A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


He gave a little gulp, and hurried away, with an abruptness that touched
the father and offended the sapient daughter.

However, Mr. Lusignan followed him, and stopped him before he left the
house, and thanked him warmly; and to his surprise, begged him to call
again in a day or two.

"Well, Rosa, what do you say?"

"I say that I am very unfortunate in my doctors. Mr. Wyman is a
chatterbox and knows nothing. Dr. Snell is Mr. Wyman's echo. Christopher
is a genius, and they are always full of crotchets. A pretty doctor!
Gone away, and not prescribed for me!"

Mr. Lusignan admitted it was odd. "But, after all," said he, "if
medicine does you no good?"

"Ah! but any medicine HE had prescribed would have done me good, and
that makes it all the unkinder."

"If you think so highly of his skill, why not take his advice? It can do
no harm."

"No harm? Why, if I was to leave them off I should catch a dreadful
cold; and that would be sure to settle on my chest, and carry me off,
in my present delicate state. Besides, it is so unfeminine not to wear
them."

This staggered Mr. Lusignan, and he was afraid to press the point; but
what Staines had said fermented in his mind.

Dr. Snell and Mr. Wyman continued their visits and their prescriptions.

The patient got a little worse.

Mr. Lusignan hoped Christopher would call again, but he did not.

When Dr. Staines had satisfied himself that the disorder was easily
curable, then wounded pride found an entrance even into his loving
heart. That two strangers should have been consulted before him! He was
only sent for because they could not cure her.

As he seemed in no hurry to repeat his visit, Mr. Lusignan called on
him, and said, politely, he had hoped to receive another call ere this.
"Personally," said he, "I was much struck with your observations; but my
daughter is afraid she will catch cold if she leaves off her corset, and
that, you know, might be very serious."

Dr. Staines groaned, and, when he had groaned, he lectured. "Female
patients are wonderfully monotonous in this matter; they have a
programme of evasions; and whether the patient is a lady or a housemaid,
she seldom varies from that programme. You find her breathing life's air
with half a bellows, and you tell her so. 'Oh, no,' says she; and does
the gigantic feat of contraction we witnessed that evening at your
house. But, on inquiry, you learn there is a raw red line ploughed
in her flesh by the cruel stays. 'What is that?' you ask, and flatter
yourself you have pinned her. Not a bit. 'That was the last pair. I
changed them, because they hurt me.' Driven out of that by proofs of
recent laceration, they say, 'If I leave them off I should catch my
death of cold,' which is equivalent to saying there is no flannel in the
shops, no common sense nor needles at home."

He then laid before him some large French plates, showing the organs
of the human trunk, and bade him observe in how small a space, and with
what skill, the Creator has packed so many large yet delicate organs,
so that they should be free and secure from friction, though so close to
each other. He showed him the liver, an organ weighing four pounds, and
of large circumference; the lungs, a very large organ, suspended in the
chest and impatient of pressure; the heart, the stomach, the spleen, all
of them too closely and artfully packed to bear any further compression.

Having thus taken him by the eye, he took him by the mind.

"Is it a small thing for the creature to say to her Creator, 'I can pack
all this egg-china better than you can,' and thereupon to jam all
those vital organs close, by a powerful, a very powerful and ingenious
machine? Is it a small thing for that sex, which, for good reasons, the
Omniscient has made larger in the waist than the male, to say to her
Creator, 'You don't know your business; women ought to be smaller in the
waist than men, and shall be throughout the civilized world'?"

In short, he delivered so many true and pointed things on this trite
subject, that the old gentleman was convinced, and begged him to come
over that very evening and convince Rosa.

Dr. Staines shook his head dolefully, and all his fire died out of him
at having to face the fair. "Reason will be wasted. Authority is the
only weapon. My profession and my reading have both taught me that
the whole character of her sex undergoes a change the moment a man
interferes with their dress. From Chaucer's day to our own, neither
public satire nor private remonstrance has ever shaken any of their
monstrous fashions. Easy, obliging, pliable, and weaker of will than men
in other things, do but touch their dress, however objectionable, and
rock is not harder, iron is not more stubborn, than these soft and
yielding creatures. It is no earthly use my coming--I'll come."

He came that very evening, and saw directly she was worse. "Of course,"
said he, sadly, "you have not taken my advice."

Rosa replied with a toss and an evasion, "I was not worth a
prescription!"

"A physician can prescribe without sending his patient to the druggist;
and when he does, then it is his words are gold."

