A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


That very day, towards sunset, she burst upon Staines quite suddenly,
with her coronet gleaming on her magnificent head, and her eyes like
coals of fire, and under her magnificent arm, hard as a rock, a boy
kicking and struggling in vain. She was furiously excited, and, for the
first time, showed signs of the savage in the whites of her eyes,
which seemed to turn the glorious pupils into semicircles. She clutched
Staines by the shoulder with her left hand, and swept along with
the pair, like dark Fate, or as potent justice sweeps away a pair of
culprits, and carried them to the little window, and cried "Open--open!"

Dick Dale was at dinner; Phoebe lying down. Dick got up, rather crossly,
and threw open the window. "What is up now?" said he crossly: he was
like two or three more Englishmen--hated to be bothered at dinner-time.

"Dar," screamed Ucatella, setting down Tim, but holding him tight by the
shoulder; "now you tell what you see that night, you lilly Kafir trash;
if you not tell, I kill you DEAD;" and she showed the whites of her
eyes, like a wild beast.

Tim, thoroughly alarmed, quivered out that he had seen lilly master ride
up to the gate one bright night, and look in, and Tim thought he was
going in: but he changed his mind, and galloped away that way; and the
monkey pointed south.

"And why couldn't you tell us this before?" questioned Dick.

"Me mind de sheep," said Tim apologetically. "Me not mind de lilly
master: jackals not eat him."

"You no more sense dan a sheep yourself," said Ucatella loftily.

"No, no: God bless you both," cried poor Phoebe: "now I know the worst:"
and a great burst of tears relieved her suffering heart.

Dick went out softly. When he got outside the door, he drew them all
apart, and said, "Yuke, you ARE a good-hearted girl. I'll never forget
this while I live; and, Tim, there's a shilling for thee; but don't you
go and spend it in Cape smoke; that is poison to whites, and destruction
to blacks."

"No, master," said Tim. "I shall buy much bread, and make my tomach
tiff;" then, with a glance of reproach at the domestic caterer,
Ucatella, "I almost never have my tomach tiff."

Dick left his sister alone an hour or two, to have her cry out.

When he went back to her there was a change: the brave woman no longer
lay prostrate. She went about her business; only she was always either
crying or drowning her tears.

He brought Dr. Staines in. Phoebe instantly turned her back on him with
a shudder there was no mistaking.

"I had better go," said Staines. "Mrs. Falcon will never forgive me."

"She will have to quarrel with me else," said Dick steadily. "Sit you
down, doctor. Honest folk like you and me and Phoebe wasn't made to
quarrel for want of looking a thing all round. My sister she hasn't
looked it all round, and I have. Come, Pheeb, 'tis no use your blinding
yourself. How was the poor doctor to know your husband is a blackguard?"

"He is not a blackguard. How dare you say that to my face?"

"He is a blackguard, and always was. And now he is a thief to boot. He
has stolen those diamonds; you know that very well."

"Gently, Mr. Dale; you forget: they are as much his as mine."

"Well, and if half a sheep is mine, and I take the whole and sell him,
and keep the money, what is that but stealing? Why, I wonder at you,
Pheeb. You was always honest yourself, and yet you see the doctor robbed
by your man, and that does not trouble you. What has he done to deserve
it? He has been a good friend to us. He has put us on the road. We did
little more than keep the pot boiling before he came--well, yes, we
stored grain; but whose advice has turned that grain to gold, I might
say? Well, what's his offence? He trusted the diamonds to your man, and
sent him to you. Is he the first honest man that has trusted a rogue?
How was he to know? Likely he judged the husband by the wife. Answer me
one thing, Pheeb. If he makes away with fifteen hundred pounds that
is his, or partly yours--for he has eaten your bread ever since I knew
him--and fifteen hundred more that is the doctor's, where shall we find
fifteen hundred pounds, all in a moment, to pay the doctor back his
own?"

"My honest friend," said Staines, "you are tormenting yourself with
shadows. I don't believe Mr. Falcon will wrong me of a shilling; and,
if he does, I shall quietly repay myself out of the big diamond. Yes, my
dear friends, I did not throw away your horse, nor your rifle, nor your
money: I gave them all, and the lion's skin--I gave them all--for this."

And he laid the big diamond on the table.

It was as big as a walnut, and of the purest water.

Dick Dale glanced at it stupidly. Phoebe turned her back on it, with a
cry of horror, and then came slowly round by degrees; and her eyes were
fascinated by the royal gem.

