A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


"As you please, dear uncle," said Mrs. Staines, with a sweet smile. "I
shall be very happy to go, or to stay. I shall be happy everywhere, with
my darling boy, and the thought of my husband. Why, I count the days
till he shall come back to me. No, to us; to us, my pet. How dare a
naughty mammy say to 'me,' as if 'me' was half the 'portance of oo, a
precious pets!"

Dr. Philip was surprised into a sigh.

"What is the matter, dear?" said Rosa, very quickly.

"The matter?"

"Yes, dear, the matter. You sighed; you, the laughing philosopher."

"Did I?" said he, to gain time. "Perhaps I remembered the uncertainty of
human life, and of all mortal hopes. The old will have their thoughts,
my dear. They have seen so much trouble."

"But, uncle dear, he is a very healthy child."

"Very."

"And you told me yourself carelessness was the cause so many children
die."

"That is true."

She gave him a curious and rather searching look; then, leaning over
her boy, said, "Mammy's not afraid. Beautiful Pet was not born to die
directly. He will never leave his mam-ma. No, uncle, he never can. For
my life is bound in his and his dear father's. It is a triple cord: one
go, go all."

She said this with a quiet resolution that chilled Uncle Philip.

At this moment the nurse, who had been bending so pertinaciously over
some work that her eyes were invisible, looked quickly up, cast a
furtive glance at Mrs. Staines, and finding she was employed for the
moment, made an agitated signal to Dr. Philip. All she did was to
clench her two hands and lift them half way to her face, and then cast a
frightened look towards the door; but Philip's senses were so sharpened
by constant alarm and watching, that he saw at once something serious
was the matter. But as he had asked himself what he should do in case
of some sudden alarm, he merely gave a nod of intelligence to the nurse,
scarcely perceptible, then rose quietly from his seat, and went to the
window. "Snow coming, I think," said he. "For all that we shall have the
March summer in ten days. You mark my words." He then went leisurely
out of the room; at the door he turned, and, with all the cunning he was
master of, said, "Oh, by the by, come to my room, nurse, when you are at
leisure."

"Yes, doctor," said the nurse, but never moved. She was too bent on
hiding the agitation she really felt.

"Had you not better go to him, nurse?"

"Perhaps I had, madam."

She rose with feigned indifference, and left the room. She walked
leisurely down the passage, then, casting a hasty glance behind her,
for fear Mrs. Staines should be watching her, hurried into the doctor's
room. They met at once in the middle of the room, and Mrs. Briscoe burst
out, "Sir, it is known all over the house!"

"Heaven forbid! What is known?"

"What you would give the world to keep from her. Why, sir, the moment
you cautioned me, of course I saw there was trouble. But little I
thought--sir, not a servant in the kitchen or the stable but knows that
her husband--poor thing! poor thing!--Ah! there goes the housemaid--to
have a look at her."

"Stop her!"

Mrs. Briscoe had not waited for this; she rushed after the woman, and
told her Mrs. Staines was sleeping, and the room must not be entered on
any account.

"Oh, very well," said the maid, rather sullenly.

Mrs. Briscoe saw her return to the kitchen, and came back to Dr.
Staines; he was pacing the room in torments of anxiety.

"Doctor," said she, "it is the old story: 'Servants' friends, the
master's enemies.' An old servant came here to gossip with her friend
the cook (she never could abide her while they were together, by all
accounts), and told her the whole story of his being drowned at sea."

Dr. Philip groaned, "Cursed chatterbox!" said he. "What is to be done?
Must we break it to her now? Oh, if I could only buy a few days more!
The heart to be crushed while the body is weak! It is too cruel. Advise
me, Mrs. Briscoe. You are an experienced woman, and I think you are a
kind-hearted woman."

"Well, sir," said Mrs. Briscoe, "I had the name of it, when I was
younger--before Briscoe failed, and I took to nursing; which it hardens,
sir, by use, and along of the patients themselves; for sick folk are
lumps of selfishness; we see more of them than you do, sir. But this I
WILL say, 'tisn't selfishness that lies now in that room, waiting for
the blow that will bring her to death's door, I'm sore afraid; but a
sweet, gentle, thoughtful creature, as ever supped sorrow; for I don't
know how 'tis, doctor, nor why 'tis, but an angel like that has always
to sup sorrow."

"But you do not advise me," said the doctor, in agitation, "and
something must be done."

