Sir Harry Wycherley was of an old Hampshire family, who, entering the
army when a mere boy, contrived, before he came of age, so completely to
encumber a very large estate that his majority only enabled him to
finish the ruin he had so actively begun, and to leave him penniless at
seven-and-twenty. Before the wreck of his property became matter of
notoriety, he married an earl’s daughter with a vast fortune, a portion
of which was settled on any children that might be born to their union.
She, poor girl, scarcely nineteen when she married (for it was a love
match), died of a broken heart at three-and-twenty--leaving Sir Harry,
with two infant children, all but irretrievably ruined, nearly
everything he possessed mortgaged beyond its value, and not even a house
to shelter him. By the advice of his lawyer, he left England secretly
and came over to Paris, whence he travelled through Germany down to
Italy, where he resided some time. The interest of the fortune settled
on the children sufficed to maintain him in good style, and enabled him
to associate with men of his own rank, provided he incurred no habits of
extravagance. A few years of such prudence would, he was told, enable
him to return with a moderate income; and he submitted.
This career of quiet, unobtrusive character was gradually becoming more
and more insupportable to him. At first the change from a life beset by
duns and bailiffs, by daily interviews with Jews and consultations with
scheming lawyers, was happiness itself; the freedom he enjoyed from
pressing difficulties and contingencies which arose with every hour was
a pleasure he never knew before, and he felt like a schoolboy escaped
from the drudgery of the desk. But by degrees, as he mixed more with
those who were his former associates and companions--many of them exiles
on the same plea as himself--the old taste for past pleasures revived.
Their conversation brought back London with all its brilliant gaiety
before him. Its clubs and coteries, the luxurious display of the dinners
at the ‘Clarendon’ or the reckless extravagance of the nights at
Crockford’s, the triumphs of the Derby, and the glories of Ascot, passed
all in review before him, heightened by the recollection of the high
spirits of his youth. He began once more to hanker after the world he
believed he had quitted without regret; and a morbid anxiety to learn
what was doing and going forward in the circles he used to move in took
possession of his mind. All the gossip of Tattersall’s, all the chitchat
of the Carlton, all the scandal of Graham’s, became at once
indispensable to his existence, Who was going it ‘fastest’ among the
rising spirits of the day, and which was the favourite of ‘Scott’s lot,’
were points of vital interest to him; while he felt the deepest anxiety
about the fortunes of those who were tottering on the brink of ruin, and
spent many a sleepless night in conjectures as to how they were to get
through this difficulty or that, and whether they could ever ‘come
round’ again.
Not one of the actors in that busy scene, into whose wild chaos fate
mixes up all that is highest and everything the most depraved of human
nature, ever took the same interest in it as he did. He lived henceforth
in an ideal world, ignorant and careless of what was passing around him;
his faculties strained to regard events at a distance, he became
abstracted and silent. A year passed over thus, twelve weary months, in
which his mind dwelt on home and country with all the ardour of a
banished man. At last the glad tidings reached him that a compromise had
been effected with his principal creditors; his most pressing debts had
been discharged, and time obtained to meet others of less moment; and no
obstacle any longer existed to his returning to England.
What a glorious thing it was to come back again once more to the old
haunts and scenes of pleasure; to revisit the places of which his days
and nights were filled with the very memory; to be once again the
distinguished among that crowd who ruled supreme at the table and on the
turf, and whose fiat was decisive from the Italian Opera to Doncaster!
Alas and alas! the resumption of old tastes and habits will not bring
back the youth and buoyancy which gave them all their bright colouring.
There is no standing still in life; there is no resting-place whence we
can survey the panorama, and not move along with it. Our course
continues, and as changes follow one another in succession without, so
within our own natures are we conforming to the rule, and becoming
different from what we had been. The dream of home, the ever-present
thought to the exile’s mind, suffers the rude shock when comes the hour
of testing its reality; happy for him if he die in the delusion! Early
remembrances are hallowed by a light that age and experience dissipate
for ever, and as the highland tarn we used to think grand in its wild
desolation in the hours of our boyhood becomes to our manhoods eye but a
mere pond among the mountains, so do we look with changed feelings on
all about us, and feel disappointment where we expected pleasure.
In all great cities these changes succeed with fearful rapidity.
