The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Author:Sarah Waters [Waters, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Mystery, Historical, Horror
ISBN: 9781410419590
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 2009-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

NINE

After that I didn't see her for more than a week; I was too busy. And to be honest, I was grateful for the delay. It gave me a chance, I thought, to sort through my feelings: to recover from my embarrassment at the blunders of the night; to tell myself that, after all, nothing much had passed between us; to put the whole thing down to the drink, and the darkness, and the giddy after-effects of the dance. I saw Graham on the Monday, and made a point of mentioning Caroline's name, telling him she'd fallen asleep in the car on the way out of Leamington and had slept ‘like a child’ until we reached the Hundreds gate; and then changing the subject. As I think I have said before, I'm not a naturally mendacious man. I've seen too many of the complications, in the lives of my patients, to which lies lead. But in this instance I thought it best to try and put a definite end to any speculation regarding Caroline and me; I thought this for Caroline's sake as much as my own. I rather hoped to run into Seeley. I planned to ask him, baldly, to do all he could to quash those rumours he'd mentioned, which suggested that I was romantically interested in one or both of the Ayres women. Then I even began to wonder whether there really had been rumours. Couldn't the whole thing have been simply a tipsy piece of mischief on Seeley's part? I decided that it could, and when my path did at last cross his, I made no mention of the dance, and neither did he.

But still, as that week ran busily on I thought of Caroline often. The frosty weather grew wet again, but I knew that rain rarely kept her from walking: taking my short-cut across the park, I found myself looking out for her. I looked out for her, too, in the lanes around Lidcote, and was aware of a sense of disappointment at not seeing her. And yet, when an opportunity arose for dropping in at the Hall itself, I didn't take it… I realised, almost to my own surprise, that I was nervous. Several times I picked up the telephone, meaning to call her; always I put the receiver down with the call unmade. Soon the delay began to feel unnatural. It occurred to me that her mother might start to think it odd that I was keeping away. And it was the prospect of inadvertently arousing Mrs Ayres's suspicions, as much as anything, that sent me over there at last, for I found I almost dreaded them.

I went out there on a Wednesday afternoon, in a spare hour between cases. The house was empty, save for Betty, happily cleaning brass at the kitchen table with the wireless on; she told me that Caroline and her mother were somewhere in the gardens, and after a brief search I discovered them making a gentle tour of the lawns.

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