The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

Film Script

Final draft, November 1998, pp. 1-4

THE SHIFTING FOG

Written and directed by Ursula Ryan ^©1998

MUSIC: Theme song. Nostalgic music of the type popular during and immediately following the First World War. Though romantic, the music has an ominous edge.

1. EXT. A COUNTRY ROAD-DUSK’S FINAL MOMENT

A country road flanked by green fields that stretch forever. It is 8.00 pm. The summer sun still lingers on the distant horizon, loath to slip, finally, beyond. A 1920s motor car winds, like a shiny black beetle, along the narrow road. It whizzes between ancient brambly hedgerows blue in the dusk, crowned with arching canes that weep toward the road.

The glowing headlights shake as the motor car speeds across the bumpy surface. We draw slowly closer until we are tracking right alongside. The final glow of sun has disappeared and night is upon us. The early moon is full, casting ribbons of white light across the dark, glistening car bonnet.

We glimpse, inside the dim interior, the shadowy profile of its passengers: a MAN and WOMAN in evening dress. The man is driving. Sequins on the woman’s dress shimmer when they catch the moonlight. Both are smoking, the orange tips of cigarettes mirroring the motor car’s headlights. The WOMAN laughs at something the MAN has said, tips her head back and exposes beneath her feather boa, a pale, thin neck.

They arrive at a large set of iron gates, the entrance to a tunnel of tall, dusky trees. The motor car turns into the driveway and makes its way through the dark, leafy corridor. We watch through the windscreen, until suddenly we break through the dense foliage and our destination is upon us.

A grand English manor looms on the hill: twelve gleaming windows across, three high, dormer windows and chimneys punctuating the slate roof. In the foreground, the centrepiece of a broad manicured lawn, sits a grand marble fountain lit with glowing lanterns: giant ants, eagles and enormous fire-breathing dragons, with jets shooting water one-hundred feet into the air.

We maintain our position, watching as the car continues without us around the turning circle. It stops at the entrance to the house and a young FOOTMAN opens the door, extends his arm to help the WOMAN from her seat.

SUB-TITLE: Riverton Manor, England. Summer, 1924.

2. INT. SERVANTS’ HALL-EVENING

The warm, dim servants’ hall of Riverton Manor. The atmosphere is one of excited preparation. We are at ankle level as busy servants traverse the grey-stone floor in all directions. In the background we hear champagne corks popping, orders being given, lower servants being scolded. A service bell rings. Still at ankle level, we follow a female HOUSEMAID as she heads toward the stairs.

3. INT. STAIRWELL-EVENING

We climb the dim stairs behind the HOUSEMAID; clinking sounds tell us that her tray is loaded with champagne flutes. With each step our view lifts-from her narrow ankles, to her black skirt hem, the white tips then pert bow of her apron ribbon, blonde curls at the nape of her neck-until, finally, our view is hers.

The sounds from the servants’ hall fade as music and laughter from the party grow louder. At the top of the stairs, the door opens before us.

4. INT. ENTRANCE HALL-EVENING

A burst of light as we enter the grand marble entrance hall. A glittering crystal chandelier suspends from the high ceiling. The BUTLER opens the front door to greet the well-dressed man and woman from the car. We do not pause but cross to the back of the entrance hall and the broad French doors that lead to the BACK TERRACE.

5. EXT. BACK TERRACE-EVENING

The doors sweep open. Music and laughter crescendo: we are in the midst of a glittering party. The atmosphere is one of postwar extravagance. Sequins, feathers, silks, as far as the eye can see. Coloured Chinese paper lanterns strung above the lawn flutter in the light summer’s breeze. A JAZZ BAND plays and women dance the charleston. We weave through the crowd of assorted laughing faces. They turn toward us, accepting champagne from the servant’s tray: a woman with bright red lipstick, a fat man made pink by excitement and alcohol, a thin old lady dripping in jewels and holding, aloft, a long, tapered cigarette-holder emitting a lazy curlicue of smoke.

There is a tremendous BANG and people gaze above as glittering fireworks tear open the night sky. There are squeals of pleasure and some applause. Reflections of Catherine wheels colour upturned faces, the band spins on, and women dance, faster and faster.

CUT TO:

6. EXT. LAKE-EVENING

A quarter-mile away, a YOUNG MAN stands on the dark edge of the Riverton lake. Party noise swirls in the background. He glances toward the sky. We draw closer, watching as reflected fireworks shimmer red across his beautiful face. Though elegantly dressed, there is a wildness about him. His brown hair is dishevelled, sweeping his forehead, threatening to obscure dark eyes that madly scan the night sky. He lowers his gaze and looks beyond us, to someone else, obscured by shadow. His eyes are damp, his manner suddenly focused. His lips part as if to speak, but he does not. He sighs.

There is a CLICK. Our gaze drops. He clutches a gun in his trembling hand. Lifts it out of shot. The hand remaining by his side twitches then stiffens. The gun discharges and drops to the muddy earth. A woman screams, and the party music reels on.

FADE TO BLACK

CREDIT SEQUENCE: ‘THE SHIFTING FOG’

The Letter

Ursula Ryan

Focus Film Productions

1264 N. Sierra Bonita Ave #32

West Hollywood, CA

90046 USA

Mrs Grace Bradley

Heathview Nursing Home

64 Willow Road

Saffron Green

Essex, CB10 1HQ UK

27 January 1999

Dear Mrs Bradley,

I hope you will excuse my writing to you again; however, I have not received a reply to my last letter outlining the film project on which I am working: The Shifting Fog.

The film is a love story: an account of the poet RS Hunter’s relationship with the Hartford sisters and his suicide of 1924. Though we have been granted permission to film external scenes on location at Riverton Manor, we will be using studio sets for interior scenes.

We have been able to recreate many of the sets from photographs and descriptions; however, I would appreciate a first-hand assessment. The film is a passion of mine and I cannot bear to think I might do it a disservice with historical inaccuracies, however small. As such, I would be very grateful if you would be willing to look over the set.

I found your name (your maiden name) on a list amongst a pile of notebooks donated to the Museum of Essex. I would not have made the connection between Grace Reeves and yourself had I not also read an interview with your grandson, Marcus McCourt, printed in the Spectator, in which he mentioned briefly his family’s historical associations with the village of Saffron Green.

I have enclosed a recent article about my earlier films, published in the Sunday Times, for your appraisal, and a promotional article about The Shifting Fog printed in LA Film Weekly. You will notice that we have managed to secure fine actors in the roles of Hunter, Emmeline Hartford and Hannah Luxton, including Gwyneth Paltrow, who has just received a Golden Globe Award for her work in Shakespeare in Love.

Forgive this intrusion, but we begin shooting in late February at Shepperton Studios, north of London, and I am most keen to make contact with you. I do hope you might be interested in lending your hand to this project. I can be reached c/- Mrs Jan Ryan at 5/45 Lancaster Court, Fulham, London SW6.

Yours respectfully,

Ursula Ryan

GHOSTS STIR

Last November I had a nightmare.

It was 1924 and I was at Riverton again. All the doors hung wide open, silk billowing in the summer breeze. An orchestra perched high on the hill beneath the ancient maple, violins lilting lazily in the warmth. The air rang with pealing laughter and crystal, and the sky was the kind of blue we’d all thought the war had destroyed forever. One of the footmen, smart in black and white, poured champagne into the top of a tower of glass flutes and everyone clapped, delighting in the splendid wastage.

I saw myself, the way one does in dreams, moving amongst the guests. Moving slowly, much more slowly than one can in life, the others a blur of silk and sequins.

I was looking for someone.

Then the picture changed and I was near the summer house, only it wasn’t the summer house at Riverton, it couldn’t have been. This was not the shiny new building Teddy had designed, but an old structure with ivy climbing the walls, twisting itself through the windows, strangling the pillars.

Someone was calling me. A woman, a voice I recognised, coming from behind the building, on the lake’s edge. I walked down the slope, my hands brushing against the tallest reeds. A figure crouched on the bank.

It was Hannah, in her wedding dress, mud splattered across the front, clinging to the appliquéd roses. She looked up at me, her face pale where it emerged from shadow. Her voice chilled my blood. ‘You’re too late.’ She pointed at my hands, ‘You’re too late.’

I looked down at my hands, young hands, covered in dark river mud, and in them, the stiff, cold body of a dead foxhound.

I know what brought it on, of course. It was the letter from the film-maker. I don’t receive much mail these days: the occasional postcard from a dutiful, holidaying friend; a perfunctory letter from the bank where I keep a savings account; an invitation to the christening of a child whose parents I am shocked to realise are no longer children themselves.

Ursula’s letter had arrived on a Tuesday morning late in November and Sylvia had brought it with her when she came to make my bed. She’d raised heavily sketched eyebrows and waved the envelope.

‘Mail today. Something from the States by the look of the stamp. Your grandson, perhaps?’ The left brow arched-a question mark-and her voice lowered to a husky whisper. ‘Terrible business, that. Just terrible. And him such a nice young man.’

As Sylvia tut-tutted, I thanked her for the letter. I like Sylvia. She’s one of the few people able to look beyond the lines on my face to see the twenty year old who lives inside. Nonetheless, I refuse to be drawn into conversation about Marcus.

I asked her to open the curtains and she pursed her lips a moment before moving onto another of her favourite subjects: the weather, the likelihood of snow for Christmas, the havoc it would wreak on the arthritic residents. I responded when required, but my mind was with the envelope in my lap, wondering at the scratchy penmanship, the foreign stamps, softened edges that spoke of lengthy travails.

‘Here, why don’t I read that for you,’ Sylvia said, giving the pillows a final, hopeful plump, ‘give your eyes a bit of a rest?’

‘No. Thank you. Perhaps you could pass my glasses though?’

When she’d left, promising to come back and help me dress after she’d finished rounds, I prised the letter from its envelope, hands shaking the way they do, wondering whether he was finally coming home.

But it wasn’t from Marcus at all. It was from a young woman making a movie about the past. She wanted me to look at her sets and judge their authenticity, to remember things and places from long ago. As if I hadn’t spent a lifetime pretending to forget.

I ignored that letter. I folded it carefully and quietly, slid it inside a book I’d long ago given up reading. And then I exhaled. It was not the first time I had been reminded of what happened at Riverton, to Robbie and the Hartford sisters. Once I saw the tail end of a documentary on the television, something Ruth was watching about war correspondents. When Robbie’s face filled the screen, his name printed across the bottom in unassuming font, my skin prickled. But nothing happened. Ruth didn’t flinch, the narrator continued, and I went on drying the dinner plates.

Another time, reading the newspaper, my eye was drawn to a familiar name in a write-up in the television guide; a program celebrating seventy years of British films. I noted the time, my heart thrilling, wondering if I dared watch it. In the end it was a disappointment. There was very little about Emmeline. A few publicity photos, none of which showed her true beauty, and a clip from one of her silent films, The Lady Waits, which made her look strange: hollow-cheeked; jerky movements like a marionette. There was no reference to the other films, the ones that threatened such a fuss. I suppose they don’t rate a mention in these days of promiscuity and permissiveness.

But although I had been met with such memories before, Ursula’s letter was different. It was the first time in over seventy years that anyone had associated me with the events, had remembered that a young woman named Grace Reeves had been at Riverton that summer. It made me feel vulnerable somehow, singled out. Guilty.

No. I was adamant. That letter would remain unanswered.

And so it did.

A strange thing began to happen, though. Memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of my mind, began to sneak through cracks. Images were tossed up high and dry, picture perfect, as if a lifetime hadn’t passed between. And, after the first tentative drops, the deluge. Whole conversations, word for word, nuance for nuance; scenes played out as though on film.

I have surprised myself. While moths have torn holes in my recent memories, I find the distant past is sharp and clear. They come often lately, those ghosts from the past, and I am surprised to find I don’t much mind them. Not nearly so much as I had supposed I would. Indeed, the spectres I have spent my life escaping have become almost a comfort, something I welcome, anticipate, like one of those serials Sylvia is always talking about, hurrying her rounds so she can watch them down at the main hall. I had forgotten, I suppose, that there were bright memories in amongst the dark.

When the second letter arrived, last week, in the same scratchy hand on the same soft paper, I knew I was going to say yes, I would look at the sets. I was curious, a sensation I hadn’t felt in some time. There is not much left to be curious about when one is ninety-eight years old, but I wanted to meet this Ursula Ryan who plans to bring them all to life again, who is so passionate about their story.

So I wrote her a letter, had Sylvia post it for me, and we arranged to meet.

THE DRAWING ROOM

This morning when I woke, the thread of nervous energy that had infused me all week had overnight become a knot. Sylvia helped me into a new peach dress-the one Ruth bought me for Christmas-and exchanged my slippers for the pair of outside shoes usually left to languish in my wardrobe. The leather was firm and Sylvia had to push to make them fit, but such price respectability. I am too old to learn new ways and cannot abide the tendency of the younger residents to wear their slippers out.

My hair, always pale, is now flossy white, and very fine, finer it seems with each passing day. One morning, I feel sure, I will wake up and there will be none left, just a few fairy threads lying on my pillow that will dissolve before my eyes. Perhaps I am never going to die. Will merely continue to fade, until one day, when the north wind blows, I will be lifted and carried away. Part of the sky.

Face paint restored some life to my cheeks, but I was careful not to overdo it. I am wary of looking like an undertaker’s mannequin. Sylvia is always offering to give me a ‘bit of a makeover’, but with her penchant for purple eye shadow and sticky lip glosses, I fear the results would be catastrophic.

With some effort I fastened the gold locket, its nineteenth-century elegance incongruous against my utilitarian clothing. I straightened it, wondering at my daring, wondering what Ruth would say when she saw.

My gaze dropped. The small silver frame on my dressing table. A photo from my wedding day. I would just as happily not have had it there-the marriage was so long ago and so short-lived, poor John-but it is my concession to Ruth. It pleases her, I think, to imagine that I pine for him.

Sylvia helped me to the drawing room-it still rankles to call it such-where breakfast was being served and where I was to wait for Ruth who had agreed (against her better judgement, she said) to drive me to the Shepperton studios. I had Sylvia seat me alone at the corner table and fetch me a glass of juice, and then I filled time rereading Ursula’s letter.

Ruth arrived at eight-thirty on the dot. She may have had misgivings about the wisdom of this excursion but she is, and has always been, incurably punctual. I’ve heard it said that children born to stressful times never shake the air of woe, and Ruth, a child of the second war, proves the rule. So different from Sylvia, only fifteen years younger, who fusses about in tight skirts, laughs too loudly, and changes hair colour with each new ‘boyfriend’.

This morning Ruth walked across the room, well dressed, immaculately groomed, but stiffer than a fence post.

‘Morning, Mum,’ she said, brushing cold lips across my cheek. ‘Finished your breakfast yet?’ She glanced at the half-empty glass before me. ‘I hope you’ve had more than that. We’ll likely hit morning traffic on the way and we won’t have time to stop for anything.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Do you need to visit the loo?’

I shook my head, wondering when I had become the child.

‘You’re wearing Father’s locket; I haven’t seen it in an age.’ She reached forward to straighten it, nodding approval. ‘He had an eye, didn’t he?’

I agreed, touched by the way little untruths told to the very young are believed so implicitly. I felt a wave of affection for my prickly daughter, repressed quickly the tired old parental guilt that always surfaces when I look upon her anxious face.

She took my arm, folded it over hers, and placed the cane in my other hand. Many of the others prefer walkers or even those motorised chairs, but I’m still quite good with my cane, and a creature of habit who sees no reason to trade up.

Ruth started the car and we pulled slowly into crawling traffic. She’s a good girl, my Ruth-solid and reliable. She’d dressed formally today, the way she would to visit her solicitor, or doctor. I had known she would. She wanted to make a good impression; show this film-maker that no matter what her mother might have done in the past, Ruth Bradley McCourt was respectably middle class, thank you very much.

We drove in silence for a way then Ruth began tuning the radio. Her fingers were those of an old lady, knuckles swollen where she’d forced on her rings that morning. Astounding to see one’s daughter aging. I glanced at my own hands then, folded in my lap. Hands so busy in the past, performing tasks both menial and complex; hands that now sat grey, flaccid and inert. Ruth rested finally on a program of classical music. The announcer spoke for a while, rather inanely about his weekend, and then began to play Chopin. A coincidence, of course, that today of all days I should hear the waltz in C sharp minor.

Ruth pulled over in front of several huge white buildings, square like aircraft hangars. She switched off the ignition and sat for a moment, looking straight ahead. ‘I don’t know why you have to do this,’ she said quietly, lips sucked tight. ‘You’ve done so much with your life. Travelled, studied, raised a child… Why do you want to be reminded of what you used to be?’

She didn’t expect an answer and I didn’t give one. She sighed abruptly, hopped out of the car and fetched my cane from the boot. Without a word, she helped me from my seat.

Ursula was waiting for us, a slip of a girl with very long blonde hair that fell straight down her back and was cut in a thick fringe at the front. She was the type of girl one might have labelled plain had she not been blessed with such marvellous dark eyes. They belonged on an oil portrait, round, deep and expressive, the rich colour of wet paint.

She smiled, waved, rushed toward us, taking my hand from Ruth’s arm and shaking it keenly. ‘Mrs Bradley, I’m so happy you could make it.’

‘Grace,’ I said, before Ruth could insist on ‘Doctor’. ‘My name is Grace.’

‘Grace,’ Ursula beamed, ‘I can’t tell you how excited I was to get your letter.’ Her accent was English, a surprise after the American address on her letter. She turned to Ruth. ‘Thanks so much for playing chauffeur today.’

I felt Ruth’s body tighten beside me. ‘I could hardly put Mum on a bus now, could I?’

Ursula laughed and I was pleased that the young are so quick to read uncongeniality as irony. ‘Well, come on inside, it’s freezing out. ’Scuse the mad rush. We start shooting next week and we’re in a complete tizz trying to get things ready. I was hoping you’d meet our set designer but she’s had to go into London to collect some fabric. Maybe if you’re still here when she gets back… Go carefully through the doorway now, there’s a bit of a step.’

She and Ruth bustled me into a foyer and down a dim corridor lined with doors. Some were ajar and I peered in, snatching glimpses of shadowy figures at glowing computer screens. None of it resembled the other film set I had been on with Emmeline, all those years ago.

‘Here we are,’ Ursula said as we reached the last door. ‘Come on in and I’ll get us a cuppa.’ She pushed the door and I was scooped over the threshold, into my past.

It was the Riverton drawing room. Even the wallpaper was the same. Silver Studios’ burgundy Art Nouveau, ‘Flaming Tulips’, as fresh as the day the paperers had come from London. A leather chesterfield sat at centre by the fireplace, draped with Indian silks just like the ones Hannah and Emmeline’s grandfather, Lord Ashbury, had brought back from abroad when he was a young navy officer. The ship’s clock stood where it always had, on the mantlepiece beside the Waterford candelabra. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to get it right but it announced itself an impostor with every tick. Even now, some eighty years later, I remember the sound of the drawing-room clock. The quietly insistent way it had of marking the passage of time: patient, certain, cold-as if it somehow knew, even then, that time was no friend to those who lived in that house.

Ruth accompanied me as far as the chesterfield then cast me adrift with an entreaty to sit while she found where the toilets were, ‘just in case’. I was aware of a bustle of activity behind me, people dragging huge lights with insect-like legs, someone, somewhere, laughing, but I allowed my mind to drift. I thought of the last time I had been in the drawing room-the real one, not this façade-the day I had known I was leaving Riverton and would never be back.

It had been Teddy I’d told. He hadn’t been pleased but by that time he’d lost the authority he once had, events had knocked it out of him. He wore the vaguely bewildered pallor of a captain who knew his ship was sinking but was powerless to stop it. He asked me to stay, implored me, out of loyalty to Hannah, he said, if not for him. And I almost did. Almost.

Ruth nudged me. ‘Mum? Ursula’s talking to you.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear.’

‘Mum’s a bit deaf,’ Ruth said. ‘At her age it’s to be expected. I’ve tried to get her in for testing but she can be rather obstinate.’

Obstinate, I own. But I am not deaf and do not like it when people assume I am-my eyesight is poor without glasses, I tire easily, have none of my own teeth left and survive on a cocktail of pills, but I can hear as well as I ever have. It’s only with age I have learned only to listen to things I want to hear.

‘I was just saying, Mrs Bradley, Grace, it must be strange to be back. Well, sort of back. It must spark all sorts of memories?’

‘Yes.’ I was aware that my voice was wispy. ‘Yes, it does.’

‘I’m so glad,’ Ursula said, smiling. ‘I take that as a sign we’ve got it right.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Is there anything that looks out of place? Anything we’ve forgotten?’

I looked about the set again. Meticulous in its detail, down to the set of crests mounted by the door, the middle one a Scottish thistle that matched the etching on my locket.

All the same, there was something missing. Despite its accuracy, the set was strangely divested of atmosphere. It was like a museum piece: interesting but lifeless.

It was understandable, of course. Though the 1920s live vividly in my memory, the decade is, for the film’s designers, the ‘olden days’. A historical setting whose replication requires as much research and painstaking attention to detail as would the recreation of a medieval castle.

I could feel Ursula looking at me, awaiting keenly my pronouncement.

‘It’s perfect,’ I said finally. ‘Everything in its place.’

Then she said something that made me start. ‘Except the family.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Except the family.’ I blinked and for a moment I could see them: Emmeline draped across the sofa, all legs and eyelashes, Hannah frowning at one of the books from the library, Teddy pacing the Bessarabian carpet…

‘Emmeline sounds like she must have been a lot of fun,’ Ursula said.

‘Yes.’

‘She was easy to research-managed to get her name in just about every gossip column ever printed. Not to mention the letters and diaries of half the eligible bachelors of the day!’

I nodded. ‘She was always popular.’

She looked up at me from beneath her fringe. ‘Putting Hannah’s character together wasn’t so easy.’

I cleared my throat. ‘No?’

‘She was more of a mystery. Not that she wasn’t mentioned in the papers: she was. Had her share of admirers too. It just seems not many people really knew her. They admired her, revered her even, but didn’t really know her.’

I thought of Hannah. Beautiful, clever, yearning Hannah. ‘She was complex.’

‘Yes,’ Ursula said, ‘that’s the impression I got.’

Ruth, who’d been listening, said, ‘One of them married an American, didn’t she?’

I looked at her, surprised. She had always made it her business not to know anything about the Hartfords.

She met my gaze. ‘I’ve been doing some reading.’

How like Ruth to prepare for our visit, no matter how distasteful she found the subject matter.

Ruth turned her attention back to Ursula and spoke cautiously, wary of error. ‘She married after the war, I think. Which one was that?’

‘Hannah.’ There. I’d done it. I’d spoken her name aloud.

‘What about the other sister?’ Ruth continued. ‘Emmeline. Did she ever marry?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘She was engaged.’

‘A number of times,’ Ursula said, smiling. ‘Seems she couldn’t bring herself to settle on one man.’

Oh, but she did. In the end she did.

‘Don’t suppose we’ll ever know exactly what happened that night.’ This was Ursula.

‘No.’ My tired feet were beginning to protest against the leather of my shoes. They’d be swollen tonight and Sylvia would exclaim, then she’d insist on giving them a soak. ‘I suppose not.’

Ruth straightened in her seat. ‘But surely you must know what happened, Miss Ryan. You’re making a film of it, after all.’

‘Sure,’ Ursula said, ‘I know the basics. My great-grandmother was at Riverton that night-she was related to the sisters through marriage-and it’s become a sort of family legend. My great-grandmother told Grandma, Grandma told Mum, and Mum told me. A number of times, actually: it made a huge impression. I always knew one day I’d turn it into a film.’ She smiled, shrugged. ‘But there are always little holes in history, aren’t there? I have files and files of research-the police reports and newspapers are full of facts, but it’s all second-hand. Rather heavily censored, I suspect. Unfortunately the two people who witnessed the suicide have been dead for years.’

‘I must say, it seems a rather morbid subject for a film,’ Ruth said.

‘Oh, no; it’s fascinating,’ Ursula said. ‘A rising star of the English poetry scene kills himself by a dark lake on the eve of a huge society party. His only witnesses are two beautiful sisters who never speak to each other again. One his fiancée, the other rumoured to be his lover. It’s terribly romantic.’

The knots in my stomach relaxed a little. So, she was going to treat the heart of their story in the usual manner. I wondered why I had supposed otherwise. And I wondered what sort of misguided loyalty had made me care either way. Why, after all these years, it still mattered to me what people thought.

But I knew that too. I had been born to it. Mr Hamilton had told me so the day I left, as I stood on the top step of the servants’ entrance, my leather bag packed with my few possessions, Mrs Townsend weeping in the kitchen. He’d said it was in my blood, just as it had been for my mother and for her parents before her, that I was a fool to leave, to throw away a good place, with a good family. He’d decried the loss of loyalty and pride, general in the English nation, and had vowed he wouldn’t allow it to infiltrate Riverton. The war hadn’t been fought and won just to lose our ways.

I’d pitied him then: so rigid, so certain that by leaving service I was setting myself on a path to financial and moral ruination. It wasn’t until much later that I began to understand how terrified he must have been, how relentless must have seemed the rapid social changes, swirling about him, nipping at his heels. How desperately he longed to hold onto the old ways and certainties.

But he’d been right. Not completely, not about the ruination-neither my finances nor my morals were the worse for leaving Riverton-but there was some part of me that never left that house. Rather, some part of the house that wouldn’t leave me. For years after, the smell of Stubbins & Co. silver polish, the crackle of tyres on gravel, a certain type of bell and I’d be fourteen again, tired after a long day’s work, sipping cocoa by the servants’ hall fire while Mr Hamilton orated select passages from The Times (those deemed fit for our impressionable ears), Myra frowned at some irreverent comment of Alfred’s, and Mrs Townsend snored gently in the rocker, knitting resting on her generous lap…

‘Here we are,’ Ursula said. ‘Thanks, Tony.’

A young man had appeared beside me, clutching a makeshift tray of motley mugs and an old jam jar full of sugar. He released his load onto the side table where Ursula began distributing them. Ruth passed one to me.

‘Mum, what is it?’ She pulled out a handkerchief and reached for my face. ‘Are you unwell?’

I could feel then that my cheeks were moist.

It was the smell of the tea that did it. And being there, in that room, sitting on that chesterfield. The weight of distant memories. Of long-held secrets. The clash of past and present.

‘Grace? Can I get you something?’ This was Ursula. ‘Would you like the heating turned down?’

