Kitabı oku: «The Vicar's People», sayfa 18
Chapter Thirty Eight
A Stormy Interview
Geoffrey Trethick’s slumbers were very short and disturbed, and, after tossing about for some time, he got up to think out his position. The events of the past night seemed dream-like now, and there were times when he was ready to treat them as hallucinations; but the sea-soaked suit of clothes thrown over a chair were proof positive of the reality of poor Madge Mullion’s attempted suicide, and his brow contracted as he thought of the wretched girl’s state.
“Poor lass!” he muttered; and by the light of the doctor’s charge he read a score of trifles which had been sealed to him before.
“I’ll go straight down to him, and have it out as soon as he’s up. An idiot! What the deuce does he mean? However, I’ll soon put that right.”
He looked at his watch and found it was only seven, so that it would be of no use to go down yet to Rumsey’s. He could not sleep, and he did not feel disposed to read, so he determined to go for a walk till breakfast-time, and then he would have a talk to Mrs Mullion and Uncle Paul.
But he had no sooner made up his mind to speak to them on the poor girl’s behalf than he began to realise the delicacy of his position.
Suppose they took the same view of the case as Dr Rumsey?
“Confound it all!” he cried. “How absurd, to be sure.”
He finished dressing, opened door and window, and went down, meeting the servant girl looking red-eyed and dishevelled, as if she had not been to bed all night.
He had seen that Uncle Paul’s bedroom door was wide open, but did not note that the bed had been unoccupied; and he was, therefore, not surprised to hear the old man’s cough as he entered his own room.
“Trethick! Trethick!” he called, and Geoffrey crossed the passage, meeting Mrs Mullion, who ran out with her handkerchief to her eyes, and her face averted.
“Ashamed of being so hard on her child,” thought Geoffrey; and then he started, shocked at the old man’s aspect, as, with his hat on, he sat there, looking yellow, wrinkled, sunken of eye and cheek, with all his quick, sharp ways gone, and with generally the aspect of one just recovering from some terrible shock.
“Good heavens, Mr Paul, how ill you look!” cried Geoffrey, anxiously, as the thought struck him that he had not been to bed all night.
“Yes,” said the old man, “I feel ill.”
“Let me run down and fetch Rumsey. Stop, I’ll get you a little, brandy first.”
“No, no. I don’t want brandy,” said the old man, gazing at him wildly, and with his face now cadaverous in the extreme. “Rumsey can’t help me. Help me yourself.”
“Yes. What shall I do for you?”
“Sit down, Trethick.”
He took a chair, looking intently at the speaker.
“Trethick, will you smoke a cheroot?”
“No, not now.”
“Not now? Well, another time, then,” said the old man, whose voice seemed quite changed. “I’m afraid, Trethick, I have got a dreadful temper.”
“Horrible – sometimes,” said Geoffrey, smiling.
“But my bark is worse than my bite. I’m not so bad as I seem.”
“I know that, old fellow. I always have known it.”
“You went out about nine last night, and didn’t come back till four this morning.”
“You heard me come in then?”
“Yes. We have not been to bed all night. I have been out looking for Madge.”
“Indeed!” said Geoffrey, quietly, as he bit his lips to keep back a little longer that which he knew.
“I’m not speaking angrily, am I, my boy?”
“No. I never saw you so calm before.”
“It is a calm after the storm, Trethick. I was in a terrible fit last night. Mrs Mullion, my sister-in-law, confessed it all to me, and I was mad with the disgrace. I – I struck her. Yes,” he continued, pitifully, “I was a brute, I know. I – I struck her – that poor, weak, foolish girl, and drove her from the house.”
“You – struck her, Mr Paul?” said Geoffrey.
“Yes, my boy. I was mad, for she did not deny her shame, only begged me to kill her, and then – then, she uttered a wild cry, and ran out of the house. I seem to hear it now,” he continued, with a shudder. “I’ve been out searching for her, but – but I have not told a soul. We must keep it quiet, Trethick, for all our sakes. But tell me, did she – did she come to you?”
