The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

6 JUNE 1919

The Estate Market

LORD SUTHERLAND’S PROPERTY

The principal transaction this week has been the private sale, by Messrs. Mabbett and Edge, as briefly announced in The Times yesterday, of Haberdeen House, the ancestral home of Lord Sutherland. The house, at number seventeen Grosvenor Square, was sold to the industrialist Mr S. Luxton, and is to be occupied by Mr T. Luxton and his new wife, the Honourable Hannah Hartford, eldest daughter of Lord Ashbury.

Mr T. Luxon and the Hon. H. Hartford were married from the bride’s family home, Riverton Manor, outside the village of Saffron Green, in March and are now honeymooning in France. They will take up residence at Haberdeen House, to be renamed Luxton House, when they return to England next month.

Mr T. Luxton is the Tory candidate for the seat of Marsden in East London. The seat will be contested in a bi-election in November.

CATCHING BUTTERFLIES

They have brought us to the spring fair by minibus. Eight in all: six residents, Sylvia and a nurse whose name I can’t remember-a young girl with a wispy plait snaking down her back to sweep her belt. I expect they think the day out does us good. Though what can be gained from exchanging comfortable surrounds for a muddy oval of tents selling cakes and toys and soaps I do not know. I should have been just as happy to stay at home, away from the bustle.

A makeshift stage has been erected behind the town hall, as it is each year, and rows of white plastic chairs assembled before it. The other residents and the girl with the plait are sitting by the stage watching a man pluck numbered ping-pong balls from a metal bucket, but I prefer it here on the little iron seat by the memorial. I feel strange today. It is the heat, I’m sure. When I woke my pillow was damp, and I’ve been unable to shake this odd foggy sensation all morning. My thoughts are skimming. Coming quickly, fully formed, then slipping away before I can properly grasp them. Like catching a butterfly. It is unsettling, leaves me irritable.

A cup of tea will see me right.

Where has Sylvia gone? Did she tell me? She was here only a moment ago, about to smoke a cigarette. Talking again about her man-friend and their plans to cohabit. Once upon a time I’d have considered such extramarital relations improper, but time has a way of changing one’s views on most things.

The exposed skin on the top of my feet is cooking. I consider slipping them into the shade but an irresistible sense of masochistic ennui bids me leave them where they are. Sylvia will see the red patches later, will realise how long she has left me.

From where I sit I see the cemetery. The eastern side with its line of poplars, new leaves quivering at the suggestion of a breeze. Beyond the poplars, on the other side of the ridge, are the gravestones, amongst them my mother’s.

It’s been an age since we buried her. A wintry day in 1922 when the earth was frozen solid and my skirts blew icy against my stockinged legs, and a figure, a man, stood on the hill, barely recognisable. She took her secrets with her, into the cold, hard earth, but I learned them in the end. I know a lot about secrets; I have made them my life. Perhaps I hoped in some way that the more I learned of secrets, the better I would be at hiding my own.

I am hot. It is far too hot for April. No doubt global warming is to blame. Global warming, melting the polar ice caps, the ozone hole, genetically modified food. Some other disease of the 1990s. The world has become a hostile place. Even the rainwater is not safe these days, acid rain they call it.

That’s what’s eating the war monument. One side of the soldier’s stone face has been ravaged, the cheek pockmarked, the nose devoured by time. Like a piece of fruit left too long in a ditch, gnawed by scavengers.

He knows about duty. Despite his wounds he stands to attention atop the cenotaph, as he has for eighty years, lone eye surveying the plains beyond the town, hollow gaze cast over Bridge Street toward the car park of the new shopping centre; a land fit for heroes. He is almost as old as I am. Is he as tired?

He and his pillar have become mossy; microscopic plants thrive in the etched names of the dead. David’s is on there, at the top with the other officers; and Rufus Smith the ragman’s son, suffocated in Belgium by a collapsed trench. Further down, Raymond Jones, the village peddler when I was a girl. Those little boys of his would be men now. Old men, though younger than I. It is possible they are dead.

No wonder he is crumbling. It is a lot to ask of one man, to bear the strain of near-infinite private tragedies, bear witness to near-infinite echoes of death.

But he is not alone: there is one like him in every English town. They are the nation’s scars; a rash of gallant scabs spread across the land in 1919, a spate of determined healing. Such extravagant faith we had then: in the League of Nations, the possibility of a civilised world. Against such determined hope the poets of disillusionment were lost. For every TS Eliot, for every RS Hunter, there were fifty bright young men espousing Tennyson’s dreams of the parliament of man, the federation of the world.

It didn’t last of course. It couldn’t. Disillusionment was inevitable; after the twenties came the depression thirties and then another war. And things were different after that one. No new memorials emerged triumphantly, defiantly, hopefully out of the mushroom cloud of World War Two. Hope perished in the gas chambers of Poland. A new generation of the battle-damaged were blown home and a second set of names chiselled onto the bases of existing statues; sons below fathers. And in everybody’s mind, the weary knowledge that some day young men would once again be falling, falling.

Wars make history seem deceptively simple. They provide clear turning points, easy distinctions: before and after, winner and loser, right and wrong. True history, the past, is not like that; it isn’t flat or linear; it has no outline. It is slippery, like liquid; infinite and unknowable, like space. And it is changeable: just when you think you see a pattern, perspective shifts, an alternative version is proffered, a long-forgotten memory resurfaces.

I have been trying to fix upon the turning points in Hannah and Teddy’s story; all thoughts, these days, lead to Hannah. Looking back it seems clear: there were certain events in the first year of their marriage that laid the foundation of what was to come. I couldn’t see them at the time; in real life turning points are sneaky. They pass by unlabelled and unheeded. Opportunities are missed, catastrophes unwittingly celebrated. Turning points are only uncovered later, by a storyteller, a historian, trying to bring order to a lifetime of tangled memories.

I wonder how their marriage will be handled in the film. What will Ursula decide led them to unhappiness? Was it Deborah’s arrival from New York, Teddy’s election loss, the absence of an heir? Will she agree that the signs were there as early as the honeymoon; the future fissures visible even by the dusky light of Paris, like faint flaws in the diaphanous fabrics of the twenties: beautiful, trivial fabrics so flimsy they could not hope to last?

In the summer of 1919 Paris basked in the warm optimism of the Versailles Peace Conference. In the evenings I helped Hannah undress, peeled off yet another new gossamer gown in pale green, or pink, or white (Teddy was a man who liked his brandy straight and his women pure), while she told me of the places they had visited, the things she had seen. They climbed the Eiffel Tower, strolled the Champs Elysées, dined in famous restaurants. But it was something more, and less, that appealed to Hannah.

‘The sketches, Grace,’ she said one night as I unwrapped her. ‘Who’d have thought I so adored sketches?’

Sketches, artefacts, people, smells. She was hungry for every new experience. She had years to make up for, years she considered had been wasted, marking time, waiting for her life to begin. There were so many people to speak to: wealthy folk they met in restaurants, politicians fresh from devising the treaty, buskers she encountered on the street.

Teddy was not blind to her reactions, her tendency to exaggerate, her inclination toward wild enthusiasm, but he put her high spirits down to youth. It was a condition, enchanting and bewildering in equal parts, which she would outgrow in good time. Not that he wished her to, not then; at that stage he was still enamoured. He promised her a trip to Italy the following year to see Pompeii, the Uffizi, the Colosseum: there was little then he wouldn’t promise. For she was a mirror in which he saw himself no longer the son of his father-solid, conventional, dull-but the husband of a charming, unpredictable woman.

For her part, Hannah did not speak much of Teddy. He was an adjunct. An accessory whose attendance made possible the adventure she was on. Oh, she liked him well enough. She found him amusing at times (though often when he least intended), well meaning, and not unpleasant company. His interests were rather less varied than her own, his intellect less keen, but she learned to stroke his ego when required and seek intellectual stimulation elsewhere. And if she wasn’t in love, what did it matter? She didn’t notice the absence, not then. Who needed love when there was so much else in the offing?

One morning, toward the end of the honeymoon, Teddy woke with a migraine. He would have others in the time I knew him; they did not come often but were severe when they did, the legacy of a childhood illness. He could do little but lie very still in a darkened, silent room and drink small amounts of water. Hannah was unsettled that first time; she had been shielded, for the most part, from the unpleasantness of illness.

She made an uncertain offer to sit with him, but Teddy was a sensible man not given to extracting comfort from the discomfort of others. He told her there was nothing she could do, that it was a crime not to enjoy her last days in Paris.

I was required as companion; Teddy considered it unseemly that a lady be seen alone in the street, no matter that she was married. Hannah had no wish to shop and had grown tired of being indoors. She wanted to explore, to unearth her very own Paris. We went outside and began to walk. She used no map, just turned in any direction that took her fancy.

‘Come on, Grace,’ she said, time and again. ‘Let’s see what’s down this one.’

Eventually we reached an alleyway, darker and thinner than those that had come before. A narrow path between two rows of buildings that leaned together, the tops embracing to enclose those below. Music drifted along the pathway, threading out into the square. There was a smell, vaguely familiar, of something edible, or perhaps something dead. And there was movement. People. Voices. Hannah stood at the entrance, deciding, then started down the alley. I had little choice but to follow.

It was an artist’s community. I know that now. Having lived through the sixties, having visited Haight-Ashbury and Carnaby Street, I can easily identify bohemian dishabille, the trappings of artistic poverty. But at that time it was all new. The only other place I had ever been was Saffron where there was nothing artful about poverty. We wove down the alley, past little stalls and open doors, sheets strung to create divisions and spaces, smoke drifting up from sticks releasing a dusty, musky smell. A child with huge eyes, limpid gold, peered, expressionless, from between shutters.

A man sitting on gold and red cushions played a clarinet, though I didn’t know its name then, the long black stick with shiny rings and keys. In my mind I called it the snake. It made music as the man’s fingers pressed all over it: music I couldn’t place, that made me feel vaguely uncomfortable, seemed somehow to describe intimate things, dangerous things. It was jazz, as it turned out, and I was to hear much more of it before the decade was out.

There were tables along the alley, and men sat reading, or talking, or arguing. They drank coffee and mysterious coloured drinks-liquor, I was sure-from strange bottles. They looked up as we passed, interested, uninterested, it was hard to tell. I tried not to meet their eyes; silently willed Hannah to change her mind, turn around and lead us back into light and safety. But while my nostrils were filling with unwelcome foreign smoke, my ears with foreign music, Hannah seemed to float. Her attention was elsewhere. Along the alley walls, pictures were strung, but not like those at Riverton. These were charcoal. Human faces, limbs, eyes, staring out at us from between the bricks.

Hannah stopped before a picture. It was large, and was the only one to include a whole person. It was a woman sitting on a chair. Not an armchair, or a chaise longue, or an artist’s couch. A plain, wooden chair with heavy legs. Her knees were apart and she sat facing directly ahead. She was naked and she was black, luminous in charcoal. Her face stared from the painting. Wide eyes, sharp cheeks, pleated lips. Her hair was wrapped into a knot behind her head. Like a warrior queen.

I was shocked by the painting, expected Hannah to react similarly. But she felt something different. She reached out and touched it; stroked the curved line of the woman’s cheek. She inclined her head.

A man was somehow beside her. ‘You like?’ he said, heavy accent, heavier lids. I didn’t like the way he looked at Hannah. He knew she had money. He could tell by her clothing.

Hannah blinked, as if released from a spell. ‘Oh yes,’ she said softly.

‘You want to buy perhaps?’

Hannah pressed her lips together and I knew what she was thinking. Teddy would not approve. And she was right. There was something about the woman, the painting, that was dangerous. Subversive. And yet Hannah wanted it. It reminded her, of course, of the past. Of The Game. Nefertiti. A role she had played with the unencumbered vigour of childhood. She nodded. Oh yes, she wanted it.

Misgivings prickled beneath my skin. The man’s face remained expressionless. He called someone. When there was no answer he gestured for Hannah to follow. They seemed to have forgotten my presence, but I stayed close to her as she followed him to a small red door. He pushed it open. It was an artist’s studio, little more than a dark hole in the wall. The walls were faded green, wallpaper peeling in long strips. The floor-what I could see of it beneath the hundreds of loose paper sheets scarred with charcoal-was stone. There was a mattress in the corner, covered with faded cushions and a quilt; empty liquor bottles were strewn around its edges.

Inside was the woman from the painting. To my horror she was naked. She looked at us with interest that was quickly extinguished, but didn’t say anything. She stood up, taller than us, taller than the man, and walked to the table. There was something in her movement, a freedom, a disregard for the fact that we were watching her, could see her breasts, one larger than the other, that unnerved me. These weren’t people like us. Like me. She lit a cigarette and smoked it as we waited. I looked away. Hannah didn’t.

‘Lady wants to buy your portrait,’ said the man.

The black woman stared at Hannah then said something in a language I didn’t speak. Not French. Something far more foreign.

The man laughed and said to Hannah, ‘It’s not for sale.’ He reached out then and grabbed her chin. Alarm pulsed loudly in my ears. Even Hannah flinched as he held her firmly, turned her head from side to side then let her go. ‘Trade only.’

‘Trade?’ said Hannah.

‘Your own image,’ said the man in his heavy accent. He shrugged. ‘You take hers, you leave your own.’

The very thought! A portrait of Hannah-in Lord knew what state of undress-left hanging here in this dismal French alley for all who cared to see! It was unthinkable.

‘We have to go, ma’am,’ I said with a firmness that surprised me. ‘Mr Luxton. He’ll be expecting us.’

My tone must have surprised Hannah too, for to my relief she nodded. ‘Yes. You’re right, Grace.’

She walked with me to the door, but as I waited for her to pass through she turned back to the charcoal man. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said faintly. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’

We did not speak on the way back to the car. Hannah walked quickly, her face set. That night I lay awake, anxious and afraid, wondering how to stop her, certain that I must. There was something in the sketch that unsettled me; something I saw in Hannah’s reflection when she looked at it: a flicker reignited.

Lying in my bed that night, sounds of the street took on a malevolence they hadn’t had before. Foreign voices, foreign sounds, a woman’s laughter in a nearby apartment. I longed to return to England, to a place where the rules were clear and everybody knew their place. It didn’t exist, of course, this England, but the night times have a way of encouraging extremes.

As it happens, things next morning took care of themselves. When I went to dress Hannah, Teddy was already awake and sitting in the armchair. His head was still aching, he said, but what kind of a husband would he be if he left his pretty wife alone on the final day of their honeymoon? He suggested they go shopping. ‘It’s our last day. I’d like to take you out to pick some souvenirs. Something to remind you of Paris.’

When they returned, I noted, the sketch was not amongst the things Hannah had me pack for England. I am not sure whether Teddy refused and she acceded, or whether she knew better than to ask, but I was glad. Teddy had bought her a fur wrap instead: mink, with brittle little paws and dull black eyes.

And so we returned to England.

I am thirsty. There is someone sitting beside me again, but it is not Sylvia. It is a woman, heavily pregnant, with bags of knitted dolls and homemade jams at her feet. Her face is shiny and moist, and her makeup has slipped an inch since application. Black crescents rest on her upper cheeks. She is looking at me, has been watching me for some time, I suspect.

I nod; it seems to be expected. She continues to look, waiting for something. She has the concentrated attitude of one who’s been listening. Have I been talking? Making a spectacle? I do not know. More and more I cannot trust myself. And I do not like to stand out; I am used to being invisible.

‘Lovely day,’ she says finally. ‘Nice and warm.’ She does not believe it herself. I can see the beads of sweat about her hairline. The darker strip of fabric that clings beneath her heavy breasts.

‘Lovely,’ I say. ‘Very warm.’

She smiles wearily and looks away.

We returned to London on 2 July 1919, the day of the Peace Procession. The driver steered us through cars and omnibuses and horse-drawn carriages, along crowd-lined streets where people had crammed together to wave flags and streamers. The ink was still wet on the treaty, sanctions that would lead to the bitterness and division responsible for the next world war, but folk back home knew none of that. Not then. They were just glad that the south wind no longer dragged the sound of gunfire across the channel. That there’d be no more boys dying at the hands of other boys on the plains of France.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Good afternoon,’ I said. ‘I-’

‘Good, is it?’ said the man. ‘I’ve just lost my third housemaid in as many weeks. We’ve a party scheduled for two hours hence, Mrs Tibbit’s so behind she’s got a cow’s tail, and you want me to believe it’s a good afternoon?’

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

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

They looked at me with shared confusion.

‘The Mistress’s lady’s maid?’

