A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


"Yes," replied Rosa, quietly.

The old man would not scold her now; he only said, sadly, "I see how it
is: because I will not let you marry poverty, you think I do not love
you." And he sighed.

"O papa! the idea!" said Rosa. "Of course, I know you love me. It was
not that, you dear, darling, foolish papa. There! if you must know, it
was because I did not want you to be distressed. I thought I might get
better with a little physic; and, if not, why, then I thought, 'Papa is
an old man; la! I dare say I shall last his time;' and so, why should I
poison your latter days with worrying about ME?"

Mr. Lusignan stared at her, and his lip quivered; but he thought the
trait hardly consistent with her superficial character. He could not
help saying, half sadly, half bitterly, "Well, but of course you have
told Dr. Staines."

Rosa opened her beautiful eyes, like two suns. "Of course I have done
nothing of the sort. He has enough to trouble him, without that. Poor
fellow! there he is, worrying and striving to make his fortune, and gain
your esteem--'they go together,' you know; you told him so." (Young cats
will scratch when least expected.) "And for me to go and tell him I am
in danger! Why, he would go wild. He would think of nothing but me and
my health. He would never make his fortune: and so then, even when I
am gone, he will never get a wife, because he has only got genius and
goodness and three thousand pounds. No, papa, I have not told poor
Christopher. I may tease those I love. I have been teasing YOU this ever
so long; but frighten them, and make them miserable? No!"

And here, thinking of the anguish that was perhaps in store for those
she loved, she wanted to cry; it almost choked her not to. But she
fought it bravely down: she reserved her tears for lighter occasions and
less noble sentiments.

Her father held out his arms to her. She ran her footstool to him, and
sat nestling to his heart.

"Please forgive me my misconduct. I have not been a dutiful daughter
ever since you--but now I will. Kiss me, my own papa! There! Now we are
as we always were."

Then she purred to him on every possible topic but the one that now
filled his parental heart, and bade him good-night at last with a
cheerful smile.

Wyman was exact, and ten minutes afterwards Dr. Snell drove up in a
carriage and pair. He was intercepted in the hall by Wyman, and, after a
few minutes' conversation, presented to Mr. Lusignan.

The father gave vent to his paternal anxiety in a few simple but
touching words, and was proceeding to state the symptoms as he had
gathered them from his daughter; but Dr. Snell interrupted him politely,
and said he had heard the principal symptoms from Mr. Wyman. Then,
turning to the latter, he said, "We had better proceed to examine the
patient."

"Certainly," said Mr. Lusignan. "She is in the drawing-room;" and he led
the way, and was about to enter the room, when Wyman informed him it was
against etiquette for him to be present at the examination.

"Oh, very well!" said he. "Yes, I see the propriety of that. But oblige
me by asking her if she has anything on her mind."

Dr. Snell bowed a lofty assent; for, to receive a hint from a layman was
to confer a favor on him.

The men of science were closeted full half an hour with the patient. She
was too beautiful to be slurred over, even by a busy doctor: he felt her
pulse, looked at her tongue, and listened attentively to her lungs, to
her heart, and to the organ suspected by Wyman. He left her at last with
a kindly assurance that the case was perfectly curable.

At the door they were met by the anxious father, who came with throbbing
heart, and asked the doctors' verdict.

He was coolly informed that could not be given until the consultation
had taken place; the result of that consultation would be conveyed to
him.

"And pray, why can't I be present at the consultation? The grounds on
which two able men agree or disagree must be well worth listening to."

"No doubt," said Dr. Snell; "but," with a superior smile, "my dear sir,
it is not the etiquette."

"Oh, very well," said Lusignan. But he muttered, "So, then, a father is
nobody!"

And this unreasonable person retired to his study, miserable, and gave
up the dining-room to the consultation.

They soon rejoined him.

Dr. Snell's opinion was communicated by Wyman. "I am happy to tell you
that Dr. Snell agrees with me, entirely: the lungs are not affected, and
the liver is congested, but not diseased."

"Is that so, Dr. Snell?" asked Lusignan, anxiously.

"It is so, sir." He added, "The treatment has been submitted to me, and
I quite approve it."

He then asked for a pen and paper, and wrote a prescription. He assured
Mr. Lusignan that the case had no extraordinary feature, whatever; he
was not to alarm himself. Dr. Snell then drove away, leaving the parent
rather puzzled, but, on the whole, much comforted.

And here I must reveal an extraordinary circumstance.

Wyman's treatment was by drugs.

Dr. Snell's was by drugs.

