A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


She sighed. "I hoped it was to decline it. Think of the misery of
separation, both to you and her."

"It will be misery. But we are not happy as it is, and she cannot bear
poverty. Nor is it fair she should, when I can give her every comfort by
just playing the man for a year or two." He then told Lady Cicely there
were more reasons than he chose to mention: go he must, and would; and
he implored her not to let the affair drop. In short, he was sad but
resolved, and she found she must go on with it, or break faith with him.
She took her desk, and wrote a letter concluding the bargain for him.
She stipulated for half the year's fee in advance. She read Dr. Staines
the letter.

"You ARE a friend!" said he. "I should never have ventured on that; it
will be a godsend to my poor Rosa. You will be kind to her when I am
gone?"

"I will."

"So will Uncle Philip, I think. I will see him before I go, and shake
hands. He has been a good friend to me; but he was too hard upon HER;
and I could not stand that."

Then he thanked and blessed her again, with the tears in his eyes, and
left her more disturbed and tearful than she had ever been since she
grew to woman. "O cruel poverty!" she thought, "that such a man should
be torn from his home, and thank me for doing it--all for a little
money--and here are we poor commonplace creatures rolling in it."

Staines hurried home, and told his wife. She clung to him convulsively,
and wept bitterly; but she made no direct attempt to shake his
resolution; she saw, by his iron look, that she could only afflict, not
turn him.

Next day came Lady Cicely to see her. Lady Cicely was very uneasy in her
mind, and wanted to know whether Rosa was reconciled to the separation.

Rosa received her with a forced politeness and an icy coldness that
petrified her. She could not stay long in face of such a reception. At
parting, she said, sadly, "You look on me as an enemy."

"What else can you expect, when you part my husband and me?" said Rosa,
with quiet sternness.

"I meant well," said Lady Cicely sorrowfully; "but I wish I had never
interfered."

"So do I," and she began to cry.

Lady Cicely made no answer. She went quietly away, hanging her head
sadly.

Rosa was unjust, but she was not rude nor vulgar; and Lady Cicely's
temper was so well governed that it never blinded her heart. She
withdrew, but without the least idea of quarrelling with her afflicted
friend, or abandoning her. She went quietly home, and wrote to Lady
----, to say that she should be glad to receive Dr. Staines's advance
as soon as convenient, since Mrs. Staines would have to make fresh
arrangements, and the money might be useful.

The money was forthcoming directly. Lady Cicely brought it to Dear
Street, and handed it to Dr. Staines. His eyes sparkled at the sight of
it.

"Give my love to Rosa," said she softly, and cut her visit very short.

Staines took the money to Rosa, and said, "See what our best friend has
brought us. You shall have four hundred, and I hope, after the bitter
lessons you have had, you will be able to do with that for some months.
The two hundred I shall keep as a reserve fund for you to draw on."

"No, no!" said Rosa. "I shall go and live with my father, and never
spend a penny. O Christie, if you knew how I hate myself for the folly
that is parting us! Oh, why don't they teach girls sense and money,
instead of music and the globes?"

But Christopher opened a banking account for her, and gave her a
check-book, and entreated her to pay everything by check, and run no
bills whatever; and she promised. He also advertised the Bijou, and put
a bill in the window: "The lease of this house, and the furniture, to be
sold."

Rosa cried bitterly at sight of it, thinking how high in hope they were,
when they had their first dinner there, and also when she went to her
first sale to buy the furniture cheap.

And now everything moved with terrible rapidity. The Amphitrite was to
sail from Plymouth in five days; and, meantime, there was so much to be
done, that the days seemed to gallop away.

Dr. Staines forgot nothing. He made his will in duplicate, leaving all
to his wife; he left one copy at Doctors' Commons and another with his
lawyer; inventoried all his furniture and effects in duplicate, too;
wrote to Uncle Philip, and then called on him to seek a reconciliation.
Unfortunately, Dr. Philip was in Scotland. At last this sad pair went
down to Plymouth together, there to meet Lord Tadcaster and go on board
H.M.S. Amphitrite, lying out at anchor, under orders for the Australian
Station.

They met at the inn, as appointed; and sent word of their arrival on
board the frigate, asking to remain on shore till the last minute.

Dr. Staines presented his patient to Rosa; and after a little while drew
him apart and questioned him professionally. He then asked for a private
room. Here he and Rosa really took leave; for what could the poor things
say to each other on a crowded quay? He begged her forgiveness, on his
knees, for having once spoken harshly to her, and she told him, with
passionate sobs, he had never spoken harshly to her; her folly it was
had parted them.

