Kitabı oku: «The Vicar's People», sayfa 27
Chapter Fifty Six
Geoffrey’s Boast
“Well, Mr Paul,” said Geoffrey, speaking in his bluff, frank way; “I said I would never come back to this house till you sent for me, and I have kept my word.”
“Yes, yes,” cried the old man, shaking his hand warmly. “I have sent few you – God bless you, boy. I am glad to see you here again.”
“Good heavens!” ejaculated Geoffrey, for poor Mrs Mullion had thrown her arms round his neck, kissed him, and laid her head upon his shoulder, sobbing as if her heart would break. “Mrs Mullion,” he continued, putting his arm round her and patting her shoulder, “come, come, come, be a woman, and let’s talk and see if we can’t put this unhappy affair all right.”
“Yes, yes,” she sobbed, raising her face and clinging to him still; “I always liked you, Geoffrey Trethick, and you will – you will try. You have been so good to my poor darling in other ways. We have known every thing, though we have kept away. Mr Paul here said it would be a lesson for you both, but I’ve gone down on my knees every night, Geoffrey, and prayed for you both, and that your heart might be softened; and now, my boy, have pity on her poor mother, who prays to you for justice to her weak, erring child – who prays to you on her bended knees.”
“No, no, no, my poor soul,” said Geoffrey, kindly, as he held her up. “There, there, don’t kneel to me. Come, sit down,” he cried, kissing her pleasant, motherly face; and the tears stood in his eyes as he spoke. “Come, Uncle Paul, let us try if we cannot see daylight out through this miserable fog.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man, who was standing with his head bent. “Yes, yes,” he continued, heartily; “sit down – sit down, my boy. We will have no more passion. It shall all be calm and quiet. Come, Geoffrey, you’ll smoke one of the old cheroots with me again?”
He smiled in the young man’s face as he took out his case.
“Indeed, I will,” cried Geoffrey, catching the old man’s hand and retaining it. “Why, Uncle Paul – old fellow, this is like the good old times.”
They sat there hand clasped in hand for some moments, and then the elder shook Geoffrey’s softly and let it go.
“Come,” he said, “light up. I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, let us light up,” said Geoffrey. “Mrs Mullion, may we smoke before you? I don’t want you to go away.”
“Oh, no, I will not go,” said the poor woman, tenderly, as she hastened to hand them each a light.
Then they smoked for a few minutes in silence, Mrs Mullion at a sign from the old man bringing out his handsome silver spirit-stand and glasses, with hot water and sugar.
“Come, Geoffrey, my boy,” cried Uncle Paul; “mix for yourself, and let’s drink to the happy future.”
“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “we will; but, Uncle Paul, Mrs Mullion, let me say a few words first. I had a father who gave me all my early education – all that was not given by my tender, gentle mother. My father in his lessons to me taught me what his true, sterling character had been through life. ‘Jeff, my boy,’ he has said to me a thousand times, ‘when once you have put your hand to a task, keep to it till you have mastered it.’”
“Yes, yes, you learned your lesson well,” said the old man, nodding his head approvingly, for Geoffrey had laid his cigar on the edge of the table, where it burned slowly beneath its pearly ash, and had paused, as if waiting for him to speak.
“Another thing my father said, too, as many times perhaps, Mr Paul, was this: ‘Come rich, Jeff, come poor, strive to be a gentleman through life, and never let it be said of you that you told a lie.’”
“Good, yes – good advice, Geoffrey Trethick,” said the old man, smiling. “If I had had a son, I would have said the same.”
“Then, look here, Mr Paul,” cried Geoffrey, excitedly, as he rose up and towered in his manly strength above the little old yellow nabob. “I tell you this: I never knowingly yet told a lie, and, God helping me, I never will!”
There was a strange silence in that room as the young man’s distinct, loud voice ceased for a few moments, and mother and uncle sat eagerly waiting for his next utterances.
“Now that I have said that,” continued Geoffrey, “let me look you both in the face, and tell you that you have done me a cruel wrong.”
“A cruel wrong?” began the old man, hotly.
“Yes,” continued Geoffrey, “a cruel wrong. Poor Madge has spoken out at last; and so will I.”
“This is a cruel – ”
“Wrong, Mr Paul,” said Geoffrey, smiling, and laying his hand upon the old man’s shoulder. “Uncle Paul, I like you, – I always have liked you; but you were unjust to me when you asked me to bear John Tregenna’s sin.”
