Читать книгу The Vicar's People - Fenn George Manville - Страница 4

“Well, Chynoweth,” said Mr Penwynn, entering his office which was used as a branch of the Felsport bank, “any thing fresh?”

Mr Chynoweth, the banker’s manager, generally known as “The Jack of Clubs,” was a little man, dark, and spare, and dry. He was probably fifty, but well preserved, having apparently been bound by nature in vellum, which gave him quite, a legal look, while it made him thick-skinned enough to bear a good many unpleasantries in his daily life. He was rather bald, but very shiny on the crown. His face was cleanly shaved, and he had a habit of bending down his head, and gazing through his shaggy eyebrows at whosoever spoke, and also when he took up his parable himself.

Mr Chynoweth had been busy inside his desk when he heard his principal’s step, and there was plenty of room beneath the broad mahogany flap for him to do what he pleased unseen.

What Mr Chynoweth pleased that morning was to play over again a hand of whist, as near as he could remember – one that had been played at Dr Rumsey’s house the night before, when one of the guests, Mr Paul, had, to use his own words, “picked the game out of the fire,” Mr Chynoweth being, in consequence, five shillings out of pocket.

He kept a pack of cards and a whist guide in this desk, and it was frequently his habit to shuffle, cut, and deal four hands, spread them below the flap, and play them out by himself for practice, the consequence being that he was an adversary to be feared, a partner to be desired, at the snug little parties held at two or three houses in Carnac.

On this particular morning he had just arrived at the point where he felt that he had gone astray, when Mr Penwynn’s step was heard, the mahogany flap was closed, and “The Jack of Clubs” was ready for business.

“Fresh? Well, no. Permewan’s time’s up, and he wants more. Will you give it?”

“No: he has made no effort to pay his interest. Tell Tregenna to foreclose and sell.”

Mr Chynoweth rapidly made an entry upon an ordinary school slate on one side, and then crossed off an entry upon the other, refreshing his memory from it at the same time.

“Dr Rumsey wants an advance of a hundred pounds,” he said next, gazing through his shaggy eyebrows.

“Hang Dr Rumsey! He’s always wanting an advance. What does he say?”

“Pilchard fishery such a failure. Tin so low that he can’t get in his accounts.”

“Humph! What security does he offer?”

“Note of hand.”

“Stuff! What’s the use of his note of hand? Has he nothing else?”

“No,” said Mr Chynoweth. “He says you hold every thing he has.”

“Humph! Yes, suppose I do.”

“Without you’d consider half-a-dozen children good security?”

“Chynoweth, I hate joking over business-matters.”

“Not joking,” said Mr Chynoweth, stolidly. “That’s what he said.”

“Rubbish! Can’t he get some one else to lend his name?”

“Said he had asked every one he could, and it was no use.”

“Confound the fellow! Tut-tut-tut! What’s to be done, Chynoweth?”

“Lend him the money.”

“No, no. There, I’ll let him have fifty.”

“Not half enough. Better let him have it. You’ll be ill, or I shall, one of these days, and if you don’t let him have the money, he might give it us rather strongly.”

“Absurd. He dare not.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Chynoweth. “When one’s on one’s back one is in the doctor’s hands, you know.”

“There: let him have the money, but it must be at higher interest. But stop a moment,” continued Mr Penwynn, as his managing man’s pencil gave its first grate on the slate. “You’re a great friend of Rumsey: why not lend him your name to the note?”

Mr Chynoweth had no buttons to his trousers pockets, but he went through the process of buttoning them, and looked straight now at his employer.

“How long would you keep me here if you found me weak enough to do such a thing as that, Mr Penwynn? No, no,” he said, lowering his head once more, and looking through his eyebrows, “I never lend, and I never become security for any man. I shall put it down that he can have the money.”

Mr Penwynn nodded, and his manager wrote down on one side and marked off on the other.

“Any thing else?”

“Wheal Carnac’s for sale.”

“Well, so it has been for a long time.”

“Yes, but they mean to sell now, I hear; and they say it would be worth any one’s while to buy it.”

“Yes, so I suppose,” said Mr Penwynn, smiling; “but we do not invest in mines, Chynoweth. We shall be happy to keep the account of the company, though, who start. How many have failed there?”

“Three,” said Chynoweth. “There has been a deal of money thrown down that place.”

Mr Penwynn nodded and entered his private room, when Chynoweth gave one ear a rub, stood his slate upon the desk, raised the flap and let it rest on his head, and then proceeded to finish his hand at whist, evidently with satisfactory results, for he smiled and rubbed his hands, placed the cards in a corner, and next proceeded to write two or three letters, one of which, concluded in affectionate terms, he afterwards tore up.

Some hours passed, when a clerk brought in a card.

“For Mr Penwynn, sir.”

“Geoffrey Trethick,” said Mr Chynoweth, reading. “Take it in.”

The clerk obeyed, and a few minutes later he ushered the new visitor to Carnac into Mr Penwynn’s private room, where the banker and the stranger looked hard at each other for a few moments before the former pointed to a chair, his visitor being quite a different man from what he had pictured.

“Glad to see you, Mr Trethick,” he said. “I have read the letters you left for me, and shall be happy to oblige my correspondent if I can; but they seem to be quite under a misapprehension as to my powers. In the first place, though, what can I do for you?”

“Do for me?” said Geoffrey, smiling. “Well, this much. I come to you, a leading man in this great mining centre.”

Mr Penwynn made a deprecatory motion with his hand.

“Oh, I am no flatterer, Mr Penwynn,” said the visitor, bluffly. “I merely repeat what your correspondents told me, and what find endorsed here in this place.”