“No,” said Geoffrey, sternly.
“But you have seen her? Don’t tell me, boy, that you have not seen her. We felt that as you did not come back she had come to you.”
Geoffrey was silent for a few moments, thinking of his position; for here, in spite of his quiet way, was a fresh accuser, and poor Mrs Mullion’s silent avoidance had only been another charge.
“The poor girl did not come to me,” said Geoffrey, at last. “Your cruelty, Mr Paul, drove her away, and but for the fact that I happened to be on the cliff and saw her go by, she would be floating away somewhere on the tide – dead.”
“Did – did she try to jump in?” cried the old man, hoarsely.
“She was nearly dead when I fetched her out. A few seconds more would have ended her miserable life.”
The old man shrank back in his chair, trembling now like a leaf, his jaw dropped, and his eyes staring.
“And I should have murdered her,” he gasped. “But you jumped in and saved her?”
Geoffrey nodded.
“Thank God!” cried the old man, fervently. “Thank God!”
“Poor girl! it was a narrow escape,” continued Geoffrey. “She has suffered cruelly, and you must forgive her, Mr Paul, and take her back.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man, “we’ll talk about that. But shake hands, Trethick. You’re a brave fellow, after all. That wipes off a great deal. Poor Madge: poor child!”
The old man held out his hand, but Geoffrey did not offer to take it.
“You saved the poor girl then, Trethick. We felt that you must be with her. Where is she now? Why didn’t you bring her back?”
“She would sooner have gone back into the sea,” said Geoffrey, sternly. “I took her on to Prawle’s cottage, at Gwennas.”
“And she is there now?”
“Yes, sir, with her helpless infant.”
The old man sank back again with a harsh catching of the breath, and they sat in silence gazing one at the other, as if trying to get breath for the encounter to come.
Uncle Paul was the first to speak.
“I’m – I’m not angry now, Trethick. I’m going to be very humble, and appeal to you.”
“Indeed!” said Geoffrey, over whose countenance a very stern, stubborn look began to make its way.
“Yes, yes. I’m going to appeal to you. I beg your pardon, Trethick, if I have said or done any thing to hurt your feelings. I’m very, very sorry I was so cruel to the poor child last night, but it came upon me like a shock, and the disgrace seemed to madden me. I have a hot, bad temper, I know; but, poor child, I’ll forgive her – forgive you both.”
“Thanks,” said Geoffrey, mockingly; and he was about to speak, but refrained, as the old man made an effort and rose from his chair to go behind Trethick, and stand there silently for a few moments as if to master his voice before laying a hand upon the young man’s shoulder.
“I did wrong, Trethick, when I brought you up here – very wrong. I ought to have known better, but I did it in a mean, selfish spirit to save my own money, when I had plenty for all.”
“Indeed!” said Geoffrey, coldly, and a set frown came upon his brow.
“Yes, it was an ill-advised step, and I am punished for it. But, Trethick, my lad, in my rough way I do love my poor, dead brother’s wife and child, and, God knows, I would sooner have been a beggar than have seen this disgrace come upon them.”
“Mr – ”
“No, no, hear me out, Trethick,” cried the old man, imploringly. “I don’t blame you so much as I do poor Madge. She was always a foolish, light, thoughtless girl, fond of admiration; and I know she has always thrown herself in your way; but I said to myself he is too sterling and stanch a fellow to act otherwise than as we could wish.”
“Look here, Mr Paul,” said Geoffrey, sternly. “Once for all, let me tell you that you are labouring under a mistake. Do you accuse me of this crime?”
“No, no, we won’t call it a crime,” said the old man. “But hear me out, Trethick. I am not angry now. I want to do what is for the best. I don’t ask you to humble yourself or confess.”
“Confess!” cried Geoffrey, scornfully. “Mr Paul, you insult me by your suspicions.”
“But the poor girl, Trethick. Her poor mother is heart-broken. Oh, man, man! why did you come like a curse beneath this, roof?”
