The Shifting Fog (52 page)

‘Six o’clock,’ Emmeline said, smiling broadly. ‘What a thrill.’

Robbie arrived at five-thirty. It was an irony, thought Hannah, that someone who made a habit of arriving without announcement should become so excessively polite when meeting someone even less reliable than he.

Emmeline was still dressing so Robbie sat in the drawing room with Hannah. She was pleased finally to have opportunity to explain about Deborah, the way she’d goaded Teddy into making his decree. Robbie told her to forget it, that he’d guessed as much. They spoke then of other things and time must have flown, because suddenly Emmeline appeared, dressed and ready to go. Robbie nodded goodbye to Hannah, then he and Emmeline disappeared into the night.

For a time it continued thus. Hannah saw Robbie when he came to collect Emmeline and there was little Deborah could do to change things. Once, when she made a half-hearted attempt, Teddy only shrugged and said it seemed only proper that the mistress of the house entertain guests who called for her younger sister. Would she have the fellow sit by himself in the drawing room?

Hannah tried to satisfy herself with precious snatched moments, but found herself thinking about Robbie between times. He’d never been forthcoming about what he did when they weren’t together.
She didn’t even know where he lived. So she started imagining; she’d always been good at games of imagination.

She managed, rather conveniently, to ignore the fact that he was spending time with Emmeline. What did it matter anyway? Emmeline had an enormous group of friends. Robbie was just one more.

Then one morning, when she was sitting at the breakfast table with Teddy, he flicked his hand against his open newspaper and said, ‘What do you think of that sister of yours, eh?’

Hannah braced, wondering what disgrace Emmeline had caused this time. She took the paper as Teddy passed it across the table.

It was only a small photograph. Robbie and Emmeline leaving a nightclub the previous evening. A good shot of Emmeline, Hannah had to concede, chin lifted, laughing, as she pulled Robbie by the arm. His face was less obvious. He was in shadow, had looked away at the critical moment.

Teddy took it back and read the accompanying text aloud: ‘
The Honourable Miss E Hartford, one of society’s most glamorous young ladies, is pictured with a dark stranger. The mystery man is said to be the poet RS Hunter. A source says Miss Hartford has hinted an engagement announcement is not too far away
.’ He laid the paper down, took a forkful of devilled egg. ‘Quite the dark horse, isn’t she? Didn’t think Emmeline was the sort to keep a secret,’ he said. ‘Could be worse, I suppose. Could have set her cap at that Harry Bentley.’ He dabbed his thumb at the corner of his moustache, wiped away a clot of egg. ‘You’ll talk to him though, won’t you? Make sure everything’s above board. I don’t need a scandal.’

When Robbie came to collect Emmeline the following night, Hannah received him as usual. They spoke for a time as they always did, until finally Hannah could stand it no longer.

‘Mr Hunter,’ she said, walking to the fireplace. ‘I must ask. Do you have something you wish to speak with me about?’

He sat back, smiled at her. ‘I have. And I thought I was.’

‘Something else, Mr Hunter?’

His smile faltered. ‘I don’t think I follow.’

‘Something you wanted to ask me about?’

‘Perhaps if you told me what it is you think I should be saying,’ said Robbie.

Hannah sighed. She collected the newspaper from the writing bureau and gave it to him.

He scanned it and handed it back. ‘So?’

‘Mr Hunter,’ Hannah said in a quiet voice. She didn’t want the servants to hear if they happened to be in the entrance hall. ‘I am my sister’s guardian. If you wish to become engaged, it really would be polite for you to discuss your intentions with me first.’

Robbie smiled, saw that Hannah was not amused and coached his lips back into repose. ‘I’ll remember that, Mrs Luxton.’

She blinked at him. ‘Well, Mr Hunter?’

‘Well, Mrs Luxton?’

‘Is there something you would like to ask me?’

‘No,’ said Robbie, laughing. ‘I have no intention of marrying Emmeline. Not now. Not ever. But thank you for asking.’

‘Oh,’ said Hannah simply. ‘Does Emmeline know that?’

Robbie shrugged. ‘I don’t see why she’d think otherwise. I’ve never given her reason.’

‘My sister is a romantic,’ said Hannah. ‘She forms attachments easily.’

‘Then she’ll have to unform them.’

Hannah felt sympathy for Emmeline then, but she felt something else too. She hated herself as she realised it was relief.

