A Simpleton

"People that buy presents blindfold give duplicates and triplicates; and men seldom choose to a woman's taste; so be pleased to accept the enclosed tea-leaves, and buy for yourself. The teapot you can put on the hob, for it is nickel."

Rosa looked sore puzzled again. "Papa," said she, timidly, "have we any friend that is--a little--deranged?"

"A lot."

"Oh, then, that accounts."

"Why no, love," said Christopher. "I have heard of much learning making a man mad, but never of much good sense."

"What! Do you call this sensible?"

"Don't you?"

"I'll read it again," said Rosa. "Well--yes--I declare--it is not so mad as I thought; but it is very eccentric."

Lusignan suggested there was nothing so eccentric as common sense, especially in time of wedding. "This," said he, "comes from the City. It is a friend of mine, some old fox; he is throwing dust in your eyes with his reasons; his real reason was that his time is money; it would have cost the old rogue a hundred pounds' worth of time--you know the City, Christopher--to go out and choose the girl a present; so he has sent his clerk out with a check to buy a pewter teapot, and fill it with specie."

"Pewter!" cried Rosa. "No such thing! It's nickel. What is nickel, I wonder?"

The handwriting afforded no clew, so there the discussion ended: but it was a nice little mystery, and very convenient; made conversation. Rosa had many an animated discussion about it with her female friends.

The wedding-day came at last. The sun shone--ACTUALLY, as Rosa observed.

The carriages drove up. The bridesmaids, princ.i.p.ally old schoolfellows and impa.s.sioned correspondents of Rosa, were pretty, and dressed alike and delightfully; but the bride was peerless; her Southern beauty literally shone in that white satin dress and veil, and her head was regal with the Crown of orange-blossoms. Another crown she had--true virgin modesty. A low murmur burst from the men the moment they saw her; the old women forgave her beauty on the spot, and the young women almost pardoned it; she was so sweet and womanly, and so sisterly to her own s.e.x.

When they started for the church she began to tremble, she scarce knew why; and when the solemn words were said, and the ring was put on her finger, she cried a little, and looked half imploringly at her bridesmaids once, as if seared at leaving them for an untried and mysterious life with no woman near.

They were married. Then came the breakfast, that hour of uneasiness and blus.h.i.+ng to such a bride as this; but at last she was released. She sped up-stairs, thanking goodness it was over. Down came her last box. The bride followed in a plain travelling dress, which her glorious eyes and brows and her rich glowing cheeks seemed to illumine: she was handed into the carriage, the bridegroom followed. All the young guests cl.u.s.tered about the door, armed with white shoes--slippers are gone by.

They started; the ladies flung their white shoes right and left with religious impartiality, except that not one of their missiles went at the object. The men, more skilful, sent a shower on to the roof of the carriage, which is the lucky spot. The bride kissed her hand, and managed to put off crying, though it cost her a struggle. The party hurrahed; enthusiastic youths gathered fallen shoes, and ran and hurled them again with cheerful yells, and away went the happy pair, the bride leaning sweetly and confidingly with both her white hands on the bridegroom's shoulder, while he dried the tears that would run now at leaving home and parent forever, and kissed

CHAPTER VI.

Dr. Staines and Mrs. Staines visited France, Switzerland, and the Rhine, and pa.s.sed a month of Elysium before they came to London to face their real destiny and fight the battle of life.

And here, methinks, a reader of novels may perhaps cry out and say, "What manner of man is this, who marries his hero and heroine, and then, instead of leaving them happy for life, and at rest from his uneasy pen and all their other troubles, flows coolly on with their adventures?"

To this I can only reply that the old English novel is no rule to me, and life is; and I respectfully propose an experiment. Catch eight old married people, four of each s.e.x, and say unto them, "Sir," or "Madam, did the more remarkable events of your life come to you before marriage or after?" Most of them will say "after," and let that be my excuse for treating the marriage of Christopher Staines and Rosa Lusignan as merely one incident in their lives; an incident which, so far from ending their story, led by degrees to more striking events than any that occurred to them before they were man and wife.

