The Little Stranger

  Betty had also recovered by now. Riddell, anyway, was almost finished. He was sorry to have to keep her there, he said; there was one last puzzling point he needed to clear up. She had said a moment ago that, in the seconds before she fell, Miss Ayres had called out in fear, as if to someone she knew, and that then she had been running. Had there been the sound of any other footsteps, or a voice—any other sound at all—either before the fall, or after it?

  ‘No, sir,’ said Betty.

  ‘There was definitely no other person in the house, apart from you and Miss Ayres.’

  Betty shook her head. ‘No, sir. That is—’

  She hesitated, and the hesitation made Riddell study her more closely. As I’ve said, he was a scrupulous man. A moment before, he had been ready to ask her to step down. Now he said, ‘What is it? Do you have something to say?’

  She said, ‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t like to.’

  ‘You don’t like to? What do you mean? You mustn’t be bashful or fearful, here. We are here to ascertain the facts. You must tell the truth, as the truth strikes you. Now, what is it?’

  Biting at the inside of her mouth, she said, ‘There wasn’t a person in the house, sir. But I think there was something else. Something that didn’t want Miss Caroline to leave it.’

  Riddell looked puzzled. ‘Something else?’

  ‘Please sir,’ she said, ‘the ghost.’

  She spoke fairly quietly, but the room was hushed; the words carried clearly across it, making a great impression on the gathering. There were murmurs; one person even laughed. Riddell glared around the court, then asked Betty what on earth she meant. And, rather to my horror, she began earnestly to tell him.

  She told him about the house having been, in her expression, ‘jumpy’. She said ‘a ghost lived in it’; that it was this ghost that had made Gyp bite Gillian Baker-Hyde. She said that then the ghost had started fires, and the fires had driven Mr Roderick mad; and after that the ghost had ‘spoken to Mrs Ayres, and said awful things, that made her kill herself’. And now the ghost had killed Miss Caroline too, by drawing her up to the second landing and pushing or scaring her off it. The ghost ‘hadn’t wanted her in the house, but it hadn’t wanted her to go, either’. It was ‘a spiteful ghost, and wanted the house all for its own’.

  I suppose that, having been repeatedly denied an audience at Hundreds itself, she was innocently determined to make the most of the one before her now. When there were murmurs from the crowd again, she raised her voice and her tone grew stubborn. I glanced around the room, and saw several people openly smiling; most, however, were gazing at her in fascinated disbelief. Caroline’s aunt and uncle looked outraged. The newspaper-men, of course, were busily writing the whole thing down.

  Graham bent his head to me, frowning. ‘You knew about all this?’

  I didn’t answer. The grotesque little story had come to its end, and Riddell was calling for order.

  ‘Well,’ he said to Betty when the room was silent. ‘You have told us a most extraordinary tale. Not being an expert on ghost-hunting and so on, I hardly feel qualified to comment on it.’

  Betty flushed. ‘It’s true, sir. I in’t lying!’

  ‘Yes, all right. Let me just ask you this: Did Miss Ayres herself believe in the Hundreds “ghost”? Did she think it had done all those terrible things you’ve mentioned?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. She believed it more than anyone.’

  Riddell looked grave. ‘Thank you. We are very grateful to you. You have thrown a good deal of light, I think, on Miss Ayres’s state of mind.’

  He waved her down. She hesitated, confused by his words and gesture. He dismissed her more plainly, and she went back to join her father.

  And then it was my turn. Riddell called me to the stand, and I rose and took my place, with a feeling almost of dread—almost as if this were some sort of criminal trial, with myself as the accused. The clerk swore me in, and when I spoke I had to clear my throat and say the oath over again. I asked for water, and Riddell waited, patiently, while I drank it.

  Then he began his examination. He began it by briefly reminding the court of the evidence we had heard so far.

