Chapter Four

T o 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.

Caroline tried a smile. “I only came looking for Yves. Patience told me he eats down here with you quite often. And I wanted to learn the layout of the house.” Best not to say she wanted to get to know the servants as that could be misconstrued. As a governess she would have to watch what she said and maintain a distance between herself and the staff.

“Well,” Mrs. Teague said, looking a fraction mollified. “You’ve seen the kitchens all right now. And Master Yves has finished his breakfast.” She picked up his empty, egg-smeared plate. “Have you had enough to eat, young man?”

Yves wiped his eggy mouth on the sleeve of what must have started the day as his clean, royal blue skeleton suit but now was decorated with a few breakfasty stains. “Could I have a cake, please? I still have a small corner that’s not quite full yet.”

Mrs. Teague’s stern face softened as she went to where a tray of small cakes were cooling on a rack. “Hollow legs is what you’ve got, my lad. Here we are then.”

Yves took one in each hand, then glanced up at Caroline. “Do you want one? I bet you only got tea and toast for breakfast. That’s what my aunt orders sent up for me, but I fox her. I come down here, and Mrs. Teague always gives me something much better. She says my aunt only tells her what to send upstairs, not what to give me down here. That was Miss Hawkins’s idea. She said I needed building up.” He grinned. “Go on, take one. We don’t get much for dinner in the schoolroom, so if you don’t, you’ll be hungry later.”

“Fresh out o’ the oven, Miss Fairfield.” Did Mrs. Teague’s eyes hold sympathy, now, as well as suspicion?

Caroline took a warm cake, the memory of absconding to the kitchens at Cadley for just such a treat almost bringing a tear to her eye. Did children the world over establish friendships in the kitchens of their parents’ houses?

“Thank you, Mrs. Teague. That’s very kind of you.” Best to keep on her good side by being suitably grateful and polite, especially if Yves was right and the other meals they could expect would be small. Last night’s supper, that she’d eaten in the schoolroom with Yves, had not been generous, although until now she’d not thought to wonder about it.

“Shall we go upstairs and get your face cleaned up?” she said to Yves. “And you can show me your schoolbooks.”

He wrinkled his small nose. “Do I have to? I was thinking we could take a walk down to the beach to do some… nature study. Miss Hawkins and I often did natural philosophy on nice mornings. I’m very good at identifying birds and shells. She had a book about them.” He waved a hand at the nearest window, although thanks to the heat in the kitchen it was steamed up. “And today’s a day for doing that. No rain at all. I already checked. Not that I mind the rain. Although I suppose you might, being a governess and a female.” He managed an embryonic sneer. “Hetty doesn’t like the rain.” A cheeky grin banished the sneer. “She says it makes her hair go all frizzy… and she’s right.”

Caroline smiled. “Well, let me see your books first, and then we’ll decide what needs to be done. And if we don’t get to the beach this morning, I promise we’ll go down this afternoon. Perhaps Hetty might like to come too, if we ask her. As it’s not raining. I’m supposed to be her companion as well as your governess.”

Yves’s face, which had fallen, brightened. “She’ll come. She loves the beach when the sun’s shining, and sometimes in winter too.” He gave her a sharp look. “But we’d best not tell Hetty’s mama, Aunt Ruth, where we’re going. She doesn’t like the beach at all and thinks poor Hetty should have to stay indoors or she’ll ruin her complexion in the sun. Hetty told me that. She says it’s very boring being a girl and having to always wear huge bonnets to keep the sun off. It makes me glad I’m a boy.”

Caroline laughed. “Well, she’s right to a certain extent about the sun, and about bonnets being annoying. But stop delaying, and let’s go upstairs. The sooner you show me your books, the sooner we can be about something more interesting for you.”

The schoolroom possessed a blackboard on one wall, in itself quite a modern innovation in teaching methods, a teacher’s high desk to one side and across the room four small desks with attached seats. At some point there must have been four children within the nursery wing. At the back of the room stood the table they’d eaten at the night before, and an old globe had pride of place on top of a small bookcase.

