The Little Stranger

by

Sarah Waters

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Little Stranger makes teaching easy.
Mrs. Ayers is the matriarch of Hundreds Hall. She was married to Colonel Ayers before his early death, and she is the mother of Susan, Caroline, and Roderick Ayers. Even in her old age, Faraday considers her an impressive and attractive woman, although both of these features become less prominent as the novel progresses. Mrs. Ayers is a polite woman who cares about her appearance and how the public perceives her family. Whenever a scandal arises, Mrs. Ayers does her best to make sure it does not get out, lest it damage her reputation. As a mother, Mrs. Ayers succeeds in some places and fails in others. Generally speaking, she wants what is best for her children, and does what she can to make their lives better. However, she also thinks Caroline and Roderick are disappointments and admits that she does not love them as much as she loved Susan. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Mrs. Ayers never moved past Susan’s death, which is part of the reason she continues to hold on to her past rather than accepting her present. Mrs. Ayers dies under mysterious circumstances. Officially, Faraday rules her death a suicide, but, if one takes seriously a supernatural reading of the novel, then it is possible that whatever haunts the Ayers’s house is responsible for her death.

Mrs. Ayers Quotes in The Little Stranger

The The Little Stranger quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Ayers or refer to Mrs. Ayers . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Science and the Supernatural Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

I first saw Hundreds Hall when I was ten years old. It was the summer after the war, and the Ayreses still had most of their money then, were still big people in the district. The event was an Empire Day fête: I stood with a line of other village children making a Boy Scout salute while Mrs. Ayres and the Colonel went past us, handing out commemorative medals; afterwards we sat to tea with our parents at long tables on what I suppose was the south lawn.

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Mrs. Ayers , Colonel Ayers
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

The story ran on, Caroline and Roderick prompting more of it; they spoke to each other rather than to me, and, shut out of the game, I looked from mother to daughter to son and finally caught the likenesses between them, not just the similarities of feature—the long limbs, the high-set eyes—but the almost clannish little tricks of gesture and speech. And I felt a flicker of impatience with them—the faintest stirring of a dark dislike—and my pleasure in the lovely room was slightly spoiled. Perhaps it was the peasant blood in me, rising. But Hundreds Hall had been made and maintained, I thought, by the very people they were laughing at now. After two hundred years, those people had begun to withdraw their labour, their belief in the house; and the house was collapsing, like a pyramid of cards. Meanwhile, here the family sat, still playing gaily at gentry life, with the chipped stucco on their walls, and their Turkey carpets worn to the weave, and their riveted china . . .

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Caroline Ayers , Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers , Faraday’s Mother
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

It was more than mere anger. It was as though the war itself had changed him, made an utter stranger of him. He seemed to hate himself, and everyone around him. Oh, when I think of all the boys like him, and all the frightful things we asked them to do in the name of making peace—!

Related Characters: Mrs. Ayers (speaker), Faraday , Roderick Ayers , Dr. Seeley    
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

‘You don’t mean that, Caroline. You couldn’t bear to lose Hundreds, surely?’

Now she spoke almost casually. ‘Oh, but I’ve been brought up to lose it. —To lose it, I mean, once Rod marries. The new Mrs. Ayres won’t want a spinster sister-in-law about the place; nor a mother-in-law, come to that. That’s the stupidest thing of all. So long as Roddie goes on holding the estate together, too tired and distracted to find a wife, and probably killing himself in the process—so long as he goes on like that, Mother and I get to stay here. Meanwhile Hundreds is such a drain on us, it’s hardly worth staying for . . .’

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Caroline Ayers (speaker), Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers , Colonel Ayers
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 151-152
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

Yes, you’re great chums, you and she, aren’t you? What has she told you? How frightfully disappointed I’ve made her? She’s never forgiven me, you know, for letting myself get shot down and lamed. We’ve been disappointing her all our lives, my sister and I. I think we disappointed her simply by being born.

