The Vicar's People. George Manville Fenn

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      Geoffrey started slightly, and then gazed keenly at this man, who bent down over Rhoda Penwynn’s hand as he took it, and retained it just a moment longer than custom dictates, and smiled in her face directly after as, in a quiet, self-possessed way, she said that they had not been waiting.

      “Waiting? No!” said Mr. Penwynn smiling; “but I should have thought you would have been first.”

      “I hurried all I could,” said Tregenna, as a slight flush came over Rhoda’s cheek; “but one cannot always command one’s time, even to devote it to one’s aims.”

      Geoffrey Trethick half-closed his eyes, as he looked on trying to think out something which had puzzled him, but without avail, and for the moment he gave it up, and began to turn over the leaves of an album, but taking ample notice the while of what was going on.

      “If I were interested in mine host’s daughter,” mused Geoffrey, “I should feel uncomfortable about that dark, smoothly-shaven gentleman. I don’t like the look of his mouth, and I don’t like his eyes, and—Most happy!”

      This last in answer to his host’s introduction to the last comer, who smiled upon him in the most friendly of ways, asked him what he thought of Carnac, seemed to be particularly refined, and then turned to go through a little preliminary chat with the new clergyman, who was more bland and agreeable than he had been to his travelling-companion.

      “Ah! the parson gets on better with you, my fine fellow,” said Geoffrey. “You haven’t so many corners as I have. Humph! I don’t like you, though. You seem to be the man in possession, though, here, and certainly she is a very charming girl.”

      He met Rhoda’s eyes as these thoughts passed through his mind, and she encountered his gaze with a frank, open look, though he fancied that she seemed a shade paler than when he was talking to her a few minutes before.

      Just then dinner was announced, and Mr. Penwynn turned to speak to Geoffrey, but bit his lip and glanced at Tregenna, who, however, only smiled back and nodded, as if amused; for Rhoda, acting the part of mistress of the house, extended her gloved hand so unmistakably that Geoffrey stepped forward, the hand was laid upon his arm, and, passing the others, he led her across the hall to the handsome dining-room, thinking to himself that by rights the Reverend Edward Lee ought to have occupied his place.

      The dinner was good and well served, every thing making it evident that Mr. Penwynn was a wealthy man, and one who liked to show it; but the ostentation was a good deal toned down by his child’s refined taste, and was not obtrusive. The conversation kept up was such as would be heard at any gentleman’s table, and it soon became evident that the West-country banker and his daughter were well-informed, and loved and cultivated refinement.

      Geoffrey particularly noted how clever and gentlemanly Mr. Tregenna could be. By degrees it dawned upon him that he was the principal solicitor of the place, and without its troubling him in the slightest degree, he made out that Tregenna was evidently a suitor for Rhoda Penwynn’s hand. Both father and lover showed this, the former being plainly in favour of the match; while, in spite of her efforts to the contrary, Rhoda Penwynn displayed her consciousness of Tregenna’s expressive looks by redoubling her attention to Geoffrey and the new vicar—Geoffrey chatting freely, and in the most unembarrassed way, so different to any young man she had met before, and questioning her largely about the place and people.

      “A glass of wine with you, Mr. Trethick,” said the host, who, in spite of advances, adhered somewhat to old customs. “Tregenna, will you join us?”

      “With pleasure,” said the latter, looking up and smiling, and as he did so the thought that had been puzzling Geoffrey all through the dinner met with a solution.

      He had been wondering—his wonder running like a vein through the whole of the conversation—where he had met Tregenna before; but now it came to him that for certain they had never met, but that it was that smooth, deep, mellow voice that he had heard, but where?

      “I have it,” he mentally exclaimed, as, raising his glass, he looked full in John Tregenna’s eyes. “You were the fellow I heard talking to that girl by the ruined mine?”

Chapter Eleven.

       Table of Contents

      An Opinion of Tregenna.

      “You’re a nice, smooth scoundrel,” said Geoffrey to himself, as he set down his glass, “and I have been drinking with you when I ought to have thrown the wine in your face, and told you that you were a blackguard.—But we don’t do this sort of thing in society. As long as there is a good thick coat of whitewash over the sepulchre, society does not mind, but smiles on ladies with no reputation if they are rich, and never opens its ears to the acts, deeds, and exploits of our nice young men. I wonder whether mine host knows your character, and what my fair young hostess feels? Don’t seem very sentimental about him, anyhow; and here’s my reverend friend quite cottoning to black whiskers, and enjoying his small talk. Ah! it’s a strange world.”

      A brisk little conversation was just now going off between Rhoda Penwynn and the new vicar, Tregenna throwing in a word here and there, Mr. Penwynn smiling approval as he listened, while Geoffrey went on eating heartily, and following his thought.

      “I may be wrong,” he went on, “but I feel pretty sure I could say something that would make you change colour, my smooth, cleanly-shaven gentleman, and if I did I should make you my enemy for life. Well, perhaps I could bear that, but I don’t want enemies, I want friends. If I’m right, though, I don’t think you ought to win ma’mselle unless you reform, probationise, and she condones. There, what a string! As the old women say—‘tain’t no business of mine.”

      He glanced across at Tregenna just then, and that gentleman met his eye, smiled, and the discussion being over, asked him how long he meant to stay in the west.

      “Stay?” said Geoffrey sharply. “Altogether.”

      Tregenna raised his eyebrows a little, and just then the young vicar, in reply to a question from Mr. Penwynn, began speaking, in slow measured accents, about the vicarage to be built, and the alterations he meant to make at the church. A bright colour suffused his smooth pale face, as he found that Rhoda was listening to him, and that he was now monopolising the attention of the rest. However, he seemed to master his nervousness, and spoke out firmly and well to the end.

      “You may try,” said Mr. Penwynn, smiling, “but I am afraid, my dear sir, that your ideas are as Utopian as those of Mr. Trethick there. However, experience teaches, as the Latin proverb goes; but, as an old inhabitant, I venture to say that before many weeks are over, both of you gentlemen will confess that you have undertaken a Herculean task. Religiously, the people of the lower orders are as wedded to Wesleyanism as in their mining tactics they are to their old-fashioned ways. Our rough Cornish folk, gentlemen, are as hard to move as our own granite.”

      “Perhaps so, papa,” said Rhoda; “but we have not had many efforts made here to move them.”

      “Thank you, Miss Penwynn,” said Geoffrey, flushing, and speaking with animation. “Those are the first encouraging words I have heard. Your daughter has touched the very point, Mr. Penwynn. I don’t want to talk like an egotist, but, speaking as an engineer, if you will show me one of your biggest pieces of Cornish granite, I’ll find a means of giving it a СКАЧАТЬ