Kitabı oku: «The Vicar's People», sayfa 20
Chapter Forty Two
An Unkindly Stroke
Rhoda Penwynn felt suspicious of Miss Pavey as she entered her room, blowing her nose very loudly, and then holding her handkerchief to her face, where one of her teeth was supposed to ache.
There was a great change in Miss Pavey’s personal appearance, and her bright colours had given place to quite a sister-of-mercy style of garb, including a black crape veil, through which, on entering, she had given Rhoda quite a funereal kiss, as if to prepare her for her adverse news – news which she dreaded to communicate, for she felt afraid of how Rhoda might compose herself under such a trial.
“Why, Martha,” said Rhoda, smiling, “surely there is nothing wrong – you are not in mourning?”
“Oh dear, no, love. It is the festival of Saint Minima, virgin and martyr.”
Here Miss Pavey sighed.
“Oh!” ejaculated Rhoda, quietly. “How is Mr Lee?” she added, after an awkward pause.
“Not well, dear – not well. He works too hard, and troubles himself too much about the wicked people here. Poor fellow! how saintly are his efforts for their good. But what do you think, Rhoda, dear?”
“I don’t know.”
“He has taken to calling me Sister Martha!”
“Well,” said Rhoda, smiling, “as you are working so hard with him now in the parish, it is very kindly and nice, even if it does sound formal or ceremonial – Sister Martha.”
“I must confess,” said Miss Pavey, “that I don’t like it. Of course we work together – like brother and sister. But I don’t think it was necessary.”
“Neither do I,” said Rhoda, smiling.
“I do not agree with Mr Lee, of course, in all things,” continued Miss Pavey, “but he is very good.”
“Most energetic,” assented Rhoda.
“You know, I suppose, that we are to have a new harmonium?”
“I did not know it,” said Rhoda, looking curiously at her visitor, who kept down her veil, and whose conscious manner indicated that she had something particular to say – something unpleasant, Rhoda was sure.
“Oh, yes; a new and expensive one; and I am to play it,” continued Miss Pavey. “We disputed rather as to where it should stand. Mr Lee wished it to be in the north-east end, but I told him that it would be so much out of sight there that I was sure it would not be heard, so it is to be on the south side of the little chancel.”
“Yes,” said Rhoda, who was waiting for the object of Miss Pavey’s visit; “that seems to be a good place.”
“Yes, dear, he willingly gave way; but he would not about the babies.”
“About the babies?” exclaimed Rhoda.
“Yes, dear. It was only this morning. We were discussing baptism and infant-baptism, and I don’t know what possessed me, but it was in the heat of argument. Babies are so soft and nice, Rhoda, dear. I’m not ashamed to say so to you, because we are alone – but they really are – and I do like them; and it horrifies me, dear, to think of what the Church says about them if they’ve not been baptised. Poor little things! And really, I’m afraid I spoke very plainly. But, oh, Rhoda! my love, how shocking this is about Madge Mullion.”
“About Madge Mullion?” cried Rhoda, excitedly, for she knew now from her visitor’s manner that her disagreeable communication had come. “What do you mean?”
“It’s too shocking to talk about, dear – about her and Mr Trethick, and – ”
Here she got up, raised her veil above her lips, and whispered for some moments in Rhoda’s ear.
“I’ll not believe it,” cried Rhoda, starting up with flaming face and flashing eyes. “How dare you utter such a cruel calumny, Miss Pavey?”
“My dearest Rhoda,” cried her visitor, whose red eyes and pale face as she raised her veil, bore out the truth of her assertion, “I have been crying half the night about it for your sake, for I knew it would nearly break your heart.”
“Break my heart!” cried Rhoda, scornfully. “I tell you it is impossible. For shame, Martha Pavey. I know you to be fond of a little gossip and news, but how dare you come and insult me with such a tale as this?”
