The Shifting Fog (40 page)

‘Come, sit down,’ Hannah said, leading Emmeline to the sofa. ‘I’ll call for tea.’

Emmeline slumped into the corner of the sofa and, when Hannah turned away, smoothed her skirt. It was a plain dress of a season ago; someone had attempted to refashion it into the newer, looser style but it still wore the telltale marks of its original architecture. When Hannah turned back from the service bell, Emmeline stopped fussing and cast an exaggeratedly nonchalant gaze around the room.

Hannah laughed. ‘Oh, Deborah chose everything. It’s hideous isn’t it?’

Emmeline raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly.

Hannah sat next to Emmeline. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said. ‘We can do anything you like this week. Tea and walnut cake at Gunter’s, we can see a show.’

Emmeline shrugged, but her fingers, I could see, were working again at her skirt.

‘We could visit the museum,’ said Hannah. ‘Or take a look at Selfridge’s—’ She hesitated. Emmeline was nodding half-heartedly. Hannah laughed uncertainly. ‘Listen to me, going on,’ she said. ‘You’ve only just got here and I’m already planning the week. I’ve hardly let you get a word in. Haven’t even asked you how you are.’

Emmeline looked at Hannah. ‘I like your dress,’ she said finally, then tightened her lips as if she’d broken some resolution.

It was Hannah’s turn to shrug. ‘Oh, I’ve a wardrobe full of them,’ she said. ‘Teddy brings them home when he’s been abroad. He believes a new dress makes up for missing the trip itself. Why would a woman go abroad except to buy dresses? So I’ve a wardrobe full and nowhere to—’ She caught herself, realising, and bit back a smile. ‘Far too many dresses for me ever to wear.’ She eyed Emmeline casually. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to take a look? See if there’s anything you’d like? You’d be doing me a favour, helping me to clear some space.’

Emmeline looked up quickly, unable to mask her excitement. ‘I suppose I could. If it would be a help.’

Hannah let Emmeline add ten Parisian dresses to her luggage, and I was set to making better alterations to the clothing she had brought with her. I suffered a wave of homesickness for Riverton as I unpicked Myra’s perfunctory stitches. I hoped she wouldn’t take my revisions as personal affronts.

Things between the sisters improved after that: Emmeline’s slump of disaffection vanished, and by the end of the week things were much as they’d always been. They’d relaxed back into an easy friendship, each as relieved as the other by the return to the status quo. I was relieved as well: Hannah had been entirely too glum of late. I hoped the elevation of spirits would outlast the visit.

On Emmeline’s final day, she and Hannah sat at either end of the morning-room sofa, waiting for the car from Riverton. Deborah, on her way to a meeting of her bridge club, was at the writing desk, back turned, sketching a hurried note of condolence for a bereaved pal.

Emmeline reclined luxuriously and gave a wistful little sigh. ‘I could take tea at Gunter’s every day and never grow tired of walnut cake.’

‘You would once you lost that slim little waist,’ said Deborah, dragging her scratchy pen nib across the writing paper. ‘A minute on the lips and all that.’

Emmeline fluttered her eyelids at Hannah who tried not to laugh.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?’ said Emmeline. ‘It really would be no trouble.’

‘I doubt Pa would agree.’

‘Pooh,’ said Emmeline. ‘He wouldn’t care a whit.’ She inclined her head. ‘I could live quite comfortably in the coat closet, you know. You wouldn’t even know I was here.’

Hannah appeared to give this due consideration.

‘You’ll be quite bored without me, you know,’ said Emmeline.

‘I know,’ said Hannah, swooning. ‘How will I ever find things to sustain me?’

Emmeline laughed and tossed a cushion at Hannah.

Hannah caught the cushion and sat straightening its tassels for a moment. Eyes still on the cushion, she said, ‘About Pa, Emme … Is he … ?
How
is he?’

Her strained relations with Pa, I knew, were a constant source of regret for Hannah. On more than one occasion I had found the beginnings of a letter in her escritoire, but none were ever posted.

‘He’s Pa,’ said Emmeline, shrugging. ‘Same as always.’

‘Oh,’ said Hannah disconsolately. ‘Good. I hadn’t heard from him.’

‘No,’ said Emmeline, yawning. ‘Well, you know what Pa’s like once he sets his mind.’

