Jack Hinton: The Guardsman

Julia, too, appeared more out of spirits than usual She pleaded fatigue; but I could see that something lay heavily on her mind. She conversed with evident effort, and seemed to have a difficulty in recalling her faculties to the ordinary topics of the day. A thought struck me that perhaps De Vere’s conduct might have given cause for her depression; and gradually I drew the conversation to the mention of his name, when I soon became undeceived on this point. She told me with perfect unconcern how my father had tracked out the whole line of his duplicity and calumny regarding me, and had followed the matter up by a representation to the duke at the head of the army, who immediately commanded his retirement from the Guards. Later on, his family influence had obtained his appointment as attaché to the embassy at Paris; but since their first rupture he had discontinued his visits, and now had ceased to be acknowledged by them when they met.

My cousin’s melancholy not being then attributable to anything connected with De Vere, I set myself to work to ascertain whence it proceeded; and suddenly the thought struck me that perhaps my mother’s surmise might have some foundation, and that Julia, feeling an affection for me, might have been hurt at my evident want of attention towards her since we met.

I have already begged of my reader to separate such suspicions from the coxcombry of the lady-killer, who deems every girl he meets his victim. If I did for a moment imagine that my cousin liked me, I did so with a stronger sense of my own unworthiness to merit her love than if I myself had sought her affection. I had felt her superiority to myself too early in life to outlive the memory of it as we grew older. The former feeling of dread which I entertained of Julia’s sarcasm still lived within me, and I felt keenly that she who knew the weaknesses of the boy was little likely to forget them in reflecting over the failures of the man; and thus, if she did care for me, I well knew that her affection must be checkered by too many doubts and uncertainties to give it that character of abiding love which alone could bring happiness. I perceived clearly enough that she disliked O’Grady. Was it, then, that, being interested for me, she was grieved at my great intimacy with one she herself did not admire, and who evidently treated her with marked coldness and reserve?

Harassed with these suspicions, and annoyed that those I had hoped would regard each other as friends avoided every opportunity of intimacy, I strolled forth to walk alone, my mind brooding over dark and disagreeable images, and my brain full of plans all based upon disappointed hopes and blighted expectations. To my mother’s invitation to dinner for that day O’Grady had returned an apology; he was engaged to his friend M. Guillemain, with whom he was also to pass the morning; so that I was absolutely without a companion.

When first I issued from the Place Vendôme, I resolved at all hazards to wait on the Rooneys, at once to see Miss Bellew, and seek an explanation, if possible, for her manner towards me. As I hastened on towards the Chaussée, however, I began to reflect on the impropriety of such a course, after the evident refusal she had given to any renewal of acquaintance. ‘I did know Mr. Hinton,’ were the words she used – words which, considering all that had passed between us, never could have been spoken lightly or without reason. A hundred vague conjectures as to the different ways in which my character and motives might have been slandered to her occupied me as I sauntered along. De Vere and Burke were both my enemies, and I had little doubt that with them originated the calumny from which I now was suffering; and as I turned over in my thoughts all the former passages of our hatred, I felt how gladly they would embrace the opportunity of wounding me where the injury would prove the keenest.

Without knowing it, I had actually reached the street where the Rooneys lived, and was within a few paces of their house. Strangely enough, the same scene I had so often smiled at before their house in Dublin was now enacting here – the great difference being, that instead of the lounging subs, of marching regiments, the swaggering cornets of dragoons, the overdressed and underbred crowds of would-be fashionables who then congregated before the windows or curvetted beneath the balcony, were now the generals of every foreign service, field-marshals glittering with orders, powdered diplomatists, cordoned political writers, savants from every country in Europe, and idlers whose bons mots and smart sayings were the delight of every dinner-table in the capital; all happy to have some neutral ground where the outposts of politics might be surveyed without compromise or danger, and where, amid the excellences of the table and the pleasures of society, intrigues could be fathomed or invented under the auspices of that excellent attorney’s wife, who deemed herself meanwhile the great attraction of her courtly visitors and titled guests.

