I loved this book. I am a fan of Sarah Waters, but even so this is my favourite book of hers I've read so far, even though there was a distinct lack of lesbian characters. I expected at least one. But I have gotten over the let down.
First a review and then my thoughts about the story and in particular the narrator, which will contain spoilers. In post-war Warwickshire, a wealthy family, the Ayres, has fallen upon hard times and the house they own, Hundreds Hall, is falling into disrepair. The narrator is a country doctor who becomes entangled in the family's life, shoehorning his way in and relying on their good manners. However it isn't a simple case of the narrator being the antagonist. He's presented as the hero. He enters the home, for a second time, when called out for a health problem, and advises the family on how to help the young servant settle into the house. He is invited to a party at the house, and while a guest saves the life of a young girl. He is quite insistent on helping, offering free treatment to the injured adult son, while others appear to abandon the family to their ruin. He falls in love with the daughter and asks her to marry him, but tragedy seems to push the couple apart, much to the doctor’s despair.
The title “The Little Stranger” refers to one theory about a malevolent presence in Hundreds Hall that plays nasty tricks on the family. The true nature of this presence is never truly identified, and this is one of the great strengths of this story - it could be a ghost or, as the doctor claims, inherited mental illness, or perhaps the spirit of someone alive and troubled that is causing havoc. Whatever it is, and I will discuss my theory below, it causes the death of two family members (three if you include the poor dog), the disfigurement of a child, and the mental collapse of the squire.
Beneath the ghost story, Waters also deals with class issues, love and country life. I would consider it a masterpiece.
- Beware Spoilers Ahead -
The protagonist, Doctor Faraday, first visits Hundreds Hall when he is a young boy. His mother works as a servant to the Ayres family. He manages to sneak into the house, during a garden fete, and is so enamoured with the elegance of the hallway that he uses a knife to break a plaster acorn from the mouldings and pockets it. Even as an adult this stolen acorn is a treasured keepsake.
The significance of this event only becomes clear much later. Just as Faraday defaced the house in his childhood in order to keep part of it for himself, so he destroys the Ayres family. Before he becomes romantically involved with the daughter, Caroline, a colleague teases that he must have his sights on one of the Ayres women, but the question is whether Faraday fancies the mother or the daughter. Again the significance of this is not entirely clear when first read, but becomes very relevant later.
Faraday proposes to Caroline, a woman he considers plain and sturdy, and expects her to be grateful for his attention. The son of a servant has climbed the social ladder while, through severe financial difficulties, the Ayreses have traveled in the opposite direction. At times Faraday seems obsequious and at others overbearingly paternal. He feels inferior socially, but superior morally. He spends more and more time with the family, finding ways to manufacture this closeness, at first through the war-injured son, and later as a comfort to the women.
Strange things happen in Hundreds Hall. The son and maid complain of an evil presence. A child is bitten by a docile and friendly pet. Fires break out and inanimate objects move. Faraday diagnoses the son as delusional and arranges for him to be removed from the house for the safety of the entire family. When Caroline mentions that she suspects her brother might have been right about the evil presence, Faraday gets angry and tells her she’s too well-bred to believe such nonsense. When the mother encounters the spirit and believes it to be her long dead daughter, she too is headed for the mad house, but takes her own life before Faraday can take her there.
Faraday is obsessed with marrying Caroline even though, by now, he dismisses almost every word she utters as nonsense or madness. When she breaks off their engagement he refuses to accept that she’s in her right mind. He tries to prevent her from selling the Hall and moving away. When he realises that he has no power to stop her he gets so drunk that he passes out in his car, but he dreams that he goes to Hundreds Hall. That same night Caroline falls to her death uttering just one word “You”.
The house is empty at the end of the book, but Faraday retains a set of keys and visits it. We are left quite convinced that the doctor was in love with Hundreds Hall rather than any of its occupants.
I believe Faraday’s colleague, Doctor Seeley, and Caroline might have been right when they spoke of a living spirit haunting the house, but while Seeley thought the spirit was caused by Caroline or the servant’s sexual repression, and Caroline thought it might be her unhappy brother, locked up now in a mental facility, I suspect Dr Faraday and his desire for Hundreds Hall, his jealousy of the Ayreses and his anger that they didn’t know how lucky they were, was the true villain.