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

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

‘Paris?’ They looked at one another.

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Deborah? Who was Miss Deborah, and why did they continue to refer to her as mistress? I frowned. ‘My mistress, Mrs Luxton, didn’t mention a party.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The woman stretched her lips into a smile. ‘Welcome home, Tiddles.’ Her words were breezy, her New York accent flat and loud. She had a way of speaking that eschewed intonation. It was a leveller, making the ordinary seem extraordinary and vice versa. ‘I’ve had the place decorated, like you asked. Hope you don’t mind, but I invited some of London’s finest to help enjoy it.’ She waved her long fingers at a well-dressed woman whose eye she caught over Hannah’s shoulder.

‘Are you surprised, darling?’ Teddy said, turning to Hannah. ‘It was meant to be a surprise. Dobby and I cooked it up between us.’

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

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

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

Estella thought Hannah should have a baby; it would be good for Teddy. Good for his constituents to see him as a family man. They were married, she was fond of saying, and sooner or later in every marriage there was the expectation of children.

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

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

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

It was a drizzly Tuesday morning when I found Hannah standing alone in one of the front rooms of the house. Teddy had just left for work and she was watching the street through the window. Busy people walking back and forth, here and there.

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

No answer.

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

I came closer and I realised Hannah had not heard. She was in company with her own thoughts and I could guess at them without much trouble. She wore an expression I hadn’t seen since she was a girl: when David would leave Riverton for school. Wave goodbye and leave her for a place she imagined full of adventure and learning and challenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Again, ma’am?’

She shrugged, smiled. ‘Again.’

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

Teddy worked hard; I was never sure exactly what he and his father did, only that it involved briefcases, and busy low voices, and the entertaining of various ‘important people’. Hannah made an effort, as Teddy asked. She attended his parties, made chitchat with the wives of business associates and the mothers of politicians. The talk amongst the men was always the same-of money, business, the threat of the underclasses. Teddy and Simion, like all men of their type, were profoundly suspicious of those they termed ‘bohemians’.

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

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

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

‘Let me play,’ Hannah would say.

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

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

‘Oh, darling,’ Teddy would say simply. ‘Because it’s the rules. I didn’t make them, but I have to stick to them.’ He would smile then and chip her shoulder. ‘It’s not all bad, eh? At least you’ve got Dobby to help. She’s a sport, isn’t she?’

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

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

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

‘Miss Emmeline to see you, ma’am.’

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

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

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

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

Hannah laughed. ‘Oh, Deborah chose everything. It’s hideous isn’t it?’

Emmeline raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly.

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

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

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

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

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

Emmeline looked up quickly, unable to mask her excitement. ‘I suppose I could. If it would be a help.’

Hannah let Emmeline add ten Parisian dresses to her luggage, and I was set to making better alterations to the clothing she had brought with her. I suffered a wave of homesickness for Riverton as I unpicked Myra’s perfunctory stitches. I hoped she wouldn’t take my revisions as personal affronts.

Things between the sisters improved after that: Emmeline’s slump of disaffection vanished, and by the end of the week things were much as they’d always been. They’d relaxed back into an easy friendship, each as relieved as the other by the return to the status quo. I was relieved as well: Hannah had been entirely too glum of late. I hoped the elevation of spirits would outlast the visit.

On Emmeline’s final day, she and Hannah sat at either end of the morning-room sofa, waiting for the car from Riverton. Deborah, on her way to a meeting of her bridge club, was at the writing desk, back turned, sketching a hurried note of condolence for a bereaved pal.

Emmeline reclined luxuriously and gave a wistful little sigh. ‘I could take tea at Gunter’s every day and never grow tired of walnut cake.’

‘You would once you lost that slim little waist,’ said Deborah, dragging her scratchy pen nib across the writing paper. ‘A minute on the lips and all that.’

Emmeline fluttered her eyelids at Hannah who tried not to laugh.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?’ said Emmeline. ‘It really would be no trouble.’

‘I doubt Pa would agree.’

‘Pooh,’ said Emmeline. ‘He wouldn’t care a whit.’ She inclined her head. ‘I could live quite comfortably in the coat closet, you know. You wouldn’t even know I was here.’

Hannah appeared to give this due consideration.

‘You’ll be quite bored without me, you know,’ said Emmeline.

‘I know,’ said Hannah, swooning. ‘How will I ever find things to sustain me?’

Emmeline laughed and tossed a cushion at Hannah.

Hannah caught the cushion and sat straightening its tassels for a moment. Eyes still on the cushion, she said, ‘About Pa, Emme… Is he…? How is he?’

Her strained relations with Pa, I knew, were a constant source of regret for Hannah. On more than one occasion I had found the beginnings of a letter in her escritoire, but none were ever posted.

‘He’s Pa,’ said Emmeline, shrugging. ‘Same as always.’

‘Oh,’ said Hannah disconsolately. ‘Good. I hadn’t heard from him.’

‘No,’ said Emmeline, yawning. ‘Well, you know what Pa’s like once he sets his mind.’

‘Yes,’ said Hannah. ‘Still, I rather thought…’ Her voice tapered off and for a moment there was silence between them. Though Deborah’s back was turned, I could see her ears had pricked, with Alsatian hunger, at the hint of friction. Hannah must have seen too, for she straightened and changed the subject with forced brightness. ‘I don’t know whether I mentioned, Emme-I’d thought to take some work when you’ve gone.’

‘Work?’ said Emmeline. ‘In a dress shop?’

Now Deborah laughed. She sealed her envelope and swung around on her chair. She stopped laughing when she saw Hannah’s face. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Oh, Hannah’s usually serious,’ said Emmeline.

‘When we were on Oxford Street the other day,’ said Hannah to Emmeline, ‘and you were having your hair done, I saw a small press, Blaxland’s, with a sign in the window. They were looking for editors.’ She raised her shoulders. ‘I love to read, I’m interested in politics, my grammar and spelling are better than average-’

‘But don’t be ridiculous, darling,’ said Deborah, handing her letter to me. ‘See it makes this morning’s mail.’ She turned to Hannah. ‘They’d never take you.’

‘They already have,’ said Hannah. ‘I applied on the spot. The owner said he needed somebody urgently.’

Deborah inhaled sharply; schooled her lips into a dilute smile. ‘Why, it’s out of the question.’

‘What question?’ said Emmeline, feigning earnestness.

‘The question of rightness,’ said Deborah.

‘I didn’t realise there was a question of rightness,’ said Emmeline. She started to laugh. ‘What’s the answer?’

Deborah inhaled, her nostrils sucking together. ‘Blaxland’s?’ she said thinly to Hannah. ‘Aren’t they the publishers responsible for all those nasty little red pamphlets the soldiers are handing out on street corners?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘My brother would have a fit.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Hannah. ‘Teddy’s often expressed sympathy for the unemployed.’

Deborah’s eyes flashed wider: the surprise of a predator interested briefly by its prey. ‘You’ve misheard,’ she said. ‘Tiddles knows better than to alienate his future constituents.’ (And if he didn’t then, he certainly did after Deborah spoke with him that night.) ‘Besides…’ She stood triumphantly and attached her hat before the hearth mirror, ‘… sympathy or not, I can’t imagine he’d be too pleased to learn you’d joined forces with the very people who printed those filthy articles that lost him the election.’

Hannah’s face fell-she hadn’t realised. She glanced at Emmeline who shrugged her shoulders sympathetically. Deborah, observing their reactions in the mirror, swallowed a smile and turned to face Hannah, tut-tutting disappointedly. ‘How could you be so disloyal?’

Hannah exhaled slowly.

‘And my poor brother thinks butter wouldn’t melt,’ said Deborah. She shook her head. ‘It’ll kill him when he hears about this. Kill him.’

‘Then don’t tell him,’ said Hannah.

‘You think he won’t notice?’ said Deborah. ‘You think there won’t be a hundred other people only too happy to tell him when they see your name, his name, on that propaganda?’

‘I’ll tell them I can’t take the position,’ said Hannah quietly. She set the cushion aside. ‘But I intend to look for something else. Something more suitable.’

‘Dear child,’ said Deborah, shaking her head. ‘When will you understand? There are no suitable jobs for you. How would it look for people to see Teddy’s wife working? What would people say?’

‘I need to do something,’ said Hannah. ‘Something other than sitting around here all day waiting to see if anyone calls.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Deborah, scooping her purse from the writing desk. ‘No one likes to be idle.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Though I’d have thought there was a lot more to do around here than sit and wait. A household doesn’t run itself, you know.’

‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘And I would happily take over some of the running-’

‘Best stick to things you do well,’ said Deborah, slinking toward the door. ‘That’s what I always say.’ She paused, holding the door open, then turned, a slow smile spreading across her face. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s a wonder I didn’t think of it earlier.’ She pursed her lips. ‘You’ll join my Conservative Ladies group. We’ve been looking for volunteers for the upcoming gala. You can help write place cards. If you manage that, there are always decorations to be painted.’

Hannah and Emmeline exchanged a glance as Boyle came to the door.

‘The car is here for Miss Emmeline,’ he said. ‘Can I call you a taxi, Miss Deborah?’

‘Don’t bother yourself, Boyle,’ said Deborah chirpily. ‘I feel like some fresh air.’

Boyle nodded and left to supervise the stowing of Emmeline’s bags in the motor car.

‘What a stroke of genius!’ Deborah said, smiling broadly at Hannah. ‘Teddy will be so pleased. His two girls spending all that time together, becoming real chums!’ She inclined her head and lowered her voice. ‘And this way, he’ll never need know about that other unfortunate business.’

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

I won’t wait for Sylvia. I am done waiting. I will find my own cup of tea. A loud, tinny, thumping music comes from the speakers on the makeshift stage, and a group of six young girls are dancing. They are dressed in black and red lycra-little more than swimsuits-and black boots that come all the way to their knees. The heels are high and I wonder how they manage to dance in them at all, then I remember the dancers of my youth. The Hammersmith Palladion, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Emmeline doing the shimmy-shake.

I claw my fingers around the armrest, lean so that my elbow digs into my ribs, and push myself upwards, hugging the rail. I hover for a moment, then transfer my weight to my cane, wait for the landscape to stop still. Blessed heat. I poke my cane gingerly at the ground. The recent rain has left it soft and I am wary of becoming bogged. I use the indentations made by other people’s footsteps. It is a slow process, but I go surely…

‘Hear your future… Read your palm…’

I cannot abide fortune tellers. I was once told I had a short life line; did not properly shake the vague sense of foreboding until I was midway through my sixties.

I pick my way onwards; will not look. I am resigned to my future. It is the past that troubles.

Hannah saw the fortune teller in early 1921. It was a Wednesday morning; Hannah’s ‘at-homes’ were always Wednesday morning. Deborah was lunching at the Savoy Grill and Teddy was at work with his father. Teddy had lost his air of trauma by then; he looked like someone who had woken from a strange dream relieved to realise he was still who he used to be. He and Simion were buying up petrol, tyres, trams and trains. Simion said it was essential to stamp out other forms of transport. It was the only way to ensure that people always needed to buy their cars. Hannah said it was a shame, she rather liked a choice, but Teddy and Simion only laughed and said most people weren’t equipped to make a sound choice and it was just as well if someone made it for them.

A parade of fashionably dressed women had been leaving number seventeen for the past five minutes when I started to clear the tea items. (We had just lost our fifth housemaid and no replacement had yet been found.) Only Hannah, Fanny and Lady Clementine remained, sitting on the lounges, finishing their tea. Hannah was tapping her spoon lightly, distractedly, against her saucer. She was anxious for them to go, though I did not yet know why.

‘Really dear,’ Lady Clementine said, eyeing Hannah over her empty teacup, ‘you should think about starting a family.’ She exchanged a glance with Fanny, who repositioned proudly her own sizeable heft. She was expecting her second. ‘Children are good for a marriage. Aren’t they, Fanny?’

Fanny nodded, but was unable to speak as her mouth was full with sponge cake.

‘A woman married too long without children,’ Lady Clementine said dourly. ‘People start to talk.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Hannah. ‘But there’s really nothing to talk about.’ She said it so breezily I shivered. One would have been hard-pressed to detect the hint of strife beneath the veneer. The bitter arguments Hannah’s failure to fall was causing.

Lady Clementine exchanged a glance with Fanny who raised her eyebrows. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there? Downstairs?’

My first thought was that she referred to our lack of housemaids; I realised her true meaning only when Fanny swallowed her cake and added eagerly, ‘There’s doctors you could see. Ladies doctors.’

There was really very little Hannah could say to that. Well there was, of course. She could have told them to mind their own business, and once she probably would have, but time had been rubbing at her edges. So she said nothing. She just smiled and silently willed them to leave.

When they had gone, she collapsed back into the sofa. ‘Finally,’ she said. ‘I thought they’d never go.’ She watched me loading the last of the cups onto my tray. ‘I’m sorry you have to do that, Grace.’

‘It’s all right ma’am,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it won’t be for long.’

‘All the same,’ said Hannah. ‘You’re a lady’s maid. I’ll remind Deborah about finding a replacement.’

I continued arranging the teaspoons.

Hannah was still watching me. ‘Can you keep a secret, Grace?’

‘You know I can, ma’am.’

She withdrew something, a folded piece of newspaper, from beneath her skirt waist and smoothed it open. ‘I found this in the back of one of Boyle’s newspapers.’ She handed it to me.

Fortune teller, it read. Renowned spiritualist. Communicate with the dead. Learn your future.

I couldn’t hand it back quickly enough, wiped my hands on my apron afterwards. I had heard talk downstairs about such things. It was the newest craze, the result of mass bereavement. In those days everyone wanted a word of consolation from their dear lost loves.

‘I have an appointment this afternoon,’ Hannah said.

I couldn’t think what to say. I wished she hadn’t told me. I exhaled. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, ma’am, I don’t hold with seances and the like.’

‘Really, Grace,’ Hannah said, surprised, ‘of all people I’d have thought you’d be more open-minded. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a believer, you know. He communicates regularly with his son Kingsley. He even has seances at his home.’

She wasn’t to know I was no longer devoted to Sherlock Holmes; that in London I had discovered Agatha Christie.

‘It’s not that, ma’am,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe.’

‘No?’

‘No, ma’am. I believe, all right. That’s the problem. It’s not natural. The dead. It’s dangerous to interfere.’

She raised her eyebrows, considering the fact. ‘Dangerous…’

It was the wrong approach to take. By mentioning danger I’d only made the proposition more attractive.

‘I shall go with you, ma’am,’ I said.

She had not expected this, was unsure whether to be annoyed or touched. In the end she was both. ‘No,’ she said quite sternly. ‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll be quite all right by myself.’ Then her voice softened. ‘It’s your afternoon off, isn’t it? Surely you have something lovely planned? Something preferable to accompanying me?’

I didn’t answer. The plans I had were secret. After numerous letters backwards and forwards, Alfred had finally suggested he visit me in London. The months away from Riverton had left me lonelier than I’d expected. Despite Mr Hamilton’s comprehensive coaching, I’d found there were certain pressures being a lady’s maid that I hadn’t anticipated, especially with Hannah seeming not as happy as a young bride should. And Mrs Tibbit’s penchant for making trouble ensured that none of the staff was prepared to let down their guard long enough to enjoy a camaraderie. It was the first time in my life I had suffered from isolation. And though I was wary of reading the wrong sentiment into Alfred’s attentions (sure enough, I had done that once before), I found myself longing to see him.

Nonetheless, I did follow Hannah that afternoon. My meeting with Alfred wasn’t until later in the evening; if I went quickly I’d have time to make sure she arrived then departed again in good condition. I’d heard enough stories about spiritualists to convince me it was the wisest course. Mrs Tibbit’s cousin had been possessed, she said, and Mr Boyle knew of a fellow whose wife was fleeced and had her throat cut.

More than that, while I wasn’t certain how I felt about spiritualists, I was certain enough about the type of people who were drawn to them. Only people unhappy in the present seek to know the future.

There was a thick fog out: grey and heavy. I followed Hannah along Aldwych like a detective on a trail: careful never to fall too far behind, careful she never slipped too long behind a cloud of fog. On the corner, a man in a trench coat was playing mouth organ: ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. They were everywhere, those displaced soldiers, in every alleyway, beneath every bridge, in front of every railway station. Hannah fossicked in her purse for a coin and dropped it in the man’s cup before continuing on her way.

