On the rejection of his peace-offerings, our warlike young American chief chose to be in great wrath not only against Colonel Lambert, but the whole of that gentleman’s family. “He has humiliated me before the girls!” thought the young man. “He and Mr. Wolfe, who were forever preaching morality to me, and giving themselves airs of superiority and protection, have again been holding me up to the family as a scapegrace and prodigal. They are so virtuous that they won’t shake me by the hand, forsooth; and when I want to show them a little common gratitude, they fling my presents in my face!”
“Why, sir, the things must be worth a little fortune!” says Parson Sampson, casting an eye of covetousness on the two morocco boxes, in which, on their white satin cushions, reposed Mr. Sparks’s golden gewgaws.
“They cost some money, Sampson,” says the young man. “Not that I would grudge ten times the amount to people who have been kind to me.”
“No, faith, sir, not if I know your honour!” interjects Sampson, who never lost a chance of praising his young patron to his face.
“The repeater, they told me, was a great bargain, and worth a hundred pounds at Paris. Little Miss Hetty I remember saying that she longed to have a repeating watch.”
“Oh, what a love!” cries the chaplain, “with a little circle of pearls on the back, and a diamond knob for the handle! Why, ‘twould win any woman’s heart, Sir!”
“There passes an apple-woman with a basket. I have a mind to fling the thing out to her!” cries Mr. Warrington, fiercely.
When Harry went out upon business, which took him to the City and the Temple, his parasite did not follow him very far into the Strand; but turned away, owning that he had a terror of Chancery Lane, its inhabitants, and precincts. Mr. Warrington went then to his broker, and they walked to the Bank together, where they did some little business, at the end of which, and after the signing of a trifling signature or two, Harry departed with a certain number of crisp bank-notes in his pocket. The broker took Mr. Warrington to one of the great dining-houses for which the City was famous then as now; and afterwards showed Mr. Warrington the Virginian walk upon ‘Change, through which Harry passed rather shamefacedly. What would a certain lady in Virginia say, he thought, if she knew that he was carrying off in that bottomless gambler’s pocket a great portion of his father’s patrimony? Those are all Virginia merchants, thinks he, and they are all talking to one another about me, and all saying, “That is young Esmond, of Castlewood, on the Potomac, Madam Esmond’s son; and he has been losing his money at play, and he has been selling out so much, and so much, and so much.”
His spirits did not rise until he had passed under the traitors’ heads of Temple Bar, and was fairly out of the City. From the Strand Mr. Harry walked home, looking in at St. James’s Street by the way; but there was nobody there as yet, the company not coming to the Chocolate-House till a later hour.
Arrived at home, Mr. Harry pulls out his bundle of bank-notes; puts three of them into a sheet of paper, which he seals carefully, having previously written within the sheet the words, “Much good may they do you. H. E. W.” And this packet he directs to the Reverend Mr. Sampson — leaving it on the chimney-glass, with directions to his servants to give it to that divine when he should come in.
And now his honour’s phaeton is brought to the door, and he steps in, thinking to drive round the park; but the rain coming on, or the east wind blowing, or some other reason arising, his honour turns his horses’ heads down St. James’s Street, and is back at White’s at about three o’clock. Scarce anybody has come in yet. It is the hour when folks are at dinner. There, however, is my cousin Castlewood, lounging over the Public Advertiser, having just come off from his duty at Court hard by.
Lord Castlewood is yawning over the Public Advertiser. What shall they do? Shall they have a little piquet? Harry has no objections to a little piquet. “Just for an hour,” says Lord Castlewood. “I dine at Arlington Street at four.” “Just for an hour,” says Mr. Warrington; and they call for cards.
“Or shall we have ’em in upstairs?” says my lord. “Out of the noise?”
“Certainly, out of the noise,” says Harry.
At five o’clock a half-dozen of gentlemen have come in after their dinner, and are at cards, or coffee, or talk. The folks from the ordinary have not left the table yet. There the gentlemen of White’s will often sit till past midnight.
One toothpick points over the coffee-house blinds into the street. “Whose phaeton?” asks Toothpick 1 of Toothpick 2.
“The Fortunate Youth’s,” says No. 2.
“Not so fortunate the last three nights. Luck confoundedly against him. Lost, last night, thirteen hundred to the table. Mr. Warrington been here today, John?”
“Mr. Warrington is in the house now, sir. In the little tea-room with Lord Castlewood since three o’clock. They are playing at piquet,” says John.
“What fun for Castlewood!” says No. 1, with a shrug.
The second gentleman growls out an execration. “Curse the fellow!” he says. “He has no right to be in this club at all. He doesn’t pay if he loses. Gentlemen ought not to play with him. Sir Miles Warrington told me at court the other day, that Castlewood has owed him money on a bet these three years.”
“Castlewood,” says No. 1, “don’t lose if he plays alone. A large company flurries him, you see — that’s why he doesn’t come to the table.” And the facetious gentleman grins, and shows all his teeth, polished perfectly clean.
“Let’s go up and stop ’em,” growls No. 2.
“Why?” asks the other. “Much better look out a-window. Lamplighter going up the ladder — famous sport. Look at that old putt in the chair: did you ever see such an old quiz?”
“Who is that just gone out of the house? As I live, it’s Fortunatus! He seems to have forgotten that his phaeton has been here, waiting all the time. I bet you two to one he has been losing to Castlewood.”
“Jack, do you take me to be a fool?” asks the one gentleman of the other. “Pretty pair of horses the youth has got. How he is flogging ’em!” And they see Mr. Warrington galloping up the street, and scared coachmen and chairmen clearing before him: presently my Lord Castlewood is seen to enter a chair, and go his way.
