The Shifting Fog

  ‘You’re forgiven.’ A smile, more fleeting than the first, and he returned his attention to the painting.

  Hannah stared at his back, confusion plucking at her fingertips. She was waiting, as was I, for him to turn. To take her hand, to tell her his name, as was only polite.

  ‘Imagine communicating so much with so little,’ was what he finally said.

  Hannah looked toward the painting but his back obscured it and she could offer no opinion. She took a deep breath, confounded.

  ‘It’s incredible,’ he continued. ‘Don’t you think?’

  His impertinence left her little choice but to accede and she joined him by the painting. ‘Grandfather’s never liked it much.’ An attempt to sound breezy. ‘He thinks it miserable and indecent. That’s why he hides it here.’

  ‘Do you find it miserable and indecent?’

  She looked at the painting, as if for the first time. ‘Miserable perhaps. But not indecent.’

  Robbie nodded. ‘Nothing so honest could ever be indecent.’

  Hannah stole a glance at his profile and I wondered when she was going to ask him who he was, how he came to be admiring the paintings in her grandfather’s library. She opened her mouth but found no words forthcoming.

  ‘Why does your grandfather hang it if he finds it indecent?’ said Robbie.

  ‘It was a gift,’ Hannah said, pleased to be asked a question she could answer. ‘From an important Spanish count who came for the hunt. It’s Spanish, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Picasso. I’ve seen his work before.’

  Hannah raised an eyebrow and Robbie smiled. ‘In a book my mother showed me. She was born in Spain; had family there.’

  ‘Spain,’ said Hannah wondrously. ‘Have you been to Cuenca? Seville? Have you visited the Alcázar?’

  ‘No,’ said Robbie. ‘But with all my mother’s stories I feel I know the place. I always promised we’d go back together someday. Like birds, we’d escape the English winter.’

  ‘Not this winter?’ Hannah said.

  He looked at her, bemused. ‘I’m sorry, I presumed you knew. My mother’s dead.’

  As my breath caught in my throat, the door opened and David strolled through. ‘I see you two have met,’ he said with a lazy grin.

  David had grown taller since last I’d seen him, or had he? Perhaps it was nothing so obvious as that. Perhaps it was the way he walked, the way he held himself, that made him seem older, more adult, less familiar.

  Hannah nodded, shifted uncomfortably to the side. She glanced at Robbie, but if she had plans to speak, to put things right between them, the moment was over too soon. The door flew open and Emmeline charged into the room.

  ‘David!’ she said. ‘At last. We’ve been so bored. We’ve been dying to play The Game. Hannah and I have already decided where—’ She looked up, saw Robbie. ‘Oh. Hello. Who are you?’

  ‘Robbie Hunter,’ David said. ‘You’ve already met Hannah; this is my baby sister, Emmeline. Robbie’s come up from Eton.’

  ‘Are you staying the weekend?’ Emmeline said, shooting a glance at Hannah.

  ‘A bit longer, if you’ll have me,’ said Robbie.

  ‘Robbie didn’t have plans for Christmas,’ said David. ‘I thought he might as well spend it here, with us.’

  ‘The whole Christmas vacation?’ said Hannah.

  David nodded. ‘We could do with some extra company, stuck all the way out here. We’ll go mad otherwise.’

  I could feel Hannah’s irritation from where I sat. Her hands had come to rest on the Chinese box. She was thinking of The Game—rule number three: only three may play. Imagined episodes, anticipated adventures were slipping away. Hannah looked at David, her gaze a clear accusation he pretended not to see.

  ‘Look at the size of that tree,’ he said with heightened cheer. ‘We’d better get decorating if we hope to finish by Christmas.’

  His sisters remained where they were.

  ‘Come on, Emme,’ he said, lowering the box of decorations from the table to the floor, avoiding Hannah’s eye. ‘Show Robbie how it’s done.’

  Emmeline looked at Hannah. She was torn, I could tell. She shared her sister’s disappointment, had been longing to play The Game herself. But she was also the youngest of three, had grown up playing third wheel to her two older siblings. And now David had singled her out. Had chosen her to join him. The opportunity to form a pair at the expense of the third was irresistible. David’s affection, his company, too precious to refuse.

  She sneaked a glance at Hannah then grinned at David, took the parcel he handed her and started to unwrap glass icicles, holding them up for Robbie’s edification.