We turned into Kean Street and Hannah stopped in front of an elegant Edwardian villa. It looked respectable enough but, as Mother was fond of saying, appearances could be deceptive. I watched as she checked the advertisement again and pressed a finger to the numbered doorbell. The door opened quickly and, without a glance behind, she disappeared inside.

I stood out front, wondering which level she was being led to. The third, I felt sure. There was something about the lamp glow that yellowed the frilled edges of the drawn curtains. I sat and waited near a one-legged man selling tin monkeys that ran up and down a piece of twine. I asked him how many he had sold.

‘Three,’ he said.

I waited over an hour. By the time she reappeared, the cement step on which I sat had frozen my legs and I was unable to stand quickly enough. I crouched, praying she wouldn’t see me. She didn’t; she wasn’t looking. She was standing on the top step in a daze. Her expression was blank, startled even, and she seemed glued to the spot. My first thought was that the spiritualist had put a hex on her, held up one of those fob watches they showed in photographs and hypnotised her. My foot was all pins and needles so I couldn’t rush over. I was about to call out when she took a deep breath, shook herself and started off quickly in the direction of home.

I was late meeting Alfred that foggy evening. Not by much, but enough that he looked worried before he saw me, hurt when he did.

‘Grace.’ We greeted each other clumsily. He held out his hand to take mine at the same time I reached for his. There was a clumsy moment where wrist hit against wrist, and he grabbed my elbow by mistake. I smiled nervously, reclaimed my own hand and tucked it under my scarf. ‘Sorry I’m late, Alfred,’ I said. ‘I was running an errand for the Mistress.’

‘Doesn’t she know it’s your afternoon off?’ said Alfred. He was taller than I’d remembered, and his face more lined, but still, I thought him very nice to look at.

‘Yes, but-’

‘You should have told her what she could do with her errand.’

His scorn did not surprise me. Alfred’s frustrations with service were growing. In his letters from Riverton, distance had exposed something I hadn’t seen before: there was a thread of dissatisfaction that ran through his descriptions of his daily life. And lately, his enquiries about London, reportage of Riverton, were peppered with quotes from books he’d been reading about classes and workers and trade unions.

‘You’re not a slave,’ he said. ‘You could have told her no.’

‘I know. I didn’t think it would… The errand took longer than I thought.’

‘Oh well,’ he said, face softening so that he looked like himself again. ‘Not your fault. Let’s make the most of it before we’re back to the salt mines, eh? How about a spot to eat before the film?’

I was overwhelmed with happiness as we walked side by side. I felt grown-up and rather daring, out about town with a man like Alfred. I found myself wishing he would link his arm through mine. That people might see us and take us for a married couple.

‘I looked in on your ma,’ he said, breaking my thoughts. ‘Like you asked.’

‘Oh, Alfred,’ I said. ‘Thank you. She wasn’t too bad, was she?’

‘Not too bad, Grace.’ He hesitated a moment and looked away. ‘But not too good, neither, if I’m honest. A nasty cough. And her back’s been giving her grief, she says.’ He drove his hands into his pockets. ‘Arthritis, isn’t it?’

I nodded. ‘It came on sudden when I was a girl. Got bad really fast. Winter’s the worst.’

‘I had an aunt the same. Turned her old before her time.’ He shook his head. ‘Rotten luck.’

We walked in silence a way. ‘Alfred,’ I said, ‘about Mother… Did she seem… Did she look to have enough, Alfred? Coal, I mean, and the like?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘No problems there. A nice pile of coal.’ He leaned to bump my shoulder. ‘And Mrs T makes sure she receives a nice parcel of sweets now and then.’

‘Bless her,’ I said, eyes filling with grateful tears. ‘And you too, Alfred. For going to see her. I know she appreciates it, even if she wouldn’t say so herself.’

He shrugged, said plainly, ‘I don’t do it for your mother’s gratitude, Gracie. I do it for you.’

A wave of pleasure flooded my cheeks. I cupped one side of my face with a gloved hand, pressed it lightly to absorb the warmth. ‘And how is everyone else?’ I said shyly. ‘Back in Saffron? Is everybody well?’

There was a pause as he absorbed my subject change. ‘Well as can be expected,’ he said. ‘Downstairs that is. Upstairs is another matter.’

‘Mr Frederick?’ Myra’s last letter had suggested all was not right with him.

Alfred shook his head. ‘Gone all gloomy since you left. Must’ve had a soft spot for you, eh?’ He nudged me and I couldn’t help but smile.

‘He misses Hannah,’ I said.

‘Not that he’d admit it.’

‘She’s as bad.’ I told him about the aborted letters I’d found. Draft after draft cast aside but never sent.

He whistled and shook his head. ‘And they say we’re s’posed to learn from our betters. Ask me, they could learn a thing or two from us.’

I continued walking, wondering at Mr Frederick’s malaise. ‘Do you think if he and Hannah were to make it up between them…?’

Alfred shrugged. ‘Don’t know if it’s that simple, to be honest. Oh, he misses Hannah, all right. No doubt about that. But there’s more to it than that.’

I looked at him.

‘It’s his motor cars, too. It’s like he’s got no purpose now the factory’s gone.’ He squinted into the fog. ‘And I can understand that well enough. A man needs to feel utilised.’

‘Is Emmeline any consolation?’

He shrugged. ‘Turning into quite a little miss, if you ask me. She’s got the run of the place with the Master as he is. He doesn’t seem to mind what she does. Barely notices she’s there, most times.’ He kicked a small stone and watched as it bounced along, disappeared into the gutter. ‘No. It’s not the same place any more. Not since you left.’

I was savouring this comment when he said, ‘Oh,’ and dipped his hand into his pocket. ‘Speaking of Riverton, you’ll never guess who I just saw. Just now when I was waiting for you.’

‘Who?’

‘Miss Starling. Lucy Starling. Mr Frederick’s secretary as was.’

A prickle of envy; his familiar use of her first name. Lucy. A slippery, mysterious name that rustled like silk. ‘Miss Starling? Here in London?’

‘Lives here now, she says. A flat on Hartley Street, just round the corner.’

‘But what’s she doing here?’

‘Working. After Mr Frederick’s factory burned down she had to find another job. New fellow, your boss, didn’t keep her on. No use for loyalty, him. Anyhow, I s’pose she figured there was lots more jobs in London than in Saffron.’ He handed me a piece of paper. White, warm, the corner folded where it had lain against the inside of his pocket. ‘I took down her address, told her I’d give it to you.’ He looked at me, smiled in a way that made my cheeks red all over again. ‘I’ll rest easier,’ he said, ‘knowing you’ve a friend in London.’

I am faint. My thoughts swim. Back and forth; in and out; across the tides of history.

The community hall. Perhaps that’s where Sylvia is. There will be tea there. The ladies auxiliary will be sure to have set up in the kitchenette, selling cakes and pikelets, and watery tea with sticks in place of spoons. I pick my way toward the small flight of concrete stairs. Steady as I go.

I step, misjudge, my ankle cuts hard against the rim of a concrete stair. Someone clutches my arm as I falter. A young man with dark skin, green hair and a ring right the way through his nostrils.

‘You all right?’ he says, his voice soft and foreign.

I cannot take my eyes from his nose-ring, cannot find the words.

‘You’re white as a sheet, darlin’. You here alone? You got someone I should call?’

‘There you are!’ It is a woman. Someone I know. ‘Wandering off like that! I thought I’d lost you.’ She clucks like an old hen, plants her closed fists against her waist, only higher, so that she looks to be flapping fleshy wings. ‘What in heaven’s name did you think you were doing?’

‘Found her here,’ says green hair. ‘Almost fell on her way up the stairs.’

‘Is that right, you naughty thing,’ Sylvia says. ‘I turn my back one minute! You’ll give me a heart attack if you’re not careful. I don’t know what you were thinking.’

I begin to tell her but stop. Realise that I cannot remember. I have the strongest sense that I was looking for something, that I wanted something.

‘Come on,’ she says, both hands on my shoulders, steering me away from the hall. ‘Anthony’s dying to meet you.’

The tent is large and white with one flap tied back to permit entry. A painted fabric sign is strung above the entrance: Saffron Green Historical Society. Sylvia manoeuvres me inside. It is hot and smells like freshly mown grass. A fluorescent light tube has been fastened to the ceiling frame, humming as it casts its anaesthetic glow across the plastic tables and chairs.

‘That’s him there,’ Sylvia whispers, indicating a man whose ordinariness renders him vaguely familiar. Grey-flecked brown hair, matching moustache, ruddy cheeks. He is in deep conversation with a matronly woman in conservative dress. Sylvia leans close. ‘Told you he was a good sort, didn’t I?’

I am hot and my feet ache. I am confused. From nowhere, a delicious urge to petulance. ‘I want a cup of tea.’

Sylvia glances at me, quickly masks surprise. ‘Of course you do, ducky. I’ll fetch you one, and then I’ve got a treat for you. Come and sit down.’ She bundles me over to sit by a hessian-covered board tiled with photographs, then disappears.

It is a cruel, ironical art, photography. The dragging of captured moments into the future; moments that should have been allowed to evaporate with the past; should exist only in memories, glimpsed through the fog of events that came after. Photographs force us to see people before their future weighed them down, before they knew their endings.

At first glance they are a froth of white faces and skirts amid a sepia sea, but recognition brings some into sharp focus while others recede. The first is the summer house, the one Teddy designed and had built when they took up residence in 1924. The photograph was taken that year, judging by the people in the foreground. Teddy stands near the incomplete stairs, leaning against one of the white marble entrance pillars. There is a picnic rug on the grassy escarpment nearby. Hannah and Emmeline sit on it, side by side. Blonde bookends. Both with the same faraway look in their eyes. Deborah stands at the front of frame, tall body fashionably slumped, dark hair falling over one eye. She holds a cigarette in one hand. The smoke gives the impression of haze on the photo. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a fifth person in the photo, hidden behind the haze. There’s not of course. There are no photos of Robbie at Riverton. He only came the two times.

The second photograph has no people in it. It is of Riverton itself, or what was left of it after the fire swept through before the second war. The entire left wing has disappeared as if some mighty shovel descended from the sky and scooped out the nursery, the dining room, the drawing room, the family bedrooms. The remaining areas are charred black. They say it smoked for weeks. The smell of soot lingered in the village for months. I wouldn’t know. By that time war was coming, Ruth was born, and I was on the threshold of a new existence.

The third photograph I have avoided recognising, avoided assigning its place in history. The people I identify easily; the fact that they are dressed for a party. There were so many parties in those days, people were always dressing up and posing for photographs. They could be going anywhere. But they are not. I know where they are, and I know what is to come. I remember well what they wore. I remember the blood, the pattern it sprayed across her pale dress, like a jar of red ink dropped from a great height. I never managed to remove it completely; it wouldn’t have made much difference if I had. I should simply have thrown it out. She never looked at it again, certainly never wore it.

In this photo they do not know; they are smiling. Hannah and Emmeline and Teddy. Smiling at the camera. It is Before. I look at Hannah’s face, searching for some hint, some knowledge of impending doom. I don’t find it, of course. If anything, it is anticipation I see in her eyes. Though perhaps I only imagine it because I know it was there.

There is someone behind me. A woman. She leans across to look at the same photograph.

‘Priceless, aren’t they,’ she says. ‘All those silly outfits they used to wear. A different world.’

The shadow across their faces she does not notice; it is in my eyes and mine alone. Knowledge of what’s to come spreads like frostbite, up my legs.

No, it is not knowledge I feel; my leg is weeping where I bumped it, cold, sticky liquid seeping down toward my shoe.

Someone taps my shoulder. ‘Dr Bradley?’ A man is bending toward me, his beaming face near mine. He takes my hand. ‘Grace? May I call you that? It’s a pleasure to meet you. Sylvia’s told me so much about you. It really is a pleasure.’

Who is this man, speaking so loudly, so slowly? Shaking my hand so fervently? What has Sylvia told him of me? And why?

‘… It’s English I teach for a living, but history’s my passion. I like to consider myself a bit of a local history buff.’

Sylvia appears through the tent’s entrance, polystyrene cup in hand. ‘Here you are then.’

Tea. Just what I felt like. I take a sip. It is lukewarm; I can no longer be trusted with hot liquids. I have dozed off unexpectedly one too many times.

Sylvia sits in another chair. ‘Has Anthony told you about the testimonials?’ She blinks mascara-clumped eyelashes at the man. ‘Have you told her about the testimonials?’

‘Hadn’t quite got round to it,’ he says.

‘Anthony’s video-taping a collection of personal stories from local people about the history of Saffron Green. It’s to go to the Historical Society.’ She looks at me, smiles broadly, ‘He’s got a funding grant and all. He’s just been recording Mrs Baker over there.’

She continues, with his help, to explain; occasional snatches jump out from the rest: oral histories, cultural significance, millennium time capsule, people in a hundred years…

Once upon a time, people kept their stories to themselves. It didn’t occur to them that folks would find them interesting. Now everybody’s writing a memoir, competing for the worst childhood, the most violent father. Four years ago a student from a nearby technical college came to Heathview asking questions; an earnest young man with bad skin and a habit of shredding the skin around his fingernails while he listened. He brought a little tape-recorder and a microphone, and a manila folder with a sheet of questions written out by hand. He went from room to room, asking whether people would mind answering questions. He found plenty of folk only too happy to volunteer their stories, to unzip themselves and let the contents spill. Mavis Buddling, for one, kept him busy with tales of a heroic husband I knew she’d never had.

I suppose I should be glad. In my second life, after it all ended at Riverton, after the second war, I spent much of my time digging around discovering people’s stories. Finding evidence, fleshing out bare bones. How much easier it would have been if everybody came replete with a record of their personal history. But all I can think of is a million tapes of the elderly ruminating on the price of eggs thirty years ago. Are they all in a room somewhere, a huge underground bunker, shelves from floor to ceiling, tapes lined up, walls echoing with trivial memories that no one has time to hear?

There is only one person whom I wish to hear my story. One person for whom I set it down on tape. I only hope it will be worth it. That Ursula is right: that Marcus will listen and understand. That my own guilt and the story of its acquisition will somehow set him free.

The light is bright. I feel like a bird in an oven. Hot, plucked and watched. Why ever did I agree to this? Did I agree to this?

‘Can you say something so we can test the levels?’ Anthony is crouched behind a black item. A video camera, I suppose.

‘What should I say?’ A voice not my own.

‘Once again.’

‘I’m afraid I really don’t know what to say.’

‘Good,’ Anthony pulls away from the camera. ‘That’s got it.’

I smell the tent canvas, baking in the midday sun.

‘I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you,’ he says, smiling. ‘Sylvia tells me you used to work at the big house.’

‘Yes.’

‘No need to lean toward the microphone. It’ll pick you up just fine where you are.’

I had not realised I was leaning and inch backwards into the seat curve with the sense that I’ve been chastised.

‘You worked at Riverton.’ It is a statement, no answer required, yet I cannot curb my urge to comply, to specify.

‘I started in 1914 as a housemaid.’

He is embarrassed, for himself or for me I do not know. ‘Yes, well…’ He moves on swiftly. ‘You worked for Theodore Luxton?’ He says the name with some trepidation, as if by invoking Teddy’s spectre he may be tarred by his ignominy.

‘Yes.’

‘Excellent! Did you see much of him?’

He means did I hear much; can I tell him what went on behind closed doors. I fear I shall be a disappointment. ‘Not much. I was his wife’s lady’s maid at the time.’

‘You must’ve had quite a bit to do with Theodore in that case.’

‘No. Not really.’

‘But I’ve read that the servants’ hall was the hub of a household’s gossip. You must have been aware of what was going on?’

‘No.’ A lot of it came out later, of course. I read about it, along with everybody else, in the newspapers. Visits to Germany, meetings with Hitler. I never believed the worst charges. They were guilty of little more than an admiration for Hitler’s galvanisation of the working classes, his ability to grow industry. Never mind that it was off the backs of slave labour. Few people knew that then. History was yet to prove him a madman.

‘The meeting in 1936 with the German ambassador?’

‘I no longer worked at Riverton then. I left a decade earlier.’

He stops; he is disappointed, as I knew he would be. His line of questioning has been unfairly cut. Then some of his excitement is restored. ‘1926?’

‘1925.’

‘Then you must have been there when that fellow, that poet, what’s-his-name, killed himself.’

The light is making me warm. I am tired. My heart flutters a little. Or something inside my heart flutters; an artery worn so thin that a flap has come loose, is waving about, lost, in the current of my blood.

‘Yes,’ I hear myself say.

It is some consolation. ‘All right. We can talk about that instead?’

