Free The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

huge—or seemed huge to me then, when I still hadn’t quite acclimatised myself to the scale of things at Hundreds—with panelled walls, a lattice-work plaster ceiling, and a wide stone fireplace with a Gothic surround.
    ‘This used to be a billiard room,’ Roderick said to me, seeing my face. ‘My great-grandfather kitted it up. I think he must have fancied himself as some sort of baron, don’t you? But we lost the billiards stuff years ago, and when I came home from the Air Force—home from hospital, I mean—well, it took me a while to be able to manage stairs and so on, so my mother and sister had the idea of putting a bed for me in here. I’ve grown so used to it, it’s never seemed worth going back upstairs. I do all my work in here, too.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘so I see.’
    This was the room, I realised, that I had glimpsed from the terrace in July. It was even more of a jumble than it had seemed to me then. One corner was given over to a punishing-looking iron-framed bed, with a dressing table close beside it and, next to that, an antique washing stand and mirror. Before the Gothic fireplace stood a couple of old leather armchairs, handsome enough, but both very scuffed and split at their seams. There were two curtained windows, one leading out via those convolvulus-choked stone steps to the terrace; in front of the other, and rather spoiling the lovely long line of it, Roderick had set up a desk and swivel chair. He had obviously put the desk there in order to catch the best of the northern daylight, but this also meant that its illuminated surface—which was almost obscured by a litter of papers, ledgers, folders, technical books, dirty teacups, and overflowing ashtrays—acted as a sort of magnet on the eye, irresistibly drawing one’s gaze from every point in the room. The desk was clearly a magnet for Roderick in other ways too, for even while talking to me he had gone across to it and started rooting about for something in the chaos. At last he produced a stub of pencil, then fished in his pocket for a scrap of paper and began copying down what looked like a series of sums into one of the ledgers.
    ‘Sit down, won’t you?’ he said to me over his shoulder. ‘I shan’t be a tick. But I’ve just come back from the farm, and if I don’t make a note of these blasted figures right now, I’m sure to forget.’
    I did sit, for a minute or two. But as he showed no sign of joining me, I thought I might as well prepare my machine, so I brought it over and set it down between the two scuffed leather chairs, unhooking its latch and drawing off its case. I’d used the apparatus many times before, and it was simple enough, a combination of coil, dry-cell battery, and metal plate electrodes; but it looked rather daunting with its terminals and wires, and when I raised my head again I saw that Roderick had left his desk and was gazing down at it in some dismay.
    ‘Quite a little monster, isn’t it,’ he said, plucking at his lip. ‘You mean to set it going right now?’
    ‘Well,’ I said, pausing with the tangled leads in my hands, ‘I thought that was the idea. But if you’d rather not—’
    ‘No, no, it’s all right. Since you’re here, we might as well get on with it. Do I strip off, or how does it work?’
    I said I thought we should get away with him simply rolling his baggy trouser leg up, over the knee. He seemed glad not to have to undress in front of me, but once he had taken off his plimsoll and the much-darned sock beneath it and seen to the trousers, he folded his arms, looking awkward.
    ‘I feel like I’m joining the Freemasons! I don’t have to swear an oath or anything?’
    I laughed. ‘In the first place you simply have to sit here and let me examine you, if you don’t mind. It won’t take long.’
    He lowered himself into the armchair, and I squatted before him and gently took hold of the injured leg, drawing it straight. As the muscle tightened he gave a grunt of