Kitabı oku: «Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands», sayfa 27

CHAPTER XXIV. THE GAMBLING-ROOM

Englishmen keep their solemnity and respectful deportment for a church; foreigners reserve theirs for a gambling-table. Never was I more struck than by the decorous stillness and well-bred quietness of the room in which the highest play went forward. All the animation of French character, all the bluntness of German, all the impetuosity of the Italian or the violent rashness of the Russian, were calmed down and subdued beneath the influence of the great passion; and it seemed as though the Devil would not accept the homage of his votaries if not rendered with the well-bred manners of true gentlemen. It was not enough that men should be ruined – they should be ruined with easy propriety and thorough good-breeding. Whatever their hearts might feel, their faces should express no discomfiture; though their head should ache and their hand should tremble, the lip must be taught to say ‘rouge’ or ‘noir’ without any emotion.

I do not scruple to own that all this decorum was more dreadful than any scene of wild violence or excitement The forced calmness, the pent-up passion, might be kept from any outbreak of words; but no training could completely subdue the emotions which speak by the bloodshot eye, the quivering cheek, the livid lip.

No man’s heart is consecrated so entirely to one passion as a gambler’s. Hope with him usurps the place of every other feeling. Hope, however rude the shocks it meets from disappointment, however beaten and baffled, is still there; the flame may waste down to a few embers, but a single spark may live amid the ashes, yet it is enough to kindle up into a blaze before the breath of fortune. At first he lives but for moments like these; all his agonies, all his sufferings, all the torturings of a mind verging on despair are repaid by such brief intervals of luck. Yet each reverse of fate is telling on him heavily; the many disappointments to his wishes are sapping by degrees his confidence in fortune. His hope is dashed with fear; and now commences within him that struggle which is the most fearful man’s nature can endure. The fickleness of chance, the waywardness of fortune, fill his mind with doubts and hesitations. Sceptical on the sources of his great passion, he becomes a doubter on every subject; he has seen his confidence so often at fault that he trusts nothing, and at last the ruling feature of his character is suspicion. When this rules paramount, he is a perfect gambler; from that moment he has done with the world and all its pleasures and pursuits; life offers to him no path of ambition, no goal to stimulate his energies. With a mock stoicism he affects to be superior to the race which other men are running, and laughs at the collisions of party and the contests of politics. Society, art, literature, love itself, have no attractions for him then; all excitements are feeble compared with the alternations of the gaming-table; and the chances of fortune in real life are too tame and too tedious for the impatience of a gambler.

I have no intention of winding up these few remarks by any moral episode of a gambler’s life, though my memory could supply me with more than one such – when the baneful passion became the ruin, not of a thoughtless, giddy youth, inexperienced and untried, but of one who had already won golden opinions from the world, and stood high in the ranks which lead to honour and distinction. These stories have, unhappily, a sameness which mars the force of their lesson; they are listened to like the refrain of an old song, and from their frequency are disregarded. No; I trust in the fact that education and the tastes that flow from it are the best safeguards against a contagion of a heartless, soulless passion, and would rather warn my young countrymen at this place against the individuals than the system.

‘Am I in your way, sir?’ said a short, somewhat overdressed man, with red whiskers, as he made room for me to approach the play-table, with a politeness quite remarkable – ‘am I in your way, sir?’

‘Not in the least; I beg you ‘ll not stir.’

‘Pray take my seat; I request you will.’

‘By no means, sir; I never play. I was merely looking on.’

‘Nor I either – or at least very rarely,’ said he, rising with the air of a man who felt no pleasure in what was going forward. ‘You don’t happen to know that young gentleman in the light-blue frock and white vest yonder?’

‘No, I never saw him before.’

‘I ‘m sorry for it,’ said he in a whisper; ‘he has just lost seventy thousand francs, and is going the readiest way to treble the sum by his play. I ‘m certain he is English by his look and appearance, and it is a cruel thing, a very cruel thing, not to give him a word of caution here.’

The words, spoken with a tone of feeling, interested me much in the speaker, and already I was angry with myself for having conceived a dislike to his appearance and a prejudice against his style of dress.

‘I see,’ continued he, after a few seconds’ pause – ‘I see you agree with me. Let us try if we can’t find some one who may know him. If Wycherley is here – you know Sir Harry, I suppose?’

‘I have not that honour.’

‘Capital fellow – the best in the world. He’s in the Blues, and always about Windsor or St. James’s. He knows everybody; and if that young fellow be anybody, he’s sure to know him. Ah, how d’ye do, my lord?’ continued he, with an easy nod, as Lord Colebrook passed.

