The Shifting Fog (43 page)

‘He doesn’t have a wife,’ says Emmeline. ‘Not yet.’

‘Shame on you, monsieur,’ says Hannah, voice quivering. ‘My sister is only seventeen.’

As if spring-loaded, Philippe’s arm pulls away from Emmeline’s shoulders.

‘Seventeen’s old enough to be in love,’ says Emmeline. ‘We’ll marry when I’m eighteen, won’t we, Philly?’

Philippe smiles an awkward smile, wipes his hands on his trouser legs and stands.

‘Won’t we?’ says Emmeline, voice raising a tone. ‘Like we talked about? Tell her.’

Hannah tosses the dress into Emmeline’s lap. ‘Yes, monsieur, do tell.’

One of the lamps flickers and the light extinguishes. Philippe shrugs, his cigar sags from his lower lip. ‘I, ah . . . I . . .’

‘Stop it, Hannah,’ says Emmeline, voice trembling. ‘You’re going to ruin everything.’

‘I’m taking my sister home,’ says Hannah. ‘And if you make this any more difficult than it already is, my husband will ensure you never make another film. He has friends in the police and the government. I’m sure they’d be very interested to know about the films you’re making.’

Philippe is very helpful after that; he collects some more of Emmeline’s things from the bathroom and packs them in her bag, though not with as much care as I would like. He carries her bags to the car, and while Emmeline is crying and telling him how much she loves him and begging him to tell Hannah that they’re to be married, he stays very quiet. Finally, he looks at Hannah, frightened by the things Emmeline is saying, and just what kind of trouble Hannah’s husband could make for him, and he says, ‘I do not know what she talks about. She is crazy. She told me she was twenty-one.’

Emmeline cries all the way home, hot angry tears. I doubt she hears a word of Hannah’s lecture about responsibility and reputation and running away not being the answer.

‘He loves me,’ is all she says when Hannah reaches the end. There are tears streaming down her face and her eyes are red. ‘We’re going to be married.’

Hannah sighs. ‘Stop, Emmeline. Please.’

‘We’re in love. Philippe will come and find me.’

‘I doubt that,’ says Hannah.

‘Why did you have to come and ruin things?’

‘Ruin things?’ Hannah says. ‘I rescued you. You’re lucky we got there before you got yourself into real trouble. He’s already married. He lied to you so you’d make his disgusting films.’

Emmeline stares at Hannah, her bottom lip trembling. ‘You just can’t stand it that I’m happy,’ Emmeline says, ‘that I’m in love. That something wonderful has finally happened to me. Someone loves
me
the best.’

Hannah doesn’t answer. We have reached number seventeen and the chauffeur is coming to park the car.

Emmeline crosses her arms and sniffles. ‘Well you might have ruined this film, but I’m still going to be an actress. Philippe will wait for me. And the other films will still be shown.’

‘There are others?’ Hannah looks at me in the rear-vision mirror, and I know what she is thinking. Teddy will have to be told. Only he will be able to make sure the films are never seen. As Hannah and Emmeline disappear into the house I hurry down the servants’ stairs. I do not own a wristwatch but feel sure it must be getting on for five. The stage show starts at half past the hour. I push through the door but it is Mrs Tibbit waiting for me, not Alfred.

‘Alfred?’ I say, out of breath.

‘Nice fellow, him,’ she says, a sly smile tugging at her mole. ‘Pity he had to go so soon.’

My heart sinks and I glance at the clock. ‘How long ago did he leave?’

‘Oh, some time now,’ she says, turning back toward the kitchen.

‘Sat around here a while, watching the time tick by. Until I put him out of his misery.’

‘Out of his misery?’

‘Told him he was wasting his time. That you were out on one of your
secret
errands for the Mistress and it was anyone’s guess when you’d be back.’

I am running again. Down Regent Street toward Piccadilly. If I go quickly perhaps I can catch him up. I curse that meddling witch, Mrs Tibbit, while I go. What business had she telling Alfred I wouldn’t be back? And to advise him I was running an errand for Hannah, on my day off too! It’s as if she knew the very way to inflict the largest wound. I know him well enough to guess at Alfred’s mind. More and more these days his letters are peppered with frustration at the‘feudal exploitation of slaves and serfs’, calls to ‘wake the sleeping giant of the proletariat’. He is already frustrated at my failure to perceive my employment as exploitation. Miss Hannah needs me, I write to him again and again, and I enjoy the work: how can that be viewed as exploitation?

