The Vicar's People

“Yes, mother. Did you say a pen’orth, sir?”

“No, I want sixpen’orth, my lass,” said Geoffrey.

The girl darted a grateful look at him as she took a covered glass jar from the window-sill, and as she rattled the coloured sticks of candy which were its contents, Geoffrey heard a sigh of satisfaction from the invalid, a glance showing him that the head was once more bent down over the net.

“Fine weather, Mrs Prawle,” said Geoffrey, hazarding a shot, as the girl busily rustled a paper bag.

“Yes, yes,” said the invalid, looking up at him, “I suppose it is, sir. I hope you will come again.”

The girl darted a quick look at him.

“Oh, yes! of course,” replied Geoffrey, whose eyes wandered over the pitiable picture before him. “I shall come again.”

“I’m so anxious to get up a connection, sir,” continued the invalid, “and Gwennas Cove is rather out of the way.”

“I should think it is – rather!” said Geoffrey to himself, and he could hardly refrain from smiling at the poor woman’s idea of getting up a connection in that wild spot.

“Yes, Bess, take the money. Thank you kindly, sir. Good-day, sir; good-day;” and the invalid began to carefully turn the airing garment upon her knees, though there was no more dampness in it than in one of the red-hot pieces of wood over which she hung.

Geoffrey felt disposed to stay, but his time was short, and, after a cheery “good-day,” he strode out, followed by the girl, to find that the rugged-looking old man was gone, patch and all; but the girl hurried on before him for a few yards, as if to be out of hearing at the cottage, and then held out her hand.

“What? Good-by!” said Geoffrey, smiling, and he held out his own.

“No, no, nonsense,” said the girl, flushing. “Give me the sweeties, and take your money back.”

“Then you carry that on to please the old lady, eh?” said Geoffrey.

“Yes, of course,” replied the girl, sharply. “Didn’t you know?”

“Not I; but I guessed as much.”

“Mother’s been ill these twenty years, and has to be carried to her bed. She thinks she’s a burthen, so we do it to humour her.”

“I thought as much.”

“Then why don’t you take your money?” said a hoarse, rough voice, that chased away all the sentiment of the affair, and Geoffrey started round to see that the fierce-looking old man was leaning over a block of granite, his arms crossed, and his chin resting upon them. “Take your money and go.”

“No,” said Geoffrey, in his off-hand way. “No: thanks. I want the sweets for the children.”

“Yours?” said the old fellow, roughly.

“Mine? Hang it, man; no.”

Geoffrey turned to the girl, and looked at her, laughing merrily; but this seemed to irritate the old man, who came fiercely from behind the granite block, thrusting his hands far down into his pockets, and scowling angrily.

“Look here, young man,” he said, hoarsely, “you’re a stranger here, and don’t know us.”

“Not yet,” said Geoffrey, “but I dare say I soon shall.”

“Take your money, and don’t come again,” said the old man, hoarsely.

“You are a nice, pleasant-spoken old gentleman,” said Geoffrey, nonchalantly, as he coolly opened the paper bag, and took out one of the sticks of candy. “Have a sweet?”

The man uttered a fierce growl that sounded like an oath, and took a step forward in a menacing way, but the girl sprang forward, and threw her arm across his chest.

“D’yer want me to hurl you off the rocks?” he said savagely.

“Be quiet, father,” cried the girl. “The gentleman means no harm.”

“Go in, Bess,” he shouted, and, shaking her off, he went close up to Geoffrey, who did not give way an inch, but looked full in the fierce, repulsive face thrust close to his, till the old man lowered his eyes, and stepped on one side, muttering angrily.

“Do you always treat strangers like this, Master Prawle?” said Geoffrey, smiling.

“Go away, I tell ye,” said the old man, fiercely. “We want no dealings with the people.”

“Don’t anger father, sir,” said the girl, who, however, seemed to be in no wise put out by the old man’s savage resentment.

“Not I, my girl,” replied Geoffrey; “but what is the matter with your mother?”

“She fell off the cliff one night,” said the girl, quickly.

“Tell him to go, Bess,” growled her father. “We don’t want him here.”

“I asked the gentleman to come, father,” said the girl. Then, turning to Geoffrey, “Thank you kindly, sir. It pleases mother.”

“Don’t name it, my lass,” replied Geoffrey, smiling, and the girl looked at him very fixedly, as she watched every turn in his frank, open face. “Good-day,” he continued. “Good-day, Master Prawle.”

