The Shifting Fog (27 page)

‘At least they
have
money,’ Myra said. ‘That’ll make a welcome change around here if you ask me.’

Mr Hamilton straightened and shot me a stern look, though I had not been the one to speak. As the war had progressed and Myra had spent more time working on the outside, she had changed. In her duties she remained efficient as ever, but when we sat around the servants’ table and spoke of the world, she was more comfortable in voicing opposition, more likely to question the way things were done. I, on the other hand, had not yet been corrupted by external forces and, like a shepherd who decides ’tis better to forsake one lost sheep than risk the flock through inattention, Mr Hamilton had determined to keep both eyes on me. ‘I’m surprised at you, Myra,’

he said, looking at me. ‘You know the Master’s business affairs are not ours to query.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Hamilton,’ Myra said, in a voice without contrition.

‘All I know is that ever since Mr Frederick came to Riverton, he’s been closing rooms faster than I can say. Not to mention the furniture that’s been sold from the west wing. The mahogany writing bureau, Lady Ashbury’s Danish four-poster.’ She eyed me over her polishing cloth. ‘Dudley says most of the horses are going too.’

‘His Lordship is simply being prudent,’ Mr Hamilton said, turning to Myra to better argue his case. ‘The west rooms were closed because, with your railway work and Alfred being away, there was far too much cleaning for young Grace to manage on her own. As for the stables, what need does His Lordship have for so many horses with all his fine motor cars?’

The question, once launched, he let linger in the cool winter’s air. He removed his glasses, huffed on their lenses and wiped them clean with a triumphant theatricality.

‘If you must know,’ he said, stage business complete, glasses restored to his nose’s end, ‘the stables are to be converted into a brand-new garage. The largest in all of Essex.’

Myra was nonplussed. ‘All the same,’ she said, lowering her voice,

‘I’ve heard whispers in the village—’

‘Nonsense,’ Mr Hamilton said.

‘What kind of whispers?’ Mrs Townsend said, bosom heaving with each roll of her pin. ‘News about the Master’s business?’

At the stairs, the shadows shifted and a slim woman of middle years stepped into the light.

‘Miss Starling . . .’ Mr Hamilton faltered. ‘I didn’t see you there. Come on in and Grace will make you a cup of tea.’ He turned to me, mouth tight as the top of a coin purse. ‘Go on then, Grace,’ he said, motioning toward the stove. ‘A cup of tea for Miss Starling.’

Miss Starling cleared her throat before stepping away from the stairwell. She tiptoed toward the nearest chair, little typewriting machine clamped beneath a freckled arm.

Lucy Starling was Mr Frederick’s secretary, employed, originally, for the factory in Ipswich. When the war ended and the family moved permanently to Riverton, she started coming from the village, twice a week, to work in Mr Frederick’s study. She was perfectly ordinary to look at. Medium brown hair tucked beneath a prudent straw hat, skirts in dull shades of brown and olive, a plain white blouse. Her only accessory, a small cream cameo at her collar, seemed to sense its own ordinariness, wilting sadly forward to reveal its simple silver clasp.

She had lost her fiancé on the Ypres Salient and wore her mourning, like her clothing, with enduring plainness, her grief too reasonable ever to excite great sympathy. Myra, who knew such things, said it was a great shame she had gone and lost a man prepared to marry her, for lightning did not strike twice and with her looks and at her age she would almost certainly end up an old maid. What’s more, Myra added sagely, we were as well to pay particular attention that nothing go missing from upstairs, as Miss Starling was as likely as not to be looking toward her old age. Myra’s were not the only suspicions aroused by Miss Starling. The arrival of this quiet, unassuming and, by all accounts, conscientious woman, created a stir downstairs that now seems unimaginable. It was her place that caused such uncertainty. It wasn’t right, Mrs Townsend said, for a young lady of the middle class to be taking liberties in the main house, seating herself in the Master’s study, gadding about with airs and graces out of step with her position. And, though it was doubtful that Miss Starling with her sensible mouse-brown hair, home-stitched clothing and cautious smile could ever be accused of airs and graces, I understood Mrs Townsend’s bother. The lines between upstairs and down had once been clearly and comfortably drawn, but with Miss Starling’s arrival old certainties had begun to shift.

For while she was not one of Them, neither was she one of Us.