"Advise you, sir; it is not for me to do that. I am sure I'm at my wits'
ends, poor thing! Well, sir, I don't see what you can do, but try and
break it to her. Better so, than let it come to her like a clap of
thunder. But I think, sir, I'd have a wet-nurse ready, before I said
much: for she is very quick--and ten to one but the first word of such a
thing turns her blood to gall. Sir, I once knew a poor woman--she was
a carpenter's wife--a-nursing her child in the afternoon--and in runs a
foolish woman, and tells her he was killed dead, off a scaffold. 'Twas
the man's sister told her. Well, sir, she was knocked stupid like, and
she sat staring, and nursing of her child, before she could take it in
rightly. The child was dead before supper-time, and the woman was not
long after. The whole family was swept away, sir, in a few hours, and
I mind the table was not cleared he had dined on, when they came to lay
them out. Well-a-day, nurses see sorrow!"

"We all see sorrow that live long, Mrs. Briscoe. I am heart-broken
myself; I am desperate. You are a good soul, and I'll tell you. When
my nephew married this poor girl, I was very angry with him; and I soon
found she was not fit to be a struggling man's wife; and then I was very
angry with her. She had spoiled a first-rate physician, I thought. But,
since I knew her better, it is all changed. She is so lovable. How I
shall ever tell her this terrible thing, God knows. All I know is, that
I will not throw a chance away. Her body SHALL be stronger, before I
break her heart. Cursed idiots, that could not save a single man, with
their boats, in a calm sea! Lord forgive me for blaming people, when I
was not there to see. I say I will give her every chance. She shall not
know it till she is stronger: no, not if I live at her door, and sleep
there, and all. Good God! inspire me with something. There is always
something to be done, if one could but see it."

Mrs. Briscoe sighed and said, "Sir, I think anything is better than for
her to hear it from a servant--and they are sure to blurt it out. Young
women are such fools."

"No, no; I see what it is," said Dr. Philip. "I have gone all wrong from
the first. I have been acting like a woman, when I should have acted
like a man. Why, I only trusted YOU by halves. There was a fool for you.
Never trust people by halves."

"That is true, sir."

"Well, then, now I shall go at it like a man. I have a vile opinion of
servants; but no matter. I'll try them: they are human, I suppose. I'll
hit them between the eyes like a man. Go to the kitchen, Mrs. Briscoe,
and tell them I wish to speak to all the servants, indoors or out."

"Yes, sir."

She stopped at the door, and said, "I had better get back to her, as
soon as I have told them."

"Certainly."

"And what shall I tell her, sir? Her first word will be to ask me what
you wanted me for. I saw that in her eye. She was curious: that is why
she sent me after you so quick."

Dr. Philip groaned. He felt he was walking among pitfalls. He rapidly
flavored some distilled water with orange-flower, then tinted it a
beautiful pink, and bottled it. "There," said he; "I was mixing a new
medicine. Tablespoon, four times a day: had to filter it. Any lie you
like."

Mrs. Briscoe went to the kitchen, and gave her message: then went to
Mrs. Staines with the mixture.

Dr. Philip went down to the kitchen, and spoke to the servants very
solemnly. He said, "My good friends, I am come to ask your help in a
matter of life and death. There is a poor young woman up-stairs; she
is a widow, and does not know it; and must not know it yet. If the blow
fell now, I think it would kill her: indeed, if she hears it all of a
sudden, at any time, that might destroy her. We are in so sore a strait
that a feather may turn the scale. So we must try all we can to gain a
little time, and then trust to God's mercy after all. Well, now, what
do you say? Will you help me keep it from her, till the tenth of March,
say? and then I will break it to her by degrees. Forget she is your
mistress. Master and servant, that is all very well at a proper time;
but this is the time to remember nothing but that we are all one flesh
and blood. We lie down together in the churchyard, and we hope to rise
together where there will be no master and servant. Think of the poor
unfortunate creature as your own flesh and blood, and tell me, will you
help me try and save her, under this terrible blow?"

"Ay, doctor, that we will," said the footman. "Only you give us our
orders, and you will see."

"I have no right to give you orders; but I entreat you not to show her
by word or look, that calamity is upon her. Alas! it is only a reprieve
you can give her and to me. The bitter hour MUST come when I must tell
her she is a widow, and her boy an orphan. When that day comes, I will
ask you all to pray for me that I may find words. But now I ask you to
give me that ten days' reprieve. Let the poor creature recover a little
strength, before the thunderbolt of affliction falls on her head. Will
you promise me?"

They promised heartily; and more than one of the women began to cry.

"A general assent will not satisfy me," said Dr. Philip. "I want every
man, and every woman, to give me a hand upon it; then I shall feel sure
of you."