Expensive tastes and extravagant habits are hourly ruining hundreds who
pass off the scene where they shone, and are heard of no more. The
‘lion’ of the season--whose plate was a matter of royal curiosity, whose
equipage gave the tone to the time, whose dinner invitations were
regarded as the climax of fashionable distinction--awakes some morning
to discover that an expenditure of four times a man’s income, continued
for several years, may originate embarrassment in his affairs. He finds
out that tailors can be uncivil, and coachmakers rude and--horror of
horrors!--he sees within the precincts of his dressing-room the plebeian
visage of a sherrifs officer, or the calculating countenance of a West-
End auctioneer.
He who was booked for Ascot now hurries away to Antwerp. An ambiguous
paragraph in an evening paper informs London that one among the ranks of
extravagance has fallen; a notice of ‘public competition’ by the hand of
George Robins comes next; a criticism, and generally a sharp one, on the
taste of his furniture and the value of his pictures follows; the broad
pages of the _Morning Post_ become the winding-sheet of his memory, and
the knock of the auctioneer’s hammer is his requiem! The ink is not
dried on his passport ere he is forgotten. Fashionable circles have
other occupations than regrets and condolences; so that the exile may be
a proud man if he retain a single correspondent in that great world
which yesterday found nothing better than to chronicle his doings.
When Sir Harry Wycherley then came back to London he was only remembered
--nothing more. The great majority of his contemporaries had, like
himself, passed off the boards during the interval; such of them as
remained were either like vessels too crippled in action to seek safety
in flight, or, adopting the philosophy of the devil when sick, had
resolved on prudence when there was no more liking for dissipation. He
was almost a stranger in his club; the very waiters at Mivart’s asked
his name; while the last new peer’s son, just emerging into life, had
never even heard of him before. So is it decreed--dynasties shall fall
and others succeed them; Charles le Dix gives place to Louis-Philippe,
and Nugee occupies the throne of Stultz.
Few things men bear worse than this oblivion in the very places where
once their sway was absolute. It is very hard to believe that the world
has grown wiser and better, more cultivated in taste and more correct in
its judgments than when we knew it of old; and a man is very likely to
tax with ingratitude those who, superseding him in the world’s favour,
seem to be forgetful of claims which in reality they never knew of.
Sir Harry Wycherley was not long in England ere he felt these truths in
all their bitterness, and saw that an absence of a few years teaches
one’s friends to do without them so completely that they are absolutely
unwilling to open a new want of acquaintance, as though it were an
expensive luxury they had learned to dispense with. Besides, Wycherley
was decidedly _rococo_ in all his tastes and predilections. Men did not
dine now where they used in _his_ day--Doncaster was going out, Goodwood
was coming in; people spoke of Grisi, not Pasta, Mario more than Rubini.
Instead of the old absolute monarchy of fashion, where one dictated to
all the rest, a new school sprung up, a species of democracy, who
thought Long Wellesley and D’Orsay were unclean idols, and would not
worship anything but themselves.
Now of all the marks of progress which distinguish men in the higher
circles, there is none in these latter days at all comparable with the
signs of--to give it a mild name--increased ‘sharpness,’ distinguishable
amongst them. The traveller by the heavy Falmouth mail whisked along
forty miles per hour in the Grand Junction, would see far less to
astonish and amaze him than your shrewd man about town of some forty
years back, could he be let down any evening among the youth at
Tattersall’s, or introduced among the rising generation just graduating
at Graham’s.
The spirit of the age is unquestionably to be ‘up and doing.’ A good
book on the Oaks has a far higher preeminence, not to say profit, than
one published in ‘the Row’; the ‘honours’ of the crown are scarcely on a
par with those scored at whist; and to predict the first horse at Ascot
would be a far higher step in the intellectual scale than to prophesy
the appearance of a comet or an eclipse; the leader in the House can
only divide public applause with the winner of the Léger, and even the
versatile gyrations of Lord Brougham himself must yield to the more
fascinating pirouettes of Fanny Ellsler. Young men leave Eton and
Sandhurst now with more tact and worldly wit than their fathers had at
forty, or than their grandfathers ever possessed.
