A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


"Accordingly, what did the broker in question do? He winked to another
broker, and these two bid against one another, over their victim's head,
and ran everything she wanted up at least a hundred per cent above the
value. So open and transparent a swindle I have seldom seen, even in an
auction-room. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!"

His mirth was interrupted by Rosa going to her husband, hiding her head
on his shoulder, and meekly crying.

Christopher comforted her like a man. "Don't you cry, darling," said he;
"how should a pure creature like you know the badness of the world all
in a moment? If it is my wife you are laughing at, Uncle Philip, let me
tell you this is the wrong place. I'd rather a thousand times have her
as she is, than armed with the cunning and suspicions of a hardened old
worldling like you."

"With all my heart," said Uncle Philip, who, to do him justice, could
take blows as well as give them; "but why employ a broker? Why pay a
scoundrel five per cent to make you pay a hundred per cent? Why pay a
noisy fool a farthing to open his mouth for you when you have taken the
trouble to be there yourself, and have got a mouth of your own to bid
discreetly with? Was ever such an absurdity?" He began to get angry.

"Do you want to quarrel with me, Uncle Philip?" said Christopher, firing
up; "because sneering at my Rosa is the way, and the only way, and the
sure way."

"Oh, no," said Rosa, interposing. "Uncle Philip was right. I am very
foolish and inexperienced, but I am not so vain as to turn from good
advice. I will never employ a broker again, sir."

Uncle Philip smiled and looked pleased.

Mrs. Cole caused a diversion by taking leave, and Rosa followed her
down-stairs. On her return she found Christopher telling his uncle all
about the Bijou, and how he had taken it for a hundred and thirty pounds
a year and a hundred pounds premium, and Uncle Philip staring fearfully.

At last he found his tongue. "The Bijou!" said he. "Why, that is a name
they gave to a little den in Dear Street, Mayfair. You haven't ever been
and taken THAT! Built over a mews."

Christopher groaned. "That is the place, I fear."

"Why the owner is a friend of mine; an old patient. Stables stunk him
out. Let it to a man; I forget his name. Stables stunk HIM out. He said,
'I shall go.' 'You can't,' said my friend; 'you have taken a lease.'
'Lease be d--d,' said the other; 'I never took YOUR house; here's quite
a large stench not specified in your description of the property--IT
CAN'T BE THE SAME PLACE;' flung the lease at his head, and cut like the
wind to foreign parts less odoriferous. I'd have got you the hole for
ninety; but you are like your wife--you must go to an agent. What! don't
you know that an agent is a man acting for you with an interest opposed
to yours? Employing an agent! it is like a Trojan seeking the aid of
a Greek. You needn't cry, Mrs. Staines; your husband has been let in
deeper than you have. Now, you are young people beginning life; I'll
give you a piece of advice. Employ others to do what you can't do,
and it must be done; but never to do anything you can do better for
yourselves! Agent! The word is derived from a Latin word 'agere,' to
do; and agents act up to their etymology, for they invariably DO the
nincompoop that employs them, or deals with them, in any mortal way. I'd
have got you that beastly little Bijou for ninety pounds a year."

Uncle Philip went away crusty, leaving the young couple finely mortified
and discouraged.

That did not last very long. Christopher noted the experience and Uncle
Phil's wisdom in his diary, and then took his wife on his knee, and
comforted her, and said, "Never mind; experience is worth money, and
it always has to be bought. Those who cheat us will die poorer than we
shall, if we are honest and economical. I have observed that people are
seldom ruined by the vices of others; these may hurt them, of course;
but it is only their own faults and follies that can destroy them."

"Ah! Christie," said Rosa, "you are a man! Oh, the comfort of being
married to A MAN. A man sees the best side. I do adore men. Dearest, I
will waste no more of your money. I will go to no more sales."

Christopher saw she was deeply mortified, and he said, quietly, "On the
contrary, you will go to the very next. Only take Uncle Philip's advice,
employ no broker; and watch the prices things fetch when you are not
bidding; and keep cool."

She caressed his ears with both her white hands, and thanked him for
giving her another trial. So that trouble melted in the sunshine of
conjugal love.

Notwithstanding the agent's solemn assurance, the Bijou was out of
repair. Dr. Staines detected internal odors, as well as those that
flowed in from the mews. He was not the man to let his wife perish by
miasma; so he had the drains all up, and actually found brick drains,
and a cesspool. He stopped that up, and laid down new pipe drains, with
a good fall, and properly trapped. The old drains were hidden, after
the manner of builders. He had the whole course of his new drains marked
upon all the floors they passed under, and had several stones and boards
hinged to facilitate examination at any period.

