The Shifting Fog

  She smiles wearily and looks away.

  We returned to London on 19 July 1919, the day of the Peace Procession. The driver steered us through cars and omnibuses and horse-drawn carriages, along crowd-lined streets where people had crammed together to wave flags and streamers. The ink was still wet on the treaty, sanctions that would lead to the bitterness and division responsible for the next world war, but folk back home knew none of that. Not then. They were just glad that the south wind no longer dragged the sound of gunfire across the Channel. That there’d be no more boys dying at the hands of other boys on the plains of France.

  The car dropped me off with the bags at the London townhouse and then continued on. Simion and Estella were expecting the newlyweds to join them for afternoon tea. Hannah would have preferred to go straight home, but Teddy was insistent. He hid a smile. He had something up his sleeve.

  A footman emerged from the front entrance, took a suitcase in each hand, then disappeared back into the house. Hannah’s personal bag he left at my feet. I was surprised. I hadn’t expected other servants, not yet, and wondered vaguely who’d engaged him.

  I stood, breathing in the atmosphere of the square. Gasoline mingled with the sweet tang of warm manure. I craned my neck to take in all six storeys of the grand house. It was brown brick with white columns either side of the front entrance, and it stood to attention in a line of identical others. One of the white columns bore the black number: 17. Number seventeen, Grosvenor Square. My new home where I was to be a real lady’s maid.

  The servants’ entrance was a flight of stairs that ran parallel to the street, from pavement to basement, and was bordered by a black cast-iron railing. I picked up Hannah’s bag of particulars and started down.

  The door was closed but muffled voices, unmistakably angry, seeped from inside. Through the basement window I saw the back of a girl whose bearing (‘saucy,’ Mrs Townsend would have said), along with the flock of bouncy yellow curls escaping from beneath her hat, gave the impression of youthfulness. She was arguing with a short, fat man whose neck was disappearing beneath a red stain of indignation.

  She punctuated a final, triumphant statement by swinging a bag over her shoulder and striding toward the door. Before I could move, she had pushed it open and we were face to startled face, warped reflections in a sideshow mirror. She reacted first: hearty laughter that sprayed saliva on my neck. ‘And I thought housemaids was hard to come by!’ she said. ‘Well you’re welcome to it. Fat chance I’m going to scrounge around in other people’s dirty houses for minimum wage!’

  She pushed past and dragged her suitcase up the stairs. At the top she turned and shouted, ‘Say goodbye, Izzy Batterfield. Bonjour, Mademoiselle Isabella!’ And with a final ripple of laughter, a theatrical flounce of her skirt, she was gone. Before I could respond. Explain that I was a lady’s maid. Not a housemaid at all.

  I knocked on the door, still ajar. There was no answer and I took myself inside. The house had the unmistakeable smell of beeswax (though not Stubbins & Co.) and potatoes, but there was something else, something underlying it, which, though not unpleasant, rendered everything unfamiliar.

  The man was at the table, a skinny woman standing behind, hands draped over his shoulders, gnarled hands, skin red and torn around the fingernails. They turned to me as one. The woman had a large black mole beneath her left eye.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I said.

  ‘I—’ ‘Good, is it?’ said the man. ‘I’ve just lost my third housemaid in as many weeks, we’ve a party scheduled for two hours hence, and you want me to believe it’s a good afternoon?’

  ‘There now,’ said the woman, pursing her lips. ‘She was a tarty one, that Izzy. Career as a fortune teller, indeed. If she’s got the gift, I’m the Queen of Sheba. She’ll meet her end at the hands of an unhappy customer. You see if I’m wrong!’

  There was something in the way she said it, a cruel smile that played about her lips, a glimmer of repressed glee in her voice, that made me shudder. I was overcome by a desire to turn and leave the way I’d come, but I remembered Mr Hamilton’s advice that I was to start as I meant to continue. I cleared my throat and said, with all the poise I could muster, ‘My name is Grace Reeves.’

  They looked at me with shared confusion.

  ‘The Mistress’s lady’s maid?’

  The woman drew herself to full height, narrowed her eyes and said, ‘The Mistress never mentioned a new lady’s maid.’

  I was taken aback. ‘Did she not?’ I stammered despite myself. ‘I . . . I’m certain she wrote with instructions from Paris. I posted the letter myself.’

  ‘Paris?’ They looked at one another.

