The Vicar's People Part 78

He went laughing off, not seeing Bessie's countenance contract with pain, and, talking to the round-eyed, staring infant, he made his way up out of the Cove and along the cliff path, towards Carnac, to where the rock retired in one spot, forming a sunny little nook, full of soft, dry turf, stunted ferns and pink stonecrop, and scented with wild thyme. It was a place much affected by Geoffrey, where he could sit and watch the changing sea, and try to scheme his future. Here he seated himself on the turf, with his shoulders against the rock.

"Well, you are a rum little joker," he cried, as he packed the baby up between his knees, nipping its loose garments so as to hold its little form up steady, all but the head, which kept nodding at him, the tiny intelligence therein seeming to find something vastly amusing in the dark, robust man's face, and laughing merrily every now and then, after a staring, open-eyed inspection. "Keep your mouth shut, you drivelling little morsel, will you?" cried Geoffrey, using his pocket-handkerchief to the fount-like lips. "I enjoy you, young 'un, 'pon my word I do."

Here there were three or four nods and another laugh.

"Hold still, will you?" cried Geoffrey, "or you'll wobble that head off.

There now, you're square. Good heavens! what a lot of toggery you have got on. Why don't she give you one good thick flannel sack, instead of all these stringed, and pinned, and b.u.t.toned wonders! That's right; go it. I'm comic, arn't I? Why, you jolly young jester, you are always on the grin."

The baby relapsed into a state of solemnity, gently bowing its head forwards and backwards, and making a few awkward clutches at Geoffrey's nose, which was nearly a yard away.

"Shouldn't have thought there was so much fun in a bit of a thing like this," continued Geoffrey, putting his hands behind his head, and resting them on the rock. "My ideas of a baby were that it was a sort of bagpipe that was always playing a discordant tune. Oh, I say, baby!

for shame! I'm afraid your digestion is not perfect. In good society we always put our hand before our mouth when we make a noise like that.

Here, this is the way. Hold still, you soft little atom. Why, I don't believe you've a bone in your body."

Geoffrey's hands had come from behind his head once more, and he laughingly placed one tiny, clutched fist before the wet mouth, for by no amount of persuasion could the hand be made to keep open.

"There, you fat little pudge, now hold still, and don't keep on laughing like a clown."

Geoffrey resumed his former position, and stared at the baby, and the baby stared at him.

"I suppose this is Geoffrey Trethick?" he said at last; "but if I had been coming along the cliff and saw myself I shouldn't have known him.

Well, it is a chance to study human life and its helplessness. I begin to see now why women like babies. They're so soft, and helpless, and appealing. A baby is a something with which a woman can do just as she likes, for I suppose there is nothing a woman likes so much as having her own way."

Here a spasm of mirth seemed to convulse the baby, which threw back its head and laughed, and babbled, and crowed.

"Oh, you agree with that opinion, do you, youngster? Well, that's right. Hold still now. Do you hear? I don't want to take you home to your mother in two pieces. I wonder whether a baby ever did wobble off its head?"

Here there was a pause, during which Geoffrey lay back with half-closed eyes, lazily watching his charge.

"Now of course you don't know it, youngster, and it does not trouble you a bit, but you are one too many in this rolling world of ours. People talk about purity and innocence, and little things fresh from their Maker's hands; but, as my friend Lee says, you're a child of sin and shame: that's what you are."

"Do you hear?" he continued. "Why, you're laughing at it, as hard as ever you can laugh. Oh, it's funny, is it? Well, I suppose you are right, but it's no joke for poor Madge."

The baby laughed and crowed loudly here, ending by coughing till it was nearly black in the face.

"Serve you right too, you unnatural little wretch, laughing like that at your mother's troubles. You're a chip of the old block, and no mistake.

I've a good mind to pitch you off the cliff into the sea. Oh, you're not afraid, arn't you?" he continued, with his face close to the baby, who wanted re-arranging after the coughquake from which it had suffered, with the result that the two little hands that had opened during the coughing clutched and tightened themselves in Geoffrey's crisp beard, from which they refused to be torn.

"Well, look here, young one," continued Geoffrey, after freeing his beard with a good deal of trouble, and leaving two or three curling hairs in the little fists. "You seem to have made up your mind to back up public opinion, you do, and evidently intend to adopt me as your father. Well, I don't mind. I feel just in the humour to do mad things, so why not adopt you? I dare say I could manage to keep you as well as myself; but you won't get fat. I don't care. But look here, youngster, can you sit it out if I have a pipe, and not set to and sneeze off your miserable little head?

"Ah, you smile acquiescence, do you?" said Geoffrey. "Well, then, here goes."

As he spoke, he began fumbling in his pocket for his pipe-case, tobacco-pouch, and match-box, all of which, in his laughing humour, he placed before the child, then stuck the match-box in one fist, the pipe in the other, and balanced the soft India-rubber pouch on the nodding head.

"Now then, stupid! Do you want to commit self-infanticide with phosphorus? Don't suck those matches. It's my belief, baby, that if you were thrown down in a provision warehouse you'd prolong your existence to an indefinite extent. Will you be quiet?" he exclaimed, laughing aloud. "Well, of all the funny little beggars that ever existed you are the most droll. There, now you've got your mouth all over the dye from that leather case. Wait a moment. There, if you must smoke you shall smoke, but don't be so hungry after it that you must suck the case."

