The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

by Kate Morton

  Suddenly, all thought of my aunt evaporated. Standing by the vicar, black hat in hands, was Alfred.

  From across the grave, his eyes met mine and he raised his hand.

  I hesitated, nodded jerkily so that my teeth chattered.

  He started walking. Came toward me. I watched, as if to look away could cause him to disappear. Then he was at my side. ‘How are you holding up?’

  I nodded again. It was all I could seem to do. In my mind, whirlpools of words spun too quickly for me to grasp. Weeks of waiting for his letter; of hurt, confusion, sadness; of lying awake composing imaginary scripts of explanation and reunion. And now, finally…

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said stiffly, bringing a tentative hand toward mine then thinking better of it. Returning it to the brim of his hat.

  ‘Yes,’ I managed to say, hand heavy where he hadn’t touched it. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘Course I came.’

  ‘You didn’t have to go to any trouble.’

  ‘No trouble, Grace,’ he said, feeding his hat brim through his fingers.

  These last words floated lonely between us. My name, familiar and brittle on his lips. I let my attention drift to Mother’s grave; watched the undertaker hastily working. Alfred followed my gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry about your ma,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ I said quickly. ‘I know you are.’

  ‘She was a hard worker.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I saw her only last week-’

  I glanced at him. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Brought her some coal Mr Hamilton said could be spared.’

  ‘Did you, Alfred?’ I said appreciatively.

  ‘Been cold of a night, it has. Didn’t like to think of your ma going cold.’

  I was filled with gratitude; it had been my guilty fear that Mother’s passing had been brought about through lack of warmth.

  A hand clamped firmly on my wrist. My aunt was beside me. ‘That’s over and done then,’ she said. ‘And a fine service too. Can’t see she’d have anything to complain about.’ Defensive, though I hadn’t disagreed. ‘Nothing more I could have done, I’m sure.’

  Alfred was watching us.

  ‘Alfred,’ I said, ‘this is my Aunt Dee, Mother’s sister.’

  My aunt narrowed her eyes as she stared at Alfred; a groundless suspicion that was native to her. ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ She turned back to me. ‘Come on then, miss,’ she said, affixing her hat and tightening her scarf. ‘Landlord’s coming first thing tomorrow and that house needs be spotless.’

  I glanced at Alfred, cursed the wall of uncertainty still stretched between us. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose I’d best be-’

  ‘Actually,’ said Alfred quickly, ‘I was hoping… that is, Mrs Townsend thought you might like to come back up to the house for tea?’

  He glanced at my aunt who scowled in return. ‘What would she be wanting with all that?’

  Alfred shrugged, rocked back and forth on his heels. His eyes were on me. ‘Have a visit with the other staff. A bit of a natter. For old time’s sake?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said my aunt.

  ‘Yes,’ I said firmly, finding my tongue. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘Good,’ said Alfred, relief in his voice.

  ‘Well,’ said my aunt. ‘Have it your way. I’m sure I don’t mind.’ She sniffed. ‘Just don’t be long. You needn’t think I’m doing all the scrubbing myself.’

  Alfred and I walked through the village, side by side; soft flakes of snow, too light to fall, suspended on the breeze like flecks in pond water. For a time we travelled without speaking. Footsteps muffled by the damp dirt road. Bells ringing as shoppers went in and out of doors. Occasional motor cars whirring down the lane.

  As we neared Bridge Road, we began to speak of Mother: I recounted the day of the button in the string bag; the long-ago Punch and Judy visit; told him of my narrow escape from the Foundling Hospital.

  Alfred nodded. ‘Brave of your ma, if you ask me. Can’t have been easy, her all on her own.’

  ‘She never tired of telling me so,’ I said, with more bitterness than I intended.

  ‘Shame about your da,’ he said as we passed Mother’s street and the village turned abruptly to countryside. ‘Having to leave her like that.’

  At first I thought I had misheard. ‘My what?’

  ‘Your da. Shame things didn’t work out for the two of them.’

  My voice trembled against my best attempts to still it. ‘What do you know about my father?’

