The Passionate Elopement

Charles was winning. Five times he had made the grand Repique, five times the gallant Pique, thrice Capote had taken captive twelve hostile cards to be redeemed with rippling guineas. Ace, King, Queen, Knave, Ten came in sequences as month succeeds to month. His hands were palaces for the abode of many courtiers. They were picture galleries of the oldest kings and queens in Europe. If he threw away Spades, he took up the red Hearts for which he longed. If he discarded Diamonds, he gained a lusty host of Clubs to serve his purpose. At last Vernon, who had lost steadily for a pair of hours--six games at an average price of thirty guineas a game--declared he would fight no longer against his adversary's good fortune. "Moreover," he added, "so much counting has set my brain in a whirl." "As you will," said Charles, who would have liked to continue with picket, but could not refuse to give his opponent an opportunity to avenge himself at another game. So they turned to Ecarte. And now his fortune deserted him. Each time Vernon dealt he turned up a King, and Charles began to dread their florid appearance, as some ambitious minister dreads the veering of his master's favour. Those kings who had hitherto been numbered in his hands in fours and threes, those puppet kings, had won a new dignity from the only game which accords them their rightful place at the head of the pack; each one had acquired, it seemed, a personality that threatened him. Time after time were his Jeux de Regle defeated by the most astonishing combinations of ill luck. So many times did those confounded monarchs affront him face upwards on the serene baize that he began to suspect Vernon of being a sort of gamester Warwick, a maker and unmaker of kings. Indeed, he went so far as to watch his deals rather narrowly and, being unable to detect anything amiss, became heartily ashamed of his suspicions. It was now five o'clock of a chill morning; the fire had sunk into ashes, and dawn would soon shoot her icy arrows into the slow-flying bulk of night. Clare was still asleep in the armchair, but presently the stealthy cold waked him and he jumped up; the candles were guttering away; the burgundy was drunk; the room smelt stale. "Come to bed, Charles," he cried out. Lovely, who had lost at Ecarte considerably more than he had won at Picket, drew back the curtains for answer. The dawn was in the East. He blew out the candles one after another, and in the unreal morning twilight, the aftermath of smoke curled like an outworn pleasure into extinction save of a foul odour. "We have still a grey hour for the dice," said Charles. "As you will," replied Vernon. The dice boxes were brought out, and the ivory cubes began to dance; strange fancies assailed Clare as he watched the gamesters; morbid imaginations, caught from the chilly atmosphere, froze his reason, and the rattle of the dice acquired a macabre significance. They clicked like the hoofs of horses on an iron-bound road. Then they were the castanets of a sinister dance. Soon they were the shaken ribs of Death, the king of dancers, and at the end no more than a baby's rattle, insistent, importunate, maddening. Charles was winning again. The various faces of the cubes took fantastick likenesses. _Two_ was a patched beauty, leaden-eyed, pallid, pleasure-doomed. _Five_ was a skewbald cat and _four_ a plum cake. Six was a ladder to some evil house. _Three_ was a necklace of jet, _one_ a Pierrot's velvet eye. Charles was still winning. The irresponsibleness of the dice annoyed Clare. They tumbled and rolled so gaily and it was mortifying to see a man enslaved by acrobats of ivory. The bodies, too, with their absurd waists were like women whom extravagant stays had driven to vomit sweetmeats. Charles had won. The casement swung open in the sudden winds of dawn; the room was tinted with the cold colours of sunrise. The three men stumbled upstairs disdainful of the morning's gold. A guinea slipped from Lovely's pocket and tinkled down to the foot of the stairs to reward the little scullery-maid who was even now yawning on her pallet upstairs. A thrush tuned his melodies against the swift coming of spring, and the purple leaf-buds welcomed the sun. _Chapter the Eleventh_ NOX ALBA Charles was tempted to deprive himself of sleep for the pleasure of bedabbling his pale silk stockings with dew, but vanity killed romance and the fresh light enchanted a still unruffled couch. So he flung his coat over a chair, and the heavy pockets chinked as they fell back against the taper legs. His prayers were all to rosy Aurora when the fragrant linen sheets flowed like water over his parched brows. Sleep could not pass the melodious batteries of many birds, and Lovely's brain had captured something of the time's clarity. The clock has many secret hours, but those who would know them must follow their slow pilgrimage wide awake. What castles men build to the pipes of the morning! The world was waking up. Outside the talk of hostlers grew so loud that the birds fled from the inn yard to the still deserted bowling green. Soon he heard the jangle of pails, the swish of mops and from time to time the sound of a horse's hoof striking the cobbles with a clap. In the distance a post-horn endowed the air with silver tongues. Charles followed its course along the London road. He pictured the cumbrous vehicle swinging in its straps between the black February hedgerows. He saw the postillions blinking sleepy eyes to the Eastern sun. He saw the great London road like a tape-measure unfolded from the gilded case that was London. Already he was at Knightsbridge watching some townbred maid gathering cresses in the little stream. Now he was spurring the horses to a fine lather, for he could see the grooms in a black knot