Lady Susan Plays the Game (14 page)

‘Perhaps if there had been fine tables at Langford, I would never have encouraged Manwaring. Is that what you think?' She laughed again.

‘I don't compare them,' said Alicia Johnson smiling back.

‘Indeed not.'

Jack Fortuny was in town, and only a day or two after she'd arrived Lady Susan met him at Lady Harriet's tables. He knew at once that she'd had an interesting time at Langford.

‘I can tell,' he said. ‘I can always tell.'

‘I expect you can.' She smiled broadly in the way she let herself do to only a few people, ‘Jack, it was like winning at cards for days on end with the gold flowing.'

‘I can see that it was, your ladyship.' He pretended mockery, then became serious. ‘But take care.'

‘I do take care of myself, as you know.'

‘I am not sure you do. A widow is more vulnerable than a wife.' Again she noticed with surprise his new seriousness.

‘Oh come, Jack, dear Frederick was never exactly my protector – nor did I need one.'

‘You are magnificent, of course,' smiled Jack Fortuny, then added and not as an afterthought, ‘but don't be too sure.'

She'd turned to speak to a friend who'd brushed her arm and before she could reply Jack Fortuny had moved away. The room was brightly lit with candles on the tables and in sconces on the longer walls, but the corners were in shadow. Lady Susan was not especially concerned to know who lurked or watched but she was conscious that Jack Fortuny had gone from the light into the shadow and was talking to someone who appeared to her weak eyes as a large dark smudge.

She wondered what he'd meant. Presumably he didn't want to compromise her reputation by being seen in intimate talk now she was a widow. But the supposed scandal of her liaison with this man was old history. Perhaps his own marginal state made him over cautious.

She hoped he'd not realised that she'd come this night to win and play for high stakes. He'd certainly have disapproved of that. While she had him in view or sensed his presence she did not sit down at a table.

Then, although he'd not bidden her farewell and there were still men talking by the shadowed wall, she was sure he was no longer there. She supposed he'd moved on to Almack's to drink and gamble at the same place. He'd once told her she should have been a man and then she too could have joined the gentlemen's card clubs – or rather, he'd laughed, she shouldn't. She would have ruined herself in a weekend.

She spied Lady Heton. There was a lady who did one's reputation some good. Since she was a little deaf she didn't always catch Lady Susan's low-pitched voice.

‘I have left Mrs Manwaring in the country.'

Lady Heton, who'd known Charlotte Manwaring's uncle, heard that Lady Susan had ‘helped' Mrs Manwaring with her ‘family'.

‘My dear you are too good,' she exclaimed, ‘so kind as always. They must have been distressed to let you go from Langford. How you must be missed.'

Lady Susan agreed with a smile that she believed she was much missed.

Just at this juncture she was called over to a table where a group was forming for a new game of basset. She was ready now to play. It was a quick treacherous game, just what she needed.

Their hostess, Lady Harriet, was sending her footman round with unopened packs of cards sealed with the government stamp to ensure clean backs. It was a useful habit but with the disadvantage that the servant had to be tipped. It was part of the ritual, however, and still held charm for Lady Susan. She rubbed her hand against the green mat on the large table as she prepared to sit down.

She felt the old pleasure. The candles at the corners flickered on the faces of the players as if they glittered with exhilaration. Basset was an old-fashioned game but she always liked it; she was ready for its chances which were great – great losses, great gains. She must have the latter tonight.

She sat down and the usual surge of excitement rose in her. She looked down and saw Lady Glint drooling in anticipation. The books of thirteen cards each came round.

The elder Mr Plunkett, Lady Harriet's particular friend on these nights, would be banker. He sat down in the middle of the table and the game began.

He laid out his money, then turned up the first card. The players put down their bets. Lady Susan staked on the queen of spades. The banker took the pack and turned up the cards. There was the queen. She had won the couch.

She was eager to go on, so she crooked the corner of her card and let her money lie.

Her luck continued. With the same card she won a sept-et-leva. Already – and she hardly dared breathe as she thought it – she had seven times what she had put down. All this in what seemed a few seconds.

