The Little Stranger (11 page)

Graham and Anne, tickled by the thought of me hobnobbing with the Ayreses instead of having a Sunday supper with them, had asked me to call in for a drink on my way to the party. I went in sheepishly, and, as I’d expected, Graham laughed out loud at the sight of me. Anne, more kindly, took a clothes-brush to my shoulders, then had me undo my tie so that she could re-knot it herself.

‘There. You look perfectly handsome,’ she told me when she’d finished, in that voice nice women use for complimenting unhand-some men.

Graham said, ‘I hope you put a vest on! Morrison went up to some evening do at the Hall a few years ago. He said it was the coldest night of his life.’

As it happened, the hot summer had given way to a very mixed autumn, and the day had been cool and damp. The rain set in in earnest as I left Lidcote, transforming the dusty country lanes into streams of mud. I had to run from the car with a blanket over my head to open up the gates of the park, and when I emerged from the clinging wet drive and drew up on the sweep of gravel, I gazed at the Hall in some fascination: I’d never been out there so late in the day before and, with its uneven outline, it looked as though it were bleeding itself into the rapidly darkening sky. I hurried up the steps and tugged on the doorbell—the rain tumbling down, now, like water from a pail. No one came in answer to my ring. My hat began to sag about my ears. So finally, in fear of drowning, I opened up the unlocked door and let myself in.

It was one of the tricks of the house, to have distinctly different atmospheres inside and out. The sound of the rain faded as I pushed the door closed behind me, and I found the hall with soft electric lights on, just bright enough to bring out the gleam of the newly polished marble floor. There were bowls of flowers on every table, late-summer roses and bronze chrysanthemums. The floor above was dimly lit, the floor above that even dimmer, so the staircase ascended into shadows; the glass dome in the roof held the last of the evening twilight, and seemed suspended in the darkness, a great translucent disc. The silence was perfect. When I had removed my sodden hat and brushed the water from my shoulders I stepped softly forward, and just stood looking upwards for a minute in the centre of the shining floor.

Then I moved on, along the south passage. The little parlour proved to be warm, and lit, but empty; going further, I saw a stronger light at the open doorway of the saloon, so headed for that. At the sound of my step, Gyp started barking; a second later he came prancing out to me, wanting fuss. He was followed by Caroline’s voice: ‘Roddie, is that you?’

The words had a note of strain to them. Moving closer, I called back diffidently, ‘It’s only me, I’m afraid! Dr Faraday. I let myself in, I hope you don’t mind. Am I hopelessly early?’

I heard her laugh. ‘Not at all. It’s we who are hopelessly late. Come and find me! I can’t come to you.’

She was speaking, it turned out, from the top of a small step-ladder, at one of the saloon’s far walls. I couldn’t tell why, at first; I was too dazzled by the saloon itself. The room had been striking enough when I had seen it in a half-light with its furniture sheeted, but now its delicate sofas and chairs were all uncovered, and its chandelier—one of those chandeliers, presumably, that had given Betty her blisters—was blazing like a furnace. Several other smaller lamps were also burning, and the light was caught and returned by touches of gold on various ornaments and mirrors, and above all by the still-bright Regency yellow of the walls.

Caroline saw me blinking. ‘Your eyes will soon stop watering, don’t worry. Take off your coat, won’t you, and help yourself to a drink? Mother’s still dressing, and Rod has got himself stuck sorting out some problem at the farm. But I’ve almost finished here.’

Then I realised what she was doing: she was working her way around the room with a handful of drawing-pins, fixing down the edges of yellow paper that were drooping or bulging from the walls. I went across to help her, but she pressed in the final pin as I reached her side; so then I held the wooden ladders, and offered my hand, to steady her as she came down. She had to do it carefully, lifting up the hem of her skirt: she was wearing a blue chiffon evening gown and silver shoes and gloves; her hair was pinned up at one side with a diamanté clasp. The gown was an old one and, to be honest, not quite becoming. The low neckline showed her prominent collarbones and the tendons of her throat, and the bodice was too tight for the swell of her bust. She had a touch of colour on her eyelids, and rouge on her cheeks, and her mouth, red with lipstick, was almost startlingly full and large. I thought, actually, how much nicer and more like herself she would have looked with a scrubbed face, and in one of her shapeless old skirts and an Aertex blouse; and how much I would rather have seen her in them. But I was conscious of my own deficiencies, in that hard light. As I handed her safely to the floor I said, ‘You look lovely, Caroline.’