Rosa shook her head with an air of lofty incredulity.

He looked ruefully at Mr. Lusignan and was silent. Rosa smiled
sarcastically; she thought he was at his wit's end.

Not quite: he was cudgelling his brains in search of some horribly
unscientific argument, that might prevail; for he felt science would
fall dead upon so fair an antagonist. At last his eye kindled; he had
hit on an argument unscientific enough for anybody, he thought. Said he,
ingratiatingly, "You believe the Old Testament?"

"Of course I do, every syllable."

"And the lessons it teaches?"

"Certainly!"

"Then let me tell you a story from that book. A Syrian general had a
terrible disease. He consulted Elisha by deputy. Elisha said, 'Bathe
seven times in a certain river, Jordan, and you will get well.' The
general did not like this at all; he wanted a prescription; wanted to
go to the druggist; didn't believe in hydropathy to begin, and, in any
case, turned up his nose at Jordan. What! bathe in an Israelitish
brook, when his own country boasted noble rivers, with a reputation for
sanctity into the bargain? In short, he preferred his leprosy to such
irregular medicine. But it happened, by some immense fortuity, that
one of his servants, though an Oriental, was a friend, instead of a
flatterer; and this sensible fellow said, 'If the prophet told you to do
some great and difficult thing, to get rid of this fearful malady, would
not you do it, however distasteful? and can you hesitate when he merely
says, Wash in the Jordan, and be healed?' The general listened to
good sense, and cured himself. Your case is parallel. You would take
quantities of foul medicine; you would submit to some painful operation,
if life and health depended on it; then why not do a small thing for
a great result? You have only to take off an unnatural machine which
cripples your growing frame, and was unknown to every one of the
women whose forms in Parian marble the world admires. Off with that
monstrosity, and your cure is as certain as the Syrian general's; though
science, and not inspiration, dictates the easy remedy."

Rosa had listened impatiently, and now replied with some warmth, "This
is shockingly profane. The idea of comparing yourself to Elisha, and me
to a horrid leper! Much obliged! Not that I know what a leper is."

"Come, come! that is not fair," said Mr. Lusignan. "He only compared the
situation, not the people."

"But, papa, the Bible is not to be dragged into the common affairs of
life."

"Then what on earth is the use of it?"

"Oh, papa! Well, it is not Sunday, but I have had a sermon. This is the
clergyman, and you are the commentator--he! he! And so now let us go
back from divinity to medicine. I repeat" (this was the first time she
had said it) "that my other doctors give me real prescriptions, written
in hieroglyphics. You can't look at them without feeling there MUST be
something in them."

An angry spot rose on Christopher's cheek, but he only said, "And are
your other doctors satisfied with the progress your disorder is making
under their superintendence?"

"Perfectly! Papa, tell him what they say, and I'll find him their
prescriptions." She went to a drawer, and rummaged, affecting not to
listen.

Lusignan complied. "First of all, sir, I must tell you they are
confident it is not the lungs, but the liver."

"The what!" shouted Christopher.

"Ah!" screamed Rosa. "Oh, don't!--bawling!"

"And don't you screech," said her father, with a look of misery and
apprehension impartially distributed on the resounding pair.

"You must have misunderstood them," murmured Staines, in a voice that
was now barely audible a yard off. "The hemorrhage of a bright red
color, and expelled without effort or nausea?"

"From the liver--they have assured me again and again," said Lusignan.

Christopher's face still wore a look of blank amazement, till Rosa
herself confirmed it positively.

Then he cast a look of agony upon her, and started up in a passion,
forgetting once more that his host abhorred the sonorous. "Oh, shame!
shame!" he cried, "that the noble profession of medicine should be
disgraced by ignorance such as this." Then he said, sternly, "Sir, do
not mistake my motives; but I decline to have anything further to do
with this case, until those two gentlemen have been relieved of it; and,
as this is very harsh, and on my part unprecedented, I will give you
one reason out of many I COULD give you. Sir, there is no road from the
liver to the throat by which blood can travel in this way, defying
the laws of gravity; and they knew, from the patient, that no strong
expellent force has ever been in operation. Their diagnosis, therefore,
implies agnosis, or ignorance too great to be forgiven. I will not share
my patient with two gentlemen who know so little of medicine, and know
nothing of anatomy, which is the A B C of medicine. Can I see their
prescriptions?"

These were handed to him. "Good heavens!" said he, "have you taken all
these?"