“My dearest Rhoda, my darling Rhoda,” cried the poor woman, throwing herself at her friend’s feet, and sobbing violently, “you don’t know how I love you – how much I think of your happiness. It is because I would not have you deceived and ill-treated by a wicked man that I come to you and risk your anger.”
“You should treat all such scandal with scorn,” cried Rhoda. “Whoever has put it about deserves – deserves – oh, I don’t know what to say bad enough! You know it is impossible.”
“I – I wish I could think it was,” sobbed Miss Pavey. “That Madge was always a wicked girl, and I’m afraid she tempted him to evil.”
Rhoda’s eyes flashed upon her again; and, without another word, she left her visitor, and went straight to her own room.
Martha Pavey stood with clasped hands for a few moments gazing after her, and then, with a weary sigh, she lowered her veil and was about to leave the house, when she encountered Mr Penwynn.
“Have the goodness to step back into the drawing-room, Miss Pavey,” said the banker, whose face wore a very troubled look; and, in obedience to his wish, she went back trembling, and took the seat he pointed out, while he placed one on the other side of the table, and began tapping it with his fingers, according to his custom.
Miss Pavey looked at him timidly, and her breath came fast, for she was exceedingly nervous, and she dreaded that which she felt the banker was about to say.
He hesitated for some few moments, glancing at her and then out of the window, but at last he seemed to have made up his mind.
“Miss Pavey,” he said, “you are a very old friend of my daughter.”
“Oh, yes, Mr Penwynn; you know I am!” she cried.
“You take great interest in her welfare and happiness?”
“More I may say than in my own, Mr Penwynn.”
“You are a great deal about in the town too, now?”
“Yes, a great deal, Mr Penwynn.”
“In fact, you assist Mr Lee a good deal – in visiting – and the like.”
“A great deal, Mr Penwynn.”
“And therefore you are very likely to know the truth of matters that are going on in the place?”
“Oh, yes, Mr Penwynn; but what do you mean?”
“Simply this, Miss Pavey. I am a father, and you are a woman of the world – a middle-aged lady to whom I may speak plainly.”
“Mr Penwynn?” cried the lady, rising.
“No, no, don’t rise, Miss Pavey, pray. This is a matter almost of life and death. It is a question of Rhoda’s happiness. I believe you love my child, and, therefore, at such a time, as I have no lady-friends to whom I could speak of such a thing, I speak to you, our old friend, and Rhoda’s confidante.”
“But, Mr Penwynn!” cried the lady, with flaming cheeks.
“This is no time, madam, for false sentiment. We are both middle-aged people, and I speak plainly.”
“Oh, Mr Penwynn!” cried the lady, indignantly.
“Tell me,” he said, sharply, “have you been making some communication to Rhoda?”
“Yes,” she said, in a whisper, and she turned away her face.
“Is that communication true?”
She looked at him for a few moments, and then said, —
“Yes.”
“That will do, ma’am,” he said, drawing in his breath with a low hiss; and, rising and walking to the window, he took no further notice of his visitor, who gladly escaped from the room.
A few minutes later he rang the bell.
“Send down and see if Dr Rumsey is at home,” he said.
The servant glanced at him to see if he was ill, left the room, and in half an hour the doctor was closeted with the banker in his study.
“I’m a little feverish, Rumsey,” said Mr Penwynn, quietly; “write me out a prescription for a saline draught.”
Dr Rumsey asked him a question or two, and wrote out the prescription. The banker took it, and passed over a guinea, which the doctor hesitated to take.
“Put it in your pocket, Rumsey,” said his patient, dryly. “Never refuse money. That’s right. Now I have a question or two to ask you.”
“About the mine, Mr Penwynn?” cried the doctor, piteously. “Yes, every shilling of my poor wife’s money! Five hundred pounds. But I ought to have known better, and shall never forget it. Is there any hope?”
“I don’t know,” said the banker, coldly. “But it was not that I wanted to ask you. It was about Geoffrey Trethick.”