Dr. Snell, as you have seen, entirely approved Wyman's treatment.

His own had nothing in common with it. The Arctic and Antarctic poles
are not farther apart than was his prescription from the prescription he
thoroughly approved.

Amiable science! In which complete diversity of practice did not
interfere with perfect uniformity of opinion.

All this was kept from Dr. Staines, and he was entirely occupied in
trying to get a position that might lead to fortune, and satisfy Mr.
Lusignan. He called on every friend he had, to inquire where there was
an opening. He walked miles and miles in the best quarters of London,
looking for an opening; he let it be known in many quarters that he
would give a good premium to any physician who was about to retire, and
would introduce him to his patients.

No: he could hear of nothing.

Then, after a great struggle with himself, he called upon his uncle,
Philip Staines, a retired M.D., to see if he would do anything for him.
He left this to the last, for a very good reason: Dr. Philip was an
irritable old bachelor, who had assisted most of his married relatives;
but, finding no bottom to the well, had turned rusty and crusty, and now
was apt to administer kicks instead of checks to all who were near and
dear to him. However, Christopher was the old gentleman's favorite, and
was now desperate; so he mustered courage, and went. He was graciously
received--warmly, indeed. This gave him great hopes, and he told his
tale.

The old bachelor sided with Mr. Lusignan. "What!" said he, "do you
want to marry, and propagate pauperism? I thought you had more sense.
Confound it all I had just one nephew whose knock at my street-door did
not make me tremble; he was a bachelor and a thinker, and came for a
friendly chat; the rest are married men, highwaymen, who come to say,
'Stand and deliver;' and now even you want to join the giddy throng.
Well, don't ask me to have any hand in it. You are a man of promise; and
you might as well hang a millstone round your neck as a wife. Marriage
is a greater mistake than ever now; the women dress more and manage
worse. I met your cousin Jack the other day, and his wife with seventy
pounds on her back; and next door to paupers. No; whilst you are a
bachelor, like me, you are my favorite, and down in my will for a lump.
Once marry, and you join the noble army of foot-pads, leeches, vultures,
paupers, gone coons, and babblers about brats--and I disown you."

There was no hope from old Crusty. Christopher left him, snubbed and
heart-sick. At last he met a sensible man, who made him see there was
no short cut in that profession. He must be content to play the up-hill
game; must settle in some good neighborhood; marry, if possible, since
husbands and fathers of families prefer married physicians; and so be
poor at thirty, comfortable at forty, and rich at fifty--perhaps.

Then Christopher came down to his lodgings at Gravesend, and was very
unhappy; and after some days of misery, he wrote a letter to Rosa in a
moment of impatience, despondency, and passion.

Rosa Lusignan got worse and worse. The slight but frequent hemorrhage
was a drain upon her system, and weakened her visibly. She began to lose
her rich complexion, and sometimes looked almost sallow; and a slight
circle showed itself under her eyes. These symptoms were unfavorable;
nevertheless, Dr. Snell and Mr. Wyman accepted them cheerfully, as fresh
indications that nothing was affected but the liver; they multiplied and
varied their prescriptions; the malady ignored those prescriptions, and
went steadily on. Mr. Lusignan was terrified but helpless. Rosa resigned
and reticent.

But it was not in human nature that a girl of this age could always and
at all hours be mistress of herself. One evening in particular she stood
before the glass in the drawing-room, and looked at herself a long
time with horror. "Is that Rosa Lusignan?" said she, aloud; "it is her
ghost."

A deep groan startled her. She turned; it was her father. She thought he
was fast asleep; and so indeed he had been; but he was just awaking, and
heard his daughter utter her real mind. It was a thunder-clap. "Oh, my
child! what shall I do?" he cried.

Then Rosa was taken by surprise in her turn. She spoke out. "Send for
a great physician, papa. Don't let us deceive ourselves; it is our only
chance."

"I will ask Mr. Wyman to get a physician down from London."

"No, no; that is no use; they will put their heads together, and he will
say whatever Mr. Wyman tells him. La! papa, a clever man like you, not
to see what a cheat that consultation was. Why, from what you told me,
one can see it was managed so that Dr. Snell could not possibly have an
opinion of his own. No; no more echoes of Mr. Chatterbox. If you really
want to cure me, send for Christopher Staines."

"Dr. Staines! he is very young."

"But he is very clever, and he is not an echo. He won't care how many
doctors he contradicts when I am in danger. Papa, it is your child's one
chance."

"I'll try it," said the old man, eagerly. "How confident you look! your
color has come back. It is an inspiration. Where is he?"