‘I’m going to have to take her home.’ Ruth again. ‘I knew this wasn’t a good idea. It’s far too much for her.’

Yes, I wanted to go home. To be home. I felt myself being hoisted up, my cane thrust into my hand. Voices swirled about me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, to no one in particular. ‘I’m just so tired.’ So tired. So long ago.

My feet were aching: protesting their confinement. Someone-Ursula, perhaps-reached out to steady me, her hand grasping my arm. A cold wind slapped my damp cheeks.

I was in Ruth’s car then, houses, trees and road signs rushing past.

‘Don’t worry, Mum, it’s all over now,’ Ruth said. ‘I blame myself. I should never have agreed to take you.’

I put my hand on her arm, felt her tense.

‘I should have trusted to my instincts,’ she said. ‘It was stupid of me.’

I closed my eyes. Listened to the hum of the radiator, the pulse of the windscreen wipers, the drone of the traffic.

‘That’s it, you have a bit of a rest,’ Ruth said. ‘You’re going home. You never have to go back again.’

I smiled, felt myself drifting away.

It is too late, I am home. I am back.

17 JANUARY 1925

Preston’s Gorge Body Identified: Local Beauty Dead

The body found yesterday morning in Preston’s Gorge has been identified as that of local beauty and film actress, the Honourable Miss Emmeline Hartford, 21. Miss Hartford was reportedly travelling from London to Colchester when her car collided with a tree and rolled down into the gorge.

Miss Hartford was due to arrive at Godley House, the home of her childhood friend, Mrs Frances Vickers, on Sunday afternoon. Mrs Vickers alerted police when Miss Hartford failed to arrive.

An investigation will be held to determine the cause of the collision but police do not suspect foul play. According to witnesses, it was most likely the result of high speed and icy conditions.

Miss Hartford is survived by her elder sister, the Honourable Mrs Hannah Luxton, who is married to the Conservative Member for Saffron Green, Mr Theodore Luxton. Neither Mr nor Mrs Luxton were available for comment; however, the family’s solicitors, Gifford & Jones, released a statement on their behalf, asserting their shock and requesting privacy.

This is not the first tragedy to befall the family in recent times. Last summer, Miss Emmeline Hartford and Mrs Hannah Luxton were unfortunate witnesses to the suicide of Lord Robert Hunter on the grounds of Riverton Estate. Lord Hunter was a poet of some note and had published two collections of poetry.

THE NURSERY

It is mild this morning, a foretaste of spring, and I am sitting on the iron seat in the garden, beneath the elm. It’s good for me to get a bit of fresh air (so says Sylvia), thus here I sit, playing peek-a-boo with the shy winter sun, my cheeks as cold and slack as a pair of peaches left too long in the fridge.

I have been thinking about the day I started at Riverton. I can see it clearly. The intervening years concertina and it is June 1914. I am fourteen again: naïve, gauche, terrified, following Myra up flight after flight of scrubbed elm stairs. Her skirt swishes efficiently with every step, each swish an indictment of my own inexperience. I am struggling behind, my suitcase handle cutting my fingers. I lose sight of Myra as she turns to begin up yet another flight, rely on the swishing to lead the way…

When Myra reached the very top she proceeded down a dark corridor with low ceilings, stopping finally, with a neat click of the heels, at a small door. She turned and frowned as I hobbled toward her, her pinched gaze as black as her hair.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ she said, clipped English unable to disguise her Irish vowels. ‘I didn’t know you were slow. Mrs Townsend never said anything about it, I’m sure.’

‘I’m not slow. It’s my suitcase. It’s heavy.’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen such a fuss. I don’t know what kind of housemaid you’re going to make if you can’t carry a suitcase of clothing without lagging. You’d better hope Mr Hamilton don’t see you dragging the carpet sweeper around like a sack of flour.’

She pushed open the door. The room was small and spare, and it smelled, unaccountably, like potatoes. But one half of it-an iron bed, chest of drawers and chair-was to be mine.

‘There now. That’s your side,’ she said, nodding toward the far edge of the bed. ‘I’m this side and I’d thank you not to touch anything.’ She walked her fingers along the top of her chest of drawers, past a crucifix, a Bible and a hairbrush. ‘Sticky fingers will not be abided here. Now get your things unpacked, get into uniform and come downstairs so you can start your duties. No dawdling, mind, and for heaven’s sake, no leaving the servants’ hall. Luncheon’s at midday today on account of the Master’s grandchildren arriving, and we’re already behind with the rooms. Last thing I need is to have to go looking for you. You’re not a dawdler, I hope.’

‘No, Myra,’ I said, still smarting at the implication I might be a thief.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’ll see about that.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I tell them I need a new girl and what do they send me? No experience, no references and, by the looks of you, a dawdler.’

‘I’m not-’

‘Pish,’ she said, stamping a narrow foot. ‘Mrs Townsend says your mother was quick and able, and that the apple don’t fall far from the tree. All’s I can say is you’d better hope it’s so. The mistress won’t put up with dawdling from the likes of you and neither will I.’ And with a final, disapproving toss of her head, she turned heel and left me alone in the tiny dim room at the top of the house. Swish… Swish… Swish…

I held my breath, listening.

Finally, alone with the sighing of the house, I tiptoed to the door and eased it shut, turning to take in my new home.

There was not much to see. I ran my hand over the foot of the bed, ducking my head where the ceiling slanted against the roof line. Across the end of the mattress was a grey blanket, one of its corners patched by a competent hand. A small, framed picture, the only hint of decoration in the room, hung on the wall: a primitive hunting scene, an impaled deer, blood leaking from its pierced flank. I looked away quickly from the dying animal.

Carefully, silently, I sat down, wary of wrinkling the smooth under-sheet. The bedsprings creaked in response and I jumped, chastened, my cheeks flooding with colour.

A narrow window cast a shaft of dusty light into the room. I climbed up to kneel on the chair and peered outside.

The room was at the back of the house and very high. I could see all the way past the rose garden, over the trellises and to the south fountain. Beyond, I knew, lay the lake, and on the other side, the village and the cottage in which I had spent my first fourteen years. I pictured Mother, sitting by the kitchen window where the light was best, her back curled over the clothing she darned.

I wondered how she was managing alone. Mother had been worse lately. I’d heard her of a night, groaning in her bed as the bones of her back seized beneath her skin. Some mornings her fingers were so stiff I’d had to run them under warm water and rub them between my own before she could as much as pluck a roll of thread from her sewing basket. Mrs Rodgers from the village had agreed to stop in daily, and the ragman passed by twice a week, but still, she’d be alone an awful lot. There was little chance she’d keep up the darning without me. What would she do for money? My meagre salary would help but surely I’d have been better to stay with her?

And yet it was she who had insisted I apply for the position. She’d refused to hear the arguments I made against the idea. Only shook her head and minded me that she knew best. She’d heard they were looking for a girl and was certain I’d be just what they were after. Not a word as to how she knew. Typical of Mother and her secrets.

‘It’s not far,’ she said. ‘You can come home and help me on your days off.’

My face must have betrayed my qualms, for she reached out to touch my cheek. An unfamiliar gesture and one I wasn’t expecting. The surprise of her rough hands, her needle-pricked fingertips, made me flinch. ‘There, there, girl. You knew time would come and you’d have to find yourself a position. It’s for the best: a good opportunity. You’ll see. There’s not many places will take a girl so young. Lord Ashbury and Lady Violet, they’re not bad people. And Mr Hamilton might seem strict, but he’s nothing if not fair. Mrs Townsend, too. Work hard, do as you’re told, and you’ll find no trouble.’ She squeezed my cheek hard then, fingers quivering. ‘And Gracie? Don’t you go forgetting your place. There’s too many young girls get themselves into trouble that way.’

I had promised to do as she said, and the following Saturday trudged up the hill to the grand manor house, dressed in my Sunday clothes, to be interviewed by Lady Violet.

It was a small and quiet household, she told me, just her husband, Lord Ashbury, who was busy most of the time with his business and clubs, and herself. Their two sons, Major James and Mr Frederick, were both grown up and lived in their own homes with their families, though they visited at times and I was sure to see them if I worked well and was kept on. With only the two of them living at Riverton they did without a housekeeper, she said, leaving the running of the household in Mr Hamilton’s capable hands, with Mrs Townsend, the cook, in charge of the kitchen accounts. If the two of them were pleased with me, then that was recommendation enough to keep me on.

She had paused then and looked at me closely, in a way that made me feel trapped, like a mouse inside a glass jar. I had become instantly conscious of the edge of my hem, scarred with repeated attempts to match its length to my growing height, the small patch on my stockings that rubbed against my shoes and was becoming thin, my too-long neck and too-large ears.

Then she had blinked and smiled: a tight smile that turned her eyes into icy crescents. ‘Well, you look clean, and Mr Hamilton tells me you can stitch.’ She had stood up as I nodded, and moved away from me toward the writing desk, trailing her hand lightly along the top of the chaise. ‘How is your mother?’ she had asked, without turning. ‘Did you know she used to be in service here too?’ To which I had told her I did know and that Mother was well, thank you for asking, and I remembered to call her ma’am.

I must have said the right thing, because it was just after that she offered me fifteen pound a year to start next day and rang the bell for Myra to show me out.

I pulled my face from the window, wiped away the mark my breath had left, and climbed back down.

My suitcase lay where I’d dropped it, by Myra’s side of the bed, and I dragged it around to the chest of drawers that was to be mine. I tried not to look at the bleeding deer, frozen in his moment of final horror, as I packed my clothes into the top drawer: two skirts, two blouses and a pair of black tights that Mother had bid me darn so they’d see me through the coming winter. Then, with a glance at the door and a speeding heart, I unloaded my secret haulage.

There were three volumes in all. Dog-eared green covers with faded gold lettering. I stowed them at the back of the bottom drawer and covered them with my shawl, careful to fold it right around so they were completely concealed. Mr Hamilton had been clear. The Holy Bible was acceptable, but any reading material beyond was most likely injurious and must be presented for his approval or would risk confiscation. I was not a rebel-indeed, back then I had a fierce sense of duty-but to live without Holmes and Watson was unthinkable.

I tucked the suitcase under the bed.

A uniform hung on the hook behind the door-black skirt, white apron, frilly cap-and I put it on, feeling like a child who had discovered its mother’s wardrobe. The skirt was stiff beneath my fingers and the collar scratched my neck where long hours had moulded it to someone else’s wider frame. As I tied the apron, a tiny white moth fluttered away in search of a new hiding spot, high up in the rafters, and I longed to join it.

The cap was white cotton, starched so that the front panel sat upright, and I used the mirror above Myra’s chest of drawers to make sure it was straight and to smooth my pale hair over my ears as Mother had shown me. The girl in the mirror caught my eye briefly, and I thought what a serious face she had. It is an uncanny feeling, that rare occasion when one catches a glimpse of oneself in repose. An unguarded moment, stripped of artifice, when one forgets to fool even oneself.

Sylvia has brought me a cup of steaming tea and a slice of lemon cake. She sits next to me on the iron bench and, with a glance toward the office, withdraws a pack of cigarettes. (Remarkable the way my apparent need for fresh air seems always to coincide with her need for a covert cigarette break.) She offers me one. I refuse, as I always do, and she says, as she always does: ‘Probably best at your age. Smoke yours for you, shall I?’

Sylvia looks good today-she has done something different with her hair-and I tell her so. She nods, blows a stream of smoke and tosses her head, a long ponytail appearing over one shoulder.

‘I’ve had extensions,’ she says. ‘I’ve wanted them for ages and I just thought, Girl, life’s too short not to be glamorous. Looks real, doesn’t it?’

I am late in my reply, which she takes for agreement.

‘That’s because it is. Real hair, the sort they use on celebrities. Here. Feel it.’

‘Goodness,’ I say, stroking the coarse ponytail, ‘real hair.’

‘They can do anything these days.’ She waves her cigarette and I notice the juicy purple ring her lips have left. ‘Of course, you have to pay for it. Luckily I had a bit put aside for a rainy day.’

She smiles, glowing like a ripe plum, and I grasp the raison d’être for this reinvention. Sure enough, a photograph materialises from her blouse pocket.

‘Anthony,’ she says, beaming.

I make a show of putting on my glasses, peering at the image of a grey-moustachioed man in late middle-age. ‘He looks lovely.’

‘Oh Grace,’ she says through a happy sigh. ‘He is. We’ve only been out for tea a few times, but I’ve got such a good feeling about this one. He’s a real gentleman, you know? Not like some of them other layabouts that came before. He opens doors, brings me flowers, pulls my chair out for me when we go about together. A real old-fashioned gentleman.’

The latter, I can tell, is added for my benefit. An assumption that the elderly cannot help but be impressed by the old fashioned. ‘What does he do for a living?’ I say.

‘He’s a teacher at the local comprehensive. History and English. He’s awful clever. Community-minded too; does volunteer work for the local historical society. It’s a hobby of his, he says, all those ladies and lords and dukes and duchesses. He knows all kinds of things about that family of yours, the one that used to live up in the grand house on the hill-’ She breaks and squints toward the office, then rolls her eyes. ‘Oh Gawd. It’s Nurse Ratchet. I’m supposed to be doing tea rounds. No doubt Bertie Sinclair’s complained again. You ask me, he’d be doing himself a favour to skip a biscuit now and then.’ She extinguishes her cigarette and wraps the butt in a tissue. ‘Ah well, no rest for the wicked. Anything I can get for you before I do the others, darl? You’ve hardly touched your tea.’

I assure her I’m fine and she hurries across the green, hips and ponytail swinging in concord.

It is nice to be cared for, to have one’s tea brought. I like to think I have earned this little luxury. Lord knows I have often enough been the bearer of tea. Sometimes I amuse myself imagining how Sylvia would have fared in service at Riverton. Not for her, the silent, obedient deferral of the domestic servant. She has too much bluff; has not been cowered by frequent assertions as to her ‘place’, well-intentioned instructions to lower her expectations. No, Myra would not have found Sylvia so compliant a pupil as I.

Is it hardly a fair comparison, I know. People have changed too much. The century has left us bruised and battered. Even the young and privileged today wear their cynicism like a badge, their eyes blank and their minds full of things they never sought to know.

It is one of the reasons I have never spoken of the Hartfords and Robbie Hunter and what went on between them. For there have been times when I’ve considered telling it all, unburdening myself. To Ruth. Or more likely Marcus. But somehow I knew before beginning my tale that they were too young to understand. That I would be unable to make them understand. How it ended the way it did. Why it ended the way it did. Make them see how much the world has changed.

Of course, the signs of progress were upon us even then. The first war-the Great War-changed everything, upstairs and down. How shocked we all were when the new staff began to trickle in (and out again, usually) after the war, full of agency ideas about minimum wages and days off. Before that, the world had seemed absolute somehow, the distinctions simple and intrinsic.

On my first morning at Riverton, Mr Hamilton called me to his pantry, deep in the servants’ hall, where he was bent over ironing The Times. He stood upright and straightened his fine round spectacle frames across the bridge of his long, beaked nose. So important was my induction into ‘the ways’, that Mrs Townsend had taken a rare break from preparing the luncheon galantine to bear witness. Mr Hamilton inspected my uniform meticulously then, apparently satisfied, began his lecture on the difference between us and them.

‘Never forget,’ he said gravely, ‘you are fortunate indeed to be invited to serve in a great house such as this. And with good fortune comes responsibility. Your conduct in all matters reflects directly on the family and you must do them justice: keep their secrets and deserve their trust. Remember that the Master always knows best. Look to him, and his family, for example. Serve them silently… eagerly… gratefully. You will know your job is done well when it goes unnoticed, that you have succeeded when you are unnoticed.’ He lifted his gaze then and studied the space above my head, his ruddy skin flushed with emotion. ‘And Grace? Never forget the honour they do you, allowing you to serve in their home.’

I can only imagine what Sylvia would have said to this. Certainly she wouldn’t have received the address as I did; would not have felt her face constrict with gratitude and the vague, unnameable thrill of having been lifted up a step in the world.

I shift in my seat and notice she has left her photograph behind: this new man who woos her with talk of history and nurses a hobbyist’s affection for the aristocracy. I know his type. They are the sort to keep scrapbooks of press clippings and photographs, to sketch elaborate family trees about families to which they have no entrée.

I sound contemptuous but I am not. I am interested-intrigued even-by the way time erases real lives, leaving only vague imprints. Blood and spirit fade away so that only names and dates remain.

I close my eyes again. The sun has shifted and now my cheeks are warm.

The folk of Riverton have all been dead so long. While age has withered me, they remain eternally youthful, eternally beautiful.

There now. I am becoming maudlin and romantic. For they are neither young nor beautiful. They are dead. Buried. Nothing. Mere figments that flit within the memories of those they once knew.

But of course, those who live in memories are never really dead.

•

The first time I saw Hannah and Emmeline and their brother David, they were debating the effects of leprosy on the human face. They had been at Riverton a week by then-their annual summer visit-but to that point I had caught only occasional wafts of laughter, tattoos of running feet, amid the creaking bones of the old house.

Myra had insisted I was too inexperienced to be trusted in polite society-juvenile though it might be-and had conferred on me only duties that distanced me from the visitors. While the other servants were preparing for the arrival of the adult guests a fortnight hence, I was responsible for the nursery.

They were too old, strictly, to need a nursery, said Myra, and would probably never use it, but it was tradition, and thus the large second-floor room at the far end of the east wing was to be aired and cleaned, flowers replaced daily.

I can describe the room, but I fear any description will fail to capture the strange appeal it held for me. The room was large, rectangular and gloomy, and wore the pallor of decorous neglect. It gave the impression of desertion, of a spell in an ancient tale. It slept the sleep of a hundred-year curse. The air hung heavily, thick and cold and suspended; and in the doll’s house by the fireplace, the dining table was set for a party whose guests would never come.

The walls were covered in paper that may once have been blue and white stripe, but which time and moisture had turned murky grey, spotted and peeling in places. Faded scenes from Hans Christian Andersen hung along one side: the brave tin soldier atop his fire, the pretty girl in red shoes, the little mermaid weeping for her lost past. It smelled musty, of ghostly children and long-settled dust. Vaguely alive.

There was a sooty fireplace and a leather armchair at one end, huge arched windows on the adjacent wall. If I climbed up onto the dark timber window seat and peered down through the leadlight panes I could make out a courtyard where two bronze lions on weathered plinths stood guard, surveying the estate churchyard in the valley below.

A well-worn rocking horse rested by the window: a dignified dapple-grey with kind black eyes who seemed grateful for the dusting I gave him. And by his side, in silent communion, stood Raverley. The black and tan foxhound had been Lord Ashbury’s when he was a boy; had died after getting his leg stuck in a trap. The embalmer had made a good attempt to patch the damage, but no amount of pretty dressing could hide what lurked beneath. I took to covering Raverley while I worked. With a dust sheet draped over him I could almost pretend he wasn’t there, looking out at me with his dull glassy eyes, wound gaping beneath his patch.

But despite it all-Raverley, the smell of slow decay, the peeling paper-the nursery became my favourite room. Day after day, as predicted, I found it empty, the children engaged elsewhere on the estate. I took to rushing through my regular duties that I might have a few spare minutes in which to linger, alone. Away from Myra’s constant corrections, from Mr Hamilton’s grim reproval, from the rowdy camaraderie of the other servants that made me feel I had so much still to learn. I stopped holding my breath, began to take the solitude for granted. To think of it as my room.

And then there were the books, so many books, more than I had ever seen in one place at the one time: adventures, histories, fairytales, jostled together on huge shelves either side of the fireplace. Once I dared pull one down, selected for no better reason than a particularly pretty spine. I ran my hand over the fusty cover, opened it and read the carefully printed name: TIMOTHY HARTFORD. Then I turned the thick pages, breathed mildewed dust, and was transported to another place and time.

I had learned to read at the village school and my teacher, Miss Ruby, pleased I expect to encounter such uncommon student interest, had started loaning me books from her own collection: Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, The Castle of Otranto. When I returned them we would discuss our favourite parts. It was Miss Ruby who suggested I might become a teacher myself. Mother had been none too pleased when I told her. She’d said it was all very well for Miss Ruby to go putting grand ideas in my head but ideas didn’t put bread and butter on the table. Not long after she’d sent me up the hill to Riverton, to Myra and Mr Hamilton, and to the nursery…

And for a time the nursery was my room, the books my books.

But one day a fog blew in and it began to rain. As I hurried along the corridor with half a mind to look at an illustrated children’s encyclopaedia I’d discovered the day before, I stopped short. There were voices inside.

It was the wind, I told myself, carrying them from elsewhere in the house. An illusion. But when I cracked open the door and peeked inside: shock. There were people in there. Young people who fit perfectly in that enchanting room.

And in that instant, with neither sign nor ceremony, it ceased to be mine. I stood, frozen by indecision, unsure whether it was proper to continue my duties or to return later. I peeked again, made timid by their laughter. Their confident, round voices. Their shiny hair and shinier hair bows.

It was the flowers that decided me. They were wilting in their vase atop the fire mantle. Petals had dropped in the night and now lay scattered like a rebuke. I couldn’t risk Myra seeing them; she had been clear on my duties. Had made certain I understood that Mother would learn if I were to run foul of my superiors.

Remembering Mr Hamilton’s instructions, I clutched my brush and broom to my chest and tiptoed to the fireside, concentrated on being invisible. I needn’t have worried. They were used to sharing their homes with an army of the unseen. They ignored me while I pretended to ignore them.

Two girls and a boy: the youngest around ten, the eldest not yet seventeen. All three shared the distinctive Ashbury colouring-golden hair and eyes the fine, clear blue of Wedgwood porcelain-the legacy of Lord Ashbury’s mother, a Dane who (so said Myra) had married for love and been disowned, her dowry withdrawn. (She’d had the last laugh though, said Myra, when her husband’s brother passed and she became Lady Ashbury of the British Empire.)

The taller girl stood in the centre of the room, wielding a handful of papers as she described the niceties of leprous infections. The younger sat on the floor, legs crossed, watching her sister with widening blue eyes, her arm draped absently around Raverley’s neck. I was surprised, and a little horrified, to see he had been dragged from his corner and was enjoying a rare moment of inclusion. The boy knelt on the window seat, gazing down through the fog toward the churchyard.

‘And then you turn around to face the audience, Emmeline, and your face will be completely leprous,’ the taller girl said gleefully.

‘What’s leprous?’

‘A skin disease,’ the older girl said. ‘Lesions and mucus, the usual stuff.’

‘Perhaps we could have her nose rot off, Hannah,’ said the boy, turning to wink at Emmeline.

‘Yes,’ said Hannah seriously. ‘Excellent.’

‘No,’ Emmeline wailed.

‘Honestly Emmeline, don’t be such a baby. It’s not really going to rot off,’ Hannah said. ‘We’ll make some kind of mask. Something hideous. I’ll see if I can find a medical book in the library. Hopefully there’ll be pictures.’

‘I don’t see why I have to be the one to get leprosy,’ Emmeline said.

‘Take it up with God,’ Hannah said. ‘He wrote it.’

‘But why do I have to play Miriam. Can’t I play a different part?’

‘There are no other parts,’ Hannah said. ‘David has to be Aaron, because he’s the tallest, and I’m playing God.’

‘Can’t I be God?’

‘Certainly not. I thought you wanted the main part.’

‘I did,’ Emmeline said. ‘I do.’

‘Well then. God doesn’t even get to be on stage,’ Hannah said. ‘I have to do my lines from behind a curtain.’

‘I could play Moses,’ Emmeline said. ‘Raverley can be Miriam.’

‘You’re not playing Moses,’ Hannah said. ‘We need a real Miriam. She’s far more important than Moses. He only has one line. That’s why Raverley’s standing in. I can say his line from behind my curtain-I may even cut Moses altogether.’

‘Perhaps we could do another scene instead,’ Emmeline said hopefully. ‘One with Mary and the baby Jesus?’

Hannah huffed disgustedly.

They were rehearsing a play. Alfred the footman had told me there was to be a family recital on the bank holiday weekend. It was a tradition: some family members sang, others recited poetry, the children always performed a scene from their grandmother’s favourite book.

‘We’ve chosen this scene because it’s important,’ said Hannah.

‘You’ve chosen it because it’s important,’ said Emmeline.

‘Exactly,’ said Hannah. ‘It’s about a father having two sets of rules: one for his sons and one for his daughters.’

‘Sounds perfectly reasonable to me,’ said David ironically.

Hannah ignored him. ‘Both Miriam and Aaron are guilty of the same thing: discussing their brother’s marriage-’

‘What were they saying?’ Emmeline said.

‘It’s not important, they were just-’

‘Were they saying mean things?’

‘No, and it’s not the point. The important thing is that God decides Miriam should be punished with leprosy while Aaron gets no worse than a talking-to. Does that sound fair to you, Emme?’

‘Didn’t Moses marry an African woman?’ Emmeline said.

Hannah shook her head, exasperated. She did that a lot, I noticed. A fierce energy infused her every long-limbed movement, led her easily to frustration. Emmeline, by contrast, had the calculated posture of a doll come to life. Their features, similar when considered individually-two slightly aquiline noses, two pairs of intense blue eyes, two pretty mouths-manifested themselves uniquely on each girl’s face. Where Hannah gave the impression of a fairy queen-passionate, mysterious, compelling-Emmeline’s was a more accessible beauty. Though still a child, there was something in the way her lips parted in repose, her too-wide-open eyes, that reminded me of a glamour photograph I had once seen when it fell from the peddler’s pocket.

‘Well? He did, didn’t he?’ Emmeline said.

‘Yes, Emme,’ David said, laughing. ‘Moses married an Ethiopian. Hannah’s just frustrated that we don’t share her passion for women’s suffrage.’

‘Hannah! He doesn’t mean it. You’re not a suffragette. Are you?’

‘Of course I am,’ Hannah said. ‘And so are you.’

Emmeline lowered her voice. ‘Does Pa know? He’ll be ever so cross.’

‘Pooh,’ said Hannah. ‘Pa’s a kitten.’

‘A lion, more like,’ said Emmeline, lips trembling. ‘Please don’t make him cross, Hannah.’

‘I shouldn’t worry, Emme,’ said David. ‘Suffrage is all the fashion amongst society women at the moment.’

Emmeline looked doubtful. ‘Fanny never said anything.’

‘Anyone who’s anyone will be wearing a dinner suit for her debut this season,’ said David.

Emmeline’s eyes widened.

