Works of Grant Allen

by Grant Allen

  CHAPTER XLVII.

  FORTUNE OF WAR.

  At Monte Carlo, on the other hand, day dawned serene and calm and cloudless. Hugh Massinger rose, unmindful of his far-away Suffolk sandhills, and gazed with a pleasant dreamy feeling out of the window of his luxurious first-floor bedroom. It was a strange outlook. On one side, the ornate and overloaded Parisian architecture of that palace of Circe, plumped down so grotesquely, with its meretricious town-bred airs and graces, among the rugged scenery of the Maritime Alps: on the other side, the inaccessible crags and pinnacles of the Tete-de-Chien, gray and lonely as any mountain side in Scotland or Savoy the actual terminus of the main range of snowclad Alps, whose bald peaks topple over sheer three thousand feet into the blue expanse of the Mediterranean, that washes the base of their precipitous bluffs. The contrast was almost ludicrous in its quaint extremes. If wit be rightly defined as the juxtaposition of the incongruous, then is Monte Carlo indeed a grand embodiment of the practically witty. The spot would be a Paradise if it were not a Hell. The Casino stands on its ledge of terrace like a fragment of Paris in its worst phase, dropped down from the clouds by some Merlin’s art amid the wildest and most exquisite rocky scenery on the whole glorious stretch of enchanted coast that spreads its long and fantastic panorama in unbroken succession of hill and mountain from the quays of Marseilles to the palaces of Genoa. He did not wholly approve the desecration. Hugh Massinger’s tastes were not all distorted. Dissipation to him was but a small part and fraction of existence. He took it only as the mustard of life an agreeable condiment to be sparingly partaken of. The poet’s instinct within him had kept alive and fresh his healthy interest in simpler things, in hill and dale, in calm and peaceful country pleasures. After that feverish day of gambling at Monte Carlo, he would dearly have loved to rise early and saunter out alone for a morning walk; to scale before breakfast the ramping cliffs of the Tete-de-Chien, and to reach the mouldering Roman tower of Turbia, that long mounted guard on the narrow path where Gaul and Italy marched together. But that hateful pile of gold and notes between the pillow and the mattress restrained his desire. It would be dangerous to wander among the lonely mountains with so large a sum as that concealed about his person; dangerous to leave it unguarded at the hotel, or to entrust it to the keeping of any casual stranger. “Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator,” he murmured to himself half aloud with a sigh of regret, as he turned away his eyes from that glorious semicircle of jagged peaks that bounded his horizon. He must stop at home and take care of his money-bags, like any vulgar cheese-mongering millionaire of them all. Down, poet’s heart, with your unreasonable aspirations for the lonely mountain heights! Amaryllis and asphodel are not for you. Shoulder your muck-rake with a manful smile, and betake you to the Casino where Circe calls, as soon as the great gate swings once more on its grating hinges. You cannot serve two masters. You have chosen Mammon to-day, and him you must worship. No mountain air for your lungs this morning; but the close and crowded atmosphere of the roulette tables. Keep true to your creed for a little while longer: it is all for Elsie’s sake! For Elsie! For Elsie! He withdrew his head from the window with a faint flush of shame. Ah, heaven, to think he should think of Elsie in such a connection and at such a moment!

  He had the grace himself to be heartily disgusted at it. Gambling was indeed a hateful trade. When once he had won a fortune for Elsie, he would never again touch carcl or dice, never let her learn whence that fortune had been gathered. He would even try to keep her out of his mind, for her purity’s sake, while he remained at Monte Carlo. He loved her too well to drag her into that horrid Casino, were it but in memory. A man is himself, one and indivisible; but still he must hold the various parts of his complex nature at arm’s length sometimes; he must prevent them from clashing: he must refrain from mixing up what is purest and truest and profoundest in his heart with all that is vilest and lowest and ugliest and most money-grubbing. Hugh had an unsullied shrine left vacant for Elsie still: he would not profane that inmost niche of his better soul with the poisonous air of the gambling hells of Monaco. Let him sink where he would, he was yet a poet.

