The Vicar's People

Her face was, as a rule, white, and soft, and heavy, dotted with dull branny freckles, while the possession of a soft retroussé nose that seemed loosely attached to her skin, and travelled a good deal out of place whenever she twitched her countenance, as she often did spasmodically, did not add to her attractions.

Unfortunately for Dr Rumsey, his wife’s notable care of her children did not extend to herself, for as she grew older she also grew more and more unkempt. While he, as he saw it, would sigh and thrust his hands into his pockets all but his thumbs, which stood out and worked as she unfolded to him her family cares, giving them the aspect of two handles in the mechanism by which he was moved.

“Any thing will do for me,” was her favourite expression; and, in the belief that she was lessening the burthen on her husband’s shoulders, she made herself less attractive in his eyes year by year, and grew more dowdy. How the fact that his wife’s hair was not parted exactly in the middle, and left unbrushed, could affect his income, Dr Rumsey never knew; neither could he see that it was any saving for a hook on a dress front to be inserted in the wrong eye, or for his wife’s boots to be down at the heel and unlaced. Such, however, was the state in which Mrs Rumsey was often seen, though, to do her justice, the children were her constant care, in both senses of the word.

He saw all this and sighed, giving his ears a pull now and then, telling himself that they tightened his skin and drew the wrinkles out of his face; while, when his lady was extra sensitive and nervous – in other words, disposed to blame – he would shrug his shoulders, button up his coat, turn up his collar; and upon one occasion he even sent the good lady into a passionate fit of hysterics, by putting up an old umbrella to shelter him till the storm had done.

“Ah, Rumsey!” she would say, “I don’t know what you would do without me. If you had not me to take care of you and yours, you would be lost indeed.”

The lady did not seem to consider it a case of his and hers, but went on behaving as if she were a kind of upper servant or nursery governess, while he wanted a companion and help. Certainly she opened his clean pocket-handkerchiefs for him, for fear he should look dandified; and she taught his children well according to her lights, though her teachings certainly had the appearance of what Mrs Mullion called drilling, for she was very strict.

But somehow the doctor was not happy, and spent as little of his time as possible at home. When a wet day compelled him to stop in, as the streams were flooded, he amused himself by going over his fishing-tackle, or making weather-cocks to place out in his garden to scare away the birds, which were supposed to be tempted by the fruit.

On this particular morning, with her cap awry, and looking more unkempt than usual, Mrs Rumsey was very lachrymose and very busy, carving away at the bread and butter, and rocking the cradle with one foot, while at times she cast an occasional eye out of the open door at her twins, Billy and Dilly, two sturdy little boys a couple of years old, fair, fat, and so much alike that it required study to avoid mistakes. They were toddling up and down the pebble garden-path, each with a feeding bottle tied to his waist, the long india-rubber pipe reaching upwards, and the mouth-piece between his lips, the pair looking like a couple of young Turks enjoying a morning hookah in the open air.

The other children were already in their places, sniffing occasionally and looking longingly at the pile of bread-and-butter mounting high, what time mamma gave them torture lessons during the preparation for the meal.

“Why don’t your father come?” she said, dolefully, as she looked impatiently at the door. “He always will stay with his patients so much longer than he need. Who’s that coming?”

“Madge Mullion, ma,” cried the eldest-born, a long, thin girl, whose face lit up as there was a bang of the garden gate and a rustling of skirts; and, after bending down to kiss the children, Madge, looking very pale and pretty, came in without ceremony.

“How are you?” she cried, kissing Mrs Rumsey.

“Very poorly, my dear,” whined the doctor’s wife. “These children will worrit me into my grave.”

“No, no,” cried Madge, as she faced round. “Have you any news?”

“No, my dear, there’s never any news down in this lost out-of-the-way place. Dr Rumsey always would persist in leaving London, or he might have been having his guinea fee from every patient, and keeping his carriage by now.”

“Then it isn’t true!” said Madge, with a sigh of relief.

“What, my dear? – Priscilla, if you will persist in sniffing so, I certainly will slap you.”

The young lady addressed immediately began tugging at a pocket-handkerchief, secured by one end to the waistband of some under-garment, and bent her young body like an arc to get a good blow.

“I have been to the shop, and heard that Mr Tregenna was taken ill in the night.”

“Oh, yes, my dear, he was. Papa was called up at two o’clock, and he hasn’t come back yet.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Madge, turning paler.

“That he has, ma,” cried the eldest boy. “I got up at five to see what time it was, and pa was just going out with his fishing-rod; and he told me to go back quietly to bed and not wake anybody.”

