The Shifting Fog (21 page)

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.’

Lord Gifford looked up and the lamplight reflected in the glass of his spectacles. ‘It would appear we have a waiting game ahead.’

He paused and I took the opportunity to hand tea to the ladies. Jemima took hers automatically, without looking at me, and lowered it to her lap. Lady Violet waved me away. Only Fanny took the proffered cup and saucer with any appetite.

‘Lord Gifford,’ Mr Frederick said in a calm voice, ‘how do you take your tea?’

‘Milk but no sugar,’ Lord Gifford said, running his fingers along his collar, separating the cotton from his sticky neck. I lifted the teapot carefully and began to pour, mindful of the steaming spout. I handed him the cup and saucer, which he took without seeing me. ‘Business is well, Frederick?’ he said, rubbing his pillowy lips together before sipping his tea. 

From the corner of my eye I saw Mr Frederick nod. ‘Well enough, Lord Gifford,’ he said. ‘My men have made the transition from motor car to aeroplane production and there’s another contract with the war ministry up for tender.’

Lord Gifford raised a brow. ‘Better hope that chap Luxton doesn’t apply. One hears he’s made enough planes for every man, woman and child in Britain!’

‘I won’t argue he’s produced a lot of planes, Lord Gifford, but you wouldn’t catch me flying in one.’

‘No?’

‘Mass production,’ said Mr Frederick, by way of explanation.

‘People working too quickly, trying to keep up with conveyor belts, no time to make sure things are done properly.’

‘The ministry doesn’t seem to mind.’

‘The ministry can’t see past the bottom line,’ said Mr Frederick.

‘But they will. Once they see the quality we’re producing they won’t sign up for any more of Luxton’s tin cans.’ And then he laughed rather too loudly.

I glanced up, despite myself. It seemed to me that for a man who had lost his father and only brother within a matter of days, he was coping remarkably well. Too well, I thought, and I began to doubt Myra’s fond description of him, Hannah’s devotion, tallying him more with David’s characterisation of a petty and embittered man.

‘Any word from young David?’ Lord Gifford said. As I handed Mr Frederick his tea, he shifted his arm abruptly, knocking the cup and its steaming contents onto the Bessarabian carpet.

‘Oh!’ I said, all feeling draining from my cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

He stared at me, read something in my face. He parted his lips to speak then changed his mind.

A sharp intake of breath from Jemima drew all eyes in synchronicity. She straightened, clutched at her side, walked flat hands across her tight belly.

‘What is it?’ Lady Violet said from beneath her lace veil. Jemima did not respond, engaged, or so it seemed, in silent communication with her babe. She stared, unseeing, directly ahead, still prodding her belly.

‘Jemima?’ This was Lady Violet again, concern icing a voice already chilled by loss.

Jemima inclined her head as if to listen. She said, barely a whisper,

‘He stopped moving.’ Her breaths had become rapid. ‘He’s been active all the way through, but he’s stopped.’

‘You must go and rest,’ Lady Violet said. ‘It’s this blessed heat.’

She swallowed. ‘This blessed heat.’ She looked about, seeking corroboration. ‘That, and . . .’ She shook her head, tightened her lips, unwilling, unable perhaps, to speak the final clause. ‘That’s all it is.’ She drew up all her courage, straightened, and said firmly,

‘You must rest.’

‘No,’ Jemima said, bottom lip trembling. ‘I want to be here. For James. And for you.’

Lady Violet took Jemima’s hands, withdrew them gently from her stomach and cradled them within her own. ‘I know you do.’

She reached out, stroked tentatively Jemima’s mousy brown hair. It was a simple gesture but in its enactment I was reminded that Lady Violet was herself a mother. Without moving, she said, ‘Grace. Help Jemima upstairs so that she might rest. Leave all that. Hamilton will collect it later.’

‘Yes, my Lady.’ I curtseyed and came to Jemima’s side. I reached down and helped her stand, glad for the opportunity to leave the room and its misery.

On my way out, Jemima beside me, I realised what was different about the room, aside from the dark and the heat. The mantle clock, which usually marked each passing second with detached consistency, was silent. Its slender black hands frozen in arabesque, observing Lady Ashbury’s instructions to stop all the clocks at ten minutes before five, the moment of her husband’s passing. 

The Fall of Icarus

With Jemima settled in her room, I returned to the servants’

hall where Mr Hamilton was inspecting the pots and pans Katie had been scrubbing. He looked up from Mrs Townsend’s favourite sauté pan only to tell me that the Hartford sisters were down by the old boathouse and I was to take them refreshments along with the lemonade. He had not yet learned of the spilled tea and I was glad. I fetched a jug of lemonade from the ice room, loaded it onto a tray with two tall glasses and a platter of Mrs Townsend’s ribbon sandwiches, and left via the servants’ hall door. I stood on the top step, blinking into the clear unbroken glare while my eyes adjusted. In a month without rain, colour had been bleached from the estate. The sun was midway across the sky and its direct light provided a final wash, giving the garden the hazy look of one of the watercolours that hung in Lady Violet’s boudoir. Although I wore my cap, the line down the centre of my head where I parted my hair remained exposed and was instantly scorched. I crossed the Theatre Lawn, freshly mown and rich with the soporific scent of dry grass. Dudley crouched nearby, clipping the border hedges. The blades of his shears were smeared with green sap, patches of bare metal glistened.