“Well, well,” said Mr Penwynn, as if owning reluctantly to the soft impeachment, “Penwynn and Company are a little mixed up in mines – and the fisheries.”

“Fisheries? Ah, that’s not in my line, Mr Penwynn. But to be frank with you, sir, I want work. I am a poor younger son who decided not to take to church, law, or physic, but to try to be a mining engineer. I am a bit of a chemist, too, and have studied metallurgy as far as I could. My education has taken nearly all my little fortune, which I have, so to speak, sunk in brain-work. That brain-work I now want to sell.”

“But, my dear sir,” said Mr Penwynn, “I am a banker.”

“Exactly. To several mining companies. Now, sir, I honestly believe that I am worth a good salary to any enterprising company,” said Geoffrey, growing animated, and flushing slightly as he energetically laid his case before the smooth, polished, well-dressed man, whose carefully-cut nails gently tapped the morocco-covered table which separated him from his visitor.

“May I ask in what way?” said Mr Penwynn, smiling. “Labour is plentiful.”

“Certainly,” said Geoffrey. “I have, as I tell you, carefully studied metallurgy, and the various processes for obtaining ore, especially tin, and I am convinced that I could save enormously by the plans I should put in force; and, what is more, I know I could save almost half the expense in some of the processes of smelting.”

“Indeed!” said Mr Penwynn, coolly.

“Yes; and also contrive a good many improvements in the sinking and pumping out of mines.”

“Then you have come to the right place, Mr – Mr – Mr Geoffrey Trethick,” said the banker, raising his gold-rimmed passes to glance at the visiting-card before him.

“I hope so,” said Geoffrey, with animation. “Ours is an old Cornish family, and I ought to be at home here.”

“Exactly,” said Mr Penwynn, sarcastically, “and you have come at the right time.”

“Indeed?” said Geoffrey, eagerly.

“Most opportunely; for most of our great milking companies are in a state of bankruptcy.”

“Yes, so I have heard. Well then, Mr Penwynn, if you will give me a letter or two of introduction, I should think there ought to be no difficulty in the way.”

“My dear sir,” said Mr Penwynn, smiling, “I’m afraid you are very sanguine.”

“Well – perhaps a little, sir, but – ”

“Hear me out, Mr Trethick. It seems to me you have come to the worst place in the world.”

“The worst! Why so?”

“Because every one here will look upon your schemes as visionary. If you had a vast capital, and liked to spend it in experiments, well and good. People would laugh at your failures, and applaud your successes – if you made any.”

“If?” said Geoffrey, smiling. “Then, sir, you are not sanguine?”

“Not at all,” said the banker. “You see, Mr Trethick, you will not find any one in this neighbourhood who will let you run risks with his capital and machinery, or tamper with the very inadequate returns that people are now getting from their mines. If you wanted a simple post as manager – ”

“That’s what I do want,” said Geoffrey, interrupting. “The other would follow.”

“I say, if you wanted a simple post as manager,” continued the banker, as calmly as if he had not been interrupted, “you would not get it unless you could lay before a company of proprietors ample testimonials showing your experience in mining matters. Believe me, Mr Trethick, you, a gentleman, have come to the wrong place.”

“Let us sink the word gentleman in its ordinary acceptation, Mr Penwynn,” said Geoffrey, warmly. “I hope I shall always be a gentleman, but I come to you, sir, as a working man – one who has to win his income by his brain-directed hands.”

“You should have gone out to some speculative mining place, Mr Trethick,” said the banker, taking one leg across his knee and caressing it. “Nevada or Peru – Australia if you like. You would make a fortune there. Here you will starve.”

“Starve! Not if I have to help the fishermen with their nets, Mr Penwynn. I can row well, sir,” he said, laughing, “and I have muscle enough to let me pull strongly at a rope. Starve? I’ve no fear of that.”

“No, no; of course not. I mean metaphorically. But why not try the colonies or the States?”

“Because I have a mother who impoverished herself to complete my expensive university education, Mr Penwynn; and it would almost break her heart if I left England.”

“Exactly,” said the banker, with a slight sneer; “but you have come as far from civilisation as you could get in visiting Carnac. Now then, take my advice. Come up to An Morlock, and dine with me this evening – seven sharp. I can give you a bed for a night or two. Then have a run round the district, see a few of the mines, and spy out the nakedness of the land. You will soon get an indorsement of what I say. You can then go back to London with my best respects to Rundell and Sharp – most worthy people, by the way, whom I would gladly engage – and tell them you have returned a sadder but a wiser man.”

He rose as he spoke to indicate that the interview was at an end, holding out his hand, one which Geoffrey gripped heartily, as he sprang, full of energy, to his feet.

“Thank you, Mr Penwynn. I’ll come and dine with you this evening. Most happy. As to the bed – thanks, no. I am going to hunt out lodgings somewhere, for I cannot take your advice. You don’t know me, sir,” he said, looking the banker full in the eyes. “I’ve come down here to work, and, somehow or other, work I will. I have enough of the sturdy Englishman in me not to know when I am beaten. No, sir, I am not going to turn back from the first hill I meet with in my journey.”

“As you will,” said Mr Penwynn, smiling. “Till seven o’clock then. We don’t dress.”

“Thanks; I will be there,” said Geoffrey, and the door closed as he left the room.

“He has stuff in him, certainly,” said the banker, gazing at the door through which his visitor had passed. “Such a man at the head of a mine might make a good deal of money – or lose a good deal,” he added, after a pause. “He’ll find out his mistake before he is much older.”

With a careless motion of his hand the banker threw his visitor’s card into the waste-paper basket, and, at the same time, seemed to cast the young man out of his thoughts.