I listened from the bookshelves, wondering what it all meant. I had never heard the word ‘suffragette’ before, but had a vague idea it might be a sort of illness, the likes of which Mrs Nammersmith in the village had caught when she took her corset off at the Easter parade, and her husband had to take her to the hospital in London.

‘You’re a wicked tease,’ Hannah said. ‘Just because Pa is too unfair to let Emmeline and me go to school doesn’t mean you should try to make us look stupid at every opportunity.’

‘I don’t have to try,’ David said, sitting on the toy box and flicking a lock of hair from his eyes. I drew breath: he was beautiful and golden like his sisters. ‘Anyway, you’re not missing much. School’s overrated.’

‘Oh?’ Hannah raised a suspicious eyebrow. ‘Usually you’re only too pleased to let me know exactly what I’m missing. Why the sudden change of heart?’ Her eyes widened: two ice-blue moons. Excitement laced her voice. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve done something dreadful to get yourself expelled?’

‘Course not,’ David said quickly. ‘I just think there’s more to life than book-learning. My friend Hunter says that life itself is the best education-’

‘Hunter?’

‘He only started at Eton this form. His father’s some sort of scientist. Evidently he discovered something that turned out to be quite important and the King made him a marquis. He’s a bit mad. Robert, too, if you believe the other lads, but I think he’s topping.’

‘Well,’ Hannah said, ‘your mad Robert Hunter is fortunate to have the luxury of disdaining his education; but how am I supposed to become a respected playwright if Pa insists on keeping me ignorant?’ Hannah sighed with frustration. ‘I wish I were a boy.’

‘I should hate to go to school,’ Emmeline said. ‘And I should hate to be a boy. No dresses, the most boring hats, having to talk about sports and politics all day.’

‘I’d love to talk politics,’ Hannah said. Vehemence shook strands loose from the careful confinement of her ringlets. ‘I’d start by making Herbert Asquith give women the vote. Even young ones.’

David smiled. ‘You could be Great Britain’s first play-writing prime minister.’

‘Yes,’ said Hannah.

‘I thought you were going to be an archaeologist,’ Emmeline said. ‘Like Gertrude Bell.’

‘Politician, archaeologist. I could be both. This is the twentieth century.’ She scowled. ‘If only Pa would let me have a proper education.’

‘You know what Pa says about girls’ education,’ said David. Emmeline chimed in with the well-worn phrase: ‘“The slippery slope to women’s suffrage.”’

‘Anyway, Pa says Miss Prince is giving us all the education we need,’ said Emmeline.

‘Pa would say that. He’s hoping she’ll turn us into boring wives for boring fellows, speaking passable French, playing passable piano and politely losing the odd game of bridge. We’ll be less trouble that way.’

‘Pa says no one likes a woman who thinks too much,’ Emmeline said.

David rolled his eyes. ‘Like that Canadian woman who drove him home from the gold mines with her talk of politics. She did us all a disservice.’

‘I don’t want everyone to like me,’ Hannah said, setting her chin stubbornly. ‘I should think less of myself if no one disliked me.’

‘Then cheer up,’ David said. ‘I have it on good authority that a number of our friends don’t like you.’

Hannah frowned, its impact weakened by the involuntary beginnings of a smile. ‘Well I’m not going to do any of her stinking lessons today. I’m tired of reciting The Lady of Shallot while she snivels into her handkerchief.’

‘She’s crying for her own lost love,’ Emmeline said with a sigh.

Hannah rolled her eyes.

‘It’s true!’ Emmeline said. ‘I heard Grandmamma tell Lady Clem. Before she came to us, Miss Prince was engaged to be married.’

‘Came to his senses, I suppose,’ Hannah said.

‘He married her sister instead,’ Emmeline said.

This silenced Hannah, but only briefly. ‘She should have sued him for breach of promise.’

‘That’s what Lady Clem said-and worse-but Grandmamma said Miss Prince didn’t want to cause him trouble.’

‘Then she’s a fool,’ Hannah said. ‘She’s better off without him.’

‘What a romantic,’ David said archly. ‘The poor lady’s hopelessly in love with a man she can’t have and you begrudge reading her the occasional piece of sad poetry. Cruelty, thy name is Hannah.’

Hannah set her chin. ‘Not cruel, practical. Romance makes people forget themselves, do silly things.’

David was smiling: the amused smile of an elder brother who believed that time would change her.

‘It’s true,’ Hannah said, stubbornly. ‘Miss Prince would be better to stop pining and start filling her mind-and ours-with interesting things. Like the building of the pyramids, the lost city of Atlantis, the adventures of the Vikings…’

Emmeline yawned and David held up his hands in an attitude of surrender.

‘Anyway,’ Hannah said, frowning as she picked up her papers. ‘We’re wasting time. We’ll go from the bit where Miriam gets leprosy.’

‘We’ve done it a hundred times,’ Emmeline said. ‘Can’t we do something else?’

‘Like what?’

Emmeline shrugged uncertainly. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked from Hannah to David. ‘Couldn’t we play The Game?’

No. It wasn’t The Game then. It was just the game. A game. Emmeline may have been referring to conkers, or jacks, or marbles for all I knew that morning. It wasn’t for some time that The Game took on capital letters in my mind. That I came to associate the term with secrets and fancies and adventures unimagined. On that dull, wet morning, as the rain pattered against the nursery windowpanes, I barely gave it a thought.

Hidden behind the armchair sweeping up the dried and scattered petals, I was imagining what it might be like to have siblings. I had always longed for one. I had told Mother once, asked her whether I might have a sister. Someone with whom to gossip and plot, whisper and dream. How potent the mystique of sisterhood that I had even longed for someone with whom to quarrel. Mother had laughed, but not in a happy way, and said she wasn’t given to making the same mistake twice.

What must it feel like, I wondered, to belong somewhere, to face the world, a member of a tribe with ready-made allies? I was pondering this, brushing absently at the armchair, when something moved beneath my duster. A blanket flapped and a female voice croaked: ‘What? What’s all this? Hannah? David?’

She was as old as age itself. An ancient woman, recessed amongst the cushions, hidden from view. This, I knew, must be Nanny. I had heard her spoken of in hushed and reverent tones, both upstairs and down: she had nursed Lord Ashbury himself when he was a lad and was as much a family institution as the house itself.

I froze where I stood, duster in hand, under the gaze of three sets of pale blue eyes.

The old woman spoke again. ‘Hannah? What’s going on?’

‘Nothing, Nanny,’ Hannah said, finding her tongue. ‘We’re just rehearsing for the recital. We’ll be quieter from now on.’

‘You mind Raverley doesn’t get too frisky, cooped up inside,’ Nanny said.

‘No, Nanny,’ Hannah said, her voice revealing a sensitivity to match her fierceness. ‘We’ll make sure he’s nice and quiet.’ She came forward and tucked the blanket back around the old lady’s tiny form. ‘There, there, Nanny dear, you rest now.’

‘Well,’ Nanny said sleepily, ‘maybe just for a little while.’ Her eyes fluttered shut and after a moment her breathing grew deep and regular.

I held my own breath, waiting for one of the children to speak. They were still looking at me, eyes wide. A slow instant passed, during which I envisaged myself being hauled before Myra, or worse, Mr Hamilton; called to explain how I came to be dusting Nanny; the displeasure on Mother’s face as I returned home, released without references…

But they did not scold, or frown, or reprove. They did something far more unexpected. As if on cue, they started to laugh; raucously, easily, collapsing into one another so that they seemed somehow joined.

I stood, watching and waiting; their reaction more disquieting than the silence that preceded it. I could not help my lip from trembling.

Finally, the elder girl managed to speak. ‘I’m Hannah,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘Have we met?’

I exhaled, curtseyed. My voice was tiny. ‘No m’lady. I’m Grace.’

Emmeline giggled. ‘She’s not your lady. She’s just miss.’

I curtseyed again. Avoided her gaze. ‘I’m Grace, miss.’

‘You look familiar,’ Hannah said. ‘Are you sure you weren’t here at Easter?’

‘Yes, miss. I just started. Going on for a month now.’

‘You don’t look old enough to be a maid,’ Emmeline said.

‘I’m fourteen, miss.’

‘Snap,’ Hannah said. ‘So am I. And Emmeline is ten and David is practically ancient-sixteen.’

David spoke then. ‘And do you always clean right over the top of sleeping persons, Grace?’ At this, Emmeline started to laugh again.

‘Oh, no. No, sir. Just this once, sir.’

‘Pity,’ David said. ‘It would be rather convenient never to have to bathe again.’

I was stricken; my cheeks filled with heat. I had never met a real gentleman before. Not one my age, not the sort who made my heart flutter against my rib cage with his talk of bathing. Strange. I am an old woman now, yet as I think of David, I find the echoes of those old feelings creeping back. I am not dead yet then.

‘Don’t mind him,’ Hannah said. ‘He thinks he’s a riot.’

‘Yes, miss.’

She looked at me quizzically, as if about to say something more. But before she could, there came the noise of quick, light footsteps rounding the stairs and beginning down the corridor. Drawing closer. Clip, clip, clip, clip…

Emmeline ran to the door and peered through the keyhole.

‘It’s Miss Prince,’ she said, looking to Hannah. ‘Coming this way.’

‘Quick!’ Hannah said in a determined whisper. ‘Or suffer death by Tennyson.’

There was a scurry of footsteps and a flurry of skirts and before I realised what was happening all three had vanished. The door burst open and a gust of cold, damp air swept through. A prim figure stood across the doorway.

She surveyed the room, her gaze landing finally on me. ‘You,’ she said. ‘Have you seen the children? They’re late for their lessons. I’ve been waiting in the library ten minutes.’

I was not a liar, and I cannot say what made me do it. But in that instant, as Miss Prince stood peering over her glasses at me, I did not think twice.

‘No, Miss Prince,’ I said. ‘Not for a time.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, miss.’

She held my gaze. ‘I was sure I heard voices in here.’

‘Only my own, miss. I was singing.’

‘Singing?’

‘Yes, miss.’

The silence seemed to stretch forever, broken only when Miss Prince tapped her blackboard pointer three times against her open hand and stepped into the room; began to walk slowly around its perimeter. Clip… Clip… Clip… Clip…

She reached the doll’s house and I noticed the tail of Emmeline’s sash ribbon protruding from its stand. I swallowed. ‘I… I might have seen them earlier, miss, now I think of it. Through the window. In the old boathouse. Down by the lake.’

‘Down by the lake,’ Miss Prince said. She had reached the French windows and stood gazing out into the fog, white light on her pale face. ‘Where willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver…’

I was unfamiliar with Tennyson at that time, thought only that she produced a rather pretty description of the lake. ‘Yes, miss,’ I said.

After a moment she turned. ‘I shall have the gardener retrieve them. What’s his name?’

‘Dudley, miss.’

‘I shall have Dudley retrieve them. We must not forget that punctuality is virtue without peer.’

‘No, miss,’ I said, curtseying.

And she clipped coldly across the floor, closing the door behind her.

The children emerged as if by magic from beneath dust cloths, under the doll’s house, behind the curtains.

Hannah smiled at me, but I did not linger. I could not understand what I had done. Why I had done it. I was confused, ashamed, exhilarated.

I curtseyed and hurried past, cheeks burning as I flew along the corridor, anxious to find myself once more in the safety of the servants’ hall, away from these strange, exotic child-adults and the odd feelings they aroused in me.

WAITING FOR THE RECITAL

I could hear Myra calling my name as I raced down the stairs into the shadowy servants’ hall. I paused at the bottom, letting my eyes adapt to the dimness, then hurried into the kitchen. A copper pot simmered on the huge stove and the air was salty with the sweat of boiled ham. Katie, the scullery maid, stood by the sink scrubbing pans, staring blindly at the steamy hint of a window. Mrs Townsend, I guessed, was having her afternoon lie-down before the Mistress rang for tea. I found Myra at the table in the servants’ dining room, surrounded by vases, candelabras, platters and goblets.

‘There you are, then,’ she said, frowning so that her eyes became two dark slits. ‘I was beginning to think I’d have to come looking for you.’ She indicated the seat opposite. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, girl. Get yourself a cloth and help me polish.’

I sat down and selected a plump milk jug that hadn’t seen light of day since the previous summer. I rubbed at the flecked spots, but my mind lingered in the nursery upstairs. I could imagine them laughing together, teasing, playing. I felt as though I had opened the cover of a beautiful, glossy book and become lost in the magic of its story, only to be forced too soon to put the book aside. You see? Already I had attached some strange glamour to the Hartford children.

‘Steady on,’ Myra said, wresting the cloth from my hand. ‘That’s His Lordship’s best silver. You’d better hope Mr Hamilton don’t see you scratching it like that.’ She held aloft the vase she was cleaning and began to rub it in deliberate circular motions. ‘There now. See as how I’m doing it? Gentle like? All in the one direction?’

I nodded and set about the jug again. I had so many questions about the Hartfords: questions I felt sure Myra could answer. And yet I was reluctant to ask. It was in her power, I knew, and her nature, I suspected, to ensure my future duties took me far from the nursery if she supposed I was gaining pleasure beyond the satisfaction of a job well done.

Yet just as a new lover imbues ordinary objects with special meaning, I was greedy for the least information concerning them. I thought about my books, tucked away in their attic hideaway; the way Sherlock Holmes could make people say the last thing they expected through artful questioning. I took a deep breath. ‘Myra…?’

‘Mmm?’

‘What is Lord Ashbury’s son like?’

Her dark eyes flashed. ‘Major James? Oh, he’s a fine-’

‘No,’ I said, ‘not Major James.’ I already knew about Major James. One couldn’t pass a day in Riverton without learning of Lord Ashbury’s elder son, most recent in a long line of Hartford males to attend Eton then Sandhurst. His portrait hung next to that of his father (and the string of fathers before him) at the top of the front staircase, surveying the hall below: head aloft, medals gleaming, blue eyes cold. He was the pride of Riverton, both upstairs and down. A Boer War hero. The next Lord Ashbury.

No. I meant Frederick, the ‘Pa’ they spoke of in the nursery, who seemed to inspire in them a mix of affection and awe. Lord Ashbury’s second son, whose mere mention caused Lady Violet’s friends fondly to shake their heads and His Lordship to grumble into his sherry.

Myra opened her mouth and closed it again, like one of the fish the storms washed up on the lake bank. ‘Ask no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,’ she said finally, holding her vase up to the light for inspection.

I finished the jug and moved on to a platter. This was how it was with Myra. She was capricious in her own way: unreservedly forthcoming at some times, absurdly secretive at others.

Sure enough, for no other reason than the clock on the wall had ticked away five minutes, she acquiesced. ‘I suppose you’ve heard one of the footmen talking, have you? Alfred, I’ll warrant. Terrible gossips, footmen.’ She started on another vase. Eyed me suspiciously. ‘Your mother’s never told you about the family, then?’

I shook my head and Myra arched a thin eyebrow in disbelief, as if it were near impossible that people might find things to discuss that didn’t concern the family at Riverton.

In fact, Mother had always been resolutely close-lipped about business at the house. When I was younger I had probed her, eager for stories about the grand old manor on the hill. There were enough tales about in the village as it was and I was hungry for my own titbits to trade with the other children. But she only ever shook her head and minded me that curiosity killed the cat.

Finally, Myra spoke. ‘Mr Frederick… where to begin about Mr Frederick.’ She resumed polishing, speaking through a sigh. ‘He’s not a bad sort of fellow. Not at all like his brother, mind, not one for heroics, but not a bad sort. Truth be told, most of us downstairs have a fondness for him. To hear Mrs Townsend talk he was always a scamp of a lad, full of tall stories and funny ideas. Always very kindly to the servants.’

‘Is it true he was a goldminer?’ It seemed a suitably exciting profession. It was right somehow that the Hartford children should have an interesting father. My own had always been a disappointment: a faceless figure who vanished into thin air before I was born, rematerialising only in hot whispered exchanges between Mother and her sister.

‘For a time,’ Myra said. ‘He’s turned his hand to that many things I’ve all but lost count. Never been much of a one for settling, our Mister Frederick. Never one to take to other folks. First there was the tea planting in Ceylon, then the gold prospecting in Canada. Then he decided he was going to make his fortune printing newspapers. Now it’s motor cars, God love him.’

‘Does he sell motor cars?’

‘He makes them, or those that work for him do. He’s bought a factory over Ipswich way.’

‘Ipswich. Is that where he lives? Him and his family?’ I said, nudging the conversation in direction of the children.

She didn’t take the bait: was concentrated on her own thoughts. ‘With any luck he’ll make a go of this one. Heaven knows His Lordship would look gladly on a return for his investment.’

I blinked, her meaning lost on me. Before I could ask what she meant, she had swept on. ‘Anyway, you’ll see him soon enough. He arrives next Tuesday, along with the Major and Lady Jemima.’ A rare smile, approval rather than pleasure. ‘There’s not an August bank holiday I can remember when the family didn’t all come together. There’s not one of them would dream of missing the midsummer dinner. It’s tradition for the folks in these parts.’

‘Like the recital,’ I said, daringly, avoiding her gaze.

‘So,’ Myra raised a brow, ‘someone’s already blathered to you about the recital, have they?’

I ignored her peevish note. Myra was unaccustomed to being pipped at the rumour post. ‘Alfred said the servants were invited to see the recital.’ I said.

‘Footmen!’ Myra shook her head haughtily. ‘Never listen to a footman if you want to hear the truth, my girl. Invited, indeed! Servants are permitted to see the recital, and very kind of the Master it is too. He knows how much the family mean to all of us downstairs, how we enjoy seeing the young ones growing up.’ She returned her attention momentarily to the vase in her lap and I held my breath, willing her to continue. After a moment that seemed an age, she did. ‘This’ll be the fourth year they’ve put on theatricals. Ever since Miss Hannah was ten and took it into her head she wanted to be a theatre director.’ Myra nodded. ‘Aye, she’s a character is Miss Hannah. She and her father are as like as two eggs.’

‘How?’ I asked.

Myra paused, considering this. ‘There’s something of the wanderlust in each of them,’ she said finally. ‘Both full of wit and newfangled ideas, each as stubborn as the other.’ She spoke pointedly, accenting each description, a warning to me that such traits, while acceptable idiosyncrasies for them upstairs, would not be tolerated from the likes of me.

I’d had such lectures all my life from Mother. I nodded sagely as she continued. ‘They get on famously most of the time, but when they don’t there’s not a soul don’t know it. There’s no one can rile Mr Frederick quite like Miss Hannah. Even as a wee girl she knew just how to set him off. She was a fierce little thing, full of tempers. One time, I remember, she was awful dark at him for one reason or another and took it into her head to give him a nasty fright.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Now let me think… Master David was out having riding instruction. That’s what started it all. Miss Hannah were none too happy to have been left out so she bundled up Miss Emmeline and gave Nanny the slip. Found their way to the far estates, they did, right the way down where the farmers were harvesting apples.’ She shook her head. ‘Convinced Miss Emmeline to hide away in the barn, did our Miss Hannah. Wasn’t hard to do, I imagine; Miss Hannah can be very persuasive, and besides, Miss Emmeline was quite happy with all them fresh apples to feast on. Next minute, Miss Hannah arrived back at the house, puffing and panting like she’d run for her life, calling for Mr Frederick. I was laying for luncheon in the dining room at the time, and I heard Miss Hannah tell him that a couple of foreign men with dark skin had found them in the orchards. Said they’d commented on how pretty Miss Emmeline was and promised to take her on a long journey across the seas. Miss Hannah said she couldn’t be sure, but she believed them to be white slavers.’

I gasped, shocked by Hannah’s daring. ‘What happened then?’

Myra, portentous with secrets, warmed to the telling. ‘Well, Mr Frederick’s always been wary of the white slavers, and his face went first white, then all red, and before you could count to three he scooped Miss Hannah into his arms and set off toward the orchards. Bertie Timmins, who was picking apples that day, said Mr Frederick arrived in a terrible state. He started yelling orders to form a search party, that Miss Emmeline had been kidnapped by two dark-skinned men. They searched high and low, spreading out in all directions, but no one had seen two dark-skinned men and a golden-haired child.’

‘How did they find her?’

‘They didn’t. In the end she found them. After an hour or so, Miss Emmeline, bored with hiding and sick from apples, came strolling from the barn wondering about all the fuss. Why Miss Hannah hadn’t come to get her…’

‘Was Mr Frederick very cross?’

‘Oh yes,’ Myra said matter-of-factly, polishing fiercely. ‘Though not for long: never could stay dark with her for long. They’ve a bond, those two. She’d have to do more’n that to set him against her.’ She held aloft the glistening vase then placed it with the other polished items. Laid her cloth on the table and tilted her head, giving her thin neck a rub. ‘Anyways, as I hear it Mr Frederick was just getting a bit of his own medicine.’

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What did he do?’

Myra glanced toward the kitchen, satisfying herself that Katie was without earshot. There was a well-worn pecking order downstairs at Riverton, refined and ingrained by centuries of service. I may have been the lowest housemaid, subject to regular dressing-downs, worthy of only the lesser duties, but Katie, as scullery maid, was beneath contempt. I would like to be able to say this groundless inequity riled me; that I was, if not incensed, at least alert to its injustice. But to do so would be crediting my young self with empathy I did not possess. Rather, I relished what little privilege my place afforded me-Lord knows there were enough above me.

‘Gave his parents quite a time when he was a lad, did our Mr Frederick,’ she said through tight lips. ‘He was such a livewire Lord Ashbury sent him to Radley just so he couldn’t give his brother a bad name at Eton. Wouldn’t let him try for Sandhurst neither, when the time came, even though he was that set on joining the navy.’

I digested this information as Myra continued. ‘Understandable, of course, with Major James doing so well in the forces. It doesn’t take much to stain a family’s good name. Wasn’t worth the risk.’ She left off rubbing her neck and seized a tarnished salt dish. ‘Anyway. All’s well that end’s well. He’s got his motor cars, and he’s got himself three fine children. You’ll see for yourself at the play.’

‘Will Major James’s children be performing in the play with Mr Frederick’s?’

Myra’s expression darkened and her voice lowered. ‘Whatever can you be thinking, girl?’

The air bristled. I had said something wrong. Myra glowered at me, forcing me to look away. The platter in my hands had been polished till it shone and in its surface I saw my cheeks growing redder.

Myra hissed, ‘The Major doesn’t have any children. Not any more.’ She snatched my cloth from me, long thin fingers brushing mine. ‘Now, get on with you. I’m getting nought done with all your talk.’

One of the most challenging aspects of starting below stairs at Riverton was this assumption that I should be automatically and intimately au fait with the comings and goings, ins and outs, of the house and family. This, I knew, was partly due to Mother having worked there before I was born. Mr Hamilton, Mrs Townsend and Myra presumed (groundlessly) that she must already have imparted to me all knowledge of Riverton and the Hartfords, and they had the ability to make me feel stupid if I dared suggest otherwise. Myra, in particular (when it didn’t suit her purpose to explain), would become quite scornful, insisting that of course I knew the Mistress required a warming pan no matter the season; I must simply have forgotten or, worse, was being deliberately obtuse.

Myra expected me to know what had happened to the Major’s children and there was nothing I could say or do to convince her that this wasn’t the case. Thus, over the next couple of weeks I avoided her as best one person can avoid another with whom they live and work. At night, as Myra prepared for bed, I lay very still facing the wall, feigning sleep. It was a relief when Myra blew out the candle and the picture of the dying deer disappeared into the darkness. In the daytime, when we passed in the hall, Myra would lift her nose disdainfully and I would study the ground, suitably chastened.

Blessedly, there was plenty to keep us occupied preparing to receive Lord Ashbury’s adult guests. The east-wing guestrooms had to be opened and aired, the dust sheets removed and the furniture polished. The best linen had to be retrieved from enormous storage boxes in the attic, mended where the moths had been, then laundered in great copper pots. The rain had set in and the clothes lines behind the house were of no use, so the linen had to be hung in the winter drying room: high up in the attic near the female servants’ bedrooms, where the kitchen chimney, always warm, ran up the wall, through the ceiling and onto the roof.

And that is where I learned more of The Game. For as the rain held, and Miss Prince determined to educate them on the finer points of Tennyson, the Hartford children sought hiding spots deeper and deeper within the house’s heart. The drying-room closet, tucked behind the chimney, was about as far from the library schoolroom as they could find. And thus they took up quarters.

I never saw them play it, mind. Rule number one: The Game is secret. But I listened, and I watched and, once or twice when temptation drove me and the coast was clear, I peeked inside the box. This is what I learned.

The Game was old. They’d been playing it for years. No, not playing. That is the wrong verb. Living; they had been living The Game for years. For The Game was more than its name suggested. It was a complex fantasy, an alternate world into which they escaped.

There were no costumes, no swords, no feathered headdresses. Nothing that would have marked it as a game. For that was its nature. It was secret. Its only accoutrement was the box. A black lacquered case brought back from China by one of their ancestors; one of the spoils from a spree of exploration and plunder. It was the size of a square hatbox-not too big and not too small-and its lid was inlaid with semiprecious gems to form a scene: a river with a bridge across it, a small temple on one bank, a willow weeping from the sloping shore. Three figures stood atop the bridge and above them a lone bird circled.

The box they guarded jealously, filled as it was with everything material to The Game. For although The Game demanded a good deal of running and hiding and wrestling, its real pleasure was enjoyed elsewhere. Rule number two: all journeys, adventures, explorations and sightings must be recorded. They would rush inside, flushed with danger, to record their recent adventures: maps and diagrams, codes and drawings, plays and books.

The books were miniature, bound with thread, writing so small and neat that one had to hold them close to decipher them. They had titles: Escape From Koshchei the Deathless; Encounter with Balam and his Bear; Journey to the Land of White Slavers. Some were written in code I couldn’t understand, though the legend, had I the time to look, would no doubt have been printed on parchment and filed within the box.

The Game itself was simple. It was Hannah and David’s invention really, and as the oldest they were the chief instigators of adventure. They decided which location was ripe for exploration. The two of them had assembled a ministry of nine advisors-an eclectic group mingling eminent Victorians with ancient Egyptian kings. There were only ever nine advisors at any one time, and when history supplied a new figure too appealing to be denied inclusion an original member would die or be deposed. (Death was always in the line of duty, reported solemnly in one of the tiny books kept inside the box.)

