The Stranger House

by Reginald Hill

  When the twin told her to take her clothes off, she looked at him blankly.

  Then he said something like, it’s all right, you won’t get cold, here make room for her by the fire. And it was as if that was a kind of reassurance, as if the only thing to worry about was being cold. So she took her clothes off.

  For me there was little or no connection between the women in the pictures and this skinny little scrap of white flesh shivering by the fire. I don’t think the Gowders were particularly aroused either. Like I said, they never showed much direct personal interest in girls. They were more like farmers showing off a prize yow at a show. But Gerry Woollass was different. Maybe he was more developed than the rest of us, or maybe he’d had more than his share of the cider and beer and tobacco. But it was clear that he was excited.

  When they saw this, one of the twins said, “Would you like to touch her? You can if you like. You can touch her with your thing if you like.”

  Again, I think it just amused them to get the squire’s boy so completely out of his own control and into theirs. The girl was just a means to an end.

  After that things moved very quickly. Little Pam didn’t struggle, she just did what the twins told her. Gerry was so excited it didn’t last long. The mere act of pushing into her set him off. She screamed but not too loud, choking it back as if she didn’t want to anger the twins. Gerry made more noise than she did. In the space of less than a minute it was all over, Gerry was buttoning himself up, Pam lay there quiet, but there were tears on her cheeks. And drops of blood on her legs.

  I just sat and watched. I had a sense that something terrible was happening, but I wasn’t a brave child. I’m not making excuses. I was what they call nowadays a bit of a wimp. I suppose that was what made me willing to put up with any indignities the Gowders heaped upon me. Being one of their gang meant the other boys treated me with respect.

  So I was very willing to let myself be reassured by the way the Gowders acted afterward. They told Pam to get dressed, even helped her. And they gave her the rest of the chocolate and borrowed Gerry’s handkerchief so she could dry her eyes and wipe her legs, and they threw the rest of our little store of fuel on the fire, and talked about our plans for the rest of the day as if nothing had happened.

  Gerry suddenly stood up and said it was getting late, he had to go home.

  He didn’t look well. I think that maybe with him being brought up a strict Catholic, some notion of having committed a dreadful sin was already eating away at his mind. I could understand this. There was plenty of hellfire preaching in my upbringing, and behind all that reassurance I was letting myself feel, I think I too was already feeling the heat of those diabolical flames. I heard myself saying I was expected back at the vicarage too.

  One of the twins said indifferently, “Off you both go then, long as you don’t forget the gang promise.”

  Some threats don’t need to be spelled out.

  But some guilt is stronger than any threat.

  Gerry didn’t return to the village school for the following term. It was said his parents had decided he needed to be tutored privately to make sure he was fully prepared for starting at his boarding school in the autumn. I was too naive to suspect then that it had anything to do with what had happened. All I knew was I was left without anyone to talk to. Worse, I was left without having in view someone I could think of as the real culprit, which was a thought I might have been able to shelter behind when I started worrying about hellfire.

  As for Pam, someone might have noticed something if she’d been returning to a normal household. But Foulgate had been a house of sickness for some time. And on that dreadful day, from what I’ve been able to piece together, when Pam got back to the farm, she must have made her way straight up to Madge’s bedroom. Perhaps she wanted to tell her what had happened. Who knows? Certainly Madge would have been the only person Pam would have turned to.

  It doesn’t matter anyway. All I know is that when someone else went into the room a little time later, they found Pam sitting by the bed, holding a dead woman’s hand.

  Children back then were required to be seen and not heard at the best of times. At the worst of times, they were expected to be invisible as well. Pam Galley was always a particularly quiet child. If anyone actually noticed any extra sign of withdrawal or distress, they had more than enough explanation for it in this second grievous loss following on in pretty close proximity to the death of her own parents.

