touch you.’
‘What, not even one?’ she asked as if she didn’t think much of his taste in friends.
‘One might have done, but she died nearly a year ago now and I suppose by then even she was getting a little old for climbing trees. She would have been up there with you like a shot otherwise,’ he assured her.
‘And you think she would have thought this is far enough?’
‘I’m certain of it, she was the most lionhearted woman I ever came across and even she would say it’s enough to prove your courage and daring to yourself at times. Now I do wish you’d come down, because I’m getting a stiff neck and I’m devilish sharp set.’
‘Why don’t you just go, then?’ the girl said rather sulkily.
James wondered if he’d blundered and might have to risk both their lives by climbing up after her. If the girl insisted on going too high for him to be able to break her fall, even if he could judge the right place to try, he might have no choice. A lot of those branches simply wouldn’t take his weight, though, so he wondered if he could shout loudly enough to attract the woodsmen and hope they were lean and limber enough to do what he couldn’t.
‘There’s roast lamb and apple pie for dinner,’ he said as if that was all he could think about right now. He hoped the mention of food would remind her she hadn’t eaten for at least an hour and eating might trump adventures even for intrepid young scamps like this one.
‘I wish I was going to your house for dinner.’
‘I suppose if we’d been properly introduced I might get you invited another night. I’ve heard rumours about plum cake being available for hungry young visitors at any time of day, but I don’t suppose you like it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Only boys like plum cake, don’t they?’
‘No, I’m as good as any boy and twice as hungry.’
‘So girls don’t prefer syllabub and sponge cake after all, then?’
‘I don’t.’
James was delighted to see the girl look for a way down almost without noticing she was doing it. She might make it back down to earth without killing herself on the way now, but he tried not to let his relief show lest she went further up the tree, because she couldn’t let him see she was almost as scared as he was she might fall right now.
‘What don’t you like? So I can tell Cook when you come to dinner,’ he went on as if he hadn’t noticed she was thinking better of her plan to reach the top of the slender tree.
‘Cucumbers and rice pudding.’
‘Oh, dear me no, I can’t think of a worse combination.’
‘Not both at the same time, idiot,’ she said scathingly and felt less confidently for footholds on the way down and his heart seemed about to take up residence in his mouth as he watched her fumble, then find one.
‘How, then?’ he made himself ask as if he hadn’t a serious thought in his head while she hesitated between the next unsteady foothold and an even less likely alternative. Luckily the first held long enough to let her find a better and he sucked in a hasty breath and tried to look calm and only mildly interested when she found the nerve to look down again.
‘Rice pudding is worse, it looks like frogspawn and tastes like it by the time it gets to the nursery all cold and shuddery,’ she told him rather shakily.
‘I know exactly what you mean, but it goes down much better with big spoons of jam. I would never have got through school without wasting away if my brother hadn’t insisted I have jam with my pudding or succumb to a mysterious ailment unique to our family.’
‘I wish one of my brothers would think up stories to get us out of having to eat cold rice pudding on its own,’ she said wistfully and moved a few feet closer to the ground.
James estimated she was still about thirty feet above his head and worryingly unsafe when the girl’s elder sister appeared at the edge of the clearing, looking visibly shaken and pale as milk. She seemed about to distract the girl with a terrified exclamation and part of him whispered it would be good if she turned out to be a widgeon and released him from the spell he’d been in danger of tumbling into since the first day he laid eyes on her.
This wasn’t about him, though, so he shook his head and glared at her to keep quiet. He’d done his best not to know the Finch family better after spotting this disaster of a female hovering on the edges of it after church a few weeks ago. And who would have thought he’d let himself be cajoled and persuaded inside one of those for the good of his sooty soul quite so often?
‘I don’t think my brother would save me from rice pudding at every meal now we’re grown up if that makes you feel better,’ he shouted cheerfully enough.
He held his breath as the next branch the child tried gave an ominous crack. Again she skipped hastily on to the next and both watchers let out a quiet sigh of relief. The girl in the tree had frightened herself with her own daring and he had to keep her calm enough to take the next step to safety and the next, until she was low enough to catch if she fell.
‘Why not?’ she quavered bravely and how could he not put all he was into saving a girl who seemed as reckless and brave as Virginia must have been as a child?
Despite her mass of golden hair and bluest of blue eyes, she reminded him of Hebe’s little daughter Amélie. The defiant determination not to cry and admit how frightened she was put him in mind of the poor little mite he’d smuggled out of Paris at the behest of Hebe’s mother. The Terror had taken her husband and sons, now treachery had robbed her of her daughter, but she was still brave enough to part with her grandchild. Now it was up to him to see that the child had a better life than her mother and the responsibility felt terrifying at times.
‘We argued,’ he admitted, although it wasn’t exactly true. The problem was he and Luke hadn’t even had the heart to argue, they just let each other go and that was that.
‘Me and Jack argue all the time,’ the girl said matter-of-factly.
‘Is he your only sibling?’ he said with a warning glance at the one he wanted to know about least right now.
‘What’s a sibling?’
‘A brother or sister.’
‘Oh, no, but Nan’s only a baby and can hardly walk yet. I’m next, then there’s Jack, he’s two years older. Sophie is fifteen; Josh is at Oxford. Joanna is quite old and she’s getting married in November. Rowena has been grown up for years and years; she lived with her mama-in-law for ages but she’s home now. I hope she stays with us. She’s really old, but much more fun than Sophie. It’s nice to have one big sister who doesn’t scold all the time.’
James couldn’t spare a glance at Mr Finch’s eldest daughter to see how she’d reacted to that quaint summary. ‘Your parents must be busy with such a large and enterprising family,’ he managed coolly.
‘Oh, Papa and Mama are always busy. What with Papa’s pupils and all those services, Mama says it’s a wonder we ever see him.’
‘You must be Reverend Finch’s daughter, then?’
‘Why do people always say that as if it’s a surprise?’ the girl grumbled.
‘I really can’t imagine,’ he said wryly.
His breathing went shallow as the child stretched a grubby bare foot to find her next precarious hold. At a crash of unwary movement behind him he turned his head to bark a furious command at Mrs Westhope and saw a gangling stripling stumble into the clearing. Shock at the sight of his sister perched halfway up the wretched tree was written all over the boy’s ashen face. James drew breath to shout out an order to be silent just too late.
‘Good Lord, this time she’ll kill herself, Rowena,’ the boy shouted furiously.