He must have sensed me nearby because he turned and squinted.

‘She’s a hot one,’ he said, hand shielding his eyes. 

‘Hot enough to cook eggs on the railway,’ said I, quoting Myra, wondering whether there was truth in the expression. At lawn’s edge, a grand set of grey-stone stairs led into Lady Ashbury’s rose garden. Pink and white buds hugged the trellises, alive with the warm drone of diligent bees hovering about their yellow hearts.

I passed beneath the arbour, unlatched the kissing gate and started down the Long Walk: a stretch of grey cobblestones set amongst yellow and white stonecrops. Halfway along, tall hornbeam hedges gave way to the miniature yew that bordered the Egeskov Garden. I blinked as a couple of topiaries came to life, then smiled at myself and the pair of indignant ducks, mallards with green feathers, that had wandered up from the lake and now stood, regarding me with shiny black eyes.

At the end of the Egeskov Garden was the second kissing gate, the forgotten sister (for there is always a forgotten sister), victim of the wiry jasmine tendrils. On the other side lay the Icarus fountain, and beyond, at lake’s edge, the boathouse.

The gate’s clasp was beginning to rust and I had to lay down my load that I might unlatch it. I nestled the tray on a flat spot amongst a cluster of strawberry plants and used my fingers to prise open the latch. I pushed open the gate, picked up the lemonade and continued, through a cloud of jasmine perfume, toward the fountain.

Though Eros and Psyche sat vast and magnificent in the front lawn, a prologue to the grand house itself, there was something wonderful—a mysterious and melancholic aspect—about the smaller fountain, hidden within its sunny clearing at the bottom of the south garden.

The circular pool of stacked stone stood two-feet high, twentyfeet across at its widest point. It was lined with tiny glass tiles, azure blue like the necklace of Ceylonese sapphires Lord Ashbury had brought back for Lady Violet after serving in the Far East. From the centre emerged a huge craggy block of russet marble, the height of two men, thick at base but tapering to a peak. Midway up, creamy marble against the brown, the lifesize figure of Icarus had been carved in a position of recline. His wings, pale marble etched to give the impression of feathers, were strapped to his outspread arms and fell behind, weeping over the rock. Rising from the pool to tend the fallen figure were three nymphs, long hair looped and coiled about angelic faces: one held a small harp, one wore a coronet of woven ivy leaves, and one reached beneath Icarus’s torso, white hands on creamy skin, to pull him from the deep. On that summer’s day a pair of purple martins, oblivious to the statue’s beauty, swooped overhead, alighting atop the marble rock, only to take flight again, skim the pond surface and fill their beaks with water. As I watched them, I was overcome with heat and a desire, strong and sudden, to plunge my hand into the cool water. I glanced back toward the distant house, far too intent upon its grief to notice if a housemaid, all the way at the bottom of the south park, paused a moment to cool herself. I rested the tray on the rim of the pool and placed one tentative knee on the tiles, warm through my black stockings. I leaned forward, held out my hand, withdrew it again at the first touch of sun-kissed water. I rolled up my sleeve, reached out again, ready to submerge my arm.

There came a laugh, tinkling music in the summer stillness. I froze, listened, inclined my head and peered beyond the statue.

I saw them then, Hannah and Emmeline, not at the boathouse after all, but perched along the rim on the other side of the fountain. My shock was compounded: they had removed their black mourning dresses and wore only petticoats, corset covers, and lace-trimmed drawers. Their boots, too, lay discarded on the white stone path that rounded the pool. Their long hair glistened in complicity with the sun. I glanced back to the house, wondering at their daring. Wondering whether my presence implicated me somehow. Wondering whether I feared or hoped it did. Emmeline lay on her back: feet together, legs bent, knees, as white as her petticoat, saluting the clear blue sky. Her outer arm was arranged so that her head rested on her hand. The other arm—soft pale skin, a stranger to the sun—was extended straight over the pool, her wrist dancing a lazy figure eight so that alternate fingers pricked the pool’s surface. Tiny ripples lapped one another keenly. Hannah sat beside, one leg curled beneath her, the other bent so her chin rested on her knee, her toes flirting carelessly with the water. Her arms were wrapped around her raised leg and from one hand dangled a piece of paper so thin as to be almost transparent beneath the sun’s glare.