Charles Reade

“ On one of these occasions, with a ship 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 God'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.” ”

“ His mirth was interrupted by Rosa going to her husband, hiding her head on his shoulder, and meekly crying.
Christopher comforted her like a man. “Don't you cry, darling,” said he; “how should a pure creature like you know the badness of the world all in a moment? If it is my wife you are laughing at, Uncle Philip, let me tell you this is the wrong place. I'd rather a thousand times have her as she is, than armed with the cunning and suspicions of a hardened old worldling like you.” ”

“ Rosa used to look out of his dressing-room window, and see him pace the yard. At first, tears of pity stood in her eyes. By and by she got angry with the world; and at last, strange to say, a little irritated with him. It is hard for a weak woman to keep up all her respect for the man that fails.
One day, after watching him a long time unseen, she got excited, put on her shawl and bonnet, and ran down to him: she took him by the arm: “If you love me, come out of this prison, and walk with me; we are too miserable. I shall be your first patient if this goes on much longer.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rosa hung her head, and said “Yes” in a reluctant whisper.
“You spent your daylight dressing. You dressed to go out; dressed again in stays; dressed again without them; and all to deceive your husband, and kill yourself, at the bidding of two shallow, heartless women, who would dance over your grave without a pang of remorse, or sentiment of any kind, since they live, like midges, ONLY TO DANCE IN THE SUN, AND SUCK SOME WORKER'S BLOOD.”
“Oh, Christie! I'm so easily led. I am too great a fool to live. Kill me!” ”

“ Out went poor Dick, with the tear in his eye at being snubbed so. While he was putting up the shutters, Phoebe was making love to her pseudo penitent. “My dear,” said she, “trust yourself to me. You don't know all my love yet; for I have never been your wife, and I would not be your jade; that is the only thing I ever refused you. Trust yourself to me. Why, you never found happiness with others; try it with me. It shall be the best day's work you ever did, going out in the ship with me. You don't know how happy a loving wife can make her husband. I'll pet you out there as man was never petted. ”

“ Falcon took the hint, and went to the drawing-room. Rosa met him on the stairs, with a scarf over her shoulders. “I must speak to papa,” said she. “Where is he?”
“He is on the lawn, dear Rosa,” said Falcon, in his most dulcet tones. He was sure of his ally, and very glad to use him as a buffer to receive the first shock.
So he went into the drawing-room, where all the lights were burning, and quietly took up a book. But he did not read a line; he was too occupied in trying to read his own future.
The mean villain, who is incapable of remorse, is, of all men, most capable of fear. ”

“ I have been wife, and mother, and sweetheart, and all, to him; and to be left like this. He treats me like the dirt beneath his feet.”
“'Tis your own fault, Phoebe, partly. You say the word, and I'll break every bone in his carcass.”
“What, do him a mischief! Why, I'd rather die than harm a hair of his head. You must never lift a hand to him, or I shall hate you.”
“Hate ME, Phoebe?”
“Ay, boy: I should. God forgive me: 'tis no use deceiving ourselves; when a woman loves a man she despises, never you come between them; there's no reason in her love, so it is incurable. ”

“ You would expose her to poverty and misery; but I say no; it is my duty to protect her from all chance of them; and, in doing it, I am as much your friend as hers, if you could but see it. Come, Dr. Staines, be a man, and see the world as it is. I have told you how to earn my daughter's hand and my esteem: you must gain both, or neither.”
Dr. Staines was never quite deaf to reason: he now put his hand to his brow and said, with a sort of wonder and pitiful dismay, “My love for Rosa selfish! Sir, your words are bitter and hard.” ”

“ His absence, and Lord Tadcaster's, made Rosa Staines's life extremely monotonous. Day followed day, and week followed week, each so unvarying, that, on a retrospect, three months seemed like one day.
And I think at last youth and nature began to rebel, and secretly to crave some little change or incident to ruffle the stagnant pool. Yet she would not go into society, and would only receive two or three dull people at the villa; so she made the very monotony which was beginning to tire her, and nursed a sacred grief she had no need to nurse, it was so truly genuine. ”

“ Then he went out to brood alone.
“Dick,” said Phoebe, “there's a change. I'll never part with him: and look, there's Collie following him, that never could abide him.”
“Part with him?” said Reginald. “Of course not. He is a gentleman, and they are not so common in Africa.”
Dick, who hated Falcon, ignored this speech entirely, and said, “Well, Pheeb, you and Collie are wiser than I am. Take your own way, and don't blame me if anything happens.”
Soon Christopher paid the penalty of returning reason. He suffered all the poignant agony a great heart can endure. ”

“ 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 substitutes 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 God; 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. ”

“ Staines, aghast.
“I do mean it,” said she, firmly; “and, if you are a gentleman, you will not compel me to say it twice—three times, I mean.”
At this dagger-stroke Christopher turned very pale, but he maintained his dignity. “I am a gentleman,” said he, quietly, “and a very unfortunate one. Good-by, sir; thank you kindly. Good-by, Rosa; God bless you! Oh, pray take a thought! Remember, your life and death are in your own hand now. I am powerless.” ”

