The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog Page 16

  I will have to take her word for it.

  ‘Anyway, I have to run back to the house for help and when I get back he’s already rescued her and revived her. The way the actress is playing it, she’s too busy looking up at him to even notice that we’ve all come to help her.’ She pauses, looks at me wide-eyed, as if she has made her meaning clear. ‘Well, don’t you think I should-Grace should-react a bit?’

  I am slow to respond and she leaps ahead.

  ‘Oh, not obviously. Just a subtle reaction. You know the sort of thing.’ She sniffs slightly, tilts her head so that her nose is in the air, and sighs. I do not realise that this is an impromptu performance for my benefit until she drops the expression and replaces it with a wide-eyed gaze in my direction. ‘See?’

  ‘I see.’ I hesitate, choose my words judiciously. ‘It’s up to you, of course, how you play your character. How you play Grace. But if it were me, and it was 1915 again, I can’t imagine I would have reacted…’ I wave my hand at her, unable to put words to her performance.

  She stares at me as though I’ve missed some vital nuance. ‘But don’t you think it’s a bit thoughtless not even to thank Grace for running for help? I feel stupid running off and then coming back just to stand there again like a zombie.’

  I sigh. ‘Perhaps you’re right, but that was the nature of service in those days. It would have been unusual had she not been that way. Do you see?’

  She looks dubious.

  ‘I didn’t expect her to be any other way.’

  ‘But you must have felt something?’

  ‘Of course.’ I am overcome with an unexpected distaste for discussing the dead. ‘I just didn’t show it.’

  ‘Never?’ She neither wants nor waits for an answer and I am glad for I don’t want to give it. She pouts. ‘The whole servant-mistress thing just seems so ridiculous. One person doing the bidding of the other.’

  ‘It was a different time,’ I say simply.

  ‘That’s what Ursula says, too.’ She sighs. ‘It doesn’t help me much though, does it? I mean, acting’s all about reacting. It’s a bit hard to create an interesting character when the stage direction is “don’t react”. I feel like a cardboard cut-out, just “yes miss-ing,” “no miss-ing,” “three bags full miss-ing”.’

  I nod. ‘Must be difficult.’

  ‘I tried out for the part of Emmeline originally,’ she says confidingly. ‘Now that’s a dream role. Such an interesting character. And so glamorous, what with her being an actress and dying like she did in that car accident. You should see the costumes.’

  I do not remind her that I saw the costumes first time around.

  ‘They wanted someone with more box-office pull.’ She rolls her eyes and inspects her fingernails. ‘They liked my audition well enough,’ she says. ‘Producer called me back twice. He said I look much more like Emmeline than Gwyneth Paltrow does.’ The other actress’s name she says with a sneer that robs her momentarily of her beauty. ‘Only thing she has over me is an Academy Award nomination, and everyone knows British actors have to work twice as hard for an Oscar nod. ’Specially when you get your start on the soaps.’

  I can sense her disappointment and I do not blame her; I dare say there were many times I would have much preferred to be Emmeline than the housemaid.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says discontentedly, ‘I’m playing Grace and I have to make the best of it. Besides, Ursula promised they’d interview me specially for the DVD release, seeing as I’m the only one who gets to meet my character in real life.’

  ‘I’m glad to be of some use.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, my irony lost on her.

  ‘Do you have any more questions?’

  ‘I’ll check.’ She turns a page, and something drops from its hiding spot, flutters to the ground like a mammoth grey moth, lands face down. When she reaches to pick it up I see that it is a photograph, a host of black and white figures with serious faces. Even from a distance the image is familiar to me. I remember it instantly, in the same way a film seen long ago, a dream, a painting, can be recalled through its merest shape.

  ‘May I see?’ I say, reaching out my hand.

  She passes the photograph to me, lays it across my gnarled fingers. Our hands meet for an instant and she withdraws quickly, frightened she might catch something. Old age perhaps.

  The photograph is a copy. Its surface smooth and cold and matt. I tilt the image toward the window so that it catches the light shining in off the heath. I squint through my glasses.

  There we are. The Riverton household of summer 1916.

  There was one like it for every year; Lady Violet used to insist on it. They were commissioned annually, a photographer brought in from a London studio, the auspicious day greeted with all due pomp and circumstance.