‘Eh, Crotty, how goes it?’ was the reply.

‘You don’t happen to know that gentleman yonder, my lord, do you?’

‘Not I; who is he?’

‘This gentleman and I were both anxious to learn who he is; he is losing a deal of money.’

‘Eh, dropping his tin, is he? And you ‘d rather save him, Crotty? All right and sportsmanlike,’ said his lordship, with a knowing wink, and walked on.

‘A very bad one, indeed, I fear,’ said Crotty, looking after him; ‘but I didn’t think him so heartless as that. Let us take a turn, and look out for Wycherley.’

Now, although I neither knew Wycherley nor his friend Crotty, I felt it a case where one might transgress a little on etiquette, and probably save a young man – he didn’t look twenty – from ruin; and so, without more ado, I accompanied my new acquaintance through the crowded salons, elbowing and pushing along amid the hundreds that thronged there. Crotty seemed to know almost every one of a certain class; and as he went, it was a perpetual ‘Comment ça va,’ prince, count, or baron; or, ‘How d’ye do, my lord?’ or, ‘Eh, Sir Thomas, you here?’ etc; when at length, at the side of a doorway leading into the supper-room, we came upon the Honourable Jack, with two ladies leaning upon his arms. One glance was enough; I saw they were the alderman’s daughters. Sir Peter himself, at a little distance off, was giving directions to the waiter for supper.

‘Eh, Crotty, what are you doing to-night?’ said Jack, with a triumphant look at his fair companions; ‘any mischief going forward, eh?’

‘Nothing half so dangerous as your doings,’ said Crotty, with a very arch smile; ‘have you seen Wycherley? Is he here?’

‘Can’t possibly say,’ yawned out Jack; then leaning over to me, he said in a whisper, ‘Is the Princess Von Hohenstauvenof in the rooms?’

‘I really don’t know; I ‘m quite a stranger.’

‘By Jove, if she is,’ said he, without paying any attention to my reply, ‘I ‘m floored, that’s all. Lady Maude Beverley has caught me already. I wish you ‘d keep the Deverington girls in talk, will you?’

‘You forget, perhaps, I have no acquaintance here.’

‘Oh yes, by Jove, so I did! Glorious fun you must have of it! What a pace I ‘d go along if I wasn’t known, eh! wouldn’t I?’

‘There’s Wycherley – there he is,’ said Crotty, taking me by the arm as he spoke, and leading me forward. ‘Do me the favour to give me your name; I should like you to know Wycherley’ – and scarcely had I pronounced it, when I found myself exchanging greetings with a large, well-built, black-whiskered and moustached man of about forty. He was dressed in deep mourning, and looked in his manner and air very much the gentleman.

‘Have you got up the party yet, Crotty?’ said he, after our first salutations were over, and with a half-glance towards me.

‘No, indeed,’ said Crotty slowly; ‘the fact is, I wasn’t thinking of it. There’s a poor young fellow yonder losing very heavily, and I wanted to see if you knew him; it would be only fair to – ’

‘So it would; where is he?’ interrupted the baronet, as he pushed through the crowd towards the play-room.

‘I told you he was a trump,’ said Crotty, as we followed him – ‘the fellow to do a good-natured thing at any moment.

While we endeavoured to get through after him, we passed close beside a small supper-table, where sat the alderman and his two pretty daughters, the Honourable Jack between them. It was evident from his boisterous gaiety that he had triumphed over all his fears of detection by any of the numerous fair ones he spoke of – his great object at this instant appearing to be the desire to attract every one’s attention towards him, and to publish his triumph to all beholders. For this, Jack conversed in a voice audible at some distance off, surveying his victims from time to time with the look of the Great Mogul; while they, poor girls, only imagined themselves regarded for their own attractions, which were very considerable, and believed that the companionship of the distinguished Jack was the envy of every woman about them. As for the father, he was deep in the mysteries of a vol-au-vent, and perfectly indifferent to such insignificant trifles as Jack’s blandishments and the ladies’ blushes.

Poor girls! no persuasion in life could have induced them to such an exhibition in their own country, and in company with one their equal in class. But the fact of its being Germany, and the escort being an Honourable, made all the difference in the world; and they who would have hesitated with maiden coyness at the honourable proposals of one of their own class, felt no scruple at compromising themselves before hundreds, to indulge the miserable vanity of a contemptible coxcomb. I stood for a second or two beside the table, and thought within myself, ‘Is not this as much a case to call for the interference of friendly caution as that of the gambler yonder?’ But then, how was it possible?

