The Shifting Fog

  Before she could answer, Lady Clementine said, ‘Yes . . . splendid. We’d be happy to join you, Mr Luxton. If you don’t mind of course?’

  ‘I’d count myself lucky to have two such lovely tour guides.’

  Lady Clementine turned to me, her expression one of trepidation. ‘You, girl, have Mrs Townsend send up a packed tea.’ She turned back to Teddy and said, through a thin-lipped smile, ‘I do so love to ride.’

  They made an odd procession as they set off for the stables—even odder, Dudley said, once all were on horseback. He had fallen about laughing, he said, watching as they disappeared across the west glade, Lady Clementine paired with Mr Frederick’s ancient mare whose girth exceeded even her rider’s.

  They were gone two hours, and when they returned for lunch Teddy was soaking wet, Hannah was awfully quiet and Lady Clementine as smug as a cat with a bowl of cream. What happened on their ride, Hannah told me herself, though not for many months.

  From the stable they crossed the west meadow then followed the river, walking the horses beneath the row of mighty birch trees that lined the reedy bank. The meadows either side of the river wore stark winter coats and there was no sign of the deer that spent the summer grazing on them.

  They rode for some time in silence: Hannah up front, Teddy close behind, Lady Clementine bringing up the rear. Wintry twigs snapped beneath the horses’ hooves and the river tripped coldly on its way to join the Thames.

  Finally, Teddy brought his horse up beside Hannah and said, in a jolly voice, ‘It’s certainly a pleasure to be here, Miss Hartford. I must thank you for your kind invitation.’

  Hannah, who had been enjoying the silence, said, ‘It’s my grandmother you’ll have to thank, Mr Luxton. For I had little to do with the whole affair.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Teddy said. ‘I see. I shall have to remember to thank her.’

  Pitying Teddy, who, after all, had just been making conversation, Hannah said, ‘What is it you do for a living, Mr Luxton?’

  He was quick to answer, relieved perhaps. ‘I’m a collector.’

  ‘What do you collect?’

  ‘Objects of beauty.’

  ‘I thought perhaps you worked with your father.’

  Teddy shrugged away a birch leaf that had fallen onto his shoulder. ‘My father and I do not see eye to eye on matters of business, Miss Hartford,’ he said. ‘He sees little of worth in anything not directly related to the creation of wealth.’

  ‘And you, Mr Luxton?’

  ‘I seek wealth of a different sort. A wealth of new experiences. The century is young and so am I. There are too many things to see and do to become bogged down in business.’

  Hannah looked at him. ‘Pa said that you were entering politics. Surely that will curtail your plans?’

  He shook his head. ‘Politics gives me more reason to broaden my horizons. The best leaders are those who bring perspective to their position, wouldn’t you say?’

  They rode on, all the way to the back meadows, stopping every so often that the stragglers might catch up. When finally they reached the shelter of an old marble folly, both Lady Clementine and her mare were equally relieved to rest their beaten flanks. Teddy helped her inside while Hannah arranged the spoils from Mrs Townsend’s picnic hamper.

  When they had finished the thermos of hot tea and slices of boiled fruitcake, Hannah said, ‘I think I shall take a walk to the bridge.

  ‘Bridge?’ Teddy said.

  ‘Over there beyond the trees,’ Hannah said, standing, ‘where the lake thins and joins the stream.’

  ‘Would you mind company?’ Teddy said.

  ‘Not at all,’ Hannah said, but she did.

  Lady Clementine, torn between her duty as chaperone and her duty to her aching buttocks, said finally, ‘I’ll stay here and mind the horses. Don’t be too long, now. I shall start to worry. There are many dangers in the woods, you know.’

  Hannah smiled slightly at Teddy and headed off in the direction of the bridge. Teddy followed, caught her up and walked beside at a polite distance.

  ‘I am sorry, Mr Luxton, that Lady Clementine has forced our company on you this morning.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Teddy said. ‘I’ve enjoyed the company.’ He glanced at her. ‘Some more than others.’

  Hannah continued to look directly ahead. ‘When I was younger,’ she said quickly, ‘my brother and sister and I would come down to the lake to play. In the boathouse and on the bridge.’ She sneaked a sidelong glance at him. ‘It’s a magical bridge, you know.’