They returned, then, from their honey tour, and Staines, who was methodical and kept a diary, made the following entry therein:--

"We have now a life of endurance, and self-denial, and economy, before us; we have to rent a house, and furnish it, and live in it, until professional income shall flow in and make all things easy: and we have two thousand five hundred pounds left to do it with."

They came to a family hotel, and Dr. Staines went out directly after breakfast to look for a house. Acting on a friend's advice, he visited the streets and places north of Oxford Street, looking for a good commodious house adapted to his business. He found three or four at fair rents, neither cheap nor dear, the district being respectable and rather wealthy, but no longer fas.h.i.+onable. He came home with his notes, and found Rosa beaming in a crisp peignoir, and her lovely head its natural size and shape, high-bred and elegant. He sat down, and with her hand in his proceeded to describe the houses to her, when a waiter threw open the door--"Mrs. John Cole."

"Florence!" cried Rosa, starting up.

In flowed Florence: they both uttered a little squawk of delight, and went at each other like two little tigresses, and kissed in swift alternation with a singular ardor, drawing their crests back like snakes, and then darting them forward and inflicting what, to the male philosopher looking on, seemed hard kisses, violent kisses, rather than the tender ones to be expected from two tender creatures embracing each other.

"Darling," said Rosa, "I knew you would be the first. Didn't I tell you so, Christopher?--My husband--my darling Florry! Sit down, love, and tell me everything; he has just been looking out for a house. Ah!

you have got all that over long ago: she has been married six months.

Florry, you are handsomer than ever; and what a beautiful dress! Ah!

London is the place. Real Brussels, I declare," and she took hold of her friend's lace and gloated on it.

Christopher smiled good-naturedly, and said, "I dare say you ladies have a good deal to say to each other."

"Oceans," said Rosa.

"I will go and hunt houses again."

"There's a good husband," said Mrs. Cole, as soon as the door closed on him, "and such a fine man! Why, he must be six feet. Mine is rather short. But he is very good; refuses me nothing. My will is law."

"That is all right--you are so sensible; but I want governing a little, and I like it--actually. Did the dressmaker find it, dear?"

"Oh, no! I had it by me. I bought it at Brussels on our wedding tour: it is dearer there than in London."

She said this as if "dearer" and "better" were synonymous.

"But about your house, Rosie dear?"

"Yes, darling, I'll tell you all about it. I never saw a moire this shade before. I don't care for them in general; but this is so distingue."

Florence rewarded her with a kiss.

"The house," said Rosa. "Oh, he has seen one in Portman Street, and one in Gloucester Place."

"Oh, that will never do," cried Mrs. Cole. "It is no use being a physician in those out-of-the-way places. He must be in Mayfair."

"Must he?"

"Of course. Besides, then my Johnnie can call him in when they are just going to die. Johnnie is a general prac., and makes two thousand a year; and he shall call your one in; but he must live in Mayfair. Why, Rosie, you would not be such a goose as to live in those places--they are quite gone by."

"I shall do whatever you advise me, dear. Oh, what a comfort to have a dear friend: and six months married, and knows things. How richly it is trimmed! Why, it is nearly all tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs."

"That is the fas.h.i.+on."

"Oh!"

And after that big word there was no more to be said.

These two ladies in their conversation gravitated towards dress, and fell flat on it every half-minute. That great and elevating topic held them by a silken cord, but it allowed them to flutter upwards into other topics; and in those intervals, numerous though brief, the lady who had been married six months found time to instruct the matrimonial novice with great authority, and even a shade of pomposity. "My dear, the way ladies and gentlemen get a house--in the first place, you don't go about yourself like that, and you never go to the people themselves, or you are sure to be taken in, but to a respectable house-agent."

"Yes, dear, that must be the best way, one would think."

"Of course it is; and you ask for a house in Mayfair, and he shows you several, and recommends you the best, and sees you are not cheated."