Her rouged cheeks grew a shade pinker. Avoiding my eye, she spoke to the dog.

‘And he hasn’t even had a drink yet! Think how good I’ll look through the bottom of a cocktail, eh Gyp?’

She was ill at ease, I realised, and not quite herself. I imagined she was simply anxious about the night ahead. She tugged the bell for Betty; there came the stifled creak of the wire, shifting invisibly in the wall. Then she took me over to the sideboard, where she had set out a range of handsome old cut crystal glasses and what, for the times, was a quite impressive selection of drinks: sherry, gin, Italian vermouth, bitters, and lemonade. I had brought along a half-bottle of Navy rum as a contribution to the party; we had just poured out two small glasses of it when Betty appeared, in answer to the bell. She had been spruced up along with everything else in the house: her cuffs, collar, and apron were blindingly white, and her cap was fancier than usual, with a stiff vertical frill like the wafer on an ice-cream sundae. But she had been putting plates of sandwiches together downstairs, and looked warm and slightly harassed. Caroline had called her to take away the step-ladder, so she went quickly and not very gracefully over to pick it up. She must have done it too hastily, however, or had underestimated its weight: she took a couple of steps with it and it went crashing to the floor.

Caroline and I both started, and the dog began to bark.

‘Gyp, you idiot, be quiet!’ Caroline said. Then, in the same voice, to Betty: ‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘I in’t doing nothin’!’ the girl answered, tossing her head, her cap slipping. ‘Them ladders is jumpy, that’s all. Everything’s jumpy, in this house!’

‘Oh, don’t be so stupid.’

‘I in’t being stupid!’

‘All right,’ I said quietly, helping Betty pick up the step-ladder and find a firmer grip on it. ‘It’s all right. Nothing’s broken. Now, can you manage?’

She gazed balefully at Caroline, but carried the ladders away in silence—narrowly avoiding Mrs Ayres, who had just arrived at the doorway and had caught the end of the fuss.

‘What a commotion!’ she said, coming into the room. ‘Good heavens! ’ Then she saw me. ‘Dr Faraday, here you are already. How nice you look, too. What on earth must you think of us?’

She smoothed out her manner and her expression as she came forward, and offered me her hand. She was dressed like an elegant French widow, in a dark silk gown. On her head she had a black lace shawl, a sort of fine mantilla, fastened at the throat with a cameo brooch. As she passed beneath the chandelier she squinted upwards, her high cheeks lifting.

‘How very fierce these lights seem, don’t they! Surely they were never so bright in the old days? I suppose one’s eyes were younger then … Caroline, darling, let me look at you.’

Caroline seemed less at ease than ever after the row over the ladder. She struck a mannequin’s pose and said, in a mannequin’s voice, rather brittle: ‘Will I do? Not quite up to your high standard, I know.’

‘Oh, what nonsense,’ said her mother. Her tone reminded me of Anne’s. ‘You look very well indeed. Just straighten your gloves, that’s right … No sign of Roderick yet? I do hope he isn’t dragging his heels. This afternoon he was grumbling about his evening clothes, saying they were all too loose. I told him, really, he’s lucky to have any at all.—Thank you, Dr Faraday. Yes, a sherry, please.’

I handed her the drink; she took the glass, smiling distractedly into my face.

‘Can you imagine?’ she said. ‘It’s been so long since the house was opened up, I feel almost nervous.’

I said, ‘Well, no one would guess it.’

She wasn’t listening. ‘I would be calmer with my son at my side. Sometimes, you know, I think he forgets he’s master of Hundreds.’

From what I had seen of Roderick in the past few weeks I thought it very unlikely indeed that he ever did that; and I looked at Caroline, and saw her plainly thinking the same thing. But Mrs Ayres continued to gaze restlessly about. She took a single sip of her drink, then set down her glass and went over to the sideboard, concerned that not enough bottles of sherry had been put out. After that she checked the boxes of cigarettes, and tried the flames of the table lighters, one by one. Then a sudden gust of smoke from the fireplace took her over to the hearth, to fret about the unswept chimney and the basket of damp wood.

But there wasn’t time to fetch new logs. As she straightened up we heard the echo of voices out in the passage, and the first of the real guests appeared: Bill and Helen Desmond, a Lidcote couple I knew slightly; a Mr and Mrs Rossiter I knew only by sight; and an elderly spinster, Miss Dabney. They had come all together, squashed into the Desmonds’ car to save fuel. They were complaining about the weather, and Betty was loaded with their wet coats and hats. She showed them into the saloon, her own cap straight again; the touch of temper seemed to have passed. I caught her eye, and gave her a wink. She looked startled for a second, then tucked in her chin and smiled like a child.

