Chapter Fifty Three.
By the Solemn Shore.
Geoffrey started off along the cliff with a strange feeling of dread in his breast, and as he hurried along it was with his eyes gazing down upon the shore, so that he passed without seeing that some one was seated on one of the blocks of stone by the old mine shaft, enjoying the sunshine and gazing apparently sadly out to sea.
He noted the two descending paths that were connected in his mind with poor Madge’s attempt to commit self-destruction, and hesitated as to whether he should descend; but he decided upon going on straight, first, to the town, and as he strode on he could not help sighing as he glanced at the buildings about Wheal Carnac.
“I wonder who bought it,” he said; and for a moment or two he mused upon old Prawle’s sulky indifference now that his coup had failed, and wondered whether it would be of any use to try for a post with the new proprietors.
“A nice character mine to go with,” he muttered. “Poor Madge! Where can she be? Has she gone up to Tregenna?”
The more he thought of this the stronger the idea became, and with a curious feeling of hope, that he vainly tried to crush down, rising in his breast, he went quickly on, to utter an ejaculation the next moment, for there was Madge walking towards him along the cliff.
“Why, Madge!” he exclaimed. “You quite frightened me. Where have you been?”
“Don’t touch me—don’t speak to me, Mr Trethick,” she said, in a sharp, harsh voice.
“But I shall speak to you, and I shall touch you,” said Geoffrey, with a quiet firmness. “There, let your arm rest there. Hang on to me as much as you like: you are weak and excited, and ready to faint. There, let’s walk steadily back. Don’t hurry. Take off your veil, and let the sea-breeze blow upon your face; it will revive you.”
“Oh—oh—oh!” came softly as a whisper from beneath that veil, as Geoffrey’s words seemed to change the spirit that was burning in the poor girl’s breast; and, weakly and helplessly enough now, she hung upon his arm, and suffered him to lead her onward towards the Cove.
At the end of a few hundred yards they drew near the opening in the huge cliff where the ruined engine-house and mining shaft were, and here they came suddenly upon old Mr Paul, sitting upon a block of stone, with his hands resting upon the head of his great cane.
The old man looked more himself, and there was a grim air of satisfaction in his face as he saw the couple approaching.
Geoffrey felt his companion give a spasmodic start, and she stopped short as if her legs had failed her, uttering at the same moment a low moan, as she saw her uncle rise from his seat and come towards them, looking first at one and then at the other. Then he just nodded his head at them gravely, and walked on in the opposite direction.
Geoffrey gave an impatient stamp with his foot as he turned and saw the old man disappear.
“Poor old boy!” he said. “There’s something about him I like, Madge, and I’m bursting with eloquence now—full of things I want to say to him, but hang me if I could speak when he was here.”
“Take me home,” said Madge, softly; “I mean to the Cove.”
Geoffrey saw she was weak and half fainting, so he hurried her along as fast as she could bear the effort until he had reached the descent to the cottage, where he had to lift her in his arms and carry her down the rest of the way.
In the afternoon, though, she revived rapidly, and Geoffrey noticed that she seemed none the worse for her unwonted effort, but rather, on the contrary, better and more energetic than she had been for months. He, however, bade Bessie to watch over her, and above all things not to let her go out again.
But Geoffrey’s thoughts were sent into a new channel in the course of the afternoon by a visit from Amos Pengelly, who came to him as he was walking up and down upon the cliff, thinking now of Rhoda, and whether the time had not come for him to leave Carnac; now of the mine, and whether, as a man, it was not his duty to try and find the new purchaser, and make known his knowledge.
“I might get a good post upon the strength of what I know,” he said to himself; “and that would be just like me—to climb up and succeed upon another man’s misfortunes. No: I’ll keep to my old way. The ship may drift: she cannot come to worse wreck than she is in now. Hallo, Pengelly.”
“How do, Master Trethick, sir?” said Amos; “I’ve brought you this.”
“This?” said Geoffrey, taking a letter from the miner’s hand, and turning it over to find that it was on old-fashioned paper, doubled in the old style, and sealed with a great patch of wax and a crest.
“Why, it’s from old Mr Paul,” he said, as he glanced at the crabbed characters.
“Yes, sir; he asked me to bring it down and wait.”
Geoffrey opened the missive, and found it very short, but he read in it the effect that that day’s meeting had had upon the old man. It was as follows:—
Dear Sir,—Will you come up and see me this evening? I want to ask a favour of you once more. What I have seen to-day makes me hope that you can now meet me in a better spirit. Yours faithfully, Thomas Paul.
PS. If you are in the spirit that I hope you feel, bring poor Madge.
Geoffrey Trethick, Esq.
“Geoffrey Trethick, Esquire! Ha, ha, ha! Poor old fellow! Esquire! A broken-down mining adventurer in a smuggler’s cottage. No, Master Paul, I am not in the spirit you mean, and it is of no use for us to meet and quarrel again.”
“Will you write an answer, sir?” said Pengelly, after watching Trethick for some minutes, as he read and re-read the letter, and then walked up and down talking to himself.
