A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


Miss Lucas gave both ladies tickets for a flower-show, where all the
great folk were to be, princes and princesses, etc.

"But I have nothing to wear," sighed Rosa.

"Then you must get something, and mind it is not pink, please; for we
must not clash in colors. You know I'm dark, and pink becomes me. (The
selfish young brute was not half so dark as Rosa.) Mine is coming
from Worth's, in Paris, on purpose. And this new Madame Cie, of Regent
Street, has such a duck of a bonnet, just come from Paris. She wanted
to make me one from it; but I told her I would have none but the pattern
bonnet--and she knows very well she can't pass a copy off on me. Let
me drive you up there, and you can see mine, and order one, if you like
it."

"Oh, thank you! let me just run and speak to my husband first."

Staines was writing for the bare life, and a number of German books
about him, slaving to make a few pounds--when in comes the buoyant
figure and beaming face his soul delighted in.

He laid down his work, to enjoy the sunbeam of love.

"Oh, darling, I've only come in for a minute. We are going to
a flower-show on the 13th; everybody will be so beautifully
dressed--especially that Mrs. Vivian. I have got ten yards of beautiful
blue silk in my wardrobe, but that is not enough to make a whole
dress--everything takes so much stuff now. Madame Cie does not care
to make up dresses unless she finds the silk, but Miss Lucas says she
thinks, to oblige a friend of hers, she would do it for once in a way.
You know, dear, it would only take a few yards more, and it would last
as a dinner-dress for ever so long."

Then she clasped him round the neck, and leaned her head upon his
shoulder, and looked lovingly up in his face. "I know you would like
your Rosa to look as well as Mrs. Vivian."

"No one ever looks as well, in my eyes, as my Rosa. There, the dress
will add nothing to your beauty; but go and get it, to please yourself;
it is very considerate of you to have chosen something of which you have
ten yards, already. See, dear, I'm to receive twenty pounds for this
article; if research was paid it ought to be a hundred. I shall add it
all to your allowance for dresses this year. So no debt, mind; but come
to me for everything."

The two ladies drove off to Madame Cie's, a pretty shop lined with dark
velvet and lace draperies.

In the back room they were packing a lovely bridal dress, going off the
following Saturday to New York.

"What, send from America to London?"

"Oh, dear, yes!" exclaimed Madame Cie. "The American ladies are
excellent customers. They buy everything of the best, and the most
expensive."

"I have brought a new customer," said Miss Lucas; "and I want you to do
a great favor, and that is to match a blue silk, and make her a pretty
dress for the flower-show on the 13th."

Madame Cie produced a white muslin polonaise, which she was just going
to send home to the Princess -----, to be worn over mauve.

"Oh, how pretty and simple!" exclaimed Miss Lucas.

"I have some lace exactly like that," said Mrs. Staines.

"Then why don't you have a polonaise? The lace is the only expensive
part, the muslin is a mere nothing; and it is such a useful dress, it
can be worn over any silk."

It was agreed Madame Cie was to send for the blue silk and the lace, and
the dresses were to be tried on on Thursday.

On Thursday, as Rosa went gayly into Madame Cie's back room to have the
dresses tried on, Madame Cie said, "You have a beautiful lace shawl,
but it wants arranging; in five minutes I could astonish you with what I
could do to that shawl."

"Oh, pray do," said Mrs. Staines.

The dressmaker kept her word. By the time the blue dress was tried on,
Madame Cie had, with the aid of a few pins, plaits, and a bow of blue
ribbon, transformed the half lace shawl into one of the smartest and
distingue things imaginable; but when the bill came in at Christmas,
for that five minutes' labor and distingue touch, she charged one pound
eight.

Madame Cie then told the ladies, in an artfully confidential tone,
she had a quantity of black silk coming home, which she had purchased
considerably below cost price; and that she should like to make them
each a dress--not for her own sake, but theirs--as she knew they would
never meet such a bargain again. "You know, Miss Lucas," she continued,
"we don't want our money, when we know our customers. Christmas is soon
enough for us."

"Christmas is a long time off," thought the young wife, "nearly ten
months. I think I'll have a black silk, Madame Cie; but I must not
say anything to the doctor about it just yet, or he might think me
extravagant."

"No one can ever think a lady extravagant for buying a black silk; it's
such a useful dress; lasts forever--almost."

Days, weeks, and months rolled on, and with them an ever-rolling tide of
flower-shows, dinners, at-homes, balls, operas, lawn-parties, concerts,
and theatres.

