A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


Upon this Phoebe and she had a nice little cry together, and Mrs.
Staines went off refreshed thereby, and as gay as a lark, pointing slyly
at the door, and making faces to Phoebe that she knew he was there, and
she only retired, out of her admirable discretion, that they might enjoy
the diamond together.

When she was gone, Reginald, whose eye and ear had been at the keyhole,
alternately gloating on the face and drinking the accents of the only
woman he had ever really loved, came out, looking pale, and strangely
disturbed; and sat down at table, without a word.

Phoebe came back to him, full of the diamond. "Did you hear what she
said, my dear? It is a diamond; it is worth a hundred and fifty pounds
at least. Why, what ails you? Ah! to be sure! you know that lady."

"I have cause to know her. Cursed jilt!"

"You seem a good deal put out at the sight of her."

"It took me by surprise, that is all."

"It takes me by surprise too. I thought you were cured. I thought MY
turn had come at last."

Reginald met this in sullen silence. Then Phoebe was sorry she had said
it; for, after all, it wasn't the man's fault if an old sweetheart had
run into the room, and given him a start. So she made him some fresh
tea, and pressed him kindly to try her home-made bread and butter.

My lord relaxed his frown and consented, and of course they talked
diamond.

He told her, loftily, he must take a studio, and his sitters must come
to him, and must no longer expect to be immortalized for one pound. It
must be two pounds for a bust, and three pounds for a kitcat.

"Nay, but, my dear," said Phoebe, "they will pay no more because you
have a diamond."

"Then they will have to go unpainted," said Mr. Falcon.

This was intended for a threat. Phoebe instinctively felt that it might
not be so received; she counselled moderation. "It is a great thing to
have earned a diamond," said she: "but 'tis only once in a life. Now,
be ruled by me: go on just as you are. Sell the diamond, and give me the
money to keep for you. Why, you might add a little to it, and so would
I, till we made it up two hundred pounds. And if you could only show two
hundred pounds you had made and laid by, father would let us marry,
and I might keep this shop--it pays well, I can tell you--and keep my
gentleman in a sly corner; you need never be seen in it."

"Ay, ay," said he, "that is the small game. But I am a man that have
always preferred the big game. I shall set up my studio, and make enough
to keep us both. So give me the stone, if you please. I shall take it
round to them all, and the rogues won't get it out of ME for a hundred
and fifty; why, it is as big as a nut."

"No, no, Reginald. Money has always made mischief between you and me.
You never had fifty pounds yet, you didn't fall into temptation. Do
pray let me keep it for you; or else sell it--I know how to sell; nobody
better--and keep the money for a good occasion."

"Is it yours, or mine?" said he, sulkily.

"Why yours, dear; you earned it."

"Then give it me, please." And he almost forced it out of her hand.

So now she sat down and cried over this piece of good luck, for her
heart filled with forebodings.

He laughed at her, but at last had the grace to console her, and assure
her she was tormenting herself for nothing.

"Time will show," said she, sadly.

Time did show.

Three or four days he came, as usual, to laugh her out of her
forebodings. But presently his visits ceased. She knew what that meant:
he was living like a gentleman, melting his diamond, and playing her
false with the first pretty face he met.

This blow, coming after she had been so happy, struck Phoebe Dale stupid
with grief. The line on her high forehead deepened; and at night she sat
with her hands before her, sighing, and sighing, and listening for the
footsteps that never came.

"Oh, Dick!" she said, "never you love any one. I am aweary of my life.
And to think that, but for that diamond--oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!"

Then Dick used to try and comfort her in his way, and often put his arm
round her neck, and gave her his rough but honest sympathy. Dick's rare
affection was her one drop of comfort; it was something to relieve her
swelling heart.

"Oh, Dick!" she said to him one night, "I wish I had married him."

"What, to be ill-used?"

"He couldn't use me worse. I have been wife, and mother, and sweetheart,
and all, to him; and to be left like this. He treats me like the dirt
beneath his feet."

"'Tis your own fault, Phoebe, partly. You say the word, and I'll break
every bone in his carcass."

"What, do him a mischief! Why, I'd rather die than harm a hair of his
head. You must never lift a hand to him, or I shall hate you."

"Hate ME, Phoebe?"