Her presence downstairs that afternoon brought a cerise glow to Mr Hamilton’s cheeks and a nervous animation to his fingertips, which now hovered busily about his lapel. The curious matter of station perplexed Mr Hamilton specially, for in the poor, unsuspecting typist he perceived an adversary. Though as butler he was the senior servant, responsible for overseeing the house’s management, as personal secretary she was privy to the shimmering secrets of the family’s business affairs.

Mr Hamilton plucked his gold fob watch from his pocket and made a show of comparing its time with that on the wall clock. The watch had been a gift from the former Lord Ashbury and of it Mr Hamilton was immeasurably proud. It never failed to deliver him stillness, to help retain authority in instances of stress or bother. He ran a pale, steady thumb across its face. ‘Where is Alfred?’ he said, finally.

‘Laying table, Mr Hamilton,’ I said, relieved that the taut balloon of silence had finally been pricked.

‘Still?’ Mr Hamilton snapped closed the watch, his agitation finding welcome focus. ‘It’s been almost a quarter-hour since I sent him with the brandy balloons. Honestly. That boy. I’d like to know what they’ve been teaching him in the military. Ever since he got back he’s been flighty as a feather.’

I flinched as if the criticism had been levelled at me.

‘It’s common with them that’s come home,’ Myra said. ‘Some of them that arrive at the train station are quite strange—’ She stopped polishing wine glasses as she fished about for the right words. ‘Nervous and a bit jumpy.’

‘Jumpy, indeed,’ Mrs Townsend said, shaking her head. ‘He just needs a few good feeds. You’d be jumpy too if you’d been living on army rations. I mean to say. Tins? Of
beef
?’

Miss Starling cleared her throat and said, in a voice leavened with careful elocution: ‘They’re calling it shell shock, I believe.’ She looked about timidly as the room fell silent. ‘At least, that’s what I’ve read. Many of the men are struck by it. It doesn’t do to be too hard on Alfred.’

In the kitchen my hand slipped and black tea leaves rained over the pine table.

Mrs Townsend lay down her rolling pin and pushed her floury sleeves up over her elbows. Blood had rushed to her cheeks. ‘Now just you listen here,’ she said, with an unqualified authority usually the preserve of policemen and mothers. ‘I will not hear talk of that in my kitchen. There’s nothing wrong with Alfred that a few of my dinners won’t fix.’

‘Of course not, Mrs Townsend,’ I said, eyeing Miss Starling.

‘Alfred will be right as rain once he’s had some of your good home cooking.’

‘They’re not a patch on my old dinners, of course, what with the U-boats and now the shortages.’ Mrs Townsend looked at Miss Starling and her voice caught a waver. ‘But I do know what young Alfred likes.’

‘Of course,’ Miss Starling said, traitorous freckles materialising as her cheeks paled. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest . . .’ Her mouth continued to move around the words she couldn’t find to say. Her lips straightened into a wan smile. ‘You know Alfred best, of course.’

Mrs Townsend nodded tersely, punctuating the fact with renewed attack on the pie dough. The thick air thinned some, and Mr Hamilton turned to me, the afternoon’s strain evident on his face.

‘Hurry up then, girl,’ he said wearily. ‘And when you’re finished, you can make yourself useful upstairs. Help the young ladies dress for dinner. Don’t be too long, mind. The table cards still need placing, and the flowers have to be arranged.’

When the war ended and Mr Frederick and the girls took up permanent residence at Riverton, Hannah and Emmeline had chosen new rooms in the east wing. They were residents now rather than guests, and it was only fitting, said Myra, that they take new rooms to demonstrate the point. Emmeline’s room overlooked Eros and Psyche on the front lawn, while Hannah preferred the smaller one with a view to the rose garden and the lake beyond. The two bedrooms were adjoined by a small sitting area which was always referred to as the burgundy room, though I never could think why as the walls were a pale shade of duck-egg blue and the curtains a William Morris floral in blues and pinks.

The burgundy room bore little evidence of its recent reoccupation, retaining the hallmarks of whichever erstwhile inhabitant had overseen its original decoration. It was comfortably appointed, with a pink chaise longue beneath one window and a burr walnut writing desk beneath the other. An armchair sat stately by the door to the hall. Atop a small mahogany table, its red petals in coy half-bloom, the sole addition posed: a gramophone, whose very novelty seemed to bring a blush to the prudent old furnishings. As I made my way along the dim corridor, wistful strains of a familiar song seeped beneath the closed door, mingling with the cold, stale air that hugged the skirting boards.
If you were the only
girl in the world, And I were the only boy . . .
It was Emmeline’s current favourite, on permanent rotation since they’d arrived from London. We were all singing it in the servants hall. Even Mr Hamilton had been heard whistling to himself in his pantry.

