The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

‘What are you two talking about?’ This was Emmeline, returned with a handful of sugared nuts. Her brows knitted. ‘You’re not rowing, are you?’

‘Of course not,’ said David, managing a weak smile as Hannah glowered. ‘I was just telling Hannah I’m going to France. To war.’

‘How exciting! Are you going too, Robbie?’

Robbie nodded.

‘I ought to have known,’ said Hannah.

David ignored her. ‘Someone’s got to look after this fellow.’ He grinned at Robbie. ‘Can’t let him have all the fun.’ I caught something in his glance as he spoke: admiration perhaps? Affection?

Hannah had seen it too. Her lips tightened. She had decided whom to blame for David’s desertion.

‘Robbie’s going to war to escape his old man,’ said David.

‘Why?’ said Emmeline excitedly. ‘What did he do?’

Robbie shrugged. ‘The list is long and its keeper bitter.’

‘Give us a little hint,’ Emmeline said. ‘Please?’ Her eyes widened. ‘I know! He’s threatened to cut you from his will.’

Robbie laughed, a dry, humourless laugh. ‘Hardly.’ He rolled a glass icicle between two fingers. ‘Quite the opposite.’

Emmeline frowned. ‘He’s threatened to put you into his will?’

‘He’d like us to play happy families,’ Robbie said.

‘You don’t want to be happy?’ Hannah said coolly.

‘I don’t want to be a family,’ Robbie said. ‘I prefer to be alone.’

Emmeline’s eyes widened. ‘I couldn’t bear to be alone, without Hannah and David. And Pa, of course.’

‘It’s different for people like you,’ Robbie said quietly. ‘Your family has done you no wrong.’

‘Yours has?’ Hannah said.

There was a pause in which all eyes, including mine, focused on Robbie.

I held my breath. I already knew of Robbie’s father. On the night of Robbie’s unexpected arrival at Riverton, as Mr Hamilton and Mrs Townsend initiated a flurry of supper and accommodation arrangements, Myra had leaned over and confided what she knew.

Robbie was son to the newly titled Lord Hasting Hunter, a scientist who had made his name and his fortune in the discovery of a new sort of fabric that could be made without cotton. He had bought a huge manor outside Cambridge, given a room over to his experiments, and he and his wife had proceeded to live the life of the landed gentry. This boy, said Myra, was the result of an affair with his parlourmaid. A Spanish girl with hardly a word of English. Lord Hunter had grown tired of her as her belly grew, but had agreed to keep her on and educate the boy, in return for silence. Her silence had driven her mad: driven her finally to take her own life.

It was a shame, Myra had said, drawing breath and shaking her head, a serving maid mistreated, a boy grown up fatherless. Who wouldn’t have sympathy for the pair of them? All the same, she had looked at me knowingly, Her Ladyship wasn’t going to appreciate this unexpected guest. Birds of a feather need to flock together.

Her meaning had been clear: there were titles and there were titles, those that were of the blood and those that glistened shiny as a new motor car. Robbie Hunter, son (illegitimate or not) of a newly titled lord, was not good enough for the likes of the Hartfords and thus not good enough for the likes of us.

‘Well?’ said Emmeline. ‘Do tell us! You must! What’s your father done that’s so terrible?’

‘What is this,’ David said, smiling, ‘the inquisition?’ He turned to Robbie. ‘Apologies, Hunter. They’re a snoopy pair. They don’t receive much company.’

Emmeline smiled and tossed a handful of paper at him. It fell far short of its mark and fluttered back upon the pile that had amassed beneath the tree.

‘It’s all right,’ Robbie said, straightening. He flicked a strand of hair from his eyes. ‘Since my mother’s death my father has reclaimed me.’

‘Reclaimed you?’ said Emmeline, frowning.

‘After happily consigning me to a life of ignominy he now finds he needs an heir. It seems his wife can’t provide one.’

Emmeline looked from David to Hannah for translation.

‘So Robbie’s going to war,’ said David. ‘To be free.’

‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Hannah said grudgingly.

‘Oh, yes,’ Emmeline cut in, her childish face a model of practised sympathy. ‘You must miss her terribly. I miss our own mother dreadfully and I didn’t even know her; she died when I was born.’ She sighed. ‘And now you’re going to war to escape your cruel father. It’s like something in a novel.’

‘A melodrama,’ said Hannah.

‘A romance,’ said Emmeline eagerly. She unrolled a parcel, and a group of hand-dipped candles fell onto her lap, releasing the scent of cinnamon and hemlock. ‘Grandmamma says it’s every man’s duty to go to war. She says those that stay home are shirkers and miscreants.’

Up in the gallery, my skin prickled. I glanced at Alfred then looked away quickly when he met my gaze. His cheeks were blazing, eyes loud with self-reproach. Just as they had been the day in the village. He stood up abruptly, dropped his cleaning rag, but when I reached to return it to him he shook his head, refused to meet my eyes, and murmured something about Mr Hamilton wondering where he was. I watched helplessly as he hurried down the staircase and slipped from the library, unnoticed by the Hartford children. Then I cursed my lack of self-possession.

Turning from the tree, Emmeline glanced at Hannah, ‘Grandmamma’s disappointed in Pa. She thinks he’s got it easy.’

‘She’s got nothing to be disappointed about,’ Hannah said hotly. ‘And Pa’s most certainly not got it easy. He’d be over there in an instant if he could.’

A heavy silence fell upon the room and I was conscious of my own breaths, grown fast in sympathy with Hannah.

‘Don’t be cross with me,’ Emmeline said sulkily. ‘It’s Grandmamma who said it, not me.’

‘Old witch,’ said Hannah fiercely. ‘Pa’s doing what he’s able for the war. That’s all any of us can do.’

‘Hannah would like to be joining us at the front,’ David said to Robbie. ‘She and Pa just won’t understand that war is no place for women and old men with bad chests.’

‘That’s rubbish, David,’ said Hannah.

‘What?’ he said. ‘The bit about war not being for women and old men, or the bit about you wanting to join the fight?’

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

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

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

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