Golden Hill (15 page)

He had expected to be introduced, when De Lancey descended on a parcel of grandees in silk and gilt at the nearest table – all drawing on long clay pipes, for a rustic note, rather than taking snuff in the London manner – but instead the Chief Justice made a circular, scattering motion in the air, giving one of his vulpine smiles, and the sitting tenants all obligingly rose and departed, with nods and significant looks, leaving him in vacant possession. It was apparently a tête-à-tête De Lancey had in mind, to what purpose Smith did not know: just himself, Smith, and the lawyer, who it was clear now must be that evening's deputed crony, set to keep De Lancey's eye and ear upon him at the dinner.

‘Well, now,' said De Lancey, settling himself opposite Smith, and folding hand upon hand on the tabletop to make a white hill of knuckles. ‘What will you take, sir? A pipe, a glass of madeira, a little brandy? No? You must take your ease, you know, for the business part of the evening lies behind, and ahead is all pleasure-garden.'

‘Are you sure you don't have that the wrong way around, sir?' said Smith.

De Lancey laughed, a resonant chuckle that affected his eyes not one whit.

‘Fetch us some cognac and three glasses,' he said over Smith's shoulder to Quentin, who proved to have been floating there, silent and ready. ‘I mean to unburden myself, at any rate, young man. You see?' he said, unbuttoning his collar. ‘Entirely off duty.' He lifted his wig from his head and hung it on the back of the empty chair beside him. His scalp proved to be shingled in fine silver hairs. The sight of his naked head was no more reassuring than the sight of a tiger settling in comfort in its lair.

‘I have been wanting to talk to you,' he said. ‘The whole city is debating the mystery of your intentions.'

‘I protest, sir,' said Smith, trying for the same light dominance of tone. ‘There is nothing mysterious about privacy; and simple privacy—'

De Lancey was holding up a finger.

‘Spare me,' he said. ‘You have given many proofs already, from what I hear, that you mean to say nothing to the purpose, so let us omit the nonsense.'

‘'S friendly with Oakeshott,' offered the lawyer.

‘So I observed,' said De Lancey, tilting his gaze. ‘But is that policy, or taste? The sign of a side being chosen, or mere happenstance? I doubt you will enlighten us, Mr Smith. Will you?'

‘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 cares 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.