But all this, with the necessary cleaning, whitewashing, painting, and
papering, ran away with money. Then came Rosa's purchases, which, to her
amazement, amounted to one hundred and ninety pounds, and not a carpet,
curtain, or bed amongst the lot. Then there was the carriage home from
the auction-room, an expense one avoids by buying at a shop, and
the broker claimed his shilling in the pound. This, however, Staines
refused. The man came and blustered. Rosa, who was there, trembled.
Then, for the first time, she saw her husband's brow lower; he seemed
transfigured, and looked terrible. "You scoundrel," said he, "you set
another villain like yourself to bid against you, and you betrayed the
innocent lady that employed you. I could indict you and your confederate
for a conspiracy. I take the goods out of respect for my wife's credit,
but you shall gain nothing by swindling her. Be off, you heartless
miscreant, or I'll"--

"I'll take the law, if you do."

"Take it, then! I'll give you something to howl for;" and he seized him
with a grasp so tremendous that the fellow cried out in dismay, "Oh!
don't hit me, sir; pray don't."

On this abject appeal, Staines tore the door open with his left hand,
and spun the broker out into the passage with his right. Two movements
of this angry Hercules, and the man was literally whirled out of sight
with a rapidity and swiftness almost ludicrous; it was like a trick in
a pantomime. A clatter on the stairs betrayed that he had gone down the
first few steps in a wholesale and irregular manner, though he had just
managed to keep his feet.

As for Staines, he stood there still lowering like thunder, and his
eyes like hot coals; but his wife threw her tender arms around him, and
begged him consolingly not to mind.

She was trembling like an aspen.

"Dear me," said Christopher, with a ludicrous change to marked
politeness and respect, "I forgot YOU, in my righteous indignation."
Next he became uxorious. "Did they frighten her, a duck? Sit on my
knee, darling, and pull my hair, for not being more considerate--there!
there!"

This was followed by the whole absurd soothing process, as practised by
manly husbands upon quivering and somewhat hysterical wives, and ended
with a formal apology. "You must not think that I am passionate; on the
contrary, I am always practising self-government. My maxim is, Animum
rege qui nisi paret imperat, and that means, Make your temper your
servant, or else it will be your master. But to ill-use my dear little
wife--it is unnatural, it is monstrous, it makes my blood boil."

"Oh, dear! don't go into another. It is all over. I can't bear to see
you in a passion; you are so terrible, so beautiful. Ah! they are fine
things, courage and strength. There's nothing I admire so much."

"Why, they are as common as dirt. What I admire is modesty, timidity,
sweetness; the sensitive cheek that pales or blushes at a word, the
bosom that quivers, and clings to a fellow whenever anything goes
wrong."

"Oh, that is what you admire, is it?" said Rosa dryly.

"Admire it?" said Christopher, not seeing the trap; "I adore it."

"Then, Christie, dear, you are a Simpleton, that is all. And we are made
for one another."

The house was to be furnished and occupied as soon as possible; so Mrs.
Staines and Mrs. Cole went to another sale-room. Mrs. Staines remembered
all Uncle Philip had said, and went plainly dressed; but her friend
declined to sacrifice her showy dress to her friend's interests. Rosa
thought that a little unkind, but said nothing.

In this auction-room they easily got a place at the table, but did not
find it heaven; for a number of secondhand carpets were in the sale,
and these, brimful of dust, were all shown on the table, and the dirt
choked, and poisoned our fair friends. Brokers pestered them, until at
last Rosa, smarting under her late exposure, addressed the auctioneer
quietly, in her silvery tones: "Sir, these gentlemen are annoying me by
forcing their services on me. I do not intend to buy at all unless I can
be allowed to bid for myself."

When Rosa, blushing and amazed at her own boldness, uttered these words,
she little foresaw their effect. She had touched a popular sore.

"You are quite right, madam," said a respectable tradesman opposite her.
"What business have these dirty fellows, without a shilling in their
pockets, to go and force themselves on a lady against her will?"

"It has been complained of in the papers again and again," said another.

"What! mayn't we live as well as you?" retorted a broker.

"Yes, but not to force yourself on a lady. Why, she'd give you in charge
of the police if you tried it on outside."

Then there was a downright clamor of discussion and chaff.