She glanced down the table. Lady Glint had lost and was moaning to herself, oblivious of her neighbours. The nervous twitch of her jaw pushed against her scarf. Sir Sedley, who was sitting next to her, shushed her and laid a guinea on a card of five of clubs. Lady Glint pounced, ‘You've lost it,' she said, ‘I've massed the card double.'

The banker came in at once. ‘Seven wins,' he said, ‘five loses. You have lost it, Lady Glint. The knave wins, ten loses, you have won, Lord Gaines.'

Pale Sir Thomas Hewitt was walking languidly towards the table to enter the game. Always ill, he never quite seemed to die, Lady Susan thought. She wondered why. ‘Come and sit by me,' she called.

He came. ‘You are playing gold? High stakes, madam, but then your stakes are always high'. He gave her the kind of leer that turned ghastly on his pallid face. She ignored it. Turning to the table, he said, ‘I'll put a guinea on the knave of clubs.'

‘Lose it for a guinea more,' countered Lady Susan.

‘Done,' he replied.

‘The five wins, and the knave loses,' said the banker.

‘You have lost, Sir Thomas,' said Lady Susan.

‘The knave wins, for two guineas more, Lady Susan,' he replied.

‘Done, Sir Thomas,' she said. Her head was starting to whirl with the thrill.

‘Six wins – knave loses,' said the banker. Sir Thomas looked cross and paler. ‘I'm fassed; I'd rather have lost it all.' He put on a nine as an afterthought.

The banker came in again, ‘Nine wins, queen loses – you have won,' he told Sir Thomas whose white face took on just a hint of colour.

Lady Susan startled herself into action. ‘I'll make a parole – I masse as much more; your card loses, Sir Thomas for two guineas, yours, Lady Glint, loses for a guinea more.'

‘Seven wins,' said the bank. Lady Susan bit her lip. She would stay with the knave for her bet; she bent the corner of the winning card to signify.

‘Knave wins, nine loses,' said the bank.

She had won.

She had gone up and up. On her card she had thirty-three times what she'd bet: it was impossible to stop. This was, as she'd expected, her fortunate night.

The next chance was ‘soissante-et-leva', sixty-seven times the money, the goal. It was rare to achieve it but surely she would now. She'd hazard for it.

She looked down the table. It was still not going well for Lady Glint, who tore at her book in vexation. Lady Susan made her bet. She would put her knave in again.

As usual, time slowed, then shimmered almost to a halt. Blood coursed through her body and tingled the ends of her fingers.

The banker spoke – his words seemed more deliberate than usual, although after he'd spoken, she wondered for some seconds what exactly he had said – ‘Four wins, knave loses – you have lost, madam.'

She felt the hair moving on her head, each strand separately twirling around its curl.

She moved her chair back from the table and stood a moment to cool her face with her fan.

Behind her the banker went on inexorably, ‘Ace wins, nine loses.'

She sat down again. How could she have been so near and missed the great prize? But luck could surely be recouped; it could be made to return.

She called to the footman, ‘Bring me a book of hearts, I'll try if they are more successful.'

‘King wins, the tray loses.'

She must act. She turned to Sir Thomas. ‘I have lost the knack of winning tonight,' she said lightly, ‘would you tally, sir?'

‘With all my heart, Lady Susan,' he said and she took his words as a lucky sign. Sir Thomas moved into Mr Plunkett's place. He handled the cards and shuffled them.

The paint and powder on Lady Glint's ageing face were dissolving with her sweat. The rouge had long since run and streaked the bottom half of her face as if she had some ghastly blood disease; the powder had turned into thick lumps. ‘Pray give me the cards, sir,' she cried, grabbing at them. Sir Thomas let them go and she shuffled them fiercely, then returned them.

‘Are you satisfied, madam?' he asked coldly.

Other voices came in with bets but Lady Susan heard little of them. She took a deep breath, then spoke, ‘I set five guineas upon this card, Sir Thomas.' Again she showed a knave, this time of hearts.

‘Done, madam,' he replied.

‘Five wins – six loses.'

Lady Glint came in at once, ‘I set that.'

‘Five doesn't go,' said Sir Thomas ‘and seven loses.'

Lord Gaines at the end of the table entered swiftly, ‘I masse double.'

‘I masse that,' added Lady Susan. Her hands were sticking to the card. At least her face didn't dissolve into her bosom, she reflected.

‘Three wins, six loses,' said Sir Thomas.

