Kitabı oku: «The Vicar's People», sayfa 16
Chapter Thirty Three
Too Fast
It was too late to go up to An Morlock on the night of the discovery; but Geoffrey Trethick was there by breakfast-time, to find Rhoda in the morning-room, and Mr Penwynn not yet down.
Rhoda read his face as he entered and threw a heavy bag on the table to catch her hands in his.
“Half the distance got over!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “Wheal Carnac is a success.”
“Is this keeping your word, Mr Trethick?” said a stern voice; but Geoffrey and Rhoda did not start apart.
“I could not keep back my news, Mr Penwynn,” cried Geoffrey, going to the table and seizing the bag.
“News! What news?”
“That you own one of the richest mines in Cornwall, Mr Penwynn,” cried Geoffrey. “Look here.”
The banker looked at him to see if he was sane; then at the piece of ore that had been brought, which he inspected again and again through his glasses.
“Very, very rich stuff,” he said at last. “But is this from Wheal Carnac?”
“Yes, sir, as I had hoped. We have struck an enormously rich lode. The poor fellows must have been within inches of it years ago when they left off; and, yes, of course,” he said, as he recalled the noise of the water heard on the previous night, “they must have been afraid to go any farther on account of the sea.”
“And,” said Mr Penwynn, whose customary calmness was swept away by the news, “do you mean to tell me, Trethick, that Wheal Carnac is going to turn out a very valuable property?”
“I tell you, Mr Penwynn,” said Geoffrey, proudly, “that unless some strange, unforeseen accident occurs to spoil the project, Wheal Carnac has turned out an enormously valuable property.”
The banker glanced at the rich ore and then at Geoffrey, who had no hesitation in sitting down to breakfast, and drinking in with the mundane coffee the proud and joyous glances of his love.
Over the meal he told them of Pengelly’s researches, and of his announcement on the previous night; then of his visit and careful examination of the gallery.
“There’s nothing to fear,” he said, “but the water; and I dare say I can guard against that.”
The banker became very silent, and sat after Geoffrey had ended, glancing from one to the other, reading as plainly as if it were writ in plain English of his daughter’s love for the enterprising, manly young fellow at his table.
Mr Penwynn was weighing matters of the heart in his own mind, just as he would have weighed any business speculation; and when from time to time his matter-of-fact worldliness bade him treat Geoffrey in a plain business-like manner, a look from Rhoda seemed to master him, and he felt as yielding as so much modelling-clay.
“It seems a great folly,” he thought. “He is a stranger, an adventurer, and yet his first venture brings me wealth. There,” he said to himself, at last, “I’m rich enough, and I’m getting old very fast; let me see her happy if I can.”
There was something so frank and friendly in his way of speaking to Geoffrey afterwards that, without a word, Rhoda came to him, laid her hands upon his shoulders and her cheek upon his breast.
She let it lie there for a minute or two, and then, with a glance at him full of affection, she left his side, and, half-timidly, in a way so very different to her usual self, she crossed to Geoffrey and placed her hands in his.
“This is going on fast, Trethick,” said Mr Penwynn, smiling, and looking half-perplexed; “but we have only a hint of success yet. I am a man of the world, recollect, and I want to see a big banking balance to the credit of the mine.”
“Never fear, sir, that shall follow. Only give me time.”
“Well, Trethick,” said Mr Penwynn, after a struggle with self, in which, after sordidness and avarice had nearly won the victory, a look from Rhoda’s transformed, happy face turned the scale, “what am I to say to you about a share in the prosperity?”
“Let’s get the big balance in the bank first, sir,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “We will not divide a castle in the air.”
“But it would be more business-like and careful if you made your bargain now.”
“So I should have thought a month ago, Mr Penwynn,” said Geoffrey, holding out his hand. “Our interests ran together then. Now – I think – I hope – they are one, and I cannot strike bargains with the father of the woman! – ”
He stopped and looked at Rhoda, who slowly raised her eyes to his, and then her hands, which he took softly, reverently, and kissed. Then he turned to Mr Penwynn and finished his sentence – “most dearly love.”
The banker watched them very thoughtfully, for it seemed hardly real to him. In fact, at times he asked himself if it were not a dream.
He was roused from recollections of his own career, some five-and-twenty years before, by Geoffrey turning to him abruptly.
“Mr Penwynn,” he said, “I leave myself in your hands. I am working in our mutual interests.”
“And suppose I play false?” said Mr Penwynn.
“You can’t, sir,” cried Geoffrey, “with Rhoda here. If you treated me hard, you would be behaving ill to your daughter, and that you will not do. Now, good-morning. When will you come down and see the lode?”
“I’m not fond of going down mines,” said Mr Penwynn.
