The Little Stranger (57 page)

I told her the dress was for a lady who was soon to be married but was currently unwell. The girl called over a couple of colleagues and the three of them had a very excited time, producing pattern-books, unrolling bolts of cloth, sifting through buttons. I could tell they had formed a picture of the bride as a sort of romantic invalid. ‘Will the lady be able to walk?’ they asked me delicately, and, ‘Will her hands bear gloves?’ I thought of Caroline’s thick strong legs, her well-shaped, work-spoiled fingers … We settled on a plain, slim-belted dress, in some light, fawn material I hoped would suit her brown hair and hazel eyes; and for her head and hands I ordered simple sprays of pale silk flowers. The whole ensemble cost just over eleven pounds, and took all my clothing coupons. Once I’d started to spend, however, I found a queasy sort of pleasure in keeping going. A few doors down from the ladies’ outfitters was Leamington’s best jeweller. I went in, and asked to see their selection of wedding-rings. They didn’t have many, and most were utility rings: nine-carat, light and brassy, looking to me like something from Woolworth’s. From a more expensive tray I picked out a simple gold band, slender but heavy, at fifteen guineas. My first motor car had cost me less. I wrote the cheque with a nervous flourish, trying to give the impression that I dispensed such sums every day.

I had to leave the ring at the jeweller’s, to be slightly expanded to what I had calculated as Caroline’s size. So I drove home with nothing to show for the money I had spent, my bravado failing with every mile, my knuckles paling on the steering-wheel as I thought over what I’d done. I passed the next few days in the grip of a bachelor’s panic, going wildly through my accounts, asking myself how the hell I meant to support a wife anyway; worrying again about the Health Service. In despair I went to see Graham—who laughed at me and gave me a whisky, and finally managed to calm me down.

A few days later I returned to Leamington to collect the ring and the gown. The ring was weightier than I had remembered, which reassured me no end; it sat snugly in a ruffled silk mount, inside an expensive-looking little shagreen box. The gown and flowers came in boxes, too, which also cheered me up. The dress was exactly what I’d wanted: pure, crisp, unfussy, and seeming to shine with newness.

The shop-girls hoped the lady was better. They grew quite emotional about it, wishing her ‘good luck, and good health, and a long and happy marriage’.

This was on a Tuesday, two weeks and two days before the wedding itself. That night I worked at the hospital, with the ring in my pocket and the gown in its box in the boot of my car. The next day I was frustratingly busy, with no chance to call in at the Hall. But on the Thursday afternoon I did get out there—letting myself into the padlocked park with my own key as usual, then going, whistling, along the drive, with my car window lowered, for the day was glorious. I put the boxes under my arm and went quietly into the house by the garden way. At the turn of the basement stairs I called softly down.

‘Betty! Are you there?’

She emerged from the kitchen and stood blinking up at me.

I said, ‘Where’s Miss Caroline? The little parlour?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, Doctor. She’s been in there all day.’

I lifted the boxes. ‘What do you think I’ve got in here?’

She peered, puzzled. ‘I don’t know.’ Then her face changed. ‘Things for Miss Caroline’s wedding!’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Oh! Can I see?’

‘Not yet. Maybe later. Bring us some tea in half an hour. Miss Caroline might show you then.’

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 you 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.