The Vicar's People. Fenn George Manville

ash off the end of his cigar, which process seemed to be looked upon as one of very great importance, the cigar being petted and carefully smoothed down at the moist end where a little of the leaf was loose, lest this opening should at all interfere with the drawing; after which he tenderly replaced the roll of weed in his lips, uttered a sigh of satisfaction, such as might be given by any young man whose digestion was in perfect order, and exhaled a soft blue cloud of smoke.

      “Curious thing this love,” he continued to himself. “Every one seems to go in for it, to the ruffling of a calm, smooth life, and gets into trouble. What a blessing it is that I have no inclinations in that direction! Humph! I wonder what the lady has said? Bah! stuff! nonsense! what is it to me? I’m not going to set up as head moralist, and meddle with these affairs. Her father must know best.”

      He rose, and strolled down to the end of the terrace, to lean over a rugged mass of granite, and he was still there, enjoying the delicious calm of the evening, and marvelling at the beauty of the shadowy, phosphorescent sea, when he heard his host’s voice, and throwing aside the fragment of the cigar whose aroma was beginning to be marred by touches of burnt moustache, he turned to meet him.

      “Tea is ready, Mr Trethick,” he said. “Really I ought to apologise for my neglect.”

      “Neglect, eh?” said Geoffrey, laughing. “Why, I could bear to be neglected like this every night. You gave me one of the best cigars I ever lit, and let me lounge here and smoke it in peace. Don’t apologise, Mr Penwynn; I am quite satisfied.”

      In spite of his indifference, however, Geoffrey could not refrain from looking curiously at Rhoda and Tregenna as he entered the drawing-room, but their unruffled features told no tales.

      Rhoda was seated near the window, and Tregenna on the opposite side, looking more gentlemanly and polished than ever; while Rhoda at once rose, and began talking to the new vicar, leaving Geoffrey to chat over the handed-round tea to Tregenna about mines, their few successes, and their many failures.

      “Parson’s happy now, I hope,” thought Geoffrey, as Mr Penwynn came and carried off Tregenna, after a word of apology about business; and then, as they stood talking at the other end of the room, Mr Penwynn’s face was so fully in the light, that Geoffrey could not help noticing that he changed countenance.

      “Master Tregenna’s saying something unpleasant about business,” thought Geoffrey. “The glorious uncertainty of the law is, perhaps, having mine host upon the hip.”

      “Do you like music, Mr Trethick?” said a voice at his side, and he found that Rhoda Penwynn had left the vicar and approached unobserved.

      “You wicked young puss,” he said to himself. “You’ve come to make a buffer of me. That’s it, is it? Papa is turning angry about you, eh? and you fear a collision? Well, you shall find me full of spring.” Then, smiling – “Yes, I love music,” he said aloud. “I am a worshipper at a distance – rather a mild one, I should say. You will sing something, I hope?”

      Rhoda crossed readily to the piano, and sang a couple of ballads very sweetly, her voice being rich and resonant, and then it seemed to Geoffrey, who was turning over the music for her, that, in spite of a very brave effort to appear unconcerned, she was growing extremely nervous, for, instead of leaving the piano, she began to pick up piece after piece of music, glancing sharply from her father to Tregenna, and then at the vicar, who was placidly examining an album of scraps.

      “I wish you sang, Mr Trethick,” she said at last.

      “Do you?” he said, looking down at her troubled face.

      “Yes. Do you? Will you?”

      “Nature has not been very generous to me in the matter of voice. At least she has given me plenty, but the quality is coarse. I’ll try something though – with you.”

      “A duet? Oh, yes!” she said eagerly. “What have we? Could you – do you like Italian?”

      “Yes,” he said quietly, as he noticed how agitated she was growing, and how bravely she fought to keep it down, and preserve her composure towards her father’s guests. “Shall we try that Trovatore piece that you just turned over —Ai nostri monti.”

      “Oh, yes!” she exclaimed, and there was a silence in the room as the rich harmony of the well-blended voices floated out upon the night air. For, in spite of his modest declaration, Geoffrey Trethick possessed a full deep voice, and, being a good musician, he thoroughly enjoyed his task.

      “Rather hard on a baritone to set him to sing tenor, Miss Penwynn,” he said, laughing. “But I say, what a delicious voice you have!”

      Rhoda glanced at him sharply, but the expression of admiration she could see was perfectly sincere, and she knew at once that he was not a man likely to flatter.

      That duet gave Rhoda Penwynn time to recover herself, and she was perfectly calm by the end – a calm she managed to maintain until the guests were about to depart.

      “By the way, Mr Lee,” said the banker, “have you obtained apartments? It is a disgrace to our place that the vicarage is not rebuilt.”

      “Oh, yes!” said the vicar, mildly, “I have obtained rooms.”

      “At Mrs Mullion’s, I presume?”

      “No,” said the vicar, turning his glasses for a moment on Geoffrey. “Mr Trethick has taken those.”

      “Indeed! Then you are at the hotel?”

      “No; I have made arrangements to board with a Miss Pavey, at a very pleasant cottage – Dinas Vale. Good-night!”

      “I’ll walk as far as your rooms with you, Mr Trethick,” said Tregenna, as they stepped out into the road. “Have a cigar?”

      They lit up, and strolled along the up-and-down ill-paved way, Tregenna evidently laying himself out to make friends with the new arrival, who made himself frank and pleasant, but, somehow, not cordial.

      “Drop in and have a chat with me, Mr Trethick,” said Tregenna, at parting. “I may be able to further your views. Any one will show you my place.”

      “Know it,” said Geoffrey. “Saw the brass plate on the gate.”

      “Yes,” laughed Tregenna, “one has to put out a sign. But come and see me; perhaps I can help you.”

      “I don’t like after-dinner promises,” laughed Geoffrey. “They are rash. I may put you to the test.”

      “Rash? Oh, no! We are not like that in the west. I shall be only too glad to help you to the best of my power. Good-night!”

      “Good-night!”

      Geoffrey remained at the garden gate thinking that his companion had spoken a great deal more loudly than was necessary. Then, as he had not finished his cigar, he resolved to smoke it out, and enjoy for a few minutes the cool night air.

      “I don’t like to be hasty,” he thought, “but I scarcely think that I shall trust you, Mr Tregenna, beyond the reach of my hand. If I am not very much mistaken your civility has a meaning, and you are a confounded scoundrel. If not, I beg your pardon.”

      “Yes,” he said, half aloud, after smoking on for a few minutes and thinking deeply, “it was your voice that I heard down in that old building. Now I wonder who was the girl?”

      As the thought crossed his mind, the faint sound of a closing casement smote his ear, when, like a flash, the light came.

      “By George! of course,” he said. “The other voice was familiar, too. It was our pretty little maiden here. Hang it all! I’ve tumbled into the thick of a mystery, and if I don’t take care I shall be in the middle of the mess.”

      “Hah?” he exclaimed, as he tapped at the door, “As I said before, it’s no business of mine, and her father knows best; but this love-making is the greatest nuisance under the sun, or I ought to say the moon.”

      Chapter Twelve

      Cold Water

      Mr John Tregenna