The Vicar's People

Rhoda bowed and walked to the piano, where her voice was rising and falling in a well-known ballad, when Tregenna and the banker re-entered the room, the former darting a quick, suspicious look from one to the other, but without finding any thing upon which his suspicions could feed.

Whatever the business had been, Mr Penwynn seemed perfectly satisfied, and the conversation became general till Trethick rose to go, Tregenna following his example; but Mr Penwynn laid his hand upon the solicitor’s arm, and asked him to stay for a few minutes longer.

“Good-night, Mr Trethick,” he said. “I will sleep on that affair, and give you an answer in the morning.”

“Going to consult Tregenna a little more,” said Geoffrey, as he walked homeward. “Well, he is not a man whom I should trust, and I’m very glad I have no dealings with him whatever.”

He stopped at a corner to fill and light his meerschaum.

“There’s some pleasure in having a pipe now one has got to work,” he said, as he puffed the bowl into a glow, and then, as he went on – “that’s a very nice, quiet, sensible girl, that Miss Penwynn;” and then he began to think of Tregenna.

Just at the same time Rhoda had said to herself, —

“Mr Trethick is very frank, and manly, and natural,” and then she began thinking about Madge Mullion and Bess Prawle, and then – she could not tell why – she sighed.

There was a long talk that night in Mr Penwynn’s study, and when at last Tregenna left he was thinking to himself about mines and mining.

“That’s a splendid fellow, that Trethick,” he said. “I did think of trying to mould him, but he wants no touching, only leaving alone. Once set a man on the mining slide, there is no stopping till he gets to the bottom; and I think friend Penwynn will find the bottom of Wheal Carnac very deep.”

Chapter Twenty Eight

A Chat with Uncle Paul

They were busy days for Geoffrey Trethick and his factotum Pengelly, who hardly gave himself time to rest. The visit to Mr Penwynn that next morning had resulted in the information that he had commissioned Mr Tregenna to offer a certain sum for the machinery.

“And mind this, Trethick,” the banker said, “you have led me into this affair, and you will have to make it pay me well.”

“Never fear, sir,” said Geoffrey, “I’ll do my best.”

Visits to Gwennas were rare, and Geoffrey went to and from the cottage with an abstracted air, too busy to notice that Madge looked pale and careworn, and that Uncle Paul seemed a little changed.

The old man would waylay him though sometimes, poke at him with his cane, and get him into the summer-house to smoke one of the long black cheroots.

“Well,” he said one morning, “how are you getting along, boy? Swimmingly I suppose? I saw the water coming out at a fine rate.”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “we’ve got all the machinery fixed as far as was necessary, and the pumping has begun.”

“And you are going to make my hundred pounds come back to me, eh?”

“Well, not very likely,” said Geoffrey, “unless you buy fresh shares of the new proprietors. What do you say?”

“Bah!” exclaimed the old man; and they smoked on in silence for a time.

“Might do worse,” said Geoffrey.

“Rubbish! I tell you it will all end in a smash-up. You get your money regularly, and don’t let them have any arrears.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Geoffrey. “So you think there will, be another failure?”

“Sure of it I shall buy that piece of ground yet for a house. Sure to fail.”

“So old Prawle says.”

“Oh, old Prawle says so, does he?” continued Uncle Paul.

“Yes; and I told him the Indian file thought the same.”

“The what?” said Uncle Paul.

“The Indian file – you,” said Geoffrey, coolly.

Uncle Paul thumped his stick on the floor, and looked daggers.

“Look here, young fellow,” he said, sharply, “you go a deal too much to Gwennas Cove, and it don’t look well.”

“Haven’t been half so often lately,” said Geoffrey, coolly.

“You go ten times too much. Look here, boy, have you seen how pale and ill that jade, Madge, looks?”

“No. Yes, to be sure, I did think she looked white.”

“Fretting, sir, fretting. Now look here, boy, it isn’t square.”

“What isn’t?” said Geoffrey, coolly.

“So much of that going to Gwennas Cove, and rescuing young women from infuriated mobs, and that sort of thing. Lady very grateful?”

“Very.”

“Humph! Bewitched you?”

“Not yet.”

“Humph! Going to?”

“Don’t know.”

“Damn you, Geoffrey Trethick,” cried the old man, “you’d provoke a saint.”

“Which you are not.”

“Who the devil ever said I was, sir? Now, look here, you dog, I warned you when you came that I’d have no courting.”

“You can’t stop courting,” laughed Geoffrey. “It would take a giant.”

