The Shifting Fog

by Kate Morton

  Mr Frederick shifted in his seat, took the coffee that Lady Violet offered and set about loading tobacco into his pipe.

  ‘What about you, Frederick,’ Fanny said coyly. ‘What will you do if war comes? You won’t stop making motor cars, will you? It would be such a shame if there were no more lovely motor cars just because of a silly war. I shouldn’t like to go back to using a carriage.’

  Mr Frederick, embarrassed by Fanny’s flirtation, plucked a stray piece of tobacco from his trouser leg. ‘I shouldn’t worry.

  Motor cars are the way of the future.’ He tamped his pipe and murmured to himself, ‘God forbid a war should inconvenience senseless ladies with little to do.’

  At that moment the door opened and Hannah, Emmeline and David spilled into the room, faces still lit with exhilaration. The girls had changed from their costumes and were back in matching white dresses with sailor collars.

  ‘Jolly good show,’ Lord Ashbury said. ‘Couldn’t hear a word of it, but jolly good show.’

  ‘Well done, children,’ Lady Violet said. ‘Though perhaps you’ll let Grandmamma help with the selection next year?’

  ‘And you, Pa?’ said Hannah eagerly. ‘Did you enjoy the play?’

  Mr Frederick avoided his mother’s gaze. ‘We’ll discuss the more creative parts later, eh?’

  ‘And what about you, David,’ trilled Fanny above the others.

  ‘We were just talking of the war. Will you be joining up if Britain enters? I think you’d make a dashing officer.’

  David took a coffee from Lady Violet and sat down. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘I suppose I will. They say it’s a fellow’s one chance for a grand adventure.’ He eyed Hannah with a twinkle in his eye, perceiving the opportunity for a tease. ‘Strictly for lads I’m afraid, Hannah.’

  Fanny shrieked with laughter, causing Lady Clementine’s eyelids to quiver. ‘Oh David, how silly. Hannah wouldn’t want to go to war. How ridiculous.’

  ‘I certainly should,’ Hannah said fiercely.

  ‘But my dear,’ Lady Violet said, flummoxed, ‘you wouldn’t have any clothes to fight in.’

  ‘She could wear jodhpurs and riding boots,’ Fanny said.

  ‘Or a costume,’ Emmeline said. ‘Like the one she wore in the play. Though maybe not the hat.’

  Mr Frederick caught his mother’s censorious look and cleared his throat. ‘While Hannah’s sartorial dilemma makes for scintillating speculation, I must remind you it’s not a moot point. Neither she nor David will be going to war. Girls do not fight and David is not yet finished his studies. He’ll find some other way to serve King and country.’ He turned to David. ‘When you’ve completed Eton, been to Sandhurst, it’ll be a different matter.’

  David’s chin set. ‘If I complete Eton and if I go to Sandhurst.’ The room quieted and someone cleared their throat. Mr Frederick tapped his spoon against his cup. After a protracted pause he said, ‘David’s teasing. Aren’t you, boy?’ The silence stretched on. ‘Eh?’

  David blinked slowly and I noticed his jaw tremble, ever so slightly. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Of course I am. Just trying to lighten things up; all this talk of war. It just wasn’t funny, I suppose. Apologies, Grandmamma. Grandfather.’ He nodded to each of them, and I noticed Hannah give his hand a squeeze.

  Lady Violet smiled. ‘I quite agree with you David. Let’s not talk of a war that may never come. Here, try some more of Mrs Townsend’s lovely tartlets.’ She nodded to Nancy who once again offered the tray around.

  They sat for a moment, nibbling tartlets, the ship’s clock on the mantle marking time until someone could arrive at a subject as compelling as war. Finally, Lady Clementine said, ‘Never mind the fighting. The diseases are the real killers in wartime. It’s the battlefields, of course—breeding grounds for all manner of foreign plagues. You’ll see,’ she said dourly. ‘When the war comes, it’ll bring the poxes with it.’

  ‘If the war comes,’ David said.

  ‘But how will we know if it does?’ Emmeline said, blue eyes wide. ‘Will someone from the government come and tell us?’

  Lord Ashbury swallowed a tartlet whole. ‘One of the chaps at my club said there’s to be an announcement any day.’

  ‘I feel just like a child on Christmas Eve,’ Fanny said, knotting her fingers. ‘Longing for the morning, anxious to wake up and open her presents.’