“Curse Geoffrey Trethick for a smooth-tongued, heartless, brazen scoundrel!” cried the doctor, rising from his general calm state to a furious burst of passion. “The money’s bad enough. He swore to me, on his word of honour, that the mine would be a success, and I let myself be deceived, for I thought him honest. Now he has come out in his true colours.”
“That report about him then is true?”
“True,” cried the doctor, bitterly, “as true as truth; and a more heartless scoundrel I never met.”
“He denies it, I suppose?”
“Denies it? Of course: as plausibly as if he were as innocent as the little babe itself. That poor woman, Mrs Mullion, is broken-hearted, and old Paul will hardly get over it. He has had a fit since.”
“Is – is there any doubt, Rumsey?” said Mr Penwynn, sadly.
“Not an atom,” replied the doctor. “He has been my friend, and I’ve trusted and believed in him. I’d forgive him the affair over the shares, but his heartless cruelty here is disgusting – hush! – Miss Penwynn!”
Rhoda had opened the door to join her father, when, seeing the doctor there, she drew back, but she heard his last words.
“I won’t keep you, Rumsey. That will do,” said Mr Penwynn, and, as the doctor rose to go, he turned to the banker, —
“Is – is there any hope about those shares, Mr Penwynn? Will the mine finally pay?” he said, piteously.
“If it takes every penny I’ve got to make it pay, Rumsey. – Yes,” said the banker, sternly. “I am not a scoundrel.”
“No, no, of course not,” cried the doctor, excitedly, as he snatched a grain of hope from the other’s words. “But would you sell if you were me?”
“If you can find any one to buy – at any price – yes,” said the banker, quietly; and the grain of hope seemed to be snatched away.
As the doctor was leaving, Rhoda lay in wait to go to her father’s room, but the vicar came up, and she hastily retired.
“Mr Lee? What does he want?” said the banker, peevishly. “Where is he?”
“In the drawing-room, sir.”
Mr Penwynn rose, and followed the man to where the vicar was standing by the drawing-room table.
“You’ll excuse me, Mr Penwynn,” he said, anxiously; “but is Mr Trethick here?”
“No. I have been expecting him all the morning, Mr Lee. May I ask why?”
The vicar hesitated, and the colour came into his pale cheeks.
“I want to see him particularly, Mr Penwynn.”
“May I ask why?”
“I think you know why, Mr Penwynn. There’s a terrible report about the mine. Is it true?”
“Too true,” said the banker, coldly. “And you have come to try and rise upon his fall,” he added to himself.
“Poor Trethick!” exclaimed the vicar; “and he was so elate and proud of his success. He is a brave fellow, Mr Penwynn.”
“Indeed,” said the banker, sarcastically. “Come, Mr Lee, suppose you are frank with me. What of that other report?”
“It is a scandal – a cruel invention,” exclaimed the vicar. “I cannot, I will not believe it. For heaven’s sake keep it from Miss Penwynn’s ears.”
The banker turned upon him sharply.
“Why?” he said, abruptly.
“Why?” exclaimed the young vicar, flushing. “Mr Penwynn, can you ask me that?”
“Mr Lee,” said the banker, “I’d give a thousand pounds down to believe as you do. I have been waiting here all the morning for Mr Trethick to come to me – to bring me, as he should, the bad news of the flooding of the mine, and, if it is necessary, to defend himself against this charge that is brought against him; and he does not come. What am I to think?”
“Think him innocent, Mr Penwynn. I for one cannot believe such a charge to be true. But here is Mr Trethick,” he cried, as a hasty step was heard upon the gravel, and, without waiting to be announced, Geoffrey walked straight in.
The vicar started at his appearance, for he was haggard and his eyes red. He had evidently not been to bed all night, and his clothes were dusty and covered with red earth. There was a curious excited look, too, about his face, as he stared from one to the other, and then said, hoarsely, —
“Ruin, Mr Penwynn; the mine is drowned.”
“So I heard, Mr Trethick, before I was up,” said the banker, coldly.