Short as Sir Harry Wycherley’s absence had been, the march of mind had
done much in all these respects. The babes and sucklings of fashion were
more than his equals in craft and subtlety; none like _them_ to
ascertain what was wrong with the favourite, or why ‘the mare’ would not
start; few could compete with them in those difficult walks of finance
which consist in obtaining credit from coach-makers, and cash from Jews.
In fact, to that generation who spent profusely to live luxuriously had
succeeded a race who reversed the position, and lived extravagantly in
order to have the means of spending. Wiser than their fathers, they
substituted paper for cash payments, and saw no necessity to cry ‘stop’
while there was a stamp in England.
It was a sad thing for one who believed his education finished to become
a schoolboy once more, but there was nothing else for it. Sir Harry had
to begin at the bottom of the class; he was an apt scholar it is true,
but before he had completed his studies he was ruined. High play and
high interest, Jews and jockeys, dinners and danseuses, with large
retinues of servants, will help a man considerably to get rid of his
spare cash; and however he may--which in most cases he must--acquire
some wisdom _en route_, his road is not less certain to lead to ruin. In
two years from the time of his return, another paragraph and another
auction proclaimed that ‘Wycherley was cleaned out,’ and that he had
made his ‘positively last appearance’ in England.
The Continent was now to be his home for life. He had lost his ‘means,’
but he had learned ‘ways’ of living, and from pigeon he became rook.
There is a class, possibly the most dangerous that exists, of men, who
without having gone so far as to forfeit pretension to the society and
acquaintance of gentleman, have yet involved their name and reputation
in circumstances which are more than suspicious. Living expensively,
without any obvious source of income; enjoying every luxury, and
indulging every taste that costs dearly, without any difficulty in the
payment, their intimacy with known gamblers and blacklegs exposes them
at once to the inevitable charge of confederacy. Rarely or never playing
themselves, however, they reply to such calumnies by referring to their
habits; their daily life would indeed seem little liable to reproval. If
married, they are the most exemplary of husbands. If they have children,
they are models for fathers. Where can you see such little ones, so
well-mannered, so well-dressed, with such beautifully curled hair, and
such perfectly good-breeding--or, to use the proper phrase, ‘so
admirably taken care of’? They are liberal to all public charities; they
are occasionally intimate with the chaplain of the Embassy too--of whom,
a word hereafter; and, in fact, it would be difficult to find fault with
any circumstance in their bearing before the world. Their connection by
family with persons of rank and condition is a kind of life-buoy of
which no shipwreck of fortune deprives them, and long after less well-
known people have sunk to the bottom, they are to be found floating on
the surface of society. In this way they form a kind of ‘Pont du Diable’
between persons of character and persons of none--they are the narrow
isthmus, connecting the mainland with the low reef of rocks beyond it.
These men are the tame elephants of the swindling world, who provide the
game, though they never seem to care for the sport. Too cautious of
reputation to become active agents in these transactions, they introduce
the unsuspecting traveller into those haunts and among those where ruin
is rife; and as the sheriff consigns the criminal to the attentions of
the hangman, so these worthies halt at the ‘drop,’ and would scorn with
indignation the idea of exercising the last office of the law.
Far from this, they are eloquent in their denunciations of play. Such
sound morality as theirs cannot be purchased at any price; the dangers
that beset young men coming abroad--the risk of chance acquaintance, the
folly of associating with persons not known--form the staple of their
talk--which, lest it should seem too cynical in its attack on pleasure,
is relieved by that admirable statement so popular in certain circles.
‘You know a man of the world must see everything for himself, so that
though I say don’t gamble, I never said don’t frequent the Cursaal;
though I bade you avoid play, I did not say shun blacklegs.’ It is
pretty much like desiring a man not to take the yellow fever, but to be
sure to pass an autumn on the coast of Africa!
Such, then, was the character of him who would once have rejected with
horror the acquaintance of one like himself. A sleeping partner in
swindling, he received his share of the profits, although his name did
not appear in the firm. His former acquaintances continued to know him,
his family connections were large and influential, and though some may
have divined his practices, he was one of those men that are never
‘cut.’ Some pitied him; some affected to disbelieve all the stories
against him; some told tales of his generosity and kindness, but
scarcely any one condemned him--‘Ainsi va le monde?’
