The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog Read online

  The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

  Kate Morton

  Sainsbury's Popular Fiction Award (nominee)

  Summer 1924: On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long-consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.

  A thrilling mystery and a compelling love story, "The House at Riverton" will appeal to readers of Ian McEwan's "Atonement", L P Hartley's "The Go-Between", and lovers of the film "Gosford Park".

  Kate Morton

  The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

  © 2007

  For Davin,

  who holds my hand on the roller-coaster

  PART 1

  Film Script

  Final draft, November 1998, pp. 1-4

  THE SHIFTING FOG

  Written and directed by Ursula Ryan ©1998

  MUSIC: Theme song. Nostalgic music of the type popular during and immediately following the First World War. Though romantic, the music has an ominous edge.

  1. EXT. A COUNTRY ROAD-DUSK’S FINAL MOMENT

  A country road flanked by green fields that stretch forever. It is 8.00 pm. The summer sun still lingers on the distant horizon, loath to slip, finally, beyond. A 1920s motor car winds, like a shiny black beetle, along the narrow road. It whizzes between ancient brambly hedgerows blue in the dusk, crowned with arching canes that weep toward the road.

  The glowing headlights shake as the motor car speeds across the bumpy surface. We draw slowly closer until we are tracking right alongside. The final glow of sun has disappeared and night is upon us. The early moon is full, casting ribbons of white light across the dark, glistening car bonnet.

  We glimpse, inside the dim interior, the shadowy profile of its passengers: a MAN and WOMAN in evening dress. The man is driving. Sequins on the woman’s dress shimmer when they catch the moonlight. Both are smoking, the orange tips of cigarettes mirroring the motor car’s headlights. The WOMAN laughs at something the MAN has said, tips her head back and exposes beneath her feather boa, a pale, thin neck.

  They arrive at a large set of iron gates, the entrance to a tunnel of tall, dusky trees. The motor car turns into the driveway and makes its way through the dark, leafy corridor. We watch through the windscreen, until suddenly we break through the dense foliage and our destination is upon us.

  A grand English manor looms on the hill: twelve gleaming windows across, three high, dormer windows and chimneys punctuating the slate roof. In the foreground, the centrepiece of a broad manicured lawn, sits a grand marble fountain lit with glowing lanterns: giant ants, eagles and enormous fire-breathing dragons, with jets shooting water one-hundred feet into the air.

  We maintain our position, watching as the car continues without us around the turning circle. It stops at the entrance to the house and a young FOOTMAN opens the door, extends his arm to help the WOMAN from her seat.

  SUB-TITLE: Riverton Manor, England. Summer, 1924.

  2. INT. SERVANTS’ HALL-EVENING

  The warm, dim servants’ hall of Riverton Manor. The atmosphere is one of excited preparation. We are at ankle level as busy servants traverse the grey-stone floor in all directions. In the background we hear champagne corks popping, orders being given, lower servants being scolded. A service bell rings. Still at ankle level, we follow a female HOUSEMAID as she heads toward the stairs.

  3. INT. STAIRWELL-EVENING

  We climb the dim stairs behind the HOUSEMAID; clinking sounds tell us that her tray is loaded with champagne flutes. With each step our view lifts-from her narrow ankles, to her black skirt hem, the white tips then pert bow of her apron ribbon, blonde curls at the nape of her neck-until, finally, our view is hers.

  The sounds from the servants’ hall fade as music and laughter from the party grow louder. At the top of the stairs, the door opens before us.

  4. INT. ENTRANCE HALL-EVENING

  A burst of light as we enter the grand marble entrance hall. A glittering crystal chandelier suspends from the high ceiling. The BUTLER opens the front door to greet the well-dressed man and woman from the car. We do not pause but cross to the back of the entrance hall and the broad French doors that lead to the BACK TERRACE.

