A Simpleton

"I am afraid not," said Christopher, bluntly. "I have an awkward habit of speaking the truth; and some people can't bear that, not even when it is spoken for their good."

"That depends on temper, and nerves, and things," said Rosa, deprecatingly; then softly, "I could bear anything from you now."

"Indeed!" said Christopher, grimly. "Well, then, I hear you had no sooner got rid of your old lover, for loving you too well and telling you the truth, than you took up another,--some flimsy man of fas.h.i.+on, who will tell you any lie you like."

"It is a story, a wicked story," cried Rosa, thoroughly alarmed. "Me, a lover! He dances like an angel; I can't help that."

"Are his visits at your house like angels'--few and far between?" And the true lover's brow lowered black upon her for the first time.

Rosa changed color, and her eyes fell a moment. "Ask papa," she said.

"His father was an old friend of papa's."

"Rosa, you are prevaricating. Young men do not call on old gentlemen when there is an attractive young lady in the house."

The argument was getting too close; so Rosa operated a diversion. "So,"

said she, with a sudden air of lofty disdain, swiftly and adroitly a.s.sumed, "you have had me watched?"

"Not I; I only hear what people say."

"Listen to gossip and not have me watched! That shows how little you really cared for me. Well, if you had, you would have made a little discovery, that is all."

"Should I?" said Christopher, puzzled. "What?"

"I shall not tell you. Think what you please. Yes, sir, you would have found out that I take long walks every day, all alone; and what is more, that I walk through Gravesend, hoping--like a goose--that somebody really loved me, and would meet me, and beg my pardon; and if he had, I should have told him it was only my tongue, and my nerves, and things; my heart was his, and my grat.i.tude. And after all, what do words signify, when I am a good, obedient girl at bottom? So that is what you have lost by not condescending to look after me. Fine love!--Christopher, beg my pardon."

"May I inquire for what?"

"Why, for not understanding me; for not knowing that I should be sorry the moment you were gone. I took them off the very next day, to please you."

"Took off whom?--Oh, I understand. You did? Then you ARE a good girl."

"Didn't I tell you I was? A good, obedient girl, and anything but a flirt."

"I don't say that."

"But I do. Don't interrupt. It is to your good advice I owe my health; and to love anybody but you, when I owe you my love and my life, I must be a heartless, ungrateful, worthless--Oh, Christopher, forgive me! No, no; I mean, beg my pardon."

"I'll do both," said Christopher, taking her in his arms. "I beg your pardon, and I forgive you."

Rosa leaned her head tenderly on his shoulder, and began to sigh. "Oh, dear, dear! I am a wicked, foolish girl, not fit to walk alone."

On this admission, Christopher spoke out, and urged her to put an end to all these unhappy misunderstandings, and to his new torment, jealousy, by marrying him.

"And so I would this very minute, if papa would consent. But," said she, slyly, "you never can be so foolish to wish it. What! a wise man like you marry a simpleton!"

"Did I ever call you that?" asked Christopher, reproachfully.

"No, dear; but you are the only one who has not; and perhaps I should lose even the one, if you were to marry me. Oh, husbands are not so polite as lovers! I have observed that, simpleton or not."

Christopher a.s.sured her that he took quite a different view of her character; he believed her to be too profound for shallow people to read all in a moment: he even intimated that he himself had experienced no little difficulty in understanding her

This solution of the mystery had never occurred to Rosa, nor indeed was it likely to occur to any creature less ingenious than a lover: it pleased her hugely; her fine eyes sparkled, and she nestled closer still to the strong arm that was to parry every ill, from mortal disease to galling epithets.

She listened with a willing ear to all his reasons, his hopes, his fears, and, when they reached her father's door, it was settled that he should dine there that day, and urge his suit to her father after dinner. She would implore the old gentleman to listen to it favorably.

The lovers parted, and Christopher went home like one who has awakened from a hideous dream to daylight and happiness.

He had not gone far before he met a das.h.i.+ng dogcart, driven by an exquisite. He turned to look after it, and saw it drive up to Kent Villa.

In a moment he divined his rival, and a sickness of heart came over him.

But he recovered himself directly, and said, "If that is the fellow, she will not receive him now."

She did receive him though: at all events, the dogcart stood at the door, and its master remained inside.