As Regent Street opens into Piccadilly, the noise and bustle escalates. The Saqui & Lawrence clocks are arranged at half-five—end of business—and the circus is clogged with traffic: pedestrian and automotive. Gentlemen and businessmen, ladies and errand boys, jostle for safe passage. I squeeze between a motorbus and a stalled motorised taxi, am almost flattened by a horse-drawn cart laden with fat hessian sacks.

Down the Haymarket I hurry, jumping over an extended cane, invoking the ire of its monocled owner. I stay close to the buildings where the pavement is less travelled until, breathless, I reach Her Majesty’s Theatre. I lean against the stone wall directly beneath the playbill, scanning the laughing, frowning, speaking, nodding faces going by, waiting for my gaze to strike that familiar template. A thin gentleman and a thinner lady rush up the theatre stairs. He presents two tickets and they are swept inside. In the distance, a clock—Big Ben?—strikes the quarter-hour. Could Alfred still be coming? Has he changed his mind? Or am I too late and he’s already in his seat?

I wait to hear Big Ben sound the hour, then another quarterhour for good measure. No one has entered or left the theatre since the pair of well-dressed greyhounds. By now I am sitting on the stairs. My breath is caught and I am resigned. I will not be seeing Alfred this evening.

When a street cleaner risks a lewd smile at me, it is finally time to leave. I gather my shawl about my shoulders, straighten my hat, and set back for number seventeen. I will write to Alfred. Explain what happened. About Hannah and Mrs Tibbit; I may even tell him the whole truth, about Emmeline and Philippe and the almostscandal. For all his ideas about exploitation and feudal societies, Alfred is sure to understand. Isn’t he?

Hannah has told Teddy about Emmeline’s films and he is outraged. The timing couldn’t be worse, he says, the eve of his nomination for the upcoming election. If word gets out about this filth it will ruin him, ruin all of them.

Hannah nods, and apologises again, reminds Teddy that Emmeline is young and naïve and gullible. That she will grow out of it. Teddy grunts. He is grunting a lot these days. He runs a hand through his dark hair, which is turning grey. Emmeline has had no guidance, he says; that’s the problem. Creatures that grow up in the wilderness turn out wild.

Hannah reminds him that Emmeline is growing up in the same place she did and Teddy only raises an eyebrow. She needs to be taken in hand, he says. The sooner the better. She needs to spend more time under his roof with his sister to guide her into adulthood.

Hannah disagrees. She thinks that time spent in Deborah’s company is just another type of wilderness, but she doesn’t say so. She needs Teddy to get the films back and she doesn’t want to anger him.

Teddy huffs. He doesn’t have time to discuss it further; he has to get to the club. He has Hannah write down the film-maker’s address and he tells her not to keep things from him in future. There is no room for secrets between married people.

The next morning, when I am clearing away Hannah’s dressing table, I find a note with my name at its top. She has left it for me; must have put it there after I dressed her. I unfold it, my fingers trembling. Why? Not with fear or dread or any of the usual emotions that make people tremble. It is with expectation, unexpectedness, excitement.

When I open it, however, it is not written in English. It is a series of curves and lines and dots, marked carefully across the page. It is shorthand, I realise as I stare at it. I recognise it from the books I found, years ago, back at Riverton, when I was tidying Hannah’s room. She has left me a note in our secret language, a language I cannot read.

I keep the note with me all through the day while I clean, and stitch, and mend. But even though I make it through my chores, I am unable to concentrate. Half my mind is always occupied, wondering what it says, how I can find out. I look for books so that I might decode it—did Hannah bring them here from Riverton?—but I cannot find any.

A few days later, while I’m clearing tea, Hannah leans close to me and says, ‘Did you get my note?’

I tell her I did and my stomach tightens when she says,

‘Our secret,’ and smiles. The first smile I have seen in some time.

I know then it is important, a secret, and I the only person she has trusted. I must either confess or find a way to read it. I choose the latter, of course I do; it is the first time in my life anyone has written me a letter in a secret code.

Days later, it comes to me. I pull from beneath my bed
The Return
of Sherlock Holmes
and let it fall open to a well-marked spot. There, between two favourite stories, is my special secret place. From amongst Alfred’s letters, I pluck a small scrap of notepaper, kept for over a year. I am lucky I still have it; kept not because it contains her address, but because it is written in his hand. I used to take it out regularly: look at it, smell it, replay the day he gave it to me, but have not done so in months, not since he started to write his regular, more affectionate letters. I remove it from its safe-keeping: Lucy Starling’s address.

