Collected Works of Frances Trollope, page 29
This explanation appeared to be satisfactory in every way to his attentive auditors; and after it was concluded, they expressed so much kindness and concern, that when the trio entered the dining-room together to partake the nooning so liberally spread there, the amiable Mrs. Bennet had the satisfaction of remarking that there was every appearance of friendship and good fellowship between them.
It seemed, indeed, that the circumstance which had been at first likely to produce such hostile consequences was now producing a very contrary effect; for after some social interchange of their respective wines, and sundry other civilities, they all agreed to go out together, in order, as the two red-whiskered gentlemen observed, to show the young stranger all that was best worth seeing in New Orleans.
They first directed their steps towards the part of the town where the shops most attractive to the ladies were situated, and thereby were enabled to point out to their new friend some of the most beautiful women in the world. But while indulging themselves and him in this agreeable lounge, they led the conversation to the subject of play.
“For my part,” said Major Tomlinson, “I won’t deny that I love play; but I have infernal luck, that’s a fact, and I’ve lost a d — d sight of money since I’ve been here.”
“You don’t say so!” said Whitlaw with a look of great pity and kindness.
“True, upon my soul! but I expect I must have grey hairs on my head before I’m cured; and the cotton bales must pay for it, that’s all.”
“I’m afraid, for my part, that I’ve a few grey hairs already,” observed the general, laughing; “but I can’t say I should altogether like to leave off playas yet— ’tis a devilish fine manly amusement, and that’s a fact — but of course it’s only fit for gentlemen who have got wherewithal to pay. I’m afraid, Mr. Whitlaw, this is a pleasure that you must forego, after your d — d unlucky loss. You must be pretty well cleared out, I take it?”
“Not so bad as that neither,” said Whitlaw, laughing; “I’ve enough of father’s notes in my trunk still, though I won’t say but what they are meant for other matters. However, as I see that my play is a deal better than some, I think that my loss is a reason the more for my playing, for I expect I might likely enough win again.”
“To be sure you might,” said the major; “why not? As far as I see, the play here is nothing at all particular for skill: I’ve seen play quite as good, I expect, at Charlestown. What say you, general? ’tis unaccountable hot this morning — shall we go and try our luck for an hour?”
“With all my heart, major, if Mr. Whitlaw has no objection.”
“Why, I don’t see why I should,” said Whitlaw, “seeing that the only time I did play I won; and of course, if I do indulge myself with a game, it’s a great privilege to go to the table with gentlemen of respectability. However,” he added, laughing, “I expect I should like to play that same chap too if I happened to meet him, for I feel pretty sure I should beat him again. However, if I don’t meet with him, I’d greatly rather play with either of you than with a stranger; though it’s likely enough you’d be too hard for me.”
“I don’t know that, Mr. Whitlaw,” said the major; “I can’t say that I’ve much cause to boast this year. However, at any rate we’ll have a try — not that I’ll put you out of the way of a good thing if you meet him you played yesterday.”
“But what table are we to go to?” inquired the general.
“Let’s go to that one by the French Theatre,” replied Whitlaw, “if it’s all one to you, because it’s there only I can hope to meet my man, you know; and I expect I’ll make something if I do meet him.”
“Certainly, by all means,” said the general; “I’m sure it’s all one to Tomlinson and me, so we do but get a game or two.”
To the table near the theatre therefore they went; and on entering the billiard-room, the first face that met the eye of Whitlaw was that of Crabshawly. One glance, a very slight one, was exchanged between them; and then, each remaining in different parts of the room, trusted to each other’s wit, for finding the means whereby they might mutually serve the common cause.
A game was going on which Whitlaw perceived to be a very unequal one. “That’s a good hard fight, general, I expect — isn’t it?”
“Why that’s as may be to the parties, I haven’t observed them much as yet,” was the reply, made with about as much honesty as the remark that produced it. “But I wish they’d have done with it,” continued Holingsworth, “that we might have a bit of a try together.”
After some farther waiting, the general and Whitlaw got possession of the table. Major Tomlinson found means to exchange a word or two with his friend; and at the same moment Crabshawly skirted round, and continued with at least equal dexterity to give and receive tokens of intelligence on the other side. Could Asmodeus have contemplated that chamber, and read the thoughts that were at work there, his demonship might have found wherewithal to make exceedingly merry. On this occasion, it appeared to be Crabshawly’s cue to seem sharp-witted, and on the alert to take advantage of the rustic Whitlaw’s simplicity.
“You are going to play again, are you?” said he when Whitlaw took his place at the table.
“Yes, I am, sir; and you shall see that I won’t lose the credit I’ve gained. I was half in a fright when I played first; but now I find what I can do, and you shall see that I’ll play a deal better than I did then.”
“Very likely, sir,” replied the other with exactly the species of fine sneer calculated to catch the attention of those upon whom it was intended to work. “Very likely; but I hate to stand idle, and as I was in luck yesterday, I can afford to risk a little to-day; so I’ll bet a hundred dollars on the gentleman you’re going to play with, if you’ll take it.”