  ‘I shouldn’t get too excited,’ the Major said. ‘If Britain enters the war it’s likely to be over in a matter of months.

  Christmas at a stretch.’

  ‘Nonetheless,’ Lady Clementine said. ‘I’m writing to Lord Gifford first thing tomorrow to advise him of my preferred funeral program. I’d suggest the rest of you do likewise. Before it’s too late.’

  I had never heard a person discuss their own funeral before, let alone plan it. Indeed, Mother would have said it was terribly bad luck and made me throw salt over my shoulder to bring back the good. I gazed at Lady Clementine in wonder. Nancy had mentioned her gloomy sensibilities—it was rumoured downstairs that she had leaned over the newborn Emmeline’s crib and declared matter-of-factly that such a beautiful babe was surely not long for this world. Even so, I was shocked.

  The Hartfords, by contrast, were clearly accustomed to her dire pronouncements, for not one amongst them so much as flinched.

  Hannah’s eyes widened in mock offence. ‘You can’t mean you don’t trust us to make the best possible arrangements on your behalf, Lady Clementine?’ She smiled sweetly and took the old lady’s hand. ‘I for one would be honoured to make sure you were given the send-off you deserve.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Lady Clementine puffed. ‘If you don’t organise such occasions yourself, you never know into whose hands the task may fall.’ She looked pointedly at Fanny and sniffed so that her large nostrils flared. ‘Besides, I’m very particular about such events. I’ve been planning mine for years.’

  ‘Have you?’ Lady Violet said, genuinely interested.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Lady Clementine said. ‘It’s one of the most important public proceedings in a person’s life and mine will be nothing short of spectacular.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ said Hannah dryly.

  ‘As well you might,’ Lady Clementine said. ‘One can’t afford to put on a bad show these days. People aren’t as forgiving as they once were and one doesn’t want a bad review.’

  ‘I didn’t think you approved of newspaper reviews, Lady Clementine?’ Hannah said, earning a warning frown from Pa.

  ‘Not as a rule, I don’t,’ Lady Clementine said. She pointed a jewel-laden finger at Hannah, then Emmeline, then Fanny. ‘Aside from her marriage, her obituary is the only time a lady’s name should appear in the newspaper.’ She cast her eyes skyward. ‘And God help her if the funeral is savaged in the press, for she won’t get a second chance the following season.’

  After the theatrical triumph, only the midsummer’s dinner remained before the visit could be declared a resounding success. It was to be the climax of the week’s activities. A final extravagance before the guests departed and stillness returned once more to Riverton. Dinner guests (including, Mrs Townsend divulged, Lord Ponsonby, one of the King’s cousins) were expected from as far away as London, and Nancy and I, under Mr Hamilton’s careful scrutiny, had spent all afternoon laying table in the dining room.

  We set for twenty, Nancy annunciating each item as she placed it: tablespoon for soup, fish knife and fork, two knives, two large forks, four crystal wine glasses of varying proportions. Mr Hamilton followed us around the table with his tape measure and cloth, ensuring each cover was the requisite foot apart, and that his own distorted reflection gleamed back at him from every spoon. Down the centre of the white linen cloth we trailed ivy and arranged red roses around crystal compotes of glistening fruit. These decorations pleased me; they were so pretty and matched perfectly Her Ladyship’s best dinner service—a wedding gift, Nancy said, from the Churchills, no less.

  We pos
itioned the place cards, lettered in Lady Violet’s finest hand, according to her carefully sketched seating plan. The importance of placement, Nancy advised, could not be overestimated. Indeed, according to her, the success or failure of a dinner party hinged entirely on the seating arrangement. Evidently Lady Violet’s reputation as a ‘perfect’ hostess, rather than merely a ‘good’ one, resulted from her ability to first invite the right people and then seat them prudently, peppering the witty and entertaining amongst the dull but important.

  I am sorry to say I did not witness the midsummer dinner of 1914, for if cleaning the drawing room was a privilege, then serving at table was the highest honour, and certainly beyond my modest place. On this occasion, much to Nancy’s chagrin, even she was to be denied the pleasure, by reason of Lord Ponsonby being known to abhor female servants at table. Nancy was soothed somewhat by Mr Hamilton’s decree that she should still serve upstairs, remaining hidden in the dining-room nook to receive the plates he and Alfred cleared then feed them downstairs on the dumb waiter. This, Nancy reasoned, would at least grant her partial access to the dinner-party gossip. She would know what was said, if not by and to whom.