Lady Glint almost shrieked, ‘I massed it and that – Oh Lord, Lord not again. How can I be so unlucky!'

‘Eight wins, seven loses,' said Sir Thomas, his pallid face unsmiling, though his lips twitched as he registered the emotions around the table.

Lady Susan was ready for her last stake. She had only fifty pounds left. She must wager it all – it was the only way.

‘Sir Thomas,' she said, and got no further. Jack Fortuny reappeared and interrupted her over her shoulder. It was unexpected. She didn't remember his ever leaving the tables and then returning.

‘You are nearing the end, Lady Susan,' he whispered. ‘The bank must win, you know it well. You don't need spectacles to see.'

Without turning towards him she shook her head. ‘I was so near; the multiplication was mine. You weren't there, you couldn't know.'

‘Don't let yourself be intoxicated,' he went on. ‘That multiple is as rare as snow in midsummer.' Then he was gone once more, as silently as he'd come.

She put her money on the king of hearts.

‘Knave wins, nine loses,' said Sir Thomas, his eyes flickering momentarily on her.

She had lost. How did she come to bet it all on a king? She'd never done that before. She should not have abandoned the knave.

She was too proud to claim there was a false tally. Sir Thomas surmised her thought. ‘The cards are right, madam,' he said.

A heavy man brushed past her, she ignored the touch and kept her eyes on the table. Even with her face down she controlled her expression. It was time to go home.

She both knew and didn't know the meaning of what had happened. She'd not after all felt quite the same amount of exhilaration as she used to feel – the thrill at the dramatic moments, yes, but not the urge and surge towards the game. She wondered if she'd changed in the last weeks – no, this was impossible – she didn't believe in transformations. Was it because she'd played out of a new need? She'd always seen winning itself as the need. The hope and fear,
excitement and disappointment, expectation and loss, all had been there tonight. Yet something had been missing.

It was nearly morning when she arrived at White's. She couldn't think of lying down at once. When she'd dismissed the chair, she entered her apartment where Jeffrey was waiting for her. He said something she couldn't understand – she always found him incomprehensible, he seemed to speak a language of his own. She sent him to rouse Barton. While she waited she glanced at her face in the glass. Her nose seemed pinched, her eyes just a little sunken. She turned away. Momentarily it had seemed the face of a woman no longer young.

The maid must accompany her for a walk, even though the cold pierced even their thick cloaks. She would not confide in a servant but she needed company. On her side Barton was used to her mistress being out of humour when she'd lost at the tables; she knew better than to try to converse.

The two women walked a little in silence down the deserted streets, then turned back. At last, when it was nearly morning although still dark, Barton undressed her mistress, removing her shift and silk stockings. Lady Susan lay down and Barton closed the curtains round her, then went back to her own now cold bed.

In the next room Frederica slept on. Her father too had been a good sleeper, Lady Susan remembered. She both envied the capacity and scorned it as an insensibility too easy for some to achieve.

She woke from her own disturbed rest to unpalatable clarity. There was now no choice. Her debts were too great to allow her to stay. What she had lost exceeded what had been left of the draft from Reeve & Reeve. The visit to the Vernons at Churchill must occur. They would have to receive her.

Despite her lack of rest, by midday Lady Susan had rallied. The proposed trip had some advantages. Appearances demanded she spend time with her in-laws before too long. They would be presumed to share her grief for her husband.
I expect they do
, she mused,
for they got nothing out of Frederick's will
.

She sat down to write the letter, trying not to think of the dreary village it was going to and the dull people who would read it. Automatically she squeezed her face into the expression she would use if she were conveying her sentiments in person. She found it helped her words to arrive more copiously and in the right style.

Dearest sister – our shared grief – the affections of a mother – my kind friends begging me to stay – too much sociability for a poor widow – delightful retirement. On she went. Phrases flowed easily. Her long-held desire to see the plain wife and the ‘dear little children' and to make close ties of affection and interest with those who shared her name now – dearest Frederica would be going to a fashionable private school, her governess having proved inadequate for her charge – it would of course be the most terrible wrench for a mother to part with a daughter at such a time of grief but sacrifices had to be made – and dear Frederica would thank her in time – besides a poor grieving mother was no company for a young girl.