The Vicar's People

Chapter Thirty Seven

An Eventful Night

It was four o’clock the next morning before Geoffrey went softly up the gravel path to the cottage, and, weary and sick at heart, let himself in.

His clothes had partly dried upon him during his walk, for he had fetched Dr Rumsey from his house to attend poor Madge, the doctor being very quiet and saying little, Geoffrey thought, after hearing a few explanations.

“She seems to have been very unhappy at home,” said Geoffrey, “and they quarrelled with her, I think. She must have been half-mad.”

“And did she really try to drown herself?” said the doctor.

“I wouldn’t answer the question,” replied Geoffrey; “but you, being a doctor, ought to know all – so I tell you, yes. She really did, and – pray hurry, old fellow: we may be too late.”

“I am hurrying all I can, Trethick,” said the doctor; “but I must get in with some breath left in my body.”

“Yes, of course; but could I do any good if I ran on first?”

“No, not a bit. Bessie Prawle, you say, is with her. Poor lass – poor lass!”

“So I say, with all my soul, doctor. But I would not put it abroad what has happened.”

“These affairs tell their own tale, Trethick,” said the doctor.

“Yes, yes, of course; but I’d keep it as quiet as I could.”

“I am no scandal-monger, Trethick,” said the doctor, dryly; and they hurried on, Geoffrey waiting outside, and walking up and down with old Prawle while Mr Rumsey went in.

At the end of a quarter of an hour he came to the door with a paper.

“Prawle,” he said, “will you go to my house and give that to my wife?”

“I’ll take it,” said Geoffrey, eagerly. “I’m going home.”

“You will have to bring something back,” said the doctor.

“All right: I’ll lose no time,” he said, cheerily; and he started off, and had to wait while Mrs Rumsey obtained the bottles from the surgery, sending them and a graduated glass for the doctor to mix himself.

This done, there was the walk back to Gwennas, and then Geoffrey waited for the doctor, who kept coming out for a stroll in the cool starlight, and then returning.

“I’ve been thinking that I ought to send you for Mrs Mullion, Trethick.”

“What! Is she in danger?”

“No; oh, no, poor lass; she’ll be better soon. You are going to wait about, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes,” said Geoffrey; “you may want me to fetch something more, and I’ll wait to walk back with you.”

The doctor went in, and old Prawle came up from below and touched him on the arm.

“Come and sit down here,” he said, gruffly. “I’ve lit a fire below.”

“Well, I am cold,” said Geoffrey; and he followed the old man down into a rough cave in the rock, where he kept old nets, a boat, and various pieces of fishing gear. A bright fire of wreck-wood was burning, and to this, with a shiver, Geoffrey walked up, whereupon the old man took a bottle out of a battered sea-chest, whose outside was splintered by the rocks in coming ashore, and poured him out a little spirit in a chipped and footless glass, frosted by the attrition of the sand in which it had been found.

“Smuggled?” said Geoffrey, with a smile.

“Drink it, and don’t ask questions, my lad.”

“Your health, Father Prawle,” said Geoffrey, tossing it down. “It was rude. By George! what nectar. It puts life in a fellow. Shall we hear the doctor when he comes out?”

“Yes, don’t be afeard, man, sit down,” said the old fellow. “I’m going to smoke.”

“I’ll join you,” said Geoffrey, “if you have any tobacco. Mine’s soaked.”

“Oh, yes,” said the old man. “I’ve passed many a night in sea-soaked clothes, but it won’t hurt you, my lad. Here’s some tobacco.”

“I hope not,” said Geoffrey, taking the tobacco, filling, and lighting his pipe.

“You got her out of the water then, eh?”

“Yes,” said Geoffrey, shortly.

“Poor lass!”

Geoffrey nodded acquiescence, and they smoked for some time in silence.

“It is very kind of Miss Prawle to take her in and attend her,” said Geoffrey at last; “but I’m sure poor Madge Mullion will be very grateful.”

“My Bess arn’t made of stone,” said the old man, gruffly, as he sat staring hard across the ruddy fire, whose smoke went up through a rift. Then, re-filling the glass, he handed it to Geoffrey, who drank gladly of the spirit at the time; after which the old man refreshed himself, put on some more driftwood, and stared at his visitor.

“I should have liked to hold some shares in that mine,” he said.

“Yes, you ought to have had some, Father Prawle. Hush! was that the doctor?”

“No, only the washing of the sea in the rock holes. Maybe you’ll get me some of those shares. I can pay for them.”

“There is not one to be had, Father Prawle,” replied Geoffrey.

“Maybe you’ll sell me some of yours, Master Trethick. I’ll pay you well.”