“ And after all this, don't I belong to my Christopher? How could I be happy or respect myself if I married any one else? And oh, papa! he looks wan and worn. He has been fretting for his Simpleton. Oh, dear! I mustn't think of that—it makes me cry; and you don't like scenes, do you?”
“Hate 'em!”
“Well, then,” said Rosa, coaxingly, “I'll tell you how to end them. Marry your Simpleton to the only man who is fit to take care of her. Oh, papa! think of his deep, deep affection for me, and pray don't snub him if—by any chance—after dinner—he should HAPPEN to ask you—something.” ”

“ This blow, coming after she had been so happy, struck Phoebe Dale stupid with grief. The line on her high forehead deepened; and at night she sat with her hands before her, sighing, and sighing, and listening for the footsteps that never came.
“Oh, Dick!” she said, “never you love any one. I am aweary of my life. And to think that, but for that diamond—oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!”
Then Dick used to try and comfort her in his way, and often put his arm round her neck, and gave her his rough but honest sympathy. Dick's rare affection was her one drop of comfort ”

“ Rosa wondered what that was; but only for a moment; she observed a tall, stout, aquiline woman fix an eye of bitter, diabolical, malignant hatred on her; and as she advanced, ugly noses were cocked disdainfully, and scraggy shoulders elevated at the risk of sending the bones through the leather, and a titter or two shot after her. A woman's instinct gave her the key at once; the sexes had complimented her at sight; each in their way; the men with respectful admiration; the women, with their inflammable jealousy and ready hatred in another of the quality they value most in themselves. ”

“ Why pay a noisy fool a farthing to open his mouth for you when you have taken the trouble to be there yourself, and have got a mouth of your own to bid discreetly with? Was ever such an absurdity?” He began to get angry.
“Do you want to quarrel with me, Uncle Philip?” said Christopher, firing up; “because sneering at my Rosa is the way, and the only way, and the sure way.”
“Oh, no,” said Rosa, interposing. “Uncle Philip was right. I am very foolish and inexperienced, but I am not so vain as to turn from good advice. I will never employ a broker again, sir.” ”

“ Here's a little Christopher come, in place of him that is gone: a brave, beautiful boy, ma'am; the finest but one I ever brought into the world. He is come to take his father's place in our hearts—I see you valued his poor father, ma'am—but he comes too late for me. At your age, ma'am, friendships come naturally; they spring like loves in the soft heart of youth: at seventy, the gate is not so open; the soil is more sterile. I shall never care for another Christopher; never see another grow to man's estate.”
“The mother, sir,” sobbed Lady Cicely ”

“ I am a bubble melting into the sea. Soul I have none; my body will soon be nothing, nothing. So ends an honest, loving life. I always tried to love my fellow-creatures. Curse them! curse them! Curse the earth! Curse the sea! Curse all nature: there is no other God for me to curse.”
The moon came out.
He raised his head and staring eyeballs, and cursed her.
The wind began to whistle, and flung spray in his face.
He raised his fallen head and staring eyeballs, and cursed the wind.
While he was thus raving, he became sensible of a black object to windward. ”

“ The Hottentot slept like a stone, and never feared for his own life and precious booty. Staines was compelled to own to himself he had less faith in human goodness than the savage had. He said to himself, “He is my superior. He is the master of this dreadful diamond, and I am its slave.”
Next day they went on till noon, and then they halted at a really delightful spot; a silver kloof ran along a bottom, and there was a little clump of three acacia-trees that lowered their long tresses, pining for the stream, and sometimes getting a cool grateful kiss from it when the water was high. ”

“ The carbuncles gathered from those mines look like rubies, so full of fire are they, and of enormous size. The chaplet had twelve great carbuncles in the centre, and went off by gradations into smaller garnets by the thousand. They flashed their blood-red flames in the African sun, and the head of Ucatella, grand before, became the head of the Sphinx, encircled with a coronet of fire. She bestowed a look of rapturous gratitude on Staines, and then glided away, like the stately Juno, to admire herself in the nearest glass like any other coquette, black, brown, yellow, copper, or white. ”

“ This made Christopher furious. “The ill-natured, crotchety, old—the fact is, he is a misogynist.”
“Oh, the wretch!” said Rosa warmly. “And what is that?”
“A woman-hater.”
“Oh! is that all? Why, so do I—after that Florence Cole. Women are mean, heartless things. Give me men; they are loyal and true.”
“All of them?” inquired Christopher, a little satirically. “Read the papers.”
“Every soul of them,” said Mrs. Staines, passing loftily over the proposed test. “That is, all the ones I care about; and that is my own, own one.” ”

“ But Christopher Staines had the start of her. He had already gone down to Gravesend with his carpet-bag, left it at the inn, and walked to Kent Villa that lovely summer night, the happiest husband in England.
His heart had never for one instant been disturbed by Mrs. Falcon's monstrous suspicion; he looked on her as a monomaniac; a sensible woman insane on one point, her husband. ”