Kate Morton - The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

I was no longer entirely inexperienced in such terrors, myself. A few months before, in the village, Rufus, the butcher’s half-witted son, had followed me into an alley and pressed me against the wall, his meaty fingers, nails rimmed in cow’s blood, pawing at my skirts. I had been startled at first, but then, remembering the leg of lamb in my string bag, had lifted it high and walloped him over the head. I was released, but not before his fingers had burrowed their way into my private flesh. The echoes made me shudder all the way home and it was some days before I could close my eyes without reliving the experience, wondering what might have happened had I not taken action.

‘Hannah,’ Emmeline said. ‘What are intimacies, exactly?’

‘I… well… They’re expressions of love,’ Hannah said breezily. ‘Quite pleasant, I believe, with a man with whom you’re passionately in love; unthinkably distasteful with anyone else.’

‘Yes, yes. But what are they? Exactly? ’

Another silence.

‘You don’t know either,’ Emmeline said. ‘I can tell by your face.’

‘Well, not exactly-’

‘I’ll ask Fanny when she gets back,’ Emmeline said. ‘She ought to know by then.’

I ran my fingertips along the row of pretty fabrics in Emmeline’s wardrobe, looking for the blue dress, wondered whether what Hannah said was true. Whether the same attentions Rufus had tried to foist on me might ever be considered pleasant from another fellow. I thought about the few times Alfred had stood very near me in the servants’ hall, the strange but not unwelcome feeling that had overcome me…

‘Anyway, I didn’t say I wanted to marry immediately .’ This was Emmeline. ‘All I meant is that Theodore Luxton is very handsome.’

‘Very wealthy, you mean,’ Hannah said.

‘Same thing, really.’

‘You’re just lucky that Pa’s decided to let you dine downstairs at all,’ Hannah said. ‘I should never have been allowed when I was fourteen.’

‘Almost fifteen.’

‘I suppose he had to make up numbers somehow.’

‘Yes. Thank goodness Fanny agreed to marry that terrible bore, and thank goodness he decided they should honeymoon in Italy. If they’d been home, I’m sure I’d have been left to dine with Nanny in the nursery instead.’

‘I should prefer Nanny’s company to that of Pa’s Americans any day.’

‘Rubbish,’ Emmeline said.

‘I should be just as happy to read my book.’

‘Liar,’ Emmeline said. ‘You’ve set your ivory satin dress aside, the one Fanny was so determined you shouldn’t wear when we met her old bore. You wouldn’t wear that one unless you were as excited as I am.’

There was a silence.

‘Ha!’ Emmeline said. ‘I’m right! You’re smiling!’

‘All right, I am looking forward to it,’ Hannah said. ‘But not,’ she added quickly, ‘because I want the good opinion of some rich Americans I’ve never met.’

‘Oh no?’

‘No.’

The floorboards creaked as one of the girls trod across the room, and the spent gramophone record, still spinning drunkenly, was halted.

‘Well?’ This was Emmeline. ‘It certainly can’t be Mrs Townsend’s ration menu that’s got you excited.’

‘Poor old Mrs Townsend. She does try,’ Hannah said. There was a pause, during which I held very still, waiting, listening. Hannah’s voice, when finally she spoke, was calm, but a slim thread of excitement ran through it. ‘Tonight,’ she said, ‘I’m going to ask Pa whether I might return to London.’

Deep within the closet, I gasped. They had only just arrived; that Hannah might leave again so soon was unthinkable.

‘To Grandmamma?’ said Emmeline.

‘No. To live by myself. In a flat.’

‘A flat ? Why on earth would you want to live in a flat?’

‘You’ll laugh… I want to take work in an office.’

Emmeline did not laugh. ‘What sort of work?’

‘Office work. Typing, filing, shorthand.’

‘But you don’t know how to do short-’ Emmeline broke off, sighed with realisation. ‘You do know shorthand. Those papers I found the other week: they weren’t really Egyptian hieroglyph…’

‘No.’

‘You’ve been learning shorthand. In secret.’ Emmeline’s voice took on a note of indignation. ‘From Miss Prince?’

‘Lord, no. Miss Prince teach something so useful? Never.’

‘Then where?’

‘The secretarial school in the village.’

‘When?’

‘I started ages ago, just after the war began. I felt so useless and it seemed as good a way as any to help with the war effort. I thought when we went to stay with Grandmamma I’d be able to get work-there are so many offices in London-but… it didn’t work out like that. When I finally got away from Grandmamma long enough to enquire, they wouldn’t take me. Said I was too young. But now that I’m eighteen, I should walk into a job. I’ve done so much practice and I’m really very quick.’

‘Who else knows?’

‘No one. Except you.’

Veiled amongst the dresses, as Hannah continued to extol the virtues of her training, I lost something. A small confidence, long cherished, was released. I felt it slip away, float down amid the silks and satins, until it landed amongst the flecks of silent dust on the dark wardrobe floor and I could see it no more.

‘Well?’ Hannah was saying. ‘Don’t you think it’s exciting?’

Emmeline huffed. ‘I think it’s sneaky. That’s what I think. And silly. And so will Pa. War work is one thing, but this… It’s ridiculous , and you may as well get it out of your mind. Pa will never allow it.’

‘That’s why I’m going to tell him at dinner. It’s the perfect opportunity. He’ll have to say yes if there are other people around. Especially Americans with all their modern ideas.’

‘I can’t believe even you would do this.’ Emmeline’s voice was gathering fury.

‘I don’t know why you’re so upset.’

‘Because… it isn’t… it doesn’t…’ Emmeline cast about for adequate defence. ‘Because you’re supposed to be the hostess tonight and instead of making sure things run smoothly, you’re going to embarrass Pa. You’re going to create a scene in front of the Luxtons.’

‘I’m not going to create a scene.’

‘You always say that and then you always do. Why can’t you just be-’

‘Normal?’

‘You’ve gone completely mad. Who would want to work in an office?’

‘I want to see the world. Travel.’

‘To London?’

‘It’s a first step,’ Hannah said. ‘I want to be independent. To meet interesting people.’

‘More interesting than me, you mean.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Hannah said. ‘I just mean new people with clever things to say. Things I’ve never heard before. I want to be free, Emme. Open to whatever adventure comes along and sweeps me off my feet.’

I glanced at the clock on Emmeline’s wall. Four o’clock. Mr Hamilton would be on the warpath if I wasn’t downstairs soon. And yet I had to hear more, to learn the precise nature of these adventures Hannah was so intent upon. Torn between the two, I compromised. Closed the wardrobe, draped the blue dress over my arm and hesitated by the doorway.

Emmeline was still sitting on the floor, brush in hand. ‘Why don’t you go and stay with friends of Pa’s somewhere? I could come too,’ she said. ‘The Rothermeres, in Paris-’

‘And have Lady Rothermere enquire after my every move? Or worse, saddle me with that ghastly daughter of hers?’ Hannah’s face was a study in disdain. ‘That’s hardly independence.’

‘Neither is working in an office.’

‘Perhaps not, but I’m going to need money from somewhere. I’m not going to beg or steal, and I can’t think of anyone from whom I could borrow.’