A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


"What a waste of money!"

"Your father did not think so. Then the lease; the premium; repairs of
the drains that would have poisoned my Rosa; turning the coach-house
into a dispensary; painting, papering, and furnishing; china, and linen,
and everything to buy. We must look at this seriously. Only fourteen
hundred and forty pounds left. A slow profession. No friends. I have
quarrelled with Uncle Philip: you with Mrs. Cole; and her husband would
have launched me."

"And it was to please her we settled here. Oh, I could kill her: nasty
cat!"

"Never mind; it is not a case for despondency, but it is for prudence.
All we have to do is to look the thing in the face, and be very
economical in everything. I had better give you an allowance for
housekeeping; and I earnestly beg you to buy things yourself whilst you
are a poor man's wife, and pay ready money for everything. My mother was
a great manager, and she always said, 'There is but one way: be your own
market-woman, and pay on the spot; never let the tradesmen get you on
their books, or, what with false weight, double charges, and the things
your servants order that never enter the house, you lose more than a
hundred a year by cheating.'"

Rosa yielded a languid assent to this part of his discourse, and it
hardly seemed to enter her mind; but she raised no objection; and in due
course he made her a special allowance for housekeeping.

It soon transpired that medical advice was to be had, gratis, at the
Bijou, from eight till ten: and there was generally a good attendance.
But a week passed, and not one patient came of the class this couple
must live by. Christopher set this down to what people call "the
transition period:" his Kent patients had lost him; his London patients
not found him. He wrote to all his patients in the country, and many of
his pupils at the university, to let them know where he was settled: and
then he waited.

Not a creature came.

Rosa bore this very well for a time, so long as the house was a novelty;
but when that excitement was worn out, she began to be very dull,
and used to come and entice him out to walk with her: he would look
wistfully at her, but object that, if he left the house, he should be
sure to lose a patient.

"Oh, they won't come any more for our staying in--tiresome things!" said
Rosa.

But Christopher would kiss her, and remain firm. "My love," said he,
"you do not realize how hard a fight there is before us. How should you?
You are very young. No, for your sake, I must not throw a chance away.
Write to your female friends: that will while away an hour or two."

"What, after that Florence Cole?"

"Write to those who have not made such violent professions."

"So I will, dear. Especially to those that are married and come to
London. Oh, and I'll write to that cold-blooded thing, Lady Cicely
Treherne. Why do you shake your head?"

"Did I? I was not aware. Well, dear, if ladies of rank were to come
here, I fear they might make you discontented with your lot."

"All the women on earth could not do that. However, the chances are she
will not come near me: she left the school quite a big girl, an immense
girl, when I was only twelve. She used to smile at my capriccios; and
once she kissed me--actually. She was an awful Sawny, though, and so
affected: I think I will write to her."

These letters brought just one lady, a Mrs. Turner, who talked to Rosa
very glibly about herself, and amused Rosa twice: at the third visit,
Rosa tried to change the conversation. Mrs. Turner instantly got up, and
went away. She could not bear the sound of the human voice, unless it
was talking about her and her affairs.

And now Staines began to feel downright uneasy. Income was going
steadily out: not a shilling coming in. The lame, the blind, and the
sick frequented his dispensary, and got his skill out of him gratis, and
sometimes a little physic, a little wine, and other things that cost him
money: but of the patients that pay, not one came to his front door.

He walked round and round his little yard, like a hyena in its cage,
waiting, waiting, waiting: and oh! how he envied the lot of those who
can hunt for work, instead of having to stay at home and wait for others
to come, whose will they cannot influence. His heart began to sicken
with hope deferred, and dim forebodings of the future; and he saw, with
grief, that his wife was getting duller and duller, and that her days
dragged more heavily, far than his own; for he could study.

At last his knocker began to show signs of life: his visitors were
physicians. His lectures on "Diagnosis" were well known to them; and one
after another found him out. They were polite, kind, even friendly; but
here it ended: these gentlemen, of course, did not resign their patients
to him; and the inferior class of practitioners avoided his door like a
pestilence.

