Golden Hill

by Francis Spufford

  ‘No, sir. I don’t see any reason why I should.’

  ‘Indeed. And there’s the reason, d’ye see, why I said I would talk to you. I do not expect aught from you tonight, saving some pretty noise, but I will be assured that you have heard me out. – We’ll do it over cards, though; like civilised men. Have you cards, William?’

  The attorney produced a well-worn pack from the pocket of his coat, the corners waxy with use, and held them out in tobacco-stained fingers. De Lancey cut and shuffled, not as if he were used to the exercise, but as if his hands were independently performing it, and he were an amused spectator. The waiters were dowsing unneeded candelabra, and the room was growing darker, drawing in about the remaining tables where candles were lit.

  ‘What’s your game, Mr Smith? Brag, pharaoh?’

  ‘Whist, if anything,’ said Smith: for he had read Mr Hoyle’s book, and applied it with some success, at odd moments in the green room, for a penny a point.

  ‘Really?’ said De Lancey. ‘Mine is piquet. So we’ll play that. You know the rules?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Smith, more stoutly than he felt.

  ‘Good, good. I think with three of us, we’ll play for the pool. Guinea ante each, every hand; loser sits out the next hand; whoever wins two hands in a row takes the pool. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed!’ said William Smith, so fast that Smith felt certain sure he and De Lancey had contrived the terms beforehand. He felt a pit yawn open beneath his feet.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, easing his chair back, an inch, two inches, ‘I regret that till my bill clears I am not in funds to back my play at such a … rate.’ The last word, despite himself, came out audibly pinched by his surprise.

  ‘Tush,’ said De Lancey, warmly. ‘As if we wouldn’t trust you for it. William, pass him a page of your memorandum book, and a pencil. You can put in notes-of-hand for your stakes, Mr Smith – with all the will in the world.’ Once more looking over Smith’s shoulder, he made a come-hither gesture with two fingers, and Smith felt whoever was standing there propel his chair forward into place again.

  ‘We should cut to see who the bystander is, for this first round: but William, I have a whimsy to play at once, and a mind to take young Mr Smith here as my opponent, if you’ve no objection? Very good. Then we shall simply cut for the deal. Jack for me. Eight for you. You have the deal, and I am the Elder hand – the order of play conforming, for once, to the order of nature. A coincidence not to be counted upon. Stakes for all three, please, gentlemen.’

  It was apparent from his humour that De Lancey meant, at least, to entertain himself – an expansive and an expensive humour, Smith feared. He scribbled the unavoidable promise on a scrap of paper, and pushed it forward. The lawyer laid on top a yellowed clutch of colonial bills. The judge reached into his weskit pocket, and spun onto the pile, gleaming and ardent, an actual guinea. Smith eyed it. There must, of course, be any number of gold guineas circulating in a commercial city, though he had himself laid eyes on none since he parted with his own. He reached for the cards, and dealt, what he was sure he remembered rightly, twelve cards each for himself and De Lancey, with the remaining eight of the pack spread face down in a line between the two of ’em.

  Now, it will be most necessary for the reader, in comprehending what followed, to possess a thorough and secure understanding of the rules of piquet, which shall therefore be explained. The play of the game, is in the taking of tricks, yet the greater part of the scores are won in the bidding that precedes it, as for tierce, quart, quint, of sequences, or trio or quatorze of sets— But wait, before that again comes the announcing of points, which must be most decisive, unless one player have carte blanche, at the outset, which is quite another thing, and then there is the declaration (at the right moment) of picque or repicque, one of which is worth thirty and the other sixty, though which way around is knowledge gone to the devil this moment – and there is capot too that has not yet been mentioned, and other scores beside, very particular ones, which alter according as the player is Elder or Younger, this governing the whole complexion or character of the game, unless— Wait – wait – alas the explanation is bungled, but it cannot be recalled and started over again, for the game has begun. We are out of time, with little enlightenment secured. Still, the reader may now find himself in as bemused a position as Mr Smith; which is, to be sure, a kind of gain in understanding.