He took the pipe-case from the little hand, opened and took out the pipe, wiped it, and then playfully closed the tiny fingers round the blackened stem of the old meerschaum, and guided the amber mouth-piece into the wet mouth.

The baby began to suck and rub the mouth-piece eagerly against its little gums, till it had a suspicion of the intense bitter of the pipe, when the look of content upon the soft, round little features gradually changed into such a droll grimace of disgust that Geoffrey lay back and laughed till the tears came into his eyes, and he wiped them away, and laughed heartily again and again.

"Oh, you rum little customer!" he exclaimed; "you've done me no end of good. I have not laughed like that since I came down to Carnac. Why, you've made my ribs ache, that you have--_the devil_!"

For at that moment, briskly walking along the cliff path, Rhoda turned the corner, and came right upon the pair.

Rhoda stopped as if petrified, and a fierce look of indignation flashed from her eyes.

Geoffrey was as much surprised, but he had more self-control, and, returning the indignant glance with one full of defiance, he kept his place in the sunny nook, lying right back, and went on tossing the baby to and fro, balancing it on his knees, and then pretending to make it walk up his broad chest, which, however, seemed to heave up into a mountain beneath the tiny feet.

The silence in that sheltered nook was painful, and the low moan of the restless sea even seemed to be hushed, as the child threw back its little head, and kicked and laughed and crowed with delight.

"Pitiful, contemptible coward!" thought Rhoda, biting her lip to keep down her anger. "And I once cared about this degraded wretch!"

"I wouldn't move to save my life!" thought Geoffrey. "You doubting, incredulous, proud, faithless woman! You shall beg my pardon yet."

He had a wonderful mastery over himself as far as his face was concerned, and he returned Rhoda's angry look with one as bitter, if not worse; but though he could keep smooth his face, he was not wholly master of his emotions, as it proved.

For just as Rhoda was trying to summon up force enough to make her tear herself away with a look of intensified scorn and contempt, Geoffrey's hands, which held the baby, instead of lightly tossing it up and down, involuntarily gripped its little tender ribs so fiercely that the merry crow was changed into a loud wail of pain, and, with a hysterical laugh that jarred through every nerve of Geoffrey's frame, Rhoda rushed away, to burst, as soon as she was out of sight, into a pa.s.sion of tears.

"You little wretch!" roared Geoffrey, springing up and shaking the baby.

"What do you mean by making me look such a fool? Be quiet, or I'll throw you into the sea. Hang me, what an idiot I must have looked," he cried, stamping up and down with the baby in his hands, and then stuffing it roughly in a niche in the rock. "Be quiet, will you," he roared, shaking his fist in the poor little thing's face; "be quiet, or I'll smash you!"

The cessation of the shaking, and the appearance of the fist close to its snub nose had the desired effect. The storm pa.s.sed, and suns.h.i.+ne burst forth over the little face, followed by a laugh and a futile effort to catch at the hand.

"Poor little beggar?" cried Geoffrey, carefully taking up the helpless thing once more. "There, I don't care, do I, baby?" he cried, laughing and grinding his teeth together as the tiny fists grasped and held on to his beard, while the little eyes laughed in his. "Let her see me, and think what she likes. Come along, young 'un. I'm not cross with you.

You couldn't help it. Here, hold your little wet b.u.t.ton-hole still, and I'll give you a kiss. No, no--kiss: don't suck, stupid?" he said, laughing; and then the anger pa.s.sed away, as a convulsion swept over the tiny face, and consequent upon a hair from Geoffrey's beard touching the apology for a nose, the baby sneezed three times.

"Well done, young one," he cried. "Feel better? No? Give us another."

He raised the little thing once more and kissed it, and as he lowered it again something prompted him to look back, and as he did he saw that Rhoda was in full view upon the cliff, that she had turned, and that she must have seen that kiss.

Rage took possession of his soul again, and he nearly made the child shriek in his fierce grip.

"Spying, eh?" he cried. "Well, if you will be a petty child, ma'am, so will I;" and, hugging the baby in his arms, he walked on, kissing it over and over again, till meeting Bessie Prawle, he cried out, "Here; catch!" and tossed the little thing into her arms.

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

VISITORS AT GWENNAS.

Rhoda Penwynn had no idea of going to Gwennas Cove one morning when she went off, in a dreamy, forgetful way, for a walk. She was low-spirited and wretched. Her father's troubles and heavy losses were an endless anxiety, and, to her sorrow, she saw that he had of late grown reckless.

How he was situated, or what he had lost, she could not tell, but there was a grey, wrinkled look about his face that went to her very heart.

One thing was very evident, and that was that the banker had become entangled in some venture--John Tregenna had hinted as much one evening when at their house, but he had merely hinted, and she could not ask him more.

One thing was very evident, and that was that people had lost confidence in Penwynn, the banker. Other people might dabble in mines, lose, and begin again; but the man to whom the savings of others were intrusted, must be above reproach--above suspicion of speculation; and the Wheal Carnac affair had been a heavy blow in more ways than one.

Mr Penwynn was not long in finding this out, for it resulted in a quarrel with the princ.i.p.als of the great Cornish bank, of which his was but a branch. Somehow--he never knew by what means--they had become prejudiced against him, and a rapid depreciation of his value in Carnac resulted when it was known that he was no longer over the bank.