The Little Stranger

  She gave a funny skip of pleasure and returned to the kitchen. I went through to the front of the house, manoeuvring my boxes carefully around the green baize curtain, then taking them on to the little parlour. I found Caroline sitting on the sofa, smoking a cigarette.

  The room was stuffy, the smoke hanging as viscidly in the warm still air as the white of an egg hangs in water, as if she’d been sitting there for some time. I put my boxes on the seat beside her, kissed her, and said, ‘This lovely day! My dear, you’ll be kippered. May I open the French window?’

  She didn’t look at the boxes. Instead she sat tensely, gazing at me, biting the inside of her mouth. She said, ‘Yes, if you like.’

  I don’t think the window had been properly opened since she and I had left the house by it to go and look at the building-work, back in January. The handles were stiff to turn, and the door-frames grated as they moved; the steps beyond were thick with creeper, just beginning to stir with life. But once the doors were ajar, the air came straight in from the garden, moist and fragrant, tinged with green.

  I went back to Caroline’s side. She was stubbing out her cigarette and had moved forward, as if to rise.

  I said, ‘Now, don’t get up. I’ve something to show you.’

  ‘I have to talk to you,’ she said.

  ‘I have to talk to you, too. I’ve been busy, on your behalf. Our behalf, I ought to say. Look here.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she began, as if she hadn’t heard me and meant to say more. But I had brought forward the largest of the boxes, and she looked at it at last and saw its label. Suddenly wary, she said, ‘What’s that?’

  Her tone made me nervous. I said, ‘I told you. I’ve been busy on your behalf.’ I licked my lips; my mouth had dried, and as I held the box out to her my confidence wavered. So I spoke in a rush.

  ‘Look, I know this is flying in the face of convention, rather, but I didn’t think you’d mind. There hasn’t been much of the conventional—well, about us. I do so want the day to be special.’

  I put the box across her lap. Now she looked almost frightened of it. When she lifted off the lid and parted the folds of tissue paper and saw the simple gown beneath, she sat in silence. Her hair fell forward, obscuring her face.

  ‘Do you like it?’ I asked her.

  She didn’t answer.

  I said, ‘I hope to God it fits. I had it made to match one of your others. Betty helped me. We’ve been quite the secret agents, she and I. There’s plenty of time to fix it, though, if it isn’t right.’

  She hadn’t moved. My heart gave a lurch, then beat on, faster than before. I said, ‘Do you like it?’

  She answered quietly, ‘Yes, very much.’

  ‘I bought something for your head and hands, too.’

  I passed her the second box, and she slowly opened it up. She saw the sprays of silk flowers inside it but, as before, she didn’t draw them from the paper; she simply sat looking down at them, her face still hidden from me by her own drooping hair. Like an idiot I pressed on, putting my hand to my jacket pocket and bringing out the little shagreen case.

  When she turned and saw that, the sight seemed to galvanise her. She got to her feet, the boxes sliding and spilling from her lap.

  She walked to the open window and stood with her back to me. Her shoulders moved; she was twisting her hands. She said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this.’

  I had scrambled to catch the gown and the flowers. I said, as I folded the dress back up, ‘Forgive me, darling. I shouldn’t have sprung it all on you. We can look at these later.’

  She half turned to me. Her voice flattened. ‘I don’t mean the dress. I mean everything. I can’t do any of it. I can’t marry you. I just can’t.’

  I was still folding the dress as she spoke, and my fingers faltered for a moment. But I returned the gown neatly to its box, and set the box on the sofa, before going across to her. She watched me approach, her pose stiff, her expression almost fearful. I placed a hand upon her shoulder, and said, ‘Caroline.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I do so like you, so very much. I always have. But I think I must have been confusing liking with … something else. For a time I wasn’t sure. That’s what’s made it so hard. You’ve been such a good friend, and I’ve been so grateful. You’ve helped me so much, with Rod, with Mother. But I don’t think one should marry out of gratitude, do you? Please say something.’

