Chapter Twenty-Nine

C aroline had trouble getting to sleep that night, and even more trouble staying asleep, so it was a rather the worse-for-wear start to the morning. Patience, arriving with her breakfast tray, found her still in bed, yawning and heavy eyed.

Caroline sat up. “How is it,” she said, “that one spends all the night tossing and turning and unable to sleep, only to fall into the deepest and most refreshing of sleeps just before one has to get up?”

Patience giggled. “I’m sure I don’t know, Miss. It don’t happen to me. I’m asleep the moment my head touches the pillow, because I has to be up at five every morning.”

Suppressing another yawn, Caroline climbed out of bed. “I really need a strong cup of tea. Have you taken Yves his breakfast? Or is he already downstairs in the kitchen?” At least Bridget couldn’t have given him a laudanum-laden dose of the carminative last night. If she’d tried, she’d have had a shock when she found it was just water.

“I’ll go and take it to him now, Miss. He weren’t in the kitchen this morning. At least, I didn’t see him there. Shall I come back here after and help you with your stays?”

“That would be lovely. Thank you, Patience.”

Patience departed and Caroline poured herself a cup of tea, but this time it was nursery brand and rather weak and tasteless. She added a spoonful of sugar to give her some much needed energy, and nibbled on the bread and butter. When she was dressed, she could go down to the kitchen and ask Mrs. Teague for a nice doorstep slice of bread with some of her fresh butter, all golden and thick. Mmmmm. How ridiculous it was to have that available in the kitchen but send up these thin slices with barely any butter on them. Not enough for a mouse to survive on. For all she knew, Mrs. Treloar might well have decided starvation was a slow but sure method of disposing of Yves—and his governess at the same time.

Patience was back in ten minutes, by which time Caroline had drained the teapot and changed into her shift and drawers, ready to be laced into her stays.

Patience picked up the stays. “Master Yves weren’t in his bedroom, Miss, but I left his tray there, just in case he comes back.”

“And still not in the kitchen with Mrs. Teague?”

Patience fastened the stays around Caroline’s body and started tightening the laces. “No, Miss. Not a sign of him. And I been in there working with Molly, the kitchen maid, for a bit before I brung up your breakfast. I don’t think he’s been in there this morning, which is a bit unusual, I has to say.”

Caroline twisted her head round to peer over her shoulder at Patience. “That’s odd. It’s not like him to miss his food. Whether it’s from Mrs. Teague or what his aunt perceives as suitable for a nursery meal.”

Patience pulled on the stay laces. “Breathe in, Miss.”

Caroline obliged. “Did you ask if anyone had seen him this morning?”

“No, Miss. I’m sure he’s around somewhere, though. He’s a good boy, and he knows he has to do his lessons with you of a morning.”

The stays firmly laced, Patience helped Caroline on with her petticoat and gown and fastened the ties down the back. “There. Would you like me to help with your hair?”

Caroline shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll just braid it and make a bun. Could you take my tray down and, if Yves turns out to be in the kitchen, ask him to come up as soon as he can? And if he’s not… well, you could ask around the servants to see if anyone’s seen him.”

“Yes, Miss.”

Patience scuttled off carrying the tray and Caroline dealt with her hair. Where could that scamp have got to? Perhaps she ought to go down to the kitchens and question the other servants herself rather than rely on Patience, who clearly wasn’t bothered about Yves’s absence. After all, she didn’t know what Caroline knew.

With hurried steps, as now a nub of unease had formed in her stomach, she made her way down to the kitchen.

Mrs. Teague was busy at the stove, as usual, her face flushed red with the heat.

“No,” she said, on being questioned. “I haven’t seen the lad. I thought as maybe he was still in bed. Like yesterday. Patience already asked me. Like I said to her, Dash’s still here, so he hasn’t been in to get the dog yet.” Her brows met in a worried frown. “What d’you think he’s up to, then? Some mischief, I’ll be bound, knowing him.”

Caroline shook her head. “I have no idea, but I need to find him.” She bit her lip. “It’s very important that I find him.”

Questioning of the other servants who kept coming in and out of the kitchen provided no clues. No one had seen Yves that morning. Had he even come down here? Thanking them, Caroline went out into the stableyard. It might be a good idea to check if Blossom was there.