I can hear my heart now. It is pumping wetly, reluctantly.

‘Grace?’

‘She’s very pale.’

My head is light. So very tired.

‘Dr Bradley?’

‘Grace? Grace!’

Whooshing like wind through a tunnel, an angry wind that drags behind it a summer storm, rushing toward me, faster and faster. It is my past, and it is coming for me. It is everywhere; in my ears, behind my eyes, pushing my ribs…

‘Call a doctor; someone call an ambulance!’

Release. Disintegration. A million tiny particles falling through the cone of time.

‘Grace? She’s all right. You’ll be all right, Grace, you hear?’

Horses hooves on cobble roads, motor cars with foreign names, delivery boys on bicycles, nannies parading perambulators, skipping ropes, hopscotch, Greta Garbo, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Bee Jackson, the charleston, Chanel Number 5, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, F Scott Fitzgerald…

‘Grace!’

My name?

‘Grace?’

Sylvia? Hannah?

‘She just collapsed. She was sitting there and-’

‘Stand back now, ma’am. Let us get her in.’ A new voice.

The slam of a door.

A siren.

Motion.

The Shifting Fog

‘Grace… it’s Sylvia. Hold on, you hear? I’m with you… taking you home… you just hold on…’

Hold on? To what? Ah… the letter, of course. It is in my hand. Hannah is waiting for me to bring her the letter. The street is icy and the winter snow has just begun to fall.

IN THE DEPTHS

It is a cold winter and I am running. I can feel my blood, thick and warm in my veins, pulsing quickly beneath my cold face. Icy air makes my skin stretch taut across my cheekbones, as if it has shrunk smaller than its frame, is stretched over a rack. On tenterhooks, as Myra would say.

The letter I clutch tightly in my fingers. It is small, the envelope marked a little where its sender’s thumb smudged still-wet ink. It is hot off the press.

It is from an investigator. A real detective with an agency in Surrey Street, a secretary at the door and a typewriter on his desk. I have been dispatched to collect it in person for it contains-with any luck-information far too inflammatory to be risked in the Royal Mail or over the telephone. The letter, we hope, contains the whereabouts of Emmeline, who has disappeared. It threatens to become a scandal; I am one of the few who have been trusted.

The telephone call came from Mr Frederick three days ago. Emmeline had been staying the weekend with family friends at an estate in Oxfordshire. She gave them the slip when they went to town for church. There was a car waiting for her. It was all planned. There is rumoured to be a man involved.

I am pleased about the letter-I know how important it is that we find Emmeline-but I am excited for another reason too. I am seeing Alfred tonight. It will be the first time since that foggy evening many months ago. When he gave me Lucy Starling’s address, told me he cared for me, and late that night returned me to my door. We have exchanged letters in the months since, with increased reliability (and increased fondness), and now, finally, we are to see each other again. A real, proper engagement. Alfred is coming to London. He has saved his wages and purchased two tickets to Princess Ida. It is a stage show. It will be my first. I have passed the signs for shows when I have walked along the Haymarket on errands for Hannah, or on one of my afternoons off, but I have never been to see one.

It is my secret. I do not tell Hannah-she has too much else on her mind-and I do not tell the other staff at number seventeen. Mrs Tibbit’s culture of unkindness has ensured they are all the sorts to tease, to poke cruel fun for the smallest reason. Once, when Mrs Tibbit saw me reading a letter (from Mrs Townsend, thank goodness, and not Alfred!), she insisted on seeing it herself. She said it was her duty to ensure that the under-staff (under-staff!) are not behaving improperly, keeping up improper liaisons. The Master would not approve.

She is right in one way. Teddy has become strict recently in matters of staff. There are problems at work, and although he is not by nature ill-tempered, it seems even the mildest man is capable of bad humour when pushed. He has become preoccupied with matters of dirt and filth, and has taken to checking our fingernails daily; it is one of the habits he’s adopted from his father.

That is why the other servants are not to be told of Emmeline. One of them would be sure to tell, to score points from having been the one to inform. The others are on Teddy’s team. I am on Hannah’s.

When I reach number seventeen, I enter via the servants’ staircase and hurry through, anxious not to draw undue attention from Mrs Tibbit.

Hannah is in her bedroom, waiting for me. She is pale, has been pale since she received the call from Pa last week. I hand her the letter and she immediately tears it open. She scans what is written. Exhales quickly. ‘They’ve found her,’ she says without looking up. ‘Thank God. She’s all right.’

She continues reading; inhales, then shakes her head. ‘Oh, Emmeline,’ she says under her breath. ‘Emmeline.’

She reaches the end, drops the letter to her side and looks at me. She presses her lips together and nods to herself. ‘She must be fetched immediately, before it’s too late.’ She returns the letter to its envelope. She does it agitatedly, cramming the paper too quickly. She has been like that lately, since she saw the spiritualist: nervous and preoccupied.

‘Right now, ma’am?’

‘Immediately. It’s already been three days.’

‘Would you like me to have the chauffeur bring the motor car around?’

‘No,’ says Hannah quickly, ‘No. I can’t risk anyone finding out.’ She means Teddy and his family. ‘I’ll drive myself.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Well, don’t look so surprised, Grace. My father and husband both make motor cars. There’s nothing to it.’

‘Shall I fetch your gloves and scarf, ma’am?’

She nods. ‘And some for yourself.’

‘For myself, ma’am?’

‘You’re coming, aren’t you?’ says Hannah, looking up with wide eyes. ‘We stand more chance of rescuing her that way.’

We. One of the sweetest words. Of course I go with her. She needs my help. I will still be back for Alfred.

He is a film-maker, a Frenchman, and he is twice her age. Worse yet, he is already married. Hannah tells me this as we drive. We are going to his film studio in North London. The investigator says this is where Emmeline has been staying.

When we arrive at the address, Hannah stops the car and we both sit for a moment, looking through the window. It is a part of London neither of us has seen before. The houses are short and narrow, and made of dark brick. There are people in the street, gambling it turns out. Teddy’s Rolls Royce is conspicuously shiny. Hannah takes out the investigator’s letter and checks the address again. She turns to me and raises her eyebrows, nods.

It is little more than a house. Hannah knocks at the door and a woman answers. She has blonde hair wrapped around curlers and is dressed in a silk wrap, cream in colour, but dirty.

‘Good morning,’ says Hannah. ‘My name is Hannah Luxton. Mrs Hannah Luxton.’

The woman shifts her weight so that a knee appears through the gap in her gown. She widens her eyes. ‘Sure, honey,’ she says in an accent similar to Deborah’s Texan friend. ‘Whatever you like. You here ’bout the audition?’

Hannah blinks. ‘I’m here about my sister. Emmeline Hartford?’

The woman frowns.

‘A little shorter than me,’ says Hannah, ‘light hair, blue eyes?’ She pulls a photograph from her purse, hands it to the woman.

‘Oh, yeah, yeah,’ she says, handing the photograph back. ‘That’s Baby all right.’

Hannah exhales with relief. ‘Is she here? Is she all right?’

‘Sure,’ the woman says.

‘Thank goodness,’ Hannah says. ‘Well then. I’d like to see her.’

‘Sorry, sugar. No can do. Baby’s in the middle of shooting.’

‘Shooting?’

‘She’s in the middle of shooting a scene. Philippe don’t like to be disturbed once filming’s started.’ The woman shifts her weight and the left knee replaces the right, peeking through where her gown parts. She tilts her head to the side. ‘You all can wait inside if you like?’

Hannah looks at me. I raise my shoulders helplessly, and we follow the woman into the house.

We are shown through the hall, up the stairs and into a small room with an unmade double bed in its centre. The room’s curtains are drawn so there is no natural light. In its place three lamps have been turned on, each shade draped with a red silk scarf.

Against one wall is a chair, and on the chair is a piece of luggage we recognise as Emmeline’s. On one of the bedside tables is a man’s pipe set.

‘Oh, Emmeline…’ says Hannah, and is unable to continue.

‘Would you like a glass of water, ma’am?’ I say.

She nods, automatically. ‘Yes…’

I don’t fancy going back downstairs to find a kitchen. The woman who showed us in has disappeared and I don’t know what might lurk behind closed doors. Instead, I find a tiny bathroom down the hall. The benchtop is covered with brushes and makeup pencils, powders and false eyelashes. The only cup I can see is a heavy mug with a grimy collection of concentric rings inside. I try to wash it clean, but the stains are resistant. I return to Hannah empty-handed. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am…’

She looks at me. Takes a deep breath. ‘Grace,’ she says, ‘I don’t want to shock you. But I believe Emmeline might be living with a man.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I say, careful not to reveal my own horror in case it inflames hers. ‘It would appear so.’

The door bursts open and we swing around. Emmeline is standing in the entrance. I am stunned. Her blonde hair is curled up high on top, cupping her cheeks, and long black lashes make her eyes impossibly large. Her lips are painted in bright red and she is wearing a silk robe like the woman downstairs. Grown-up affectations all, and yet she looks younger somehow. It is her face, I realise, her expression. She lacks the artifice of adulthood: she is genuinely shocked to see us and unable to conceal it. ‘What are you doing here?’ she says.

‘Thank goodness,’ Hannah says, breathing a sigh of relief, rushing to Emmeline.

‘What are you doing here?’ Emmeline says again. By now she has regained her poise, droopy lids have replaced wide eyes, and the little round ‘o’ of her lips has become a pout.

‘We’ve come for you,’ says Hannah. ‘Hurry up and dress so we can leave.’

Emmeline struts slowly to the dressing table, sinks onto the stool. She shakes a cigarette from its crumpled packet, pouts when it catches, then lights it. After she’s exhaled a stream of smoke, she says, ‘I’m not going anywhere. You can’t make me.’

Hannah seizes her arm and pulls her to her feet. ‘You are and I can. We’re going home.’

‘This is my home now,’ says Emmeline, shaking her arm free. ‘I’m an actress. I’m going to be a film star. Philippe says I have the looks.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ says Hannah grimly. ‘Grace, gather Emmeline’s bags while I help her dress.’

Hannah releases Emmeline’s robe and we both gasp. Underneath is a negligee, see-through. Pink nipples peek from beneath black lace. ‘Emmeline!’ says Hannah as I turn away quickly to the suitcase. ‘What kind of film have you been making?’

‘A love story,’ says Emmeline, wrapping the robe around her middle again and dragging on her cigarette.

Hannah’s hands cover her mouth and she glances at me-round blue eyes, a mix of horror and concern and anger. It is far worse than either of us imagined. We are both lost for words. I hold out one of Emmeline’s dresses. Hannah hands it to Emmeline. ‘Get dressed,’ she manages to say. ‘Just get dressed.’

There is a noise outside, heavy feet on the stairs, and suddenly a man is at the door; a short, moustachioed man, stout and swarthy with an air of slow arrogance. He has the look of a well-fed and well-sunned lizard, and wears a suit with a mottled waistcoat-gold and bronze-which mirrors the decayed opulence of the house. A cigar smokes greyly from between purple lips.

‘Philippe,’ says Emmeline triumphantly, pulling free from Hannah.

‘What is zis?’ he says in a heavy French accent. The cigar, apparently, is no impediment to speech. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ he says to Hannah, striding to Emmeline’s side, placing a proprietorial hand on her arm.

‘Taking her home,’ Hannah says.

‘And who,’ says Philippe, eyeing Hannah up and down, ‘are you?’

‘Her sister.’

This seems to please him. He sits on the end of the bed, pulls Emmeline down next to him, never taking his eyes from Hannah. ‘What’s the rush?’ He says, smiling around his cigar. ‘Perhaps big sister will join Baby in some shots, eh?’

Hannah inhales quickly then regains her composure. ‘Certainly not. We are both leaving this minute.’

‘I’m not,’ says Emmeline.

Philippe shrugs in the way only Frenchmen can. ‘It seems she does not wish to go.’

‘She hasn’t a choice,’ says Hannah. She looks at me. ‘Have you finished packing, Grace?’

‘Almost, ma’am.’

Only then does Philippe notice me. ‘A third sister?’ He raises an appraising eyebrow and I squirm beneath the unwarranted attention, as uncomfortable as if I were naked.

Emmeline laughs. ‘Oh, Philippe. Don’t tease. That’s only Grace, Hannah’s maid.’

Though I am flattered at his mistake, I am grateful when Emmeline tugs at his sleeve and he turns his gaze away.

‘Tell her,’ Emmeline says to Philippe. ‘Tell her about us.’ She smiles at Hannah with the unchecked enthusiasm of a seventeen year old. ‘We’ve eloped, we’re going to be married.’

‘And what does your wife think of that, monsieur?’ says Hannah.

‘He doesn’t have a wife,’ says Emmeline. ‘Not yet.’

‘Shame on you, monsieur,’ says Hannah, voice quivering. ‘My sister is only seventeen.’

As if spring-loaded, Philippe’s arm pulls away from Emmeline’s shoulders.

‘Seventeen’s old enough to be in love,’ says Emmeline. ‘We’ll marry when I’m eighteen, won’t we, Philly?’

Philippe smiles an awkward smile, wipes his hands on his trouser legs and stands.

‘Won’t we?’ says Emmeline, voice raising a tone. ‘Like we talked about? Tell her.’

Hannah tosses the dress into Emmeline’s lap. ‘Yes, monsieur, do tell.’

One of the lamps flickers and the light extinguishes. Philippe shrugs, his cigar sags from his lower lip. ‘I, ah… I…’

‘Stop it, Hannah,’ says Emmeline, voice trembling. ‘You’re going to ruin everything.’

‘I’m taking my sister home,’ says Hannah. ‘And if you make this any more difficult than it already is, my husband will ensure you never make another film. He has friends in the police and the government. I’m sure they’d be very interested to know about the films you’re making.’

Philippe is very helpful after that; he collects some more of Emmeline’s things from the bathroom and packs them in her bag, though not with as much care as I would like. He carries her bags to the car, and while Emmeline is crying and telling him how much she loves him and begging him to tell Hannah that they’re to be married, he stays very quiet. Finally, he looks at Hannah, frightened by the things Emmeline is saying, and just what kind of trouble Hannah’s husband could make for him, and he says, ‘I do not know what she talks about. She is crazy. She told me she was twenty-one.’

Emmeline cries all the way home, hot angry tears. I doubt she hears a word of Hannah’s lecture about responsibility and reputation and running away not being the answer.

‘He loves me,’ is all she says when Hannah reaches the end. There are tears streaming down her face and her eyes are red. ‘We’re going to be married.’

Hannah sighs. ‘Stop, Emmeline. Please.’

‘We’re in love. Philippe will come and find me.’

‘I doubt that,’ says Hannah.

‘Why did you have to come and ruin things?’

‘Ruin things?’ Hannah says. ‘I rescued you. You’re lucky we got there before you got yourself into real trouble. He’s already married. He lied to you so you’d make his disgusting films.’

Emmeline stares at Hannah, her bottom lip trembling. ‘You just can’t stand it that I’m happy,’ Emmeline says, ‘that I’m in love. That something wonderful has finally happened to me. Someone loves me the best.’

Hannah doesn’t answer. We have reached number seventeen and the chauffeur is coming to park the car.

Emmeline crosses her arms and sniffles. ‘Well you might have ruined this film, but I’m still going to be an actress. Philippe will wait for me. And the other films will still be shown.’

‘There are others?’ Hannah looks at me in the rear-vision mirror, and I know what she is thinking. Teddy will have to be told. Only he will be able to make sure the films are never seen.

As Hannah and Emmeline disappear into the house I hurry down the servants’ stairs. I do not own a wristwatch but feel sure it must be getting on for five. The stage show starts at half past the hour. I push through the door but it is Mrs Tibbit waiting for me, not Alfred.

‘Alfred?’ I say, out of breath.

‘Nice fellow, him,’ she says, a sly smile tugging at her mole. ‘Pity he had to go so soon.’

My heart sinks and I glance at the clock. ‘How long ago did he leave?’

‘Oh, some time now,’ she says, turning back toward the kitchen. ‘Sat around here a while, watching the time tick by. Until I put him out of his misery.’

‘Out of his misery?’

‘Told him he was wasting his time. That you were out on one of your secret errands for the Mistress and it was anyone’s guess when you’d be back.’

