Bruce Alexander - Death of a Colonial

“Not, surely, to take the benefit of the waters?”

“No, though in truth I have heard marvelous reports as to their power to heal various and sundry ills, I have yet to test them myself, either internally or externally.”

“Well, when you do, you will find them extremely beneficial,” she assured him.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt of it,” said he, and simply left it at that. “Jack,” said she to Sir John, “do make him tell what he does here.”

“I cannot force it from him, Kate,” he replied. “He’s not in my court.”

“No,” said Mr. Bilbo, “and I hope never to be again.” He burst out laughing at that, no doubt remembering, with some embarrassment, his only previous visit to the Bow Street Court. “But I’ll not make it a secret. I’ve come, as many do, for the gaming.”

“Games, is it?” said Sir John with a chuckle. “Did you have bowls in mind? Or perhaps cricket?”

“Neither,” said he. ‘They seem to favor whist hereabouts.”

“Playing at cards?” said Lady Fielding, making a great show of disapproval. “Goodness gracious!”

“It’s what I do best, m’lady.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” said Sir John. “I seem to recall stories of your skills in seamanship …”

“As I’ve often said, all that’s behind me now.”

“Yes, as you’ve often said.” This was delivered with an amused smile, Sir John then did add: “But after all, what hurt can there be in an innocent game of cards?” A pause. “If that’s what you had in mind.”

“Well. .”

“Surely, Mr. Bilbo, you would not cheat!”

“Well, sir, there’s cheating and there’s cheating.”

“Meaning. . precisely what?”

“Meaning, Sir John, that while you would no doubt condemn me for cheating to win at the game, you would look perhaps a bit more favorably on cheating to lose.”

“Well, I might if I could suppose why in the world anyone would wish to lose at a game of cards.”

“It’s simple enough,” said Black Jack Bilbo with a wink. “When I sit down at a table of gentleman players, I make no secret of who I be. I present myself to one and all as John Bilbo — and let him who knows the name make the proper association. Then the game starts, and I begin to lose, and I continue to lose through hand after hand. I won’t say I do much cheating — only as a last resort — but I make every mistake a man can make with cards in his hand. Whatever it takes, I lose. Then, finally, when things slow down and come to a stop, as eventually they must, the game breaks up, and I pass out the cards for my gaming establishment. I have them always on my person in great number. They look at them, look at me, and they say to themselves, ‘If this cod runs a gaming house, then I shall visit it next time I’m in London, for he is the worst gambler ever I played with. It should not be hard to beat his tables.’ In just such a way, I keep them coming.’’

He told his tale with such a sense of childish conspiracy that we could not but laugh when he had done with his performance. Yet, as we did, Sir John suddenly fell silent and, with an expression of mock concern, asked him: “Your tables are run fair, surely?’’

“Well, of course they are, sir — and I’ll take an oath on that.”

“Someday you may have to.’’

And we all did laugh again together at the jesting look of consternation on Mr. Bilbo’s face.

Thus went near three hours of the evening. The food was good. The drink was plentiful. But they were somehow the least of it. Rather, it was the companionship at table, the warmth and good cheer, which held us so long. This was, as it happened, Black Jack Bilbo’s first meeting with Clarissa Roundtree. While he had heard something of her from Annie and me, he pretended to know naught of her troubled past — her term in the Lichfield poorhouse, her escape from it, et cetera. He asked her but a few questions (it was never necessary to ask her many) and she answered them, as she always did, quite volubly. Ultimately, he made what I judged to be a mistake by seeking amplification from her on that career in letters she would follow.

“And what sort of books will you write?” Mr. Bilbo asked quite innocently.

Whereupon, as Lady Fielding smiled indulgently and Sir John set his jaw, Clarissa proceeded to tell Mr. Bilbo the plot she had devised for her first romance. She later told me that she was sure he would wish to hear it, for the hero of her tale was a dashing pirate captain. Had I known that, I would have headed her off, for Black Jack Bilbo was aware of the rumors surrounding his past and was quite sensitive about them; I had no wish to see him given cause for embarrassment. Yet she told her story in such detail that she had barely penetrated the second chapter (wherein the pirate captain makes his first appearance), when two familiar figures made their entry into the Orangerie. They were the two Clarissa and I had met in Kingsmead Square — the gentlemanly fellow I had supposed to be Lawrence Paltrow and his much rougher bearded companion.

As they were led to a table and passed quite close to us, the bearded man talked quite loudly to the other; his words were meant to be reassuring (“Think nothin’ of it-you’ll see I’m right in this,’’ et cetera), but they were said in a harsh, hectoring tone which caused those about them to look up in annoyance. Still, the response of Sir John and Black Jack Bilbo went well beyond that. As Clarissa prattled on with her tale, Mr. Bilbo turned his attention away from her completely and focused upon the new arrivals. As for Sir John, the sound of the bearded man’s voice seemed to hold him momentarily transfixed. His face wore an expression I had come to know quite well. It was a look of intense concentration; he seemed, when it appeared, to be asking his ears to do the work of his eyes.

“I believe I know that cod,’’ said Black Jack Bilbo.

“I believe I do, too,’’ said Sir John. Then did he add: “But tell me, are we speaking of the same man? Describe him to me, Mr. Bilbo.’’

The bearded man and the putative Mr. Paltrow were given a table nearby; so close to our own was it that there was but one between us. Yet that loud, dominating voice continued only slightly less in volume than before. It was as if its owner were oblivious of all in the room except him that he addressed.

“The one who’s doing all the talking,” said Mr. Bilbo, “is a man well into his forties, near as thick set as me, but taller. He has a beard longer than mine by a couple of inches and has it tied in braids the way it was done in the last century.”

“That is how he was described to me some years ago. Do you have a name to put on him?”

“I do. As I remember, it was Bolt — Eli Bolt. I knew him in the colonies before I came here — in Virginia, to be exact. I was sailing out of a little upriver place called Frenchman’s Bend in those days, when this man Bolt came into town with his party of about a dozen to collect a shipment of what’s marked ‘trading goods.’ He was then one of them who went out beyond where it was safe to go and traded with the Indians in their own territory. Such pursuit took some nerve, but he’d plenty of that. Now, these ‘trading goods,’ as they were called, never usually amounted to much — some beads and some mirrors, trinkets and gewgaws. They would generally bring good value in feathers and animal pelts and such. A good, tidy trade could be handled in such a way and no harm done. But as it happened, that did not satisfy Mr. Eli Bolt.”

“Oh?” said Sir John. “What then?”

“Well, as it happened, this all took place during the war with the French. Bolt moved in and out of the town then, provisioning and whatnot, as I did with my ship and crew. It was certain that we would meet, and we did on two or three occasions. On each of them I came away not liking the man but forced to respect his pluck in dealing as he did. Then I heard rumors that he had taken to offering firearms — mostly old matchlocks and fowling pieces — in trade to his Indian clients. They wanted them bad and would rob and steal whatever it took to get them. As I say, this was at the time of the war, and as I understand it, Mr. Bolt was not particular to which tribes he sold his wares. Some of them were hand in glove with the French.”