The Vicar's People Part 43

"Hope? Mr Trethick."

"Well, I might say certainty of clearing expenses--hope of making a large profit."

"Papa has always said that he would never enter into a mining speculation, and now he seems to have been drawn into this. I should not like it to cause him trouble."

"Honestly, I do not believe it will, Miss Penwynn," replied Geoffrey.

"It shall go very bad with me if it does."

"I trust that you will do your best for him, Mr Trethick," said Rhoda, earnestly.

"You may take it for granted, Miss Penwynn," said Geoffrey, "that if only out of selfish considerations I shall leave no stone unturned--that is likely to contain tin," he added, laughingly. "No, my dear young lady, I have had to wait too long for this opportunity to be careless.

I shall, and I will, make Wheal Carnac pay."

He got up as he spoke, and Rhoda watched him as he walked up and down the room.

"Many an earnest man has been damped over these wretched mining speculations, Mr Trethick," said Rhoda sadly, her eyes following him the while.

"Oh, yes," he said cheerily, "there are plenty of failures in every thing. Fellows read for honours and plenty of them fail, but the men who stick to the work the best generally get somewhere on the list. I'm going to stick to Wheal Carnac, Miss Penwynn, and if one is only last on the list it will be something."

"To be sure," said Rhoda, smiling. "Well, Mr Trethick, I wish you every success."

Geoffrey stopped short to look at her in a bold, straightforward manner that made Rhoda lower her eyes.

"Thank you," he said frankly. "I'm sure you do. And look here, Miss Penwynn, the first rich vein we strike shall bear your name."

Rhoda smiled.

"Find it first, eh?" he said. "Well, I will if it is to be found, and I am supplied with the sinews of war. I say, Miss Penwynn, has that Mr Tregenna any thing to do with this affair?"

"Oh, no, I think not!" replied Rhoda, looking at him wonderingly.

"I'm glad of it," said Geoffrey bluntly.

"May I ask why, Mr Trethick?" she said, watching his earnest face.

"Because I don't like him for any thing more than an acquaintance-- that's all," he said; and then suddenly recollecting his suspicions that Tregenna had proposed to Rhoda on the night of the dinner, he flushed slightly, and exclaimed, "Really I beg your pardon. My antipathies ought to be kept private."

Rhoda bowed and walked to the piano, where her voice was rising and falling in a well-known ballad, when Tregenna and the banker re-entered the room, the former darting a quick, suspicious look from one to the other, but without finding any thing upon which his suspicions could feed.

Whatever the business had been, Mr Penwynn seemed perfectly satisfied, and the conversation became general till Trethick rose to go, Tregenna following his example; but Mr Penwynn laid his hand upon the solicitor's arm, and asked him to stay for a few minutes longer.

"Good-night, Mr Trethick," he said. "I will sleep on that affair, and give you an answer in the morning."

"Going to consult Tregenna a little more," said Geoffrey, as he walked homeward. "Well, he is not a man whom I should trust, and I'm very glad I have no dealings with him whatever."

He stopped at a corner to fill and light his meerschaum.

"There's some pleasure in having a pipe now one has got to work," he said, as he puffed the bowl into a glow, and then, as he went on--"that's a very nice, quiet, sensible girl, that Miss Penwynn;" and then he began to think of Tregenna.

Just at the same time Rhoda had said to herself,--

"Mr Trethick is very frank, and manly, and natural," and then she began thinking about Madge Mullion and Bess Prawle, and then--she could not tell why--she sighed.

There was a long talk that night in Mr Penwynn's study, and when at last Tregenna left he was thinking to himself about mines and mining.

"That's a splendid fellow, that Trethick," he said. "I did think of trying to mould him, but he wants no touching, only leaving alone. Once set a man on the mining slide, there is no stopping till he gets to the bottom; and I think friend Penwynn will find the bottom of Wheal Carnac very deep."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

A CHAT WITH UNCLE PAUL.

They were busy days for Geoffrey Trethick and his factotum Pengelly, who hardly gave himself time to rest. The visit to Mr Penwynn that next morning had resulted in the information that he had commissioned Mr Tregenna to offer a certain sum for the machinery.

"And mind this, Trethick," the banker said, "you have led me into this affair, and you will have to make it pay me well."

"Never fear, sir," said Geoffrey, "I'll do my best."

Visits to Gwennas were rare, and Geoffrey went to and from the cottage with an abstracted air, too busy to notice that Madge looked pale and careworn, and that Uncle Paul seemed a little changed.

The old man would waylay him though sometimes, poke at him with his cane, and get him into the summer-house to smoke one of the long black cheroots.

"Well," he said one morning, "how are you getting along, boy?

Swimmingly I suppose? I saw the water coming out at a fine rate."

"Yes," said Geoffrey, "we've got all the machinery fixed as far as was necessary, and the pumping has begun."

"And you are going to make my hundred pounds come back to me, eh?"

"Well, not very likely," said Geoffrey, "unless you buy fresh shares of the new proprietors. What do you say?"

"Bah!" exclaimed the old man; and they smoked on in silence for a time.

"Might do worse," said Geoffrey.

"Rubbis.h.!.+ I tell you it will all end in a smash-up. You get your money regularly, and don't let them have any arrears."

"Oh, that's all right," said Geoffrey. "So you think there will, be another failure?"

"Sure of it I shall buy that piece of ground yet for a house. Sure to fail."

"So old Prawle says."

"Oh, old Prawle says so, does he?" continued Uncle Paul.

"Yes; and I told him the Indian file thought the same."