  I said, ‘My darling, I—I think you’re tired.’

  A look of dismay came into her face. She moved her shoulder to shrug off my grip. My hand slid down her arm and caught at her wrist instead. I said, ‘With everything that’s happened, it’s not surprising you’re confused. Your mother’s death—’

  ‘But I’m not a bit confused,’ she said. ‘My mother’s death was what made me begin to see things clearly. To think about what I wanted, and didn’t want. To think about what you want, too.’

  I tugged at her hand. ‘Come back to the sofa, will you? You’re tired.’

  She pulled herself free, and her voice hardened. ‘Stop saying that! It’s all you ever say to me! Sometimes—sometimes I think you want to keep me tired, that you like me to be tired.’

  I looked at her, amazed and appalled. ‘How can you say that? I want you to be well. I want you to be happy.’

  ‘But don’t you see? I shan’t be either of those things if I marry you.’

  I must have flinched. Her expression grew kinder. She said, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. I wish it wasn’t. I don’t want to hurt you. I care about you too much for that. But I think you’d prefer me to be honest with you now, wouldn’t you? Than to become your wife, knowing in my heart that I didn’t—well, that I didn’t love you?’

  Her voice dipped on those last few words, but she kept her eyes on mine and her gaze was so unwavering I began to be frightened. I reached for hand again.

  ‘Caroline, please. Think about what you’re saying, will you?’

  She shook her head, her face creasing. ‘I’ve done nothing but think since Mother’s funeral. I’ve thought so hard, my thoughts have been tangled up, like strings. They’ve only just begun to come straight.’

  I said, ‘I know I’ve rushed you. That was stupid of me. But we can … begin again. We don’t have to be like husband and wife. Not at first. Not until you’re ready. Is that the problem?’

  ‘There isn’t a problem, not like that. Not really.’

  ‘We can take our time.’

  She pulled her hand away. ‘I’ve wasted too much time already. Can’t you see? This whole thing between us, it’s never been real. After Rod went, I was so unhappy, and you were always so kind. I thought that you were unhappy, too; that you wanted to break away as much as I did. I thought that in marrying you I’d be able to … change my life. But you’ll never leave, will you? And my life wouldn’t change like that, anyway. I’d just be swapping one set of duties for another. I’m tired of duties! I can’t do it. I can’t be a doctor’s wife. I can’t be anybody’s wife. And most of all, I can’t stay here.’

  She spoke these last words with something like loathing, and when I stared at her, not understanding, she said, ‘I’m going away. That’s what I’m telling you. I’m leaving Hundreds.’

  I said, ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘You can’t! Where the hell do you think you’re going to go?’

  ‘I haven’t decided. London, at first. But after that, perhaps America, or Canada.’

  She might as well have said ‘the moon’. Catching my look of disbelief, she said again, ‘I have to! Don’t you see? I need to … get out. Get right away. England’s no good any more for someone like me. It doesn’t want me.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, ‘I want you! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Do you, really?’ she asked me. ‘Or is it the house you want?’

  The question stunned me, and I couldn’t answer. She went on quietly, ‘A week ago y
ou told me you were in love with me. Can you truly say you would feel the same, if Hundreds weren’t my home? You’ve had the idea, haven’t you, that you and I could live here as husband and wife. The squire and his lady … But this house doesn’t want me. I don’t want it. I hate this house!’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Of course it’s true! How could I do anything but hate it? My mother was killed here, Gyp was killed here; Rod might as well have been killed here. I don’t know why nothing’s ever tried to kill me. Instead, I’m being given this chance to get away.—No, don’t look like that.’ I’d moved towards her. ‘I’m not going crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking. Though I’m not sure you wouldn’t quite like that, too. You could keep me upstairs in the nursery. The bars are already on the windows, after all.’

  She was like a stranger to me. I said, ‘How can you say these terrible things? After all I’ve done, for you, for your family?’

  ‘You think I should repay you, by marrying you? Is that what you think marriage is—a kind of payment?’

