CHAPTER XV
A GAME OF PRIMERO
At a table in the immediate center of the room a rotund gentleman indoublet and breeches of cinnamon brown taffeta and voluminous lace cuffsat the wrists was presiding over a game of Spanish primero.
A simple game enough, not difficult of comprehension, yet vastlyexciting, if one may form a judgment of its qualities through watchingthe faces of the players.
The rotund gentleman dealt a card face downwards to each of hisopponents, who then looked at their cards and staked on them, by pushinglittle piles of gold or silver forward.
Then the dealer turned up his own card, and gave the amount of therespective stakes to those players whose cards were of higher value thanhis own, whilst sweeping all other moneys to swell his own pile.
A simple means, forsooth, of getting rid of any superfluity of cash.
"Art winning, Endicott?" queried Lord Walterton as, he stood over theother man, looking down on the game.
Endicott shrugged his fat shoulders, and gave an enigmatic chuckle.
"I pay King and Ace only," he called out imperturbably, as he turned upa Queen.
Most of the stakes came to swell his own pile, but he passed a handfulof gold to a hollow-eyed youth who sat immediately opposite to him, andwho clutched at the money with an eager, trembling grasp.
"You have all the luck to-night, Segrave," he said with an oily smiledirected at the winner.
"Make your game, gentlemen," he added almost directly, as he once morebegan to deal.
"I pay knave upwards!" he declared, turning up the ten of clubs.
"Mine is the ten of hearts," quoth one of the players.
"Ties pay the bank," quoth Endicott imperturbably.
"Mine is a queen," said Segrave in a hollow tone of voice.
Endicott with a comprehensive oath threw the entire pack of cards into adistant corner of the room.
"A fresh pack, mistress!" he shouted peremptorily.
Then as an overdressed, florid woman, with high bullhead fringe andold-fashioned Spanish farthingale, quickly obeyed his behests, he saidwith a coarse laugh:
"Fresh cards may break Master Segrave's luck and improve yours, SirMichael."
"Before this round begins," said Sir James Overbury who was standingclose behind Lord Walterton, also watching the game, "I will bet you,Walterton, that Segrave wins again."
"Done with you," replied the other, "and I'll back mine own opinion bytaking a hand."
The florid woman brought him a chair, and he sat down at the table, asEndicott once more began to deal.
"Five pounds that Segrave wins," said Overbury.
"A queen," said Endicott, turning up his card. "I pay king and aceonly."
Everyone had to pay the bank, for all turned up low cards; Segrave alonehad not yet turned up his.
"Well! what is your card, Master Segrave?" queried Lord Waltertonlightly.
"An ace!" said Segrave simply, displaying the ace of hearts.
"No good betting against the luck," said young Walterton lightly, as hehanded five sovereigns over to his friend, "moreover it spoils mysystem."
"Ye play primero on a system!" quoth Sir Michael Isherwood in deepamazement.
"Yes!" replied the young man. "I have played on it for years ... and itis infallible, 'pon my honor."
In the meanwhile the doors leading to the second room had been thrownopen; serving men and women advanced carrying trays on which weredisplayed glasses and bottles filled with Rhenish wine and Spanishcanary and muscadel, also buttered ale and mead and hypocras for theladies.
Editha did not occupy herself with serving but the florid woman wasmost attentive to the guests. She darted in and out between the tables,managing her unwieldy farthingale with amazing skill. She poured out thewines, and offered tarts and dishes of anchovies and of cheese, alsostrange steaming beverages lately imported into England called coffeeand chocolate.
The women liked the latter, and supped it out of mugs, with many littlecries of astonishment and appreciation of its sugariness.
The men drank heavily, chiefly of the heady Spanish wines; they ate theanchovies and cheese with their fingers, and continually called for morerefreshments.
Play was of necessity interrupted. Groups of people eating and drinkingcongregated round the tables. The men mostly discussed various phases ofthe game; there was so little else for idlers to talk about these days.No comedies or other diversions, neither cock-fighting nor bear-baiting,and abuse of my Lord Protector and his rigorous disciplinarian laws hadalready become stale.
The women talked dress and coiffure, the new puffs, the fancifulpinners.
