THE HELL--GORDON CHANCEY--LUCK--FRENZY AND A RESOLUTION.
The night which followed this day found young Henry Ashwoode, his purse
replenished with bank-notes, that day advanced by Craven, to the amount
of one thousand pounds, once more engaged in the delirious prosecution
of his favourite pursuit--gaming. In the neighbourhood of the theatre,
in that narrow street now known as Smock Alley, there stood in those
days a kind of coffee-house, rather of the better sort. From the
public-room, in which actors, politicians, officers, and occasionally a
member of parliament, or madcap Irish peer, chatted, lounged, and
sipped their sack or coffee--the initiated, or, in short, any man with
a good coat on his back and a few pounds in his pocket, on exchanging a
brief whisper with a singularly sleek-looking gentleman, who sate in
the prospective of the background, might find his way through a small,
baize-covered door in the back of the chamber, and through a lobby or
two, and thence upstairs into a suite of rooms, decently hung with
gilded leather, and well lighted with a profusion of wax candles, where
hazard and cards were played for stakes unlimited, except by the
fortunes and the credit of those who gamed. The ceaseless clang of the
dice-box and rattle of the dice upon the table, and the clamorous
challenging and taking of the odds upon the throwing, accompanied by
the ferocious blasphemies of desperate losers, who, with clenched hands
and distracted gestures, poured, unheeded, their frantic railings and
imprecations, as they, in unpitied agony, withdrew from the fatal
table; and now and then the scarcely less hideous interruptions of
brutal quarrels, accusations, and recriminations among the excited and
half-drunken gamblers, were the sounds which greeted the ear of him who
ascended toward this unhallowed scene. The rooms were crowded--the
atmosphere hot and stifling, and the company in birth and pretensions,
if not in outward attire, to the full as mixed and various as the
degrees of fortune, which scattered riches and ruin promiscuously among
them. In the midst of all this riotous uproar, several persons sate and
played at cards as if (as, perhaps, was really the case), perfectly
unconscious of the ceaseless hubbub going on around them. Here you
might see in one place the hare-brained young squire, scarcely three
months launched upon the road to ruin, snoring in drunken slumber, in
his deep-cushioned chair, with his cravat untied, and waistcoat
loosened, and his last cup of mulled sack upset upon the table beside
him, and streaming upon his velvet breeches and silken hose--while his
lightly-won bank notes, stuffed into the loose coat pocket, and peeping
temptingly from the aperture, invited the fingers of the first
_chevalier d'industrie_ who wished to help himself. In another place
you might behold two sharpers fulfilling the conditions of their
partnership, by wheedling a half-tipsy simpleton into a quiet game of
ombre. And again, elsewhere you might descry some bully captain, whose
occupation having ended with the Irish wars, indemnified himself as
best he might by such contributions as he could manage to levy from the
young and reckless in such haunts as this, busily and energetically
engaged in brow-beating a timid greenhorn, who has the presumption to
fancy that he has won something from the captain, which the captain has
forgotten to pay. In another place you may see, unheeded and unheeding,
the wretch who has played and lost his last stake; with white,
unmeaning face and idiotic grin, glaring upon the floor, thought and
feeling palsied, something worse, and more appalling than a maniac.
The whole character of the assembly bespoke the recklessness and the
selfishness of its ingredients. There was, too, among them a certain
coarse and revolting disregard and defiance of the etiquettes and
conventional decencies of social life. More than half the men were
either drunk or tipsy; some had thrown off their coats and others wore
their hats; altogether the company had more the appearance of a band of
reckless rioters in a public street, than of an assembly of persons
professing to be gentlemen, and congregated in a drawing-room.
By the fireplace in the first and by far the largest and most crowded
of the three drawing-rooms, there sate a person whose appearance was
somewhat remarkable. He was an ill-made fellow, with long, lank, limber
legs and arms, and an habitual lazy stoop. His face was sallow; his
mouth, heavy and sensual, was continually moistened with the brandy and
water which stood beside him upon a small spider-table, placed there
for his especial use. His eyes were long-cut, and seldom more than half
open, and carrying in their sleepy glitter a singular expression of
treachery and brute cunning. He wore his own lank and grizzled hair,
instead of a peruke, and sate before the fire with a drowsy inattention
to all that was passing in the room; and, except for the occasional
twinkle of his eye as it glanced from the corner of his half-closed
lids, he might have been believed to have been actually asleep. His
attitude was lounging and listless, and all his movements so languid
and heavy, that they seemed to be rather those of a somnambulist than
of a waking man. His dress had little pretension, and less neatness; it
was a suit of threadbare, mulberry-coloured cloth, with steel buttons,
and evidently but little acquainted with the clothes-brush. His linen
was soiled and crumpled, his shoes ill-cleaned, his beard had enjoyed
at least two days' undisturbed growth; and the dingy hue of his face
and hands bespoke altogether the extremest negligence and slovenliness
of person.
