fact?’

  I said, ‘It hardly feels like a day for congratulation, but’—inclining my head, pleased and self-conscious—‘yes.’

  He tapped my arm. ‘I’m glad for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Seeley.’

  ‘Caroline, too. God knows, she deserves her bit of happiness. If you take my advice, you won’t hang about, the pair of you, once this is all out of the way. Get her away, give her a nice honeymoon. A fresh start and so on.’

  ‘I intend to,’ I said.

  ‘Good man.’

  His wife called to him. Caroline turned as if looking for me, and I went back to her side. Her arm moved heavily through mine again, and I wished with all my heart that I could simply take her home to Hundreds and see her safely to her bed. But a party of people had been invited to the Hall for the obligatory drinks, and there followed a trying few minutes as we worked out who could travel with whom, who might be squeezed into the undertakers’ vehicles and who could share a private car. Seeing Caroline growing anxious about it, I sent her off in the care of her Sussex uncle and aunt, and I ran to fetch my own Ruby, which had room for myself and three passengers. I was joined by the Desmonds, and by a stray young man with a slight look of Roderick about him, who turned out to be Caroline’s cousin on her father’s side. He was a nice boy, sympathetic, but clearly not overly affected by Mrs Ayres’s death, for he kept up a light flow of conversation with us all the way to Hundreds. He hadn’t visited the Hall in more than ten years, and seemed naively pleased to have this chance to see the place again. He had used to come up here with his parents, he said, and had many happy memories of the house, the gardens, the park … He only fell silent as we started to bump our way along the tangled drive. When we broke free of the laurel and nettle and drew up on the sweep of gravel, I saw him looking at the blind-eyed house as if he couldn’t believe it.

  ‘You find it changed, I’m afraid?’ Bill Desmond said to him, as the four of us climbed out.

  ‘Changed!’ the boy said. ‘I wouldn’t have known it as the same place! It looks like something from a horror film. No wonder my aunt—’ He bit off the words, embarrassed, his young cheek flaring.

  But as we joined the small crowd of mourners making their way to the little parlour, I could see other people looking around, clearly thinking the same thing. There were about twenty-five of us: too many, really, for the room, but there was simply nowhere else we could have gathered, and Caroline had made extra space by pushing back the furniture—unfortunately, in the process, exposing the worst of the threadbare carpets and the rips and wear in the furniture itself. To some of the guests I suppose this looked no worse than eccentric, but to anyone who had known the Hall in its grander days the house’s decline must have been shocking. Caroline’s Sussex aunt and uncle, in particular, had already had a good look round. They had seen the saloon, with its sagging ceiling and its torn wallpaper, and the blackened ruin that had once been Roderick’s room; and they had gazed across the unkempt park at the breach in the wall and at the red council houses that seemed to have sprung up inside it like so many toadstools. They still looked stunned. Like the Desmonds and the Rossiters, they thought it out of the question that Caroline should remain at the Hall alone. When I went in, they had drawn her aside and were trying to persuade her to return with them to Sussex that afternoon. She was shaking her head.

  ‘I can’t think about leaving just yet,’ I heard her say. ‘I can’t think about anything yet.’

  ‘Well, all the more reason for us to look after you, surely?’

  ‘Please—’

  She tucked back her hair, her fingers clumsy, the hair separating into strands across her cheek. She was dressed in a plain black gown and her throat was exposed, so pale one could see the veins in it, blue as bruises. ‘Please don’t go on about it,’ she was saying, as I went over to her side. ‘I know you’re only trying to be kind.’

  I touched her arm, and she turned to me, grateful. She said in a softer voice, ‘You’re here. Has everyone arrived?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said gently, ‘everyone’s here, you mustn’t worry. Everything’s fine. Would you like a drink, something to eat?’

  The table had a spread of sandwiches on it. Betty was beside it, filling plates, pouring drinks, her cheek almost as white as Caroline’s and her eyes red. She hadn’t come to the funeral; she had stayed here, getting things ready.

  Caroline shook her head as if the idea of food made her queasy. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘I think a glass of sherry would do you good.’

  ‘No, not even that. But perhaps, my aunt and uncle—?’

  The aunt and uncle, for the moment, seemed relieved that I had arrived. I had been introduced to them before the funeral as the family doctor; we had spoken a little about Mrs Ayres’s illn
ess, and about Roderick’s, and I think they had been glad to see how closely I was keeping at Caroline’s side—for, not unnaturally, they supposed my presence to be a mainly professional one, and Caroline looked so desperately tired and pale. Now the aunt said, ‘Doctor, do back us up. It would be different if Roderick were here. But Caroline can’t stay on in this great house all by herself. We want her to come to Sussex with us.’

