“I am not sure I will be able to step out onto any of those balconies,” Miss Rigg said, “if that is what they are called. Not on the higher stories anyway. They must be terrifying.”
Each story had a balcony outside it and a protruding roof above. But it was not necessary to step outside to appreciate the views. There were tall, round-topped windows all about each story.
“Take my arm,” Boris said to her. “I promise not to let you fall.”
“That is kind of you,” she said. “But will we be able to climb the stairs two abreast?”
They all stepped inside to find out, exuberant and chattering. They had not yet worked off much of their overabundance of energy, it seemed.
“I love the dragons,” Matilda said, looking up at the series of roofs. “Theylookas if they are made of gold.”
“Do you really want to go to the top?” Charles asked. “You are under no obligation.”
“Oh, but I am,” she said. “I was challenged by my nephew and accepted.”
“Is he in the habit of issuing challenges to you and grinning and waggling his eyebrows at you?” he asked.
“Oh good heavens, no,” she said. “He has always treated me with the utmost respect as his mother’s elder—considerablyelder—sister. I believe he is enjoying teasing me.”
“And you are enjoying being teased,” he said.
“Yes.” She sighed. “Sometimes it is a little lonely being a staid maiden aunt.” But she colored rosily as she said it and looked as though she would dearly like to recall the words. No one really liked to admit to loneliness. And perhaps no woman liked to admit to being a maiden aunt, as though those two words described everything there was to know about her.
“You are not my aunt, fortunately,” he said. “You are Matilda.”
“Oh.” She looked at him a little uncertainly, her head tipped slightly to one side.
“Shall we go after the young people,” he asked, “and make sure none of them try hanging from the balcony rails by their fingertips? I would hate to fail during my first stint as a chaperon.”
“Oh goodness me, yes,” she said. “What a horrid thought. And it is just the sort of thing young men do to impress young ladies. Not hangingfromthe balcony rails, perhaps, but certainlyoverthem. The mere thought of it gives me heart palpitations.”
They huffed and puffed their way up the stairs, winding about the interior middle of the pagoda, stopping only once, briefly, at the fifth level to look out through the windows while they caught their breath. Loud exclamations of wonder as well as the habitual laughter came from the floors above.
“Oh,” Matilda said, “I had forgotten how much higher a tall building seems from the inside than it looks from the outside. And we are only halfway up.”
“Are you sure you do not want to claim that you won half a challenge?” he asked her, almost hoping she would say yes. Sometimes one forgot that being fifty-six years old was a little different from being twenty.
For answer she turned and continued the climb. Coming up behind her, Charles admired beneath the pale blue of her dress the sway of her hips, still shapely though no longer youthful. And he admired the fact that she kept her spine straight and climbed steadily upward without slowing. By the time they came out on top, the young people were moving about the full circle of the room, looking out and exclaiming at the height and pointing out to one another all the landmarks they could see both within Kew Gardens and beyond.
“It is a bit like being up in a hot air balloon,” Adrian said, “except that there is more than empty air beneath our feet.”
“You have been up in a balloon?” Lady Estelle asked him.
“Yes,” he told her. “Last year. It was exhilarating and frankly terrifying. But I lived to tell the tale.”
“If I did not know differently,” Lady Jessica said, “I would swear this pagoda is swaying. Would someone please assure me that it is not?”
“I think it is,” Bertrand said, staggering and then grinning at her. “You had better hang on to me, Jessica, and stop me from falling.”
She tutted and slapped his arm.
And everyone was ready to go down and set out on another adventure.
“After coming all this way up,” Charles said, “I intend to stay awhile and admire the view at my leisure. My leisure is going to last at least ten minutes.”
“It takes that long to recover your breath?” Mr. Sawyer asked, grinning rather cheekily.
“And that too,” his father admitted.
