The Shifting Fog

by Kate Morton

  Mother had made an effort to present the room at its best. I recognised the signs. A favoured vase that had once belonged to her own mother, white porcelain with tulips painted on the front, stood on the side table, clutching proudly a handful of tired daisies. And the cushion she usually rolled up and propped against her back when she worked had been beaten smooth and arranged in the middle of the sofa. It was a sly impostor, sitting there squarely, looking for all the world as if it served no other function than decoration.

  The room was especially clean—years in service had given Mother exacting standards—yet it was smaller and plainer than I remembered. The yellow walls that had once seemed cheery were faded, seeming to sag inwards so that only the bare old sofa and chairs saved them from collapse. The pictures on the wall, scenes from the sea that had inspired many of my childhood fancies, had lost their magic and now looked only tired and poorly framed.

  Mother brought the tea and sat opposite me. I watched as she poured. There were only two cups. It was to be just the two of us, after all. The room, the flowers, the cushion were for me.

  I took the cup she offered and noted silently the tiny chip on its rim. Mr Hamilton would never approve. There was no place for cracked teacups at Riverton, even in the servants’ hall.

  Mother cupped her tea in two hands and I saw that the fingers of each hand had plaited stiffly, one over another. There was no way she’d be able to stitch in that condition. I wondered how long they’d been that bad, how she was affording to live. I had been forwarding her a portion of my own earnings each week, but surely it wasn’t enough. Warily, I broached the subject.

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ she said. ‘I’m managing.’

  ‘But Mother, you should have told me. I could have sent you more. I’ve nothing to spend it on.’

  Her gaunt face vacillated between defensiveness and defeat. Finally, she sighed. ‘You’re a good girl, Grace. You’re doing your share. Your mother’s bad fortune’s not yours to worry about.’

  ‘Of course it is, Mother.’

  ‘You just be sure an’ don’t make the same mistakes.’

  I steeled myself, dared to ask gently, ‘What mistakes, Mother?’

  She looked away and I waited, heart beating quickly, as she chewed on her dry bottom lip. Wondering whether at last I was to be trusted with the secrets that had sat between us as long as I could remember . . .

  ‘Pish,’ she said finally, turning back to face me. And with that the subject’s door was slammed closed. She lifted her chin and asked about the house, the family, as she always did.

  What had I expected? A sudden, magnificently uncharacteristic break from habit? An outpouring of past grievances that explained away my mother’s acrimony, enabled us to reach an understanding that had thus far eluded us?

  You know, I think perhaps I had. I was young, and that is my only excuse.

  But this is a history, not a fiction, thus it will not surprise you that such was not forthcoming. Instead, I swallowed the sour lump of disappointment and told her about the deaths, unable to prevent a guilty note of importance from creeping in as I recounted the family’s recent misfortune. First the Major—Mr Hamilton’s sombre receipt of the black-rimmed telegraph, Jemima’s fingers shaking so that she was unable at first to open it—and then Lord Ashbury, only days after.

  She shook her head slowly, an action that accentuated her long, thin neck, and set down her tea. ‘I’d heard as much. I didn’t know how much to put down to gossip. You know as well as I how bad this village is for tittle-tattle.’

  I nodded.

  ‘What was it took Lord Ashbury, then?’ she said.

  ‘Mr Hamilton said it was a mix. Partly a stroke and partly the heat.’

  Mother continued to nod, chewing the inside of her cheek. ‘And what did Mrs Townsend say?’

  ‘She said it was none of those things. She said it was grief that killed him, plain and simple.’ I lowered my voice, adopting the same reverent tone that Mrs Townsend had used. ‘She said the Major’s death broke His Lordship’s heart. That when the Major was shot, all his father’s hopes and dreams bled with him into the soil of France.’

  Mother smiled, but it was not a happy gesture. She shook her head slowly, looked at the wall before her with its pictures of the distant sea. ‘Poor, poor Frederick,’ she said. This surprised me and at first I thought I must have misheard, or that she had made a mistake, uttered the wrong name accidentally, for it made little sense. Poor Lord Ashbury. Poor Lady Violet. Poor Jemima. But Frederick?