‘Yes,’ said Hannah. ‘Still, I rather thought …’ Her voice tapered off and for a moment there was silence between them. Though Deborah’s back was turned, I could see her ears had pricked, with Alsatian hunger, at the hint of friction. Hannah must have seen too, for she straightened and changed the subject with forced brightness. ‘I don’t know whether I mentioned, Emme—I’d thought to take some work when you’ve gone.’

‘Work?’ said Emmeline. ‘In a dress shop?’

Now Deborah laughed. She sealed her envelope and swung around on her chair. She stopped laughing when she saw Hannah’s face. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Oh, Hannah’s usually serious,’ said Emmeline.

‘When we were on Oxford Street the other day,’ said Hannah to Emmeline, ‘and you were having your hair done, I saw a small press, Blaxland’s, with a sign in the window. They were looking for editors.’ She raised her shoulders. ‘I love to read, I’m interested in politics, my grammar and spelling are better than average—’

‘But don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ said Deborah, handing her letter to me. ‘See it makes this morning’s mail.’ She turned to Hannah. ‘They’d never take you.’

‘They already have,’ said Hannah. ‘I applied on the spot. The owner said he needed somebody urgently.’

Deborah inhaled sharply; schooled her lips into a dilute smile. ‘Why, it’s out of the question.’

‘What question?’ said Emmeline, feigning earnestness.

‘The question of rightness,’ said Deborah.

‘I didn’t realise there was a question of rightness,’ said Emmeline. She started to laugh. ‘What’s the answer?’

Deborah inhaled, her nostrils sucking together. ‘Blaxland’s?’ she
said thinly to Hannah. ‘Aren’t they the publishers responsible for all those nasty little red pamphlets the soldiers are handing out on street corners?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘My brother would have a fit.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Hannah. ‘Teddy’s often expressed sympathy for the unemployed.’

Deborah’s eyes flashed wider: the surprise of a predator interested briefly by its prey. ‘You’ve misheard,’ she said. ‘Tiddles knows better than to alienate his future constituents.’ (And if he didn’t then, he certainly did after Deborah spoke with him that night.) ‘Besides …’ She stood triumphantly and attached her hat before the hearth mirror, ‘… sympathy or not, I can’t imagine he’d be too pleased to learn you’d joined forces with the very people who printed those filthy articles that lost him the election.’

Hannah’s face fell—she hadn’t realised. She glanced at Emmeline who shrugged her shoulders sympathetically. Deborah, observing their reactions in the mirror, swallowed a smile and turned to face Hannah, tut-tutting disappointedly. ‘How could you be so disloyal?’

Hannah exhaled slowly.

‘And my poor brother thinks butter wouldn’t melt,’ said Deborah. She shook her head. ‘It’ll kill him when he hears about this. Kill him.’

‘Then don’t tell him,’ said Hannah.

‘You think he won’t notice?’ said Deborah. ‘You think there won’t be a hundred other people only too happy to tell him when they see your name,
his
name, on that propaganda?’

‘I’ll tell them I can’t take the position,’ said Hannah quietly. She set the cushion aside. ‘But I intend to look for something else. Something more suitable.’

‘Dear child,’ said Deborah, shaking her head. ‘When will you understand? There are no suitable jobs for you. How would it look for people to see Teddy’s wife working? What would people say?’

‘I need to do something,’ said Hannah. ‘Something other than sitting around here all day waiting to see if anyone calls.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Deborah, scooping her purse from the writing desk. ‘No one likes to be idle.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Though I’d have thought there was a lot more to do around here than sit and wait. A household doesn’t run itself, you know.’

‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘And I would happily take over some of the running—’

‘Best stick to things you do well,’ said Deborah, slinking toward the door. ‘That’s what I always say.’ She paused, holding the door open, then turned, a slow smile spreading across her face. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s a wonder I didn’t think of it earlier.’ She pursed her lips. ‘You’ll join my Conservative Ladies group. We’ve been looking for volunteers for the upcoming gala. You can help write place cards. If you manage that, there are always decorations to be painted.’

Hannah and Emmeline exchanged a glance as Boyle came to the door.

‘The car is here for Miss Emmeline,’ he said. ‘Can I call you a taxi, Miss Deborah?’

‘Don’t bother yourself, Boyle,’ said Deborah chirpily. ‘I feel like some fresh air.’

Boyle nodded and left to supervise the stowing of Emmeline’s bags in the motor car.