  Me, I tried to forget. Things weren’t helped when some time later Sam Flood, our curate, insisted on bringing little Pam out of the Gowder house and settling her in the vicarage until such time as her future could be decided. I can recall overhearing fierce arguments between Sam and my father and Mrs. Thomson, our housekeeper. I would have put money on my father and Mrs. Thomson winning any argument — they both terrified me — but Sam wouldn’t let himself be beaten down, and to my horror I came down one morning to find Pam sitting at the breakfast table.

  At school, the Gowders didn’t talk about what had happened either, but they kept me pretty close, and made it clear that resigning from the gang wasn’t an option. To Pam at school they were as pleasant as it lay in their natures to be, but she didn’t even seem aware of their existence. Not that this was noteworthy as she didn’t show much awareness of anyone else’s existence either. The teachers and everyone were really worried about her, and when word got round that one of Mr. Dunstan’s religious charities had found a place for her with a family in Australia, everyone was delighted, saying things like that was what she needed, a complete change of scene and a settled family background, weren’t we lucky that the squire was such a man of influence? Everyone except Sam Flood, that is. He was still asking questions, and raising objections, but finally even he got persuaded, and Pam vanished from Illthwaite.

  You’d have thought that Pam’s removal would have made things easier for me but it didn’t work like that. On the contrary, I found things got worse and worse. At least having her around gave me the reassuring visual evidence that she appeared to be just the same as ever. But now she’d moved out of my sight into my imagination.

  I would be woken in the night by the sound of that one scream she let out. And then I’d lie there listening to the silence. Her silence. Eventually I started to find that any silence that stretched for more than a couple of minutes became her silence, as if she were close by, withdrawn, suffering, but always present.

  If my father had been a different sort of man, I would have spoken to him. But I knew what to expect if I did and that was one fear I had no strength to overcome.

  The obvious alternative was Sam Flood.

  He was a man from whom loving kindness emanated almost visibly.

  His concern in the business of Pam’s future was always to find what was best for the girl, what would give her the best chance of happiness. My father, on the other hand, urged on by Mrs. Thomson, wanted nothing but to get her out of our house and our lives. As for Squire Dunstan, even then I had serious doubts about the purity of his motives. Fair enough, this Australian business might be a genuine opportunity for the girl, but it was also a great chance to move a potential source of embarrassment to his family to the other side of the globe.

  Of course I had no idea she was pregnant, and I don’t see how he could have known either.

  Sam was caring, involved, fearless, and also my friend. He was the first adult I knew who treated me as an equal.

  Even with all this going for him, it took a long time for me to pluck up courage to speak. I could only guess at the consequences, and nothing in my guess was good for me. The anger of my father, the wrath of the Gowder twins, the possible involvement of the police — these were likely to follow and these I would have to bear.

  If I could have foreseen the actual outcome, I would probably have held my tongue forever.

  I looked for a good moment, kept on finding excuses to decide this time or that wasn’t ripe, and finally on that Sunday, almost wit
hout thinking, having seen my father and Mrs. Thomson leave for the church to take Sunday School, I went to Sam’s room and banged at his door.

  It was Edie Appledore who opened it. I think if she’d stayed I would probably have lost my nerve and kept quiet. But she just pushed right by me and went straight down the stairs, and I started talking and told Sam everything in one incoherent burst.

  At first he just looked at me blankly as if he wasn’t taking it in. But finally what I was saying seemed to register and he sat me down and made me go through it again.

  He was very calm on the surface but I could see that, underneath, my story had had a powerful effect on him.

  All he said to me, however, was, “Thank you for telling me this, but I wish you’d spoken sooner. Never postpone a good act, Pete.”

  I felt hugely rebuked. I suppose I had looked for absolution, even reward for my courage in speaking. Not that I felt brave. The minute I got it off my chest, I started thinking about the Gowders.

  Sam told me to go back to my room, he needed to be alone to think.

  After maybe fifteen minutes, he tapped at my door and told me he would be canceling the Bible class as he had to go out.

  Fearfully I asked him what he intended doing about what I’d told him.

