Kitabı oku: «The Vicar's People», sayfa 8
Chapter Sixteen
Amongst the Rocks
Geoffrey Trethick found that his were very pleasant quarters at the cottage, for Mrs Mullion seemed to take quite a motherly interest in his welfare, while her daughter Madge formed an excellent lieutenant, having evidently been won over by the young man’s frank, pleasant ways as much as by his looks.
“If there is any thing I can do to make you more comfortable, Mr Trethick, I hope you’ll say so,” said Mrs Mullion, one morning as Geoffrey was just going out. “Both Madge and I have got so used to waiting on gentlemen that it comes quite natural to us.”
“I’m sure you are very kind,” said Geoffrey.
“Buttons on and darning, and that sort of thing, of course, we’ll see to. I used to do all that for our late clergyman, Mr Owen – a very nice, genuine man. He used to put me so in mind of poor Madge’s father. Ah!” she continued, sadly, “very different he was to his brother, Mr Paul – half-brothers, you know. Dear Edward never spoke like Thomas – Mr Paul – does. I don’t say but what he would be out of temper sometimes, all gentlemen will be, but he used to say his bad words inside like, so that you could not hear them.”
“A very good plan,” said Geoffrey, smiling.
“Thomas – Mr Paul, you know – says very strange things sometimes, but he means well, and he is a very, very good man.”
“Yes, so I believe,” replied Geoffrey.
“Our Mr Owen, too, was a very good man, and they were great friends. I liked him better than this Mr Lee. I went to hear him on Sunday, but I could not really make out what he meant, but I’ve no doubt he meant well.”
“Yes, of course,” said Geoffrey, “most clergymen do.”
“To be sure,” assented the amiable little woman. “Have you seen the Rumseys yet?”
“I’ve met the doctor,” replied Geoffrey.
“A very clever man,” said Mrs Mullion, “and his wife means well, but she drills the children so. She’s very proud, and thinks they have come down; but, as I say to my Madge, if she would not drill those poor children quite so much, and use a pocket-handkerchief to their noses, it would be so much better. Yes, Madge, I’m coming directly.”
Geoffrey wished she would go, for he wanted to write a letter; but the little lady kept prattling on.
“I want to see you get a good colour, Mr Trethick. You look Londony, you know. You must let me cook you a chop or a steak for breakfast – underdone, you know. Dr Rumsey says there’s nothing like it. So much better for you than fish; and I will say that of our butcher, he does have good meat. His only fault is that, as Mr Paul says, he seems to have a knife that will cut two pounds when you want one.”
“A common failing with butchers, I believe,” laughed Geoffrey.
“Yes,” said the little woman, innocently. “We get our milk there, and – to be sure! Now, look here, Mr Trethick, before you go out for those early morning walks of yours – ”
“Mamma!”
“Yes, Madge, I’m coming! Bless the child! how impatient she is when I’m here. But, as I was going to say, you must let me beat you up a new-laid egg in a glass of fresh milk. Lornocks have got a new cow, an Alderney, with such a beautiful bust, and I never saw richer milk in my life.”
“But, my dear Mrs Mullion, I’m not an invalid!” laughed Geoffrey. “The only consumption I suffer from is that of the pocket.”
“Hallo! You here?” said old Mr Paul, stumping in.
“Yes, Thomas. I was advising Mr Trethick about his health.”
“Stuff! He’s all health! Don’t take any notice of her, Trethick, or she’ll want to put you in a poultice every night! There, be off, woman!”
“Yes, dear, I’m going,” said the little woman, gently.
“She’ll be giving you beef-tea and arrow-root till you can’t see,” growled the old fellow. “I believe she was a nurse once.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, before she was born what she is.”
Geoffrey stared.
“And that she’ll be a hen next, like Mrs Rumsey, to set on eggs and cluck over chickens.”
“Metempsychosis?” said Geoffrey.