“Then you’re a naughty, wicked boy, Bobby, for not saying so sooner,” cried Mrs Rumsey, angrily. “Don’t make that noise, or you shall have no breakfast.”

Bobby was drawing a long breath for a furious howl, but he glanced hungrily at the bread and butter, smoothed his countenance, and put off the performance for the present.

“I declare it’s too bad,” continued mamma; “he knows how anxious I am when he’s away, and yet he comes creeping back at daybreak, like a burglar, to steal his own fishing-tackle, and goes, no one knows where, after a few nasty trout.”

“Then Mr Tregenna must be better,” said Madge.

“Oh, yes, my dear, he’s better,” said Mrs Rumsey, petulantly. “What a silly girl you are to think of such things. I’m sure I ought to be a framing to you. Look at me!”

Certainly, as an example against entering into the marriage state Mrs Rumsey was a warning; but, like most other such warnings, ineffectual.

“I couldn’t help calling just to try and hear a few words,” said Madge; “but you won’t betray me, dear?”

“Oh, no, I won’t tell, Madge,” said Mrs Rumsey, a little less grimly, and evidently greatly delighted at being made the repository of the young girl’s love affair. “But I do wonder at you, Madge,” she said, in a whisper, with a slice of bread and butter half cut. “John Tregenna’s all very well, and certainly he has a noble nose, but you’ve got somebody far nicer at home.”

“Yes, isn’t he nice?” whispered back Madge.

“I’ve only seen him once, dear, but I thought him far before John Tregenna.”

“Yes,” said Madge, sighing.

“Yes, I know, my dear. John Tregenna has such a way with him.”

“He has indeed,” said Madge, sighing again.

“Ah, well, my dear,” said Mrs Rumsey, finishing the slice, and laying it in its place upon the pile, “I ought not to say any thing against it, if you are set upon such a wilful course, for John Tregenna is papa’s patient, and of course you would be; and what with measles, and chicken-pox, and scarlatina, your family would be a help.”

“Oh, Charlotte dear!” exclaimed Madge.

“Ah, you may say, ‘Oh, Charlotte dear!’ but it must come to that; and a good thing too, for I’m sure our income’s limited enough, and – Oh, here he is at last, and his boots wet through. There, now: if there ever was an unreasonable man, it’s my husband. He’s bringing that Mr Trethick in to breakfast.”

“Oh, what shall I do?” cried Madge, to her companion. “Let me go without his seeing me.”

“You can slip out at the back,” said Mrs Rumsey, “and he won’t see you.”

But Madge thought it would look so cowardly, and, after a glance at the glass, determined to face Geoffrey, who was half pushed into the room by the doctor.

“Ma, dear, here’s Mr Trethick. We’ve had a couple of hours up the stream.”

“And there’s nothing but bread and butter, papa,” said Mrs Rumsey, in an injured tone. “I didn’t know you were going to bring company.”

“Company? I am not company,” said Geoffrey, merrily. “I’m a patient in prospective, and the doctor prescribes bread and butter. I was brought up on that happy animal and vegetable combination. Ah, Miss Mullion, good-morning! Who’d have thought of seeing you here? I say, I want to have a good laugh at those two little Turks out in the front.”

“Yes, Mr Trethick,” said Mrs Rumsey, pitifully, “indeed they are young Turks; but won’t you sit down?”

“Don’t let me disturb you, Miss Mullion,” he cried.

“Oh, I’m going, Mr Trethick,” said Madge, giving Mrs Rumsey a wistful look, which she interpreted aright, and acted accordingly.

“How is Mr Tregenna?” she said to her husband.

“Tregenna? Oh, ah, yes, to be sure! I had forgotten him. He’s all right again. Called me up in the middle of the night; said he was dying. Fit of indigestion; lives too well. I am always telling him so. He’s getting a liver as bad as old Paul. He works it too hard, and then it strikes, and telegraphs messages all over the body even to the toes, and then there’s a riot, for all the other organs strike too.”

“Then he was not seriously ill, papa?” said Mrs Rumsey, after another glance from Madge.

“Not he. Guilty conscience, perhaps. Sent for me for nothing. I told him he’d cry ‘Wolf!’ once too often, and I shouldn’t go.”

As Madge heard this she glided out of the room, and made her way unperceived to the front, and out into the street, in sublime unconsciousness that Miss Pavey was at her window, with a a very shabby little tortoise-shell-covered opera-glass, by means of which she had been intently watching the doctor’s house.

“Ah, me! Poor Rhoda!” she said to herself; “but it’s not for me to say any thing, only to pity the poor deluded girl. Oh, these men, these men!”