I knocked once and entered, crossed the once-proud carpet and busied myself sorting the mound of silks and satins that smothered the armchair. I was glad for the occupation. Though I had longed since they left for the girls’ return, in the intervening two years the familiarity I’d felt when last I served them had evaporated. A quiet revolution had taken place and the two girls with pinafores and too-small walking suits had been replaced by young women. I felt shy of them again.

And there was something else, something vague and unnerving. They were two now where they had been three. David’s death had dismantled the triangle, and an enclosed space was now open. Two points are unreliable; with nothing to anchor them there is nothing to stop them drifting in opposite directions. If it is string that binds, it will eventually snap and the points will separate; if elastic, they will continue to part, further and further, until the strain reaches its limit, and they are pulled back with such speed that they cannot help but collide with devastating force.

Hannah was lying on the chaise, book in hand, a faint frown of focus on her brow. Her free hand was pressed against one ear in a vain attempt to block the record’s crackly fervency. The book was the new James Joyce:
The Portrait of the Artist as
a Young Man
. I could tell by its spine, though I hardly had to look. It had kept her in its thrall since they’d arrived. Emmeline stood in the middle of the room before a full-length mirror dragged in from one of the bedrooms. Against her middle she hugged a dress that I had not yet seen: pink taffeta with ruffles along the hemline. Another of Grandmamma’s gifts, I guessed, purchased with dour conviction that the current shortage of marriageable men would render all but the most attractive prospects superfluous. The final shimmer of wintry sun reached through the French window and hovered winsomely before turning Emmeline’s long ringlets to gold, and landing, exhausted, in a series of pale squares at her feet. Emmeline, on whom such subtleties were wasted, swayed back and forth, pink taffeta rustling, as she hummed along with the record in a pretty voice coloured by its owner’s longing for romance. When the final note dissolved with the sun’s last light, the record continued to spin and bump beneath its needle. Emmeline tossed the dress onto the empty armchair and twirled across the floor. She drew back the needle arm and set about realigning it on the record’s rim.

Hannah looked up from her book. Her long hair had disappeared in London—along with any lingering trace of childhood—now brushing her shoulderblades in soft, golden waves. ‘Not again, Emmeline,’ she said, frowning. ‘Play something else.
Anything
else.’

‘But it’s my favourite.’

‘This week,’ Hannah said.

Emmeline pouted theatrically. ‘How do you think poor Stephen would feel if he knew you wouldn’t listen to his record? It was a gift. The least you could do is enjoy it.’

‘We’ve enjoyed it quite enough,’ Hannah said. She noticed me then. ‘Don’t you agree, Grace?’

I curtseyed and felt my face flush, unsure how to answer. I avoided having to by lighting the gas lamp.

‘If I had an admirer like Stephen Hardcastle,’ Emmeline said dreamily, ‘I should listen to his record a hundred times each day.’

‘Stephen Hardcastle is not an admirer,’ Hannah said, the very suggestion seeming to appal her. ‘We’ve known him forever. He’s a pal. He’s Lady Clem’s godson.’

‘Godson or not, I don’t think he called at Kensington Place every day when he was on leave out of ghoulish desire to hear of Lady Clem’s latest ailment. Do you?’

Hannah bristled slightly. ‘How should I know? They’re very close.’

‘Oh Hannah,’ Emmeline said. ‘For all your reading you can be so dense. Even
Fanny
could see.’ She wound the gramophone handle and dropped the needle arm so that the record started once more to spin. As the music began its sentimental swell, she turned and said, ‘Stephen was hoping you’d make him a
promise
.’

Hannah folded down the corner of her current page then unfolded it again, running her finger along the crease.

‘You know,’ Emmeline said eagerly. ‘A promise of marriage.’

I held my breath; it was the first I’d learned of Hannah receiving a proposal.

‘I’m not an idiot,’ Hannah said, eyes still on the triangular ear beneath her finger. ‘I know what he wanted.’

‘Then why didn’t you—?’