“Hah! yes! The niggers out in Poonah are right as right about that.”
“Very likely,” said Geoffrey. “Now, what do you suppose you’ll be next?”
“Don’t know,” said the old man, sharply; “but I’ve no doubt you’ll be a dog.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because you’re an impertinent puppy now!”
“Just as you like,” said Geoffrey, smiling. “But you look cross.”
“No, sir; things are not just as I like,” said the old man, seating himself upon Geoffrey’s table, but only to get off, go quickly to the door, open it softly, and then dash out – to come back disappointed, for there was no one listening. “Look here, Trethick, I want to ask you a plain question.”
“Go on, then.”
“That niece of mine goes out a great deal now – has gone out a great deal since you’ve been here. Is it to meet you?”
Geoffrey had hard work to sit unmoved, for he thought of what he knew, and wondered whether he ought to speak out: and he felt that the old man was watching him searchingly.
“No!” said Geoffrey, shortly. “It is not!”
“That’s right, I’m glad of it,” said the old man, taking a chair, and apparently more at his ease. “She’ll be a cat one of these days, hang her! But look here, boy. Don’t you look at her. The jade’s ready to lead on everybody she sees. If I were not her uncle, I believe she’d set her cap at me. Now, look here: I told you at first, and I tell you again, I’ll have no fooling.”
“Give me one of those cigars of yours,” said Geoffrey, rather bluntly, and apparently without paying any heed to the old man’s words. “I want a smoke.”
“Humph! Things are going crooked with you, then, are they?”
“Very!” said Geoffrey. “But come out to the summer-house, and let’s feel the free air.”
“Here, catch hold!” cried the old man, holding out a black cheroot. “That’s the only good trait in your character, boy, you do know a good cigar. He, he, he! You should try some I keep for Rumsey, and fellows like that.”
“Thanks, no,” said Geoffrey.
“Ah! I told you how it would be,” continued the old man, as they entered the look-out and took their seats. “I told you how it would be. I knew it well enough. So I did.”
They sat looking at each other for a few moments.
“You can’t get an engagement then, my lad, eh?”
“No,” said Geoffrey, lighting up; “not yet.”
“No; nor you won’t. That you won’t,” chuckled the old man, as Geoffrey sat himself on the summer-house table, and, thrusting his hands in his pockets, began swinging one leg backwards and forwards.
“I’ve tried at twenty mines in the month I’ve been here,” said Geoffrey, “and pointed out ways of saving that would pay me a good salary ten times over, and put money in the proprietors’ or shareholders’ pockets.”
“Yes, and they laugh at you, don’t they?”
“Confoundedly,” said Geoffrey.
“Keep that leg still,” said the old man, poking at the swinging member with his cane.
Geoffrey gave the cane a kick, and sent it flying out on to the grass-plot, making Uncle Paul turn white with rage; but the young man got leisurely down and picked it up, retaining it in his hand as he reseated himself, and began making passes with it at a knot in the wood.
“Give me my cane,” said the old man, angrily.
“They’re as blind as moles to their own interests,” said Geoffrey.
“Do you hear? Give me my cane.”
“And treat all my advances as if I were trying to trick and defraud them.”
“I say, give me my cane!” cried the old man.
“They flatly tell me that my plans are new-fangled and foolish, and that they’ll have none of them.”
“Confound you, you insolent puppy! Will you give me my cane?”
“They’re as hard to move as so many mules,” said Geoffrey, handing the cane, and smiling in the old man’s face.
Uncle Paul snatched the cane, and made a threatening gesture as if about to strike, when Geoffrey held out one hand, school-boy fashion, for a cut on the palm, and the old man made as if to give it a vicious blow; but, as the other did not flinch, he checked the fall of the cane, and sat showing his yellow teeth.
“I’m glad of it, very glad,” he snarled. “I told you so; and now you may pack up and be off, for I’m sick of you, and want to see your back.”