  ‘A magical bridge?’ Teddy raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You’ll understand when you see it,’ Hannah said.

  ‘And what did you used to play on this magical bridge of yours?’

  ‘We used to take turns running across.’ She looked at him. ‘Sounds simple enough, I know. But this isn’t any ordinary magical bridge. This one’s governed by a particularly nasty and vengeful lake-demon.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Teddy, smiling.

  ‘Most times we would make it across all right, but every so often one of us would wake him.’

  ‘What would happen then?’

  ‘Why then there’d be a duel to the death.’ She smiled at him. ‘His death, of course. We were all excellent swordsmen.

  Luckily he was immortal or there wouldn’t have been much of a game in it.’

  They turned the corner and the rickety bridge was before them, perched astride a narrow reach of the stream. Though the month was cold, the water had not yet frozen.

  ‘There,’ said Hannah breathlessly.

  The bridge, which had long ago fallen into disuse, usurped by a larger one closer to town that motor cars could cross, had lost all but a few flakes of paint and was grown over with moss. The reedy river banks sloped gently toward the water’s edge where wild flowers bloomed in summer.

  ‘I wonder if the lake-demon’s in today?’ said Teddy.

  Hannah smiled. ‘Don’t worry. If he shows up, I have his measure.’

  ‘You’ve waged your share of battles?’

  ‘Waged and won,’ said Hannah. ‘We used to play down here whenever we could. We didn’t always fight the lake-demon, though. Sometimes we used to write letters. Make them into boats and throw them over.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So they would take our wishes to London.’

  ‘Of course.’ Teddy smiled. ‘To whom did you write?’

  Hannah smoothed the grass with her foot. ‘You’ll think it silly.’

  ‘Try me.’

  She looked up at him, bit back a smile. ‘I wrote to Jane Digby. Every time.’

  Teddy frowned.

  ‘You know,’ Hannah said. ‘Lady Jane, who ran away to Arabia, lived a life of exploration and conquest.’

  ‘Ah,’ Teddy said, memory dawning. ‘The infamous absconder. Whatever did you have to say to her?’

  ‘I used to ask her to come and rescue me. I offered her my services as a devoted slave on condition that she took me on her next adventure.’

  ‘But surely, when you were young, she was already—’

  ‘Dead? Yes. Of course, she was. Long dead. I didn’t know that then.’ Hannah looked sideways at him. ‘Of course, if she’d been alive, the plan would have been foolproof.’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ he said with arch seriousness. ‘She’d have come right down and taken you with her to Arabia.’

  ‘Disguised as a Bedouin sheikh, I always thought.’

  ‘Your father wouldn’t have minded a bit.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘I’m afraid he would. And did.’

  Teddy raised an eyebrow. ‘Did?’

  ‘One of the tenant farmers found a letter once and returned it to Pa. The farmer couldn’t read it himself, but I’d drawn the family crest and he thought it must have been important. I dare say he expected a reward for his efforts.’

  ‘I’m guessing he didn’t get one.’

  ‘He certainly did not. Pa was livid. I was never sure whether it was my desire to j
oin such scandalous company or the impertinence of my letter that he objected to more. I suspect his main concern was that Grandmamma might find out. She always thought me an imprudent child.’

  ‘What some would call imprudent,’ Teddy said, ‘others might call spirited.’ He looked at her seriously. With intent, Hannah thought, though of what kind she wasn’t sure. She felt herself blush and turned away. Her fingers sought animation in the clump of long, thin reeds that grew about the river bank. She pulled one from its shaft and, seized suddenly by a strange energy, ran onto the bridge. She tossed the reed over one side, into the rushing river below, then hurried to the other side to witness its re-emergence.

  ‘Take my wishes to London,’ she called after it as it disappeared around the bend.

  ‘What did you wish for?’ Teddy asked.

  She smiled at him and leaned forward, and in that moment fate intervened. The clasp of her locket, weak with wear, relinquished its hold on her chain, slipped around her pale neck and dropped below. Hannah felt the loss of weight but realised its cause too late. The next she saw it, the locket was little more than a glimmer disappearing beneath the water’s surface.

