The Queen of Hearts

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER I.

  IT was certainly a dull little dinner-party. Of the four guests, two ofus were men between fifty and sixty, and two of us were youths betweeneighteen and twenty, and we had no subjects in common. We were allintimate with our host, but were only slightly acquainted with eachother. Perhaps we should have got on better if there had been someladies among us; but the master of the house was a bachelor, and, exceptthe parlor-maids who assisted in waiting on us at dinner, no daughter ofEve was present to brighten the dreary scene.

  We tried all sorts of subjects, but they dropped one after the other.The elder gentlemen seemed to be afraid of committing themselves bytalking too freely within hearing of us juniors, and we, on ourside, restrained our youthful flow of spirits and youthful freedom ofconversation out of deference to our host, who seemed once or twiceto be feeling a little nervous about the continued propriety of ourbehavior in the presence of his respectable guests. To make mattersworse, we had dined at a sensible hour. When the bottles made theirfirst round at dessert, the clock on the mantel-piece only struck eight.I counted the strokes, and felt certain, from the expression of hisface, that the other junior guest, who sat on one side of me at theround table, was counting them also. When we came to the final eight, weexchanged looks of despair. "Two hours more of this! What on earth isto become of us?" In the language of the eyes, that was exactly what wesaid to each other.

  The wine was excellent, and I think we all came separately and secretlyto the same conclusion--that our chance of getting through the eveningwas intimately connected with our resolution in getting through thebottles.

  As a matter of course, we talked wine. No company of Englishmen canassemble together for an evening without doing that. Every man in thiscountry who is rich enough to pay income-tax has at one time or otherin his life effected a very remarkable transaction in wine. Sometimes hehas made such a bargain as he never expects to make again. Sometimeshe is the only man in England, not a peer of the realm, who has got asingle drop of a certain famous vintage which has perished from the faceof the earth. Sometimes he has purchased, with a friend, a few last leftdozens from the cellar of a deceased potentate, at a price so exorbitantthat he can only wag his head and decline mentioning it; and, if youask his friend, that friend will wag his head, and decline mentioning italso. Sometimes he has been at an out-of-the-way country inn; has foundthe sherry not drinkable; has asked if there is no other wine in thehouse; has been informed that there is some "sourish foreign stuffthat nobody ever drinks"; has called for a bottle of it; has found itBurgundy, such as all France cannot now produce, has cunningly kept hisown counsel with the widowed landlady, and has bought the whole stockfor "an old song." Sometimes he knows the proprietor of a famous tavernin London, and he recommends his one or two particular friends, thenext time they are passing that way, to go in and dine, and give hiscompliments to the landlord, and ask for a bottle of the brown sherry,with the light blue--as distinguished from the dark blue--seal.Thousands of people dine there every year, and think they have got thefamous sherry when they get the dark blue seal; but the real wine, thefamous wine, is the light blue seal, and nobody in England knows it butthe landlord and his friends. In all these wine-conversations, whatevervariety there may be in the various experiences related, one oftwo great first principles is invariably assumed by each speaker insuccession. Either he knows more about it than any one else, or hehas got better wine of his own even than the excellent wine he is nowdrinking. Men can get together sometimes without talking of women,without talking of horses, without talking of politics, but they cannotassemble to eat a meal together without talking of wine, and they cannottalk of wine without assuming to each one of themselves an absoluteinfallibility in connection with that single subject which they wouldshrink from asserting in relation to any other topic under the sun.

  How long the inevitable wine-talk lasted on the particular socialoccasion of which I am now writing is more than I can undertake to say.I had heard so many other conversations of the same sort at so manyother tables that my attention wandered away wearily, and I began toforget all about the dull little dinner-party and the badly-assortedcompany of guests of whom I formed one. How long I remained in this notover-courteous condition of mental oblivion is more than I can tell;but when my attention was recalled, in due course of time, to the littleworld around me, I found that the good wine had begun to do its goodoffice.