Presently up rises very slowly a countryman so colossal, that it seemed
as if he would never have done getting up, and gives his experiences. He
informed the company, in a broad Yorkshire dialect, that he did a bit
in furniture, and at first starting these brokers buzzed about him like
flies, and pestered him. "Aah damned 'em pretty hard," said he, "but
they didn't heed any. So then ah spoke 'em civil, and ah said, 'Well,
lads, I dinna come fra Yorkshire to sit like a dummy and let you buy
wi' my brass; the first that pesters me again ah'll just fell him on
t' plaace, like a caulf, and ah'm not very sure he'll get up again in a
hurry.' So they dropped me like a hot potato; never pestered me again.
But if they won't give over pestering you, mistress, ah'll come round
and just stand behind your chair, and bring nieve with me," showing a
fist like a leg of mutton.

"No, no," said the auctioneer, "that will not do. I will have no
disturbance here. Call the policeman."

While the clerk went to the door for the bobby, a gentleman reminded
the auctioneer that the journals had repeatedly drawn attention to the
nuisance.

"Fault of the public, not mine, sir. Policeman, stand behind that lady's
chair, and if anybody annoys her put him quietly into the street."

"This auction-room will be to let soon," said a voice at the end of the
table.

"This auction-room," said the auctioneer, master of the gay or grave at
a moment's notice, "is supported by the public and the trade; it is not
supported by paupers."

A Jew upholsterer put in his word. "I do my own business; but I like to
let a poor man live."

"Jonathan," said the auctioneer to one of his servants, "after this sale
you may put up the shutters; we have gone and offended Mr. Jacobs. He
keeps a shop in Blind Alley, Whitechapel. Now then, lot 69."

Rosa bid timidly for one or two lots, and bought them cheap.

The auctioneer kept looking her way, and she had only to nod.

The obnoxious broker got opposite her, and ran her up a little out of
spite; but as he had only got half a crown about him, and no means of
doubling it, he dared not go far.

On the other side of the table was a figure to which Rosa's eyes often
turned with interest--a fair young boy about twelve years old; he had
golden hair, and was in deep mourning. His appearance interested Rosa,
and she wondered how he came there, and why; he looked like a lamb
wedged in among wolves, a flower among weeds. As the lots proceeded, the
boy seemed to get uneasy; and at last, when lot '73 was put up, anybody
could see in his poor little face that he was there to bid for it.

"Lot '73, an armchair covered in morocco. An excellent and useful
article. Should not be at all surprised if it was made by Gillow."

"Gillow would though," said Jacobs, who owed him a turn.

Chorus of dealers.--"Haw! haw!"

The auctioneer.--"I like to hear some people run a lot down; shows they
are going to bid for it in earnest. Well, name your own price. Five
pounds to begin?"

Now if nobody had spoken the auctioneer would have gone on, "Well, four
pounds then--three, two, whatever you like," and at last obtained a bona
fide offer of thirty shillings; but the moment he said "Five pounds to
begin," the boy in black lifted up his childish treble and bid thus,
"Five pound ten"--"six pounds"--"six pound ten"--"seven pounds"--"seven
pound ten"--"eight pounds"--"eight pound ten"--"nine pounds"--"nine
pound ten"--"ten pounds!" without interruption, and indeed almost in a
breath.

There was a momentary pause of amazement, and then an outburst of chaff.

"Nice little boy!"

"Didn't he say his lesson well?"

"Favor us with your card, sir. You are a gent as knows how to buy."

"What did he stop for? If it's worth ten, it is worth a hundred."

"Bless the child!" said a female dealer, kindly, "what made you go on
like that? Why, there was no one bid against you! you'd have got it for
two pounds--a rickety old thing."

Young master began to whimper. "Why, the gentleman said, 'Five pounds
to BEGIN.' It was the chair poor grandpapa always sat in, and all the
things are sold, and mamma said it would break her heart to lose it. She
was too ill to come, so she sent me. She told me I was not to let it
be sold away from us for less than ten pounds, or she sh--should be
m--m--miserable," and the poor little fellow began to cry. Rosa followed
suit promptly but unobtrusively.

"Sentiment always costs money," said Mr. Jacobs, gravely.

"How do you know?" asked Mr. Cohen. "Have YOU got any on hand? I never
seen none at your shop."

Some tempting things now came up, and Mrs. Staines bid freely; but
all of a sudden she looked down the table, and there was Uncle Philip,
twinkling as before. "Oh, dear! what am I doing now!" thought she. "I
have got no broker."

She bid on, but in fear and trembling, because of those twinkling eyes.
At last she mustered courage, wrote on a leaf of her pocket-book, and
passed it down to him: "It would be only kind to warn me. What am I
doing wrong?"

He sent her back a line directly: "Auctioneer running you up himself.
Follow his eye when he bids; you will see there is no bona fide bidder
at your prices."

Rosa did so, and found that it was true.

She nodded to Uncle Philip; and, with her expressive face, asked him
what she should do.