As I drew near the house I scarcely ventured to look towards the balcony, in which a number of well-dressed persons were now standing chatting together. One voice I soon recognised, and its every accent cut my very heart as I listened. It was Lord Dudley de Vere, talking in his usual tone of loud assumption. I could hear the same vacant laugh which had so often offended me; and I actually dreaded lest some chance allusion to myself might reach me where I stood. There must be something intensely powerful in the influence of the human voice, when its very cadence alone can elevate to rapture or sting to madness. Who has not felt the ecstasy of some one brief word from ‘lips beloved,’ after long years of absence; and who has not experienced the tumultuous conflict of angry passions that rise unbidden at the mere sound of speaking from those we like not? My heart burned within me as I thought of her who doubtless was then among that gay throng, and for whose amusement those powers of his lordship’s wit were in all likelihood called forth; and I turned away in anger and in sorrow.

As the day wore on I could not face towards home. I felt I dare not meet the searching questions my mother was certain to ask me; nor could I endure the thought of mixing with a crowd of strangers, when my own spirits were hourly sinking. I dined alone at a small café in the Palais Royal, and sat moodily over my wine till past eleven o’clock. The stillness of the room startled me at length, and I looked up and found the tables deserted; a sleepy waiter lounged lazily on a bench, and the un-trimmed candles and disordered look of everything indicated that no other guests were then expected.

‘Where have they gone to?’ said I, curious to know what so suddenly had taken the crowd away.

‘To Frescati’s, monsieur,’ said the waiter; ‘the salon is filling fast by this time.’

A strange feeling of dislike to being alone had taken hold on me, and having inquired the way to the Rue Richelieu from the servant, I issued forth.

What a contrast to the dark and gloomy streets of Paris, with their irregular pavement, was the brilliantly lighted vestibule, with its marble pillars and spacious stair rising gracefully beyond it, which met my eyes as I entered Frescati’s! Mingling with the crowd of persons who pressed their way along, I reached a large antechamber where several servants in rich liveries received the hats and canes of the visitors who thronged eagerly forward, their merry voices and gay laughter resounding through the arched roof.

As the wide doors were thrown open noiselessly, I was quite unprepared for the splendour of the scene. Here were not only officers of rank in all the gala of their brilliant uniforms, and civilians in full dress, shining in stars and decorations, but ladies also, with that perfection of toilette only known to Parisian women, their graceful figures scattered through the groups, or promenading slowly up and down, conversing in a low tone; while servants passed to and fro with champagne and fruit-ices on massive silver salvers, their noiseless gesture and quiet demeanour in perfect keeping with the hushed and tranquil look of all around. As I drew closer to the table I could mark that the stillness was even more remarkable; not a voice was heard but of the croupier of the table, as with ceaseless monotony he repeated: ‘Faites le jeu, messieurs! Le jeu est fait. Noir perd, et couleur gagne.

Rouge perd, et la couleur – ’ The rattle of the rake and the chink of the gold followed, a low muttered ‘Sacre!’ being the only sound that mingled with them.

But I could mark, that, although the etiquette of ruin demanded this unbroken silence, passion worked in every feature there. On one side was an old man, his filmy eyes shaded by his hand from the strong glare of wax-lights, peering with eagerness and tremulous from age and excitement as the cards fell from the banker’s hands, his blanched lips muttering each word after the croupier, and his wasted cheek quivering as the chances inclined against him. Here was a bold and manly face, flushed and heated, whose bloodshot eye ranged quickly over the board, while every now and then some effort to seem calm and smile would cross the features, and in its working show the dreadful struggle that was maintained within. And then again a beautiful girl, her dark eye dilated almost to a look of wild insanity, her lips parted, her cheeks marked with patches of white and red, and her fair hands clenched, while her bosom heaved and fell as though some pent-up agony was eating at her very heart.

