Kate Morton - The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

Hannah folded down the corner of her current page then unfolded it again, running her finger along the crease.

‘You know,’ Emmeline said eagerly. ‘A promise of marriage.’

I held my breath; it was the first I’d learned of Hannah receiving a proposal.

‘I’m not an idiot,’ Hannah said, eyes still on the triangular ear beneath her finger. ‘I know what he wanted.’

‘Then why didn’t you-?’

‘I wasn’t going to make a promise I couldn’t keep,’ Hannah said quickly.

‘You can be such a stick-in-the-mud. What harm would there have been in laughing at his jokes, letting him whisper silly sweet things in your ear? You were the one always droning on about helping the war effort. If you weren’t so mulish you could have given him a lovely memory to take with him to the front.’

Hannah draped a fabric bookmark across the page of her book, and placed it beside her on the chaise. ‘And what would I have done when he returned? Told him I didn’t really mean it?’

Emmeline’s conviction slipped momentarily then resurrected itself. ‘But that’s the point,’ she said. ‘Stephen Hardcastle hasn’t returned.’

‘He still might.’

It was Emmeline’s turn to shrug. ‘Anything’s possible, I suppose. But if he does I imagine he’ll be too busy counting his lucky stars to worry about you.’

A stubborn silence settled between them. The room itself seemed to take sides: the walls and curtains retreating into Hannah’s corner, the gramophone offering obsequious support to Emmeline.

Emmeline pulled her long ringleted ponytail over one shoulder and fingered the ends. She picked up her hairbrush from the floor beneath the mirror and dragged it through in long, even strokes. The bristles whooshed conspicuously. She was observed for a moment by Hannah, whose face clouded with an expression I couldn’t read-exasperation perhaps, or incredulity-before returning its attention to Joyce.

I picked up the pink taffeta dress from the chair. ‘Is this the one you’ll be wearing tonight, miss?’ I said softly.

Emmeline jumped. ‘Oh! You mustn’t sneak up like that. You frightened me half to death.’

‘Sorry, miss.’ I could feel my cheeks growing hot and tingly. I shot a glance at Hannah who appeared not to have heard. ‘Is this the dress you’d like, miss?’

‘Yes. That’s it.’ Emmeline chewed gently on her bottom lip. ‘At least, I think so.’ She pondered the dress, reached out and flicked the ruffled trim. ‘Hannah, which do you think? Blue or pink?’

‘Blue.’

‘Really?’ Emmeline turned to Hannah, surprised. ‘I thought pink.’

‘Pink then.’

‘You’re not even looking.’

Hannah looked up reluctantly. ‘Either. Neither.’ A frustrated sigh. ‘They’re both fine.’

Emmeline sighed peevishly. ‘You’d better fetch the blue dress. I’ll need to have another look.’

I curtseyed and disappeared around the corner into the bedroom. As I reached the wardrobe, I heard Emmeline say, ‘It’s important, Hannah. Tonight is my first proper dinner party and I want to look sophisticated. You should too. The Luxtons are American.’

‘So?’

‘You don’t want them thinking us unrefined.’

‘I don’t much care what they think.’

‘You should. They’re very important to Pa’s business.’ Emmeline lowered her voice and I had to stand very still, cheek pressed close against the dresses, to make out what she was saying. ‘I overheard Pa talking with Grandmamma-’

‘Eavesdropped, more like,’ Hannah said. ‘And Grandmamma thinks I’m the wicked one!’

‘Fine then,’ said Emmeline, and in her voice I heard the careless shrug of her shoulders. ‘I’ll keep it to myself.’

‘You couldn’t if you tried. I can see it in your face, you’re bursting to tell me what you heard.’

Emmeline paused a moment to savour her ill-gotten gains. ‘Oh… all right,’ she said eagerly, ‘I’ll tell you if you insist.’ She cleared her throat importantly. ‘It all started because Grandmamma was saying what a tragedy the war had been for this family. That the Germans had robbed the Ashbury line of its future and that Grandfather would turn in his grave if he knew the state of things. Pa tried to tell her that it wasn’t as desperate as all that, but Grandmamma was having none of it. She said she was old enough to see clearly and how else could the situation be described but desperate, when Pa was last in line with no heirs to follow? Grandmamma said it was a shame that Pa hadn’t done the right thing and married Fanny when he had the chance!

‘Pa turned snippy then and said that while he had lost his heir, he still had his factory, and Grandmamma could stop worrying for he would take care of things. Grandmamma didn’t stop worrying though. She said the lawyers were starting to ask questions.

‘Then Pa was quiet for a little while and I began to worry, thinking that he had stood up and was on his way to the door and I was to be discovered. I almost laughed with relief when he spoke again and I could hear that he was still in his chair.’

‘Yes, yes, and what did he say?’

Emmeline continued, the cautiously optimistic manner of an actor nearing the end of a complicated passage. ‘Pa said that while it was true things had been tight during the war, he’d given up the aeroplanes and was back making motor cars now. The damned lawyers-his words, not mine-the damned lawyers were going to get their money. He said some fellow who’d made war planes had offered to invest and was going to help him make the factory more profitable. The fellow, Mr Simion Luxton, has connections, Pa said, in business and in the government.’ Emmeline sighed triumphantly, monologue successfully delivered. ‘And that was the end of it, or near enough. Pa sounded ever so embarrassed when Grandmamma mentioned the lawyers. I decided then and there that I’d do anything I could to help make a good impression with Mr Luxton, to help Pa keep his business.’

‘I didn’t know you took such keen interest.’

‘Of course I do,’ Emmeline said primly. ‘And you needn’t be angry with me just because I know more about it than you this time.’

A pause, then Hannah: ‘I don’t suppose your sudden, ardent devotion to Pa’s business has anything to do with that fellow, the son, whose photo Fanny was mooning over in the newspaper?’

‘ Theodore Luxton? Is he going to be at dinner? I had no idea,’ Emmeline said, but a smile had crept into her voice.

‘You’re far too young. He’s at least thirty.’

‘I’m almost fifteen and everyone says I look mature for my age. Besides, Fanny said some men prefer brides younger than eighteen.’

‘Yes, odd men who would sooner be married to a child than a grown woman.’

‘I’m not too young to be in love, you know,’ Emmeline said. ‘Juliet was only fourteen.’

‘And look what happened to her.’

‘That was just a misunderstanding. If she and Romeo had been married and their silly old parents had stopped giving them such trouble, I’m sure they’d have lived happily ever after.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t wait to be married.’

‘Marriage isn’t just about having a handsome man to dance with,’ said Hannah. ‘There are… other things, you know.’

The gramophone song had stopped playing, but the record continued to spin beneath the needle.

‘What other things?’

Against the cold silk of Emmeline’s dresses, my cheeks grew warm.

‘Private things,’ Hannah said. ‘ Intimacies .’

‘Oh,’ Emmeline said, almost inaudible. ‘ Intimacies . Poor Fanny.’

There was a silence in which we all pondered Poor Fanny’s misfortune. Newly married and trapped, on honeymoon, with a Strange Man.