“I sat by the furnace-fire all night,” said Geoffrey, in the same low, hoarse voice, “trying to think it out, for I know – I’ll swear this is the work of some scoundrel; and if I can prove it – ”
He did not finish, but stood with his fists clenched looking from one to the other.
“I’ve been asleep,” he said, “and I’m not half awake yet. I felt half-mad this morning. I drank some brandy to try and calm me, but it has made me worse.”
“There is no doubt about that. We will talk about the mine some other time, Mr Trethick,” said the banker. “Will you leave my house now? You are not in a fit state to discuss matters.”
“Fit state?” said Geoffrey. “Yes, I am in a fit state; but the accident has been almost maddening. No; it was no accident. I’ll swear it has been done.”
“Perhaps so,” said the banker, calmly; “but will you return to your apartments now. I will send for you to-morrow.”
“My apartments?” exclaimed Geoffrey, with a harsh laugh. “Where are they? I have none now. Mr Lee, will you give me your arm; my head swims. Take me down to Rumsey’s place. I’m going wrong I think – or something – there was – little brandy in the – in the – what was I saying – the men – bottle – furnace-house – I was – faint – Pengelly gave me – I – I – can’t see – is – is it night? Fetch – Rhoda. I – ”
He sank heavily upon the floor, for it was as he said. He had remained watching by the dying furnace-fire the whole night, and then, heart-sick and faint, he had taken the little cup of brandy and water Pengelly handed to him, the remains of the bottle from which the two watchers had been drugged, and, little as he had taken, it had been enough to send him into a deep sleep, from which he had at last risen to hurry up to An Morlock – drunk, so the servants said.
“Disgracefully intoxicated!” Mr Penwynn declared.
The Reverend Edward Lee said nothing, but sighed deeply and went his way, and Rhoda Penwynn was fetched down by her father, who took her to the drawing-room door, and pointed to where Geoffrey lay upon the carpet.
“Your idol is broken, Rhoda,” he said, in a low, stern voice. “We were both deceived.”
“Oh, papa! is he ill?” cried Rhoda; and with all a woman’s sympathy for one in distress, she forgot the report she had heard, and was about to make for Geoffrey’s side.
“Ill as men are who make brute beasts of themselves, my child. Come away, my girl, and let him sleep it off. Rhoda, you can be brave, I know: so show your courage now.”
She was ghastly pale, and she gazed from father to lover, hesitating whether she ought not to take Geoffrey’s part against the whole world.
Heart triumphed, and snatching away her hand as she was being led from the room, —
“I’ll never believe it, father,” she cried. “Oh, Geoffrey, Geoffrey, speak to me. Tell me what is wrong?”
She had sunk upon her knees and caught the prostrate man’s hand in hers, with the effect that he roused himself a little, and slightly turned his head.
“Mine’s drowned,” he muttered. “Don’t worry – that brandy.”
“Yes, yes; but you will soon put that right.”
“Put it right,” he said, thickly. “No – sha’n’t marry her – poor little Madge – I like little Madge – I’m sleepy, now.”
Geoffrey’s hand fell from Rhoda’s heavily upon the thick carpet, and she shrank away from him as if stung. Then her head drooped, her face went down into her hands, and as Mr Penwynn stood watching her, she uttered a moan, rocking herself to and fro.
This lasted but a few minutes, and then a curiously-hard, stern look came over her pale face, as she slowly rose from her knees, and went and placed her hands in those of her father, looking him full in the eyes; and then, with the air of outraged womanhood lending a stern beauty to her face, she let him lead her to his study, where she sat with him, hardly speaking, till she heard it whispered that Mr Trethick had got up, and gone staggering out of the house.
“Where did he go?” said Mr Penwynn, quietly.
“Down to the hotel, sir.”
“That will do.”
Father glanced at daughter as soon as they were alone, when Rhoda left her seat and laid her hands upon his shoulder.
“I don’t feel well, dear,” she said. “I shall go up to my room. Don’t expect to see me again to-day, father, and don’t be uneasy. You are right, dear,” she said, with her voice trembling for a moment; then, flinging her arms round his neck, she kissed him passionately.