  Then the man seemed to remember something. He nodded several times quickly and shook the woman’s hands from his shoulders.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘We were expecting you. I’m Mr Boyle, butler here at number seventeen, and this is Mrs Tibbit.’

  I nodded, still confused. ‘Glad to make your acquaintances.’ Both continued to stare at me in a way that made me wonder if they were one as simple as the other. ‘I’m rather tired from the journey,’ I said, enunciating slowly. ‘Perhaps you would be so kind as to call a housemaid to show me to my room?’

  Mrs Tibbit sniffed, so that the skin around her mole quivered then drew taut. ‘There are no more housemaids,’ she said. ‘Not yet. The Mistress . . . that is, Mrs Estella Luxton, hasn’t been able to find one as will stay put.’

  ‘Aye,’ Mr Boyle said, lips tight, white as his face. ‘And we’ve a party scheduled this evening. It’ll have to be all hands on deck. Miss Deborah won’t stand for imperfection.’

  Miss Deborah? Who was Miss Deborah? I frowned. ‘My mistress, the new Mrs Luxton, didn’t mention a party.’

  ‘No,’ Mrs Tibbit said, ‘she wouldn’t, would she? It’s a surprise, to welcome Mr and Mrs Luxton home from their honeymoon. Miss Deborah and her mother have been planning it for weeks.’

  The party was in full swing by the time Teddy and Hannah’s car arrived. Mr Boyle had given instruction that I was to meet them at the door and show them to the ballroom. It would usually be the butler’s duty, he said, but Miss Deborah had given him orders that necessitated his presence elsewhere.

  I opened the door and they stepped inside, Teddy beaming, Hannah weary, as might be expected after a visit with Simion and Estella. ‘I’d kill for a cup of tea,’ she said.

  ‘Not so soon, darling,’ said Teddy. He handed me his coat and gave Hannah a rushed kiss on the cheek. She flinched slightly, as she always did. ‘I’ve a little surprise first,’ he said, hurrying away, smiling and rubbing his hands together. Hannah watched him go then lifted her gaze to take in the entrance hall: its freshly painted yellow walls, the rather ugly modern chandelier that hung above the stairs, the potted palm trees bent over beneath strings of fairy lights. ‘Grace,’ she said, eyebrow cocked, ‘what on earth is going on?’

  I shrugged apologetically, was about to explain when Teddy reappeared and took her arm. ‘This way, darling,’ he said, leading her in the direction of the ballroom.

  The door opened and Hannah’s eyes widened when she saw it was full of people she didn’t know. Then a burst of light, and as my gaze swept up toward the glowing chandelier I sensed movement on the staircase behind. There were appreciative gasps; halfway down the stairs stood a slim woman with dark hair curled about her tight, bony face. It was not a pretty face, but there was something striking about it; an illusion of beauty I would learn to recognise as a mark of the chronically chic. She was tall and thin and standing in a way I had not yet seen: hunched forward so that her silk dress seemed almost to fall from her shoulders, drip down her curved spine. The posture was at once masterful and effortless, nonchalant and contrived. Draped across her arms was a pale fur I took at first for a warmer, until it yapped and I realised she held a tiny fluffy dog, as white as Mrs Townsend’s best apron.

  I didn’t recognise the woman but I knew at once who she must be. She paused mome
ntarily before gliding down the final stairs and across the floor, the sea of guests parting as if by choreography.

  ‘Deb!’ Teddy said when she was near, a broad smile dimpling his easy, handsome face. He took her hands, leaned forward to kiss a proffered cheek.

  The woman stretched her lips into a smile. ‘Welcome home, Tiddles.’ Her words were breezy, her New York accent flat and loud. She had a way of speaking that eschewed intonation. It was a leveller, making the ordinary seem extraordinary and vice versa. ‘What a fabulous house! And I’ve assembled some of London’s brightest young things to help you warm it.’ She waved her long fingers at a well-dressed woman whose eye she caught over Hannah’s shoulder.

  ‘Are you surprised, darling?’ Teddy said, turning to Hannah. ‘Mother and I cooked it up between us and darling Deb just lives to organise parties.’

  ‘Surprised,’ said Hannah, her eyes briefly finding mine. ‘That doesn’t begin to describe it.’

  Deborah smiled, that wolfish smile, so particularly hers, and laid a hand on Hannah’s wrist. A long, pale hand that gave the impression of wax gone cold. ‘We meet at last,’ she said. ‘I just know we’re going to be the best of friends.’