  James De Lancey (Smith was not at all amazed to discover) liked to discourse, or even orate, while he played, the needful exchanges of the game being uttered in, as it were, the chinks or crannies of his oratory. Since it had been indicated so plainly that no nonsense from his own mouth would be welcomed, Smith felt himself at liberty to concentrate (which was indeed most needful for him) on the cards, and to supply only on his side the functional utterances.

  ‘Do you know why I prefer piquet? Why I give it my suffrage among games? Because in miniature, with a pasteboard monarch and a pasteboard court, it offers the situation that most closely resembles the situation of political life. At least, political life as it appears if one is in the midst of it, paying close attention, with a clear mind. Five hearts.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mr Smith.

  ‘Quart,’ said De Lancey.

  ‘Equal,’ said Smith.

  ‘Ace,’ said De Lancey.

  ‘Good,’ Smith conceded.

  ‘I mean,’ De Lancey went on, ‘that it poses us the problem of being nearly, but never quite completely, informed. We see almost the whole of the picture, but never absolutely the whole of it. Look at the table – picque, by the way. There are only thirty-two cards, and they are all there in front of us. Between your cards and my cards, and what we have seen when we exchanged, we can deduce virtually the disposition of the entire pack. Yet not quite; never to a complete certainty. And in that little space of imperfection, chance reigns, playing havoc with our plans. – The rest of the tricks to me, I think: yes, yes, yes. We can calculate the outcome in detail if you desire, but it is surely plain enough that I have won?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then on we go! William, your turn. Stakes again, if you please.’

  Another scrap of scribbled paper, which would mean, if the judge won a second hand in succession, and consequently the pool, that Smith now found himself sunk two guineas beneath the nothing with which he had begun the evening: in a hole two guineas deep. Another crumpled wad from the lawyer. From De Lancey’s pocket – another identical glitter of bullion. The Chief Justice turned to face the lawyer, but he still kept up the river of talk, and he still directed it all at Smith, barring the necessary to-and-fro of the game.

  ‘Cutting for the deal: queen,’ said William Smith.

  ‘Ten,’ said De Lancey. ‘You are Elder, and away language flies from truth. – So chance is a power, sir, which every wise man must acknowledge. The largest conditions may be the consequence of the smallest circumstances; may be chosen by none, but determine in the end the fate of all.’

  ‘Four clubs,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘Not good: five spades. Take our present impasse between Governor and Assembly, here in the province. Why do we have the Governor so effectually, so gloriously hamstrung? Because of an unseen chance.’

  ‘Quint,’ said the lawyer, chuckling. ‘True; none could foresee he’d be such a ninny.’

  ‘Good. – But I mean further back, Mr Smith, and more remotely, more randomly. Because the common law of England says that a freeholder of twenty acres shall have a vote, and because the rule was applied in this Province of New-York unchanged, unaltered, with no intent in the world that anything might come of it. Sets?’

  ‘Quatorze.’

  ‘Very good. The luck is with you now, William.’

  The lawyer led to his first trick, the Justice declared his five spades, and the rest of the play proceeded with no more sound than the well-greased shuffle and clip of the cards going down.

  ‘And yet here,’ resumed De Lancey, ‘almost any man who car
es to, may take up twenty acres, for the mere claiming of them, and defending of them, and sweating for them. And many do. And in this manner, forty or fifty years have passed, till it comes to seem, to the generation that possess the province now, both English and Dutch, that a vote almost must be the perquisite of every adult man, if he be a proper man, if he respect himself – and all without a principle involved, without an end in view, though now it has come to pass, we start very readily to discern principles in’t, and ends it may come to serve, after all. Till we commence, Mr Smith, and all by chance, to grow into something, of all things, like a Democracy. We are become Athenians, by accident! Thirty, forty, fifty-two, fifty-three. Victory to you, William, though narrowly. Young man, the game returns to you.’