“Well, now,” said Whitlaw, “I don’t know what I ought to say to that. I haven’t seen the general play yet; and how do I know but he may do me?”
“Very true, very true,” cried Tomlinson in a considerate and friendly tone. “Take my advice, Mr. Whitlaw, and don’t bet high till you’ve tried your strength. The general is a pretty considerable player, and you are but a young hand, any how.”
“Now that’s what I call friendly,” cried Whitlaw: “and so, sir,” he added, turning to Crabshawly, “I’ll bet you ten dollars on this first game, and not a cent more.”
The game began; and to Crabshawly, who thoroughly understood what was going on, it was not only very interesting as it concerned his own profit, but exceedingly amusing. The skill displayed was not shown so much in the winning or even losing the game, as in the clever efforts on each side to discover the real strength of the adversary. And herein my hero had a very decided advantage; for he came to the combat with a tolerably correct notion as to who and what his opponents were, whilst all they knew of him was calculated to lead them astray as widely as possible.
Whitlaw of course won the game, and affected the most extravagant triumph upon it, declaring himself ready and willing to hazard the last dollar in his possession upon another. He was quite aware that General Holingsworth had permitted him to win; but nevertheless he suspected that his best play was not more sure than that of his late Kentuckian adversary: he saw that in steadiness of hand the advantage was greatly on his own side, and therefore determined if possible to make the next game settle the heavy account between him and his new friends.
The room was very full, and Crabshawly clearly proved his just right to the terms he demanded on entering upon the partnership, by the manner in which he contrived to draw the attention of those “who had money to lose” upon the wrong-headed young novice who was boasting both of his skill and his cash with what appeared to be the most reckless boldness and presumption. The consequence was, that Whitlaw, who watched and caught the eye of everyone disposed to take a share in fleecing him with as much skilful quickness as the most practised auctioneer, began the game with bets that amounted to near three thousand dollars. If he won this, his loss, after dividing with his associate, would be nearly covered: but as the two gentlemen, whom he still felt firmly convinced were sporting upon his own money, had not staked more than five hundred each, he would by no means have been fully satisfied by such a result; and accordingly he risked, with a degree of temerity that Crabshawly witnessed in trembling, the loss of the whole sum, in the hope of indulging his revenge as much as his avarice in leading them on to risk more largely.
The first stroke was played by General Holingsworth, and was made with perfect success. Whitlaw looked at him, and uttered an oath that seemed to express alarm. He looked too, just as he was about to play, both at him and at the major, and read in the eyes of each a sort of scrutinising earnestness which led him to think they half suspected his rustic freshness. Far from being alarmed, however, he only felt the more strongly roused to exertion. He had on all such points unbounded confidence in himself: there was within him a fund of conscious cunning that it was his greatest pleasure to draw upon, and the glance of suspicion which he thought he read in the eyes of his adversaries but served to prick the sides of his intent, and send him onward in his trickery with renewed energy.
It would be but tedious to the reader were all the minute circumstances recounted by which the wily Whitlaw led on his opponents to the point he wished; but it was done with such consummate skill, that even Crabshawly became alarmed, more than once feeling staggered and doubtful: nor was it till the hero of my tale stood triumphantly the winner of the enormous stake he had so cleverly contrived to play for, that this respectable person felt at all sure that he should pocket the half of it.
The room was in an uproar, — it was long since so many knowing ones had been taken in: but even to the last, amidst the intoxicating joy of success, and the taunting expressions of suspicion as to his character, which were whispered so as well enough to meet his ear, Whitlaw sustained his assumed simplicity to admiration; and it is probable that among the twenty-five persons present, more than two-thirds of whom were losers, there was not a single one except Crabshawly who felt quite sure at last whether the game had been won by luck or skill.
“We will settle when we get home,” said Major Tomlinson, addressing Whitlaw with every appearance of easy good humour; though if in truth he shared in the plunder of the pocket-book, his present loss more than doubled that gain —
“That will be the best way, general, with you too,” observed Whitlaw as he nodded assent.
The other winnings were gathered in on the spot with the usual celerity attending such transactions, wherein the readiness to make payment seems in every person concerned to be in pretty exact proportion to the tardiness with which the same process is performed to their tradespeople. So great is the difference between honourable debts and debts of honour!
Before leaving the room, Whitlaw received notes to the amount of four thousand dollars; and, ere he quitted the building, Mr. Crabshawly contrived very skilfully to make an opportunity of demanding the half of it.
“You shall have more, my fine fellow,” said Whitlaw gaily. “I will pay you down at once the half of what the noble general and major have to pay me. Their money I shall have an especial and fanciful value for, and I will share it with no one.”
This was not an arrangement that could be reasonably objected to, and accordingly Mr. Crabshawly had the satisfaction of receiving ere he parted with his valuable friend very nearly the whole four thousand dollars he had pocketed.