“But in this case you will, I think,” said Geoffrey. – “I’ll answer for your safety. Miss Penwynn – Rhoda?”
“Yes,” she cried, answering his unspoken question, “I will come down too. I shall not be afraid, and I want to christen the Rhoda vein.”
“To be sure,” cried Geoffrey, “the vein that is to bring us all wealth and happiness.”
He hurried away, and Rhoda ran to the window to see him pass; while Mr Penwynn picked up the piece of tin ore, balanced it in his hands, and, recalling certain rumours of tricks that had been played upon mine-owners, he said to himself, —
“Suppose he should play me false?”
And directly after, when he saw Rhoda’s hand waved to Trethick, as he glanced back, —
“Suppose he should play her false?” for certain other rumours came to his mind. “Poor girl, it would break her heart.”
Just then, bright, flushed, and animated, Rhoda turned to him.
“No,” he said to himself, “she has too much pride.”
Chapter Thirty Four
A Bargain
“What?” roared Tregenna, furiously.
“It’ll turn out the richest mine in Cornwall, sir.”
“You’re a fool! Absurd! Ridiculous!” cried Tregenna, biting his nails, and then making his teeth grit together as he glared at the rough miner before him.
“Dessay I be,” said the man, surlily; “but I’ve been at work in the gallery all day, and I never see such tin ore before.”
“And I’ve let this go for a paltry few hundreds – a thousand or two at most,” muttered Tregenna. “But it can’t be true. Are you sure?” he said aloud.
“Sure enough, sir, and I thought you’d like to know. I didn’t expect to be called a fool for my pains.”
“No, no, of course not, Lannoe,” said Tregenna, hurriedly. “I was put out. I’ve heard the gossip all day, but I thought it exaggerated. I’m glad you’ve come.”
“Oh, there’s no ’zaggeration ’bout it,” said the man. “I’ve kept an eye on it all ever since the mine was dried, just as you wished, and they was getting nothing but rubbish, till Amos Pengelly, who was always picking about, hit upon this vein.”
“Damn Amos Pengelly!” cried Tregenna, savagely.
“To which I says ‘Amen,’” said the miner.
“Then the place will turn out immensely rich, and that fellow Trethick will make quite a fortune.”
“Iss, sir, that’s so,” said the miner. “Master Penwynn and young miss come down in the cage to-night to see it, and young miss took hold of a pick that Master Trethick held for her, and chipped off a bit or two, and there was a lot of smiling atween ’em.”
Tregenna’s face turned ghastly white, and he changed his position so that the man should not see it; but the miner was keen enough to read him, and he went on, evidently glorying in the torture he was inflicting.
“Master Trethick took ’em back to the cage, and helped young miss in again, and went up with them, and him and Master Penwynn seemed wonderful thick together.”
Tregenna’s face was ashy now, and he made a motion with one hand for the man to desist, but he went on.
“It do seem hard, sir,” he said, “when, after planting the mine on to Master Penwynn, believing it would half ruin him and do for that there Trethick, it should turn out all t’other way.”
“How did you know I had any such thoughts?” cried Tregenna, fiercely.
“How did I know?” said the man, chuckling. “You know I arn’t a fool, Mas’r Tregenna, or you wouldn’t have set me to get work in that there mine, and report every thing to you.”
For answer Tregenna unlocked a drawer in his table, and took out a packet of papers, neatly endorsed, and tied up with red tape.
“Look here, Lannoe,” he said, shaking the papers at the man, “your tongue runs too fast, and you forget your position. You are a man of bad character whom I got off at the assize for a crime that would have given you penal servitude. You can be a useful man; and when you came to me begging I gave you money and I got you work. Suppose, on further consideration of your case, I should find out that there was a little evidence left out that would convict you, and feel it my duty to make it known, so that the prosecution could have a new trial?”
“You wouldn’t do that, Mas’r Tregenna, sir,” growled the man. “I’m too useful to you. There, I’ll hold my tongue.”
“You had better,” said Tregenna, who had now somewhat recovered himself. “And so this mine’s going to be enormously rich?”
“Not a doubt of it, sir, unless the water breaks in.”
“Water breaks in? What, is the vein near the sea?”
“Goes right under it, sir,” said the man, watching intently where the packet of papers was placed, Tregenna seeing it, and resolving to place them elsewhere. “You see, the people who failed seem to have driven right in there, till, finding nothing, they were afraid to go farther for fear of the sea breaking through.”
“And might it not break through now?”
“Well, it might, sir; but Master Trethick’s one of your clever, careful sort, and he’ll take care that nothing goes wrong. He had the men busy with props, and struts, and planking all day long. There’ll be no water break in there.”
