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Wherever she walked, Mrs Raynor creaked. I couldn’t determine if it was the thick leather of her shoes, the old wood of her cane, or the floorboards beneath her. She looked as though she’d glide across the floor, like I think debutantes are supposed to, and when she walked, she seemed as surprised as me that she did not. Before the first evening was over, I had learned to emulate the maids who had been set to cleaning the floors. At the first hint of a creak, they scurried away to darker corners where they could escape notice.
On the first full day I decided to explore the house, but only in a timid way that meant I never strayed into rooms or looked beyond doors that weren’t already open. It could never be home to me, that I knew already. It wasn’t only that everyone in there resented my presence, but also a feeling I seemed to get from the house itself. A malevolence that told me I wasn’t welcome there. Something about the light. It twisted through the windows to a dirty yellow that made everything it touched seem stained.
I had paused in the hallway of the first floor and was looking out over the garden. I had not dared to raise the idea of gardening with my husband, and it certainly hadn’t been among the duties Mrs Raynor had listed for me on that awful meeting in her sitting room on my first day. Instead, I stared at the razor-sharp borders and perfect topiary, and thought wistfully of my haphazard jungle of canes and the way the paths smelled just after it rained.
Then I heard her, the slow creak of her step in the distance. I froze, hardly daring to move or even breathe, wishing only that she would pass me by. Slowly, ever so slowly the creaking became louder and closer, and then I heard her voice, clear and loud, hailing one of the maids.
‘You there, where do you think you’re going? Get back to that bucket, girl. And tell me where Fleur is.’
She infused so much disdain and dislike into the single syllable of my name that I could not bear to meet her again. I panicked and ran around the nearest corner, my soft-soled slippers not making a sound on the thickly carpeted floors. I came to a wall at the end of a corridor, a dead end, and I heard the creaking, magnified in my mind to louder than my own heartbeat, and all in a rush I tried the handle of the door nearest to me. It opened, and in a moment, I was inside, my back to the closed door, trying not to breathe too loudly. I heard her creak around the corner, curse me, then curse the maid. I tried not to feel too badly for her.
As the fog of panic cleared from my brain, I realised I was in a bedroom. A girl’s bedroom. It could not belong to my hostess, not only because I had seen her in her apartments already, and they lay on the other side of the house, but also because this room had a soft, loved air about it.
The walls were hung with a green silk, the colour of oak leaves in spring. Rather than the austere grandness of my room or Mrs Raynor’s, this was a bedroom of someone with a kinder temperament, I was sure. I felt comfortable almost immediately, notwithstanding the discomfort one feels when invading the personal space of another. I stepped away from the door and ran my eyes over the tiny ornaments of field mice, the well-used silver dressing table set, and the watercolour studies of plants that hung on the walls. The room could almost have been designed for me. The only piece out of place was the bed, which was one of the same sort of hulking monstrosities that marred my own room.
But who could it belong to? A sister, I assumed, given the feminine accoutrements and the large china doll that sat on the window seat. A sister who had left to marry some time before, years, if the thick layer of dust that covered everything was anything to go by. It struck me as queer that her room was so far away from the rest of the family, and that nothing had been touched. If her belongings had not been packed up, surely they would have been dusted? Yet I knew nothing of the habits of other people. Perhaps this was what families did when a daughter they loved left home. I wondered if my tiny room at my father’s house would end up in the same state. I imagined it would, although not out of love.
Then it struck me that perhaps she had died. The room seemed to grow cold at that thought, and I was reminded anew that I was trespassing. It would be far worse to be discovered here by Mrs Raynor than to be found dallying in the hall or the garden. I hardly dared to leave, and became convinced for a moment that she was outside, waiting for me. I approached the door, and edged my eye towards the empty keyhole. I don’t know what I expected, other than perhaps to be poked in the eye by a key, but the small section of the hall that I could see was clear, and after listening out for any sounds for a few minutes, I judged it safe to leave. With one last look over the room I wished was mine, I eased the door open, and fled.