The first was that he had overheard Bessie joking with one of the other maids only a week before. The maid had been teasing Bessie, saying John Tremayne was sweet on her, and Bessie had tossed her head and replied that she could do better for herself and had done nothing to encourage the attentions of an old and smelly groom like John Tremayne. John, a wiry man in his forties with a pleasant, weatherbeaten Celtic face, had been badly hurt by the insult.
Added to that, he now surprised a look of cunning and greed in Bessie's eyes that changed her appearance entirely, making her look almost sinister.
He did not know that Bessie had seen the will poking out of Mr. Palfrey's back pocket as he strutted up and down the library. She now wanted to find some way to get her hands on it before Mr. Palfrey managed to destroy it.
“You'd best come with me, Bessie,” said John firmly. “If Master says you have to leave, then leave you must.”
“Oh! Oh!Oh! ” screamed Bessie, tearing her cap off and throwing it on the floor. “What will become of me? Please don't send me off.” She threw herself into Mr. Palfrey's arms, nearly knocking him flat.
He tried to push her away, but Bessie clutched hold of him, and the ill-assorted couple did a macabre waltz over the polished floor.
With a great heave, Mr. Palfrey finally sent her flying. She stumbled backward and just managed to stop herself from falling.
But she had seized the will and had it hidden in the folds of her apron. Pretending to weep, she rushed from the room.
“You're a good man, John,” said Mr. Palfrey. “You may go about your duties.”
“Why did you send for me?” asked John, curiously.
“Because… because I anticipated trouble with the maid and felt sure you would help to handle the situation. Where is Miss Felicity?”
“Out riding with Miss Chubb.”
“She should be accompanied by a groom. Now that she is soon to be a baroness, she must begin to observe the conventions. See to it.”
“Very good, sir,” said John, touching his forelock and bowing his way out.
Outside the library, he scratched his head. Mr. Palfrey would normally have instructed the housekeeper to get rid of Bessie. He must be worried about those jewels. John gave a slow smile. Well, Miss Felicity had them safe. Mr. Palfrey would never get them. Pity about Bessie. She had seemed such a kind woman before. John shook his head dismally over the fickleness and cruelty of women and made his way back to the stables.
Felicity and Miss Chubb swung down from their mounts at the cliff's edge, some distance from the castle. They tethered their horses to a stunted tree and both looked down at the wrinkled gray sea far below them.
“I know he burned that bit about the jewels,” said Felicity fiercely. “He is a liar and a thief. But he shall not have them!”
“You told me they were hidden in the priest's hole. Are there a great many jewels?” asked Miss Chubb.
“In truth, I never bothered to look inside the box. I have been too grief-stricken. I only checked to be sure it was there, where Mama said it was. Oh, poor Mama.”
Felicity turned her head away and began to cry. Miss Chubb shuffled her large feet like an old horse. She could not share in Felicity's grief, for Miss Chubb had always considered Mrs. Palfrey to be a very poor mother indeed. “If Felicity were my daughter, Miss Chubb told herself, “then sick as I was, I would have yet found the strength to rid myself of such a nasty character as Mr. Palfrey.”
She waited until Felicity had recovered and then said gruffly, “At least this period of mourning has put your marriage off. With any luck the baron might die before the year is out.”
“Do you know, Miss Chubb,” said Felicity, “this Lord St. Dawdy, though old, might be quite a pleasant sort of man.”
“You said your mama did not think so,” pointed out Miss Chubb. “And he is not liked in the county.”
“People can be hard, particularly on absentee landlords,” sighed Felicity. “And the baron has traveled a great deal. Besides, mama did not seem to be a great judge of people or she would not have married Mr. Palfrey. My sisters are content in their marriages. The arrangements worked out well for them. Penelope told me it was exceedingly pleasant to be mistress of one's own establishment and to have children. And I could take you with me.”
Miss Chubb brightened, but then her face fell. “I cannot see any man countenancing the presence of an elderly governess.”
“But if I were a baroness, surely I could elevate you to the rank of companion?”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Chubb gloomily. “But I would not count on it.”
“Look, the snow is beginning to fall,” said Felicity with a shiver. “Perhaps when the weather is better, we can don our disguises and ride down to The Green Dolphin for another adventure.”
“I was frightened last time,” said Miss Chubb. “Lord Arthur was a very unsettling sort of man.”
Felicity kicked a piece of turf. “Do you think there are many men like Lord Arthur in London, Miss Chubb?”
“He was very handsome and very grand,” said Miss Chubb reflectively. “No, not many.”
“It is of no use wondering about it,” said Felicity, “for I shall probably never go to London. Or not as a single lady, anyway.”
They rode together back to the castle to hear John's story of the sacking of Bessie.
“Poor woman,” said Felicity. “I have some pin money left. She may have it.”
When she and Miss Chubb entered the castle, the butler, Anderson, told them that Mr. Palfrey was searching everywhere for the blueprints to the castle and wondered if either of the ladies had seen them.
“No,” lied Felicity quickly. Mr. Palfrey must never find those blueprints, or he would discover the priest's hole.
She and Miss Chubb hurried up to the nursery, took the blueprints out of a desk, took them to the priest's hole, and put them up on the high ledge with the box of jewels.
Mr. Palfrey had just learned that one of his tenant farmers, Ebeneezer Pulkton, had called and was demanding audience. Mr. Palfrey hesitated, half-tempted to send the man away, for in his search for the blueprints he had not burned the will. Also, he wanted to study it again in peace so that he might be sure that bit about the Channing jewels-unaccountably absent from the previous will-was indeed there. But Mr. Pulkton was a toady, and Mr. Palfrey loved toadies-they being a rare commodity in Cornwall, where the population were singularly independent-minded and did not have a correct respect for their betters.
He had received a bad shock over that will. He longed to sit and drink a glass of port in congenial company. Mr. Palfrey had never felt lonely before. Now he did. In fact, he felt quite weak and helpless and wished his stern and domineering mother were still alive so that he could lay his weary pomaded head on her iron bosom.
“Show Mr. Pulkton in, Anderson,” he said, “and bring us a couple of bottles of the best port.”
Mr. Pulkton entered, hat in hand, his little piggy eyes darting here and there as if seeking something that he could turn into a profit. He was dressed in a holland drill smock, breeches, and ankle boots. His smock had three capes on the shoulders, denoting his status as farmer. In this age of elegance, even the farmers were dandies, and the front of Mr. Pulkton's snowy-white smock was embroidered with scarlet hearts.
“I din't like to come afore,” said Mr. Pulkton slowly. “But I felt I must pay my respects, like. Terrible trajdy, Missus dying like that.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Palfrey, giving his eyes a perfunctory dab with a wisp of handkerchief. “Sit down, man, and join me in a glass of port. Ah, Anderson. The table by the window, and we shall serve ourselves.”
Mr. Pulkton looked suitably gratified.
As she sat on the edge of her bed in the room she shared with three other maids, Bessie heard the sound of approaching footsteps and thrust the will she had been studying under her mattress. She was alone, having been told to go and get her belongings, while the three more fortunate maids with whom she shared the room went about their duties.