Kate Morton - The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

‘No time, miss.’

I took her wrist and dragged her into the Long Walk.

Hedges had grown to meet overhead and it was pitch black. We ran, stumbled, kept our hands to the side, brushing leaves to find the way. With each turn the party sounds grew more dreamlike. I remember thinking this was how Alice must’ve felt, falling down the rabbit hole.

We were in the Egeskov Garden when Emmeline’s heel snagged and she tumbled.

I almost tripped over her, stopped, tried to help her up.

She swept my hand aside, clambered to her feet and continued running.

There was a noise then in the garden and it seemed that one of the sculptures was moving. It giggled, groaned: not a sculpture at all but a pair of amorous escapees. They ignored us and we ignored them.

The second kissing gate was ajar and we hurried into the fountain clearing. The full moon was high and Icarus and his nymphs glowed ghostly in the white light. Without the hedges, the band’s music and the whooping of the party were loud again. Strangely nearer.

With aid of moonlight we went faster along the small path toward the lake. We reached the barricade, the sign forbidding entrance, and finally, the point where path met lake.

We both stopped in the shelter of the path’s nook, breathing heavily, and surveyed the scene before us. The lake glistened silently beneath the moon. The summer house, the rocky bank, were bathed in silvery light.

Emmeline inhaled sharply.

I followed her gaze.

On the pebbly bank were Hannah’s black shoes. The same I’d helped her into hours before.

Emmeline gasped, stumbled toward them. Beneath the moon she was very pale, her thin figure dwarfed by the large man’s jacket she wore.

A noise from the summer house. A door opening.

Emmeline and I both looked up.

A person. Hannah. Alive.

Emmeline gulped. ‘Hannah,’ she called, her voice a hoarse blend of alcohol and panic, echoing off the lake.

Hannah stopped stiff, hesitated; with a glance to the summer house she turned to face Emmeline. ‘What are you doing here?’ she called, voice tense.

‘Saving you?’ said Emmeline, beginning to laugh wildly. Relief, of course.

‘Go back,’ said Hannah quickly. ‘You must go back.’

‘And leave you here to drown yourself?’

‘I’m not going to drown myself,’ said Hannah. She glanced again at the summer house.

‘Then what are you doing? Airing your shoes?’ Emmeline held them aloft before dropping them again to her side. ‘I’ve seen your letter.’

‘I didn’t mean it. The letter was a… a joke.’ Hannah swallowed. ‘A game.’

‘A game?’

‘You weren’t meant to see it until later.’ Hannah’s voice grew surer. ‘I had an entertainment planned. For tomorrow. For fun.’

‘Like a treasure hunt?’

‘Sort of.’

My breath caught in my throat. The note was not in earnest. It was part of an elaborate game. And the one addressed to me? Had Hannah intended me to help? Did that explain her nervous behaviour? It wasn’t the party, but the game she wanted to go well?

‘That’s what I’m doing now,’ said Hannah. ‘Hiding clues.’

Emmeline stood, blinking. Her body jerked as she hiccoughed. ‘A game,’ she said slowly.

‘Yes.’

Emmeline started to laugh hoarsely, dropped the shoes onto the ground. ‘Why didn’t you say so? I adore games! How clever of you, darling.’

‘Go back to the party,’ said Hannah. ‘And don’t tell anyone you saw me.’

Emmeline twisted an imaginary button on her lips. She turned on her heel and tripped her way over the stones toward the path. She scowled at me as she got close to my hiding spot. Her makeup had smudged.

‘I’m sorry, miss,’ I whispered. ‘I thought it was real.’

‘You’re just lucky you didn’t ruin everything.’ She eased herself onto a large rock, settled the jacket around her. ‘As it is I’ve a swollen ankle and I’ll miss more of the party while I rest. I’d better not miss the fireworks.’

‘I’ll wait with you. Help you back.’

‘I should think so,’ said Emmeline.

We sat for a minute, the party music reeling on in the distance, interspersed occasionally with a whoop of excited revelry. Emmeline rubbed her ankle, pressed it onto the ground every so often, transferring her weight.

Early morning fog had started to gather in the fens, was shifting out toward the lake. There was another hot day coming, but the night was cool. The fog kept it so.

Emmeline shivered, held open one side of her companion’s coat, rifled through the large inside pocket. In the moonlight, something glistened, black and shiny. Strapped to the coat’s lining. I inhaled: it was a gun.

Emmeline sensed my reaction, turned to me, wide-eyed. ‘Don’t tell me: first hand gun you’ve ever seen. You are a babe in the wood, Grace.’ She pulled it from the coat, turned it over in her hands, held it out to me. ‘Here. Want to hold it?’

I shook my head as she laughed, wishing I had never found the letters. Wishing, for once, that Hannah hadn’t included me.

‘Probably best,’ Emmeline said, hiccoughing. ‘Guns and parties. Not a good mix.’

She slipped the gun back into her pocket, continued to fossick, locating finally a silver flask. She unscrewed the lid and tossed her head back, drank for a long time.

‘Darling Harry,’ she said, smacking her lips together. ‘Prepared for every event.’ She took another swig and tucked the flask back into the coat. ‘Come on then. I’ve had my pain relief.’

I helped her up, my head bent over as she leaned on my shoulders. ‘That should do it,’ she said. ‘If you’ll just…’

I waited. ‘Ma’am?’

She gasped and I lifted my head, followed her gaze back toward the lake. Hannah was at the summer house and she wasn’t alone. There was a man with her, cigarette on his bottom lip. Carrying a small suitcase.

Emmeline recognised him before I did.

‘Robbie,’ she said, forgetting her ankle. ‘My God. It’s Robbie.’

Emmeline limped clumsily onto the lake bank; I stayed behind in the shadows. ‘Robbie!’ she called, waving her hand. ‘Robbie, over here.’

Hannah and Robbie froze. Looked at one another.

‘What are you doing here?’ Emmeline said excitedly. ‘And why on earth have you come the back way?’

Robbie drew on his cigarette, fumbled with the filter as he exhaled.

‘Come on up to the party,’ Emmeline said. ‘I’ll find you a drink.’

Robbie glanced across the lake into the distance. I followed his gaze, noticed something metallic shining on the other side. A motorbike, I realised, nestled where the lake met the outer meadows.

‘I know what’s happening,’ Emmeline said suddenly. ‘You’ve been helping Hannah with her game.’

Hannah stepped forward into the moonlight. ‘Emme-’

‘Come on,’ said Emmeline quickly. ‘Let’s all go back to the house and find Robbie a room. Find some place for your suitcase.’

‘Robbie’s not going to the house,’ said Hannah.

‘Why, of course he is. He’s not going to stay down here all night, surely,’ said Emmeline with a silvery laugh. ‘It might be June but it’s rather cold, darlings.’

Hannah glanced at Robbie and something passed between them.

Emmeline saw it too. In that moment, as the moon shone pale on her face, I watched as excitement slid to confusion, and confusion arrived horribly at realisation. The months in London, Robbie’s early arrivals at number seventeen, the way she had been used.

‘There is no game, is there?’ she said softly.

‘No.’

‘The letter?’

‘A mistake,’ Hannah said.

‘Why’d you write it?’ said Emmeline.

‘I didn’t want you to wonder,’ said Hannah. ‘Where I’d gone.’ She glanced at Robbie. He nodded slightly. ‘Where we’d gone.’