“None of your confounded banter, sir. I told you I’d have no courting – no taking notice of that jade – and you’ve disobeyed me.”

“Not I,” said Geoffrey.

“Don’t contradict, puppy. I say you have.”

“All right.”

“The jade’s going about the house red-eyed, and pale, and love-sick – confound her! – about you, and now you make her miserable by playing off that brown-skinned fish-wench with the dark eyes.”

Geoffrey’s conscience smote him as he thought of that day when he playfully kissed Madge, and asked himself whether she really cared for him now, but only to feel sure that she did not.

“Does this sort of thing please you?” he said.

“Confound you! No, sir, it does not. Act like a man if you can, and be honest, or – confound you, sir! – old as I am, and old-fashioned as I am – damme, sir – laws or no laws, I’ll call you out and shoot you. You sha’n’t trifle with the girl’s feelings while I’m here.”

Geoffrey’s first impulse was to say something banteringly; but he saw that the old man was so much in earnest that he took a quiet tone.

“Uncle Paul,” he said, “why will you go on running your head against a brick wall?”

“What do you mean, boy?”

“Only that you have got a notion in your head, and it seems useless for me to try and get it out. I’m busy and bothered, and have a deal to think about, so, once for all, let me tell you that I have hardly ever paid Miss Mullion the slightest attention, and, what is more, I am not so conceited as to believe she is making herself uncomfortable about me.”

The old man glared hard at him and uttered a grunt, for the eyes that met his were as frank and calm as could be.

“Then all I can say is that if what you say is true – ”

“Which it is – perfectly true,” replied Geoffrey.

“Then it’s very strange,” grumbled the old man. “She never went on like this before. Have another cheroot, Trethick?”

“Now that’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard you say to-day,” said Geoffrey, smiling, as he took one of the great black cheroots. “I say, old fellow, these are very good. What do they cost you a-box?”

“Five pounds a hundred,” said the old man, quietly.

“What?” cried Geoffrey.

“Shilling apiece, boy.”

“Why I – ’pon my word, sir, really I’m ashamed to take them.”

“Bah! stuff!” cried the old man. “Do you suppose, because I live here in this quiet way, that I’m a pauper? Smoke the cigar, boy. Here’s a light.”

Geoffrey lit up, and inwardly determined that in future he would keep to his pipe, while the old man sat watching him.

“So you mean to make the mine pay, eh, Trethick?” he said.

“Yes, I believe I shall, Mr Paul,” said Geoffrey, quietly. “I’m not starting with the idea of a fortune, but on the principles of which I have often told you of getting a profit out of a mine by economy, new means of reducing the ore, and living where others would fail.”

“Humph!” said the old man, looking at him thoughtfully, and they smoked on in silence.

“I was a bit bilious this morning,” said Uncle Paul at last, in an apologetic tone.

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “I saw that.”

“Parson called and upset me. Wanted me to go and take the chair at a missionary meeting for the Hindoos, and I told him that the Hindoos and Buddhists ought to send missionaries to us. But don’t take any notice.”

“Not I, old gentleman,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “I rather like it.”

“Humph! I rather like you too, boy. You seem to do my biliousness good. You can stand a bullying without flying out. I haven’t found a fellow stand it so well since I left the coolies.”

“Mutual admiration,” laughed Geoffrey. “I like you, old gentleman, because you do fly out. It’s quite refreshing after a lot of disappointments to have some one to quarrel with.”

There was another pause.

“I say, Trethick,” said the old man, “then Penwynn and Tregenna are hand-and-glove in this job, eh?”

Geoffrey looked at the old man wonderingly, for he was evidently beating about the bush.

“I don’t know. There, don’t ask me questions, old gentleman,” was the reply. “I’m not at liberty to chatter.”

There was another silence.

“Madge isn’t a bad sort of girl, Trethick,” said the old man at last.

“No,” said Geoffrey; “she’s pretty and amiable, and I believe, poor lassie, she is very good-hearted. I often think you are too hard upon her.”

“Hard be hanged, sir! I’ve been her’s and her mother’s support these ten years.”

“Very likely,” said Geoffrey, dryly; “but a dog doesn’t like his crusts and bones any the better for having them thrown at him.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the old man, thoughtfully. “Well, perhaps I am a little hard upon her sometimes; but she aggravates me. Trethick, you are quite conceited puppy enough, I know, but that girl is fretting about you.”

“Ignorance is bliss, sir. I was not aware of it.”