  Nineteen-twenty started badly; Teddy had lost the election. It was not his fault, the timing was wrong. The situation was misread, mishandled. It was the fault of the working classes and their nasty little newspaper presses. Filthy campaigns waged against their betters. They were trumped up after the war; they expected too much. They would become like the Irish if they were not careful, or the Russians. Never matter. There would be another opportunity; they’d find him a safer seat. This time next year, Simion promised, if he dropped the foolish ideas that confused conservative voters, Teddy would be in Parliament.

  Estella thought Hannah should have a baby. It would be good for Teddy. Good for his constituents to see him as a family man. They were married, she was fond of saying, and sooner or later in every marriage a man came to expect an heir.

  Teddy went to work with his father. Everybody agreed it was for the best. After the election defeat, he had taken on the look of someone who’d survived a trauma, a shock; like Alfred used to look, back in the days straight after the war.

  Men like Teddy were not used to losing but it wasn’t the Luxton way to mope; Teddy’s parents began spending a lot of time at number seventeen, where Simion told frequent stories about his own father, the journey to the top not being one for weaklings and failures. Teddy and Hannah’s trip to Italy was postponed; it didn’t look good for Teddy to be fleeing the country, Simion said. The impression of success breeds success. Besides, Pompeii wasn’t going anywhere.

  Meanwhile, I was doing my best to settle into London life. My new duties I learned quickly. Mr Hamilton had given me countless briefings before I left Riverton—from straightforward responsibilities like maintaining Hannah’s wardrobe to the more particular, like maintaining her good character—and in these, I felt assured. In my new domestic sphere, however, I was at sea. Cast adrift on a lonely sea of unfamiliarity. For if they weren’t exactly perfidious, Mrs Tibbit and Mr Boyle were certainly not straightforward. They had a way of being together, an intense and apparent pleasure in each other’s company, which was utterly excluding. Moreover, Mrs Tibbit in particular seemed to derive great comfort from such exclusion. Hers was a happiness fed by the discontent of others, and when such was not forthcoming she felt no compunction in manufacturing misfortune for some unwitting soul. I learned quickly that the way to survive at number seventeen was to keep myself to myself and to watch my own back.

  It was a drizzly morning when I found Hannah standing alone in the drawing room. Teddy and Simion had just left for their offices in the City and she was watching the street. Motor cars, bicycles, busy people walking back and forth, here and there.

  ‘Would you like to take your tea, ma’am?’ I said.

  No answer.

  ‘Or perhaps I could have the chauffeur bring the car around?’

  I came closer and I realised Hannah had not heard. She was in company with her own thoughts and I could guess at them without much trouble. She was bored, wore an expression I recognised from the long days at Riverton when she would stand at the nursery window, Chinese box in hand, waiting for David to arrive, desperate to play The Game.

  I cleared my throat and she looked up. When she saw me, she cheered somewhat. ‘Hello, Grace,’ she said.

  I repeated my question then, about where she’d like her tea.

  ‘The morning room,’ she said. ‘But tell Mrs Tibbit not to worry about scones. I’m not hungry. It doesn’t seem right to eat alone.’

  ‘And after, ma’am?’ I said. ‘Shall I have the car brought around?’

  Hannah rolled her eyes. ‘If I have to tolerate one more round of the park I’ll go mad. I don’t understand how the other wives stand it. Do they truly have nothing better to do than be driven in the same circles, day in, day out?’

  ‘Would you like to sew perhaps, ma’am?’ I knew she would not. Hannah’s constitution had never been suited to stitching. It took a patience at odds with her temperament.

  ‘I’m going to read, Grace,’ she said. ‘I’ve a book with me.’ And she held up her well-worn copy of Jane Eyre.

  ‘Again, ma’am?’

  She shrugged, smiled. ‘Again.’

  I don’t know why that troubled me so, but it did. It rang some small bell of warning that I didn’t know how to heed.

  Teddy worked hard and Hannah made an effort. She attended his parties, made chitchat with the wives of business associates and the mothers of politicians. The talk amongst the men was always the same—of money, business, the threat of the underclasses. Simion, like all men of his type, was profoundly suspicious of those he termed ‘bohemians’. Teddy, despite his best intentions, was falling into line.

