Page 3 of The Cornish Inheritance

Chapter Two

As the coach bumped over the uneven, pot-holed road surface, shaking the passengers from side to side like peas on a drum, twenty-seven-year-old Miss Caroline Fairfield attempted to reread her letter. She’d received it a week ago, and, on an impulse, decided to take up the offer it held. What else could she have done? The prospect of going with her mother to stay with her late father’s much older sister, Gertrude, having been the only alternative, it had been an easy choice to make. At the time. Now, being bounced around on Cornwall’s less than well-maintained roads, she had an unnerving sensation that she was entering the fabled back end of beyond.

She smoothed the letter out across her lap, and reread her friend Ysella’s crabby, untidy, and poorly spelled missive.

My deere frend Caroline,

I was sore upset to heer of your Familys Misfortune. I had it in a Letter from deere Morvoren who was most sad and unhappy for you and your Mama. I had no idea your Papa was in such strates. I am sure my Brother would have helped him had he but Nown. Morvoren told me in her Letter that you are in search of aposishunpost as Governess in a welltodo family. I am happy to tell you that I know of just the One for you.

The Treloars of Roskilly House. Mine owners and landed Gentry if not of the True Nobility. Of good stock my Mama would say. Sir Hugh is very old and keeps to his bed and as both the Sons are dead a manager has charge of his affairs which are the estate and mines and other sundries. Mrs. Treloar is the widow of one of the Sons and she seems a stern sort and somewhat imposing. I was a little afrayed of her myself. She has a Daughter just out of the Schoolroom who needs a Companion of good upbringing. I beleeve they wish for someone who can teach her french and musick altho why they want this for her I have no idea as I hated all manner of lerning when I was young.

Mrs. Treloar also cares for Sir Hugh’s grandson who is only child to the dead older Brother. I beleeve he is heir to old Sir Hugh just a little Boy I have heard but a sickly one Mrs. Treloar said to me when I met her at the Assembly Rooms in Truro. I have not seen the Child nor Nowe of his age or the Nature of his Sicknesses. They need a Governess for this Child and when I told Mrs. Treloar of you and your booklerning and yoursichuahardships she was pleased to ignore that you have no previusexsperskill yet at teaching a child. I sang your prases and told them you can teach musick and french for the girl and spelling and reading for the boy and whatever else it is boys do want to learn and areexsepshuvery good at reckoning.

Mrs. Treloar is pleased to take you on if you can come down strate away and start as soon as possibel as there old Governess has upped and left all of a sudden.

Your ever loving Ysella (Beauchamp)

Carlyon Court

Cornwall

Caroline refolded the letter and stowed it in her reticule. Well, Ysella’s spelling had not improved one iota for having been married for two years to a grammar-school-educated and intelligent young man.

Sam Beauchamp, Ysella’s husband and the father of her baby daughter, Merrin, had once been land agent to Ysella’s brother Kit, Viscount Ormonde of Ormonde Abbey in Wiltshire. On their marriage, Ysella and Sam had gone to live and manage Kit’s smaller Cornish estate and had been there ever since. Caroline, who’d been close to Ysella’s older sisters before becoming friends with Ysella, had not seen her in all that time. At least this employment by one of Ysella’s neighbors might mean she’d get to meet up with her friend occasionally.

She leaned back against the coach’s faded upholstered headrest and closed her eyes. The rocking of this rather ramshackle vehicle might have had a lesser mortal ready to cast up her accounts, but Caroline was made of sterner stuff. The sort of stuff that could not abide being beholden to someone like Aunt Gertrude and would rather make her own way in the world. She only wished she could have brought Mama with her, and saved her from the ignominy of having to beg the help of that intimidating woman. Ysella’s own mother, Elestren, Dowager Lady Ormonde, had begged Mama to come and live with her, but Mama’s pride had made her turn down the offer. Caroline could understand why. At least Aunt Gertrude was a blood relation.