“Look here, Mr Paul,” cried Geoffrey, whom the night’s adventures and loss of sleep had made irritable, “when you can talk to me in a calm, sensible way, perhaps I can convince you that you are wronging me by your suspicions.”
A spasm of rage shot across the old man’s face, but he seemed to make an effort, and mastered himself.
“Don’t be heartless,” he said, “I implore you. There, you see how humble I am. There, there – let bygones be bygones. I know you will act like a man by her. Never mind the shame and disgrace, Trethick. She loves you, poor child, and amongst us we have made her suffer cruelly. I have been brutal to her for being as true to you as steel.”
“True to me, eh?” said Geoffrey.
“Yes, poor child, she kept your secret, though she could not keep her own. She felt that she might injure you in your prospects.”
“You are arranging it all very nicely in your own mind, Uncle Paul,” said Geoffrey, quietly, for he was touched by the old man’s battle with self.
“Don’t ridicule me, Trethick,” he said, piteously. “I want to make amends for a great wrong. I feel I have been to blame. But be a man, Trethick, and you sha’n’t suffer for it. Look here, I am very old now, and I can’t take my money with me. Come, be reasonable, Trethick, for the poor child’s sake. We’ll forget the past and look at the future.”
“At my expense,” said Geoffrey.
“No, no, my boy. We are both men of the world, and can afford to laugh at what people say. Let’s make both those poor souls happy. There, I’ll sink all differences, and I’ll give her away; I will indeed. I haven’t been in a church these fifteen years, but I’ll come and give her away; and look here, my lad,” he cried, pulling out a slip of paper, “there’s a cheque on the Old Bank for a thousand pounds, payable to you – that’s Madge’s dowry to start with. Now, what do you say?”
“Humph! a thousand, eh?” said Geoffrey, looking admiringly at the speaker.
“Yes, a thousand pounds,” cried the old man.
“Will you make it two?” said Geoffrey.
An angry flush came in the old man’s face, but he looked across Geoffrey, and saw that poor broken Mrs Mullion was peering in at the doorway, and his rage went with his hesitation.
“Yes,” he said, “for her sake I’ll make it two.”
“Not enough,” said Geoffrey. “Will you make it five thousand down, and all your money bequeathed to us by will?”
The old man’s breath seemed to be taken away, and he stood gasping angrily; but once more the piteous aspect of the poor woman at the door disarmed him, and he said, in a low, hoarse voice, —
“I haven’t long to stop here. You shall have what you say, Trethick, only remove this cloud from the poor girl’s life.”
“Uncle Paul,” cried Geoffrey, turning upon him eagerly, “I always liked you, for I knew that you were a stanch old fellow under that rough bark, but I never thought you were so true a man as this. Five thousand pounds, eh? and you make me your heir? Give me your hand.”
The old man’s hand was slowly stretched out, and Geoffrey seized it.
“Yes,” said Uncle Paul, “and the past shall all be forgotten;” but a look of disgust, in spite of his efforts, came across his face at the mercenary spirit displayed.
“Five thousand pounds down?” said Geoffrey, “eh?”
“Five thousand pounds down.”
“As you say, Uncle Paul,” said Geoffrey, probing the old man to the quick, “you cannot live much longer. You have had your spell of life, and you will give that by deed of gift at once to save poor Madge’s fame, and the rest when you die?”
The old man nodded.
“Suppose I say make it ten thousand down?”
“Take – take it all,” said the old man, piteously; and then, in a low voice, “God help me to do one good act before I die.”
As he spoke he tried to withdraw his hand from Geoffrey’s.
“Take what I have,” he said again, “but wipe away the stain from that poor girl’s life.”
“God bless you, Uncle Paul,” cried Geoffrey, wringing the old man’s hand. “You’re a noble old fellow, but if your money was millions, instead of thousands, not a penny could I touch. Go and see the poor girl, and then you must see another, and come back and tell me that you ask my pardon for what you have said.”