“But I’m not going,” said Geoffrey, coolly. “I wouldn’t move for the world. You do me so much good.”
“I do you good, puppy?”
“To be sure you do. I get as bilious and acid, and put out with my ill-luck as can be, and then I come and take a dose of you, and it seems to put me right again.”
“You’re – you’re the most insolent, cool, impertinent puppy I ever met?” cried the old man; “and – and I wish you all the ill-luck you can get.”
“Thanky,” said Geoffrey. “Well, good-by for the present. I’m going to take a walk down to the Cove.”
“Of course,” snarled Uncle Paul. “Hi! here. Madge! Madge!”
“Yes, uncle,” she cried, running eagerly out of the porch, and across the grass-plot.
“Yes, uncle,” he snarled. “You jade. You were listening, and waiting for a chance for another look, or a word, with this puppy here.”
“Oh, uncle!” cried the girl, colouring up, for the old man had guessed the truth.
“Pray don’t protest, my dear Miss Mullion,” said Geoffrey, coolly. “Say you were. There’s no harm in it.”
“Harm in it?” cried the old man, fiercely, “harm? Why, you don’t suppose I’m going to let you, a mining adventurer, flirt and play tricks with my brother’s child, and then go off and never come back?”
“Youth is the time for folly, Mr Paul.”
“Yes; but there shall be no follies here, sir. Look here, Madge, this fellow’s not to be trusted. He’s always going over to the Cove, to make eyes at handsome Bess Prawle; so don’t you listen to him.”
Madge looked at Geoffrey inquiringly.
“It’s quite true, Miss Mullion,” said Geoffrey, bowing assent to the old man’s words, “I am going over to the Cove; and I dare say I shall see Miss Prawle the pretty. By the way, Mr Paul, are women any the better for being pretty?”
“You – you impudent jackanapes! You, you – There, ha, ha, ha! Look at her!” he cried, chuckling at the effect of his words. “She’s run indoors in a huff, and she’ll cry as soon as you’re gone.”
“Then I hope you feel happy, sir?”
“I do,” said the old man, rubbing the ivory top of his cane. “Look here, boy, do you mean any thing by being so civil to that girl?”
“What girl, sir?”
“Don’t aggravate me, boy. Her – Madge – that smooth-faced, good-looking cat.”
“I don’t mean any thing but to be civil.”
“Not marriage?”
“Well, seeing that I can barely keep myself,” said Geoffrey, laughing, “no.”
“Marry Miss Pavey, then,” chuckled the old man, maliciously. “Sweet creature. False teeth, false hair, false ways, false voice – falsetto. Lovely woman. See what a dresser she is. What a useful piece of furniture for a house.”
“Marry her yourself,” said Geoffrey; “you are an old bachelor.”
“Bah!” exclaimed the old man. “But look here, sir. My niece!”
“Still harping on my daughter.”
“No, I’m not, Polonius Junior; but upon my niece. You say she don’t go out to meet you.”
“No, she does not.”
“Then don’t be civil to her. Marriage is folly. My brother married Jane Mullion there, and she worried his life out with being so stupid, and then he died and left her and her child paupers.”
“Hang that word!” cried Geoffrey, warmly. “How I do hate it.”
“Then don’t go and make a race of paupers,” said the old man. “Bah! A young fellow has his work cut out in life, and starts on his journey by sticking a load of woman on his back. Then she sticks a load of baby on her back, and most likely goes on banging children all over him till the burthen gets too heavy to be borne, when the poor wretch breaks down and dies. Look at me, sir. I never married; but saved enough to live on, and keep other people. Follow my example.”
“And grow as cantankerous.”
“Do you want to quarrel, puppy?”
“Not I. I haven’t time.”
“What are you crying about?” said the old man, roughly, as he found that Mrs Mullion, attracted by his loud voice, had come to see what was the matter, and had heard a part of his last speech.
