The Shifting Fog by Kate Morton Page A

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, whileacceptable 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