  ‘You needn’t worry about him,’ I said. ‘He’s as like to inherit the house.’

  ‘There’s more to happiness than riches, girl.’

  I didn’t like it when Mother spoke of happiness. The sentiment was hollowed by its speaker. Mother, with her pinched eyes and her empty house was the last person fit to offer such advice. I felt chastened somehow. Reprimanded for an offence I couldn’t name. I answered sulkily, ‘Try telling that to Fanny.’

  Mother frowned, and I realised the name was unknown to her.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, inexplicably cheered. ‘I forgot. You wouldn’t know her. She’s Lady Clementine’s charge. She hopes to marry Mr Frederick.’

  Mother looked at me, disbelieving. ‘Marry? Frederick?’

  I nodded. ‘Fanny’s been working on him all year.’

  ‘He’s not asked her, though?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But it’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘Who told you so? Mrs Townsend?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nancy.’

  Mother recovered somewhat, managed a thin smile. ‘She’s mistaken then, this Nancy of yours. Frederick wouldn’t marry again. Not after Penelope.’

  ‘Nancy doesn’t make mistakes.’

  Mother crossed her arms. ‘On this, she’s wrong.’

  Her certainty grated me, as if she would know better than I the goings on up at the house. ‘Even Mrs Townsend agrees,’ I said. ‘She says Lady Violet approves the match and that, though Mr Frederick mightn’t appear to mind what his mother says, he’s never gone against her when it counted.’

  ‘No,’ said Mother, her smile flickering then fading. ‘No, I don’t suppose he has.’ She turned to stare through the open window. The grey-stone wall of the house next door. ‘I never thought he would remarry.’

  Her voice had lost all resolution and I felt badly. Ashamed of my desire to put her in her place. Mother had been fond of this Penelope, of Hannah and Emmeline’s mother. She must’ve been. What else explained her reluctance to see Mr Frederick replace his late wife? Her dejection when I insisted it was true? I put my hand on hers. ‘You’re right, Mother. I was speaking out of turn. We don’t know anything for sure.’

  She didn’t answer.

  I leaned close. ‘And certainly there’s none could accuse Mr Frederick of genuine feeling for Fanny. He looks more lovingly at his riding crop.’

  My joke was an attempt to cajole her, and I was pleased when she turned to face me. I was surprised, too, for in that moment, as the afternoon sunlight brushed her cheek and teased green from her brown eyes, Mother almost looked pretty. It was a term I’d never thought would suit her. Clean and neat, perhaps, but never pretty.

  I thought of Hannah’s words, her talk of Mother’s photograph, and I was even more resolved to see it for myself. To glimpse the type of person Mother might have been. The girl Hannah called pretty and Mrs Townsend remembered so fondly.

  ‘He was always a great one for riding,’ she said, setting her teacup on the window ledge. She surprised me then, took my hand between hers and stroked the hard patches on my palm. ‘Tell me about your new duties. Looks of these, they’ve been keeping you awful busy up there.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ I said, moved by her rare affection. ‘There’s not much to recommend the cleaning and the laundering, but there’s other duties I don’t mind so much.’

  ‘Oh?’ She inclined her head.

  ‘Nancy’s been so busy at the s
tation that I’ve been doing a lot more of the upstairs work.’

  ‘You like that do you, my girl?’ Her voice was quiet. ‘Being upstairs in the grand house?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And what do you like about it?’

  Being amongst fine rooms with delicate porcelains and paintings and tapestries. Listening to Hannah and Emmeline joke and tease and dream. I remembered Mother’s earlier sentiment and suddenly knew a way to please her. ‘It makes me happy,’ I said. And I confessed something then that I hadn’t even owned myself. ‘One day I hope to become a proper lady’s maid.’

  She looked at me, the tremors of a frown plucking at her brow. ‘There’s future enough as a lady’s maid, my girl,’ she said, voice strained thin. ‘But happiness . . . happiness grows at our own firesides,’ she said. ‘It is not to be picked in strangers’ gardens.’