"Yes," said Staines sadly, "I had to strip myself of all to buy it, and,
when I had got it, how proud I was, and how happy I thought we should
all be over it, for it is half yours, half mine. Yes, Mr. Dale, there
lies six thousand pounds that belong to Mrs. Falcon."

"Six thousand pounds!" cried Dick.

"I'm sure of it. And so, if your suspicions are correct, and poor Falcon
should yield to a sudden temptation, and spend all that money, I shall
just coolly deduct it from your share of this wonderful stone: so make
your mind easy. But no; if Falcon is really so wicked as to desert his
happy home, and so mad as to spend thousands in a month or two, let us
go and save him."

"That is my business," said Phoebe. "I am going in the mail-cart
to-morrow."

"Well, you won't go alone," said Dick.

"Mrs. Falcon," said Staines imploringly, "let me go with you."

"Thank you, sir. My brother can take care of me."

"Me! You had better not take me. If I catch hold of him, by --- I'll
break his neck, or his back, or his leg, or something; he'll never run
away from you again, if I lay hands on him," replied Dick.

"I'll go alone. You are both against me."

"No, Mrs. Falcon; I am not," said Staines. "My heart bleeds for you."

"Don't you demean yourself, praying her," said Dick. "It's a public
conveyance: you have no need to ask HER leave."

"That is true: I can't hinder folk from going to Cape Town the same
day," said Phoebe sullenly.

"If I might presume to advise, I would take little Tommy."

"What! all that road? Do you want me to lose my child, as well as my
man?"

"O Mrs. Falcon!"

"Don't speak to her, doctor, to get your nose snapped off. Give her
time. She'll come to her senses before she dies."

Next day Mrs. Falcon and Staines started for Cape Town. Staines paid
her every attention, when opportunity offered. But she was sullen and
gloomy, and held no converse with him.

He landed her at an inn, and then told her he would go at once to the
jeweller's. He asked her piteously would she lend him a pound or two to
prosecute his researches. She took out her purse, without a word, and
lent him two pounds.

He began to scour the town: the jewellers he visited could tell him
nothing. At last he came to a shop, and there he found Mrs. Falcon
making her inquiries independently. She said coldly, "You had better
come with me, and get your money and things."

She took him to the bank--it happened to be the one she did business
with--and said, "This is Dr. Christie, come for his money and jewels."

There was some demur at this; but the cashier recognized him, and Phoebe
making herself responsible, the money and jewels were handed over.

Staines whispered Phoebe, "Are you sure the jewels are mine?"

"They were found on you, sir."

Staines took them, looking confused. He did not know what to think. When
they got into the street again, he told her it was very kind of her to
think of his interest at all.

No answer: she was not going to make friends with him over such a trifle
as that.

By degrees, however, Christopher's zeal on her behalf broke the ice; and
besides, as the search proved unavailing, she needed sympathy; and he
gave it her, and did not abuse her husband as Dick Dale did.

One day, in the street, after a long thought, she said to him, "Didn't
you say, sir, you gave him a letter for me?"

"I gave him two letters; one of them was to you."

"Could you remember what you said in it?"

"Perfectly. I begged you, if you should go to England, to break the
truth to my wife. She is very excitable; and sudden joy has killed ere
now. I gave you particular instructions."

"And you were very wise. But whatever could make you think I would go to
England?"

"He told me you only wanted an excuse."

"Oh!!"

"When he told me that, I caught at it, of course. It was all the world
to me to get my Rosa told by such a kind, good, sensible friend as you;
and, Mrs. Falcon, I had no scruple about troubling you, because I knew
the stones would sell for at least a thousand pounds more in England
than here, and that would pay your expenses."

"I see, sir; I see. 'Twas very natural: you love your wife."

"Better than my life."

"And he told you I only wanted an excuse to go to England?"

"He did, indeed. It was not true?"

"It was anything but true. I had suffered so in England; I had been so
happy here: too happy to last. Ah! well, it is all over. Let us think
of the matter in hand. Sure that was not the only letter you gave my
husband? Didn't you write to HER?"

"Of course I did; but that was enclosed to you, and not to be given to
her until you had broken the joyful news to her. Yes, Mrs. Falcon, I
wrote and told her everything: my loss at sea; how I was saved,
after, by your kindness. Our journeys, from Cape Town, and then to the
diggings; my sudden good fortune, my hopes, my joy--O my poor Rosa! and
now I suppose she will never get it. It is too cruel of him. I shall
go home by the next steamer. I CAN'T stay here any longer, for you or
anybody. Oh, and I enclosed my ruby ring that she gave me, for I thought
she might not believe you without that."