‘What is it?’ Robbie said. He was very close. She wondered when he’d moved to stand so close.

‘I’m worried about Emmeline,’ Hannah said, stepping back a little, her leg grazing the sofa. ‘She imagines your feelings more than they are.’

‘What can I do?’ said Robbie. ‘I’ve already told her they’re not.’

‘You must stop seeing her,’ said Hannah quietly. ‘Tell her you’re not interested in her parties. It won’t be too much of a hardship for you, surely. You’ve said yourself you have little to speak of with her friends.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Then if you don’t feel anything for Emmeline, be honest with her. Please, Mr Hunter. Break it off. She’ll come to harm otherwise and I can’t allow that.’

Robbie looked at her. He reached out and, very gently, straightened a piece of hair that had come loose. She was frozen to the spot, was aware of nothing but him. His dark eyes, the warmth coming from his skin, his soft lips. ‘I would,’ he said. ‘This minute.’ He was very close now. She was aware of his breaths, could hear them, feel them on her neck. He spoke softly. ‘But how would I ever see you?’

Things changed after that. Of course they did. They had to. Something implicit had become explicit. For Hannah the darkness had started to recede. She was falling in love with him, of course, not that she realised it at first. It sounds impossible, but she’d never been in love, had nothing with which to compare. She’d been attracted to people before, had felt that sudden, inexplicable pull, had felt it once with Teddy. But there is a difference between enjoying someone’s company, thinking them attractive, to finding oneself helplessly in love.

The occasional meetings she had once looked forward to, snatched while Robbie waited for Emmeline, were no longer enough. Hannah longed to see him elsewhere, alone, somewhere they might speak freely. Where there wasn’t the constant risk that someone else might join them.

Opportunity came one evening in early 1923. Teddy was in America on business, Deborah at a country-house weekend, and Emmeline out with friends at one of Robbie’s poetry readings. Hannah made a decision.

She ate dinner alone in the dining room, sat in the morning room after and sipped coffee, then retired to her bedroom. When I came to dress her for bed, she was in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the elegant claw-foot tub. She was wearing a delicate satin slip; Teddy had brought it back from one of his trips to the continent. In her hands was something black.

‘Would you like to take a bath, ma’am?’ I said. It was unusual, but not unheard of, for her to bathe after dinner.

‘No,’ said Hannah.

‘Shall I bring you your nightdress?’

‘No,’ she said again. ‘I’m not going to bed, Grace. I’m going out.’

I was confused. ‘Ma’am?’

‘I’m going out. And I need your help.’

She didn’t want any of the other servants to know. They were spies for Deborah, she said matter-of-factly, and she wanted neither Teddy nor Deborah—nor Emmeline, for that matter—to know she’d been anywhere but home all evening.

It worried me to think of her out alone at night, keeping such a thing from Teddy—worse, Deborah. And I wondered where she was going, whether she would tell me. Despite my misgivings, however, I agreed to help. Of course I did. It was what she’d asked of me.

Neither of us spoke as I helped her into a dress she’d already chosen: pale blue silk, with a fringe that brushed her bare knees. She sat in front of the mirror, watching as I pinned her hair tight against her head. Plucking at the fronds of her dress, twirling her locket chain, biting her lip. Then she handed me a wig: black, sleek and short, something Emmeline had worn months before to a fancy-dress party. I was surprised—wigs were not her habit—but I fitted it, then stepped back to observe. She looked like a different person. Like Louise Brooks.

She picked up a bottle of perfume—another of Teddy’s gifts—Chanel Number 5, brought back from Paris the year before, then changed her mind. Returned the bottle to its place and regarded herself. It was then I saw the piece of notepaper on her bureau:
Robbie’s Reading
, it said.
The Stray Cat
,
Soho, Saturday, 10 pm
. She grabbed the paper, stuffed it into her clutch purse and snapped it shut. Then, in the mirror, her eyes met mine. She said nothing; she didn’t have to. I wondered why I hadn’t guessed. Who else would have her this alert? This jittery? So full of expectation?

I went ahead, making sure the servants were all downstairs. And then I told Mr Boyle I’d noticed a stain on the glass pane in the entrance vestibule. I hadn’t, but I couldn’t have any of the staff hearing the front door open for no reason.