  They ante’d up again, all three. Smith was no longer surprised that De Lancey should flip real gold from his pocket. The pot had grown to a little heap; a heap certainly worth six guineas, discounting his own paper contributions. He was endeavouring to simulate a civil attention to the political sermon De Lancey seemed to think he must pinion him in place to hear, but in truth Smith’s attention was distracted more and more by the money, and by the thought of all the bread and oysters and necessaries of the flesh it might represent. I am but a temporary tenant, declared the beef in his stomach. By morning you will feel me no more. Your regular vacuum will succeed me. It had occurred to him – what no doubt has occurred to the reader long since – that a pile of money obtained by gambling is one of the few forms of gain that is compatible with the presumed indifference of a rich man. It may be got easily, sounding no alarms in the onlooker. – If it can be got at all. Cutting for deal with William Smith, he drew only a nine, and his heart sank. But the lawyer cut only an eight. Mr Smith was Elder, with all the greater advantages of the lead. He swapped out such cards as he was entitled to, and made such other manoeuvres as he was entitled to (and which the poor account of the game above has sealed inscrutably from the reader) and gazed at his temporary kingdom; nodding and smiling as De Lancey talked on, and praying inwardly, and trying not to tremble.

  ‘Six hearts,’ he said.

  ‘Good, damn your eyes,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘Quart.’

  ‘Equal. Queen?’

  ‘King.’

  ‘Have you had much to do with political men, yourself?’ asked De Lancey.

  ‘Little enough,’ said Smith, shortly.

  ‘But something?’

  ‘I thought you were resolved to take no notice of what I said, sir.’

  ‘I only wish to see that you have that minimum of experience required to understand me, young man: that you are not an entire idiot. In the Greek sense, of course.’

  ‘In fact I have dined with your cousin, sir,’ said Smith, nettled, and paying no attention to the subtleties of idios in Greek; nor mentioning, either, the many yards of table-cloth lying between when he had, in the technical sense, sat at table with Lord Pelham.

  ‘Really?’ said De Lancey. ‘At Laughton?’

  ‘No, at another place,’ Smith said.

  ‘Well, then, I proceed with confidence,’ said De Lancey. ‘Play on, play on! Now, sir: this power of chance must reign most strongly when the table is most evenly balanced, in politics, as well as in piquet. Small perturbations have biggest effect when all hangs finely between one thing and t’other. When the scores are almost level, and the single card you had not anticipated turns up where you had not expected it. As there, in that trick, for instance: ouch. And as here and now, Mr Smith, in this city and at this juncture. If the Assembly have enough votes (but only just enough) to deny the Governor his means to make war, and to deny him too, what is the usual resource of government, a supply of money to bribe and to treat and to persuade sufficient of the electors to shift a seat or two in his favour – why then, sir, if a stranger should appear, with a mass of cash that seemingly he may dispose as he wishes, then he may be the little chance that sways all. That swings the game. Ah, this one I see you must score out in detail. Do not forget the capot. And the winner is—? My condolences, William. In I come again.’

  The judge rubbed his hands in an expression of enthusiasm so palpably insincere, so entirely disconnected from his look of forensic intent, that it seemed a wonder the hands were connected to him at all. This time, when the stakes were presented, he paused with a fourth golden disc held between thumb and forefinger, and turned it, so the candle-flame made the guinea blaze and dim, blaze and dim.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I had these of brother Lovell. Who understands plainly where his interests lie. Cut for deal. Jack? Let’s see. Oh dear: King, and thus I am Elder again.’

  Smith gripped his cardboard court tight. It was not impossible, as Younger hand, for him to impede Elder sufficiently to prevail, and gain the second win, and the pot. But it was very improbable. Had Mr Hoyle written of piquet as analytically as he had of whist, Smith would have been able to give an exact number to his scanty chance.

  ‘Five clubs,’ said De Lancey, comfortably.

  ‘Good,’ said Smith, wretchedly.

  ‘Tierce.’

  ‘Not good!’

  But De Lancey was holding up the interdicting finger again – tilting it – pointing it – into the shadows at Smith’s left.

  ‘A lady to speak to you, I think?’

  He and the lawyer gazed with unhurried interest where Tabitha was standing at his elbow, clasping her hands together. The other politicos turned at their tables to survey her. There were smiles and muttered comments. She was very much the only woman at the smoking, gaming end of the hall. Smith felt a flash of resentment, that he should needs feel concern at such a thing. He found it hard to drag his attention from the printed red and blue and black in his hand, in which his immediate destiny seemed all encoded.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, glancing up. ‘This is not a good moment.’