"Ay, boy: I should. God forgive me: 'tis no use deceiving ourselves;
when a woman loves a man she despises, never you come between them;
there's no reason in her love, so it is incurable. One comfort, it can't
go on forever; it must kill me, before my time and so best. If I was
only a mother, and had a little Reginald to dandle on my knee and gloat
upon, till he spent his money, and came back to me. That's why I said I
wished I was his wife. Oh! why does God fill a poor woman's bosom with
love, and nothing to spend it on but a stone; for sure his heart must be
one. If I had only something that would let me always love it, a little
toddling thing at my knee, that would always let me look at it, and love
it, something too young to be false to me, too weak to run away from my
long--ing--arms--and--year--ning heart!" Then came a burst of agony,
and moans of desolation, till poor puzzled Dick blubbered loudly at her
grief; and then her tears flowed in streams.

Trouble on trouble. Dick himself got strangely out of sorts, and
complained of shivers. Phoebe sent him to bed early, and made him some
white wine whey very hot. In the morning he got up, and said he was
better; but after breakfast he was violently sick, and suffered several
returns of nausea before noon. "One would think I was poisoned," said
he.

At one o'clock he was seized with a kind of spasm in the throat that
lasted so long it nearly choked him.

Then Phoebe got frightened, and sent to the nearest surgeon. He did not
hurry, and poor Dick had another frightful spasm just as he came in.

"It is hysterical," said the surgeon. "No disease of the heart, is
there? Give him a little sal-volatile every half hour."

In spite of the sal-volatile these terrible spasms seized him every half
hour; and now he used to spring off the bed with a cry of terror when
they came; and each one left him weaker and weaker; he had to be carried
back by the women.

A sad, sickening fear seized on Phoebe. She left Dick with the maid, and
tying on her bonnet in a moment, rushed wildly down the street, asking
the neighbors for a great doctor, the best that could be had for money.
One sent her east a mile, another west, and she was almost distracted,
when who should drive up but Dr. and Mrs. Staines, to make purchases.
She did not know his name, but she knew he was a doctor. She ran to the
window, and cried, "Oh, doctor, my brother! Oh, pray come to him. Oh!
oh!"

Dr. Staines got quickly, but calmly, out; told his wife to wait; and
followed Phoebe up-stairs. She told him in a few agitated words how Dick
had been taken, and all the symptoms; especially what had alarmed her
so, his springing off the bed when the spasm came.

Dr. Staines told her to hold the patient up. He lost not a moment, but
opened his mouth resolutely, and looked down.

"The glottis is swollen," said he: then he felt his hands, and said,
with the grave, terrible calm of experience, "He is dying."

"Oh, no! no! Oh, doctor, save him! save him!"

"Nothing can save him, unless we had a surgeon on the spot. Yes, I might
save him, if you have the courage: opening his windpipe before the next
spasm is his one chance."

"Open his windpipe! Oh, doctor! It will kill him. Let me look at you."

She looked hard in his face. It gave her confidence.

"Is it the only chance?"

"The only one: and it is flying while we chatter."

"DO IT."

He whipped out his lancet.

"But I can't look on it. I trust to you and my Saviour's mercy."

She fell on her knees, and bowed her head in prayer.

Staines seized a basin, put it by the bedside, made an incision in
the windpipe, and got Dick down on his stomach, with his face over the
bedside. Some blood ran, but not much. "Now!" he cried, cheerfully, "a
small bellows! There's one in your parlor. Run."

Phoebe ran for it, and at Dr. Staines' direction lifted Dick a little,
while the bellows, duly cleansed, were gently applied to the aperture
in the windpipe, and the action of the lungs delicately aided by this
primitive but effectual means.

He showed Phoebe how to do it, tore a leaf out of his pocket-book, wrote
a hasty direction to an able surgeon near, and sent his wife off with it
in the carriage.

Phoebe and he never left the patient till the surgeon came with all the
instruments required; amongst the rest, with a big, tortuous pair of
nippers, with which he could reach the glottis, and snip it. But they
consulted, and thought it wiser to continue the surer method; and so
a little tube was neatly inserted into Dick's windpipe, and his throat
bandaged; and by this aperture he did his breathing for some little
time.

Phoebe nursed him like a mother; and the terror and the joy did her
good, and made her less desolate.

Dick was only just well when both of them were summoned to the farm,
and arrived only just in time to receive their father's blessing and his
last sigh.

Their elder brother, a married man, inherited the farm, and was
executor. Phoebe and Dick were left fifteen hundred pounds apiece, on
condition of their leaving England and going to Natal.

They knew directly what that meant. Phoebe was to be parted from a bad
man, and Dick was to comfort her for the loss.

When this part of the will was read to Phoebe, she turned faint, and
only her health and bodily vigor kept her from swooning right away.