Christopher stood, and counted the minutes: five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and still the dogcart stood there.

It was more than he could bear. He turned savagely, and strode back to Gravesend, resolving that all this torture should end that night, one way or other.

Phoebe Dale was the daughter of a farmer in Ess.e.x, and one of the happiest young women in England till she knew Reginald Falcon, Esq.

She was reared on wholesome food, in wholesome air, and used to churn b.u.t.ter, make bread, cook a bit now and then, cut out and sew all her own dresses, get up her own linen, make hay, ride anything on four legs; and, for all that, was a great reader, and taught in the Sunday school to oblige the vicar; wrote a neat hand, and was a good arithmetician, kept all the house accounts and farm accounts. She was a musician, too,--not profound, but very correct. She would take her turn at the harmonium in church, and, when she was there, you never heard a wrong note in the ba.s.s, nor an inappropriate flourish, nor bad time. She could sing, too, but never would, except her part in a psalm. Her voice was a deep contralto, and she chose to be ashamed of this heavenly organ, because a pack of envious girls had giggled, and said it was like a man's.

In short, her natural ability and the range and variety of her useful accomplishments were considerable; not that she was a prodigy; but she belonged to a small cla.s.s of women in this island who are not too high to use their arms, nor too low to cultivate their minds; and, having a faculty and a habit deplorably rare amongst her s.e.x, viz., Attention, she had profited by her miscellaneous advantages.

Her figure and face both told her breed at once: here was an old English pastoral beauty; not the round-backed, narrow-chested cottager, but the well-fed, erect rustic, with broad, full bust and ma.s.sive shoulder, and arm as hard as a rock with health and constant use; a hand finely cut, though neither small nor very white, and just a little hard inside, compared with Luxury's soft palm; a face honest, fair, and rather large than small; not beautiful, but exceedingly comely; a complexion not pink and white, but that delicately blended brickdusty color, which tints the whole cheek in fine gradation, outlasts other complexions twenty years, and beautifies the true Northern, even in old age. Gray, limpid, honest, point-blank, searching eyes; hair true nut-brown, without a shade of red or black; and a high, smooth forehead, full of sense. Across it ran one deep wrinkle that did not belong to her youth. That wrinkle was the brand of trouble, the line of agony. It had come of loving above her, yet below her, and of loving an egotist.

Three years before our tale commenced, a gentleman's horse ran away with him, and threw him on a heap of stones by the roadside, not very far from Farmer Dale's gate. The farmer had him taken in. The doctor said he must not be moved. He was insensible; his cheek like delicate wax; his fair hair like silk stained with blood. He became Phoebe's patient, and, in due course, her convalescent: his pale, handsome face and fascinating manners gained one charm more from weakness; his vices were in abeyance.

The womanly nurse's heart yearned over her child; for he was feeble as a child; and, when he got well enough to amuse his weary hours by making love to her, and telling her a pack of arrant lies, she was a ready dupe. He was to marry her as soon as ever his old uncle died, and left him the means, etc., etc. At last he got well enough to leave her, and went away, her open admirer and secret lover. He borrowed twenty pounds of her the day he left.

He used to write her charming letters, and feed the flame; but one day her father sent her up to London, on his own business, all of a sudden, and she called on Mr. Falcon at his real address. She found he did not live there--only received letters. However, half-a-crown soon bought his real address, and thither Phoebe proceeded with a troubled heart, for she suspected that her true lover was in debt or trouble, and obliged to hide. Well, he must be got out of it, and hide at the farm meantime.

So the loving girl knocked at the door, asked for Mr. Falcon, and was shown in to a lady rather showily dressed, who asked her business.

Phoebe Dale stared at her, and then turned pale as ashes. She was paralyzed, and could not find her tongue.

"Why, what is the matter now?" said the other, sharply.

"Are you married to Reginald Falcon?"

"Of course I am. Look at my wedding-ring."

"Then I am not wanted here," faltered Phoebe, ready to sink on the floor.

"Certainly not, if you are one of the bygones," said the woman, coa.r.s.ely; and Phoebe Dale waited to hear no more, but found her way, Heaven knows how, into the street, and there leaned, half-fainting, on a rail, till a policeman came, and told her she had been drinking, and suggested a cool cell as the best cure.

"Not drink; only a breaking heart," said she, in her low, mellow voice that few could resist.