  I was still turning Mother’s comment over as I walked home to Riverton late that afternoon. She was telling me not to forget my place, of course; I’d received that lecture more than once before. She wanted me to remember that my happiness would only be found in the coals of the servants’ hall fireplace, not in the delicate pearls of a lady’s boudoir. But the Hartfords were not strangers. And if I took some happiness from working near them, listening to their conversations, minding their beautiful dresses, then what harm was there in that?

  It struck me then that she was jealous. She envied me my place at the grand house. She had cared for Penelope, for the girls’ mother, she must have: that’s why she was so put out by my talk of Mr Frederick remarrying. And now, seeing me in the position she once enjoyed reminded her of the world she’d been forced to give away. And yet she hadn’t been forced, had she? Hannah said that Lady Violet had employed families before. And if Mother were jealous that I had taken her place, why had she been so insistent I go into service at Riverton?

  I kicked angrily at a clump of dirt dislodged earlier by a horse’s hoof. It was impossible. I would never untangle the knots and secrets Mother had tied between us. And if she didn’t see fit to explain herself, offering only cryptic homilies about bad fortune and remembering one’s place, then how could I be expected to answer to her?

  I exhaled deeply. I wouldn’t. Mother had left me little option but to make my own way and that was what I intended to do. And if that meant aspiring to climb another service rung, then so be it.

  I emerged from the tree-lined drive, pausing for a moment to observe the house. The sun had shifted and Riverton was in shadow. A huge black beetle on the hill, hunkering down against the heat and its own sorrow. And yet, as I stood there, I was filled with a warm sense of certitude. For the first time in my life I felt solid; somewhere between the village and Riverton I had lost the sense that if I didn’t hold on tightly I would be blown away.

  I entered the dark servants’ hall and headed down the dim corridor. My footsteps echoed on the cool stone floor. When I reached the kitchen, all was still. The lingering smell of beef stew clung to the walls, but there was no one else about. Behind me, in the dining room, the clock ticked loudly. I peered around the door. That room was also empty. One lone teacup sat on its saucer on the table, but its drinker was nowhere to be seen. I removed my hat, draped it over a hook on the wall and smoothed my skirt. I sighed and the noise lapped against the silent walls. I smiled slightly. I had never had the downstairs all to myself before.

  I glanced at the clock. There was still a half-hour until I was expected back. I would have a cup of tea. The one at Mother’s house had left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  The teapot on the kitchen bench was still warm, shrouded in its woollen cosy. I was laying out a teacup when Nancy fairly flew around the corner, her eyes widening when she saw me.

  ‘It’s Jemima,’ she said. ‘The baby’s coming.’

  ‘But it’s not due till September,’ I said.

  ‘Well it doesn’t know that, does it,’ she said, throwing a small square towel at me. ‘Here, take that and a bowl of warm water upstairs. I can’t find any of the others, and someone has to call for the doctor.’

  ‘But I’m not in uniform—’ ‘I don’t think mother or child is going to mind,’ said Nancy, disappearing into Mr Hamilton’s pantry to use the telephone.

  ‘But what will I say?’ This I directed to the empty room, to myself, to the cloth in my hand. ‘What will I do?’

  Nancy’s head appeared around the door. ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? You’ll think of something.’ She waved an arm in the air. ‘Just tell her everything’s all right. God willing, it will be.’

  I draped the towel over my shoulder, filled a bowl with warm water and started upstairs as Nancy had said to. My hands were shaking a little and some of the water slopped over onto the corridor carpet runner leaving dark vermillion spots.

  When I reached Jemima’s room I hesitated. From behind the solid door came a muffled groan. I took a deep breath, knocked and went inside.

  The room was dark, with the exception of a single bold sliver where the curtains coyly parted. The ribbon of dusky light was flecked with listless dust. The maple four-poster bed was a shadowy mass in the centre of the room. Jemima lay very still, her breathing laboured.

  I crept to the bed and crouched tentatively beside. I put the bowl on the small reading table.

  Jemima moaned and I bit my lip, unsure how to proceed. ‘There now,’ I said softly, the way Mother had tended me when I was sick with the scarlet fever. ‘There now.’

  She shuddered, made three quick gasps for air. She clenched her eyes shut.

  ‘Everything’s all right,’ I said. I soaked the towel in the water and folded it in four, draping it across her forehead.

