A Simpleton

"That is true: I can't hinder folk from going to Cape Town the same day," said Phoebe sullenly.

"If I might presume to advise, I would take little Tommy."

"What! all that road? Do you want me to lose my child, as well as my man?"

"O Mrs. Falcon!"

"Don't speak to her, doctor, to get your nose snapped off. Give her time. She'll come to her senses before she dies."

Next day Mrs. Falcon and Staines started for Cape Town. Staines paid her every attention, when opportunity offered. But she was sullen and gloomy, and held no converse with him.

He landed her at an inn, and then told her he would go at once to the jeweller's. He asked her piteously would she lend him a pound or two to prosecute his researches. She took out her purse, without a word, and lent him two pounds.

He began to scour the town: the jewellers he visited could tell him nothing. At last he came to a shop, and there he found Mrs. Falcon making her inquiries independently. She said coldly, "You had better come with me, and get your money and things."

She took him to the bank--it happened to be the one she did business with--and said, "This is Dr. Christie, come for his money and jewels."

There was some demur at this; but the cas.h.i.+er recognized him, and Phoebe making herself responsible, the money and jewels were handed over.

Staines whispered Phoebe, "Are you sure the jewels are mine?"

"They were found on you, sir."

Staines took them, looking confused. He did not know what to think. When they got into the street again, he told her it was very kind of her to think of his interest at all.

No answer: she was not going to make friends with him over such a trifle as that.

By degrees, however, Christopher's zeal on her behalf broke the ice; and besides, as the search proved unavailing, she needed sympathy; and he gave it her, and did not abuse her husband as d.i.c.k Dale did.

One day, in the street, after a long thought, she said to him, "Didn't you say, sir, you gave him a letter for me?"

"I gave him two letters; one of them was to you."

"Could you remember what you said in it?"

"Perfectly. I begged you, if you should go to England, to break the truth to my wife. She is very excitable; and sudden joy has killed ere now. I gave you particular instructions."

"And you were very wise. But whatever could make you think I would go to England?"

"He told me you only wanted an excuse."

"Oh!!"

"When he told me that, I caught at it, of course. It was all the world to me to get my Rosa told by such a kind, good, sensible friend as you; and, Mrs. Falcon, I had no scruple about troubling you, because I knew the stones would sell for at least a thousand pounds more in England than here, and that would pay your expenses."

"I see, sir; I see. 'Twas very natural: you love your wife."

"Better than my life."

"And he told you I only wanted an excuse to go to England?"

"He did, indeed. It was

"It was anything but true. I had suffered so in England; I had been so happy here: too happy to last. Ah! well, it is all over. Let us think of the matter in hand. Sure that was not the only letter you gave my husband? Didn't you write to HER?"

"Of course I did; but that was enclosed to you, and not to be given to her until you had broken the joyful news to her. Yes, Mrs. Falcon, I wrote and told her everything: my loss at sea; how I was saved, after, by your kindness. Our journeys, from Cape Town, and then to the diggings; my sudden good fortune, my hopes, my joy--O my poor Rosa! and now I suppose she will never get it. It is too cruel of him. I shall go home by the next steamer. I CAN'T stay here any longer, for you or anybody. Oh, and I enclosed my ruby ring that she gave me, for I thought she might not believe you without that."

"Let me think," said Phoebe, turning ashy pale. "For mercy's sake, let me think!

"He has read both those letters, sir.

"She will never see hers: any more than I shall see mine."

She paused again, thinking harder and harder.

"We must take two places in the next mail steamer. I must look after my husband, AND YOU AFTER YOUR WIFE."

CHAPTER XXV.

Mrs. Falcon's bitter feeling against Dr. Staines did not subside; it merely went out of sight a little. They were thrown together by potent circ.u.mstances, and in a manner connected by mutual obligations; so an open rupture seemed too unnatural. Still Phoebe was a woman, and, blinded by her love for her husband, could not forgive the innocent cause of their present unhappy separation; though the fault lay entirely with Falcon.

Staines took her on board the steamer, and paid her every attention. She was also civil to him; but it was a cold and constrained civility.

About a hundred miles from land the steamer stopped, and the pa.s.sengers soon learned there was something wrong with her machinery. In fact, after due consultation, the captain decided to put back.

This irritated and distressed Mrs. Falcon so that the captain, desirous to oblige her, hailed a fast schooner, that tacked across her bows, and gave Mrs. Falcon the option of going back with him, or going on in the schooner, with whose skipper he was acquainted.

Staines advised her on no account to trust to sails, when she could have steam with only a delay of four or five days; but she said, "Anything sooner than go back. I can't, I can't on such an errand."

Accordingly she was put on board the schooner, and Staines, after some hesitation, felt bound to accompany her.

It proved a sad error. Contrary winds a.s.sailed them the very next day, and with such severity that they had repeatedly to lie to.

On one of these occasions, with a s.h.i.+p reeling under them like a restive horse, and the waves running mountains high, poor Phoebe's terrors overmastered both her hostility and her reserve. "Doctor," said she, "I believe 'tis G.o.d's will we shall never see England. I must try and die more like a Christian than I have lived, forgiving all who have wronged me, and you, that have been my good friend and my worst enemy, but you did not mean it. Sir, what has turned me against you so--your wife was my husband's sweetheart before he married me."

"My wife your husband's--you are dreaming."

"Nay, sir, once she came to my shop, and I saw directly I was nothing to him, and he owned it all to me; he had courted her, and she jilted him; so he said. Why should he tell me a lie about that? I'd lay my life 'tis true. And now you have sent him to her your own self; and, at sight of her, I shall be nothing again. Well, when this s.h.i.+p goes down, they can marry, and I hope he will be happy, happier than I can make him, that tried my best, G.o.d knows."

This conversation surprised Staines not a little. However, he said, with great warmth, it was false. His wife had danced and flirted with some young gentleman at one time, when there was a brief misunderstanding between him and her, but sweetheart she had never had, except him. He courted her fresh from school. "Now, my good soul," said he, "make your mind easy; the s.h.i.+p is a good one, and well handled, and in no danger whatever, and my wife is in no danger from your husband. Since you and your brother tell me that he is a villain, I am bound to believe you.

But my wife is an angel. In our miserable hour of parting, she vowed not to marry again, should I be taken from her. Marry again! what am I talking of? Why, if he visits her at all, it will be to let her know I am alive, and give her my letter. Do you mean to tell me she will listen to vows of love from him, when her whole heart is in rapture for me?

Such nonsense!"

This burst of his did not affront her, and did not comfort her.