The Vicar's People Part 62

"You will repent all this when you are cool," cried Geoffrey, whose own rage was driven away in dread lest the old man should fall before him in some fit.

"Out of my sight, dog! Leave this house."

"Uncle Paul, you are mad. Will you listen to reason?"

"Go!" cried the old man panting, as he threatened the tall, st.u.r.dy young fellow with his stick; "go, and present yourself at Penwynn's, and be shown the door. Out! Go! I cannot breathe the same air with so heartless a villain."

"If I leave this house," said Geoffrey, "it is for good. No apologies will bring me back."

"Apologies," cried the old man. "Oh, if Heaven would give me back my strength but for one short hour! Scoundrel!" he cried, sinking back in his chair, "if I were but a man instead of such a poor old wreck--"

"Mrs Mullion! quick!" cried Geoffrey, for the old man's appearance alarmed him; but the poor woman had heard all, and was already at her brother-in-law's side. "What shall we do?"

"Let him leave the place," panted the old man. "Don't let him touch me--don't let him come near me--let him leave the place. He tortures me. Why did I bring him here?"

"Fate, I suppose," said Geoffrey, coldly. "I thought she had been too kind. Shall I fetch Rumsey, Mrs Mullion?"

"No, no, no. Pray go--pray go," sobbed the poor woman. "Oh, Mr Trethick! Mr Trethick! what have I done that you should treat me so?"

"There, for heaven's sake, don't you begin," cried Geoffrey. "I can bear no more. You people here are mad. There, I'll rid you of my presence, Mrs Mullion. I'll go and put up some where else till you have come to your senses, and then perhaps--no, I cannot come back here.

I'm going down to Rumsey's, and I'll send him up. Poor old fellow?" he said; and he came a step towards where, with half-closed eyes, Uncle Paul sat back, panting heavily; but at the first step forward he shrank away with such a look of loathing that Geoffrey strode into the pa.s.sage, seized his hat, and went off across the garden, and down the cliff path to send up Dr Rumsey to the stricken old man.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

MORE UNPLEASANTRIES.

Dr Rumsey was in, Mrs Rumsey said, but he was engaged. She would give Mr Trethick's message, and she turned sharply round and shut the door.

"Confound the woman," exclaimed Geoffrey, frowning, and he went off towards the mine.

His way lay through the princ.i.p.al street, and as he was pa.s.sing the hotel it suddenly struck him that he had had a terrible night, and that he was half-starved.

"The engine won't work without coal," he said, with a bitter laugh. "I must have breakfast," and, going in, he ordered the meal, ate heartily, and then, feeling refreshed and brighter, he hesitated as to what he should do--go down to the mine or walk across to Gwennas.

He stopped, thinking,--

"If I go to Gwennas, people will say that the case is clear against me.

"If I don't go they will say that it is clearer, for I stop away because I am a coward, and that my conduct is cruel.

"Well, I won't be brutal, at all events; so here goes to see Father Prawle, and to know how the poor girl is."

He started off walking fast, but just then who should come round the corner but a thin figure in black, half-way between a sister of mercy and a lady in deep mourning.

"Miss Pavey, by all that's wonderful!" he exclaimed. "What a transformation. What has become of the rainbow?"

"Ah, Miss Pavey," he said. "Good-morning."

To his astonishment and disgust, the lady darted a look of horror at him and crossed the road.

"This is pleasant," he cried, angrily. "Why, that woman must know of it, and--"

He felt a chill of horror run through him, for he knew that she would go, if she had not already been, straight up to An Morlock and acquaint Rhoda with the events of the night, no doubt pleasantly dressed up.

"She must have seen the Rumseys this morning!"

He hesitated for a moment, and then turned to go straight up to An Morlock.

"I'll go and tell Penwynn all about it."

"Pooh! Absurd," he cried. "What's come to me? Am I to go and deny a scandal before I have been accused by my friends? Ridiculous."

Laughing at himself for what he called his folly, he went right off along the cliff, looking with pride at the smoking of the Wheal Carnac chimney shaft, and pausing for a moment or two, with a smile of gratification upon his lips, to watch the busy figures about the buildings and to listen to the rattle and noise of the machinery.

Going on, he came to the slope down from the cliff path to the beach, and he could not help a shudder as he saw how dangerous it was even by daylight.

"I wonder we did not break our necks," he thought, as he went cautiously down, and then amongst the granite boulders and weed-hung ma.s.ses to where he had leaped in and swum to poor Madge's help, for there it all was plainly enough--the long spit of rocks running out like a pier, the swirling water, and the waving ma.s.ses of slimy weed.

"It's a good job it was night," he thought. "Hang me, if I shouldn't have hesitated to dive in now."

All the same he would not have hesitated a moment; but it was a wild, awesome place, and the chances of a swimmer getting easily ash.o.r.e, after a dive from the rocks, were not many.

He went on picking his way as nearly as he could to follow the steps taken on the previous night towards the farther sloping path, pausing again as he came opposite to the adit of the old mine up on the cliff.

It was an ugly, low archway, fringed with ferns, and whose interior was glossy with what looked like green metallic tinsel, but proved to be a dark, glistening, wet lichen or moss.

The place, like all others of its kind, had an attraction for Geoffrey, and he went in a short distance to peer forward into the gloom of the narrow pa.s.sage through the rock, and to listen to the dripping, echoing sounds of the falling water.

It was a part of the working of the old mine, and, doubtless, had been driven in first by the adventurers in search of a vein of tin or copper, after striking which they had sunk the perpendicular shaft on the cliff--the one by the path where he had had his encounter with Pengelly; and, by a little calculation, he reckoned that this adit or pa.s.sage would be about a hundred yards long.

"I'll have lights some day, and Pengelly and I will explore it."

He went no farther, for there was always the danger of coming upon one of the minor shafts, or "winzes" as they were called, which are made for ventilating the mine, and joining the upper and lower galleries together. In this case the winzes would have been full of water, like the great shaft, up to the level of the adit, which would run off the surplus to the beach.

More by force of habit than for any particular reason, he threw a great stone in, to make a cras.h.i.+ng noise, which went echoing and reverberating along the dripping pa.s.sage, and then he went on.

"Poor la.s.s, she would have had a poor chance," he said, "if she had thrown herself down the old shaft up yonder. I don't think I dare have dived down there. Nay," he added, laughing, "I am sure I dare not."

He went on fast now, noting the difficulties of the pathway up which he had helped Madge in the dark; and then, pausing half-way up to take breath, he uttered an exclamation.

"I shouldn't have thought it possible," he said. "Why, it seems almost madness now. Well, I got her there safely, and I have been thanked for my trouble."

Old Prawle was hanging about, busy, as usual, with a fis.h.i.+ng-line, as Geoffrey went down into the Cove, nodded, and tapped gently at the door.

"Well, Bessie," he said, in his light, cheery way, "how is she?"

"Better, Mr Trethick," said Bessie coldly; and the bright look pa.s.sed from his face as he saw the girl's distant manner.