Alongside the advisors, each had their own character. Hannah was Nefertiti and David became Charles Darwin. Emmeline, only four when the governing laws were drawn up, had chosen Queen Victoria. A dull choice, Hannah and David agreed, understandable given Emmeline’s limited years but certainly not a suitable adventure mate. Victoria was nonetheless accommodated into The Game, most often cast as a kidnap victim whose capture was precipitant of a daring rescue. While the other two were writing up their accounts, Emmeline was allowed to decorate the diagrams and shade the maps: blue for the ocean, purple for the deep, green and yellow for land.

Occasionally, David wasn’t available-the rain would subside for an hour and he would sneak out to play marbles with the other estate lads, or else he would occupy himself practising piano. Then Hannah would realign her loyalties with Emmeline. The pair would hide away in the linen closet with a store of sugar cubes from Mrs Townsend’s dry store, and would invent special names in secret languages to describe the traitorous absconder. But no matter how much they wanted to, they never played The Game without him. To do so would have been unthinkable.

Rule number three: only three may play. No more, no less. Three. A number favoured as much by art as by science: primary colours, points required to locate an object in space, notes to form a musical chord. Three points of a triangle, the first geometrical figure. Incontrovertible fact: two straight lines cannot enclose a space. The points of a triangle may move, shift allegiance, the distance between two disappear as they draw away from the third, but together they always define a triangle. Self-contained, real, complete.

The Game’s rules I learned because I read them. Written in neat but childish handwriting on yellowing paper, stuck beneath the lid of the box. I will remember them forever. To these rules, each had put their name. By general agreement, this third day of April, 1908. David Hartford, Hannah Hartford, and finally, in larger, more abstract print, the initials EH. Rules are a serious business for children, and The Game required a sense of duty adults wouldn’t understand. Unless of course they were servants, in which case duty was something they knew a lot about.

So there it is. It was just a children’s game. And not the only one they played. Eventually they outgrew it, forgot it, left it behind. Or thought they did. By the time I met them, it was already on its last legs. History was about to intervene: real adventure, real escape, adulthood, was lurking, laughing, round the corner.

Just a children’s game and yet… What happened in the end would surely not have come about without it?

The day of the guests’ arrival dawned and I was given special permission, on condition my duties were complete, to watch from the first-floor balcony. As outside evening fell, I huddled by the banister, face pressed between two rails, eagerly awaiting the crunch of motor-car tyres on the gravel out front.

First to arrive was Lady Clementine de Welton, a family friend with the grandeur and gloom of the late Queen, and her charge Miss Frances Dawkins (universally known as Fanny): a skinny, garrulous girl, whose parents had gone down with the Titanic and who, at seventeen, was rumoured to be in energetic pursuit of a husband. According to Myra, it was Lady Violet’s dearest wish that Fanny should make a match with the widowed Mr Frederick, though the latter remained entirely unconvinced.

Mr Hamilton led them to the drawing room where Lord and Lady Ashbury were waiting, and announced their arrival with a flourish. I watched from behind as they disappeared into the room-Lady Clementine first, Fanny close behind-and was put in mind of Mr Hamilton’s salver of cocktail glasses on which the brandy balloons and champagne flutes jostled for space.

Mr Hamilton returned to the entrance hall and was straightening his cuffs-a gesture that was habit with him-when the Major and his wife arrived. She was a small, plump, brown-haired woman whose face, though kindly, bore the cruel etchings of grief. It is hindsight, of course, that makes me describe her thus, though even at the time I supposed her the victim of some misfortune. Myra may not have been prepared to divulge the mystery of the Major’s children, but my young imagination, fed as it was on Gothic novels, was a fertile place. Besides, the nuances of attraction between a man and a woman were foreign to me then and I reasoned only tragedy could account for such a tall, handsome man as the Major being married to so plain a woman. She must once have been lovely, I supposed, until some fiendish hardship befell them and seized from her whatever youth or beauty she had once possessed.

The Major, even sterner than his portrait allowed, asked customarily after Mr Hamilton’s health, cast a proprietorial glance over the entrance hall, and led Jemima to the drawing room. As they disappeared behind the door I saw that his hand rested tenderly at the base of her spine, a gesture that somehow belied his severe physical bearing, and which I have never quite forgotten.

My legs had grown stiff from crouching when finally Mr Frederick’s motor car crunched along the gravel of the driveway. Mr Hamilton glanced reprovingly at the hall clock then pulled open the front door.

Mr Frederick was shorter than I expected, certainly not so tall as his brother, and I could make out no more of his features than the rim of a pair of glasses. For even when his hat was taken he did not raise his head. Merely ran his hand tentatively over the top to smooth his fair hair.

Only when Mr Hamilton opened the drawing-room door and announced his arrival did Mr Frederick’s attention flicker from his purpose. His gaze skittered about the room, taking in the marble, the portraits, the home of his youth, before alighting finally on my balcony. And in the brief moment before he was swallowed by the noisy room, his face paled as if he’d seen a ghost.

The week passed quickly. With so many extra people in the house I was kept busy making up rooms, carrying tea trays, laying out luncheons. This pleased me well as I was not shy of hard work-Mother had made sure of that. Besides, I longed for the weekend to arrive and with it the bank holiday play recital. For while the rest of the staff was focused on the midsummer dinner, all I could think of was the recital. I had barely seen the children since the adults arrived. The fog blew away as suddenly as it came, leaving in its place warm, clear skies, too beautiful to waste indoors. Each day, as I rounded the corridor toward the nursery, I held my breath hopefully, but the fine weather was to hold and they were not to use the room again that year. They took their noise and their mischief and their Game outside.

And with them went the room’s enchantment. Stillness became emptiness and the small flame of pleasure I had nurtured was extinguished. I hurried my duties now, straightened the bookshelves without so much as a glance at their contents, no longer caught the horse’s eye; thought only of what they might be doing. And when I was finished, I didn’t linger, but moved on swiftly to complete my duties. Occasionally, when I was clearing the breakfast tray from a second-floor guestroom or disposing of the night-waters, a squeal of distant laughter would draw my eyes to the window and I would see them, far off in the distance, heading toward the lake, disappearing down the driveway, duelling with long straight sticks.

Downstairs, Mr Hamilton had stirred the servants into a frenzy of activity. It was the test of a good staff, he said, not to mention the proof of a butler’s mettle, to serve a household of guests. No request was to prove too much. We were to work as a finely oiled locomotion, rising to meet each challenge, exceeding the Master’s every expectation. It was to be a week of small triumphs, culminating in the midsummer dinner.

Mr Hamilton’s fervour was infectious; even Myra suffered an elevation of spirits and called a truce of sorts, offering, grudgingly, that I might help her clean the drawing room. It wasn’t ordinarily my place, she reminded me, to be cleaning the main rooms, but with the Master’s family visiting I was to be allowed the privilege-under strict observation-to practise these advanced duties. So it was I added this dubious opportunity to my already inflated duty load and accompanied Myra daily to the drawing room where the adults sipped tea and discussed things that interested me little: weekend country parties, European politics, and some unfortunate Austrian fellow who’d been shot in a faraway place.

The day of the recital (Sunday 2 August 1914-I remember the date, though not for the recital as much as what came after) coincided with my afternoon off and my first visit to Mother since I’d started at Riverton. When I’d finished my morning duties, I exchanged my uniform for regular clothes, strangely stiff and unfamiliar on my body. I brushed my hair out-pale and kinky where it had been wrapped in its plait-then set about rebraiding, coiling a bun at the nape of my neck. Did I look any different, I wondered? Would Mother think so? It had only been five weeks and yet I felt inexplicably changed.

As I came down the servants’ stairs and into the kitchen, I was met by Mrs Townsend who thrust a bundle into my hands. ‘Go on then, take it. Just a little something for your mother’s tea,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘Some of my lemon-curd tart and a couple of slices of Victoria sponge.’

I looked at her, taken aback by the uncharacteristic gesture. Mrs Townsend was as proud of her shipshape home economics as she was of her towering soufflé.

I glanced toward the staircase, dropped my own voice to a whisper. ‘But are you sure the Mistress-’

‘You never mind about the Mistress. She and Lady Clementine won’t be left wanting.’ She dusted down her apron, pulled her round shoulders to full height so that her chest seemed even more expansive than usual. ‘You just be sure an’ tell your mother we’re looking out for you up here.’ She shook her head. ‘Fine girl, your mother. Guilty of nothing that aint been done a thousand times before.’

Then she turned and bustled back to the kitchen as suddenly as she’d appeared. Leaving me alone in the darkened hallway, wondering what she’d meant.

I turned it over in my mind all the way to the village. It was not the first time Mrs Townsend had perplexed me with an expression of fondness for my mother. My own puzzlement left me feeling disloyal, but there was little in her reminiscences of good humour that could be accorded with the Mother I knew. Mother with her moods and silences.

She was waiting for me on the doorstep. Stood as she caught sight of me. ‘I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me.’

‘Sorry, Mother,’ I said. ‘I was caught up with my duties.’

‘Hope you made time for church this morning.’

‘Yes, Mother. The staff go to service at the Riverton church.’

‘I know that, my girl. I attended service at that church long before you came along.’ She nodded at my hands. ‘What’s that you’ve got?’

I handed over the bundle. ‘From Mrs Townsend. She was asking after you.’

Mother peeked within the bundle, bit the inside of her cheek. ‘I’ll be sure and have heartburn tonight.’ She rewrapped it, said grudgingly: ‘Still. It’s good of her.’ She stood aside, pushed back the door. ‘Come on in, then. You can make me up a pot of tea and tell me what’s been happening.’

I cannot remember much of which we spoke, for I was an unconscientious conversationalist that afternoon. My mind was not with Mother in her tiny, cheerless kitchen, but up in the ballroom on the hill where earlier I had helped Myra arrange chairs into rows and hang gold curtains around the proscenium arch.

All the while Mother had me performing chores, I kept an eye on the kitchen clock, mindful of the rigid hands, marching their way closer and closer toward five o’clock, the hour of the recital.

I was already late when we said our goodbyes. By the time I reached the Riverton gates, the sun was low in the sky. I wove along the narrow road toward the house. Magnificent trees, the legacy of Lord Ashbury’s distant ancestors, lined the way, their highest boughs arching to meet, outermost branches lacing so that the road became a dark, whispering tunnel.

As I burst into the light that afternoon, the sun had just slipped behind the roofline, giving the house a mauve and orange afterglow. I cut across the grounds, past the Eros and Psyche fountain, through Lady Violet’s garden of pink cabbage roses, and down into the rear entrance. The servants’ hall was empty and my shoes echoed as I broke Mr Hamilton’s golden rule and ran along the stone corridor. Through the kitchen I went, past Mrs Townsend’s workbench covered with a panoply of sweetbreads and cakes, and up the stairs.

The house was eerily quiet, everyone already in attendance at the recital. When I reached the gilded ballroom door I smoothed my hair, straightened my skirt and slipped inside the darkened room; took my place on the side wall with the other servants.

ALL GOOD THINGS

I hadn’t realised the room would be so dark. It was the first recital I had ever attended, though I had once seen part of a Punch and Judy show when Mother took me to visit her sister, Dee, in Brighton. Black curtains had been draped across the windows and the room’s only brightness came from four limelights retrieved from the attic. They glowed yellow along the front of stage, casting light upwards, glazing the performers in a ghostly shimmer.

Fanny was onstage singing the final bars of ‘The Wedding Glide’, batting her eyelids and trilling her notes. She hit the final G with a strident F, and the audience broke into a round of polite applause. She smiled and curtseyed coyly, her coquetry undermined somewhat by the curtain behind bulging excitedly with elbows and props belonging to the next act.

As Fanny exited stage right, Emmeline and David-draped with togas-entered stage left. They brought with them three long timber poles and a sheet, which were quickly arranged to form a serviceable-though lopsided-tent. They knelt beneath, holding their positions as a hush fell over the audience.

A voice came from beyond: ‘Ladies and gentlemen. A scene from the Book of Numbers.’

A murmur of approval.

The voice: ‘Imagine if you will, in ancient times, a family camped on a mountainside. A sister and brother gather in private to discuss the recent marriage of their brother.’

A round of light applause.

Then Emmeline spoke, voice buzzing with self-importance. ‘But brother, what has Moses done?’

‘He has taken a wife,’ said David, rather drolly.

‘But she is not one of us,’ said Emmeline, eyeing the audience.

‘No,’ said David. ‘You are right, sister. For she is an Ethiopian.’

Emmeline shook her head; adopted an expression of exaggerated concern. ‘He has married outside the clan. Whatever will become of him?’

Suddenly a loud, clear voice from behind the curtain, amplified as if travelling through space (more likely a rolled-up piece of cardboard), ‘Aaron! Miriam!’

Emmeline gave her best performance of fearful attention.

‘This is God. Your father. Come out ye two unto the tabernacle of the congregation.’

Emmeline and David did as they were told, shuffling from beneath the teepee to the front of stage. Flickering limelights threw an army of shadows onto the sheet behind.

My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I was able to identify certain members of the audience by their familiar shapes. In the front row of finely dressed ladies, Lady Clementine’s tumbling jowls and Lady Violet’s feathered hat. A couple of rows behind, the Major and his wife. Closer to me, Mr Frederick, head high, legs crossed, eyes focused sharply ahead. I studied his profile. He looked different somehow. The flickering half-light gave his high cheekbones a cadaverous appearance and his eyes the look of glass. His eyes. He wasn’t wearing glasses. I had never seen him without.

The Lord began to deliver his judgement, and I returned my attention to the stage. ‘Miriam and Aaron. Wherefore were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’

‘We’re sorry, Father,’ said Emmeline. ‘We were just-’

‘Enough! My anger is kindled against thee!’

There was a burst of thunder (a drum, I think) and the audience jumped. A cloud of smoke plumed from behind the curtain, spilling over onto the stage.

Lady Violet exclaimed and David said, in a stage whisper, ‘It’s all right, Grandmamma, it’s part of the show.’

A ripple of amused laughter.

‘My anger is kindled against thee!’ Hannah’s voice was fierce, bringing the audience to silence. ‘Daughter,’ she said, and Emmeline turned away from the audience to gaze into the dissipating cloud. ‘Thou! Art! Leprous!’

Emmeline’s hands flew to her face. ‘No!’ she cried. She held a dramatic pose before turning to the audience to reveal her condition.

A collective gasp; they had decided against a mask in the end, opting instead for a handful of strawberry jam and cream, smeared to gruesome effect.

‘Those imps,’ came Mrs Townsend’s aggrieved whisper. ‘They told me they was needing jam for their scones!’

‘Son,’ said Hannah after a suitably dramatic pause, ‘thou art guilty of the same sin, and yet I cannot bring myself to anger at you.’

‘Thank you, Father,’ said David.

‘Wilt thou remember not to discuss your brother’s wife again?’

‘Yes, my Lord.’

‘Then you may go.’

‘Alas, my lord,’ said David, hiding a smile as he extended his arm toward Emmeline. ‘I beseech thee, heal my sister now.’

The audience was silent, awaiting the Lord’s response. ‘No,’ it came, ‘I don’t think I will. She will be shut out from camp for seven days. Only then will she be received again.’ As Emmeline sank to her knees and David laid his hand on her shoulder, Hannah appeared from stage left. The audience drew breath as one. She was dressed immaculately in men’s clothing: a suit, top hat, walking cane, fob watch and, on the bridge of her nose, Mr Frederick’s glasses. She walked to centre stage, twirling her cane like a dandy. Her voice, when she spoke, was an excellent imitation of her father’s. ‘My daughter will learn that there are some rules for girls and others for boys.’ She took a deep breath, straightened her hat. ‘To allow otherwise is to start down the slippery slope to women’s suffrage.’

The audience sat in electric silence, row on row, mouths agape.

The servants were equally scandalised. Even in the dark I was aware of Mr Hamilton’s whitening face. For once he was at a loss as to protocol, satisfying his indomitable sense of duty by serving as leaning post for Mrs Townsend who, not yet fully recovered from seeing her jam misused, had buckled at the knees and collapsed sideways.

My eyes sought Mr Frederick. Still in his seat, he was rigid as a barge pole. As I watched, his shoulders began to twitch and I feared he was on the verge of one of the rages to which Myra had alluded. On stage, the children stood, frozen in tableaux like dolls in a doll’s house, watching the audience while the audience watched them.

Hannah was a model of composure, innocence writ large across her face. For an instant it seemed she caught my eye, and I thought the glimmer of a smile crossed her lips. I could not help it, I smiled back, fearfully, only stopping when Myra glanced sideways in the dark and gave my arm a pinch.

Hannah, glowing, joined hands with Emmeline and David and the three stretched out across the stage and took a bow. As they did, a glob of jam-smeared cream dropped from Emmeline’s nose and landed with a sizzle on a nearby limelight.

‘Just so,’ came a high fluty voice from the audience, Lady Clementine. ‘A fellow I know knew a fellow with leprosy, out in India. His nose dropped off just like that in his shaving dish.’

It was too much for Mr Frederick. His eyes met Hannah’s and he began to laugh. Such a laugh as I had never heard: infectious by virtue of its sheer sincerity. One by one, others joined him; though Lady Violet, I noticed, was not amongst them.

I couldn’t help my own laughter, spontaneous ripples of relief, until Myra hissed into my ear, ‘That’s enough, miss. You can come and help me with supper.’

I would miss the rest of the recital, but I had seen all I wanted to. As we left the room and made our way down the corridor, I was aware of the applause dying, the recital rolling on. And I felt infused by a strange energy.

By the time we had carried Mrs Townsend’s supper and the trays of coffee to the drawing room, given the armchair cushions a preparatory plump, the recital had ended and the guests had started to arrive, arm in arm in order of rank. First came Lady Violet and Major James, then Lord Ashbury and Lady Clementine, then Mr Frederick with Jemima and Fanny. The Hartford children, I guessed, were still upstairs.

As they took their places, Myra arranged the coffee tray so Lady Violet could pour. While her guests chatted lightly around her, Lady Violet leaned toward Mr Frederick’s armchair and said, through a thin smile, ‘You indulge those children, Frederick.’

Mr Frederick’s lips tightened. The criticism, I could tell, was not a new one.

Eyes on the coffee she was pouring, Lady Violet said, ‘You may find their antics amusing now, but the day will come when you’ll rue your leniency. You’ve let them grow wild. Hannah, especially. There’s nothing spoils a young lady’s loveliness so much as impertinence of intellect.’

Her invective delivered, Lady Violet straightened, arranged her expression into one of cordial amiability, and passed a coffee to Lady Clementine.

Conversation had turned, as it so often did those days, to the strife in Europe and the likelihood of Great Britain going to war.

‘There’ll be war. There always is,’ Lady Clementine said, matter-of-factly, taking the proffered coffee and wedging her buttocks deep into Lady Violet’s favourite armchair. Her pitch rose. ‘And we’ll all suffer. Men, women and children. The Germans aren’t civilised like us. They’ll pillage our countryside, murder our little ones in their beds and enslave good English women that we might propagate little Huns for them. You mark my words for I’m very rarely wrong. We’ll be at war before the summer’s out.’

‘Surely you exaggerate, Clementine,’ Lady Violet said. ‘The war-if it comes-couldn’t be as bad as all that. These are modern times, after all.’

‘That’s right,’ Lord Ashbury said. ‘It’ll be twentieth-century warfare; a whole new game. Not to mention there’s not a Hun could lift a torch to an Englishman.’

‘It might be improper to say,’ Fanny said, perching herself at one end of the chaise longue, curls shaking excitedly, ‘but I rather hope the war does come.’ She turned hastily to Lady Clementine. ‘Not all the pillaging and killing of course, Aunty, nor the propagating; I shouldn’t like that. But I do so love seeing gentlemen dressed in uniform.’ She cast a furtive glance toward Major James then returned her attention to the group. ‘I had a letter today from my friend Margery… You remember Margery, don’t you, Aunty Clem?’

Lady Clementine quivered her heavy eyelids. ‘Regrettably. A foolish girl with provincial manners.’ She leaned toward Lady Violet. ‘Raised in Dublin, you know. Irish Catholic, no less.’

I peeked at Myra, offering sugar cubes, and noticed her back stiffen. She caught my glance and shot me a hot scowl.

‘Well,’ Fanny continued, ‘Margery’s holidaying with family by the seaside and she said when she met her mother at the station, the trains were absolutely packed with reservists rushing back to their headquarters. It’s ever so exciting.’

‘Fanny darling,’ Lady Violet said, looking up from the coffee pot, ‘I do think it’s rather in poor taste to wish a war merely for excitement. Wouldn’t you agree, James dear?’

The Major, standing by the unlit fire, straightened himself. ‘While I don’t agree with Fanny’s motivation, I must say I share her sentiment. I for one hope we do go to war. The whole continent’s got itself into a damnable mess-excuse my strong language, Mother, Lady Clem, but it has. They need good old Britannia to get in there and sort it out. Give those Huns a jolly good shake-up.’

A general cheer went up around the room and Jemima clasped the Major’s arm, gazed up adoringly, button eyes aglow.

Old Lord Ashbury puffed his pipe excitedly. ‘A bit of sport,’ he proclaimed, leaning back against his chair. ‘Nothing like a war to sort the men from the boys.’

Mr Frederick shifted in his seat, took the coffee that Lady Violet offered and set about loading tobacco into his pipe.

‘What about you, Frederick,’ Fanny said coyly. ‘What will you do if war comes? You won’t stop making motor cars, will you? It would be such a shame if there were no more lovely motor cars just because of a silly war. I shouldn’t like to go back to using a carriage.’

Mr Frederick, embarrassed by Fanny’s flirtation, plucked a stray piece of tobacco from his trouser leg. ‘I shouldn’t worry. Motor cars are the way of the future.’ He tamped his pipe and murmured to himself, ‘God forbid a war should inconvenience senseless ladies with little to do.’

At that moment the door opened and Hannah, Emmeline and David spilled into the room, faces still lit with exhilaration. The girls had changed from their costumes and were back in matching white dresses with sailor collars.

‘Jolly good show,’ Lord Ashbury said. ‘Couldn’t hear a word of it, but jolly good show.’

‘Well done, children,’ Lady Violet said. ‘Though perhaps you’ll let Grandmamma help with the selection next year?’

‘And you, Pa?’ said Hannah eagerly. ‘Did you enjoy the play?’

Mr Frederick avoided his mother’s gaze. ‘We’ll discuss the more creative parts later, eh?’

‘And what about you, David,’ trilled Fanny above the others. ‘We were just talking of the war. Will you be joining up if Britain enters? I think you’d make a dashing officer.’

David took a coffee from Lady Violet and sat down. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘I suppose I will. They say it’s a fellow’s one chance for a grand adventure.’ He eyed Hannah with a twinkle in his eye, perceiving the opportunity for a tease. ‘Strictly for lads I’m afraid, Hannah.’

Fanny shrieked with laughter, causing Lady Clementine’s eyelids to quiver. ‘Oh David, how silly. Hannah wouldn’t want to go to war. How ridiculous.’

‘I certainly should,’ Hannah said fiercely.

‘But my dear,’ Lady Violet said, flummoxed, ‘you wouldn’t have any clothes to fight in.’

‘She could wear jodhpurs and riding boots,’ Fanny said.

‘Or a costume,’ Emmeline said. ‘Like the one she wore in the play. Though maybe not the hat.’

Mr Frederick caught his mother’s censorious look and cleared his throat. ‘While Hannah’s sartorial dilemma makes for scintillating speculation, I must remind you it’s not a moot point. Neither she nor David will be going to war. Girls do not fight and David is not yet finished his studies. He’ll find some other way to serve King and country.’ He turned to David. ‘When you’ve completed Eton, been to Sandhurst, it’ll be a different matter.’

David’s chin set. ‘If I complete Eton and if I go to Sandhurst.’

The room quieted and someone cleared their throat. Mr Frederick tapped his spoon against his cup. After a protracted pause, he said, ‘David’s teasing. Aren’t you, boy?’ The silence stretched on. ‘Eh?’

David blinked slowly and I noticed his jaw tremble, ever so slightly. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Of course I am. Just trying to lighten things up; all this talk of war. It just wasn’t funny, I suppose. Apologies, Grandmamma. Grandfather.’ He nodded to each of them, and I noticed Hannah give his hand a squeeze.

Lady Violet smiled. ‘I quite agree with you David. Let’s not talk of a war that may never come. Here, try some more of Mrs Townsend’s lovely tartlets.’ She nodded to Myra who once again offered the tray around.

They sat for a moment, nibbling tartlets, the ship’s clock on the mantle marking time until someone could arrive at a subject as compelling as war. Finally, Lady Clementine said, ‘Never mind the fighting. The diseases are the real killers in wartime. It’s the battlefields, of course-breeding grounds for all manner of foreign plagues. You’ll see,’ she said dourly. ‘When the war comes, it’ll bring the poxes with it.’

‘If the war comes,’ David said.

‘But how will we know if it does?’ Emmeline said, blue eyes wide. ‘Will someone from the government come and tell us?’

Lord Ashbury swallowed a tartlet whole. ‘One of the chaps at my club said there’s to be an announcement any day.’

‘I feel just like a child on Christmas Eve,’ Fanny said, knotting her fingers. ‘Longing for the morning, anxious to wake up and open her presents.’

‘I shouldn’t get too excited,’ the Major said. ‘If Britain enters the war it’s likely to be over in a matter of months. Christmas at a stretch.’

‘Nonetheless,’ Lady Clementine said. ‘I’m writing to Lord Gifford first thing tomorrow to advise him my preferred funeral program. I’d suggest the rest of you do likewise. Before it’s too late.’

I had never heard a person discuss their own funeral before, let alone plan it. Indeed, Mother would have said it was terribly bad luck and made me throw salt over my shoulder to bring back the good. I gazed at Lady Clementine in wonder. Myra had mentioned her gloomy sensibilities-it was rumoured downstairs that she had leaned over the newborn Emmeline’s crib and declared matter-offactly that such a beautiful babe was surely not long for this world. Even so, I was shocked.

The Hartfords, by contrast, were clearly accustomed to her dire pronouncements, for not one amongst them so much as flinched.

Hannah’s eyes widened in mock offence. ‘You can’t mean you don’t trust us to make the best possible arrangements on your behalf, Lady Clementine?’ She smiled sweetly and took the old lady’s hand. ‘I for one would be honoured to make sure you were given the send-off you deserve.’

‘Indeed,’ Lady Clementine puffed. ‘If you don’t organise such occasions yourself, you never know into whose hands the task may fall.’ She looked pointedly at Fanny and sniffed so that her large nostrils flared. ‘Besides, I’m very particular about such events. I’ve been planning mine for years.’

‘Have you?’ Lady Violet said, genuinely interested.