We passed on and reached the play-table, where we found Sir Harry Wycherley in low and earnest conversation with the young gentleman. I could only catch a stray expression here and there, but even they surprised me – the arguments advanced to deter him from gambling being founded on the inconsiderate plan of his game, rather than on the immorality and vice of the practice itself.

‘Don’t you see,’ said Sir Harry, throwing his eye over the card all dotted with pinholes – ‘don’t you see it’s a run, a dead run; that you may bet on red, if you like, a dozen times, and only win once or twice?’ The youth blushed and said nothing.

‘I ‘ve seen forty thousand francs lost that way in less than an hour.’

‘I’ve lost seventy thousand!’ muttered the young man, with a shudder like one who felt cold all over.

‘Seventy! – not to-night, surely?’

‘Yes, to-night,’ replied he. ‘I won fourteen hundred naps here when I came first, and didn’t play for three weeks afterwards; but unfortunately I strolled in here a few nights ago, and lost the whole back, as well as some hundreds besides; but this evening I came bent on winning back – that was all I desired – winning back my own.’

As he said these words, I saw Sir Harry steal a glance at Crotty. The thing was as quick as lightning, but never did a glance reveal more; he caught my eye upon him, and looking round fully at me said, in a deep, ominous voice —

‘That’s the confounded part of it; it’s so hard to stop when you ‘re losing.’

‘Hard! – impossible!’ cried the youth, whose eyes were now riveted on the table, following every card that fell from the banker’s hands, and flushing and growing pale with every alternation of the game. ‘See now, for all you’ve said, look if the red has not won four times in succession?’

‘So it has,’ replied the baronet coolly; ‘but the previous run on black would have left your purse rather shallow, or you must have a devilish deep one, that’s all.’

He took up a pencil as he spoke, and began to calculate on the back of the card; then holding it over, he said, ‘There’s what you ‘d have lost if you went on betting.’

‘What! – two hundred and eighty thousand francs?’

‘Exactly! Look here’; and he went over the figures carefully before him.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough of it to-night?’ said Crotty, with an insinuating smile; ‘what say you if we all go and sup together in the Saal?’

‘Agreed,’ said Sir Harry, rising at once. ‘Crotty, will you look at the carte and do the needful? You may trust him, gentlemen,’ continued he, turning towards us with a smile; ‘old Crotty has a most unexceptionable taste in all that regards cuisine and cave; save a slight leaning towards expense, he has not a fault!’

I mumbled out something of an apology, which was unfortunately supposed by the baronet to have reference to his last remark. I endeavoured to explain away the mistake, and ended like a regular awkward man by complying with a request I had previously resolved to decline. The young man had already given his consent, and so we arose and walked through the rooms, while Crotty inspected the bill of fare and gave orders about the wine.

Wycherley seemed to know and be known by every one, and as he interchanged greetings with the groups that passed, declined several pressing invitations to sup. ‘The fact is,’ said he to one of his most anxious inviters, ‘the fact is’ – and the words were uttered in a whisper I could just hear – ‘there’s a poor young fellow here who has been getting it rather sharp at the gold table, and I mustn’t lose sight of him to-night, or he’ll inevitably go back there.’

These few words dispelled any uneasiness I had already laboured under from finding myself so unexpectedly linked with two strangers. It was quite clear that Sir Harry was a fine-hearted fellow, and that his manly, frank countenance was no counterfeit. As we went along, Wycherley amused us with his anecdotes of the company, with whose private history he was conversant in its most minute details; and truly, low as had been my estimate of the society at first, it fell considerably lower as I listened to the private memoirs with which he favoured us.

Some were the common narratives of debt and desertion, protested bills, and so forth; others were the bit-by-bit details of extravagant habits pushed beyond all limits, and ending in expatriation for ever. There were faithless husbands, outraging all decency by proclaiming their bad conduct; there were as faithless wives, parading about in all the effrontery of wickedness. At one side sat the roué companion of George the Fourth, in his princely days, now a mere bloated debauchee, with rouged cheeks and dyed whiskers, living on the hackneyed anecdotes of his youthful rascality, and earning his daily bread by an affected epicurism and a Sybarite pretension, which flattered the vulgar vanity of those who fed him; while the lion of the evening was a newly arrived earl, whose hunters were that very day sold at Tattersall’s, and whose beautiful countess, horror-stricken at the ruin so unexpectedly come upon them, was lying dangerously ill at her father’s house in London. The young peer, indeed, bore up with a fortitude that attracted the highest encomiums, and from an audience the greater portion of which knew in their own persons most of the ills he suffered. He exchanged an easy nod or a familiar shake of the hand with several acquaintances, not seen before for many a day, and seemed to think that the severest blow fortune had dealt him was the miserable price his stud would fetch at such a time of the year.

