The Shifting Fog (48 page)

‘Grace?’ said Alfred, eyes wide with apprehension. I felt myself smile, heard myself begin to laugh. I couldn’t seem to stop. I was weeping too, cold, damp tears on my cheeks. It was hysteria, I suppose: so much had happened in the past few moments, too much to take in. The shock of realising my relationship to Mr Frederick, to Hannah. The surprise and delight of Alfred’s proposal.

‘Gracie?’ Alfred was watching me uncertainly. ‘Does that mean you’d like to? To marry me, I mean?’

To marry him. Me. It was my secret dream, yet now it was happening I found myself hopelessly unprepared. I had long since put such fancy down to youth. Stopped imagining it might ever really come about. That anyone would ask me. That Alfred would ask me.

Somehow, I nodded, managed to stop myself from laughing. Heard myself say: ‘Yes.’ Little more than a whisper. I closed my eyes, my head swirled. A little louder: ‘Yes.’

Alfred whooped and I opened my eyes. He was grinning, relief seeming to lighten him. A man and woman walking down the other street turned to look at us and Alfred called out to them, ‘She said yes!’ And then he turned back to me, rubbed his lips together, trying to stop smiling so that he could speak. He gripped my upper arms. He was trembling. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

I nodded again, smiled. So much was happening.

‘Grace,’ he said softly. ‘I was wondering . . . Would it be all right for me to kiss you?’

I must have said yes for next I knew he had lifted a hand to support my head, leaned toward me, made contact. The strange, pleasant foreignness of Alfred’s lips on mine. Cold, soft, secret. Time seemed to slow.

He withdrew. Grinned at me, so young, so fine-looking in the deep twilight.

Then he linked his arm through mine, the first time he had ever done so, and we started down the street. We didn’t speak, just walked silently, together. Where his arm crossed mine, pressed the cotton of my shirt against my skin, I shivered. Its warmth, its weight, a promise.

Alfred stroked my wrist with his gloved fingers and I thrilled. My senses were acute: as if someone had removed a layer of skin, enabling me to feel more deeply, more freely. I leaned a little closer. To think that in the space of a day so much had changed. I had gleaned Mother’s secret, realised the nature of my bond to Hannah, Alfred had asked me to marry him. I almost told him then, my deductions about Mother and Mr Frederick, but the words died on my lips. There would be plenty of time later. The idea was still so new: I wanted to savour Mother’s secret a little longer. And I wanted to savour my own happiness. So I remained silent and we continued to walk, arms linked, down Mother’s street. Precious, perfect moments that I have replayed countless times throughout my life. Sometimes, in my mind, we reach the house.

We go inside and drink a toast to our health, are married soon after. And we live happily the rest of our days until we both reach a great age.

But that is not what happened, as well you know. Rewind. Replay. We were halfway along the street, outside Mr Connelly’s house—maudlin Irish flute music on the breeze—

when Alfred said, ‘You can give notice as soon as you get back to London.’

I glanced sharply at him. ‘Notice?’

‘To Mrs Luxton.’ He smiled at me. ‘You won’t need to be dressing her any longer once we’re married. We’ll move to Ipswich straight after. You can work with me, if you like. On the books. Or you could take in stitching, if you prefer?’

Give notice? Leave Hannah? ‘But Alfred,’ I said simply, ‘I can’t leave my position.’

‘Of course you can,’ he said. Bemusement tugged at his smile.

‘I am.’

‘But it’s different . . .’ I grasped at words of explanation, words that would make him understand. ‘I’m a lady’s maid. Hannah needs me.’

‘She doesn’t need
you
, she needs a drudge to keep her gloves in order.’ His voice softened. ‘You’re too good for that, Grace. You deserve better. To be your own person.’

I wanted to explain to him. That Hannah would find another maid, certainly, but that I was more than a maid. That we were bonded. Tied. Since the day in the nursery when we were both fourteen, when I’d wondered what it might be like to have a sister. When I’d lied to Miss Prince for Hannah, so instinctively it had frightened me.

That I had made her a promise. When she begged me not to leave I’d given her my word.

That we were sisters. Secret sisters.

‘Besides,’ he said. ‘We’ll be living in Ipswich. You can hardly keep up work in London, can you?’ He patted my arm good-naturedly. I looked sideways at his face. So genuine. So sure. Empty of ambivalence. And I felt my arguments disintegrating, falling away, even as I framed them. There were no words to make him see, to make him understand in a moment what had taken me years to grasp.