“Curse it, it’s most unfortunate!” cried Tregenna, biting his nails. “I’d have given any thing sooner than it should have turned out as it has.”
“Hundred pound, p’r’aps,” said Lannoe, looking at him sidewise.
“Yes, I’d have given a hundred pounds if the mine had turned out a failure.”
“Hand it over,” said the miner, abruptly.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you’d give a hundred pounds if that there mine turned out a complete failure, and I say hand it over.”
“Look here, Lannoe,” cried Tregenna, unable to contain his excitement, “can you – do you know – curse it, man, speak out!”
“What for? What’s the good?” said the man, hoarsely. “Hundred pounds – hundred pounds. Give me the hundred pounds and you’ll see.”
Tregenna looked at him strangely.
“I don’t pay for work until it’s done,” he said.
“And I don’t work unless I’m paid,” said the man, roughly.
“And suppose you break faith?”
“And suppose you get me tried all over again?” said Lannoe. “Look here, Master Tregenna, you’re a gentleman, and I’m only a rough miner, but we are both on the same road. I arn’t blind, so you may just as well speak plain. I know, you know, and speak plain, and don’t hide it from you about Bess Prawle, and my being kicked off and threatened. You don’t suppose I let Amos Pengelly half kill me when he threw me on the rocks without owing him for it and wanting to pay it back, even if I do work with him now all smooth? Why can’t you speak plain too? I know, you know, about your wanting young miss, and the old man saying you shouldn’t, and your Amos Pengelly – this here bullying, ordering Londoner – coming and throwing you. There, master, you’d better hand over that hundred pounds.”
“And if I do?” said Tregenna, leaning forward, placing his elbows on the table as he faced Lannoe, and joined his hands carefully as if he were going to say his prayers.
“Wait and see,” said the man. “You don’t want to know, sir. You want to hear that Wheal Carnac’s a failure, and I’m the man as can make it one. Now what do you say?”
Tregenna remained thinking for a time, with hate and revenge against cautiousness fighting for the mastery.
It was two to one, and cautiousness was beaten.
“I’ll give you the hundred pounds, Lannoe,” he said; “but I warn you that if you play me false I’ll have the police on your track at once. You may think think you could get away, or throw it back in my face that I set you to do something; but you could not get away, and my character would be set against yours if you brought any charge against me.”
“Who’s going to?” cried the man.
“And if it cost me a couple of thousand pounds, man, I’d have you in the dock.”
“Don’t I tell you I’d do any thing to pay Amos Pengelly, master. Hand over that money.”
“I have not got it here,” said Tregenna.
“What?”
“You don’t suppose a gentleman keeps a hundred pounds always in his pocket, do you?”
“I should,” said the man, grimly, “if I’d got it. Give us a bit o’ paper then to take to the bank to-morrow.”
“Shall I tell the crier to go round and shout that I have given you a hundred pounds for some reason or another? Don’t be a fool, man!”
“Give me notes, then,” said Lannoe.
“Every one of which, if I had them, would be numbered as having been paid to me. No, Lannoe, I have given you my word that I will pay you; and, what is more,” he cried, excitedly, “if – if, I say – you understand? I’ll give you another fifty.”
“Shake hands,” said the man; and Tregenna unwillingly placed his white beringed fingers in the miner’s horny paw, to take them out afterwards red and crushed.
“I’ll trust you, Lannoe, and you must trust me.”
“Right, master,” said the miner. “Then look here. Where – ”
“That will do,” said Tregenna. “I want to know nothing. I’ll hear nothing. Come to me some day when you think it wise, and there is the money for you.”
He pointed to the door, and the man nodded and went away.
Chapter Thirty Five
Under the Sea
Busy times in Wheal Carnac. There had been plenty of visitors in the shape of managers of different mines, to whom the news had come; and all went away astounded at the wealth of the new vein. The demand for shares was enormous, but there were none to be had. Tregenna had had the last, taken to blind Mr Penwynn, and he had sold them to Dr Rumsey, who had invested the whole of his wife’s little fortune in the mine, and the next morning after the news had spread, the doctor had hurried up to the cottage, where Geoffrey was seated at breakfast with Uncle Paul, an unusually fine sole from the trawler having brought them together.
Madge opened the door to the doctor, who shook hands with her in a friendly way; and then, as their eyes met, Madge’s friendly smile changed into a look of fear, under the doctor’s searching gaze. She flushed, then turned deadly pale, and ended by shrinking back with a piteous look, and holding up her hands in a pleading way.
Dr Rumsey’s lips tightened, and he said quietly, —
“Tell Mr Trethick I am here.”