Meanwhile, after a few words to his guest, Dr Rumsey turned an eye to business.

“Ah, Tregenna!” he said; “must not forget him. Prissy fetch me the day-book. I’ll enter that while I remember it.”

“No, papa,” said Mrs Rumsey in an ill-used tone, as she frowned the little girl back in her place, “leave that till Mr Trethick has gone. If you will expose our poverty by bringing visitors to breakfast, don’t forget all the past, and let Mr Trethick go away thinking we have quite degenerated into Cornish fishermen and miners.”

“Oh, Trethick won’t think that,” said the doctor heartily.

“Indeed I should not,” said Geoffrey merrily. “How about the trout, doctor?”

“To be sure,” cried the doctor, “we must have them.”

“Don’t, pray, say you have brought home any nasty trout to be cooked for breakfast, my dear,” cried Mrs Rumsey imploringly. “I really could not get them cooked.”

“Oh, never mind, my dear,” said the doctor, rubbing his ear in rather a vexed way. “You won’t mind, Trethick; you shall take them home with you.”

“Mind? Not I,” said Geoffrey.

“Of course if Mr Trethick particularly wishes trout for breakfast, I’ll go and broil a brace myself,” said Mrs Rumsey in an ill-used whine.

“I protest against any such proceeding,” cried Geoffrey, who had been brought home by the doctor on purpose to partake of their spoil. “In fact, I rather dislike fish for breakfast,” he added mendaciously. “There, that’s capital. I’ll sit here between these two young rosy-cheeked rogues,” he cried, “and we’ll have a race and see who’ll eat most slices of bread and butter.”

Mrs Rumsey stood with the coffee-pot in one hand, looking at him aghast.

“And we’ll cut for ourselves,” said Geoffrey, smiling.

Mrs Rumsey was thawed, especially as papa fetched the loaf and butter, and placed them on the table.

“There, Trethick, make yourself at home,” he said; “we can’t afford ceremony here.”

“Glad of it,” said Geoffrey, making one of his little neighbours laugh. “Why, Mrs Rumsey, you ought to be proud of your children. What a jolly, healthy little lot they are.”

“Little?” cried Rumsey, pausing with his cup half-way to his lips.

“I mean in size, not number. Miss Prissy, if you look at me so hard with those blue eyes I shall think you are counting how many bites I take.”

“Oh, I’m very proud of them,” said Mrs Rumsey in a tone of voice that sounded like a preface to a flood of tears, “but it is a large family to care for and educate.”

“Yes, it is,” replied Geoffrey. “Mr Rumsey tells me that you educate them entirely yourself.”

“Yes, quite,” cried Mrs Rumsey, brightening a little. “Priscilla, say your bones.”

To Geoffrey’s astonishment Miss Priscilla put her hands behind, and began, with her mouth full of bread and butter —

“Flanges and metacarpals, hands and feet; tibia, fibula, femur, scapular, clavicle, ulna, radius, costa – vertebra – maxillary – minimum – Please, ma, I don’t know any more;” and Miss Priscilla sat down suddenly and took another bite of her bread and butter.

“Bravo!” laughed Geoffrey. “Well, young lady, I don’t think I could have remembered so many.”

“She knows her muscles too,” said Mrs Rumsey.

“Yes, but we won’t have them now,” said the doctor, quietly.

“Ah,” sighed Mrs Rumsey, who felt injured, “but it is a very large family.”

“Yes, but they look so healthy,” continued Geoffrey. “Eh, coffee not strong enough, Mrs Rumsey? It’s delicious. What beautiful butter?”

Mrs Rumsey seemed softened by her guest’s homeliness.

“I wish I was as healthy,” she sighed.

“So do I,” said Geoffrey. “I’ll be bound to say papa does not waste much medicine on them.”

Dr Rumsey screwed up his face a little at this, and laughed.

“Dr Rumsey is very clever,” said Mrs Rumsey, who – in her efforts to supply wants, cast an eye at the cradle, and see that the children behaved well before company – got into such a tangle that she besugared some cups twice, and some not at all. “I always say to him that he is throwing himself away down here.”

“You do, my dear, always,” said the doctor uneasily.

“There is so little to do,” continued Mrs Rumsey, who got nothing to eat herself. “Priscilla, take your spoon in your right hand.”

“Please, ma, my coffee’s got no sugar,” observed Bobby.

“There is no sugar in my coffee,” said mamma correctively, as she gave her nose a twitch which sent it half an inch on one side. “Tom, sit up, sir. Yes, Mr Trethick, if my husband had his dues as a medical man, he would be in Harley Street, or in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square.”