  ‘I’ll be brief,’ she said. ‘I have spoke to the Secretary, and he says my part in the play is gone, and why. I had not thought—’ she said, and stopped, a struggle in her voice such as to penetrate, finally, all through the atmosphere of piquet. He looked up properly. Her mouth was clamped in a thin line. ‘I had not thought,’ she said again, winning back her control of herself, ‘that you would use what I said, about what the theatre means to me. I did not think you would. But it was a good move,’ she said. ‘It was a very good move. I shall remember it.’ And she grinned at him like a carpenter screwing a clamp wider open.

  ‘Tabitha, wait—’ he said. But she walked away. He tried to push back his chair, to follow her, but the same unseen human obstacle behind was holding him in place.

  ‘I have not finished,’ said De Lancey. ‘Look back this way. Look at me. Bring back your mind. The stranger I was talking of? If such a man should appear, would he not be the subject of the most intense concern? Would it not be a matter of the most pressing import, if he should seem to be becoming, on the swiftest terms, an intimate of the Governor’s suite? Would it not be most urgent, that it should be made clear to the boy in question, that his own fate, in just the same way, is trembling between alternatives? Depending how he conducts himself, Mr Smith, he may with a few small steps in one direction or the other, put himself either in the way of making his fortune, or else just as easily ending it, in some unpleasant accident. Two destinies, sir, very nearly placed. One of gold, or at any rate of golden gratitude, for you know now how rare the veritable metal is. And one of lead. – Or of broken ice. Or of a long drop. – Have I spoke clearly enough? Am I understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Smith, transfixed. ‘I assure you, in all honour – I am nothing in that line. I am not a bag-carrier for the ministry. Or a piece of left-hand aid dispatched to the Governor.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said the Chief Justice, regarding him ironically. ‘Of course, if you were, you would say the same. And if you were a Walpole-ite, seeking a safe home across the sea for some of the spoils of the late ministry – the same. And if you were the Jesuit or Jac
obite some take you for – the same. When you deny all possibilities, this denial can carry no more surety than the rest. But I thank you.’ Watching still, considering still, De Lancey seemed content to continue indefinitely, watching and considering.

  ‘I was saying, not good?’ Smith offered – the game having turned suddenly to the least of his anxieties.

  ‘Oh, as to that,’ said De Lancey, with an imperial smile, laying down his hand, ‘I find my cards are so poor I must resign. The pool is yours. Go on,’ he said, when Smith still sat, confused. ‘Take your winnings – and consider your position. Go on,’ he repeated. ‘If you hurry, you may catch her yet.’

  And Smith left the room, to the sound of male laughter. But though he hurried through the streets all the way to Golden Hill, none of the parties of revellers he passed was the Lovells or the Van Loons, and when he reached the house, the windows were dark. He did not knock.

  *

  ‘What do you make of the boy?’ De Lancey asked William Smith later, with the brandy bottle almost empty.

  ‘What do you think of him – Oakeshott’s friend, I mean?’ Terpie Tomlinson asked Major Tomlinson, propped up on three white pillows. But Major Tomlinson did not reply, except in the most liquid terms, his mouth being full at the time. (Why, what was he drinking? Nothing.)

  By morning the news was all around the town from Trinity Church to the Bouwerij that the stranger with the money, however he had come by it and whatever he purposed to do with it, was himself assuredly an actor.

  III

  The lawyer’s stakes at the table turned out to be not even colonial notes of the usual baffling variability, but certificates drawable upon a tobacco warehouse in Virginia, and Smith presented one without much hope, the first time he tried their use as payment. But it was accepted without demur, at fifty-five per centum of face, New-York’s merchants seeming all to maintain within themselves a register of values for every conceivable money-substitute they might encounter. Wampum, tobacco bales, rum by the gallon: it was all money, in a world without money. Between the tobacco tickets and his own pointedly-returned guineas, Smith calculated he now possessed enough to reach Christmas in relative ease – if he could avoid being knocked on the head for spoiling De Lancey’s game against the Governor, or offending in some other role pressed upon him, or falling victim to a misadventure entirely unsuspected.