Poor wretches! they clung together with a thousand vows of love and
constancy. They were to pray for each other at the same hours: to think
of some kind word or loving act, at other stated hours; and so they
tried to fight with their suffering minds against the cruel separation;
and if either should die, the other was to live wedded to memory, and
never listen to love from other lips; but no! God was pitiful; He would
let them meet again ere long, to part no more. They rocked in each
other's arms; they cried over each other--it was pitiful.

At last the cruel summons came; they shuddered, as if it was their
death-blow. Christopher, with a face of agony, was yet himself, and
would have parted then: and so best. But Rosa could not. She would see
the last of him, and became almost wild and violent when he opposed it.

Then he let her come with him to Milbay Steps; but into the boat he
would not let her step.

The ship's boat lay at the steps, manned by six sailors, all seated,
with their oars tossed in two vertical rows. A smart middy in charge
conducted them, and Dr. Staines and Lord Tadcaster got in, leaving Rosa,
in charge of her maid, on the quay.

"Shove off"--"Down"--"Give way."

Each order was executed so swiftly and surely that, in as many seconds,
the boat was clear, the oars struck the water with a loud splash, and
the husband was shot away like an arrow, and the wife's despairing cry
rang on the stony quay, as many a poor woman's cry had rung before.

In half a minute the boat shot under the stern of the frigate.

They were received on the quarter-deck by Captain Hamilton: he
introduced them to the officers--a torture to poor Staines, to have his
mind taken for a single instant from his wife--the first lieutenant came
aft, and reported, "Ready for making sail, sir."

Staines seized the excuse, rushed to the other side of the vessel,
leaned over the taffrail, as if he would fly ashore, and stretched out
his hands to his beloved Rosa; and she stretched out her hands to him.
They were so near, he could read the expression of her face. It was wild
and troubled, as one who did not yet realize the terrible situation, but
would not be long first.

"HANDS MAKE SAIL--AWAY, ALOFT--UP ANCHOR"--rang in Christopher's ear, as
if in a dream. All his soul and senses were bent on that desolate young
creature. How young and amazed her lovely face! Yet this bewildered
child was about to become a mother. Even a stranger's heart might have
yearned with pity for her: how much more her miserable husband's!

The capstan was manned, and worked to a merry tune that struck chill to
the bereaved; yards were braced for casting, anchor hove, catted, and
fished, sail was spread with amazing swiftness, the ship's head dipped,
and slowly and gracefully paid off towards the breakwater, and she stood
out to sea under swiftly-swelling canvas and a light north-westerly
breeze.

Staines only felt the motion: his body was in the ship, his soul with
his Rosa. He gazed, he strained his eyes to see her eyes, as the ship
glided from England and her. While he was thus gazing and trembling all
over, up came to him a smart second lieutenant, with a brilliant voice
that struck him like a sword. "Captain's orders to show you berths;
please choose for Lord Tadcaster and yourself."

The man's wild answer made the young officer stare. "Oh, sir! not
now--try and do my duty when I have quite lost her--my poor wife--a
child--a mother--there--sir--on the steps--there!--there!"

Now this officer always went to sea singing "Oh be joyful." But a strong
man's agony, who can make light of it? It was a revelation to him; but
he took it quickly. The first thing he did, being a man of action, was
to dash into his cabin, and come back with a short, powerful double
glass. "There!" said he roughly, but kindly, and shoved it into
Staines's hand. He took it, stared at it stupidly, then used it, without
a word of thanks, so wrapped was he in his anguish.

This glass prolonged the misery of that bitter hour. When Rosa could no
longer tell her husband from another, she felt he was really gone, and
she threw her hands aloft, and clasped them above her head, with the
wild abandon of a woman who could never again be a child; and Staines
saw it, and a sharp sigh burst from him, and he saw her maid and others
gather round her. He saw the poor young thing led away, with her head
all down, as he had never seen her before, and supported to the inn; and
then he saw her no more.

His heart seemed to go out of his bosom in search of her, and leave
nothing but a stone behind: he hung over the taffrail like a dead thing.
A steady foot-fall slapped his ear. He raised his white face and filmy
eyes, and saw Lieutenant Fitzroy marching to and fro like a sentinel,
keeping everybody away from the mourner, with the steady, resolute,
business-like face of a man in whom sentiment is confined to action; its
phrases and its flourishes being literally terra incognita to the honest
fellow.

Staines staggered towards him, holding out both hands, and gasped out,
"God bless you. Hide me somewhere--must not be seen SO--got duty to
do--Patient--can't do it yet--one hour to draw my breath--oh, my God, my
God!--one hour, sir. Then do my duty, if I die--as you would."

