Rupert Godwin

THE MARQUIS OF ROXLEYDALE.

From the night of that first performance of the burlesque at the Circenses, Violet Westford’s life was one long conquest over self—one long act of womanly heroism.

The noble-hearted girl was determined that her mother should be kept in perfect ignorance of her grief. Had not that dear mother already suffered enough? Did she not still suffer unceasingly for the loss of the best and truest of husbands?

Violet had not told her mother the secret of her love when its object had appeared thoroughly worthy of her affection. She could not now reveal it, when to do so would have been to stamp her lover as a traitor. She had been ashamed of her clandestine engagement from the first; she was doubly ashamed of it now, when the falsehood of her lover seemed to be a punishment for the secrecy that had attended her attachment to him.

“If I know that he is heartless and mercenary, I can at least hide the knowledge from others,” she thought. “If I cannot myself respect him, I can at any rate shield him from the contempt of strangers.”

Alas for poor Violet! All this suffering, which was so much harder to bear than the worst stings of poverty, might have been saved her. All this pain arose from a very natural misconception. She had herself recognized George Stanmore, and she had imagined it impossible that he could fail to recognize her.

She had seen his gesture of surprise, his scrutinizing gaze, so fixed in its earnestness, which had lasted until the falling of the curtain; and she fancied that gesture and gaze could only arise from Mr. Stanmore’s recognition of her.

But it was not so. The artist had not recognized in the fair face of the Queen of Beauty the innocent countenance of the girl he had wooed and won in the New Forest.

George Stanmore had been only attracted by the likeness which he fancied the ballet-girl at the Circenses bore to the daughter of Captain Westford. He never for a moment imagined that Violet and the Queen of Beauty were one and the same person.

The young man had been wandering in Flanders, from village to city, and from city to village, studying the old Flemish masters, and exploring every nook and corner in which an old picture was to be found. He had only crossed from Ostend to London within a few days of his visit to the Circenses. He had no idea of the changes that had taken place at the Grange. How, then, should he believe that Violet Westford, the only daughter of a prosperous gentleman, the highly educated but country-bred girl, could appear before him on the stage of a London theatre?

Almost involuntarily he had consulted his playbill. No such name as Westford appeared there. The Queen of Beauty was distinguished by the very commonplace cognomen of Watson.

But even if he had seen Violet’s real name in the list of characters, George Stanmore would have been more inclined to doubt the evidence of his own eyes than to believe that it was indeed his simple woodland nymph whom he beheld amidst the glare and glitter of that brilliantly lighted stage.

No. He gazed to the last moment at the beautiful girl in the roseate draperies and crown of stars; but it was only because he loved to look upon a face that closely resembled the one so dear to him.

He had no opera-glass, and could not bring the face nearer. If Violet had been more experienced in theatrical matters, she would have known how few amongst an audience in a large theatre can afford to dispense with an opera-glass; and she would have also known how much difference is made in every actor or actress’s appearance by an entirely strange costume.

Unhappily, she knew nothing of this. She fancied that her lover must have inevitably recognized her as easily as she recognized him.

Nearly a week passed. Every evening Violet Westford’s lovely face beamed radiantly on the spectators of the burlesque. Already she had learned one lesson belonging to the life of the stage: she had learned that she must smile always, whatever secret canker might be eating silently into her own heart. The public, who pay to be amused, will of course tolerate no doleful faces, no sad or thoughtful looks, in the paid favourites of the hour. The queen of tragedy alone can indulge in sorrow; and her sorrow must be as unreal as the gladness of the ballet-girl, who may smile upon the aristocratic loungers in the stalls while her heart is breaking with sorrow for a father, a mother, or a favourite sister, lying on a deathbed at home. Let those who would be lured away from peaceful and comfortable homes by the false glitter of the stage, look well at the dark side of the picture, ere they take the first step in a career which is successful only for the few.

