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It was a two-hour drive from my father’s house to my new home. I wondered that Mr Raynor, or Gabriel as I must now call him, had lived so close to us all these years, and had known my father for so long, yet had never called on us before. We sat opposite one another, my new husband and I, in silence as the carriage rocked and juddered over stones and potholes in the rough country roads. I wasn’t sure how to act. Father had said I must remain quiet and inoffensive. I looked down at my hands folded neatly in my lap and tried to stay as still as possible.
‘How old are you?’ He sounded bored. I had displeased him already, somehow. I had done something wrong, I must have, but I didn’t know what. Perhaps this was what other men were like. Perhaps they all found me as irritating as Father had often seemed to.
‘Seventeen, sir.’ I raised my eyes slightly and peeked at the man who now owned me, body and soul.
‘Humph.’ He curled his lip slightly, and winced as though in pain. ‘Then you have started your courses?’
I blushed furiously and nodded. In a flash he had leaned across the carriage and held my chin tightly between hard fingers.
‘Speak,’ he demanded.
‘Yes. Yes, sir.’ I tried to look away but couldn’t. His face was so close to mine that he filled my vision. I didn’t dare close my eyes in case the tears that threatened spilled out.
‘And are you on your courses now?’
I hesitated, and he tightened his grip on my chin.
‘Yes sir.’
He pushed my face away in disgust and leaned back against the seat.
‘How many days left?’
I tried to think, fighting the mortification and embarrassment to answer as quickly as possible.
‘Two, maybe three. I don’t-’
‘Tell me when it’s over. Or Peregrine. You’ll meet him at the house. You must tell someone. I’ll know if you don’t. Your maids will tell me. You must get used to everyone in the house knowing every detail of your life. Know this, Fleur, if you lie to me, I’ll know. If you defy me, I’ll know.’
‘I will never lie to you, sir.’
For the first time since he had lifted my veil, Gabriel looked pleased. He was handsome, I thought. In a frightening, slightly cruel way. He was impeccably groomed too, to the point where even in my wedding finery, I had felt gauche and underdressed.
‘Then perhaps our marriage will be a success.’ Within a moment, a shadow had dropped over his face again. ‘But that depends on you. Women are consummate liars, so I doubt it.’
He didn’t speak to me again for the rest of the journey. Eventually the fields gave way to dotted cottages, before we came to a village with a few shops and a church spire. Being from a small cottage myself, I was surprised when we turned into a large pair of wrought iron gates. The drive was edged with trees, and it wasn’t until we came to a bend that I saw the house. I had known my husband was rich, at least, richer than my father, but I hadn’t known how rich. The house looked palatial to me. It was a low, modern building of pale stone with Grecian style columns at the door. The windows were spaced with carvings of women in robes holding cornucopias or sheep in one hand, and appearing to hold up the building with the other. I stared and stared, my mouth agape. That I was to be living in such splendour was almost beyond my comprehension.
‘Humph.’ My husband had noticed my reaction and seemed almost pleased. ‘I trust you will be grateful. You are to be the mistress of this place.’
‘Oh, yes sir,’ I said, but even as I said it, I worried that I would be entirely lost. I did not know how to manage staff, or order meals, or even behave in company. My joy at my surroundings quickly dissipated in a rush of panic.
At the sound of the carriage approaching, the doors of the house had swung open and a man in black livery with red piping and silver buttons now stood at the bottom of the steps. Boys in the same livery, of much the same age as me, raced round from the back of the house and stood ready to see to the horses. Already there were five members of staff. I was sure there couldn’t be all that many more.
My husband handed me out of the carriage and the man hurried forward with a bow.
‘Peregrine.’
So, this was the man I was supposed to tell about the end of my courses. A tall, sturdy man with an implacable face and his dark hair fastened in a queue at the back of his neck. I felt myself go red at merely the thought of it.
‘This is my valet, Fleur. You neglected to pack any tobacco, Peregrine, yet still I was not lost without you. Perhaps now you will endeavour to make yourself more useful.’
Peregrine paled and bowed his head.
‘This is the new Mrs Raynor. Where is the old one?’
Momentarily, I wondered if I had married a bigamist. Visions of other wives, alive or dead, filled my mind as we followed the berated Peregrine up the steps and into the house.
