The Little Stranger (58 page)

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.

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 started 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
.

B
ut 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.

The thought buoyed me up, and drove away the worst of my hangover. My housekeeper arrived, and was reassured to see me so recovered; she said she’d been worried about me all night. My morning surgery began, and I applied myself with extra care to my patients’ complaints, wanting to make up for my disgraceful lapse of the evening before. I rang David Graham to tell him that my spell of sickness was past. Relieved, he passed on a list of cases, and I spent the rest of the morning diligently making calls.

And then I went back out to Hundreds. I let myself in through the garden door again and went straight to the little parlour. The house looked so exactly as it had on my last visit, and on every visit before that, that I grew more confident with every step. When I found Caroline at the writing table, going through a heap of papers, I half expected her to rise and greet me with a sheepish sort of smile. I even took a few steps towards her, beginning to lift up my arms. Then I saw her expression, and the dismay in it was unmistakable. She screwed on the lid of her pen and got slowly to her feet.

My arms sank. I said, ‘Caroline, what nonsense this all is. I’ve had a miserable, miserable night. I’ve been so worried about you.’

She frowned, as if troubled and sorry.

‘You mustn’t worry about me now. You mustn’t come out here any more.’

‘Not come out here? Are you mad? How can I not come out here, knowing you’re here, in this kind of state—’

‘But I’m not in any kind of “state”.’

‘It’s only a month since your mother died! You’re grieving. You’re in shock. These things you say you’re doing, these decisions you’re making, about Hundreds, about Rod—you’re going to regret them. I’ve seen this sort of thing before. My darling—’

‘Please don’t call me your darling now,’ she said.

She said it, half pleading, but half with a touch of disapproval; as if I’d spoken a dirty word. I had taken another few steps towards her, but again I came to a halt. And after a silence I changed my tone, became more urgent.

‘Caroline, listen. I understand if you’re having doubts. You and I, we’re not giddy youngsters. Marriage is a big step for us. I worked myself into a panic last week, just as you’re doing now. David Graham had to calm me down with whisky! I think, if you could just calm down, too—’

She shook her head. ‘I feel calmer now than I’ve felt in months. From the moment I agreed to marry you, I knew it wasn’t right, and last night was the first time I felt easy. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t more honest with you—and with myself—right at the start.’

Her tone wasn’t disapproving now so much simply as cool, remote, contained. She was wearing one of her homespun outfits, a ragged cardigan, a darned skirt, her hair tied back with a bit of black ribbon, but she looked oddly handsome and poised, with an air of purposefulness I hadn’t seen about her for weeks. All of the morning’s bright confidence began to crumble away from me. I could feel, just beyond it, the fear and humiliation of the night. For the first time I glanced properly around, and the room looked subtly different to me, tidier and more anonymous, with a heap of ash in the grate as though she’d been burning papers. I saw the cracked window-pane, and remembered with shame some of the things I’d said to her the day before. Then I noticed that on one of the room’s low tables she had made a neat pile of the boxes I had brought her: the dress-box, the flower-box, and the shagreen case.

Seeing me looking at them, she went across to pick them up.

‘You must have these back,’ she said quietly.

I said, ‘Don’t be absurd. What the hell would I do with them?’

‘You could return them to the shop.’

‘A nice idiot I should look doing that! No, I want you to keep them, Caroline. You’re to wear them at our wedding.’

She didn’t answer that, but held them out to me until it became clear that I simply wouldn’t take them. So she put down the two card boxes, but kept the shagreen case in her hand.

She said firmly, ‘You really must take this. If you don’t take it now, I shall just post it to you. I found the ring on the terrace. It’s a lovely ring. I hope—I hope you might give it to somebody else one day.’

I made a sound of disgust. ‘It was made to fit you. Don’t you understand? There won’t
be
anybody else.’

She held it out to me. ‘Have it. Please.’

Reluctantly, I took the box from her hand. But as I dropped it into my pocket I said, with an attempt at bravado, ‘I’m only taking it back for now. This is a temporary thing. I’m keeping it until I can put it upon your finger. Don’t forget that.’

She looked uncomfortable, but still spoke calmly.

‘Please don’t. I know this is hard, but please don’t make it any harder. Don’t think I’m ill, or afraid, or being foolish. Don’t think I’m doing—I don’t know, one of those things that women are supposed to do sometimes—creating a drama, making their man put up a fight …’ She pulled a face. ‘I hope you know me better than to think I would ever do anything like that.’

I didn’t answer. I’d begun to grow panicked again: panicked and frustrated, at the simple idea that I wanted her and couldn’t have her. She had come close, to give me the ring. All that separated us was a yard or so of cool clear air. My flesh seemed tugged through it towards her. It was tugged so plainly and so urgently, I couldn’t believe that there was no answering tug in her. But when I reached to her, she stepped back. She said again, apologetically, ‘Please don’t.’ Then I reached again, and she moved more quickly. I was reminded of the way she had scuttled from me almost in fear on my last visit. But this time she didn’t look afraid; and when she spoke, even the note of apology had gone from her voice. She sounded rather as I remembered her sounding in the days when I’d first known her and had sometimes thought her hard.

She said, ‘If you care even slightly for me, you won’t ever try and do that again. I think of you with great fondness, and should be sorry for that to change.’

I
went back to Lidcote in almost as wretched a state as I had been in the day before. But this time I struggled on through the afternoon, and it was only when my evening surgery had finished and the night loomed ahead of me that my nerve began to fail. I started to pace about again, unable to sit, unable to work, perplexed and tormented by the thought that, in a single moment—in the uttering of a handful of words—I had lost my claim on Caroline, on the Hall, and on our bright future. It made no sense to me. I simply couldn’t let it happen. I put on my hat, and got back into my car, and headed out to Hundreds again. I wanted to catch hold of Caroline, and shake and shake her, until she saw reason.

But then I had what seemed to be a better idea. At the Hundreds crossroads I turned north, on to the Leamington Road, and I drove to the house of Harold Hepton, the Ayres’s solicitor.