Page 8 of The Cornish Widow

Harriet bit her lip. “Well, so long as you don’t go too near the edge. Keep a good eye on him, Bronnen. He doesn’t know cliff paths. It’s getting quite dark.”

Lydia stood up as well. “Can I go, too?” Her enthusiasm might well not have been for the expedition though, rather, effecting an escape from whatever chores remained to be done.

Harriet nodded, and the children, who appeared to have suddenly regained their energy, bolted through the open door behind Bronnen.

Mrs. Keneder spooned tea leaves into the china pot she’d brought, then added the boiling water. “No point in mollycoddling them when there’s cliffs to be climbed and caves to explore.”

“They’re town children,” Harriet said. “Not used to being out of doors the way Cornish children are.” Not that growing up in Truro had been in any way an outdoor childhood for her, as it hadn’t, apart from the riding to hounds she and her father had done.

Locky poured himself a tot of the brandy. “If’n you don’t mind, ma’am, I prefer a tot to a cup o’ tea at this time o’ day.”

Harriet waved a hand. “Please. Help yourself. It’s the least I can do after all the work you’ve done.”

Bertha fixed Locky with a reproving stare but, undaunted, he downed the brandy and poured another, then stretched out his long legs towards the range and yawned. “That were hard work, ’tis true. Shame on Mrs. Bolitho for lettin’ you come to such a place. Mind you, I’m not surprised she done it. Just surprised she let you have it in the first place.”

“Me too,” Mrs. Keneder joined in.

Harriet’s ears pricked. “Do you know Mrs. Bolitho?”

They nodded in unison.

“Not to speak to, like, seein’ as we’re servants. But to recognize if I was to see her out in Penzance,” Mrs. Keneder said. “And to know of her reputation.”

“I’ve never met her,” Harriet said. “This was arranged entirely through my late husband’s solicitor in London, who happens to be her man of business as well.” Bitterness returned to her voice, but she couldn’t help it. If she was being honest with herself, then bitterness was what she felt. “He told me she was prepared to let the children and me stay here. She was my late husband’s great-aunt.” She paused. “I had no idea she had a ‘reputation.’” She raised her eyebrows, hoping they’d say more.

Locky nodded. “That explains it a bit, I don’t doubt.”

Mrs. Keneder poured tea for herself, Bertha and Harriet, dodging Harriet’s implied invitation to expand on why her great-aunt by marriage possessed a “reputation.” “All the same. She didn’t do right by you to let you come down here to this. ’Tain’t right. ’Tain’t proper for a lady like you to be livin’ like this.”

They sipped their hot tea, and Harriet allowed herself to relax at last. Perhaps a tot of that brandy would be a good idea, but she’d wait until they’d left, and when Bertha wasn’t looking. She didn’t want them going back to Rosudgeon House and telling everyone she was a tippler. For the first time in ages, she felt as though things might be going to go right and she didn’t want to spoil it by gaining a “reputation” of her own.

“If’n you don’t mind me askin’, ma’am,” Locky said, pouring himself a third generous measure of the brandy with a wink at Bertha, whose brows had sunk so low as to almost obscure her eyes. “What happened to Mr. Penhallow?”

Harriet managed a wry smile. The truth would have shocked them so she wasn’t about to give them that. “My husband was a captain in the hussars. We thought he’d done well to survive the Peninsular War unscathed, but then Bonaparte took a hand in his fate. The hussars returned to Britain last year, but as soon as Boney escaped, they were off again to Belgium. My husband fought at Waterloo. Fought and fell. He didn’t come home.”

Locky drained his glass. “Major Treloar, over to Roskilly, a few miles east o’ here, he were in the hussars, too, I think. Only he didn’t go back to fight at Waterloo on account of his wife being in the family way, I heard. And him being guardian to his young cousin.”

“Your husband were a proper hero, my luvver,” Mrs. Keneder said, patting Harriet’s hand with her plump one. “A proper hero. No doubt about that.”

Harriet bit her lip. That was what everyone said, thinking to console her. If they had any hint of how she really felt they’d have spurned her as an unnatural wife. She schooled her face into the correct expression for a recently bereaved widow, avoiding Bertha’s gimlet gaze.

Besides, would a proper hero have left his wife and children destitute?