Read Online Matters of the Heart by Rosemary Smith - Free Book Online

protect you some other way. Miss Laura only comes to see me to make sure I’ll keep my mouth shut.’
    She suddenly clamped her hand over her mouth and I could see tears rolling down her cheeks.
    ‘You see, Jane, it is the priest’s hole. No, I cannot and will not speak of it for fear of my life.’
    ‘Tell me, Miss Blackstone, what is it you fear so much? I may be able to help you. I will speak to my grandmother on your behalf.’
    I felt sorry for her now. She was obviously a very frightened woman.
    ‘I cannot tell you. Just believe me when I say there is such horror to be found in these walls and to think it is the nursery where my beloved Felicity lay so sweetly as a child, sleeping like a baby. That is how I shall see her again one day when she returns and all will be well again.’
    I knew now there was something very odd about Miss Blackstone’s ramblings and tended to think I should not believe a word she told me for it was quite plain to me that she was living in the past.
    ‘Where is your room, Miss Blackstone?’ I ventured.
    ‘Why, next to the nursery, of course, where it has always been. Don’t you remember?’
    She spoke to me as if I was a child.
    ‘Come with me, Felicity, back to the nursery, like a good girl. Lessons are over for today. We will get our coats and walk in the wood like we used to. Come, child.’
    She held out her hand toward me.
    ‘I cannot come now, Miss Blackstone. I have to see my grandmother.’ I waited with baited breath but she seemed to accept this.
    ‘Later then, child. I am feeling weary now.’
    So saying, she looked at her fob-watch.
    ‘Polly will be bringing my lunch any time now and then I will make sure everything is ready in the nursery.’
    ‘Miss Blackstone,’ I had to ask, ‘why is the crib and china doll in the schoolroom?’
    ‘Why, don’t you know? I couldn’t let Felicity’s baby lie in the nursery, poor little lamb. She will be safer here.’
    Thankfully, she walked to the door then and paused and looked back.
    I knew she was back in the present when she said quietly, ‘Watch out for Laura, child, but I will protect you if needs be.’
    She then left the schoolroom and I could hear her skirts swishing along the corridor. To say I was confused about this meeting was very true. I was left baffled by the conversation I had just had with my mamma’s former governess. Was there really a priest’s hole or was it something conjured up by a woman not of sound mind? And while Aunt Laura had not been as affable as I would have liked, was she really so evil?
    As I made my way down the stairs, along the dimly-lit corridors, determined to find Grandmother, I felt a panic rising in me and longed to escape to normality, but where? My thoughts turned to Jason Trehaine. How I wished I were at Mannamead now, in the light, airy rooms. Instead I was here, stifled by the suffocating atmosphere of Pendenna Reach. I wondered now, although no harm had yet befallen me, if I would be safe in my bed.

 
    8
     
    My grandmother wasn’t to be found in the drawing-room and looking out of the window I could see the rain still fell relentlessly and guessed she would not be out on the terrace either. I would seek out Mrs Dobbs, hoping she may know her whereabouts for I was anxious to talk to her about many things, Nora Blackstone being number one on my list.
    Not since arriving at Pendenna had I entered the kitchen, Mrs Dobbs’ domain. I tentatively pushed open the door and was faced by an alarmed-looking, buxom woman dressed in black with a frilly white apron and mobcap. Stood beside her, up to her elbows in flour, was an equally-alarmed-looking girl, as slight as cook was buxom, tendrils of hair escaping her white cap.
    ‘Can I help you, miss?’ Cook asked, her rolling-pin suspended in mid-air.
    As she spoke, the young girl drew one arm across her forehead leaving a smudge of white flour down one side of her plain face.
    ‘Agnes, how many times have I told you not to do