The piteous look, the air of weakness, and the trembling of the hands passed away as if by magic, as Uncle Paul tore his fingers from Geoffrey’s grasp; and, in place of his mingled appeal and disgust, passion flashed from the old man’s eyes.
“Dog – coward – scoundrel!” he cried, shaking his cane threateningly. “Your success at the mine, and your hopes of wedding Rhoda Penwynn, have blinded you to all that is honourable and true, but you shall repent it.”
“Oh, hush, hush!” cried Geoffrey. “Mr Paul!”
“Silence, scoundrel!” he roared. “You shall live to see your mine a wreck; and as to that Rhoda Penwynn – ”
“Silence, yourself, old man,” cried Geoffrey, in a rage. “How dare you mention her name?”
“How dare I, dog?” he cried; “because she is too good, and pure, and virtuous for such a libertine as you. Out upon you for your worthlessness! I tell you, that girl will turn her back upon you in shame and disgust. You don’t know of what stuff our Cornish women are. I meant to keep this silent if I could. Now the town shall know you for what you are; and as for my poor niece – Heaven forgive her! – I would sooner see her in her coffin than the wife of such a heartless, cold-blooded, mercenary wretch.”
“You will repent all this when you are cool,” cried Geoffrey, whose own rage was driven away in dread lest the old man should fall before him in some fit.
“Out of my sight, dog! Leave this house.”
“Uncle Paul, you are mad. Will you listen to reason?”
“Go!” cried the old man panting, as he threatened the tall, sturdy young fellow with his stick; “go, and present yourself at Penwynn’s, and be shown the door. Out! Go! I cannot breathe the same air with so heartless a villain.”
“If I leave this house,” said Geoffrey, “it is for good. No apologies will bring me back.”
“Apologies,” cried the old man. “Oh, if Heaven would give me back my strength but for one short hour! Scoundrel!” he cried, sinking back in his chair, “if I were but a man instead of such a poor old wreck – ”
“Mrs Mullion! quick!” cried Geoffrey, for the old man’s appearance alarmed him; but the poor woman had heard all, and was already at her brother-in-law’s side. “What shall we do?”
“Let him leave the place,” panted the old man. “Don’t let him touch me – don’t let him come near me – let him leave the place. He tortures me. Why did I bring him here?”
“Fate, I suppose,” said Geoffrey, coldly. “I thought she had been too kind. Shall I fetch Rumsey, Mrs Mullion?”
“No, no, no. Pray go – pray go,” sobbed the poor woman. “Oh, Mr Trethick! Mr Trethick! what have I done that you should treat me so?”
“There, for heaven’s sake, don’t you begin,” cried Geoffrey. “I can bear no more. You people here are mad. There, I’ll rid you of my presence, Mrs Mullion. I’ll go and put up some where else till you have come to your senses, and then perhaps – no, I cannot come back here. I’m going down to Rumsey’s, and I’ll send him up. Poor old fellow?” he said; and he came a step towards where, with half-closed eyes, Uncle Paul sat back, panting heavily; but at the first step forward he shrank away with such a look of loathing that Geoffrey strode into the passage, seized his hat, and went off across the garden, and down the cliff path to send up Dr Rumsey to the stricken old man.
Chapter Thirty Nine
More Unpleasantries
Dr Rumsey was in, Mrs Rumsey said, but he was engaged. She would give Mr Trethick’s message, and she turned sharply round and shut the door.
“Confound the woman,” exclaimed Geoffrey, frowning, and he went off towards the mine.
His way lay through the principal street, and as he was passing the hotel it suddenly struck him that he had had a terrible night, and that he was half-starved.
“The engine won’t work without coal,” he said, with a bitter laugh. “I must have breakfast,” and, going in, he ordered the meal, ate heartily, and then, feeling refreshed and brighter, he hesitated as to what he should do – go down to the mine or walk across to Gwennas.
He stopped, thinking, —
“If I go to Gwennas, people will say that the case is clear against me.