"I think by this time he must be at his lodgings in Gravesend. Send to
him to-morrow morning."

"Not I! I'll go to him to-night. It is only a mile, and a fine clear
night."

"My own, good, kind papa! Ah! well, come what may, I have lived long
enough to be loved. Yes, dear papa, save me. I am very young to die; and
he loves me so dearly."

The old man bustled away to put on something warmer for his night walk,
and Rosa leaned back, and the tears welled out of her eyes, now he was
gone.

Before she had recovered her composure, a letter was brought her, and
this was the letter from Christopher Staines, alluded to already.

She took it from the servant with averted head, not wishing it to be
seen she had been crying, and she started at the handwriting; it seemed
such a coincidence that it should come just as she was sending for him.


MY OWN BELOVED ROSA,--I now write to tell you, with a heavy heart, that
all is vain. I cannot make, nor purchase, a connection, except as others
do, by time and patience. Being a bachelor is quite against a young
physician. If I had a wife, and such a wife as you, I should be sure
to get on; you would increase my connection very soon. What, then,
lies before us? I see but two things--to wait till we are old, and our
pockets are filled, but our hearts chilled or soured; or else to marry
at once, and climb the hill together. If you love me as I love you, you
will be saving till the battle is over; and I feel I could find energy
and fortitude for both. Your father, who thinks so much of wealth, can
surely settle something on YOU; and I am not too poor to furnish a house
and start fair. I am not quite obscure--my lectures have given me a
name--and to you, my own love, I hope I may say that I know more than
many of my elders, thanks to good schools, good method, a genuine love
of my noble profession, and a tendency to study from my childhood. Will
you not risk something on my ability? If not, God help me, for I shall
lose you; and what is life, or fame, or wealth, or any mortal thing to
me, without you? I cannot accept your father's decision; YOU must decide
my fate.

You see I have kept away from you until I can do so no more. All this
time the world to me has seemed to want the sun, and my heart pines and
sickens for one sight of you.

Darling Rosa, pray let me look at your face once more.

When this reaches you I shall be at your gate. Let me see you, though
but for a moment, and let me hear my fate from no lips but yours.--My
own love, your heart-broken lover,

CHRISTOPHER STAINES.


This letter stunned her at first. Her mind of late had been turned away
from love to such stern realities. Now she began to be sorry she had not
told him. "Poor thing!" she said to herself, "he little knows that now
all is changed. Papa, I sometimes think, would deny me nothing now; it
is I who would not marry him--to be buried by him in a month or two.
Poor Christopher!"

The next moment she started up in dismay. Why, her father would miss
him. No; perhaps catch him waiting for her. What would he think? What
would Christopher think?--that she had shown her papa his letter.

She rang the bell hard. The footman came.

"Send Harriet to me this instant. Oh, and ask papa to come to me."

Then she sat down and dashed off a line to Christopher. This was for
Harriet to take out to him. Anything better than for Christopher to be
caught doing what was wrong.

The footman came back first. "If you please, miss, master has gone out."

"Run after him--the road to Gravesend."

"Yes, miss."

"No. It is no use. Never mind."

"Yes, miss."

Then Harriet came in. "Did you want me, miss?"

"Yes. No--never mind now."

She was afraid to do anything for fear of making matters worse. She went
to the window, and stood looking anxiously out, with her hands working.
Presently she uttered a little scream and shrank away to the sofa. She
sank down on it, half sitting, half lying, hid her face in her hands,
and waited.


Staines, with a lover's impatience, had been more than an hour at the
gate, or walking up and down close by it, his heart now burning with
hope, now freezing with fear, that she would decline a meeting on these
terms.

At last the postman came, and then he saw he was too soon; but now in
a few minutes Rosa would have his letter, and then he should soon know
whether she would come or not. He looked up at the drawing-room windows.
They were full of light. She was there in all probability. Yet she did
not come to them. But why should she, if she was coming out?

He walked up and down the road. She did not come. His heart began to
sicken with doubt. His head drooped; and perhaps it was owing to this
that he almost ran against a gentleman who was coming the other way. The
moon shone bright on both faces.

"Dr. Staines!" said Mr. Lusignan surprised. Christopher uttered an
ejaculation more eloquent than words.

They stared at each other.

"You were coming to call on us?"

"N--no," stammered Christopher.

Lusignan thought that odd; however, he said politely, "No matter, it is
fortunate. Would you mind coming in?"

"No," faltered Christopher, and stared at him ruefully, puzzled more and
more, but beginning to think, after all, it might be a casual meeting.