  The resulting photograph, two rows of serious faces gazing unblinking at the black-hooded camera, would then be hand-delivered, displayed on the drawing-room mantle a while, then pasted in the appropriate page in the Hartford family scrapbook, along with invitations, menus and newspaper clippings.

  Had it been the photograph from any other year, I may not have known its date. But this particular image is memorable for the events it immediately preceded.

  Mr Frederick sits front and centre, his mother one side, Jemima the other. The latter is huddled, a black shawl draped about her shoulders to disguise her heavy pregnancy. Hannah and Emmeline sit at either ends, parentheses-one taller than the other-in matching black dresses. New dresses, but not of the kind imagined by Emmeline.

  Standing behind Mr Frederick, centre of a shadow row, is Mr Hamilton, with Mrs Townsend and Myra beside. Katie and I stand behind the Hartford girls, with Mr Dawkins, the chauffeur, and Mr Dudley at the edges. The rows are distinct. Only Nanny occupies a place between, dozing in a cane chair from the conservatory, neither in front nor behind.

  I look at my serious face, my severe hairstyle giving my head the appearance of a pin, accentuating my too-large ears. I stand directly behind Hannah, her pale hair, brushed into ripples, stark against the edges of my black dress.

  We all wear grave expressions, a custom of the time, but particularly appropriate to this photograph. The servants are in black as always, but so is the family. For that summer they had joined the mourning that was general across England and across the world.

  It was the twelfth day of July, 1916, the day after the joint funeral service for Lord Ashbury and the Major. The day Jemima’s baby arrived, and the day the question on all our lips was answered.

  It was awfully hot that summer, the hottest anyone could remember. Gone were the grey days of winter, where night bled into day, and in their stead week after week of long days and clear blue skies. Day broke quickly, cleanly, brilliantly.

  I woke earlier than usual that morning. The sun topped the birch trees that lined the lake and pierced the attic window so that a stream of hot light pointed across the bed, stroked my face. I didn’t mind. It was nice for a change to wake with the light rather than beginning work in the cold dark of the sleeping house. For a maid, the summer sun was a steadfast companion to the day’s activities.

  The photographer had been booked for nine-thirty, and by the time we assembled on the front lawn the air was tight with shimmering heat. The family of swallows who considered Riverton their own sought refuge beneath the attic eaves, watching us curiously and quietly, robbed of their spirit for singing. Even the trees that lined the driveway were silent. Their leafy tops sat motionless, as if to conserve energy, until coerced by some slight breeze to emit a disgruntled rustle.

  The photographer, his face spotted with perspiration, arranged us, one by one, the family seated, the surplus standing at back. There we remained, all in black, eyes on the camera box and thoughts in the churchyard valley.

  Afterwards, in the comparative cool of the stone servants’ hall, Mr Hamilton had Katie pour lemonades while the rest of us sank listlessly onto chairs around the table.

  ‘It’s the end of an
era, and that’s a fact,’ Mrs Townsend said, dabbing at her puffy eyes with a handkerchief. She had been crying for most of July, starting when news came of the Major’s death in France, pausing only to gain momentum when Lord Ashbury suffered a fatal stroke the following week. She no longer wept tears so much as her eyes had succumbed to a state of permanent seepage.

  ‘The end of an era,’ Mr Hamilton said, sitting opposite her. ‘That it is Mrs Townsend.’

  ‘When I think of His Lordship…’ Her words tapered off and she shook her head, planted her elbows on the table and buried her swollen face in her hands.

  ‘The stroke was sudden,’ Mr Hamilton said.

  ‘Stroke!’ Mrs Townsend said, lifting her face. ‘That may be what they’re calling it, but he died of a broken heart. You mark my words. Couldn’t bear losing his son like that.’

  ‘I dare say you’re right, Mrs Townsend,’ Myra said, tying her guard’s scarf around her neck. ‘They were tight, he and the Major.’

  ‘The Major!’ Mrs Townsend’s eyes brimmed anew and her bottom lip trembled. ‘That dear boy. To think of him going like that. On some God-awful mudflat in France.’