The little gray was snug in her small loosebox, munching away on her breakfast hay. But Folly was not. Had Hetty gone out riding? Caroline retraced her steps and ran along the gallery to Hetty’s room.

With no preamble, she pushed open the door. Hetty was still in bed, but she sat up when Caroline came in, rubbing her eyes. “Goodness. What is it? It’s too early to be getting up yet.”

Caroline improvised. “I thought Yves might be with you.”

Hetty yawned. “I should hope not at this time of the morning, but I wouldn’t put it past him. He can be quite horrid when he tries.”

“He’s a boy, that’s why.” Caroline scanned the room. “Did he happen to indicate where he might be going today? I have an uneasy feeling he might be up to no good as he’s missed his breakfast.”

Hetty yawned again. “I need to go back to sleep. This is far too early for me.”

“Think. Please.”

Hetty snuggled down into her bedcovers. “We-ell, when I was in the garden yesterday, I glimpsed him with Mr. Trefusis.” She gave a little shiver. “I hid behind a bush when I saw them coming.”

Little wonder. She wouldn’t want to bump into Trefusis in the gardens if she was alone. And Yves wouldn’t count as much of a chaperone.

“And?”

“Once I’d hidden, I couldn’t get away, so I had to stay crouched there while they walked past. I couldn’t help but overhear. Yves has such a loud voice. He was asking Mr. Trefusis all about the mines. And Mr. Trefusis was telling him how exciting they are and what the tunnels are like.”

That didn’t surprise Caroline at all. Yves had been curious about the mines when they’d gone to Wheal Jenny, although a little put off by the sight of the miners.

“What did Mr. Trefusis say to him?”

“I couldn’t hear everything once they were past my bush, but I heard this bit. He told Yves he’d first been down a mine when he was younger than Yves, and that he’d loved it. He said it was like exploring—a big adventure. He’d gone along the beach here and found the old adit in the cove beneath Penmar Head and got in that way, because his father had refused to let him go in by the ladder shaft.”

Caroline had heard of people’s blood running cold but had never thought it could be true. Now she discovered it was. Icy fingers ran down her spine. Trefusis had told Yves there was an entrance into the mines from the beach and called going into it an adventure. What self-respecting, red-blooded boy would balk at the challenge? He would see it as exciting and illicit—two things that would make it even more attractive to him.

Without even thanking Hetty, Caroline sped from the room, her feet leading her straight to Nat’s bedroom door. She rapped hard on it and, a moment later, he opened it. His hair was tousled and he needed a shave, and his shirt was undone to reveal dark hairs curling on his muscled chest. Dark bruises shadowed his ribs. If she hadn’t been in such a panic, she might have admired the vision.

“Caroline.” He hastily buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his trousers, then pulled his braces up over his shoulders. “What can I do for you?” He must have been able to see from her face that something was very amiss.

“Can I come in?” She kept her voice down low, glancing up and down the corridor, fearful lest anyone should spot her.

He stood back. “Of course. If you think it appropriate.”

“I do.” She stepped inside, closed the door behind her and leaned against it. “Yves has gone missing.”

He drew his bottom lip under his teeth, his blue eyes troubled. “Missing as ‘he’s in danger,’ or he’s just out on some boyish prank?”

“The former.”

“How do you know?”

Caroline repeated what Hetty had told her. “And he’s taken Folly, whom he’s never ridden before. How he got a saddle on her, I have no idea.” She was only a large pony really, but nevertheless, reaching her back would have been hard for him. Could someone have helped him? Trefusis, perhaps?

Nat sat down on his chair and started pulling on his boots. “I know the adit Trefusis referred to. I’ve been in there myself as a boy, and I can tell you, it’s not safe. The roof is shored up in places with ancient, rotted wood, and when the tide comes in, it floods the bottom of the mine. Plus, there are shafts cut in the floor from time to time, and they stay full of water.”

“Oh my God.”

He grabbed his jacket. “Can you give me a hand with this? We have to go after him. I’ll tell…” His voice trailed away.

Caroline nodded. “Yes. Who can we tell? No one. If we tell Trefusis he’ll insist on looking for him himself, and if he finds him, well, I expect he’ll find him already conveniently ‘drowned’ or ‘buried’ by a fall. And we’ll be none the wiser.”

He grimaced. “We don’t have time to get other help. We have to go alone. Come on.”