Mrs. Staines, who had always lived for amusement, could strike out no
fixed occupation; her time hung like lead; the house was small; and in
small houses the faults of servants run against the mistress, and she
can't help seeing them, and all the worse for her. It is easier to keep
things clean in the country, and Rosa had a high standard, which her two
servants could never quite attain. This annoyed her, and she began to
scold a little. They answered civilly, but in other respects remained
imperfect beings; they laid out every shilling they earned in finery;
and, this, I am ashamed to say, irritated Mrs. Staines, who was wearing
out her wedding garments, and had no excuse for buying, and Staines
had begged her to be economical. The more they dressed, the more she
scolded; they began to answer. She gave the cook warning; the other,
though not on good terms with the cook, had a gush of esprit de corps
directly, and gave Mrs. Staines warning.

Mrs. Staines told her husband all this: he took her part, though without
openly interfering; and they had two new servants, not so good as the
last.

This worried Rosa sadly; but it was a flea-bite to the deeper nature,
and more forecasting mind of her husband, still doomed to pace that
miserable yard, like a hyena, chafing, seeking, longing for the patient
that never came.

Rosa used to look out of his dressing-room window, and see him pace the
yard. At first, tears of pity stood in her eyes. By and by she got angry
with the world; and at last, strange to say, a little irritated with
him. It is hard for a weak woman to keep up all her respect for the man
that fails.

One day, after watching him a long time unseen, she got excited, put on
her shawl and bonnet, and ran down to him: she took him by the arm:
"If you love me, come out of this prison, and walk with me; we are too
miserable. I shall be your first patient if this goes on much longer."
He looked at her, saw she was very excited, and had better be humored;
so he kissed her and just said, with a melancholy smile, "How poor are
they that have not patience!" Then he put on his hat, and walked in the
Park and Kensington Gardens with her. The season was just beginning.
There were carriages enough, and gay Amazons enough, to make poor Rosa
sigh more than once.

Christopher heard the sigh; and pressed her arm, and said, "Courage,
love, I hope to see you among them yet."

"The sooner the better," said she, a little hardly.

"And, meantime, which of them all is as beautiful as you?"

"All I know is, they are more attractive. Who looks at me, walking
tamely by?"

Christopher said nothing: but these words seemed to imply a thirst for
admiration, and made him a little uneasy.

By and by the walk put the swift-changing Rosa in spirits, and she began
to chat gayly, and hung prattling and beaming on her husband's arm,
when they entered Curzon Street. Here, however, occurred an incident,
trifling in itself, but unpleasant. Dr. Staines saw one of his best
Kentish patients get feebly out of his carriage, and call on Dr. Barr.
He started, and stopped. Rosa asked what was the matter. He told her.
She said, "We ARE unfortunate."

Staines said nothing; he only quickened his pace; but he was greatly
disturbed. She expected him to complain that she had dragged him out,
and lost him that first chance. But he said nothing. When they got home,
he asked the servant had anybody called.

"No, Sir."

"Surely you are mistaken, Jane. A gentleman in a carriage!"

"Not a creature have been since you went out, sir."

"Well, then, dearest," said he sweetly, "we have nothing to reproach
ourselves with." Then he knit his brow gloomily. "It is worse than I
thought. It seems even one's country patients go to another doctor when
they visit London. It is hard. It is hard."

Rosa leaned her head on his shoulder, and curled round him, as one she
would shield against the world's injustice; but she said nothing; she
was a little frightened at his eye that lowered, and his noble frame
that trembled a little, with ire suppressed.

Two days after this, a brougham drove up to the door, and a tallish,
fattish, pasty-faced man got out, and inquired for Dr. Staines.

He was shown into the dining-room, and told Jane he had come to consult
the doctor.

Rosa had peeped over the stairs, all curiosity; she glided noiselessly
down, and with love's swift foot got into the yard before Jane. "He is
come! he is come! Kiss me."

Dr. Staines kissed her first, and then asked who was come.

"Oh, nobody of any consequence. ONLY the first patient. Kiss me again."

Dr. Staines kissed her again, and then was for going to the first
patient.

"No," said she; "not yet. I met a doctor's wife at Dr. Mayne's, and she
told me things. You must always keep them waiting; or else they think
nothing of you. Such a funny woman! 'Treat 'em like dogs, my dear,' she
said. But I told her they wouldn't come to be treated like dogs or any
other animal."

"You had better have kept that to yourself, I think."

"Oh! if you are going to be disagreeable, good-by. You can go to your
patient, sir. Christie, dear, if he is very--very ill--and I'm sure I
hope he is--oh, how wicked I am; may I have a new bonnet?"

"If you really want one."

On the patient's card was "Mr. Pettigrew, 47 Manchester Square."