  The stream of talk on either side of the host's chair was now beginningto flow cheerfully and continuously; the wine-conversation had wornitself out; and one of the elder guests--Mr. Wendell--was occupied intelling the other guest--Mr. Trowbridge--of a small fraud which hadlately been committed on him by a clerk in his employment. The firstpart of the story I missed altogether. The last part, which alone caughtmy attention, followed the career of the clerk to the dock of the OldBailey.

  "So, as I was telling you," continued Mr. Wendell, "I made up my mind toprosecute, and I did prosecute. Thoughtless people blamed me for sendingthe young man to prison, and said I might just as well have forgivenhim, seeing that the trifling sum of money I had lost by his breach oftrust was barely as much as ten pounds. Of course, personally speaking,I would much rather not have gone into court; but I considered that myduty to society in general, and to my brother merchants in particular,absolutely compelled me to prosecute for the sake of example. I actedon that principle, and I don't regret that I did so. The circumstancesunder which the man robbed me were particularly disgraceful. He was ahardened reprobate, sir, if ever there was one yet; and I believe, in myconscience, that he wanted nothing but the opportunity to be as great avillain as Fauntleroy himself."

  At the moment when Mr. Wendell personified his idea of consummatevillainy by quoting the example of Fauntleroy, I saw the othermiddle-aged gentleman--Mr. Trowbridge--color up on a sudden, and beginto fidget in his chair.

  "The next time you want to produce an instance of a villain, sir," saidMr. Trowbridge, "I wish you could contrive to quote some other examplethan Fauntleroy."

  Mr. Wendell naturally enough looked excessively astonished when he heardthese words, which were very firmly and, at the same time, very politelyaddressed to him.

  "May I inquire why you object to my example?" he asked.

  "I object to it, sir," said Mr. Trowbridge, "because it makes me veryuncomfortable to hear Fauntleroy called a villain."

  "Good heavens above!" exclaimed Mr. Wendell, utterly bewildered."Uncomfortable!--you, a mercantile man like myself--you, whose characterstands so high everywhere--you uncomfortable when you hear a man who washanged for forgery called a villain! In the name of wonder, why?"

  "Because," answered Mr. Trowbridge, with perfect composure, "Fauntleroywas a friend of mine."

  "Excuse me, my dear sir," retorted Mr. Wendell, in as polished a tone ofsarcasm as he could command; "but of all the friends whom you have madein the course of your useful and honorable career, I should have thoughtthe friend you have just mentioned would have been the very last to whomyou were likely to refer in respectable society, at least by name."

  "Fauntleroy committed an unpardonable crime, and died a disgracefuldeath," said Mr. Trowbridge. "But, for all that, Fauntleroy was a friendof mine, and in that character I shall always acknowledge him boldly tomy dying day. I have a tenderness for his memory, though he violated asacred trust, and died for it on the gallows. Don't look shocked, Mr.Wendell. I will tell you, and our other friends here, if they willlet me, why I feel that tenderness, which looks so strange and sodiscreditable in your eyes. It is rather a curious anecdote, sir, andhas an interest, I think, for all observers of human nature quite apartfrom its connection with the unhappy man of whom we have been talking.You young gentlemen," continued Mr. Trowbridge, addressing himself to usjuniors, "have heard of Fauntleroy, though he sinned and suffered, andshocked all England long before your time?"

  We answered that we had certainly heard of him as one of the famouscriminals of his day. We knew that he had been a partner in a g
reatLondon banking-house; that he had not led a very virtuous life; that hehad possessed himself, by forgery, of trust-moneys which he was doublybound to respect; and that he had been hanged for his offense, in theyear eighteen hundred and twenty-four, when the gallows was still set upfor other crimes than murder, and when Jack Ketch was in fashion as oneof the hard-working reformers of the age.

  "Very good," said Mr. Trowbridge. "You both of you know quite enoughof Fauntleroy to be interested in what I am going to tell you. When thebottles have been round the table, I will start with my story."

  The bottles went round--claret for the degenerate youngsters; portfor the sterling, steady-headed, middle-aged gentlemen. Mr. Trowbridgesipped his wine--meditated a little--sipped again--and started with thepromised anecdote in these terms: