The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

by Kate Morton

  I see the station in my mind. Not as it is, perhaps, but as it was. The big round station clock suspended over the platform, its steadfast face and diligent hands a stern reminder that time and the trains wait for no man. It has probably been replaced now with a blank, blinking digital device. I wouldn’t know. It has been a long time since I visited the station.

  I see it as it was the morning we waved Alfred off to war. Strings of paper triangles, red and blue, flirting with the breeze, children racing up and down, weaving in and out, blowing tin whistles and waving Union Jacks. Young men-such young men-starched and eager in their new uniforms and clean boots. And, snaked along the track, the glistening train, anxious to be on its way. To spirit its unsuspecting passengers to a hell of mud and death.

  But enough of that. I jump too far ahead.

  ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe.

  We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.’

  Lord Grey, British foreign secretary

  3 AUGUST 1914

  IN THE WEST

  Nineteen-fourteen slipped toward nineteen-fifteen, and with each passing day went any chance that the war would end by Christmas. A gunshot in a faraway land had sent tremors across the plains of Europe and the sleeping giant of centuries-old rancour had awoken. Major Hartford was recalled to service, dusted off along with other heroes of long-forgotten campaigns, while Lord Ashbury moved into his London flat and joined the Bloomsbury Home Guard. Mr Frederick, unfit for armed service on account of a bout of pneumonia in the winter of 1910, swapped motor cars for war planes and was issued a special government badge announcing his valuable contribution to a vital war industry. It was cold comfort, said Myra, who knew about such things, it having always been a dream of Mr Frederick’s to serve with the military.

  History tells that as 1915 unravelled, the war’s true character began to emerge. But history is a faithless teller whose cruel recourse to hindsight makes fools of its actors. For while in France young men battled fear undreamt of, at Riverton 1915 passed much as 1914 had before it. We were aware, of course, that the Western Front had reached a stalemate-Mr Hamilton kept us well fed with his zealous recitations of the newspaper’s grisly fare-and certainly there were enough minor inconveniences to keep folks shaking their heads and tut-tutting the war, but these were tempered by the tremendous flurry of purpose the conflict gave those for whom daily life had become staid. Who welcomed the new arena in which to prove their value.

  Lady Violet joined and formed countless committees: from the locating of suitable billets for suitable Belgian refugees, to the organising of motor-car excursions for convalescing officers. All across Britain young women (and some of the younger boys too) did their bit for national defence, taking up knitting needles against a sea of troubles, producing a deluge of scarves and socks for the boys at the front. Fanny, unable to knit but anxious to impress Mr Frederick with her patriotism, threw herself into the coordination of such enterprises, organising for knitted goods to be boxed and mailed to France. Even Lady Clementine showed a rare community spirit, billeting one of Lady Violet’s sanctioned Belgians-an elderly lady with poor English but fine enough manners to mask the fact-whom Lady Clementine proceeded to probe for all the most ghastly details of invasion.

  As December approached, Lady Jemima, Fanny and the Hartford children were summoned to Riverton, where Lady Violet was determined to celebrate a traditional Christmas season. Fanny would have preferred to stay in London-far more exciting-but was unable to refuse the summons of a woman whose son she hoped to marry. (Never mind that the son himself was firmly stationed elsewhere and firmly set against her.) She had little choice but to steel herself to long winter weeks in country Essex. She managed to look bored as only the very young can and spent the time dragging herself from room to room, striking pretty poses on the off-chance Mr Frederick should make an unscheduled return home.

  Jemima suffered by comparison, seemingly plumper and plainer than the year before. There was, however, one arena in which she outshone her counterpart: she was not only married, but married to a hero. When the Major’s letters arrived, carried solemnly by Mr Hamilton on a polished silver salver, Jemima was thrust centre stage. Receiving the letter with a gracious nod, she would pause a jot beneath respectfully lowered eyelids, sigh like endurance herself, then slit the envelope and seize its precious cargo. The letter would then be read in suitably solemn tones to a captivated (and captive) audience.