I went back upstairs and signalled to Hannah, standing at the turn of the stairs, that the way was clear. I opened the front door and through she went. On the other side we stopped. She turned to me, smiled.

‘Be careful, ma’am,’ I said, silencing my rumblings of foreboding.

She nodded. ‘Thank you, Grace. For everything.’

And she disappeared into the night air, silently, shoes in her hands so as not to make a noise.

Hannah found a taxi on a street around the corner and gave the driver the address of the club in which Robbie was reading. She was so excited she could hardly breathe. She had to keep tapping her heels on the floor of the taxi to convince herself it was really happening.

The address had been easy enough to obtain. Emmeline kept a journal into which she clipped pamphlets and advertisements and invitations, and it hadn’t taken Hannah long to find it. She needn’t have bothered as it turned out. Once she’d told the taxi driver the name he needed no further instruction. The Stray Cat was one of Soho’s better known clubs, a meeting spot for artists, drug dealers, business tycoons and bright young members of the aristocracy, bored and idle, keen to shake off the shackles of their birth.

He pulled up the cab and told her to be careful, shook his head as she paid him. She turned to thank him, and watched as the club’s reflected name slid off his black cab as he disappeared into the night.

Hannah had never been to such a place before. She stood where she was, took in the plain brick exterior, the flashing sign and the crowds of laughing people spilling onto the street outside. So this was what Emmeline meant when she talked about the clubs. This was where she and her friends came to play in the evenings. Hannah shivered into her scarf, kept her head down and went inside, refusing the valet’s offer to take her wrap.

It was tiny, little more than a room, and it was warm, full of jostling bodies. The smoky air smelled sweetly of gin. She stayed near the entrance, close to a pillar, and scanned the room, looking for Robbie.

He was onstage already, if stage it could be called. A small patch of bare space between the grand piano and the bar. He was sitting on a stool, cigarette on his lips, smoking lazily. His jacket was hanging on the back of a nearby chair and he wore only his black suit pants and a white shirt. His collar was loose and so was his hair. He was flicking through a notebook. In front of him, the audience lounged
around small round tables. Others had crowded onto bar stools or draped themselves against the edges of the room.

Hannah saw Emmeline then, sitting in the middle of a table of friends. Fanny was with her, the old lady of the group. (Married life had proven something of a disappointment for Fanny. With the children appropriated by a rather tedious nurse and a husband who spent his time dreaming up new ailments to suffer, there was little to keep her interest. Who could blame her for seeking adventure at the side of her young friends?) They tolerated her, Emmeline had told Hannah, because she was so genuine in her pursuit of fun, and besides, she was older and could get them out of all sorts of trouble. She was especially good at sweet-talking police when they were caught in after-hours raids. They were all drinking cocktails in martini glasses, one of them ran a line of white powder on the table. Ordinarily, Hannah would have worried for Emmeline, but tonight she was in love with the world.

Hannah inched closer to the pillar but she needn’t have bothered. They were so engrossed with one another they had little time to look beyond. The fellow with the white powder whispered something to Emmeline and she laughed wildly, freely, her pale neck exposed.

Robbie’s hands were shaking. Hannah could see the notebook quivering. He rested his cigarette across an ashtray on the bar beside and began, giving no introduction. A poem about history, and mystery, and memory: ‘The Shifting Fog’. It was one of her favourites.

Hannah watched him; it was the first opportunity she’d ever had to gaze at him, to let her eyes roam his face, his body, without him knowing. And she listened. The words had touched her when she’d read them, but to hear him speak them was to see inside his own heart.

He finished, and the audience clapped, and someone called out, and there was laughter, and he looked up. At her. His face didn’t betray him, but she knew he saw, recognised her despite her disguise.

For a moment they were alone.

He looked back at his notebook, turned a few pages, fumbled a bit, settled on the next poem.

And then he spoke to her. Poem after poem. About knowing and unknowing, truth and suffering, love and lust. She closed her eyes and with every word she felt the darkness disappearing.

Then he was finished and the audience was applauding. The bar staff swept into action, mixing American cocktails and pouring shots, and the musicians took their seats, broke into jazz. Some of the drunk, laughing people improvised a dance floor between the tables. Hannah saw Emmeline wave to Robbie, beckon him to join them. Robbie waved back and pointed to his watch. Emmeline jutted her bottom lip, an exaggerated gesture, then whooped and waved as one of her male friends dragged her up to dance.