I nodded again. They were apples on old trees, part blighted and not very good eating.
Little ’Un came up and slipped a thin hand in mine. ‘I can just see them,’ he said in his breathy voice. ‘I’d love ’em.’
I looked at Clary.
‘If we bunked you up …’ she started. Over the side wall into the garden. You could throw them over to us, and then go round to the front and go in the front door, like usual.’
‘Why don’t you go?’ I asked.
‘Cause if they catch me stealing, I could be hanged,’ she said with brutal frankness. ‘If they catch you, it’s not even stealing when gentry does the taking.’
I hesitated.
‘She won’t do it,’ Ted said. The dislike towards me, towards all squires, made his young voice hard. ‘She came out to make it all right for her cousin, not to be with us.’
‘I will do it,’ I said, rising to the challenge.
‘Go over the wall and steal the parson’s apples?’ he sneered.
‘Yes,’ I said. All at once we all got the giggles. Even Ted’s harsh young face crumpled at the thought of setting me to stealing. We skittered around to the vicar’s high back wall, the little children sluggish with merriment, and Ted Tyacke and Matthew Merry linked hands together, and Clary helped me up to stand on them. They staggered at my weight and Clary said, ‘Go on! Throw her!’
I snorted with laughter at that, and grabbed the top of the wall as the two lads staggered with my weight and with the giggles.
‘One…two…three…and up!’ counted Clary, and the insecure footing underneath my boots suddenly heaved me upwards and against the top of the wall. It was topped with sharp flints, and I heard a seam rip. I looked down into the garden, swung my legs over and was readying myself to slide down and jump when I froze.
There was Dr Pearce, almost immediately below me, looking upward, his face a mask of surprise. ‘Miss Lacey?’ he said as if he could not believe his eyes. ‘Miss Lacey? What on earth are you doing?’
I could think of no answer; I turned around to check that Ted and Matthew were still there. ‘Catch me!’ I squealed like a stuck pig and just toppled backwards off the wall towards them.
We went down in a tumbled heap on to the hard ground with the two of them taking the weight of my fall. They jumped up, but I was laughing so much I could not move.
‘What was it? What was it?’ Clary asked, smiling already at my helpless gales.
‘It was Dr Pearce!’ I said. ‘Right below me. He looked up…and he said…“Miss Lacey. What on earth are you doing?”‘
Clary gave a great wail of laughter and fell into Matthew’s arms. Ted put out a hand and pulled me to my feet, his brown round face contorted. The smaller children dropped down where they stood and howled with irrepressible mirth.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, wiping my streaming eyes. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got to go in the front garden gate and up the path.’
That set us off again even worse than before, and we staggered like a band of drunkards around to the lane.
‘Don’t come with me,’ I begged. ‘I must stop laughing.’
Clary nodded, still chuckling. ‘Come down to Acre again soon,’ she said. Her dirty face was streaked with the tears she had shed, and she still held her sides. ‘We could really use you in the gang. Great thief you are, Julia Lacey.’
I nodded, still unable to speak, and then turned towards the vicar’s front gate. Half-way up the path to the pretty house I stopped and drew in a deep breath. I did not know Dr Pearce well, and I did not think I would face anything worse than a scolding. But I did not want to disgrace myself utterly by bursting out laughing on the doorstep.
A hoot from behind me told me that Clary was watching, but I did not look around. I tapped on the door and the vicar’s housekeeper, Miss Green, opened it. She dipped a curtsy and held it wide, and I stepped into the hall, back into the world where I belonged.
Dr Pearce came out of the library with Richard and nodded to me as if it were the first time he had seen me that morning.
‘Hello, Miss Lacey,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Come to walk home with your cousin? We are just finished.’
For a moment I gaped at him, then I took my cue. Dr Pearce was not a man to seek difficulties. If he could turn a blind eye to them, then he would do so. He really did not want to know what I was doing sitting on his high garden wall with my coat torn and my face muddy and the naughty children of Acre catcalling encouragement from the lane below.
I curtsied demurely. ‘Yes, Dr Pearce,’ I said. I held Richard’s books while he pulled on his coat and hat, and we went back outside and home for dinner.
The children had gone, vanished like idle fox-cubs at the sound of a strange footstep. The weather had changed from the sunny morning. There were thick clouds piled all over the sky. Richard and I started at a jog-trot for home, speeded by a warning scud of rain on our backs.
‘Did you see Mrs Green?’ Richard asked breathlessly.
‘No,’ I said. I was having trouble keeping up for I was tired from my run with the village children and bruised from the fight with Clary and the fall from Dr Pearce’s wall.
‘Why not?’ Richard demanded. His blue eyes were bright. As soon as I had stepped over the vicar’s threshold, he had seen the scratch on my face and my tangled hair. He knew something had happened, but he would not ask me directly.
‘Tell you later,’ I puffed. I had no breath for a long explanation and I wanted time to think about exactly what I would tell Richard. I had a feeling, which I could not have explained, but which I thought was right, that I did not want to tell Richard the strange stories they had invented in the village about his mama. They might distress him. And I was sure, though I could not have said why, that I did not want to tell him of this newly woven fable of a favoured child, the one who was the true heir.
Richard heard the hesitation in my voice and skidded to a sudden stop and grabbed me by the arm so I swung around to face him. The rain stung my right cheek, but we were a little sheltered by the trees which overhung on the Wideacre side of Acre lane. In the field behind me the wind whistled and the rain sliced down on the self-seeded wheat and brambles.
‘Tell me now,’ he said.
I heard the warning note in his voice and I stood, uncomplaining, in the rain and told him of the walk to the wood and the fight with Clary and the truce we seemed to have made. I told him every single word spoken except Clary’s story about Beatrice. Richard’s stillness warned me that I had better sound thorough; and I was. I also omitted the taunt that I fought his battles for him. I did not tell him that Matthew had spat at the mention of his name. And I said nothing about scrumping the apples.
Richard heard me out, although the rain was making his hair curly with the damp so that he looked more like a fallen cherub than ever. ‘Well done, Julia!’ he said warmly when I had finished. ‘You are a brave girl. I am glad that you are not afraid of Acre any more. You were quite right to tackle the children. Now you will not be afraid to come with me when I go to have my lessons.’
I glowed under his approval.
‘I never minded them,’ he said carelessly, ‘but I am glad you have got over your fear.’
He let my arm go and turned to walk on. I hesitated only for a moment. One part of me wanted to correct him, the anxious proud voice in me which wanted to say, ‘But wait, Richard, you were afraid. I tackled the children for you.’ Then I thought of my grandmama’s warning that a lady’s place is second place, and I smiled