‘The old story,’ said Wycherley, as he shook him by the hand, and told him his address – ‘the old story; he thought twenty thousand a year would do anything, but it won’t though. If men will keep a house in town, and another in Gloucestershire, with a pack of fox-hounds, and have four horses in training at Doncaster – not to speak of a yacht at Cowes and some other fooleries – they must come to the Jews; and when they come to the Jews, the pace is faster than for the Derby itself. Two hundred per cent, is sharp practice, and I can tell you not uncommon either; and then when a man does begin to topple, his efforts to recover always ruin him. It’s like a fall from your horse – make a struggle, and you ‘re sure to break your leg or your collar-bone; take it kindly, and the chances are that you get up all right again, after the first shock.’

I did not like either the tone or the morality of my companion; but I well knew both were the conventional coinage of his set, and I suffered him to continue without interruption.

‘There’s Mosely Cranmer,’ said he, pointing to a slight, effeminate-looking young man, with a most girlish softness about his features. He was dressed in the very extreme of fashion, and displayed all that array of jewelry in pins, diamond vest-buttons, and rings, so frequently assumed by modern dandyism. His voice was a thin reedy treble, scarcely deep enough for a child.

‘Who is he, and what is he doing here?’ asked I.

‘He is the heir to about eighty thousand per annum, to begin with,’ said Wycherley, ‘which he has already dipped beyond redemption. So far for his property. As to what he is doing here, you may have seen in the Times last week that he shot an officer of the Guards in a duel – killed him on the spot. The thing was certain – Cranmer’s the best pistol-shot in England.’

‘Ah, Wycherley, how goes it, old fellow?’ said the youth, stretching out two fingers of his well-gloved hand. ‘You see Edderdale is come over. Egad! we shall have all England here soon – leave the island to the Jews, I think!’

Sir Harry laughed heartily at the conceit, and invited him to join our party at supper; but he was already, I was rejoiced to find, engaged to the Earl of Edderdale, who was entertaining a select few at his hotel, in honour of his arrival.

A waiter now came to inform us that Mr. Crotty was waiting for us, to order supper, and we immediately proceeded to join him in the Saal.

The baronet’s eulogium on his friend’s taste in gourmandise was well and justly merited. The supper was admirable – the ‘potage printanière’ seasoned to perfection, the ‘salmi des perdreaux, aux points d’asperges,’ delicious, and the ‘ortolans à la provençale’ a dish for the gods; while the wines were of that cru and flavour that only favoured individuals ever attained to at the hands of a landlord. As plat succeeded plat, each admirably selected in the order of succession to heighten the enjoyment and gratify the palate of the guest, the conversation took its natural turn to matters gastronomic, and where, I must confess, I can dally with as sincere pleasure as in the discussion of any other branch of the fine arts. Mr. Crotty’s forte seemed essentially to lie in the tact of ordering and arranging a very admirable repast. Wycherley, however, took a higher walk; he was historically gastronome, and had a store of anecdotes about the dishes and their inventors, from Clovis to Louis Quatorze. He knew the favourite meats of many illustrious personages, and told his stories about them with an admirable blending of seriousness and levity.

There are excellent people, Arthur, who will call you sensualist for all this – good souls, who eat like Cossacks and drink like camels in the desert; before whose masticatory powers joints become beautifully less in shortest space of time, and who while devouring in greedy silence think nothing too severe to say of him who, with more cultivated palate and discriminating taste, eats sparingly but choicely, making the nourishment of his body the nutriment of his mind, and while he supports nature, can stimulate his imagination and invigorate his understanding. The worthy votaries of boiled mutton and turnips, of ribs and roasts, believe themselves temperate and moderate eaters, while consuming at a meal the provender sufficient for a family; and when, after an hour’s steady performance, they sit with hurried breathing and half-closed eyelids, sullen, stupid, and stertorous, drowsy and dull, saturated with stout and stuffed with Stilton, they growl out a thanksgiving that they are not like other men – epicures and wine-bibbers. Out upon them, I say! Let me have my light meal, be its limits a cress, and the beverage that ripples from the rock beside me; but be it such, that, while eating, there is no transfusion of the beast devoured into the man, nor, when eaten, the semi-apoplectic stupor of a gorged boa!

Sir Harry did the honours of the table, and sustained the burden of the conversation, to which Crotty contributed but little, the young man and myself being merely noneffectives; nor did we separate until the garçon came to warn us that the Saal was about to close for the night.