  ‘And what does Caroline want?’ I said.

  The woman drew in her chin. She resembled her sister, Mrs Ayres, but was built on a larger, less charming scale. She said, ‘All things considered, I don’t think Caroline is in much of a position to know what she wants! She’s dropping on her feet. Surely a change of scene can only be good for her. As her doctor, you must agree.’

  ‘As her doctor,’ I said, ‘I probably do. In other respects—well, I’m afraid I shouldn’t be at all happy to see Caroline leave Warwickshire just now.’

  I smiled as I said this, and returned my hand to Caroline’s arm. Caroline shifted, conscious of the pressure of my fingers, but I think most of what had been said had passed her by; she was gazing around the room, anxious that all was as it should be. I saw her aunt’s expression change. There was a pause. Then she said, in a slightly crisper tone, ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name, Doctor.’

  I repeated it. She said, ‘Faraday … No, I don’t believe my sister ever mentioned you.’

  I said, ‘I don’t imagine she did. But we were talking about Caroline, I think?’

  ‘Caroline’s in a rather vulnerable state.’

  ‘I quite agree with you.’

  ‘When I think of her here, alone and friendless—’

  ‘But she’s hardly that. Look about you: she has many friends. More, I think, than she would have in Sussex.’

  The woman gazed at me, frustrated. She turned to her niece.

  ‘Caroline, do you truly want to stay here? I shan’t be easy about it, you know. If anything should happen to you, your uncle and I would never forgive ourselves.’

  ‘Happen to me?’ said Caroline, puzzled, her attention drawn back to us. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean if something should happen to you here, while you’re alone in this house.’

  ‘But nothing can happen to me now, Aunt Cissie,’ Caroline said. ‘There’s nothing left to happen.’

  She was speaking seriously, I think. But the older woman looked at her, and perhaps imagined that she was making a grim attempt at humour. I saw, in her expression, the faintest stirring of distaste. ‘Well, of course you aren’t a child,’ she said, ‘and your uncle and I can’t force you—’

  At that point the discussion was broken up by the arrival of another guest. Caroline excused herself, and moved dutifully to greet him; and I also moved on.

  The gathering, understandably, was a very subdued one. There were no speeches, no attempts to follow the vicar’s example and find some touches of comfort in the gloom. It seemed harder to do that here, with the obvious derangement of the house and landscape so brutally recalling that of Mrs Ayres herself; and it was impossible not to remember that the suicide had happened in a room just a few feet over our heads. People stood about, talking awkwardly, in murmurs, not as if simply unhappy, but as if unsettled, unnerved. Now and then they would glance at Caroline, as her aunt had, with a touch of disquiet. As I moved from group to group I heard several people quietly speculating on what would happen to the Hall now—confident, apparently, that Caroline would have to give it up, that the place could have no future.

  I began to resent them all. It seemed to me that they had come here, knowing nothing about the house, and nothing about Caroline and what was best for her, yet were making judgements and assumptions as if that were their right. I was relieved when, after an hour or so, people began to apologise and slip away. Because so many had shared vehicles, the crowd thinned very quickly. Soon, too, the visitors from Sussex and Kent began to look at their watches, thinking of the long, uncomfortable car rides or train journeys ahead of them. One by one they went to Caroline to say their emotional goodbyes, to kiss and embrace her; the aunt and uncle made one last fruitless attempt to persuade her to leave. I saw her growing tireder with every farewell: she was like a flower, being passed from hand to hand, wilting and bruising. When the final guests left she and I went with them to the front door, to stand on the cracked steps and watch their cars rasp away across the gravel. Then she closed her eyes and covered her face; her shoulders sank, and it was all I could do to catch her in my arms and lead her, stumbling, back to the warmth of the little parlour. I put her to sit in one of the wing-backed chairs—her mother’s chair, it had used to be—beside the fire.

  She rubbed her forehead. ‘Is it really over? This has been the longest day of my life. I think my head is about to burst.’

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t fainted,’ I said. ‘You’ve eaten nothing.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t.’

  ‘Just a little something? Please?’

