I like to believe I live a very charmed life here, with people who care for me and anything I could ever ask for. But to think that the very two people who brought me up, the people who were to protect and love me, have been holding me here like this. It’s as if I’ve never known my own life at all, never known myself.
Except with you, I think. When I was a girl, looking up into the sky to spot you in the limbs of the tallest tree, I was myself. I wasn’t thinking of illness or inheritance or how to apologize for someone else’s horrid behavior. I was thinking of what I’d do if you got stuck. I’d have climbed up there after you.
I think I need someone to climb up into the sky after me, Andrew. And I think I’d like it to be you.
Somewhere in the middle of the letter, her tone had shifted. He felt it more than he read it. Her words took on a rapid pace in his mind, as if she were frantic. Almost panicked. And then, just as quickly as the frenetic outrage appeared, it faded.
And she was talking about him. About how they’d been as children. Together. He had climbed all those trees just to impress her. Hehad pulled the silliest of faces just to make her laugh. He couldn’t believe she remembered all those things. Lazy afternoons and runs through the garden, those leisurely aspects of their childhood that faded as they’d gotten older. Turned into sneaking out to the stables and hiding from her parents just so they could speak to each other alone.
Would she really have climbed up those trees after him?
He hated to doubt her, but his mind flashed to the worst moment of his life. When she’d run and he’d tried to follow, only to be told she didn’t want him to.
He finished the letter. He read it once more. His gaze was stuck on the last line. For once, he didn’t know what she meant.
I think I need someone to climb up into the sky after me, Andrew. And I think I’d like it to be you.
He didn’t have to ask himself if he’d still climb up into the sky after Della. Of course, he would. He knew he’d climb down into the very pits of hell for her.
He also knew she’d never mentioned his invitation to visit her at Westfield Manor.
Chapter Six
It was asplendid morning. Her parents departed in their three carriages at dawn, and Clara was dressed like herself again, in another men’s shirt and loose-flowing tan trousers that Gwendoline had made for her. Those trousers were a wonderful thing. A passing onlooker might assume they were a skirt instead, but they held all the functionality of a pair of trousers. Della had asked Gwendoline to make some for her as well.
Clara ran a hand through the hair she wore unbound in long waves that draped over her shoulders and down her back. Her other hand held a letter, though she seemed unwilling to hand it over.
“Is something... amiss between the two of you?” Clara asked, folding her hands behind her back and beginning to walk around the large dining table in the center of the room. “You’ve been exchanging letters rather quickly.”
“You are shouting,” Della muttered. She rose to her feet, stretching her legs after spending too long sitting at the breakfast table. One hip cracked, louder than the stomping of Clara’s feet on the carpet. The opposite knee threatened to buckle under her weight.
“So it seems I am,” Clara shouted.
With an indignant huff, Della gave in. She resolved to the fact that she’d have to explain all of this, whether she wanted to or not. After she’d stretched her limbs out as best she could in a static position, shebegan to walk. Her pace was much slower than Clara’s. Della was unhurried, taking a turn about the room as if she were at a party. Clara was on a warpath, as if she were heading off to battle.
“It seems Andrew may want to come here. To Westfield Manor.”
“What?” Clara shrieked. “And you’ve neglected to tell me this? That your true love wants to reunite after eight years?”
“Heis notmy true love,” Della started. She didn’t know how to talk about this, but she knew that much was true. She couldn’t love Andrew, and Andrew certainly couldn’t love her. “We were not betrothed. We were not even courting. He is a dear friend to me, and he has been since we were children.”
She stopped near the door and turned around, following her same path toward the window. Clara had slowed down a bit, enough that they were walking together.
“Why has he never visited you before?” Clara asked, in an unusually soft voice.
“I do not know,” Della answered. “It could be because of my illness, or because he’s been abroad for many years. Perhaps he’s never had any interest in visiting the countryside, or me.”
Clara threaded her arm through Della’s. They reached the window and stayed there a moment, looking out at the verdant gardens below.
“What does it mean that he’s interested in visiting now?” Clara spoke into the windowpane.
“I’m afraid I do not know that either.”
Below them, they watched a bird fly from tree to tree. Della began to count the roses blooming on the farthest bush.
“Do you?” Clara asked. “Want to see him, I mean?”
It was a question Della had never asked herself, for she already knew the answer. Even though it felt impossible, like a fantasy she’d write about in her journal, she wanted to see him. Besides the people she lived with, Andrew was the only person in the world she wanted to see, in fact.
