Fallen Fortunes

by Evelyn Everett-Green

In sooth, Grey felt but little scruple in taking his winnings. The young man was not greatly in advance of his age, although he was indued with a nature more finely strung and aspirations more lofty than belonged to most. Gambling was so much a matter of course both in this and in other lands, and the devotees of the amusement so numerous and so bent upon their sport, that it would have needed stronger convictions than Grey as yet possessed to make any stand on such a point. He took the same risks as the others, and if his coolness of head, steadiness of hand, and quick observation and memory served to make for success in his case, he rather regarded this as a witness to his superiority, and felt only a small sense of reluctance in pocketing his gains; which reluctance he could only attribute to a lingering memory of words spoken by his mother when he was a growing boy, and news came to them from time to time of Sir Hugh's losses over cards, and the necessity for further retrenchments upon the already impoverished estate.

But the cases being so dissimilar, Grey did not see that he need debar himself from this easy highroad to fortunes, as it then seemed. Nobody was dependent upon him. Nobody was there to grieve over his troubles or to rejoice over his success. His honest serving-man was in sooth the only being in any way deeply attached to him; and Dick was as delighted at his master's brave appearance, and at the golden stream running into his pocket, as though he had achieved some great success or triumph.

There was one way by which Grey had pocketed considerable sums of money that was very congenial to him, and had given him some very happy hours. This was the speed and strength of his horse, which Lord Sandford had made boast of, vowing in the hearing of some of the smartest dandies of the town that Don Carlos would beat any steed against whom he was pitted—a challenge eagerly taken up by the young bloods, proud of their own horses and horsemanship, to whom trials of skill and strength, and contests over which wagers might freely be exchanged, were as the very salt of life.

So either out at Hampstead, or at Richmond or Hampton Court, Don Carlos had been set to show the metal of which he was made, and had come off easy victor in every race and every match, whether flat running, or leaping, or a course of the nature of a steeplechase had been elected. His strength and speed, sagacity and endurance, had never once failed him, and already he was the talk of the town, and Grey could have sold him for a great price had he been willing to part with his favourite.

Many bright eyes had smiled upon the young centaur, many languishing glances had been cast at him. He had been called up again and again to be presented to some high-born dame, or some bevy of laughing maidens, and he had bowed with courtly grace, and received their sugared compliments with suitable acknowledgments. But no face had attracted him as that face he had seen once at the water theatre, almost upon his first appearance in the gay world. He knew that it belonged to Lady Geraldine Romaine; and often his eyes roved round some gay assemblage, searching half unconsciously for a sight of her tall and graceful figure, and the sweet, earnest face, so different from the laughing and grimacing crowd in which he now moved. Grey had not known much of women, so far. His college life first, and then his roving career of adventure, had hindered him from making friendships save with those of his own sex; and his deep love for his mother had preserved as a living power his chivalrous belief in women, and a resolute determination to disbelieve the idle, malicious, and vicious tales he heard of them on all sides. Womanhood was sacred to him, and should be sacred to the world. That was his inalienable conviction; and he had striven to be blind and deaf to much of what had often been passing around him, that he might not sink to the level of the men he met, who would tear to tatters a woman's reputation for an evening's pastime, or revel in every ugly bit of scandal or tittle-tattle that the young beaux' valets learned from the lackeys of other fine folk, and retailed with additions at the door of the theatre, the gates of the Park, or on the staircases of the fashionable houses whither their masters and mistresses flocked for amusement, unconscious or heedless of the gossip spread abroad about them by their servants at the doors.

Grey took no pleasure in the society of these fashionable dames. His tongue had not learned the trick of the artificial language then in vogue. He was disgusted by the gross flattery every lady looked to receive, and the lisping platitudes of the attendant beaux filled him with scorn. It was small wonder that he chose rather the society of men of more virility and stronger fibre, such as Lord Sandford and his chosen friends; for though many of them were wild young rakes, and not a few had a very doubtful record, yet Grey knew little enough about that, and found them not without attraction, although the higher part of his nature revolted from much that he saw and heard. Nevertheless, he regarded it all as a part of the experience in life which he craved, and he might have become in a short while just such another as these, had it not been for an incident which suddenly arrested him in his career of dissipation, and turned his thoughts into different channels.

It had been early June when he came to town, and now July had come, with its sultry suns and breathless nights, when Grey ofttimes felt after an evening over cards that it was mockery to go to bed, and lounged away the residue of the night at his open window, enjoying the only coolness and freshness that was to be had, as the wind came whispering from the river charged with refreshing moisture.

Sometimes the river seemed to call him; and at such times he would lay aside his finery, clothe himself in some plainer habit, and betake himself through the silent house, where the night watchman was always found slumbering at his post, out through the big courts and down to the river steps, where a few light wherries were always kept moored, one of which he would select, and shoot out upon the glimmering river to meet the new day there.

Some of his happiest hours were spent thus; and at such times as these he felt rising within him a vague sense of unrest and of disgust. He had come to the world of London to conquer fate, to make for himself a name and a career; and here he was wasting day after day in coffee-houses or clubs, with a crowd of idlers whose thoughts never rose above the fancy of the hour, whose only ambition was to kill time as easily and pleasantly as possible, and to line their pockets with gold, that they might have more to throw away on the morrow.

Was this what he would come to? Was this what he was made for? Would he become like unto them, a mere roisterer and boon companion, a man without aspirations and without ambition? His cheeks burned at the thought; and he sent his light craft spinning rapidly up the stream as the questions formed themselves.