"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 masses 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 masses 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 ashore, 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 passage 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 passage
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 crashing noise, which went echoing and reverberating
along the dripping passage, and then he went on.
"Poor lass, 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 fishing-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 passed
from his face as he saw the girl's distant manner.
"Has the doctor been?"
"Yes, Mr Trethick."
"What does he say?"
"That she is to have perfect rest and quiet."
"And your mother?"
"Better, sir. Will you speak to her?"
Geoffrey hesitated a moment, and then seeing that Bessie was
misinterpreting his looks, he said sharply,--
"Yes, I will;" and following Bessie in, he found the invalid in her old
place, airing and burning more things than usual, but there was such a
reproachful, piteous look in her eyes, that he was quite taken aback.
"It's of no use. I can't argue with them," thought Geoffrey.
"Here, Mrs Prawle," he said aloud, "will you kindly see that every
thing possible is done for that poor girl. You will be at some expense,
of course, till Mrs Mullion and her uncle fetch them home. Take that."
He laid a five-pound note on the table, and walked straight out, Bessie
drawing on one side to let him pass, her face looking cold and thin, and
her eyes resting on the floor.
"Pleasant," muttered Geoffrey, and with an abrupt "Good-morning" he went
out to where old Prawle was at work.
"Here, walk part of the way along the cliff with me," he said. "Come
away from the cottage."
The old man looked up at him from under his shaggy eyebrows, and then
followed him for a couple of hundred yards, and stopped.
"Won't that do?" he said. "Are you going to give me some money for them
two?"
"I've left five pounds with your wife," said Geoffrey, sharply.
"Oh, come, that's handsome," said the old man. "But you couldn't have
done less."
"Look here," said Geoffrey, sharply, "you know what I told you last
night."
"Yes, I know," said the old man, grimly.
"You tell them the same. I couldn't talk to them. Undeceive them about
it, and be kind to the poor lass. I'll do all I can for you, Prawle,
about the shares."
The old man nodded and uttered a growl that might have been "All right,"
or "Thanks," or any thing else, and then Geoffrey went on towards
Carnac.
"Tell them the same," said the rugged old fellow, with a grim chuckle.
"Why, I might preach to 'em for a month, and then they wouldn't believe
it any more than I could myself."
Pengelly was anxiously awaiting his principal at the mine, ready to lay
certain reports before him about the drive that was being made, and he
did it all in so stern and distant a way that Geoffrey could not help
seeing that his right-hand man had heard the report, and, what was more,
believed it. The result was that it raised up a spirit of resentment in
the young man's breast that made him retire within himself snail
fashion; but with this difference, that he left his horns pointing
menacingly outside; and for the rest of that day he was not a pleasant
person to consult upon any matter.
For in spite of the contempt with which he treated the whole affair, and
his determination to completely ignore the matter, it was always
torturing him, and there was the constant thought in his mind that Rhoda
must sooner or later hear of it, if she had not already been apprised by
Miss Pavey or some other tattling friend.
"Let them. If she's the woman I believe her, she'll write to me in a
quiet indirect way, not referring to it, of course, but to let me see
her confidence in me is not shaken."
The amount of work he got through on that day was tremendous, and as he
worked his spirits rose. He strengthened his plans for guarding against
the breaking in of the sea; and at last, completely fagged out, he
ascended from the mine, changed, and washed in the office, and, without
speaking to Pengelly, went straight to Dr Rumsey's.
The doctor saw him coming, and came to the door.
"Find you apartments, Mr Trethick?" he said, coldly. "In an ordinary
way it would be impossible. Under the present circumstances it is
doubly so."
"Very good," said Geoffrey, sharply. "You persist, then, in believing
that?"
"I would rather not discuss the matter, Mr Trethick," said the doctor.
"Good evening."
"I must go to the hotel, then, that's all," said Geoffrey to himself.
"Confound them all! They will find that I've Cornish blood in my veins,
and can be as pig-headed in obstinacy as the best."