The Vicar's People

Chapter Forty Seven

A Meeting

“How’s Madge?” said Geoffrey one morning, as he encountered Bess Prawle coming out of the bedroom with the baby in her arms.

“Very poorly,” said Bess sadly. “She’s wearing away, I think.”

“Had I better get Dr Rumsey to call?”

“No,” said Bess quietly; “no doctor will do her any good. Poor mother’s very ill too this morning. I hardly know what to do first.”

“Well, it is precious hard on you, Bessie,” said Geoffrey. “We make a regular slave of you amongst us. Why not have a woman to come in and help? Money isn’t flush: but I can pay her.”

“Oh, no, Mr Trethick, I can manage,” cried Bess. “No woman would come here to help.”

Geoffrey frowned.

“We’re such a bad lot, eh?”

“They don’t like me,” said Bess, smiling; “and father would not care to have a strange woman here.”

“And so you get worked to death,” said Geoffrey. “I don’t like it, Bess, my lassie,” he continued, while the girl flushed slightly with pleasure, as she noted the interest he took in her. “Something must be done, or I shall be obliged to take Madge away and get her lodgings elsewhere.”

“You’ll – you’ll take Miss Mullion away?” cried Bess excitedly, as she laid her hand upon his arm. “No, no: don’t do that, Mr Trethick.”

“Why not? Would you rather she stayed here?”

“Yes,” said Bess softly, “I would rather she stayed here. I’ll do the best I can for her.”

“God bless you, Bessie!” cried Geoffrey warmly. “You’re a good, true-hearted lass, and I shall never forget your kindness. Well, I must see if some help can’t be managed for you.”

Bess flushed a little more deeply, for his words and interest were very sweet to her. Then, looking up cheerfully, she said that it was only a matter of a day or two.

“Father is quite taking to baby too,” she said. “He nursed it for over an hour last night.”

“Did he?” cried Geoffrey, laughing. “I wish I had been here. I say, Bessie, does tobacco-smoke make it sneeze?”

“No: not much,” said Bessie wonderingly.

“Then look here,” cried Geoffrey, “I’m not going to let the old man beat me. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to nurse as well as he. Give us hold. I’m going out to loaf on the cliff, and look at the sea, and smoke a pipe and think, and I’ll take the baby.”

“Mr Trethick!” cried Bess.

“I mean it,” he said, laughing. “Here, come on, young one. Which way up do you hold it, Bessie?”

“Oh, Mr Trethick,” cried Bessie. “Don’t – please don’t take it.”

“Shall!” said Geoffrey; and to Bessie’s amusement and annoyance, for a something in the act seemed to give her pain, he laughingly took the baby and held it in his arms.

“But you won’t take it out, Mr Trethick,” protested Bess.

“Indeed, but I shall,” he said. “I always say what I mean.”

“But you can’t, sir. It must be dressed, and have on its hood.”

“Bother!” cried Geoffrey; “it has got on too much already, and the sea-breeze will do it good. Come along, young top-heavy,” he continued, laughing. “I shall be in the corner where I smoke my pipe, Bessie. Come and fetch the little soft dab when you’ve done.”

He went laughing off, not seeing Bessie’s countenance contract with pain, and, talking to the round-eyed, staring infant, he made his way up out of the Cove and along the cliff path, towards Carnac, to where the rock retired in one spot, forming a sunny little nook, full of soft, dry turf, stunted ferns and pink stonecrop, and scented with wild thyme. It was a place much affected by Geoffrey, where he could sit and watch the changing sea, and try to scheme his future. Here he seated himself on the turf, with his shoulders against the rock.

“Well, you are a rum little joker,” he cried, as he packed the baby up between his knees, nipping its loose garments so as to hold its little form up steady, all but the head, which kept nodding at him, the tiny intelligence therein seeming to find something vastly amusing in the dark, robust man’s face, and laughing merrily every now and then, after a staring, open-eyed inspection. “Keep your mouth shut, you drivelling little morsel, will you?” cried Geoffrey, using his pocket-handkerchief to the fount-like lips. “I enjoy you, young ’un, ’pon my word I do.”

Here there were three or four nods and another laugh.

“Hold still, will you?” cried Geoffrey, “or you’ll wobble that head off. There now, you’re square. Good heavens! what a lot of toggery you have got on. Why don’t she give you one good thick flannel sack, instead of all these stringed, and pinned, and buttoned wonders! That’s right; go it. I’m comic, arn’t I? Why, you jolly young jester, you are always on the grin.”

The baby relapsed into a state of solemnity, gently bowing its head forwards and backwards, and making a few awkward clutches at Geoffrey’s nose, which was nearly a yard away.

“Shouldn’t have thought there was so much fun in a bit of a thing like this,” continued Geoffrey, putting his hands behind his head, and resting them on the rock. “My ideas of a baby were that it was a sort of bagpipe that was always playing a discordant tune. Oh, I say, baby! for shame! I’m afraid your digestion is not perfect. In good society we always put our hand before our mouth when we make a noise like that. Here, this is the way. Hold still, you soft little atom. Why, I don’t believe you’ve a bone in your body.”

Geoffrey’s hands had come from behind his head once more, and he laughingly placed one tiny, clutched fist before the wet mouth, for by no amount of persuasion could the hand be made to keep open.

“There, you fat little pudge, now hold still, and don’t keep on laughing like a clown.”

Geoffrey resumed his former position, and stared at the baby, and the baby stared at him.

“I suppose this is Geoffrey Trethick?” he said at last; “but if I had been coming along the cliff and saw myself I shouldn’t have known him. Well, it is a chance to study human life and its helplessness. I begin to see now why women like babies. They’re so soft, and helpless, and appealing. A baby is a something with which a woman can do just as she likes, for I suppose there is nothing a woman likes so much as having her own way.”

Here a spasm of mirth seemed to convulse the baby, which threw back its head and laughed, and babbled, and crowed.

“Oh, you agree with that opinion, do you, youngster? Well, that’s right. Hold still now. Do you hear? I don’t want to take you home to your mother in two pieces. I wonder whether a baby ever did wobble off its head?”

Here there was a pause, during which Geoffrey lay back with half-closed eyes, lazily watching his charge.

“Now of course you don’t know it, youngster, and it does not trouble you a bit, but you are one too many in this rolling world of ours. People talk about purity and innocence, and little things fresh from their Maker’s hands; but, as my friend Lee says, you’re a child of sin and shame: that’s what you are.”

“Do you hear?” he continued. “Why, you’re laughing at it, as hard as ever you can laugh. Oh, it’s funny, is it? Well, I suppose you are right, but it’s no joke for poor Madge.”

The baby laughed and crowed loudly here, ending by coughing till it was nearly black in the face.

“Serve you right too, you unnatural little wretch, laughing like that at your mother’s troubles. You’re a chip of the old block, and no mistake. I’ve a good mind to pitch you off the cliff into the sea. Oh, you’re not afraid, arn’t you?” he continued, with his face close to the baby, who wanted re-arranging after the coughquake from which it had suffered, with the result that the two little hands that had opened during the coughing clutched and tightened themselves in Geoffrey’s crisp beard, from which they refused to be torn.

“Well, look here, young one,” continued Geoffrey, after freeing his beard with a good deal of trouble, and leaving two or three curling hairs in the little fists. “You seem to have made up your mind to back up public opinion, you do, and evidently intend to adopt me as your father. Well, I don’t mind. I feel just in the humour to do mad things, so why not adopt you? I dare say I could manage to keep you as well as myself; but you won’t get fat. I don’t care. But look here, youngster, can you sit it out if I have a pipe, and not set to and sneeze off your miserable little head?

“Ah, you smile acquiescence, do you?” said Geoffrey. “Well, then, here goes.”

As he spoke, he began fumbling in his pocket for his pipe-case, tobacco-pouch, and match-box, all of which, in his laughing humour, he placed before the child, then stuck the match-box in one fist, the pipe in the other, and balanced the soft India-rubber pouch on the nodding head.

“Now then, stupid! Do you want to commit self-infanticide with phosphorus? Don’t suck those matches. It’s my belief, baby, that if you were thrown down in a provision warehouse you’d prolong your existence to an indefinite extent. Will you be quiet?” he exclaimed, laughing aloud. “Well, of all the funny little beggars that ever existed you are the most droll. There, now you’ve got your mouth all over the dye from that leather case. Wait a moment. There, if you must smoke you shall smoke, but don’t be so hungry after it that you must suck the case.”

He took the pipe-case from the little hand, opened and took out the pipe, wiped it, and then playfully closed the tiny fingers round the blackened stem of the old meerschaum, and guided the amber mouth-piece into the wet mouth.

The baby began to suck and rub the mouth-piece eagerly against its little gums, till it had a suspicion of the intense bitter of the pipe, when the look of content upon the soft, round little features gradually changed into such a droll grimace of disgust that Geoffrey lay back and laughed till the tears came into his eyes, and he wiped them away, and laughed heartily again and again.

“Oh, you rum little customer!” he exclaimed; “you’ve done me no end of good. I have not laughed like that since I came down to Carnac. Why, you’ve made my ribs ache, that you have —the devil!”

For at that moment, briskly walking along the cliff path, Rhoda turned the corner, and came right upon the pair.

Rhoda stopped as if petrified, and a fierce look of indignation flashed from her eyes.

Geoffrey was as much surprised, but he had more self-control, and, returning the indignant glance with one full of defiance, he kept his place in the sunny nook, lying right back, and went on tossing the baby to and fro, balancing it on his knees, and then pretending to make it walk up his broad chest, which, however, seemed to heave up into a mountain beneath the tiny feet.

The silence in that sheltered nook was painful, and the low moan of the restless sea even seemed to be hushed, as the child threw back its little head, and kicked and laughed and crowed with delight.

“Pitiful, contemptible coward!” thought Rhoda, biting her lip to keep down her anger. “And I once cared about this degraded wretch!”

“I wouldn’t move to save my life!” thought Geoffrey. “You doubting, incredulous, proud, faithless woman! You shall beg my pardon yet.”

He had a wonderful mastery over himself as far as his face was concerned, and he returned Rhoda’s angry look with one as bitter, if not worse; but though he could keep smooth his face, he was not wholly master of his emotions, as it proved.

For just as Rhoda was trying to summon up force enough to make her tear herself away with a look of intensified scorn and contempt, Geoffrey’s hands, which held the baby, instead of lightly tossing it up and down, involuntarily gripped its little tender ribs so fiercely that the merry crow was changed into a loud wail of pain, and, with a hysterical laugh that jarred through every nerve of Geoffrey’s frame, Rhoda rushed away, to burst, as soon as she was out of sight, into a passion of tears.

“You little wretch!” roared Geoffrey, springing up and shaking the baby. “What do you mean by making me look such a fool? Be quiet, or I’ll throw you into the sea. Hang me, what an idiot I must have looked,” he cried, stamping up and down with the baby in his hands, and then stuffing it roughly in a niche in the rock. “Be quiet, will you,” he roared, shaking his fist in the poor little thing’s face; “be quiet, or I’ll smash you!”

The cessation of the shaking, and the appearance of the fist close to its snub nose had the desired effect. The storm passed, and sunshine burst forth over the little face, followed by a laugh and a futile effort to catch at the hand.

“Poor little beggar?” cried Geoffrey, carefully taking up the helpless thing once more. “There, I don’t care, do I, baby?” he cried, laughing and grinding his teeth together as the tiny fists grasped and held on to his beard, while the little eyes laughed in his. “Let her see me, and think what she likes. Come along, young ’un. I’m not cross with you. You couldn’t help it. Here, hold your little wet button-hole still, and I’ll give you a kiss. No, no – kiss: don’t suck, stupid?” he said, laughing; and then the anger passed away, as a convulsion swept over the tiny face, and consequent upon a hair from Geoffrey’s beard touching the apology for a nose, the baby sneezed three times.

“Well done, young one,” he cried. “Feel better? No? Give us another.”

He raised the little thing once more and kissed it, and as he lowered it again something prompted him to look back, and as he did he saw that Rhoda was in full view upon the cliff, that she had turned, and that she must have seen that kiss.

Rage took possession of his soul again, and he nearly made the child shriek in his fierce grip.

“Spying, eh?” he cried. “Well, if you will be a petty child, ma’am, so will I;” and, hugging the baby in his arms, he walked on, kissing it over and over again, till meeting Bessie Prawle, he cried out, “Here; catch!” and tossed the little thing into her arms.

Chapter Forty Eight

Visitors at Gwennas

Rhoda Penwynn had no idea of going to Gwennas Cove one morning when she went off, in a dreamy, forgetful way, for a walk. She was low-spirited and wretched. Her father’s troubles and heavy losses were an endless anxiety, and, to her sorrow, she saw that he had of late grown reckless. How he was situated, or what he had lost, she could not tell, but there was a grey, wrinkled look about his face that went to her very heart. One thing was very evident, and that was that the banker had become entangled in some venture – John Tregenna had hinted as much one evening when at their house, but he had merely hinted, and she could not ask him more.

One thing was very evident, and that was that people had lost confidence in Penwynn, the banker. Other people might dabble in mines, lose, and begin again; but the man to whom the savings of others were intrusted, must be above reproach – above suspicion of speculation; and the Wheal Carnac affair had been a heavy blow in more ways than one.

Mr Penwynn was not long in finding this out, for it resulted in a quarrel with the principals of the great Cornish bank, of which his was but a branch. Somehow – he never knew by what means – they had become prejudiced against him, and a rapid depreciation of his value in Carnac resulted when it was known that he was no longer over the bank.

Then came demands upon him for amounts trusted to him to invest – a regular continuous drain; and Rhoda awoke to the fact that a change in their position, for the worse, was rapidly coming on.

She bore the knowledge as cheerfully as she could, working hard to comfort her father, bidding him not trouble about her, but to pay to the uttermost farthing every demand.

“I shall not mind being poor,” she said to him, but she felt that she did not know all, and after long thought and trouble the feeling would always come upon her that she must leave all to fate, for she could not make her future even if she tried.

There was something very suggestive in John Tregenna’s manner to her now. He was never, in the slightest degree, effusive. If any thing, he was rather cold, but at times there was a look in his eye that told her he was waiting his time; and more than once, in the bitterness of her spirit, she had thought of the possibility of his some day asking her again to be his wife.

What should she say if he did?

No! The answer came readily enough, for a pang shot through her as she thought of Geoffrey Trethick, and wondered whether she could forgive him for the wrong he had done. She loved him still. She knew that, and in time – perhaps even now, if he came to her in humbleness and confessed his fault – she could have said forgiving words. Her pride would have forbidden her to listen to him. There was forgiveness.

But that was all. He had been set up in the innermost niche of her heart – an idol whom she had worshipped. From thence he had fallen, and as the idol lay broken she had seen that what she thought sterling gold was but miserable potter’s clay.

Still there was her love for him – the love once roused never to be completely crushed out. It burned still upon the altar before the empty niche. The idol was gone, and a soft vapour rose concealing the emptiness of the place – a place made often more dim and indistinct by her moistened eyes.

If he had only come to beg forgiveness she would not have cared, but he had taken up his stubborn stand, and to the very last time they had met his eyes looked at her with an angry defiance that made her heart beat fast with rage.

It was from no curiosity – there was not even a faint hope of meeting Geoffrey – that she took that path, but a trick of fate, and she started and turned pale, on suddenly raising her eyes, to see that she was only some fifty yards from Prawle’s cottage.

Bessie was standing by the door knitting, and the blood flushed into Rhoda’s cheeks as she saw what was by her side.

She saw that Bessie had seen her, and to have gone back would have looked cowardly; so she kept on, feeling pretty sure that at that time of day Geoffrey Trethick would not be there.

“I have not been to see you for a long time now, Bessie,” said Rhoda, making an effort to master her emotion and look calm.

“No, miss. My mother has often said she wished you would come. Will you go in and see her?”

Rhoda hesitated.

“Father’s out, miss. He has gone off in the boat with Mr Trethick, to try for pollack. We’re quite alone.”

At the name of Trethick, Rhoda shrank away, but setting her teeth, she determined not to give up like some weak girl. Geoffrey Trethick was nothing to her now, and, as she thought that, a passionate, angry desire to stand face to face with the woman who had robbed her of his love made her take a step towards the door.