  Meanwhile, upstairs, for Hannah and Emmeline time was dragging. They had already been at Riverton a fortnight, and with ghastly weather forcing them indoors, and no lessons to distract them (Miss Prince being engaged in war work), they were running out of things to do. They’d played every game they knew-cat’s cradle, jacks, goldminer (which as far as I could figure, required one to scratch a spot on the other’s arm until blood or boredom won out)-they’d helped Mrs Townsend with the Christmas baking until they were ill from pilfered pastry dough, and they’d coerced Nanny into unlocking the attic storeroom so they could climb amongst dusty, forgotten treasures. But it was The Game they longed to play. (I’d seen Hannah fossicking inside the Chinese box, re-reading old adventures when she thought no one was looking.) And for that they needed David, not due from Eton for another week.

  On an afternoon in late November, while I was up in the drying room preparing the best tablecloths for Christmas, Emmeline burst in. She stood for a moment, scanning, then marched to the warm closet. She pulled the door open and a ring of soft candlelight spilled onto the floor. ‘Ah-ha!’ she said triumphantly. ‘I knew you’d be here.’

  She held out her hands, uncurled her fingers to reveal two white sugar mice, sticky around the edges. ‘From Mrs Townsend.’

  A long arm appeared from the dim inside; retreated with a mouse.

  Emmeline licked her own gooey load. ‘I’m bored. What are you doing?’

  ‘Reading,’ came the response.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  Silence.

  Emmeline peered into the closet, wrinkled her nose. ‘War of the Worlds? Again?’

  There was no answer.

  Emmeline took another long, thoughtful lick of her sugar mouse, observed him from all angles, rubbed at a stray cotton thread that had adhered to his ear. ‘Hey!’ she said suddenly. ‘We could go to Mars! When David gets here.’

  Silence.

  ‘There’ll be Martians, good ones and evil ones, and untold dangers.’

  Like all younger siblings, Emmeline had made it her life’s work to master the predilections of her sister and brother; she didn’t need to look to know she’d hit her mark.

  ‘We’ll put it to the council,’ came the voice.

  Emmeline squealed excitedly, clapped her sticky hands together and lifted a boot-clad foot to clamber into the closet. ‘And we can tell David it was my idea?’ she said.

  ‘Watch the candle.’

  ‘I can colour the map red instead of green, for a change. Is it true that trees are red on Mars?’

  ‘Of course they are; so is the water, and the soil, and the canals, and the craters.’

  ‘Craters?’

  ‘Big, deep, dark holes, where the Martians keep their children.’

  An arm appeared and began to pull the door closed.

  ‘Like wells?’ said Emmeline.

  ‘But deeper. Darker.’

  ‘Why do they keep their children there?’

  ‘So no one sees the hideous experiments they’ve performed on them.’

  ‘What kind of experiments?’ came Emmeline’s breathless voice.

  ‘You’ll find out,’ said Hannah. ‘If David ever gets here.’

  Downstairs, as ever, our lives were murky mirrors to those above.

  One evening, when the household had all retired to bed, the staff gathered by the raging servants’ hall fire. Mr Hamilton and Mrs Townsend formed bookends either side, while Myra, Katie and I huddled between on dining chairs, squinting in the flickering firelight at the scar
ves we were dutifully knitting. A cold wind lashed against the windowpanes, and insurgent draughts set Mrs Townsend’s jars of dry goods to quivering on the kitchen shelf.

  Mr Hamilton shook his head and cast aside The Times. He removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.

  ‘More bad news?’ Mrs Townsend looked up from the Christmas menu she was planning, cheeks red from the fire.

  ‘The worst, Mrs Townsend.’ He returned his glasses to the bridge of his nose. ‘More losses at Ypres.’ He rose from his seat and moved to the sideboard where he had spread out a map of Europe and which now hosted a score of miniature military figurines (David’s old set, I think, retrieved from the attic) representing different armies and different campaigns. He removed the Duke of Wellington from a point in France and replaced him with two German Hussars. ‘I don’t like this at all,’ he said to himself.

  Mrs Townsend sighed. ‘And I don’t like this at all.’ She tapped her pen on the menu. ‘How am I supposed to prepare Christmas dinner for the family with no butter, or tea, or even turkey to speak of?’