I am running again. Down Regent Street toward Piccadilly. If I go quickly perhaps I can catch him up. I curse that meddling witch, Mrs Tibbit, while I go. What business had she telling Alfred I wouldn’t be back? And to advise him I was running an errand for Hannah, on my day off too! It’s as if she knew the very way to inflict the largest wound. I know him well enough to guess at Alfred’s mind. More and more these days his letters are peppered with frustration at the ‘feudal exploitation of slaves and serfs’, calls to ‘wake the sleeping giant of the proletariat’. He is already frustrated at my failure to perceive my employment as exploitation. Miss Hannah needs me, I write to him again and again, and I enjoy the work: how can that be viewed as exploitation?

As Regent Street opens into Piccadilly, the noise and bustle escalates. The Saqui & Lawrence clocks are arranged at half-five-end of business-and the circus is clogged with traffic: pedestrian and automotive. Gentlemen and businessmen, ladies and errand boys, jostle for safe passage. I squeeze between a motorbus and a stalled motorised taxi, am almost flattened by a horse-drawn cart laden with fat hessian sacks.

Down the Haymarket I hurry, jumping over an extended cane, invoking the ire of its monocled owner. I stay close to the buildings where the pavement is less travelled until, breathless, I reach Her Majesty’s Theatre. I lean against the stone wall directly beneath the playbill, scanning the laughing, frowning, speaking, nodding faces going by, waiting for my gaze to strike that familiar template. A thin gentleman and a thinner lady rush up the theatre stairs. He presents two tickets and they are swept inside. In the distance, a clock-Big Ben?-strikes the quarter-hour. Could Alfred still be coming? Has he changed his mind? Or am I too late and he’s already in his seat?

I wait to hear Big Ben sound the hour, then another quarter-hour for good measure. No one has entered or left the theatre since the pair of well-dressed greyhounds. By now I am sitting on the stairs. My breath is caught and I am resigned. I will not be seeing Alfred this evening.

When a street cleaner risks a lewd smile at me, it is finally time to leave. I gather my shawl about my shoulders, straighten my hat, and set back for number seventeen. I will write to Alfred. Explain what happened. About Hannah and Mrs Tibbit; I may even tell him the whole truth, about Emmeline and Philippe and the almost-scandal. For all his ideas about exploitation and feudal societies, Alfred is sure to understand. Isn’t he?

Hannah has told Teddy about Emmeline’s films and he is outraged. The timing couldn’t be worse, he says, the eve of his nomination for the upcoming election. If word gets out about this filth it will ruin him, ruin all of them.

Hannah nods, and apologises again, reminds Teddy that Emmeline is young and naïve and gullible. That she will grow out of it.

Teddy grunts. He is grunting a lot these days. He runs a hand through his dark hair, which is turning grey. Emmeline has had no guidance, he says; that’s the problem. Creatures that grow up in the wilderness turn out wild.

Hannah reminds him that Emmeline is growing up in the same place she did and Teddy only raises an eyebrow. She needs to be taken in hand, he says. The sooner the better. She needs to spend more time under his roof with his sister to guide her into adulthood.

Hannah disagrees. She thinks that time spent in Deborah’s company is just another type of wilderness, but she doesn’t say so. She needs Teddy to get the films back and she doesn’t want to anger him.

Teddy huffs. He doesn’t have time to discuss it further; he has to get to the club. He has Hannah write down the film-maker’s address and he tells her not to keep things from him in future. There is no room for secrets between married people.

The next morning, when I am clearing away Hannah’s dressing table, I find a note with my name at its top. She has left it for me; must have put it there after I dressed her. I unfold it, my fingers trembling. Why? Not with fear or dread or any of the usual emotions that make people tremble. It is with expectation, unexpectedness, excitement.

When I open it, however, it is not written in English. It is a series of curves and lines and dots, marked carefully across the page. It is shorthand, I realise as I stare at it. I recognise it from the books I found, years ago, back at Riverton, when I was tidying Hannah’s room. She has left me a note in our secret language, a language I cannot read.

I keep the note with me all through the day while I clean, and stitch, and mend. But even though I make it through my chores, I am unable to concentrate. Half my mind is always occupied, wondering what it says, how I can find out. I look for books so that I might decode it-did Hannah bring them here from Riverton?-but I cannot find any.

A few days later, while I’m clearing tea, Hannah leans close to me and says, ‘Did you get my note?’

I tell her I did and my stomach tightens when she says,

‘Our secret,’ and smiles. The first smile I have seen in some time.

I know then it is important, a secret, and I the only person she has trusted. I must either confess or find a way to read it. I choose the latter, of course I do; it is the first time in my life anyone has written me a letter in a secret code.

Days later, it comes to me. I pull from beneath my bed The Return of Sherlock Holmes and let it fall open to a well-marked spot. There, between two favourite stories, is my special secret place. From amongst Alfred’s letters, I pluck a small scrap of notepaper, kept for over a year. I am lucky I still have it; kept not because it contains her address, but because it is written in his hand. I used to take it out regularly: look at it, smell it, replay the day he gave it to me, but have not done so in months, not since he started to write his regular, more affectionate letters. I remove it from its safe-keeping: Lucy Starling’s address.

I have never visited her before; have never needed to. My position keeps me busy and what little spare time I have is spent reading, or writing to Alfred. Besides, something else has stopped me contacting her. A small flame of envy, ridiculous but potent, sparked when Alfred spoke her first name so casually that evening in the fog.

As I reach the flat I’m racked with doubt. Am I doing the right thing? Does she still live here? Should I have worn my second, better dress? I ring the doorbell and an old lady answers. I am relieved and disappointed.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I was looking for someone else.’

‘Yes?’ says the old lady.

‘An old friend.’

‘Name?’

‘Miss Starling,’ I say, not that it’s any of her business. ‘Lucy Starling.’

I have nodded farewell and am turning to leave when she says, somewhat slyly, ‘First floor. Second door on the left.’

The landlady, as she turns out to be, watches me as I disappear up the red-carpeted stairs. I can no longer see her yet I feel her eyes on me. Perhaps I don’t; perhaps I have read too many mystery novels.

I go carefully along the hall. It is dark. The only window, above the stairwell, is grimy with dust from the road. Second on the left. I knock on the door. There is rustling behind it and I know she is home. I take a breath.

The door opens. It is her. Just as I remember.

She looks at me a moment. ‘Yes?’ Blinks. ‘Do I know you?’

The landlady is still watching. She has climbed up the first few stairs to keep me in her sights. I glance quickly at her then back at Miss Starling.

‘My name is Grace. Grace Reeves. I knew you at Riverton Manor?’

Realisation lights her face. ‘Grace. Of course. How lovely to see you.’ The in-between voice that used to set her apart amongst the staff at Riverton. She smiles, stands aside, and gestures for me to come in.

I have not thought this far ahead. The idea of visiting at all came to me rather suddenly.

Miss Starling is standing in a little sitting room, waiting for me to sit so that she may do so.

She offers a cup of tea and it seems impolite to refuse. When she disappears into what I presume is a kitchenette, I allow my gaze to tiptoe over the room. It is lighter than the hall, and her windows, I notice, like the flat itself, are scrupulously clean. She has made the best of a modest situation.

She returns with a tray. Teapot, sugar bowl, two cups.

‘What a lovely surprise,’ she says. In her gaze is the question she is too polite to ask.

‘I’ve come to ask a favour,’ I say.

She nods. ‘What is it?’

‘You know shorthand?’

‘Of course,’ she says, frowning a little. ‘Pitman’s and Gregg’s.’

It is the last opportunity I have to back out, to leave. I could tell her I made a mistake, put back my teacup and head for the door. Hurry down the stairs, into the street, and never return. But then I would never know. And I must. ‘Would you read something for me?’ I hear myself say. ‘Tell me what it says?’

‘Of course.’

I hand her the note. Hold my breath, hoping I have made the right decision.

Her pale eyes scan, line by line, excruciatingly slowly it seems. Finally she clears her throat. ‘It says, Thank you for your help in the unfortunate film affair. How would I have got on without you? T was none too pleased… I’m sure you can imagine. I haven’t told him everything, certainly not about our visit to that dreadful place. He doesn’t take kindly to secrets. I know I can count on you, my trusted Grace, more like a sister than a maid.’ She looks up at me. ‘Does that make sense to you?’

I nod, I am unable to speak. More like a sister. A sister. I am suddenly in two places at once: here in Lucy Starling’s modest sitting room, and far and long ago in the Riverton nursery, gazing longingly from the bookcase at two girls with matching hair and matching bows. Matching secrets.

Miss Starling returns the note but makes no further comment on its contents. I realise, suddenly, that it may have raised suspicions, with its talk of unfortunate affairs and keeping secrets.

‘It’s part of a game,’ I say quickly, then slower, luxuriating in the falsehood. ‘A game we sometimes play.’

‘How nice,’ says Miss Starling, smiling unconcernedly. She is a secretary and is used to learning and forgetting the confidences of others.

We finish our tea chatting about London and the old days at Riverton. I am surprised to hear that Miss Starling was always nervous when she had to come downstairs. That she found Mr Hamilton more imposing than Mr Frederick. We both laugh when I tell her we were as nervous as she.

‘Of me?’ she says, patting the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Of all the funny things.’

When I stand to leave, she asks me to come again and I tell her I will. I mean it too. I wonder why I have not done so sooner: she is a kind person and neither of us has other contacts in London. She walks me to the door and we say goodbye.

As I turn to leave, I see something on her reading table. Lean closer to make sure.

A theatre programme.

I’d have thought nothing of it, only the name is familiar.

‘Princess Ida?’ I say.

‘Yes.’ Her own gaze drops to the table. ‘I went last week.’

‘Oh?’

‘It was enormous fun,’ she says. ‘You really must go if you have the chance.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I had planned to.’

‘Now that I think of it,’ she says, ‘it’s really quite a coincidence you should come today.’

‘A coincidence?’ Coldness spreading beneath my skin.

‘You’ll never guess who I went to the theatre with.’

Oh, but I fear I will.

‘Alfred Steeple. You remember Alfred? From Riverton?’

‘Yes,’ I seem to say.

‘It was really quite unexpected. He had a spare ticket. Someone cancelled on him at the last minute. He said he was all set to go alone and then he remembered I was in London. We ran into each other over a year ago and he still remembered my address. So we went together; it was a shame to waste a ticket, you know what they cost these days.’

Do I imagine the pink that spreads under her pale, freckled cheeks, makes her seem gauche and girlish, despite being at least ten years older than I?

Somehow I manage to nod goodbye as she closes the door behind me. In the distance a car horn sounds.

Alfred, my Alfred, took another woman to the theatre. Laughed with her, bought her supper, walked her home.

I start down the stairs.

While I was looking for him, searching the streets, he was here, asking Miss Starling to accompany him instead. Giving her the ticket intended for me.

I stop, lean against the wall. Close my eyes and clench my fists. I cannot rid my mind of this image: the two of them, arm in arm, smiling as they relive the evening’s events. Just as I had dreamt Alfred and I would. It is unbearable.

A noise close by. I open my eyes. The landlady is standing at the bottom of the stairs, gnarled hand resting on the banister, spectacled eyes trained on me. And on her unkind face an expression of inexplicable satisfaction. Of course he went with her, her expression says, what would he want with the likes of you when he could have someone like Lucy Starling? You’ve got too big for your boots, aimed too high. You should’ve listened to your mother and minded your place.

I want to slap her cruel face.

I hurry down the remaining stairs, brush past the old woman and into the street.

And I vow never to see Miss Lucy Starling again.

Hannah and Teddy are arguing about the war. It seems everyone across London is arguing about the war these days. Enough time has passed and, though the grief has not gone, will never go, distance is allowing people a more critical eye.

Hannah is making poppies out of red tissue paper and black wire, and I am helping. But my mind is not on my work. I am still afflicted with thoughts of Alfred and Lucy Starling. I am bewildered and I am cross, but most of all I am hurt that he could transfer his affections so easily. I have written him another letter, but I am yet to hear back. In the meantime, I feel strangely empty; at night, in my darkened room, I have been subject to the odd rush of tears. It is easier by day, I am better able to put such emotions aside, affix my servant’s mask and try to be the best lady’s maid I can. And I must. For without Alfred, Hannah is all I have.

The poppies are Hannah’s new cause. It’s to do with the poppies on Flanders fields, she says. The poppies in a poem by a Canadian medical officer who did not survive the war. It’s how we’re going to remember the war dead this year.

Teddy thinks it unnecessary. He believes those who died at war made a worthy sacrifice but that it is time to move on.

‘It wasn’t a sacrifice,’ Hannah says, finishing another poppy, ‘it was a waste. Their lives were wasted.’ Those who died and those who came back; the living dead, who sit on the street corners with bottles of liquor and beggars’ hats.

‘Sacrifice, waste, same thing,’ says Teddy. ‘You are being pedantic.’

Hannah says he is being obtuse. She doesn’t look up as she adds that he would do well to wear a poppy himself. It might help stop the trouble in the factories.

There have been strikes lately in the Luxtons’ factories. They started after Lloyd George ennobled Simion for services during the war. It seems a lot of their factory workers were in the war themselves, or lost fathers and brothers, and don’t think too much of Simion’s war record. There is not a lot of love lost for folks like Simion and Teddy who are seen to have made money off the deaths of others.

Teddy doesn’t answer Hannah, or not fully. He mutters something about folks being ungrateful and how they should be pleased to have a job in these times, but he does pick up a poppy, twirling it by its black wire stem. He is quiet for a while, pretending absorption in the newspaper. Hannah and I continue to twist red tissue paper to bind the petals onto stems.

Teddy folds his newspaper and tosses it onto the table beside. He stands and straightens his jacket. He is off to the club, he says. He comes to Hannah’s side and threads the poppy lightly into her hair. She can wear it for him, he says, it suits her better than it does him. Teddy bends and kisses her cheek, and then he strides across the room. As he reaches the door, he hesitates as if he’s remembered something, and he turns.

‘There’s one sure way to lay the war to rest,’ he says, ‘and that’s to replace the lives that were lost with new ones.’

It is Hannah’s turn not to answer. She stiffens, but not so that anyone would notice who wasn’t looking for the reaction. She does not look at me. Her fingers reach up and slip Teddy’s poppy from her hair.

Hannah has still not fallen. It is a continuing bone of contention between them. She and I do not discuss it and I do not know her feelings on the matter. In the beginning I wondered whether she was somehow preventing herself falling with some remedy or another. But I have seen nothing to support that. Perhaps she is just one of those women not disposed to falling. The lucky ones, my mother used to say.

In the autumn of 1921, an attempt is made on me. A friend of Deborah’s, Lady Pemberton-Brown, corners me at a country weekend and offers me a position. She begins by admiring my needlepoint then tells me that a good lady’s maid is hard to find these days and she would very much like me to come and work for her.

I am flattered: it is the first time my services have been sought. The Pemberton-Browns live at Glenfield Hall and are one of the oldest and grandest families in all of England. Mr Hamilton used to tell us stories about Glenfield, the household against which every other English butler compared his own.

I thank her for her kind words but tell her I couldn’t possibly leave my current position. She tells me to think about it. Says she will come and see me again the next day in case I change my mind.

And she does. All smiles and flattery.

I say no, again. More firmly this time. I tell her that I know my place, I know where I belong. With whom, to whom.

Weeks later, when we are back at number seventeen, Hannah finds out about Lady Pemberton-Brown. She calls me to the drawing room one morning and I know as soon as I enter that she is not pleased, although I don’t yet know why. She is pacing.

‘Can you imagine, Grace, what it’s like to find out in the middle of a luncheon, with seven other women intent on making me look a fool, that an attempt has been made on my lady’s maid?’

I inhale; am caught unawares.

‘To be sitting amid a group of women and to have them start on about it, laughing if you please, acting all surprise that I didn’t know. That such a thing could happen right under my nose. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am-’

‘I should think so. I need to be able to trust you, Grace. I thought I could, after all this time, after all we’ve been through together…’

I have still not heard from Alfred. Weariness and worry lend my voice a jagged edge. ‘I told Lady Pemberton-Brown no, ma’am. I didn’t think to mention it because I didn’t think to accept.’

Hannah stops, looks at me, exhales. She sits on the edge of the lounge and shakes her head. She smiles feebly. ‘Oh, Grace. I’m sorry. How perfectly beastly of me. I don’t know what’s come over me, behaving like this.’ She seems paler than usual.

She rests her forehead lightly in one of her hands and says nothing for a minute. When she lifts her head she looks straight at me and speaks in a low, quivering voice. ‘It’s just so different to how I thought it would be, Grace.’

She appears so feeble I am immediately sorry for having spoken sternly to her. ‘What is, ma’am?’