Violet Westford needed all her fortitude in that London theatre. The stage-manager was very kind to her, in his rough-and-ready semi-paternal manner. The actresses of superior rank saw that she was no vulgar or disreputable person, and often noticed her by a friendly word or smile; but, in spite of this, Violet was cruelly persecuted in the quiet performance of her duty.

This persecution was inspired by the foul fiend called Envy. Violet’s beauty had been much noticed, and had been commented upon in the papers which criticised the new burlesque. Although she had not so much as one line to speak, her position in the grand scene of the spectacle was a very prominent one, and drew upon her the notice of every spectator.

Her beauty did the rest. That beauty was so striking; in its youthful freshness, and formed such a contrast with the faded splendour of those around her, that the waning belles of the theatre resented her appearance amongst them as a personal injury.

Esther Vanberg was the leader of a little band who made it their business to sneer at Violet, and nothing but the girl’s quiet spirit of endurance enabled her to bear the insolence of their innuendoes.

But she did bear it, and without shrinking. It seemed so small a trouble to endure when compared with the thought that George Stanmore was false and cold-hearted. “The heart once broken by the loved is strong to meet the foeman.”

She had been little more than a week in the theatre when one of the largest private boxes was occupied by three gentlemen well known to the world of London.

One was a handsome Spanish-looking man of middle age; the second was an insignificant individual, with a round fat face, small gray eyes, sandy hair, and long, carefully trained whiskers, which were evidently the pride of his heart; the third was a very young man, with a pale auburn moustache, faultless evening-dress, and languid manner, as of a sufferer bowed down by the burden of existence.

The first of these three men was Rupert Godwin the banker; the second was Mr. Sempronius Sykemore, a renowned tuft-hunter and toady, who was always to be found following close upon the heels of some wealthy and weak-witted young nobleman, and whose presence was an unfailing sign of approaching ruin for the nobleman in question; the third was the Marquis of Roxleydale, a young gentleman who had inherited one of the oldest titles in England, an estate worth sixty thousand a year, and whom nature had not gifted with a very large amount of brains or a very noble heart.

It had lately pleased Rupert Godwin to be extremely civil to the shallow-headed young Marquis. But he did not put himself to this trouble without an eye to his own interests. He hoped to secure Lord Roxleydale as a husband for his idolized Julia.

With this end in view, he invited the Marquis to Wilmingdon Hall, whenever that young nobleman could be prevailed upon to withdraw himself from the delights of London life—a life of the vilest and most degraded order; a life passed in the haunts of vice, in which horrible dens the Marquis was always attended by Mr. Sempronius Sykemore, who conducted him through the seven circles of this earthly Inferno as faithfully as Virgil conducted Dante, and who was eminently calculated to play the part of Mentor, as he was old enough to be the young man’s father.

Lord Roxleydale very much admired Julia Godwin’s beauty; but he had no wish to fetter himself with the chains of matrimony; and he found Wilmingdon Hall a very dull place after the brilliant assemblies in which his evenings were generally spent.

Rupert Godwin perceived this, and for a while he allowed the active working of his schemes to be suspended. But he only waited his time. He watched the young Marquis as a cat watches a mouse. He affected to admire his high spirit—he even joined in his vicious amusements; but there was a deep and rooted purpose under all he did—a purpose that was fraught with danger to the shallow-brained scion of the Roxleydales.

To-night the banker had entertained Lord Roxleydale and his toady Mr. Sykemore at a sumptuous dinner given at a West-end club. He was too much of a diplomatist not to know that in order to succeed with the Marquis he must first secure that gentleman’s guide, philosopher, and friend, Mr. Sykemore, and he had purchased Mr. Sykemore’s good graces at rather a high figure.

After dinner, when a great deal of wine had been drunk by the Marquis and by the worthy Sempronius, it had been proposed that the party should adjourn to the Circenses, where the new extravaganza had acquired considerable popularity.

Rupert Godwin had been the only one of the party who had refrained from drinking. He had excused himself from tasting the choice moselles and sparkling hocks which he ordered for his guests, and had limited his potations to a few glasses of the driest and palest sherry obtainable for money.