The old man started back from him, his neck over the back of his chair, his withered throat stretched, and his lips parted, as he stared up in Geoffrey’s face. Then, as the whole truth seemed to come home to him, he caught at Geoffrey’s hand, and, trembling, and in broken accents, began to plead for pardon.
“My poor boy – my brave boy – my poor boy!” was all, though, that he could stammer; and, in his abject misery, he tried to struggle from his chair upon his knees: but, as soon as Geoffrey realised the truth, he smilingly held the old man in his place.
“No, no, Uncle Paul,” he said. “Stand up, old fellow, and give me your hand, like the true, chivalrous old gentleman you are, and let us understand each other once and for all. Come, you forgive me now?”
“Forgive you?” faltered the old man. “My boy, can you forgive me?”
“Your hand too, Mrs Mullion. Do you doubt my word?”
“Oh, no, no!” sobbed the poor woman, sadly, for matters had not turned out as she wished, and her tears were falling fast, when Geoffrey exclaimed sharply, and held out his hand, —
“There is some one listening! Quick; there is something wrong.”
He ran to the door, and as he flung it open there was a hasty step upon the gravel, and then a heavy fall.
The next moment he was raising the insensible form of poor Madge from the path, for she had been unable to resist the temptation to steal up and have one more glance at the old home before returning to Gwennas, but her strength was exhausted now; and when, after being carried into the house and laid upon the sofa, Mrs Mullion threw herself sobbing upon her knees beside her child, Geoffrey placed his hand upon the old man’s shoulder, and pointed to the pair.
“Is she to stay, Uncle Paul?” he said, softly.
“God forgive her as I do, my boy,” the old man replied, in a broken voice. “I need ask for pardon as well as she.”
Geoffrey hesitated about leaving, but, on looking into the room again, he saw mother and child clasped in each other’s arms, and he stole softly away to where Uncle Paul stood in the doorway.
“Come,” said Geoffrey. “I must have another cheroot, Uncle Paul, and then for home.”
“Home?” said the old man, gently; “will you not come here once more?”
“Yes – no – yes – no; I cannot say to-night, but whether I do or no, old fellow, the good old days shall come again for us. Why, Uncle Paul,” he cried, puffing away at his fresh cheroot which he had lit from that in the old man’s lips, and laying his hands upon his shoulders, “if it were not too late we’d go into the summer-house and have another row. Hallo! who’s this?”
For hasty steps were heard coming up towards the gate, and a hoarse voice cried, —
“Trethick – Master Trethick! Pengelly said Master Trethick had come up here.”
“Prawle,” cried Geoffrey. “You here! Why, what’s wrong?”
“Murder’s what’s wrong,” cried the old man, hoarsely. “Quick, man, quick! You come along o’ me.”
Chapter Fifty Seven
A Struggle for Life and Death
Bessie was rather longer than usual with her mother that night, but at last the invalid was comfortably settled, and when she went back into the sitting-room the child was just beginning to be restless.
“Will you come and stay with him a minute, Madge?” she said. “I’ll be back directly;” but there was no answer.
“Madge! Madge!”
Bessie felt frightened. She could not tell why, but, with a feeling that something was wrong, she ran to Madge’s room, but only to find it empty, and her hat and cloak gone.
“And Mr Trethick told me not to let her go again!”
Bessie felt more troubled than she could express, and, recalling Madge’s strange and excited ways, she felt now sure that there was something wrong.
“I might overtake her if she has gone along the cliff,” she said to herself; and, without hesitation, she threw on her cloak and hat, and had gone to the door ready to run up to the cliff, when the little one began to remonstrate loudly about being left alone.
For the moment Bessie thought of calling up her father from his den down below, but as quickly she thought that if any desperate idea was in poor Madge’s brain, the sight or touch of her child might act upon her more strongly than words; so, catching up the little one, she curled it up tightly in the cloak she wore, and started off, meeting John Tregenna, and in her surprise, and the suddenness of the attack, being hurled back helpless towards the brink of the old shaft, down which the next instant she was falling.
Even in the horror of those awful seconds, she clutched her burthen tightly, and, with her thoughts coming fast, and seeming to lengthen out the time, she felt herself falling – falling, as she had often dreamed of going down in some terrible nightmare.
Twice over she brushed against the side, and she knew that she had turned completely over in her descent. Then there was the shock of her plunge into the deep black water, and all seemed to be over.
She had some recollection of having shrieked, but it was faint. What she did realise the most distinctly was her plunge into the cold water, and then going down half stunned for some considerable time before she began to struggle wildly, and rose to the surface.