As soon as Staines entered the room, the first patient told him who and
what he was, a retired civilian from India; but he had got a son there
still, a very rising man; wanted to be a parson; but he would not
stand that; bad profession; don't rise by merit; very hard to rise at
all;--no, India was the place. "As for me, I made my fortune there in
ten years. Obliged to leave it now--invalid this many years; no TONE.
Tried two or three doctors in this neighborhood; heard there was a new
one, had written a book on something. Thought I would try HIM."

To stop him, Staines requested to feel his pulse, and examine his tongue
and eye.

"You are suffering from indigestion," said he. "I will write you a
prescription; but if you want to get well, you must simplify your diet
very much."

While he was writing the prescription, off went this patient's tongue,
and ran through the topics of the day and into his family history again.

Staines listened politely. He could afford it, having only this one.

At last, the first patient, having delivered an octavo volume of
nothing, rose to go; but it seems that speaking an "infinite deal of
nothing" exhausts the body, though it does not affect the mind; for the
first patient sank down in his chair again. "I have excited myself too
much--feel rather faint."

Staines saw no signs of coming syncope; he rang the bell quietly, and
ordered a decanter of sherry to be brought; the first patient filled
himself a glass; then another; and went off, revived, to chatter
elsewhere. But at the door he said, "I had always a running account with
Dr. Mivar. I suppose you don't object to that system. Double fee the
first visit, single afterwards."

Dr. Staines bowed a little stiffly; he would have preferred the money.
However, he looked at the Blue Book, and found his visitor lived at 47
Manchester Square; so that removed his anxiety.

The first patient called every other day, chattered nineteen to the
dozen, was exhausted, drank two glasses of sherry, and drove away.

Soon after this a second patient called. This one was a deputy
patient--Collett, a retired butler--kept a lodging-house, and waited at
parties; he lived close by, but had a married daughter in Chelsea. Would
the doctor visit her, and HE would be responsible?

Staines paid the woman a visit or two, and treated her so effectually,
that soon her visits were paid to him. She was cured, and Staines, who
by this time wanted to see money, sent to Collett.

Collett did not answer.

Staines wrote warmly.

Collett dead silent.

Staines employed a solicitor.

Collett said he had recommended the patient, that was all. He had never
said he would pay her debts. That was her husband's business.

Now her husband was the mate of a ship; would not be in England for
eighteen months.

The woman, visited by lawyer's clerk, cried bitterly, and said she and
her children had scarcely enough to eat.

Lawyer advised Staines to abandon the case, and pay him two pounds
fifteen shillings expenses. He did so.

"This is damnable," said he. "I must get it out of Pettigrew; by-the-by,
he has not been here this two days."

He waited another day for Pettigrew, and then wrote to him. No answer.
Called. Pettigrew gone abroad. House in Manchester Square to let.

Staines went to the house-agent with his tale. Agent was impenetrable
at first; but, at last, won by the doctor's manner and his unhappiness,
referred him to Pettigrew's solicitor; the solicitor was a respectable
man, and said he would forward the claim to Pettigrew in Paris.

But by this time Pettigrew was chattering and guzzling in Berlin; and
thence he got to St. Petersburg. In that stronghold of gluttony,
he gormandized more than ever, and, being unable to talk it off his
stomach, as in other cities, had apoplexy, and died.

But long before this Staines saw his money was as irrecoverable as his
sherry; and he said to Rosa, "I wonder whether I shall ever live to
curse the human race?"

"Heaven forbid!" said Rosa. "Oh, they use you cruelly, my poor, poor
Christie!"

Thus for months the young doctor's patients bled him, and that was all.

And Rosa got more and more moped at being in the house so much, and
pestered Christopher to take her out, and he declined: and, being a man
hard to beat, took to writing on medical subjects, in hopes of getting
some money from the various medical and scientific publications; but he
found it as hard to get the wedge in there as to get patients.

At last Rosa's remonstrances began to rise into something that
sounded like reproaches. One Sunday she came to him in her bonnet, and
interrupted his studies, to say he might as well lay down the pen, and
talk. Nobody would publish anything he wrote.

Christopher frowned, but contained himself, and laid down the pen.

"I might as well not be married at all as be a doctor's wife. You are
never seen out with me, not even to church. Do behave like a Christian,
and come to church with me now."

Dr. Staines shook his head.