The old man scowled at him by way of reply, and then stood watching him till he had climbed back to the edge of the ravine, where, turning to glance down, Geoffrey saw father and daughter below, the latter returning his salute, as he waved his hand before passing out of their sight.

“Old boy thought I was a hawk after his pigeon,” said Geoffrey, lightly. “What an ill-conditioned old ogre! But there must be some good under his rough bark. Prawle, eh? Elizabeth, otherwise Bess. And the old woman! What a piteous face! Twenty years an invalid! Ah, well! I don’t think Mr Prawle, of the hoarse voice and fierce tone, need be afraid; but I’d rather not offend him, say about the fair Elizabeth, and then meet him – angry – say beside the shaft of one of those old mines.”

He glanced then at his watch, and hastened his steps, for the time of his engagement at An Morlock was drawing near.

Chapter Ten

Geoffrey Makes a Discovery

“You are an extremely handsome young woman, and I like the bright, intelligent look in your eyes,” said Geoffrey Trethick to himself; “but I’ll swear you have got a temper.”

“You are a nice, frank, manly fellow,” said Rhoda Penwynn to herself; “and I wonder whether you are as sensible and not so stubborn as you look.”

Introductions were just over in Mr Penwynn’s drawing-room, and Geoffrey, who was in no wise taken aback by the splendour of his host’s surroundings, walked across to where, cold and stiff and quiet, his travelling-companion stood, with one arm upon the mantelpiece, looking uneasily on.

“It seems as if we are to be thrown together,” said Geoffrey, offering the young clergyman his hand, which the latter took as if under protest, and then glanced from Mr Penwynn to his daughter, as if in apology for allowing himself to be claimed as an acquaintance by his bluff travelling-companion.

“You have met Mr Lee, then?” said the host stiffly.

“Yes – yes,” said the new vicar; “Mr Trethick is an old Oxford man.”

“And you don’t like him,” said Rhoda to herself, as she observed every thing; “and I don’t like you.”

“We were fellow-passengers by the coach this morning,” said Geoffrey, and as he spoke he glanced by Mr Penwynn at where Rhoda was re-arranging some flowers, and found that the Reverend Edward Lee had brought his spectacles to bear in the same direction. Then, looking back at his host, he fancied that this gentleman had not been unobservant of the glances of his guests.

Mr Penwynn smiled to himself directly after as Geoffrey moved towards Rhoda, and began talking to her about the view from the drawing-room window and his walk along the coast; but the young clergyman looked at his host as if in remonstrance at his allowing this stranger to make so free, when the door opened, and the servant announced, —

“Mr Tregenna!”

“Ah, Tregenna! You are late. Glad to see you.”

“Business, my dear sir. The old story – business. My dear Miss Penwynn, you must forgive me,” he continued, speaking in a low voice full of deference, but with lips that did not seem to move as he spoke, as Rhoda turned from Geoffrey, and took a couple of steps towards the fresh comer – a tall, handsome man of distingué appearance, but with a rather sallow complexion, made deeper by his jet black hair and whiskers.

Geoffrey started slightly, and then gazed keenly at this man, who bent down over Rhoda Penwynn’s hand as he took it, and retained it just a moment longer than custom dictates, and smiled in her face directly after as, in a quiet, self-possessed way, she said that they had not been waiting.

“Waiting? No!” said Mr Penwynn smiling; “but I should have thought you would have been first.”

“I hurried all I could,” said Tregenna, as a slight flush came over Rhoda’s cheek; “but one cannot always command one’s time, even to devote it to one’s aims.”

Geoffrey Trethick half-closed his eyes, as he looked on trying to think out something which had puzzled him, but without avail, and for the moment he gave it up, and began to turn over the leaves of an album, but taking ample notice the while of what was going on.

“If I were interested in mine host’s daughter,” mused Geoffrey, “I should feel uncomfortable about that dark, smoothly-shaven gentleman. I don’t like the look of his mouth, and I don’t like his eyes, and – Most happy!”

This last in answer to his host’s introduction to the last comer, who smiled upon him in the most friendly of ways, asked him what he thought of Carnac, seemed to be particularly refined, and then turned to go through a little preliminary chat with the new clergyman, who was more bland and agreeable than he had been to his travelling-companion.

“Ah! the parson gets on better with you, my fine fellow,” said Geoffrey. “You haven’t so many corners as I have. Humph! I don’t like you, though. You seem to be the man in possession, though, here, and certainly she is a very charming girl.”

He met Rhoda’s eyes as these thoughts passed through his mind, and she encountered his gaze with a frank, open look, though he fancied that she seemed a shade paler than when he was talking to her a few minutes before.

Just then dinner was announced, and Mr Penwynn turned to speak to Geoffrey, but bit his lip and glanced at Tregenna, who, however, only smiled back and nodded, as if amused; for Rhoda, acting the part of mistress of the house, extended her gloved hand so unmistakably that Geoffrey stepped forward, the hand was laid upon his arm, and, passing the others, he led her across the hall to the handsome dining-room, thinking to himself that by rights the Reverend Edward Lee ought to have occupied his place.

The dinner was good and well served, every thing making it evident that Mr Penwynn was a wealthy man, and one who liked to show it; but the ostentation was a good deal toned down by his child’s refined taste, and was not obtrusive. The conversation kept up was such as would be heard at any gentleman’s table, and it soon became evident that the West-country banker and his daughter were well-informed, and loved and cultivated refinement.

Geoffrey particularly noted how clever and gentlemanly Mr Tregenna could be. By degrees it dawned upon him that he was the principal solicitor of the place, and without its troubling him in the slightest degree, he made out that Tregenna was evidently a suitor for Rhoda Penwynn’s hand. Both father and lover showed this, the former being plainly in favour of the match; while, in spite of her efforts to the contrary, Rhoda Penwynn displayed her consciousness of Tregenna’s expressive looks by redoubling her attention to Geoffrey and the new vicar – Geoffrey chatting freely, and in the most unembarrassed way, so different to any young man she had met before, and questioning her largely about the place and people.

“A glass of wine with you, Mr Trethick,” said the host, who, in spite of advances, adhered somewhat to old customs. “Tregenna, will you join us?”

“With pleasure,” said the latter, looking up and smiling, and as he did so the thought that had been puzzling Geoffrey all through the dinner met with a solution.

He had been wondering – his wonder running like a vein through the whole of the conversation – where he had met Tregenna before; but now it came to him that for certain they had never met, but that it was that smooth, deep, mellow voice that he had heard, but where?

“I have it,” he mentally exclaimed, as, raising his glass, he looked full in John Tregenna’s eyes. “You were the fellow I heard talking to that girl by the ruined mine?”

Chapter Eleven

An Opinion of Tregenna

“You’re a nice, smooth scoundrel,” said Geoffrey to himself, as he set down his glass, “and I have been drinking with you when I ought to have thrown the wine in your face, and told you that you were a blackguard. – But we don’t do this sort of thing in society. As long as there is a good thick coat of whitewash over the sepulchre, society does not mind, but smiles on ladies with no reputation if they are rich, and never opens its ears to the acts, deeds, and exploits of our nice young men. I wonder whether mine host knows your character, and what my fair young hostess feels? Don’t seem very sentimental about him, anyhow; and here’s my reverend friend quite cottoning to black whiskers, and enjoying his small talk. Ah! it’s a strange world.”

A brisk little conversation was just now going off between Rhoda Penwynn and the new vicar, Tregenna throwing in a word here and there, Mr Penwynn smiling approval as he listened, while Geoffrey went on eating heartily, and following his thought.

“I may be wrong,” he went on, “but I feel pretty sure I could say something that would make you change colour, my smooth, cleanly-shaven gentleman, and if I did I should make you my enemy for life. Well, perhaps I could bear that, but I don’t want enemies, I want friends. If I’m right, though, I don’t think you ought to win ma’mselle unless you reform, probationise, and she condones. There, what a string! As the old women say – ’tain’t no business of mine.”

He glanced across at Tregenna just then, and that gentleman met his eye, smiled, and the discussion being over, asked him how long he meant to stay in the west.

“Stay?” said Geoffrey sharply. “Altogether.”

Tregenna raised his eyebrows a little, and just then the young vicar, in reply to a question from Mr Penwynn, began speaking, in slow measured accents, about the vicarage to be built, and the alterations he meant to make at the church. A bright colour suffused his smooth pale face, as he found that Rhoda was listening to him, and that he was now monopolising the attention of the rest. However, he seemed to master his nervousness, and spoke out firmly and well to the end.

“You may try,” said Mr Penwynn, smiling, “but I am afraid, my dear sir, that your ideas are as Utopian as those of Mr Trethick there. However, experience teaches, as the Latin proverb goes; but, as an old inhabitant, I venture to say that before many weeks are over, both of you gentlemen will confess that you have undertaken a Herculean task. Religiously, the people of the lower orders are as wedded to Wesleyanism as in their mining tactics they are to their old-fashioned ways. Our rough Cornish folk, gentlemen, are as hard to move as our own granite.”