All was black around her, but she could for the moment breathe, and beat about with her hands, which touched the wall of rugged granite; and trying to cling to and thrust her fingers into its irregularities, she kept herself up for a few moments, during which the frantic feeling of fear which had mastered her seemed to die away; but the next minute her fingers had slipped from their frail hold, and she had again gone under.
She rose again directly, for Bessie was a stout swimmer and had been from a child; and as she struck out, panting and gasping, she swam now to the other side, and then, striking out with one hand, she kept beating the other against the wall of rock that formed the sides of the square shaft, and sent up a despairing cry for help.
Poor girl, she might have cried the night through and been unheard. She knew it, too, as she felt herself growing fainter, her clothes crippling her limbs as they clung to them, and in another few moments she knew that she would be exhausted.
“It is murder,” she moaned. “Help, help!”
She had already swum along three sides of the shaft, when, as she reached the fourth, her hand and arm passed in, and she uttered a cry of joy, striking out vigorously, and finding herself swimming in an opening for a few strokes, when she struck again against the rock, and the chill of the horror of impending death once more came upon her. After a few more vain struggles, she clung to the slimy rocks, feeling herself sink, and that life, now dearer than she could have believed, was ebbing away. But as she felt this her limbs rested upon the bottom of the opening into which she had swum, and she knew now that she was in the adit or passage that carried off the water from the old pit, when it reached a certain height.
It was some minutes before she could subdue the trembling that shook her limbs, and summon courage enough to move, lest in that hideous darkness she should go the wrong way, and sink back into the deep water; but, as she grew more collected, she felt that if she crawled onward she would be right; and so it proved, for, dragging herself on to the rock, she was the next minute on the rough floor of the adit, kneeling in an inch or two of water; and here, sinking lower, she covered her face with her hands, thrust back her streaming hair, and burst into a passion of hysterical sobbing, as she prayed that she might be saved from this horrible death.
She was mad almost with terror for the time, but by degrees she grew calmer, and, putting out her hands, she touched the walls on either side, and just above her head.
“I know where I am,” she said aloud, “only I’m frightened and confused, and – Oh, God of heaven, Madge’s child!”
Her hands went down to her breast as if expecting to find it clinging there, and then, chilled once more with horror, she remained there in the horrible darkness, afraid to move, as she tried to realise whether the little thing had fallen with her.
She put her hands to her throat again.
The cloak was gone – it had broken away at the fastening in her frantic struggles for life.
She hesitated, but as she did so, she seemed to see the pale, white figure of Madge rising up before her, and saying to her, “Give me my child;” and, rousing herself to her terrible task, she slowly crept back into the water – in the shallow part within the adit – and waded step by step back three or four yards till, feeling cautiously with one foot before her, she found that she had reached the brink; another step, and she would be once more over the deep water, where it went down hundreds of feet into the bowels of the earth.
She dared not swim out, but, holding by the rugged wall of the adit, she thrust out her hand along the surface, feeling as far as she could reach again and again, here and there, but there was nothing; and she crossed to the other side, held on, and tried again, feeling giddy as she did so, and as if she dared do no more lest she should step back into that horrible pit.
Then her heart gave a wild throb, for her right hand touched something – her cloak, and she drew it softly towards her, backing more and more into the adit, as she gathered the cloth into her hands, and uttered a cry of joy.
The babe was there, twisted in the folds of the great cloak which had floated with it, holding within its saturated cloth plenty of air to keep the little thing upon the surface.
With the water streaming from her, Bessie crept on to the rocky floor of the adit, and, panting and sobbing hysterically, she hastened to unwind the clinging covering from the helpless babe; but, in the darkness and confusion, it was some minutes before she got it free and held it to her dripping breast, kissing it, holding it to her lips to feel whether it breathed, forgetting her own terrible position as her thoughts all went to her little charge, and calling it by the most endearing names.
There was no response, no fretful cry, no shriek of pain or suffering; the little thing lay inert in her arms, and in her agony, as a fresh horror burst upon her, Bessie spoke to it angrily, and shook it.
“Cry!” she exclaimed. “Oh, if it would only cry! Baby, baby! Oh, heaven help me! it is dead – it is dead!”
She held it tightly to her breast for a moment or two as she knelt there, rocking herself to and fro. Then a thought struck her, and, changing her attitude to a sitting position, she held the little thing in her lap, wrung out the cloak as well as she could, and wrapped the child in it once more to try and give some warmth to its little fast-chilling limbs. As she did so, Bessie felt how dearly she had grown to love the little helpless thing whose mother’s illness had made it so dependent upon her.