‘Everything.’ She gestures half-heartedly. ‘This. This room. This house. London. My life.’ She looks at me. ‘I feel so ill-equipped. Sometimes I try to trace back through my mind to see where I made the first wrong choice.’ Her gaze drifts toward the window. ‘I feel like Hannah Hartford, the real one, ran off to live her real life and left me here to fill her place.’ After a moment she turns back to me. ‘Do you remember last year, Grace, when I saw the spiritualist?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Tremors of misgiving.

‘She didn’t read for me in the end.’

Relief, short-lived as she continues.

‘She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She intended to: sat me down, had me draw a card. But when I gave it to her she slid it back, reshuffled and had me draw again. I could tell by her face it was the same card I chose, and I knew which one it was. The death card.’ Hannah stands and paces across the room. ‘She didn’t want to tell me, not at first. She tried my palm instead, wouldn’t read that either. She said she didn’t know what it meant, that it was foggy, her vision was foggy, but she said one thing was sure.’ Hannah turns to face me. ‘She said death was hanging around me and I was to watch my step. Death past or death future, she couldn’t tell, but there was a darkness.’

It takes all the conviction I can muster to tell her she’s not to let it bother her, that it was just as likely a ploy to get more money from her, to make sure she came back for further readings. After all, it’s a safe bet in London these days that everyone’s lost someone they love, especially those seeking the services of a spiritualist. But Hannah shakes her head impatiently.

‘I know what it meant. I worked it out myself. I’ve been reading about it. It was a metaphorical death. Sometimes the cards speak in metaphors. It’s me. I’m dead on the inside; I’ve felt it for a long time. As if I died and everything that’s happening is someone else’s strange and awful dream.’

I don’t know what to say. I assure her she isn’t dead. That everything is real.

She smiles sadly. ‘Ah then. That’s worse. If this is real life, I have nothing.’

For once I know the perfect thing to say. More like a sister than a maid. ‘You have me, ma’am.’

She meets my eyes then and takes my hand. Seizes it, almost roughly. ‘Don’t leave me, Grace, please don’t leave me.’

‘I won’t, ma’am,’ I say, touched by her solemnity. ‘I never will.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

And I kept my word. For better and for worse.

RESURRECTION

Darkness. Stillness. Shadowy figures. This is not London; this is not the morning room at number seventeen Grosvenor Square. Hannah is vanished. For now.

‘Welcome home.’ A voice in the dark, someone leaning over me.

I blink. And again, slowly.

I know the voice. It is Sylvia, and I am suddenly old, tired.

Even my eyelids are perished. Dysfunctional. Like a faded pair of Roman blinds with worn-out cords.

‘You’ve been asleep for a long time. You gave us quite a scare. How do you feel?’

Displaced. Left over. Out of time.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’

I must nod, because a straw is in my mouth. I sip. Lukewarm water. Familiar.

I am unaccountably sad. No, not unaccountably. I am sad because the scales have tipped and I know what’s coming.

It is Saturday again. A week has passed since the spring fair. Since my episode, as it is now known. I am in my room, in my bed. The curtains are open and the sun is shimmering in off the heath. It is morning and there are birds. I am expecting a visitor. Sylvia has been and prepared me. I am propped like Miss Polly’s dolly against a stack of pillows. The top sheet she has folded over neatly to form a wide smooth strip beneath my hands. She is determined to make me presentable and I have little will to resist. God help me, I have even let her make me over.

There is a knock.

Ursula leans her head around the door, checks that I am awake, smiles. Her hair is pulled back today to reveal her face. It is a small round face to which I am unaccountably drawn.

She is beside the bed now, head inclined, looking down at me. Those large dark eyes: eyes that belong in an oil painting.

‘How are you?’ she says, as everybody says.

‘Much better. Thank you for coming.’

She shakes her head rapidly from side to side; don’t be silly, her gesture says. ‘I’d have come earlier. I didn’t know until yesterday, when I called.’

‘It’s as well you didn’t. I’ve been in rather large demand. My daughter has been installed since it happened. I gave her quite a scare.’

‘I know. I saw her in the foyer.’ She smiles conspiratorially. ‘She told me not to excite you.’

‘God forbid.’

She sits on the chair near my pillows, rests her carry bag on the floor beside.

‘The film,’ I say. ‘Tell me how your film is coming along.’

‘It’s almost ready,’ she says. ‘The final edit’s done and we’ve almost finished the post-sound and the soundtrack.’

‘Soundtrack,’ I say. Of course they are to have a soundtrack. Tragedy should always play out against music. ‘What sort?’

‘There are a few songs from the twenties,’ she says, ‘dance songs mainly, and some piano. Sad, beautiful, romantic piano, Tori Amos-style.’

I must look blank, for she continues, scrabbling for musicians more my vintage.

‘There’s some Debussy, some Prokofiev.’

‘Chopin?’

She raises her eyebrows. ‘Chopin? No. Should there be?’ Her face falls. ‘You’re not going to tell me one of the girls was a Chopin nut, are you?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘It was their brother-David-who played Chopin.’

‘Oh, thank goodness. He’s not really a major character. He died a little too early to affect things.’

This is debateable, but I don’t debate it.

‘What’s it like?’ I say. ‘Is it a good film?’

She bites her lip, exhales. ‘I think so. I hope so. I’m afraid I’ve lost perspective.’

‘Is it as you imagined?’

She tilts her head from side to side. ‘Yes and no. It’s difficult to explain.’ She exhales again. ‘Before I started, when it was all in my head, the project was full of unlimited potential. Now that it’s on film, it feels bordered by limitations.’

‘I suspect that’s the way with most endeavours.’

She nods. ‘I feel such a responsibility to them, though; to their story. I wanted it to be perfect.’

‘Nothing’s ever perfect.’

‘No.’ She smiles. ‘Sometimes I worry I’m the wrong person to tell their story. What if I’ve got it wrong? What do I know?’

‘Lytton Strachey used to say ignorance was the first requisite of the historian.’

She frowns.

‘Ignorance clarifies,’ I say. ‘It selects and omits with placid perfection.’

‘Too much truth gets in the way of a good story, is that what you mean?’

‘Something like that.’

‘But surely truth is the most important thing? Particularly in a bio-pic.’

‘What is truth?’ I say, and I would shrug if I had the strength.

‘It’s what really happened.’ She looks at me as if I might finally have lost my marbles. ‘You know that. You spent years digging into the past. Searching for the truth.’

‘So I did. I wonder if I ever found it.’ I am slipping down against the pillows. Ursula notices and lifts me gently by the upper arms. I continue before she can debate me any further on semantics. ‘I wanted to be a detective,’ I say. ‘When I was young.’

‘Really? A police detective? What changed your mind?’

‘Policemen make me nervous.’

She grins. ‘That would have been a problem.’

‘I became an archaeologist instead. They’re not so dissimilar when you think about it.’

‘The victims have just been dead longer.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It was Agatha Christie who first gave me the idea. Or one of her characters. He said to Hercule Poirot, “You would have made a good archaeologist, Mr Poirot. You have the gift of re-creating the past.” I read it during the war. The second war. I’d sworn off mystery stories by then but one of the other nurses had it and old habits die hard.’

She smiles, then starts suddenly. ‘Oh! That reminds me. I brought something for you.’ She reaches into her carry bag and pulls out a small rectangular box.

It is the size of a book but it rattles. ‘It’s a tape set,’ she says. ‘Agatha Christie.’ She shrugs sheepishly. ‘I didn’t realise you’d sworn off mysteries.’

‘Never mind that. It was a temporary swearing-off, a misguided attempt to shed my youthful self. I picked up where I left off the minute the war ended.’

She points to the walkman on my bedside table. ‘Shall I put a tape in before I go?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Do.’

She tears off the plastic packaging, removes the first tape and opens my walkman. ‘There’s one in here already.’ She holds the cassette to show me. It is the tape I am currently recording for Marcus. ‘Is it for him? For your grandson?’

I nod. ‘Just leave it on the table if you don’t mind; I’ll need it later.’ And I will. Time is closing in on me, I can feel it, and I am determined to finish before it comes.

‘Have you heard anything?’ she says.

‘Not yet.’

‘You will,’ she says firmly. ‘I’m sure of it.’

I am too weary for faith but nod anyway; her own is so fervent.

She puts Agatha in place and returns the walkman to the table. ‘There you are.’ She puts her bag over her shoulder. She is leaving.

I reach for her hand as she turns, clutch it in mine. So smooth. ‘I want to ask you something,’ I say. ‘A favour, before Ruth…’

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Anything.’ She is quizzical, has detected the urgency in my voice. ‘What is it?’

‘Riverton. I want to see Riverton. I want you to take me.’

She tightens her lips, frowns. I have put her on the spot.

‘Please.’

‘I don’t know, Grace. What would Ruth say?’

‘She’d say no. Which is why I’ve asked you.’

She looks toward the wall. I have troubled her. ‘Maybe I could bring you some of the footage we shot there instead? I could have it put on video-’

‘No,’ I say firmly. ‘I need to go back.’ Still she looks away. ‘Soon,’ I say. ‘I need to go soon.’

Her eyes return to mine and I know she will say yes even before she nods.

I nod back, thanking her, then I point to the cassette box. ‘I met her once, you know. Agatha Christie.’

It was late in 1922. Teddy and Hannah were hosting a dinner at number seventeen. Teddy and his father had some business with Archibald Christie, something to do with an invention he was interested in developing.

They entertained so often in those early years of the decade. But I remember that dinner particularly for a number of reasons. One was the presence of Agatha Christie herself. She had only published one book at that time, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but already Hercule Poirot had replaced Sherlock Holmes in my imagination. The latter was a childhood friend, the former a part of my new world.

Emmeline was there too. She’d been in London for a month. She was eighteen and had made her debut from number seventeen. There was no talk of finding her a husband as there had been with Hannah. Only four years had passed since the ball at Riverton and yet the times had changed. Girls had changed. They had liberated themselves from their corsets only to throw themselves at the tyranny of the ‘diet plan’. They were all coltish legs, flat chests and smooth scalps. They no longer whispered behind their hands and hid behind shy glances. They joked and drank, smoked and swore with the boys. Waistlines had slipped, fabrics were thin and morals were thinner.

Maybe that accounts for the unusual dinner conversation that night, or perhaps it was Mrs Christie’s presence that had them speaking along such lines. Not to mention the spate of recent newspaper articles on the subject.

‘They’ll both be hanged,’ said Teddy brightly. ‘Edith Thompson and Freddy Bywaters. Just like that other fellow who killed his wife. Earlier this year, in Wales. What was his name? Army fellow, wasn’t he, Colonel?’

‘Major Herbert Rowse,’ said Colonel Christie.

Emmeline shuddered theatrically. ‘Imagine killing your very own wife, someone you’re supposed to love.’

‘Most murders are done by people who purport to love each other,’ said Mrs Christie crisply.

‘People are becoming more violent on the whole,’ said Teddy, lighting a cigar. ‘A fellow only has to open the newspaper to see that. Despite the ban on hand guns.’

‘This is England, Mr Luxton,’ said Colonel Christie. ‘Home of the fox hunt. Obtaining firearms isn’t difficult.’

‘I have a friend who always carries a hand gun,’ Emmeline said airily.

‘You do not,’ said Hannah, shaking her head. She looked at Mrs Christie. ‘My sister has seen too many American films, I’m afraid.’

‘I do,’ said Emmeline. ‘This fellow I pal around with-who shall remain nameless-said it was as easy as buying a packet of cigarettes. He offered to get me one any time I like.’

‘Harry Bentley, I’ll wager,’ said Teddy.

‘Harry?’ said Emmeline, flashing wide eyes rimmed with black lashes. ‘Harry wouldn’t hurt a fly! His brother Tom, perhaps.’

‘You know too many of the wrong people,’ said Teddy. ‘Need I remind you that hand guns are illegal, not to mention dangerous.’

Emmeline shrugged. ‘I’ve known how to shoot since I was a girl. All the ladies in our family can shoot. Grandmamma would have disowned us if we couldn’t. Just ask Hannah: she tried to dodge the hunt one year, told Grandmamma she didn’t believe it was right to kill defenceless animals. Grandmamma had something to say about that, didn’t she, Hannah?’

Hannah raised her eyebrows and took a sip of red wine as Emmeline continued. ‘She said, “Nonsense. You’re a Hartford. Shooting’s in your blood.”’

‘Be that as it may,’ said Teddy. ‘There will be no hand guns in this house. I can imagine what my constituents would make of my possessing illegal firearms!’

Emmeline rolled her eyes as Hannah said, ‘Future constituents.’

‘Do relax, Teddy,’ said Emmeline. ‘You won’t have to worry about firearms if you go on like that. You’ll give yourself a heart attack. I didn’t say I was going to get a hand gun. I was just saying that a girl can’t be too careful these days. What with husbands killing wives and wives killing husbands. Don’t you agree, Mrs Christie?’

Mrs Christie had been watching the exchange with wry amusement. ‘I’m afraid I don’t much care for firearms,’ she said. ‘Poisons are more my thing.’

‘That must be disquieting, Archie,’ said Teddy, with a show of humour for which I hadn’t given him credit. ‘A wife with a penchant for poison?’

Archibald Christie smiled thinly. ‘Just one of my wife’s delightful little hobbies.’

Husband and wife regarded one another across the table.

‘No more delightful than your own sordid little hobbies,’ said Mrs Christie. ‘And a lot less needy.’

Late in the evening, after the Christies had left, I pulled my copy of The Mysterious Affair at Styles from under my bed. It had been a gift from Alfred, and I was so absorbed with re-reading his inscription that I barely registered the telephone ringing. Mr Boyle must have answered the call and transferred it upstairs to Hannah. I thought nothing of it. It was only when Mr Boyle knocked on my door and announced the Mistress would see me that I thought to worry.

Hannah was still dressed in her oyster-coloured silk. Like liquid. Her pale hair was pressed in waves about her face and a strand of diamonds was pinned around the crown of her head. She was standing with her back to me and turned as I entered the room.

‘Grace,’ she said, taking my hands in hers. The gesture worried me. It was too personal. Something had happened.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Sit down, please.’ She led me to sit by her on the lounge and then she looked at me, blue eyes round with concern.

‘Ma’am?’

‘That was your aunt on the telephone.’

And I knew. ‘Mother,’ I said.

‘I’m so sorry, Grace.’ She shook her head gently. ‘She took a fall. There was nothing the doctor could do.’

Hannah arranged my transport back to Saffron Green. Next afternoon the car was brought round from the mews and I was packed into the back seat. It was very kind of her and much more than I expected; I was quite prepared to take the train. Nonsense, Hannah said, she was only sorry Teddy’s upcoming nomination dinner prohibited her from accompanying me.

I watched out the motor-car window as the driver turned down one street and then another, and London became less grand, more sprawling and decrepit, and eventually disappeared behind us. The countryside fled by, and the further east we drove the colder it became. Sleet peppered the windows, turning the landscape bleary; winter had bleached the world of vitality. Snow-dusted meadows bled into the mauve sky, gradually giving way to the ancient wildwood of Essex, all grey-brown and lichen green.

We left the main road and followed the lane to Saffron through the cold and lonely fen. Silvery reeds quivered in frozen streams and grandfather’s beard clung like lace to naked trees. I counted the bends and, for some reason, held my breath, releasing it only after we had passed the Riverton turn-off. The driver continued into the village and delivered me to the grey-stone cottage in Market Street, wedged silently, as it had always been, between its two sisters. The driver held the door for me and set my small suitcase on the wet pavement.

‘There you are then,’ he said.

I thanked him and he nodded.

‘I’ll collect you in five days,’ he said, ‘like the Mistress told me.’

I watched the motor car disappear down the lane, turn into Saffron High Street, and I felt a great urge to call him back, to beg him not to leave me here. But it was too late for that. I stood in the dim dusk looking up at the house where I had spent the first fourteen years of my life, the place where Mother had lived and died. And I felt nothing.

I’d felt nothing since Hannah told me. All the way on the journey back to Saffron I had tried to remember. My mother, my past, my self. Where do the memories of childhood go? There must be so many. Experiences that are new and brightly coloured. Perhaps children are so caught up in the moment they have neither time nor inclination to record images for later.

The streetlights came on-hazy yellow in the cold air-and sleet began again to fall. My cheeks were already numb and I saw the flecks in the lamplight before I felt them.

I collected my suitcase, took out my key, and was climbing the stairs when the door flew open. My Aunt Dee, Mother’s sister, stood in the doorway. She held a lamp which cast shadows on her face, making it appear older and surely more twisted than it really was. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Come inside then.’

