The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

by Kate Morton

‘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.

  ‘I have an appointment this afternoon,’ Hannah said.

  I couldn’t think what to say. I wished she hadn’t told me. I exhaled. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, ma’am, I don’t hold with seances and the like.’

  ‘Really, Grace,’ Hannah said, surprised, ‘of all people I’d have thought you’d be more open-minded. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a believer, you know. He communicates regularly with his son Kingsley. He even has seances at his home.’

  She wasn’t to know I was no longer devoted to Sherlock Holmes; that in London I had discovered Agatha Christie.

  ‘It’s not that, ma’am,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I believe, all right. That’s the problem. It’s not natural. The dead. It’s dangerous to interfere.’

  She raised her eyebrows, considering the fact. ‘Dangerous…’

  It was the wrong approach to take. By mentioning danger I’d only made the proposit
ion more attractive.

  ‘I shall go with you, ma’am,’ I said.

  She had not expected this, was unsure whether to be annoyed or touched. In the end she was both. ‘No,’ she said quite sternly. ‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll be quite all right by myself.’ Then her voice softened. ‘It’s your afternoon off, isn’t it? Surely you have something lovely planned? Something preferable to accompanying me?’

  I didn’t answer. The plans I had were secret. After numerous letters backwards and forwards, Alfred had finally suggested he visit me in London. The months away from Riverton had left me lonelier than I’d expected. Despite Mr Hamilton’s comprehensive coaching, I’d found there were certain pressures being a lady’s maid that I hadn’t anticipated, especially with Hannah seeming not as happy as a young bride should. And Mrs Tibbit’s penchant for making trouble ensured that none of the staff was prepared to let down their guard long enough to enjoy a camaraderie. It was the first time in my life I had suffered from isolation. And though I was wary of reading the wrong sentiment into Alfred’s attentions (sure enough, I had done that once before), I found myself longing to see him.

  Nonetheless, I did follow Hannah that afternoon. My meeting with Alfred wasn’t until later in the evening; if I went quickly I’d have time to make sure she arrived then departed again in good condition. I’d heard enough stories about spiritualists to convince me it was the wisest course. Mrs Tibbit’s cousin had been possessed, she said, and Mr Boyle knew of a fellow whose wife was fleeced and had her throat cut.

  More than that, while I wasn’t certain how I felt about spiritualists, I was certain enough about the type of people who were drawn to them. Only people unhappy in the present seek to know the future.

  There was a thick fog out: grey and heavy. I followed Hannah along Aldwych like a detective on a trail: careful never to fall too far behind, careful she never slipped too long behind a cloud of fog. On the corner, a man in a trench coat was playing mouth organ: ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. They were everywhere, those displaced soldiers, in every alleyway, beneath every bridge, in front of every railway station. Hannah fossicked in her purse for a coin and dropped it in the man’s cup before continuing on her way.

  We turned into Kean Street and Hannah stopped in front of an elegant Edwardian villa. It looked respectable enough but, as Mother was fond of saying, appearances could be deceptive. I watched as she checked the advertisement again and pressed a finger to the numbered doorbell. The door opened quickly and, without a glance behind, she disappeared inside.

  I stood out front, wondering which level she was being led to. The third, I felt sure. There was something about the lamp glow that yellowed the frilled edges of the drawn curtains. I sat and waited near a one-legged man selling tin monkeys that ran up and down a piece of twine. I asked him how many he had sold.

  ‘Three,’ he said.

  I waited over an hour. By the time she reappeared, the cement step on which I sat had frozen my legs and I was unable to stand quickly enough. I crouched, praying she wouldn’t see me. She didn’t; she wasn’t looking. She was standing on the top step in a daze. Her expression was blank, startled even, and she seemed glued to the spot. My first thought was that the spiritualist had put a hex on her, held up one of those fob watches they showed in photographs and hypnotised her. My foot was all pins and needles so I couldn’t rush over. I was about to call out when she took a deep breath, shook herself and started off quickly in the direction of home.

  I was late meeting Alfred that foggy evening. Not by much, but enough that he looked worried before he saw me, hurt when he did.

  ‘Grace.’ We greeted each other clumsily. He held out his hand to take mine at the same time I reached for his. There was a clumsy moment where wrist hit against wrist, and he grabbed my elbow by mistake. I smiled nervously, reclaimed my own hand and tucked it under my scarf. ‘Sorry I’m late, Alfred,’ I said. ‘I was running an errand for the Mistress.’

  ‘Doesn’t she know it’s your afternoon off?’ said Alfred. He was taller than I’d remembered, and his face more lined, but still, I thought him very nice to look at.

  ‘Yes, but-’

  ‘You should have told her what she could do with her errand.’

  His scorn did not surprise me. Alfred’s frustrations with service were growing. In his letters from Riverton, distance had exposed something I hadn’t seen before: there was a thread of dissatisfaction that ran through his descriptions of his daily life. And lately, his enquiries about London, reportage of Riverton, were peppered with quotes from books he’d been reading about classes and workers and trade unions.

  ‘You’re not a slave,’ he said. ‘You could have told her no.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t think it would… The errand took longer than I thought.’