“At what you said, dear,” sobbed the poor woman.
“Don’t you mind what he says, Mrs Mullion,” said Geoffrey; “he doesn’t mean it. I’ll be bound to say he’s got a very soft spot in his heart somewhere.”
As he spoke Geoffrey walked out of the garden, whistling, and made for the cliff path, drinking in the deliciously-fresh sea-breeze as he went along.
“This place keeps one from having the dumps,” he said to himself, “it is so fresh and bright; but really, in spite of my vainglorious boasting, I’m afraid I am wasting time here. Nil des, though; I’m not beaten yet. Old Paul is glorious as a dose of bitters, if he didn’t give one quite so much about Brown Maudlin. Pretty girl, very; but wants ballast horribly. Hang the old man, he goes just the way to make a fellow think about her. But he’s a fine old boy. Now I’ll go and have a dose of resignation from poor old Mrs Prawle.
“That old lady always does me good,” he said, as he went on. “What sane man could grumble who has all his faculties, just because he cannot make filthy lucre, when he has that patient old lady ready to face him with her calm, subdued ways. Hang it, there’s a very pathetic side to her life!”
He did not see that he, too, was watched, as he went swinging along; but went right ahead in his thorough way, setting his mind on a certain goal, and hardly heeding any thing else; but he had not passed one clump of rocks far, when Amos Pengelly came out, and stood watching him till he disappeared, and then followed slowly, to make sure that Geoffrey went down to the Cove.
The rough miner’s face was very white and drawn, and he uttered a low moaning sigh as he satisfied himself that the man whom he was watching had gone straight to the Cove, and then he limped back some little distance, and, with a heavy frown settling on his massive face, he seated himself on a rock waiting for Geoffrey’s return, his fingers crooking and clenching into fists, and the ruined mine shaft not far behind.
Chapter Seventeen
At Gwennas Cove
Bess Prawle was leaning against the rough granite door-post, very handsome, picturesque, and defiant, as she knitted away at a coarse blue worsted jersey which she was making; looking up from time to time to watch her father, who, pipe in mouth, was weeding the little patch of garden, of which he seemed to be very proud, while every now and then he paused to speak.
Just then the old man raised his nose and sniffed.
“There’s your mother burning again, Bess. Go and see,” he growled.
The girl ran in to find poor old Mrs Prawle evidently greatly exercised in her mind lest a jersey of her husband’s should be put on damp, and hence she was scorching it against the fire.
“Oh, mother!” cried Bess impatiently, “how you frighten me. Pray do take more care.”
“Yes, yes, Bess,” cried the poor woman querulously, as she turned and re-spread the article of clothing on her knees, “but some one must see to the things being aired;” and Bessie returned to where the old man was at work, when he stood up and drew his hand across his mouth.
“I don’t care, lass; I arn’t lived to sixty without finding that when a young fellow keeps coming to a cottage like this, it isn’t only to see an old woman who’s sick.”
“Stuff, father! you’re always thinking young men come to see me.”
“Am I?” grumbled the old man. “Well, I know what I know, and I know this – that if that London chap keeps coming here to see you, I’ll break his gashly head, or shove him over the cliff as I would have done to Jack Lannoe if Amos Pengelly hadn’t thrashed him instead.”
“Then I’ll tell him what you say, father – no, I won’t,” cried Bess, sharply, “I’ll tell mother what you promise to do.”
She made a movement as if to go in, when her father caught her by the skirt of her gown, and drew her back.
“I’ll never forgive you, Bess,” he said, in a hoarse whisper; “I’ll never forgive you if you do.”
“I will tell her,” cried the girl, looking angry and flushed, “unless you promise never to touch Mr Trethick.”
The old man held on to her and drew her farther away, so as to make sure that no words of their altercation should be heard inside the cottage.
“Look here, Bess,” he said hoarsely, “doesn’t he come to see you?”
