CHAPTER II
“O! ressource assurée,
Viens ranimer leur langueur desoeuvrée:
Leur âme vide est du moins amusée
Par l’avarice en plaisir deguisée.”
Gaming relieved me from that insuperable listlessness by which I was oppressed. I became interested—I became agitated; in short, I found a new kind of stimulus, and I indulged in it most intemperately. I grew immoderately fond of that which supplied me with sensations. My days and nights were passed at the gaming-table. I remember once spending three days and three nights in the hazard-room of a well-known house in St. James’s-street: the shutters were closed, the curtains down, and we had candles the whole time; even in the adjoining rooms we had candles, that when our doors were opened to bring in refreshments, no obtrusive gleam of daylight might remind us how the hours had passed. How human nature supported the fatigue, I know not. We scarcely allowed ourselves a moment’s pause to take the sustenance our bodies required. At last, one of the markers, who had been in the room with us the whole time, declared that he could hold out no longer, and that sleep he must. With difficulty he obtained an hour’s truce: the moment he got out of the room he fell asleep, absolutely at the very threshold of our door. By the rules of the house he was entitled to a bonus on every transfer of property at the hazard-table; and he had made, in the course of these three days, upwards of three hundred pounds. Sleep and avarice had struggled to the utmost, but, with his vulgar habits, sleep prevailed. We were wide awake. I shall never forget the figure of one of my noble associates, who sat holding his watch, his eager eyes fixed upon the minute-hand, whilst he exclaimed continually, “This hour will never be over!” Then he listened to discover whether his watch had stopped; then cursed the lazy fellow for falling asleep, protesting that, for his part, he never would again consent to such waste of time. The very instant the hour was ended, he ordered “that dog” to be awakened, and to work we went. At this sitting 35,000l. were lost and won. I was very fortunate, for I lost a mere trifle—ten thousand pounds; but I could not expect to be always so lucky.—Now we come to the old story of being ruined by play. My English John o’-the-Scales warned me that he could advance no more money; my Irish agent, upon whom my drafts had indeed been unmerciful, could not oblige me any longer, and he threw up his agency, after having made his fortune at my expense. I railed, but railing would not pay my debts of honour. I inveighed against my grandfather for having tied me up so tight; I could neither mortgage nor sell: my Irish estate would have been sold instantly, had it not been settled upon a Mr. Delamere. The pleasure of abusing him, whom I had never seen, and of whom I knew nothing but that he was to be my heir, relieved me wonderfully. He died, and left only a daughter, a mere child. My chance of possessing the estate in fee-simple increased: I sold this increased value to the Jews, and gamed on. Miss Delamere, some time afterwards, had the smallpox. Upon the event of her illness I laid bets to an amazing amount.
She recovered. No more money could be raised, and my debts were to be paid. In this dilemma I recollected that I once had a guardian, and that I had never settled accounts with him. Crawley, who continued to be my factotum and flatterer in ordinary and extraordinary, informed me, upon looking over these accounts, that there was a mine of money due to me, if I could but obtain it by law or equity. To law I went: and the anxiety of a lawsuit might have, in some degree, supplied the place of gambling, but that all my business was managed for me by Crawley, and I charged him never to mention the subject to me till a verdict should be obtained.
A verdict was obtained against me. It was proved in open court, by my own witnesses, that I was a fool; but as no judge, jury, or chancellor, could believe that I was so great a fool as my carelessness indicated, my guardian stood acquitted in equity of being so great a rogue as he really was. What was now to be done? I saw my doom. As a highwayman knows that he must come to the gallows at last, and acts accordingly, so a fashionably extravagant youth knows that, sooner or later, he must come to matrimony. No one could have more horror of this catastrophe than I felt; but it was in vain to oppose my destiny. My opinion of women had been formed from the commonplace jests of my companions, and from my own acquaintance with the worst part of the sex. I had never felt the passion of love, and, of course, believed it to be something that might have existed in former ages, but that it was in our days quite obsolete, at least, among the knowing part of the world. In my imagination young women were divided into two classes; those who were to be purchased, and those who were to purchase. Between these two classes, though the division was to be marked externally by a certain degree of ceremony, yet I was internally persuaded that there was no essential difference. In my feelings towards them there was some distinction; of the first class I was tired, and of the second I was afraid. Afraid! Yes—afraid of being taken in. With these fears, and these sentiments, I was now to choose a wife. I chose her by the numeration table: Units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. I was content, in the language of the newspapers, to lead to the Hymeneal altar any fashionable fair one whose fortune came under the sixth place of figures. No sooner were my dispositions known than the friends of a young heiress, who wanted to purchase a coronet, settled a match between us. My bride had one hundred wedding-dresses, elegant as a select committee of dress-makers and milliners, French and English, could devise. The least expensive of these robes, as well as I remember, cost fifty guineas: the most admired came to about five hundred pounds, and was thought, by the best judges in these matters, to be wonderfully cheap, as it was of lace such as had never before been trailed in English dust, even by the lady of a nabob. These things were shown in London as a spectacle for some days, by the dress-maker, who declared that she had lost many a night’s rest in contriving how to make such a variety of dresses sufficiently magnificent and distinguished. The jewellers also requested and obtained permission to exhibit the different sets of jewels: these were so numerous that Lady Glenthorn scarcely knew them all. One day, soon after her marriage, somebody at court, observing that her diamonds were prodigiously fine, asked where she bought them. “Really,” said she, “I cannot tell. I have so many sets, I declare I don’t know whether it’s my Paris, or my Hamburgh, or my London set.”
Poor young creature! I believe her chief idea of happiness in marriage was the possession of the jewels and paraphernalia of a countess—I am sure it was the only hope she could have, that was likely to be realized, in marrying me. I thought it manly and fashionable to be indifferent, if not contemptuous to my wife: I considered her only as an incumbrance, that I was obliged to take along with my fortune. Besides the disagreeable ideas generally connected with the word wife, I had some peculiar reasons for my aversion to my Lady Glenthorn. Before her friends would suffer me to take possession of her fortune, they required from me a solemn oath against gambling: so I was compelled to abjure the hazard-table and the turf, the only two objects in life that could keep me awake. This extorted vow I set down entirely to my bride’s account; and I therefore became even more averse to her than men usually are who marry for money. Yet this dislike subsided. Lady Glenthorn was only childish—I, of an easy temper. I thought her ridiculous, but it was too much trouble to tell her so continually. I let the occasions pass, and even forgot her ladyship, when she was not absolutely in my way. She was too frivolous to be hated, and the passion of hatred was not to be easily sustained in my mind. The habit of ennui was stronger than all my passions put together.