  He dressed himself slowly and went down to breakfast. Attentive waiters, expectant of a duly commensurate tip, sniffing pour-boire from afar, crowded round for the honor of his distinguished orders. Raffalevsky joined him in the salle-a-manger shortly. The Russian was haggard and pale from sleeplessness: dark rings surrounded his glassy black eyes: his face was the face of a boiled codfish. No waiter hurried to receive his commands: all Monte Carlo knew him well already for a heavy loser. Your loser seldom overflows into generous tipping. Hugh beckoned him over to his own table: he would extend to the Russian the easy favor of his profuse hospitality. Raffalevsky seated himself in a sulky humor by the winner’s side. He meant to play it out still, he said, to the bitter end. He couldn’t afford to lose and leave off; that game was for a capitalist. For himself, he speculated well on borrowed funds. He must win all back or lose all utterly. In the latter case a significant gesture completed the sentence. He put up his hand playfully to his right ear and clicked with his tongue, like the click of a revolver barrel. Hugh smiled responsive to his most meaning smile. “Esperons toujours,” he murmured philosophically in his musical voice and perfect accent. No man on earth could ever bear with more philosophical composure than Hugh Massinger the misfortunes of others.

  Before he left the breakfast-table that morning, a waiter presented the bill, all deferential politeness. “I sleep, here to-night again,” Hugh observed with a yawn, as he noted attentively the lordly conception of its various items. The waiter bowed a profound bow. “At Monte Carlo, Monsieur,” he said significantly, “one pays daily.” Hugh drew out a handful of gold from his pocket with a laugh and paid at once. But the omen disquieted him. Who wins to-day may lose to-morrow. Clearly, the hotel, at least, had thoroughly learned that simple lesson.

  They filed in among the first at the doors of the Casino. Once started, Hugh played, with scarcely an intermission for food, till the tables closed again. He kept himself up with champagne and sandwiches. That was indeed a glorious day! A wild success attended his hazards. He staked and won; staked and lost; staked and won; staked and lost again. But the winnings by far outbalanced the losses. It went the round of the tables in frequent whispers that a young Englishman, a poet by feature, was breaking the bank with his audacious plunging. He plunged again, and again successfully. People crowded up from their own game at neighboring boards to watch and imitate the too lucky Englishman. “Give him his head! He’s in the vein!” they said. “A man in the vein should always keep playing.” The young lady with the fine Pennsylvanian twang remarked with occidental plain ness of speech that she “wouldn’t object to running a partnership.” Hugh laughed and demurred. “You might dilute the luck, you know,” he answered good-humoredly. “But if you’ll hand me over a hundred louis, I don t mind putting them on 31 for you.” He did, and they won.

  The crowd of gamblers applauded, all hushed, with their usual superstitious awe and veneration. “He has the run of the numbers,” they said in concert. To gamblers generally, fate is a goddess, a living reality, with capricious likes and dislikes of her own. They are ever ready to back her favorite for the time being; they look upon play as a predestined certainty.

  Raffalevsky meanwhile lost and lost with equal persistence. He drank as much champagne as Hugh; but the wine inspired no lucky guesses. When they came to count up their gains and losses at the end of the day, they found it was still a neck-and-neck race, in opposite ways, between them. Hugh had won altogether close on nine thousand pounds. Raffalevsky had lost rather more than eight thousand five hundred.

  “Xever mind,” Hugh remarked with his inexhaustible buoyancy. “We’re still to the good against his Monegasque Highness. There’s a balance of something like five hundred pounds in our joint favor.”

  “In other words,” Raffalevsky answered with a grim smile, “you’ve won all my money and some other fellow’s too
. You’re the sponge that sucks up all my lifeblood. I’ve got barely three thousand five hundred left. When that goes “ And he repeated once more the same expressive suicidal pantomime.

  That night Hugh slept at Monte Carlo once more. He had lost all sense of shame and decency now. He sent off a note for two thousand francs to the people at the pension, just as a guarantee of good faith as the newspapers say and to let them know he was really returning. But he had formed a shadowy plan of his own by this time. He would wait another day at the Casino and go home to San Remo with Warren Relf by the train that reached there at 6:39 the train by which Elsie had said in her note he would be returning.