  He shrugged ingenuously. ‘Only what your ma told me. Said she was young and she loved him, but in the end it was impossible. Something to do with his family, his commitments. She wasn’t real clear.’

  My voice, thin as the floating snow: ‘When did she tell you that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About him. My father.’ I shivered into my shawl, pulled it tight around my shoulders.

  ‘I took to visiting recently,’ he said. ‘She was all alone, what with you in London. Didn’t seem much trouble on my part to keep her company once in a while. Have a natter about this and that.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything else?’ Was it possible, after a lifetime of keeping secrets from me, Mother had opened up so easily at the end?

  ‘No,’ said Alfred. ‘Not much. Nothing more about your da. To be honest, I did most of the talking; she was more a listener, don’t you think?’

  I was unsure what I thought. The whole day was deeply unsettling. Burying Mother, Alfred’s unexpected arrival, learning he and Mother had met regularly, had discussed my father. A topic closed to me from before I’d even thought to ask. I walked faster as we entered the Riverton gates, as if to walk free of the day. I welcomed the clinging damp of the long dark driveway. Surrendered myself to a force that seemed to be pulling me inexorably on.

  I could hear Alfred behind me, walking faster to catch me up. Small branches cracked under foot, the trees seemed to eavesdrop.

  ‘I meant to write, Gracie,’ he said quickly. ‘To reply to your letters.’ He drew beside me. ‘I tried so many times.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ I said, walking on.

  ‘I couldn’t get the words right. You know how my head is. Since the war…’ He lifted a hand and rapped lightly on his forehead, ‘Certain things I just can’t seem to do no more. Not like before. Words and letters are one of them.’ He hurried to keep up with me. ‘Besides,’ he said, breath catching, ‘there were things I needed to say that could only be said in person.’

  The air was icy on my cheeks. I slowed. ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ I said softly. ‘The day of the theatre show?’

  ‘I did, Gracie.’

  ‘But when I got back-It had only just gone five.’

  He sighed. ‘I left at ten before. We just missed each other.’ He shook his head. ‘I would’ve waited longer, Gracie, only Mrs Tibbit said you must have forgot. That you’d gone on an errand and wouldn’t be back for hours.’

  ‘But that wasn’t true!’

  ‘Why would she make it up, a thing like that?’ said Alfred, confused.

  I lifted my shoulders helplessly, let them fall. ‘It’s what she’s like.’

  We had reached the top of the driveway. There on the ridge stood Riverton, large and dark, the edges of evening beginning to enclose her. We paused unconsciously, stood a moment before continuing past the fountain and around toward the servants’ entrance.

  ‘I went after you,’ I said as we entered the rose garden.

  ‘You didn’t,’ he said, glancing at me. ‘Did you?’

  I nodded. ‘I waited at the theatre until the last. I thought I could catch you up.’

  ‘Oh, Gracie,’ Alfred said, stopping at the base of the stairs. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  I stopped too.

  ‘I should never have listened to that Mrs Tibbit,’ he said.

  ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘But I should have trusted you�
��d be back. It’s just…’ He glanced at the closed servants’ door, tightened his lips, exhaled. ‘There was something on my mind, Grace. Something important I’d been wanting to talk to you about. To ask you. I was wound up tighter than a drum that day. Full of nerves.’ He shook his head. ‘When I thought you’d given me the flick I was that upset I couldn’t stand it any longer. Got out of that house as fast as I could. Started down the first street I came to and kept walking.’

  ‘But Lucy…’ I said quietly, eyes on the fingers of my gloves. Watching as snowflakes disappeared on contact. ‘Lucy Starling…’

  He sighed, looked beyond my shoulder. ‘I took Lucy Starling to make you jealous, Gracie. That I own.’ He shook his head. ‘It was unfair of me to do it, I know that: unfair to you and unfair to Lucy.’ He reached out with a gloved finger and lifted my chin tentatively so my eyes met his. ‘It was disappointment made me do it, Grace. All the way down from Saffron, I’d imagined seeing you, practised what I was going to say when we met.’

  His hazel eyes were earnest. A nerve flickered in his jaw.

  ‘What were you going to say?’ I asked.

  He smiled nervously.

