The Shifting Fog (48 page)

‘Mechanics. My mate’s awful good with his hands. He’s going to teach me how to fix engines and the like. In the meantime I’m going to take on managing the garage. Going to work hard and save money, Gracie—I’ve already got some put away. One day I’m going to have my very own business, I’m going to be my own man. You’ll see.’

Afterwards, Alfred walked me back to the village. Cold night was falling fast and we went quickly to save from freezing. Though I was pleased with Alfred’s company, relieved that we had mended our differences, I said little. My mind was busy, stitching together fragments of knowledge, trying to make sense of the patchwork result. Alfred, for his part, seemed content to walk in silence; as it turned out his mind was racing too, though along another line entirely.

I was thinking of Mother. About the bitterness that always simmered beneath her surface; her conviction, expectation almost, that hers was a life of ill fortune. That was the Mother I remembered. And yet, for some time now I had begun to realise she was not always so. Mrs Townsend remembered her affectionately; Mr Frederick, interminably difficult to please, had been fond of her.

But what had happened to transform the young serving maid with her secret smile? The answer, I was beginning to suspect, was the key to unlocking many of Mother’s mysteries. And its solution was nearby. It lurked like an elusive fish in my mind’s reeds. I knew it was there, could sense it, glimpse its vague shape, but every time I got close, reached to grasp its shadowy form, it slipped away.

That it had something to do with my birth was certain: Mother had been open on that front. And I was sure my ghost of a father figured somewhere: the man she spoke of with Alfred but never with me. The man she’d loved but couldn’t be with. What reason had Alfred given? His family? His commitments?

‘Grace.’

My aunt knew who he was, but she was as tight-lipped as Mother. Nonetheless, I knew well enough what she thought of him. My childhood was peppered with their whispered exchanges: Aunt Dee castigating Mother for her poor choices, telling her she’d made her bed and had no option now but to lie in it; Mother weeping as Aunt Dee patted her shoulder with brusque condolences: ‘You’re better off’, ‘It couldn’t have worked’, ‘You’re well rid of that place’. That place, I knew even as a girl, was the grand house on the hill. And I knew also that Aunt Dee’s contempt for my father was equalled only by her disdain for Riverton. The two great catastrophes in Mother’s life, she was fond of saying.

‘Grace.’

A disdain that extended to Mr Frederick, it would seem. ‘He’s got a nerve,’ she’d said when she spied him at the funeral: ‘Can’t keep away, even now. After all he’s done.’ I wondered how my aunt knew who he was, and what Mr Frederick could possibly have done to make her scowl so?

I wondered, too, what he had been doing there. Fondness for an employee was one thing, but for His Lordship to appear at the town cemetery. To watch as one of his long-ago serving maids was buried …

‘Grace.’ In the distance, through the tangle of my thoughts, Alfred was speaking. I glanced at him distractedly. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask all day,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid if I don’t ask now, I’ll lose my nerve.’

And Mother had been fond of Frederick too. ‘Poor, poor, Frederick,’ she had said when his father and brother passed. Not poor Lady Violet or poor Jemima. Her sympathy had extended directly and exclusively to Frederick.

But that was understandable, wasn’t it? Mr Frederick would have been a young man when Mother worked at the house; it was natural her sympathy would lie with the family member closest to her in age. Just as my sympathy lay with Hannah. Besides, Mother had seemed just as fond of Frederick’s wife, Penelope. ‘Frederick wouldn’t marry again,’ she’d said when I told her Fanny sought his hand. Her certainty, her despondency when I insisted it was so: surely these could only be explained by her closeness to her former mistress?

‘I don’t have a way with words, Gracie, you know that as well as I,’ Alfred was saying. ‘So I’m going to come right out with it. You know I’m going into business soon … ?’

I was nodding, somehow I was nodding, but my mind was elsewhere. The elusive fish was close. I could see the glimmer of its slippery scales, weaving through the reeds, out of the shadows …

‘But that’s just the first step. I’m going to save and save and one day, not too far away, I’m going to have a business with Alfred Steeple on the front door, you see if I don’t.’

… And into the light. Was it possible Mother’s upset was not the result of affection for her former mistress at all? But because the man she had cared for—still cared for—might be planning to marry again? That Mother and Mr Frederick … ? That all those years ago, when she was in service at Riverton … ?

‘I’ve waited and waited, Grace, because I wanted to have something to offer you. Something more than what I am now …’

But surely not. It would have been a scandal. People would have known. I would have known. Wouldn’t I?

Memories, snatches of conversation, floated back. Was that what Lady Violet meant when she spoke to Lady Clementine of ‘that despicable business’? Had people known? Had scandal erupted in Saffron twenty-two years ago when a local woman was sent from the manor in disgrace, pregnant by the son of her mistress?

But if so, why had Lady Violet welcomed me onto her staff? Surely I’d have served as unwelcome reminder of what had gone before?

Unless my employment was some sort of recompense. The price for Mother’s silence. Was that why Mother had been so sure, so certain, a position would be found for me at Riverton?

And then, quite simply, I knew. The fish swam into full sunlight, its scales glistening brightly. How had I not seen it before? Mother’s bitterness, Mr Frederick’s failure ever to remarry. It all made sense. He had loved Mother too. That’s why he had come to the funeral. That’s why he watched me so strangely: as if he’d seen a ghost. Had been glad to lose me from Riverton, had told Hannah he didn’t need me there.

‘Gracie, I wonder …’ Alfred took my hand.

Hannah. I was struck again by realisation.

I gasped. It explained so much: the feeling of solidarity—sisterly, surely?—we shared.

Alfred’s hands tightened on mine, stopped me from falling. ‘There now, Gracie,’ he said, smiling nervously. ‘Don’t go getting faint on me.’

My legs buckled: I felt as if I’d broken into a million tiny particles, was falling like sand from a bucket.

Did Hannah know? Was that why she’d insisted I accompany her to London? Had turned to me when she felt deserted on all other fronts? Had begged me never to leave her? Had made me promise?

‘Grace?’ said Alfred, arm supporting me. ‘Are you all right?’

I nodded, tried to speak. Couldn’t.

‘Good,’ said Alfred. ‘Because I haven’t said all I mean to quite yet. Though I have a feeling you’ve guessed.’

Guessed? About Mother and Frederick? About Hannah? No: Alfred had been talking. What about? His new business, his friend from the war …

‘Gracie,’ said Alfred, bringing my hands together between us. He smiled at me, swallowed. ‘Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

A flash of consciousness. I blinked. Couldn’t answer. Thoughts, feelings, rushed through me. Alfred had asked me to marry him. Alfred, who I adored, was standing before me, face frozen in the previous moment, waiting for me to answer. My tongue formed words but my lips would not oblige.

‘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 what-might-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.