A Simpleton Part 25

"Obliged to."

"Why, you poor-spirited little creature, I should like to see a husband presume to interfere with me in those things. Here, take mine."

Rosa hesitated a little. "Well--no--I think not."

Miss Lucas laughed at her, and quizzed her so on her allowing a man to interfere in such sacred things as dress and cosmetics, that she came back irritated with her husband, and gave him a short answer or two.

Then he asked what was the matter.

"You treat me like a child--taking away my very puff."

"I treat you like a beautiful flower, that no bad gardener shall wither whilst I am here."

"What nonsense! How could that wither me? It is only violet powder--what they put on babies."

"And who are the Herods that put it on babies?"

"Their own mothers, that love them ten times more than the fathers do."

"And kill a hundred of them for one a man ever kills. Mothers!--the most wholesale homicides in the nation. We will examine your violet-powder: bring it down here."

While she was gone he sent for a breakfast-cupful of flour, and when she came back he had his scales out, and begged her to put a teaspoonful of flour into one scale and of violet powder into another. The flour kicked the beam, as Homer expresses himself.

"Put another spoonful of flour."

The one spoonful of violet powder outweighed the two of flour.

"Now," said Staines, "does not that show you the presence of a mineral in your vegetable powder? I suppose they tell you it is made of white violets dried, and triturated in a diamond mill. Let us find out what metal it is. We need not go very deep into chemistry for that." He then applied a simple test, and detected the presence of lead in large quant.i.ties. Then he lectured her: "Invisible perspiration is a process of nature necessary to health and to life. The skin is made porous for that purpose. You can kill anybody in an hour or two by closing the pores. A certain infallible a.s.s, called Pope Leo XII., killed a little boy in two hours, by gilding him to adorn the pageant of his first procession as Pope. But what is death to the whole body must be injurious to a part. What madness, then, to clog the pores of so large and important a surface as the face, and check the invisible perspiration: how much more to insert lead into your system every day of your life; a c.u.mulative poison, and one so deadly and so subtle, that the Sheffield file-cutters die in their prime, from merely hammering on a leaden anvil. And what do you gain by this suicidal habit? No plum has a sweeter bloom or more delicious texture than the skin of your young face; but this mineral filth hides that delicate texture, and subst.i.tutes a dry, uniform appearance, more like a certain kind of leprosy than health. Nature made your face the rival of peaches, roses, lilies; and you say, 'No; I know better than my Creator and my G.o.d; my face shall be like a dusty miller's.' Go into any flour-mill, and there you shall see men with faces exactly like your friend Miss Lucas's. But before a miller goes to his sweetheart, he always washes his face. You ladies would never get a miller down to your level in brains. It is a miller's DIRTY face our mono-maniacs of woman imitate, not the face a miller goes a-courting with."

"La! what a fuss about nothing!"

"About nothing! Is your health nothing? Is your beauty nothing? Well, then, it will cost you nothing to promise me never to put powder on your face again."

"Very well, I promise. Now what will you do for me?"

"Work for you--write for you--suffer for you--be self-denying for you--and even give myself the pain of disappointing you now and then--looking forward to the time when I shall be able to say 'Yes' to everything you ask me. Ah! child, you little know what it costs me to say 'No' to YOU."

Rosa put her arms round him and acquiesced. She was one of those who go with the last speaker; but, for that very reason, the eternal companions.h.i.+p of so flighty and flirty a girl as Miss Lucas was injurious to her.

One day Lady Cicely Treherne was sitting with Mrs. Staines, smiling languidly at her talk, and occasionally drawling out a little plain good sense, when in came Miss Lucas, with her tongue well hung, as usual, and dashed into twenty topics in ten minutes.

This young lady in her discourse was like those little oily beetles you see in small ponds, whose whole life is spent in tacking--confound them for it!--generally at right angles. What they are in navigation was Miss Lucas in conversation: tacked so eternally from topic to topic, that no man on earth, and not every woman, could follow her.

At the sight and sound of her, Lady Cicely congealed and stiffened.

Easy and unpretending with Mrs. Staines, she was all dignity, and even majesty, in the presence of this chatterbox; and the smoothness with which the transfiguration was accomplished marked that accomplished actress the high-bred woman of the world.