“Perhaps so, papa,” said Rhoda; “but we have not had many efforts made here to move them.”

“Thank you, Miss Penwynn,” said Geoffrey, flushing, and speaking with animation. “Those are the first encouraging words I have heard. Your daughter has touched the very point, Mr Penwynn. I don’t want to talk like an egotist, but, speaking as an engineer, if you will show me one of your biggest pieces of Cornish granite, I’ll find a means of giving it a start; and I’ll be bound to say that if Mr Lee here is as determined as I, he will find a way of moving the hardest of your Cornish hearts. Sir, I believe in that little word ‘Try!’”

The Reverend Edward Lee coloured slightly, and turned his glasses with more of interest upon the speaker, but he did not interpose.

“I wish you both every success,” said Tregenna, smiling first on one and then on the other, and Mr Penwynn nodded his head, and laughed, saying, —

“Youth is sanguine, Mr Trethick. Try!”

“I will, Mr Penwynn,” said Geoffrey, in a voice that, though quiet, was so full of the spirit expressed by those two determined words that Tregenna glanced sharply at him, and then at Rhoda, to see what effect they had had upon her.

She was bending a little forward, her lips parted, and a curious look in her face, as she gazed in the guest’s countenance, till, instinctively becoming aware that Tregenna’s eyes were fixed upon her, she let her own fall, but only to raise them directly after with a half-offended look of inquiry, as if asking why she was watched, and soon after she left the table.

The gentlemen stayed but a short time over their wine, for Tregenna, after exchanging glances with Mr Penwynn, rose and made for the drawing-room, while Mr Penwynn suggested a cigar in the garden.

“Yes, I should enjoy a smoke,” said Geoffrey, who suspected that this was a manoeuvre to give Tregenna an opportunity for a tête-à-tête, but the vicar declined.

“I have not smoked now for many years,” he said, and he glanced to the door as if to escape to the drawing-room in Tregenna’s wake, but Mr Penwynn proceeded to endorse Geoffrey’s suspicions.

“Then I will not smoke either,” he said, passing his arm through that of his guest. “We’ll have a look round at the ferns and flowers till Mr Trethick has finished his cigar. They’ll bring us coffee directly, and then we will join them in the drawing-room.”

There was no escape, so the young clergyman was marched off to inspect the peculiarities of his host’s choice ferns, with the beauties of the various sub-tropical plants that the banker had collected in his well-kept, rock-sheltered terrace. These being ended, the various points of interest in the distance about the bay were pointed put, evidently to gain time.

Meanwhile Geoffrey, who felt somewhat amused, sat upon a rock, smoked an excellent cigar, and thought a good deal as he gazed out to sea.

“Parson’s bored,” he said to himself. “He wants to get off to the drawing-room, and beam through his glasses on Miss Penwynn, who is unmistakably being courted by the smooth, dark gentleman. Most likely he is just now, with papa’s consent, popping the question. If she accepts him I should think it’s a pity, for somehow Mr Tregenna is not my beau-ideal of a gentleman, while she is a bright, clever girl. However, it is no business of mine.”

He paused to knock the very long, carefully-preserved ash off the end of his cigar, which process seemed to be looked upon as one of very great importance, the cigar being petted and carefully smoothed down at the moist end where a little of the leaf was loose, lest this opening should at all interfere with the drawing; after which he tenderly replaced the roll of weed in his lips, uttered a sigh of satisfaction, such as might be given by any young man whose digestion was in perfect order, and exhaled a soft blue cloud of smoke.

“Curious thing this love,” he continued to himself. “Every one seems to go in for it, to the ruffling of a calm, smooth life, and gets into trouble. What a blessing it is that I have no inclinations in that direction! Humph! I wonder what the lady has said? Bah! stuff! nonsense! what is it to me? I’m not going to set up as head moralist, and meddle with these affairs. Her father must know best.”

He rose, and strolled down to the end of the terrace, to lean over a rugged mass of granite, and he was still there, enjoying the delicious calm of the evening, and marvelling at the beauty of the shadowy, phosphorescent sea, when he heard his host’s voice, and throwing aside the fragment of the cigar whose aroma was beginning to be marred by touches of burnt moustache, he turned to meet him.

“Tea is ready, Mr Trethick,” he said. “Really I ought to apologise for my neglect.”