“To see me?” said the girl, scornfully. “Isn’t he a gentleman, and arn’t I a witch, as the people say, and arn’t you the worst character in these parts?”
“So they say,” said the old man, grimly. “The fools!”
“Is it likely that a gentleman like him would come after me?”
“That Tregenna did,” said the old man, suspiciously.
“Yes, till you threatened to break his neck,” said Bess, laughing.
“And I’d have done it too,” said the old man, with his eyes lighting up fiercely; “and so I will to this one.”
“He don’t come to see me, father,” said Bess, quietly. “You watch him next time he’s here. He’s not the sort of man to care about women at all, and – hush, father! here he is.”
There was the sound of a heavy foot on the stones above, and Geoffrey Trethick came into sight, looking fresh and breeze-blown as he strode along.
“She knows his step,” muttered the old man, grinding his teeth, “and I won’t have it.”
He glanced at his daughter, and saw that her warm colour was a little heightened as Geoffrey came up with a hearty “Good-morning.”
“Why, Bess,” he cried, “you look as fresh as a rose. Ah, Father Prawle, how are you? Look here, I’ve brought you an ounce of prime tobacco,” and he held out the little roll to the old man.
Prawle took it, looking vindictively at him, and made as if to throw it over the cliff into the sea, but jerked it back at the giver’s feet.
“I don’t want your tobacco,” he said, roughly. “I could buy you and yours up a dozen times over if I liked.”
“You are precious poor if you can’t,” said Geoffrey, stooping and picking up the tobacco. “Well, if you won’t smoke it I will. But look here, Prawle, what’s the matter with you? What have I done to offend you?”
“I don’t like your coming here, and I won’t have it,” cried the old man.
“Do you want to frighten poor mother?” exclaimed Bess, hastily. “Don’t mind what he says, Mr Trethick,” she continued; “mother is so glad for you to come – it makes such a change; but father won’t believe you come on purpose to see her.”
“Then what does he suppose I come for?” said Geoffrey, sitting down on a rough bench by the path. “Does he – Oh! I see,” he said, laughing; “he thinks it’s to see you, Miss Bess. Why, Prawle, Prawle,” he continued, getting up and clapping the old man on the shoulder, “what a queer set of people you are down here!”
Bess changed colour a little as she heard the visitor’s half-contemptuous tone when he alluded to her, but she forced a smile, and spoke out firmly, —
“Yes, Mr Trethick, that’s what he thinks.”
“Then he was never more mistaken in his life,” cried Geoffrey. “Here, come and sit down, old man, and we’ll smoke a pipe together till mother wakes, and then I’ll buy some sweets and be off again; but I want a talk with you. Amos Pengelly says you know more about the mines here than most men.”
“Maybe I do, sir,” growled Prawle, surlily, and apparently only half convinced.
“Sit down then, man, and speak out honestly. What do you know about Wheal Carnac?”
“Wheal Carnac!” said the old man, starting. “What do I know about it? Nothing at all – nothing at all.”
“Fill your pipe. Sit down and light up.”
Prawle hesitated for a moment, and glanced at his daughter, then back at their visitor, and ended by sitting down on the bench and knocking the ashes from his pipe to refill it from the tobacco brought by his visitor; while Bess, in whose eyes the tears were gathering, turned away and softly peeped into the cottage.
“That’s better,” said Geoffrey, as both pipes were lit, and they sat under the grey and purple cliff facing the sparkling sea. “Amos Pengelly says he believes you have a good deal of faith in that mine.”
“Amos Pengelly’s a psalm-singing, chattering fool,” said the old man, angrily.
“No he isn’t,” said Geoffrey; “he’s a very good, honest, sensible fellow.”
Bess turned sharply round and looked curiously at him.
“Bah! what does he know ’bout what I think?” growled Prawle.
“I don’t know; but he tells me you worked in it.”
Prawle nodded.
“Well, you must have seen a good deal of what the rock is like.”