Rosa, better able to estimate the change of manner than Miss Lucas was, who did not know how little this Sawny was afflicted with misplaced dignity, looked wistfully and distressed at her. Lady Cicely smiled kindly in reply, rose, without seeming to hurry,--catch her condescending to be rude to Charlotte Lucas,--and took her departure, with a profound and most gracious courtesy to the lady who had driven her away.

Mrs. Staines saw her down-stairs, and said, ruefully, "I am afraid you do not like my friend Miss Lucas. She is a great rattle, but so good-natured and clever."

Lady Cicely shook her head. "Clevaa people don't talk so much nonsense before strangaas."

"Oh, dear!" said Rosa. "I was in hopes you would like her."

"Do YOU like her?"

"Indeed I do; but I shall not, if she drives an older friend away."

"My dyah, I'm not easily dwiven from those I esteem. But you undastand that is not a woman for me to mispwonownce my 'ah's befaw--NOR FOR YOU TO MAKE A BOSOM FWIEND OF--WOSA STAINES."

She said this with a sudden maternal solemnity and kindness that contrasted n.o.bly and strangely with her yea-nay style, and Mrs. Staines remembered the words years after they were spoken.

It so happened that after this Mrs. Staines received no more visits from Lady Cicely for some time, and that vexed her. She knew her s.e.x enough to be aware that they are very jealous, and she permitted herself to think that this high-minded Sawny was jealous of Miss Lucas.

This idea, founded on a general estimate of her s.e.x, was dispelled by a few lines from Lady Cicely, to say her family and herself were in deep distress; her brother, Lord Ayscough, lay dying from an accident.

Then Rosa was all remorse, and ran down to Staines to tell him. She found him with an open letter in his hand. It was from Dr. Barr, and on the same subject. The doctor, who had always been friendly to him, invited him to come down at once to Hallowtree Hall, in Huntingdons.h.i.+re, to a consultation. There was a friendly intimation to start at once, as the patient might die any moment.

Husband and wife embraced each other in a tumult of surprised thankfulness. A few necessaries were thrown into a carpet-bag, and Dr. Staines was soon whirled into Huntingdons.h.i.+re. Having telegraphed beforehand, he was met at the station by the earl's carriage and people, and driven to the Hall. He was received by an old, silver-haired butler, looking very sad, who conducted him to a boudoir; and then went and tapped gently at the door of the patient's room. It was opened and shut very softly, and Lady Cicely, dressed in black, and looking paler than ever, came into the room.

"Dr. Staines, I think?"

He bowed.

"Thank you for coming so promptly. Dr. Barr is gone. I fear he thinks--he thinks--O Dr. Staines--no sign of life but in his poor hands, that keep moving night and day."

Staines looked very grave at that. Lady Cicely observed it, and, faint at heart, could say no more, but led the way to the sick-room.

There in a s.p.a.cious chamber, lighted by a grand oriel window and two side windows, lay rank, t.i.tle, wealth, and youth, stricken down in a moment by a common accident. The sufferer's face was bloodless, his eyes fixed, and no signs of life but in his thumbs, and they kept working with strange regularity.

In the room were a nurse and the surgeon; the neighboring physician, who had called in Dr. Barr, had just paid his visit and gone away.

Lady Cicely introduced Dr. Staines and Mr. White, and then Dr. Staines stood and fixed his eyes on the patient in profound silence. Lady Cicely scanned his countenance searchingly, and was struck with the extraordinary power and intensity it a.s.sumed in examining the patient; but the result was not encouraging. Dr. Staines looked grave and gloomy.

At last, without removing his eye from the rec.u.mbent figure, he said quietly to Mr. White, "Thrown from his horse, sir."

"Horse fell on him, Dr. Staines."

"Any visible injuries?"

"Yes. Severe contusions, and a rib broken and pressed upon the lungs. I replaced and set it. Will you see?"

"If you please."

He examined and felt the patient, and said it had been ably done.

Then he was silent and searching.

At last he spoke again. "The motion of the thumbs corresponds exactly with his pulse."