Mr Penwynn held her to his breast, and returned her kisses.
“It is very, very hard to bear, father. Oh, don’t – don’t you think we may be mistaken?”
“No,” he said sternly; “I do not.”
Rhoda heaved a bitter sigh, and then drew herself up, but bent down and kissed him once more.
“I’m your daughter, dear,” she said, with a piteous smile; “but I’m going to be very brave. I shall be too proud to show every thing I feel.”
She left the study and went up to her chamber, where she stood gazing from the window at the sunlit sea and glorious view of many-tinted rocks around the bay; but she could only see one thing now, and that was her broken idol as he had lain upon the floor below, and uttered the words, still burning in her ears, full of pity for “poor little Madge.”
Chapter Forty Three
Awakening to the Worst
Geoffrey Trethick, as the servants had said, rose from the place where he was lying, and stood trying to think; but his brain seemed out of gear, and all he could master was the idea that he was not in a fit state to be at An Morlock. Consequently he groped his way out, staggered along the drive, and began to make for the hotel in a vague, erratic fashion, greatly to the amusement of such people as he met.
Fortunately for him about the sixth person he encountered was Amos Pengelly, who limped up, looking at him with a curious expression of disgust upon his countenance.
“‘Wine is a mocker,’” he muttered; “‘strong drink is raging.’ He’s been trying to forget it all.”
The stout miner hesitated for a moment, and then took and drew Geoffrey’s arm through his own, supporting his uncertain steps, and leading him straight to the hotel, where they were refused entrance.
“No,” said Mrs Polwinno, the landlady; “Mr Trethick had better take his favours somewhere else;” and Mr Polwinno, her little plump, mild husband, nodded his head, and said, “Exactly so, my dear.”
Amos Pengelly frowned, and the disgust he felt grew so strong that he was ready to loosen his hold upon Geoffrey, and leave him to his fate.
“He is false,” he said to himself, “and bad, and now he has taken to the gashly drink, and I’ve done with him.”
But as he spoke he looked in Geoffrey’s flushed face and wild, staring eyes, and something of his old feeling of respect and veneration for his leader came back, and with it a disposition to find some scriptural quotation to suit his case.
“‘A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves,’” he muttered. “Yes, he’s fell among thieves, who’ve robbed him of his reason, and I can’t leave him now.”
Taking hold of the helpless man a little more tightly, and knitting his brows, Amos Pengelly, in complete forgetfulness now of his scriptural quotation, proceeded unconsciously to act the part of the Good Samaritan, but under far more trying circumstances.
He had not gone far before he met Tom Jennen, slouching along with his hands deep down in the pockets of a pair of coarse flannel trousers, which came well under the arm-pits, and covered his chest, and the sight of those he met made Tom Jennen grin most portentously.
“Why, Amos,” he said, “they told me the gashly old mine was drowned, when it was engineer and head miner. Why, Amos, I thought you’d took the pledge.”
Pengelly tightened his lips and went on without answering, finding no little difficulty in keeping his companion upright.
“Ah,” said old Mrs Trevoil, standing knitting a jersey at her door, and smiling maliciously, “some folk gets up and preaches o’ Sundays among the Methodies, and teaches what other folk should do, and can’t keep theirselves straight.”
“Yes,” said a sister gossip, in a loud voice, “that’s a nice companion for a preacher. Shame on you, Amos Pengelly! You ought to be took off the plan.”
Pengelly’s face grew tighter, and he strode manfully on without deigning to say a word, or to make a reply, as he ran the gauntlet of the fisher-folk standing at the low granite doors, though the remarks he heard thrown at his own religious leanings, and at Geoffrey’s double fall from the path of virtue, stung him as sharply as if he had been passing through a nest of hornets.