“Ignorance is a blister, sir,” cried the old man, sharply. “But,” he added, more gently, “she is, I tell you. Trethick, she is a nice girl, and you might do worse.”

“Stuff, stuff, my dear sir!” cried Geoffrey, laughing. “You are mistaken, and I am not a marrying man. There, I must be off;” and, starting up, he swung off along the path, and away down towards the mine buildings, where steam was now puffing, water falling, and several busy hands were at work.

Uncle Paul watched him thoughtfully as he strode away, and then sat back thinking, as he gazed out to sea.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Bess Prawle’s Secret

Time goes by rapidly with the busy. To Geoffrey it went like lightning; to Madge Mullion it hung heavy as lead. When they met, which was seldom now, and he spoke a few kindly, cheery words to her, she looked at him rather piteously, but said little in return.

Once or twice there was a twinge of pain in Geoffrey Trethick’s conscience, but he said nothing, only went on with his work busily and well. The water was all out of the mine, and he had carefully examined and reported upon it – a carefully worded report, promising nothing more than a moderate return upon a small capital; and, not satisfied, he persuaded Mr Penwynn to have down an experienced mineralogist to give his opinion.

“Whom would you recommend?” said Mr Penwynn, and Rhoda watched Geoffrey anxiously for his reply.

“No one, Mr Penwynn,” said the young man. “Get somebody I don’t know – a reliable man whom you can trust, and don’t let me see him.”

He happened to turn his eyes upon Rhoda as he spoke, and there was such a bright, eager look in the glance that met his that it made him thoughtful.

“Quite right,” said Mr Penwynn, “it would be better;” and the next day Mr Chynoweth was set to write to a mining engineer in town.

That night there was a game of whist at Dr Rumsey’s, and Chynoweth and Tregenna were there. Tregenna lost heavily for such play as they had. Chynoweth was in high delight, and Tregenna and he walked home together.

The next day Mr Tregenna had business in London, and the day following the mining engineer and mineralogist came down, inspected Wheal Carnac, and made his report afterwards to Mr Penwynn, with the result that the banker said nothing to Geoffrey Trethick, only bade him go on, feeling satisfied that his venture was to be a great financial success.

A month later it was known that a new company had bought the mine, and that shares were to be had.

The matter was chatted over at An Morlock, and, as sometimes happened, Geoffrey and Rhoda were left together for a time; their talk being generally of the mine; and when he was gone, Rhoda got into the habit of sitting silent and thoughtful, in judgment upon Geoffrey Trethick’s character.

Her line of argument took somewhat this form – she did not know why she should argue out his cause – but somehow she felt compelled to do so. Scandal had made pretty free with his name, and, in spite of her efforts, Rhoda seemed obliged to hear, through Miss Pavey, all that was said.

And the sayings were these – that Geoffrey Trethick was young and gay; that he had gone so much to Gwennas Cove that old Prawle had threatened his life if he went there again, and that upon one occasion the old man had lain in wait for him with a hammer at Wheal Carnac, only Pengelly was with Trethick and had saved him; then Trethick had promised that he would go to Gwennas no more, and the matter at once ended.

“False on the face of it!” said Rhoda, with spirit. “Geoffrey – Mr Trethick,” she said quickly, “told me that he had been twice to see old Mrs Prawle this week, and begged me to go soon.”

The next indictment was that Geoffrey had become so intimate with Madge Mullion that old Mr Paul had ordered him to leave the house, and that he was going at once.

This was Miss Pavey’s news, and she added that Mr Trethick would have to leave the town unless Mr Penwynn took compassion upon him.

“Of course, my dear,” she had said, maliciously, as she blew her nose in a gentlemanly way as if it were a triumphant note of defiance, “after what we are hearing you have quite cast him off?”

Rhoda looked at the speaker steadily, but made no reply.

But of this charge?

“Well,” Rhoda argued, “Madge Mullion is pretty and attractive, and she would probably throw herself open to the attentions of such a man as Geoffrey Trethick. But, if this were true, would Geoffrey behave as he had behaved at An Morlock of late? He seemed to be the soul of honour, and his words always had the ring of truth in them. No: it was one of the Carnac petty scandals; Geoffrey Trethick was no trifler.”