Fitzroy tore him down into his own cabin, shut him in and ran to the
first lieutenant, with a tear in his eye. "Can I have a sentry, sir?"

"Sentry! What for?"

"The doctor--awfully cut up at leaving his wife: got him in my cabin.
Wants to have his cry to himself."

"Fancy a fellow crying at going to sea!"

"It is not that, sir; it is leaving his wife."

"Well, is he the only man on board that has got a wife?"

"Why, no, sir. It is odd, now I think of it. Perhaps he has only got
that ONE."

"Curious creatures, landsmen," said the first lieutenant. "However, you
can stick a marine there."

"And I say, show the YOUNGSTER the berths, and let him choose, as the
doctor's aground."

"Yes, sir."

So Fitzoy planted his marine, and then went after Lord Tadcaster: he had
drawn up alongside his cousin, Captain Hamilton. The captain, being an
admirer of Lady Cicely, was mighty civil to his little lordship, and
talked to him more than was his wont on the quarterdeck; for though
he had a good flow of conversation, and dispensed with ceremony in his
cabin, he was apt to be rather short on deck. However, he told little
Tadcaster he was fortunate; they had a good start, and, if the wind
held, might hope to be clear of the Channel in twenty-four hours. "You
will see Eddystone lighthouse about four bells," said he.

"Shall we go out of sight of land altogether?" inquired his lordship.

"Of course we shall, and the sooner the better." He then explained to
the novice that the only danger to a good ship was from the land.

While Tadcaster was digesting this paradox, Captain Hamilton proceeded
to descant on the beauties of blue water and its fine medicinal
qualities, which, he said, were particularly suited to young gentlemen
with bilious stomachs, but presently, catching sight of Lieutenant
Fitzroy standing apart, but with the manner of a lieutenant not there by
accident, he stopped, and said, civilly but smartly, "Well, sir?"

Fitzroy came forward directly, saluted, and said he had orders from the
first lieutenant to show Lord Tadcaster the berths. His lordship must be
good enough to choose, because the doctor--couldn't.

"Why not?"

"Brought to, sir--for the present--by--well, by grief."

"Brought to by grief! Who the deuce is grief? No riddles on the
quarter-deck, if you please, sir."

"Oh no, sir. I assure you he is awfully cut up; and he is having his cry
out in my cabin."

"Having his cry out! why, what for?"

"Leaving his wife, sir."

"Oh, is that all?"

"Well, I don't wonder," cried little Tadcaster warmly. "She is, oh,
so beautiful!" and a sudden blush o'erspread his pasty cheeks. "Why on
earth didn't we bring her along with us here?" said he, suddenly opening
his eyes with astonishment at the childish omission.

"Why, indeed?" said the captain comically, and dived below, attended by
the well-disciplined laughter of Lieutenant Fitzroy, who was too good
an officer not to be amused at his captain's jokes. Having acquitted
himself of that duty--and it is a very difficult one sometimes--he
took Lord Tadcaster to the main-deck, and showed him two comfortable
sleeping-berths that had been screened off for him and Dr. Staines; one
of these was fitted with a standing bed-place, the other had a cot
swung in it. Fitzroy offered him the choice, but hinted that he himself
preferred a cot.

"No, thank you," says my lord mighty dryly.

"All right," said Fitzroy cheerfully. "Take the other, then, my lord."

His little lordship cocked his eye like a jackdaw, and looked almost as
cunning. "You see," said he, "I have been reading up for this voyage."

"Oh, indeed! Logarithms?"

"Of course not."

"What then?"

"Why, 'Peter Simple'--to be sure."

"Ah, ha!" said Fitzroy, with a chuckle that showed plainly he had some
delicious reminiscences of youthful study in the same quarter.

The little lord chuckled too, and put one finger on Fitzroy's shoulder,
and pointed at the cot with another. "Tumble out the other side, you
know--slippery hitches--cords cut--down you come flop in the middle of
the night."

Fitzroy's eye flashed merriment: but only for a moment. His countenance
fell the next. "Lord bless you," said he sorrowfully, "all that game
is over now. Her Majesty's ship!--it is a church afloat. The service is
going to the devil, as the old fogies say."

"Ain't you sorry?" says the little lord, cocking his eye again like the
bird hereinbefore mentioned.

"Of course I am."

"Then I'll take the standing bed."

"All right. I say, you don't mind the doctor coming down with a run,
eh?"

"He is not ill: I am. He is paid to take care of me: I am not paid to
take care of him," said the young lord sententiously.

"I understand," replied Fitzroy, dryly. "Well, every one for himself,
and Providence for us all--as the elephant said when he danced among the
chickens."