  ‘The Somme,’ I said, tasting the roundness of the word, its hum of foreboding. I thought of Alfred’s most recent letter, thin sheets of grubby paper that smelled of far away. It had arrived for me two days earlier, posted from France the week before. The letter had presented a light enough veneer, but there was something in its tone, the things that were not said, that left me uneasy. ‘Is that where Alfred is, Mr Hamilton? The Somme?’

  ‘I should say so, my girl. From what I’ve heard in the village, I’d say that’s where they’ve sent the Saffron Lads.’

  Katie, who had arrived with a tray of lemonades, gasped. ‘Mr Hamilton, what if Alfred-’

  ‘Katie!’ Myra cut in sharply, glancing at me as Mrs Townsend’s hand leapt to her mouth. ‘Just you mind where you put that tray and keep your trap shut.’

  Mr Hamilton’s lips pursed. ‘Now don’t you girls worry about Alfred. He’s in good spirits and good hands. Those in command will do what’s best. They wouldn’t send Alfred and his lads into battle if they weren’t confident of their abilities to defend King and country.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he won’t get shot,’ Katie said, sulking. ‘The Major did, and he’s a hero.’

  ‘Katie!’ Mr Hamilton’s face turned the colour of stewed rhubarb as Mrs Townsend gasped. ‘Show some respect.’ He dropped his voice to a quivering whisper. ‘After all the family has had to endure these last weeks.’ He shook his head, straightened his glasses. ‘I can’t even look at you, girl. Get into the scullery and…’ He turned to Mrs Townsend for help.

  Mrs Townsend lifted her puffy face from the table and said, between sobs, ‘And clean out every one of my baking pots and pans. Even the old ones left out for the pot man.’

  We remained in silence as Katie crept off to the scullery. Silly Katie, with her talk of dying. Alfred knew how to take care of himself. He was always saying so in his letters, telling me not to get too used to his duties because he’d be back in no time to take them up again. Telling me to keep his place warm for him. I thought then of something else Alfred had said. Something that had me worried about all our places.

  ‘Mr Hamilton,’ I said quietly. ‘I don’t mean any disrespect by it, but I’ve been wondering what it all means for us? Who will be in charge now that Lord Ashbury…?’

  ‘Surely it will be Mr Frederick?’ said Myra. ‘He’s Lord Ashbury’s only other son.’

  ‘No,’ Mrs Townsend said, looking to Mr Hamilton. ‘It will be the Major’s son, won’t it? When he’s born. He’s next in line for the title.’

  ‘I’d say it all depends,’ Mr Hamilton said gravely.

  ‘On what?’ Myra said.

  Mr Hamilton surveyed us all. ‘On whether it’s a son or a daughter Jemima’s carrying.’

  Mention of her name was enough to start Mrs Townsend crying again. ‘That poor lamb,’ she said. ‘To lose her husband. And she about to have a wee baby. It just isn’t right.’

  ‘I imagine there’s others like her right across England,’ Myra said, shaking her head.

  ‘But it’s not the same, is it?’ Mrs Townsend said. ‘Not the same as when it happens to one of your own.’

  The third bell along the bracket near the stairs rang and Mrs Townsend jumped. ‘Oh my,’ she said, hand fluttering to her ample bosom.

  ‘Front door.’ Mr Hamilton stood and pushed his chair neatly beneath the table. ‘Lord Gifford, no doubt. Here to read the will.’ He slipped his arms into his jacket coat and straightened the collar, looked at me over his glasses before he started up the stairs. ‘Lady Ashbury will ring for tea any minute, Grace. When you’ve done that, be sure and take a carafe of lemonade outside to Miss Hannah and Miss Emmeline.’

  As he disappeared up the stairs, Mrs Townsend patted one hand rapidly across her heart. ‘My nerves aren’t what they were,’ she said sadly.

  ‘Not helped by this heat,’ Myra said. She glanced at the wall clock. ‘Look here, it’s only just now gone half ten. Lady Violet won’t ring for luncheon for another two hours. Why don’t you take your rest early today? Grace can manage the tea.’

  I nodded, glad for something to do that would take my mind off the household’s grief. Off the war itself; off Alfred.

  Mrs Townsend looked from Myra to me.

  Myra’s expression became stern but her voice was softer than usual. ‘Come now, Mrs Townsend. You’ll feel better after a lie-down. I’ll make sure everything’s all right and proper before I leave for the station.’

