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“Tall as I,” Mari corrected.
“The grass smells sweet and clean,” continued Adele. “The cleanest thing you ever smelled. Cleaner than laundry drying on a line. And it whispers to you when the wind moves through it.”
“That’s a lovely description, Adele. Practically a poem already.”
“Amina made baskets out of the grass after she dried it and our house always smelled like the beach.”
“Who is Amina?” asked Mari.
“Our nurse. We thought she loved us better than anything in the world but then she sent us to live here.”
“Why do you think your nurse sent you here?”
“Because our mother asked her to send us here, before she died.”
Adele’s thin shoulders tensed. “Amina has probably already forgotten about us.”
“She’ll never forget you,” said Mari. “You’re quite unforgettable.”
“It’s been so long though.”
“Months,” agreed Michel.
Mari touched Adele’s arm. “I have an idea, why don’t you write to Amina?”
“Write a letter?” asked Adele.
“Why not? I’m sure your father knows how to reach her.”
“We hadn’t thought of that,” said Adele.
A look passed between the twins. One thing was clear, they were planning to return to France and that’s why they’d been running away.
“I know a poem that was written about the view from this very bridge,” said Mari. “By a fellow named William Wordsworth. Which is a very good name for a poet, incidentally.”
“Why did he write a poem about a silly old bridge?” asked Michel.
“Because he was on the beginning of a journey, traveling from London to Calais, in France. To visit his nine-year-old daughter, Caroline, whom he had never met before. He wrote quite a pretty sonnet about that meeting as well.”
“May we hear some of the poem?” asked Adele.
“Dull would he be of soul who could pass by, a sight so touching in its majesty,”quoted Mari.“This City now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning; silent,bare... ships, towers, domes, theaters and temples lie, open unto the fields, and to the sky.”
She paused. “That’s the beginning.”
“Wearing the beauty of the morning. I like that.” Adele traced circles in the dirt. “It’s not as if we can’t appreciate the beauty of England, Miss Perkins, and our fine new home here. But the duke means to separate us.”
“What do you mean, separate you?”
“We overheard Mrs. Fairfield saying that he’ll send Michel to Eton next term.”
“Ah... I see.” Now she really did see. They’d been running away, rebelling against this new life, because they didn’t want to be separated.
“The duke wants to change us into proper, fribbling, milksop prigs,” proclaimed Michel, dislodging some stones from the bank with the toe of his boot.
“You? A fribbling milksop prig? I hardly think it possible,” said Mari.
“He wants to change us, all right.”