“Like rubbish,” said the old man, hastily. “Thousands have been wasted there, and thousands more will be by anybody who’s fool enough to work it.”
“Humph?” said Geoffrey, between two puffs of smoke, “perhaps so. Is that your honest opinion?”
As he spoke he gazed full in the old man’s eyes, which met his without flinching for a few moments, but only to sink before the searching gaze and take refuge on the ground.
“Never you mind what’s my honest opinion. I’m not an Amos Pengelly to go and chatter about my affairs.”
“A still tongue makes a wise head, Master Prawle,” said Geoffrey, “even about little smuggling and wrecking jobs.”
“What do you know about smuggling and wrecking?” cried Prawle, angrily.
“Very little,” said Geoffrey, “only this cove looks to me about as convenient a place as well could be for any little job of that sort.”
“Mother’s awake, Mr Trethick,” interposed Bess, as she saw her father’s wrath rising at Geoffrey’s bantering comment.
“I’ll come directly,” said Geoffrey, as he saw her appealing look. “There, I won’t joke you about your private affairs, Master Prawle. So you won’t tell me any thing about Wheal Carnac?”
“Not a word,” said the old man, angrily.
“Not this time,” said Geoffrey, rising, “but think it over. Now, Miss Bessie, how is our invalid to-day?”
Mrs Prawle’s face lit up as Geoffrey’s form darkened the door, and she held out her thin white hand eagerly, as, in his bluff way, her visitor asked after her health.
“Very sadly, sir, very sadly,” she said, turning a fresh article of attire and spreading it upon her knees; “but do you – do you want – I’m so glad to do a little to save being a burthen to them.”
“Want sweets?” said Geoffrey. “Yes, I’ve got a commission to spend a whole sixpence; and see here, Miss Bessie, above half are to be those transparent red gentlemen.”
He looked merrily in the girl’s face, little thinking of the pain he gave her, and how her woman’s vanity was touched by his utter indifference. She smiled back, however, filled a paper bag with what he required, and went out to resume her knitting by the door, while Geoffrey sat on chatting, and listening to the poor woman’s plaints.
“She’s such a good girl, my Bess,” she said, proudly, as her mother’s heart throbbed high at the thought of what a thing it would be if this well-spoken gentleman from London should take a fancy to her child, and raise her to his position.
“Yes, she seems to be,” said Geoffrey, little suspecting her thoughts.
“So patient and so good; and you will not heed what they say about us, sir?”
“Not I,” said Geoffrey.
“They say, you know, that she’s almost a wise woman; and they’ve been very bitter against us ever since Mrs Polwhyn’s cow died.”
“Indeed!”
“Oh yes,” said the poor woman, earnestly; “they say Bess ill-wished it, and that she has ill-wished Mrs Vorr’s boy, who is a cripple.”
“You are a curious set of people down here,” said Geoffrey; “but do you mean to tell me that they believe such things as that?”
“Indeed they do,” said the poor woman, with tears in her eyes.
“And about witches?”
“Oh yes,” she said, laying her hand on the big Bible by her side; “and, of course, that is true, sir. You know King Saul went to see the witch of Endor.”
“Yes,” said Geoffrey, dryly.
“But it is too bad about my poor Bess, who is such a good and patient girl, and waits upon me day and night. He’ll be a lucky man who wins her for a wife!”
“I’m sure he will,” said Geoffrey.
“Then they say such cruel things about Prawle, and call him wrecker and smuggler.”
“Well,” said Geoffrey, laughing, “I wouldn’t swear he has never helped the landing of any thing in the cove.”
“Don’t ask me, please sir,” said the old woman, looking terribly troubled; “but he is the best and truest of men, and, though he’s very rough, never a hard word has he said all these weary years that I have been nothing but a burthen and a care.”
