Mr. Scarborough's Family Part 70

"Yes;--I met a friend last night and he asked me to his rooms."

"And he had the cards ready?"

"Of course he had. What else would any one have ready for me?"

"And he won that remnant of the twenty pounds which you borrowed from me, and therefore you want another?" Hereupon the captain shook his head. "What is it, then, that you do want?"

"Such a man as I met," said the captain, "would not be content with the remnant of twenty pounds. I had received fifty from my father, and had intended to call here and pay you."

"That has all gone too?"

"Yes, indeed. And in addition to that I have given him a note for two hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which I must take up in a week's time.

Otherwise I must disappear again,--and this time forever."

"It is a bottomless gulf," said the attorney. Captain Scarborough sat silent, with something almost approaching to a smile on his mouth; but his heart within him certainly was not smiling. "A bottomless gulf,"

repeated the attorney. Upon this the captain frowned. "What is it that you wish me to do for you? I have no money of your father's in my hands, nor could I give it you if I had it."

"I suppose not. I must go back to him, and tell him that it is so."

Then it was the lawyer's turn to be silent; and he remained thinking of it all till Captain Scarborough rose from his seat and prepared to go.

"I won't trouble you any more Mr. Grey," he said.

"Sit down," said Mr. Grey. But the captain still remained standing. "Sit down. Of course I can take out my check-book, and write a check for this sum of money;--nothing would be so easy; and if I could succeed in explaining it to your father during his lifetime, he, no doubt, would repay me. And, for the sake of auld lang syne, I should not be unhappy about my money, whether he did so or not. But would it be wise? On your own account would it be wise?"

"I cannot say that anything done for me would be wise,--unless you could cut my throat."

"And yet there is no one whose future life might be easier. Your father, the circ.u.mstances of whose life are the most singular I ever knew--"

"I shall never believe all this about my mother."

"Never mind that now. We will pa.s.s that by for the present. He has disinherited you."

"That will be a question some day for the lawyers--should I live."

"But circ.u.mstances have so gone with him that he is enabled to leave you another fortune. He is very angry with your brother, in which anger I sympathize. He will strip Tretton as bare as the palm of my hand for your sake. You have always been his favorite, and so, in spite of all things, you are still. They tell me he cannot last for six months longer."

"Heaven knows I do not wish him to die."

"But he thinks that your brother does. He feels that Augustus begrudges him a few months' longer life, and he is angry. If he could again make you his heir, now that the debts are all paid, he would do so." Here the captain shook his head. "But as it is, he will leave you enough for all the needs of even a luxurious life. Here is his will, which I am going to send down to him for final execution this very day. My senior clerk will take it, and you will meet him there. That will give you ample for life. But what is the use of it all, if you can lose it in one night or in one month among a pack of scoundrels?"

"If they be scoundrels, I am one of them."

"You lose your money. You are their dupe. To the best of my belief you have never won. The dupes lose, and the scoundrels win. It must be so."

"You know nothing about it, Mr. Grey."

"This man who had your money last;--does he not live on it as a profession? Why should he win always, and you lose?"

"It is my luck."

"Luck! There is no such thing as luck. Toss up, right hand against left for an hour together, and the result will be the same. If not for an hour, then do it for six hours. Take the average, and your cards will be the same as another man's."

"Another man has his skill," said Mountjoy.

"And uses it against the unskillful to earn his daily bread. That is the same as cheating. But what is the use of all this? You must have thought of it all before."

"Yes, indeed."

"And thinking of it, you are determined to persevere. You are impetuous, not thoughtless, with your brain clouded with drink, and for the mere excitement of the thing, you are determined to risk all in a contest for which there is no chance for you,--and by which you acknowledge you will be driven to self-destruction, as the only natural end."

"I fear it is so," said the captain.

"How much shall I draw it for?" said the attorney, taking out his check-book,--"and to whom shall I make it payable? I suppose I may date it to-day, so that the swindler who gets it may think that there is plenty more behind for him to get."

"Do you mean that you are going to lend it me?"

"Oh, yes."

"And how do you mean to get it again?"

"I must wait, I suppose, till you have won it back among your friends.

If you will tell me that you do not intend to look for it in that fashion, then I shall have no doubt as to your making me a legitimate payment in a very short time. Two hundred and twenty pounds won't ruin you, unless you are determined to ruin yourself." Mr. Grey the meanwhile went on writing the check. "Here is provided for you a large sum of money," and he laid his hand upon the will, "out of which you will be able to pay me without the slightest difficulty. It is for you to say whether you will or not."

"I will."

"You need not say it in that fashion;--that's easy. You must say it at some moment when the itch of play is on you; when there shall be no one by to hear: when the resolution if held, shall have some meaning in it.

Then say, 'there's that money which I had from old Grey. I am bound to pay it. But if I go in there I know what will be the result. The very coin that should go into his coffers will become a part of the prey on which those harpies will feed.' There's the check for the two hundred and twenty-seven pounds. I have drawn it exact, so that you may send the identical bit of paper to your friend. He will suppose that I am some money-lender who has engaged to supply your needs while your recovered fortune lasts. Tell your father he shall have the will to-morrow. I don't suppose I can send Smith with it to-day."

Then it became necessary that Scarborough should go; but it would be becoming that he should first utter some words of thanks. "I think you will get it back, Mr. Grey."

"I dare say."

"I think you will. It may be that the having to pay you will keep me for a while from the gambling-table."

"You don't look for more than that?"

"I am an unfortunate man, Mr. Grey. There is one thing that would cure me, but that one thing is beyond my reach."

"Some woman?"

"Well;--it is a woman. I think I could keep my money for the sake of her comfort. But never mind. Good-bye, Mr. Grey. I think I shall remember what you have done for me." Then he went and sent the identical check to Captain Vignolles, with the shortest and most uncourteous epistle:

"DEAR SIR,--I send you your money. Send back the note.

"Yours. M. SCARBOROUGH."

"I hardly expected this," said the captain to himself as he pocketed the check,--"at any rate not so soon. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.' That Moody is a slow coach, and will never do anything. I thought there'd be a little money about with him for a time." Then the captain turned over in his mind that night's good work with the self-satisfied air of an industrious professional worker.

But Mr. Grey was not so well satisfied with himself, and determined for a while to say nothing to Dolly of the two hundred and twenty-seven pounds which he had undoubtedly risked by the loan. But his mind misgave him before he went to sleep, and he felt that he could not be comfortable till he had made a clean breast of it. During the evening Dolly had been talking to him of all the troubles of all the Carrolls,--how Amelia would hardly speak to her father or her mother because of her injured lover, and was absolutely insolent to her, Dolly, whenever they met; how Sophia had declared that promises ought to be kept, and that Amelia should be got rid of; and how Mrs. Carroll had told her in confidence that Carroll _pere_ had come home the night before drunker than usual, and had behaved most abominably. But Mr. Grey had attended very little to all this, having his mind preoccupied with the secret of the money which he had lent.