I have never visited her before; have never needed to. My position keeps me busy and what little spare time I have is spent reading, or writing to Alfred. Besides, something else has stopped me contacting her. A small flame of envy, ridiculous but potent, sparked when Alfred spoke her first name so casually that evening in the fog. As I reach the flat I’m racked with doubt. Am I doing the right thing? Does she still live here? Should I have worn my second, better dress? I ring the doorbell and an old lady answers. I am relieved and disappointed.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I was looking for someone else.’

‘Yes?’ says the old lady.

‘An old friend.’

‘Name?’

‘Miss Starling,’ I say, not that it’s any of her business. ‘Lucy Starling.’

I have nodded farewell and am turning to leave when she says, somewhat slyly, ‘First floor. Second door on the left.’

The landlady, as she turns out to be, watches me as I disappear up the red-carpeted stairs. I can no longer see her yet I feel her eyes on me. Perhaps I don’t; perhaps I have read too many mystery novels.

I go carefully along the hall. It is dark. The only window, above the stairwell, is grimy with dust from the road. Second on the left. I knock on the door. There is rustling behind it and I know she is home. I take a breath.

The door opens. It is her. Just as I remember. She looks at me a moment. ‘Yes?’ Blinks. ‘Do I know you?’

The landlady is still watching. She has climbed up the first few stairs to keep me in her sights. I glance quickly at her then back at Miss Starling.

‘My name is Grace. Grace Reeves. I knew you at Riverton Manor?’

Realisation lights her face. ‘Grace. Of course. How lovely to see you.’ The in-between voice that used to set her apart amongst the staff at Riverton. She smiles, stands aside, and gestures for me to come in.

I have not thought this far ahead. The idea of visiting at all came to me rather suddenly.

Miss Starling is standing in a little sitting room, waiting for me to sit so that she may do so.

She offers a cup of tea and it seems impolite to refuse. When she disappears into what I presume is a kitchenette, I allow my gaze to tiptoe over the room. It is lighter than the hall, and her windows, I notice, like the flat itself, are scrupulously clean. She has made the best of a modest situation.

She returns with a tray. Teapot, sugar bowl, two cups.

‘What a lovely surprise,’ she says. In her gaze is the question she is too polite to ask.

‘I’ve come to ask a favour,’ I say.

She nods. ‘What is it?’

‘You know shorthand?’

‘Of course,’ she says, frowning a little. ‘Pitman’s and Gregg’s.’

It is the last opportunity I have to back out, to leave. I could tell her I made a mistake, put back my teacup and head for the door. Hurry down the stairs, into the street, and never return. But then I would never know. And I must. ‘Would you read something for me?’ I hear myself say. ‘Tell me what it says?’

‘Of course.’

I hand her the note. Hold my breath, hoping I have made the right decision.

Her pale eyes scan, line by line, excruciatingly slowly it seems. Finally she clears her throat. ‘It says,
Thank you for your help in the
unfortunate film affair. How would I have got on without you? T was
none too pleased . . . I’m sure you can imagine. I haven’t told him
everything, certainly not about our visit to that dreadful place. He
doesn’t take kindly to secrets. I know I can count on you, my trusted
Grace, more like a sister than a maid.
’ She looks up at me. ‘Does that make sense to you?’

I nod, I am unable to speak. More like a sister. A sister. I am suddenly in two places at once: here in Lucy Starling’s modest sitting room, and far and long ago in the Riverton nursery, gazing longingly from the bookcase at two girls with matching hair and matching bows. Matching secrets.

Miss Starling returns the note but makes no further comment on its contents. I realise, suddenly, that it may have raised suspicions, with its talk of unfortunate affairs and keeping secrets.

‘It’s part of a game,’ I say quickly, then slower, luxuriating in the falsehood. ‘A game we sometimes play.’

‘How nice,’ says Miss Starling, smiling unconcernedly. She is a secretary and is used to learning and forgetting the confidences of others.

We finish our tea chatting about London and the old days at Riverton. I am surprised to hear that Miss Starling was always nervous when she had to come downstairs. That she found Mr Hamilton more imposing than Mr Frederick. We both laugh when I tell her we were as nervous as she.