“Oh, what shall I do – what shall I do?” she sobbed at last. “Will no one help me? Mr Trethick! Father! Help!”
“I might as well cry to the sea,” she moaned at last, as she held the baby more tightly to her breast. “Now let me try and think, or I shall go mad.”
She remained perfectly motionless, with her teeth set fast, for a few minutes, beating down the horror that threatened for the time to wreck her reason.
“I can think now,” she said. “He threw me down the old shaft, and I got into the adit, where I’m kneeling. If I try, how can I get out?”
She thought again, but she was so confused by her fall that it was some time before she could realise the fact that she might creep through this old passage hewn in the rock, and, if not stopped by a fall from the roof, come out upon the shore.
“But the winzes!” she said, with a shudder. “The winzes!”
It was well for her that, as a miner’s daughter, she called to mind the fact that, in all probability, the passage in which she knelt would have another parallel to it, some twenty or thirty feet below, and connected with it by one or two perpendicular well-like openings in the floor, openings which, like the passage below, would, of course, be filled with water.
Knowing that there were such dangers in her path, she at last started, creeping along on her knees, and, with one hand, feeling the way.
It was no such great distance, but, under the circumstances, it was painful in the extreme. Still her spirits rose as she went on, for at the end of five minutes there came to her the peculiar sound of the waves dashing upon the shore; and creeping onward, with her burthen clasped to her breast, and her head at times striking against the roof, she began to be hopeful that her worst troubles were to be the mud, and slime, and water through which she crept; when, all at once, the cautiously extended hand which guided her way, feeling ceiling, wall, and floor, went down into deep water, and she knew that she was on the brink of a pit, full to the brim, and this had to be crossed.
Bessie’s knowledge came to her aid, and, laying the baby tenderly down, she brought both hands to bear, feeling cautiously about to determine the width of the winze.
If it were across the adit it would be narrow, and she hoped to be able to step over; if it were cut in the other direction there might be a rocky shelf at the side giving sufficient room for her to pass.
It was cut across the adit, for she could feel the square edge of the rock from wall to wall; and rising and feeling about over it for a prominence in the wall by which she could hold on, she grasped it tightly, placed her right foot close to the edge, and leaned forward, trying with her left to reach the other side.
Yes, she was successful. They are economical of labour in digging through solid rock, and she found that the winze was but a yard across, so, drawing herself back, she caught up her burthen, hesitating for a moment, as she felt that a false step would plunge them both into the well-like opening. Then, bending low, she made as bold a stride as she could, crossed in safety, and once more resumed her cautious progress, till the sea-breeze fanned her cheek as she crept out amongst the rocks, and, falling upon her knees, she once more sobbed and prayed aloud.
Rousing herself, though, to a sense of her responsibility, she rose and hurried along the rugged shore beneath the cliff to the sloping path down which Madge had come some time before; and, climbing to the cliff path, she gave one frightened, unnerved look in the direction of the opening leading to the old shaft, and then ran painfully towards the cottage.
But Bessie’s strength was gone. Her run soon became a walk, her walk a tottering crawl, and it was with blanched face she at last staggered into the cottage, where her father was now seated, keeping up a blazing fire with wreck-wood to save the candle.
“Why, Bess, my lass!” he said.
“Oh, father, help!” she cried, in a hoarse, piteous voice, as she threw herself upon her knees by the fire to try and restore life to the little clay-clad form she held.
“Wet – drenched!” he cried. “In the sea?”
“No, father,” she moaned. “Quick – the doctor. Mr Trethick. He threw me down the old pit-shaft.”
“Trethick did?” roared the old man.
“No, John Tregenna; and he has killed his child.”
“As I will him,” roared the old wrecker, raising his fists to heaven. “So help me God?”
Chapter Fifty Eight
A Strong Man’s Weakness
“Here, speak out,” cried Geoffrey excitedly, as he hurried with old Prawle down towards the cliff. “What is it? What do you mean?” and as the old man hurriedly recited all he knew, Geoffrey felt his breath come thick and fast.
As they reached the cliff they came upon Dr Rumsey, who had been summoned by old Prawle before he had gone up to Mrs Mullion’s to find Geoffrey; and, after a distant salutation, the doctor began to question Geoffrey, but without avail. Then they went on in silence to find Bessie, with her wet dishevelled hair and clinging garments, still kneeling before the fire with Madge’s baby in her arms.