  He said there was someone he wanted to talk to first, then he’d decide.

  And he left.

  About ten minutes later the doorbell rang. I opened the door to discover the Gowders. It was like finding the Furies on your doorstep! I must have gone pale as death, but they greeted me as they usually did and said they’d come for the Bible class but, seeing it was canceled, wondered if I’d like to come out to play.

  If I’d had the slightest suspicion they knew I’d been talking to Sam, I would have slammed the door in their faces. But they seemed so normal, and I thought it would just make them suspicious if I said no, and I didn’t want to be around the house when my father returned and started asking questions about Sam’s reasons for canceling the Bible class, so I said yes and went with them.

  What a mistake! A moment’s thought would have told me they must have encountered Sam on their way to the vicarage, and that he was unlikely not to have taken the chance to try and double-check my tale.

  I found out the truth as soon as we were up on the moor, well out of sight and earshot of the village. One of them seized me from behind, the other put his face close to mine and demanded to know what I’d told the curate.

  At first, in my fear, I tried to claim ignorance of what they meant. I got punched in the stomach for my pains. I then started telling them some watered-down version, and in the midst of this I took advantage of a weakened grip to break free and make a dash for it up the fell. Over twenty yards I was the quicker, but as I slowed they came on relentlessly. I decided that there was no future in trying to flee uphill so I turned and started racing down the steep slope, leaping from boulder to boulder till inevitably I missed my footing and went crashing to the ground. When I tried to push myself up, I realized I had damaged my wrist and done something very unpleasant to my ankle.

  Worse, I was back in the Gowders’ clutches.

  With the way I was feeling, further threats were unnecessary. I told them exactly what I had said to the curate. After which they conferred for a while before telling me I should keep my mouth shut from now on and try to take back as much as I could next time I saw Sam. Failure to keep silent this time would result in further accidents which would make my present pains feel like a French kiss.

  And then they helped me back to the vicarage.

  The district nurse was summoned. She said I should be got to the hospital instantly for X rays. They kept me in overnight, and by the time the police got round to talking to me, I knew all about poor Sam’s death.

  Now I had even more on my conscience.

  It seemed clear to me it was my fault. He must have felt the horror of my story so much that his mind flipped.

  When the police talked to me, my father was present. They didn’t stay long. I got very upset. And I said nothing beyond the bare facts that Sam had told me the class was canceled so I went out to play. How could I say more with my father there and the threat of the Gowders waiting outside?

  So began my second silence, which I thought might last forever till I came into the church the other day and saw you standing by the font with water dripping from your hair, like a revenant from a shipwreck.

  Which is what you are, Miss Flood. A ghost come back to haunt us. A ghost come back to tell us our crime was even more terrible than we knew. A ghost come back to summon us all to judgment. May God have mercy on our souls.

  PART SIX

  THE HALL

  Check every doorway before choosing your entrance. There’s no way of knowing what foes may be hiding in hall at the table. You can’t be too careful.

  “The Sayings of the High One” Poetic Edda

  1

  Up a gum tree

  WHEN HE ARRIVED AT THE HALL, it seemed to Mig Madero that the wolf-head knocker looked keener than ever to bite the hand that touched it, but he was saved from putting it to the test.

  As he reached forward, the door swung open. Mrs. Collipepper stood there.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I have an appointment. With Mr. Dunstan.”

  “Then you’d better come in,” she said.

  She led him into the house and up the stairs. As he followed he found himself observing as on his previous visit the rhythmic rise and fall of her buttocks, and there came into his mind a picture of her naked, on her knees, heavy breasts penduling, as she retrieved the scarlet robe from the floor.

  He was delighted to observe it didn’t have the slightest effect on him. Whereas if he let his thoughts slip to a certain skinny figure with less flesh on it than one of the housekeeper’s thighs, it was amazing how quickly his thoughts became very languid indeed…

  It was both with relief and reluctance that he found himself hauled back to the here and now by the sound of a savage blow being dealt to the study door by Mrs. Collipepper’s fist.