None of the newcomers knew me, in my evening clothes. Rossiter was a retired magistrate, Bill Desmond owned a great deal of land, and they weren’t the sort of people I usually mixed with. Desmond’s wife was the first to recognise me.

‘Oh!’ she said anxiously. ‘No one’s unwell, I hope?’

‘Unwell?’ said Mrs Ayres. Then, with a light society laugh, ‘Ah, no. The doctor’s our guest tonight! Mr and Mrs Rossiter, you know Dr Faraday, I expect? And you, Miss Dabney?’

Miss Dabney, as it happened, I had treated once or twice. She was something of a hypochondriac, the sort of a patient a doctor could make quite a decent living out of. But she was old-fashioned ‘quality’, with rather a high-handed way with GPs, and I think she was surprised to find me there at Hundreds with a glass of rum in my hand. The surprise, however, was swallowed up in the general stir of arrival, for everyone had something to say about the room; there were drinks to be poured and handed out; and there was Gyp, amiable Gyp, who went nosing his way from person to person, to be fussed over and petted.

Then Caroline offered cigarettes, and the guests got a proper look at her.

‘My word!’ said Mr Rossiter, with heavy gallantry. ‘And who is this young beauty?’

Caroline tilted her head. ‘Only plain old Caroline underneath the lipstick, I’m afraid.’

‘Now don’t be silly, my dear,’ said Mrs Rossiter, taking a cigarette from the box. ‘You look charming. You are your father’s daughter, and he was a very handsome man.’ She spoke to Mrs Ayres. ‘The Colonel would have liked to see the room like this, wouldn’t he, Angela? He so enjoyed a party. A tremendous dancer; tremendous poise. I remember seeing you dancing together once at Warwick. It was a pleasure to watch you; you were like thistledown. The young people today don’t seem to know the old dances, and as for the modern dances—well, now I dare say I’m showing my age, but the modern dances always seem to me so vulgar. So much hopping about; like a scene from a mental ward! It can’t be good for one. What do you say, Dr Faraday?’

I made some anodyne response, and we talked the matter over for a time; but the conversation soon returned to the great parties and balls that the county had hosted in the past, and I had less to contribute. ‘That must have been nineteen twenty-eight or ’twenty-nine,’ I heard Miss Dabney say, of some particularly glittering event; and I was just wryly picturing my life in those years, as a medical student in Birmingham, dead on my feet through overwork, permanently hungry, and living in a Dickensian garret with a hole in its roof, when Gyp began to bark. Caroline caught hold of his collar to keep him from racing from the room. We became aware of voices in the passage, one of them apparently a child’s—‘Is there a dog?’—and our own voices died away. A group of people appeared in the doorway: two men in lounge suits, a good-looking woman in a vivid cocktail gown, and a pretty little girl of eight or nine.

The girl took us all by surprise. She turned out to be the Baker-Hydes’ daughter, Gillian. But the second man had clearly been expected, at least by Mrs Ayres; I’d heard nothing about him myself. He was introduced as Mrs Baker-Hyde’s younger brother, Mr Morley.

‘I’m generally up here with Diana and Peter for the week-ends, you see,’ he said, as he shook people’s hands, ‘so I thought I’d tag along. Not got off to a great start, have we?’ He called to his brother-in-law: ‘Peter! You’re going to get thrown out of the county, old man!’

He meant, because of their lounge suits; for Bill Desmond, Mr Rossiter, and I were dressed in old-style evening clothes, and Mrs Ayres and the other ladies were all in floor-length gowns. But the Baker-Hyde party seemed ready to laugh off its embarrassment over that; somehow, in fact, it was the rest of us who ended up feeling badly dressed. Not that Mr and Mrs Baker-Hyde were in any way condescending. On the contrary, I have to say I found them perfectly pleasant and polite that night—though with an extraordinary sort of finish to them, so that I could well understand why some local people might have felt them to be out of touch with rural ways. The little girl had some of their poise, clearly ready to chat with the grown-ups on equal terms, but she was still essentially a child. She seemed tickled, for example, by the sight of Betty in her apron and cap, and she made something of a show of being frightened by Gyp. When the drinks were handed round she was given lemonade, but she clamoured so much to be given wine her father finally tipped some from his glass into hers. The Warwickshire adults looked on in fascinated dismay as the sherry disappeared into her tumbler.