As Whitlaw again put up his empty pocket-book, something like a qualm came over him, lest Mrs. Bennet’s fashionable lodgers should escape him. It was true that he had been assured of their wealth and standing by many; yet the fact of their having jointly abstracted the notes that pocket-book had yesterday contained, which he was much too sagacious to doubt, now seemed as he again meditated upon it to offer an incongruity almost too violent to credit, when taken in conjunction with their high consideration in New Orleans. But he soon learned that these apparent contradictions might exist perfectly well together, and with a feeling of exceeding joy he once more perceived the two red-whiskered gentlemen take their honoured seats, one on each side the amiable and ever-gentle Mrs. Bennet.
As soon as the dinner was ended, the company retired as before; and then, if any doubts still remained upon Mr. Whitlaw’s mind upon the possible identity of persons who could steal a purse one day and pay a gambling debt the next, it was removed by the very satisfactory settlement of the morning’s transaction.
While carefully and deliberately counting the notes he had received, and placing them one by one with rather ostentatious satisfaction in his pocket-book, he said with a very expressive smile, “Well now, gentlemen, I’m not that sure, after all, that I’m any such unaccountable fine player; but somehow I never lose money but I’m cock-a-hoop till I get it back again, and nothing stops me. If I hadn’t lost them two thousand dollars out of my pocket-book, you may be certain sure I shouldn’t be putting these four thousand into it. But that’s always my way.”
The general looked at the major, and the major looked at the general, but neither of them spoke; and the trio immediately after separated, with no particular wish probably to find themselves together again. Mrs. Bennet also declared herself “altogether glad,” when she communicated to the party who assembled at breakfast on the following morning, that “the young chap who came up from Natchez way had paid his week and was off.”
It is not necessary to follow our hero through any more of his gambling transactions. Enough has been already related to show the spirit and style in which he played; and when the reader is informed that his subsequent success, though it sometimes varied, was such as to send him home, notwithstanding his very liberal spirit of self-indulgence, with much more money than he brought out, the affectionate interest naturally felt for him will, it is hoped, be fully satisfied.
CHAPTER XIII.
WE must now follow Whitlaw to other scenes. Having, with his constitutional discretion and forethought, removed from Mrs. Bennet’s for fear he might again fall asleep in her dining-room, he once more fixed himself at a boarding-house; and very reasonably conceiving that the money he had made entitled him to an evening’s recreation, he decided upon going to a splendid ball which was to take place that night, where no ladies were admitted but quadroons, and no gentlemen refused who could pay for their tickets except blacks.
To an European eye the female part of the assembly would have suggested ideas of peculiar elegance and refinement. There is a flexile grace, a languid gentleness, a subdued and quiet softness, in the looks, movements, and manners of quadroons, which to those who know not their history, and share not in the strange and incomprehensible feeling which holds them indiscriminately as a race apart, despised, and contemned, let their personal and individual qualities be what they may, must ever have a powerful charm.
But to Whitlaw the fair pageant, though certainly not without its attractions, seemed the signal for letting loose all the worst feelings and passions of his nature. He stood gazing on the lovely groups with the boastful pride of a low-minded tyrant, who glories in the consciousness that he may insult with impunity all whom he beholds.
Among many other accomplishments for which this beautiful but most unfortunate race are celebrated, their dancing is one of the most remarkable; and it has been said that a well grouped quadroon quadrille at New Orleans might rival in grace the most successful figure-dance ever exhibited at “le grand Opéra.” Unfortunately for Whitlaw, the art of dancing was not one of those which he had cultivated; and though he certainly would not have scrupled to put out a score of dark-eyed beauties in their graceful measure if by so doing he could have in any degree amused himself, he thought that on the present occasion he should be more gratified by seeing them go right than in contriving to make them go wrong. He therefore sat himself down on a well-cushioned sofa, with the intention of deciding very much at his ease which was the most lovely girl in the room.
Some pretty and piteous episodes might be here indulged in description of individual loveliness and of gentle sweetness, that not even the iron fate which legally doomed them all to infamy from the hour they first drew breath could destroy. But wide as is the field for the purest sympathy and the holiest sorrow, it cannot be entered upon without the risk of encountering scenes from which the eye of human virtue must turn aside; while we may well believe that “the recording angel as he writes them down will drop a tear upon the words” that tell of frailty enforced by law, and affection which no ceremony is sufficiently holy to render legitimate.
This we may surely easily guess at and easily believe; but far be it from any mortal to judge with what species of immortal feeling those acts will be registered, by which one portion of the human race compel by law another portion to infamy and sin.
Leaving therefore all allusion to the adventures of the evening in which any of the graceful groups that danced before him were so unfortunate as to attract Mr. Whitlaw’s particular attention, we must pass to a circumstance of a different kind, which soon obliged him to forget for the moment everything else.
It was in passing from the ball-room to the bar, at which refreshments of all kinds were furnished, that Whitlaw was arrested in his progress by a hand laid not very lightly on his shoulder. He suddenly turned, and encountered the well-known face of Hogstown, who has already been introduced to the reader at Natchez when forcing himself upon the notice of Edward Bligh.
“So here you are, my man!” exclaimed he. “The colonel told me I should be sure to find you. — Fine work we are likely to have, arn’t we?”
Whitlaw expressed his ignorance of the particular events to which he alluded.