The old boy must have his joke. So he wrote back: "Tell him, as you see
he has a fancy for certain articles, you would not be so discourteous as
to bid against him."

The next article but one was a drawing-room suite Rosa wanted; but the
auctioneer bid against her; so at eighteen pounds she stopped.

"It is against you, madam," said the auctioneer.

"Yes, sir," said Rosa; "but as you are the only bidder, and you have
been so kind to me, I would not think of opposing you."

The words were scarcely out of her mouth, when they were greeted with
a roar of Homeric laughter that literally shook the room, and this time
not at the expense of the innocent speaker.

"That's into your mutton, governor."

"Sharp's the word this time."

"I say, governor, don't you want a broker to bid for ye?"

"Wink at me next time, sir; I'll do the office for you."

"No greenhorns left now."

"That lady won't give a ten-pund note for her grandfather's armchair."

"Oh, yes, she will, if it's stuffed with banknotes."

"Put the next lot up with the owner's name and the reserve price. Open
business."

"And sing a psalm at starting."

"A little less noise in Judaea, if you please," said the auctioneer, who
had now recovered from the blow. "Lot 97."

This was a very pretty marqueterie cabinet; it stood against the wall,
and Rosa had set her heart upon it. Nobody would bid. She had muzzled
the auctioneer effectually.

"Your own price."

"Two pounds," said Rosa.

A dealer offered guineas; and it advanced slowly to four pounds and half
a crown, at which it was about to be knocked down to Rosa, when suddenly
a new bidder arose in the broker Rosa had rejected. They bid slowly and
sturdily against each other, until a line was given to Rosa from Uncle
Philip.

"This time it is your own friend, the snipe-nosed woman. She telegraphed
a broker."

Rosa read, and crushed the note. "Six guineas," said she.

"Six-ten."

"Seven."

"Seven-ten."

"Eight."

"Eight-ten."

"Ten guineas," said Rosa; and then, with feminine cunning, stealing a
sudden glance, caught her friend leaning back and signalling the broker
not to give in.

"Eleven pounds."

"Twelve."

"Thirteen."

"Fourteen."

"Sixteen."

"Eighteen."

"Twenty."

"Twenty guineas."

"It is yours, my faithful friend," said Rosa, turning suddenly round
to Mrs. Cole, with a magnificent glance no one would have thought her
capable of.

Then she rose and stalked away.

Dumfounded for the moment, Mrs. Cole followed her, and stopped her at
the door.

"Why, Rosie dear, it is the only thing I have bid for. There I've sat by
your side like a mouse."

Rosa turned gravely towards her. "You know it is not that. You had only
to tell me you wanted it. I would never have been so mean as to bid
against you."

"Mean, indeed!" said. Florence, tossing her head.

"Yes, mean; to draw back and hide behind the friend you were with,
and employ the very rogue she had turned off. But it is my own fault.
Cecilia warned me against you. She always said you were a treacherous
girl."

"And I say you are an impudent little minx. Only just married, and going
about like two vagabonds, and talk to me like that!"

"We are not going about like two vagabonds. We have taken a house in
Mayfair."

"Say a stable."

"It was by your advice, you false-hearted creature."

"You are a fool."

"You are worse; you are a traitress."

"Then don't you have anything to do with me."

"Heaven forbid I should, you treacherous thing!"

"You insolent--insolent--I hate you."

"And I despise you."

"I always hated you at bottom."

"That's why you pretended to love me, you wretch."

"Well, I pretend no more. I am your enemy for life."

"Thank you. You have told the truth for once in your life."

"I have. And he shall never call in your husband; so you may leave
Mayfair as soon as you like."

"Not to please you, madam. We can get on without traitors."

And so they parted, with eyes that gleamed like tigers.

Rosa drove home in great agitation, and tried to tell Christopher; but
choked, and became hysterical. The husband-physician coaxed and scolded
her out of that; and presently in came Uncle Philip, full of the humors
of the auction-room. He told about the little boy with a delight that
disgusted Mrs. Staines, and then was particularly merry on female
friendships. "Fancy a man going to a sale with his friend, and bidding
against him on the sly."

"She is no friend of mine. We are enemies for life."

"And you were to be friends till death," said Staines, with a sigh.

Philip inquired who she was.

"Mrs. John Cole."

"Not of Curzon Street?"

"Yes."

"And you have quarrelled with her?"

"Yes."

"Well, but her husband is a general practitioner."

"She is a traitress."

"But her husband could put a good deal of money in Christopher's way."

"I can't help it. She is a traitress."

"And you have quarrelled with her about an old wardrobe."