“If I don’t go they will say that it is clearer, for I stop away because I am a coward, and that my conduct is cruel.
“Well, I won’t be brutal, at all events; so here goes to see Father Prawle, and to know how the poor girl is.”
He started off walking fast, but just then who should come round the corner but a thin figure in black, half-way between a sister of mercy and a lady in deep mourning.
“Miss Pavey, by all that’s wonderful!” he exclaimed. “What a transformation. What has become of the rainbow?”
“Ah, Miss Pavey,” he said. “Good-morning.”
To his astonishment and disgust, the lady darted a look of horror at him and crossed the road.
“This is pleasant,” he cried, angrily. “Why, that woman must know of it, and – ”
He felt a chill of horror run through him, for he knew that she would go, if she had not already been, straight up to An Morlock and acquaint Rhoda with the events of the night, no doubt pleasantly dressed up.
“She must have seen the Rumseys this morning!”
He hesitated for a moment, and then turned to go straight up to An Morlock.
“I’ll go and tell Penwynn all about it.”
“Pooh! Absurd,” he cried. “What’s come to me? Am I to go and deny a scandal before I have been accused by my friends? Ridiculous.”
Laughing at himself for what he called his folly, he went right off along the cliff, looking with pride at the smoking of the Wheal Carnac chimney shaft, and pausing for a moment or two, with a smile of gratification upon his lips, to watch the busy figures about the buildings and to listen to the rattle and noise of the machinery.
Going on, he came to the slope down from the cliff path to the beach, and he could not help a shudder as he saw how dangerous it was even by daylight.
“I wonder we did not break our necks,” he thought, as he went cautiously down, and then amongst the granite boulders and weed-hung masses to where he had leaped in and swum to poor Madge’s help, for there it all was plainly enough – the long spit of rocks running out like a pier, the swirling water, and the waving masses of slimy weed.
“It’s a good job it was night,” he thought. “Hang me, if I shouldn’t have hesitated to dive in now.”
All the same he would not have hesitated a moment; but it was a wild, awesome place, and the chances of a swimmer getting easily ashore, after a dive from the rocks, were not many.
He went on picking his way as nearly as he could to follow the steps taken on the previous night towards the farther sloping path, pausing again as he came opposite to the adit of the old mine up on the cliff.
It was an ugly, low archway, fringed with ferns, and whose interior was glossy with what looked like green metallic tinsel, but proved to be a dark, glistening, wet lichen or moss.
The place, like all others of its kind, had an attraction for Geoffrey, and he went in a short distance to peer forward into the gloom of the narrow passage through the rock, and to listen to the dripping, echoing sounds of the falling water.
It was a part of the working of the old mine, and, doubtless, had been driven in first by the adventurers in search of a vein of tin or copper, after striking which they had sunk the perpendicular shaft on the cliff – the one by the path where he had had his encounter with Pengelly; and, by a little calculation, he reckoned that this adit or passage would be about a hundred yards long.
“I’ll have lights some day, and Pengelly and I will explore it.”
He went no farther, for there was always the danger of coming upon one of the minor shafts, or “winzes” as they were called, which are made for ventilating the mine, and joining the upper and lower galleries together. In this case the winzes would have been full of water, like the great shaft, up to the level of the adit, which would run off the surplus to the beach.
More by force of habit than for any particular reason, he threw a great stone in, to make a crashing noise, which went echoing and reverberating along the dripping passage, and then he went on.
“Poor lass, she would have had a poor chance,” he said, “if she had thrown herself down the old shaft up yonder. I don’t think I dare have dived down there. Nay,” he added, laughing, “I am sure I dare not.”
He went on fast now, noting the difficulties of the pathway up which he had helped Madge in the dark; and then, pausing half-way up to take breath, he uttered an exclamation.
“I shouldn’t have thought it possible,” he said. “Why, it seems almost madness now. Well, I got her there safely, and I have been thanked for my trouble.”
Old Prawle was hanging about, busy, as usual, with a fishing-line, as Geoffrey went down into the Cove, nodded, and tapped gently at the door.