“Yes—no—yes—no. Wait a few moments, Pengelly. I have not yet made up my mind. Tell him—tell Mr Paul—yes, tell him that I will come up and see him this evening. I will not write.”
Pengelly nodded, and moved towards the cottage to get a sight of Bessie.
“Have you heard, sir, who has bought the mine?” he asked.
“No, Pengelly. I have been trying, but they keep it very quiet. You have heard nothing, I suppose?”
“Not a word, sir,” said Pengelly, with a sigh; and he went on into the cottage.
“Papa-in-law elect does not seem to give him so much of his confidence as he does me. However, just as he likes. Now what am I to say to the old man?”
He walked up and down thinking for a few minutes, and then decided that the time had come for him to speak out frankly all that he knew, and to refer them to Madge for the rest.
“Poor lass! I’ll speak up well for her sufferings. She has done wrong, but look at her. Poor lass! How a man can be such a scoundrel, and leave a poor weak girl to fight out her difficulties alone, is more than I can understand; and what Nature is about to allow it. Here’s poor Madge dying of consumption, and scouted as an outcast for her wrong, and the scoundrel who shared her sin—bah, no! who made her sin—is in high feather, and about to be rewarded for his goodness with a beautiful and loving wife—
“Oh!” he ejaculated, grinding his teeth; “if I think about it, I shall go mad;” and he set off down to the rough shore, where, in a reckless way, he set about wrenching over great blocks of the granite, telling himself he was looking for curious sea-anemones and star-fish, when it was to weary himself out by his tremendous exertion, and dull the aching misery of his thoughts.
It was quite evening when he returned to the cottage, and sat and chatted with poor Mrs Prawle for a time, before following the old wrecker down to his den below the cliff, and stopping with him to smoke a pipe.
The old fellow was more sociable than usual, and chatted about the mine and the chance they had lost, but in quite a friendly spirit.
“It wur a bad job, my lad, but I’m not so sore now. I’ve got enough for me, I dare say, but I’d liked to have seen ye doing a bit better.”
“Oh, I dare say my time will come, Master Prawle,” said Geoffrey, lightly. “But I must go now.”
“Go? Where are you going? It’s a gashly dark night.”
“Only as far as old Mr Paul’s. Madge’s uncle wants to see me.”
“Oh, ay,” said the old fellow, nodding. “Well, my lad, I hope good will come of it. Don’t keep too stiff an upper lip.”
Geoffrey looked at him sharply, and was about to speak, but he checked himself and started off.
“Why, where are you going?” said the old man.
“Down along by the shore,” replied Geoffrey.
“You’ll find it rough work.”
“So much the better. Tame me down, so that I sha’n’t fly out if I have such things said to me as you have just indulged in.”
As he said this he went on down to the rough granite-strewn shore, and began to thread his way amongst the blocks towards Carnac; but at the end of half an hour, it had grown so much darker, the effort was so great, and the difficulty of getting along had become so much more apparent, that he gave up, and made his way towards the cliff, so as to reach the road at last by the pathway on the Carnac side of the old adit, faint and completely overcome by his exertions by the time he reached the familiar path down which he had run to save poor Madge.
If Geoffrey had stopped at the cottage he would have seen that instead of quietly taking to her work, Madge was dressing herself to go out. This she seemed to be doing secretly, listening from time to time to make out whether Bessie was noting her actions, which plainly indicated an attempt to steal away unseen.
She was deadly pale, and evidently greatly agitated, but she dressed herself with much care, bestowing unwonted pains upon her hair; and at last, quite ready, she stood there listening and waiting for her opportunity.
This did not come for some little time, but at last Bessie was busy helping her mother to bed, and the baby was lying there fast asleep in its cradle.
There was no one to see her now, and, gliding out, Madge softly raised the latch of the door, and left it ajar, before returning to the cradle, throwing herself upon her knees, and clasping her little one to her throbbing heart.
“My darling!” she moaned.
But Geoffrey saw nothing of this, or he might have compelled her to stay, and not tempt the danger of a walk along the cliff path on such a night. He was, however, playing no watcher’s part, and there was no one to see the hurried figure that almost ran out of the cottage at Gwennas Cove, with a long cloak huddled round it, so as to cover the sleeping babe as well.
The night had grown darker, but the pathway was perfectly familiar to her, as it had been from childhood; and, thinking more of her mission than of the child she held so carefully wrapped, she hurried on, gazing straight before her, so as to avoid slip or fall over some awkward mass of rock.
So deeply intent was the girl upon her mission that she did not see the figure of a man standing against the cliff face, just by the opening by the ruined mine; and, as she reached the spot, she was so taken by surprise that the cry that rose to her lips was checked on the instant by a fold of her own cloak.
It was a matter of moments. There was a feeble struggle, a hoarse, smothered cry, a violent thrust, and in the darkness the cloaked figure was seen to stagger back—totter—and then her assailant seemed to throw himself upon his knees, and rest there, panting and listening, till from far below there came up a hollow, reverberating plash as of some heavy body falling into the depths of the deserted mine. Then twice over there was a hoarse cry, and then a curious sound of splashing which rose in a horribly distinct fashion upon the black night air.
Then all was still.