"Let me think," said Phoebe, turning ashy pale. "For mercy's sake, let
me think!

"He has read both those letters, sir.

"She will never see hers: any more than I shall see mine."

She paused again, thinking harder and harder.

"We must take two places in the next mail steamer. I must look after my
husband, AND YOU AFTER YOUR WIFE."




CHAPTER XXV.


Mrs. Falcon's bitter feeling against Dr. Staines did not subside; it
merely went out of sight a little. They were thrown together by potent
circumstances, and in a manner connected by mutual obligations; so
an open rupture seemed too unnatural. Still Phoebe was a woman, and,
blinded by her love for her husband, could not forgive the innocent
cause of their present unhappy separation; though the fault lay entirely
with Falcon.

Staines took her on board the steamer, and paid her every attention. She
was also civil to him; but it was a cold and constrained civility.

About a hundred miles from land the steamer stopped, and the passengers
soon learned there was something wrong with her machinery. In fact,
after due consultation, the captain decided to put back.

This irritated and distressed Mrs. Falcon so that the captain, desirous
to oblige her, hailed a fast schooner, that tacked across her bows, and
gave Mrs. Falcon the option of going back with him, or going on in the
schooner, with whose skipper he was acquainted.

Staines advised her on no account to trust to sails, when she could have
steam with only a delay of four or five days; but she said, "Anything
sooner than go back. I can't, I can't on such an errand."

Accordingly she was put on board the schooner, and Staines, after some
hesitation, felt bound to accompany her.

It proved a sad error. Contrary winds assailed them the very next day,
and with such severity that they had repeatedly to lie to.

On one of these occasions, with a ship reeling under them like a restive
horse, and the waves running mountains high, poor Phoebe's terrors
overmastered both her hostility and her reserve. "Doctor," said she, "I
believe 'tis God's will we shall never see England. I must try and die
more like a Christian than I have lived, forgiving all who have wronged
me, and you, that have been my good friend and my worst enemy, but you
did not mean it. Sir, what has turned me against you so--your wife was
my husband's sweetheart before he married me."

"My wife your husband's--you are dreaming."

"Nay, sir, once she came to my shop, and I saw directly I was nothing to
him, and he owned it all to me; he had courted her, and she jilted him;
so he said. Why should he tell me a lie about that? I'd lay my life 'tis
true. And now you have sent him to her your own self; and, at sight of
her, I shall be nothing again. Well, when this ship goes down, they can
marry, and I hope he will be happy, happier than I can make him, that
tried my best, God knows."

This conversation surprised Staines not a little. However, he said, with
great warmth, it was false. His wife had danced and flirted with some
young gentleman at one time, when there was a brief misunderstanding
between him and her, but sweetheart she had never had, except him. He
courted her fresh from school. "Now, my good soul," said he, "make your
mind easy; the ship is a good one, and well handled, and in no danger
whatever, and my wife is in no danger from your husband. Since you and
your brother tell me that he is a villain, I am bound to believe you.
But my wife is an angel. In our miserable hour of parting, she vowed
not to marry again, should I be taken from her. Marry again! what am I
talking of? Why, if he visits her at all, it will be to let her know I
am alive, and give her my letter. Do you mean to tell me she will listen
to vows of love from him, when her whole heart is in rapture for me?
Such nonsense!"

This burst of his did not affront her, and did not comfort her.

At last the wind abated; and after a wearisome calm, a light breeze
came, and the schooner crept homeward.

Phoebe restrained herself for several days; but at last she came back to
the subject; this time it was in an apologetic tone at starting. "I know
you think me a foolish woman," she said; "but my poor Reginald could
never resist a pretty face; and she is so lovely; and you should have
seen how he turned when she came in to my place. Oh, sir, there has been
more between them than you know of; and when I think that he will
have been in England so many months before we get there, oh, doctor,
sometimes I feel as I should go mad; my head it is like a furnace, and
see, my brow is all wrinkled again."

Then Staines tried to comfort her; assured her she was tormenting
herself idly; her husband would perhaps have spent some of the diamond
money on his amusement; but what if he had? he should deduct it out of
the big diamond, which was also their joint property, and the loss would
hardly be felt. "As to my wife, madam, I have but one anxiety; lest
he should go blurting it out that I am alive, and almost kill her with
joy."

"He will not do that, sir. He is no fool."

"I am glad of it; for there is nothing else to fear."

"Man, I tell you there is everything to fear. You don't know him as I
do; nor his power over women."

"Mrs. Falcon, are you bent on affronting me?"

