The Shifting Fog Read Online Free PDF Page B

courtyard where two bronze lions on weathered plinths stood guard, surveying the estate churchyard in the valley below.
    A well-worn rocking horse rested by the window: a dignified dapple-grey with kind black eyes who seemed grateful for the dusting I gave him. And by his side, in silent communion, stood Raverley. The black and tan foxhound had been Lord Ashbury’s when he was a boy; had died after getting his leg stuck in a trap. The embalmer had made a good attempt to patch the damage, but no amount of pretty dressing could hide what lurked beneath. I took to covering Raverley while I worked. With a dust sheet draped over him I could almost pretend he wasn’t there, looking out at me with his dull glassy eyes, wound gaping beneath his patch. But despite it all—Raverley, the smell of slow decay, the peeling paper—the nursery became my favourite room. Day after day, as predicted, I found it empty, the children engaged elsewhere on the estate. I took to rushing through my regular duties that I might have a few spare minutes in which to linger, alone. Away from Myra’s constant corrections, from Mr Hamilton’s grim reproval, from the rowdy camaraderie of the other servants that made me feel I had so much still to learn. I stopped holding my breath, began to take the solitude for granted. To think of it as my room. And then there were the books, so many books, more than I had ever seen in one place at the one time: adventures, histories, fairytales, jostled together on huge shelves either side of the fireplace. Once I dared pull one down, selected for no better reason than a particularly pretty spine. I ran my hand over the fusty cover, opened it and read the carefully printed name: TIMOTHY HARTFORD. Then I turned the thick pages, breathed mildewed dust, and was transported to another place and time.
    I had learned to read at the village school and my teacher, Miss Ruby, pleased I expect to encounter such uncommon student interest, had started loaning me books from her own collection: Jane Eyre , Frankenstein , The Castle of Otranto . When I returned them we would discuss our favourite parts. It was Miss Ruby who suggested I might become a teacher myself. Mother had been none too pleased when I told her. She’d said it was all very well for Miss Ruby to go putting grand ideas in my head but ideas didn’t put bread and butter on the table. Not long after she’d sent me up the hill to Riverton, to Myra and Mr Hamilton, and to the nursery . . . And for a time the nursery was my room, the books my books.
    But one day a fog blew in and it began to rain. As I hurried along the corridor with half a mind to look at an illustrated children’s encyclopaedia I’d discovered the day before, I stopped short. There were voices inside.
    It was the wind, I told myself, carrying them from elsewhere in the house. An illusion. But when I cracked open the door and peeked inside: shock. There were people in there. Young people who fit perfectly in that enchanting room.
    And in that instant, with neither sign nor ceremony, it ceased to be mine. I stood, frozen by indecision, unsure whether it was proper to continue my duties or to return later. I peeked again, made timid by their laughter. Their confident, round voices. Their shiny hair and shinier hair bows.
    It was the flowers that decided me. They were wilting in their vase atop the fire mantle. Petals had dropped in the night and now lay scattered like a rebuke. I couldn’t risk Myra seeing them; she had been clear on my duties. Had made certain I understood that Mother would learn if I were to run foul of my superiors. Remembering Mr Hamilton’s instructions, I clutched my brush and broom to my chest and tiptoed to the fireside, concentrated on being invisible. I needn’t have worried. They were used to sharing their homes with an army of the unseen. They ignored me while I pretended to ignore them.
    Two girls and a boy: the youngest around ten, the eldest not yet seventeen. All