  She gasped, ran back across the bridge and clambered through the reeds to the river’s edge.

  ‘What is it?’ Teddy said, bewildered.

  ‘My locket,’ Hannah said. ‘It slipped . . .’ She began to unlace her shoes. ‘My brother . . .’

  ‘Did you see where it went?’

  ‘Right out in the middle,’ Hannah said. She began treading through the slippery moss to the water’s edge, the hem of her skirt becoming wet with mud.

  ‘Wait,’ Teddy said, shaking off his jacket, tossing it onto the river’s bank, and pulling off his boots. Though narrow at that point, the river was deep and he was soon up to his thighs.

  Lady Clementine meanwhile had reconsidered her duties and clambered to her feet, stepping gingerly across the uneven ground to find her two young companions. She caught sight of them just as Teddy dived beneath.

  ‘I say,’ called Lady Clementine. ‘Whatever’s going on? It’s far too cold to swim.’ A glimmer of alarmed excitement coloured her voice. ‘You’ll catch your death.’

  Hannah, deaf with panic, did not answer. She ran back atop the bridge, desperately seeking a glimpse of the locket that she could guide Teddy to it.

  He rose and dove, and rose and dove as she scanned the water, and just as she was giving up hope he reappeared, the locket glimmering between his clenched fingers.

  Such a fine heroic deed. So unlike Teddy, a man given more to prudence than gallantry, despite his best intentions. Over the years, as the story of their engagement was deployed at social gatherings it took on a mythical quality, even in Teddy’s accounts. As if he, as much as his smiling guests, was unable quite to believe that it really happened. But happen it did. And at the precise moment, and before the precise person, upon whom it would have the fateful effect.

  When she told me of it, Hannah said that as he stood before her, dripping wet, shivering, clutching her locket in his large hand, she was suddenly and overwhelmingly conscious of his physicality. His wet skin, the way his shirt clung to his arms, his dark eyes focused triumphantly on hers. She had never felt such a thing before—how could she have, and for whom? She longed for him to grab hold of her, as tightly as he held the locket.

  Of course he did nothing of the sort, rather smiled quite proudly then handed her the locket. She took it gratefully and turned away as he began the ungraceful task of layering dry clothes over wet.

  But by then the seed was sown.

  THE BALL AND AFTER

  Hannah’s ball went off splendidly. The musicians and champagne arrived as ordered, and Dudley plundered the estate hothouse for ornamental shrubbery. The fires were stoked at each end of the room, making good on the promise of winter warmth.

  The room itself was all brilliance and dazzle. Crystal chandeliers glistened, black and white tiles shone, guests sparkled. Clustered in the centre were twenty-five giggling young ladies, self-conscious in their delicate dresses and white kid gloves, self-important in their family’s ancient and elaborate jewels. At their centre was Emmeline. Though at fifteen she was younger than most of the attendees, Lady Clementine had granted her special dispensation to attend, with the understanding she wasn’t to monopolise the marriageable men and ruin the chances of the other girls. A battalion of fur-draped chaperones lined the walls, perched on gold chairs with hot-water bottles under their lap rugs. Veterans were recognisable for the reading and knitting they had sensibly brought to wile away the wee hours.

  The men were a rather more motley collection, a home guard of dependable sorts, answering diligently the call to service. The handful who could rightly be labelled ‘young’ comprised a set of rather ruddy Welsh brothers, recruited to the ranks by Lady Violet’s second cousin, and a local lord’s prematurely balding son whose tastes, it soon became clear, did not extend to the feminine. Beside this ham-fisted assembly of provincial gentry, Teddy, with his black hair, film-star’s moustache and American suit, seemed immeasurably suave.

  As the smell of crackling fires filled the room and Irish air gave way to Viennese waltz, the old men got down to business squiring the young girls around the room. Some with grace, others with gusto, most with neither. With Lady Violet confined to her bed, fever raging, Lady Clementine took up the mantle of chaperonage and looked on as one of the young men with spotty cheeks rushed to request Hannah’s hand.