Sempronius Sykemore had perceived this; and he suspected some design on his friend and patron the Marquis.

He determined to keep a close watch over the banker; but his intellect was of a very low order as compared with that of Rupert Godwin. All he wanted was to sponge upon the fortune of the weak young nobleman, so long as that fortune held out against the ruinous habits which Lord Roxleydale had acquired by the evil teaching of false friends.

It was past ten o’clock when the three gentlemen entered the theatre. They had not long taken their seats when the scene opened, revealing the final tableau in which the Queen of Beauty appeared seated in her golden temple.

The Marquis lifted his opera-glass and surveyed the stage. He was at once attracted by Violet Westford’s lovely face, which amongst all the faces on that crowded stage was the only one that was new to him.

“By all that’s beautiful,” he exclaimed, “she’s a houri—an angel!”

“Who is an angel, my dear Marquis?” asked the banker, laughing.

“She is—that girl in the temple yonder! She’s a new girl. I never saw her face before. I wonder where the deuce Maltravers picked her up. Look at her, Godwin,” added the young man, handing his opera-glass to the banker as he spoke.

Rupert Godwin shrugged his shoulders with a careless gesture, and then looked at the stage.

But presently he started violently, and the glass almost fell from his hand.

Again the ghost! Again the vision of the past! Again the face that recalled to him Clara Ponsonby in all her youthful beauty, as he had first seen her riding by her father’s side!

“Come,” exclaimed the Marquis, “I see you’re as much struck with her as I was.”

“Yes,” answered Rupert Godwin slowly, “she is very lovely.” As he spoke his brows contracted over his dark, unfathomable eyes, his lips grew rigid,—a diabolical scheme was forming itself in that satanic mind.

He had sworn to revenge himself upon the woman who had done him the supreme wrong of preferring a happier rival, and who had inflicted a wound which had rankled and festered in his envenomed soul. How better could he assail this woman than through her daughter’s temptation and peril?

This weak young Marquis could be made the instrument of his plot.

Yes; the vile deed shaped itself before him, distinct and palpable as the scene now acting on the stage.

“I will pay Clara Westford a visit to-morrow,” thought Rupert Godwin. “I have already brought her to the very dust. She defied me when we last met; but at that time she was still the mistress of a luxurious home, secure, as she believed, from the trials and degradations of poverty. I will see her again now, when she has tasted the bitterest waters of life’s chalice. Surely she will have grown too wise to defy me now. If not—if the indomitable spirit of Clara Ponsonby still reigns in the breast of Clara Westford,—I will find a way to bring her to my feet, and that way shall be through the peril of yonder golden-haired girl.”

These were the thoughts which filled the plotting brain of Rupert Godwin as he sat, with the glass in his hand, looking fixedly at the stage.

Presently his gaze wandered from the face of Violet Westford, and he took a sweeping survey of the groups of showily dressed girls arranged in graceful attitudes, which were the result of careful study on the part of ballet-master and stage-manager.

Once more the banker’s hand faltered, and he started violently; but this time his eyes were fixed upon the Jewish beauty, Esther Vanberg.

“Who is that girl?” he gasped, in a tone that revealed unwanted excitement—a degree of emotion extraordinary in this man of iron. “Who is she?”

“My dear Godwin,” exclaimed Mr. Sempronius Sykemore, laughing at the banker’s vehemence, “I thought just now you were going to fall in love with the fair girl! and now you seem suddenly smitten with the dark beauty. That young lady is Miss Vanberg, celebrated for her handsome face and her demoniac temper. She boasts that she has the blood of Spanish Jews in her veins—the old Jews of Andalusia—the aristocrats of the fallen race. She is an extraordinary woman—as proud as Lucifer, as changeable as the wind. They say that the Duke of Harlingford worships the ground she walks upon, and would have made her his Duchess long before this, in spite of his exasperated relations, if her violent temper had not always caused some desperate quarrel between them just as the marriage was about to take place. Most women of Esther’s class would be too prudent to quarrel with a Duke and a millionnaire—but Miss Vanberg’s temper and pride are utterly ungovernable. In the meantime she occupies a house in Mayfair, drives a pair of chestnuts worth five hundred guineas, dresses as extravagantly as the Princess Metternich, and gives herself the airs of a Russian Empress.”