“Mine!” cried Geoffrey, laughing. “I don’t hold one.”

The old man looked at him very keenly, and then let his eyes fall.

“If you would really like to have some,” said Geoffrey, “and I see a chance, I’ll secure them for you.”

“Do, my lad. I’m doing you a good turn here without asking questions.”

“And I’m very grateful to you,” said Geoffrey; “very grateful.”

“Then do me a good turn.”

“Because you were so free in telling me all about the mine?”

“Let that bide, Master Trethick,” said the old man. “But, look here, I will tell you now, if you’ll get me a lot of shares.”

“It’s too late, man – too late.”

“Nay, but it isn’t. You get me shares, and you’ll see. I worked in yon mine.”

“And did not make the proprietors’ fortune,” said Geoffrey, with a smile.

“Nobody tried to make mine,” growled the old fellow, “and they treated me like a dog. I had to think of self. Look here, Mas’r Trethick, I hated you when you come here, for I thought you meant my Bess.”

“I know you did,” said Geoffrey.

“But I don’t think so now, and I tell you this. You get me shares, and it’ll be worth thousands to you. Get shares yourself too; and mind this, you’ve got to take care of your enemy.”

“And who’s that?”

The old man chuckled, and pointed with his pipe-stem out of the mouth of the cave, looking curiously weird and picturesque in the glow of the fire, with the black, uncouth shadows of the pieces of wreck-wood and boat-gear behind.

“I don’t understand you,” said Geoffrey.

“The sea, boy – the water’s your enemy, so look out.”

“I will,” said Geoffrey; and then they smoked and chatted on, the old man going up three or four times to see if the doctor was ready to go; and at last, soon after three, he came back, looking more grim than ever, and not to trim the fire this time.

“Doctor will come in five minutes,” he said, gruffly. “Will you have any more brandy?”

“No, thanks, no,” said his visitor.

“There, mind this, boy, get me shares, and get some yourself, but keep it secret from every one.”

“I’ll help you if I can,” said Geoffrey, “for old acquaintance’ sake; but your promise of news comes too late.”

“Nay, nay, we’ll see, we’ll see,” said the old man. “But look here, Master Trethick, are you going to marry that gal?”

“What, Miss Mullion? No.”

“Ho!” said the old man, gruffly.

“Now, Trethick,” came from above; and Geoffrey hastily made his way up the rugged steps to where the doctor was waking.

“How is she?” he cried eagerly.

“Better: going on well,” said the doctor, shortly.

“And in no danger?”

“None whatever, if she is kept quiet, and her mind set at ease.”

“Poor lass, I’ll do all I can,” said Geoffrey, earnestly. “I’ll have a long talk to Mrs Mullion and Paul in the morning – well, it is morning now – after breakfast. I’ll soon set it right. I think I can.”

“That’s well,” said the doctor, as they walked on along the dark path.

“You seem tired,” said Geoffrey, for the doctor was singularly reserved.

“Very.”

“So am I.”

There was another silence for some time.

“What are you thinking about, doctor?” said Geoffrey, at last.

“About Madge Mullion. Look here, Trethick, I like you – ”

“Thanky, doctor, I like you, and I’m glad you’ve taken my hint about those shares.”

“Hang the shares!” said the doctor. “Let me finish what I was going to say.”

“Go ahead.”

“Damn it, man, don’t be so cool and unconcerned.”

“All right,” said Geoffrey.

“I say I like you for some things, Trethick, and I’m by profession tolerably hard and callous; but it frets me, sir, to have seen that poor girl lying there, after trying in her despair to throw away her life, and you as cool and cavalier as can be.”

“Well,” said Geoffrey, laughing, “I may be calm, but I was not, though, when I fetched you. As to my coolness, I haven’t changed my wet things after getting nearly drowned to save her, and I’m cheery because you told me there was no danger.”

“No, but she’s very ill. And as to your saving the poor lass, it was no more than your duty. You needn’t brag about that.”

“I don’t brag, doctor, so you need not be so peppery. I say, calling you up in the night don’t improve your temper.”

“Hang it, Trethick, don’t be a brute,” cried the doctor. “I’ve known you nearly nine months, and I never liked you less than now.”

“Thankye, doctor, but you’ll be better when you’ve had your breakfast. Come, don’t let’s part huffily. I am sorry I had to call you up, but you must charge extra.”

“Look here, Trethick,” said the doctor, who was now regularly roused by the other’s coolness, “we don’t set ourselves up out here for a particularly moral people, but, hang it all, we have got hearts, and when a wrong is done to any one we try to repair it.”

“Yes, and a very good plan, too,” said Geoffrey. “Why, doctor, you’re as huffy as can be.”