‘Oh, yes,’ Lady Clementine said. ‘It’s one of the most important public proceedings in a person’s life and mine will be nothing short of spectacular.’

‘I look forward to it,’ said Hannah dryly.

‘As well you might,’ Lady Clementine said. ‘One can’t afford to put on a bad show these days. People aren’t as forgiving as they once were and one doesn’t want a bad review.’

‘I didn’t think you approved of newspaper reviews, Lady Clementine?’ Hannah said, earning a warning frown from Pa.

‘Not as a rule, I don’t,’ Lady Clementine said. She pointed a jewel-laden finger at Hannah, then Emmeline, then Fanny. ‘Aside from her marriage, her obituary is the only time a lady’s name should appear in the newspaper.’ She cast her eyes skyward. ‘And God help her if the funeral is savaged in the press, for she won’t get a second chance the following season.’

After the theatrical triumph, only the midsummer’s dinner remained before the visit could be declared a resounding success. It was to be the climax of the week’s activities. A final extravagance before the guests departed and stillness returned once more to Riverton. Dinner guests (including, Mrs Townsend divulged, Lord Ponsonby, one of the King’s cousins) were expected from as far away as London, and Myra and I, under Mr Hamilton’s careful scrutiny, had spent all afternoon laying table in the dining room.

We set for twenty, Myra annunciating each item as she placed it: tablespoon for soup, fish knife and fork, two knives, two large forks, four crystal wine glasses of varying proportions. Mr Hamilton followed us around the table with his tape measure and cloth, ensuring each cover was the requisite foot apart, and that his own distorted reflection gleamed back at him from every spoon. Down the centre of the white linen cloth we trailed ivy and arranged red roses around crystal compotes of glistening fruit. These decorations pleased me; they were so pretty and matched perfectly Her Ladyship’s best dinner service, a wedding gift, Myra said, hand-painted in Hungary, with vines, apples and crimson peonies, and lined with real gold.

We positioned the place cards, lettered in Lady Violet’s finest hand, according to her carefully sketched seating plan. The importance of placement, Myra advised, could not be overestimated. Indeed, according to her, the success or failure of a dinner party hinged entirely on the seating arrangement. Evidently Lady Violet’s reputation as a ‘perfect’ hostess, rather than merely a ‘good’ one, resulted from her ability to first invite the right people and then seat them prudently, peppering the witty and entertaining amongst the dull but important.

I am sorry to say I did not witness the midsummer dinner of 1914, for if cleaning the drawing room was a privilege, then serving at table was the highest honour, and certainly beyond my modest place. On this occasion, much to Myra’s chagrin, even she was to be denied the pleasure, by reason of Lord Ponsonby being known to abhor female servants at table. Myra was soothed somewhat by Mr Hamilton’s decree that she should still serve upstairs, remaining hidden in the dining-room nook to receive the plates he and Alfred cleared then feed them downstairs on the dumb waiter. This, Myra reasoned, would at least grant her partial access to the dinner-party gossip. She would know what was said, if not by and to whom.

It was my duty, Mr Hamilton said, to position myself downstairs next to the dumb waiter. This I did, trying not to mind Alfred’s jibes about the suitability of this partnership. He was always making jokes: they were well-meant and the other staff seemed to know how to laugh, but I was inexperienced with such friendly teasing, was used to keeping to myself. I couldn’t help shrinking when attention turned on me.

I watched with wonder as course after course of splendid fare disappeared up the chute-mock turtle soup, fish, sweetbreads, quail, asparagus, potatoes, apricot pies, blancmange-to be replaced with dirty plates and empty platters.

While upstairs the guests sparkled, deep beneath the dining room Mrs Townsend had the kitchen steaming and whistling like one of the shiny new engines that had started to run through the village. She volleyed between workbenches, shifting her considerable heft at a furious pace, stoking the stove fire until beads of perspiration trickled down her flushed cheeks, clapping her hands and decrying, in a practised show of false modesty, the crisp golden pastry crusts on her pies. The only person who seemed immune to the contagious excitement was the wretched Katie, who wore her misery on her face, the first half of the evening spent peeling untold numbers of potatoes, the second scrubbing untold numbers of pans.

Finally, when the coffee pots, cream jugs and basins of crystallised sugar had been sent up on a silver salver, Mrs Townsend untied her apron, a symbol to the rest of us that the evening’s business was all but ended. She hung it on a hook by the stove and tucked the long grey hairs that had worked themselves loose back into the remarkable twist atop her head.

‘Katie?’ she called, wiping her warm forehead. ‘Katie?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know! That girl is always underfoot but never to be found.’ She tottered to the servants’ table, eased herself into her seat and sighed.

Katie appeared at the doorway, clutching a dripping cloth. ‘Yes, Mrs Townsend?’

‘Oh, Katie,’ Mrs Townsend scolded, pointing at the floor. ‘Whatever are you thinking, girl?’

‘Nothing, Mrs Townsend.’

‘Nothing’s about right. You’re wetting all over.’ Mrs Townsend shook her head and sighed. ‘Get away with you now and find a towel to wipe that up. Mr Hamilton will have your neck if he sees that mess.’

‘Yes, Mrs Townsend.’

‘And when you’re finished you can make us all a nice pot of hot cocoa.’

Katie shuffled back toward the kitchen, almost colliding with Alfred as he bounded down the stairs, all arms, legs and exuberance. ‘Whoops, watch it Katie, you’re lucky I didn’t topple you.’ He swung round the corner and grinned, his face as open and eager as a baby’s. ‘Good evening, ladies.’

Mrs Townsend removed her glasses. ‘Well? Alfred?’

‘Well, Mrs Townsend?’ he said, brown eyes wide.

‘Well?’ She flapped her fingers. ‘Don’t leave us all in suspense.’

I sat down at my place, easing off my shoes and stretching my toes. Alfred was twenty-tall, with lovely hands and a warm voice-and had been in service to Lord and Lady Ashbury all his working life. I believe Mrs Townsend held a particular fondness for him, though certainly she never ventured so much herself and I would not then have dared to ask.

‘Suspense?’ Alfred said. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mrs Townsend.’

‘Don’t know what I mean, my foot.’ She shook her head. ‘How did it all go? Did they say anything that might interest me?’

‘Oh, Mrs Townsend,’ Alfred said, ‘I shouldn’t say until Mr Hamilton gets downstairs. It wouldn’t be right, would it?’

‘Now you listen here my boy,’ Mrs Townsend said, ‘alls I’m asking is how Lord and Lady Ashbury’s guests enjoyed their meals. Mr Hamilton can hardly mind that now, can he?’

‘I really couldn’t say, Mrs Townsend.’ Alfred winked at me, causing my cheeks to ripen. ‘Although I did happen to notice Lord Ponsonby having a second helping of your potatoes.’

Mrs Townsend smiled into her knotted hands and nodded to herself. ‘I heard it from Mrs Davis, who cooks for Lord and Lady Bassingstoke, that Lord Ponsonby was special fond of potatoes à la crème.’

‘Fond? The others were lucky he left them any.’

Mrs Townsend gasped but her eyes shone. ‘Alfred, you’re wicked to say such things. If Mr Hamilton heard… ’

‘If Mr Hamilton heard what?’ Myra appeared at the door and took her seat, unpinning her cap.

‘I was just telling Mrs Townsend how well the ladies and gents enjoyed their dinner,’ said Alfred.

Myra rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve never seen the plates come back so empty; Grace’ll vouch for that.’ I nodded as she continued. ‘It’s up to Mr Hamilton, of course, but I’d say you’ve outdone yourself, Mrs Townsend.’

Mrs Townsend smoothed her blouse over her considerable bust. ‘Well, of course,’ she said smugly, ‘we all do our part.’ The jiggling of porcelain drew our attention to the door. Katie was inching around the corner, gripping tightly a tray of teacups. With each step, cocoa slopped over the cup rims and pooled on the saucers.

‘Oh Katie,’ Myra said as the tray was jolted onto the table. ‘You’ve made a real mess of that. Look what she’s done, Mrs Townsend.’

Mrs Townsend cast her gaze upwards. ‘Sometimes I think I waste my time on that girl.’

‘Oh, Mrs Townsend,’ Katie moaned. ‘I try my best, I really do. I didn’t mean to-’

‘Mean to what, Katie?’ Mr Hamilton said, clipping down the stairs and into the room. ‘Whatever have you done now?’

‘Nothing, Mr Hamilton, I only meant to bring the cocoa.’

‘And you’ve brought it, you silly girl,’ Mrs Townsend said. ‘Now get back and finish those plates. You’ll have let the water go cold now, you see if you haven’t.’

She shook her head as Katie disappeared up the hall, then turned to Mr Hamilton and beamed. ‘Well, have they all gone then, Mr Hamilton?’

‘They have, Mrs Townsend. I just saw the last guests, Lord and Lady Denys, to their motor car.’

‘And the family?’ she asked.

‘The ladies have retired to bed. His Lordship, the Major and Mr Frederick are finishing their sherry in the drawing room and will see themselves up presently.’ Mr Hamilton rested his hands on the back of his chair and paused for a moment, gazing into the distance the way he always did when he was about to impart important information. The rest of us took our seats and waited.

Mr Hamilton cleared his throat. ‘You should all be most proud. The dinner was a great success and the Master and Mistress well pleased.’ He smiled primly. ‘Indeed, the Master has given his very kind permission for us to open a bottle of champagne and share it amongst ourselves. A token of his appreciation, he said.’

There was a flurry of excited applause while Mr Hamilton fetched a bottle from the cellar and Myra found some glasses. I sat very quietly, hoping I might be permitted a glass. All this was new to me: Mother and I had never had much cause for celebration.

When he reached the last flute, Mr Hamilton peered over his glasses and down his long nose at me. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘I think even you might be allowed a small glass tonight, young Grace. It isn’t every night the Master entertains in such grand fashion.’

I took the glass gratefully as Mr Hamilton held his aloft. ‘A toast,’ he said. ‘To all who live and serve in this house. May we live long and graciously.’

We clinked glasses and I leaned back against my chair, sipping champagne and savouring the tang of bubbles against my lips. Throughout my long life, whenever I have had occasion to drink champagne I have been reminded of that evening in the servants’ hall at Riverton. It is a peculiar energy that accompanies a shared success, and Lord Ashbury’s bubble of praise had burst over all of us, leaving our cheeks warm and our hearts glad. Alfred smiled at me over his glass and I smiled back shyly. I listened while the others replayed the night’s events in vivid detail: Lady Denys’s diamonds, Lord Harcourt’s modern views on matrimony, Lord Ponsonby’s penchant for potatoes à la crème.

A shrill ring jolted me from contemplation. Everyone else fell silent around the table. We looked at one another, puzzled, until Mr Hamilton jumped from his seat. ‘Why. It’s the telephone,’ he said, and hurried from the room.

Lord Ashbury had one of the first home telephone systems in England, a fact of which all who served in the house were immeasurably proud. The main receiver box was tucked away in Mr Hamilton’s pantry foyer so that he might, on such thrilling occasions as it rang, access it directly and transfer the call upstairs. Despite this well-organised system, such occasions rarely arose as regrettably few of Lord and Lady Ashbury’s friends had telephones of their own. Nonetheless, the telephone was regarded with an almost religious awe and visiting staff were always given reason to enter the foyer where they might observe first-hand the sacred object and, perforce, appreciate the superiority of the Riverton household.

It was little wonder then that the ringing of the phone rendered us all speechless. That the hour was so late turned astonishment into apprehension. We sat very still, ears strained, holding our collective breath.

‘Hello?’ Mr Hamilton called down the line. ‘Hello?’

Katie drifted into the room. ‘I just heard a funny noise. Ooh, you’ve all got champagne-’

‘Sshhh,’ came the united response. Katie sat down and set about chewing her tatty fingernails.

From the pantry we heard Mr Hamilton say, ‘Yes, this is the home of Lord Ashbury… Major Hartford? Why yes, Major Hartford is here visiting his parents… Yes, sir, right away. Who may I say is calling?… Just one moment, Captain Brown, while I connect you through.’

Mrs Townsend whispered loudly, knowingly, ‘Someone for the Major.’ And we all went back to listening. From where I sat I could just glimpse Mr Hamilton’s profile through the open door: neck stiff, mouth down-turned.

‘Hello, sir,’ Mr Hamilton said into the receiver. ‘I’m most sorry to interrupt your evening, sir, but the Major is wanted on the telephone. It’s Captain Brown, calling from London, sir.’

Mr Hamilton fell silent but remained by the phone. It was his habit to hold onto the earpiece a moment, that he might ensure the call’s recipient had picked up and the call was not cut off short.

As he waited, listening, I noticed his fingers tighten on the receiver. Can I really remember that? Or is it hindsight that makes me say his body tensed and his breathing seemed to quicken?

He hung up quietly, carefully, and straightened his jacket. He returned slowly to his place at the head of the table and remained standing, his hands gripping the back of his chair. He gazed around the table, taking each of us in. Finally, gravely, he said:

‘Our worst fears are realised. As of eleven o’clock this eve, Great Britain is at war. May God keep us all.’

I am crying. After all these years I have begun crying for them. Strange. It was all so long ago, and they were none of them family, yet warm tears seep from my eyes, following the lines of my face until the air dries them, sticky and cool against my skin.

Sylvia is with me again. She has brought a tissue and uses it to mop cheerfully at my face. To her these tears are a simple matter of faulty plumbing. Yet another inevitable, innocuous sign of my great age.

She doesn’t know I cry for the changing times. That just as I reread favourite books, some small part of me hoping for a different ending, I find myself hoping against hope that the war will never come. That this time, somehow, it will leave us be.

WINTER EDITION, 1998

NEWS IN BRIEF

Author’s Wife Dies: Inspector Adams Novels Halted

LONDON: Fans eagerly awaiting the sixth instalment in the popular Inspector Adams novels will have a long wait on their hands. Author Marcus McCourt has reportedly stopped work on the novel, Death in the Cauldron, after the sudden death of his wife, Rebecca McCourt, last October, from an aneurism.

McCourt could not be reached for comment, but a source close to the couple has told MM that the usually approachable author refuses to discuss his wife’s death and has suffered writer’s block since it happened. McCourt’s UK publisher, Raymes & Stockwell, refused to comment.

McCourt’s first five Inspector Adams novels were recently sold to American publishers Foreman Lewis for an undisclosed sum thought to total seven figures. Crime Will Tell will be published on the Hocador imprint and is scheduled for American release in Spring 1999. Copies can be pre-ordered on Amazon.

Rebecca McCourt was also a writer. Her debut novel, Purgatorio, is a fictionalised history of Mahler’s unfinished tenth symphony, and was short-listed for the 1996 Orange Prize for Literature.

Marcus and Rebecca McCourt had recently separated.

SAFFRON HIGH STREET

The rain is on its way. The bones in my lower back, more sensitive than any meteorologist’s equipment, have begun to throb. Last night I lay awake, my body aching: bone moaning to bone, whispered tales of long ago litheness. I arched and bowed my stiff old frame, hopelessly pursuing sleep. Nuisance became frustration, frustration became boredom, and boredom became terror. Terror that the night would never end and I would be trapped forever in its long, lonely tunnel.

I must eventually have slept, for this morning I woke, and as far as I can tell the one cannot be done without the other. I was still in bed, my nightie twisted about my middle, skin grimy with the night’s labour, when a girl with rolled-up shirt sleeves and a long thin plait that brushed her jeans bustled into my room and threw open the curtains, letting the light stream in. The girl was not Sylvia and thus I knew it must be Sunday.

The girl-Helen, read her name badge-bundled me into the shower, gripping my arm to steady me, mulberry fingernails burrowing into flaccid white skin. She flicked her plait over one shoulder and set about soaping my torso and limbs, scrubbing away the lingering film of night, humming a tune I do not know. When I was suitably sanitary she lowered me onto the plastic bath seat and left me alone to soak beneath the shower’s warm course. I clutched the lower rail with both hands and eased forward, sighing as the water rained relief over my knotted back.

With Helen’s assistance I was dried and dressed, powdered and processed, seated in the morning room by seven-thirty. I managed a piece of rubbery toast and a cup of tea before Ruth arrived to take me to church.

I am not overly religious. Indeed there have been times when all faith has deserted me, when I railed against a benevolent father who could allow such earthly horrors to beset his children. But I made my peace with God a long time ago. Age is the great mellower. Our relationship is easy now: we don’t speak often, but I know where to find him.

It is Lent, the period of soul-searching and repentance that always precedes Easter, and this morning the church pulpit was draped in purple. The sermon was pleasant enough, its subject guilt and forgiveness. (Fitting when one considers the endeavour I have decided to undertake.) The minister read from John 14, beseeching the congregation to resist the scaremongers who preach Millennial doom and to find instead an inner peace through Christ. ‘I am the way, the truth and the life,’ he read, ‘no man cometh unto the Father but by me.’ And then he bid us take our example from the faith of Christ’s Apostles at the dawn of the first millennium. With the exception of Judas, of course: there is not much to recommend itself in the traitor who betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver then hanged himself.

It is our habit, after church, to walk the short distance to the High Street for morning tea at Maggie’s. We always go to Maggie’s, though Maggie herself left town with a suitcase and her best friend’s husband many years ago. This morning, as we ambled down the gentle slope of Church Street, Ruth’s hand on my arm, I noticed the first eager buds emerging on the brambly hedgerows that line the path. The wheel has turned again and spring is on its way.

We rested for a moment on the timber seat beneath the hundred-year Elm whose mammoth trunk forms the junction of Church and Saffron High streets. The wintry sun flickered through the lacework of naked branches, thawing my back. Strange these clear, bright days in winter’s tail, when one can be hot and cold all at once.

When I was a girl, horses and carriages and hansom cabs rolled along these streets. Motor cars too, after the war: Austens and Tin Lizzies, with their goggle-eyed drivers and honking horns. The roads were dusty then, full of potholes and horse manure. Old ladies pushed spoke-wheeled perambulators and little boys with empty eyes sold newspapers out of boxes.

The salt seller always set up on the corner, where the petrol station is now. Vera Pipp: a wiry figure in a cloth cap, thin clay pipe permanently hanging off her lip. I used to hide behind Mother’s skirt, watching bug-eyed as Mrs Pipp used a big hook to heave slabs of salt onto her handcart, then a saw and knife to carve them into smaller pieces. She turned up in many a nightmare, with her clay pipe and shiny hook.

Across the street was the pawnbroker’s store, three telltale brass balls out front, same as every town across Britain at the dawn of the century. Mother and I visited every Monday to exchange our Sunday best for a few shillings. On Friday, when the mending money came through from the dress shop, she would send me back to collect the clothes, that we might have something to wear to church.

The grocer’s store was my favourite. It’s a photocopy place now-the last grocer shut up shop a decade or two ago when the supermarket was built out on Bridge Road. Back in my time it was run by a tall thin man with a thick accent and thicker eyebrows and his roly-poly wife, who made it their business to fill customers’ requests, no matter how unusual. Even during the war Mr Georgias was always able to find an extra packet of tea-for the right price. To my young eyes, the store was a wonderland. I used to peer through the window, drinking in the bright boxes of Horlicks malt powder and Huntley & Palmer ginger biscuits. Luxuries the likes of which we never had at home. On wide, smooth counters sat yellow blocks of butter and cheese, boxes of fresh eggs-still warm, sometimes-and dried beans, measured out on brass scales. Some days-the best days-Mother would bring a pot from home, which Mr Georgias would spoon full of black treacle…

Ruth tapped my arm and hoisted me to my feet and we set off again down Saffron High Street toward the faded red-and-white awning of Maggie’s. The scratchy blackboard menu boasted its customary array of ill-assorted modern fare-cappuccino grandes, Cajun chicken burgers, sun-dried-tomato pizzas-but we ordered the usual, two cups of English breakfast tea and a scone to share, and sat at the table by the window.

The girl who brought our order was new, both to Maggie’s and to waitressing I suspect, judging by the awkward way she clutched a saucer in each hand and balanced the scone plate on a trembling wrist.

Ruth looked on disapprovingly, raising her eyebrows at the inevitable pools of tea on the saucers. She was mercifully restrained, however, remaining tight-lipped as she planted paper napkins between our cups and saucers to soak up the spills.

We sipped in habitual silence until finally Ruth slid her plate across the table. ‘You have my half as well. You’re looking thin.’

I considered reminding her of Mrs Simpson’s advice, that a woman can never be too rich or too thin, but thought better of it. Her sense of humour, never abundant, has all but deserted her of late.

I am looking thin. My appetite has abandoned me. It is not that I don’t hunger so much as I don’t taste. And when one’s last brave tastebud curls up and dies, so does any lingering inducement to eat. It is ironic. After striving hopelessly in my youth to affect the fashionable ideal-thin arms, small breasts, no blood-it is now my lot. I am under no misapprehension, however, that it suits me as well as it did Coco Chanel.

Ruth dabbed at her mouth, chasing an invisible crumb across her lips, then cleared her throat, folding the napkin in half and in half again, and tucking it under her knife. ‘I need a prescription filled at the pharmacy,’ she said. ‘Are you happy to sit?’

‘A prescription?’ I said. ‘Why? What’s the matter?’ She is in her sixties, the mother of a grown man, and still my heart skips.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Not really.’ She stood stiffly then said in a low voice, ‘Just a little something to help me sleep.’

I nod; we both know why she doesn’t sleep. It sits between us, a shared sadness tied up neatly by our unspoken agreement not to discuss it. Or him.

Ruth rushed on, filling the silence. ‘You stay here while I dash across. It’s warm with the heating on.’ She gathered her handbag and coat and stood, considering me for a second. ‘Don’t you go wandering now, will you?’

I shook my head as she hurried to the door. It is Ruth’s abiding fear that I will disappear if left alone. I wonder where it is she imagines I am so eager to go.

Through the window I watched until she vanished amid the people rushing past. All different shapes and sizes. And colours, too, these days, even here in Saffron. What would Mrs Townsend have said?

A pink-cheeked child wandered by, rugged up like a blimp, dragging behind a busy parent. The child-he or she, it was difficult to tell-regarded me with large round eyes, burdened by none of the social compulsion to smile that afflicts most adults. Memory flashed. I was that child once, long ago, lagging behind my own mother as she hurried along the street. The memory brightened. We had walked by this very shop, although it hadn’t been a cafe then but a butcher’s. Ranks of cut meat on white marble slabs lined the window and beef carcases swayed over the sawdust-strewn floor. Mr Hobbins, the butcher, had waved at me, and I remembered wishing Mother would stop, that we would take home with us a lovely ham hock to turn into soup.

I lingered by the window, hoping, imagining the soup-ham, leek and potato-bubbling atop our wood stove, filling our tiny kitchen with its salty film of steam. So vivid was my imagining I could smell the broth that it almost hurt.

But Mother didn’t stop. She didn’t even hesitate. As the tip-tap of her heels drew further and further away, I was seized by an overwhelming instinct to frighten her, to punish her because we were poor, to make her think I was lost.

I stayed where I was, certain she would soon realise I was missing and rush back. Maybe, just maybe, relief would overcome her and she’d decide gladly to purchase the hock…

All of a sudden I was wrenched about and dragged in the direction from which I’d come. It took me a moment to realise what was happening, that the button from my coat was caught in a well-dressed lady’s string bag and I was being led spiritedly away. I remember vividly my little hand reaching out to tap her broad, bustling bottom, only to withdraw, overcome with timidity, as all the while my feet pedalled fiercely to keep up. The other lady crossed the street then, and I with her, and I began to cry. I was lost and becoming more so with each hurried step. I would never see Mother again. Would instead be at the mercy of this strange lady with her fancy clothes.

Suddenly, on the other side of the road, I glimpsed Mother striding ahead amongst the other shoppers. Relief! I wanted to call out but was sobbing too much to catch my breath. I waved my arms, gasping, tears streaming.

Then Mother turned and saw. Her face froze, thin hand leapt to her flat chest, and within a moment she was at my side. The other lady, heretofore oblivious to the stowaway she dragged behind, was now alerted by the commotion. She turned and looked at us: my tall mother with her drawn face and faded skirt, and the tear-streaked urchin I must have seemed. She shook her bag then clutched it to her chest, horrified. ‘Get away! Get away from me or I’ll call for the constable.’

A number of people had caught the whiff of impending excitement and started to form a circle around us. Mother apologised to the lady, who looked at her the way one might a rat in the larder. Mother tried to explain what had happened, but the lady continued to withdraw. I had little choice but to follow, which caused her to squeal louder. Finally, the constable appeared and demanded to know what all the ruckus was about.

‘She’s trying to steal my bag,’ the lady said, pointing a shaking finger at me.

‘That so?’ said the constable.

I shook my head, my voice still lost, certain I was to be arrested.

Then Mother explained what had happened, about my button and the string bag, and the constable nodded and the lady frowned doubtfully. Then they all looked down at the string bag and saw that my button was indeed caught, and the constable told Mother to help me free.

She untangled my button, thanked the constable, apologised again to the lady, then stared at me. I waited to see whether she would laugh or cry. As it turns out, she did both, but not right then. She gripped my brown coat and led me away from the dispersing crowd, stopping only when we turned the corner of Railway Street. As the train bound for London pulled out of the station, she turned to me and hissed: ‘You wicked girl. I thought I’d lost you. You’ll be the death of me, you hear? Do you want that? To kill your own mother?’ Then she straightened my coat, shook her head, and took my hand, holding it so tightly it almost hurt. ‘Sometimes I wish I’d made them take you at the Foundling Hospital after all, so help me God.’

It was a common refrain when I was naughty and no doubt the threat contained more than a grain of true feeling. Certainly there were plenty would agree she’d have been better off to have left me at the Foundling. There was nothing so certain as pregnancy to lose a woman her place in service, and Mother’s life since my arrival had been a litany of scraping by and making do.

I was told the story of my escape from the Foundling orphanage so many times I sometimes believed I was born knowing it. Mother’s train journey to Russell Square in London, with me wrapped and tucked within her coat for warmth, had become for us a legend of sorts. The walk down Grenville Street and into Guilford Street, folks shaking their heads, knowing full well where she was headed with her tiny parcel. The way she’d recognised the Foundling building from far up the street by the crowd of other young women like herself who milled about outside, swaying dazedly with their mewling babes. Then, most important, the sudden voice, clear as day (God, said Mother; foolishness, said my Aunt Dee), telling her to turn around, that it was her duty to keep her wee baby. The moment, according to family lore, for which I should be eternally grateful.

