Page 28 of The Cornish Inheritance

Chapter Thirteen

Miss Hawkins’s house lay down a side street whose distant end gave a narrow view of the blue of the sea. Set back from the lane, it proved to be a substantial house with front and rear walled gardens and enough windows to indicate it possessed three floors. She opened the front door and ushered them into a long, tiled hallway. “Come into the parlor. I have it to myself, so no one will disturb us in there.”

Caroline and Yves followed her into a fussily feminine parlor furnished with old-fashioned pieces and a surfeit of china ornaments and faded oil paintings of children, dogs, and horses.

Miss Hawkins turned to Yves. “Could you go down the corridor to the kitchen at the back of the house and give Mrs. Penrose, the cook, a message for me, do you think?”

He nodded with enthusiasm.

“Ask her to bring a tray of tea to the parlor and to give you some of her wonderful fruit cake. You can eat it in there with her so you won’t get crumbs on the floor in here.”

Yves vacated the parlor with alacrity at the suggestion of fruit cake being on offer.

Miss Hawkins turned back to Caroline. “Mrs. Penrose has grandchildren of her own and is very fond of little boys and knows how to feed them. He’ll be quite safe with her. Do sit down, Miss Fairfield.”

Safe? Miss Hawkins’s choice of words set alarm bells ringing. Caroline sat on one of the stiffly upholstered chairs, folding her hands in her lap.

Miss Hawkins also took a seat, perching on the edge of hers and leaning forwards, her brow furrowed in concern. She licked her thin lips. “I expect you’re wondering why I invited you back here.”

There didn’t seem to be an answer to this, so Caroline remained silent, waiting for her to go on.

“As you’ve gathered, I was Yves’s and Hetty’s governess until just over a week ago.”

Caroline nodded.

Miss Hawkins waved a hand around the crowded parlor. “This isn’t my home. This is my place of employment. I hold the position of companion to an elderly, bedridden lady, Mrs. Bristow.”

Again, Caroline just nodded.

“I’ve been praying that something might bring whoever the Treloars hired as a new governess for the children into Penzance, but I could never have hoped you’d come so soon.” She clasped her thin hands, fingers intertwining, and two spots of bright color flared on her cheeks. “This is difficult for me to say. Please hear me out before you dismiss what I have to tell you as mad.” She held Caroline’s gaze. “When I was dismissed, Mrs. Treloar made certain I could have no contact with the children before I left. She had me pack my bags immediately and Young Pascoe drove me into Penzance in the pony cart. I told him I’d be catching the stagecoach up to London to find employment there. But I didn’t. I stayed a night in the Star and heard Mrs. Bristow needed a nurse-companion. I applied, and this is where that led me.”

Did this have something to do with the bottle of medicine Caroline had found? A bottle Miss Hawkins seemed as though she might be familiar with. Caroline nodded to Miss Hawkins to keep going.

“I didn’t want to be far from Roskilly. I couldn’t just abandon Yves to his fate.”

Caroline’s eyes widened. The nagging worry she’d been feeling almost since she’d arrived at Roskilly began to coalesce into a real fear. “What fate do you mean?”

Miss Hawkins leaned further forward. “He’s in terrible danger, Miss Fairfield. Old Sir Hugh can’t leave his bed to keep him safe any longer. He’s nearly ninety years old and is tended only by the nurse Mrs. Treloar hired. The nurse who used to work in an asylum and is in her pay. His rooms were where I first found a bottle of laudanum. In Sir Hugh’s dressing room, where the nurse sleeps.” She glanced over her shoulder as though, even in the safety of the parlor, she imagined someone might be creeping up behind to listen. “My suspicions were aroused because lately every time I took Yves to see his grandfather, whom he loves, the old man was either sleeping, or so sleepy he could hardly speak.”

“So who exactly is in danger? Do you mean Sir Hugh or Yves?”

Footsteps sounded in the hallway.

“They both are.”

The door opened and Yves came in, telltale crumbs around his mouth, closely followed by a rotund woman in a voluminous apron. She set down the tea tray she was carrying on the low table between the chairs. “Shall I take young Master Yves back with me to see the cat’s kittens?” she asked, with no preamble.

Miss Hawkins nodded. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Mrs. Penrose. But mind he doesn’t try to take one home with him. They’re too young to leave their mother yet.”

Yves danced out of the room with the cook, and his voice, raised in question about the kittens, vanished down the hall.

Miss Hawkins poured two dishes of tea and handed one to Caroline.

Caroline took a sip but it was still too hot to drink. “Do you mean someone is trying to poison Sir Hugh with a laudanum overdose? Or just keep him sleepy and biddable? I’ve not met him as yet.”

Miss Hawkins nodded. “Both, in all likelihood. But that’s not all.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “Mrs. Treloar asked Hester, who was the head nursery nurse, and who was in charge of getting Yves to bed after his supper, to dose him with Dalby’s Carminative. The same thing you mentioned. She said it was for his digestion and to help him sleep. Hester came to me because she was worried about giving him anything she didn’t think he needed, and because she was my friend. I’ve been caring for him now since he was five years old, so I know him well. He’s always been an energetic child in the daytime, and consequently has slept very well at night, woken early and been alert and lively. But three nights of being dosed with the carminative, and he was waking late and half asleep all morning, learning nothing.”

“He was like that this morning.”