She looked up in a pitiful way towards Dr Rumsey as he entered, and rose stiffly and laid her little burthen upon the couch.
“A candle, quick!” cried the doctor; and Geoffrey lit one and placed it in the eager hands, to look on afterwards, in company with old Prawle, who stood there, with his hands deep in his pockets, scowling heavily at the scene.
Dr Rumsey’s examination was short and decisive.
“I can do nothing,” he said quietly. “Poor little thing, it has been dead some time.”
Bessie burst into a low sobbing wail, and crouched, there upon the floor; but she raised her face again with a wild stare as she heard Geoffrey speak.
“But try, doctor; for heaven’s sake try,” he cried.
“I know my business, Mr Trethick,” said the doctor coldly. “The child was not drowned. Place your hand here. Its head must have struck the rock. It was dead before it reached the water.”
Geoffrey Trethick – strong, stern, trouble-hardened man – bent down as he heard these words, and placed his firm white hand upon the dead child’s head, realising fully the doctor’s words. Then, raising the little corpse tenderly in his arms, he stood looking down in the white, placid face, the doctor and old Prawle watching him with curious eyes.
“My poor little man,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “My poor little man! Oh, baby, baby, I couldn’t have loved you better if you had been my own!”
As he spoke he raised the little thing higher and higher, and kissed its little lips and then its cold, white forehead, and the two men heard a sob start from his breast, and saw the great tears rolling softly down.
“Oh, Rumsey!” he groaned, “I’m afraid I’m a poor weak fool.”
He laid the little thing reverently upon the couch, and the doctor looked at him curiously, till he was recalled to himself by old Prawle’s hand laid upon his shoulder.
“See to her, doctor, she wants you badly;” and it was true, for Bessie had sunk back with her head against the couch.
“Where is Miss Mullion?” said the doctor. “I want some help.”
“At home, doctor, as bad as your patient there. You must be nurse and doctor too.”
Without a word old Prawle took a couple of strides across the room, and, lifting Bessie as if she had been a babe, he carried her into Madge’s chamber and laid her upon the bed. The motion revived her, though, and, after a few words of advice, the doctor went off homeward, and Geoffrey and old Prawle walked up and down the cliff, the father going in at intervals to see that Bess was sleeping comfortably, and listening at her door.
“Not to-night,” the old man muttered; “not to-night. I can’t go and leave my poor lass there, perhaps to die. It’ll keep a bit – it’ll keep a bit;” and he rejoined Geoffrey.
The next morning at daybreak they took a lantern and explored the adit, the old man pointing out the traces of Bessie’s trailing garments, and here and there a spot or two of blood upon the rock.
They crossed the winze, and Geoffrey wondered how a woman could have attempted it in the dark; and at last they stood in a stooping position at the end, looking at the black surface of the water in the old shaft, upon which was floating Bessie’s hat and the child’s hood.
They could not reach them, so they returned, old Prawle saying, in a curiously harsh voice, —
“She didn’t tell a lie, Master Trethick, eh?”
“A lie?” exclaimed Geoffrey. “It is too horrible almost to believe.”
“Horrible? Yes. Now let’s go and look at the pit mouth.”
Geoffrey followed him, feeling as if it were all part of some terrible dream, and wondering what effect it would have upon Madge.
“Why, Prawle,” he exclaimed, stopping short, “that villain must have thought he was throwing in mother and child.”
“Ay, I dessay,” said the old man. “No doubt, but it makes no difference to me. He threw down my Bess, and that’s enough for me. Come on.”
There was little to see on the turf by the old shaft after they had climbed the cliff; but, as Geoffrey went close to the mouth and looked down into the black void, he turned away with a shudder, wondering how any one could have been hurled down there in the darkness of the night, and yet have lived to see another day.
“Come away, Prawle,” he said hoarsely. “What have you got there?”
“Button off a man’s coat,” he said shortly. “Less than that’s been enough to send any one to the gallows. But I don’t want to send him.”
“No,” said Geoffrey; “the horror of what what he has done – the murder of his own child – will stay with him to his grave.”
“If he ever has one,” muttered Prawle.
Geoffrey looked at him searchingly, but the old man’s face was as inscrutable as that of a sphinx; and, leading the way back, he went down into his favourite place by the boat below the face of the cliff, and as soon as Geoffrey had made a hasty breakfast, which he found Bessie had prepared, he went off to the cottage to see Mrs Mullion, and tell her of the events of the past night.