On that morning, the day of the button and the string bag, Mother’s mention of the Foundling Hospital moved me to silence. Though not, as she doubtless believed, because I was reflecting on my good fortune at having been spared its confinement. Rather, I was drifting along the well-trod paths of a favourite childhood fantasy. It cheered me no end to imagine myself at Coram’s Foundling Hospital, singing away amongst the other children. I should have had lots of brothers and sisters with whom to play then, not just a tired and cranky mother whose face was lined with disappointments. One of which I feared was me.

A presence at my shoulder pulled me back down memory’s long passage. I turned to look at the young woman by my side. It was a moment before I recognised her as the waitress who had brought the tea. She was watching me expectantly.

I blinked, focusing. ‘I think my daughter has already fixed up the bill.’

‘Oh yes,’ said the young girl, her voice soft and Irish. ‘Yes she has. Fixed up when she ordered.’ But still she didn’t move.

‘Is there something else then?’ I said.

She swallowed. ‘It’s just that Sue in the kitchen says that you’re the grandmother of… that is, she says that your grandson is… is Marcus McCourt, and I’m really, truly his biggest fan. I just love Inspector Adams; I’ve read every single one.’

Marcus. The little moth of sorrow fluttered in my chest, the way it always does when someone speaks his name. I smiled at her. ‘That’s very nice to hear. My grandson would be pleased.’

‘I was ever so sorry to read about his wife.’

I nodded.

She hesitated, and I braced for the questions I knew were coming, that always came: was he still writing the next Inspector Adams, would it be published soon? I was surprised when decency, or timidity, beat out curiosity. ‘Well… it was nice meeting you,’ she said. ‘I’d better get back to work or Sue’ll go berserk.’ She made to leave then turned back. ‘You will tell him, won’t you? Tell him how much the books mean to me, to all his fans?’

I gave her my word, though I don’t know when I will be able to make good on it. Like most of his generation, he is globetrotting. Unlike his peers, it is not adventure he craves, but distraction. He has disappeared inside a cloud of his own grief and I cannot guess his whereabouts. The last I heard was months ago. A postcard of the Statue of Liberty, postmarked California, dated last year. The message simply: Happy Birthday, M.

No, it is not so simple as grief. It is guilt that chases him. Misplaced guilt over Rebecca’s death. He blames himself, believes that if he hadn’t left her, things might have gone differently. I worry for him. I understand well the peculiar guilt of tragedy’s survivors.

Through the window, I could see Ruth across the street; she’d got caught talking with the minister and his wife and hadn’t yet reached the pharmacy. With great effort, I eased myself to the edge of my seat, hooked my handbag over my arm and clutched my cane. Legs trembling, I stood. I had an errand to run.

The haberdasher, Mr Butler, has a tiny shopfront on the main street; little more than a hint of striped awning sandwiched between the bakery and a shop selling candles and incense. But beyond the red timber door, with its shiny brass knocker and silver bell, a trove of diverse items belies the modest entrance. Men’s hats and ties, school bags and leather luggage, saucepans and hockey sticks, all jostle for space in the deep, narrow store.

Mr Butler is a short man of about forty-five, with a vanishing hairline and, I noticed, a vanishing waistline. I remember his father, and his father before him, though I don’t ever say so. The young, I have learned, are embarrassed by tales of long ago. This morning he smiled over his glasses and told me how well I was looking. When I was younger, still in my eighties, vanity would have had me believe him. Now I recognise such comments as kindly expressions of surprise I’m still alive. I thanked him anyway-the comment was well-meant-and asked whether he had a tape-recorder.

‘To listen to music?’ said Mr Butler.

‘I wish to speak into it,’ I said. ‘Record my words.’

He hesitated, likely wondering what I could possibly be meaning to tell the tape-recorder, then pulled a small black object from his display. ‘This one ought to do you. It’s called a walkman, all the kids are using them these days.’

‘Yes,’ I said hopefully. ‘That looks the thing.’

He must have sensed my inexperience, for he launched into explanation. ‘It’s easy. You press this one, then talk into here.’ He leaned forward and indicated a patch of gauze metal on the side of the machine. I could almost taste the camphor on his suit. ‘That there’s the microphone.’

Ruth was still not back from the pharmacy when I reached Maggie’s. Rather than risk more of the waitress’s questions, I pulled my coat around me and wilted onto the bus seat outside. The exertion had left me breathless.

A cold breeze brought with it a cluster of forgotten items: a confectionary wrapper, some dried leaves, a brown and green duck’s feather. They danced along the reaches of the street, resting then twirling in step with each gust. At one point, the feather reeled on ahead, embraced by a partner more vigorous than the last, which lifted it and sent it pirouetting up over the shop rooves and out of sight.

I thought of Marcus, dancing across the globe in the grip of some unruly tune from which he can’t escape. It doesn’t take much these days, to bring Marcus to mind. In recent nights he has been a constant trespasser on my thoughts. Pressed like an exhausted summer flower, between images of Hannah and Emmeline and Riverton: my grandson. Out of time and out of place. One moment a small boy with dewy skin and wide eyes, the next a grown man, hollowed by love and its loss.

I want to see his face again. Touch it. His lovely, familiar face, etched as all faces are by the efficient hands of history. Coloured with ancestors and a past he knows little about.

He will return one day, of that I’ve little doubt, for home is a magnet that lures back even its most abstracted children. But whether tomorrow or years from now, I cannot guess. And I haven’t time to wait. I find myself in time’s cold waiting room, shivering as ancient ghosts and echoing voices recede.

That is why I’ve decided to make him a tape. Maybe more than one. I am going to tell him a secret, an old secret, long kept. Something no one knows but me.

Initially I thought to write, but having found a ream of yellowed notepaper and a black biro, my fingers failed me. Willing but useless collaborators, capable only of transmuting my thoughts into illegible spidery scrawl.

It was Sylvia who made me think of a tape-recorder. She came across my note paper during one of her occasional cleaning sprees, timed to avoid the demands of an unfavoured patient.

‘Been drawing, have you?’ She’d said, holding the note paper aloft, turning it sideways and inclining her head. ‘Very modern. Quite nice. What’s it supposed to be?’

‘A letter,’ I said.

It was then she told me about Bertie Sinclair’s method of recording and receiving letters to play on his cassette machine. ‘And I don’t mind saying he’s been much easier since. Less demanding. If he starts complaining about his lumbago I only have to plug him in, set him off listening to one of his tapes, and he’s happy as a lark.’

I sat on the bus seat, turning the parcel over in my hands, thrilling at the possibilities. I would start as soon as I got home.

Ruth waved at me from across the street, smiled a grim smile and started across the pedestrian strip, tucking a pharmacy package into her handbag. ‘Mum,’ she scolded as she drew near. ‘What are you doing out here in the cold?’ She looked quickly from side to side. ‘People will think I made you wait out here.’ She scooped me up and led me back along the street to her car, my soft-soled shoes silent beside her tapping court heels.

On the drive back to Heathview I watched out the window as street upon street of grey-stone cottages slipped past. In one of them, midway along, nestled quietly between two identical others, is the house in which I was born. I glanced at Ruth, but if she noticed she did not say. No reason she should, of course. We pass that way each Sunday.

As we wove along the narrow road and village became countryside, I held my breath-just a little-the way I always do.

Just beyond Bridge Road we turned a corner, and there it was. The entrance to Riverton. The lace-winged gates, as tall as lampposts, doorway to the whispering tunnel of ancient trees. The gates have been painted white, no longer the gleaming silver of yesteryear. There is a sign affixed now, alongside the cast-iron curls that spell ‘Riverton’. It reads: Open to the public. March-October. 10 am-4 pm. Admission: adults £4, children £2. No pass outs.

The tape-recording took a little practice. Sylvia, thankfully, was on hand to help. She held the machine before my mouth and I spoke, at her behest, the first thing that came to mind. ‘Hello… hello. This is Grace Bradley speaking… Testing. One. Two. Three.’

Sylvia withdrew the walkman and grinned, ‘Very professional.’ She pressed a button and there came a whirring. ‘I’m just rewinding so we can hear it back.’

There was a click as the tape returned to its start. She pressed ‘play’ and we both waited.

It was the voice of age: faint, worn, almost invisible. A pale ribbon, frayed so that only brittle silver threads survive. Only the merest flecks of me, my real voice, the one I hear in my head and in my dreams.

‘Great,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Sing out if you need me.’

She made to leave and I was beset, suddenly, by a sense of nervous expectation.

‘Sylvia-’

She turned. ‘What is it, darl?’

‘What will I say?’

‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ She laughed. ‘Pretend he’s sitting here with you. Just tell him what’s on your mind.’

And that is what I did, Marcus. I imagined you on the end of my bed, stretched across my feet as you liked to lie when you were little, and I began to speak. I told you some of what I’ve been doing, about the film and Ursula. I treaded cautiously about your mother, saying only that she misses you. That she longs to see you.

And I told you about the memories I’ve been having. Not all of them; I have a purpose and it isn’t to bore you with tales from my past. Rather I told you about the curious sensation that they are becoming more real to me than my life. The way I slip away without warning, am disappointed when I open my eyes to see that I am back in 1999; the way the fabric of time is changing, and I am beginning to feel at home in the past and a visitor to this strange and blanched experience we agree to call the present.

A funny feeling, to sit, alone in one’s room, and talk to a small black box. At first I whispered, concerned that the others would hear. That my voice and its secrets would drift down the corridor to the morning room, like a ship’s horn floating forlornly into a foreign port. But when Matron popped in with my tablets, her look of surprise set my mind at ease.

She has gone now. The pills I have put on the windowsill beside me. I will take them later, but for now I need to be clear-headed.

I am watching the sun set over the heath. I like to follow its path as it slips silently behind the far-off band of trees. Today I blink and miss its last farewell. When my eyes open, the ultimate moment has passed and the shimmering crescent has disappeared, leaving the sky bereft: a clear, cold blue, lacerated by streaks of frosty white. The heath itself shivers in the sudden shadow, and in the distance a train sneaks through the valley fog, electric brakes moaning as it turns toward the village. I glance at my wall clock. It is the six o’clock train, filled with people returning from work in Chelmsford and Brentwood and even London.

I see the station in my mind. Not as it is, perhaps, but as it was. The big round station clock suspended over the platform, its steadfast face and diligent hands a stern reminder that time and the trains wait for no man. It has probably been replaced now with a blank, blinking digital device. I wouldn’t know. It has been a long time since I visited the station.

I see it as it was the morning we waved Alfred off to war. Strings of paper triangles, red and blue, flirting with the breeze, children racing up and down, weaving in and out, blowing tin whistles and waving Union Jacks. Young men-such young men-starched and eager in their new uniforms and clean boots. And, snaked along the track, the glistening train, anxious to be on its way. To spirit its unsuspecting passengers to a hell of mud and death.

But enough of that. I jump too far ahead.

‘The lamps are going out all over Europe.

We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.’

Lord Grey, British foreign secretary

3 AUGUST 1914

IN THE WEST

Nineteen-fourteen slipped toward nineteen-fifteen, and with each passing day went any chance that the war would end by Christmas. A gunshot in a faraway land had sent tremors across the plains of Europe and the sleeping giant of centuries-old rancour had awoken. Major Hartford was recalled to service, dusted off along with other heroes of long-forgotten campaigns, while Lord Ashbury moved into his London flat and joined the Bloomsbury Home Guard. Mr Frederick, unfit for armed service on account of a bout of pneumonia in the winter of 1910, swapped motor cars for war planes and was issued a special government badge announcing his valuable contribution to a vital war industry. It was cold comfort, said Myra, who knew about such things, it having always been a dream of Mr Frederick’s to serve with the military.

History tells that as 1915 unravelled, the war’s true character began to emerge. But history is a faithless teller whose cruel recourse to hindsight makes fools of its actors. For while in France young men battled fear undreamt of, at Riverton 1915 passed much as 1914 had before it. We were aware, of course, that the Western Front had reached a stalemate-Mr Hamilton kept us well fed with his zealous recitations of the newspaper’s grisly fare-and certainly there were enough minor inconveniences to keep folks shaking their heads and tut-tutting the war, but these were tempered by the tremendous flurry of purpose the conflict gave those for whom daily life had become staid. Who welcomed the new arena in which to prove their value.

Lady Violet joined and formed countless committees: from the locating of suitable billets for suitable Belgian refugees, to the organising of motor-car excursions for convalescing officers. All across Britain young women (and some of the younger boys too) did their bit for national defence, taking up knitting needles against a sea of troubles, producing a deluge of scarves and socks for the boys at the front. Fanny, unable to knit but anxious to impress Mr Frederick with her patriotism, threw herself into the coordination of such enterprises, organising for knitted goods to be boxed and mailed to France. Even Lady Clementine showed a rare community spirit, billeting one of Lady Violet’s sanctioned Belgians-an elderly lady with poor English but fine enough manners to mask the fact-whom Lady Clementine proceeded to probe for all the most ghastly details of invasion.

As December approached, Lady Jemima, Fanny and the Hartford children were summoned to Riverton, where Lady Violet was determined to celebrate a traditional Christmas season. Fanny would have preferred to stay in London-far more exciting-but was unable to refuse the summons of a woman whose son she hoped to marry. (Never mind that the son himself was firmly stationed elsewhere and firmly set against her.) She had little choice but to steel herself to long winter weeks in country Essex. She managed to look bored as only the very young can and spent the time dragging herself from room to room, striking pretty poses on the off-chance Mr Frederick should make an unscheduled return home.

Jemima suffered by comparison, seemingly plumper and plainer than the year before. There was, however, one arena in which she outshone her counterpart: she was not only married, but married to a hero. When the Major’s letters arrived, carried solemnly by Mr Hamilton on a polished silver salver, Jemima was thrust centre stage. Receiving the letter with a gracious nod, she would pause a jot beneath respectfully lowered eyelids, sigh like endurance herself, then slit the envelope and seize its precious cargo. The letter would then be read in suitably solemn tones to a captivated (and captive) audience.

Meanwhile, upstairs, for Hannah and Emmeline time was dragging. They had already been at Riverton a fortnight, and with ghastly weather forcing them indoors, and no lessons to distract them (Miss Prince being engaged in war work), they were running out of things to do. They’d played every game they knew-cat’s cradle, jacks, goldminer (which as far as I could figure, required one to scratch a spot on the other’s arm until blood or boredom won out)-they’d helped Mrs Townsend with the Christmas baking until they were ill from pilfered pastry dough, and they’d coerced Nanny into unlocking the attic storeroom so they could climb amongst dusty, forgotten treasures. But it was The Game they longed to play. (I’d seen Hannah fossicking inside the Chinese box, re-reading old adventures when she thought no one was looking.) And for that they needed David, not due from Eton for another week.

On an afternoon in late November, while I was up in the drying room preparing the best tablecloths for Christmas, Emmeline burst in. She stood for a moment, scanning, then marched to the warm closet. She pulled the door open and a ring of soft candlelight spilled onto the floor. ‘Ah-ha!’ she said triumphantly. ‘I knew you’d be here.’

She held out her hands, uncurled her fingers to reveal two white sugar mice, sticky around the edges. ‘From Mrs Townsend.’

A long arm appeared from the dim inside; retreated with a mouse.

Emmeline licked her own gooey load. ‘I’m bored. What are you doing?’

‘Reading,’ came the response.

‘What are you reading?’

Silence.

Emmeline peered into the closet, wrinkled her nose. ‘War of the Worlds? Again?’

There was no answer.

Emmeline took another long, thoughtful lick of her sugar mouse, observed him from all angles, rubbed at a stray cotton thread that had adhered to his ear. ‘Hey!’ she said suddenly. ‘We could go to Mars! When David gets here.’

Silence.

‘There’ll be Martians, good ones and evil ones, and untold dangers.’

Like all younger siblings, Emmeline had made it her life’s work to master the predilections of her sister and brother; she didn’t need to look to know she’d hit her mark.

‘We’ll put it to the council,’ came the voice.

Emmeline squealed excitedly, clapped her sticky hands together and lifted a boot-clad foot to clamber into the closet. ‘And we can tell David it was my idea?’ she said.

‘Watch the candle.’

‘I can colour the map red instead of green, for a change. Is it true that trees are red on Mars?’

‘Of course they are; so is the water, and the soil, and the canals, and the craters.’

‘Craters?’

‘Big, deep, dark holes, where the Martians keep their children.’

An arm appeared and began to pull the door closed.

‘Like wells?’ said Emmeline.

‘But deeper. Darker.’

‘Why do they keep their children there?’

‘So no one sees the hideous experiments they’ve performed on them.’

‘What kind of experiments?’ came Emmeline’s breathless voice.

‘You’ll find out,’ said Hannah. ‘If David ever gets here.’

Downstairs, as ever, our lives were murky mirrors to those above.

One evening, when the household had all retired to bed, the staff gathered by the raging servants’ hall fire. Mr Hamilton and Mrs Townsend formed bookends either side, while Myra, Katie and I huddled between on dining chairs, squinting in the flickering firelight at the scarves we were dutifully knitting. A cold wind lashed against the windowpanes, and insurgent draughts set Mrs Townsend’s jars of dry goods to quivering on the kitchen shelf.

Mr Hamilton shook his head and cast aside The Times. He removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.

‘More bad news?’ Mrs Townsend looked up from the Christmas menu she was planning, cheeks red from the fire.

‘The worst, Mrs Townsend.’ He returned his glasses to the bridge of his nose. ‘More losses at Ypres.’ He rose from his seat and moved to the sideboard where he had spread out a map of Europe and which now hosted a score of miniature military figurines (David’s old set, I think, retrieved from the attic) representing different armies and different campaigns. He removed the Duke of Wellington from a point in France and replaced him with two German Hussars. ‘I don’t like this at all,’ he said to himself.

Mrs Townsend sighed. ‘And I don’t like this at all.’ She tapped her pen on the menu. ‘How am I supposed to prepare Christmas dinner for the family with no butter, or tea, or even turkey to speak of?’

‘No turkey, Mrs Townsend?’ Katie gaped.

‘Not so much as a wing.’

‘But whatever will you serve?’

Mrs Townsend shook her head, ‘Don’t go getting in a flap, now. I daresay I’ll manage, my girl. I always do, don’t I?’

‘Yes, Mrs Townsend,’ said Katie gravely. ‘I must say you do.’

Mrs Townsend peered down her nose, satisfied herself there was no irony intended, and returned her attention to the menu.

I was trying to concentrate on my knitting but when I dropped the third stitch in as many rows, I cast it aside, frustrated, and stood up. Something had been bothering me all evening. Something I had witnessed in the village that I didn’t rightly understand.

I straightened my apron and approached Mr Hamilton who, it seemed to me, knew just about everything.

‘Mr Hamilton?’ I said tentatively.

He turned toward me, peered over his glasses, the Duke of Wellington still pinched between two long tapered fingertips. ‘What is it, Grace?’

I glanced back to where the others sat, engaged in animated discussion.

‘Well girl?’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

I cleared my throat. ‘No, Mr Hamilton,’ I said. ‘It’s just… I wanted to ask you about something. Something I saw in the village today.’

‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Speak up, my girl.’

I glanced toward the door. ‘Where is Alfred, Mr Hamilton?’

He frowned. ‘Upstairs, serving sherry. Why? What’s Alfred got to do with all this?’

‘It’s just, I saw Alfred today, in the village-’

‘Yes,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘He was running an errand for me.’

‘I know, Mr Hamilton. I saw him. At McWhirter’s. And I saw when he came out of the store.’ I pressed my lips together. Some unaccountable reticence made me loath to speak the rest. ‘He was given a white feather, Mr Hamilton.’

‘A white feather?’ Mr Hamilton’s eyes widened and the Duke of Wellington was released unceremoniously onto the table.

I nodded, remembering Alfred’s shift in manner: the way he’d been stopped in his jaunty tracks. Had stood, dazed, feather in hand as passers-by slowed to whisper knowingly at one another. Had dropped his gaze and hurried away, shoulders bent and head low.

‘A white feather?’ To my chagrin, Mr Hamilton said this loudly enough to draw the attention of the others.

‘What’s that, Mr Hamilton?’ Mrs Townsend peered over her glasses.

He brushed a hand down his cheek and across his lips. Shook his head in disbelief. ‘Alfred was given a white feather.’

‘No,’ Mrs Townsend gasped, plump hand leaping to her chest. ‘He never was. Not a white feather. Not our Alfred.’

‘How do you know?’ Myra said.

‘Grace saw it happen,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘This morning in the village.’

I nodded, my heart beginning to race with the uneasy sense of having opened the Pandora’s box of someone else’s secret. Being unable now to close it.

‘It’s preposterous,’ Mr Hamilton said, straightening his waistcoat. He returned to his seat and hooked his spectacles over his ears. ‘Alfred is not a coward. He’s serving the war effort every day he helps keep this household running. He has an important position with an important family.’

‘But it’s not the same as fighting, is it Mr Hamilton?’ said Katie.

‘It most certainly is,’ blustered Mr Hamilton. ‘There’s a role for each of us in this war, Katie. Even you. It’s our duty to preserve the ways of this fine country of ours so that when the soldiers return victorious, the society they remember will be waiting for them.’

‘So even when I’m washing pots I’m helping the war effort?’ said Katie in wonderment.

‘Not the way you wash them,’ Mrs Townsend said.

‘Yes Katie,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘By keeping up with your duties, and by knitting your scarves, you’re doing your bit.’ He shot glances at Myra and me. ‘We all are.’

‘It doesn’t seem enough, if you ask me,’ Myra said, her head bowed.

‘What’s that, Myra?’ Mr Hamilton said.

Myra stopped knitting and laid her bony hands in her lap. ‘Well,’ she said cautiously, ‘take Alfred, for example. He’s a young fit man. Surely he’d be of better use helping the other boys what are over there in France? Anyone can pour sherry.’

‘Anyone can pour…?’ Mr Hamilton paled. ‘You of all people should know that domestic service is a skill to which not all are suited, Myra.’

Myra flushed. ‘Of course, Mr Hamilton. I never meant to suggest it was.’ She fidgeted with the marbles of her knuckles. ‘I… I suppose I’ve just been feeling a bit useless myself, of late.’

Mr Hamilton was about to denounce such feelings, when all of a sudden Alfred came clattering down the stairs and into the room. Mr Hamilton’s mouth dropped shut and we fell into a conspiracy of collective silence.

‘Alfred,’ Mrs Townsend said at last, ‘whatever’s the matter, racing down them stairs like that?’ She cast about and found me. ‘You scared poor Grace half to death. Poor girl nearly jumped out of her skin.’

I smiled weakly at Alfred, for I hadn’t been frightened at all. Merely surprised, like everyone else. And sorry. I should never have asked Mr Hamilton about the feather. I was becoming fond of Alfred: he was kind-hearted and had often taken time to draw me from my shell. To discuss his embarrassment while his back was turned made a fool of him somehow.

‘I’m sorry, Grace,’ Alfred said. ‘It’s just, Master David has arrived.’

‘Yes,’ Mr Hamilton said, looking at his watch, ‘as we expected. Dawkins was to collect him from the station off the ten o’clock train. Mrs Townsend has his supper ready, if you care to take it up.’

Alfred nodded, catching up his breath. ‘I know that, Mr Hamilton…’ He swallowed. ‘It’s just… Master David. He has someone with him. From Eton. I believe it’s Lord Hunter’s son.’

I take a breath. You once told me that there is a point in most stories from which there is no return. When all the central characters have made their way on stage and the scene is set for the drama to unfold. The storyteller relinquishes control and the characters begin to move of their own accord.

Robbie Hunter’s entrance brings this story to the edge of the Rubicon. Am I going to cross it? Perhaps it is not yet too late to turn back. To fold them all away, gently, between layers of tissue paper, in the boxes of my memory?

I smile, for I am no more able to stop this story than I am to halt the march of time. I am not romantic enough to imagine it wants to be told, but I am honest enough to acknowledge that I want to tell it.

And so, to Robbie Hunter.

Early next morning, Mr Hamilton called me to his pantry, closed the door gently behind and conferred on me a dubious honour. Every winter, each of the ten thousand books, journals and manuscripts housed in the Riverton library was removed, dusted and re-shelved. This annual ritual had been an institution since 1846. It was Lord Ashbury’s mother’s rule originally. She was mad for dust, said Myra, and she rightly had her reasons. For one night in the late autumn, Lord Ashbury’s little brother, a month shy of his third year and favoured by all who knew him, fell into a sleep from which he never awoke. Though she could find no doctor would support her claim, his mother was convinced that her youngest boy caught his death in the ancient dust that hung in the air. In particular she blamed the library, for that was where the two boys had spent the fateful day-playing make-believe amongst the maps and charts that described the voyages of long-ago forebears.

Lady Gytha Ashbury was not one to be trifled with. She put aside her grief to draw from the same well of courage and determination that saw her abandon her homeland, her family and her dowry for the sake of love. She declared immediate war; summoned her troops and commanded them banish the insidious adversaries. They cleaned day and night for a week before she was finally satisfied that the last hint of dust was vanquished. Only then did she weep for her tiny boy.

Each year thereafter, as the final coloured leaves fell from the trees outside, the ritual was scrupulously re-enacted. Even after her death, the custom remained. And in the year 1915, it was I who was charged with satisfying the former Lady Ashbury’s memory. (Partly, I’m sure, as penalty for having observed Alfred in town the day before. Mr Hamilton gave me no thanks for bringing the spectre of war shame home to Riverton.)

‘You will be released early from your usual duties this week, Grace,’ he said, smiling thinly from behind his desk. ‘Each morning you will proceed directly to the library where you will begin in the gallery and work your way down to the shelves on the ground level.’

Then he bid me equip myself with a pair of cotton gloves, a damp cloth and an acquiescence befitting the awesome tedium of the chore.

‘Remember Grace,’ he said, hands pressed firmly on his desk, fingers wide apart, ‘Lord Ashbury is very serious about dust. You have been given a great responsibility and one for which you should be thankful-’

His homily was interrupted by a knock at the pantry door.

‘Come in,’ he called, frowning down his long nose.

The door opened and Myra burst through, thin frame nervous as a spider’s. ‘Mr Hamilton,’ she said. ‘Come quickly, there’s something upstairs that needs your immediate attention.’

He stood directly, slipped his black coat from a hanger on the back of the door, and hurried up the stairs. Myra and I followed close behind.

There, in the main entrance hall, stood Dudley the gardener, fumbling his woollen hat from one chapped hand to the other. Lying at his feet, still ripe with sap, was an enormous Norway spruce, freshly hewn.