  The second bell rang, signalling the drawing room, and Mrs Townsend jumped again. She nodded, defeat mixed with relief. ‘All right then.’ She looked at me. ‘But you wake me if you need anything at all, you hear?’

  I carried the tray up the darkened servants’ hall stairs and into the main hall. Was enveloped immediately by light and heat. While every curtain in the house had been drawn in accordance with Lady Ashbury’s insistence on strict Victorian mourning, there were none to cover the elliptical glass panel above the front door, and sunlight was left to penetrate without restraint. It made me think of the camera. The room was a flash of light and life in the centre of a shrouded black box.

  I crossed to the drawing room and pushed open the door. The room was heavy with warm stale air that had drifted in with summer’s start and become trapped by the house’s grief. The huge French doors remained closed and both the heavy brocade curtains and the silk under-curtains had been drawn, hanging in an attitude of lethargy. I hesitated by the door. There was something about the room that made me loath to proceed, some difference that had nothing to do with the dark or the heat.

  As my eyes readjusted, the room’s sombre tableau began to materialise. Lord Gifford, a man of later years and florid complexion, sat in the late Lord Ashbury’s armchair, a black leather folder open across his generous lap. He was reading aloud, enjoying his voice’s resonance in the dim room. On the table next to him, an elegant brass lamp with a floral shade cast a neat ring of soft light.

  On the leather lounge opposite, Jemima sat beside Lady Violet. Widows both. The latter seemed to have diminished in size and stature even since the morning: a tiny figure in a black crepe dress, face obscured by a veil of dark lace. Jemima was also in black, her face an ashen contrast. Her hands, usually fleshy, now seemed small and frail as they caressed absently her swollen belly. Lady Clementine had retired to her bedroom but Fanny, still in ardent pursuit of Mr Frederick’s hand in marriage, had been permitted attendance and sat self-importantly on Lady Violet’s other side, an expression of practised sorrow on her face.

  Atop the nearby table, flowers I had picked from the estate meadow only that morning, blooms of pink rhododendrons, creamy clematis and sprigs of jasmine, now wept from their vase in sad despondence. The fragrance of jasmine filled the closed room with a pungency that threatened suffocation.

  On the other side of
the table, Mr Frederick stood with his hand resting on the mantlepiece, his coat stiff on his tall frame. In the half-light his face was as still as a wax mannequin’s, his eyes unblinking, his expression stony. The lamp’s feeble glow threw a shadow across one eye. The other was dark, fixed, intent on its prey. As I watched him, I realised he was watching me.

  He beckoned with the fingertips of the hand that braced the mantlepiece: a subtle gesture that I would have missed had not the rest of his body been so still. He wished me to bring the tray to him. I glanced toward Lady Violet, unsettled as much by this change in convention as I was by Mr Frederick’s unnerving attention. She did not look my way so I did as he proposed, careful to avoid his gaze. When I slid the tray onto the table he nodded again at the teapot, commanding me to pour, then returned his attention to Lord Gifford.

  I had never poured tea before, not in the drawing room, not for the Mistress. I hesitated, unsure how to proceed, then picked up the milk jug, glad of the dark, as Lord Gifford continued to speak.

  ‘… in effect, aside from the exceptions already specified, Lord Ashbury’s entire estate, along with his title, was to pass to his eldest son and heir, Major James Hartford…’

  Here he paused. Jemima stifled a sob, all the more wretched for its suffocation.

  Above me, Frederick made a clicking sound in his throat. Impatience, I decided, sneaking a glance as I poured milk into the final cup. His chin was stiffly set, jutting out from his neck in an attitude of stern authority. He exhaled: a long and measured breath. His fingers drummed a quick tattoo on the mantlepiece and he said, ‘Go on, Lord Gifford.’

  Lord Gifford shifted in Lord Ashbury’s seat, and the leather sighed, grieving for its departed master. He cleared his throat, raised his voice.

  ‘… given that no new arrangements were made after news of Major Hartford’s death, the estate will pass, in line with the ancient laws of primogeniture, to Major Hartford’s eldest male child.’ He looked over the rim of his glasses at Jemima’s belly and continued. ‘Should Major Hartford have no surviving male children, the estate and title pass instead to Lord Ashbury’s second son, Mr Frederick Hartford.’