  When there was no reply she hammered again.

  “He sometimes falls asleep,” she observed over her shoulder, as if feeling some explanation were needed.

  “That must be inconvenient,” Mig heard himself responding.

  She turned those watchful gray eyes on him, as if in search of innuendo.

  “At times,” he added. Which only made things worse.

  He found he was storing up the story to tell Sam.

  He was saved from further ill-judged attempts at mitigation by a voice crying, “Come in!”

  Mrs. Collipepper opened the door and announced, “Mr. Madero.”

  Mig stepped by her, saying as he passed, “Thank you very much.”

  “That’s OK. Sorry about your sherry,” she said. Then rather spoiled the apology by adding as she moved away, “Too sour for a trifle anyway.”

  There was, he thought, in the history of this woman material for… what? A romance? A comedy? A tragedy? A social history?

  Dunstan said, “Have a seat, Madero. I trust I find you well today.”

  He was seated at the desk on which lay a scatter of papers. He was fully dressed despite the, for him, early hour. But his face looked rather drawn, as if he had paid a price for this interruption to his usual routine.

  “I’m very well,” said Mig.

  “And the Australian girl?”

  “She is well too.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. She stayed at the Stranger, I take it?”

  “Yes,” said Mig shortly, keen to get off this subject.

  “And did she reveal to you any further details about the cause of her distress?”

  “Why should she make a confidant of someone she met only two days ago?” asked Mig with a disingenuousness the Jesuits would have been proud of.

  It didn’t seem to work.

  “Extreme experience in foreign places often throws strangers together,” said Dunstan
. “Thus travelers encountering in the wilderness would huddle close at night for comfort and protection. In view of what you have both discovered since arriving here, it would not be surprising if you and Miss Flood felt an impulse to huddle together. I speak figuratively, of course.”

  There was no insinuating note in his voice, but Mig felt his cheeks growing warm under that keen slate-eyed gaze, and suddenly Dunstan smiled as if at a spoken admission.

  “Mr. Madero, forgive me. I had no thought of embarrassing you. Nor indeed should you be embarrassed. Youth’s the season made for joy, and the Church would be completely out of touch with reality if it didn’t admit and make allowances for that.”

  How the devil have we got here? Mig asked himself in amazement. Silence is admission, but denial would feel like treachery!

  Dunstan was still talking: “It certainly seems from all reports that Miss Flood has an engaging if original personality, plus, as you indicated last evening, a First in mathematics from some colonial establishment and a placement at Cambridge. Do you happen to know which college?”

  “Trinity,” said Mig shortly, wanting to move off this topic.

  “Very fitting. The alma mater of Newton. Also, though rather less noteworthy, of myself. I should like very much to make her acquaintance. Perhaps I could call on your good offices to arrange an introduction…?”

  He really is like an old Prince of the Church, thought Mig. Worldly-wise, insinuating in courtesy, evasive in debate, and almost certainly ruthless in decision.

  “Mr. Woollass,” he said, determined to get away from Sam and back to his own affairs, “I have something for you here.”

  From his briefcase he took Father Simeon’s journal and laid it on the table.

  Dunstan glanced at it with what looked like token interest and said, “Of course. The journal. I thank you. And I too have something which I feel might interest you.”

  He picked a large leather-bound volume off his desk.

  “I think I mentioned this to you at our first meeting. My grandfather Anthony’s history of this part of Cumberland. He acted, you will recall, as assistant to Peter Swinebank in the preparation of his Guide, sparking a lifelong interest in the highways and byways of the past. You will have read the Reverend Peter’s account in the Guide of the waif boy whom Thomas Gowder took into his care, which kindness he repaid by murdering the husband and ravishing the wife? That this youth is the same fugitive whom my ancestors aided in their turn now seems very probable. And after long thought, I find I am happy to accept your intuition that he was your ancestor.”