At the end of the table was a vacant chair, beside which an officer in a Prussian uniform was standing, while before him was a small brass-clasped box. Curious to know what this meant, I turned to see to which of those about me I might venture to address a question, when suddenly my curiosity became satisfied without inquiry. A loud voice talking German with a rough accent, the heavy tramp of a cavalry boot clanking with large spurs, announced the approach of some one who cared little for the conventional silence of the rooms; and as the crowd opened I saw an old man in blue uniform, covered with stars, elbow his way towards the chair. His eyebrows of shaggy grey almost concealed his eyes as effectually as his heavy moustache did his mouth. He walked lame, and leaned on a stick, which, as he took his place in the chair, he placed unceremoniously on the table before him. The box, which was opened the moment he sat down, he now drew towards him, and plunging his hand into it drew forth a handful of napoleons, and, without waiting to count, he threw on the table, uttering in a thick guttural voice the one word ‘Rouge.’ The impassive coldness of the croupier as he pronounced his habitual exordium seemed to move the old man’s impatience, as he rattled his fingers hurriedly among the gold and muttered some broken words of German between his teeth. The enormous sum he betted drew every eye towards his part of the table – of all which he seemed totally regardless, as he raked in his winnings, or frowned with a heavy lowering look as often as fortune turned against him. Marshal Blucher – for it was he – was an impassioned gambler, and needed not the excitement of the champagne, which he drank eagerly from time to time, to stimulate his passion for play.

As I turned from the rouge et noir table, I remarked that every now and then some person left the room by a small door, which, concealed by a mirror, had escaped my attention when I entered. On inquiry I found that this passage led to a secret part of the establishment, which only a certain set of players frequented, and where the tables were kept open during the entire day and night. Curious to see the interior of this den of greater iniquity, I presented myself at it, and on opening found myself in a narrow corridor, where a servant demanded my billet. Having informed him that I was merely there from motives of curiosity, I offered him a napoleon, which speedily satisfied his scruples. He conducted me to the end of the gallery, where, touching a spring, the door opened, and I found myself in a room considerably smaller than the salon, and, with the exception of being less brilliantly lighted, equally splendid in its decorations. Around on all sides were small partitions, like the cells in a London coffee-house, where tables were provided for parties to sup at. These were now unoccupied, the greater attraction of high play having drawn every one around the table, where the same monotonous sounds of the croupier’s voice, the same patter of the cards, and the same clinking of the gold continued unceasingly. The silence of the salon was as nothing to the stillness that reigned here. Not a voice save the banker’s was ever heard; each player placed his money on the red or black square of the table without speaking, and the massive rouleaus were passed backwards and forwards with no other sound save the noise of the rake. I remarked, too, that the stakes seemed far heavier; crumpled rolls of billets de banque were often thrown down, and from the muffled murmur of the banker I could hear such sums as ‘seven thousand francs,’ ‘ten thousand francs,’ called out.

It was some time before I could approach near enough to see the play; at last I edged my way to the front, and obtained a place behind the croupier’s chair, where a good view of the table was presented to me. The different nations, with their different costumes, tongues, and expressions so strangely congregated, were a study that might have amused me for a long time, had not a chance word of English spoken close by me drawn off my attention.

Immediately in front, but with their backs towards me, sat two persons, who seemed, as was often the habit, to play in concert. A large heap of gold and notes lay before them, and several cards, marked with pin-holes to chronicle the run of the game, were scattered about. Unable to see their faces, I was struck by one singular but decisive mark of their difference in condition and rank. The hands of one were fair and delicate almost as a woman’s – the blue veins circling clearly through them, and rings of great price and brilliancy glittering on the fingers; those of the other were coarse, brown-stained, and ill cared for – the sinewy fingers and strong bony knuckles denoting one accustomed to laborious exertions. It was strange that two persons, evidently so wide apart in their walks in life, should be thus associated; and feeling a greater interest from the chance phrase of English one of them had dropped, I watched them closely. By degrees I could mark that their difference in dress was no less conspicuous; for although the more humble was well and even fashionably attired, he had not the same distinctive marks which characterised his companion as a person of class and condition. While I looked, the pile of gold before them had gradually melted down to some few pieces; and as they bent down their heads over the cards, and concerted as to their play, it was clear that by their less frequent ventures they were becoming more cautious.

‘No, no I’ said he, who seemed to be the superior, ‘I’ll not risk it.’

‘I say yes, yes!’ muttered the other, in a deeper voice; ‘the rouge can’t go on for ever: it has passed eleven times.’