Here my lord was summoned to dine with the captain. Staines was not
there; but he had not forgotten his duty; in the midst of his grief he
had written a note to the captain, hoping that a bereaved husband might
not seem to desert his post if he hid for a few hours the sorrow he
felt himself unable to control. Meantime he would be grateful if Captain
Hamilton would give orders that Lord Tadcaster should eat no pastry, and
drink only six ounces of claret, otherwise he should feel that he was
indeed betraying his trust.

The captain was pleased and touched with this letter. It recalled to him
how his mother sobbed when she launched her little middy, swelling with
his first cocked hat and dirk.

There was champagne at dinner, and little Tadcaster began to pour out a
tumbler. "Hold on!" said Captain Hamilton; "you are not to drink that;"
and he quietly removed the tumbler. "Bring him six ounces of claret."

While they were weighing the claret with scientific precision, Tadcaster
remonstrated; and, being told it was the doctor's order, he squeaked
out, "Confound him! why did not he stay with his wife? She is
beautiful." Nor did he give it up without a struggle. "Here's
hospitality!" said he. "Six ounces!"

Receiving no reply, he inquired of the third lieutenant, which was
generally considered the greatest authority in a ship--the captain, or
the doctor.

The third lieutenant answered not, but turned his head away, and, by
violent exertion, succeeded in not splitting.

"I'll answer that," said Hamilton politely. "The captain is the highest
in his department, and the doctor in his: now Doctor Staines is strictly
within his department, and will be supported by me and my officers. You
are bilious, and epileptical, and all the rest of it, and you are to be
cured by diet and blue water."

Tadcaster was inclined to snivel: however, he subdued that weakness with
a visible effort, and, in due course, returned to the charge. "How would
you look," quavered he, "if there was to be a mutiny in this ship of
yours, and I was to head it?'

"Well, I should look SHARP--hang all the ringleaders at the yardarm,
clap the rest under hatches, and steer for the nearest prison."

"Oh!" said Tadcaster, and digested this scheme a bit. At last he perked
up again, and made his final hit. "Well, I shouldn't care, for one, if
you didn't flog us."

"In that case," said Captain Hamilton, "I'd flog you--and stop your six
ounces."

"Then curse the sea; that is all I say."

"Why, you have not seen it; you have only seen the British Channel." It
was Mr. Fitzroy who contributed this last observation.

After dinner all but the captain went on deck, and saw the Eddystone
lighthouse ahead and to leeward. They passed it. Fitzroy told his
lordship its story, and that of its unfortunate predecessors. Soon after
this Lord Tadcaster turned in.

Presently the captain observed a change in the thermometer, which
brought him on deck. He scanned the water and the sky, and as these
experienced commanders have a subtle insight into the weather,
especially in familiar latitudes, he remarked to the first lieutenant
that it looked rather unsettled; and, as a matter of prudence, ordered
a reef in the topsails, and the royal yards to be sent down: ship to be
steered W. by S. This done, he turned in, but told them to call him if
there was any change in the weather.

During the night the wind gradually headed; and at four bells in the
middle watch a heavy squall came up from the south-west.

This brought the captain on deck again: he found the officer of the
watch at his post, and at work. Sail was shortened, and the ship made
snug for heavy weather.

At four A.M. it was blowing hard, and, being too near the French coast,
they wore the ship.

Now, this operation was bad for little Tadcaster. While the vessel was
on the starboard tack, the side kept him snug; but, when they wore her,
of course he had no leeboard to keep him in. The ship gave a lee-lurch,
and shot him clean out of his bunk into the middle of the cabin.

He shrieked and shrieked, with terror and pain, till the captain and
Staines, who were his nearest neighbors, came to him, and they gave him
a little brandy, and got him to bed again. Here he suffered nothing but
violent seasickness for some hours. As for Staines, he had been swinging
heavily in his cot; but such was his mental distress that he would have
welcomed seasickness, or any reasonable bodily suffering. He was in that
state when the sting of a wasp is a touch of comfort.

Worn out with sickness, Tadcaster would not move. Invited to breakfast,
he swore faintly, and insisted on dying in peace. At last exhaustion
gave him a sort of sleep, in spite of the motion, which was violent, for
it was now blowing great guns, a heavy sea on, and the great waves dirty
in color and crested with raging foam.

They had to wear ship again, always a ticklish manoeuvre in weather like
this.

A tremendous sea struck her quarter, stove in the very port abreast of
which the little lord was lying, and washed him clean out of bed into
the lee scuppers, and set all swimming around him.

Didn't he yell, and wash about the cabin, and grab at all the chairs
and tables and things that drifted about, nimble as eels, avoiding his
grasp!

