‘Oh, then you should carry on across the park and go out by the other gates. It’s much quicker than going back the way you came and driving round. That drive’s as bad as this one, mind, so watch out for your tyres.’ Then she was struck by an idea. ‘But, listen here. Would it help you to use the park more often? As a short-cut between patients, I mean?’
‘Well,’ I answered, thinking it over, ‘yes, I suppose it would, very much.’
‘Then you must use it whenever you like! I’m only sorry we never thought of it before. You’ll find the gates are kept shut with wire, but that’s simply because since the war we’ve begun to have problems with ramblers wandering in. Just fasten them behind you, they’re never actually locked.’
I said, ‘You really won’t mind? Nor your mother, or your brother? I’ll take you at your word, you know, and be out here every day.’
She smiled. ‘We’d like it. Wouldn’t we, Gyp?’
She moved back, putting her hands on her hips to watch me start the car and turn it. Then she snapped her fingers for the dog, and they headed off across the gravel.
I picked my way around the north side of the house, looking for the entrance to the other drive: going slowly, not quite certain of the way, and incidentally getting a view of the windows of Roderick’s room. He didn’t notice my car, but I saw him there, as I passed, very clearly: he was sitting at his desk, with his cheek on his hand, gazing at the papers and open books before him as if impossibly baffled and weary.
Chapter 3
I t became a part of my routine, after that, to call in at the Hall on a Sunday to treat Rod’s leg, and then to stay on to tea with his mother and sister. And once I’d started to use Hundreds on my trips between cases, I was out there often. I looked forward to the visits; they made such a contrast with the rest of my rather workaday existence. I never let myself into the park and closed the gates behind me, then made my way along the overgrown drive, without a small, adventurous thrill. Arriving at that crumbling red house, I’d have the sense, every time, that ordinary life had fractionally tilted, and that I had slipped into some other, odder, rather rarer realm.
I’d begun to like the Ayreses for their own sake, too. It was Caroline I saw most. I discovered that she walked in the park almost daily, so I’d often catch sight of her unmistakable long-legged, broad-hipped figure, with Gyp cutting a way through the long grass at her side. If she was close enough I would stop the car and wind down my window, and we’d chat, as we had that time in the lane. She seemed to be always in the middle of some chore, always had a bag or a basket with her, filled with fruit, or mushrooms, or sticks for kindling. She might as well, I thought, have been a farmer’s daughter; the more I saw of things at Hundreds, the sorrier I was that her life, like that of her brother, had so much work in it and so few pleasures. One day a neighbour of mine presented me with a couple of jars of honey from his hives, for having seen his son safely through a bad dose of whooping cough. I remembered Caroline’s having longed for honey on my very first visit to the house, so I gave one of the jars to her. I did it casually, but she seemed amazed and delighted by the gift, holding up the jar to catch the sunlight, showing her mother.
‘Oh, you shouldn’t have!’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘An old bachelor like me.’
And Mrs Ayres said softly, with a shade almost of reproach, ‘You’re really too kind to us, Dr Faraday.’
But the fact is, my kindnesses were very small things; it was simply that the family lived in so isolated and precarious a way, they felt with extra force the impact of any chance nudge of fortune, good or bad. In the middle of September, for example, when I had been treating Roderick for nearly a month, the long summer finally broke. A day of thunderstorms led to a drop in temperature and two
‘Well,’ I answered, thinking it over, ‘yes, I suppose it would, very much.’
‘Then you must use it whenever you like! I’m only sorry we never thought of it before. You’ll find the gates are kept shut with wire, but that’s simply because since the war we’ve begun to have problems with ramblers wandering in. Just fasten them behind you, they’re never actually locked.’
I said, ‘You really won’t mind? Nor your mother, or your brother? I’ll take you at your word, you know, and be out here every day.’
She smiled. ‘We’d like it. Wouldn’t we, Gyp?’
She moved back, putting her hands on her hips to watch me start the car and turn it. Then she snapped her fingers for the dog, and they headed off across the gravel.
I picked my way around the north side of the house, looking for the entrance to the other drive: going slowly, not quite certain of the way, and incidentally getting a view of the windows of Roderick’s room. He didn’t notice my car, but I saw him there, as I passed, very clearly: he was sitting at his desk, with his cheek on his hand, gazing at the papers and open books before him as if impossibly baffled and weary.
Chapter 3
I t became a part of my routine, after that, to call in at the Hall on a Sunday to treat Rod’s leg, and then to stay on to tea with his mother and sister. And once I’d started to use Hundreds on my trips between cases, I was out there often. I looked forward to the visits; they made such a contrast with the rest of my rather workaday existence. I never let myself into the park and closed the gates behind me, then made my way along the overgrown drive, without a small, adventurous thrill. Arriving at that crumbling red house, I’d have the sense, every time, that ordinary life had fractionally tilted, and that I had slipped into some other, odder, rather rarer realm.
I’d begun to like the Ayreses for their own sake, too. It was Caroline I saw most. I discovered that she walked in the park almost daily, so I’d often catch sight of her unmistakable long-legged, broad-hipped figure, with Gyp cutting a way through the long grass at her side. If she was close enough I would stop the car and wind down my window, and we’d chat, as we had that time in the lane. She seemed to be always in the middle of some chore, always had a bag or a basket with her, filled with fruit, or mushrooms, or sticks for kindling. She might as well, I thought, have been a farmer’s daughter; the more I saw of things at Hundreds, the sorrier I was that her life, like that of her brother, had so much work in it and so few pleasures. One day a neighbour of mine presented me with a couple of jars of honey from his hives, for having seen his son safely through a bad dose of whooping cough. I remembered Caroline’s having longed for honey on my very first visit to the house, so I gave one of the jars to her. I did it casually, but she seemed amazed and delighted by the gift, holding up the jar to catch the sunlight, showing her mother.
‘Oh, you shouldn’t have!’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘An old bachelor like me.’
And Mrs Ayres said softly, with a shade almost of reproach, ‘You’re really too kind to us, Dr Faraday.’
But the fact is, my kindnesses were very small things; it was simply that the family lived in so isolated and precarious a way, they felt with extra force the impact of any chance nudge of fortune, good or bad. In the middle of September, for example, when I had been treating Roderick for nearly a month, the long summer finally broke. A day of thunderstorms led to a drop in temperature and two
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