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I first saw Mr Raynor when he visited my father. He didn’t see me then, and wouldn’t until some days later, but I watched him as he left the house that day. I had been working in the garden, the skirt of my old cotton smock hoisted to my knees, and my hair tied up in a scarf like a beggar woman. Streaked as I was with mud and dust, I chose to stay out of sight of the windows once I had heard the door. Father very rarely had visitors, but when he did, I never knew who they were. Generally, people from his publishers, or an enthusiastic student delivering specimens. Nobody remotely interesting to me, and Father never expected me to be present. He preferred it if I kept out of the way, so he didn’t have to go to the fuss of introducing me and answering the inevitable questions about Mother. The arrangement pleased me, as I didn’t really know how to behave in company.
I took my time in the garden. It was something of a relief to know I wouldn’t be wanted to write up notes or label drawers or dust cases for a while. I had plenty of work to do – there were always weeds. A woodlouse scurried from beneath a pile of mulchy leaves, and I let it run over my fingers, enjoying the feather-light tickling feeling. I didn’t mind insects in the garden, where they were alive. It was the ones in Father’s cases that unnerved me.
The stranger, as he was then, was with Father for such a long time. I had cleared the border down the side of the house and washed my hands under the pump before I heard the front door open. Dropping low, I crept up behind the big hedge and watched the gentleman emerge. I could make out little more than a pale triangle of face visible between the brim of his hat and his up-turned collar. Nothing remarkable. A few moments later there was the sound of horses’ hooves, and he was gone. I went back to the house and changed my clothes before starting to make dinner.
I didn’t see Father until he faced me over the dinner table. I’d managed to cobble together something with the last of the smoked fish and a few vegetables, but there really wasn’t much in the house. Father seemed displeased, and I worried he’d not eat much. At length he rose, leaving his plate barely touched, and began to pace.
After a few lengths of the floor had been completed, he stood by the window and did his best to ignore me for about ten minutes. His eyes darted about the room as he wrung his hands and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. I was dutiful, as I have been taught, for at least a further ten minutes before I ventured to ask –
‘Who was the gentleman?’
Father stopped fidgeting and deflated down into his chair and onto the table, his head landing on his hands. Moments later he jolted upright, as though someone had held a candle beneath his chin. His mouth split into a grin.
‘Did you see him, Fleur?’
I nodded.
His grin wilted at the corners and a vertical line appeared between his brows.
‘Did you speak to him?’ There was a fraying, high-pitched edge to his voice.
‘No. I don’t think he saw me.’ I hoped that was the answer he wanted to hear.
Father nudged his discarded knife and fork with shaking hands.
‘His name is Mr Raynor.’ He paused as though the name ought to mean something to me, but it didn’t. “He’s very rich. He’d like to marry you.’
‘Oh.’ I said. My mind seemed to have stopped working.
‘Wouldn’t you like to get married? I think you’d like it.’
I’d never thought of marrying. Not really. I thought I was a bit too young.
‘I don’t know, Father.’
‘I think you would.’ He stared at me, his eyes watering slightly.
He looked desperate, and I didn’t understand. It wasn’t that I wanted things to stay the way they were now, or that I was happy, exactly. I just didn’t understand. Strange though it may seem to girls my age, marriage just hadn’t been a thing I expected to do. We’d never mentioned it.
‘Who is he?’
Father lifted his fork and began to tap the handle against the table, watching intently as little drops of gravy flew and spattered onto the wood. He stared for so long, I wondered if he’d heard me.
‘A gentleman of my acquaintance,’ he said, eventually. ‘I knew him before you were born. Hadn’t seen him in years.’ Father laughed, a high-pitched sound at odds with his furrowed brows. ‘Didn’t think he’d know where we lived, after all these years, but here we are.’
He was old, then, this Mr Raynor. I had thought him of indeterminate middle age, but it had been hard to tell from the triangle of his face that had been visible between the low brim of his hat and the collar of his greatcoat, which came up higher than his ears.
‘Are you sure he wants to marry me? Has he seen me?’ I looked doubtfully at my hands, and the lines of dirt beneath the crescents of my nails. I wasn’t a beauty, although my mother had been. I took after my father, with his long, straight nose and thick, dark hair. Mother had been fair, like sunlight in a darkened room, I had been told.
‘That sort of thing isn’t strictly necessary. He knows me, he knew your mother, and now he wants to marry you. Really, Fleur, I don’t see why you’re making such a fuss about it. Girls want to get married, don’t they?’
I supposed they probably did. The truth of the matter was that I didn’t know any girls my own age. I didn’t really know anyone at all. But in the books I read it seemed as though marriage was a thing girls wanted to do, and some of those marriages had been to people they didn’t know, or at least didn’t know well. I felt I was probably being unreasonable and worried I seemed ungrateful.
‘I had thought to stay with you, Father.’
His face softened into a weak smile and his eyes seemed to water a little more.
‘As had I, dear one. But this is for the best, really. You’ll be safe and secure.’ He wiped a shaking hand across his brow. ‘Otherwise, what would you do when I die? You can’t live alone.’
I began to see his reasoning. I had never thought of the future. All of my life had been constant. Just me and the quiet, background figure of my father, and so I had thought it would continue forever. How foolish I had been.
‘What will you do without me?’ I asked, and immediately regretted the question. For the first time in what must have been years, the deep line between Father’s brows smoothed and disappeared.
‘I’ll manage, Fleur.’