Kate Morton - The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

It is uncanny. The party scene. Hannah’s Chinese lanterns flickering in the dark. The jazz band, clarinet squealing. Happy people dancing the shimmy-shake…

There is a terrible bang and I am awake. It is the film, the gunshot. I have fallen asleep and missed the ultimate moment. Never mind. I know how this film ends: on the lake of Riverton Manor, witnessed by two beautiful sisters, Robbie Hunter, war veteran and poet, kills himself.

And I know, of course, that’s not what really happened.

Finally. After ninety-nine years my end has come for me. The secrets that have been restless in my head, growing louder and louder, pushing against my skull, anxious for release, are quiet now. The final thread that tethered me has released and the north wind blows me away. I am fading at last to nothing.

I can hear them still. Am vaguely aware that they are here. Ruth is holding my hand. Marcus is lying across the end of the bed. Warm upon my feet.

There is someone else in the window. She steps forward, finally, out of the shadow, and I am looking into the most beautiful face. It is Mother, and it is Hannah, and yet it is not.

She smiles. Holds out her hand. All mercy and forgiveness and peace.

I take it.

I am by the window. I see myself on the bed: old and frail and white. My fingers rubbing together, my lips moving but finding no words.

My chest rises and falls.

A rattle.

Release.

Ruth’s breath catches in her throat.

Marcus looks up.

But I am already gone.

I turn around and I don’t look back.

My end has come for me. And I do not mind at all.

Testing. One. Two. Three. Tape for Marcus. Number four. This is the last tape I will make. I am almost at the end and there is no point going beyond.

Twenty-second of June, 1924. Summer solstice and the day of the Riverton midsummer’s night party.

Downstairs, the kitchen was abuzz. Mrs Townsend had the stove fire raging and was barking orders at three village women hired to help. She smoothed her apron over her generous middle and surveyed her minions as they basted hundreds of tiny quiche.

‘A party,’ she said, beaming at me as I hurried by. ‘And it’s about time.’ She swiped with her wrist at a strand of hair already escaped from her topknot. ‘Lord Frederick-rest that poor man’s soul-wasn’t one for parties, and he had his reasons. But in my humble opinion, a house needs a good party once in a while; remind folks it exists.’

‘Is it true,’ said the skinniest of the village women, ‘Prince Edward is coming?’

‘Everyone that’s anyone will be here,’ said Mrs Townsend, plucking pointedly a hair off a quiche. ‘Those that live in this house are known to the very best.’

By ten o’clock Dudley had trimmed and pressed the lawn, and the decorators had arrived. Mr Hamilton positioned himself mid-terrace, arms swinging like an orchestra conductor.

‘No, no, Mr Brown,’ he said, waving to the left. ‘The dance floor needs to be assembled on the west side. There’s a cool fog blows up from the lake of an evening and no protection on the east.’ He stood back, watching, then huffed. ‘No, no, no. Not there. That’s for the ice sculpture. I made that quite clear to your other man.’

The other man, perched atop a stepladder stringing Chinese lanterns from the rose arbour to the house, was in no position to defend himself.

I spent the morning receiving those guests who’d be staying the weekend, couldn’t help catching their excitement. Jemima, on holiday from America, arrived early with her new husband and baby Gytha in tow. Life in the United States agreed with her: her skin was brown and her body plump. Lady Clementine and Fanny came together from London, the former glumly resigned to the prospect that an outdoor party in June would almost certainly bring on arthritis.

Emmeline arrived after luncheon with a large group of friends and caused quite a stir. They’d driven in convoy from London and tooted their horns all the way up the driveway before turning circles around Eros and Psyche. On one of the car bonnets was perched a woman dressed in bright pink chiffon. Her yellow scarf drifted behind her neck. Myra, en route to the kitchen with the luncheon trays, stood, horrified, when she realised it was Emmeline.

There was precious little time, however, to be wasted tut-tutting about the decline of the nation’s youth. The ice sculpture had come from Ipswich, the florists from Saffron, and Lady Clementine was insisting on high tea in the morning room, for old time’s sake.

Late afternoon the band arrived, and Myra showed them through the servants’ hall onto the terrace.

‘Negroes!’ said Mrs Townsend, eyes wide with fearful excitement. ‘At Riverton Manor. Lady Ashbury will be turning in her grave.’

‘Which Lady Ashbury?’ said Mr Hamilton, inspecting the hired wait staff.

‘All of them, I dare say,’ said Mrs Townsend, eyes wide.

Finally, afternoon tilted on its axis and began its slide toward evening. The air cooled and thickened, and the lanterns began to glow, green and red and yellow against the dusk.

I found Hannah at the burgundy-room window. She was kneeling on the lounge peering down toward the south lawn, watching the party preparations, or so I thought.

‘Time to get dressed, ma’am.’

She startled. Exhaled tensely. She’d been like that all day: jumpy as a kitten. Turning her hand first to this task, then to that, never leaving any more complete than she had found it.

‘Just a minute, Grace.’ She lingered a moment, the setting sun catching the side of her face, spilling red light across her cheek. ‘I don’t think I ever noticed what a pretty view it is,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think it’s pretty?’

‘I do, ma’am.’

‘I wonder that I never noticed before.’

In her room, I set her hair in curlers, an undertaking more easily said than done. She refused to stay still long enough for me to pin them tightly, and I wasted a good deal of time unwinding and starting again.

With the curlers in place, or good enough, I helped her dress. Silver silk, shoestring straps falling into a low-cut V at the back. It hugged her figure, terminating an inch below her pale knees.

While she pulled at the hem, straightening it, I fetched her shoes. The latest from Paris: a gift from Teddy. Silver satin with fine ribbon straps. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not those. I’ll wear the black.’

‘But ma’am, these are your favourites.’

‘The black are more comfortable,’ she said, leaning forward to pull her stockings on.

‘But with your dress, it’s a shame-’

‘I said black, for God’s sake; don’t make me say it again, Grace.’

I drew breath. Returned the silver and found the black.

Hannah apologised immediately. ‘I’m nervous. I shouldn’t take it out on you. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right, ma’am,’ I said. ‘Natural to be excited.’

I unrolled the curlers and her hair sat in blonde waves around her shoulders. I parted it on the side and brushed it across her forehead, catching the hair with a diamond clasp.

Hannah leaned forward to attach pearl drop earrings, winced then cursed as she caught her fingertip in the clip.

‘You’re rushing, ma’am,’ I said gently. ‘You must go carefully with those.’

She handed them to me. ‘I’m all thumbs today.’

I was draping ropes of pale pearls around her neck when the evening’s first car arrived, crunching the gravel on the driveway below. I straightened the pearls so they fell between her shoulderblades, rested in the small of her back.

‘There now,’ I said. ‘You’re ready.’

‘I hope so, Grace.’ She raised her eyebrows, scanned her reflection. ‘Hope there’s nothing I’ve overlooked.’