The Shifting Fog (23 page)

I looked at her, unsure whether she was teasing. Her face was serious, though. Thoughtful.

‘I don’t know, miss,’ I said, faltering. ‘I … I’m seeing her this afternoon. I could ask if you like?’

Her eyes had a cloudy look about them, as if her thoughts were far away. She glanced at me and the shadows fled. ‘No. It’s not important.’ She fingered the edge of David’s letter, still tucked into her petticoat. ‘Have you had news of Alfred?’

‘Yes, miss,’ I said, glad of the change of subject. Alfred was safer territory. He was a part of this world. ‘I had a letter this week past. He’ll be home on leave in September. That is, we hope he will.’

‘September,’ she said. ‘That’s not so long. You’ll be glad to see him.’

‘Oh yes, miss, I certainly will.’

Hannah smiled knowingly and I blushed. ‘What I mean, miss, is we’ll all be glad to see him downstairs.’

‘Of course you will, Grace. Alfred is a lovely fellow.’

My cheeks were tingling red. For Hannah had guessed correctly. While letters from Alfred still arrived for the collective staff, increasingly they were addressed solely to me. Their content was changing too. Talk of battle was being replaced with talk of home and other secret things. How much he missed me, cared for me. The future … I blinked. ‘And Master David, miss?’ I said. ‘Will he be home soon?’

‘He didn’t say.’ She ran her fingers over the etched surface of her locket, glanced at Emmeline and lowered her voice. ‘Sometimes I think he’ll never come back.’

‘Oh no, miss,’ I said quickly. ‘You mustn’t think like that. I’m sure nothing dreadful will—’

She confounded me by laughing. ‘I didn’t mean that, Grace. What I mean is, now that he’s escaped I don’t think he’ll ever come back here to live. With us. He’ll remain in London and he’ll study piano and become a grand musician. Lead a life rich with excitement and adventure, just like in the games we used to play …’ She looked beyond me in the direction of the house and her smile faded. She sighed then. A long, steady exhalation that made her shoulders deflate. ‘Sometimes …’

The word hung between us: languorous, heavy, full, and I waited for a conclusion that did not come. I could think of nothing to say, so I did what I did best. Remained silent and poured the last of the lemonade into her glass.

She looked up at me then. Held out her glass. ‘Here, Grace. You have this one.’

‘Oh no, miss. Thank you, miss. I’m all right.’

‘Nonsense,’ Hannah said. ‘Your cheeks are almost as red as Emmeline’s. Here.’ She thrust the glass toward me.

I glanced at Emmeline, setting pink and yellow honeysuckle flowers to float on the other side of the pool. ‘Really, miss, I—’

‘Grace,’ she said, mock sternly. ‘It’s hot and I insist.’

I sighed, took the glass. It was cool in my hand, tantalisingly cool. I lifted it to my lips, perhaps just a tiny sip …

An excited whoop from behind made Hannah swing around. I lifted my gaze, squinted into the light. The sun had begun its slide to the west and the air was hazy.

Emmeline was crouched midway up the statue on the ledge near Icarus. Her pale hair was loose and wavy, and she had threaded a cluster of white clematis behind one ear. The wet hem of her petticoat clung to her legs.

In the warm, white light she looked to be part of the statue. A fourth water nymph, come to life. She waved at us. At Hannah. ‘Come up here. You can see all the way to the lake.’

‘I’ve seen it,’ Hannah called back. ‘I showed you, remember?’

There was a drone, high in the sky, as a plane flew overhead. I wasn’t sure what kind it was. Alfred would have known.

Hannah watched it go, not looking away until it disappeared, a tiny speck, into the sun’s glare. She remained for a moment, gazing at the empty sky, the sun that continued blindly to shine no matter that war raged on the continents below. Then suddenly she stood, resolutely, and hurried to the garden seat that held their clothing. As she pulled on her black dress, I set down the lemonade and made to help her.

‘What are you doing?’ Emmeline asked her.

‘I’m getting dressed.’

‘Why?’

‘I have something to do at the house.’ Hannah paused as I straightened her bodice. ‘Some French verbs for Miss Prince.’

‘Since when?’ Emmeline wrinkled her nose suspiciously. ‘It’s the holidays.’

‘I asked for extra.’

‘You did not.’

‘I did.’

‘Well I’m coming too,’ Emmeline said, without moving.

‘Fine,’ Hannah said coolly. ‘And if you get bored, perhaps Lord Gifford will still be at the house to keep you company.’ She sat on the garden seat and started lacing up her boots.