  ‘No turkey, Mrs Townsend?’ Katie gaped.

  ‘Not so much as a wing.’

  ‘But whatever will you serve?’

  Mrs Townsend shook her head, ‘Don’t go getting in a flap, now. I daresay I’ll manage, my girl. I always do, don’t I?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Townsend,’ said Katie gravely. ‘I must say you do.’

  Mrs Townsend peered down her nose, satisfied herself there was no irony intended, and returned her attention to the menu.

  I was trying to concentrate on my knitting but when I dropped the third stitch in as many rows, I cast it aside, frustrated, and stood up. Something had been bothering me all evening. Something I had witnessed in the village that I didn’t rightly understand.

  I straightened my apron and approached Mr Hamilton who, it seemed to me, knew just about everything.

  ‘Mr Hamilton?’ I said tentatively.

  He turned toward me, peered over his glasses, the Duke of Wellington still pinched between two long tapered fingertips. ‘What is it, Grace?’

  I glanced back to where the others sat, engaged in animated discussion.

  ‘Well girl?’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  I cleared my throat. ‘No, Mr Hamilton,’ I said. ‘It’s just… I wanted to ask you about something. Something I saw in the village today.’

  ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Speak up, my girl.’

  I glanced toward the door. ‘Where is Alfred, Mr Hamilton?’

  He frowned. ‘Upstairs, serving sherry. Why? What’s Alfred got to do with all this?’

  ‘It’s just, I saw Alfred today, in the village-’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘He was running an errand for me.’

  ‘I know, Mr Hamilton. I saw him. At McWhirter’s. And I saw when he came out of the store.’ I pressed my lips together. Some unaccountable reticence made me loath to speak the rest. ‘He was given a white feather, Mr Hamilton.’

  ‘A white feather?’ Mr Hamilton’s eyes widened and the Duke of Wellington was released unceremoniously onto the table.

  I nodded, remembering Alfred’s shift in manner: the way he’d been stopped in his jaunty tracks. Had stood, dazed, feather in hand as passers-by slowed to whisper knowingly at one another. Had dropped his gaze and hurried away, shoulders bent and head low.

  ‘A white feather?’ To my chagrin, Mr Hamilton said this loudly enough to draw the attention of the others.

  ‘What’s that, Mr Hamilton?’ Mrs Townsend peered over her glasses.

  He brushed a hand down his cheek and across his lips. Shook his head in disbelief. ‘Alfred was given a white feather.’

  ‘No,’ Mrs Townsend gasped, plump hand leaping to her chest. ‘He never was. Not a white feather. Not our Alfred.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Myra said.

  ‘Grace saw it happen,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘This morning in the village.’

  I nodded, my heart beginning to race with the uneasy sense of having opened the Pandora’s box of someone else’s secret. Being unable now to close it.

  ‘It’s preposterous,’ Mr Hamilton said, straightening his waistcoat. He returned to his seat and hooked his spectacles over his ears. ‘Alfred is not a coward. He’s serving the war effort every day he helps keep this household running. He has an important position with an important family.’

  ‘But it’s not the same as fighting, is it Mr Hamilton?’ said Katie.

  ‘It most certainly is,’ blustered Mr Hamilton. ‘There’s a role for each of us in this war, Katie. Even you. It’s our duty to preserve the ways of this fine country of ours so that when the soldiers return victorious, the society they remember will be waiting for them.’

  ‘So even when I’m washing pots I’m helping the war effort?’ said Katie in wonderment.

  ‘Not the way you wash them,’ Mrs Townsend said.

  ‘Yes Katie,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘By keeping up with your duties, and by knitting your scarves, you’re doing your bit.’ He shot glances at Myra and me. ‘We all are.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem enough, if you ask me,’ Myra said, her head bowed.

  ‘What’s that, Myra?’ Mr Hamilton said.

  Myra stopped knitting and laid her bony hands in her lap. ‘Well,’ she said cautiously, ‘take Alfred, for example. He’s a young fit man. Surely he’d be of better use helping the other boys what are over there in France? Anyone can pour sherry.’