Once more I ask forgiveness, if I have been too prolix in all this;
rather would I have you linger in pleasanter scenes, and with better
company, but--there must always be a ‘but’--he is only a sorry pilot who
would content himself with describing the scenery of the coast,
expatiating on the beauty of the valleys and the boldness of the
headlands, while he let the vessel take her course among reefs and
rocks, and risk a shipwreck while he amused the passengers. Adieu, then,
to Spas and their visitors! The sick are seldom the pleasantest company;
the healthy at such places are rarely the safest.
‘You are going, Mr. O’Leary?’ said a voice from a window opposite the
hotel, as my luggage was lifted into a _fiacre_, I looked up. It was the
youth who had lost so deeply at the Cursaal.
‘Only to Ooblentz, for a few days,’ said I; ‘I am weary of gaiety and
fine people. I wish for quiet just now.’
‘I would that I had gone some weeks ago,’ exclaimed he, with a sigh.
‘May I walk with you as far as the river?’
I assented with pleasure, and in a moment after he was by my side.
‘I trust,’ said I, when we had walked together some time--‘I trust you
have not been to the Cursaal again?’
‘Never since I met you; that night was the last I ever passed there!’ He
paused for some minutes, and then added, ‘You are not acquainted with
either of the gentlemen in whose company we supped--I think you told me
so on the way home?’
‘No, they were both strangers to me; it was a chance rencontre, and in
the few weeks I passed at Wiesbaden I learned enough not to pursue the
acquaintance further. Indeed, to do them justice, they seemed as well
disposed as myself to drop the intimacy; I seldom play, never among
strangers.’
‘Ah,’ said he, in an accent of some bitterness, ‘that resolve would
avail you little with _them; they_ can win without playing for it.’
‘How so; what do you mean?’
‘Have you a mind for a short story? It is my own adventure, and I can
vouch for the truth.’ I assented, and he went on:--
‘About a week ago, Mr. Crotty, with two others, one of whom was called
Captain Jacob, came to invite me to a little excursion to Kreuznach.
They were to go one day and return the following one. Sir Harry was to
join the party also, and they spoke of Lord Edderdale and some others.
But Wycherley only came down to the steamboat, when a messenger arrived
with a pressing letter, recalling him to Wiesbaden, and the rest never
appeared. Away we went, however, in good spirits; the day was fine, and
the sail down the Rhine, as you know, delightful. We arrived at
Kreuznach to dinner, spent the evening in wandering about the pretty
scenery, and came back by moonlight to a late supper. As usual with
them, cards were produced after supper, but I had never touched a card,
nor made a bet, since my unlucky night at the Cursaal; so I merely sat
by the table and looked on at the game--of course taking that interest
in it a man fond of play cannot divest himself of--but neither
counselling any party, nor offering a bet to either side. The game
gradually became interesting, deeply so, as well from the skill of the
players as the high stakes they played for. Large sums of money changed
owners, and heavy scores were betted besides. Meanwhile, champagne was
called for, and, as the night wore on, a bowl of smoking bishop, spiced
and seasoned to perfection. My office was to fill the glasses of the
party, and drink toasts with each of them in succession, as luck
inclined to this side or that.
‘The excitement of play needs not wine to make it near to madness; but
with it no mania is more complete. Although but a looker-on, my
attention was bent on the game; and what with the odorous bowl of
bishop, and the long-sustained interest, the fatigue of a day more than
usually laborious, and a constitution never strong, I became so heavy
that I threw myself upon a sofa, and fell fast asleep.
‘How I reached my bed and became undressed, I never knew since; but by
noon the next day I was awakened from a deep slumber, and saw Jacob
beside me.
‘“Well, old fellow, you take it coolly,” said he, laughing; “you don’t
know it’s past twelve o’clock.”
‘“Indeed!” said I, starting up, and scarce remembering where I was. “The
fact is, my wits are none of the clearest this morning--that bowl of
bishop finished me.”
‘“Did it, by Jove?” replied he, with a half saucy laugh; “I’ll wager a
pony, notwithstanding, that you never played better in your life.”
‘“Played! why, I never touched a card,” said I, in horror and amazement.
‘“I wish you hadn’t, that’s all,” said he, while he took a pocket-book
from his pocket, and proceeded to open it on the bed. “If you hadn’t, I
should have been somewhat of a richer man this morning.”