“I’d take him ’bout with me to chapel o’ Sundays till you’ve converted him if I was thee, Amos Pengelly,” said one sharp-tongued woman at last, as he turned the corner of the steep lane where he lived; and then his own door was reached. He dragged Trethick inside, and passed his hand across his dripping brow before taking the young man, now terribly helpless, upon his back, after the fashion of a sack, and carrying him up the short flight of steps and laying him upon his own bed, where Geoffrey seemed to go off at once into a deep sleep.
For the drug had had a most potent effect upon him, from the fact that he had partaken of a terribly strong dose in the dregs of the bottle, where it had settled down; the two watchers at the furnace, though they had drunk deeply, neither of them having swallowed one-half so much.
As soon as Pengelly had relieved himself of his load, he sank down in the one chair in his bare bedroom, and sat watching Geoffrey hour after hour, waiting for him to awaken.
“When he’s sober, and in his right mind, I’ll talk to him,” said Pengelly, to himself; and there he sat, hour after hour, comforting himself by singing hymns in a low voice, giving them out first two lines at a time, after announcing number and tune, to an imaginary congregation gathered round; and this he kept up till the afternoon.
Then he went down to the mine, leaving Geoffrey locked in; but, on reaching the cliff, it was only to see so many people hanging about the buildings discussing the accident that he had not the heart to go there and be questioned; so he turned aside, and walked on past the old mine shaft to Gwennas Cove, hoping to find old Prawle outside, for he felt that he could not go to the cottage.
He had his wish, for the old man was there, sitting upon a stone and smoking his pipe.
“Well, Amos,” he said, as the miner came up, “so you’ve flooded the mine, I hear.”
“Ay, she’s full o’ water,” said Pengelly, sadly.
“Ah, that’s a bad job; but what fools ye must have been.”
“Fools, perhaps, not to keep a better look-out; but it’s done, Master Prawle, and we must get the water out. How’s Bessie?”
“Busy,” said the old man, shortly.
Pengelly stood looking down at him for some few minutes, wanting to speak, but flinching from his task.
“Well,” said the old man at last, “what is it? Ye’re a strange chap, Amos Pengelly. Ye won’t drink nor smoke a pipe, only stand and stare and glower, as if you was too good to mix with the like o’ me. Now speak out, or else go.”
“I want to know if it’s all true, Master Prawle?”
“If what’s all true?”
“What I’ve heard up churchtown.”
“How do I know what you’ve heard up churchtown? I was there this morning, and I heard that Wheal Carnac was flooded. Is that what you mean?”
“No, Master Prawle. I mean – I mean about Mullion’s lass. Is she here?”
The old man took his pipe from his mouth, and nodded.
“Did Master Trethick bring her here last night?”
The old man nodded again.
“And it is all true about – about the little one?”
“Ay, it’s all true enough,” said the old man. “But never mind about that. He’ll marry her by-and-by, and it will be all right next time. Look here, Amos, what are you going to do about Wheal Carnac?”
“I don’t know,” said the miner.
“Then get to know,” said old Prawle, eagerly. “Look here, Amos, you’re fond of coming and hanging about, and I know what you mean, of course. So look here, I say, if you want to be friends with me, Amos Pengelly, you’ve got to come and tell me what goes on there, and what you are going to do, my lad, about that mine, d’ye hear?”
“Yes, Master Prawle,” said the miner, heavily. “I must go back now.”
“Yes, you’d better,” the old man said, with a leer. “They don’t want men folk about here now. My Bessie has turned me out, and I don’t seem to belong to the place. I’ll walk part of the way back with you, Amos, and talk about the mine;” and, to Pengelly’s astonishment, the old man did so, talking eagerly the while about the water, and the best way to clear it off.
“P’r’aps they’ll give her up now, Amos,” he said, at last. “P’r’aps they won’t spend no more over her.”
“Very likely,” said Pengelly, wearily.
“Then mind this – if you want me to be on your side, Amos, you come over now and then and tell me all.”
Pengelly nodded, and they parted, the miner making haste back to his cottage, where he found that Geoffrey had not stirred, neither did he move all that night, while Pengelly dozed beside him in a chair.