They entered the gate, and in one moment he saw Rosa at the window, and
she saw him.

Then he altered his opinion again. Rosa had sent her father out to him.
But how was this? The old man did not seem angry. Christopher's heart
gave a leap inside him, and he began to glow with the wildest hopes.
For, what could this mean but relenting?

Mr. Lusignan took him first into the study, and lighted two candles
himself. He did not want the servants prying.

The lights showed Christopher a change in Mr. Lusignan. He looked ten
years older.

"You are not well, sir," said Christopher gently.

"My health is well enough, but I am a broken-hearted man. Dr. Staines,
forget all that passed here at your last visit. All that is over. Thank
you for loving my poor girl as you do; give me your hand; God bless you.
Sir, I am sorry to say it is as a physician I invite you now. She is
ill, sir, very, very ill."

"Ill! and not tell me!"

"She kept it from you, my poor friend, not to distress you; and she
tried to keep it from me, but how could she? For two months she has
had some terrible complaint--it is destroying her. She is the ghost of
herself. Oh, my poor child! my child!"

The old man sobbed aloud. The young man stood trembling, and ashy pale.
Still, the habits of his profession, and the experience of dangers
overcome, together with a certain sense of power, kept him up; but,
above all, love and duty said, "Be firm." He asked for an outline of the
symptoms.

They alarmed him greatly.

"Let us lose no more time," said he. "I will see her at once."

"Do you object to my being present?"

"Of course not."

"Shall I tell you what Dr. Snell says it is, and Mr. Wyman?"

"By all means--after I have seen her."

This comforted Mr. Lusignan. He was to get an independent judgment, at
all events.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Dr. Staines paused and leaned
against the baluster. "Give me a moment," said he. "The patient must not
know how my heart is beating, and she must see nothing in my face but
what I choose her to see. Give me your hand once more, sir; let us both
control ourselves. Now announce me."

Mr. Lusignan opened the door, and said, with forced cheerfulness, "Dr.
Staines, my dear, come to give you the benefit of his skill."

She lay on the sofa, just as we left her. Only her bosom began to heave.

Then Christopher Staines drew himself up, and the majesty of knowledge
and love together seemed to dilate his noble frame. He fixed his eye on
that reclining, panting figure, and stepped lightly but firmly across
the room to know the worst, like a lion walking up to levelled lances.




CHAPTER III.


The young physician walked steadily up to his patient without taking his
eye off her, and drew a chair to her side.

Then she took down one hand--the left--and gave it him, averting her
face tenderly, and still covering it with her right; "For," said she to
herself, "I am such a fright now." This opportune reflection, and her
heaving bosom, proved that she at least felt herself something more
than his patient. Her pretty consciousness made his task more difficult;
nevertheless, he only allowed himself to press her hand tenderly with
both his palms one moment, and then he entered on his functions bravely.
"I am here as your physician."

"Very well," said she softly.

He gently detained the hand, and put his finger lightly to her pulse; it
was palpitating, and a fallacious test. Oh, how that beating pulse, by
love's electric current, set his own heart throbbing in a moment!

He put her hand gently, reluctantly down, and said, "Oblige me by
turning this way." She turned, and he winced internally at the change in
her; but his face betrayed nothing. He looked at her full; and, after
a pause, put her some questions: one was as to the color of the
hemorrhage. She said it was bright red.

"Not a tinge of purple?"

"No," said she hopefully, mistaking him.

He suppressed a sigh.

Then he listened at her shoulder-blade and at her chest, and made her
draw her breath while he was listening. The acts were simple, and usual
in medicine, but there was a deep, patient, silent intensity about his
way of doing them.

Mr. Lusignan crept nearer, and stood with both hands on a table, and his
old head bowed, awaiting yet dreading the verdict.

Up to this time, Dr. Staines, instead of tapping and squeezing, and
pulling the patient about, had never touched her with his hand, and only
grazed her with his ear; but now he said "Allow me," and put both hands
to her waist, more lightly and reverently than I can describe; "Now draw
a deep breath, if you please."

"There!"

"If you could draw a deeper still," said he, insinuatingly.

"There, then!" said she, a little pettishly.

Dr. Staines's eye kindled.

"Hum!" said he. Then, after a considerable pause, "Are you better or
worse after each hemorrhage?"

"La!" said Rosa; "they never asked me that. Why, better."

"No faintness?"

"Not a bit."

"Rather a sense of relief, perhaps?"

"Yes; I feel lighter and better."

The examination was concluded.