“Oh, come, come!” said Geoffrey, taking her hand, as he saw the tears trickling down her furrowed face, “don’t talk like that; there’s always a pleasure in doing things for those we love. Hallo! who’s this?” he cried, starting up as the doorway was shadowed, “Miss Penwynn!”
“Mr Trethick!” cried Rhoda, flushing slightly, “you here?”
“Yes,” he said, laughing frankly, as he shook hands, “I’ve come to buy some sweets. Mrs Prawle’s an old friend of mine. Let me recommend the transparent red fellows, with acid in them,” he continued, merrily. “Miss Bessie, here’s a fresh customer.”
Rhoda laughed and looked pleased at the way in which he kept up the pleasant fiction, as he immediately resigned his seat in her favour, and after a few cheery words about the weather and the like, he bade the invalid good-by, asked after. Mr Penwynn, and left the cottage.
“He’s a brave, good young man, my dear,” said Mrs Prawle, wiping her eyes, “and he often comes over and spends a sixpence here.”
“Does he?” said Rhoda, quietly.
“Yes, very often; but Prawle don’t like it, though I can’t see why, my dear, for no young man could be nicer; and if he has took a fancy to our Bess, and should marry her, it would be the happiest day of my life.”
“But – do you think – ”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the invalid, glad of an opportunity to prattle on; “she’s a good and a handsome girl, as she showed in the way she sent that Mr Tregenna about his business, and it was a merciful thing that Prawle never did him a mischief; he’s that violent, and Mr Tregenna was always hanging about to see our Bess.”
“Yes, yes,” said Rhoda, colouring, “I know about that;” and then, her woman’s curiosity prevailing over her dislike to hear gossip, she continued, “but you don’t think Mr Trethick comes to – ”
“See our Bess, my dear? Well, I can’t say. He’s quite a gentleman, and I’m sure if he does he means honourable to her.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Rhoda, hastily, “but he is quite a stranger.”
“Yes, my dear, and it may be all my fancy; but gentlemen do sometimes marry poor girls – not that my Bess is poor, or will be poor,” she said, proudly. “There’s many a farmer’s or captain’s daughter will be worse off than she.”
“But I thought,” exclaimed Rhoda, “that Bess had a sweetheart – that lame man, Pengelly?”
“No,” said the invalid, “I don’t think that’s any thing. He’s a good young man – so religious, and sings and prays beautifully. He prayed here by me one Sunday for a whole hour; but it is not nature that my Bess should care for the likes of him, even if he does worship the ground she walks upon.”
The old woman prattled away, but Rhoda did not hear her, for somehow her mind was busy running on with Geoffrey Trethick’s career, and she was thinking how strange it would be if he married the old smuggler’s handsome daughter, who, it was reputed, would have plenty of money when her father died, but was to be avoided on account of the possession of the evil eye.
At last the visit was brought to an end, Rhoda promising, somewhat unwillingly, to come soon again; when Bess was summoned to come in, with her fearless erect carriage, to do up the parcel of sweets that the visitor purchased.
As they were taken, the eyes of the two girls met, each gazing searchingly at the other, and to Rhoda it seemed that there was a calm, triumphant smile on the face of Bess, who almost looked at her mockingly, though there was a bitterness in the curl of her lip.
Somehow Rhoda grew very thoughtful as she slowly made her way back. Geoffrey Trethick was nothing to her, but he had been their guest, and it seemed to be almost an insult that he should know them, and yet stoop to the pursuit of this common peasant girl.
“But why should I trouble about it?” she said, merrily; and all thought of what had been said was chased away upon her seeing the object of her thoughts upon the cliff track, in company with the Reverend Edward Lee.
Meanwhile Bess Prawle had gone out, knitting in hand, to where her father was busy in his garden, and stood beside him for some time in silence, till he looked and saw her gazing at him, with a settled frown upon her face.
“Well, father,” she said rather huskily.
“Well, lass.”
“Do you think now that Mr Trethick comes over to see poor me?”
