A Simpleton

"An angel! a good-for-nothing, foolish woman, who sees everything too late."

"n.o.body else should say so before me," said the little gentleman grandly. "I shall take HIS word before yours on this one subject. If ever there was an angel, you are one; and oh, what would I give if I could but say or do anything in the world to comfort you!"

"You can do nothing for ME, dear, but come and see me often, and talk to me as you do--on the one sad theme my broken heart has room for."

This invitation delighted Lord Tadcaster, and the sweet word "dear,"

from her lovely lips, entered his heart, and ran through all his veins like some rapturous but dangerous elixir. He did not say to himself, "She is a widow with a child, feels old with grief, and looks on me as a boy who has been kind to her." Such prudence and wariness were hardly to be expected from his age. He had admired her at first sight, very nearly loved her at their first interview, and now this sweet word opened a heavenly vista. The generous heart that beat in his small frame burned to console her with a life-long devotion and all the sweet offices of love.

He ordered his yacht to Gravesend--for he had become a sailor--and then he called on Mrs. Staines, and told her, with a sort of sheepish cunning, that now, as his yacht HAPPENED to be at Gravesend, he could come and see her very often. He watched her timidly, to see how she would take that proposition.

She said, with the utmost simplicity, "I'm very glad of it."

Then he produced his oracles; and she devoured them. Such precepts to Tadcaster as she could apply to her own case she instantly noted in her memory, and they became her law from that moment.

Then, in her simplicity, she said, "And I will show you some things, in his own handwriting, that may be good for you; but I can't show you the whole book: some of it is sacred from every eye but his wife's. His wife's? Ah me! his widow's."

Then she pointed out pa.s.sages in the diary that she thought might be for his good; and he nestled to her side, and followed her white finger with loving eyes, and was in an elysium--which she would certainly have put a stop to at that time, had she divined it. But all wisdom does not come at once to an unguarded woman. Rosa Staines was wiser about her husband than she had been, but she had plenty to learn.

Lord Tadcaster anch.o.r.ed off Gravesend, and visited Mrs. Staines nearly every day. She received him with a pleasure that was not at all lively, but quite undisguised. He could not doubt his welcome; for once, when he came, she said to the servant, "Not at home," a plain proof she did not wish his visit to be cut short by any one else.

And so these visits and devoted attentions of every kind went on un.o.bserved by Lord Tadcaster's friends, because Rosa would never go out, even with him; but at last Mr. Lusignan saw plainly how this would end, unless he interfered.

Well, he did not interfere; on the contrary, he was careful to avoid putting his daughter on her guard: he said to himself, "Lord Tadcaster does her good. I'm afraid she would not marry him, if he was to ask her now; but in time she might. She likes him a great deal better than any one else."

As for Philip, he was abroad for his own health,

So now Lord Tadcaster was in constant attendance on Rosa. She was languid, but gentle and kind; and, as mourners, like invalids, are apt to be egotistical, she saw nothing but that he was a comfort to her in her affliction.

While matters were so, the Earl of Milts.h.i.+re, who had long been sinking, died, and Tadcaster succeeded to his honors and estates.

Rosa heard of it, and, thinking it was a great bereavement, wrote him one of those exquisite letters of condolence a lady alone can write. He took it to Lady Cicely, and showed it her. She highly approved it.

He said, "The only thing--it makes me ashamed, I do not feel my poor father's death more; but you know it has been so long expected." Then he was silent a long time; and then he asked her if such a woman as that would not make him happy, if he could win her.

It was on her ladys.h.i.+p's tongue to say, "She did not make her first happy;" but she forbore, and said coldly, that was maw than she could say.