  5. EXT. BACK TERRACE-EVENING

  The doors sweep open. Music and laughter crescendo: we are in the midst of a glittering party. The atmosphere is one of postwar extravagance. Sequins, feathers, silks, as far as the eye can see. Coloured Chinese paper lanterns strung above the lawn flutter in the light summer’s breeze. A JAZZ BAND plays and women dance the charleston. We weave through the crowd of assorted laughing faces. They turn toward us, accepting champagne from the servant’s tray: a woman with bright red lipstick, a fat man made pink by excitement and alcohol, a thin old lady dripping in jewels and holding, aloft, a long, tapered cigarette-holder emitting a lazy curlicue of smoke.

  There is a tremendous BANG and people gaze above as glittering fireworks tear open the night sky. There are squeals of pleasure and some applause. Reflections of Catherine wheels colour upturned faces, the band spins on, and women dance, faster and faster.

  CUT TO:

  6. EXT. LAKE-EVENING

  A quarter-mile away, a YOUNG MAN stands on the dark edge of the Riverton lake. Party noise swirls in the background. He glances toward the sky. We draw closer, watching as reflected fireworks shimmer red across his beautiful face. Though elegantly dressed, there is a wildness about him. His brown hair is dishevelled, sweeping his forehead, threatening to obscure dark eyes that madly scan the night sky. He lowers his gaze and looks beyond us, to someone else, obscured by shadow. His eyes are damp, his manner suddenly focused. His lips part as if to speak, but he does not. He sighs.

  There is a CLICK. Our gaze drops. He clutches a gun in his trembling hand. Lifts it out of shot. The hand remaining by his side twitches then stiffens. The gun discharges and drops to the muddy earth. A woman screams, and the party music reels on.

  FADE TO BLACK

  CREDIT SEQUENCE: ‘THE SHIFTING FOG’

  The Letter

  Ursula Ryan

  Focus Film Productions

  1264 N. Sierra Bonita Ave #32

  West Hollywood, CA

  90046 USA

  Mrs Grace Bradley

  Heathview Nursing Home

  64 Willow Road

  Saffron Green

  Essex, CB10 1HQ UK

  27 January 1999

  Dear Mrs Bradley,

  I hope you will excuse my writing to you again; however, I have not received a reply to my last letter outlining the film project on which I am working: The Shifting Fog.

  The film is a love story: an account of the poet RS Hunter’s relationship with the Hartford sisters and his suicide of 1924. Though we have been granted permission to film external scenes on location at Riverton Manor, we will be using studio sets for interior scenes.

  We have been able to recreate many of the sets from photographs and descriptions; however, I would appreciate a first-hand assessment. The film is a passion of mine and I cannot bear to think I might do it a disservice with historical inaccuracies, however small. As such, I would be very grateful if you would be willing to look over the set.

  I found your name (your maiden name) on a list amongst a pile of notebooks donated to the Museum o
f Essex. I would not have made the connection between Grace Reeves and yourself had I not also read an interview with your grandson, Marcus McCourt, printed in the Spectator, in which he mentioned briefly his family’s historical associations with the village of Saffron Green.

  I have enclosed a recent article about my earlier films, published in the Sunday Times, for your appraisal, and a promotional article about The Shifting Fog printed in LA Film Weekly. You will notice that we have managed to secure fine actors in the roles of Hunter, Emmeline Hartford and Hannah Luxton, including Gwyneth Paltrow, who has just received a Golden Globe Award for her work in Shakespeare in Love.

  Forgive this intrusion, but we begin shooting in late February at Shepperton Studios, north of London, and I am most keen to make contact with you. I do hope you might be interested in lending your hand to this project. I can be reached c/- Mrs Jan Ryan at 5/45 Lancaster Court, Fulham, London SW6.

  Yours respectfully,

  Ursula Ryan

  GHOSTS STIR

  Last November I had a nightmare.