It seemed as if he would never wake, and the probabilities are that a man with a less vigorous constitution would never have woke again, so powerful was the drug thrown with reckless hand into the brandy by the ignorant man.
In fact it was ten o’clock the next morning before Geoffrey started up and gazed wonderingly at Pengelly.
“You’ve woke up at last, sir,” said the miner, with a reproachful look.
“At last? What do you mean? Good heavens! How my head throbs.”
“It was a sorry trick to do, Master Trethick, and not a man’s part, to go and drown your brain like the pit.”
“Look here, Pengelly, my head’s all in a whirl. I’m ill. I hardly know what I am saying. How came I here?”
“I carried you here mostly, Master Trethick, sir, after you come away from An Morlock.”
“Did I go to An Morlock?”
“Yes, sir, I s’pose so – to say the mine was flooded.”
“Yes, of course, the mine was flooded; but did I go to Mr Penwynn’s?”
“Yes, sir, in a state such as I had never believed I could see you, sir – full of drink.”
“What?”
“I suppose you had been taking it to make you forget the trouble, sir. That drop I gave you at the furnace – ”
“Ah, to be sure,” cried Geoffrey, who saw more clearly now – “that brandy.”
“Wouldn’t have hurt a child, sir,” said the miner, bitterly.
“But it sent my two men to sleep. What time is it now – three – four?” he cried, gazing at the window.
“It’s ten o’clock, sir, and you’ve been since two yesterday sleeping it off.”
“Then that stuff was drugged,” cried Geoffrey. “Here, Pengelly, may I wash here? I must go up to An Morlock directly.”
There was a knocking on the door below, and Pengelly descended, while Trethick tried to clear his head by drinking copiously of the cold water, and then bathing his face and head.
“Good heavens! If I went up to An Morlock in such a state what would they think? How unfortunate. Every thing goes wrong.”
The cold water did clear his dull brain somewhat, but his lips and throat were parched, and he felt terribly ill. So confused was he still, that for the time he had forgotten all about Madge Mullion, while the proceedings of the previous day seemed to him to be seen through a mist, and the more he tried, the worse confusion he was in. One thing, however, was certain, and that was that he must go up to An Morlock at once, and see Mr Penwynn about the mine.
“Humph! here is a comb,” he said. “I’ll straighten a little, and then run up home, and – ”
He dropped the comb and caught at the window-sill, where a little glass was standing, for as he mentioned that word home, he felt giddy, and back, like a flash, came the recollection of all that had passed.
He had no home to go to. Rhoda must have heard of that awkward incident, and he had been up to An Morlock while under the influence of a drug.
“Feel giddy, sir?” said a voice. “I’ll give you a cup of tea before you go away; but here’s Mr Penwynn’s man been with a letter for you.”
Geoffrey caught the letter from the bearer’s hands, and, with a terrible feeling of dread oppressing him, tore it open, and read it through twice before he fully realised its meaning.
It was very short but to the point, and Geoffrey seemed to see the stern-looking writer as the words gradually took shape and meaning.
For Mr Penwynn said, in cold, plain terms, that, after what had taken place, of course Mr Trethick saw that he could not call at An Morlock again, and that he was commissioned by Miss Penwynn to say that she fully endorsed her father’s words. As to the mine, for the present Mr Trethick must continue his duties there, and in the conduct of their business relations Mr Penwynn called upon him to use his most strenuous exertions to reduce the loss, and to place the mine in its former state.
“Curse the mine!” cried Geoffrey aloud. “What is that compared to my character there? Pengelly,” he cried fiercely, “do people believe this scandal?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yesterday? What about me? How did I seem?”
“Like one, sir,” said the miner sternly, “who had forgotten that he was a man, and drunk till he was a helpless beast.”
“And I went there like that,” thought Geoffrey. “Perhaps she saw me. And she believes all this.”
He stood there with his head feeling as if a flood had burst in upon his throbbing brain.