  Teddy, who had also been making his approach, turned his broad, white smile to Emmeline. Her face was radiant as she accepted. Ignoring Lady Clementine’s reproving scowl, she curtseyed, letting her eyelids flicker closed momentarily, before opening them widely—too widely—as she rose to full height. Dance she could not, but the tuition money Mr Frederick had been induced to pay for private curtsey lessons had been well spent. As they took the floor, I noticed the way she held Teddy very close, hung on every word he spoke, laughed too broadly when he joked.

  The night swirled on, and dance by dance the room grew hotter. The faint tang of perspiration blended with smoke from a green log, and by the time Mrs Townsend sent me up with the cups of consommé, elegant hairstyles had begun to crumble and cheeks were uniformly flushed. By all accounts, the guests were enjoying themselves, with the notable exception of Fanny’s husband for whom the festivity had been too much, and who had retired to bed citing migraine.

  When Nancy bid me tell Dudley we’d need more logs, it was a welcome relief to escape the ballroom’s nauseating heat. Along the hall and down the stairs small groups of girls giggled together, whispering over their cups of soup. I took the back door and was halfway along the garden walk when I noticed a lone figure standing in the dark.

  It was Hannah, still as a statue, gazing up toward the night sky. Her bare shoulders, pale and fine beneath the moonlight, were indistinguishable from the white slipper satin of her gown, the silk of her draping stole. Her blonde hair, almost silver in that instant, crowned her head, curls escaping to hug the nape of her neck. Her hands, encased by white kid gloves, were by her side.

  But surely she was cold, standing out in the middle of the wintry night with only a silk stole for warmth? She needed a jacket—at the very least a cup of soup. I resolved to fetch her both, but before I could move, another figure appeared from the dark. At first I thought it was Mr Frederick but when he emerged from shadow I saw that it was Teddy. He reached her side and said something I could not hear. She turned. Moonlight stroked her face, caressed lips that were parted in repose.

  She shivered lightly and for a moment I thought that Teddy would take off his jacket and drape it around her shoulders the way heroes did in the romantic novels Emmeline liked to read. He did not, rather said something else, something that caused her to look again toward the sky. He reached gently for her hand, hanging lightly by her side, and she stiffened slightly as his fingers grazed her own. He turned her hand so that he could gaze upon her pale forear
m then lifted it, ever so slowly, toward his own mouth, bending his head so that his lips met the cool band of skin between her gloves and stole.

  She watched his dark head bow to deliver its kiss, but she did not pull her arm away. I could see her chest, rising and falling as her breath quickened.

  I shivered then, wondering whether his lips were warm, his moustache prickly.

  After a long moment, he stood and looked at her, still holding her hand. He said something to which she nodded slightly.

  And then he walked away.

  She watched him go. Only when he had disappeared did her free hand move to stroke the other.

  In the wee hours of the morning, the ball officially over, I prepared Hannah for bed. Emmeline was already asleep, dreaming of silk and satin and swirling dancers, but Hannah sat silently before the vanity as I removed her gloves, button by button. Her body temperature had loosened them and I was able to remove them with my fingers rather than with the special contraption I had needed to put them on. As I reached the pearls at her wrist, she pulled away her hand and said, ‘I want to tell you something, Grace.’

  ‘Yes, miss?’

  ‘I haven’t told anybody else.’ She hesitated, glanced toward the closed door and lowered her voice. ‘You have to promise not to tell. Not Nancy, nor Alfred, nor anyone.’

  ‘I can keep a secret, miss.’

  ‘Of course you can. You have kept my secrets before.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Mr Luxton has asked me to marry him.’ She glanced at me uncertainly. ‘He says that he’s in love with me.’

  I was unsure how to answer. To feign surprise felt disingenuous. Again, I took her hand in mine. This time there was no resistance and I resumed my task. ‘Very good, miss.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, chewing the inside of her cheek. ‘I suppose it is.’

  Her eyes met mine and I had the distinct feeling I had failed some sort of test. I looked away, slipped the first glove off her hand like a discarded second skin and began on the other. Silently, she watched my fingers. A nerve flickered beneath the skin of her wrist. ‘I haven’t given him an answer yet.’