“As a specialist, eh?” said Geoffrey.

“Yes, Mr Trethick. Esther, my dear, why will you fill your mouth so full?”

“Still, life down here is very jolly, Mrs Rumsey,” said Geoffrey, handing bread and butter to two or three hungry souls. “See how the little rascals eat.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, “that’s just what they do do.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Rumsey, endorsing her husband’s words, “their appetites are dreadful; and the doctor has so little business.”

“Yes, there isn’t much, only a mining accident now and then, or a half-drowned man or two to attend,” said Rumsey.

“My pa brought a man to life again,” said Bobby, gazing round-eyed at the visitor.

“Did he though?” said Geoffrey.

“Bobby, hold your tongue.”

“Tom Jennen said he did,” whispered the boy; “and my pa’s very clever.”

“Yes,” sighed Mrs Rumsey, “he is clever.”

“Hero worship,” said the doctor to Geoffrey, with his eyes twinkling.

“That’s your great fault, dear,” said Mrs Rumsey, giving her nose a twitch in the other direction. “It was that which kept you so back in London. You know you are very clever.”

“I’m setting a good example to my neighbours in having my house well garrisoned,” said the doctor dryly. “I’m not at all ashamed to speak to my enemies in the gate – except when they come with their bills,” he added softly.

“For shame, dear,” cried Mrs Rumsey, “what will Mr Trethick think?”

“Think, ma’am,” cried Geoffrey, “that he ought to be proud of his children. I never saw any better-behaved at table.”

“He is proud of them, I must say,” said Mrs Rumsey, who was beginning to forgive her visitor for coming to breakfast; “and if he had justice done to him people would own how clever he is.”

“Clever at throwing a fly, Trethick, that’s all.”

“Well, I shall have to tumble down a shaft, or get blown up, or catch a fever, or something, to try him some day, Mrs Rumsey.”

“Ah, a few more patients would be a godsend,” said the doctor.

“My papa cut a man’s leg right off once,” said Bobby, sententiously.

“Then your papa must be a clever man,” said Geoffrey, looking amusedly at the stolid little face.

“Bobby, you must not say such things,” cried Mrs Rumsey. “Little boys should be seen and not heard. Prissy, my dear, you are swinging your legs about again.”

“And he’s got a wooden leg now – like an armchair,” whispered Bobby, very softly, as soon as he saw his mother’s attention taken up.

“There was no chance in London, Trethick,” said the doctor. “I’d no capital, except children, and the rents were ruinous. Besides, you have to keep up appearances to such an extent.”

“But the people there were not barbarians, my dear,” sighed Mrs Rumsey.

“Well, my dear, and they are not here. We live, and manage to pay our way – nearly; and when they come to know you, the people are very sociable. We do have capital whist parties.”

“But you know I detest whist, dear,” sighed Mrs Rumsey. “Let me send you another cup of coffee, Mr Trethick.”

“Thanks,” said Geoffrey. “The fact is, I suppose,” he continued to his host, “there are not enough inhabitants to give you a good practice.”

“That’s it, so I fill up with catching trout, and making a few shillings at whist.”

“Yes, dear, you always would play whist,” sighed Mrs Rumsey; and, to Geoffrey’s horror, her nose this time went right up, as if to visit her forehead.

“Capital game too,” said the doctor. “That and fishing often keep me from having the blues.”

“Why don’t you try and invest in some good mining speculation?” said Geoffrey.

“First, because I’ve got very little to invest; secondly, because where there is a good spec, there’s no chance of getting on.”

“Try Wheal Carnac,” said Geoffrey.

“Do you mean to tell me, as man to man, that that is going to turn up trumps?” said the doctor, with a little more animation.

“I do indeed,” said Geoffrey; “and if I had any money, I’d invest the lot.”

“What, after so many people had been ruined in it?”

“Look here, doctor,” said Geoffrey. “Suppose you go and take a house in, say Grosvenor Street, and start as physician.”

“That’s just what he ought to do,” cried Mrs Rumsey, who began to think Geoffrey full of sound common-sense.

“Well, you would be sure to get some connection.”

“Of course, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep me.”

“Exactly. Then another man, still retaining your plate on the door, comes, because you give it up in despair – fail, so to speak.”

“Oh, dear no!” sighed Mrs Rumsey; but her attention was taken off by her children, two of whom were having a silent quarrel, and indulging in furtive kicks and pinches beneath the table.

“Go on,” said the doctor.

“Well, he next fails, after increasing the connection, and another takes the place, and another after him.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the last one has some connection to start with, adds his own efforts, and goes on and prospers, like a son succeeding his father.”