  ‘Oh well,’ he said, face softening so that he looked like himself again. ‘Not your fault. Let’s make the most of it before we’re back to the salt mines, eh? How about a spot to eat before the film?’

  I was overwhelmed with happiness as we walked side by side. I felt grown-up and rather daring, out about town with a man like Alfred. I found myself wishing he would link his arm through mine. That people might see us and take us for a married couple.

  ‘I looked in on your ma,’ he said, breaking my thoughts. ‘Like you asked.’

  ‘Oh, Alfred,’ I said. ‘Thank you. She wasn’t too bad, was she?’

  ‘Not too bad, Grace.’ He hesitated a moment and looked away. ‘But not too good, neither, if I’m honest. A nasty cough. And her back’s been giving her grief, she says.’ He drove his hands into his pockets. ‘Arthritis, isn’t it?’

  I nodded. ‘It came on sudden when I was a girl. Got bad really fast. Winter’s the worst.’

  ‘I had an aunt the same. Turned her old before her time.’ He shook his head. ‘Rotten luck.’

  We walked in silence a way. ‘Alfred,’ I said, ‘about Mother… Did she seem… Did she look to have enough, Alfred? Coal, I mean, and the like?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘No problems there. A nice pile of coal.’ He leaned to bump my shoulder. ‘And Mrs T makes sure she receives a nice parcel of sweets now and then.’

  ‘Bless her,’ I said, eyes filling with grateful tears. ‘And you too, Alfred. For going to see her. I know she appreciates it, even if she wouldn’t say so herself.’

  He shrugged, said plainly, ‘I don’t do it for your mother’s gratitude, Gracie. I do it for you.’

  A wave of pleasure flooded my cheeks. I cupped one side of my face with a gloved hand, pressed it lightly to absorb the warmth. ‘And how is everyone else?’ I said shyly. ‘Back in Saffron? Is everybody well?’

  There was a pause as he absorbed my subject change. ‘Well as can be expected,’ he said. ‘Downstairs that is. Upstairs is another matter.’

  ‘Mr Frederick?’ Myra’s last letter had suggested all was not right with him.

  Alfred shook his head. ‘Gone all gloomy since you left. Must’ve had a soft spot for you, eh?’ He nudged me and I couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘He misses Hannah,’ I said.

  ‘Not that he’d admit it.’

  ‘She’s as bad.’ I told him about the aborted letters I’d found. Draft after draft cast aside but never sent.

  He whistled and shook his head. ‘And they say we’re s’posed to learn from our betters. Ask me, they could learn a thing or two from us.’

  I continued walking, wondering at Mr Frederick’s malaise. ‘Do you think if he and Hannah were to make it up between them…?’

  Alfred shrugged. ‘Don’t know if it’s that simple, to be honest. Oh, he misses Hannah, all right. No doubt about that. But there’s more to it than that.’

  I looked at him.

  ‘It’s his motor cars, too. It’s like he’s got no purpose now the factory’s gone.’ He squinted into the fog. ‘And I can understand that well enough. A man needs to feel utilised.’

  ‘Is Emmeline any consolation?’


  He shrugged. ‘Turning into quite a little miss, if you ask me. She’s got the run of the place with the Master as he is. He doesn’t seem to mind what she does. Barely notices she’s there, most times.’ He kicked a small stone and watched as it bounced along, disappeared into the gutter. ‘No. It’s not the same place any more. Not since you left.’

  I was savouring this comment when he said, ‘Oh,’ and dipped his hand into his pocket. ‘Speaking of Riverton, you’ll never guess who I just saw. Just now when I was waiting for you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Miss Starling. Lucy Starling. Mr Frederick’s secretary as was.’

  A prickle of envy; his familiar use of her first name. Lucy. A slippery, mysterious name that rustled like silk. ‘Miss Starling? Here in London?’

  ‘Lives here now, she says. A flat on Hartley Street, just round the corner.’

  ‘But what’s she doing here?’

  ‘Working. After Mr Frederick’s factory burned down she had to find another job. New fellow, your boss, didn’t keep her on. No use for loyalty, him. Anyhow, I s’pose she figured there was lots more jobs in London than in Saffron.’ He handed me a piece of paper. White, warm, the corner folded where it had lain against the inside of his pocket. ‘I took down her address, told her I’d give it to you.’ He looked at me, smiled in a way that made my cheeks red all over again. ‘I’ll rest easier,’ he said, ‘knowing you’ve a friend in London.’

  I am faint. My thoughts swim. Back and forth; in and out; across the tides of history.

  The community hall. Perhaps that’s where Sylvia is. There will be tea there. The ladies auxiliary will be sure to have set up in the kitchenette, selling cakes and pikelets, and watery tea with sticks in place of spoons. I pick my way toward the small flight of concrete stairs. Steady as I go.

  I step, misjudge, my ankle cuts hard against the rim of a concrete stair. Someone clutches my arm as I falter. A young man with dark skin, green hair and a ring right the way through his nostrils.

  ‘You all right?’ he says, his voice soft and foreign.