Rhoda Penwynn's visitor was in the drawing-room at An Morlock, making
the most use possible of her eyes while she was alone. She had seen who
had called and left cards, and what book Rhoda was reading. She had
also mentally taken the pattern of the new design of embroidery, and
meant to work a piece exactly the same; and now she was filling up the
time before Rhoda entered by gazing at herself in one of the large
mirrors.
It was not a bad reflection--to wit, that of a refined, fair face, that
must have been very pretty fifteen or twenty years before; but now there
was an eager sharpness in the features, as if caused by expectancy never
gratified; the fair white skin had a slight ivory--old ivory--tinge, and
the pretty bloom that once hid beneath the down of her cheeks had
coalesced and slightly tinted the lady's nose. It was but slight, but
it was unmistakable.
Miss Pavey was well and fairly, even fashionably, dressed, and generally
she wore the aspect of what she was--a maiden lady who loved colour, and
had, after sundry matrimonial disappointments, retired to a far-off
west-country, sea-side place, where her moderate independency would be
of so much more value than in a large town.
She sighed as she contemplated herself in the glass, and then held her
handkerchief to her face and bent her eyes upon a book as she heard the
rustle of a dress, and the door opened, when she rose to meet Rhoda with
effusion, and an eager kiss.
"My dearest Rhoda, how well you do look!" she exclaimed. "What a
becoming dress!"
"Do you think so, Miss Pavey," said Rhoda, quietly. "Miss Pavey again!
Why will you keep up this terrible distance? My dear Rhoda, is it never
to be Martha?"
"Well then, Martha," said Rhoda, smiling. "I did not expect to see you
so early."
"It is early for visitors, my dear; but I thought you would like to know
the news. We have so little here in Carnac."
"Really, I trouble very little about the news, Miss Martha," said Rhoda,
smiling. "But what is the matter?" she added, as her visitor once more
held her handkerchief to her face.
"That dreadful toothache again," sighed Miss Pavey. "I really am a
martyr to these nervous pains."
"Why not boldly go to Mr Rumsey and have it out?"
"Oh, no! oh, dear no!" cried Miss Pavey, with a look of horror, "I could
not bear for a man to touch my mouth like that. Don't mind me, dear, it
will be better soon;" and it seemed to be, for it was a pleasant little
fiction kept up by Miss Pavey--that toothache, to add truthfulness to
the complete set she wore, and whose extraction she carefully attended
to herself.
"Of course you don't care for news, my dear," continued the lady; "I
used not when I was your age. But when one comes to be thirty-two one's
ideas change so. One becomes more human, and takes more interest in
humanity at large than in one's self. You are such a happy contented
girl, too; nothing seems to trouble you."
"But your news," said Rhoda, to change the conversation, as Miss Pavey
smoothed down her blue silk dress.
"To be sure, yes, my dear. I saw the coach come over from the station--
what a shame it is that we don't have a branch railway!--and what do you
think?"
"Think?" said Rhoda, looking amused, "I really don't know what to
think."
"Pylades and Orestes!"
"I don't understand you."
"They've come, my dear,--they've come?"
"Pylades and Orestes?"
"Well, of course, that's only my nonsense; but, as I told you, I saw the
coach come in, and two gentlemen got down, both young and handsome--one
fair, the other dark; and one is evidently our new vicar, and the other
must be his friend. I am so glad, my dear, for I have been exceedingly
anxious about the kind of person we were to have for our new clergyman."
"Indeed!" said Rhoda, looking amused. "Why, I thought you went now to
the Wesleyan chapel?"
"What a dear satirical girl you are, Rhoda. You know I only went there
on account of Mr Chynoweth, and because Mr Owen stared at me so
dreadfully, and was so persistent in preaching about dress."
"But surely that was only at the mining and fishing women, who have been
growing dreadfully gay in their attire."
"Oh dear, no, my dear! oh dear no!" said Miss Pavey, shaking her head.
"I have the best of reasons for believing it was all directed at me.
You remember his text the last Sunday I was at church?"
"I am sorry to say I do not."
"Dear me, I wonder at that. It was so very pointed. It was--`Who is
this that cometh with dyed garments from Bozrah?' and he looked at me as
he spoke. I think it was disgraceful."
"But, my dear Martha, I think you are too sensitive."