And I knew then I could never have them both, Alfred and Hannah. That I would have to make a choice. Cold beneath my skin. Spreading out like liquid. I unlinked my arm from his, told him I was sorry. I’d made a mistake, I said. A terrible mistake.

And then I ran from him. Didn’t turn back, though I knew somehow he remained, unmoving, beneath the cold yellow streetlight. That he watched me as I disappeared down the darkened lane, as I waited miserably for my aunt to admit me and slipped, distraught, into the house. As I closed between us the doorway into whatmight-have-been. The trip back to London was excruciating. It was long and cold and the roads were slippery with snow. But it was the company that made it particularly painful. I was trapped with myself in the motor-car’s cabin, engaged in fruitless debate. I spent the entire journey telling myself I’d made the right choice, the only choice, to remain with Hannah as promised. And by the time the motor car pulled up at number seventeen, I had myself convinced. I was convinced, too, that Hannah already knew of our bond. That she’d guessed, overheard folk whispering, had even been told. For surely it explained why she’d always turned to me, treated me as confidante. Since the morning I’d bumped into her in the cold alleyway of Mrs Dove’s Secretarial School.

So now we both knew.

And the secret would remain, unspoken, between us. A silent bond of dedication and devotion.

I was relieved I hadn’t told Alfred. He wouldn’t have understood my decision to keep it to myself. Would have insisted I tell Hannah: even demanded some sort of recompense. Kind, caring though he was, he wouldn’t have perceived the importance of maintaining the status quo. Wouldn’t have seen that no one else could know. For what if Teddy were to find out? Or Deborah? Hannah would suffer, I could be let go.

No, it was better this way. There was no choice. It was the only way to proceed.

Hannah’s Story

It is time now to speak of things I didn’t see. To push Grace and her concerns aside and bring Hannah to the fore. For while I was away, something had happened. I realised as soon as I laid eyes on her. Things were different. Hannah was different. Brighter. Secretive. More self-satisfied.

What had happened at number seventeen, I learned gradually, as I did so much of what went on that final year. I had my suspicions, of course, but I neither saw nor heard everything. Only Hannah knew exactly what occurred and she had never been one for fervent confessions. They were not her style; she had always preferred secrets. But after the terrible events of 1924, when we were shut up together at Riverton, she became more forthcoming. And I was a good listener. This is what she told me.

I

It was the Monday after my mother’s death. I had left for Saffron Green, Teddy was at work, and Deborah and Emmeline were lunching. Hannah was alone in the drawing room. She had intended to write correspondence but her paper box languished on the lounge. She found she had little spirit for writing copious thankyou letters to the wives of Teddy’s allies and was instead looking out over the street, guessing at the lives of the passers-by. She was so involved in her game she didn’t see him come to the front door. Didn’t hear him ring the bell. The first she knew was when Boyle knocked on the morning-room door and made his announcement.

‘A gentleman to see you, ma’am.’

‘A gentleman, Boyle?’ she said, watching as a little girl broke free from her nanny and ran into the frosty park. When was the last time she had run? Run so fast she felt the wind like a slap on her face, her heart thumping so large in her chest that she almost couldn’t breathe?

‘Says he has something belonging to you that he’d like to return, ma’am.’

How tiresome it all was. ‘Could he not leave it with you, Boyle?’

‘He says not, ma’am. Says he has to deliver it in person.’

‘I really can’t think that I’m missing anything.’ Hannah pulled her eyes reluctantly from the little girl and turned from the window.

‘I suppose you’d better show him in.’

Mr Boyle hesitated. Seemed to be on the verge of speaking.

‘Is there something else?’ said Hannah.

‘No, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Only that the gentleman . . . I don’t think he’s much of a gentleman, ma’am.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ said Hannah.

‘Only that he doesn’t seem entirely respectable.’

Hannah raised her eyebrows. ‘He’s not in a state of undress, is he?

‘No, ma’am, he’s dressed well enough.’

‘He’s not saying obscene things?’

‘No, ma’am,’ said Boyle. ‘He’s polite enough.’

Hannah gasped. ‘It’s not a Frenchman; short with a moustache?’

‘Oh no, Ma’am’

‘Then tell me Boyle: ‘What form does this lack of respectability take?’