The men gave him their hands at once. The women wiped their hands with
their aprons, to make sure they were clean, and gave him their hands
too. The cook said, "If any one of us goes from it, this kitchen will be
too hot to hold her."

"Nobody will go from it, cook," said the doctor. "I'm not afraid of
that; and now since you have promised me, out of your own good hearts,
I'll try and be even with you. If she knows nothing of it by the tenth
of March, five guineas to every man and woman in this kitchen. You shall
see that, if you can be kind, we can be grateful."

He then hurried away. He found Mr. Lusignan in the drawing-room, and
told him all this. Lusignan was fluttered, but grateful. "Ah, my good
friend," said he, "this is a hard trial to two old men, like you and
me."

"It is," said Philip. "It has shown me my age. I declare I am trembling;
I, whose nerves were iron. But I have a particular contempt for
servants. Mercenary wretches! I think Heaven inspired me to talk to
them. After all, who knows? perhaps we might find a way to their hearts,
if we did not eternally shock their vanity, and forget that it is, and
must be, far greater than our own. The women gave me their tears,
and the men were earnest. Not one hand lay cold in mine. As for your
kitchen-maid, I'd trust my life to that girl. What a grip she gave
me! What strength! What fidelity was in it! My hand was never GRASPED
before. I think we are safe for a few days more."

Lusignan sighed. "What does it all come to? We are pulling the trigger
gently, that is all."

"No, no; that is not it. Don't let us confound the matter with similes,
please. Keep them for children."

Mrs. Staines left her bed; and would have left her room, but Dr. Philip
forbade it strictly.

One day, seated in her arm-chair, she said to the nurse, before Dr.
Philip, "Nurse, why do the servants look so curiously at me?"

Mrs. Briscoe cast a hasty glance at Dr. Philip, and then said, "I don't
know, madam. I never noticed that."

"Uncle, why did nurse look at you before she answered such a simple
question?"

"I don't know. What question?"

"About the servants."

"Oh, about the servants!" said he contemptuously.

"You should not turn up your nose at them, for they are all most kind
and attentive. Only, I catch them looking at me so strangely; really--as
if they--"

"Rosa, you are taking me quite out of my depth. The looks of servant
girls! Why, of course a lady in your condition is an object of especial
interest to them. I dare say they are saying to one another, 'I wonder
when my turn will come!' A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind--that
is a proverb, is it not?"

"To be sure. I forgot that."

She said no more; but seemed thoughtful, and not quite satisfied.

On this Dr. Philip begged the maids to go near her as little as
possible. "You are not aware of it," said he, "but your looks, and
your manner of speaking, rouse her attention, and she is quicker than I
thought she was, and observes very subtly."

This was done; and then she complained that nobody came near her. She
insisted on coming down-stairs; it was so dull.

Dr. Philip consented, if she would be content to receive no visits for a
week.

She assented to that; and now passed some hours every day in the
drawing-room. In her morning wrappers, so fresh and crisp, she looked
lovely, and increased in health and strength every day.

Dr. Philip used to look at her, and his very flesh would creep at the
thought that, ere long, he must hurl this fair creature into the dust
of affliction; must, with a word, take the ruby from her lips, the rose
from her cheeks, the sparkle from her glorious eyes--eyes that beamed
on him with sweet affection, and a mouth that never opened, but to show
some simplicity of mind, or some pretty burst of the sensitive heart.

He put off, and put off, and at last cowardice began to whisper, "Why
tell her the whole truth at all? Why not take her through stages of
doubt, alarm, and, after all, leave a grain of hope till her child gets
so rooted in her heart that"--But conscience and good sense interrupted
this temporary thought, and made him see to what a horrible life of
suspense he should condemn a human creature, and live a perpetual lie,
and be always at the edge of some pitfall or other.

One day, while he sat looking at her, with all these thoughts, and many
more, coursing through his mind, she looked up at him, and surprised
him. "Ah!" said she gravely.

"What is the matter, my dear?"

"Oh, nothing," said she cunningly.

"Uncle, dear," said she presently, "when do we go to Herne Bay?"

Now, Dr. Philip had given that up. He had got the servants at Kent Villa
on his side, and he felt safer here than in any strange place: so he
said, "I don't know: that all depends. There is plenty of time."

"No, uncle," said Rosa gravely. "I wish to leave this house. I can
hardly breathe in it."

"What! your native air?"