  But she wouldn’t take food, no matter what I offered. So finally I mixed her up a glass of sherry, sugar, and hot water, and she drank that, with a couple of aspirins, while I stood and watched. When Betty began to clear the table and rearrange the room, she automatically rose to help; I gently but firmly pushed her back down, and brought her extra cushions and a blanket, and I took the shoes from her feet and briefly rubbed her stockinged toes. She looked on unhappily as Betty gathered plates, but soon her weariness overtook her. She drew up her legs, rested her cheek against the worn velvet nap of the chair, and closed her eyes.

  I looked at Betty, touching my finger to my lips. We worked quietly together, gently loading trays, tiptoeing with them from the room, and down in the kitchen I took off my jacket and stood at the girl’s side, drying the crockery and glasses as she passed them, soapy, from the sink. She didn’t seem to find it odd. I didn’t find it odd, either. The Hall had been knocked out of its routines, and there was a comfort to be had—I’d seen it, in other bereaved houses—in little ordinary chores, conscientiously done.

  But when the washing up was finished, her narrow shoulders drooped; and partly because I’d begun to realise how hungry I was, but also simply to keep her occupied, I had her heat up a pan of soup, and we took a bowlful each to the table. And as I set down my bowl and spoon on the table’s scrubbed deal top, I found myself growing thoughtful.

  I said, ‘The last time I sat down to eat at this table, Betty, I was ten years old. My mother was with me—sitting just where you are.’

  She turned up her tear-reddened eyes to me, uncertainly. ‘Is it a funny thought, sir?’

  I smiled. ‘It is, a bit. I certainly never guessed then that I’d be back here one day, quite like this. I dare say my mother never guessed it, either. A pity she didn’t live to see it … I wish I’d been kinder to my mother, Betty. My father, too. I hope you’re nicer to your parents!’

  She put an elbow on the table and rested her cheek on her hand. ‘They get on me nerves,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘Me dad made all that fuss about me coming out here. Now he’s on at me to leave.’

  I said, alarmed, ‘He isn’t, is he?’

  ‘He is. He’s been reading all the papers, and he says the house is turned too queer. Mrs Bazeley says the same. She came in this morning, but when she went she took her apron. She says she in’t going to come back again. She says what happened with madam was too much; her nerves in’t up to it. She says she’d sooner take in laundry, like a washing-woman … I don’t think she’s told Miss Caroline yet.’

  I said, ‘Well, I’m very sorry to hear it. You’re not going to give your notice, are you?’

  She ate her soup, not looking at me. ‘I don’t know. It in’t the same without madam.’

  ‘Oh, Betty, please don’t. I know the house is an unhappy one just now. But we’re all Miss Caroline has left, you and I. I can’t be here all the time to keep an eye on her; but you can. If you were to leave—’

  ‘
I don’t want to leave, not really. I don’t want to go back home, anyway! It’s just, me dad.’

  She sounded genuinely torn, and I found her loyalty to the house, after everything that had happened, rather touching. I watched her eat a little more, thinking over what she’d told me, then I said cautiously, ‘How about if you were able to tell your father, well, that things might soon be changing here at Hundreds?’ I hesitated. ‘If you were able to tell him, say, that Miss Caroline was going to be married—’

  ‘Married!’ She looked amazed. ‘Who to?’

  I smiled. ‘Well, who do you think?’

  She understood, and blushed; and, stupidly, I blushed, too. I said, ‘Now, you’re not to go talking about it. Some people know; most people don’t.’

  She had straightened up, growing excited. ‘Oh, when is it to be?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. It hasn’t been fixed.’

  ‘And what will Miss Caroline wear? Will it have to be black, because of madam?’

  I said, ‘Good heavens, I don’t think so! This isn’t the eighteen nineties. Come on now, eat your soup.’

  But her eyes were filling with tears. She said, ‘Oh, but in’t it a shame that madam won’t be here to see it! And who’s to give Miss Caroline away? It ought to be Mr Roderick, oughtn’t it?’

  ‘Well, I fear Mr Roderick will still be too poorly.’

  ‘Who will it be, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. Mr Desmond, perhaps. Or perhaps nobody. Miss Caroline can give herself away, can’t she?’

  She looked horrified. ‘She can’t do that!’

  We talked it over for a few more minutes—both of us glad of the lightness of the subject, after that hard day. When we had finished our dinners she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, then took the bowls and spoons to the sink. I put my jacket back on, then ladled out another portion of soup, and set it, covered, on a tray, to take upstairs to the little parlour.