  Hannah would have preferred to talk real politics with the men. Sometimes, when she and Teddy had retired for the night to their adjoining suites and I was brushing out her hair, Hannah would ask him what so and so had said about the declaration of martial law in Ireland, and Teddy would look at her with weary amusement and tell her not to worry her pretty head. That’s what he was for.

  ‘But I want to know,’ Hannah would say. ‘I’m interested.’

  And Teddy would shake his head. ‘Politics is a man’s game.’

  ‘Let me play,’ Hannah would say.

  ‘You are playing,’ he would answer. ‘We’re on a team, you and I. It’s your job to look after the wives.’

  ‘But it’s boring. They’re boring. I want to talk about important things. I don’t see why I can’t.’

  ‘Oh, darling,’ Teddy would say simply. ‘Because it’s the rules.

  I didn’t make them, but I have to stick to them.’ He would smile then and chip her shoulder. ‘It’s not all bad, eh? At least you’ve got Mother to help, and Deb. She’s a sport, isn’t she?’

  Hannah had little choice then but to nod grudgingly. It was true: Deborah was always on hand to help. Would continue to be now she’d decided not to return to New York. A London magazine had offered her a position writing society fashion pages and how could she resist? A whole new city of ladies to decorate and dominate? She would be staying with Hannah and Teddy until she found a suitable place of her own. After all, as Estella had pointed out, there was no reason to hurry. Number seventeen was a large home with plenty of rooms to spare. Especially while there were no children.

  In November of that year, Emmeline came to London for her sixteenth birthday. It was her first visit since Hannah and Teddy’s marriage, and Hannah had been looking forward to it. She spent the morning waiting in the drawing room, hurrying to the window whenever a motor car slowed outside, only to return, disappointed, to the sofa when it proved a false alarm.

  In the end, she had grown so despondent she missed it. She didn’t realise Emmeline had arrived until Boyle knocked on the door and made his announcement.

  ‘Miss Emmeline to see you, ma??
?am.’

  Hannah squealed and jumped to her feet as Boyle showed Emmeline into the room. ‘Finally!’ she said, hugging her sister tightly. ‘I thought you’d never get here.’ She stepped back and turned to me. ‘Look, Grace, doesn’t she look beautiful?’

  Emmeline gave a half-smile then quickly schooled her mouth back into a sulky pout. Despite her expression, or perhaps because of it, she was beautiful. She’d grown taller and thinner and her face had gained new angles that drew attention to her full lips and large round eyes. She had mastered the attitude of tired disdain which suited so perfectly her age and era.

  ‘Come, sit down,’ Hannah said, leading Emmeline to the sofa. ‘I’ll call for tea.’

  Emmeline slumped into the corner of the sofa and, when Hannah turned away, smoothed her skirt. It was a plain dress of a season ago; someone had attempted to refashion it into the newer, looser style but it still wore the telltale marks of its original architecture. When Hannah turned back from the service bell, Emmeline stopped fussing and cast an exaggeratedly nonchalant gaze around the room.

  Hannah laughed. ‘Oh, it’s the latest thing; Elsie de Wolfe chose everything. It’s hideous, isn’t it?’

  Emmeline raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly.

  Hannah sat next to Emmeline. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said. ‘We can do anything you like this week. Tea and walnut cake at Gunter’s, we can see a show.’

  Emmeline shrugged, but her fingers, I could see, were working again at her skirt.

  ‘We could visit the museum,’ said Hannah. ‘Or take a look at Selfridge’s—’ She hesitated. Emmeline was nodding half-heartedly. Hannah laughed uncertainly. ‘Listen to me, going on,’ she said. ‘You’ve only just got here and I’m already planning the week. I’ve hardly let you get a word in. Haven’t even asked you how you are.’

  Emmeline looked at Hannah. ‘I like your dress,’ she said finally, then tightened her lips as if she’d broken some resolution.

  It was Hannah’s turn to shrug. ‘Oh, I’ve a wardrobe full of them,’ she said. ‘Teddy brings them home when he’s been abroad. He believes a new dress makes up for missing the trip itself. Why would a woman go abroad except to buy dresses? So I’ve a wardrobe full and nowhere to—’ She caught herself, realising, and bit back a smile. ‘Far too many dresses for me ever to wear.’ She eyed Emmeline casually. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to take a look? See if there’s anything you’d like? You’d be doing me a favour, helping me to clear some space.’