Poor, foolish Papa had been nothing like Aunt Gertrude, thank goodness, although if he had been, he might not have been such a bad manager. She and Mama might not now be cast penniless into the world thanks to his having not only invested what little fortune he possessed in that fake silver mine in Argentina, but also having gambled away his remaining assets, including their former home—Cadley Grange.

She sighed. Poor man, he’d taken the coward’s way out and ended his embarrassment with one of his remaining pistols, unable to look either Mama or his only daughter in the face. Anger at his selfishness in leaving them to cope alone had finally subsided into a profound sadness at his weak character, and she no longer burned with fury when she thought of him. Even so, it pained her to picture their lost home and Mama’s stricken face as she left it. She pushed these thoughts out of her mind as the coach began to slow down. Was this her stop?

The coach halted. From outside came a distinct thud as the guard jumped down from his position on the back. The door opened and he poked his head inside. “Miss Fairfield? This be the stop for Roskilly House. I’ll get your bags down for you.”

He disappeared from view, and, with a quick goodbye for her remaining fellow passenger, a fat, somberly dressed matron who, despite her austere appearance, had proved quite the chatterbox, Caroline set a hand on the edge of the door and a neat, booted foot on the step. Pausing for a moment, she took in the view. The coach had halted on a narrow lane for which the description of “road” would have been far too generous. High, grassy banks topped by hawthorn hedges edged both sides, with one or two stray sheep grazing them and paying no attention to the coach. Straight in front of her, a side lane opened off, a prospect even more rutted and overgrown than the road they were on. No signpost of any kind indicated this was where she should dismount, and no house was in sight. Not even a distant chimney.

The guard dumped her two valises on the grassy verge, only just avoiding putting them in sheep droppings, and Caroline stepped down onto the road.

“Are you certain this is the right place?” she asked, aware that if it were not, and the coach departed, she might be stuck in the middle of nowhere.

The guard nodded. “That’s right. Down there a bit.” He pointed at the side lane.

“How far?”

“Mebbe a mile.” He grinned. “’Tis the only house, so you can’t miss it.”

“Get a move on,” called the driver from his perch high above the road. “I got times to meet, so you got no time to stand there passin’ the time o’ day with our passengers.”

The guard gave a shrug. “Not that far for a strong young leddy like you.”

Caroline bristled. Yes, she was tall and robust in appearance, but the implication that because of this she should be expected to cart two heavy valises down a mile long, muddy lane irritated her. Had she been small and dainty, like Ysella, no doubt the guard would not have made that remark. Not that Ysella’s appearance didn’t hide a tough inner core, because it did. But that was beside the point.

The guard tipped his hat at her and swung himself back up onto the rear of the coach. The driver clicked his tongue at his horses, and they sprang forward into a shambling trot. The coach rattled away down the road and vanished around the next bend.

In the comparative silence that ensued, Caroline stood for a few moments considering her situation. The thought that the Treloar family might not be expecting her rose foremost in her mind, followed closely by the fear that she might not be up to the job, as she’d never done anything like this before. What if the child was of a difficult temperament, or backward? Ysella had said he was sickly. That could mean anything.

She sighed. All she had to go on was what Ysella had written in that letter, and knowing Ysella, it might not be a correct interpretation of what her new acquaintance, Mrs. Treloar, had said to her at some provincial Assembly Rooms. Because surely if Ysella had got it right, there’d have been someone here to meet her and help transport herself and her bags to Roskilly House. If, indeed, she was even in the right place.

She peered down the lane. It ran slightly downhill, something she had to admit was better than if it had gone uphill, between high banks and hedges, with here and there, odd, stunted, wind-shaped trees overhanging the way. Nothing about it indicated it was much used by anything other than cattle or sheep. Well, if she was going to get to Roskilly House before it got dark, then she’d have to do it herself on her own two feet. She bent and picked up her valises and immediately regretted bringing so many of her belongings with her. However, the sooner she started, the better.