“Well, Bessie,” he said, in his light, cheery way, “how is she?”
“Better, Mr Trethick,” said Bessie coldly; and the bright look passed from his face as he saw the girl’s distant manner.
“Has the doctor been?”
“Yes, Mr Trethick.”
“What does he say?”
“That she is to have perfect rest and quiet.”
“And your mother?”
“Better, sir. Will you speak to her?”
Geoffrey hesitated a moment, and then seeing that Bessie was misinterpreting his looks, he said sharply, —
“Yes, I will;” and following Bessie in, he found the invalid in her old place, airing and burning more things than usual, but there was such a reproachful, piteous look in her eyes, that he was quite taken aback.
“It’s of no use. I can’t argue with them,” thought Geoffrey.
“Here, Mrs Prawle,” he said aloud, “will you kindly see that every thing possible is done for that poor girl. You will be at some expense, of course, till Mrs Mullion and her uncle fetch them home. Take that.”
He laid a five-pound note on the table, and walked straight out, Bessie drawing on one side to let him pass, her face looking cold and thin, and her eyes resting on the floor.
“Pleasant,” muttered Geoffrey, and with an abrupt “Good-morning” he went out to where old Prawle was at work.
“Here, walk part of the way along the cliff with me,” he said. “Come away from the cottage.”
The old man looked up at him from under his shaggy eyebrows, and then followed him for a couple of hundred yards, and stopped.
“Won’t that do?” he said. “Are you going to give me some money for them two?”
“I’ve left five pounds with your wife,” said Geoffrey, sharply.
“Oh, come, that’s handsome,” said the old man. “But you couldn’t have done less.”
“Look here,” said Geoffrey, sharply, “you know what I told you last night.”
“Yes, I know,” said the old man, grimly.
“You tell them the same. I couldn’t talk to them. Undeceive them about it, and be kind to the poor lass. I’ll do all I can for you, Prawle, about the shares.”
The old man nodded and uttered a growl that might have been “All right,” or “Thanks,” or any thing else, and then Geoffrey went on towards Carnac.
“Tell them the same,” said the rugged old fellow, with a grim chuckle. “Why, I might preach to ’em for a month, and then they wouldn’t believe it any more than I could myself.”
Pengelly was anxiously awaiting his principal at the mine, ready to lay certain reports before him about the drive that was being made, and he did it all in so stern and distant a way that Geoffrey could not help seeing that his right-hand man had heard the report, and, what was more, believed it. The result was that it raised up a spirit of resentment in the young man’s breast that made him retire within himself snail fashion; but with this difference, that he left his horns pointing menacingly outside; and for the rest of that day he was not a pleasant person to consult upon any matter.
For in spite of the contempt with which he treated the whole affair, and his determination to completely ignore the matter, it was always torturing him, and there was the constant thought in his mind that Rhoda must sooner or later hear of it, if she had not already been apprised by Miss Pavey or some other tattling friend.
“Let them. If she’s the woman I believe her, she’ll write to me in a quiet indirect way, not referring to it, of course, but to let me see her confidence in me is not shaken.”
The amount of work he got through on that day was tremendous, and as he worked his spirits rose. He strengthened his plans for guarding against the breaking in of the sea; and at last, completely fagged out, he ascended from the mine, changed, and washed in the office, and, without speaking to Pengelly, went straight to Dr Rumsey’s.
The doctor saw him coming, and came to the door.
“Find you apartments, Mr Trethick?” he said, coldly. “In an ordinary way it would be impossible. Under the present circumstances it is doubly so.”
“Very good,” said Geoffrey, sharply. “You persist, then, in believing that?”
“I would rather not discuss the matter, Mr Trethick,” said the doctor. “Good evening.”
“I must go to the hotel, then, that’s all,” said Geoffrey to himself. “Confound them all! They will find that I’ve Cornish blood in my veins, and can be as pig-headed in obstinacy as the best.”