  Our task, he said, was to determine the circumstances surrounding Miss Ayres’s fatal fall, and as far as he could see it, there were several possibilities still before us. Foul play, he thought, was not one of them; none of the pieces of evidence pointed that way. It seemed unlikely, too, given the report of Dr Graham, that Miss Ayres had become physically ill—though it was perfectly possible that she had, for whatever reason, believed herself to be ill, and that belief might have startled or weakened her to the extent of causing her to fall. Or, if we kept in mind what the family maid claimed to have heard her cry out, we might conclude that she had been startled by something else, something she had seen or fancied she had seen, and had lost her footing as a result. Working against those theories, however, was the height and obvious solidity of the Hundreds banister rail.

  But there were two further possibilities. Both were forms of suicide. Miss Ayres might have flung herself from the landing as a way of taking her own life, in a premeditated act, planned in the full clarity of mind—in other words, a felo de se. Or she might have jumped deliberately, but in response to some delusion.

  He glanced over his notes, then turned to me. I was, he knew, the Ayres family doctor. Miss Ayres and I had also—he was sorry to have to raise this, but he understood that Miss Ayres and I had recently been engaged to be married. He would attempt, he said, to keep his questions as delicate as possible, but he was anxious to establish all he could about Miss Ayres’s emotional state on the night of her death; and he hoped I would help him.

  Clearing my throat again, I said I would do my best.

  He asked me when I had last seen Caroline. I answered that I had last seen her in the afternoon of the sixteenth of May, when I had visited the Hall with Mrs Graham, my partner’s wife.

  He asked about Caroline’s state of mind at that time. She and I had only very recently broken off our engagement—was that correct?

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Had the decision been a mutual one?

  ‘You’ll forgive my asking, I hope,’ he added, perhaps in response to my expression. ‘What I’m trying to ascertain for the court is whether the separation might have left Miss Ayres unduly distressed.’

  I glanced over at the jury, and thought how much Caroline herself would have hated all this; how she would have loathed to think of us here, in our black suits, picking over the last days of her life like crows in a cornfield.

  I said quietly, ‘No, I don’t think it had left her in undue distress. She had had a—a change of heart, that’s all.’

  ‘A change of heart, I see … And one of the effects of this change of heart, I believe, was that Miss Ayres had decided to sell her family home and leave the county. What did you make of that decision?’

  ‘Well, it surprised me. I thought it drastic.’

  ‘Drastic?’

  ‘Unrealistic. Caroline had spoken of emigrating, to America or Canada. She had spoken of possibly taking her brother with her.’

  ‘Her brother, Mr Roderick Ayres, who is currently a patient at a private institution for mental cases.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His condition, I understand, is a grave one. Was Miss Ayres upset by his illness?’

  ‘Naturally she was.’

  ‘Overly upset?’

  I thought about it. ‘No, I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Did she show you tickets, or reservations, or anything like that, relating to this trip to America or Canada?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you think she meant it, sincerely?’

  ‘Well, as far as I know. She had the idea’—I paused—‘well, that England didn’t want her. That there was no place for her here now.’

  A couple of the gentry spectators nodded grimly at that. Riddell himself looked thoughtful, and was silent for a moment, adding a n
ote to the papers before him. Then he turned to the jury.

  ‘I’m very interested in these plans of Miss Ayres’s,’ he told them. ‘I’m wondering how seriously we ought to take them. On the one hand, you see, we’ve heard that she was about to begin a new life, and was full of excitement about it. On the other, the plans might have struck you, as they struck Dr Faraday and, I must confess, they’ve struck me, as rather “unrealistic”. No evidence exists to support them; all the evidence, in fact, suggests that Miss Ayres was far more concerned with ending a life than with beginning one. She had recently broken off an engagement of marriage; she had disposed of the bulk of her family’s possessions; and she was taking care to leave her empty home in good order. All this might speak to us of a suicide, carefully planned and reasoned.’

  He turned back to me.

  ‘Dr Faraday, did Miss Ayres ever strike you as the sort or person who might be capable of suicide?’

  I said after a second that I supposed any person might be capable of suicide, given the right conditions.

  ‘Did she ever mention suicide to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Her mother, of course, had recently and most tragically taken her own life. That must have affected her?’

  ‘It had affected her,’ I said, ‘in all the ways one would expect. It had put her in low spirits.’

  ‘Would you say it had made her feel hopeless about life?’