“You mean to say then that you succeed to something in Wheal Carnac.”

“I say that we succeed to all the work the others have done. There is the shaft sunk and the buildings ready, and with our machinery fixed, all that was needed was that we should go to work with plenty of enterprise.”

“But suppose it don’t succeed – suppose you can’t bring your patient back to life?”

“My papa brought a man back – ”

“Be quiet, Bobby, when your papa’s talking,” cried Mrs Rumsey, who had to go out then to use the family handkerchief upon the noses of the hookah-smoking twins.

“But I shall bring it back to life,” said Geoffrey, firmly. “As you would say, the organs are all sound, and all it wanted was a stimulus to send the life-blood throbbing through the patient’s veins.”

“Veins of tin, eh?” said the doctor.

“Perhaps of copper too,” said Geoffrey. “If you have a hundred or two to spare – ”

“I’ve got four or five hundred of my wife’s money, but not to spare,” said the doctor. “Brings us in three and a half per cent.”

“I wouldn’t promise,” said Geoffrey, enthusiastically; “but I sha’n’t be satisfied if I don’t make that mine return its company thirty, forty, perhaps fifty, per cent.”

“Dr Rumsey,” said the lady, whose nose had been travelling in quite a circle round the centre of her face, “it is your duty to invest that money in this mine.”

“But it isn’t a regular company, is it?”

“No,” said Geoffrey, “but it is in my power to get a little interest in the affair for a friend.”

“If I could feel sure,” said the doctor, dubiously.

“I would not advise you against your good,” said Geoffrey, earnestly. “I am certain the mine will pay.”

“Thirty, forty, or fifty per cent?”

“No,” said Geoffrey. “I only hope that; but I’ll warrant six or seven, perhaps fourteen.”

“It would about ruin us,” said the doctor, “if it was like most mines – a failure.”

“My dear, I’m ashamed of you,” cried Mrs Rumsey. “You always would fight against every chance of advancement. It is my money, and I say it shall be invested. There?”

The way in which Mrs Rumsey’s nose twitched at this juncture was something surprising, and made Geoffrey quite uncomfortable.

“Well,” he said, rising, “I must go. Mrs Rumsey, thank you for a charming breakfast. Rumsey, you think over that, and, look here, if you do think of it seriously, come up to me – soon.”

“He shall, Mr Trethick,” said the lady, decidedly.

“I will – think over it,” said the doctor. “But, look here, if I do play and lose the rubber, don’t you come to me when you are ill, or I’ll give you such a dosing.”

“My papa keeps it in a bottle,” said Bobby, in a whisper.

“Does he? Well, we’ll hope the stopper is never removed on my behalf,” said Geoffrey. “But, look here,” he cried, as he remembered something. “I’ve got two paper bags in my pocket;” and he dragged out the effects of his two last visits to Mrs Prawle, leaving the children in a high state of delight, and Mrs Rumsey telling her husband that if he had had the energy of Geoffrey Trethick he would be keeping his brougham, and she sitting in silk and satin, instead of having to wash up the breakfast things, while their one servant made the beds.

Chapter Thirty One

Geoffrey Makes Love

A long morning in the mine, now thoroughly cleared of water, and where, under the leadership of Dicky Pengelly, the picks were ringing merrily. Geoffrey had little good news to report, for the lode of tin was excessively poor; but all the same he felt that he could work on at a profit, and at any time they might strike a good rich vein. There was nothing, then, to mind.

He had reported every thing to Mr Penwynn exactly as it occurred, and that gentleman seemed not only perfectly satisfied, but encouraged him to go on.

“I have made the venture, Trethick,” he said, “and I will not play with it. I look to you to pull me up if it is going to be a losing affair; but it seems to me that to withhold capital would be a miserable policy: so go on. Do you think it can become worse?”

“No,” said Geoffrey, firmly, “that I do not. The fact is, Mr Penwynn, I am disappointed in the mine.”

“Disappointed? You don’t mean – ”

“No, no, sir, I’m not beaten,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “I mean I am disappointed in the mine, and I have found out two or three things about it.”

“What sort of things?” said Mr Penwynn, uneasily.

“Trickeries – sharpings,” said Geoffrey. “It is very evident that to sell that mine, or may be to impress shareholders with its value, the place has been more than once salted, as miners call it.”

Mr Penwynn nodded.

“Tin ore from other mines has been thrown down, and, of course, I saw through that directly; but in several places right at the end of drifts, Pengelly and I have found great pieces of ore fitted into the solid rock in the most artful manner, so that it needed no little care to find out that it was a trick.”