"Most of them."

"Why, then you have drunk about two gallons of unwholesome liquids,
and eaten a pound or two of unwholesome solids. These medicines have
co-operated with the malady. The disorder lies, not in the hemorrhage,
but in the precedent extravasation that is a drain on the system; and
how is the loss to be supplied? Why, by taking a little more nourishment
than before; there is no other way; and probably Nature, left to
herself, might have increased your appetite to meet the occasion. But
those two worthies have struck that weapon out of Nature's hand; they
have peppered away at the poor ill-used stomach with drugs and draughts,
not very deleterious I grant you, but all more or less indigestible, and
all tending, not to whet the appetite, but to clog the stomach, or turn
the stomach, or pester the stomach, and so impair the appetite, and so
co-operate, indirectly, with the malady."

"This is good sense," said Lusignan. "I declare, I--I wish I knew how to
get rid of them."

"Oh, I'll do that, papa."

"No, no; it is not worth a rumpus."

"I'll do it too politely for that. Christopher, you are very
clever--TERRIBLY clever. Whenever I threw their medicines away, I was
always a little better that day. I will sacrifice them to you. It IS
a sacrifice. They are both so kind and chatty, and don't grudge me
hieroglyphics; now you do."

She sat down and wrote two sweet letters to Dr. Snell and Mr. Wyman,
thanking them for the great attention they had paid her; but finding
herself getting steadily worse, in spite of all they had done for her,
she proposed to discontinue her medicines for a time, and try change of
air.

"And suppose they call to see whether you are changing the air?"

"In that case, papa--'not at home.'"

The notes were addressed and despatched.

Then Dr. Staines brightened up, and said to Lusignan, "I am now happy to
tell you that I have overrated the malady. The sad change I see in Miss
Lusignan is partly due to the great bulk of unwholesome esculents
she has been eating and drinking under the head of medicines. These
discontinued, she might linger on for years, existing, though not
living--the tight-laced cannot be said to live. But if she would be
healthy and happy, let her throw that diabolical machine into the
fire. It is no use asking her to loosen it; she can't. Once there, the
temptation is too strong. Off with it, and, take my word, you will be
one of the healthiest and most vigorous young ladies in Europe."

Rosa looked rueful, and almost sullen. She said she had parted with her
doctors for him, but she really could not go about without stays. "They
are as loose as they can be. See!"

"That part of the programme is disposed of," said Christopher. "Please
go on to No. 2. How about the raw red line where the loose machine has
sawed you?"

"What red line? No such thing! Somebody or other has been peeping in at
my window. I'll have the ivy cut down to-morrow."

"Simpleton!" said Mr. Lusignan, angrily. "You have let the cat out of
the bag. There is such a mark, then, and this extraordinary young man
has discerned it with the eye of science."

"He never discerned it at all," said Rosa, red as fire; "and, what is
more, he never will."

"I don't want to. I should be very sorry to. I hope it will be gone in a
week."

"I wish YOU were gone now--exposing me in this cruel way," said Rosa,
angry with herself for having said an idiotic thing, and furious with
him for having made her say it.

"Oh, Rosa!" said Christopher, in a voice of tenderest reproach.

But Mr. Lusignan interfered promptly. "Rosa, no noise. I will not have
you snapping at your best friend and mine. If you are excited, you had
better retire to your own room and compose yourself. I hate a clamor."

Rosa made a wry face at this rebuke, and then began to cry quietly.

Every tear was like a drop of blood from Christopher's heart. "Pray
don't scold her, sir," said he, ready to snivel himself. "She meant
nothing unkind: it is only her pretty sprightly way; and she did not
really imagine a love so reverent as mine"--

"Don't YOU interfere between my father and me," said this reasonable
young lady, now in an ungovernable state of feminine irritability.

"No, Rosa," said Christopher, humbly. "Mr. Lusignan," said he, "I hope
you will tell her that, from the very first, I was unwilling to enter on
this subject with HER. Neither she nor I can forget my double character.
I have not said half as much to her as I ought, being her physician; and
yet you see I have said more than she can bear from me, who, she knows,
love her and revere her. Then, once for all, do pray let me put this
delicate matter into your hands: it is a case for parental authority."

"Unfatherly tyranny, that means," said Rosa. "What business have
gentlemen interfering in such things? It is unheard of. I will not
submit to it, even from papa."

"Well, you need not scream at me," said Mr. Lusignan; and he shrugged
his shoulders to Staines. "She is impracticable, you see. If I do my
duty, there will be a disturbance."