  It was 1924 and I was at Riverton again. All the doors hung wide open, silk billowing in the summer breeze. An orchestra perched high on the hill beneath the ancient maple, violins lilting lazily in the warmth. The air rang with pealing laughter and crystal, and the sky was the kind of blue we’d all thought the war had destroyed forever. One of the footmen, smart in black and white, poured champagne into the top of a tower of glass flutes and everyone clapped, delighting in the splendid wastage.

  I saw myself, the way one does in dreams, moving amongst the guests. Moving slowly, much more slowly than one can in life, the others a blur of silk and sequins.

  I was looking for someone.

  Then the picture changed and I was near the summer house, only it wasn’t the summer house at Riverton, it couldn’t have been. This was not the shiny new building Teddy had designed, but an old structure with ivy climbing the walls, twisting itself through the windows, strangling the pillars.

  Someone was calling me. A woman, a voice I recognised, coming from behind the building, on the lake’s edge. I walked down the slope, my hands brushing against the tallest reeds. A figure crouched on the bank.

  It was Hannah, in her wedding dress, mud splattered across the front, clinging to the appliquéd roses. She looked up at me, her face pale where it emerged from shadow. Her voice chilled my blood. ‘You’re too late.’ She pointed at my hands, ‘You’re too late.’

  I looked down at my hands, young hands, covered in dark river mud, and in them, the stiff, cold body of a dead foxhound.

  I know what brought it on, of course. It was the letter from the film-maker. I don’t receive much mail these days: the occasional postcard from a dutiful, holidaying friend; a perfunctory letter from the bank where I keep a savings account; an invitation to the christening of a child whose parents I am shocked to realise are no longer children themselves.

  Ursula’s letter had arrived on a Tuesday morning late in November and Sylvia had brought it with her when she came to make my bed. She’d raised heavily sketched eyebrows and waved the envelope.

  ‘Mail today. Something from the States by the look of the stamp. Your grandson, perhaps?’ The left brow arched-a question mark-and her voice lowered to a husky whisper. ‘Terrible business, that. Just terrible. And him such a nice young man.’

  As Sylvia tut-tutted, I thanked her for the letter. I like Sylvia. She’s one of the few people able to look beyond the lines on my face to see the twenty year old who lives inside. Nonetheless, I refuse to be drawn into conversation about Marcus.

  I asked her to open the curtains and she pursed her lips a moment before moving onto another of her favourite subjects: the weather, the likelihood of snow for Christmas, the havoc it would wreak on the arthritic residents. I responded when required, but my mind was with the envelope in my lap, wondering at the scratchy penmanship, the foreign stamps, softened edges that spoke of lengthy travails.

  ‘Here, why don’t I read that for you,’ Sylvia said, giving the pillows a final, hopeful plump, ‘give your eyes a bit of a rest?’

  ‘No. Thank you. Perhaps you could pass my glasses though?’

  When she’d left, promising to come back and help me dress after she’d finished rounds, I prised the letter from its envelope, hands shaking the way they do, wondering whether he was finally coming home.

  But it wasn’t from Marcus at all. It was from a young woman making a movie about the past. She wanted me to look at her sets and judge their authenticity, to remember things and places from long ago. As if I hadn’t spent a lifetime pretending to forget.

  I ignored that letter. I folded it carefully and quietly, slid it inside a book I’d long ago given up reading. And then I exhaled. It was not the first time I had been reminded of what happened at Riverton, to Robbie and the Hartford sisters. Once I saw the tail end of a documentary on the television, something Ruth was watching about war correspondents. When Robbie’s face filled the screen, his name printed across the bottom in unassuming font, my skin prickled. But nothing happened. Ruth didn’t flinch, the narrator continued, and I went on drying the dinner plates.

  Another time, reading the newspaper, my eye was drawn to a familiar name in a write-up in the television guide; a program celebrating seventy years of British films. I noted the time, my heart thrilling, wondering if I dared watch it. In the end it was a disappointment. There was very little about Emmeline. A few publicity photos, none of which showed her true beauty, and a clip from one of her silent films, The Lady Waits, which made her look strange: hollow-cheeked; jerky movements like a marionette. There was no reference to the other films, the ones that threatened such a fuss. I suppose they don’t rate a mention in these days of promiscuity and permissiveness.