  The clatter of iron hinges and the servants’ hall door swung open. Mrs Townsend, large frame backlit, plump cheeks red from her seat by the fire.

  ‘Here!’ she chortled. ‘What are you two doing out there in the cold?’ She turned back to those inside. ‘They’re out in the cold! Didn’t I tell you they was?’ She returned her attention to us. ‘I said to Mr Hamilton, “Mr Hamilton, blimey if I don’t hear voices outside.” “You’re imagining things, Mrs Townsend,” says he. “What would they be wanting standing out in the cold when they could be in here where it’s nice and warm?” “I wouldn’t know, Mr Hamilton,” says I, “but unless my ears deceive me, that’s where they is.” And I was right.’ She called inside: ‘I was right, Mr Hamilton.’ She extended her arm and waved us inside. ‘Well come on then, you’ll catch your deaths out there, the pair of you.’

  THE CHOICE

  I had forgotten how dim it was downstairs at Riverton. How low the ceiling rafters, and how cold the marble floor. I had forgotten, too, the way the wintry wind blew in off the heath, whistled through the crumbling mortar of the stone walls. Not like number seventeen where Deborah had organised the latest insulation and heating.

  ‘You poor dear,’ said Mrs Townsend, pulling me toward her, squashing my head into her fire-warmed breasts. (What a loss for some child, never born, to miss the opportunity for such comfort. But that was the way then, as Mother knew too well: family was the first sacrifice of any career servant.) ‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘Myra? Cup of tea for Grace.’

  I was surprised. ‘Where’s Katie?’

  They all exchanged glances.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. Nothing dreadful, surely. Alfred would have said-

  ‘Up and married, didn’t she,’ said Myra with a sniff, before flouncing off into the kitchen.

  My jaw dropped.

  Mrs Townsend lowered her voice and spoke quickly: ‘Fellow from up north that works in the mines. Met him in town while she was s’posed to be running an errand for me, silly girl. Happened awful fast. Won’t surprise you to hear there’s a wee one on the way.’ She straightened her apron, pleased with the effect her news was having on me, and glanced toward the kitchen. ‘Try not to mention it round Myra, though. She’s green as a gardener’s thumb, however much she insists she ain’t!’

  I nodded, stunned. Little Katie married? A mother to be?

  As I tried to make sense of the remarkable news, Mrs Townsend continued to fuss, insisting I take the seat nearest the fire, that I was too thin and too pale and would need some of her Christmas pudding to set me to rights. When she disappeared to collect me a serve, I felt the weight of attention upon me. I pushed Katie from my mind and enquired after things at Riverton.

  They all fell silent, looked at one another, before Mr Hamilton finally said, ‘Well now, young Grace, things are not quite as you might remember from your time.’

  I asked what he meant and he straightened his jacket. ‘It’s a lot quieter these days. A slower pace.’

  ‘A ghost town, more like,’ said Alfred, who was fidgeting over by the door. He’d seemed agitated since we came inside. ‘Him upstairs wandering about like the living dead.’

  ‘Alfred!’ Mr Hamilton reprimanded, though with less vigour than I would have expected. ‘You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘I am not,’ said Alfred. ‘Come on, Mr Hamilton, Grace is one of us. She can wear the truth.’ He glanced at me. ‘It’s like I told you in London. After Miss Hannah left like that, His Lordship was never the same.’

  ‘He was upset all right, but it weren’t just Miss Hannah leaving, the two of them on such bad terms,’ said Myra. ‘It was losing his factory like that. And his mother.’ She leaned toward me. ‘If you could only see upstairs. We all do our best but it isn’t easy. He won’t let us have tradesmen in for repairs, says the sound of hammers banging and ladders dragging across the floor drives him to distraction. We’ve had to close up even more of the rooms. Said he wouldn’t be entertaining again so it was no use us wasting time and energy maintaining them. Once he caught me trying to dust the library and he just about had my neck.’ She glanced at Mr Hamilton and continued. ‘We don’t even do the books any more.’

  ‘It’s because there’s no Mistress to run the house,’ said Mrs Townsend, returning with a plate of pudding, licking a smear of cream from her finger. ‘It’s always the way when there’s no Mistress.’