She took me into the sitting room first. She was using my old bed, she said, so I would have the sofa. I put my suitcase against the wall and she huffed defensively.

‘I’ve made soup for supper. Might not be what you’re used to in your grand London house, but it’s always been good enough for the likes of me and mine.’

‘Soup would be lovely,’ I said.

We ate silently at Mother’s table. Aunt sat at the head with the warmth of the stove behind her and I sat at Mother’s seat near the window. Sleet had turned to snow, tip-tapping on the glass panes. The only other sound was the scraping of our spoons and an occasional crack from the stove fire.

‘I s’pose you’d like to see your mother,’ my aunt said when we had finished.

Mother was laid out on her mattress, brown hair loose behind. I was used to seeing it tied back; it was very long and much finer than mine. Someone-my aunt?-had pulled a light blanket to her chin, as if she were sleeping. She looked greyer, older, more sunken than I remembered. And she looked flat. Years of sleeping on the same mattress had worn it thin. Beneath the blanket, it was difficult to make out the shape of her body. One could almost imagine that there was none, that she was disintegrating, piece by piece.

We went downstairs and my aunt made tea. We drank it in the sitting room and said very little. Afterwards I managed something about being tired from the journey and started making up the sofa. I spread the sheet and blanket my aunt had left for me, but when I reached for Mother’s cushion it was not in place. My aunt was watching.

‘If you’re looking for the cushion,’ she said, ‘I’ve put it away. Filthy, it was. Tatty. Found a big hole on the bottom. And her a seamstress!’ She tut-tutted. ‘I’d like to know what she was doing with the money I was sending!’

And she left. Took herself up to bed in the room next to her dead sister. The floorboards above me creaked, the bed springs sighed, and then there was silence.

I lay in the dark but I could not sleep. I was imagining my aunt casting her critical eye over Mother’s things; Mother being caught unawares, unable to prepare, to put forward her best foot. I should have been the first to come. I should have arranged things, put on a good face on Mother’s behalf. Finally, I wept a little.

We buried her in the churchyard near the showgrounds. We were a small but respectable gathering. Mrs Rodgers from the village, the lady who ran the dress shop where Mother had done repairs, Doctor Arthur. It was a grey day, as such days should always be. The sleet had held off but the air was crisp and we all knew it was only a matter of time. The vicar read quickly from the Bible, an eye on the sky-whether to the Lord or the weather, I couldn’t tell. He spoke about duty and commitment and the direction they bring to life’s journey.

I can’t remember the details, for my mind was wandering. I was still trying to remember Mother from when I was a girl. Funny. Now that I am old the memories come unbidden: Mother showing me how to clean the windows so they didn’t smear; Mother boiling Christmas ham, hair lank with steam; Mother grimacing at something Mrs Rodgers had told her about Mr Rodgers. But not then. I could see only the grey sunken face of the night before.

An icy wind rushed toward me and whipped my skirts against my stockinged legs. I looked up to the darkening skies and noticed the figure on the hill, by the old oak tree. It was a man, a gentleman; I could tell that well enough. He was dressed in a long black coat and a stiff shiny hat. He carried a cane, or perhaps it was an umbrella, wrapped tightly. I didn’t think much of it at first; I presumed he was a mourner visiting another grave. If it seemed strange that a gentleman, who must surely have his own estate, his own family cemetery, should be mourning amongst the town’s graves, I didn’t think it then.

As the vicar sprinkled the first handful of dirt on Mother’s coffin, I glanced up to the tree again. The gentleman was still there. Watching us, I realised. The snow started to fall then and the man looked upwards so that his face was in the light.

It was Mr Frederick. But he was changed. Like the victim of a fairytale curse, he was suddenly old.

The vicar drew to a hurried close, and the undertaker gave orders that the grave was to be filled quickly on account of the weather.

My aunt was by my side. ‘He’s got a nerve,’ she said, and at first I thought she meant the undertaker, or else the vicar. But when I followed her gaze, she was looking at Mr Frederick. I wondered how she knew who he was. I supposed Mother had pointed him out at one time or another when Aunt was visiting. ‘What a nerve. Showing his face here.’ She shook her head, tightened her lips.

Her words made no sense but when I turned to ask what she meant she had already moved away, was smiling at the vicar, thanking him for his thoughtful service. I supposed she blamed the Hartford family for Mother’s back problems, but the accusation was unfair. For while it was true that years of service had weakened Mother’s back, it was her arthritis and pregnancy that finished the job.

Suddenly, all thought of my aunt evaporated. Standing by the vicar, black hat in hands, was Alfred.

From across the grave, his eyes met mine and he raised his hand.

I hesitated, nodded jerkily so that my teeth chattered.

He started walking. Came toward me. I watched, as if to look away could cause him to disappear. Then he was at my side. ‘How are you holding up?’

I nodded again. It was all I could seem to do. In my mind, whirlpools of words spun too quickly for me to grasp. Weeks of waiting for his letter; of hurt, confusion, sadness; of lying awake composing imaginary scripts of explanation and reunion. And now, finally…

‘Are you all right?’ he said stiffly, bringing a tentative hand toward mine then thinking better of it. Returning it to the brim of his hat.

‘Yes,’ I managed to say, hand heavy where he hadn’t touched it. ‘Thank you for coming.’

‘Course I came.’

‘You didn’t have to go to any trouble.’

‘No trouble, Grace,’ he said, feeding his hat brim through his fingers.

These last words floated lonely between us. My name, familiar and brittle on his lips. I let my attention drift to Mother’s grave; watched the undertaker hastily working. Alfred followed my gaze.

‘I’m sorry about your ma,’ he said.

‘I know,’ I said quickly. ‘I know you are.’

‘She was a hard worker.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I saw her only last week-’

I glanced at him. ‘Did you?’

‘Brought her some coal Mr Hamilton said could be spared.’

‘Did you, Alfred?’ I said appreciatively.

‘Been cold of a night, it has. Didn’t like to think of your ma going cold.’

I was filled with gratitude; it had been my guilty fear that Mother’s passing had been brought about through lack of warmth.

A hand clamped firmly on my wrist. My aunt was beside me. ‘That’s over and done then,’ she said. ‘And a fine service too. Can’t see she’d have anything to complain about.’ Defensive, though I hadn’t disagreed. ‘Nothing more I could have done, I’m sure.’

Alfred was watching us.

‘Alfred,’ I said, ‘this is my Aunt Dee, Mother’s sister.’

My aunt narrowed her eyes as she stared at Alfred; a groundless suspicion that was native to her. ‘Charmed, I’m sure.’ She turned back to me. ‘Come on then, miss,’ she said, affixing her hat and tightening her scarf. ‘Landlord’s coming first thing tomorrow and that house needs be spotless.’

I glanced at Alfred, cursed the wall of uncertainty still stretched between us. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose I’d best be-’

‘Actually,’ said Alfred quickly, ‘I was hoping… that is, Mrs Townsend thought you might like to come back up to the house for tea?’

He glanced at my aunt who scowled in return. ‘What would she be wanting with all that?’

Alfred shrugged, rocked back and forth on his heels. His eyes were on me. ‘Have a visit with the other staff. A bit of a natter. For old time’s sake?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said my aunt.

‘Yes,’ I said firmly, finding my tongue. ‘I’d like that.’

‘Good,’ said Alfred, relief in his voice.

‘Well,’ said my aunt. ‘Have it your way. I’m sure I don’t mind.’ She sniffed. ‘Just don’t be long. You needn’t think I’m doing all the scrubbing myself.’

Alfred and I walked through the village, side by side; soft flakes of snow, too light to fall, suspended on the breeze like flecks in pond water. For a time we travelled without speaking. Footsteps muffled by the damp dirt road. Bells ringing as shoppers went in and out of doors. Occasional motor cars whirring down the lane.

As we neared Bridge Road, we began to speak of Mother: I recounted the day of the button in the string bag; the long-ago Punch and Judy visit; told him of my narrow escape from the Foundling Hospital.

Alfred nodded. ‘Brave of your ma, if you ask me. Can’t have been easy, her all on her own.’

‘She never tired of telling me so,’ I said, with more bitterness than I intended.

‘Shame about your da,’ he said as we passed Mother’s street and the village turned abruptly to countryside. ‘Having to leave her like that.’

At first I thought I had misheard. ‘My what?’

‘Your da. Shame things didn’t work out for the two of them.’

My voice trembled against my best attempts to still it. ‘What do you know about my father?’

He shrugged ingenuously. ‘Only what your ma told me. Said she was young and she loved him, but in the end it was impossible. Something to do with his family, his commitments. She wasn’t real clear.’

My voice, thin as the floating snow: ‘When did she tell you that?’

‘What?’

‘About him. My father.’ I shivered into my shawl, pulled it tight around my shoulders.

‘I took to visiting recently,’ he said. ‘She was all alone, what with you in London. Didn’t seem much trouble on my part to keep her company once in a while. Have a natter about this and that.’

‘Did she tell you anything else?’ Was it possible, after a lifetime of keeping secrets from me, Mother had opened up so easily at the end?

‘No,’ said Alfred. ‘Not much. Nothing more about your da. To be honest, I did most of the talking; she was more a listener, don’t you think?’

I was unsure what I thought. The whole day was deeply unsettling. Burying Mother, Alfred’s unexpected arrival, learning he and Mother had met regularly, had discussed my father. A topic closed to me from before I’d even thought to ask. I walked faster as we entered the Riverton gates, as if to walk free of the day. I welcomed the clinging damp of the long dark driveway. Surrendered myself to a force that seemed to be pulling me inexorably on.

I could hear Alfred behind me, walking faster to catch me up. Small branches cracked under foot, the trees seemed to eavesdrop.

‘I meant to write, Gracie,’ he said quickly. ‘To reply to your letters.’ He drew beside me. ‘I tried so many times.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ I said, walking on.

‘I couldn’t get the words right. You know how my head is. Since the war…’ He lifted a hand and rapped lightly on his forehead, ‘Certain things I just can’t seem to do no more. Not like before. Words and letters are one of them.’ He hurried to keep up with me. ‘Besides,’ he said, breath catching, ‘there were things I needed to say that could only be said in person.’

The air was icy on my cheeks. I slowed. ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ I said softly. ‘The day of the theatre show?’

‘I did, Gracie.’

‘But when I got back-It had only just gone five.’

He sighed. ‘I left at ten before. We just missed each other.’ He shook his head. ‘I would’ve waited longer, Gracie, only Mrs Tibbit said you must have forgot. That you’d gone on an errand and wouldn’t be back for hours.’

‘But that wasn’t true!’

‘Why would she make it up, a thing like that?’ said Alfred, confused.

I lifted my shoulders helplessly, let them fall. ‘It’s what she’s like.’

We had reached the top of the driveway. There on the ridge stood Riverton, large and dark, the edges of evening beginning to enclose her. We paused unconsciously, stood a moment before continuing past the fountain and around toward the servants’ entrance.

‘I went after you,’ I said as we entered the rose garden.

‘You didn’t,’ he said, glancing at me. ‘Did you?’

I nodded. ‘I waited at the theatre until the last. I thought I could catch you up.’

‘Oh, Gracie,’ Alfred said, stopping at the base of the stairs. ‘I’m so sorry.’

I stopped too.

‘I should never have listened to that Mrs Tibbit,’ he said.

‘You weren’t to know.’

‘But I should have trusted you’d be back. It’s just…’ He glanced at the closed servants’ door, tightened his lips, exhaled. ‘There was something on my mind, Grace. Something important I’d been wanting to talk to you about. To ask you. I was wound up tighter than a drum that day. Full of nerves.’ He shook his head. ‘When I thought you’d given me the flick I was that upset I couldn’t stand it any longer. Got out of that house as fast as I could. Started down the first street I came to and kept walking.’

‘But Lucy…’ I said quietly, eyes on the fingers of my gloves. Watching as snowflakes disappeared on contact. ‘Lucy Starling…’

He sighed, looked beyond my shoulder. ‘I took Lucy Starling to make you jealous, Gracie. That I own.’ He shook his head. ‘It was unfair of me to do it, I know that: unfair to you and unfair to Lucy.’ He reached out with a gloved finger and lifted my chin tentatively so my eyes met his. ‘It was disappointment made me do it, Grace. All the way down from Saffron, I’d imagined seeing you, practised what I was going to say when we met.’

His hazel eyes were earnest. A nerve flickered in his jaw.

‘What were you going to say?’ I asked.

He smiled nervously.

The clatter of iron hinges and the servants’ hall door swung open. Mrs Townsend, large frame backlit, plump cheeks red from her seat by the fire.

‘Here!’ she chortled. ‘What are you two doing out there in the cold?’ She turned back to those inside. ‘They’re out in the cold! Didn’t I tell you they was?’ She returned her attention to us. ‘I said to Mr Hamilton, “Mr Hamilton, blimey if I don’t hear voices outside.” “You’re imagining things, Mrs Townsend,” says he. “What would they be wanting standing out in the cold when they could be in here where it’s nice and warm?” “I wouldn’t know, Mr Hamilton,” says I, “but unless my ears deceive me, that’s where they is.” And I was right.’ She called inside: ‘I was right, Mr Hamilton.’ She extended her arm and waved us inside. ‘Well come on then, you’ll catch your deaths out there, the pair of you.’

THE CHOICE

I had forgotten how dim it was downstairs at Riverton. How low the ceiling rafters, and how cold the marble floor. I had forgotten, too, the way the wintry wind blew in off the heath, whistled through the crumbling mortar of the stone walls. Not like number seventeen where Deborah had organised the latest insulation and heating.

‘You poor dear,’ said Mrs Townsend, pulling me toward her, squashing my head into her fire-warmed breasts. (What a loss for some child, never born, to miss the opportunity for such comfort. But that was the way then, as Mother knew too well: family was the first sacrifice of any career servant.) ‘Come and sit down,’ she said. ‘Myra? Cup of tea for Grace.’

I was surprised. ‘Where’s Katie?’

They all exchanged glances.

‘What is it?’ I said. Nothing dreadful, surely. Alfred would have said-

‘Up and married, didn’t she,’ said Myra with a sniff, before flouncing off into the kitchen.

My jaw dropped.

Mrs Townsend lowered her voice and spoke quickly: ‘Fellow from up north that works in the mines. Met him in town while she was s’posed to be running an errand for me, silly girl. Happened awful fast. Won’t surprise you to hear there’s a wee one on the way.’ She straightened her apron, pleased with the effect her news was having on me, and glanced toward the kitchen. ‘Try not to mention it round Myra, though. She’s green as a gardener’s thumb, however much she insists she ain’t!’

I nodded, stunned. Little Katie married? A mother to be?

As I tried to make sense of the remarkable news, Mrs Townsend continued to fuss, insisting I take the seat nearest the fire, that I was too thin and too pale and would need some of her Christmas pudding to set me to rights. When she disappeared to collect me a serve, I felt the weight of attention upon me. I pushed Katie from my mind and enquired after things at Riverton.

They all fell silent, looked at one another, before Mr Hamilton finally said, ‘Well now, young Grace, things are not quite as you might remember from your time.’

I asked what he meant and he straightened his jacket. ‘It’s a lot quieter these days. A slower pace.’

‘A ghost town, more like,’ said Alfred, who was fidgeting over by the door. He’d seemed agitated since we came inside. ‘Him upstairs wandering about like the living dead.’

‘Alfred!’ Mr Hamilton reprimanded, though with less vigour than I would have expected. ‘You’re exaggerating.’

‘I am not,’ said Alfred. ‘Come on, Mr Hamilton, Grace is one of us. She can wear the truth.’ He glanced at me. ‘It’s like I told you in London. After Miss Hannah left like that, His Lordship was never the same.’

‘He was upset all right, but it weren’t just Miss Hannah leaving, the two of them on such bad terms,’ said Myra. ‘It was losing his factory like that. And his mother.’ She leaned toward me. ‘If you could only see upstairs. We all do our best but it isn’t easy. He won’t let us have tradesmen in for repairs, says the sound of hammers banging and ladders dragging across the floor drives him to distraction. We’ve had to close up even more of the rooms. Said he wouldn’t be entertaining again so it was no use us wasting time and energy maintaining them. Once he caught me trying to dust the library and he just about had my neck.’ She glanced at Mr Hamilton and continued. ‘We don’t even do the books any more.’

‘It’s because there’s no Mistress to run the house,’ said Mrs Townsend, returning with a plate of pudding, licking a smear of cream from her finger. ‘It’s always the way when there’s no Mistress.’

