Suki’s Natural World: Introduction

It was a hot summer’s day. Papa sat in the garden, reading on a white-painted cast-iron chair with swirling patterns on its arms and back. He wore his summer tailcoat, my favorite of all his suits. A single monocle rested over one eye, its tiny chain glinting as it hung from his breast pocket. Above him, a great umbrella shaded him from the blazing sun.

Mimi, Rufus, and Charlotte were doing what they always did: laughing and playing by the river. Mimi and Rufus were swinging from the old rope swing and splashing into the cool, glittering water.

That swing was special. Papa had made it for us himself. On one of his hikes in the Cheershock Mountains, he found a long, sturdy branch and said it would make the perfect seat for a swing. At home, we tied it to the great family tree: our weeping willow, who had watched over our family for centuries. We called her Grandmother Marianne. Beneath her branches we celebrated birthdays, weddings, summer picnics, and even Christmas. Winters in Tuntletown were gentle, more like a soft British springtime, green and full of laughter.

Our home was open to everyone. As the oldest family in Tuntletown, Mama and Papa said it was our duty, as Feales, to show how we wanted the world to be. Every year on the first of May, we held the Tuntletown Fair, and in winter, we hosted the great Winter Ball.

Our family were farmers. We ran a farm shop that sent food and fabric all over the country of Samboise. It wasn’t just a shop, though. It was a place where everyone was welcome: where those who needed a meal could eat for free, where those who needed work could find it, and where families without homes could stay until they were back on their feet.

Papa and Mama were kind, generous people, and they loved us very much.

Mama was a painter, a famous one. She had won prizes all across Samboise and even overseas. Her most celebrated work was a painting of lilies floating on a pond. She was soft and gentle, her fine, golden hair swept into a bun that disappeared into itself. She liked to dress in white for nearly every occasion, saying it kept her soul light and happy. On some days she was as playful as a girl, jumping straight into the river with us when she was in one of her silly moods.

Mama taught us everything: how to paint and sew, how to cook, how to dance. She spoke seven languages and always wore a smile, no matter what. Papa said she was the bravest woman he had ever known, and what he loved most about her was that smile — always there, always bright, always making everyone feel loved.

Papa was a gentleman and a businessman, respected by all who knew him. He often told us that in business, as in life, you will meet those who lie, cheat or act selfishly, but that true strength comes from kindness, humility, and respect. “These,” he would say, “are the qualities that God favours.” One day, it would be Rufus who carried the Feales name, and Papa took great care to teach him well.

Rufus was one of those people you wonder about; always busy, always doing something new. Papa taught him everything from mathematics to mechanics, from architecture to rhetoric. But he also told Rufus never to lose his childlike joy. “What is the point of living,” Papa would say, “if you don’t feel alive?”

Rufus lived that way, truly alive. He swam in lakes, climbed mountains, rescued animals at auctions, went sailing, diving, and even dreamed of racing cars. Papa had taught him to fix engines, and he had already built his own Land Rover Defender from parts gathered all around the world.

Wherever he went, Rufus wrote to each of us. To Mimi, he sent stories about art; to Charlotte, new words from faraway lands; and to me, he wrote about nature: the colour of the Saharan sand, the chill of morning dew on the mountains of China, the whales of New Zealand, and the endless golden plains of Kenya.

Charlotte was our little bee: a dancer, a singer, an actress. She could never keep still, buzzing from place to place, her laughter like birdsong. She spoke to bees and climbed trees, and she treated every animal on the farm as a friend.

You could often hear her singing to the wind:

“What do you say, Mr. Bee?
Shall we visit my sister Mimi?
Or shall we go to the birds and hear them sing:
‘Twee-twee-twee!’”

Or she might twirl through the garden, her prairie dress spinning as she sang:

“Once a poet, twice a lark,
I light a firework, there goes the spark!
Singing in the morning, singing in the rain,
A life without my chickens would never be the same.”

That was our world: full of laughter, music, and kindness, under the watchful branches of Grandmother Marianne.

Although you have not met her yet, this story truly belongs to me — Suki — and to the way I see the world..