  ‘Jonathan . . .’ she said. ‘Jonathan . . .’ His name on her lips was beautiful.

  There was nought I could say to that and so I remained in silence.

  There came more groans, more whimpers. She writhed, moaning into the pillow. Her fingers chased elusive comfort across the empty sheet beside her.

  Then the still returned. Her breathing slowed.

  I lifted the cloth from her forehead. It had warmed against her skin and I dipped it again in the bowl of water. I wrung it out, folded it and reached to lay it back across her head.

  Her eyes opened, blinked, searched my face in the dim. ‘Hannah,’ she said through a sigh. I was startled by her mistake. And pleased beyond measure. I opened my mouth to correct her, but stopped when she reached out and took my hand. ‘I’m so glad it’s you.’ She squeezed my fingers together. ‘I’m so frightened,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t feel anything.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘The baby’s resting.’

  This seemed to calm her a little. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s always so, right before they come. I just didn’t . . . It’s too soon.’ She turned her head away. When she spoke again, her voice was so low I had to strain to hear. ‘Everybody wants a boy for me, but I can’t. I can’t lose another one.’

  ‘You won’t,’ I said, hoping it was so.

  ‘There’s a curse upon my family,’ she said, face still hidden. ‘My mother told me so but I didn’t believe her.’

  She has lost her sense, I thought. Grief has overtaken her and she has given into superstition. ‘There’s no such thing as curses,’ I said softly.

  She made a noise, a cross between a laugh and a sob. ‘Oh yes. It’s the same that robbed our dear late Queen of her son. The bleeders’ curse.’ She went quiet, then ran her hand over her stomach and shifted so that she faced me. Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘But girls . . . it passes girls over.’

  The door flew open and Nancy was there. Behind her was a thin man of middle years and a permanently censorious expression who I took to be the doctor, though he wasn’t Doctor Arthur from the village. Pillows were plumped, Jemima was positioned and a lamp was lit. At some point I realised my hand was once more my own, and I was pushed aside, ferried from the room.

  As afternoon became evening, evening became night,
I waited and wondered and hoped. Time lagged even though there were plenty of chores with which to fill it. There was dinner to serve, beds to be turned down, laundry to be gathered for the next day, yet all the while my mind remained with Jemima.

  Finally, as through the kitchen window the final shimmer of the sun’s corona slipped behind the west heath, Nancy clattered down the stairs, bowl and cloth in hand.

  We had just finished our dinner and were still sat around the table.

  ‘Well?’ Mrs Townsend said, handkerchief clutched anxiously to her heart.

  ‘Well,’ Nancy said, setting the bowl and cloth on the kitchen bench. She turned to face us all, unable to keep the smile from her lips. ‘Mother was delivered of her baby at twenty-six minutes after eight. Small but healthy.’

  I waited nervously.

  ‘Can’t help but feel a little sorry for her, though,’ Nancy said, raising her eyebrows. ‘It’s a girl.’

  It was ten o’clock when I returned from collecting Jemima’s supper tray. She had fallen asleep, little Gytha swaddled and in her arms. Before I switched off the bedside lamp, I paused a moment to gaze at the tiny girl: puckered lips, a scrap of strawberry-blonde hair, eyes screwed tightly shut. Not an heir, then, but a baby, who would live and grow and love. One day, perhaps, have babies of her own.

  I tiptoed from the room, tray in hand. My lamp cast the only light in the dark corridor, throwing my shadow across the row of portraits hanging along the wall. While the newest family member slept soundly behind the closed door, a line of Hartfords past carried on a timeless vigil, gazing silently across the entrance hall they once possessed.

  When I reached the main hall I noticed a thin strip of soft light seeping beneath the drawing-room door. In all the evening’s drama, Mr Hamilton had forgotten to turn off the lamp. I thanked God I had been the one to see. Despite the blessing of a new grandchild, Lady Violet would have been furious to discover her mourning conditions flouted.

  I pushed open the door and stopped dead.

  There, in his father’s seat, sat Mr Frederick. The new Lord Ashbury.

  His long legs were crossed one over the other, his head bowed onto one hand so that his face was concealed.