“Trethick! There, I can’t keep it back,” cried the doctor, the last words having let loose the flood of his wrath. “How a man who is not a callous scoundrel can treat this affair so coolly, I don’t know.”

“I don’t treat it coolly,” cried Geoffrey, surprised at the other’s warmth.

“You do, sir; your conduct is blackguardly – cruel in the extreme. Have you no heart at all?”

“Plenty, I hope,” cried Geoffrey, now growing warm in turn. “Look here, doctor, I don’t allow any man to call me a scoundrel and blackguard, without saying a word in reply. Please explain what you mean.”

“What do I mean, sir; why, that poor girl.”

“Well, what about her?”

The doctor stopped short in the dark upon that shelf of cliff, and faced Geoffrey.

“Look here! are you a fool, or a knave, or a scoundrel, Trethick, or all three?” he cried, angrily.

“If you dare to say – Bah?” cried Geoffrey, “I won’t quarrel. You’re hipped, doctor – tired – upset – but don’t call a man names. It stirs up a fellow’s bile, as old Paul says.”

The doctor panted in his anger, for calm, peaceable Dr Rumsey seemed quite transformed.

“And you can talk like this?” he cried, “with that poor girl, the mother of your new-born child, lying an outcast from her home!”

“What?” roared Geoffrey, catching at the doctor’s arm.

“He is a fool!” exclaimed Dr Rumsey; and, wrenching away his arm, he strode off towards the town, leaving Geoffrey staring as if he were stunned.

He was stunned mentally, and for a few minutes he felt as if he could not collect his thoughts. Then his first impulse was to run after the doctor.

“Oh, it’s too absurd,” he cried; and at last, sick at heart, uneasy, and disgusted with his late companion, and not even yet fully realising his position in the tragedy of the night, he walked stiffly up to the cottage, hesitated for a few moments as to whether he should enter, and ended by letting himself in, and going to his room, to try and secure a few hours’ rest.

Chapter Thirty Eight

A Stormy Interview

Geoffrey Trethick’s slumbers were very short and disturbed, and, after tossing about for some time, he got up to think out his position. The events of the past night seemed dream-like now, and there were times when he was ready to treat them as hallucinations; but the sea-soaked suit of clothes thrown over a chair were proof positive of the reality of poor Madge Mullion’s attempted suicide, and his brow contracted as he thought of the wretched girl’s state.

“Poor lass!” he muttered; and by the light of the doctor’s charge he read a score of trifles which had been sealed to him before.

“I’ll go straight down to him, and have it out as soon as he’s up. An idiot! What the deuce does he mean? However, I’ll soon put that right.”

He looked at his watch and found it was only seven, so that it would be of no use to go down yet to Rumsey’s. He could not sleep, and he did not feel disposed to read, so he determined to go for a walk till breakfast-time, and then he would have a talk to Mrs Mullion and Uncle Paul.

But he had no sooner made up his mind to speak to them on the poor girl’s behalf than he began to realise the delicacy of his position.

Suppose they took the same view of the case as Dr Rumsey?

“Confound it all!” he cried. “How absurd, to be sure.”

He finished dressing, opened door and window, and went down, meeting the servant girl looking red-eyed and dishevelled, as if she had not been to bed all night.

He had seen that Uncle Paul’s bedroom door was wide open, but did not note that the bed had been unoccupied; and he was, therefore, not surprised to hear the old man’s cough as he entered his own room.

“Trethick! Trethick!” he called, and Geoffrey crossed the passage, meeting Mrs Mullion, who ran out with her handkerchief to her eyes, and her face averted.

“Ashamed of being so hard on her child,” thought Geoffrey; and then he started, shocked at the old man’s aspect, as, with his hat on, he sat there, looking yellow, wrinkled, sunken of eye and cheek, with all his quick, sharp ways gone, and with generally the aspect of one just recovering from some terrible shock.

“Good heavens, Mr Paul, how ill you look!” cried Geoffrey, anxiously, as the thought struck him that he had not been to bed all night.

“Yes,” said the old man, “I feel ill.”

“Let me run down and fetch Rumsey. Stop, I’ll get you a little, brandy first.”

“No, no. I don’t want brandy,” said the old man, gazing at him wildly, and with his face now cadaverous in the extreme. “Rumsey can’t help me. Help me yourself.”

“Yes. What shall I do for you?”

“Sit down, Trethick.”

He took a chair, looking intently at the speaker.

“Trethick, will you smoke a cheroot?”

“No, not now.”

“Not now? Well, another time, then,” said the old man, whose voice seemed quite changed. “I’m afraid, Trethick, I have got a dreadful temper.”

