On simphood, its lineage, its many liveries, and the long walk back to the throne.
The Lineage
The House of Simp is older than most peerages and far better at holding coats. Nobody founds it. It gets passed down, like a nose or a mortgage. No boy decides to become a simp. He watches. The father learned it from the grandfather. The grandfather learned it from the great-grandfather. The schooling is never formal, which is why it works so well. The dinner table is the curriculum.
A Field Guide to the Species
Like orchids and bad poets, simps come in many varieties. A serious naturalist, armed with binoculars and a strong drink, could fill a whole volume. Here is a short catalogue.
The Exchequer. He has decided that affection is a currency, convertible at a poor rate and only in one direction. He doesn't court; he subsidises. He pays for dinners for guests who have brought guests. His wallet reacts faster than his judgment, and comes out of his jacket the way a cuckoo comes out of a clock, on time and pointlessly. He thinks of himself as a patron of the arts, but the only art involved is the one practised on him.
The Courtier. He agrees. His opinions are borrowed, and he hands them back on request, pressed and folded. He laughs before the joke has finished, in case it turns out to be a joke. Ask him the time and he will check whether a particular time is preferred.
The Porter. He carries handbags, overcoats, hatboxes, small dogs, other people's luggage and, in the end, other people's emotional luggage, which is heavier and has no handles. He has the arms of a dock worker and the social standing of a hat-stand.
The Lighthouse-Keeper. He waits. He keeps a lamp burning for a ship that has since registered in another port, changed its name and married a shipping magnate. His natural home is the waiting room known as Friendship. He has been told it has a second door, and it does. The door is painted on the wall, and it is a very good likeness.
The Institutional Simp. His devotion goes to an employer, a club or a regiment. For thirty years he works Saturdays for a firm that will thank him at the end with a carriage clock, the one gift that keeps counting the hours he gave away. He believes the company loves him back. The company doesn't love him. It can barely remember the name of its own chairman.
The Spiritual Simp. He has given his heart to a swami with a fleet of motorcars and a gift for vague sentences. Every donation is described to him as a step towards detachment. He is becoming very detached indeed, mostly from his savings.
The Paternal Simp. This is the cruellest irony. For forty years he serves no lady and no master, only his father's approval, waiting across a long lawn for a nod that, if it ever comes, will turn out to have been aimed at the gardener.
The Simp to the Room. This is the most advanced form, and the most tragic. He is devoted to no one in particular and to everyone in general. He adjusts his laugh to suit the table, his politics to suit the host, and his accent to suit the county. He is a chameleon who has changed colour so often that he has forgotten the original one, and now stands in front of mirrors waiting to be told.
The Reformed Simp. He believes he is cured because he now serves only a cat. The cat is not fooled. Cats never are.
The Symptoms
The condition hides well, because it dresses as virtue. Simphood calls itself chivalry, generosity, loyalty or good manners.
Above all, the true simp has confused effort with standing. He believes that if he offers enough, standing will be awarded to him the way a pension is, after enough years of service. It isn't.
The Unconditioning
There is no overnight cure. Generations of training don't dissolve with a single resolution made over brandy.
The Kingdom
The kingdom turns out to be absurdly modest. It is a man's own chair. A throne, looked at closely, is only a chair its occupant doesn't jump out of. For four generations the House of Simp looked up at other people's towers, when the castle was the house it kept leaving in a hurry to carry somebody's parasol.