‘I know,’ said the former bitterly; ‘and I have lost seventeen thousand francs.’

‘You have lost!’ retorted the other savagely, but in the same low tone; ‘why not we? Am I for nothing in all this?’

‘Come, come, Ulick, don’t be in a passion!’

The name and the tone of the speaker startled me. I leaned forward; my very head reeled as I looked. It was Lord Dudley de Vere and Ulick Burke. The rush of passionate excitement that ran through me for a minute or two, to be thus thrown beside the two only enemies I had ever had, unnerved me so far that I could not collect myself. To call them forth at once, and charge them with their baseness towards me; to dare them openly, and denounce them before that crowded assembly – was my first rapid thought. But from this wild thrill of anger I was soon turned, as Burke’s voice, elevated to a tone of passion, called out —

‘Hold! I am going to bet!’

The banker stopped; the cards still rested in his hands.

‘I say, sir, I will do it,’ said Burke, turning to De Vere, whose cheek was now pale as death, and whose disordered and haggard air was increased by his having torn off his cravat and opened the collar of his shirt. ‘I say I will; do you gainsay me?’ continued he, laying on the words an accent of such contemptuous insolence that even De Vere’s eye fired at it. ‘Vingt mille francs, noir,’ said Burke, placing his last billet on the table; and the words were scarce spoken when the banker cried out —

‘Noir perd et passe.’

A horrible curse broke from Burke as he fixed his staring eyeballs on the outspread cards, and counted over the numbers to himself.

‘You see, Burke,’ said De Vere.

‘Don’t speak to me, now, damn you!’ said the other, with clenched teeth.

De Vere pushed back his chair, and rising, moved through the crowd towards an open window. Burke sat with his head buried between his hands for some seconds, and then starting up at the banker s call, cried out —

‘Dix mille, noir!’

A kind of half-suppressed laugh ran round the table at seeing that he had no funds while he still offered to bet. He threw his eyes upon the board, and then as quickly turned them on the players. One by one his dark look was bent on them, as if to search out some victim for his hate; but all were hushed. Many as reckless as himself were there, many as utterly ruined, but not one so lost to hope.

‘Who laughed?’ said he in French, while the thick veins of his forehead stood out like cordage; and then, as none answered to his challenge, he rose slowly, still scowling with the malignity of a demon.

‘May I have your seat, monsieur?’ said a dapper little Frenchman, with a smile and a bow, as Burke moved away.

‘Yes, take it,’ said he, as lifting the strong chair with one hand he dashed it upon the floor, smashing it to pieces with a crash that shook the room.

The crowd, which made way for him to pass out, as speedily closed again around the table, where the work of ruin still went forward. Not a passing glance was turned from the board to look after the beggared gambler.

The horrible indifference the players had shown to the sufferings of this wretched man so thoroughly disgusted me that I could no longer bear even to look on the game. The passion of play had shown itself to me now in all its most repulsive form, and I turned with abhorrence from the table.

My mind agitated by a number of emotions, and my heart now swelling with triumphant vengeance, now filled with pity for the sake of him who had ruined my fortunes for ever, I sat in one of the small boxes I have mentioned, which, dimly lighted, had not yet been sought by any of the players to sup in. A closely drawn curtain separated the little place I occupied from the adjoining one, where from time to time I heard the clink of glasses and the noise of champagne corks. At first I supposed that some other solitary individual had established himself there to enjoy his winnings or brood over his losses, when at last I could hear the low muttering of voices, which ere long I recognised as belonging to Burke and De Vere.

Burke, who evidently from his tone and manner possessed the mastery over his companion, no longer employed the insulting accents I had witnessed at the table; on the contrary, he condescended to flatter – affected to be delighted with De Vere’s wit and sharpness, and more than once insinuated that with such an associate he cared little what tricks fortune played them, as, to use his own phrase, ‘they were sure to come round.’

De Vere’s voice, which I could only hear at rare intervals, told that he had drunk deeply, and that between wine and his losses a kind of reckless desperation had seized him, which gave to his manner and words a semblance of boldness which his real character lacked completely.