  It was my duty, Mr Hamilton said, to position myself downstairs next to the dumb waiter. This I did, trying not to mind Alfred’s jibes about the suitability of this partnership. He was always making jokes: they were well-meant and the other staff seemed to know how to laugh, but I was inexperienced with such friendly teasing, was used to keeping to myself. I couldn’t help shrinking when attention turned on me.

  I watched with wonder as course after course of splendid fare disappeared up the chute—mock turtle soup, fish, sweetbreads, quail, asparagus, potatoes, apricot pies, blancmange—to be replaced with dirty plates and empty platters.

  While upstairs the guests sparkled, deep beneath the dining room Mrs Townsend had the kitchen steaming and whistling like one of the shiny new engines that had started to run through the village. She volleyed between workbenches, shifting her considerable heft at a furious pace, stoking the stove fire until beads of perspiration trickled down her flushed cheeks, clapping her hands and decrying, in a practised show of false modesty, the crisp golden pastry crusts on her pies. The only person who seemed immune to the contagious excitement was the wretched Katie, who wore her misery on her face: the first half of the evening spent peeling untold numbers of potatoes, the second scrubbing untold numbers of pans.

  Finally, when the coffee pots, cream jugs and basins of crystallised sugar had been sent up on a silver salver, Mrs Townsend untied her apron, a symbol to the rest of us that the evening’s business was all but ended. She hung it on a hook by the stove and tucked the long grey hairs that had worked themselves loose back into the remarkable twist atop her head.

  ‘Katie?’ she called, wiping her warm forehead. ‘Katie?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know! That girl is always underfoot but never to be found.’ She tottered to the servants’ table, eased herself into her seat and sighed.

  Katie appeared at the doorway, clutching a dripping cloth.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Townsend?’

  ‘Oh, Katie,’ Mrs Townsend scolded, pointing at the floor.

  ‘Whatever are you thinking, girl?’

  ‘Nothing, Mrs Townsend.’

  ‘Nothing’s about right. You’re wetting all over.’ Mrs Townsend shook her head and sighed. ‘Get away with you now and find a towel to wipe that up. Mr Hamilton will have your neck if he sees that mess.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Townsend.’

  ‘And when you’re finished you can make us all a nice pot of hot cocoa.’

  Katie shuffled back toward the kitchen, almost colliding with Alfred as he bounded down the stairs, all arms, legs and exuberance. ‘Whoops, watch it Katie, you’re lucky I didn’t topple you.’ He swung round the corner and grinned, his face as open and eager as a baby’s. ‘Good evening, ladies.’

  Mrs Townsend removed her glasses. ‘Well? Alfred?’

  ‘Well, Mrs Townsend?’ he said, brown eyes wide.

  ‘Well?’ She flapped her fingers. ‘Don’t leave us all in suspense.’

  I sat down at my place, easing off my shoes and stretching my toes. Alfred was twenty—tall, with lovely hands and a warm voice—and had been in service to Lord and Lady Ashbury all his working life. I believe Mrs Townsend held a particular fondness for him, though certainly she never ventured so much herself and I would not then have dared to ask.

  ‘Suspense?’ Alfred said. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mrs Townsend.’

  ‘Don’t know what I mean, my foot.’ She shook her head.

  ‘How did it all go? Did they say anything that might interest me?’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Townsend,’ Alfred said, ‘I shouldn’t say until Mr Hamilton gets downstairs. It wouldn’t be right, would it?’

  ‘Now you listen here my boy,’ Mrs Townsend said, ‘alls I’m asking is how Lord and Lady Ashbury’s guests enjoyed their meals. Mr Hamilton can hardly mind that now, can he?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say, Mrs Townsend.’ Alfred winked at me, causing my cheeks to ripen. ‘Although I did happen to notice Lord Ponsonby having a second helping of your potatoes.’

  Mrs Townsend smiled into her knotted hands and nodded to herself. ‘I heard it from Mrs Davis, who cooks for Lord and Lady Bassingstoke, that Lord Ponsonby was special fond of potatoes à la crème.’

  ‘Fond? The others were lucky he left them any.’

  Mrs Townsend gasped but her eyes shone. ‘Alfred, you’re wicked to say such things. If Mr Hamilton heard . . .’

  ‘If Mr Hamilton heard what?’ Nancy appeared at the door and took her seat, unpinning her cap.