Bessie bent down and picked up the baby, which laughed and kicked as she held it in her arms, but Rhoda snatched away her eyes. She hated it, she told herself; and, following Bessie into the gloomy room, she looked towards where Mrs Prawle was wont to sit, but the chair was empty.

“Mother is lying down in the bedroom,” said Bessie. “I’ll tell her you are here, miss.”

As she spoke, Bessie turned aside to place the baby in a pair of extended hands before leaving the place.

Rhoda had not seen who was seated in the darkened portion of the room, but Bessie’s act told her who it was, and turning sharply, her veins tingling, and her head giddy with her anger, she stood face to face with Madge Mullion, the girl she hated in a way that she could not have thought possible.

As she stood there, her fingers clenched together, the spirit was in her to strike the girl – to curse her; but, when she saw the pale, weary-looking face, and the great, staring eyes of the young mother, as she clasped her little one to her breast, all Rhoda’s anger seemed to pass away as rapidly as it had come, and in its place there was a feeling of profound pity.

They stood there gazing in each other’s eyes for some minutes without speaking, Rhoda proud and erect, Madge weak and piteous in the extreme; and, as if in dread of her visitor, she held her little one between them as a shield.

“Are you not ashamed to look me in the face?” said Rhoda, sternly.

“Am I not weak and suffering enough,” retorted Madge, “that you say these cruel words? Oh, Miss Penwynn, let me try and explain – let me tell you how I have suffered for the pain I have caused you.”

“Hold your tongue,” said Rhoda, coldly. “Don’t speak to me. I did not come to see you. Do not speak to me again.”

As Rhoda spoke she saw the poor girl’s eyelids droop, and a ghastly pallor came over her face. She was fainting, and had not the visitor involuntarily caught the little one from its mother’s hands, as she fell back in the corner of the sofa, it would have dropped upon the brick floor.

The child uttered a piteous cry, and seemed to stare with astonishment at her who held it from her, stunned almost at her position. But as the babe looked up in her handsome face, the wrinkles in its little countenance departed, and it began to laugh and coo, trying to catch at one of the long curls pendent above its face.

The little one seemed to disarm her resentment. She held it closer to her, forgetful of its mother, and one of its little pinky hands went up now and clutched at her face.

She could not help it. There was no one to see, and Rhoda seemed forced to obey an uncontrollable impulse. One moment her face was hard and stern; then there was a quiver, a softening of the muscles, the tears gathered in her eyes, and began to fall upon the little upturned face.

“It at least is innocent,” she muttered, as she held the little thing in her bosom, and kissed it tenderly again and again.

There was a curious, yearning look in Rhoda Penwynn’s countenance during these fleeting moments. Then, recalling her position, she hastily laid the child upon the rug, looking cold, hard, and stern once more, as she took out her vinaigrette, and held it to the fainting girl’s face.

“Oh, miss, is she ill?” cried Bessie, entering the room.

“Yes,” said Rhoda, coldly; “she has fainted.”

“Oh, miss,” cried Bessie, reproachfully, “you have not been saying cruel things to her?”

“And if I have, what then?” said Rhoda sternly.

“Why, it’s a shame – a cruel shame,” cried Bessie, angrily. “Why did you come here to reproach her for what she has done? Don’t you see how ill she is, perhaps not long for this world? Oh, Miss Penwynn, it’s a shame!”

Rhoda flushed with anger, but she would not speak. She told herself that she deserved what she had encountered by her foolish visit, and, stung by the girl’s reproaches, and angry with herself, she hurried out of the cottage and hastened towards home.

She was bitterly angry with herself, more angry against Geoffrey, whom, in her heart, she somewhat inconsistently accused of having caused her the degradation which she told herself she had suffered but now.

She bit her lips as she thought of her folly in going there, for she told herself that every one in Carnac would know where she had been; and hardly had she writhed beneath the sting of this thought than she encountered old Mr Paul walking slowly along the cliff.

She would have passed him with a bow, but he stopped short and held out his hand, in which she placed her own, feeling shocked to see how the old man had changed.