While I waited in this strange ambush for my prey, I was asked to join another club—perhaps the strangest in London. It was called the Ugly Man's Club, exactly what it purported to be. Only those deemed of remarkably ugly visage were invited to join; great corpulence or emaciation or any other mark of disease disqualified the candidate; scars were disparaged unless natural ugliness set them off. In the way of social position, members ranged from an earl of ancient name, one of the great noblemen of his age, through a Jewish rabbi, to a low-born, high-minded gunsmith. Gaming being forbidden at the meetings, bibbling kept in bounds, our main entertainment was conversation, the most eager and frank, and quite possibly the most stimulating, to be heard in any London club. I did not know why, unless during this brief breach of loneliness, every man let his soul flow free.
Every man but one. Enjoying the talk and sometimes taking part in it, I remained alone as when I walked the streets in fog.
When I cast my accounts at the end of the year 1818, I had good reason to be pleased with my progress. I had not yet laid eyes on Lord Tarlton or made the slightest effort to do so, but our paths were drawing closer and they would surely cross before long. I had seen Dick Tarlton at the Jockey Club and at race meets, small, dark, carelessly dressed, and remarkably young-looking as far as I could tell from a distance; and with no apparent effort I had learned much of his goings and comings, his affairs and his ways, to stand me in good stead in our future dealings. Never mentioning the name of Harvey Alford—wishing I need never hear it—dreading any involvement with him and wish-thinking him innocent, still I had happened to hear that his wife's name was Sophia, and darkly knew we would soon come face to face.
My losses at gaming had been slight, considering how deeply I had played—amounting to not much more than the hosts' fees for "services." At the turf I was a slow but steady winner, and might have won heavily had I been willing to show my hand.
I could read a pedigree as well if not better than most; my eyes and instincts were fully as sharp in viewing horseflesh; and my great advantage lay in perceiving an animal's mettle just before a race. This was something Timor had taught me. He had pointed out the signs a thousand times—the eagerness of glance, the set of the ears, the carriage of the head, the arch of the neck, the spring of the step, and, curiously enough, the movements of the tail. Often the impression ran contrary to all my other judgments; yet if it were strong enough, it usually picked the winner. Sometimes it failed utterly.
Yet it was at gaming that I bared for the first time the edge of my golden sword.
I had come into Almack's late at night. Some desultory playing went on, but the main event, bursting on my pupils still wide from darkness, was a dice game between a heavy-set, florid man of my own age, suggesting a country squire lately drawn to the lights of London, and a small, superbly dressed, elegant little figure of a man whom I would know in any passage of years or sweep of distance. Some of the arresting vividness of the scene may have been a trick of my eyes; but some was an effect of brilliant lighting and part was its innate drama, apparent to all the people in the room. These watched with locked gaze in silence. An old man's hand jerked back and forth every time the younger player, he who had dared contest Godwine, Lord Tarlton, shook the dice box. The aged Dick Vernon cackled in senile glee. A magnificently built yet effeminate-acting youth laughed shrilly whenever the little lord won, meanwhile gazing at him with sickening ardor.
After the first impact of the scene on my unready eyes and brain, I turned cold and picked up its details with great care, one by one.
Lord Tarlton sat in a large, luxurious chair placed sideways to the table, and his white hand, looking almost tiny emerging from lace cuffs, rolled the dice with a graceful motion over its right arm. He wore a black coat and knee breeches of a somewhat antique style, glossy dark blue hose, black slippers with silver buckles, and a white satin cravat adorned with one large pearl. A Malacca walking stick leaned against the left arm of his chair. He need no longer powder his hair, and worn rather long and brushed back, it called attention to the beautiful structure of his head and face. His small prim mouth bore the merest suggestion of a smile. I could not see the winter-sky blue of his eyes, but their gaze seemed only half attentive to the -game. The thing that set my spine a-crawl was his look of youth. There were no lines on his face, no hollows under his eyes, no loosening of the skin on his cheeks and delicate jaws. It was as though Age had not dared lay hand on him.
His opponent, if I could call him that, sat in a straight, plain chair squarely facing the table. Something went on in his face that puzzled and then frightened me. I could soon identify it as conflict between bravado and terror. As he took the dice box, he postured unmistakably—showing the crowd that he, too, could be lordly in his own fashion—but when he counted the pips I saw a rounding of his eyes and a tension around his mouth, as though he were gazing past the immediate moment to some future he dared not believe. No doubt he had had too much to drink, but the symptoms were not strong enough to impugn his opponent's sportsmanship in the crowd's sight. Anyway, who could question any conduct of such a great aristocrat as Lord Tarlton?
"Who's winning?" another newcomer asked an acquaintance in my hearing.
"You can guess, can't you? Lord Tarlton's already into him for a thousand guineas, and Bozy's just matched it, all or nothing."
"He'd better shed that silly grin."
"Let him have it. It may be his last."
I had heard of Bozy—his last name was Barnes—as a shallow player and would-be buck. Tonight he had got beyond his depth, and I wondered what pressures had made him do so. He rolled with a last trace of bravado. His eyes glazed with hope as he looked at the pips; although I stood twenty feet away, the whispers told me almost instantly he had thrown an eight. It was one of the easiest points to make; but he threw thrice more without it coming up, or the deadly seven either. Then he breathed into the box, shook it prayerfully, and rolled out the little cubes of bone.
He looked at them and turned white. "Seven," someone intoned. When he had set the box down, his arms dropped to his side.
"An unfortunate throw, my friend," the little lord said gravely.
Bozy Barnes could only shake his head.
"You owe me two thousand guineas, and it's for you to say whether we play on."
"Two thousand guineas! Good God in heaven. Oh, I'll match you once more. This can't go on forever."
"All or nothing?" Lord Tarlton asked quietly.
"Yes, yes."
"I must remind you that twice two thousand guineas is four thousand, no trifling sum. But of course, it cuts both ways."
"I'll play. I said I would."
"Then be so kind as to pass me the dice box."
Lord Tarlton took it, dropped in the dice, shook them once, and rolled them lightly on the table.
"My lord has thrown a ten," a self-appointed scorekeeper announced to the now-breathless watchers. It being one of the hardest points to make, I could almost make myself believe he would not succeed and that a seven would come up instead. There was something very like beauty in his face as he played for his point, one easy roll after another. I had seen it once before when he had toasted Our Eliza in Lepanto Palace.
"Four," the announcer intoned, "... six .. . two . . . five . . . nine!"
Lord Tarlton paused, glanced at his watch, wiped his lips with a silk kerchief, and gave a little smile to the beautifully built youth with the effeminate airs. Then he dropped the dice slowly in the box, gave it one violent, vicious shake, and threw.