  ‘No, I—No, I wouldn’t say that.’

  He tilted his head. ‘Would you say it had affected the balance of her mind?’

  I hesitated. ‘The balance of a person’s mind,’ I started at last, ‘is sometimes a difficult thing to gauge.’

  ‘I’m certain it is. That is why I am taking such pains to try and gauge the balance of Miss Ayres’s. Did you ever have any doubts about it, Dr Faraday? Any doubts at all? This “change of heart”, for example, over your wedding. Did that seem in character to you?’

  After another hesitation I admitted that Caroline had, in fact, seemed to me to have been behaving erratically, in the final weeks of her life.

  He said, ‘What do you mean by “erratically”?’

  I said, ‘She was distant, not herself. She had … odd ideas.’

  ‘Odd ideas?’

  ‘About her family, and about her house.’

  My voice sank on these words. Peering at me rather as he had peered at Betty, he said, ‘Did Miss Ayres ever mention ghosts or phantoms to you, things like that?’

  I didn’t answer.

  He went on, ‘We have all just heard a quite extraordinary account of life at Hundreds Hall from the family’s maid, that is why I am asking. You’ll appreciate, I think, that this is an important point. Did Miss Ayres ever at any time speak to you about ghosts or phantoms?’

  I said finally, ‘Yes, she did.’

  There were more murmurs. This time Riddell ignored them. Looking fixedly at me, he said, ‘Miss Ayres seriously believed her home to be haunted?’

  I said, with reluctance, that Caroline had believed that the Hall was in the grip of some sort of influence. A supernatural influence. ‘I don’t think she ever believed in an actual ghost.’

  ‘But she believed she had seen evidence of this … supernatural influence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What form did the evidence take?’

  I took a breath. ‘She believed that her brother had more or less been driven mad by it. She believed that her mother had been affected by it, too.’

  ‘She believed, like the family maid, that the influence was responsible for her mother’s suicide?’

  ‘Broadly, yes.’

  ‘Did you encourage her in that belief?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. I deplored it. I thought it morbid. I tried my very best to discourage it.’

  ‘But the belief persisted?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you account for that?’

  I said miserably, ‘I can’t. I wish I could.’

  ‘You don’t think it was evidence of mental derangement?’

  ‘I don’t know. Caroline herself spoke to me of a—a family taint. She was afraid, I know that. But you have to understand, there were things that happened at the house—I don’t know.’

  Riddell looked troubled, removing his spectacles to pinch at the bridge of his nose. And as he worked the wire arms back around his ears he said, ‘I have to tell you, Dr Faraday, I met Miss Ayres, more than once; many people in this room knew her far better than I did. All of us, I think, would agree that she was the most level-headed of young women. That the Hundreds parlourmaid should have given way to supernatural fancies is one thing. But for an intelligent, healthy, well-bred girl like Caroline Ayres to have come to suppose herself haunted—well, surely some quite serious deterioration must have taken place? This is a terribly sad case, and I realise it may be difficult for you to admit that someone for whom you once cared very deeply was of an unbalanced state of mind. But it seems pretty clear to me that what we are dealing with here is a case of inherited family madness—a family “taint”, in Miss Ayres’s own expression. Could it be that when, in the seconds before she died, she called out “You!”, it was in response to some hallucination? That the madness already had her in its grip? We will never know. I am strongly inclined, however, to instruct the jury to return a verdict of “suicide whilst of unsound mind”.

  ‘But I am not a doctor,’ he continued. ‘You are the family physician, and I would like your support on that verdict. If you do not feel able to give me that support, you must say so, very plainly; in which case, my instruction to the jury may have to be different. Can you offer me that support, or not?’

  I gazed down at my hands; they were shaking slightly. The room was warmer than ever, and I was horribly aware of the jurors’ eyes. Again I had the sense that something was on trial here, something in which I was personally and guiltily involved.