"Mystery is not my native air; and this house is full of mystery. Voices
whisper at my door, and the people don't come in. The maids cast strange
looks at me, and hurry away. I scolded that pert girl Jane, and she
answered me as meek as Moses. I catch you looking at me, with love, and
something else. What is that something--? It is Pity: that is what it
is. Do you think, because I am called a simpleton, that I have no eyes,
nor ears, nor sense? What is this secret which you are all hiding from
one person, and that is me? Ah! Christopher has not written these five
weeks. Tell me the truth, for I will know it," and she started up in
wild excitement.

Then Dr. Philip saw the hour was come.

He said, "My poor girl, you have read us right. I am anxious about
Christopher, and all the servants know it."

"Anxious, and not tell ME; his wife; the woman whose life is bound up in
his."

"Was it for us to retard your convalescence, and set you fretting, and
perhaps destroy your child? Rosa, my darling, think what a treasure
Heaven has sent you, to love and care for."

"Yes," said she, trembling, "Heaven has been good to me; I hope Heaven
will always be as good to me. I don't deserve it; but then I tell God
so. I am very grateful, and very penitent. I never forget that, if I
had been a good wife, my husband--five weeks is a long time. Why do
you tremble so? Why are you so pale--a strong man like you? CALAMITY!
CALAMITY!"

Dr. Philip hung his head.

She looked at him, started wildly up, then sank back into her chair. So
the stricken deer leaps, then falls. Yet even now she put on a deceitful
calm, and said, "Tell me the truth. I have a right to know."

He stammered out, "There is a report of an accident at sea."

She kept silence.

"Of a passenger drowned--out of that ship. This, coupled with his
silence, fills our hearts with fear."

"It is worse--you are breaking it to me--you have gone too far to stop.
One word: is he alive? Oh, say he is alive!"

Philip rang the bell hard, and said in a troubled voice, "Rosa, think of
your child."

"Not when my husband--Is he alive or dead?"

"It is hard to say, with such a terrible report about, and no letters,"
faltered the old man, his courage failing him.

"What are you afraid of? Do you think I can't die, and go to him? Alive,
or dead?" and she stood before him, raging and quivering in every limb.

The nurse came in.

"Fetch her child," he cried; "God have mercy on her."

"Ah, then he is dead," said she, with stony calmness. "I drove him to
sea, and he is dead."

The nurse rushed in, and held the child to her.

She would not look at it.

"Dead!"

"Yes, our poor Christie is gone--but his child is here--the image of
him. Do not forget the mother. Have pity on his child and yours."

"Take it out of my sight!" she screamed. "Away with it, or I shall
murder it, as I have murdered its father. My dear Christie, before all
that live! I have killed him. I shall die for him. I shall go to him."
She raved and tore her hair. Servants rushed in. Rosa was carried to her
bed, screaming and raving, and her black hair all down on both sides, a
piteous sight.

Swoon followed swoon, and that very night brain fever set in with all
its sad accompaniments; a poor bereaved creature, tossing and moaning;
pale, anxious, but resolute faces of the nurse and the kitchen-maid
watching: on one table a pail of ice, and on another the long, thick
raven hair of our poor Simpleton, lying on clean silver paper. Dr.
Philip had cut it all off with his own hand, and he was now folding it
up, and crying over it; for he thought to himself, "Perhaps in a few
days more only this will be left of her on earth."




CHAPTER XV.


Staines fell head-foremost into the sea with a heavy plunge. Being an
excellent swimmer, he struck out the moment he touched the water, and
that arrested his dive, and brought him up with a slant, shocked and
panting, drenched and confused. The next moment he saw, as through a
fog--his eyes being full of water--something fall from the ship. He
breasted the big waves, and swam towards it: it rose on the top of a
wave, and he saw it was a life-buoy. Encumbered with wet clothes, he
seemed impotent in the big waves; they threw him up so high, and down so
low.

Almost exhausted, he got to the life-buoy, and clutched it with a fierce
grasp and a wild cry of delight. He got it over his head, and, placing
his arms round the buoyant circle, stood with his breast and head out of
water, gasping.

He now drew a long breath, and got his wet hair out of his eyes, already
smarting with salt water, and, raising himself on the buoy, looked out
for help.

He saw, to his great concern, the ship already at a distance. She seemed
to have flown, and she was still drifting fast away from him.

He saw no signs of help. His heart began to turn as cold as his drenched
body. A horrible fear crossed him.

But presently he saw the weather-boat filled, and fall into the water;
and then a wave rolled between him and the ship, and he only saw her
topmast.

The next time he rose on a mighty wave he saw the boats together astern
of the vessel, but not coming his way; and the gloom was thickening, the
ship becoming indistinct, and all was doubt and horror.