‘He spends most of his time in the drawing room,’ Myra continued, ‘smoking his pipe and looking out the window. Or playing old songs. It’s frightening sometimes.’

‘Now, Myra,’ said Mr Hamilton, somewhat defeated. ‘It is not our place to question the Master.’ He removed his glasses to rub his eyes.

‘Yes, Mr Hamilton,’ she said. Then she looked at me, said quickly, ‘You should see him though, Grace. You wouldn’t recognise him. He’s grown old so quick.’

‘I have seen him,’ I said then.

‘Where?’ said Mr Hamilton with some alarm. He replaced his glasses. ‘Not out in the grounds, I hope? He wasn’t wandering too near the lake?’

‘Oh no, Mr Hamilton,’ I said. ‘Nothing like that. I saw him in the village. In the cemetery. At Mother’s funeral.’

‘He was at the funeral?’ said Myra, eyes wide.

‘He was up on the hill nearby,’ I said, ‘but he was watching well enough.’

Mr Hamilton looked for corroboration. Alfred raised his shoulders, shook his head. ‘I didn’t notice.’

‘Well he was there,’ I said firmly. ‘I know what I saw.’

‘I expect he was just taking a stroll,’ said Mr Hamilton without conviction. ‘Taking some air.’

‘He wasn’t doing much walking,’ I said doubtfully. ‘He was just standing there, sort of lost, looking down on the grave.’

Mr Hamilton exchanged a glance with Mrs Townsend. ‘Aye, well, he always was fond of your mother, when she worked here.’

‘Fond,’ said Mrs Townsend, raising her eyebrows. ‘Is that what you call it?’

I looked between them. There was something in their expressions I couldn’t understand. A knowingness to which I wasn’t privy.

‘And what of you, Grace?’ said Mr Hamilton suddenly, eyes snapping away from Mrs Townsend’s. ‘Enough of us. Tell us about London? How is young Mrs Luxton?’

I only half heard his questions. On the edges of my mind something was forming. Whisperings, and glances, and insinuations that had long fluttered singularly were now coming together. Forming a picture. Almost.

‘Well, Grace?’ said Mrs Townsend impatiently. ‘Cat got your tongue? What of Miss Hannah?’

‘Sorry, Mrs Townsend,’ I said. ‘Must’ve been away with the fairies.’

They were all watching me eagerly so I told them Hannah was well. It seemed the proper thing to do. Where would I have begun to tell them otherwise? About the arguments with Teddy, the visit to the spiritualist, the frightening talk of being dead already? I spoke instead of the beautiful house, and Hannah’s clothes, and the glittering guests they entertained.

‘And what of your duties?’ Mr Hamilton said, straightening. ‘Quite a different pace in London. Lots of entertaining? I suppose you’re part of a large staff?’

I told him that the staff was large but not so proficient as here at Riverton and he seemed pleased. And I told them about the attempt Lady Pemberton-Brown had made on me.

‘I trust you told her what was what,’ said Mr Hamilton. ‘Politely but firmly, as I’ve always instructed?’

‘Yes, Mr Hamilton,’ I said. ‘Of course I did.’

‘That’s the girl,’ he said, beaming like a proud father. ‘Glenfield Hall, eh? You must be making quite a name for yourself if the likes of Glenfield Hall were trying to poach you. Still, you did the right thing. In our line of work, what have we if we don’t have our loyalty?’

We all nodded agreement. All except Alfred, I noticed.

Mr Hamilton noticed too. ‘I suppose Alfred’s told you his plans,’ he said, raising a silvery eyebrow.

‘What plans?’ I looked at Alfred.

‘I was trying to tell you,’ he said, biting back a smile as he came to sit by me. ‘I’m leaving, Grace. No more yes-sirring for me.’

My first thought was that he was leaving England again. Right when we had begun to make amends.

He laughed at my expression. ‘I’m not going far. I’m just leaving service. A mate of mine, from the war; we’re setting up in business together.’

‘Alfred…’ I didn’t know what to say. I was relieved, but I was also worried for him. To leave service? The security of Riverton? ‘What kind of business?’

‘Mechanics. My mate’s awful good with his hands. He’s going to teach me how to fix engines and the like. In the meantime I’m going to take on managing the garage. Going to work hard and save money, Gracie-I’ve already got some put away. One day I’m going to have my very own business, I’m going to be my own man. You’ll see.’

Afterwards, Alfred walked me back to the village. Cold night was falling fast and we went quickly to save from freezing. Though I was pleased with Alfred’s company, relieved that we had mended our differences, I said little. My mind was busy, stitching together fragments of knowledge, trying to make sense of the patchwork result. Alfred, for his part, seemed content to walk in silence; as it turned out his mind was racing too, though along another line entirely.

I was thinking of Mother. About the bitterness that always simmered beneath her surface; her conviction, expectation almost, that hers was a life of ill fortune. That was the Mother I remembered. And yet, for some time now I had begun to realise she was not always so. Mrs Townsend remembered her affectionately; Mr Frederick, interminably difficult to please, had been fond of her.

But what had happened to transform the young serving maid with her secret smile? The answer, I was beginning to suspect, was the key to unlocking many of Mother’s mysteries. And its solution was nearby. It lurked like an elusive fish in my mind’s reeds. I knew it was there, could sense it, glimpse its vague shape, but every time I got close, reached to grasp its shadowy form, it slipped away.

That it had something to do with my birth was certain: Mother had been open on that front. And I was sure my ghost of a father figured somewhere: the man she spoke of with Alfred but never with me. The man she’d loved but couldn’t be with. What reason had Alfred given? His family? His commitments?

‘Grace.’

My aunt knew who he was, but she was as tight-lipped as Mother. Nonetheless, I knew well enough what she thought of him. My childhood was peppered with their whispered exchanges: Aunt Dee castigating Mother for her poor choices, telling her she’d made her bed and had no option now but to lie in it; Mother weeping as Aunt Dee patted her shoulder with brusque condolences: ‘You’re better off’, ‘It couldn’t have worked’, ‘You’re well rid of that place’. That place, I knew even as a girl, was the grand house on the hill. And I knew also that Aunt Dee’s contempt for my father was equalled only by her disdain for Riverton. The two great catastrophes in Mother’s life, she was fond of saying.

‘Grace.’

A disdain that extended to Mr Frederick, it would seem. ‘He’s got a nerve,’ she’d said when she spied him at the funeral: ‘Can’t keep away, even now. After all he’s done.’ I wondered how my aunt knew who he was, and what Mr Frederick could possibly have done to make her scowl so?

I wondered, too, what he had been doing there. Fondness for an employee was one thing, but for His Lordship to appear at the town cemetery. To watch as one of his long-ago serving maids was buried…

‘Grace.’ In the distance, through the tangle of my thoughts, Alfred was speaking. I glanced at him distractedly. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask all day,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid if I don’t ask now, I’ll lose my nerve.’

And Mother had been fond of Frederick too. ‘Poor, poor, Frederick,’ she had said when his father and brother passed. Not poor Lady Violet or poor Jemima. Her sympathy had extended directly and exclusively to Frederick.

But that was understandable, wasn’t it? Mr Frederick would have been a young man when Mother worked at the house; it was natural her sympathy would lie with the family member closest to her in age. Just as my sympathy lay with Hannah. Besides, Mother had seemed just as fond of Frederick’s wife, Penelope. ‘Frederick wouldn’t marry again,’ she’d said when I told her Fanny sought his hand. Her certainty, her despondency when I insisted it was so: surely these could only be explained by her closeness to her former mistress?

‘I don’t have a way with words, Gracie, you know that as well as I,’ Alfred was saying. ‘So I’m going to come right out with it. You know I’m going into business soon…?’

I was nodding, somehow I was nodding, but my mind was elsewhere. The elusive fish was close. I could see the glimmer of its slippery scales, weaving through the reeds, out of the shadows…

‘But that’s just the first step. I’m going to save and save and one day, not too far away, I’m going to have a business with Alfred Steeple on the front door, you see if I don’t.’

… And into the light. Was it possible Mother’s upset was not the result of affection for her former mistress at all? But because the man she had cared for-still cared for-might be planning to marry again? That Mother and Mr Frederick…? That all those years ago, when she was in service at Riverton…?

‘I’ve waited and waited, Grace, because I wanted to have something to offer you. Something more than what I am now…’

But surely not. It would have been a scandal. People would have known. I would have known. Wouldn’t I?

Memories, snatches of conversation, floated back. Was that what Lady Violet meant when she spoke to Lady Clementine of ‘that despicable business’? Had people known? Had scandal erupted in Saffron twenty-two years ago when a local woman was sent from the manor in disgrace, pregnant by the son of her mistress?

But if so, why had Lady Violet welcomed me onto her staff? Surely I’d have served as unwelcome reminder of what had gone before?

Unless my employment was some sort of recompense. The price for Mother’s silence. Was that why Mother had been so sure, so certain, a position would be found for me at Riverton?

And then, quite simply, I knew. The fish swam into full sunlight, its scales glistening brightly. How had I not seen it before? Mother’s bitterness, Mr Frederick’s failure ever to remarry. It all made sense. He had loved Mother too. That’s why he had come to the funeral. That’s why he watched me so strangely: as if he’d seen a ghost. Had been glad to lose me from Riverton, had told Hannah he didn’t need me there.

‘Gracie, I wonder…’ Alfred took my hand.

Hannah. I was struck again by realisation.

I gasped. It explained so much: the feeling of solidarity-sisterly, surely?-we shared.

Alfred’s hands tightened on mine, stopped me from falling. ‘There now, Gracie,’ he said, smiling nervously. ‘Don’t go getting faint on me.’

My legs buckled: I felt as if I’d broken into a million tiny particles, was falling like sand from a bucket.

Did Hannah know? Was that why she’d insisted I accompany her to London? Had turned to me when she felt deserted on all other fronts? Had begged me never to leave her? Had made me promise?

‘Grace?’ said Alfred, arm supporting me. ‘Are you all right?’

I nodded, tried to speak. Couldn’t.

‘Good,’ said Alfred. ‘Because I haven’t said all I mean to quite yet. Though I have a feeling you’ve guessed.’

Guessed? About Mother and Frederick? About Hannah? No: Alfred had been talking. What about? His new business, his friend from the war…

‘Gracie,’ said Alfred, bringing my hands together between us. He smiled at me, swallowed. ‘Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

A flash of consciousness. I blinked. Couldn’t answer. Thoughts, feelings, rushed through me. Alfred had asked me to marry him. Alfred, who I adored, was standing before me, face frozen in the previous moment, waiting for me to answer. My tongue formed words but my lips would not oblige.

‘Grace?’ said Alfred, eyes wide with apprehension.

I felt myself smile, heard myself begin to laugh. I couldn’t seem to stop. I was weeping too, cold, damp tears on my cheeks. It was hysteria, I suppose: so much had happened in the past few moments, too much to take in. The shock of realising my relationship to Mr Frederick, to Hannah. The surprise and delight of Alfred’s proposal.

‘Gracie?’ Alfred was watching me uncertainly. ‘Does that mean you’d like to? To marry me, I mean?’

To marry him. Me. It was my secret dream, yet now it was happening I found myself hopelessly unprepared. I had long since put such fancy down to youth. Stopped imagining it might ever really come about. That anyone would ask me. That Alfred would ask me.

Somehow, I nodded, managed to stop myself from laughing. Heard myself say: ‘Yes.’ Little more than a whisper. I closed my eyes, my head swirled. A little louder: ‘Yes.’

Alfred whooped and I opened my eyes. He was grinning, relief seeming to lighten him. A man and woman walking down the other street turned to look at us and Alfred called out to them, ‘She said yes!’ And then he turned back to me, rubbed his lips together, trying to stop smiling so that he could speak. He gripped my upper arms. He was trembling. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

I nodded again, smiled. So much was happening.

‘Grace,’ he said softly. ‘I was wondering… Would it be all right for me to kiss you?’

I must have said yes for next I knew he had lifted a hand to support my head, leaned toward me, made contact. The strange, pleasant foreignness of Alfred’s lips on mine. Cold, soft, secret.

Time seemed to slow.

He withdrew. Grinned at me, so young, so fine-looking in the deep twilight.

Then he linked his arm through mine, the first time he had ever done so, and we started down the street. We didn’t speak, just walked silently, together. Where his arm crossed mine, pressed the cotton of my shirt against my skin, I shivered. Its warmth, its weight, a promise.

Alfred stroked my wrist with his gloved fingers and I thrilled. My senses were acute: as if someone had removed a layer of skin, enabling me to feel more deeply, more freely. I leaned a little closer. To think that in the space of a day so much had changed. I had gleaned Mother’s secret, realised the nature of my bond to Hannah, Alfred had asked me to marry him. I almost told him then, my deductions about Mother and Mr Frederick, but the words died on my lips. There would be plenty of time later. The idea was still so new: I wanted to savour Mother’s secret a little longer. And I wanted to savour my own happiness. So I remained silent and we continued to walk, arms linked, down Mother’s street.

Precious, perfect moments that I have replayed countless times throughout my life. Sometimes, in my mind, we reach the house. We go inside and drink a toast to our health, are married soon after. And we live happily the rest of our days until we both reach a great age.

But that is not what happened, as well you know.

Rewind. Replay. We were halfway along the street, outside Mr Connelly’s house-maudlin Irish flute music on the breeze-when Alfred said, ‘You can give notice as soon as you get back to London.’

I glanced sharply at him. ‘Notice?’

‘To Mrs Luxton.’ He smiled at me. ‘You won’t need to be dressing her any longer once we’re married. We’ll move to Ipswich straight after. You can work with me, if you like. On the books. Or you could take in stitching, if you prefer?’

Give notice? Leave Hannah? ‘But Alfred,’ I said simply, ‘I can’t leave my position.’

‘Of course you can,’ he said. Bemusement tugged at his smile. ‘I am.’

‘But it’s different…’ I grasped at words of explanation, words that would make him understand. ‘I’m a lady’s maid. Hannah needs me.’

‘She doesn’t need you, she needs a drudge to keep her gloves in order.’ His voice softened. ‘You’re too good for that, Grace. You deserve better. To be your own person.’

I wanted to explain to him. That Hannah would find another maid, certainly, but that I was more than a maid. That we were bonded. Tied. Since the day in the nursery when we were both fourteen, when I’d wondered what it might be like to have a sister. When I’d lied to Miss Prince for Hannah, so instinctively it had frightened me.

That I had made her a promise. When she begged me not to leave I’d given her my word.

That we were sisters. Secret sisters.

‘Besides,’ he said. ‘We’ll be living in Ipswich. You can hardly keep up work in London, can you?’ He patted my arm good-naturedly.

I looked sideways at his face. So genuine. So sure. Empty of ambivalence. And I felt my arguments disintegrating, falling away, even as I framed them. There were no words to make him see, to make him understand in a moment what had taken me years to grasp.

And I knew then I could never have them both, Alfred and Hannah. That I would have to make a choice.

Cold beneath my skin. Spreading out like liquid.

I unlinked my arm from his, told him I was sorry. I’d made a mistake, I said. A terrible mistake.

And then I ran from him. Didn’t turn back, though I knew somehow he remained, unmoving, beneath the cold yellow streetlight. That he watched me as I disappeared down the darkened lane, as I waited miserably for my aunt to admit me and slipped, distraught, into the house. As I closed between us the doorway into what-might-have-been.

The trip back to London was excruciating. It was long and cold and the roads were slippery with snow. But it was the company that made it particularly painful. I was trapped with myself in the motor-car’s cabin, engaged in fruitless debate. I spent the entire journey telling myself I’d made the right choice, the only choice, to remain with Hannah as promised. And by the time the motor car pulled up at number seventeen, I had myself convinced.

I was convinced, too, that Hannah already knew of our bond. That she’d guessed, overheard folk whispering, had even been told. For surely it explained why she’d always turned to me, treated me as confidante. Since the morning I’d bumped into her in the cold alleyway of Mrs Dove’s Secretarial School.

So now we both knew.

And the secret would remain, unspoken, between us.

A silent bond of dedication and devotion.

I was relieved I hadn’t told Alfred. He wouldn’t have understood my decision to keep it to myself. Would have insisted I tell Hannah: even demanded some sort of recompense. Kind, caring though he was, he wouldn’t have perceived the importance of maintaining the status quo. Wouldn’t have seen that no one else could know. For what if Teddy were to find out? Or Deborah? Hannah would suffer, I could be let go.

No, it was better this way. There was no choice. It was the only way to proceed.