  ‘You know I don’t think that. For Christ’s sake! I just—Our life together, Caroline. You’re going to throw it all away?’

  ‘I’m sorry. But I told you: none of it was real.’

  My voice broke. ‘I’m real. You’re real. Hundreds is real, isn’t it? What the hell do you think’s going to happen to this house if you leave it? It’ll fall apart!’

  She turned away from me, saying wearily, ‘Well, someone else can worry about that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She turned back, frowning. ‘I shall be putting the estate up for sale, of course. The house, the farm—everything. I shall need the money.’

  I thought I had understood her; I hadn’t understood at all. I said, in absolute horror, ‘You’re not serious. The estate could get broken up; anything could happen. You can’t possibly mean it! For one thing, it isn’t yours to sell. It belongs to your brother.’

  Her eyelids fluttered a little. She said, ‘I’ve spoken to Dr Warren. And the day before yesterday I went to see Mr Hepton, our solicitor. When Rod was first ill, at the end of the war, he drew up a power of attorney, in case Mother and I should ever have to make decisions about the estate on his behalf. The document still holds, Mr Hepton says. I can put the sale through. I’ll only be doing what Rod himself would do, if he were well. And I think he will start to get well, once the house has gone. And when he’s really better—well, wherever I am, I’ll send for him, he can come and join me.’

  She spoke levelly, reasonably, and I saw that she meant it, every word. A kind of panic closed my throat and I began to cough. The cough rose up in me like a convulsion, sudden, violent, and dry. I had to move away from her to lean against the frame of the open French window, shuddering and almost retching over the creeper-choked steps outside.

  She put out her hand to me. I said, as the cough subsided, ‘Don’t touch me, I’m all right.’ I wiped my mouth. ‘I saw Hepton the day before yesterday, too. I ran into him in Leamington. We had a pleasant little chat.’

  She knew what I meant, and for the first time looked ashamed. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So you keep saying.’

  ‘I should have told you sooner. I shouldn’t have let things go so far.

  I … wanted to be sure. I’ve been rather a coward, I know that.’

  ‘And I’ve been rather a fool, haven’t I?’

  ‘Please don’t say that. You’ve been so awfully decent and kind.’

  ‘Well, what fun they’ll have with me now, in Lidcote! Serve me right, I suppose, for looking outside my class.’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘Isn’t that what people will say?’

  ‘Not nice people, no.’

  ‘No,’ I said, straightening up. ‘You’re right. What they’ll say is this. They’ll say, “Poor, plain Caroline Ayres. Doesn’t she realise that even in Canada she’ll never find another man who wants her?” ’

  I said the words deliberately, straight into her face. Then I went back across the room to the sofa and caught up the dress.

  ‘You’d better keep this,’ I said, bundling it up and throwing it at her. ‘God knows, you need it. Keep these, as well.’ I threw the flowers. They landed, quivering, at her feet.

  Then I saw the little shagreen box, which I had set down, without thinking, when she’d first begun to speak. I opened it up, and took out the heavy gold ring; and I threw that at her, too. I’m ashamed to say that I threw it hard, meaning to hit her. She dodged away, and the ring went out through the open window. I thought it went out cleanly, but it must have glanced against one of the glass doors as it went. There came a sound like an air-pistol firing, astonishingly loud in the Hundreds silence, and a crack appeared, as if from nowhere, in one of the handsome old panes.

  The sight and the sound of it frightened me. I looked at Caroline’s face and saw that she was frightened, too. I said, ‘Oh, Caroline, forgive me’—taking a step towards her with my arms outstretched. But she stepped hastily back, almost scuttling, and to see her moving away from me like that made me sick with myself. I turned and left her, going out into the passage—almost colliding with Betty as I did it. She had come up, with the laden tea-tray—come up with excitement in her eyes, hoping for the look that I had promised her at Miss Caroline’s fine new wedding things.