  Hannah, meanwhile, knew when she was beaten. While Emmeline exclaimed over forgotten decorations, Hannah straightened her shoulders—dignity in defeat—and carried the Chinese box from the room. David watched her go, had the decency to look sheepish. When she returned, empty-handed, Emmeline looked up. ‘Hannah,’ she said, ‘you’ll never believe it. Robbie says he’s never even seen a Dresden cherub!’

  Hannah walked stiffly to the carpet and knelt down; David sat at the piano, fanned his fingers an inch above the ivory. He lowered them slowly onto the keys, coaxing the instrument to life with gentle scales. Only when the piano and those of us listening were lulled and unsuspecting did he begin to play. A piece of music I believe to be amongst the most beautiful ever written. Chopin’s waltz in C sharp minor.

  Impossible as it now seems, that day in the library was the first music I had ever heard. Real music, I mean. I had vague recollections of Mother singing to me when I was very little, before her back got sore and the songs dried up, and Mr Connelly from across the street had used to take out his flute and play maudlin Irish tunes when he had drunk too much at the public house of a Friday night. But it had never been like this.

  I leaned the side of my face against the rails and closed my eyes, abandoned myself to the glorious, aching notes. I cannot truly say how well he played; with what would I compare it? But to me it was flawless, as all fine memories are.

  While the final note still shimmered in the sunlit air, I heard Emmeline say, ‘Now let me play something, David; that’s hardly Christmas music.’

  I opened my eyes as she started a proficient rendition of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. She played well enough, the music pretty, but a spell had been broken.

  ‘Can you play?’ Robbie said, looking toward Hannah who sat cross-legged on the floor, conspicuously quiet.

  David laughed. ‘Hannah has many skills, but musicality is not amongst them.’ He grinned. ‘Although who knows, after all the secret lessons I hear you’ve been taking in the village . . .’

  Hannah glanced at Emmeline who shrugged contritely. ‘It just slipped out.’

  ‘I prefer words,’ Hannah said coolly. She unwrapped a bundle of tin soldiers and laid them in her lap. ‘They’re more apt to do as I ask of them.’

  ‘Robbie writes too,’ David said. ‘He’s a poet. A damn fine one. Had a few pieces published in the College Chronicle this year.’ He held up a glass ball, shooting splinters of prism light onto the carpet below. ‘What was the one I liked? The one about the decaying temple?’

  The door opened then, stifling Robbie’s answer, and Alfred appeared, carrying a tray laden with gingerbread men, sugarplums and paper cornucopias filled with nuts.

  ‘Pardon me, miss,’ Alfred said, laying the tray atop the drinks table. ‘Mrs Townsend sent these up for the tree.’

  ‘Ooh, lovely,’ Emmeline said, stopping mid-song and racing across to pick out a sugarplum.

  As he was turning to leave, Alfred glanced surreptitiously toward the gallery and caught my prying eye. As the Hartfords turned their attention back to the tree, he slipped around behind and climbed the spiral staircase to meet me.

  ‘How’s it coming along?’

  ‘Fine,’ I whispered, my voice odd to my own ears through lack of use. I glanced guiltily at the book in my lap, the empty place
on the shelf, six books along.

  He followed my gaze and raised his eyebrows. ‘Just as well I’m here to help you, then.’

  ‘But won’t Mr Hamilton—’ ‘He won’t miss me for a half-hour or so.’ He smiled at me and pointed to the far end. ‘I’ll start up that way and we can meet in the middle.’

  I nodded, gratitude and reticence combined.

  Alfred pulled a cloth from his coat pocket and a book from the shelf, and sat on the floor. I watched him, seemingly engrossed in his task, turning the book over methodically, ridding it of all dust, then returning it to the shelf and withdrawing the next. He looked like a child, turned by magic to a man’s size, sitting there cross-legged, intent on his chore, brown hair, usually so tidy, flopping forward to swing in sympathy with the movement of his arm.

  He glanced sideways, caught my eye just as I turned my head. His expression sparked a surprising frisson beneath my skin. I blushed despite myself. Would he think I had been looking at him? Was he still looking at me? I didn’t dare check in case he mistook my attention. And yet? My skin prickled under his imagined gaze.