Boyle frowned. ‘I couldn’t say, ma’am. Just a feeling I got.’

Hannah gave the appearance of considering Boyle’s feeling, but her interest was piqued. ‘If the gentleman says he has something belonging to me, I had best have it back. If he gives any sign of wanting respectability, Boyle, I’ll ring for you directly.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Boyle with great importance. He bowed and left the room, and Hannah straightened her dress. The door opened again and Robbie Hunter was standing before her. She didn’t recognise him at first. She had only known him briefly, after all; one winter, almost a decade before. And he had changed. He had been a boy when she knew him at Riverton. With smooth, clear skin, wide brown eyes and a gentle manner. And he had been still, she remembered. It was one of the things that had infuriated her. His self-possession. The way he came into their lives with no warning, goaded her into saying things she oughtn’t, and proceeded, with such ease, to woo their brother from them. The man who stood before her in the morning room was tall, dressed in a black suit and a white shirt. It was ordinary enough clothing, but he wore it differently to Teddy and the other businessmen Hannah knew. His face was striking but lean: hollows below his cheekbones, and shadows beneath his dark eyes. She could see the lack of respectability to which Boyle referred, and yet she was at just as much of a loss to articulate it.

‘Good morning,’ she said.

He looked at her, seemed to look right inside her. She’d had men stare before, but something in the focus of his gaze caused her to blush. And when she did, he smiled. ‘You haven’t changed.’

It was then she knew him. Recognised his voice. ‘Mr Hunter,’ she said incredulously. She looked him over again, this new knowledge colouring her observation. The same dark hair, the same dark eyes. Same sensuous mouth, always slightly amused. She wondered how she’d missed them before. She straightened, stilled herself. ‘How nice of you to come.’ The moment the words were out, she regretted their ordinariness and longed to pull them back. He smiled; rather ironically it seemed to Hannah.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ She indicated Teddy’s armchair and Robbie sat perfunctorily, like a schoolboy obeying a mundane instruction unworthy of defiance. Once again she had an irksome sense of her own triviality.

She checked her hair lightly with the palms of both hands, made sure the pins were all in place, smoothed the pale ends against her neck. She smiled politely. ‘Is there something amiss, Mr Hunter?

Something I need to fix?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve carried an image in my mind, all this time . . . You’re still the same.’

‘Not the same, Mr Hunter, I assure you,’ she said, as lightly as she could. ‘I was fifteen when last we met.’

‘Were you really so young?’

There was that lack of respectability again. Oh, it wasn’t so much what he said—it was a perfectly ordinary question, after all—it was something in the way he said it. As if he concealed a double meaning she couldn’t grasp. ‘I’ll ring for tea, shall I?’ she said, and regretted it immediately. Now he would stay. She stood and pressed the bell button then hovered by the mantle, straightening objects and collecting herself, until Boyle was at the door.

‘Mr Hunter will be joining me for tea,’ said Hannah. Boyle looked at Robbie suspiciously.

‘He was a friend to my brother,’ Hannah added, ‘in the war.’

‘Ah,’ said Boyle. ‘Yes, ma’am. I’ll have Mrs Tibbit fetch up tea for two.’ How deferential he was. How conventional his deference made her seem.

Robbie was looking around, taking in the morning room. The Art Deco furnishings that Deborah had selected (‘the latest thing’) and Hannah had always tolerated. His gaze drifted from the octagonal mirror above the fire to the gold and brown diamondprint curtains.

‘Modern, isn’t it?’ Hannah said, striving for flippancy. ‘I’m never quite sure I like it, but my husband’s sister says that’s the point of modernity.’

Robbie seemed not to hear. ‘David spoke of you often,’ he said.

‘I feel that I know you. You and Emmeline and Riverton.’

Hannah sank onto the edge of the lounge at mention of David. She had schooled herself not to think of him, not to open the box of tender memories. And yet here sat the one person with whom she might be able to discuss him. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘tell me about David, Mr Hunter.’ She steeled herself. ‘Was he . . . did he . . .’ She pressed her lips together, looked at Robbie. ‘I’ve often hoped he forgave me.’

‘Forgave you?’

‘I was such a prig that last winter, before he left. We weren’t expecting you. We were used to having David to ourselves. I was rather stubborn, I fear. I spent the entire duration ignoring you, wishing you weren’t there.’