The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

Grandmamma was saying what a tragedy the war had been for this family. That the Germans had robbed the Ashbury line of its future and that Grandfather would turn in his grave if he knew the state of things. Pa tried to tell her that it wasn’t as desperate as all that, but Grandmamma was having none of it. She said she was old enough to see clearly and how else could the situation be described but desperate, when Pa was last in line with no heirs to follow? Grandmamma said it was a shame that Pa hadn’t done the right thing and married Fanny when he had the chance!

‘Pa turned snippy then and said that while he had lost his heir, he still had his factory, and Grandmamma could stop worrying for he would take care of things. Grandmamma didn’t stop worrying though. She said the lawyers were starting to ask questions.

‘Then Pa was quiet for a little while and I began to worry, thinking that he had stood up and was on his way to the door and I was to be discovered. I almost laughed with relief when he spoke again and I could hear that he was still in his chair.’

‘Yes, yes, and what did he say?’

Emmeline continued, the cautiously optimistic manner of an actor nearing the end of a complicated passage. ‘Pa said that while it was true things had been tight during the war, he’d given up the aeroplanes and was back making motor cars now. The damned lawyers-his words, not mine-the damned lawyers were going to get their money. He said some fellow who’d made war planes had offered to invest and was going to help him make the factory more profitable. The fellow, Mr Simion Luxton, has connections, Pa said, in business and in the government.’ Emmeline sighed triumphantly, monologue successfully delivered. ‘And that was the end of it, or near enough. Pa sounded ever so embarrassed when Grandmamma mentioned the lawyers. I decided then and there that I’d do anything I could to help make a good impression with Mr Luxton, to help Pa keep his business.’

‘I didn’t know you took such keen interest.’

‘Of course I do,’ Emmeline said primly. ‘And you needn’t be angry with me just because I know more about it than you this time.’

A pause, then Hannah: ‘I don’t suppose your sudden, ardent devotion to Pa’s business has anything to do with that fellow, the son, whose photo Fanny was mooning over in the newspaper?’

‘Theodore Luxton? Is he going to be at dinner? I had no idea,’ Emmeline said, but a smile had crept into her voice.

‘You’re far too young. He’s at least thirty.’

‘I’m almost fifteen and everyone says I look mature for my age. Besides, Fanny said some men prefer brides younger than eighteen.’

‘Yes, odd men who would sooner be married to a child than a grown woman.’

‘I’m not too young to be in love, you know,’ Emmeline said. ‘Juliet was only fourteen.’

‘And look what happened to her.’

‘That was just a misunderstanding. If she and Romeo had been married and their silly old parents had stopped giving them such trouble, I’m sure they’d have lived happily ever after.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t wait to be married.’

‘Marriage isn’t just about having a handsome man to dance with,’ said Hannah. ‘There are… other things, you know.’

The gramophone song had stopped playing, but the record continued to spin beneath the needle.

‘What other things?’

Against the cold silk of Emmeline’s dresses, my cheeks grew warm.

‘Private things,’ Hannah said. ‘Intimacies.’

‘Oh,’ Emmeline said, almost inaudible. ‘Intimacies. Poor Fanny.’

There was a silence in which we all pondered Poor Fanny’s misfortune. Newly married and trapped, on honeymoon, with a Strange Man.

I was no longer entirely inexperienced in such terrors, myself. A few months before, in the village, Rufus, the butcher’s half-witted son, had followed me into an alley and pressed me against the wall, his meaty fingers, nails rimmed in cow’s blood, pawing at my skirts. I had been startled at first, but then, remembering the leg of lamb in my string bag, had lifted it high and walloped him over the head. I was released, but not before his fingers had burrowed their way into my private flesh. The echoes made me shudder all the way home and it was some days before I could close my eyes without reliving the experience, wondering what might have happened had I not taken action.

‘Hannah,’ Emmeline said. ‘What are intimacies, exactly?’

‘I… well… They’re expressions of love,’ Hannah said breezily. ‘Quite pleasant, I believe, with a man with whom you’re passionately in love; unthinkably distasteful with anyone else.’

‘Yes, yes. But what are they? Exactly?’

Another silence.

‘You don’t know either,’ Emmeline said. ‘I can tell by your face.’

‘Well, not exactly-’

‘I’ll ask Fanny when she gets back,’ Emmeline said. ‘She ought to know by then.’

I ran my fingertips along the row of pretty fabrics in Emmeline’s wardrobe, looking for the blue dress, wondered whether what Hannah said was true. Whether the same attentions Rufus had tried to foist on me might ever be considered pleasant from another fellow. I thought about the few times Alfred had stood very near me in the servants’ hall, the strange but not unwelcome feeling that had overcome me…

‘Anyway, I didn’t say I wanted to marry immediately.’ This was Emmeline. ‘All I meant is that Theodore Luxton is very handsome.’

‘Very wealthy, you mean,’ Hannah said.

‘Same thing, really.’

‘You’re just lucky that Pa’s decided to let you dine downstairs at all,’ Hannah said. ‘I should never have been allowed when I was fourteen.’

‘Almost fifteen.’

‘I suppose he had to make up numbers somehow.’

‘Yes. Thank goodness Fanny agreed to marry that terrible bore, and thank goodness he decided they should honeymoon in Italy. If they’d been home, I’m sure I’d have been left to dine with Nanny in the nursery instead.’

‘I should prefer Nanny’s company to that of Pa’s Americans any day.’

‘Rubbish,’ Emmeline said.

‘I should be just as happy to read my book.’

‘Liar,’ Emmeline said. ‘You’ve set your ivory satin dress aside, the one Fanny was so determined you shouldn’t wear when we met her old bore. You wouldn’t wear that one unless you were as excited as I am.’

There was a silence.

‘Ha!’ Emmeline said. ‘I’m right! You’re smiling!’

‘All right, I am looking forward to it,’ Hannah said. ‘But not,’ she added