  It had been like this for days. Something sat between us that I could not rightly name. The ease I had come to expect with him had evaporated, replaced by awkwardness, a confusing tendency toward wrong turns and misunderstandings. I wondered whether blame lay with the white feather episode. Perhaps he’d seen me gawking in the street; worse, he’d learned it was I who’d blabbed to Mr Hamilton and the others downstairs.

  I made a show of polishing thoroughly the book in my lap and looked pointedly away, through the rails and onto the stage below. Perhaps if I ignored Alfred the discomfort would pass as blindly as the time.

  Watching the Hartfords again, I felt detached: as a viewer who had dozed off during a performance, awoken to find the scenery had changed and the dialogue moved on. I focused on their voices, drifting up through the diaphanous winter light, foreign and remote.

  Emmeline was showing Robbie Mrs Townsend’s sweets tray and the older siblings were discussing the war.

  Hannah looked up from the silver star she was threading onto a fir frond, stunned. ‘But when do you leave?’

  ‘Early next year,’ David said, excitement colouring his cheeks.

  ‘But when did you . . . ? How long have you . . . ?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for ages. You know me, I love a good adventure.’

  Hannah looked at her brother; she had been disappointed by Robbie’s unexpected presence, the inability to play The Game, but this new betrayal was much more deeply felt. Her voice was cold. ‘Does Pa know?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ David said.

  ‘He won’t let you go.’ How relieved she sounded, how certain.

  ‘He won’t have a choice,’ said David. ‘He won’t know I’ve gone until I’m safe and sound on French soil.’

  ‘What if he finds out?’ Hannah said.

  ‘He won’t,’ David said, ‘because no one’s going to tell him.’

  He eyed her pointedly. ‘Anyway, he can make all the petty arguments he wants but he can’t stop me. I won’t let him. I’m not going to miss out just because he did. I’m my own man, it’s about time Pa realised that. Just because he’s had a miserable life—’ ‘David,’ said Hannah sharply.

  ‘It’s true,’ said David, ‘even if you won’t see it. He’s been stuck under Grandmamma’s thumb all his life, he married a woman who couldn’t stand him, he fails at every business he turns his hand to—’ ‘David!’ said Hannah, and I felt her indignation. She glanced at Emmeline, satisfied herself that she was not within earshot.

  ‘You have no loyalty. You ought to be ashamed.’

  David met Hannah’s eyes and lowered his voice. ‘I won’t let him inflict his bitterness on me. It’s pitiable.’

  ‘What are you two talking about?’ This was Emmeline, returned with a handful of sugared nuts. Her brows knitted. ‘You’re not rowing, are you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said David, managing a weak smile as Hannah glowered. ‘I was just telling Hannah I’m going to France. To war.’

  ‘How exciting! Are you going too, Robbie?’

  Robbie nodded.

  ‘I ought to have known,’ said Hannah.

  David ignored her. ‘Someone’s got to look after this fellow.’

  He grinned at Robbie. ‘Can’t let him have all the fun.’ I caught something in his glance as he spoke: admiration perhaps?

  Affection?

  Hannah had seen it too. Her lips tightened. She had decided whom to blame for David’s desertion.

  ‘Robbie’s going to war to escape his old man,’ said David.

  ‘Why?’ said Emmeline excitedly. ‘What did he do?’ Robbie shrugged. ‘The list is long and its keeper bitter.’

  ‘Give us a little hint,’ Emmeline said. ‘Please?’ Her eyes widened. ‘I know! He’s threatened to cut you from his will.’

  Robbie laughed, a dry, humourless laugh. ‘Hardly.’ He rolled a glass icicle between two fingers. ‘Quite the opposite.’

  Emmeline frowned. ‘He’s threatened to put you into his will?’

  ‘He’d like us to play happy families,’ Robbie said.

  ‘You don’t want to be happy?’ Hannah said coolly.

  ‘I don’t want to be a family,’ Robbie said. ‘I prefer to be alone.’

  Emmeline’s eyes widened. ‘I couldn’t bear to be alone, without Hannah and David. And Pa, of course.’

  ‘It’s different for people like you,’ Robbie said quietly. ‘Your family has done you no wrong.’

  ‘Yours has?’ Hannah said.

  There was a pause in which all eyes, including mine, focused on Robbie.