When I knew that Burke and De Vere were the persons near me, I rose to leave the spot; the fear of playing the eavesdropper forbade my remaining. But as I stood up, the mention of my name, uttered in a tone of vengeance by Burke, startled me, and I listened.

‘Yes,’ said he, striking his hand upon the table, and confirming his assertion with a horrible oath. ‘Yes; for him and through him my uncle left me a beggar. But already I have had my revenge; though it shan’t end there.’

‘You don’t mean to have him out again? Confound him, he’s a devilish good shot; winged you already – eh?’

Burke, unmindful of the interruption, continued —

‘It was I that told my uncle how this fellow was the nephew of the man who seduced his own wife. I worked upon the old man so that he left house and home, and wandered through the country, till mental irritation, acting on a broken frame, became fever, and then death.’

‘Died – eh? Glorious nephew you are, by Jove! What next?’

‘I’ll tell you. I forged a letter in his handwriting to Louisa, written as if on his death-bed, commanding as his last prayer that she should never see Hinton again; or if by any accident they should meet, that she should not recognise him nor know him.’

‘Devilish clever, that; egad, a better martingale than that you invented a while ago. I say, pass the wine! red fourteen times – wasn’t it fourteen? – and if it had not been for your cursed obstinacy I’d have backed the red. See, fifty naps! one hundred, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-four, or six – which is it? Oh, confounded stupidity!’

‘Come, come, Dudley! better luck another time. Louisa’s eyes must have been too kindly bent on you, or you ‘d have been more fortunate.’

‘Eh, you think she likes me? – Capital champagne that! – I always thought she did from the first. That’s what I call walking inside of Hinton. How he’ll look! Ha! ha! ha!’

‘Yes, how he’ll look!’ echoed Burke, endeavouring to join the laugh. ‘But now one thing is yet wanting.’

‘You mean those despatches,’ replied De Vere suddenly. ‘You always come back to that. Well, once for all, I say no!’

‘Just hear me, Dudley! Nothing is easier; nothing incurs less risk.’

‘Less risk! what do you mean? No risk for me to steal the papers of the embassy, and give them to you to hand over to that scoundrel at the head of the secret police? Devilish green I may be, but not so green as that, Master Burke!’

‘Guillemain will give us forty thousand francs. Forty thousand! with half that, and your luck, De Vere, we’ll break every bank in Paris. I know you don’t wish to marry Louisa.’

‘No; hang it, that’s always the wind-up. Keep that for the last throw, eh? – There’s heavy play there; see how silent they are.’

‘Ay; and with forty thousand francs we might join them,’ said Burke, as if musing; ‘and so safely it may be done.’

‘I say no!’ replied De Vere resolutely.

‘What do you fear? Is it me?’

‘No, not you! I believe you are true enough. Your own neck will be in the rope too; so you’ll say nothing. But I won’t do it! – pass the champagne! – there’s something so devilish blackguard in stealing a man’s papers.’

Burke started, as if the tones of his companion’s voice had stung him like an adder.

‘Have you thought over your present condition?’ said Burke firmly. ‘You have not a guinea left; your debts in Paris alone, to my knowledge, are above forty thousand francs!’

‘I’ll never pay a franc of them – damned swindlers and Jew money-lenders!’ was the cool reply.

‘Might not some scrupulous moralist hint there was something blackguard in that?’ said Burke, with slow and distinct articulation.

‘What!’ replied De Vere; ‘do you come here to tutor me – a low-bred horse-jockey, a spy? Take off your hands, sir, or I’ll alarm the room; let loose my collar!’

‘Come, come, my lord, we ‘re both in fault,’ said Burke, smothering his passion with a terrible effort; ‘we of all men must not quarrel. Play is to us the air we breathe, the light we live in. Give me your hand.’

‘Allow me to draw on my glove first,’ said De Vere, in a tone of incomparable insolence.

‘Champagne here!’ said Burke to the waiter as he passed, and for some minutes neither spoke.

The clock chimed a quarter to two, and Burke started to his feet.

‘I must be going,’ said he hastily; ‘I should have been at the Porte St. Martin by half-past one.’