This slovenly and ungainly being, who sate apparently unconscious of
the existence of any other earthly thing than the fire on which he
gazed, and the grog which from time to time he lazily sipped, was
Gordon Chancey, Esquire, of Skycopper Court, Whitefriar Street, in the
city of Dublin, barrister-at-law--a gentleman who had never been known
to do any professional business, but who managed, nevertheless, to
live, and to possess, somehow or other, the command of very
considerable sums of money, which he most advantageously invested by
discounting, at exorbitant interest, short bills and promissory notes
in such places as that in which he now sate--one of his favourite
resorts, by the way. At intervals of from five to ten minutes he slowly
drew from the vast pocket of his clumsy coat a bulky pocket-book, and
sleepily conned over certain memoranda with which its leaves were
charged--then having looked into its well-lined receptacles, to satisfy
himself that no miracle of legerdemain had abstracted the treasure on
which his heart was set, he once more fastened the buckle of the
leathern budget, and deposited it again in his pocket. This procedure,
and his attentions to the spirits and water, which from time to time he
swallowed, succeeded one another with a monotonous regularity
altogether undisturbed by the uproarious scene which surrounded him.
As the night wore apace, and fortune played her wildest pranks, many an
applicant--some successfully, and some in vain--sought Chancey's
succour.
"Come, my fine fellow, tip me a cool hundred," exclaimed a
fashionably-dressed young man, flushed with the combined excitement of
wine and the dice, and tapping Chancey on the back impatiently with his
knuckles--"this moment--will you, and be d----"
"Oh, dear me, dear me, Captain Markham," drawled the barrister in a
low, drowsy tone, as he turned sleepily toward the speaker, "have you
lost the other hundred so soon? Oh, dear!--oh, dear!"
"Never you mind, old fox. Shell out, if you're going to do it,"
rejoined the applicant. "What is it to you?"
"Oh, dear me, dear me!" murmured Chancey, as he languidly drew the
pocket-book from his pocket. "When shall I make it payable? To-morrow?"
"D----n to-morrow," replied the captain. "I'll sleep all to-morrow.
Won't a fortnight do, you harpy?"
"Well, well--sign--sign it here," said the usurer, handing the paper,
with a pen, to the young gentleman, and indicating with his finger the
spot where the name was to be written.
The _roué_ wrote his name without ever reading the paper; and Chancey
carefully deposited it in his book.
"The money--the money--d----n you, will you never give it!" exclaimed
the young man, actually stamping with impatience, as if every moment's
absence from the hazard-table cost him a fortune. "Give--give--_give_
them."
He seized the notes, and without counting, stuffed them into his
coat-pocket, and plunged in an instant again among the gamblers who
crowded the table.
"Mr. Chancey--Mr. Chancey," said a slight young man, whose whole
appearance betokened a far progress in the wasting of a mortal decline.
His face was pale as death itself, and glittering with the cold, clammy
dew of weakness and excitement. The eye was bright, wild, and glassy;
and the features of this attenuated face trembled and worked in the
spasms of agonized anxiety and despair--with timid voice, and with the
fearful earnestness of one pleading for his life--with knees half bent,
and head stretched forward, while his thin fingers were clutched and
knotted together in restless feverishness. He still repeated at
intervals in low, supplicating accents--"Mr. Chancey--Mr. Chancey--can
you spare a moment, sir--Mr. Chancey, good sir--Mr. Chancey."
For many minutes the worthy barrister gazed on apathetically into the
fire, as if wholly unconscious that this piteous spectacle was by his
side, and all but begging his attention.
"Mr. Chancey, good sir--Mr. Chancey, kind sir--only one moment--one
word--Mr. Chancey."
This time the wretched young man advanced one of his trembling hands,
and laid it hesitatingly upon Chancey's knee--the seat of mercy, as the
ancients thought; but truly here it was otherwise. The hand was
repulsed with insolent rudeness; and the wretched suppliant stood
trembling in silence before the bill-discounter, who looked upon him
with a scowl of brute ferocity, which the timid advances he had made
could hardly have warranted.