Harry drives up to his own door. It was but a few yards, and those poor horses have been beating the pavement all this while in the rain. Mr. Gumbo is engaged at the door in conversation with a countrified-looking lass, who trips off with a curtsey. Mr. Gumbo is always engaged with some pretty maid or other.
“Gumbo, has Mr. Sampson been here?” asks Gumbo’s master from his driving-seat.
“No, sar. Mr. Sampson have not been here!” answers Mr. Warrington’s gentleman. Harry bids him to go upstairs and bring down a letter addressed to Mr. Sampson.
“Addressed to Mr. Sampson? Oh yes, sir,” says Mr. Gumbo, who can’t read.
“A sealed letter, stupid! on the mantelpiece, in the glass!” says Harry; and Gumbo leisurely retires to fetch that document. As soon as Harry has it, he turns his horses’ heads towards St. James’s Street, and the two gentlemen, still yawning out of the window at White’s, behold the Fortunate Youth, in an instant, back again.
As they passed out of the little tea-room where he and Lord Castlewood had had their piquet together, Mr. Warrington had seen that several gentlemen had entered the play-room, and that there was a bank there. Some were already steadily at work, and had their gaming jackets on: they kept such coats at the club, which they put on when they had a mind to sit down to a regular night’s play.
Mr. Warrington goes to the clerk’s desk, pays his account of the previous night, and, sitting down at the table, calls for fresh counters. This has been decidedly an unlucky week with the Fortunate Youth, and to-night is no more fortunate than previous nights have been. He calls for more counters, and more presently. He is a little pale and silent, though very easy and polite when talked to. But he cannot win.
At last he gets up. “Hang it! stay and mend your luck!” says Lord March, who is sitting by his side with a heap of counters before him, green and white. “Take a hundred of mine, and go on!”
“I have had enough for to-night, my lord,” says Harry, and rises and goes away, and eats a broiled bone in the coffee-room, and walks back to his lodgings some time about midnight. A man after a great catastrophe commonly sleeps pretty well. It is the waking in the morning which is sometimes queer and unpleasant. Last night you proposed to Miss Brown: you quarrelled over your cups with Captain Jones, and valorously pulled his nose: you played at cards with Colonel Robinson, and gave him — oh, how many I O U’s! These thoughts, with a fine headache, assail you in the morning watches. What a dreary, dreary gulf between today and yesterday! It seems as if you are years older. Can’t you leap back over that chasm again, and is it not possible that Yesterday is but a dream? There you are, in bed. No daylight in at the windows yet. Pull your nightcap over your eyes, the blankets over your nose, and sleep away Yesterday. Psha, man, it was but a dream! Oh no, no! The sleep won’t come. The watchman bawls some hour — what hour? Harry minds him that he has got the repeating watch under his pillow which he had bought for Hester. Ting, ting, ting! the repeating watch sings out six times in the darkness, with a little supplementary performance indicating the half-hour. Poor dear little Hester! — so bright, so gay, so innocent! he would have liked her to have that watch. What will Maria say? (Oh, that old Maria! what a bore she is beginning to be! he thinks.) What will Madam Esmond at home say when she hears that he has lost every shilling of his ready money — of his patrimony? All his winnings, and five thousand pounds besides, in three nights. Castlewood could not have played him false? No. My lord knows piquet better than Harry does, but he would not deal unfairly with his own flesh and blood. No, no. Harry is glad his kinsman, who wanted the money, has got it. And for not one more shilling than he possessed, would he play. It was when he counted up his losses at the gaming-table, and found they would cover all the remainder of his patrimony, that he passed the box and left the table. But, O cursed bad company! O extravagance and folly! O humiliation and remorse! “Will my mother at home forgive me?” thinks the young prodigal. “Oh, that I were there, and had never left it!”
The dreary London dawn peeps at length through shutters and curtains. The housemaid enters to light his honour’s fire and admit the dun morning into his windows. Her Mr. Gumbo presently follows, who warms his master’s dressing-gown and sets out his shaving-plate and linen. Then arrives the hairdresser to curl and powder his honour, whilst he reads his morning’s letters; and at breakfast-time comes that inevitable Parson Sampson, with eager looks and servile smiles, to wait on his patron. The parson would have returned yesterday according to mutual agreement, but some jolly fellows kept him to dinner at the St. Alban’s, and, faith, they made a night of it.
“Oh, Parson!” groans Harry, “’twas the worst night you ever made in your life! Look here, sir!”
“Here is a broken envelope with the words, ‘Much good may it do you,’ written within,” says the chaplain, glancing at the paper.
“Look on the outside, sir!” cries Mr. Warrington. “The paper was directed to you.” The poor chaplain’s countenance exhibited great alarm. “Has some one broke it open, sir?” he asks.
“Some one, yes. I broke it open, Sampson. Had you come here as you proposed yesterday afternoon, you would have found that envelope full of bank-notes. As it is, they were all dropped at the infernal macco-table last night.”
“What, all?” says Sampson.
“Yes, all, with all the money I brought away from the city, and all the ready money I have left in the world. In the afternoon I played piquet with my cous — with a gentleman at White’s — and he eased me of all the money I had about me. Remembering that there was still some money left here, unless you had fetched it, I came home and carried it back and left it at the macco-table, with every shilling besides that belongs to me — and — great heaven, Sampson, what’s the matter, man?”
“It’s my luck, it’s my usual luck,” cries out the unfortunate chaplain, and fairly burst into tears.
“What! You are not whimpering like a baby at the loss of a loan of a couple of hundred pounds?” cries out Mr. Warrington, very fierce and angry. “Leave the room, Gumbo! Confound you! why are you always poking your woolly head in at that door!”
“So............