  But although I had been met with such memories before, Ursula’s letter was different. It was the first time in over seventy years that anyone had associated me with the events, had remembered that a young woman named Grace Reeves had been at Riverton that summer. It made me feel vulnerable somehow, singled out. Guilty.

  No. I was adamant. That letter would remain unanswered.

  And so it did.

  A strange thing began to happen, though. Memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of my mind, began to sneak through cracks. Images were tossed up high and dry, picture perfect, as if a lifetime hadn’t passed between. And, after the first tentative drops, the deluge. Whole conversations, word for word, nuance for nuance; scenes played out as though on film.

  I have surprised myself. While moths have torn holes in my recent memories, I find the distant past is sharp and clear. They come often lately, those ghosts from the past, and I am surprised to find I don’t much mind them. Not nearly so much as I had supposed I would. Indeed, the spectres I have spent my life escaping have become almost a comfort, something I welcome, anticipate, like one of those serials Sylvia is always talking about, hurrying her rounds so she can watch them down at the main hall. I had forgotten, I suppose, that there were bright memories in amongst the dark.

  When the second letter arrived, last week, in the same scratchy hand on the same soft paper, I knew I was going to say yes, I would look at the sets. I was curious, a sensation I hadn’t felt in some time. There is not much left to be curious about when one is ninety-eight years old, but I wanted to meet this Ursula Ryan who plans to bring them all to life again, who is so passionate about their story.

  So I wrote her a letter, had Sylvia post it for me, and we arranged to meet.

  THE DRAWING ROOM

  This morning when I woke, the thread of nervous energy that had infused me all week had overnight become a knot. Sylvia helped me into a new peach dress-the one Ruth bought me for Christmas-and exchanged my slippers for the pair of outside shoes usually left to languish in my wardrobe. The leather was firm and Sylvia had to push to make them fit, but such price respectability. I am too old to learn new ways and cannot abide the tendency of the younger residents to wear their sli
ppers out.

  My hair, always pale, is now flossy white, and very fine, finer it seems with each passing day. One morning, I feel sure, I will wake up and there will be none left, just a few fairy threads lying on my pillow that will dissolve before my eyes. Perhaps I am never going to die. Will merely continue to fade, until one day, when the north wind blows, I will be lifted and carried away. Part of the sky.

  Face paint restored some life to my cheeks, but I was careful not to overdo it. I am wary of looking like an undertaker’s mannequin. Sylvia is always offering to give me a ‘bit of a makeover’, but with her penchant for purple eye shadow and sticky lip glosses, I fear the results would be catastrophic.

  With some effort I fastened the gold locket, its nineteenth-century elegance incongruous against my utilitarian clothing. I straightened it, wondering at my daring, wondering what Ruth would say when she saw.

  My gaze dropped. The small silver frame on my dressing table. A photo from my wedding day. I would just as happily not have had it there-the marriage was so long ago and so short-lived, poor John-but it is my concession to Ruth. It pleases her, I think, to imagine that I pine for him.

  Sylvia helped me to the drawing room-it still rankles to call it such-where breakfast was being served and where I was to wait for Ruth who had agreed (against her better judgement, she said) to drive me to the Shepperton studios. I had Sylvia seat me alone at the corner table and fetch me a glass of juice, and then I filled time rereading Ursula’s letter.

  Ruth arrived at eight-thirty on the dot. She may have had misgivings about the wisdom of this excursion but she is, and has always been, incurably punctual. I’ve heard it said that children born to stressful times never shake the air of woe, and Ruth, a child of the second war, proves the rule. So different from Sylvia, only fifteen years younger, who fusses about in tight skirts, laughs too loudly, and changes hair colour with each new ‘boyfriend’.