  ‘I was just telling Mrs Townsend how well the ladies and gents enjoyed their dinner,’ said Alfred.

  Nancy rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve never seen the plates come back so empty; Grace’ll vouch for that.’ I nodded as she continued.

  ‘It’s up to Mr Hamilton, of course, but I’d say you’ve outdone yourself, Mrs Townsend.’

  Mrs Townsend smoothed her blouse over her bust. ‘Well, of course,’ she said smugly, ‘we all do our part.’ The jiggling of porcelain drew our attention to the door. Katie was inching around the corner, gripping tightly a tray of teacups. With each step, cocoa slopped over the cup rims and pooled on the saucers.

  ‘Oh Katie,’ Nancy said as the tray was jolted onto the table.

  ‘You’ve made a real mess of that. Look what she’s done, Mrs Townsend.’

  Mrs Townsend cast her gaze upwards. ‘Sometimes I think I waste my time on that girl.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Townsend,’ Katie moaned. ‘I try my best, I really do. I didn’t mean to—’ ‘Mean to what, Katie?’ Mr Hamilton said, clipping down the stairs and into the room. ‘Whatever have you done now?’

  ‘Nothing, Mr Hamilton, I only meant to bring the cocoa.’

  ‘And you’ve brought it, you silly girl,’ Mrs Townsend said.

  ‘Now get back and finish those plates. You’ll have let the water go cold now, you see if you haven’t.’

  She shook her head as Katie disappeared up the hall, then turned to Mr Hamilton and beamed. ‘Well, have they all gone then, Mr Hamilton?’

  ‘They have, Mrs Townsend. I just saw the last guests, Lord and Lady Denys, to their motor car.’

  ‘And the family?’ she asked.

  ‘The ladies have retired to bed. His Lordship, the Major and Mr Frederick are finishing their sherry in the drawing room and will see themselves up presently.’ Mr Hamilton rested his hands on the back of his chair and paused for a moment, gazing into the distance the way he always did when he was about to impart important information. The rest of us took our seats and waited.

  Mr Hamilton cleared his throat. ‘You should all be most proud. The dinner was a great success and the Master and Mistress are well pleased.’ He smiled primly. ‘Indeed, the Master has given his very kind permission for us to open a bottle of champagne and share it amongst ourselves. A token of his appreciation, he said.’ />
  There was a flurry of excited applause while Mr Hamilton fetched a bottle from the cellar and Nancy found some glasses. I sat very quietly, hoping I might be permitted a glass. All this was new to me: Mother and I had never had much cause for celebration.

  When he reached the last flute, Mr Hamilton peered over his glasses and down his long nose at me. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘I think even you might be allowed a small glass tonight, young Grace. It isn’t every night the Master entertains in such grand fashion.’

  I took the glass gratefully as Mr Hamilton held his aloft. ‘A toast,’ he said. ‘To all who live and serve in this house. May we live long and graciously.’

  We clinked glasses and I leaned back against my chair, sipping champagne and savouring the tang of bubbles against my lips. Throughout my long life, whenever I have had occasion to drink champagne I have been reminded of that evening in the servants’ hall at Riverton. It is a peculiar energy that accompanies a shared success, and Lord Ashbury’s bubble of praise had burst over all of us, leaving our cheeks warm and our hearts glad. Alfred smiled at me over his glass and I smiled back shyly. I listened while the others replayed the night’s events in vivid detail: Lady Denys’s diamonds, Lord Harcourt’s modern views on matrimony, Lord Ponsonby’s penchant for potatoes à la crème.

  A shrill ring jolted me from contemplation. Everyone else fell silent around the table. We looked at one another, puzzled, until Mr Hamilton jumped from his seat. ‘Why. It’s the telephone,’ he said, and hurried from the room.

  Lord Ashbury had one of the first home telephone systems in England, a fact of which all who served in the house were immeasurably proud. The main receiver box was tucked away in Mr Hamilton’s pantry foyer so that he might, on such thrilling occasions as it rang, access it directly and transfer the call upstairs. Despite this well-organised system, such occasions rarely arose as regrettably few of Lord and Lady Ashbury’s friends had telephones of their own. Nonetheless, the telephone was regarded with an almost religious awe and visiting staff were always given reason to enter the foyer where they might observe first hand the sacred object and, perforce, appreciate the superiority of the Riverton household.