"No, sir; Heaven forbid!"

"Then please to close this subject forever. In three weeks we shall be
in England."

"Ay; but he has been there six months."

He bowed stiffly to her, went to his cabin, and avoided the poor foolish
woman as much as he could without seeming too unkind.




CHAPTER XXVI.


Mrs. Staines made one or two movements--to stop Lord Tadcaster--with
her hand, that expressive feature with which, at such times, a sensitive
woman can do all but speak.

When at last he paused for her reply, she said, "Me marry again! Oh! for
shame!"

"Mrs. Staines--Rosa--you will marry again, some day."

"Never. Me take another husband, after such a man as I have lost! I
should be a monster. Oh, Lord Tadcaster, you have been so kind to me; so
sympathizing. You made me believe you loved my Christopher, too; and now
you have spoiled all. It is too cruel."

"Oh! Mrs. Staines, do you think me capable of feigning--don't you see my
love for you has taken you by surprise? But how could I visit you--look
on you--hear you--mingle my regrets with yours; yours were the deepest,
of course; but mine were honest."

"I believe it." And she gave him her hand. He held it, and kissed it,
and cried over it, as the young will, and implored her, on his knees,
not to condemn herself to life-long widowhood, and him to despair.

Then she cried, too; but she was firm; and by degrees she made him see
that her heart was inaccessible.

Then at last he submitted with tearful eyes, but a valiant heart.

She offered friendship timidly.

But he was too much of a man to fall into that trap. "No," he said: "I
could not, I could not. Love or nothing."

"You are right," said she, pityingly. "Forgive me. In my selfishness and
my usual folly, I did not see this coming on, or I would have spared you
this mortification."

"Never mind that," gulped the little earl. "I shall always be proud I
knew you, and proud I loved you, and offered you my hand."

Then the magnanimous little fellow blessed her, and left her, and
discontinued his visits.

Mr. Lusignan found her crying, and got the truth out of her. He was in
despair. He remonstrated kindly, but firmly. Truth compels me to say
that she politely ignored him. He observed that phenomenon, and said,
"Very well then, I shall telegraph for Uncle Philip."

"Do," said the rebel. "He is always welcome."

Philip, telegraphed, came down that evening; likewise his little black
bag. He found them in the drawing-room: papa with the Pall Mall Gazette,
Rosa seated, sewing, at a lamp. She made little Christie's clothes
herself,--fancy that!

Having ascertained that the little boy was well, Philip, adroitly hiding
that he had come down torn with anxiety on that head, inquired with a
show of contemptuous indifference, whose cat was dead.

"Nobody's," said Lusignan crossly. Then he turned and pointed the
Gazette at his offspring. "Do you see that young lady stitching there so
demurely?"

Philip carefully wiped and then put on his spectacles.

"I see her," said he. "She does look a little too innocent. None of them
are really so innocent as all that. Has she been swearing at the nurse,
and boxing her ears?"

"Worse than that. She has been and refused the Earl of Tadcaster."

"Refused him--what! has that little monkey had the audacity?"

"The condescension, you mean. Yes."

"And she has refused him?"

"And twenty thousand a year."

"What immorality!"

"Worse. What absurdity!"

"How is it to be accounted for? Is it the old story? 'I could never
love him.' No; that's inadequate; for they all love a title and twenty
thousand a year."

Rosa sewed on all this time in demure and absolute silence.

"She ignores us," said Philip. "It is intolerable. She does not
appreciate our politeness in talking at her. Let us arraign her before
our sacred tribunal, and have her into court. Now, mistress, the Senate
of Venice is assembled, and you must be pleased to tell us why you
refused a title and twenty thousand a year, with a small but symmetrical
earl tacked on."

Rosa laid down her work, and said quietly, "Uncle, almost the last
words that passed between me and my Christopher, we promised each other
solemnly never to marry again till death should us part. You know
how deep my sorrow has been that I can find so few wishes of my lost
Christopher to obey. Well, to-day I have had an opportunity at last. I
have obeyed my own lost one; it has cost me a tear or two; but, for all
that, it has given me one little gleam of happiness. Ah, foolish woman,
that obeys too late!"

And with this the tears began to run.

All this seemed a little too high-flown to Mr. Lusignan. "There," said
he, "see on what a straw her mind turns. So, but for that, you would
have done the right thing, and married the earl?"

"I dare say I should--at the time--to stop his crying."

And with this listless remark she quietly took up her sewing again.