The hall was almost as deep as the house, with black and white marble floor tiles that stretched back to a great staircase. Like pieces on a chessboard, the staff had assembled in two rows at the walls. So many I couldn’t count them. I went cold – that I was to be the mistress of this – of all these people. I couldn’t imagine who they all were, or what they all did.
‘Mother.’
A figure had appeared at the top of the stairs, garbed entirely in black. Gabriel swept me forward. The staff bobbed and bowed as I passed, but I was not to be introduced to them. I tried to smile but there were so many of them, all dressed alike. They just blurred together.
‘So, you found her. Frail little thing, isn’t she?’ The older Mrs Raynor looked at me dispassionately before embracing her son.
The last of my hopes for a happy home died with the look she gave me over her son’s shoulder. She was small and pale, a diminutive figure with a face wreathed in wrinkles, but there was steel in her eyes. She appeared to have taken a dislike to me on sight.
‘Mother, this is Fleur.’
She stood up straight, and looked down her nose at me. It was a strange sensation as I was taller than her, but she carried it off and I felt all of six inches tall.
‘French?’ she asked sharply.
Gabriel prodded me hard in the ribs.
‘No. No Ma’am.’
‘Humph. Flower, of all things, Gabriel. Welcome to my house.’ Her voice was devoid of warmth, just like her son’s. ‘You shall call me Mrs Raynor. You shall be known as Fleur. To everyone,’ she added pointedly, although I did not understand the significance then. ‘I shall speak to you later. You will want to know your duties.’
‘Th- thank you, Mrs Raynor,’ I stuttered.
Gabriel turned to the assembled staff and gestured in the direction of a pair of girls. ‘You two, take Fleur to her rooms. The rest of you, back to work.’
He took his mother’s arm and together they made their way down the hall and into one of the rooms. The staff who hurried off to work swarmed around them, yet they glided through effortlessly and without impediment, like Moses parting the waves. I stared after them until the hall was empty but for the two silent maids who waited for me. I smiled at them nervously, and they bobbed into half-hearted curtseys before leading me up the stairs.
Mrs Raynor, who I assumed had overseen the decoration of what was to be my suite, appeared to be fond of deep, dark, rich colours, and the burgundy walls were complimented with heavy, dark wooden pieces of furniture. Despite the bedroom being large, it felt close and overbearing. The bed was a hulking monstrosity, and must have been at least six times wider than the little truckle bed I had slept in at home. It was a four-poster, carved on every visible surface with imps and dragons and satyrs. I tried to suppress the shiver they caused.
The girls who had brought me in didn’t speak to me, and I didn’t know what to say to them. They unpacked my case, which had appeared at the foot of the bed with the sort of ruthless efficiency I would come to expect from this household. I hadn’t brought much. None of my dresses had been deemed suitable for a married woman of my elevated station.
I washed my face in the ewer, tidied my hair in the mirror and stood for a moment looking out of the window. The garden stretched away below, and I counted four men of varying ages working in the borders. I felt a pang of longing for the little garden I had left behind. I had worked hard to keep it tidy, but next to the perfect symmetry of the lawn and borders here, it paled into unkempt insignificance. There was topiary here, too. No animal shapes, like I had seen in plates in one of the books Father had given me for a birthday a few years ago, but spheres and cones. More identical and symmetrical than the wings of Father’s pinned butterflies.
A throat was cleared behind me, and I turned to see the two maids waiting.
‘You’ll be wanting to change your dress,’ one of them said. I stared at them blankly, and the one who hadn’t spoken gave me a slight smile.
‘Erm, yes. I suppose I ought to.’
After a split-second of hesitation, they approached me. I hadn’t thought of this, even when Gabriel had said I would have no privacy. I had always dressed and undressed myself. With every layer they stripped away my face grew hotter and hotter. I was left naked, and after exchanging a glance, they brought me clean rags. I chose not to dwell on them taking the soiled ones away.
When they dressed me, my stays were tighter than I had ever had them myself, and I was surprised and still further embarrassed by the swell of bosom they produced. Layer by layer, I became decent again. They stepped back, surveyed me critically, then the friendlier one gave me a little smile again.
‘Thank you,’ I said, feeling not in the least bit thankful, but wanting some sort of friendly interaction.
‘You’re to follow me to see the mistress,’ the sullen one said with a scowl.