But at the center table Segrave still sat, refusing all refreshment,waiting with obvious impatience for the ending of this unwelcomeinterval. When first he found himself isolated in the crowd, he hadcounted over with febrile eagerness the money which lay in a substantialheap before him.
"Saved!" he muttered between his teeth, speaking to himself like onewho is dreaming, "saved! Thank God! ... Two hundred and fifty pounds ...only another fifty and I'll never touch these cursed cards again ...only another fifty...."
He buried his face in his hands; the moisture stood out in heavy dropson his forehead. He looked all round him with ever-growing impatience.
"My God! why don't they come back! ... Another fifty pounds ... and Ican put the money back ... before it has been missed.... Oh! why don'tthey come back!"
Quite a tragedy expressed in those few muttered words, in the tremblinghands, the damp forehead. Money taken from an unsuspecting parent,guardian or master, which? What matter? A tragedy of ordinary occurrenceeven in those days when social inequalities were being abolished by actof Parliament.
In the meanwhile Lord Walterton, halting of speech, insecure offoothold, after his third bumper of heady sack, was explaining to SirMichael Isherwood the mysteries of his system for playing the noble gameof primero.
"It is sure to break the bank in time," he said confidently, "I am forgoing to Paris where play runs high, and need not be carried on in thishole and corner fashion to suit cursed Puritanical ideas."
"Tell me your secret, Walterton," urged worthy Sir Michael, whose broadShropshire acres were heavily mortgaged, after the rapine and pillageof civil war.
"Well! I can but tell you part, my friend," rejoined the other, "yet'tis passing simple. You begin with one golden guinea ... and lose it... then you put up two and lose again...."
"Passing simple," assented Sir Michael ironically.
"But after that you put up four guineas."
"And lose it."
"Yea! yea! mayhap you lose it ... but then you put up eight guineas ...and win. Whereupon you are just as you were before."
And with a somewhat unsteady hand the young man raised a bumper to hislips, whilst eying Sir Michael with the shifty and inquiring eyepeculiar to the intoxicated.
"Meseems that if you but abstain from playing altogether," quoth SirMichael impatiently, "the result would still be the same.... And supposeyou lose the eight guineas, what then?"
"Oh! 'tis vastly simple--you put up sixteen."
"But if you lose that?"
"Put up thirty-two...."
"But if you have not thirty-two guineas to put up?" urged Sir Michael,who was obstinate.
"Nay! then, my friend," said Lord Walterton with a laugh which soonbroke into an ominous hiccough, "ye must not in that case play upon mysystem."
"Well said, my lord," here interposed Endicott, who had most moderatelypartaken of a cup of hypocras, and whose eye and hand were as steady asheretofore. "Well said, pardi! ... My old friend the Marquis ofSwarthmore used oft to say in the good old days of Goring's Club, that'twas better to lose on a system, than to play on no system at all."
"A smart cavalier, old Swarthmore," assented Sir Michael gruffly, "andnathless, a true friend to you, Endicott," he added significantly.
"Another deal, Master Endicott," said Segrave, who for the last quarterof an hour had vain
ly tried to engage the bank-holder's attention.
Nor was Lord Walterton averse to this. The more the wine got into hishead, the more unsteady his hand became, the more strong was his desireto woo the goddess whose broken-nosed image seemed to be luring him tofortune.
"You are right, Master Segrave," he said thickly, "we are wastingvaluable time. Who knows but what old Noll's police-patrol is lurking inthis cutthroat alley? ... Endicott, take the bank again.... I'll swearI'll ruin ye ere the moon--which I do not see--disappears down thehorizon. Sir Michael, try my system.... Overbury, art a laggard? ... Letus laugh and be merry--to-morrow is the Jewish Sabbath--and after thatPuritanic Sunday ... after which mayhap, we'll all go to hell, driventhither by my Lord Protector. Wench, another bumper ... canary, sack ormuscadel ... no thin Rhenish wine shall e'er defile this throat!Gentlemen, take your places.... Mistress Endicott, can none of thesewenches discourse sweet music whilst we do homage to the goddess ofFortune? ... To the tables ... to the tables, gentlemen ... here's toKing Charles, whom may God protect ... and all in defiance of my LordProtector!"