‘“I can only tell you,” said I, as I rubbed my eyes, and endeavoured to
waken up more completely--“I can only tell you that I don’t remember
anything of what you allude to, nor can I believe that I would have
broken a firm resolve I made against play----”
‘“Gently, sir, gently,” said he, in a low, smooth voice; “be a little
careful, I beseech you; what you have just said amounts to something
very like a direct contradiction of my words. Please to remember, sir,
that we were strangers to each other yesterday morning. But to be brief,
was your last bet a double or quit, or only a ten-pound note, for on
that depends whether I owe you two hundred and sixty, or two hundred and
seventy pounds? Can you set me right on that point--they made such a
noise at the time, I can’t be clear about it.”
‘“I protest, sir,” said I, once more, “this is all a dream to me; as I
have told you already, I never played----”
‘“You never played, sir?”
‘“I mean, I never knew I played, or I have no remembrance of it now.”
‘“Well, young gentleman, fortune treats _you_ better when asleep than
she does _me_ with my eyes open, and as I have no time to lose, for I
leave for Bingen in half an hour, I have only to say, here is your
money. You may forget what you have won; I have also an obligation, but
a stronger one, to remember what I have lost; and as for the ten pounds,
shall we say head or tail for it, as we neither of us are quite clear
about it?”
‘“Say anything you like, for I firmly believe one or the other of us
must be out of our reason.”
‘“What do you say, sir--head or tail?”
‘“Head!” cried I, in a frenzy; “there ought to be _one_ in the party.”
‘“Won again, by Jove!” said he, opening his hand; “I think you’ll find
that rouleau correct; and now, sir, _au revoir_. I shall have my revenge
one of these days.”
‘He shook my hand and went out, leaving me sitting up in the bed, trying
to remember some one circumstance of the previous night, by which I
could recall my joining the play-table. But nothing of the kind; a thick
haze was over everything, through which I could merely recollect the
spicy bishop, and my continued efforts to keep their glasses filled.
There I sat, puzzled and confused, the bed covered with bank-notes,
which after all have some confounded magic in their faces that makes our
acceptance of them a matter of far less repugnance than it ought. While
I counted over my gains, stopping every instant to think on the strange
caprices of fortune, that wouldn’t afford me the gambler’s pleasure of
winning, while enriching me with gain, the door opened, and in came
Crotty.
‘“Not up yet! why, we start in ten minutes; didn’t the waiter call you?”
‘“No. I am in a state of bewilderment this whole morning-----”
‘“Well, well, get clear of it for a few seconds, I advise you, and let
us settle scores----”
‘“What!” cried I, laughing, “have I won from you also?”
‘“No, by Jove, it’s the other way. You pushed me rather sharply though,
and if I had taken all your bets I should have made a good thing of it.
As it is”--here he opened a memorandum-book and read out--“as it is, I
have only won seven hundred and twenty, and two hundred and fifty-eight-
-nine hundred and seventy-eight, I believe; does not that make it?”
‘I shivered like one in the ague, and couldn’t speak a word.
‘“Has Jacob booked up?” asked Crotty.
‘“Yes,” said I, pointing to the notes on the bed, that now looked like a
brood of rattlesnakes to my eyes.
‘“All right,” continued he, “Jacob is a most punctilious fellow--
foolishly so, indeed, among friends. Well, what are we to say about
this--are you strong in cash just now?”
‘“No,” stammered I, with a sigh.
‘“Well, never mind--a short bill for the balance; I’ll take what’s here
in part payment, and don’t let the thing give you any inconvenience.”
‘This was done in a good off-hand way. I signed the bill which he drew
up in due form. He had a dozen stamps ready in his pocket-book. He
rolled up the banknotes carelessly, stuffed them into his coat-pocket,
and with a most affectionate hope of seeing me next day at Wiesbaden,
left the room.
‘The bill is paid--I released it in less than a week. My trip to
Kreuznach just cost me seven hundred pounds, and I may be pardoned if I
never like “bishop” for the rest of my life after.’
‘I should not wonder if you became a Presbyterian to-morrow,’ said I,
endeavouring to encourage his own effort at good-humour: ‘but here we
are at the Rhine. Good-bye; I needn’t warn you about----’
‘Not a word, I beseech you; I’ll never close my eyes as long as I live
without a double lock on the door of my bedroom.’