The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

were near impossible that people might find things to discuss that didn’t concern the family at Riverton.

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

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

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

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

‘Does he sell motor cars?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘How?’ I asked.

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

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

‘What did she do?’

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

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

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

‘How did they find her?’

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

‘Was Mr Frederick very cross?’

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

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What did he do?’

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

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

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

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