"Perhaps I am, my dear; perhaps I am. I have had my troubles; but that
Mr Owen was dreadful. You know, my dear, he had--perhaps I ought not
to say it, but I will--he evidently wanted to make an impression upon
me, but I never could like him. He was so coarse, and abrupt, and
short-sighted. He used to smoke pipes too. Mrs Mullion has told me,
over and over again, that he would sit for hours of a night smoking
pipes, and drinking gin and water, with that dreadfully wicked old man,
Mr Paul. Really, my dear, I think some one ought to warn our new
clergyman not to go and lodge at Mrs Mullion's. You see there is
hardly any choice for a gentleman, and for one who looks so refined to
go and stay at Mrs Mullion's would be dreadful."
"Mrs Mullion is very good and amiable," said Rhoda.
"Yes, my dear, she is; but Mr Paul is not a nice person; and then there
is that Madge--dreadful girl!"
Rhoda's heart gave a higher-pressure throb at this last name, and Miss
Pavey ran on, as she could if she only obtained a good listener,--
"I do think that girl ought to be sent away from Carnac; I do, indeed.
Really, my dear, if I had felt disposed to accept any advances on the
part of Mr Tregenna, his conduct with that flighty creature would have
set me against him."
Rhoda's heart beat faster still, and the colour went and came in her
face as she listened. She blamed herself for hearkening to such petty
gossip, but her visitor was determined to go on, and added confidence to
confidence, for, as it may be gathered, Miss Martha Pavey's peculiar
idiosyncrasy was a belief that was terribly persecuted by the male sex,
who eagerly sought her hand in marriage, though at the present time a
gossip of Carnac had told another gossip that Miss Pavey was "setting
her gashly old cap now at Methody Parson."
"Don't you think, my dear," continued the visitor, "that your papa ought
to interfere?"
"Interfere? About what?" exclaimed Rhoda, whose thoughts had run off to
her conversation with her father that morning.
"Why, what are you thinking about, Rhoda?" cried Miss Pavey. "Oh, you
naughty, naughty girl, you! You were thinking about our handsome young
clergyman and his young friend. Oh, for shame, for shame?"
"Indeed, I was not!" exclaimed Rhoda, half amused, half indignant at her
visitor's folly.
"Oh, don't tell me, dear," said Miss Pavey, shaking her head. "It's
very shocking of you, but I don't wonder. See how few marriageable
gentlemen there are about here."
"Miss Pavey, pray don't be so absurd," exclaimed Rhoda.
"Oh, no, my dear, I will not," said the visitor, blushing, and then
indulging in a peculiar giggle; "but after all, there is a something in
wedlock, my dear Rhoda."
"A something in wedlock?"
"Yes, dear, there is, you know, speaking to one another as confidantes--
there is a something in wedlock after all, as you must own."
"I never think of such a thing," said Rhoda, laughing, for Miss Pavey's
evident leanings towards the subject under discussion were very droll.
"Of course not, my dear," said Miss Pavey, seriously. "We none of us
ever do; but still there are times when the matter is forced upon us, as
in this case; and who knows, my dear, what may happen? You did not see
them, I suppose?"
"See? whom?"
"My dear child, how dense you are this morning! The two new-comers, of
course. And don't you think that something ought to be done to warn
them about where they are to take apartments?"
"Certainly not," said Rhoda. "It would be the height of impertinence."
"Oh, really, I cannot agree with you there, my dear Rhoda. I think it
would be grievous to let this young clergyman go to Mullion's, and
really there is not another place in Carnac where a gentleman could
lodge. In fact, I would sooner make the offer that he should board at
my little home."
"Board--take apartments at Dinas Vale?"
"Certainly, my dear. He is a clergyman, and we ought to extend some
kind of hospitality to him. I regret that my limited income does not
permit me to say to him, `Take up your home here for the present as a
guest.' Of course I would not open my doors to any one but a
clergyman."
"Of course not," said Rhoda, absently; and soon after Miss Pavey took
her leave, Rhoda going with her to the door, and on re-crossing the hall
noticing a card lying upon the serpentine marble table, against whose
dark, ruddy surface it stood out clear and white.
At another time it would not have attracted her attention, but now, as
if moved by some impulse beyond her control, she went up close and read
upon it the name,--
"Geoffrey Trethick."
Nothing more--no "Mr" and no address.