Now this roused the bile of Dr. Staines. "What, sir!" said he, "you
could separate her and me by your authority, here in this very room; and
yet, when her life is at stake, you abdicate! You could part her from a
man who loved her with every drop of his heart,--and she said she loved
him, or, at all events, preferred him to others,--and you cannot part
her from a miserable corset, although you see in her poor wasted face
that it is carrying her to the churchyard. In that case, sir, there is
but one thing for you to do,--withdraw your opposition and let me
marry her. As her lover I am powerless; but invest me with a husband's
authority, and you will soon see the roses return to her cheek, and
her elastic figure expanding, and her eye beaming with health and the
happiness that comes of perfect health."

Mr. Lusignan made an answer neither of his hearers expected. He said,
"I have a great mind to take you at your word. I am too old and fond of
quiet to drive a Simpleton in single harness."

This contemptuous speech, and, above all, the word Simpleton, which had
been applied to her pretty freely by young ladies at school, and always
galled her terribly, inflicted so intolerable a wound on Rosa's vanity,
that she was ready to burst: on that, of course, her stays contributed
their mite of physical uneasiness. Thus irritated mind and body, she
burned to strike in return; and as she could not slap her father in the
presence of another, she gave it Christopher back-handed.

"You can turn me out of doors," said she, "if you are tired of your
daughter, but I am not such a SIMPLETON as to marry a tyrant. No; he has
shown the cloven foot in time. A husband's AUTHORITY, indeed!" Then she
turned her hand, and gave it him direct. "You told me a different
story when you were paying your court to me; then you were to be my
servant,--all hypocritical sweetness. You had better go and marry a
Circassian slave. They don't wear stays, and they do wear trousers; so
she will be unfeminine enough, even for you. No English lady would
let her husband dictate to her about such a thing. I can have as many
husbands as I like, without falling into the clutches of a tyrant. You
are a rude, indelicate--And so please understand it is all over between
you and me."

Both her auditors stood aghast, for she uttered this conclusion with a
dignity of which the opening gave no promise, and the occasion, weighed
in masculine balances, was not worthy.

"You do not mean that. You cannot mean it," said Dr. Staines, aghast.

"I do mean it," said she, firmly; "and, if you are a gentleman, you will
not compel me to say it twice--three times, I mean."

At this dagger-stroke Christopher turned very pale, but he maintained
his dignity. "I am a gentleman," said he, quietly, "and a very
unfortunate one. Good-by, sir; thank you kindly. Good-by, Rosa; God
bless you! Oh, pray take a thought! Remember, your life and death are in
your own hand now. I am powerless."

And he left the house in sorrow, and just, but not pettish, indignation.

When he was gone, father and daughter looked at each other, and there
was the silence that succeeds a storm.

Rosa, feeling the most uneasy, was the first to express her
satisfaction. "There, HE is gone, and I am glad of it. Now you and I
shall never quarrel again. I was quite right. Such impertinence! Such
indelicacy! A fine prospect for me if I had married such a man! However,
he is gone, and so there's an end of it. The idea! telling a young lady,
before her father, she is tight-laced! If you had not been there I could
have forgiven him. But I am not; it is a story. Now," suddenly exalting
her voice, "I know you believe him."

"I say nothing," whispered papa, hoping to still her by example. This
ruse did not succeed.

"But you look volumes," cried she: "and I can't bear it. I won't bear
it. If you don't believe ME, ask my MAID." And with this felicitous
speech, she rang the bell.

"You'll break the wire if you don't mind," suggested her father,
piteously.

"All the better! Why should not wires be broken as well as my heart? Oh,
here she is! Now, Harriet, come here."

"Yes, miss."

"And tell the truth. AM I tight-laced?"

Harriet looked in her face a moment to see what was required of her, and
then said, "That you are not, miss. I never dressed a young lady as wore
'em easier than you do."

"There, papa! That will do, Harriet."

Harriet retired as far as the keyhole; she saw something was up.

"Now," said Rosa, "you see I was right; and, after all, it was a match
you did not approve. Well, it is all over, and now you may write to your
favorite, Colonel Bright. If he comes here, I'll box his old ears. I
hate him. I hate them all. Forgive your wayward girl. I'll stay with
you all my days. I dare say that will not be long, now I have quarrelled
with my guardian angel; and all for what? Papa! papa! how CAN you sit
there and not speak me one word of comfort? 'SIMPLETON?' Ah! that I am
to throw away a love a queen is scarcely worthy of; and all for what?
Really, if it wasn't for the ingratitude and wickedness of the thing, it
is too laughable. Ha! ha!--oh! oh! oh!--ha! ha! ha!"

