Kate Morton - The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

I could hear Alfred behind me, walking faster to catch me up. Small branches cracked under foot, the trees seemed to eavesdrop.

‘I meant to write, Gracie,’ he said quickly. ‘To reply to your letters.’ He drew beside me. ‘I tried so many times.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ I said, walking on.

‘I couldn’t get the words right. You know how my head is. Since the war…’ He lifted a hand and rapped lightly on his forehead, ‘Certain things I just can’t seem to do no more. Not like before. Words and letters are one of them.’ He hurried to keep up with me. ‘Besides,’ he said, breath catching, ‘there were things I needed to say that could only be said in person.’

The air was icy on my cheeks. I slowed. ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ I said softly. ‘The day of the theatre show?’

‘I did, Gracie.’

‘But when I got back-It had only just gone five.’

He sighed. ‘I left at ten before. We just missed each other.’ He shook his head. ‘I would’ve waited longer, Gracie, only Mrs Tibbit said you must have forgot. That you’d gone on an errand and wouldn’t be back for hours.’

‘But that wasn’t true!’

‘Why would she make it up, a thing like that?’ said Alfred, confused.

I lifted my shoulders helplessly, let them fall. ‘It’s what she’s like.’

We had reached the top of the driveway. There on the ridge stood Riverton, large and dark, the edges of evening beginning to enclose her. We paused unconsciously, stood a moment before continuing past the fountain and around toward the servants’ entrance.

‘I went after you,’ I said as we entered the rose garden.

‘You didn’t,’ he said, glancing at me. ‘Did you?’

I nodded. ‘I waited at the theatre until the last. I thought I could catch you up.’

‘Oh, Gracie,’ Alfred said, stopping at the base of the stairs. ‘I’m so sorry.’

I stopped too.

‘I should never have listened to that Mrs Tibbit,’ he said.

‘You weren’t to know.’

‘But I should have trusted you’d be back. It’s just…’ He glanced at the closed servants’ door, tightened his lips, exhaled. ‘There was something on my mind, Grace. Something important I’d been wanting to talk to you about. To ask you. I was wound up tighter than a drum that day. Full of nerves.’ He shook his head. ‘When I thought you’d given me the flick I was that upset I couldn’t stand it any longer. Got out of that house as fast as I could. Started down the first street I came to and kept walking.’

‘But Lucy…’ I said quietly, eyes on the fingers of my gloves. Watching as snowflakes disappeared on contact. ‘Lucy Starling…’

He sighed, looked beyond my shoulder. ‘I took Lucy Starling to make you jealous, Gracie. That I own.’ He shook his head. ‘It was unfair of me to do it, I know that: unfair to you and unfair to Lucy.’ He reached out with a gloved finger and lifted my chin tentatively so my eyes met his. ‘It was disappointment made me do it, Grace. All the way down from Saffron, I’d imagined seeing you, practised what I was going to say when we met.’

His hazel eyes were earnest. A nerve flickered in his jaw.

‘What were you going to say?’ I asked.

He smiled nervously.

The clatter of iron hinges and the servants’ hall door swung open. Mrs Townsend, large frame backlit, plump cheeks red from her seat by the fire.

‘Here!’ she chortled. ‘What are you two doing out there in the cold?’ She turned back to those inside. ‘They’re out in the cold! Didn’t I tell you they was?’ She returned her attention to us. ‘I said to Mr Hamilton, “Mr Hamilton, blimey if I don’t hear voices outside.” “You’re imagining things, Mrs Townsend,” says he. “What would they be wanting standing out in the cold when they could be in here where it’s nice and warm?” “I wouldn’t know, Mr Hamilton,” says I, “but unless my ears deceive me, that’s where they is.” And I was right.’ She called inside: ‘I was right, Mr Hamilton.’ She extended her arm and waved us inside. ‘Well come on then, you’ll catch your deaths out there, the pair of you.’

I had forgotten how dim it was downstairs at Riverton. How low the ceiling rafters, and how cold the marble floor. I had forgotten, too, the way the wintry wind blew in off the heath, whistled through the crumbling mortar of the stone walls. Not like number seventeen where Deborah had organised the latest insulation and heating.

‘You poor dear,’ said Mrs Townsend, pulling me toward her, squashing my head into her fire-warmed breasts. (What a loss for some child, never born, to miss the opportunity for such comfort. But that was the way then, as Mother knew too well: family was the first sacrifice of any career servant.) ‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘Myra? Cup of tea for Grace.’

I was surprised. ‘Where’s Katie?’

They all exchanged glances.

‘What is it?’ I said. Nothing dreadful, surely. Alfred would have said-

‘Up and married, didn’t she,’ said Myra with a sniff, before flouncing off into the kitchen.

My jaw dropped.

Mrs Townsend lowered her voice and spoke quickly: ‘Fellow from up north that works in the mines. Met him in town while she was s’posed to be running an errand for me, silly girl. Happened awful fast. Won’t surprise you to hear there’s a wee one on the way.’ She straightened her apron, pleased with the effect her news was having on me, and glanced toward the kitchen. ‘Try not to mention it round Myra, though. She’s green as a gardener’s thumb, however much she insists she ain’t!’

I nodded, stunned. Little Katie married? A mother to be?

As I tried to make sense of the remarkable news, Mrs Townsend continued to fuss, insisting I take the seat nearest the fire, that I was too thin and too pale and would need some of her Christmas pudding to set me to rights. When she disappeared to collect me a serve, I felt the weight of attention upon me. I pushed Katie from my mind and enquired after things at Riverton.

They all fell silent, looked at one another, before Mr Hamilton finally said, ‘Well now, young Grace, things are not quite as you might remember from your time.’

I asked what he meant and he straightened his jacket. ‘It’s a lot quieter these days. A slower pace.’

‘A ghost town, more like,’ said Alfred, who was fidgeting over by the door. He’d seemed agitated since we came inside. ‘Him upstairs wandering about like the living dead.’

‘Alfred!’ Mr Hamilton reprimanded, though with less vigour than I would have expected. ‘You’re exaggerating.’

‘I am not,’ said Alfred. ‘Come on, Mr Hamilton, Grace is one of us. She can wear the truth.’ He glanced at me. ‘It’s like I told you in London. After Miss Hannah left like that, His Lordship was never the same.’

‘He was upset all right, but it weren’t just Miss Hannah leaving, the two of them on such bad terms,’ said Myra. ‘It was losing his factory like that. And his mother.’ She leaned toward me. ‘If you could only see upstairs. We all do our best but it isn’t easy. He won’t let us have tradesmen in for repairs, says the sound of hammers banging and ladders dragging across the floor drives him to distraction. We’ve had to close up even more of the rooms. Said he wouldn’t be entertaining again so it was no use us wasting time and energy maintaining them. Once he caught me trying to dust the library and he just about had my neck.’ She glanced at Mr Hamilton and continued. ‘We don’t even do the books any more.’

‘It’s because there’s no Mistress to run the house,’ said Mrs Townsend, returning with a plate of pudding, licking a smear of cream from her finger. ‘It’s always the way when there’s no Mistress.’