‘Mr Dudley,’ Mr Hamilton said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve brought the Christmas tree, Mr Hamilton.’

‘I can see that. But what are you doing here.’ He indicated the grand hall, dropping his gaze to take in the tree. ‘More importantly, what is this doing here? It’s huge.’

‘Aye, she’s a beauty,’ said Dudley gravely, looking upon the tree as another might a mistress. ‘I’ve had my eye on her for years, just biding my time, letting her reach her full glory. And this Christmas she’s all growed up.’ He looked solemnly at Mr Hamilton. ‘A little too growed up.’

Mr Hamilton turned to Myra. ‘What in heaven’s name is going on?’

Myra’s hands were clenched into fists by her side, her mouth drawn tight as a crosspatch. ‘It won’t fit, Mr Hamilton. He tried to stand it in the drawing room where it always goes, but it’s a foot too tall.’

‘But didn’t you measure it?’ Mr Hamilton said to the gardener.

‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Dudley. ‘But I never was much of a one for arithmetic.’

‘Then take out your saw and remove a foot, man.’

Mr Dudley shook his head sadly. ‘I would, sir, but I’m afeared there’s not a foot left to remove. The trunk’s already short as can be, and I can’t go taking none from the top now, can I?’ He looked at us plainly. ‘Where would the pretty angel sit?’

We all stood, pondering this predicament, the seconds yawning across the marble hall. Each of us aware the family would soon appear for breakfast. Finally, Mr Hamilton made a pronouncement. ‘I suppose there’s nothing for it then. Short of lopping the top and leaving the angel with neither perch nor purpose, we’ll have to stray from tradition-just this once-and erect it in the library.’

‘The library, Mr Hamilton?’ Myra said.

‘Yes. Beneath the glass dome.’ He looked witheringly at Dudley. ‘Where she’ll be sure and achieve her full postural opportunity.’

So it was, on the morning of 1 December 1915, as I perched high atop the library gallery at the furthest end of the furthest shelf, steeling myself to a week of dusting, a precocious pine stood glorious in the library centre, uppermost limbs pointing ecstatically to the heavens. I was level with her crown, and the fecund scent of pine was strong, impregnating the library’s lazy atmosphere of warm dustiness.

The gallery of the Riverton library ran lengthways, high above the room itself, and it was hard not to be distracted. Reluctance to begin is quick to befriend procrastination, and the view of the room below was tremendous. It is a universal truth that no matter how well one knows a scene, to observe it from above is something of a revelation. I stood by the railings and peered over, beyond the tree.

The library-usually so vast and imposing-took on the appearance of a stage set. Ordinary items-the Steinway and Sons grand piano, the oak writing desk, Lord Ashbury’s globe-were suddenly rendered smaller, ersatz versions of themselves, and gave the impression of having been arranged to suit a cast of players, yet to make its entrance.

The sitting area in particular bore a theatrical spirit of anticipation. The lounge at centre stage; the armchairs either side, pretty in William Morris skirts; the rectangle of winter sunlight that draped across the piano and onto the oriental rug. Props, all: patiently awaiting actors to take their marks. What kind of play would actors perform, I wondered, in such a setting as this? A comedy, a tragedy, a play of modern manners?

Thus I could happily have procrastinated all day, but for the persistent voice inside my ear, Mr Hamilton’s voice, reminding me of Lord Ashbury’s reputation for random dust inspections. And so, reluctantly, I abandoned such thoughts and withdrew the first book. Dusted it-front, back and spine-then replaced it and withdrew the second.

By mid-morning I had finished five of the ten gallery shelves and was poised to begin the next. A small mercy: having begun with the higher shelves, I had finally reached the lower and would be able to sit while I worked. After dusting hundreds of books, my hands had become practised, performing their task automatically, which was just as well, for my mind had numbed to a halt.

I had just plucked the sixth spine from the sixth shelf when an impertinent piano note, sharp and sudden, trespassed on the room’s winter stillness. I spun around involuntarily, peering down beyond the tree.

Standing at the piano, fingers brushing silently the ivory surface, was a young man I’d never seen before. I knew who he was, though; even then. It was Master David’s friend, from Eton. Lord Hunter’s son who’d arrived in the night.

He was handsome. But who amongst the young is not? With him it was something more. There are those who bring with them a sense of noise, of movement, but his was the beauty of stillness. Alone in the room, his dark eyes grave beneath a line of dark brows, he gave the impression of sorrow past, deeply felt and poorly mended. He was tall and lean, though not so as to appear lanky, and his brown hair fell longer than was the fashion, some ends escaping others to brush against his collar, his cheekbone.

I watched him survey the library, slowly, deliberately, from where he stood. His gaze rested, finally, on a painting. Blue canvas etched in black to depict the crouching figure of a woman, her back turned to the artist. The painting hung furtively on the far wall, between two bulbous Chinese urns in blue and white.

He moved to inspect it closely, and there he remained. His utter absorption made him fascinating and my sense of propriety was no match for my curiosity. The books along the sixth shelf languished, spines dull with the year’s dust, as I watched.

He leaned back, almost imperceptibly, then forwards again, his concentration absolute. His fingers, I noticed, fell long and silent at his side. Inert.

He was still standing, head tilted to the side, pondering the painting, when behind him the library door burst open and Hannah appeared, clutching the Chinese box.

‘David! At last! We’ve had the best idea. This time we can go to-’

She stopped, startled, as Robbie turned and regarded her. A smile was slow to his lips, but when it came it transformed him. All hint of melancholy was swept away so completely I wondered if I’d imagined it. Without its serious demeanour, his face was boyish, smooth, almost pretty.

‘Forgive me,’ she said, cheeks suffused with pink surprise, pale hair escaping from her bow. ‘I thought you were someone else.’ She rested the box on the corner of the lounge and, as an afterthought, straightened her white pinafore.

‘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 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, lifting 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 back their attention 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, Myra 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 fabric that could be made without cotton. 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 Myra, 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, Myra 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 and miscreants.’

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, ‘Grandmamma’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?’

‘You know I’d be just as much use as you. I’ve always been good at making strategic decisions, you said-’

‘This is real, Hannah,’ said David abruptly. ‘It’s a war: with real guns, real bullets and real enemies. It’s not make-believe; it’s not some children’s game.’

I drew breath; Hannah looked as if she’d been slapped.

‘You can’t live in a fantasy world all your life,’ David continued. ‘You can’t spend the rest of your life inventing adventures, writing about things that never really happened, playing a made-up character-’

‘David!’ cried Emmeline. She glanced at Robbie then back at David; her bottom lip trembled as she said, ‘Rule number one. The Game is secret.’

David looked at Emmeline and his face softened. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry, Emme.’

‘It’s secret,’ she whispered. ‘It’s important.’

‘Course it is,’ said David. He tousled Emmeline’s hair. ‘Come on, don’t be upset.’ He leaned to peer into the decoration box. ‘Hey!’ he said. ‘Look who I found. It’s Mabel!’ He held aloft a glass Nuremberg angel, with wings of spun glass, a crinkled gold skirt and a pious wax face. ‘She’s your favourite, right? Should I put her up on top?’

‘Can I do it this year?’ Emmeline said, wiping at her eyes. Upset though she might have been, she wasn’t going to let an opportunity pass.

David looked at Hannah pretending to inspect the palm of her hand. ‘What do you say, Hannah? Any objections?’

Hannah looked at him squarely, coldly.

‘Please?’ said Emmeline, jumping to her feet, a flurry of skirts and wrapping paper. ‘You two always put her up, I’ve never had a turn. I’m not a baby any more.’

David made a show of deep consideration. ‘How old are you now?’

‘Eleven,’ said Emmeline.

‘Eleven…’ repeated David. ‘Practically twelve.’

Emmeline nodded eagerly.

‘All right,’ he said finally. He nodded at Robbie, smiled. ‘Give me a hand?’

Between them they carried the decorating ladder to the tree, seated the base amongst the crumpled paper that was strewn across the floor.

‘Ooh,’ Emmeline giggled, beginning to climb, the angel clutched in one hand. ‘I’m just like Jack, climbing his beanstalk.’

She continued until she reached the second to last rung. She stretched the hand that held the angel, reaching for the treetop, which remained tantalisingly aloof.

‘Bully,’ she said under her breath. She glanced down at the three upturned faces. ‘Almost. Just one more.’

‘Careful,’ David said. ‘Is there something you can hold onto?’

She reached out with her free hand and clutched a flimsy bough of fir, then did the same with the other. Very slowly, she lifted her left foot and placed it carefully on the top rung.

I held my breath as she lifted her right. She was grinning triumphantly, reaching out to place Mabel on her throne, when all of a sudden our eyes locked. Her face, poking above the treetop, registered surprise, then panic, as her foot slipped and she began to fall.

I opened my mouth to call out a warning but it was too late. With a scream that made my skin prickle, she tumbled like a rag doll to the floor, a pile of white skirts amid the tissue paper.

The room seemed to expand. For just one moment, everything and everyone stood still, silent. Then, the inevitable contraction. Noise, movement, panic, heat.

David scooped Emmeline into his arms. ‘Emme? Are you all right? Emme?’ He glanced at the floor where the angel lay, glass wing red with blood. ‘Oh God, it’s sliced right through.’

Hannah was on her knees. ‘It’s her wrist.’ She looked about for someone; found Robbie. ‘Fetch some help.’

I scrambled down the staircase, heart knocking against my ribcage. ‘I’ll go, miss,’ I said, slipping out the door.

I ran along the corridor, unable to clear my mind of Emmeline’s motionless body, every gasped breath an accusation. It was my fault she’d fallen. The last thing she had expected to see as she reached the treetop was my face. If I hadn’t been so nosy, if I hadn’t surprised her…

I swung around the bottom of the stairs and bumped into Myra.

‘Watch it,’ she scowled.

‘Myra,’ I said between breaths. ‘Help. She’s bleeding.’

‘I can’t understand a word of your gabble,’ said Myra crossly. ‘Who’s bleeding?’

‘Miss Emmeline,’ I said. ‘She fell… in the library… from the ladder… Master David and Robert Hunter-’

‘I might have known!’ Myra turned on her heel and hurried toward the servants’ hall. ‘That boy! I had a feeling about him. Arriving unannounced as he did. It’s just not done.’

I tried to explain that Robbie had played no part in the accident, but Myra would hear none of it. She clipped down the stairs, turned into the kitchen and pulled the medicine box from the sideboard. ‘In my experience, fellows as look like him are only ever bad news.’

‘But Myra, it wasn’t his fault-’

‘Wasn’t his fault?’ she said. ‘He’s been here one night and look at what’s happened.’

I gave up my defence. I was still breathless from running and there was little I could ever say or do to change Myra’s mind once it was made.

Myra dug out disinfectant and bandage strips and hurried upstairs. I fell into step behind her thin, capable frame, hurrying to keep up as her black shoes beat a reproach down the dim narrow hall. Myra would make it better; she knew how to fix things.

But when we reached the library, it was too late.

Propped in the centre of the lounge, a brave smile on her wan face, was Emmeline. Her siblings sat either side, David stroking her healthy arm. Her wounded wrist had been bound tightly in a white strip of cloth-torn from her pinafore, I noted-and now lay across her lap. Robbie Hunter stood near but apart.

‘I’m all right,’ said Emmeline, looking up at us. ‘Mr Hunter took care of everything.’ She looked at Robbie with eyes rimmed red. ‘I’m ever so grateful.’

‘We’re all grateful,’ said Hannah, eyes still on Emmeline.

David nodded. ‘Mighty impressive, Hunter. Where did you learn to do that?’

‘My uncle’s a doctor,’ he said. ‘I’d thought to follow him, but I’m not fond of blood.’

David surveyed the red-stained cloths on the floor. ‘You did a good job pretending otherwise.’ He turned to Emmeline and stroked her hair. ‘Lucky you’re not like the cousins, Emme; a nasty cut like that.’

But if she heard, Emmeline made no sign. She was gazing at Robbie in much the same way Mr Dudley had gazed at his tree. Forgotten, at her feet, the Christmas angel languished: face stoic, glass wings crushed, gold skirt red with blood.

25 FEBRUARY 1916

An Aeroplane to Fight Zeppelins

MR HARTFORD’S PROPOSAL

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)

IPSWICH, 24 FEB.

Mr Frederick Hartford, who will be giving an important speech in the Parliament tomorrow on the aerial defence of Britain, gave me today some of his views on the general question at Ipswich, where his motor-car factory is located.

Mr Hartford, brother of Major James Hartford V.C. and son of Lord Herbert Hartford of Ashbury, thinks that Zeppelin attacks are to be warded off by producing a new light and fast type of one-seater aeroplane, of the kind proposed earlier this month by Mr Louis Blériot in the Petit Journal.

Mr Hartford said he does not believe in building Zeppelins which, he says, are awkward and vulnerable, and, on this latter account, are capable of operating only at night. If the Parliament is amenable, Mr Hartford plans temporarily to suspend his manfacture of motor-cars in favour of the light-weight aeroplanes.

Also addressing the Parliament tomorrow is businessman Mr Simion Luxton, who is similarly interested in the question of aerial defence. In the past year Mr Luxton has purchased two of Britain’s smaller motor-car manufacturers and most recently acquired an aeroplane factory near Cambridge. Mr Luxton has already commenced the manufacture of aeroplanes designed for warfare.

Mr Hartford and Mr Luxton represent the old and new faces of Britain. While the Ashbury line can be traced as far back as the court of King Henry VII, Mr Luxton is the grandson of a Yorkshire miner, who started his own manufacturing business and has since had much success. He is married to Mrs Estella Luxton, American heiress to the Stevenson’s pharmaceutical fortune.

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

That night, high in the attic, Myra and I curled up close in a desperate bid to stave off the icy air. The winter sun had long since set, and outside the angry wind shook the rooftop finials and crept, keening, through cracks in the wall.

‘They say it’s going to snow before year end,’ Myra whispered, pulling the blanket up to meet her chin. ‘And I’d have to say as I believe them.’

‘The wind sounds like a baby crying,’ I said.

‘No it doesn’t,’ Myra said. ‘It sounds like many things but never that.’

And it was that night she told me the story of the Major and Jemima’s children. The two little boys whose blood refused to clot, who had gone to their graves, one after the other, and now lay side by side in the cold hard ground of the Riverton graveyard.

The first, Timmy, had fallen from his horse, out riding with the Major on the Riverton estate.

He’d lasted four days and nights, Myra said, before the crying finally stopped and the tiny soul found some rest. He was white as a sheet when he went, all the blood having raced to his swollen shoulder, eager for escape. I thought of the nursery book with its pretty spine, inscribed to Timothy Hartford.

‘His cries were hard enough to listen to,’ Myra said, shifting her foot so that a pocket of cold air escaped. ‘But they were nothing next to hers.’

‘Whose?’ I whispered back.

‘His mother’s. Jemima’s. Started when they carried the little one away and didn’t stop for a week. If you’d only heard the sound. Grief to make your hair turn grey. Wouldn’t eat, nor drink neither; faded away so as she was almost as pale as he, rest his soul.’

I shivered; tried to accord this picture with the plain, plump woman who seemed far too ordinary to suffer so spectacularly. ‘You said “children”? What happened to the others?’

‘Other,’ Myra said. ‘Adam. He made it older than Timmy, and we all thought he’d escaped the curse. Poor lad hadn’t though. He’d just been swaddled tighter than his brother. There wasn’t much his mother would allow him do more active than reading in the library. She wasn’t planning on making the same mistake twice.’ Myra sighed, pulled her knees up higher to her chest for warmth. ‘Ah, but there’s not a mother alive who can stop her boy getting into mischief if mischief’s in his mind.’

‘What mischief did he get up to? What was it killed him, Myra?’

‘In the end all it took was a trip up the stairs,’ Myra said. ‘Happened at the Major’s house in Buckinghamshire. I didn’t see it myself, but Clara, the housemaid there, saw it with her own two eyes, for she was dusting in the hall. She said he was running too fast, lost his footing and slipped. Nothing more. Mustn’t have hurt too bad for he hopped himself up, right as rain, and kept on going. It was that evening, Clara said, that his knee swelled up like a balloon-just like Timmy’s shoulder before-and later in the night he started crying.’

‘Was it days?’ I said. ‘Like the last time?’

‘Not with Adam, no.’ Myra lowered her voice. ‘Clara said the poor lad screamed with agony most of the night, calling for his mother, begging her to take the pain away. There was no one in that house slept a wink that long night, not even Mr Barker, the groomsman, who was all but deaf. They just lay in their beds, listening to the sound of that boy’s pain. The Major stood outside the door all night, brave as anything, never shed a tear.

‘Then, just before the dawn, according to Clara, the crying stopped, sudden as you like, and the house fell to a dead silence. In the morning, when Clara took the lad a breakfast tray, she found Jemima lying across his bed, and in her arms, face as peaceful as one of God’s own angels, her boy, just as if asleep.’

‘Was she crying, like the time before?’

‘Not this time,’ Myra said. ‘Clara said she looked almost as peaceful as him. Glad his suffering was over, I expect. The night was ended and she’d seen him off to a better place, where troubles and sorrows could find him no more.’

I considered this. The sudden cessation of the boy’s crying. His mother’s relief. ‘Myra,’ I said slowly, ‘you don’t think-?’

‘I think it was a mercy that boy went faster than his brother, is what I think,’ Myra snapped.

There was silence then, and I thought for a minute she had fallen to sleep, though her breathing was still light which made me think she had not and was just pretending. I pulled the blanket up around my neck and closed my eyes, tried not to picture screaming boys and desperate mothers.

I was just drifting off when Myra’s whisper cut through the cold air. ‘Now she’s gone and expecting again, isn’t she. Due next August.’ She turned pious then. ‘You’re to pray extra hard, you hear? ’Specially now-He listens closer near Christmas. You’re to pray she’ll be delivered of a healthy babe this time.’ She rolled over and pulled the blanket with her. ‘One that won’t go bleeding itself to an early grave.’

Christmas came and went, Lord Ashbury’s library was declared dust-free, and the morning after Boxing Day I defied the cold and headed into Saffron Green on an errand for Mrs Townsend. Lady Violet was planning a New Year luncheon party with hopes of enlisting support for her Belgian refugee committee. She quite liked the idea, Myra had heard her say, of expanding into French and Portuguese expatriates, should it become necessary.

According to Mrs Townsend there was no surer way to impress at luncheon than with Mr Georgias’s genuine Greek pastries. Not that they were available to all and sundry, she added with an air of self-aggrandisement, particularly not in these testing times. No indeed. I was to visit the grocery counter and ask for Mrs Townsend of Riverton’s special order.

Despite the glacial weather, I was glad to make the trip to town. After weeks of festivity-Christmas, and now New Year-it was a welcome change to get outside, to be alone, to spend a morning beyond the range of Myra’s endless scrutiny. For after months of relative peace, she had taken particular interest in my duties of late: watching, scolding, correcting. I had the uneasy sense of being groomed for a change I was yet to see coming.

Besides, I had my own secret reason for welcoming the village chore. The fourth of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels of Sherlock Holmes had been printed and I’d arranged with the peddler to purchase a copy. It had taken me six months to save the money and would be the first I had ever bought brand new. The Valley of Fear. The title alone made me thrill with anticipation.

The peddler, I knew, lived with his wife and six children in a grey-stone back-to-back that stood to attention in a line of identical others. The street was part of a dreary housing pocket tucked behind the railway station, and the smell of burning coal hung heavy in the air. The cobblestones were black and a film of soot clung to the lampposts. I knocked cautiously on the shabby door, then stood back to wait. A child of about three, with dusty shoes and a threadbare pullover, sat on the step beside me, drumming the downpipe with a stick. His bare knees were covered in scabs made blue by the cold.

I knocked again, harder this time. Finally the door opened to reveal a rake-thin woman with a pregnant belly tight beneath her apron and a red-eyed infant on her hip. She said nothing, looked through me with dead eyes while I found my tongue.

‘Hello,’ I said in a voice I’d learned from Myra. ‘Grace Reeves. I’m looking for Mr Jones.’

Still she said nothing.

‘I’m a customer.’ My voice faltered slightly; an unwanted note of inquiry crept in. ‘I’ve come to buy a book?’

Her eyes flickered, an almost imperceptible sign of recognition. She hoisted the baby higher onto her bony hip and tilted her head toward a room behind. ‘He’s out the back.’

She shifted some and I squeezed past, heading in the only direction the tiny house afforded. Through the doorway was a kitchen, thick with the stench of rancid milk. Two little boys, grubby with poverty, sat at the table, rolling a pair of stones along the scratched pine surface.

The larger of the two rolled his stone into that of his brother then looked up at me, his eyes full moons in his hollowed face. ‘Are you looking for my pappy?’

I nodded.

‘He’s outside, oiling the wagon.’

I must have looked lost, for he pointed a stubby finger at a small timber door next to the stove.

I nodded again; tried to smile.

‘I’ll be starting working with him soon,’ the boy said, turning back to his stone, lining up another shot. ‘When I’m eight.’

‘Lucky,’ the littler boy said jealously.

The older one shrugged. ‘Someone needs to look after things while he’s gone and you’re too small.’

I made my way to the door and pushed it open.

Beneath a clothes line strung with yellow-stained sheets and shirts, the peddler was bent over inspecting the wheels of his cart. ‘Bloody bugger of a thing,’ he said under his breath.

I cleared my throat and he spun around, knocking his head on the cart handle.

‘Bugger.’ He squinted up at me, a pipe hanging from his bottom lip.

I tried to recapture Myra’s spirit, failed, and settled for finding any voice at all. ‘I’m Grace. I’ve come about the book?’ I waited. ‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?’

He leaned against the cart. ‘I know who you are.’ He exhaled and I breathed the sweet, burnt smell of tobacco. He wiped his oily hands on his pants and regarded me. ‘Fixing my wagon so it’s easy for the boy to manage.’

‘When are you going?’ I said.

He gazed beyond the clothes line, heavy with its sallow ghosts, toward the sky. ‘Next month. With the Royal Marines.’ He brushed a dirty hand across his forehead. ‘Always wanted to see the ocean, ever since I was a boy.’ He looked at me and something in his expression, a sense of desolation, made me look away. Through the kitchen window I could see the woman, the infant, the two boys staring out at us. The dimpled glass, dull with soot, gave their faces the impression of reflections in a dirty pond.

The peddler followed my gaze. ‘Fellow can make a good living in the forces,’ he said. ‘If he stays lucky.’ He threw down his cloth and headed for the house. ‘Come on then. Book’s in here.’

We made the transaction in the tiny front room then he walked me to the door. I was careful not to glance sideways, careful not to glimpse the hungry little faces I knew would be watching. As I walked down the front steps I heard the eldest boy say, ‘What did the lady buy, Pappy? Did she buy soap? She smelled like soap. She was a nice lady, wasn’t she, Pappy?’

I walked as quickly as my legs would carry me without breaking into a run. I wanted to be far away from that household and its children who thought that I, a common housemaid, was a lady of substance.

I was relieved finally to turn the corner into Railway Street and leave behind the oppressive stench of coal and poverty. I was no stranger to hardship-many times Mother and I had only thinly scraped by-but Riverton, I was learning, had changed me. Without realising, I had grown accustomed to its warmth, and comfort, and plenty; had begun to expect such things. As I hurried on, crossing the street behind the horse and cart of Down’s Dairies, my cheeks burning with bitter cold, I became determined not to lose them. Never to lose my place as Mother had done.

Just before the High Street intersection, I ducked beneath a canvas awning into a dim alcove and huddled by a shiny black door with a brass plaque. My breath hung white and cold in the air as I fumbled the purchase from my coat and removed my gloves.

I had barely glanced at the book in the peddler’s house save to ascertain it was the right title. Now I allowed myself to pore over its cover, to run my fingers across the leather binding and trace the cursive indentation of the letters that spelled along the spine, The Valley of Fear. I whispered the thrilling words to myself, then lifted the book to my nose and breathed the ink from its pages. The scent of possibilities.

I tucked the delicious, forbidden object inside my coat lining and hugged it to my chest. My first new book. My first new anything. I had now only to sneak it into my attic drawer without raising Mr Hamilton’s suspicions, or confirming Myra’s. I coerced my gloves back onto numb fingers, squinted into the frosty glare of the street and stepped out, colliding directly with a young lady walking briskly into the alcove.

‘Oh, forgive me!’ she said, surprised. ‘How clumsy I am.’

I looked up and my cheeks flared. It was Hannah.

‘Wait…’ She puzzled a moment. ‘I know you. You work for Grandfather.’

‘Yes, miss. It’s Grace, miss.’

‘Grace.’ My name was fluid on her lips.

I nodded. ‘Yes, miss.’ Beneath my coat, my heart drummed a guilty tattoo against my book.

She loosened a lapis blue scarf, revealing a small patch of lily-white skin. ‘You once saved us from death by romantic poetry.’

‘Yes, miss.’

She glanced at the street where icy winds were turning air to sleet, shivered, involuntarily, into her coat. ‘It’s an unforgiving morning to be out.’

‘Yes, miss,’ I said.

‘I shouldn’t have braved the weather,’ she added, turning back to me, her cheeks kissed by cold, ‘but for an extra music lesson I have scheduled.’

‘Me neither, miss,’ I said, ‘but for the order I’m collecting for Mrs Townsend. Pastries. For the New Year luncheon.’

She looked at my empty hands, then at the alcove from which I’d come. ‘An unusual place from which to purchase pastries.’

I followed her gaze. The brass plaque on the black door read Mrs Dove’s Secretarial School. I cast about for a reply. Anything to explain my presence in such an alcove. Anything but the truth. I couldn’t risk my purchase being discovered. Mr Hamilton had made clear the rules concerning reading material. But what else should I say? If Hannah were to report to Lady Violet that I had been taking classes without permission, I risked losing my position.

Before I could think of an excuse, Hannah cleared her throat and fumbled a brown paper package in her hands. ‘Well,’ she said, the word hanging in the air between us.

I waited, miserably, for the accusation to come.

Hannah shifted her position, straightened her neck and looked directly at me. She stayed that way for a moment then finally she spoke. ‘Well Grace,’ she said decisively. ‘It would appear we each have a secret.’

So stunned was I that at first I didn’t answer. I had been so nervous I hadn’t realised she was equally so. I swallowed, clutched the rim of my hidden cargo. ‘Miss?’

She nodded, then confounded me, reaching forward to clasp one of my hands vehemently. ‘I congratulate you, Grace.’