There was another long, dreamy time after this, and there were moments when Rhoda felt angry with herself for thinking so much about the man who now came to lay bare his plans, to consult her, so it seemed, when he was asking counsel of her father. And all at once she seemed to awaken to the fact that, by some means, the life of Geoffrey Trethick had become interwoven strangely with her own – that his success was her success, his failures hers; and yet he had spoken no word, given her no look. He was different to any man that she had ever met, and he even annoyed her sometimes by his quiet assumption of authority as the stronger in thought. For he would ask her advice, and often enough show the fallacy of what she had said.

Then she would think that they were becoming too intimate, and blame her father for encouraging the presence of this stranger; but Mr Penwynn seemed, after a life of immunity, to have taken the mine fever badly, and the thought of Geoffrey Trethick pretending to his daughter’s hand never occurred to him.

“No,” thought Rhoda, “papa thinks of nothing now but this speculation; and why should he? Geoffrey Trethick has never behaved otherwise than as a visitor working in my father’s interest;” and as she said this to herself, a curious feeling of pique arose, but only to be crushed at once.

Finally, Rhoda Penwynn’s verdict on Geoffrey Trethick was that he was a gentleman – a man of unstained honour, whom fate had placed in a town full of petty scandal.

The next day Rhoda endorsed her verdict, and it was in this wise.

She granted, as she started, that it was due to Geoffrey’s request, for otherwise she might not have gone. As it was, she started in the afternoon to walk over to Gwennas Cove, passing along the cliff, and looking somewhat eagerly down towards Wheal Carnac, where figures were moving and shaft smoking, while the great beam of the pumping-engine went steadily on with its toil.

She was half-startled to see how the wreck had been transformed into a busy scene of industry, and, in spite of herself, she felt a glow of pride as she recalled whose hand had brought about the change.

Her face turned hard directly after, as she thought of her father, and of how he had seemed to become inoculated with Geoffrey Trethick’s enthusiasm. He did not want for money, and yet he had entered upon this mining speculation – he of all men, who had laughed at the follies of those who embarked upon such ventures. What was to be the end?

She walked on, and soon after reached the spot where Bess Prawle had been driven to bay by the superstitious crowd; and, as the whole scene came back, with Geoffrey’s gallant behaviour, and the girl’s display of gratitude, Rhoda stopped short, with her eyes contracting, her brow ruffled with emotion, and her lips half parted. For she was startled at the pang of misery that shot through her. The contemptible scandal she had heard forced itself upon her, and she seemed obliged to couple with it the weak wanderings of poor old Mrs Prawle about Geoffrey and her child.

It was horrible! What had she been doing? How had her fancies been straying, she asked herself, as she awakened to the fact that imperceptibly her interest in Geoffrey had grown so warm that the thought of his caring for another caused her misery of the most acute kind.

She shook off the feeling, calling herself weak and childish, and, gathering mental strength with the walk, she at last reached Gwennas Cove.

Old Prawle was busy overhauling a long line, and binding on fresh hooks, a task from which he condescended to raise his eyes, and give the visitor a surly nod as she spoke.

His voice brought out Bess, looking handsomer than ever, Rhoda thought, in her picturesque dress and carelessly-knotted hair.

For a moment the two girls stood gazing in each other’s eyes, and a cold, chilling feeling ran through Rhoda as, in spite of herself, she felt that it would be no wonder if Geoffrey Trethick did love this bold, handsome girl.

The next moment the thought was gone, and Rhoda had held out her hand.

“I hope there is a good stock of sweeties, Bessie,” she said, with a frank smile. “How is Mrs Prawle?”

Bess’s breath came with a catch, as she returned the smile; and, leading the way into the cottage, the pleasant little fiction was gone through, and the invalid made happy in the thought that she had added the profits of a shilling’s-worth of sweets to the general store.

But there was no conversation this time about Geoffrey Trethick, for Bess stayed in the room, and then followed Rhoda out on to the cliff path when she left.

“Why, Bessie,” said the visitor, smiling, “I have hardly seen you since that day when those mad people behaved so ill.”

“I very seldom go into the town now, miss,” said Bess, whose colour came as she recalled the conclusion of that scene.

“It’s very sad,” continued Rhoda, “that the people should be so ignorant. Well, good-by, Bessie,” she continued, holding out her hand, “you will not ill-wish me?”

“No,” said Bessie, softly, as she watched the tall, well-dressed, graceful figure slowly receding. “No, I will not ill-wish you; but there are times when I feel as if I must hate you for being what you are.”

She let Rhoda go on till the fluttering of her dress in the sea-breeze was seen no more, and then, moved by some strange impulse, she followed, avoiding the track; and, active and quick as one of the half-wild sheep of the district, she climbed up on to the rugged down above the cliff path, and kept on gazing below at Rhoda from time to time.