But she yielded. "It is the will of the dead," said she, "and I will
obey it; for, oh, if I had but listened to him more when he was alive to
advise me, I should not sit here now, sick at heart and dry-eyed, when I
ought to be thinking only of the good friend that is gone."

When she had come to this she became feverishly anxious to be gone. She
busied herself in purchasing agricultural machines, and stores, and even
stock; and to see her pinching the beasts' ribs to find their condition,
and parrying all attempts to cheat her, you would never have believed
she could be a love-sick woman.

Dick kept her up to the mark. He only left her to bargain with the
master of a good vessel; for it was no trifle to take out horses and
cows, and machines, and bales of cloth, cotton, and linen.

When that was settled they came in to town together, and Phoebe bought
shrewdly, at wholesale houses in the city, for cash, and would have
bargains: and the little shop in ----- Street was turned into a
warehouse.

They were all ardor, as colonists should be; and what pleased Dick most,
she never mentioned Falcon; yet he learned from the maid that worthy had
been there twice, looking very seedy.

The day drew near. Dick was in high spirits.

"We shall soon make our fortune out there," he said; "and I'll get you a
good husband."

She shuddered, but said nothing.

The evening before they were to sail, Phoebe sat alone, in her black
dress, tired with work, and asking herself, sick at heart, could she
ever really leave England, when the door opened softly, and Reginald
Falcon, shabbily dressed, came in, and threw himself into a chair.

She started up with a scream, then sank down again, trembling, and
turned her face to the wall.

"So you are going to run away from me!" said he savagely.

"Ay, Reginald," said she meekly.

"This is your fine love, is it?"

"You have worn it out, dear," she said softly, without turning her head
from the wall.

"I wish I could say as much; but, curse it, every time I leave you I
learn to love you more. I am never really happy but when I am with you."

"Bless you for saying that, dear. I often thought you MUST find that out
one day; but you took too long."

"Oh, better late than never. Phoebe! Can you have the heart to go to the
Cape, and leave me all alone in the world, with nobody that really cares
for me? Surely you are not obliged to go."

"Yes; my father left Dick and me fifteen hundred pounds apiece to go:
that was the condition. Poor Dick loves his unhappy sister. He won't go
without me--I should be his ruin--poor Dick, that really loves me;
and he lay a-dying here, and the good doctor and me--God bless him--we
brought him back from the grave. Ah, you little know what I have
gone through. You were not here. Catch you being near me when I am in
trouble. There, I must go. I must go. I will go; if I fling myself into
the sea half way."

"And, if you do, I'll take a dose of poison; for I have thrown away the
truest heart, the sweetest, most unselfish, kindest, generous--oh! oh!
oh!"

And he began to howl.

This set Phoebe sobbing. "Don't cry, dear," she murmured through her
tears; "if you have really any love for me, come with me."

"What, leave England, and go to a desert?"

"Love can make a desert a garden."

"Phoebe, I'll do anything else. I'll swear not to leave your side. I'll
never look at any other face but yours. But I can't live in Africa."

"I know you can't. It takes a little real love to go there with a poor
girl like me. Ah, well, I'd have made you so happy. We are not poor
emigrants. I have a horse for you to ride, and guns to shoot; and me and
Dick would do all the work for you. But there are others here you can't
leave for me. Well, then, good-by, dear. In Africa, or here, I shall
always love you; and many a salt tear I shall shed for you yet, many a
one I have, as well you know. God bless you. Pray for poor Phoebe, that
goes against her will to Africa, and leaves her heart with thee."

This was too much even for the selfish Reginald. He kneeled at her
knees, and took her hand, and kissed it, and actually shed a tear or two
over it.

She could not speak. He had no hope of changing her resolution; and
presently he heard Dick's voice outside, so he got up to avoid him.
"I'll come again in the morning, before you go."

"Oh, no! no!" she gasped. "Unless you want me to die at your feet. I am
almost dead now."

Reginald slipped out by the kitchen.

Dick came in, and found his sister leaning with her head back against
the wall. "Why, Phoebe," said he, "whatever is the matter?" and he took
her by the shoulder.

She moaned, and he felt her all limp and powerless.

"What is it, lass? Whatever is the matter? Is it about going away?"

She would not speak for a long time.

When she did speak, it was to say something for which my male reader may
not be prepared. But it will not surprise the women.

"O Dick--forgive me!"

"Why, what for?"

"Forgive me, or else kill me: I don't care which."

"I do, though. There, I forgive you. Now what's your crime?"

"I can't go. Forgive me!"

"Can't go?"