  ‘Anyone can pour…?’ Mr Hamilton paled. ‘You of all people should know that domestic service is a skill to which not all are suited, Myra.’

  Myra flushed. ‘Of course, Mr Hamilton. I never meant to suggest it was.’ She fidgeted with the marbles of her knuckles. ‘I… I suppose I’ve just been feeling a bit useless myself, of late.’

  Mr Hamilton was about to denounce such feelings, when all of a sudden Alfred came clattering down the stairs and into the room. Mr Hamilton’s mouth dropped shut and we fell into a conspiracy of collective silence.

  ‘Alfred,’ Mrs Townsend said at last, ‘whatever’s the matter, racing down them stairs like that?’ She cast about and found me. ‘You scared poor Grace half to death. Poor girl nearly jumped out of her skin.’

  I smiled weakly at Alfred, for I hadn’t been frightened at all. Merely surprised, like everyone else. And sorry. I should never have asked Mr Hamilton about the feather. I was becoming fond of Alfred: he was kind-hearted and had often taken time to draw me from my shell. To discuss his embarrassment while his back was turned made a fool of him somehow.

  ‘I’m sorry, Grace,’ Alfred said. ‘It’s just, Master David has arrived.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Hamilton said, looking at his watch, ‘as we expected. Dawkins was to collect him from the station off the ten o’clock train. Mrs Townsend has his supper ready, if you care to take it up.’

  Alfred nodded, catching up his breath. ‘I know that, Mr Hamilton…’ He swallowed. ‘It’s just… Master David. He has someone with him. From Eton. I believe it’s Lord Hunter’s son.’

  I take a breath. You once told me that there is a point in most stories from which there is no return. When all the central characters have made their way on stage and the scene is set for the drama to unfold. The storyteller relinquishes control and the characters begin to move of their own accord.

  Robbie Hunter’s entrance brings this story to the edge of the Rubicon. Am I going to cross it? Perhaps it is not yet too late to turn back. To fold them all away, gently, between layers of tissue paper, in the boxes of my memory?

  I smile, for I am no more able to stop this story than I am to halt the march of time. I am not romantic enough to imagine it wants to be told, but I am honest enough to acknowledge that I want to tell it.

  And so, to Robbie Hunter.

  Early next morning, Mr Hamilton called me to his pantry, closed the door gently behind and conferred on me a dubious honour. Every winter, each of the ten thousand books, journals and manuscripts housed in the R
iverton library was removed, dusted and re-shelved. This annual ritual had been an institution since 1846. It was Lord Ashbury’s mother’s rule originally. She was mad for dust, said Myra, and she rightly had her reasons. For one night in the late autumn, Lord Ashbury’s little brother, a month shy of his third year and favoured by all who knew him, fell into a sleep from which he never awoke. Though she could find no doctor would support her claim, his mother was convinced that her youngest boy caught his death in the ancient dust that hung in the air. In particular she blamed the library, for that was where the two boys had spent the fateful day-playing make-believe amongst the maps and charts that described the voyages of long-ago forebears.

  Lady Gytha Ashbury was not one to be trifled with. She put aside her grief to draw from the same well of courage and determination that saw her abandon her homeland, her family and her dowry for the sake of love. She declared immediate war; summoned her troops and commanded them banish the insidious adversaries. They cleaned day and night for a week before she was finally satisfied that the last hint of dust was vanquished. Only then did she weep for her tiny boy.

  Each year thereafter, as the final coloured leaves fell from the trees outside, the ritual was scrupulously re-enacted. Even after her death, the custom remained. And in the year 1915, it was I who was charged with satisfying the former Lady Ashbury’s memory. (Partly, I’m sure, as penalty for having observed Alfred in town the day before. Mr Hamilton gave me no thanks for bringing the spectre of war shame home to Riverton.)

  ‘You will be released early from your usual duties this week, Grace,’ he said, smiling thinly from behind his desk. ‘Each morning you will proceed directly to the library where you will begin in the gallery and work your way down to the shelves on the ground level.’