Related Characters: Roderick Ayers (speaker), Mrs. Ayers
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

Mrs. Ayres informed her that Roderick had gone away out of the county ‘to stay with friends’: that was the story she put about, and if anyone locally asked me about it I said only that, having seen him after the fire, I’d advised him to take himself off on a holiday for the good of his lungs. At the very same time I was taking the contradictory line of trying to play the fire down. I didn’t want the Ayreses to come under any sort of special scrutiny, and even to people like the Desmonds and the Rossiters, who knew the family well, I told a mixture of lies and half-truths, hoping to steer them away from the facts. I am not naturally a duplicitous man, and the strain of warding off gossip was at times a tiring one.

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

‘The subliminal mind has many dark, unhappy corners, after all. Imagine something loosening itself from one of those corners. Let’s call it a – a germ. And let’s say conditions prove right for that germ to develop – to grow, like a child in the womb. What would this little stranger grow into? A sort of shadow-self, perhaps a Caliban, a Mr. Hyde. A creature motivated by all the nasty impulses and hungers the conscious mind had hoped to keep hidden away: things like envy, and malice, and frustration . . .’

Related Characters: Dr. Seeley     (speaker), Faraday , Caroline Ayers , Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers
Page Number: 389
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

‘Oh, no, I haven’t seen her yet. I feel her.’

‘You feel her.’

‘I feel her, watching. I feel her eyes. They must be her eyes, mustn’t they? Her gaze is so strong, her eyes are like fingers; they can touch. They can press and pinch.’

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Mrs. Ayers (speaker), Caroline Ayers , Roderick Ayers , Susan Ayers
Page Number: 402
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

She had called out: ‘You.’ […] She called it as if she had seen someone she knew, sir, but as though she was afraid of them. Mortal afraid. And after that I heard her running. She came running back towards the stairs. I got out of bed, and went over to the door, and quickly opened it. And that’s when I saw her falling.

Related Characters: Betty (speaker), Faraday , Caroline Ayers , Mrs. Ayers
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 494
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

I’ve never attempted to remind Seeley of his other, odder theory: that Hundreds was consumed by some dark germ, some ravenous shadow-creature, some ‘little stranger’, spawned from the troubled unconscious of someone connected with the house itself. But on my solitary visits, I find myself growing watchful. Every so often I’ll sense a presence, or catch a movement at the corner of my eye, and my heart will give a jolt of fear and expectation: I’ll imagine that the secret is about to be revealed to me at last; that I will see what Caroline saw, and recognise it, as she did.

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Caroline Ayers , Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers , Dr. Seeley     , Susan Ayers
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 509-510
Explanation and Analysis:
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Mrs. Ayers Quotes in The Little Stranger

The The Little Stranger quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Ayers or refer to Mrs. Ayers . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Science and the Supernatural Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

I first saw Hundreds Hall when I was ten years old. It was the summer after the war, and the Ayreses still had most of their money then, were still big people in the district. The event was an Empire Day fête: I stood with a line of other village children making a Boy Scout salute while Mrs. Ayres and the Colonel went past us, handing out commemorative medals; afterwards we sat to tea with our parents at long tables on what I suppose was the south lawn.

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Mrs. Ayers , Colonel Ayers
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

The story ran on, Caroline and Roderick prompting more of it; they spoke to each other rather than to me, and, shut out of the game, I looked from mother to daughter to son and finally caught the likenesses between them, not just the similarities of feature—the long limbs, the high-set eyes—but the almost clannish little tricks of gesture and speech. And I felt a flicker of impatience with them—the faintest stirring of a dark dislike—and my pleasure in the lovely room was slightly spoiled. Perhaps it was the peasant blood in me, rising. But Hundreds Hall had been made and maintained, I thought, by the very people they were laughing at now. After two hundred years, those people had begun to withdraw their labour, their belief in the house; and the house was collapsing, like a pyramid of cards. Meanwhile, here the family sat, still playing gaily at gentry life, with the chipped stucco on their walls, and their Turkey carpets worn to the weave, and their riveted china . . .