‘Come on,’ Emmeline said, pouting. ‘Tell me what you’re doing. You know I can keep secrets.’

‘Thank goodness,’ Hannah said, looking at her with wide eyes. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to find out I was doing extra French verbs.’

Emmeline sat for a moment, watching Hannah and drumming her legs against a marble wing. She inclined her head. ‘Do you
promise
that’s all you’re doing?’

‘I
promise
,’ Hannah said. ‘I’m going to the house to do some translations.’ She sneaked a glance at me then, and I realised the precise nature of her half-truth. She was going to work on translations, but they were in shorthand and not French. I lowered my eyes, disproportionately pleased at my casting as conspirator.

Emmeline shook her head slowly, narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s a mortal sin to lie, you know.’ She was clutching at straws.

‘Yes, oh pious one,’ Hannah said, laughing.

Emmeline crossed her arms. ‘Fine. Keep your silly secrets. I’m sure I don’t mind.’

‘Good,’ Hannah said. ‘Everybody’s happy.’ She smiled at me and I smiled back. ‘Thank you for the lemonade, Grace.’ And then she disappeared, through the kissing gate and into the Long Walk.

‘I’ll find out, you know,’ Emmeline called after her. ‘I always do.’

There came no response and I heard Emmeline huff. As I turned to face her, I saw the white clematis that had decorated her hair, spinning onto the stone below. She looked at me crossly. ‘Is that glass of lemonade for me? I’m parched.’

•

My visit to Mother that afternoon was brief and would not have been notable, had it not been for one thing.

Usually when I visited, Mother and I sat in the kitchen where the light was best for stitching and where we had spent most of our time together before I started at Riverton. That day, however, when she met me at the door, she led me to the tiny sitting room that opened off the kitchen. I was surprised, and wondered who else Mother was expecting, for the room was rarely used, had always been reserved for the visits of important folk like Doctor Arthur, or the church minister. I sat on a chair by the window and waited while she fetched tea.

Mother had made an effort to present the room at its best. I recognised the signs. A favoured vase that had once belonged to her own mother, white porcelain with tulips painted on the front, stood on the side table, clutching proudly a handful of tired daisies. And the cushion she usually rolled up and propped against her back when she worked had been beaten smooth and arranged in the middle of the sofa. It was a sly impostor, sitting there squarely, looking for all the world as if it served no other function than decoration.

The room was especially clean—years in service had given Mother exacting standards—yet it was smaller and plainer than I remembered. The yellow walls that had once seemed cheery were faded, seeming to sag inwards so that only the bare old sofa and chairs saved them from collapse. The pictures on the wall, scenes from the sea that had inspired many of my childhood fancies, had lost their magic and now looked only tired and poorly framed.

Mother brought the tea and sat opposite me. I watched as she poured. There were only two cups. It was to be just the two of us, after all. The room, the flowers, the cushion, were for me.

I took the cup she offered and noted silently the tiny chip on its rim. Mr Hamilton would never approve. There was no place for cracked teacups at Riverton, even in the servants’ hall.

Mother cupped her tea in two hands and I saw that the fingers of each hand had plaited stiffly, one over another. There was no way she’d be able to stitch in that condition; I wondered how long they’d been that bad, how she was affording to live. I had been
forwarding her a portion of my own earnings each week, but surely it wasn’t enough. Warily, I broached the subject.

‘That’s none of your business,’ she said. ‘I’m managing.’

‘But Mother, you should have told me. I could have sent you more. I’ve nothing to spend it on.’

Her gaunt face vacillated between defensiveness and defeat. Finally, she sighed. ‘You’re a good girl, Grace. You’re doing your share. Your mother’s bad fortune’s not yours to worry about.’

‘Of course it is, Mother.’

‘You just be sure an’ don’t make the same mistakes.’

I steeled myself, dared to ask gently, ‘What mistakes, Mother?’

She looked away and I waited, heart beating quickly, as she chewed on her dry bottom lip. Wondering whether at last I was to be trusted with the secrets that had sat between us as long as I could remember …

‘Pish,’ she said finally, turning back to face me. And with that the subject’s door was slammed closed. She lifted her chin and asked about the house, the family, as she always did.

What had I expected? A sudden, magnificently uncharacteristic break from habit? An outpouring of past grievances that explained away my mother’s acrimony, enabled us to reach an understanding that had thus far eluded us?

You know, I think perhaps I had. I was young, and that is my only excuse.