  FOURTEEN

  I can hardly describe the state of my feelings over the next few hours. Even the journey back into Lidcote was somehow a torment, my thoughts seeming to be whipped up, by the motion of the car, like furiously spinning tops. As bad luck would have it, too, on my way into the village I saw Helen Desmond: she raised her hand excitedly to me, and it was impossible not to stop and wind down my window and exchange a few words with her. She had something to ask me about the wedding; I couldn’t bear to tell her what had just passed between Caroline and me, so had to listen, nodding and smiling, making a pretence of thinking the matter through, saying I would check with Caroline and would be sure to let her know. What she made of my manner, God knows. My face felt taut as a mask to me, and my voice sounded half strangled. I managed to get away from her at last by saying I had an urgent call to make; arriving home, I found that there was, in fact, a message waiting for me, a request that I look in on a bad case in a house a couple of miles away. But the thought of climbing back into my car absolutely appalled me. I didn’t trust myself not to run it off the road. After a minute of rather agonised indecision I wrote a note to David Graham, telling him I’d been struck down with a violent stomach upset and asking him to take the case, and to take my evening surgery patients too, if he could manage them. I told my housekeeper the same story, and once she had carried off the message and brought back Graham’s sympathetic reply, I gave her the rest of the day off. The moment she had gone I pinned a notice to my surgery door, shot the bolt, and drew the curtains. I got out the bottle of brown sherry I kept in my desk, and, there in my dimmed dispensary, with people going busily by on the other side of the window, I drank glass after choking glass of it.

  It was all I could think of to do. My mind, sober, felt as though it would burst. The simple loss of Caroline was hard enough to bear, but the loss of her was the loss of so much more. Everything I’d planned and hoped for, I could see it—I could see it, melting away from me! I was like a thirsty man reaching after a mirage of water—putting out my hands to the vision and watching it turn to dust. And then there was all the stab and humiliation of having supposed it to be mine. I thought of the people who must now be told: Seeley, Graham, the Desmonds, the Rossiters—everyone. I saw their sympathetic or pitying faces, and I imagined the sympathy and pity turning, behind my back, to scandal and satisfaction … I couldn’t bear it. I got to my feet and paced about—just as I’d very often seen very ill patients attempting to pace away pain. I drank as I walked, giving up on the glass, supping straight from the bottle, the sherry spilling over my chin. And when the bottle was finished I went upstairs and sta
rted turning out the cupboards in the parlour, looking for another. I found a flask of brandy, and some dusty sloe gin, and a small sealed keg of pre-war Polish spirit I had once won at a charity raffle and had never had the courage to try. I put them together to make one vile mixture and swallowed it down, coughing and spluttering as I drank. I would have done better to take a tranquilliser; I wanted the squalor of drunkenness, I suppose. I remember lying on my bed in my shirt-sleeves, still drinking, until I slept or passed out. I remember waking in darkness, hours later, and being violently sick. Then I slept again, and next time I woke I was shivering; the night had cooled. I crept under the blankets, ill and ashamed. And after that I didn’t sleep again. I watched the window lighten, and my thoughts, like icy water, ran brutally clear. I said to myself, Of course you’ve lost her. How could you think you ever had her? Look at you! Look at the state of you! You don’t deserve her.

  But by one of those tricks of self-protection, once I’d risen, and washed, and queasily made myself a pot of coffee, my mood began slightly to lift. The day was fine and mild and spring-like, just as the previous day had been, and it seemed impossible suddenly that between the dawning of one and the dawning of the other things could have changed so disastrously. My mind ran over the scene with Caroline, and now that the first sting of her words and manner had worn itself out I began to feel amazed that I had taken her so seriously. I reminded myself that she was exhausted, depressed, still in shock from her mother’s death and from all the dark events that had led to it. She had been behaving erratically for weeks, succumbing to one outlandish idea after another, and I had managed to talk her into behaving sensibly every time. Surely this was just a final piece of wildness, the culmination of so much anxiety and strain? Surely I could talk sense into her again? I began to be certain that I could. I began to think that, in fact, she might be longing for it. She might have been almost testing my reactions, wanting something from me that I’d so far failed to give.