  I held my breath. I already knew of Robbie’s father. On the night of Robbie’s unexpected arrival at Riverton, as Mr Hamilton and Mrs Townsend initiated a flurry of supper and accommodation arrangements, Nancy had leaned over and confided what she knew.

  Robbie was son to the newly titled Lord Hasting Hunter, a scientist who had made his name and his fortune in the discovery of a new sort of glass that could be baked in the oven. He had bought a huge manor outside Cambridge, given a room over to his experiments, and he and his wife had proceeded to live the life of the landed gentry. This boy, said Nancy, was the result of an affair with his parlourmaid. A Spanish girl with hardly a word of English. Lord Hunter had grown tired of her as her belly grew, but had agreed to keep her on and educate the boy in return for silence. Her silence had driven her mad, driven her finally to take her own life.

  It was a shame, Nancy had said, drawing breath and shaking her head, a serving maid mistreated, a boy grown up fatherless. Who wouldn’t have sympathy for the pair of them? All the same, she had looked at me knowingly, Her Ladyship wasn’t going to appreciate this unexpected guest. Birds of a feather need to flock together.

  Her meaning had been clear: there were titles and there were titles, those that were of the blood and those that glistened shiny as a new motor car. Robbie Hunter, son (illegitimate or not) of a newly titled lord, was not good enough for the likes of the Hartfords and thus not good enough for the likes of us.

  ‘Well?’ said Emmeline. ‘Do tell us! You must! What’s your father done that’s so terrible?’

  ‘What is this,’ David said, smiling, ‘the inquisition?’ He turned to Robbie. ‘Apologies, Hunter. They’re a snoopy pair. They don’t receive much company.’

  Emmeline smiled and tossed a handful of paper at him. It fell far short of its mark and fluttered back upon the pile that had amassed beneath the tree.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Robbie said, straightening. He flicked a strand of hair from his eyes. ‘Since my mother’s death my father has reclaimed me.’

  ‘Reclaimed you?’ said Emmeline, frowning.

  ‘After happily consigning me to a life of ignominy he now finds he needs an heir. It seems his wife can’t provide one.’

  Emmeline looked from David to Hannah for translation.

  ‘So
Robbie’s going to war,’ said David. ‘To be free.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Hannah said grudgingly.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Emmeline cut in, her childish face a model of practised sympathy. ‘You must miss her terribly. I miss our own mother dreadfully and I didn’t even know her; she died when I was born.’ She sighed. ‘And now you’re going to war to escape your cruel father. It’s like something in a novel.’

  ‘A melodrama,’ said Hannah.

  ‘A romance,’ said Emmeline eagerly. She unrolled a parcel and a group of hand-dipped candles fell onto her lap, releasing the scent of cinnamon and hemlock. ‘Grandmamma says it’s every man’s duty to go to war. She says those that stay home are shirkers.’

  Up in the gallery, my skin prickled. I glanced at Alfred then looked away quickly when he met my gaze. His cheeks were blazing, eyes loud with self-reproach. Just as they had been the day in the village. He stood up abruptly, dropped his cleaning rag, but when I reached to return it to him he shook his head, refused to meet my eyes and murmured something about Mr Hamilton wondering where he was. I watched helplessly as he hurried down the staircase and slipped from the library, unnoticed by the Hartford children. Then I cursed my lack of self-possession.

  Turning from the tree, Emmeline glanced at Hannah, ‘Grand–mamma’s disappointed in Pa. She thinks he’s got it easy.’

  ‘She’s got nothing to be disappointed about,’ Hannah said hotly. ‘And Pa’s most certainly not got it easy. He’d be over there in an instant if he could.’

  A heavy silence fell upon the room and I was conscious of my own breaths, grown fast in sympathy with Hannah.

  ‘Don’t be cross with me,’ Emmeline said sulkily. ‘It’s Grandmamma who said it, not me.’

  ‘Old witch,’ said Hannah fiercely. ‘Pa’s doing what he’s able for the war. That’s all any of us can do.’

  ‘Hannah would like to be joining us at the front,’ David said to Robbie. ‘She and Pa just won’t understand that war is no place for women and old men with bad chests.’

  ‘That’s rubbish, David,’ said Hannah.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘The bit about war not being for women and old men, or the bit about you wanting to join the fight?’