  Why he wished to do so, he hardly, with distinctness, knew himself. Certainly he did not mean to pick a quarrel; he only knew in a vague sort of way he was going by that train; and until it started he would keep on playing.

  And lose every penny he’d won, perhaps! Why not leave off at once, secure of his eight thousand? Bah! what was eight thousand now to him? He’d win a round twenty before he left off for Elsie.

  So he played next day from morning till night; played and drank champagne feverishly. Such luck had never been known at the tables. Old players stood by with observant faces and admired his vein. Was ever a system seen like his? Such judgment, they said; such restraint; such coolness!

  But inwardly, Hugh was consumed all day by a devouring fire. His excitement at last knew no bounds. He drank champagne by the glassful to keep his nerve up. He had won before nightfall, all told, no less a sum than eleven thousand pounds sterling. What was the miserable remnant of Whitestrand, now, to him! Let Whitestrand sink in the sea for all he cared for it! He had here a veritable mine of wealth. He would go back to San Remo to bury Winifred and return to heap up a gigantic fortune.

  Eleven thousand pounds! A mere bagatelle. At five per cent, five hundred and fifty a year only!

  His train was due to start at five. About four o’clock, Raffalevsky came up to him from another table. The Russian’s face was white as death. “I’ve lost all,” he murmured hoarsely, drawing Hugh aside. “The whole, ihe whole, my three hundred thousand francs of borrowed capital! And what’s worse still, I borrowed it from the chest government money the treasury of the squadron! If I go back alive, I shall be court-martialed. For Heaven’s sake, my friend, lend me at least a few hundred francs to retrieve my luck with!”

  Hugh put his hand to his pile and drew out three notes of a thousand francs each a hundred and twenty pounds sterling in all. It was nothing, nothing. “Good luck go with them,” he cried good-humoredly. “When those are gone, my dear fellow, come back for more. I’m not the man, I hope and trust, to turn my back upon a comrade in misfortune.”

  The Russian snapped at them with a grateful gesture, but without hesitation or spoken thanks, and returned in hot haste to his own table. Gamblers have little time for needless talking.

  At a quarter to five, after a last hasty draught of champagne at the buffet, Hugh turned to go out, with his cash in his pocket. In front of him he saw just an apparition of Raffalevsky, rushing wildly away with one hand upon his forehead. The man’s face was awful to behold. Hugh felt sure the Russian had lost all once more, and been too much ashamed even to renew his application.

  The great door swung slowly upon its hinges, and Raffalevsky burst into the outer corridor, bowed from the room with great dignity, in spite of his frantic haste, by a well-liveried attendant There is plenty of obsequiousness at Monte Carlo for every player, even if he has lost his last louis.

  They emerged once more upon the beautiful terrace, the glorious view, the penciled palm-trees. All around, the sinking Italian sun lit up that fairy coast with pink and purple. Bay and rock and mountain-side showed all the more exquisite after the fetid air of those crowded gaming saloons. High up on the shoulders of the inaccessible Alps the great square Roman keep of Turbia gazed down majestically with mute contempt on the feverish throng of miserable idlers who poured in and out through the gaudy portals of the garish Casino. A serene delight pervaded Hugh Massinger’s placid soul; he felt himself vastly superior to these human butterflies; he knew his own worth as he turned entranced from the marble steps to the beautiful prospect that spread everywhere unrolled like a picture around him. Poet as he was, he despised mere gamblers; and he carried eleven thousand pounds odd of winnings in notes in his pocket.

  RVr! A sharp report! A cry! A concourse! Something uncanny had surely happened. People were running up where the pistol went off. Hugh Massinger turned with a shudder of disgust. How discomposing! The usual ugly Monte Carlo incident! Raffalevsky had shot himself behind the shade of the palm-trees.