She went on nearly parallel with her for a quarter of a mile or so, and then stood motionless for a time, gazing down, before, with a weary wail of misery, she threw herself amidst the heather, her face upon one outstretched arm, whose fingers clutched and tore at the tough plants and grass, while her whole frame quivered with her passionate sobs.

“Bess!”

At the sound of that hoarse voice she started up into a sitting position, but shrank away as she gazed up into her father’s fierce, rugged face. The old man was down on one knee beside her, and his gnarled and knotted hand was pointing in the direction of the cliff path a hundred feet below.

“Is – is it come to this, Bess?” he said.

“What – what, father?” she cried, catching at his hand; but she missed it, and he gripped her arm.

“Is that smooth, good-looking villain thy lover, too?” he said, in a vindictive whisper.

“Oh! no, no, no, father,” she gasped.

“I knew it would come to it,” he cried. “Curse him! I’ll crush his false head again the rocks.”

“Are you mad, father?” she whispered, throwing her arms round him.

“Mad? No,” he cried; “but do you think I’m blind as well as old? Bess,” he continued, “I wish before his gashly face had darkened our door – ”

“Oh father, father, dear father,” she moaned – and she crept closer and closer, till her arms were round his neck, and her head in his breast; “kill me, but don’t hurt him.”

“Then he has been trifling with thee, girl? I knowed it; I was sure it would come.”

“No, no, no,” moaned Bess; “he never said word to me but what you might hear.”

“Is – is this gawspel, Bess?” cried the old man, dragging up her convulsed and tearful face, and gazing in her wistful dark eyes.

“Can’t you see, father?” she said, with a low, despairing sigh. “I’m not good enough to be his wife, and he’s not the man to trifle and say soft things to me. You see down yonder,” she added, pitifully, as she waved one brown hand in the direction of the path.

“Nay, it’s along of Madge Mullion,” said the old man, wrathfully. “Yon’s nothing, and will come to naught. They say old Paul’s niece – ”

“It’s a lie, father, a cruel lie,” cried Bess, starting from him. “I heard it, and it’s a lie. Mr Trethick’s a gentleman, and he’s as noble as he’s good.”

“Curse him for coming here,” cried the old man fiercely.

“God bless him!” said Bess, simply, as, kneeling there, she let her joined hands drop into her lap. “God bless him for a good man, and – and – may he be very – very happy in the time to come.”

Bess Prawle’s face dropped into her hands, and she sank lower and lower, with the tears of agony growing less scalding, and falling by degrees, as it were, like balm upon her burning love – a love which she had held unveiled before her father’s gaze, while the old man bent over her, the savage roughness of his face growing less repulsive, and a look of love and pride transforming him for the time.

He knelt down and kissed her bright black hair; then he put his arms round her, and drew her to him, and at last held her to his heart, rocking to and fro as he had nursed her a dozen or fifteen years before.

“My pretty flower,” he cried hoarsely, “my Bess! He don’t know – he don’t know. You not good enough for he? Harkye, my girl. He shall marry you – he shall be proud to marry you – for I know that as will bring him to you, and put him on his knees and ask you to be his wife.”

“Father?” said the girl, looking at him wonderingly.

“Yes,” he said, nodding his head exultantly, and kissing her broad forehead. “I can make you as fine a lady as any in Cornwall, my lass, and I can bring him to you when I will.”

“No, no, no,” moaned Bessie, with a piteous smile.

“But I say yes,” cried the old man. “I haven’t had my eyes open all these years for nothing. Let’s go home, Bess; I’ll talk to thee there. Get up, my girl, and I’ll bring him to thy feet whene’er thou wilt.”

Bess rose sadly, and put her hand in her father’s, but, as they took a step forward, the nook in the cliff where she had stood at bay opened out beneath them, and they both saw that which made Bessie Prawle feel as if her heart would break.

Chapter Thirty

Making a Victim

Breakfast-time at Dr Rumsey’s, and Mrs Rumsey, in a very henny state, clucking over her brood, for whom she was cutting bread and butter.

Her name too was Charlotte, but no Werther fell in love with her when she was ingeniously trying how many square inches of bread two ounces of butter that had been warmed into oil by the fire would cover. For Mrs Rumsey was not handsome, being a soft, fair, nebulous-looking lady, who had been in the habit of presenting her husband with one or two nebulous theories of her own regularly once a year; and the “worrit” of children had not improved her personal appearance.