Page 7 of The Cornish Inheritance

Chapter Four

To Caroline’s surprise, a maid brought a tray of tea and toast to her room at seven the next morning. A skinny little girl of no more than thirteen, she tapped on the door and pushed it open to peer around it at Caroline, eyes wide with trepidation. “Miss,” she called, without coming in. “I’ve brung your breakfast.”

Caroline sat up in bed. “Goodness. Do come in. Thank you very much.”

The girl shuffled inside and closed the door behind her with a nudge of her shoulder.

“D’you want it in bed or on the table, Miss?”

Caroline briefly considered the luxury of taking breakfast in bed every morning, but pushed that thought aside as not befitting someone in her position. “On the table, thank you.” She swung her legs out of bed and slid her feet into her slippers.

The girl tiptoed across the room as though walking on coals and set the tray down with a rattle of china on the table by the window. As the room was not cold, Caroline didn’t bother with her peignoir but took the single chair in just her long white nightgown. The girl made as if to hurry away.

Caroline held up her hand. “Don’t go. Pray stop and tell me your name and position in the house.” She poured herself a cup of tea from the pretty china pot. “I need to familiarize myself with who is whom and how the house is run.”

The girl turned back, hands clasped in front of her. “I’m Patience, Miss, the nursery maid.”

Aha, the younger sister of footballer Dickon. Caroline looked her up and down. “You seem very young, Patience, for such an important role. Have you been here long? And what do your duties as nursery maid entail?”

Patience bit her lip. “I’m near fourteen, Miss, and I been here nigh on a year now. I started off in the kitchens, as scullery maid, but then the old head nursery maid was let go. Mrs. Treloar, she did tell me as I’d need to step up, so as to help Bridget. She’s the head nursery maid now Hester’s gone.” She bunched up the edge of her apron, working it in her fingers. Was she nervous for some reason?

Caroline’s eyebrows rose. This was indeed a quick promotion for so young a girl. “And how long have you been working in the nursery?”

“A week, Miss. One of my jobs is to bring the governess breakfast every morning, though today’s the first day I done that. Miss Hawkins havin’ been gone a week an’ all. Before that, Hester, the old nursery maid, she and Bridget took Miss Hawkins’s breakfast up, along with Master Yves’s. Now Bridget says as I have to do both.”

Caroline frowned. So, Miss Hawkins and the unknown Hester had both been let go at much the same time. How odd. Probably just an unfortunate coincidence, though.

“And what time does young Master Yves rise? I take it you’ll be bringing his breakfast up as well, as your predecessor did?”

Patience’s honest face took on a puzzled expression, perhaps at the long word. “I’ve been takin’ it up at half past the hour, on Mrs. Treloar’s orders, but most times, Master Yves has already been up and about. He likes to come down to the kitchens and eat breakfast with Cook. Then I have to tidy up his bedroom and yours, and do all the cleaning. In the afternoons, ’tis my job to clean the schoolroom after lessons is over and fetch dinner up for half past twelve. Usually, I bring supper, too, only yesterday were my afternoon off.” She gave a nervous smile. “I go home to see my ma and pa on my afternoons off.”

“Very commendable.” Caroline took a bite of toast. Cold. “I’d be most obliged if you would help me with my stays in a moment, as I’m not used to managing them by myself.” She’d been worrying about getting dressed, not having a lady’s maid to call on. “I should be much obliged for your help with them every morning, in fact. I can manage to get them off at nights, but tying them tightly enough of a morning is likely to defeat me.”

Patience bobbed the trace of a curtsey, her hazel eyes brightening. “Like a real lady’s maid, Miss? I will, that.”

Caroline finished her cold toast and then, with Patience’s far-from-clumsy assistance, divested herself of her nightgown and dressed in the plain, dove-gray gown she and Mama had deemed suitable for a governess to wear. Her blue gown, lying on the end of the bed still, caught her eye, as did her muddy boots. “Could you possibly have this dress cleaned for me, and get the bootboy to clean my boots? I had rather a muddy walk yesterday due to having been dropped off by mistake at the back entrance to the house.”

“You walked down the back track?” Patience’s eyes widened. “Then ’tis not a wonder your clothes and boots are in such a state. I’ll get them back looking smart for you, don’t you worry. I’m good at that. Master Yves, he do get his clothes in a right mess most days.” She gathered up dress, boots, and empty breakfast tray, and, with Caroline holding open the door for her, departed in the direction of the kitchens. The clock on the mantelpiece said the time was five and twenty minutes past seven, so it might be a good time to see if her new charge was out of bed. Now, which was the door to the nursery?

Through good luck, she chose the right one.

Yves’s accommodation’s close resemblance to her old nursery at Cadley brought a lump to her throat, but it was unoccupied at present. One of the two small beds was neatly made but the covers on the other had been thrown back as though its occupant had leapt out of it in haste. A large, dappled rocking horse stood to one side, alongside a doll’s house that must surely belong to Hetty, not a little boy. Tin soldiers had been arranged in tumbled ranks across the floor, and someone, no doubt Yves, had constructed a fortress for them to attack out of building blocks.

But where was Yves? The kitchen, presumably. Well, she needed to explore the rest of the house and meet some of the other servants, so an expedition in search of her small charge seemed an excellent idea.

She took the nursery corridor back to the galleried landing and descended the staircase. She’d not really taken it in on her arrival, and only now did its grandiosity sink in. Nothing like the much smaller, oak stairs at Cadley, nor the old-fashioned tower stairs at Ormonde, it more closely resembled the ostentatiousness of Denby Castle, seat of the Duke of Denby. As with the rest of the house, it possessed an air of being almost brand new, and was no doubt very fashionable. Not that she was in any way an arbiter of fashion in housebuilding.

The wide front hall, big enough to hold a dance in, lay empty, the front doors firmly closed. In which direction might the kitchens lie? Presumably toward the back, where she’d seen the stable courtyard, occupying what she’d taken to be the oldest part of the house. Nothing like the modern and austere front face.

An insignificant, plain dark-oak door to the left of the stairs looked promising, so she opened it and went through. The passageway she found herself in was promising as well, its floor stone flagged instead of tiled, and its plain, whitewashed walls indicating its utilitarian use.

She soon found the kitchens, which opened on her right, the warm aroma of cooking assailing her nostrils and leading her on. Yves was sitting at a long refectory table, tucking in to a plate of bacon and eggs. He glanced up as she came in, his lips yellow with runny egg yolk. “Caroline!”

At the far end of the long kitchen stood a large, black range, at which one of the biggest women Caroline had ever seen was stirring what could well have been a cauldron. A girl no older than Patience busily chopped vegetables at the far end of the table from Yves, and a shaggy-headed boy was polishing boots in a corner with great industry. All three heads turned, at Yves’s exclamation, to regard Caroline with curious stares. Even a little, no, a lot, suspicious.

Yves jumped down from the table. “It’s all right, Mrs. Teague, Molly, Bert. Caroline’s my new governess. You know. I told you all about her.”

Mrs. Teague, who must have been at least six feet tall and half as wide, wiped her hands on her apron and pushed a wisp of gray hair back under her mob cap. “Didn’t expect ter see you down in my kitchen, Miss.” A definite air of hostility remained. The trouble with being a governess was that you were neither part of the family nor one of the servants, and not really welcome in either situation.