The sagacious Philip looked at her gravely. He thought to himself how
piteous it was to see so young and lovely a creature, that had given
up all hope of happiness for herself. These being his real thoughts,
he expressed himself as follows: "We had better drop this subject, sir.
This young lady will take us potent, grave, and reverend seignors out of
our depth, if we don't mind."

But the moment he got her alone he kissed her paternally, and said,
"Rosa, it is not lost on me, your fidelity to the dead. As years roll
on, and your deep wound first closes, then skins, then heals--"

"Ah, let me die first--"

"Time and nature will absolve you from that vow; but bless you for
thinking this can never be. Rosa, your folly of this day has made you my
heir; so never let money tempt you, for you have enough, and will have
more than enough when I go."

He was as good as his word; altered his will next day, and made Rosa his
residuary legatee. When he had done this, foreseeing no fresh occasion
for his services, he prepared for a long visit to Italy. He was packing
up his things to go there, when he received a line from Lady Cicely
Treherne, asking him to call on her professionally. As the lady's
servant brought it, he sent back a line to say he no longer practised
medicine, but would call on her as a friend in an hour's time.

He found her reclining, the picture of lassitude. "How good of you to
come," she drawled.

"What's the matter?" said he brusquely.

"I wish to cawnsult you about myself. I think if anybody can brighten me
up, it is you. I feel such a languaw--such a want of spirit; and I get
palaa, and that is not desiwable."

He examined her tongue and the white of her eye, and told her, in his
blunt way, she ate and drank too much.

"Excuse me, sir," said she stiffly.

"I mean too often. Now, let's see. Cup of tea in bed, of a morning?"

"Yaas."

"Dinner at two?"

"We call it luncheon."

"Are you a ventriloquist?"

"No."

"Then it is only your lips call it luncheon. Your poor stomach, could it
speak, would call it dinner. Afternoon tea?"

"Yaas."

"At seven-thirty another dinner. Tea after that. Your afflicted stomach
gets no rest. You eat pastry?"

"I confess it."

"And sugar in a dozen forms?"

She nodded.

"Well, sugar is poison to your temperament. Now I'll set you up, if you
can obey. Give up your morning dram."

"What dwam?"

"Tea in bed, before eating. Can't you see that is a dram? Animal food
twice a day. No wine but a little claret and water; no pastry, no
sweets, and play battledore with one of your male subjects."

"Battledaw! won't a lady do for that?"

"No: you would get talking, and not play ad sudorem."

"Ad sudawem! what is that?"

"In earnest."

"And will sudawem and the west put me in better spiwits, and give me a
tinge?"

"It will incarnadine the lily, and make you the happiest young lady in
England, as you are the best."

"I should like to be much happier than I am good, if we could manage it
among us."

"We will manage it AMONG us; for if the diet allowed should not make you
boisterously gay, I have a remedy behind, suited to your temperament. I
am old-fashioned, and believe in the temperaments."

"And what is that wemedy?"

"Try diet, and hard exercise, first."

"Oh, yes; but let me know that wemedy."

"I warn you it is what we call in medicine an heroic one."

"Never mind. I am despewate."

"Well, then, the heroic remedy--to be used only as a desperate resort,
mind--you must marry an Irishman."

This took the lady's breath away.

"Mawwy a nice man?"

"A nice man; no. That means a fool. Marry scientifically--a precaution
eternally neglected. Marry a Hibernian gentleman, a being as mercurial
as you are lymphatic."

"Mercurial!--lymphatic!"--

"Oh, hard words break no bones, ma'am."

"No, sir. And it is very curious. No, I won't tell you. Yes, I will. Hem
I--I think I have noticed one."

"One what?"

"One Iwishman--dangling after me."

"Then your ladyship has only to tighten the cord--and HE'S done for."

Having administered this prescription, our laughing philosopher went
off to Italy, and there fell in with some countrymen to his mind, so he
accompanied them to Egypt and Palestine.

His absence, and Lord Tadcaster's, made Rosa Staines's life extremely
monotonous. Day followed day, and week followed week, each so unvarying,
that, on a retrospect, three months seemed like one day.

And I think at last youth and nature began to rebel, and secretly to
crave some little change or incident to ruffle the stagnant pool. Yet
she would not go into society, and would only receive two or three dull
people at the villa; so she made the very monotony which was beginning
to tire her, and nursed a sacred grief she had no need to nurse, it was
so truly genuine.

She was in this forlorn condition, when, one morning, a carriage drove
to the door, and a card was brought up to her--"Mr. Reginald Falcon."

Falcon's history, between this and our last advices, is soon disposed
of.