The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 3

And then an odd fancy came over me. In the midst of the yellow heap, ever increasing, on our side of the table, lay the pair of diamond buckles. I could see rays of an infinite variety of colours spirting out like little jets of flame, as the light caught the stones, and I felt a queer conviction that Elmscott's luck was in some way bound up with them. So strongly did the whim possess me that I lifted them from the table to test my thought. For so long as took the players to play two games, I held the buckles in my hands; and both games my cousin lost. I replaced them on the table, and he began to win once more with the old regularity, the heaps dwindling there and growing here, until at length all the money lay silted at my cousin's hand. You might have believed that a spell had been suddenly lifted from the company. Faces relaxed and softened, eyes lost their keen light, feet shuffled in a new freedom, and the heavy silence was torn by a Babel of voices.

Strangely enough, all joined with Elmscott in attributing his change of fortune to my presence. Snuff-boxes were opened and their contents pressed upon me, and I think that I might have dined at no cost of myself for a full twelve months had I accepted the invitations I received. But the cessation of the play had waked me to my own necessities, and I turned to my cousin.

"Now," said I, but I got no further, for he exclaimed:

"Not yet, Morrice! There's my house in Monmouth Square."

"Your house?" I repeated.

"There's the manor of Silverdale."

"You have not lost that?" I cried.

"Every brick of it," says he.

"Then," says I in a quick pa.s.sion, "you must win them back as best you may. I'll bide no longer."

"Nay, lad!" he entreated, laying hold of my sleeve. "You cannot mean that. See, when you came in, I had but these poor buckles left. They were all my fortune. Stay but for a little. For if you go you take all my luck with you. 'Am deadly sure of it."

"I have stayed too long as it is" I replied, and wrenched myself free from his grasp.

"Well, take what money you need! But you are no more than a stone," he whimpered.

"The philosopher's stone, then," said I, and I caught up a couple of handsfull of gold and turned on my heel. But with a sudden cry I stopped. For as I turned, I glanced across the table to his opponent, and I saw his face change all in a moment to a strangely grey and livid colour. And to make the sight yet more ghastly, he still sat bolt upright in his chair, without a gesture, without a motion, a figure of marble, save that his eyes still burned steadily beneath his brows.

"Great G.o.d!" I cried. "He is dying."

"It is the morning," he said in a quiet voice, which had yet a very thrilling resonance, and it flashed across me with a singular uneasiness that this was the first time that he had spoken during all those hours.

I turned towards the window, which was behind my cousin's chair.

Through a c.h.i.n.k of the curtains a pale beam of twilight streamed full on to the youth's face. So long as I had stood by Elmscott's side, my back had intercepted it; but as I moved away I had uncovered the window, and it was the grey light streaming from it which had given to him a complexion of so deathly and ashen a colour. I flung the curtains apart, and the chill morning flooded the room. One s.h.i.+ver ran through the company like a breeze through a group of aspens, and it seemed to me that on the instant every one had grown old. The heavy gildings, the yellow glare of the candles, the gaudy hangings about the walls, seen in that pitiless light, appeared inexpressibly pretentious and vulgar; and the gentlemen with their leaden cheeks, their disordered perukes, and the soiled finery of their laces and ruffles, no more than the room's fitting complement. A sickening qualm of disgust shot through me; the very air seemed to have grown acrid and stale; and yet, in spite of all I stayed--to my shame be it said, I stayed. However, I paid for the fault--ay, ten times over, in the years that were to come. For as I halted at the door to make my bow--my fingers were on the very handle--I perceived Lord Elmscott with one foot upon his chair, and the buckles in his hand. My presentiment came back to me with the conviction of a creed. I knew--I knew that if he failed to add those jewels to his stake, he would leave the coffeehouse as empty a beggar as when I entered it. I strode back across the room, took them from his hand, and laid them on the table. For a moment Elmscott stared at me in astonishment. Then I must think he read my superst.i.tion in my looks, for he said, clapping me on the back:

"You will make a gambler yet, Morrice," and he sat him down on his chair. I took my former stand beside him.

"You will stay, Mr. Buckler?" asked his opponent.

"Yes," I replied.

