The Shifting Fog by Kate Morton

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, while acceptable 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 just how to set him off. She was a fierce little thing, full of tempers. One time, I remember, she was awful dark at him for one reason or another and took it into her head to give him a nasty fright.’
    ‘What did she do?’
    ‘Now let me think . . . Master David was out having riding instruction. That’s what started it all. Miss Hannah were none too happy to have been left out so she bundled up Miss Emmeline and gave Nanny the slip. Found their way to the far estates, they did, right the way down where the farmers were harvesting apples.’
    She shook her head. ‘Convinced Miss Emmeline to hide away in the barn, did our Miss Hannah. Wasn’t hard to do, I imagine; Miss Hannah can be very persuasive, and besides, Miss Emmeline was quite happy with all them fresh apples to feast on. Next minute, Miss Hannah arrived back at the house, puffing and panting like she’d run for her life, calling for Mr Frederick. I was laying for luncheon in the dining room at the time, and I heard Miss Hannah tell him that a couple of foreign men with dark skin had found them in the orchards. Said they’d commented on how pretty Miss Emmeline was and promised to take her on a long journey across the seas. Miss Hannah said she couldn’t be sure, but she believed them to be white slavers.’
    I gasped, shocked by Hannah’s daring. ‘What happened then?’
    Myra, portentous with secrets, warmed to the telling. ‘Well, Mr Frederick’s always been wary of the