A life of agony passed in a few minutes.

He rose and fell like a cork on the buoyant waves--rose and fell, and
saw nothing but the ship's lights, now terribly distant.

But at last, as he rose and fell, he caught a few fitful glimpses of a
smaller light rising and falling like himself. "A boat!" he cried, and
raising himself as high as he could, shouted, cried, implored for help.
He stretched his hands across the water. "This way! this way!"

The light kept moving, but it came no nearer. They had greatly
underrated the drift. The other boat had no light.

Minutes passed of suspense, hope, doubt, dismay, terror. Those minutes
seemed hours.

In the agony of suspense the quaking heart sent beads of sweat to the
brow, though the body was immersed.

And the gloom deepened, and the cold waves flung him up to heaven with
their giant arms, and then down again to hell: and still that light, his
only hope, was several hundred yards from him.

Only for a moment at a time could his eyeballs, straining with agony,
catch this will-o'-the-wisp, the boat's light. It groped the sea up and
down, but came no near.

When what seemed days of agony had passed, suddenly a rocket rose in the
horizon--so it seemed to him.

The lost man gave a shriek of joy; so prone are we to interpret things
hopefully.

Misery! The next time he saw that little light, that solitary spark of
hope, it was not quite so near as before. A mortal sickness fell on his
heart. The ship had recalled the boats by rocket.

He shrieked, he cried, he screamed, he raved. "Oh, Rosa! Rosa! for her
sake, men, men, do not leave me. I am here! here!"

In vain. The miserable man saw the boat's little light retire, recede,
and melt into the ship's larger light, and that light glided away.

Then, a cold, deadly stupor fell on him. Then, death's icy claw seized
his heart, and seemed to run from it to every part of him. He was a dead
man. Only a question of time. Nothing to gain by floating.

But the despairing mind could not quit the world in peace, and even here
in the cold, cruel sea, the quivering body clung to this fragment of
life, and winced at death's touch, though more merciful.

He despised this weakness; he raged at it; he could not overcome it.

Unable to live or to die, condemned to float slowly, hour by hour, down
into death's jaws.

To a long, death-like stupor succeeded frenzy. Fury seized this great
and long-suffering mind. It rose against the cruelty and injustice of
his fate. He cursed the world, whose stupidity had driven him to sea,
he cursed remorseless nature; and at last he railed on the God who made
him, and made the cruel water, that was waiting for his body. "God's
justice! God's mercy! God's power! they are all lies," he shouted,
"dreams, chimeras, like Him the all-powerful and good, men babble of by
the fire. If there was a God more powerful than the sea, and only
half as good as men are, he would pity my poor Rosa and me, and send
a hurricane to drive those caitiffs back to the wretch they have
abandoned. Nature alone is mighty. Oh, if I could have her on my side,
and only God against me! But she is as deaf to prayer as He is: as
mechanical and remorseless. I am a bubble melting into the sea. Soul
I have none; my body will soon be nothing, nothing. So ends an honest,
loving life. I always tried to love my fellow-creatures. Curse them!
curse them! Curse the earth! Curse the sea! Curse all nature: there is
no other God for me to curse."

The moon came out.

He raised his head and staring eyeballs, and cursed her.

The wind began to whistle, and flung spray in his face.

He raised his fallen head and staring eyeballs, and cursed the wind.

While he was thus raving, he became sensible of a black object to
windward.

It looked like a rail, and a man leaning on it.

He stared, he cleared the wet hair from his eyes, and stared again.

The thing, being larger than himself and partly out of water, was
drifting to leeward faster than himself.

He stared and trembled, and at last it came nearly abreast, black,
black.

He gave a loud cry, and tried to swim towards it; but encumbered with
his life-buoy, he made little progress. The thing drifted abreast of
him, but ten yards distant.

As they each rose high upon the waves, he saw it plainly.

It was the very raft that had been the innocent cause of his sad fate.

He shouted with hope, he swam, he struggled; he got near it, but not
to it; it drifted past, and he lost his chance of intercepting it. He
struggled after it. The life-buoy would not let him catch it.

Then he gave a cry of agony, rage, despair, and flung off the life-buoy,
and risked all on this one chance.

He gains a little on the raft.

He loses.

He gains: he cries, "Rosa! Rosa!" and struggles with all his soul, as
well as his body: he gains.

But when almost within reach, a wave half drowns him, and he loses.

He cries, "Rosa! Rosa!" and swims high and strong. "Rosa! Rosa! Rosa!"