"Then," he continued, in the same even voice, "I have a plan in my head which I fancy will best suit the purposes of the three of us.

Lord Elmscott is naturally anxious to follow his luck; you, Mr.

Buckler, have overstayed your time; and as for me--well, it is now Wednesday morning, and a d.a.m.ned dirty morning, too, if I may judge from the countenances of my friends. We have sat playing here since six by the clock on Monday night, and I am weary. My bed calls for me.

I propose then that we settle the bout with two casts of the dice. On the first throw I will stake your house in Monmouth Square against the money you have before you. If I win there's an end. If you win, I will set the manor of Silverdale against your London house and your previous stake."

A complete silence followed upon his words. Even Lord Elmscott was taken aback by the magnitude of the stakes. The youth's proposal gained, moreover, on the mind by contrast with his tone of tired indifference. He seemed the least occupied of all that company.

"I trust you will accept," he continued, speaking to my cousin with courteous gentleness. "As I have said, I am very tired. Luck is on your side, and, if I may be permitted to add, the advantage of the stakes."

Elmscott glanced at me, paused for a second, and then, with a forced laugh:

"Very well; so be it," he said. The dice were brought; he rattled them vigorously, and flung them down.

"Four!" cried one of the gentlemen.

"d.a.m.n!" said my cousin, and he mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. His antagonist picked up the dice with inimitable nonchalance, barely shook them in the cup, and let them roll idly out on to the table.

"Three!"

Elmscott heaved a sigh of relief. The other stretched his arms above his head and yawned.

"'Tis a n.o.ble house, your house in Monmouth Square," he remarked.

At the second throw, Elmscott discovered a most nervous anxiety. He held the cup so long in his hand that I feared he would lose the courage to complete the game. I felt, in truth, a personal shame at his indecision, and I gazed around with the full expectation of seeing a like feeling expressed upon the features of those who watched. But they wore one common look of strained expectancy. At last Elmscott threw.

"Nine!" cried one, and a low murmur of voices buzzed for an instant and suddenly ceased as the other took up the dice.

"Two!"

Both players rose as with one motion. Elmscott tossed down his throat the brandy in his tumbler--it had stood by his side untasted since the early part of the night--and then turned to me with an almost hysterical outburst.

"One moment."

It was the youth who spoke, and his voice rang loud and strong. His weariness had slipped from him like a mask. He bent across the table and stretched out his arm, with his forefinger pointing at my cousin.

"I will play you one more bout, Lord Elmscott. Against all that you have won back from me to-night--the money, your house, your estate--I will pit my docks in the city of Bristol. But I claim one condition,"

and he glanced at me and paused.

"If it affects my cousin's presence----" Elmscott began.

"It does not," the other interrupted. "'Tis a trivial condition--a whim of mine, a mere whim."

"What is it, then?" I asked, for in some unaccountable way I was much disquieted by his change of manner, and dreaded the event of his proposal.

"That while your cousin throws you hold his buckles in your hands."

It were impossible to describe the effect which this extraordinary request produced. At any other time it would have seemed no more than laughable. But after these long hours of play we were all tinder to a spark of superst.i.tion. Nothing seemed too whimsical for belief. Luck had proved so tricksy a sprite that the most trivial object might well take its fancy and overset the balance of its favours. The fierce vehemence of the speaker, besides, breaking thus unexpectedly through a crust of equanimity, carried conviction past the porches of the ears. So each man hung upon Elmscott's answer as upon the arbitrament of his own fortune.

For myself, I took a quick step towards my cousin; but the youth shot a glance of such imperious menace at me that I stopped shamefaced like a faulty schoolboy. However, Elmscott caught my movement and, I think, the look which arrested me.

"Not to-day," he said, "if you will pardon me. I am over-tired myself, and would fain keep to our bargain." Thereupon he came over to me.

"Now, Morrice," he exclaimed, "it is your turn. You have the money.

What else d'ye lack? What else d'ye lack?"

"I need the swiftest horse in your stables," I replied.

Elmscott burst into a laugh.

"You shall have it--the swiftest horse in my stables. You shall e'en take it as a gift. Only I fear 'twill leave your desires unsatisfied."

And he chuckled again.