In rushed the captain, and in staggered Staines. They stopped his
"voyage autour de sa chambre," and dragged him into the after saloon.

He clung to them by turns, and begged, with many tears, to be put on the
nearest land; a rock would do.

"Much obliged," said the captain; "now is the very time to give rocks a
wide berth."

"A dead whale, then--a lighthouse--anything but a beast of a ship."

They pacified him with a little brandy, and for the next twenty-four
hours he scarcely opened his mouth, except for a purpose it is
needless to dwell on. We can trust to our terrestrial readers' personal
reminiscences of lee-lurches, weather-rolls, and their faithful
concomitant.

At last they wriggled out of the Channel, and soon after that the wind
abated, and next day veered round to the northward, and the ship sailed
almost on an even keel. The motion became as heavenly as it had been
diabolical, and the passengers came on deck.

Staines had suffered one whole day from sea-sickness, but never
complained. I believe it did his mind more good than harm.

As for Tadcaster, he continued to suffer, at intervals, for two days
more, but on the fifth day out he appeared with a little pink tinge
on his cheek and a wolfish appetite. Dr. Staines controlled his diet
severely, as to quality, and, when they had been at sea just eleven
days, the physician's heavy heart was not a little lightened by the
marvellous change in him. The unthinking, who believe in the drug
system, should have seen what a physician can do with air and food,
when circumstances enable him to ENFORCE the diet he enjoins. Money will
sometimes buy even health, if you AVOID DRUGS ENTIRELY, and go another
road.

Little Tadcaster went on board, pasty, dim-eyed, and very subject to
fits, because his stomach was constantly overloaded with indigestible
trash, and the blood in his brain-vessels was always either galloping or
creeping, under the first or second effect of stimulants administered,
at first, by thoughtless physicians. Behold him now--bronzed, pinky,
bright-eyed, elastic; and only one fit in twelve days.

The quarter-deck was hailed from the "look-out" with a cry that is
sometimes terrible, but in this latitude and weather welcome and
exciting. "Land, ho!"

"Where away?" cried the officer of the watch.

"A point on the lee-bow, sir."

It was the island of Madeira: they dropped anchor in Funchal Roads,
furled sails, squared yards, and fired a salute of twenty-one guns for
the Portuguese flag.

They went ashore, and found a good hotel, and were no longer dosed, as
in former days, with oil, onions, garlic, eggs. But the wine queer, and
no madeira to be got.

Staines wrote home to his wife: he told her how deeply he had felt the
bereavement; but did not dwell on that; his object being to cheer her.
He told her it promised to be a rapid and wonderful cure, and one that
might very well give him a fresh start in London. They need not be
parted a whole year, he thought. He sent her a very long letter, and
also such extracts from his sea journal as he thought might please her.
After dinner they inspected the town, and what struck them most was to
find the streets paved with flag-stones, and most of the carts drawn by
bullocks on sledges. A man every now and then would run forward and drop
a greasy cloth in front of the sledge, to lubricate the way.

Next day, after breakfast, they ordered horses; these on inspection,
proved to be of excellent breed, either from Australia or America--very
rough shod, for the stony roads. Started for the Grand Canal--peeped
down that mighty chasm, which has the appearance of an immense mass
having been blown out of the centre of the mountain.

They lunched under the great dragon tree near its brink, then rode back
admiring the bold mountain scenery. Next morning at dawn, rode on horses
up the hill to the convent. Admired the beautiful gardens on the way.
Remained a short time; then came down in hand-sleighs--little baskets
slung on sledges, guided by two natives; these sledges run down the
hill with surprising rapidity, and the men guide them round corners by
sticking out a foot to port or starboard.

Embarked at 11.30 A.M.

At 1.30, the men having dined, the ship was got under way for the Cape
of Good Hope, and all sail made for a southerly course, to get into the
north-east trades.

The weather was now balmy and delightful, and so genial that everybody
lived on deck, and could hardly be got to turn in to their cabins, even
for sleep.

Dr. Staines became a favorite with the officers. There is a great deal
of science on board a modern ship of war, and, of course, on some points
Staines, a Cambridge wrangler, and a man of many sciences and books, was
an oracle. On others he was quite behind, but a ready and quick pupil.
He made up to the navigating officer, and learned, with his help, to
take observations. In return he was always at any youngster's service
in a trigonometrical problem; and he amused the midshipmen and young
lieutenants with analytical tests; some of these were applicable to
certain liquids dispensed by the paymaster. Under one of them the
port wine assumed some very droll colors and appearances not proper to
grape-juice.