But this is a history, not a fiction, thus it will not surprise you that such was not forthcoming. Instead, I swallowed the sour lump of disappointment and told her about the deaths, unable to prevent a guilty note of importance from creeping in as I recounted the family’s recent misfortune. First the Major—Mr Hamilton’s sombre receipt of the black-rimmed telegraph, Jemima’s fingers shaking so that she was unable at first to open it—and then Lord Ashbury, only days after.

She shook her head, slowly, an action that accentuated her long thin neck, and set down her tea. ‘I’d heard as much. I didn’t know how much to put down to gossip. You know as well as I how bad this village is for tittle-tattle.’

I nodded.

‘What was it took Lord Ashbury, then?’ she said.

‘Mr Hamilton said it was a mix. Partly a stroke and partly the heat.’

Mother continued to nod, chewing the inside of her cheek. ‘And what did Mrs Townsend say?’

‘She said it was none of those things. She said it was grief that killed him, plain and simple.’ I lowered my voice, adopting the same reverent tone that Mrs Townsend had used. ‘She said the Major’s death broke His Lordship’s heart. That when the Major was shot, all his father’s hopes and dreams bled with him into the soil of France.’

Mother smiled, but it was not a happy gesture. She shook her head slowly, looked at the wall before her with its pictures of the distant sea. ‘Poor, poor Frederick,’ she said. This surprised me and at first I thought I must have misheard, or that she had made a mistake, uttered the wrong name accidentally, for it made little sense. Poor Lord Ashbury. Poor Lady Violet. Poor Jemima. But Frederick?

‘You needn’t worry about him,’ I said. ‘He’s as like to inherit the house.’

‘There’s more to happiness than riches, girl.’

I didn’t like it when Mother spoke of happiness. The sentiment was hollowed by its speaker. Mother, with her pinched eyes and her empty house was the last person fit to offer such advice. I felt chastened somehow. Reprimanded for an offence I couldn’t name. I answered sulkily. ‘Try telling that to Fanny.’

Mother frowned, and I realised the name was unknown to her.

‘Oh,’ I said, inexplicably cheered. ‘I forgot. You wouldn’t know her. She’s Lady Clementine’s charge. She hopes to marry Mr Frederick.’

Mother looked at me, disbelieving. ‘Marry? Frederick?’

I nodded. ‘Fanny’s been working on him all year.’

‘He’s not asked her, though?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But it’s only a matter of time.’

‘Who told you so? Mrs Townsend?’

I shook my head. ‘Myra.’

Mother recovered somewhat, managed a thin smile. ‘She’s mistaken then, this Myra of yours. Frederick wouldn’t marry again. Not after Penelope.’

‘Myra doesn’t make mistakes.’

Mother crossed her arms. ‘On this, she’s wrong.’

Her certainty grated me, as if she would know better than I the goings on up at the house. ‘Even Mrs Townsend agrees,’ I said. ‘She says Lady Violet approves the match and that, though Mr Frederick mightn’t appear to mind what his mother says, he’s never gone against her when it counted.’

‘No,’ said Mother, her smile flickering then fading. ‘No, I don’t suppose he has.’ She turned to stare through the open window. The grey-stone wall of the house next door. ‘I never thought he would remarry.’

Her voice had lost all resolution and I felt badly. Ashamed of my desire to put her in her place. Mother had been fond of this Penelope, of Hannah and Emmeline’s mother. She must’ve been. What else explained her reluctance to see Mr Frederick replace his late wife? Her dejection when I insisted it was true? I put my hand on hers. ‘You’re right, Mother. I was speaking out of turn. We don’t know anything for sure.’

She didn’t answer.

I leaned close. ‘And certainly there’s none could accuse Mr Frederick of genuine feeling for Fanny. He looks more lovingly at his riding crop.’

My joke was an attempt to cajole her, and I was pleased when she turned to face me. I was surprised, too, for in that moment, as the afternoon sunlight brushed her cheek and teased green from her brown eyes, Mother almost looked pretty. It was a term I’d never thought would suit her. Clean and neat, perhaps, but never pretty.

I thought of Hannah’s words, her talk of Mother’s photograph, and I was even more resolved to see it for myself. To glimpse the type of person Mother might have been. The girl Hannah called pretty and Mrs Townsend remembered so fondly.

‘He was always a great one for riding,’ she said, setting her teacup on the window ledge. She surprised me then, took my hand between hers and rubbed at the chapped patches on my palm. ‘Tell me about your new duties. Looks of these, they’ve been keeping you awful busy up there.’