"I can't. Forgive me!"

"I'm blessed if I don't believe that vagabond has been here tormenting
of you again."

"Oh, don't miscall him. He is penitent. Yes, Dick, he has been here
crying to me--and I can't leave him. I can't--I can't. Dear Dick! you
are young and stout-hearted; take all the things over, and make your
fortune out there, and leave your poor foolish sister behind. I should
only fling myself into the salt sea if I left him now, and that would be
peace to me, but a grief to thee."

"Lordsake, Phoebe, don't talk so. I can't go without you. And do but
think, why, the horses are on board by now, and all the gear. It's my
belief a good hiding is all you want, to bring you to your senses; but
I han't the heart to give you one, worse luck. Blessed if I know what to
say or do."

"I won't go!" cried Phoebe, turning violent all of a sudden. "No, not if
I am dragged to the ship by the hair of my head. Forgive me!" And with
that word she was a mouse again.

"Eh, but women are kittle cattle to drive," said poor Dick ruefully. And
down he sat at a nonplus, and very unhappy.

Phoebe sat opposite, sullen, heart-sick, wretched to the core; but
determined not to leave Reginald.

Then came an event that might have been foreseen, yet it took them both
by surprise.

A light step was heard, and a graceful, though seedy, figure entered the
room with a set speech in his mouth: "Phoebe, you are right. I owe it to
your long and faithful affection to make a sacrifice for you. I will go
to Africa with you. I will go to the end of the world, sooner than you
shall say I care for any woman on earth but you."

Both brother and sister were so unprepared for this, that they could
hardly realize it at first.

Phoebe turned her great, inquiring eyes on the speaker, and it was
a sight to see amazement, doubt, hope, and happiness animating her
features, one after another.

"Is this real?" said she.

"I will sail with you to-morrow, Phoebe; and I will make you a good
husband, if you will have me."

"That is spoke like a man," said Dick. "You take him at his word,
Phoebe; and if he ill-uses you out there, I'll break every bone in his
skin."

"How dare you threaten him?" said Phoebe. "You had best leave the room."

Out went poor Dick, with the tear in his eye at being snubbed so. While
he was putting up the shutters, Phoebe was making love to her pseudo
penitent. "My dear," said she, "trust yourself to me. You don't know all
my love yet; for I have never been your wife, and I would not be your
jade; that is the only thing I ever refused you. Trust yourself to me.
Why, you never found happiness with others; try it with me. It shall
be the best day's work you ever did, going out in the ship with me. You
don't know how happy a loving wife can make her husband. I'll pet you
out there as man was never petted. And besides, it isn't for life; Dick
and me will soon make a fortune out there, and then I'll bring you home,
and see you spend it any way you like but one. Oh, how I love you! do
you love me a little? I worship the ground you walk on. I adore every
hair of your head!" Her noble arm went round his neck in a moment, and
the grandeur of her passion electrified him so far that he kissed her
affectionately, if not quite so warmly as she did him: and so it was all
settled. The maid was discharged that night instead of the morning, and
Reginald was to occupy her bed. Phoebe went up-stairs with her heart
literally on fire, to prepare his sleeping-room, and so Dick and
Reginald had a word.

"I say, Dick, how long will this voyage be?"

"Two months, sir, I am told."

"Please to cast your eyes on this suit of mine. Don't you think it is
rather seedy--to go to Africa with? Why, I shall disgrace you on board
the ship. I say, Dick, lend me three sovs., just to buy a new suit at
the slop-shop."

"Well, brother-in-law," said Dick, "I don't see any harm in that. I'll
go and fetch them for you."

What does this sensible Dick do but go up-stairs to Phoebe, and say, "He
wants three pounds to buy a suit; am I to lend it him?"

Phoebe was shaking and patting her penitent's pillow. She dropped it
on the bed in dismay. "Oh, Dick, not for all the world! Why, if he had
three sovereigns, he'd desert me at the water's edge. Oh, God help me,
how I love him! God forgive me, how I mistrust him! Good Dick! kind
Dick! say we have suits of clothes, and we'll fit him like a prince,
as he ought to be, on board ship; but not a shilling of money: and, my
dear, don't put the weight on ME. You understand?"

"Ay, mistress, I understand."

"Good Dick!"

"Oh, all right! and then don't you snap this here good, kind Dick's nose
off at a word again."

"Never. I get wild if anybody threatens him. Then I'm not myself.
Forgive my hasty tongue. You know I love you, dear!"