  Was there a taint? Is that what had terrorised the family, day after day, month by month, and finally destroyed it? That was what Riddell believed, clearly, and once I would have agreed with him. I would have set out the evidence just as he had, until it told the story I wanted it to tell. But my confidence in that story was shaken now. It seemed to me that the calamity that had overtaken Hundreds Hall was a far stranger thing; not a thing to be decided on, neatly, in a small plain room in a court of law.

  But then, what was it?

  I looked up, into the sea of watchful faces. I caught sight of Graham, and Hepton, and Seeley. I think Seeley nodded slightly—though whether he was urging me to speech, or to silence, I don’t know. I saw Betty, gazing at me with her light, bewildered eyes … Then across that image there came another: the Hundreds landing, lit bright by the moon. And once again I seemed to see Caroline, making her sure-footed way along it. I saw her doubtfully mounting the stairs, as if drawn upwards by a familiar voice; I saw her advance into the darkness, not quite certain of what was before her. Then I saw her face—saw it as vividly as the faces all around me. I saw recognition, and understanding, and horror, in her expression. Just for a moment—as if it were there, in the silvered surface of her moonlit eye—I even seemed to catch the outline of some shadowy, dreadful thing—

  I seized the wooden rail in front of me, and heard Riddell say my name. The clerk hastily brought more water; there were more murmurs from the court. But the moment of giddiness had already passed, and the fragment of Hundreds nightmare that I had glimpsed had retreated into darkness. And what did it matter now, anyway? Everything was finished, now; wasted and gone. I wiped my face, and stood more steadily, and turned to Riddell to say in a toneless voice that, yes, I would support him. I believed Caroline’s mind, in the last few weeks of her life, to have become clouded, and her death to have been a suicide.

  He thanked me, and stood me down, then gave his summing up of the case. The jury retired, but with such a clear direction, they had little to debate: they soon returned, with the expected verdict and, after the usua
l formalities, the inquest was closed. People stood, chairs scraped and grated. The voices rose up. I said to Graham, ‘For God’s sake, let’s go quickly, can we?’

  He put his hand under my elbow and steered me from the room.

  I didn’t look at any of the newspapers that came out later that week, but I gather they made a great deal of Betty’s account of Hundreds being ‘haunted’. I understand that a few ghoulish people even contacted the house-agent, posing as prospective buyers in an attempt to be given a tour of the Hall; and once or twice when I was out on the Hundreds road at that time I saw cars or bicycles drawn up at the park gates, and people peering through the ironwork—as if the house had become an attraction for trippers, like a castle or a stately home. Caroline’s funeral drew spectators, for the same sort of reason, though it was kept as modest as possible by her uncle and aunt, with no pealing of the church-bell, no display of flowers, and no wake. The crowd of actual mourners was small, and I stayed well to the back of it. I took along the unworn wedding-ring, and held it in my pocket, and turned and turned it between my fingers as the coffin was lowered.

  FIFTEEN

  That was just over three years ago. Since then, I have kept very busy. When the new Health Service arrived I didn’t, as I’d feared I would, lose patients; in fact I gained them, probably partly as a result of my connection with the Ayreses, for, like those Oxfordshire squatters, many people had come across my name in the local papers and seemed to see me as a sort of ‘coming man’. I am told now that I am popular, that my manner is down-to-earth. I still practise out of Dr Gill’s old place at the top of Lidcote High Street; it still suits a bachelor, well enough. But the village is rapidly expanding, there are many new young families, and the consulting-room and dispensary look increasingly out-of-date. Graham, Seeley, and I have begun to talk of combining practices in a brand-new health centre, with Maurice Babb to build it.

  Roderick’s condition, unfortunately, has failed to improve. I had hoped that the loss of his sister might finally release him from his delusion: for what, I thought, could he possibly still have to fear from Hundreds, after that? But Caroline’s death, if anything, has had the opposite effect. He blames himself for all the tragedies, and seems bent on self-punishment. He has burnt and bruised and scalded himself so many times he’s now kept almost permanently sedated, and is the shadow of the boy he once was. I go to see him when I can. That is easier than it used to be, because with the final drying up of the family income it became impossible for him to remain at Dr Warren’s rather costly private clinic. These days he is a patient at the county mental hospital, sharing a ward with eleven other men.