“Neglect, eh?” said Geoffrey, laughing. “Why, I could bear to be neglected like this every night. You gave me one of the best cigars I ever lit, and let me lounge here and smoke it in peace. Don’t apologise, Mr Penwynn; I am quite satisfied.”

In spite of his indifference, however, Geoffrey could not refrain from looking curiously at Rhoda and Tregenna as he entered the drawing-room, but their unruffled features told no tales.

Rhoda was seated near the window, and Tregenna on the opposite side, looking more gentlemanly and polished than ever; while Rhoda at once rose, and began talking to the new vicar, leaving Geoffrey to chat over the handed-round tea to Tregenna about mines, their few successes, and their many failures.

“Parson’s happy now, I hope,” thought Geoffrey, as Mr Penwynn came and carried off Tregenna, after a word of apology about business; and then, as they stood talking at the other end of the room, Mr Penwynn’s face was so fully in the light, that Geoffrey could not help noticing that he changed countenance.

“Master Tregenna’s saying something unpleasant about business,” thought Geoffrey. “The glorious uncertainty of the law is, perhaps, having mine host upon the hip.”

“Do you like music, Mr Trethick?” said a voice at his side, and he found that Rhoda Penwynn had left the vicar and approached unobserved.

“You wicked young puss,” he said to himself. “You’ve come to make a buffer of me. That’s it, is it? Papa is turning angry about you, eh? and you fear a collision? Well, you shall find me full of spring.” Then, smiling – “Yes, I love music,” he said aloud. “I am a worshipper at a distance – rather a mild one, I should say. You will sing something, I hope?”

Rhoda crossed readily to the piano, and sang a couple of ballads very sweetly, her voice being rich and resonant, and then it seemed to Geoffrey, who was turning over the music for her, that, in spite of a very brave effort to appear unconcerned, she was growing extremely nervous, for, instead of leaving the piano, she began to pick up piece after piece of music, glancing sharply from her father to Tregenna, and then at the vicar, who was placidly examining an album of scraps.

“I wish you sang, Mr Trethick,” she said at last.

“Do you?” he said, looking down at her troubled face.

“Yes. Do you? Will you?”

“Nature has not been very generous to me in the matter of voice. At least she has given me plenty, but the quality is coarse. I’ll try something though – with you.”

“A duet? Oh, yes!” she said eagerly. “What have we? Could you – do you like Italian?”

“Yes,” he said quietly, as he noticed how agitated she was growing, and how bravely she fought to keep it down, and preserve her composure towards her father’s guests. “Shall we try that Trovatore piece that you just turned over —Ai nostri monti.”

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed, and there was a silence in the room as the rich harmony of the well-blended voices floated out upon the night air. For, in spite of his modest declaration, Geoffrey Trethick possessed a full deep voice, and, being a good musician, he thoroughly enjoyed his task.

“Rather hard on a baritone to set him to sing tenor, Miss Penwynn,” he said, laughing. “But I say, what a delicious voice you have!”

Rhoda glanced at him sharply, but the expression of admiration she could see was perfectly sincere, and she knew at once that he was not a man likely to flatter.

That duet gave Rhoda Penwynn time to recover herself, and she was perfectly calm by the end – a calm she managed to maintain until the guests were about to depart.

“By the way, Mr Lee,” said the banker, “have you obtained apartments? It is a disgrace to our place that the vicarage is not rebuilt.”

“Oh, yes!” said the vicar, mildly, “I have obtained rooms.”

“At Mrs Mullion’s, I presume?”

“No,” said the vicar, turning his glasses for a moment on Geoffrey. “Mr Trethick has taken those.”

“Indeed! Then you are at the hotel?”

“No; I have made arrangements to board with a Miss Pavey, at a very pleasant cottage – Dinas Vale. Good-night!”

“I’ll walk as far as your rooms with you, Mr Trethick,” said Tregenna, as they stepped out into the road. “Have a cigar?”

They lit up, and strolled along the up-and-down ill-paved way, Tregenna evidently laying himself out to make friends with the new arrival, who made himself frank and pleasant, but, somehow, not cordial.

“Drop in and have a chat with me, Mr Trethick,” said Tregenna, at parting. “I may be able to further your views. Any one will show you my place.”

“Know it,” said Geoffrey. “Saw the brass plate on the gate.”

“Yes,” laughed Tregenna, “one has to put out a sign. But come and see me; perhaps I can help you.”

“I don’t like after-dinner promises,” laughed Geoffrey. “They are rash. I may put you to the test.”