"No, for her disloyalty, and her base good-for-nothingness. Oh! oh! oh!"

Uncle Philip got up, looking sour. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Christopher,"
said he, very dryly.

Christopher accompanied him to the foot of the stairs. "Well,
Christopher," said he, "matrimony is a blunder at the best; and you have
not done the thing by halves. You have married a simpleton. She will be
your ruin."

"Uncle Philip, since you only come here to insult us, I hope in future
you will stay at home."

"Oh! with pleasure, sir. Good-by!"




CHAPTER VII.


Christopher Staines came back, looking pained and disturbed. "There,"
said he, "I feared it would come to this. I have quarrelled with Uncle
Philip."

"Oh! how could you?"

"He affronted me."

"What about?"

"Never you mind. Don't let us say anything more about it, darling. It is
a pity, a sad pity--he was a good friend of mine once."

He paused, entered what had passed in his diary, and then sat down, with
a gentle expression of sadness on his manly features. Rosa hung about
him, soft and pitying, till it cleared away, at all events for the time.

Next day they went together to clear the goods Rosa had purchased.
Whilst the list was being made out in the office, in came the
fair-haired boy, with a ten-pound note in his very hand. Rosa caught
sight of it, and turned to the auctioneer, with a sweet, pitying face:

"Oh! sir, surely you will not take all that money from him, poor child,
for a rickety old chair."

The auctioneer stared with amazement at her simplicity, and said, "What
would the vendors say to me?"

She looked distressed, and said, "Well, then, really we ought to raise a
subscription, poor thing!"

"Why, ma'am," said the auctioneer, "he isn't hurt: the article belonged
to his mother and her sister; the brother-in-law isn't on good terms;
so he demanded a public sale. She will get back four pun ten out of it."
Here the clerk put in his word. "And there's five pounds paid, I forgot
to tell you."

"Oh! left a deposit, did he?"

"No, sir. But the laughing hyena gave you five pounds at the end of the
sale."

"The laughing hyena, Mr. Jones?"

"Oh! beg pardon; that is what we call him in the room. He has got such a
curious laugh."

"Oh! I know the gent. He is a retired doctor. I wish he'd laugh less
and buy more: and HE gave you five pounds towards the young gentleman's
arm-chair! Well, I should as soon have expected blood from a flint. You
have got five pounds to pay, sir: so now the chair will cost your mamma
ten shillings. Give him the order and the change, Mr. Jones."

Christopher and Rosa talked this over in the room whilst the men were
looking out their purchases. "Come," said Rosa; "now I forgive him
sneering at me; his heart is not really hard, you see." Staines, on the
contrary, was very angry. "What!" he cried, "pity a boy who made one
bad bargain, that, after all, was not a very bad bargain; and he had no
kindness, nor even common humanity, for my beautiful Rosa, inexperienced
as a child, and buying for her husband, like a good, affectionate,
honest creature, amongst a lot of sharpers and hard-hearted cynics--like
himself."

"It WAS cruel of him," said Rosa, altering her mind in a moment, and
half inclined to cry.

This made Christopher furious. "The ill-natured, crotchety, old--the
fact is, he is a misogynist."

"Oh, the wretch!" said Rosa warmly. "And what is that?"

"A woman-hater."

"Oh! is that all? Why, so do I--after that Florence Cole. Women are
mean, heartless things. Give me men; they are loyal and true."

"All of them?" inquired Christopher, a little satirically. "Read the
papers."

"Every soul of them," said Mrs. Staines, passing loftily over the
proposed test. "That is, all the ones I care about; and that is my own,
own one."

Disagreeable creatures to have about one--these simpletons!

Mrs. Staines took Christopher to shops to buy the remaining requisites:
and in three days more the house was furnished, two female servants
engaged, and the couple took their luggage over to the Bijou.

Rosa was excited and happy at the novelty of possession and authority,
and that close sense of house proprietorship which belongs to woman. By
dinner-time she could have told you how many shelves there were in every
cupboard, and knew the Bijou by heart in a way that Christopher never
knew it. All this ended, as running about and excitement generally does,
with my lady being exhausted, and lax with fatigue. So then he made her
lie down on a little couch, while he went through his accounts.

When he had examined all the bills carefully he looked very grave, and
said, "Who would believe this? We began with three thousand pounds. It
was to last us several years--till I got a good practice. Rosa, there is
only fourteen hundred and forty pounds left."

"Oh, impossible!" said Rosa. "Oh, dear! why did I ever enter a
saleroom?"

"No, no, my darling; you were bitten once or twice, but you made some
good bargains too. Remember there was four hundred pounds set apart for
my life policy."