"Well," growled Chancey, keeping his baleful eyes fixed not very
encouragingly upon the poor young man.
"I have been unfortunate, sir--I have lost my last shilling--that is,
the last I have about me at present."
"Well," repeated he.
"I might win it all back," continued the suppliant, becoming more
voluble as he proceeded. "I might recover it _all_--it has often
happened to me before. Oh, sir, it is possible--_certain_, if I had but
a few pounds to play on."
"Ay, the old story," rejoined Chancey.
"Yes, sir, it is indeed--indeed it is, Mr. Chancey," said the young
man, eagerly, catching at this improvement upon his first laconic
address as an indication of some tendency to relent, and making, at the
same time, a most woeful attempt to look pleasant--"it is, sir--the old
story, indeed; but this time it will come out true--indeed it will.
Will you do one little note for me--a _little_ one--twenty pounds?"
"No, I won't," drawled Chancey, imitating with coarse buffoonery the
intonation of the request--"I won't do a _little_ one for you."
"Well, for ten pounds--for _ten_ only."
"No, nor for ten pence," rejoined Chancey, tranquilly.
"You may keep five out of it for the discount--for friendship--only let
me have five--just _five_," urged the wasted gambler, with an agony of
supplication.
"No, I won't; _just five_," replied the lawyer.
"I'll make it payable to-morrow," urged the suppliant.
"Maybe you'll be dead before that," drawled Chancey, with a sneer; "the
life don't look very tough in you."
"Ah! Mr. Chancey, dear sir--good Mr. Chancey," said the young man, "you
often told me you'd do me a friendly turn yet. Do not you remember
it?--when I was able to lend you money. For God's sake, lend me five
pounds now, or anything; I'll give you half my winnings. You'll save me
from beggary--ah, sir, for old friendship."
Mr. Gordon Chancey seemed wondrously tickled by this appeal; he gazed
sleepily at the fire while he raked the embers with the toe of his
shoe, stuffed his hands deep into his breeches pockets, and indulged in
a sort of lazy, comfortable laughter, which lasted for several minutes,
until at length it subsided, leaving him again apparently unconscious
of the presence of his petitioner. Emboldened by the condescension of
his quondam friend, the young man made a piteous effort to join in the
laughter--an attempt, however, which was speedily interrupted by the
hollow cough of consumption. After a pause of a minute or two, during
which Chancey seemed to have forgotten his existence, he once more
addressed that gentleman,--
"Well, sir--well, Mr. Chancey?"
The barrister turned full upon him with an expression of face not to be
mistaken, and in a tone just as unequivocal, he growled,--
"I'm d----d if I give you as much as a leaden penny. Be off; there's no
_begging_ allowed here--away with you, you blackguard."
Having thus delivered himself, Chancey relapsed into his ordinary
dreamy quiet.
Every muscle in the pale, wasted face of the ruined, dying gamester
quivered with fruitless agony; he opened his mouth to speak, but could
not; he gasped and sobbed, and then, clutching his lank hands over his
eyes and forehead as though he would fain have crushed his head to
pieces, he uttered one low cry of anguish, more despairing and
appalling than the loudest shriek of horror, and passed from the room
unnoticed.
"Jeffries, can you lend me fifty or a hundred pounds till to-morrow?"
said young Ashwoode, addressing a middle-aged fop who had just reeled
in from an adjoining room.
"_Cuss_ me, Ashwoode, if the thing is a possibility," replied he, with
a hiccough; "I have just been fairly cleaned out by Snarley and two or
three others--not one guinea left--confound them all. I've this moment
had to beg a crown to pay my chair and link-boy home; but Chancey is
here; I saw him not an hour ago in his old corner."
"So he is, egad--thank you," and Ashwoode was instantly by the monied
man's side. "Chancey, I want a hundred and fifty--quickly, man, are you
awake?" and so saying, he shook the lawyer roughly by the shoulder.
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" exclaimed he, in his usual low, sleepy voice,
"it's Mr. Ashwoode, it is indeed--dear me, dear me; and can I oblige
you, Mr. Ashwoode?"
"Yes; don't I tell you I want a hundred and fifty--or stay, two
hundred," said Ashwoode, impatiently. "I'll pay you in a week or
less--say to-morrow if you please it."
"Whatever sum you like, Mr. Ashwoode," rejoined he--"whatever sum or
whatever date you please; I declare to God I'm uncommonly glad to do
it. Oh, dear, but them dice _is_ unruly. Two hundred, you say, and a--a
_week_ we'll say, not to be pressing. Well, well, this money has luck
in it, maybe. That's a long lane that has no turn--fortune changes
sides when it's least expected. Your name here, Mr. Ashwoode."