Strange that in one house there should be two people who loved each
other, yet their lives ran so far apart, except while they were asleep:
the man all industry, self-denial, patience; the woman all frivolity,
self-indulgence, and amusement; both chained to an oar, only--one in a
working boat, the other in a painted galley.

The woman got tired first, and her charming color waned sadly. She came
to him for medicine to set her up. "I feel so languid."

"No, no," said he; "no medicine can do the work of wholesome food and
rational repose. You lack the season of all natures, sleep. Dine at home
three days running, and go to bed at ten."

On this the doctor's wife went to a chemist for advice. He gave her
a pink stimulant; and, as stimulants have two effects, viz., first to
stimulate, and then to weaken, this did her no lasting good. Dr. Staines
cursed the London season, and threatened to migrate to Liverpool.

But there was worse behind.

Returning one day to his dressing-room, just after Rosa had come
down-stairs, he caught sight of a red stain in a wash-hand-basin. He
examined it; it was arterial blood.

He went to her directly, and expressed his anxiety.

"Oh, it is nothing," said she.

"Nothing! Pray, how often has it occurred?"

"Once or twice. I must take your advice, and be quiet, that is all."

Staines examined the housemaid; she lied instinctively at first, seeing
he was alarmed; but, being urged to tell the truth, said she had seen it
repeatedly, and had told the cook.

He went down-stairs again, and sat down, looking wretched.

"Oh, dear!" said Rosa. "What is the matter now?"

"Rosa," said he, very gravely, "there are two people a woman is mad to
deceive--her husband and her physician. You have deceived both."




CHAPTER X.


I suspect Dr. Staines merely meant to say that she had concealed from
him an alarming symptom for several weeks; but she answered in a hurry,
to excuse herself, and let the cat out of the bag--excuse my vulgarity.

"It was all that Mrs. Vivian's fault. She laughed at me so for not
wearing them; and she has a waist you can span--the wretch!"

"Oh, then, you have been wearing stays clandestinely?"

"Why, you know I have. Oh, what a stupid! I have let it all out."

"How could you do it, when you knew, by experience, it is your death?"

"But it looks so beautiful, a tiny waist."

"It looks as hideous as a Chinese foot, and, to the eye of science, far
more disgusting; it is the cause of so many unlovely diseases."

"Just tell me one thing; have you looked at Mrs. Vivian?"

"Minutely. I look at all your friends with great anxiety, knowing no
animal more dangerous than a fool. Vivian--a skinny woman, with a pretty
face, lovely hair, good teeth, dying eyes"--

"Yes, lovely!"

"A sure proof of a disordered stomach--and a waist pinched in so
unnaturally, that I said to myself, 'Where on earth does this idiot put
her liver?' Did you ever read of the frog who burst, trying to swell to
an ox? Well, here is the rivalry reversed; Mrs. Vivian is a bag of bones
in a balloon; she can machine herself into a wasp; but a fine young
woman like you, with flesh and muscle, must kill yourself three or four
times before you can make your body as meagre, hideous, angular, and
unnatural as Vivian's. But all you ladies are mono-maniacs; one might as
well talk sense to a gorilla. It brought you to the edge of the grave.
I saved you. Yet you could go and--God grant me patience. So I suppose
these unprincipled women lent you their stays to deceive your husband?"

"No. But they laughed at me so that--Oh, Christie, I'm a wretch; I kept
a pair at the Lucases, and a pair at Madame Cie's, and I put them on now
and then."

"But you never appeared here in them?"

"What, before my tyrant? Oh no, I dared not."

"So you took them off before you came home?"

Rosa hung her head, and said "Yes" in a reluctant whisper.

"You spent your daylight dressing. You dressed to go out; dressed again
in stays; dressed again without them; and all to deceive your husband,
and kill yourself, at the bidding of two shallow, heartless women, who
would dance over your grave without a pang of remorse, or sentiment of
any kind, since they live, like midges, ONLY TO DANCE IN THE SUN, AND
SUCK SOME WORKER'S BLOOD."

"Oh, Christie! I'm so easily led. I am too great a fool to live. Kill
me!"

And she kneeled down, and renewed the request, looking up in his face
with an expression that might have disarmed Cain ipsum.

He smiled superior. "The question is, are you sorry you have been so
thoughtless?"

"Yes, dear. Oh! oh!"

"Will you be very good to make up?"

"Oh, yes. Only tell me how; for it does not come natural to poor me."

"Keep out of those women's way for the rest of the season."

"I will."

"Bring your stays home, and allow me to do what I like with them."