  The man was lying, a hideous mass, in a crimson pool of his own blood, prone on the ground hit through the temple with a well-directed bullet. It was a horrid sight, and Hugh’s nerves were sensitive. If it hadn’t been for the champagne, he would really have fainted. Besides, the train was nearly due. If you hover about where men have killed themselves, you’re liable to be let in, for whatever may happen, to the Monegasque equivalent for that time-honored institution, our own beloved British coroner’s inquest. He might be hailed as a witness. Is that law? Ay, marry, is it? Crowner’s quest law! Better give it all a wide berth at once. The bell was ringing for the train below. With a sudden shudder, Hugh hurried away from the ghastly object. After all, he had done his best to save him lent him or given him three thousand francs to retrieve his losses. It was none of his fault If one man wins, another man loses! Luck, luck, the mere incalculable chances of the table! If their places had been reversed, would that morose, unsociable, illtempered Russian have volunteered to give him three thousand francs to throw away, he wondered? Never, never: ’twas all for the best. The Russian had lost, and he had won eleven thousand pounds odd, for Elsie.

  He rushed away and dashed headlong into the station. His own revolver was safe in his pocket. He carried eleven thousand pounds odd about him. No man should rob him without a fight between here and San Remo.

  CHAPTER XLVIII.

  AT BAY.

  Honest folk give lucky winners a wide berth at the Casino railway station, lest they should be suspected of possible evil designs upon their newly got money. Hugh found, therefore, he could pick his own seat quite at will, for nobody seemed anxious to claim the dubious honor of riding alone with him. So he strolled along the tram humming a gay tune, and inspecting the carriages with an attentive eye, till he reached a certain first-class compartment not far from the front, where a single passenger was quietly seated. The single passenger made his heart throb; for it was Warren Relf alone and unprotected.

  He hardly knew why, but, flushed with wine and continued good fortune, he meant to ride back in that very carriage, face to face with the baffled and defeated serpent; for Hugh had already discounted his prospective victory. Warren was looking the opposite way, and did not perceive him. Hugh waited, therefore, till the train was just about to start from the station, and then he jumped in too late for Warren, if he would, to change his carriage.

  In a second, the painter turned round and recognized his companion. He gave a sudden start. At last the two men had met in earnest. A baleful light beamed in Hugh’s dark eye. His blood was up. He had run too fast through the whole diapason of passion. Roulette and champagne, love and jealousy, hatred and vindictiveness, had joined together to fire and inflame his heart. He was at white-heat of exultation and excitement now. He could hardly contain his savage joy. “Have I found thee, oh, my enemy?” he cried out half aloud. Another time, it was just the opposite way. “Hast thou found me, oh, my enemy?” he had cried to Warren with an agonized cry at their last meeting in the club in London.

  Warren Relf, gazing up in surprise, answered him back never a word; he only thought to himself silently that he was not and had never been Hugh Massinger’s enemy. From the bottom of his heart, the painter pitied him: he pitied him ten thousand times more than he despised him.

  They stood at gaze for a few seconds. Then, �
�Where have you been?” Hugh asked at last insolently. The champagne had put him almost beside himself. Drunk with wine, drunk with good fortune, he allowed his true nature to peep forth for once a little too obviously. He would make this fellow Relf know his proper place before gentlemen at last a mere ignorant upstart, half way between a painter and a common sailor.

  “To Paris,” Warren answered with curt decision. He was in no humor for a hasty quarrel to-day with this halfdrunken madman.

  “What for?” Hugh continued as rudely as before.

  Then he added with a loud and ugly laugh: “You need tell me no lies. I know already. I’ve found you out To see my cousin Elsie across to England.”

  At the word, Warren’s face fell somewhat ominously. He leaned back, half irresolute, in the corner of the carriage and played with twitching fingers at the leather window-strop. “You are right,” he answered low, in a short sharp voice. “I never lie. I went to escort Miss Challoner from you and San Remo.”

  Hugh flung himself into an attitude of careless ease. This colloquy delighted him. He had the fellow at bay. He began to talk, as if to himself, in a low monologue. “Heine says somewhere,” he observed with a sardonic smile, directing his observation into blank space, as if to some invisible third person, “that he would wish to spend the evening of his days in a cottage by the sea, within sound of the waves, with his wife and children seated around him and a large tree growing just outside h is grounds, from whose branches might dangle the body of his enemy.”