“Come in, Rumsey,” cried Geoffrey’s hearty voice. “You’re in time for breakfast, man. You are just right. Uncle Paul’s as bilious as – as himself.”
Madge was forgotten for the moment, and the doctor shook hands warmly with the young man and with Uncle Paul, as a chair was placed for him, and the bell rung for a cup and saucer and plate, for, truth to say, though the doctor had partaken of the morning meal, he sometimes rose from it with a better appetite than was quite necessary for a proper fulfilment of the digestive functions.
“My dear Trethick,” he cried, with the tears in his eyes, “God bless you for the hint! The news about the mine is glorious.”
“That’s right,” said Geoffrey. “Eat your sole, man, before it gets cold,” for a hot plate had been brought in by Madge herself, who seemed very eager to attend upon the visitor.
“You – you don’t mean to say that you have been investing in mining shares, Rumsey?” cried Uncle Paul.
“Indeed, but I hope he has,” said Geoffrey, heartily.
“I have: every penny we had,” cried the doctor.
“More fool you!” cried Uncle Paul. “Why, Rumsey, how can you expect a man to trust you with his internal management if you go and do such insane things?”
“Uncle Paul don’t believe in the mine even yet,” said Geoffrey, laughing. “That will do, Miss Madge,” he said; “I’ll ring for more hot water if we want it.”
The doctor saw Madge’s appealing look at him, and a half-frightened glance at Geoffrey, and he saw too, as the girl left the room, that Uncle Paul was watching him very narrowly.
When he spoke again his manner was changed, and there was quite a coldness about it, which Geoffrey noticed.
“You hold on,” he said, attributing it to nervousness caused by Uncle. Paul’s attitude – “you hold on, Rumsey, and don’t you be tempted at any price to sell. I warrant, my dear fellow, that you’ve made by that one stroke a handsome provision for your wife, more than you could have made by doctoring the whole county.”
“Then why don’t you invest?” snarled Uncle Paul.
“Because I’ve got no money,” said Geoffrey, coolly. “Why don’t you, who have?”
“Because I’m not quite such an old fool as you think.”
The doctor warmed up again under the sunshine of Geoffrey’s cheery ways, and soon after they were walking down towards the cliff, the doctor thanking Geoffrey again heartily as they parted, the one to make his rounds, the other to go to the busy mine.
Geoffrey had not gone half-way before he met old Prawle, coming direct from Wheal Carnac.
“Hallo, old man!” he cried. “How’s poor mother? By Jove, I must come and see the dear old lady again.”
“Better – better,” said Prawle, hastily.
“That’s well; and Miss Bessie?”
“Yes, yes, quite well,” said the old man, hastily. “I want to see you.”
“Come along down to my office. Been to the mine?”
“Yes, yes. I’ve been down.”
“Ah, you old fox!” cried Geoffrey. “You wouldn’t tell me, but you see we found it out.”
“Yes, yes,” said Prawle, still speaking in a hasty way, contrary to his wont. “I’ll buy some shares.”
“No, you won’t,” said Geoffrey, laughing.
“Why not, eh? You’ll let me?”
“There isn’t a share to be had, old man. No, sir, you are too late. You, knowing what you did, Prawle, should have made friends, and taken your share of the good things.”
The old man looked at him with a curiously sly expression of countenance.
“None to be had?” he said, dubiously.
“Not a share, Father Prawle: for those who hold them know their value now, and will not part.”
The old fellow hesitated as if he half meant to say something, but he did not say it, and went his way; while Geoffrey went on to the mine, busied himself a little about some fresh arrangements for stampers and improved crushing apparatus, and then descended the mine to seek out Pengelly.
He found him hard at work superintending a gang of wielders of the pick, eager to make a goodly show of ore to send up to grass, and Geoffrey stopped about till the men went off to their dinners, when he and Pengelly had a long conversation about the state of the mine at this place.
“I’ve been measuring and calculating, Pengelly, and I find that you are so near the water here that not an inch must be cut on the face of the drive, rich as it is. We must go down, and trust to finding the lode right away.”
“What, and leave this?” said Pengelly. “Why, it’s madness.”
“Madness or no, I shall not have it touched, Pengelly,” said Trethick, firmly. “Lay your ear against the rock. You can almost feel the beat of the water. I make it that we are right out four hundred feet under the sea at high water. We must run no risks.”
For answer Pengelly began to ply his pick vigorously on the floor of the gallery, marking out the portion to be sunk so as to be deeper down in the rock, and where there would be no risk of the sea breaking in.
Geoffrey had well made his plans by night, and was the last, as he thought, to leave the pit, and he then went straight to his rooms to refresh himself before writing to several engineers for various necessaries that would be required for the greatly increased output from the mine.