  ‘He spends most of his time in the drawing room,’ Myra continued, ‘smoking his pipe and looking out the window. Or playing old songs. It’s frightening sometimes.’

  ‘Now, Myra,’ said Mr Hamilton, somewhat defeated. ‘It is not our place to question the Master.’ He removed his glasses to rub his eyes.

  ‘Yes, Mr Hamilton,’ she said. Then she looked at me, said quickly, ‘You should see him though, Grace. You wouldn’t recognise him. He’s grown old so quick.’

  ‘I have seen him,’ I said then.

  ‘Where?’ said Mr Hamilton with some alarm. He replaced his glasses. ‘Not out in the grounds, I hope? He wasn’t wandering too near the lake?’

  ‘Oh no, Mr Hamilton,’ I said. ‘Nothing like that. I saw him in the village. In the cemetery. At Mother’s funeral.’

  ‘He was at the funeral?’ said Myra, eyes wide.

  ‘He was up on the hill nearby,’ I said, ‘but he was watching well enough.’

  Mr Hamilton looked for corroboration. Alfred raised his shoulders, shook his head. ‘I didn’t notice.’

  ‘Well he was there,’ I said firmly. ‘I know what I saw.’

  ‘I expect he was just taking a stroll,’ said Mr Hamilton without conviction. ‘Taking some air.’

  ‘He wasn’t doing much walking,’ I said doubtfully. ‘He was just standing there, sort of lost, looking down on the grave.’

  Mr Hamilton exchanged a glance with Mrs Townsend. ‘Aye, well, he always was fond of your mother, when she worked here.’

  ‘Fond,’ said Mrs Townsend, raising her eyebrows. ‘Is that what you call it?’

  I looked between them. There was something in their expressions I couldn’t understand. A knowingness to which I wasn’t privy.

  ‘And what of you, Grace?’ said Mr Hamilton suddenly, eyes snapping away from Mrs Townsend’s. ‘Enough of us. Tell us about London? How is young Mrs Luxton?’

  I only half heard his questions. On the edges of my mind something was forming. Whisperings, and glances, and insinuations that had long fluttered singularly were now coming together. Forming a picture. Almost.

  ‘Well, Grace?’ said Mrs Townsend impatiently. ‘Cat got your tongue? What of Miss Hannah?’

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Townsend,’ I said. ‘Must’ve been away with the fairies.’

  They were all watching me eagerly so I told them Hannah was well. It seemed the proper thing to do. Where would I have begun to
tell them otherwise? About the arguments with Teddy, the visit to the spiritualist, the frightening talk of being dead already? I spoke instead of the beautiful house, and Hannah’s clothes, and the glittering guests they entertained.

  ‘And what of your duties?’ Mr Hamilton said, straightening. ‘Quite a different pace in London. Lots of entertaining? I suppose you’re part of a large staff?’

  I told him that the staff was large but not so proficient as here at Riverton and he seemed pleased. And I told them about the attempt Lady Pemberton-Brown had made on me.

  ‘I trust you told her what was what,’ said Mr Hamilton. ‘Politely but firmly, as I’ve always instructed?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Hamilton,’ I said. ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘That’s the girl,’ he said, beaming like a proud father. ‘Glenfield Hall, eh? You must be making quite a name for yourself if the likes of Glenfield Hall were trying to poach you. Still, you did the right thing. In our line of work, what have we if we don’t have our loyalty?’

  We all nodded agreement. All except Alfred, I noticed.

  Mr Hamilton noticed too. ‘I suppose Alfred’s told you his plans,’ he said, raising a silvery eyebrow.

  ‘What plans?’ I looked at Alfred.

  ‘I was trying to tell you,’ he said, biting back a smile as he came to sit by me. ‘I’m leaving, Grace. No more yes-sirring for me.’

  My first thought was that he was leaving England again. Right when we had begun to make amends.

  He laughed at my expression. ‘I’m not going far. I’m just leaving service. A mate of mine, from the war; we’re setting up in business together.’

  ‘Alfred…’ I didn’t know what to say. I was relieved, but I was also worried for him. To leave service? The security of Riverton? ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘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.’