"Of course. Cut them in a million pieces."

"Till you are recovered, you must be my patient, and go nowhere without
me."

"That is no punishment, I am sure."

"Punishment! Am I the man to punish you? I only want to save you."

"Well, darling, it won't be the first time."

"No; but I do hope it will be the last."




CHAPTER XI.


"Sublata causa tollitur effectus." The stays being gone, and dissipation
moderated, Mrs. Staines bloomed again, and they gave one or two
unpretending little dinners at the Bijou. Dr. Staines admitted no false
friends to these. They never went beyond eight; five gentlemen, three
ladies. By this arrangement the terrible discursiveness of the fair, and
man's cruel disposition to work a subject threadbare, were controlled
and modified, and a happy balance of conversation established. Lady
Cicely Treherne was always invited, and always managed to come; for she
said, "They were the most agweeable little paaties in London, and the
host and hostess both so intewesting." In the autumn, Staines worked
double tides with the pen, and found a vehicle for medical narratives in
a weekly magazine that did not profess medicine.

This new vein put him in heart. His fees, towards the end of the year,
were less than last year, because there was no hundred-guinea fee; but
there was a marked increase in the small fees, and the unflagging pen
had actually earned him two hundred pounds, or nearly. So he was in good
spirits.

Not so Mrs. Staines; for some time she had been uneasy, fretful, and
like a person with a weight on her mind.

One Sunday she said to him, "Oh, dear, I do feel so dull. Nobody to go
to church with, nor yet to the Zoo."

"I'll go with you," said Staines.

"You will! To which?"

"To both; in for a penny, in for a pound."

So to church they went; and Staines, whose motto was "Hoc age," minded
his book. Rosa had intervals of attention to the words, but found plenty
of time to study the costumes.

During the Litany in bustled Clara, the housemaid, with a white jacket
on so like her mistress's, that Rosa clutched her own convulsively,
to see whether she had not been skinned of it by some devilish
sleight-of-hand.

No, it was on her back; but Clara's was identical.

In her excitement, Rosa pinched Staines, and with her nose, that went
like a water-wagtail, pointed out the malefactor. Then she whispered,
"Look! How dare she? My very jacket! Earrings too, and brooches, and
dresses her hair like mine."

"Well, never mind," whispered Staines. "Sunday is her day. We have
got all the week to shine. There, don't look at her--'From all evil
speaking, lying, and slandering'"--

"I can't keep my eyes off her."

"Attend to the Litany. Do you know, this is really a beautiful
composition?"

"I'd rather do the work fifty times over myself."

"Hush! people will hear you."

When they walked home after church, Staines tried to divert her from the
consideration of her wrongs; but no--all other topics were too flat by
comparison.

She mourned the hard fate of mistresses--unfortunate creatures that
could not do without servants.

"Is not that a confession that servants are good, useful creatures,
with all their faults? Then as to the mania for dress, why, that is not
confined to them. It is the mania of the sex. Are you free from it?"

"No, of course not. But I am a lady, if you please."

"Then she is your intellectual inferior, and more excusable. Anyway, it
is wise to connive at a thing we can't help."

"What keep her, after this? no, never."

"My dear, pray do not send her away, for she is tidy in the house, and
quick, and better than any one we have had this last six months; and you
know you have tried a great number."

"To hear you speak, one would think it was my fault that we have so many
bad servants."

"I never said it was your fault; but I THINK, dearest, a little more
forbearance in trifles"--

"Trifles! trifles--for a mistress and maid to be seen dressed alike in
the same church? You take the servants' part against me, that you do."

"You should not say that, even in jest. Come now, do you really think
a jacket like yours can make the servant look like you, or detract from
your grace and beauty? There is a very simple way; put your jacket by
for a future occasion, and wear something else in its stead at church."

"A nice thing, indeed, to give in to these creatures. I won't do it."

"Why won't you, this once?"

"Because I won't--there!"

"That is unanswerable," said he.

Mrs. Staines said that; but when it came to acting, she deferred to
her husband's wish; she resigned her intention of sending for Clara
and giving her warning. On the contrary, when Clara let her in, and the
white jackets rubbed together in the narrow passage, she actually said
nothing, but stalked to her own room, and tore her jacket off, and flung
it on the floor.

Unfortunately, she was so long dressing for the Zoo, that Clara came
in to arrange the room. She picks up the white jacket, takes it in both
hands, gives it a flap, and proceeds to hang it up in the wardrobe.

Then the great feminine heart burst its bounds.

"You can leave that alone. I shall not wear that again."

Thereupon ensued an uneven encounter, Clara being one of those of whom
the Scripture says, "The poison of asps is under their tongues."

"La, ma'am," said she, "why, 'tain't so very dirty."

"No; but it is too common."

"Oh, because I've got one like it. Ay. Missises can't abide a
good-looking servant, nor to see 'em dressed becoming."

"Mistresses do not like servants to forget their place, nor wear what
does not become their situation."

"My situation! Why, I can pay my way, go where I will. I don't tremble
at the tradesmen's knock, as some do."

"Leave the room! Leave it this moment."

"Leave the room, yes--and I'll leave the house too, and tell all the
neighbors what I know about it."

She flounced out and slammed the door; and Rosa sat down, trembling.

Clara rushed to the kitchen, and there told the cook and Andrew Pearman
how she had given it to the mistress, and every word she had said to
her, with a good many more she had not.

The cook laughed and encouraged her.

But Andrew Pearman was wroth, and said, "You to affront our mistress
like that! Why, if I had heard you, I'd have twisted your neck for ye."

"It would take a better man than you to do that. You mind your own
business. Stick to your one-horse chay."

"Well, I'm not above my place, for that matter. But you gals must always
be aping your betters."

"I have got a proper pride, that is all, and you haven't. You ought to
be ashamed of yourself to do two men's work; drive a brougham and wait
on a horse, and then come in and wait at table, You are a tea-kettle
groom, that is what you are. Why, my brother was coachman to Lord
Fitz-James, and gave his lordship notice the first time he had to drive
the children. Says he, 'I don't object to the children, my lord, but
with her ladyship in the carriage.' It's such servants as you as spoil
places. No servant as knows what's due to a servant ought to know you.
They'd scorn your 'quaintance, as I do, Mr. Pearman."

"You are a stuck-up hussy, and a soldier's jade," roared Andrew.

"And you are a low tea-kettle groom."

This expression wounded the great equestrian soul to the quick; the rest
of Sunday he pondered on it; the next morning he drove the doctor, as
usual, but with a heavy heart.

Meantime, the cook made haste and told the baker Pearman had "got it
hot" from the housemaid, and she had called him a tea-kettle groom; and
in less than half an hour after that it was in every stable in the mews.
Why, as Pearman was taking the horse out of the brougham, didn't two
little red-headed urchins call out, "Here, come and see the tea-kettle
groom!" and at night some mischievous boy chalked on the black door of
the stable a large white tea-kettle, and next morning a drunken, idle
fellow, with a clay pipe in his mouth, and a dirty pair of corduroy
trousers, no coat, but a shirt very open at the chest, showing inflamed
skin, the effect of drink, inspected that work of art with blinking eyes
and vacillating toes, and said, "This comes of a chap doing too much.
A few more like you, and work would be scarce. A fine thing for
gentlefolks to make one man fill two places! but it ain't the
gentlefolks' fault, it's the man as humors 'em."

Pearman was a peaceable man, and made no reply, but went on with his
work; only during the day he told his master that he should be obliged
to him if he would fill his situation as soon as convenient.

The master inquired the cause, and the man told him, and said the mews
was too hot for him.

The doctor offered him five pounds a year more, knowing he had a
treasure; but Pearman said, with sadness and firmness, that he had made
up his mind to go, and go he would.

The doctor's heart fairly sank at the prospect of losing the one
creature he could depend upon.

Next Sunday evening Clara was out, and fell in with friends, to whom she
exaggerated her grievance.

Then they worked her up to fury, after the manner of servants' FRIENDS.
She came home, packed her box, brought it down, and then flounced into
the room to Doctor and Mrs. Staines, and said, "I shan't sleep another
night in this house."

Rosa was about to speak, but Dr. Staines forbade her: he said, "You had
better think twice of that. You are a good servant, though for once
you have been betrayed into speaking disrespectfully. Why forfeit your
character, and three weeks' wages?"

"I don't care for my wages. I won't stay in such a house as this."

"Come, you must not be impertinent."

"I don't mean to, sir," said she, lowering her voice suddenly; then,
raising it as suddenly, "There are my keys, ma'am, and you can search my
box."

"Mrs. Staines will not search your box; and you will retire at once to
your own part of the house."

"I'll go farther than that," said she, and soon after the street door
was slammed; the Bijou shook.

At six o'clock next morning, she came for her box. It had been put away
for safety. Pearman told her she must wait till the doctor came down.
She did not wait, but went at eleven A.M. to a police-magistrate, and
took out a summons against Dr. Staines, for detaining a box containing
certain articles specified--value under fifteen pounds.

When Dr. Staines heard she had been for her box, but left no address,
he sent Pearman to hunt for her. He could not find her. She avoided the
house, but sent a woman for her diurnal love letters. Dr. Staines sent
the woman back to fetch her. She came, received her box, her letters,
and the balance of her wages, which was small, for Staines deducted the
three weeks' wages.

Two days afterwards, to his surprise, the summons was served.

Out of respect for a court of justice, however humble, Dr. Staines
attended next Monday to meet the summons.

The magistrate was an elderly man, with a face shaped like a hog's, but
much richer in color, being purple and pimply; so foul a visage Staines
had rarely seen, even in the lowest class of the community.

Clara swore that her box had been opened, and certain things stolen out
of it; and that she had been refused the box next morning.

Staines swore that he had never opened the box, and that, if any one
else had, it was with her consent, for she had left the keys for that
purpose. He bade the magistrate observe that if a servant went away like
this, and left no address, she put it out of the master's POWER to send
her box after her; and he proved he had some trouble to force the box on
her.

The pig-faced beak showed a manifest leaning towards the servant, but
there wasn't a leg to stand on; and he did not believe, nor was it
credible, that anything had been stolen out of her box.

At this moment, Pearman, sent by Rosa, entered the court with an
old gown of Clara's that had been discovered in the scullery, and a
scribbling-book of the doctor's, which Clara had appropriated, and
written amorous verses in, very superior--in number--to those that have
come down to us from Anacreon.

"Hand me those," said the pig-faced beak.

"What are they, Dr. Staines?"

"I really don't know. I must ask my servant."

"Why, more things of mine that have been detained," said Clara.

"Some things that have been found since she left," said Staines.

"Oh! those that hide know where to find."

"Young woman," said Staines, "do not insult those whose bread you have
eaten, and who have given you many presents besides your wages. Since
you are so ready to accuse people of stealing, permit me to say that
this book is mine, and not yours; and yet, you see, it is sent after you
because you have written your trash in it."

The purple, pig-faced beak went instantly out of the record, and wasted
a deal of time reading Clara's poetry, and trying to be witty. He raised
the question whose book this was. The girl swore that it WAS given her
by a lady who was now in Rome. Staines swore he bought it of a certain
stationer, and happening to have his passbook in his pocket, produced an
entry corresponding with the date of the book.

The pig-faced beak said that the doctor's was an improbable story, and
that the gown and the book were quite enough to justify the summons.
Verdict, one guinea costs.

"What, because two things she never demanded have been found and sent
after her? This is monstrous. I shall appeal to your superiors."

"If you are impertinent I'll fine you five pounds."

"Very well, sir. Now hear me: if this is an honest judgment, I pray God
I may be dead before the year's out; and, if it isn't, I pray God you
may be."

Then the pig-faced beak fired up, and threatened to fine him for
blaspheming.

He deigned no reply, but paid the guinea, and Clara swept out of the
court, with a train a yard long, and leaning on the arm of a scarlet
soldier who avenged Dr. Staines with military promptitude.

Christopher went home raging internally, for hitherto he had never seen
so gross a case of injustice.

One of his humble patients followed him, and said, "I wish I had known,
sir; you shouldn't have come here to be insulted. Why, no gentleman
can ever get justice against a servant girl when HE is sitting. It is
notorious, and that makes these hussies so bold. I've seen that jade
here with the same story twice afore."

Staines reached home more discomposed than he could have himself
believed. The reason was that barefaced injustice in a court of justice
shook his whole faith in man. He opened the street door with his
latch-key, and found two men standing in the passage. He inquired what
they wanted.

"Well, sir," said one of them, civilly enough, "we only want our due."

"For what?"

"For goods delivered at this house, sir. Balance of account." And he
handed him a butcher's bill, L88, 11s. 5 1/2d.

"You must be mistaken; we run no bills here. We pay ready money for
everything."

"Well, sir," said the butcher, "there have been payments; but the
balance has always been gaining; and we have been put off so often, we
determined to see the master. Show you the books, sir, and welcome."

"This instant, if you please." He took the butcher's address, who then
retired, and the other tradesman, a grocer, told him a similar tale;
balance, sixty pounds odd.

He went to the butcher's, sick at heart, inspected the books, and saw
that, right or wrong, they were incontrovertible; that debt had been
gaining slowly, but surely, almost from the time he confided the
accounts to his wife. She had kept faith with him about five weeks, no
more.