"Oh, ay! you love me well enough. But seems to me your love is precious
like cold veal, and your love for that chap is hot roast beef."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"Oh, ye can laugh now, can ye?"

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"Well, the more of that music, the better for me."

"Yes, dear; but go and tell him."

Dick went down, and said, "I've got no money to spare, till I get to the
Cape; but Phoebe has got a box full of suits, and I made her promise to
keep it out. She will dress you like a prince, you may be sure."

"Oh, that is it, is it?" said Reginald dryly.

Dick made no reply.

At nine o'clock they were on board the vessel; at ten she weighed
anchor, and a steam-vessel drew her down the river about thirty miles,
then cast off, and left her to the south-easterly breeze. Up went sail
after sail; she nodded her lofty head, and glided away for Africa.

Phoebe shed a few natural tears at leaving the shores of Old England;
but they soon dried. She was demurely happy, watching her prize, and
asking herself had she really secured it, and all in a few hours?

They had a prosperous voyage: were married at Cape Town, and went up
the country, bag and baggage, looking out for a good bargain in land.
Reginald was mounted on an English horse, and allowed to zigzag about,
and shoot, and play, while his wife and brother-in-law marched slowly
with their cavalcade.

What with air, exercise, wholesome food, and smiles of welcome, and
delicious petting, this egotist enjoyed himself finely. He admitted as
much. Says he, one evening to his wife, who sat by him for the pleasure
of seeing him feed, "It sounds absurd; but I never was so happy in all
my life."

At that, the celestial expression of her pastoral face, and the maternal
gesture with which she drew her pet's head to her queenly bosom, was a
picture for celibacy to gnash the teeth at.




CHAPTER IX.


During this period, the most remarkable things that happened to Dr. and
Mrs. Staines were really those which I have related as connecting them
with Phoebe Dale and her brother; to which I will now add that Dr.
Staines detailed Dick's case in a remarkable paper, entitled "Oedema of
the Glottis," and showed how the patient had been brought back from
the grave by tracheotomy and artificial respiration. He received a high
price for this article.

To tell the truth, he was careful not to admit that it was he who had
opened the windpipe; so the credit of the whole operation was given to
Mr. Jenkyn; and this gentleman was naturally pleased, and threw a good
many consultation fees in Staines's way.

The Lucases, to his great comfort--for he had an instinctive aversion to
Miss Lucas--left London for Paris in August, and did not return all the
year.

In February he reviewed his year's work and twelve months' residence in
the Bijou. The pecuniary result was, outgoings, nine hundred and fifty
pounds; income, from fees, two hundred and eighty pounds; writing,
ninety pounds.

He showed these figures to Mrs. Staines, and asked her if she
could suggest any diminution of expenditure. Could she do with less
housekeeping money?

"Oh, impossible! You cannot think how the servants eat; and they won't
touch our home-made bread."

"The fools! Why?"

"Oh, because they think it costs us less. Servants seem to me always to
hate the people whose bread they eat."

"More likely it is their vanity. Nothing that is not paid for before
their eyes seems good enough for them. Well, dear, the bakers will
revenge us. But is there any other item we could reduce? Dress?"

"Dress! Why, I spend nothing."

"Forty-five pounds this year."

"Well, I shall want none next year."

"Well, then, Rosa, as there is nothing we can reduce, I must write more,
and take more fees, or we shall be in the wrong box. Only eight hundred
and sixty pounds left of our little capital; and, mind, we have not
another shilling in the world. One comfort, there is no debt. We pay
ready money for everything."

Rosa colored a little, but said nothing.

Staines did his part nobly. He read; he wrote; he paced the yard. He
wore his old clothes in the house; he took off his new ones when he came
in. He was all genius, drudgery, patience.

How Phoebe Dale would have valued him, co-operated with him, and petted
him, if she had had the good luck to be his wife!

The season came back, and with it Miss Lucas, towing a brilliant bride,
Mrs. Vivian, young, rich, pretty, and gay, with a waist you could span,
and athirst for pleasure.

This lady was the first that ever made Rosa downright jealous. She
seemed to have everything the female heart could desire; and she was No.
1 with Miss Lucas this year. Now, Rosa was No. 1 last season, and had
weakly imagined that was to last forever. But Miss Lucas had always a
sort of female flame, and it never lasted two seasons.

Rosa did not care so very much for Miss Lucas before, except as a
convenient friend; but now she was mortified to tears at finding Miss
Lucas made more fuss with another than with her.

This foolish feeling spurred her to attempt a rivalry with Mrs. Vivian,
in the very things where rivalry was hopeless.