by the _White Horse_ cellars. In a trice he was taking the air in St. James' Street, and then suddenly he was a little boy picking his way through Westminster mud beside his mother who was carrying a bouquet of violets to their narrow house near St. John's Church. And now it was winter, and the sea-coal was burning sullenly: there were no violets, and heavy on the leaden afternoon he heard the bell tolling in Millbank Gaol. "God save the poor soul, the marshes will be icy cold to-night," said his mother, and he knew that some prisoner had escaped. "How late your father is," she went on as she opened a cupboard, set in the panelled wall, to reach for plates and dishes. Then she told him to get out the candlesticks--beautiful silver candlesticks with swan-like necks and curious mazy lines around their bases. The candlesticks were nowhere to be found. "Where can they be?" exclaimed his mother, pausing to help in the search. Then he heard a sigh and was told to ask Mrs. Gruffle, the landlady, for the brass bed-chamber candlesticks. He rather liked these: there was always a delightful quagmire of grease in the little plate where the socket rested--grease that could be moulded into queer little pliable shapes, with shreds of tobacco stuck around for fur. When he came back to the parlour, he saw his father with his legs on the bars of the grate. "They had to go, my dear, they had to go," the latter was saying. "They were my mother's." "I know, I know, but z----ds' You wouldn't have me fail Dicky Claribut?" "But sure they were not worth----" "Oons! I pledged my best buckles to him; the candlesticks were for his gentleman. I'm devilish sorry, my dear, but, 'faith, 'twas not to be avoided, and here's young Charles! Charles, my boy, never play, or, if you do, play deep and win." "Don't put such ideas into the boy's mind," said his mother anxiously. "Oddslife, my dear, be very sure the ideas are there already." "How can you have the heart to persist when you know...." "The heart, madam?" interrupted his father. "Let me tell you that the hearts of the Lovelys are all of a piece--and 'tis cardboard." Our hero came to his elegant self with a start and was back in Curtain Wells with hot eyelids, and thoughts continually racing over the flowery wall-paper. It was not long, however, before he was once more in pursuit of the past. And now he was seated beside his handsome father in a chariot. They were both in mourning and he thought how well the black frogged riding-coat became his parent. As for himself, his black sattin breeches set his teeth on edge as he tried to scratch his knee. "Where are we going?" he was asking. "To your mother's brother, Sir George Repington of Repington Hall." "That's the man whose letters made her cry?" "The same, young Charles," said Mr. Lovely, ogling a dairymaid through his black-rimmed perspective, as the object of his glances shrank into a hedge, powdered with cow-parsley, and closed her eyes against the dust of their chariot. Then, without any warning, they were driving through a stately park, and as they turned a corner, Mr. Lovely senior exclaimed "Good G...! A cemetery indeed!" Charles looked up and saw a field full of small cypresses with rank grass growing between them. His father, who was looking rather pale, signed to the postboy to stop, and "Charles," said he, "do you go on up to the Hall, knock at the door and ask for your uncle, Sir George Repington. I'll wait for you here." As he set out in obedience to his father he heard him mutter. "This was the very place. I swear this was the place, and not an apple tree left." And then Charles diminutive enough in his black suit with miniature small-sword of cut steel, was asking two enormous footmen in canary-coloured velvet for Sir George Repington. They looked at him and laughed. "My uncle," said Charles solemnly. And they laughed again, but one of them murmured, 'This way,' and walked up a very wide and very slippery staircase, while Charles stumped up behind him. Half way, his sword belt came undone, and the sword clattered down upon the polished oak stairs with a noise that seemed to resound a dozen times through the quiet house. As he did not dare to keep the canary-coloured gentleman waiting, he picked up the toy weapon, clutched it tight in his left hand and entered a big dark room where a gentleman with iron grey close cropped hair sat reading in a chair with a very tall back, his wig balanced upon his toes. "What the d----l's this?" asked the grey gentleman jumping up. "Your honour's nephew," said the yellow gentleman. "Eh! what! leave us, sirrah," and "What do you want?" he said, turning to Charles. Charles could only watch the long furrow over his nose and wonder how deep it was, when the grey gentleman caught sight of the small sword. "Eh! what the d----l! give me that," and snatching the weapon, he broke it over his knee and flung it into the grate. "Please, sir, my father sent me to see you." "Who's he?" "Valentine Lovely, sir." "Good G----! Good G----!" muttered the old gentleman. "And Mrs. Lovely? Did she send you too?" "Mrs. Lovely's dead, sir." The grey gentleman looked across the room at a large painting of a girl in a white dress skipping with a rope of roses. "Please, sir," said young Charles, "I think that is Mrs. Lovely." "It was, boy; it was." "I wish I had known her then," said Charles. "Is your name George, boy?" inquired the grey gentleman in a tone that was half eager. "No, sir, 'tis Charles--after the Prince of Wales." "A Papist, eh?" said the grey gentleman bitterly. "George was too honest a name for that scoundrel. Well, boy, you can stay." "Please, sir, I'd rather go back to my father," said the boy. "He's waiting for me." "Then go and be d----d," said the grey gentleman, and he walked over to the window.