‘You do, miss?’

‘Yes,’ she said fervently. ‘For I know what it is you hide beneath your coat.’

‘Miss?’

‘I know, because I’ve been doing the same.’ She indicated her package and bit back an excited smile. ‘These aren’t music sheets, Grace.’

‘No, miss?’

‘And I’m certainly not taking music classes.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Lessons for pleasure. At a time like this! Can you even imagine?’

I shook my head, mystified.

She leaned forward, conspiratorially. ‘Which is your favourite? Typing or shorthand?’

‘I couldn’t say, miss.’

She nodded. ‘You’re right of course: silly to talk of favourites. They’re each as important as the other.’ She paused, smiled slightly. ‘Though I must admit a certain partiality to shorthand. There’s something exciting about it. It’s like… ’

‘Like a secret code?’ I said, thinking of the Chinese box.

‘Yes.’ Her eyes shone. ‘Yes, that’s it exactly. A secret code. A mystery.’

‘Yes, miss.’

She straightened then, and nodded toward the door. ‘Well, I’d better get on. Miss Dove will be expecting me, and I daren’t keep her waiting. As you know, she’s fierce about tardiness.’

I curtseyed and stepped out from under the awning.

‘Grace?’

I turned back, blinking through the falling sleet. ‘Yes miss?’

She lifted a finger to her lips. ‘We share a secret now.’

I nodded, and we held each other’s gaze in a moment of accord, until, seemingly satisfied, she smiled and disappeared behind Miss Dove’s black door.

On 31 December, as the final moments of 1915 bled away, the staff gathered round the servants’ hall dining table to usher in the New Year. Lord Ashbury had allowed us a bottle of champagne and two of beer, and Mrs Townsend had conjured something of a feast from the ration-plundered pantry. We all hushed as the clock marched toward the ultimate moment, then cheered as it chimed in the New Year. When Mr Hamilton had led us in a spirited verse of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, conversation turned, as it always does, to plans and promises for the New Year. Katie had just informed us of her resolution never again to sneak cake from the larder, when Alfred made his announcement.

‘I’ve joined up,’ he said, looking directly at Mr Hamilton. ‘I’m going to the war.’

I drew breath and everyone else fell silent, awaiting Mr Hamilton’s reaction. Finally, he spoke. ‘Well,’ he said, tightening his mouth into a grim smile. ‘That’s a very worthy sentiment, Alfred, and I’ll talk to the Master about it on your behalf, but I must say I don’t imagine he’ll be willing to part with you.’

Alfred swallowed. ‘Thank you, Mr Hamilton. But there’s no need for that.’ He took a breath. ‘I’ve spoken to the Master myself. When he visited from London. He said I was doing the right thing, wished me luck.’

Mr Hamilton digested this. His eyes flickered at what he perceived as Alfred’s perfidy. ‘Of course. The right thing.’

‘I’ll be leaving in March,’ Alfred said tentatively. ‘They’ll send me for training first.’

‘Then what,’ Mrs Townsend said, finally finding her voice. Her hands were firmly planted on her well-padded hips.

‘Then…’ an excited smile crept onto his lips. ‘Then France, I guess.’

‘Well,’ Mr Hamilton said stiffly, collecting himself. ‘This deserves a toast.’ He stood and held his glass aloft, the rest of us following tentatively his lead. ‘To Alfred. May he be returned to us as happy and as healthy as he left us.’

‘Here, here,’ Mrs Townsend said, unable to disguise her pride. ‘And sooner rather than later.’

‘Steady on, Mrs T,’ Alfred said, grinning. ‘Not too soon. I want to be sure and have some adventures.’

‘You just be sure and take care of yourself, my boy,’ Mrs Townsend said, her eyes glistening.

Alfred turned to me as the others refilled their glasses. ‘Doing my bit to defend the country, I am Grace.’

I nodded, wanting him to know that he had never been a coward. That I had never thought it of him.

‘Write to me, will you Gracie? Promise?’

I nodded again. ‘Course I will.’

He smiled at me and I felt my cheeks warm.

‘While we’re celebrating,’ Myra cut in, tapping her glass for quiet, ‘I have some news of my own.’

Katie gasped. ‘You’re never getting married, are you Myra?’

‘Of course not,’ Myra scowled.

‘Then what?’ Mrs Townsend said. ‘Don’t tell me you’re leaving us too? I don’t think I could take it.’

‘Not exactly,’ Myra said. ‘I’ve signed on to become a railway train guard. Down at the village station. I’ve been looking for a way to help with the war effort and then I saw the advertisement when I was running errands last week.’ She turned to Mr Hamilton. ‘I’ve already spoken with the Mistress and she said it was all right so long as I could still fit in my duties. She said it reflected well on this house that the staff are all doing their bit.’

‘Indeed,’ Mr Hamilton said through a sigh. ‘So long as the staff still manages to do their bit inside the house.’ He removed his glasses and rubbed wearily the bridge of his long nose. He replaced them and looked sternly at me. ‘It’s you I feel sorry for, lass. There’s going to be a lot of responsibility on your young shoulders with Alfred gone and Myra working two jobs. I’ve no chance of finding anyone else to help. Not now. You’ll need to be taking on a lot of the work upstairs until things return to normal. Do you understand?’

I nodded solemnly, ‘Yes, Mr Hamilton.’ I also understood Myra’s recent investment in my proficiency. She had been grooming me to fill her shoes that she might more easily be granted permission to work outside.

Mr Hamilton shook his head and rubbed his temples. ‘There’ll be waiting at table, drawing-room duties, afternoon tea. And you’ll have to help the young ladies, Miss Hannah and Miss Emmeline, with their dressing so long as they’re here… ’

His litany of chores continued but I no longer listened. I was too excited about my new responsibilities to the Hartford sisters. After my accidental meeting with Hannah in the village, my fascination with the sisters, with Hannah in particular, had grown. To my mind, fed as it was on penny dreadfuls and mystery stories, she was a heroine: beautiful, clever and brave.

Though it would not then have occurred to me to think in such terms, I now perceive the nature of the attraction. We were two girls, the same age, living in the same house in the same country, and in Hannah I glimpsed the host of glistening possibilities that could never be mine.

With Myra’s first railway shift scheduled for the following Friday, there was precious little time for her to brief me on my new duties. Night after night my sleep was broken by a sharp jab on the ankle, an elbow in the ribs and the impartation of a remembered instruction far too important to risk forgetting by morning.

I lay awake a good part of Thursday night, my mind racing fiercely away from sleep. By five o’clock, when I gingerly placed my bare feet on the cold timber floor, lit my candle and pulled on tights, dress and apron, my stomach was swirling.

I fairly flew through my ordinary duties, then returned to the servants’ hall and waited. I sat at the table, fingers too nervous to knit, and listened as the clock slowly ticked away the minutes.

By nine-thirty, when Mr Hamilton checked his wristwatch against the wall clock and minded me it was time to be collecting the breakfast trays and helping the young ladies dress, I was almost bubbling over with anticipation.

Their rooms were upstairs, adjoining the nursery. I knocked once, quickly and quietly-a mere formality, Myra said-then pushed open the door to Hannah’s bedroom. It was my first glimpse of the Shakespeare room. Myra, reluctant to relinquish control, had insisted on delivering the breakfast trays herself before leaving for the station.

It was dark, an effect of discoloured wallpaper and heavy furniture. The bedroom suite-bed, side table and duchesse-was carved mahogany, and a vermillion carpet reached almost to the walls. Above the bed hung three pictures from which the room drew its name; they were all heroines, said Myra, from the finest English playwright that ever lived. I had to take her word for it, for none of the three seemed particularly heroic to me: the first knelt on the floor, a vial of liquid held aloft; the second sat in a chair, two men-one with black skin and one with white-standing in the distance; the third was mid-deep in a stream, long hair floating behind, laced with wildflowers.

When I arrived, Hannah was already out of bed, sitting at the dressing table in a white cotton nightie, pale feet curled together on the vivid carpet as if in prayer, head bowed earnestly over a letter. It was as still as I’d ever seen her. Myra had drawn the curtains and a ghost of weak sunlight crept through the sash window and up Hannah’s back to play within her long flaxen braids. She didn’t notice my entrance.

I cleared my throat and she looked up.

‘Grace,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Myra said you’d be taking over while she’s at the station.’

‘Yes, miss,’ I said.

‘It’s not too much? Myra’s duties as well as your own?’

‘Oh no, miss,’ I said. ‘Not too much at all.’

Hannah leaned forward and lowered her voice, ‘You must be very busy; the lessons for Miss Dove on top of everything else?’

For a moment I was lost. Who was Miss Dove, and why might she be setting me lessons? Then I remembered. The secretarial school in the village. ‘I’m managing, miss.’ I swallowed, eager to change the subject. ‘Shall I start with your hair, miss?’

‘Yes,’ said Hannah, nodding meaningfully. ‘Yes, of course. You’re right not to speak of it, Grace. I should be more careful.’ She tried to suppress a smile, almost succeeded. Then laughed openly. ‘It’s just… It’s a relief having someone to share it with.’

I nodded solemnly, while inside I thrilled. ‘Yes, miss.’

With a final conspiratorial smile, she lifted a finger to her lips in a sign of silence, and returned to the letter. By the address in the corner, I could see it was from her father.

I selected a mother-of-pearl hairbrush from the dressing table and stood behind. I glanced into the oval mirror and, seeing Hannah’s head still bowed over the letter, dared observe her. The light from the window bounced off her face, lending her reflection an ethereal cast. I could trace the network of faint veins beneath her pale skin, could see her eyeballs tracking back and forth beneath her fine lids as she read.

She shifted in her seat and I looked away, fumbled with the ties at the base of her braids. I slipped them free, unravelled the long twists of hair, and started to brush.

Hannah folded the letter in half and slipped it beneath a crystal bonbonnière on the dressing table. She regarded herself in the mirror, pressed her lips together, and turned toward the window. ‘My brother is going to France,’ she said acrimoniously. ‘To fight the war.’

‘Is he, miss?’ I said.

‘He and his friend. Robert Hunter.’ The latter’s name she said distastefully. She fingered the letter’s edge. ‘Poor old Pa doesn’t know. We’re not supposed to tell him.’

I brushed rhythmically, counting silently my strokes. (Myra had said a hundred, that she’d know if I were to skip any.) Then Hannah said, ‘I wish I were going.’

‘To war, miss?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The world is changing, Grace, and I want to see it.’ She looked up at me in the mirror, the blue and yellow flecks of her eyes animated by sunlight; then she spoke as if reciting a line she’d learned by heart. ‘I want to know how it feels to be altered by life.’

‘Altered, miss?’ I could not for the life of me imagine how she could wish for anything other than that which God had been kind enough to give her.

‘Transformed, Grace. As some people are by great works of music. Or pieces of art. I want to have a grand experience far removed from my ordinary life.’ She looked at me again, her eyes shining. ‘Don’t you ever feel that way? Don’t you ever wish for more than life has given you?’

I stared at her an instant, warmed by the vague sense of having received a confidence; disconcerted that it seemed to require some sign of amity I was hopelessly underqualified to provide. The problem was, I simply didn’t understand. The feelings she described were as a foreign language. Life had been good to me. How could I doubt it? Mr Hamilton was always reminding me how fortunate I was to have my position, and if it wasn’t him, Mother was always willing to pick up the argument. I could think of no way to respond, and yet Hannah was looking at me, waiting. I opened my mouth, my tongue pulled away from the roof with a promising click, but no words were forthcoming.

She sighed and shook her shoulders, her mouth settled into a faint smile of disappointment. ‘No, of course you haven’t. I’m sorry Grace. I’ve unsettled you.’

She looked away and I heard myself say, ‘I’ve sometimes thought I’d like to be a detective, miss.’

‘A detective?’ Her eyes met mine in the mirror. ‘You mean like Mr Bucket in Bleak House?’

‘I don’t know of Mr Bucket, miss. I was thinking of Sherlock Holmes.’

‘Really? A detective?’

I nodded.

‘Finding clues and solving crimes?’

I nodded.

‘Well then,’ she said, disproportionately pleased. ‘I was wrong. You do know what I mean.’ And with that she looked again out the window, smiling faintly.

I wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, why my impulsive answer had pleased her so, and I didn’t particularly care. All I knew was that I now basked in the warm glow of a connection having been made.

I slid the brush back onto the dressing table, wiped my hands on my apron. ‘Myra said you would be wearing your walking costume today, miss.’

I lifted the suit from the wardrobe and carried it to the dressing table. I held the skirt so that she might step inside.

Just then, a wallpapered door next to the bedhead swung open and Emmeline appeared. From where I knelt, holding Hannah’s skirt, I watched her cross the room. Emmeline’s was the type of beauty that belied her age. Something in her wide blue eyes, her full lips, even the way she yawned, gave the impression of lazy ripeness.

‘How’s your arm?’ said Hannah, placing a hand on my shoulder for support and stepping into the skirt.

I kept my head down, hoping Emmeline’s arm wasn’t painful, hoping she wouldn’t remember my part in her fall. But if she recognised me, it didn’t show. She shrugged, rubbed absently her bandaged wrist. ‘It hardly hurts. I’m just leaving it wrapped for effect.’

Hannah turned to face the wall and I lifted her nightie off, slipped the fitted bodice of the walking costume over her head. ‘You’ll probably have a scar, you know,’ she teased.

‘I know.’ Emmeline sat on the end of Hannah’s bed. ‘At first I didn’t want one, but Robbie said it would be a battle wound. That it would give me character.’

‘Did he?’ said Hannah acerbically.

‘He said all the best people have character.’

I pulled tight Hannah’s bodice, stretching the first button toward its eyelet.

‘He’s coming with us on our ride this morning,’ said Emmeline, drumming her feet against the bed. ‘He asked David if we could show him the lake.’

‘I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time.’

‘But aren’t you coming? It’s the first fine day in weeks. You said you’d go mad if you had to spend much longer inside.’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said Hannah airily.

Emmeline was silent for a moment then she said, ‘David was right.’

As I continued to button, I was aware that Hannah’s body had tensed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He told Robbie you were stubborn, that you’d lock yourself away all winter to avoid him if you decided on it.’

Hannah tightened her mouth. For a moment she was at a loss for words. ‘Well… you can tell David that he’s wrong. I’m not avoiding him at all. I have things to do inside. Important things. Things neither of you know about.’

‘Like sitting in the nursery, stewing, while you read through the box again?’

‘You little spy!’ said Hannah indignantly. ‘Is it any wonder I’d like some privacy?’ She huffed. ‘You’re wrong as it happens. I won’t be going through the box. The box is no longer here.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve hidden it,’ said Hannah.

‘Where?’

‘I’ll tell you next time we play.’

‘But we probably won’t play all winter,’ Emmeline said. ‘We can’t. Not without telling Robbie.’

‘Then I’ll tell you next summer,’ said Hannah. ‘You won’t miss it. You and David have plenty of other things to do now that Robert Hunter is here.’

‘Why don’t you like him?’ said Emmeline.

There was an odd lull then, an unnatural pause in conversation, during which I felt strangely conspicuous, aware of my own heartbeat, my own breaths.

‘I don’t know,’ Hannah said eventually. ‘Ever since he got here things have been different. It feels like things are slipping away. Disappearing before I even know what they are.’ She held out her arm while I straightened the lace cuff. ‘Why do you like him?’

Emmeline shrugged. ‘Because he’s funny and clever. Because David likes him so well. Because he saved my life.’

‘That’s overstating it a bit,’ Hannah sniffed as I fastened the last button on her bodice. ‘He tore your dress and tied it round your wrist.’ She turned back to face Emmeline.

Emmeline’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened. She started to laugh.

‘What?’ Hannah said, ‘What’s so funny?’ She stooped to take in her reflection. ‘Oh,’ she said, frowning.

Emmeline, still laughing, collapsed sideways against Hannah’s pillows. ‘You look like that simple boy from the village,’ she said. ‘The boy whose mother makes him wear clothes too small.’

‘That’s cruel, Emme,’ Hannah said, but she laughed despite herself. She regarded her reflection, wriggled her shoulders back and forth, trying to stretch the bodice. ‘And quite untrue. That poor boy never looked anything like this ridiculous.’ She turned to view her reflection side-on. ‘I must’ve grown taller since last winter.’

‘Yes,’ Emmeline said, eyeing Hannah’s bodice, tight across her breasts. ‘Taller. Lucky thing.’

‘Well,’ Hannah said. ‘I certainly can’t wear this.’

‘If Pa would take as much interest in us as he does in his factory,’ Emmeline said, ‘he’d realise we need new clothing once in a while.’

‘He does his best.’

‘I’d hate to see his worst,’ Emmeline said. ‘We’ll be making our debuts in sailor dresses if we’re not careful.’

Hannah shrugged. ‘I couldn’t care less. Silly, outmoded pageant.’ She looked at her reflection again, tugged at the bodice. ‘Nonetheless, I’ll have to write to Pa and ask whether we might have new clothing.’

‘Yes,’ Emmeline said. ‘And not pinafores. Proper dresses, like Fanny’s.’

‘Well,’ Hannah said, ‘I’ll have to wear a pinafore today. This won’t do.’ She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I wonder what Myra will say when she finds out her rules have been broken.’

‘She won’t be pleased, miss,’ I said, daring to smile back as I unbuttoned the walking suit.

Emmeline looked up; tilted her head and blinked at me. ‘Who’s that?’

‘This is Grace,’ Hannah said, ‘Remember? She saved us from Miss Prince last summer.’

‘Is Myra unwell?’

‘No, miss,’ I said. ‘She’s down in the village, working at the station. On account of the war.’

Hannah raised an eyebrow. ‘I pity the unsuspecting passenger who misplaces his ticket.’

‘Yes, miss,’ I said.

‘Grace will be dressing us when Myra’s at the station,’ Hannah said to Emmeline. ‘Won’t it be a nice change to have someone our own age?’

I curtseyed and left the room, my heart singing. And a part of me hoped the war would never end.

It was crisp, the March morning we saw Alfred off to war. The sky was clear and the air heady with the promise of excitement. I felt oddly infused with purpose as we walked to town from Riverton. While Mr Hamilton and Mrs Townsend kept the home fires burning, Myra, Katie and I had been given special permission, on condition our duties were complete, to accompany Alfred to the station. It was our national duty, Mr Hamilton said, to offer morale to Britain’s fine young men as they dedicated themselves to their country.

Morale was to have its limits, however; under no circumstances were we to engage in conversation with any of the soldiers for whom young ladies such as ourselves might represent easy prey.

How important I felt, striding down the High Street in my best dress, accompanied by one of the King’s Army. I am certain I was not alone in feeling this rush of excitement. Myra, I noticed, had made special efforts with her hair, her long black ponytail looped into a fancy chignon, much like the Mistress wore. Even Katie had made attempts to tame her wayward curls.

When we arrived, the station was brimming with other soldiers and their well-wishers. Sweethearts embraced, mothers straightened shiny new uniforms, and puffed-up fathers swallowed great lumps of pride. The Saffron Green recruiting depot, refusing to be outdone in such matters, had organised an enlisting drive the month before and posters of Lord Kitchener’s pointed finger could still be found on every lamppost. They were to form a special battalion, Alfred said, the Saffron Lads, and would all be going in together. It was better that way, he said, to already know and like the fellows he’d be living with, fighting with.

The waiting train glistened, black and brass, punctuating the occasion from time to time with a great, impatient puff of self-important steam. Alfred carried his kit midway along the platform then stopped. ‘Well girls,’ he said, easing the kit to the floor and gazing about. ‘This looks as good a spot as any.’

We nodded, drinking in the carnival atmosphere. Somewhere at the far end of the platform, up where the officers gathered, a band was playing. Myra waved officially to a stern conductor who nodded a curt reply.

‘Alfred,’ said Katie coyly, ‘I’ve got something for you.’

‘Do you, Katie,’ said Alfred. ‘That’s mighty nice of you.’ He presented his cheek.

‘Oh Alfred,’ said Katie, blushing like a ripe tomato. ‘I never meant a kiss.’

Alfred winked at Myra and me. ‘Well now, that’s a disappointment, Katie. Here I was, thinking you were going to leave me with a little something to remember home by, when I’m far away across the sea.’

‘I am.’ Katie held out a crumpled tea towel. ‘Here.’

Alfred raised an eyebrow. ‘A tea towel? Why, thank you Katie. That’ll certainly remind me of home.’

‘It’s not a tea towel,’ said Katie. ‘Well, it is. But that’s just the wrapping. Look inside.’

Alfred peeled open the package to reveal three slices of Mrs Townsend’s Victoria sponge cake.

‘There’s no butter or cream, on account of the shortages,’ said Katie. ‘But it’s not bad.’

‘And just how do you know that, Katie?’ snapped Myra. ‘Mrs Townsend won’t be happy you’ve been in her larder again.’

Katie’s bottom lip folded. ‘I just wanted to send something with Alfred.’

‘Yes,’ Myra’s expression softened. ‘Well, I suppose that’s all right then. Just this once: for the sake of the war effort.’ She turned her attention to Alfred. ‘Grace and I have something for you, too, Alfred. Don’t we Grace? Grace?’

Up at the far end of the platform I had noticed a couple of familiar faces: Emmeline, standing near Dawkins, Lord Ashbury’s chauffeur, amid a sea of young officers in smart new uniforms.

‘Grace?’ Myra shook my arm. ‘I was telling Alfred about our gift.’

‘Oh. Yes.’ I reached into my bag and handed Alfred a small package wrapped in brown paper.

He unwrapped it carefully, smiling at its contents.

‘I knitted the socks and Myra the scarf,’ I said.

‘Well,’ said Alfred, inspecting the items. ‘They look mighty fine.’ He closed his hand around the socks, looked at me. ‘I’ll be sure to think of you-all three of you-when I’m snug as a bug and all the other boys are going cold. They’ll envy me my three girls: the best in all of England.’

He tucked the gifts into his kit then folded the paper neatly and handed it back to me. ‘Here you are, Grace. Mrs T will be on the warpath as it is, looking for the rest of her cake. Don’t want her missing her baking paper too.’

I nodded, pressed the paper into my bag; felt his eyes on me.

‘You won’t forget to write to me, will you Gracie?’

I shook my head, met his gaze. ‘No, Alfred. I won’t forget you.’

‘You’d better not,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘Or there’ll be trouble when I’m back.’ He sobered. ‘I’m going to miss you.’ He looked then at Myra and Katie. ‘All of you.’

‘Oh, Alfred,’ said Katie excitedly. ‘Look at the other fellows. Ever so smart in their new uniforms. Are they all Saffron Lads?’

As Alfred pointed out some of the other young men he’d met at the recruiting depot, I looked up the track again, watched as Emmeline waved to another group and ran off. Two of the young officers turned to watch her go and I saw their faces. David, and Robbie Hunter. Where was Hannah? I craned to see. She had avoided David and Robbie as best she could over winter, but surely she wouldn’t miss seeing David off to war?

‘… and that’s Rufus,’ said Alfred, pointing out a skinny soldier with long teeth. ‘His father’s the ragman. Rufus used to help him but he reckons he’s more chance of a regular meal in the army.’

‘That may be,’ Myra said. ‘If you’re a ragman. But you can’t say you don’t do very well for yourself at Riverton.’

‘Oh no,’ said Alfred. ‘I’ve no complaints in that department. Mrs T, and the Master and Mistress, they keep us well-fed.’ He smiled then said, ‘I must say I get sick of being cooped up inside, though. I’m looking forward to living the open-air life for a bit.’

An aeroplane droned overhead, a Blériot XI-2 said Alfred, and a cheer went up amongst the crowd. A wave of excitement rolled along the platform, collecting us all in its wash. The conductor, a distant speck of black and white, blew his whistle then called for boarding through his megaphone.

‘Well,’ said Alfred, a smile tugging at his lips. ‘Here I go then.’

A figure appeared at the end of the station. Hannah. She scanned the platform, waved hesitantly when she saw David. She weaved through the crowd, stopping only when she reached her brother. She stood for a moment, without speaking, then she pulled something from her purse and gave it to him. I already knew what it was. I had seen it on her duchesse that morning. Journey Across the Rubicon. It was one of the tiny books from The Game, one of their favourite adventures, carefully described, illustrated and bound with thread. She’d wrapped it in an envelope and tied it with string.

David looked at it, then at Hannah. He tucked it in his breast pocket, rubbed his hand over it, then reached out and squeezed both her hands; he looked as if he wanted to kiss her cheeks, hug her, but that was not the way it went with them. So he didn’t. He leaned closer and said something to her. They both looked toward Emmeline, and Hannah nodded.

David turned then and said something to Robbie. He looked back at Hannah and she started searching through her bag again. She was looking for something to give him, I realised. David must have suggested that Robbie needed his own good-luck charm.

Alfred’s voice, close to my ear, pulled my wandering attention back. ‘Bye-bye Gracie,’ he said, his lips brushing hair near my neck. ‘Thanks ever so for the socks.’

My hand leapt to my ear, still warm from his words, as Alfred threw his kit over his shoulder and headed for the train. As he reached the door he climbed onto the carriage step and turned, grinning at us over the heads of his fellow soldiers. ‘Wish me luck,’ he said, then disappeared, pushed through the door by the others eager to climb aboard.

I waved my arm. ‘Good luck,’ I called to the backs of strangers, sensing suddenly the hole that would be left at Riverton by his departure.

Up at first class, David and Robbie boarded with the other officers. Dawkins walked behind with David’s bags. There were fewer officers than infantry, and they found seats easily, each appearing at a window while Alfred jostled for standing space in his carriage.

The train whistled again, and belched, filling the platform with steam. Long axels began to heave, gathering momentum, and the train drew slowly forward.

Hannah kept up alongside, still searching her purse, fruitlessly it seemed. Finally, as the train gained pace, she looked up, slipped the white satin bow from her hair, and held it up to Robbie’s waiting hand.

Further along the track my gaze alighted on the sole motionless figure amongst the frenzied crowd: it was Emmeline. She clutched a white handkerchief in her raised hand but she no longer waved it. Her eyes were wide and her smile had slipped into an expression of uncertainty.

She stood on tiptoe, surveying the crowd. No doubt she was anxious to bid David farewell. And Robbie Hunter.

Just then, her face lifted eagerly and I knew she’d seen Hannah.

But it was too late. As she pushed through the crowd, her calls drowned by engine noise, and whistles, and cheers, I saw Hannah, still running alongside the boys, long hair unbound, disappear with the train behind a veil of steam.