Tadcaster seemed disappointed by that, and by and by Cicely took herself to task. She asked herself what were Tadcaster's chances in the lottery of wives. The heavy army of scheming mothers, and the light cavalry of artful daughters, rose before her cousinly and disinterested eyes, and she asked herself what chance poor little Tadcaster would have of catching a true love, with a hundred female artists manoeuvring, wheeling, ambuscading, and charging upon his wealth and t.i.tles. She returned to the subject of her own accord, and told him she saw but one objection to such a match: the lady had a son by a man of rare merit and misfortune. Could he, at his age, undertake to be a father to that son?

"Othahwise," said Lady Cicely, "mark my words, you will quall over that poor child; and you will have two to quall with, because I shall be on her side."

Tadcaster declared to her that child should be quite the opposite of a bone of contention. "I have thought of that," said he, "and I mean to be so kind to that boy, I shall MAKE her love me for that."

On these terms Lady Cicely gave her consent.

Then he asked her should he write, or ask her in person.

Lady Cicely reflected. "If you write, I think she will say no."

"But if I go?"

"Then, it will depend on how you do it. Rosa Staines is a true mourner.

Whatever you may think, I don't believe the idea of a second union has ever entered her head. But then she is very unselfish: and she likes you better than any one else, I dare say. I don't think your t.i.tle or your money will weigh with her now. But, if you show her your happiness depends on it, she may, perhaps, cwy and sob at the very idea of it, and then, after all, say, 'Well, why not--if I can make the poor soul happy?'"

So, on this advice, Tadcaster went down to Gravesend, and Lady Cicely felt a certain self-satisfaction; for, her well-meant interference having lost Rosa one husband, she was pleased to think she had done something to give her another.

Lord Tadcaster came to Rosa Staines; he found her seated with her head upon her white hand, thinking sadly of the past.

At sight of him in deep mourning, she started, and said, "Oh!"

Then she said tenderly, "We are of one color now," and gave him her hand.

He sat down beside her, not knowing how to begin.

"I am not Tadcaster now. I am Earl of Milts.h.i.+re."

"Ah, yes; I forgot," said she indifferently.

"This is my first visit to any one in that character."

"Thank you."

"It is an awfully important visit to me. I could not feel myself independent, and able to secure your comfort and little Christie's, without coming to the lady, the only lady I ever saw, that--oh, Mrs.

Staines--Rosa--who could see you, as I have done--mingle his tears with yours, as I have done, and not love you, and long to offer you his love?"

"Love! to me, a broken-hearted woman, with nothing to live for but his memory and his child."

She looked at him with a sort of scared amazement.

"His child shall be mine. His memory is almost as dear to me as to you."

"Nonsense, child, nonsense!" said she, almost sternly.

"Was he not my best friend? Should I have the health I enjoy, or even be alive, but for him? Oh, Mrs. Staines--Rosa, you will not live all your life unmarried; and who will love you as I do? You are my first and only love. My happiness depends on you."

"Your happiness depend on me! Heaven forbid--a woman of my age, that feels so old, old, old."

"You are not old; you are young, and sad, and beautiful, and my happiness depends on you." She began to tremble a little. Then he kneeled at her knees, and implored her, and his hot tears fell upon the hand she put out to stop him, while she turned her head away, and the tears began to run.

Oh! never can the cold dissecting pen tell what rushes over the heart that has loved and lost, when another true love first kneels and implores for love, or pity, or anything the bereaved can give.

CHAPTER XXIII.

When Falcon went, luck seemed to desert their claim: day after day went by without a find; and the discoveries on every side made this the more mortifying.

By this time the diggers at Bulteel's pan were as miscellaneous as the audience at Drury Lane Theatre, only mixed more closely; the gallery folk and the stalls worked cheek by jowl. Here a gentleman with an affected lisp, and close by an honest fellow, who could not deliver a sentence without an oath, or some still more horrible expletive that meant nothing at all in reality, but served to make respectable flesh creep: interspersed with these, Hottentots, Kafirs, and wild blue blacks gayly clad in an ostrich feather, a scarlet ribbon, and a Tower musket sold them by some good Christian for a modern rifle.