She was going to work on translations, but they were in shorthand and not French. I lowered my eyes, disproportionately pleased at my casting as conspirator.
Emmeline shook her head slowly, narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s a mortal sin to lie, you know.’ She was clutching at straws.
‘Yes, oh pious one,’ Hannah said, laughing.
Emmeline crossed her arms. ‘Fine. Keep your silly secrets. I’m sure I don’t mind.’
‘Good,’ Hannah said. ‘Everybody’s happy.’ She smiled at me and I smiled back. ‘Thank you for the lemonade, Grace.’ And then she disappeared, through the kissing gate and into the Long Walk.
‘I’ll find out, you know,’ Emmeline called after her. ‘I always do.’
There came no response and I heard Emmeline huff. As I turned to face her, I saw the white clematis that had decorated her hair, spinning onto the stone below. She looked at me crossly. ‘Is that glass of lemonade for me? I’m parched.’
•
My visit to Mother that afternoon was brief and would not have been notable, had it not been for one thing.
Usually when I visited, Mother and I sat in the kitchen where the light was best for stitching and where we had spent most of our time together before I started at Riverton. That day, however, when she met me at the door, she led me to the tiny sitting room that opened off the kitchen. I was surprised, and wondered who else Mother was expecting, for the room was rarely used, had always been reserved for the visits of important folk like Doctor Arthur, or the church minister. I sat on a chair by the window and waited while she fetched tea.
Mother had made an effort to present the room at its best. I recognised the signs. A favoured vase that had once belonged to her own mother, white porcelain with tulips painted on the front, stood on the side table, clutching proudly a handful of tired daisies. And the cushion she usually rolled up and propped against her back when she worked had been beaten smooth and arranged in the middle of the sofa. It was a sly impostor, sitting there squarely, looking for all the world as if it served no other function than decoration.
The room was especially clean-years in service had given Mother exacting standards-yet it was smaller and plainer than I remembered. The yellow walls that had once seemed cheery were faded, seeming to sag inwards so that only the bare old sofa and chairs saved them from collapse. The pictures on the wall, scenes from the sea that had inspired many of my childhood fancies, had lost their magic and now looked only tired and poorly framed.
Mother brought the tea and sat opposite me. I watched as she poured. There were only two cups. It was to be just the two of us, after all. The room, the flowers, the cushion, were for me.
I took the cup she offered and noted silently the tiny chip on its rim. Mr Hamilton would never approve. There was no place for cracked teacups at Riverton, even in the servants’ hall.
Mother cupped her tea in two hands and I saw that the fingers of each hand had plaited stiffly, one over another. There was no way she’d be able to stitch in that condition; I wondered how long they’d been that bad, how she was affording to live. I had been forwarding her a portion of my own earnings each week, but surely it wasn’t enough. Warily, I broached the subject.
‘That’s none of your business,’ she said. ‘I’m managing.’
‘But Mother, you should have told me. I could have sent you more. I’ve nothing to spend it on.’
Her gaunt face vacillated between defensiveness and defeat. Finally, she sighed. ‘You’re a good girl, Grace. You’re doing your share. Your mother’s bad fortune’s not yours to worry about.’
‘Of course it is, Mother.’
‘You just be sure an’ don’t make the same mistakes.’
I steeled myself, dared to ask gently, ‘What mistakes, Mother?’
She looked away and I waited, heart beating quickly, as she chewed on her dry bottom lip. Wondering whether at last I was to be trusted with the secrets that had sat between us as long as I could remember…
‘Pish,’ she said finally, turning back to face me. And with that the subject’s door was slammed closed. She lifted her chin and asked about the house, the family, as she always did.
What had I expected? A sudden, magnificently uncharacteristic break from habit? An outpouring of past grievances that explained away my mother’s acrimony, enabled us to reach an understanding that had thus far eluded us?
You know, I think perhaps I had. I was young, and that is my only excuse.
But this is a history, not a fiction, thus it will not surprise you that such was not forthcoming. Instead, I swallowed the sour lump of disappointment and told her about the deaths, unable to prevent a guilty note of importance from creeping in as I recounted the family’s recent misfortune. First the Major-Mr Hamilton’s sombre receipt of the black-rimmed telegraph, Jemima’s fingers shaking so that she was unable at first to open it-and then Lord Ashbury, only days after.
She shook her head, slowly, an action that accentuated her long thin neck, and set down her tea. ‘I’d heard as much. I didn’t know how much to put down to gossip. You know as well as I how bad this village is for tittle-tattle.’
I nodded.
‘What was it took Lord Ashbury, then?’ she said.
‘Mr Hamilton said it was a mix. Partly a stroke and partly the heat.’
Mother continued to nod, chewing the inside of her cheek. ‘And what did Mrs Townsend say?’
‘She said it was none of those things. She said it was grief that killed him, plain and simple.’ I lowered my voice, adopting the same reverent tone that Mrs Townsend had used. ‘She said the Major’s death broke His Lordship’s heart. That when the Major was shot, all his father’s hopes and dreams bled with him into the soil of France.’
Mother smiled, but it was not a happy gesture. She shook her head slowly, looked at the wall before her with its pictures of the distant sea. ‘Poor, poor Frederick,’ she said. This surprised me and at first I thought I must have misheard, or that she had made a mistake, uttered the wrong name accidentally, for it made little sense. Poor Lord Ashbury. Poor Lady Violet. Poor Jemima. But Frederick?
‘You needn’t worry about him,’ I said. ‘He’s as like to inherit the house.’
‘There’s more to happiness than riches, girl.’
I didn’t like it when Mother spoke of happiness. The sentiment was hollowed by its speaker. Mother, with her pinched eyes and her empty house was the last person fit to offer such advice. I felt chastened somehow. Reprimanded for an offence I couldn’t name. I answered sulkily. ‘Try telling that to Fanny.’
Mother frowned, and I realised the name was unknown to her.
‘Oh,’ I said, inexplicably cheered. ‘I forgot. You wouldn’t know her. She’s Lady Clementine’s charge. She hopes to marry Mr Frederick.’
Mother looked at me, disbelieving. ‘Marry? Frederick?’
I nodded. ‘Fanny’s been working on him all year.’
‘He’s not asked her, though?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But it’s only a matter of time.’
‘Who told you so? Mrs Townsend?’
I shook my head. ‘Myra.’
