Kate Morton - The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

So you see why I supposed her happy. And she was. She was. But not because she’d given Robbie up. I was wrong there. Certainly not because she’d rediscovered a flame for Teddy. And not because she was back in her family home. No. She was happy for another reason. Hannah had a secret.

Beryl leads us now through the Long Walk. It is a bumpy ride in the wheelchair, but Ursula is careful. When we reach the second kissing gate there is a sign attached. Beryl explains that the bottom of the south garden is closed for renovation. They’re working on the summer house so we won’t be able to look closely today. We can go as far as the Icarus fountain but not beyond. She swings the gate and we begin to file through.

•

The party was Deborah’s idea. It was as well to remind people that, just because they were no longer in London, the Luxtons hadn’t slipped off the social scene. Teddy thought it a splendid proposal. The main renovations were almost complete and it was an excellent opportunity to show them off. Hannah was surprisingly acquiescent. Beyond acquiescent: she took a hand in organising it. Teddy, surprised but pleased, knew better than to ask questions. Deborah, unused to having to share the plan-making, was less impressed.

‘But surely you don’t want to concern yourself with all the details,’ she said as they sat down to tea one morning.

Hannah smiled. ‘On the contrary. I’ve a great many ideas. What do you think of Chinese lanterns?’

It was at Hannah’s urging that the party turned from an intimate affair for a select few into the huge extravaganza it became. She produced guest lists and suggested they bring a dance floor in for the occasion. The midsummer’s night party had once been a Riverton institution, she told Teddy; why shouldn’t they resurrect it?

Teddy was delighted. Seeing his wife and sister work together was his fondest dream. He gave Hannah free rein and she took it. She had her reasons. I know that now. It is much easier to go unnoticed in a large energetic crowd than a small gathering.

Ursula wheels me slowly around the Icarus fountain. It has been cleaned. The blue tiles glimmer and the marble gleams where it never did before, but Icarus and his three nymphs are still frozen in their scene of watery rescue. I blink and the two ghostly figures in white petticoats lounging on the tiled rim disappear.

‘I’m the king of the world!’ The young American boy has clambered onto the harpist nymph’s head and is standing with his arms outstretched.

Beryl sweeps the scowl from her face and smiles with determined pleasantness. ‘Come down from there now, lad. The fountain was built to be looked at, not clambered over.’ She waggles her finger toward the little path that leads to the lake. ‘Take a walk along there. You can’t go beyond the barricade, but you’ll be able to glimpse our famous lake.’

The youngster jumps from the fountain rim and lands with a thud at my feet. He shoots me a glance of diffident scorn then scuttles on his way. His parents and sister follow him down the path.

It is too narrow for the wheelchair but I need to see. It is the same path I followed that night. I ask Ursula to help me walk. She looks at me uncertainly.

‘Are you sure?’

I nod.

She wheels me to the entrance of the path and I lean against her as she hoists me up. We stand a moment as Ursula catches our balance, then we go slowly. Little stones beneath my shoes, long grass reeds brushing along my skirt, dragonflies hovering, then dipping in the warm air.

We pause as the American family files back toward the fountain. They are lamenting loudly the restorative process.

‘Everything in Europe’s under scaffold,’ says the mother.

‘They should give us a refund,’ says the father.

‘The only reason I came on this trip was to see where he died,’ says the girl in the heavy black boots.

Ursula smiles wryly at me and we proceed. The sound of hammers becomes louder as we go. Finally, after numerous pauses, we reach the barricade where the path terminates. It’s in the same place as the other barricade, all those years ago.

I hold onto it and look toward the lake. There it is, rippling lightly in the distance. The summer house is hidden, but the sounds of construction are clear. It reminds me of 1924, when the builders rushed to have it finished for the party. Vainly, as it turned out. The limestone had been held up by a shipping dispute in Calais and, much to Teddy’s chagrin, did not arrive in time. He had hoped to have his new telescope in place so party guests could come down to the lake and take a look at the night sky. Hannah was the one to reassure him.

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Better to wait until it’s finished. You can have another party then. A proper observation party.’ You notice she said ‘you’, not ‘we’. Already she had ceased to see herself in Teddy’s future.

‘I suppose,’ said Teddy, sounding rather like a petulant boy.

‘It’s probably for the best,’ said Hannah. She inclined her head to the side. ‘In fact, it might not be a bad idea to put barricades along the path to the lake. Stop people from wandering too close. It could be dangerous.’

Teddy frowned. ‘Dangerous?’

‘You know builders,’ said Hannah. ‘They’re just as likely to have left some other part unfinished. Best to wait until you’ve had time to give it a proper going-over.’

Oh yes, love can make a person devious. She convinced Teddy easily enough. Raised the spectre of law suits and ghastly publicity. Teddy had Mr Boyle arrange for signs and barricades to keep the guests from the lake. He’d have another party in August for his birthday. A luncheon party in the summer house, with boats, and games, and striped canvas tents. Just like the painting by that French fellow, he said; what was his name?

He never did have the party, of course. By August 1924 the last thing on anyone’s mind was throwing a party. Except perhaps for Emmeline, but hers was a particular kind of social exuberance then, a reaction to the horror and the blood, rather than despite it.

The blood, so much blood. Who’d have imagined there could be so much? I can see the spot on the lake’s bank from here. Where they stood. Where he stood just before…

My head lightens, my legs fail. Ursula’s arms grip mine, keep me steady.

‘Are you all right?’ she says, dark eyes worried. ‘You’re very pale.’

My thoughts are swimming. I’m hot. Dizzy.

‘Would you like to go inside for a bit?’

I nod.

Ursula leads me back along the path, settles me in the wheelchair and explains to Beryl that she needs to take me to the house.

It’s the heat, says Beryl knowingly, her mother’s just the same. Such unseasonable warmth. She leans toward me and smiles so that her eyes disappear. ‘That’s it, isn’t it, darl, the heat.’

I nod. There is no use arguing. Where to begin explaining, it is not the heat that oppresses me but the weight of ancient guilt.

•

Ursula takes me to the drawing room. We don’t go all the way inside, we can’t. They have strung a red cord right the way across, four feet from the doorway. I suppose they can’t have everyone wandering through, dragging their dirty fingers along the back of the lounge. Ursula parks me against the wall and sits beside on a bench installed for observers.

Tourists straggle by, pointing at the elaborate table setting, oohing and ah-ing at the tiger skin on the back of the chesterfield. None of them seems to notice that the room is full of ghosts.

It was in the drawing room that the police held their interviews. Poor Teddy. He was so bewildered. ‘He was a poet,’ he told the police, clutching a blanket around his shoulders, still in his dinner suit. ‘He knew my wife when they were younger. Nice enough fellow: artistic but harmless. He went about with my sister-in-law and her group.’