‘What a stroke of genius!’ Deborah said, smiling broadly at Hannah. ‘Teddy will be so pleased. His two girls spending all that time together, becoming real chums!’ She inclined her head and lowered her voice. ‘And this way, he’ll never need know about that other unfortunate business.’

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

I won’t wait for Sylvia. I am done waiting. I will find my own cup of tea. A loud, tinny, thumping music comes from the speakers on the makeshift stage, and a group of six young girls are dancing. They are dressed in black and red lycra—little more than swimsuits—and black boots that come all the way to their knees. The heels are high and I wonder how they manage to dance in them at all, then I remember the dancers of my youth. The Hammersmith Palladion, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Emmeline doing the shimmy-shake.

I claw my fingers around the armrest, lean so that my elbow digs into my ribs, and push myself upwards, hugging the rail. I hover for a moment, then transfer my weight to my cane, wait for the landscape to stop still. Blessed heat. I poke my cane gingerly at the ground. The recent rain has left it soft and I am wary of becoming bogged. I use the indentations made by other people’s footsteps. It is a slow process, but I go surely …

‘Hear your future … Read your palm …’

I cannot abide fortune tellers. I was once told I had a short life line; did not properly shake the vague sense of foreboding until I was midway through my sixties.

I pick my way onwards; will not look. I am resigned to my future. It is the past that troubles.

Hannah saw the fortune teller in early 1921. It was a Wednesday morning; Hannah’s ‘at-homes’ were always Wednesday morning. Deborah was lunching at the Savoy Grill and Teddy was at work with his father. Teddy had lost his air of trauma by then; he looked like someone who had woken from a strange dream relieved to realise he was still who he used to be. He and Simion were buying up petrol, tyres, trams and trains. Simion said it was essential to stamp out other forms of transport. It was the only way to ensure that people always needed to buy their cars. Hannah said it was a shame, she rather liked a choice, but Teddy and Simion only laughed and said most people weren’t equipped to make a sound choice and it was just as well if someone made it for them.

A parade of fashionably dressed women had been leaving number seventeen for the past five minutes when I started to clear the tea items. (We had just lost our fifth housemaid and no replacement had yet been found.) Only Hannah, Fanny and Lady Clementine remained, sitting on the lounges, finishing their tea. Hannah was tapping her spoon lightly, distractedly, against her saucer. She was anxious for them to go, though I did not yet know why.

‘Really dear,’ Lady Clementine said, eyeing Hannah over her empty teacup, ‘
you
should think about starting a family.’ She exchanged a glance with Fanny, who repositioned proudly her own sizeable heft. She was expecting her second. ‘Children are good for a marriage. Aren’t they, Fanny?’

Fanny nodded, but was unable to speak as her mouth was full with sponge cake.

‘A woman married too long without children,’ Lady Clementine said dourly. ‘People start to talk.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Hannah. ‘But there’s really nothing to talk about.’ She said it so breezily I shivered. One would have been hard-pressed to detect the hint of strife beneath the veneer. The bitter arguments Hannah’s failure to fall was causing.

Lady Clementine exchanged a glance with Fanny who raised her eyebrows. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there? Downstairs?’

My first thought was that she referred to our lack of housemaids;
I realised her true meaning only when Fanny swallowed her cake and added eagerly, ‘There’s doctors you could see.
Ladies
doctors.’

There was really very little Hannah could say to that. Well there was, of course. She could have told them to mind their own business, and once she probably would have, but time had been rubbing at her edges. So she said nothing. She just smiled and silently willed them to leave.

When they had gone, she collapsed back into the sofa. ‘Finally,’ she said. ‘I thought they’d never go.’ She watched me loading the last of the cups onto my tray. ‘I’m sorry you have to do that, Grace.’

‘It’s all right ma’am,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it won’t be for long.’

‘All the same,’ said Hannah. ‘You’re a lady’s maid. I’ll remind Deborah about finding a replacement.’

I continued arranging the teaspoons.

Hannah was still watching me. ‘Can you keep a secret, Grace?’

‘You know I can, ma’am.’

She withdrew something, a folded piece of newspaper, from beneath her skirt waist and smoothed it open. ‘I found this in the back of one of Boyle’s newspapers.’ She handed it to me.

Fortune teller
, it read.
Renowned spiritualist. Communicate with the dead. Learn your future
.

I couldn’t hand it back quickly enough, wiped my hands on my apron afterwards. I had heard talk downstairs about such things. It was the newest craze, the result of mass bereavement. In those days everyone wanted a word of consolation from their dear lost loves.