"Why, I wouldn't miss church for all the world. Any excitement is better
than always moping. Come over the water with me. The time Jane and I
went, the clergyman read a paper that Mr. Brown had fallen down in a
fit. There was such a rush directly, and I'm sure fifty ladies went
out--fancy, all Mrs. Browns! Wasn't that fun?"

"Fun? I don't see it. Well, Rosa, your mind is evidently better adapted
to diversion than mine is. Go you to church, love, and I'll continue my
studies."

"Then all I can say is, I wish I was back in my father's house. Husband!
friend! companion!--I have none."

Then she burst out crying violently; and, being shocked at what she had
said, and at the agony it had brought into her husband's face, she went
off into hysterics; and as his heart would not let him bellow at her,
or empty a bucket on her as he would on another patient, she had a good
long bout of them: and got her way, for she broke up his studies for
that day, at all events.

Even after the hysterics were got under, she continued to moan and sigh
very prettily, with her lovely, languid head pillowed on her husband's
arm; in a word, though the hysterics were real, yet this innocent young
person had the presence of mind to postpone entire convalescence, and
lay herself out to be petted all day. But fate willed it otherwise:
while she was sighing and moaning, came to the door a scurrying of feet,
and then a sharp, persistent ringing that meant something. The moaner
cocked eye and ear, and said, in her every-day voice, which, coming so
suddenly, sounded very droll, "What is that, I wonder?"

Jane hurried to the street-door, and Rosa recovered by magic; and,
preferring gossip to hysterics, in an almost gleeful whisper, ordered
Christopher to open the door of the study. The Bijou was so small that
the following dialogue rang in their ears:--

A boy in buttons gasped out, "Oh, if you please, will you ast the doctor
to come round directly; there's a haccident."

"La, bless me!" said Jane, and never budged.

"Yes, miss. It's our missus's little girl fallen right off an i-chair,
and cut her head dreadful, and smothered in blood."

"La, to be sure!" And she waited steadily for more.

"Ay, and missus she fainted right off; and I've been to the regler
doctor, which he's out; and Sarah, the housemaid, said I had better come
here; you was only just set up, she said; you wouldn't have so much to
do, says she."

"That is all SHE knows," said Jane. "Why, our master--they pulls him in
pieces which is to have him fust."

"What an awful liar! Oh, you good girl!" whispered Dr. Staines and Rosa
in one breath.

"Ah, well," said Buttons, "any way, Sarah says she knows you are clever,
'cos her little girl as lives with her mother, and calls Sarah aunt, has
bin to your 'spensary with ringworm, and you cured her right off."

"Ay, and a good many more," said Jane, loftily. She was a housemaid of
imagination; and while Staines was putting some lint and an instrument
case into his pocket, she proceeded to relate a number of miraculous
cures. Dr. Staines interrupted them by suddenly emerging, and inviting
Buttons to take him to the house.

Mrs. Staines was so pleased with Jane for cracking up the doctor, that
she gave her five shillings; and, after that, used to talk to her a
great deal more than to the cook, which judicious conduct presently set
all three by the ears.

Buttons took the doctor to a fine house in the same street, and told
him his mistress's name on the way--Mrs. Lucas. He was taken up to the
nursery, and found Mrs. Lucas seated, crying and lamenting, and a woman
holding a little girl of about seven, whose brow had been cut open by
the fender, on which she had fallen from a chair; it looked very ugly,
and was even now bleeding.

Dr. Staines lost no time; he examined the wound keenly, and then said
kindly to Mrs. Lucas, "I am happy to tell you it is not serious." He
then asked for a large basin and some tepid water, and bathed it so
softly and soothingly that the child soon became composed; and the
mother discovered the artist at once. He compressed the wound, and
explained to Mrs. Lucas that the principal thing really was to avoid an
ugly scar. "There is no danger," said he. He then bound the wound
neatly up, and had the girl put to bed. "You will not wake her at any
particular hour, nurse. Let her sleep. Have a little strong beef-tea
ready, and give it her at any hour, night or day, she asks for it. But
do not force it on her, or you will do her more harm than good. She had
better sleep before she eats."

Mrs. Lucas begged him to come every morning; and, as he was going,
she shook hands with him, and the soft palm deposited a hard substance
wrapped in paper. He took it with professional gravity and seeming
unconsciousness; but, once outside the house, went home on wings. He
ran up to the drawing-room, and found his wife seated, and playing at
reading. He threw himself on his knees, and the fee into her lap; and,
while she unfolded the paper with an ejaculation of pleasure, he said,
"Darling, the first real patient--the first real fee. It is yours to buy
the new bonnet."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" said she, with her eyes glistening. "But I'm afraid
one can't get a bonnet fit to wear--for a guinea."