And off she went into hysterics, and began to gulp and choke
frightfully.

Her father cried for help in dismay. In ran Harriet, saw, and screamed,
but did not lose her head; this veracious person whipped a pair of
scissors off the table, and cut the young lady's stay-laces directly.
Then there was a burst of imprisoned beauty; a deep, deep sigh of relief
came from a bosom that would have done honor to Diana; and the scene
soon concluded with fits of harmless weeping, renewed at intervals.

When it had settled down to this, her father, to soothe her, said he
would write to Dr. Staines, and bring about a reconciliation, if she
liked.

"No," said she, "you shall kill me sooner. I should die of shame."

She added, "Oh, pray, from this hour, never mention his name to me."

And then she had another cry.

Mr. Lusignan was a sensible man: he dropped the subject for the present;
but he made up his mind to one thing--that he would never part with Dr.
Staines as a physician.

Next day Rosa kept her own room until dinner-time, and was as unhappy
as she deserved to be. She spent her time in sewing on stiff flannel
linings and crying. She half hoped Christopher would write to her, so
that she might write back that she forgave him. But not a line.

At half-past six her volatile mind took a turn, real or affected. She
would cry no more for an ungrateful fellow,--ungrateful for not seeing
through the stone walls how she had been employed all the morning; and
making it up. So she bathed her red eyes, made a great alteration in her
dress, and came dancing into the room humming an Italian ditty.

As they were sitting together in the dining-room after dinner, two
letters came by the same post to Mr. Lusignan from Mr. Wyman and Dr.
Snell.

Mr. Wyman's letter:--


DEAR SIR,--I am sorry to hear from Miss Lusignan that she intends to
discontinue medical advice. The disorder was progressing favorably, and
nothing to be feared, under proper treatment.

Yours, etc.


Dr. Snell's letter:--


DEAR SIR,--Miss Lusignan has written to me somewhat impatiently and
seems disposed to dispense with my visits. I do not, however, think it
right to withdraw without telling you candidly that this is an unwise
step. Your daughter's health is in a very precarious condition.

Yours, etc.


Rosa burst out laughing. "I have nothing to fear, and I'm on the brink
of the grave. That comes of writing without a consultation. If they
had written at one table, I should have been neither well nor ill. Poor
Christopher!" and her sweet face began to work piteously.

"There! there! drink a glass of wine."

She did, and a tear with it, that ran into the glass like lightning.

Warned by this that grief sat very near the bright, hilarious surface,
Mr. Lusignan avoided all emotional subjects for the present. Next day,
however, he told her she might dismiss her lover, but no power should
make him dismiss his pet physician, unless her health improved.

"I will not give you that excuse for inflicting him on me again," said
the young hypocrite.

She kept her word. She got better and better, stronger, brighter, gayer.

She took to walking every day, and increasing the distance, till she
could walk ten miles without fatigue.

Her favorite walk was to a certain cliff that commanded a noble view of
the sea. To get to it she must pass through the town of Gravesend; and
we may be sure she did not pass so often through that city without some
idea of meeting the lover she had used so ill, and eliciting an APOLOGY
from him. Sly puss!

When she had walked twenty times, or thereabouts, through the town, and
never seen him, she began to fear she had offended him past hope. Then
she used to cry at the end of every walk.

But by and by bodily health, vanity, and temper combined to rouse the
defiant spirit. Said she, "If he really loved me, he would not take my
word in such a hurry. And besides, why does he not watch me, and find
out what I am doing, and where I walk?"

At last she really began to persuade herself that she was an ill-used
and slighted girl. She was very angry at times, and disconsolate at
others; a mixed state in which hasty and impulsive young ladies commit
lifelong follies.

Mr. Lusignan observed the surface only: he saw his invalid daughter
getting better every day, till at last she became a picture of health
and bodily vigor. Relieved of his fears, he troubled his head but little
about Christopher Staines. Yet he esteemed him, and had got to like
him; but Rosa was a beauty, and could do better than marry a struggling
physician, however able. He launched out into a little gayety, resumed
his quiet dinner-parties; and, after some persuasion, took his now
blooming daughter to a ball given by the officers of Chatham.