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Caroline Ayers , Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers , Faraday’s Mother
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

It was more than mere anger. It was as though the war itself had changed him, made an utter stranger of him. He seemed to hate himself, and everyone around him. Oh, when I think of all the boys like him, and all the frightful things we asked them to do in the name of making peace—!

Related Characters: Mrs. Ayers (speaker), Faraday , Roderick Ayers , Dr. Seeley    
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

‘You don’t mean that, Caroline. You couldn’t bear to lose Hundreds, surely?’

Now she spoke almost casually. ‘Oh, but I’ve been brought up to lose it. —To lose it, I mean, once Rod marries. The new Mrs. Ayres won’t want a spinster sister-in-law about the place; nor a mother-in-law, come to that. That’s the stupidest thing of all. So long as Roddie goes on holding the estate together, too tired and distracted to find a wife, and probably killing himself in the process—so long as he goes on like that, Mother and I get to stay here. Meanwhile Hundreds is such a drain on us, it’s hardly worth staying for . . .’

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Caroline Ayers (speaker), Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers , Colonel Ayers
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 151-152
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

Yes, you’re great chums, you and she, aren’t you? What has she told you? How frightfully disappointed I’ve made her? She’s never forgiven me, you know, for letting myself get shot down and lamed. We’ve been disappointing her all our lives, my sister and I. I think we disappointed her simply by being born.

Related Characters: Roderick Ayers (speaker), Mrs. Ayers
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

Mrs. Ayres informed her that Roderick had gone away out of the county ‘to stay with friends’: that was the story she put about, and if anyone locally asked me about it I said only that, having seen him after the fire, I’d advised him to take himself off on a holiday for the good of his lungs. At the very same time I was taking the contradictory line of trying to play the fire down. I didn’t want the Ayreses to come under any sort of special scrutiny, and even to people like the Desmonds and the Rossiters, who knew the family well, I told a mixture of lies and half-truths, hoping to steer them away from the facts. I am not naturally a duplicitous man, and the strain of warding off gossip was at times a tiring one.

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

‘The subliminal mind has many dark, unhappy corners, after all. Imagine something loosening itself from one of those corners. Let’s call it a – a germ. And let’s say conditions prove right for that germ to develop – to grow, like a child in the womb. What would this little stranger grow into? A sort of shadow-self, perhaps a Caliban, a Mr. Hyde. A creature motivated by all the nasty impulses and hungers the conscious mind had hoped to keep hidden away: things like envy, and malice, and frustration . . .’

Related Characters: Dr. Seeley     (speaker), Faraday , Caroline Ayers , Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers
Page Number: 389
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

‘Oh, no, I haven’t seen her yet. I feel her.’

‘You feel her.’

‘I feel her, watching. I feel her eyes. They must be her eyes, mustn’t they? Her gaze is so strong, her eyes are like fingers; they can touch. They can press and pinch.’

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Mrs. Ayers (speaker), Caroline Ayers , Roderick Ayers , Susan Ayers
Page Number: 402
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

She had called out: ‘You.’ […] She called it as if she had seen someone she knew, sir, but as though she was afraid of them. Mortal afraid. And after that I heard her running. She came running back towards the stairs. I got out of bed, and went over to the door, and quickly opened it. And that’s when I saw her falling.

Related Characters: Betty (speaker), Faraday , Caroline Ayers , Mrs. Ayers
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 494
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

I’ve never attempted to remind Seeley of his other, odder theory: that Hundreds was consumed by some dark germ, some ravenous shadow-creature, some ‘little stranger’, spawned from the troubled unconscious of someone connected with the house itself. But on my solitary visits, I find myself growing watchful. Every so often I’ll sense a presence, or catch a movement at the corner of my eye, and my heart will give a jolt of fear and expectation: I’ll imagine that the secret is about to be revealed to me at last; that I will see what Caroline saw, and recognise it, as she did.

Related Characters: Faraday (speaker), Caroline Ayers , Mrs. Ayers , Roderick Ayers , Dr. Seeley     , Susan Ayers
Related Symbols: Hundreds Hall
Page Number: 509-510
Explanation and Analysis: