University of Virginia Library

35. CHAPTER XXXV.
HEADS OR TAILS.

The Honorable Keppel Craven was a younger son. He had
nothing beyond his airs, graces, and good looks, of which properly
to boast. He had no lands, no possessions, no funds, upon which
a creditor could lay hands. But he was a courtier; not ill-looking,
and with all that current change of conversation, about people
and society, which constitutes the sufficient capital for a man of
fashion.

He was not a wit, but he was chatty; not wise, but he had
seen something of a certain sort of pretentious and self-satisfied
world; with scarcely an accomplishment beyond fiddling and
dancing, but these things he could do with very considerable dexterity.
He was impudent as the devil, and almost as much a
gentleman, in the ordinary courtier sense of the term. He had a
smooth face, with slight yellow mustache, and fine, curling, amber-colored
hair, which he kept well oiled for conquest. He wore a
profusion of the love-locks of the period, of the tresses of which,
resting upon his shoulders, he was not a little vain.

Suppose him in the well-laced coat and purple and pantouffled
small-clothes of the time; with half-drowsy, half-smiling eyes, and
a fashionable lisp; with long rapier and well-pointed shoes — and
you have the whole of him.

We may add that some irregularities at a gaming-table had
been the occult occasion for sending him off to the colonies; and
that, as a nephew of one of the lords-proprietors, he had honored
Carolina with his choice, in preference to Barbadoes and a market.

The world was his market at the present moment; and his
wits and beauties, airs and graces, were the all-sufficient capital
with which he had entered it for the nonce.

He had seen Zulieme, briefly, at the ballroom of Mrs. Calder
Carpenter, the night before. A whisper of Mrs. Perkins Anderson
had brought him, for the renewal of his acquaintance, the
next day. He was one of the irresistibles of that lady. She was
overpowered with his fashionable claims, and conquered by his
pretension. It was in full expectation of his visit that she had
caused the trunks of her guest to be brought down to a receptionroom.
She had already enjoyed such a glimpse of Zulieme's
wardrobe, that she was not unwilling it should be seen by others.
She well knew that it would confirm the hints she had thrown out
of the wealth and treasures of her guest, who, it must be remembered,
was a damsel, unmarried, unencumbered (save by wealth),
and the heiress, in her own right, of half the silver-mines of
Mexico!

The bait naturally took, and the Honorable Keppel Craven
was an early morning caller.

He was not the only one, we may add, par parenthèse, to whom
Mrs. Anderson had indicated the same pleasant lures; for she
was one of those ladies who always provide, if they can, extra
strings to their bows — seeking to secure as many beaux in her
string as it can comfortably draw.

But of the full resources of Mrs. Anderson, on her own and the
account of Zulieme, we must suffer events and time to make their
own report at the proper season. Enough, here, to admit that
the Honorable Keppel Craven is not the person whom she especially
hopes to secure as an ally in her design upon the simple
Zulieme. The most formidable of King Charles's cavaliers, in the
sight of Mrs. Anderson, is the Honorable Mr. Cornwall Cavendish,
a scion of the noble English family of that name; a gallant even
more comely and commanding than Craven; not relying so much
on oil and scent, but not the less accomplished in beguiling a
young damsel out of the proprieties.

Cornwall Cavendish was, like Craven, a rake-helly and a blackguard,
after the genteel school of English fashion; cunning as a
serpent, winning as a dove, and capricious as a cock-sparrow.
They were birds of a feather; and, though the plumage of Cavendish
was less showy than that of Craven, he was not a whit
more distinguished for sobriety. They were both birds of prey;
not after the fashion of eagle and hawk, but of the type of those
garden-birds that tear up the seeds as you plant them, and wage
devouring war upon the insect tribes: to whom a glossy, wriggling
worm, if painted outside, is a bonne bouche; and who will resort
to a thousand circumventions for the conquest of a golden butterfly
or beetle! They could be earnest enough in such a pursuit,
though, in all other matters, triflers; but the worm, beetle, or butterfly,
must be golden!

“Either will do!” was the murmured thought of Mrs. Perkins
Anderson, after duly advising both of the prize in her keeping.

“Either will do! Both have the proper arts for winning their
way with such a creature; and, if they succeed, why, what prevents
my conquest of Harry Calvert? He loves her now, after a
fashion; respects her, at all events, as he has faith in her fidelity.
She is his toy, no doubt — the mere plaything of his fancy; but
the fancy of such a man requires that his playthings shall not be
common! Their wheels must not be set in motion by the hands
of other men. Let him once see that she is frail, and he whistles
her off with scorn; and then! ay, then?

“He must have refuge in some affections — somewhere! Men
are so far dependent upon women, that, however stern or earnest
— whatever their cares or sorrows — the very proudest of them
must seek a refuge in our sex, whether for passion or play. And
he is not superior to the rest of his tribe. He will turn to me!
He has seen that I prefer him; and, however he may disguise
the feeling from himself — satisfied as he is, at present, with this
toy of a woman — the discovery did not displease him. No! his
vanity was interested, I am sure, in spite of his woes and virtues.
And that vanity, so soon as he finds out the weakness of the one
creature, whom he now values chiefly for her fidelity, will bring
him to me!

“Ah! I know him — know his sex thoroughly, and do not despair
to conquer his stubbornness, so soon as this pretty child is

out of his thought and sight. Let them carry her off — one or
t' other, it matters not which — and I leave the rest to Fortune!
Harry will not fail me then! He will not look with indifference
upon a person—”

And the rest of the sentence was supplied mutely, by a gratified
reference to the mirror.

“Ay,” she resumed, “I will have him to myself — all! He
is not capricious. I can love him! I feel that his earnestness
of soul is not a whit superior to mine. I can appreciate his manhood;
can sympathize with his sorrows; can forgive him that he
has ever loved another with so much devotion; and gradually win
him to forget the ruined past, in a present in which he will find a
soul responsive to his own.

“Meanwhile, this struggle for the fair Zulieme binds these two
fashionable cavaliers to my circle. They have been shy hitherto.
They are now mine. How it will mortify that silly but insolent
Mrs. Calder Carpenter! How it will vex and worry that stale
old graybeard, that looks like Hecate, just after getting in a new
set of teeth, Mrs. Andrew Beresford! Anyhow, the affair must
be a success. I have shot the arrow home: let us hope soon for
all the sports of the chase!”

The hints of Mrs. Anderson to our two gallants were confirmed
by the impressions made by Zulieme herself. She had taken the
fashionables of Charleston by storm. Her infantile beauty; her
picturesque costume — for she wore her Spanish dresses, and
could not be persuaded to adopt the English; the piquancy of
her simplicity; the unqualified abandon of her manner; her naïveté
of remark and reply, and the splendor of her jewels, had effectually
done the work: and there was quite a furore among all parties,
in consequence. The gallants were wild with feverish hopes;
the leaders of the ton coerced to conciliation by the overwhelming
advent of wealth and beauty; and Zulieme was a foreigner —
a rich foreigner — a beautiful foreigner: her prestige was established
in the first hour of her appearance upon the scene!

“'T is distance lends enchantment to the view.” That nobody
could say exactly what she was, or who she was; could refer to
no doubtful antecedents, no qualifying associations; must receive
her just as she was, with the luminous halo of the remote and
vague about her beauty: this, itself, was a sufficient cause for the

rapidity with which she produced her effects. And when the
beauty and the wealth seemed equally unquestionable, they naturally
became exaggerated.

Mr. Keppel Craven was in ecstatics; Mr. Cornwall Cavendish
in raptures; both equally eager in expectation, and equally resolved
on her conquest.

They returned together from the party where they had encountered
this cynosure of love and beauty. They lodged together;
and, though understood rivals at the first moment of their discovery
of the treasure, they communed together of the prize, and of
the manner in which it was to be won. They were not sufficiently
deep in passion to be angry with each other. They were
only deep in expectation and policy.

They reached their lodgings in a feverish state of excitement;
flushed with wine as well as fancy; exhilarated, happy, unapprehensive;
and each exulting in the degree of favor which had been
shown him by the artless subject of their raptures.

“By Venus the victorious, a prize!” cried Mr. Keppel Craven,
as he flung himself, at length, along the cane settee of the chamber,
and summoned his servant. Cavendish had entered the
room with him, and disposed of his person on a lounge opposite.
The servant entered; and Craven kicked off his shoes, while the
lacquey cased his feet in gold-and-velvet slippers, and brought him
a loose robe de chambre, for which he exchanged his silken coat.

“And now, John, bring us a bowl of punch, dem 'd strong, and
devilish sweet, and piquantly sour! Nothing but punch, Cornwall,
after such a night: the sweet, the strong, and the sour —
the all of wedlock and the honeymoon!”

“Sits the wind in that quarter with you, Keppel?”

“The moon, rather. I am moonstruck! That Spaniard is my
Luna! I will worship her after a witch-fashion, though I ride on
a broomstick for ever after!”

“Look you, John, put more of the sour than the sweet into
your master's punch; he will have nausea else,” said Cavendish,
with a leer.

John, by-the-way, is the prescriptive name for an Englishman's
body-servant. The fellow who waits on this occasion had been
christened Richard. One of his great-grandsons is now a member
of Congress, and looks to the presidency.

John, alias Richard, grinned and disappeared. The punch was
prepared in a jiffy, and strong tumblers of the liquor were soon
in the hands of the two gallants.

“The Mexican gold-mine!” quoth Craven; “and the diamonds
and diamond-eyes of the new jewel of Golconda, the beautiful
Zulieme de Montano!”

“Good! and a fair wind and open sea to the brave fellow who
shall carry her off!” replied his companion.

“Ecce homo!” responded Craven, as he threw himself back
upon the settee, and lifted his goblet in air.

“You, Keppel? you!”

“Why not? That excellent Mrs. Perkins Anderson has already
felicitated me upon my progress to conquest.”

“Egad! she has been equally bountiful to me. She specially
complimented me upon the impression I had made.”

“The devil she did! The arch-serpent! Why, Cornwall, had
you heard her, you would have sworn that the game was already
won.”

“And, by Juno — whom I suspect to be something of a widow
bewitched — she gave me to understand, in the fullest number of
words, that I had proved myself irresistible; and, i' faith, I am
free to say that the girl herself told me quite as much — with her
eyes, at least.”

“With her eyes? Oh, d—n the eyes! I must have it by word
of mouth. And I could almost swear that she gave me assurance—”

“Oh, d—n your assurance!” cried Cornwall; “if it comes to
that, the evidence is absolutely worthless, however extravagant.
But your assurance will never do here. You have to win her
against a score of competitors; and there are some, I fancy, Keppel,
who will hold you to the full stretch of your tether in a love
as well as a steeple chase.”

“You, for example — eh?”

“Yes, blister my fingers! but I am man enough to do it. Look
you, Keppel, do n't forget the affair of the lovely Jennings.”

“Pshaw! will you never cease to harp upon that affair? You
kissed her, you say: she boxed my ears, I know! But what further?”

“Deponent saith not!”

“For the marvellous reason that you have nothing more to
say! But, even the kiss was only secured, I suspect, by Rochester's
favor — his contrivance, and her fright. He had been before
you, and wanted a cover.”

“Suspect what you please, Keppel. Enough that I am satisfied
with the degree of happiness I have had with the Jennings.”

“Well, that ought to content you, though I fancy you were
over-soon satisfied. Still, according to your own admission, you
have had enough of happiness for one life. Be content, and leave
this prize to me.”

“In love, nothing contents while anything is to be won! I
mean to yield the prize to nobody.”

“Love! what has love to do in the matter?” demanded Craven.

“Well, we use a certain word in the absence of any more expressive.
It is love, or it is lust, or it is matrimony — which is
another name, I take it, for speculation in the funds.”

“Ho! ho! are you there, Master Cornwall? Have with you!
You are, then, sufficiently satisfied with this Mexican damsel to
share the noose with her — to marry, are you?”

“There is no room for doubt. It seems to me that the proofs
are unquestionable. She is doubtless quite as rich as Mrs. Anderson
reports her. Did you ever see such jewels? They shone
upon her like the crown-jewels — as I have seen them upon the
queen, and our own loving duchess.”

“If not paste and crystal.”

“They are not, I 'm sure! I 'm rather a judge of what 's good
water.”

“Well, drink your punch, and refill. You linger over it as if
you thought it water only.”

“I might have drunk more freely if I could think it less potent.
But your fellow John has made it as strong as the devil!”

“So much the better, Master Cornwall. We are upon an argument
that requires strength. I agree with you that this beautiful
Mexican wears jewels of the best water. I think it very
likely that the report of Mrs. Anderson is in great measure true,
and that she is an heiress — not, perhaps, to the extent that she
reports, but she 's rich enough, no doubt, for either of us; and so
devilish pretty, and so piquant, so peculiar, and so petite — of evils

choose the least, you know — that, like you, sooner than not wear
such a treasure, I too am willing to take it — with a noose.”

“Ha! ha! — good! It would almost compensate me for my own
defeat with the Mexican, to see you `Benedict the married man.'
What a revolution — what a transformation! You would never
show your face again in London.”

“Would I not? Would you not? My dear Cornwall, marriage
is a pill, the bitterness of which is soothed by the gilding!
and who, in London, does not acknowledge that? Why are we
here?”

“True, true! That is enough on that head; but—”

“But, my dear fellow, it has not come to marriage yet, with
either of us; and may not, if we play our cards with proper dexterity.
This lovely Spanish creature seems a mere simpleton.
She wants love, and may think of matrimony; but how if she is
satisfied with love alone?”

“Precisely my thought. Women do not much care for matrimony,
anyhow, when they can get love. It is only in our d—d
world of convention that too much love and too little matrimony
loses a woman position, while making the position of the man.
She evidently knows nothing of this. And these Spaniards of
Mexico are loose livers at the best. Money will satisfy the Church
at any time; and where the Church shows herself unscrupulous,
the woman may well use all her liberty. She generally regulates
her moral — when a simple creature like this — by that of the
Church; and we can surely find many good fathers in God, to
grant her absolution, when Love makes his plea with a moneybag
in his fingers. I shall dodge matrimony, in this instance, if I
can — and as long as I can!”

“But, if dodging will not suffice? — if the simpleton should be
sagacious on this one score?”

“Then, dem it! swallow the physic as I may!”

“But you will swallow it?”

“If I can do no better. I will have this Mexican lady of the
mines! I will disembowel her Potosi! I will revel in her charms
and ingots! I will end this d—d long, degrading struggle in a
sphere, for maintenance in which I lack all the material essentials.
It is resolved that, par amours, or as a Benedict, I shall possess

this fair little prize, worth galleons and millions, the beautiful
Zulieme de Montano!”

“Good! I like your spirit; all the better, indeed, as I had just
come to the same resolution.”

“You, Cornwall? Impossible!”

“Yes, by Jupiter! Look you, Keppel, we are friends, and
must remain so; but friendship does not forbid honest rivalry.
I am without a guinea, more than will pay off absolute scores
from day to day. I can not afford to be generous; but I am willing
to be just. Shall it be a fair contest between us?”

“I had much rather there should be none at all!”

This was said somewhat sulkily.

“Ho! there, John! More punch!” — as the fellow appeared
— “and a cruetful, sharper and stronger than the last!”

For a few moments, the parties sank into a dubious fit of meditation;
but the punch was brought in, and John having disappeared,
the goblets were refilled, and the dialogue resumed —
Keppel taking the parole:—

“A contest between us, Cornwall, may defeat both parties; and
I have as much need of the girl's gold as yourself, perhaps more.
We have neither of us anything to boast of in the way of surplus
funds. Besides, a contest is fatiguing; it exhausts me! You
have to be constantly on the watch, and constantly striving. I
confess to a preference for that fruit which does not require me to
climb the tree; and, if I mistake not, you are not less averse to
useless effort than I am. Can we not avoid the struggle?”

“I do n't see how. My wits fail to conceive of any plan but
the one — that of winning the Mexican if I can, and by any process!
I shall try to do this, by all the wits in my power. I am
not ill-looking, Keppel; I have some wits; I can be clever at an
answer; and can do my impromptu as well as any man, with
twelve hours' notice! I dance, sing, play; and, though I do not
relish fatiguing operations of any kind, yet, by Plutus, when a
silver-mine is the stake, I shall go through fire and water for it!”

“My resolution too, by Jove, rather than be defeated! Well,
it comes to this: we are in each other's way. Now, there was an
old mode of removing an obstacle of this sort by resort to a short,
sharp cut-and-thrust. But, my dear Cornwall, we respect each
other's throats, do we not?”

“Most reverently, Keppel.”

“If we both pursue this lady, one or other of us must be defeated.”

“Most logical conclusion!”

“You may console yourself with hope, as I do, that the unfortunate
will be other than ourself; but, quien sabe? as the Spaniard
hath it. Who knows? I do not relish the idea of utter
defeat, nor do you. I dread, in the conflict between us, that both
will suffer. Now, I have a scheme to avoid this danger.”

“Ah! Deliver, my dear fellow!”

“Let us submit it to Fortune, beforehand, to decide which shall
woo the damsel first; and he who wins, pays over to the other,
within three weeks after marriage, a round sum of ten thousand
pounds. Her estates can afford all of that! With such a sum as
this, I should be reconciled to seeing the fair Zulieme de Montana
safely locked in your arms!”

“Admirably thought, and declared! We are to throw the dice
for the lady or ten thousand pounds?”

“Precisely: that is the scheme.”

“Good, Keppel! and the losing party shall help the other, in
all possible ways, in the promotion of his object?”

“Granted, with one reservation: that his failure exonerates
the other, and leaves him free to the pursuit on his own account?”

“A good proviso! The dice! the dice! the dice! Hither,
good John!”

“Do not be too impatient. You are challenging Fate, you
know! Drink your punch! Think, meanwhile, of your loss.”

“My gains rather. The lady with the mines of Potosi, or ten
thousand pounds! Any how, I shall be better off than now!
Summon your man, and bid him bring forth the ivories!”

John, alias Richard, appeared at the summons.

“Pen, ink, and paper,” said his master, the Honorable Keppel
Craven.

“What the devil do you want with pen, ink, and paper?'

“To reduce the terms to writing.”

“By Jupiter, you were born for a scrivener, rather than a
conqueror! But, be it so! I accept the requisition as a good
augury.”

Craven wrote: the other looked over the paper.

“You were not born for a scrivener, Keppel. I acquit you of
the imputation. As d—d cramp a hand as that of a Yorkshire
ploughman! But men of noble blood are not to affect the
special virtues of a clerk.”

“There: read — sign!”

“All right!” said Cavendish, dashing his signature below the
writing. Craven followed him.

“A copy,” said the former.

It was prepared and signed like the former, the order of the
signatures only being reversed.

“Will it need a witness?”

“No! pshaw! no! We shall neither of us forswear the signature.
And now for the dice!”

John appeared as soon as he was summoned, bringing the dice-box.

“Set it down. Avaunt, fellow! begone! We are at study on
the fate of nations.”

John fled.

“Throw first, Corny,” said Master Keppel Craven.”

“What! you begin to tremble, do you? And well you may!
I must throw first, you say? Be it so! There is no use in
hanging off, when one has agreed upon the play. And now, help
me, ye gods, who second bold hearts and gallant fortunes! Help,
you especially who excel in the snares set for beauty — Vulcan,
the net-flinger! — help me to victory!”

And, even as he spoke, he rolled forth the dice with a violence
and effort which were surely unnecessary after putting the affair
into the hands of Fate.

“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Craven, not able to restrain his mirth.
“You are clearly no favorite with the gods. Three, four, one!
No great shakes that, Corny!”

“No, indeed!” answered the other, sulkily. “But, better it if
you can, and do n't stand grinning like a monkey!”

“Here 's at you!” But the Honorable Keppel, striving to conceal
his anxiety in a strained laughter, was slow to take up the
dice and box. The impatience of his companion, however, urged
him to the throw, which was nervously delivered.

“Venus the victorious!” he murmured, as he let the dice roll
gently from the box. He was the conqueror!

“Three, four, five! Well, Keppel, you have the mine, and I
am to submit to ten thousand pounds!”

“Yes, my dear fellow, and be content. The lesson is your
own. For my part, I owe a pair of doves to Venus! And now
sit down, swallow your punch, and let us proceed to the plan of
operations.”

These we need not examine. The half-drunken rake-hellies
continued over the punch-bowl till dawn; when John, alias Richard,
came to the relief of the parties, and, summoning the servant
of Cavendish, assisted Keppel Craven to his chamber, after having
helped his brother-lacquey in a like service rendered to Cornwall.