“Horrible – sometimes,” said Geoffrey, smiling.

“But my bark is worse than my bite. I’m not so bad as I seem.”

“I know that, old fellow. I always have known it.”

“You went out about nine last night, and didn’t come back till four this morning.”

“You heard me come in then?”

“Yes. We have not been to bed all night. I have been out looking for Madge.”

“Indeed!” said Geoffrey, quietly, as he bit his lips to keep back a little longer that which he knew.

“I’m not speaking angrily, am I, my boy?”

“No. I never saw you so calm before.”

“It is a calm after the storm, Trethick. I was in a terrible fit last night. Mrs Mullion, my sister-in-law, confessed it all to me, and I was mad with the disgrace. I – I struck her. Yes,” he continued, pitifully, “I was a brute, I know. I – I struck her – that poor, weak, foolish girl, and drove her from the house.”

“You – struck her, Mr Paul?” said Geoffrey.

“Yes, my boy. I was mad, for she did not deny her shame, only begged me to kill her, and then – then, she uttered a wild cry, and ran out of the house. I seem to hear it now,” he continued, with a shudder. “I’ve been out searching for her, but – but I have not told a soul. We must keep it quiet, Trethick, for all our sakes. But tell me, did she – did she come to you?”

“No,” said Geoffrey, sternly.

“But you have seen her? Don’t tell me, boy, that you have not seen her. We felt that as you did not come back she had come to you.”

Geoffrey was silent for a few moments, thinking of his position; for here, in spite of his quiet way, was a fresh accuser, and poor Mrs Mullion’s silent avoidance had only been another charge.

“The poor girl did not come to me,” said Geoffrey, at last. “Your cruelty, Mr Paul, drove her away, and but for the fact that I happened to be on the cliff and saw her go by, she would be floating away somewhere on the tide – dead.”

“Did – did she try to jump in?” cried the old man, hoarsely.

“She was nearly dead when I fetched her out. A few seconds more would have ended her miserable life.”

The old man shrank back in his chair, trembling now like a leaf, his jaw dropped, and his eyes staring.

“And I should have murdered her,” he gasped. “But you jumped in and saved her?”

Geoffrey nodded.

“Thank God!” cried the old man, fervently. “Thank God!”

“Poor girl! it was a narrow escape,” continued Geoffrey. “She has suffered cruelly, and you must forgive her, Mr Paul, and take her back.”

“Yes, yes,” said the old man, “we’ll talk about that. But shake hands, Trethick. You’re a brave fellow, after all. That wipes off a great deal. Poor Madge: poor child!”

The old man held out his hand, but Geoffrey did not offer to take it.

“You saved the poor girl then, Trethick. We felt that you must be with her. Where is she now? Why didn’t you bring her back?”

“She would sooner have gone back into the sea,” said Geoffrey, sternly. “I took her on to Prawle’s cottage, at Gwennas.”

“And she is there now?”

“Yes, sir, with her helpless infant.”

The old man sank back again with a harsh catching of the breath, and they sat in silence gazing one at the other, as if trying to get breath for the encounter to come.

Uncle Paul was the first to speak.

“I’m – I’m not angry now, Trethick. I’m going to be very humble, and appeal to you.”

“Indeed!” said Geoffrey, over whose countenance a very stern, stubborn look began to make its way.

“Yes, yes. I’m going to appeal to you. I beg your pardon, Trethick, if I have said or done any thing to hurt your feelings. I’m very, very sorry I was so cruel to the poor child last night, but it came upon me like a shock, and the disgrace seemed to madden me. I have a hot, bad temper, I know; but, poor child, I’ll forgive her – forgive you both.”

“Thanks,” said Geoffrey, mockingly; and he was about to speak, but refrained, as the old man made an effort and rose from his chair to go behind Trethick, and stand there silently for a few moments as if to master his voice before laying a hand upon the young man’s shoulder.

“I did wrong, Trethick, when I brought you up here – very wrong. I ought to have known better, but I did it in a mean, selfish spirit to save my own money, when I had plenty for all.”

“Indeed!” said Geoffrey, coldly, and a set frown came upon his brow.

“Yes, it was an ill-advised step, and I am punished for it. But, Trethick, my lad, in my rough way I do love my poor, dead brother’s wife and child, and, God knows, I would sooner have been a beggar than have seen this disgrace come upon them.”

“Mr – ”

“No, no, hear me out, Trethick,” cried the old man, imploringly. “I don’t blame you so much as I do poor Madge. She was always a foolish, light, thoughtless girl, fond of admiration; and I know she has always thrown herself in your way; but I said to myself he is too sterling and stanch a fellow to act otherwise than as we could wish.”