Dr. Staines visited his little patient every day, and received his
guinea. Mrs. Lucas also called him in for her own little ailments, and
they were the best possible kind of ailments: for, being imaginary,
there was no limit to them.

Then did Mrs. Staines turn jealous of her husband. "They never ask me,"
said she; "and I am moped to death."

"It is hard," said Christopher, sadly. "But have a little patience.
Society will come to you long before practice comes to me."

About two o'clock one afternoon a carriage and pair drove up, and a
gorgeous footman delivered a card--"Lady Cicely Treherne."

Of course Mrs. Staines was at home, and only withheld by propriety
from bounding into the passage to meet her school-fellow. However, she
composed herself in the drawing-room, and presently the door was opened,
and a very tall young woman, richly but not gayly dressed, drifted into
the room, and stood there a statue of composure.

Rosa had risen to fly to her; but the reverence a girl of eighteen
strikes into a child of twelve hung about her still, and she came
timidly forward, blushing and sparkling, a curious contrast in color
and mind to her visitor; for Lady Cicely was Languor in person--her hair
whitey-brown, her face a fine oval, but almost colorless; her eyes
a pale gray, her neck and hands incomparably white and beautiful--a
lymphatic young lady, a live antidote to emotion. However, Rosa's
beauty, timidity, and undisguised affectionateness were something so
different from what she was used to in the world of fashion, that she
actually smiled, and held out both her hands a little way. Rosa seized
them, and pressed them; they left her; and remained passive and limp.

"O Lady Cicely," said Rosa, "how kind of you to come."

"How kind of you to send to me," was the polite, but perfectly cool
reply. "But how you are gwown, and--may I say impwoved?--You la petite
Lusignan! It is incwedible," lisped her ladyship, very calmly.

"I was only a child," said Rosa. "You were always so beautiful and tall,
and kind to a little monkey like me. Oh, pray sit down, Lady Cicely, and
talk of old times."

She drew her gently to the sofa, and they sat down hand in hand; but
Lady Cicely's high-bred reserve made her a very poor gossip about
anything that touched herself and her family; so Rosa, though no
egotist, was drawn into talking about herself more than she would have
done had she deliberately planned the conversation. But here was an old
school-fellow, and a singularly polite listener, and so out came her
love, her genuine happiness, her particular griefs, and especially the
crowning grievance, no society, moped to death, etc.

Lady Cicely could hardly understand the sentiment in a woman who so
evidently loved her husband. "Society!" said she, after due reflection,
"why, it is a boa." (And here I may as well explain that Lady Cicely
spoke certain words falsely, and others affectedly; and as for the
letter r, she could say it if she made a hearty effort, but was
generally too lazy to throw her leg over it.) "Society! I'm dwenched
to death with it. If I could only catch fiah like other women, and
love somebody, I would much rather have a tete-a-tete with him than
go teawing about all day and all night, from one unintwisting cwowd
to another. To be sure," said she, puzzling the matter out, "you are a
beauty, and would be more looked at."

"The idea! and--oh no! no! it is not that. But even in the country we
had always some society."

"Well, dyar, believe me, with your appeawance, you can have as much
society as you please; but it will boa you to death, as it does me, and
then you will long to be left quiet with a sensible man who loves you."

Said Rosa, "When shall I have another tete-a-tete with YOU, I wonder?
Oh, it has been such a comfort to me. Bless you for coming. There--I
wrote to Cecilia, and Emily, and Mrs. Bosanquet that is now, and all my
sworn friends, and to think of you being the one to come--you that never
kissed me but once, and an earl's daughter into the bargain."

"Ha! ha! ha!"--Lady Cicely actually laughed for once in a way, and did
not feel the effort. "As for kissing," said she, "if I fall shawt,
fawgive me. I was nevaa vewy demonstwative."

"No; and I have had a lesson. That Florence Cole--Florence Whiting that
was, you know--was always kissing me, and she has turned out a traitor.
I'll tell you all about her." And she did.

Lady Cicely thought Mrs. Staines a little too unreserved in her
conversation; but was so charmed with her sweetness and freshness that
she kept up the acquaintance, and called on her twice a week during the
season. At first she wondered that her visits were not returned; but
Rosa let out that she was ashamed to call on foot in Grosvenor Square.