With marked reluctance, Yves lifted the lid of one of the desks and removed a small stack of dog-eared exercise books. “I’m not that good at keeping them tidy,” he said, his tone apologetic. A bit. “Aunt Ruth told Miss Hawkins my writing was un-de-cifrable.” He said the long word with immense care. “Miss Hawkins told me that means she couldn’t read it. But that’s a good thing, because then she won’t be able to read what I’ve written.”

Caroline took the books from him with a frown. “Why is it a good thing she can’t read what you’ve written? When writing, we want others to be able to read our work, otherwise we might just as well not bother to write at all.”

Yves narrowed his eyes at her. “Some of the things I write, I don’t want anyone reading.” He surveyed her for a moment. “Don’t tell her I said that, will you?”

Caroline smiled. “I won’t. But I must point out that I need to be able to read what you’ve written, so you’ll need to do your best handwriting for me. Let me have a look.” She sat down at the desk next to Yves’s and spread his exercise books across its surface. Mathematics, Composition, French, History and Geography. Well, the missing Miss Hawkins seemed to have been giving him a good variety of lessons.

“Which is your favorite subject?”

Yves, who’d still been standing beside his desk, plumped himself down on the seat. “Composition. I like writing stories.”

Caroline opened that book first. His spidery hand crawled across the first page, much augmented by blots and smudges. The title of the piece had been heavily underlined. The Secret Cove . “This sounds exciting. Do you mind if I read it?”

His cheeks went a little pink. “No-o… But it’s the first one I ever wrote. Miss Hawkins said I have a good imagination. She said I should write my stories down. I’m better at it now, though, and my spelling’s improved. I wrote that one when I was quite a little boy.”

Not that he was big now. Caroline read the two-page story about two boys finding a hidden cove with a cave used by smugglers and being caught by the chief smuggler and asked to join the gang. Some of his writing was indeed hard to decipher, and his spelling was worse than Ysella’s, but he could tell a good, exciting story.

“That’s lovely,” she said, flicking through the book to see how many more there were. It was nearly full. “I love a good story myself and have been known to write my own, just like you.” She glanced across at the small but well-stocked bookcase. “Did Miss Hawkins read aloud to you at all? I find reading helps one with writing one’s own stories.”

He jumped up, nodding. “I’ll show you my favorite.” Running to the bookcase he pulled one of the books out and handed it to Caroline.

She turned it over in her hands and opened it on the title page. The Life and Strange and Surprising Adventures of the Renowned Hero, Robinson Crusoe of York . “Goodness. I didn’t know this was for children.”

Yves shrugged. “I used to like baby books like Cock Robin when I was just a little boy, but Miss Hawkins said as I was such a good reader, we should try this one, and it’s very exciting, so I love it.” He leaned closer. “I’ll tell you a secret, if you like.”

She looked up at him. “Yes?”

“I can read it myself, of course, but I love to be read to at bedtime. I used to have a nurse before Miss Hawkins was my governess, and she read to me every night, but only baby books, like Cock Robin . But Miss Hawkins said I could have exciting books and she made the stories…” He hesitated as though searching for the right words. “She made me think I was in the story.” He grinned. “She does… did good voices.”

Caroline closed the book. “Well, if you work hard this morning, and then show me the way to the beach this afternoon, I shall read to you at bedtime just as Miss Hawkins did. How does that sound?”

His smile stretched almost from ear to ear. “A bargain. But don’t tell Aunt Ruth you’re doing that. She thinks big boys don’t need reading to.” He frowned. “Miss Hawkins and Aunt Ruth shouted at each other about that. I think that might be why Miss Hawkins left…”

Caroline rose from the desk and approached the blackboard. There were certainly a few things about Roskilly House she’d like to find out more about.