*

As it was still early, Mrs. Treloar wasn’t up yet, but Trefusis might well have been in the estate office, so Nat led Caroline out through a side door and they skirted around the stables to the path to the beach. If they were lucky, no one would have seen them leave.

Once out of sight of the house, they ran, and as they burst out of the dunes onto the beach, Nat was relieved to see the tide a good way out, and the wet sand marked by a single telltale set of hoofprints heading toward the cliffs of Penmar Head. If they were lucky, they should have several hours in which to find Yves before the tide cut off Penmar Cove. If he’d been foolhardy enough to go into the adit alone, that was. There remained the chance that he’d either not been able to find it, or had seen it and been frightened off. But there were no returning hoofprints.

At least when Nat had gone exploring the adit as a boy, he’d been with Jacka, and they’d had the sense to take a ball of string with them. Nat had just read about Theseus in the labyrinth of Knossos, and Ariadne’s helpful ruse had been fresh in his mind.

He’d brought several candles and a supply of matches with him this time, trusting his own knowledge of the mine workings. Experience had taught him how dark a mine adit could be. If only his shoulder wasn’t aching so much, but at least his headache had gone, although the back of his head remained tender to the touch.

Once down on the hard, wet sand, they could move faster than they had done in the dunes. Caroline jogged along by his side, her face creased with worry, as they followed the clear trail of hoofprints. What was that foolish, but bold, boy thinking of, going off on his own like this? But he had no friends to take with him. Poor little chap lived such an isolated life away from other children. No wonder he craved adventure.

Penmar Head seemed to have retreated into the far distance, but they reached it at last, and headed around the rocky foot of the imposing headland where it stretched out across the sand in long, jagged fingers. On the summit, the shape of Wheal Jenny’s engine house and chimney rose up against a cloudless blue sky. If only he’d taken the boy down a few levels the other day, by the ladder shaft, then he might not have been so curious about the inside of a mine. Or he might have made it all worse. After all, mining ran deep in the blood of the Treloars.

Penmar Cove was a small inlet curved into the foot of the headland, with high cliffs rising behind it edged by tumbles of fallen rocks. Now, where was that adit? There was only one, he was sure. Thank goodness. Something moved between the piles of boulders, drawing Nat’s attention. For a moment he thought it was Yves, before the chestnut shape of Folly wandered into view, reins trailing on the sand.

He approached her, holding out his hand, and she approached, soft eyes relieved to see him. Her stirrups had been adjusted short enough for Yves, but there was no sign of him. He put her reins back over her head. “If the tide comes in, and she’s here in the cove, she’ll drown.” He led her around the outcropping cliff and rocks into Morgelyn Bay, ran her stirrups up, tucked the buckle end of her reins behind them and gave her a smack on her rump that set her trotting off across the beach. She’d be safe now and probably find her way home.

“I don’t see any cave entrances,” Caroline said. “Is it even still here?”

Nat nodded. “I very much doubt it’ll have been hidden by a rock fall. We don’t get many of those here. Wrong kind of rock. This way.” He held out his hand and helped her onto the barnacle- and mussel-covered rocks. They scrambled across the banks of slimy weed, feet scraping on the coarse shells. The dips and crevices of all sizes that sheltered rock pools would have transported Nat back to the days of his carefree boyhood, had their mission not been of the most urgent.

“These rocks are covered as the tide comes in,” he said. “You can tell by the covering of seaweed and shellfish. And out here, it’ll be well before high tide itself. We have to hurry. If we’re still in the cove when the sea comes up to these rocks, we’ll be stuck.” He squinted up at the sheer cliffs. “And these are unclimbable.”

Caroline regarded him for a moment out of determined eyes. “Then you are right. We shall have to hurry. Folly’s being here only reinforces my conviction that this is where Yves has gone.”

Nat turned back to the cliffs, scanning their rocky crevices. He hadn’t been here for… what was it? Fourteen or fifteen years. Treading in his youthful footprints, he scrambled over a particularly large boulder, and there it was.

The jagged, dark mouth of a cave, maybe five feet high by three feet wide, opened up before him, the path to it as rough as the rocks he and Caroline had been clambering over. He paused to survey it, a little daunted by the prospect of entering this adit, but not about to admit it to his companion. If she was prepared to go into it in search of Yves, then of course he was too. He tightened his grip on Caroline’s hand. “Come on then.”