The name was signed, the notes taken, and Ashwoode once more at the
table; but alack-a-day! fortune was for once steady, and frowned with
consistent obdurateness upon Henry Ashwoode. Five minutes had hardly
passed, when the two hundred pounds had made themselves wings and
followed the larger sums which he had already lost. Again he had
recourse to Chancey: again he found that gentleman smooth, gracious,
and obliging as he could have wished. Still his luck was adverse: as
fast as he drew the notes from his pocket, they were caught and whirled
away in the eddy of ruin. Once more from the accommodating barrister he
drew a larger sum,--still with a like result. So large and frequent
were his drafts, that Chancey was obliged to go away and replenish his
exhausted treasury; and still again and again, with a terrible monotony
of disaster, young Ashwoode continued to lose.
At length the grey, cold light of morning streamed drearily through the
chinks of the window-shutters into the hot chamber of destruction and
debauchery. The sounds of daily business began to make themselves heard
from the streets. The wax lights were flaring in the sockets. The floor
strewn with packs of cards, broken glasses, and plates, and fragments
of fowls and bread, and a thousand other disgusting indications of
recent riot and debauchery which need not to be mentioned. Soiled and
jaded, with bloodshot eyes and haggard faces, the gamblers slunk, one
by one, in spiritless exhaustion, from the scene of their distracting
orgies, to rest the brain and refresh the body as best they might.
With a stunning and indistinct sense of disaster and ruin; a vague,
fevered, dreamy remembrance of overwhelming calamity: a stupefying,
haunting consciousness that all the clatter, and roaring, and stifling
heat, and jostling, and angry words, and smooth, civil speeches of the
night past, had been, somehow or other, to him fraught with fearful and
tremendous agony, and delirium, and ruin--Ashwoode stalked into the
street, and mechanically proceeded to the inn where his horse was
stabled.
The ostler saw, by the haggard, vacant stare with which Ashwoode
returned his salutation, that something had gone wrong, and, as he held
the stirrup for him, he arrived at the conclusion that the young
gentleman must have gotten at least a dozen duels upon his hands, to be
settled, one and all, before breakfast.
The young man dashed the spurs into the high-mettled horse, and
traversing the streets at a perilous speed, without well thinking or
knowing whitherward he was proceeding, he found himself at length among
the wild lanes and brushwood of the Royal Park, and was recalled to
himself by finding his horse rearing and floundering up to his sides in
a slough. Having extricated the animal, he dismounted, threw his hat
beside him, and, kneeling down, bathed his head and face again and
again in the water of a little brook, which ran in many a devious
winding through the tangled briars and thorns. The cold, refreshing
ablution, assisted by the sharp air of the morning, soon brought him to
his recollection.
"The fiend himself must have been by my elbow last night," he muttered,
as he stood bare-headed, in wild disorder, by the brook's side. "I've
lost before, and lost heavily too, but such a run, such an infernal
string of ruinous losses. First, a thousand pounds gone--swallowed up
in little more than an hour; and then the devil knows how much
more--curse me, if I can remember _how_ much I borrowed. I am over head
and ears in Chancey's books. How shall I face my father? and how, in
the fiend's name, am I to meet my engagements? Craven will hand me no
more of the money. Was I mad or drunk, to go on against such an
accursed tide of bad luck?--what fury from hell possessed me? I wish I
had thrust my hand between the bars, and burnt it to the elbow, before
I took the dice-box last night. What's to be done?"--he paused--
"Yes--I _must_ do it--fate, destiny, circumstances drive me to it. I
_will_ marry the woman; she can't live very long--it's not likely; and
even if she does, what's that to me?--the world is wide enough for us
both, and once married, we need not plague one another much with our
society. I must see Chancey about those d----d bills or notes: curse
me, if I even know when they are payable. My brain swims like a sea.
Lady Stukely, Lady Stukely, you are a happy woman: it's an ill wind
that blows nobody good--I am resolved--my course is taken. First then
for Morley Court, and next for the wealthy widow's. I don't half like
the thing, but, d----n it, what other chance have I? Then away with
hesitation, away with thought; fate has ordained it."
So saying, the young man donned his hat, caught the bridle of his
well-trained steed, vaulted into the saddle, and was soon far on his
way to Morley Court, where strange and startling tidings awaited his
arrival.