Dr. Staines looked at Rosa, and then at her father. The agony in that
aged face, and the love that agony implied, won him, and it was to the
parent he turned to give his verdict.

"The hemorrhage is from the lungs"--

Lusignan interrupted him: "From the lungs!" cried he, in dismay.

"Yes; a slight congestion of the lungs."

"But not incurable! Oh, not incurable, doctor!"

"Heaven forbid! It is curable--easily--by removing the cause."

"And what is the cause?"

"The cause?"--he hesitated, and looked rather uneasy.--"Well, the cause,
sir, is--tight stays."

The tranquillity of the meeting was instantly disturbed. "Tight stays!
Me!" cried Rosa. "Why, I am the loosest girl in England. Look, papa!"
And, without any apparent effort, she drew herself in, and poked her
little fist between her sash and her gown. "There!"

Dr. Staines smiled sadly and a little sarcastically: he was evidently
shy of encountering the lady in this argument; but he was more at his
ease with her father; so he turned towards him and lectured him freely.

"That is wonderful, sir; and the first four or five female patients
that favored me with it, made me disbelieve my other senses; but Miss
Lusignan is now about the thirtieth who has shown me that marvellous
feat, with a calm countenance that belies the herculean effort. Nature
has her every-day miracles: a boa-constrictor, diameter seventeen
inches, can swallow a buffalo; a woman, with her stays bisecting her
almost, and lacerating her skin, can yet for one moment make herself
seem slack, to deceive a juvenile physician. The snake is the miracle of
expansion; the woman is the prodigy of contraction."

"Highly grateful for the comparison!" cried Rosa. "Women and snakes!"

Dr. Staines blushed and looked uncomfortable. "I did not mean to be
offensive; it certainly was a very clumsy comparison."

"What does that matter?" said Mr. Lusignan, impatiently. "Be quiet,
Rosa, and let Dr. Staines and me talk sense."

"Oh, then I am nobody in the business!" said this wise young lady.

"You are everybody," said Staines, soothingly. "But," suggested he,
obsequiously, "if you don't mind, I would rather explain my views to
your father--on this one subject."

"And a pretty subject it is!"

Dr. Staines then invited Mr. Lusignan to his lodgings, and promised to
explain the matter anatomically. "Meantime," said he, "would you be good
enough to put your hands to my waist, as I did to the patient's."

Mr. Lusignan complied; and the patient began to titter directly, to put
them out of countenance.

"Please observe what takes place when I draw a full breath.

"Now apply the same test to the patient. Breathe your best, please, Miss
Lusignan."

The patient put on a face full of saucy mutiny.

"To oblige us both."

"Oh, how tiresome!"

"I am aware it is rather laborious," said Staines, a little dryly; "but
to oblige your father!"

"Oh, anything to oblige papa," said she, spitefully. "There! And I do
hope it will be the last--la! no; I don't hope that, neither."

Dr. Staines politely ignored her little attempts to interrupt the
argument. "You found, sir, that the muscles of my waist, and my
intercostal ribs themselves, rose and fell with each inhalation and
exhalation of air by the lungs."

"I did; but my daughter's waist was like dead wood, and so were her
lower ribs."

At this volunteer statement, Rosa colored to her temples. "Thanks, papa!
Pack me off to London, and sell me for a big doll!"

"In other words," said the lecturer, mild and pertinacious, "with us the
lungs have room to blow, and the whole bony frame expands elastic
with them, like the woodwork of a blacksmith's bellows; but with this
patient, and many of her sex, that noble and divinely framed bellows is
crippled and confined by a powerful machine of human construction; so it
works lamely and feebly: consequently too little air, and of course too
little oxygen, passes through that spongy organ whose very life is air.
Now mark the special result in this case: being otherwise healthy and
vigorous, our patient's system sends into the lungs more blood than that
one crippled organ can deal with; a small quantity becomes extravasated
at odd times; it accumulates, and would become dangerous; then Nature,
strengthened by sleep, and by some hours' relief from the diabolical
engine, makes an effort and flings it off: that is why the hemorrhage
comes in the morning, and why she is the better for it, feeling neither
faint nor sick, but relieved of a weight. This, sir, is the rationale of
the complaint; and it is to you I must look for the cure. To judge from
my other female patients, and from the few words Miss Lusignan has let
fall, I fear we must not count on any very hearty co-operation from her:
but you are her father, and have great authority; I conjure you to use
it to the full, as you once used it--to my sorrow--in this very room.
I am forgetting my character. I was asked here only as her physician.
Good-evening."