“Strange!” muttered the banker; “the blood of Spanish Jews in her veins! And then so like—”

These words were uttered in an undertone, which did not reach the ears of the Marquis or his toady. As for Lord Roxleydale, that young nobleman was entirely absorbed in admiration of Violet. He sat with his eyes fixed upon her, in a gaze as profound as if his senses had been enthralled by some supernal vision. So might Faust have looked on the phantasm of fair young Gretchen; so might have gazed the son of Priam and Hecuba when he first looked on her whose fatal beauty was predoomed to be the destruction of Troy.

He gazed thus fixedly until the curtain fell, and then sank back into his chair with a profound sigh.

“I’m done for, Semper!” he said—he always called his toady Semper; “that girl, that adorable angel, has imprinted her image on my inmost heart. Egad! I never knew that I had a heart before. I must see her to-night—immediately. I’ll make Maltravers give me an introduction; I’ll—”

“Stay, Roxleydale!” exclaimed the banker, laying his hand upon the arm of the Marquis, as the young man rose from his seat: “not to-night. I know the girl—and know all about her. To-morrow night I will introduce you to her.”

“You, Godwin?”

“Yes; I tell you, I know the girl. If you try to get an introduction to her through Maltravers, she will give herself prudish airs, and refuse to see you. Trust all to me. I can exercise indirect influence that you can never guess at. Wait till to-morrow night. I don’t ask you to wait long.”

The Marquis sighed.

“You may not think it long,” he answered; “but to me it will be an age—an eternity. I never saw such a lovely creature as that girl. Egad, I should like to lay my coronet at her feet, and make her Marchioness of Roxleydale.”

“Bah!” exclaimed the banker, contemptuously. “It is only a fool or a madman who lays his coronet at the feet of a ballet-girl. Marchionesses are not picked up out of the gutter. I thought you were a man of the world, my dear Roxleydale.”

“A man of the world!” Yes. It had been ever thus. From his earliest boyhood the Marquis had been surrounded by flatterers, sycophants, and scoundrels, who prided themselves upon being “men of the world.” Every generous impulse, every noble emotion that had arisen in the young man’s breast, had been stifled by the influence of such companions as these; while, on the other hand, every vicious inclination had been fostered, every bad quality had been encouraged; for it was out of the rich nobleman’s vices that his flatterers hoped to make their market.

The Marquis had a mother who adored him, and whom he in his boyhood had dearly loved. But his vicious companions had contrived to lure him away from the society and influence of that devoted mother, and the Dowager Marchioness lived lonely and neglected at one of the country seats belonging to her son.

The house she had chosen was situated upon a small estate in Yorkshire. There, secluded from the world, the Marchioness spent her quiet life, the greater part of which was devoted to works of charity and benevolence.

She wrote very often to her son; long letters—earnest supplications that he would lead a life worthy of a Christian gentleman, an Englishman of high position.

But these letters were never answered. To the young man, living in so impure an atmosphere, those tender letters seemed to convey only reproaches; his guilty conscience imparted a sting even to his mother’s affectionate advice.

And then the tempters were always by his side; always ready to whisper evil suggestions into his too willing ear; always ready to pooh-pooh the earnest remonstrances of that one good adviser, with some insolent modern slang about “the maternal,” or “the dozy old party in the North.”

The three men supped together after leaving the theatre, and this time Rupert Godwin drank deeply.

He drank deeply, and there was a wild joviality about his manner that had something fiend-like in its reckless mirth. He drank deeply; and once, when the talk was wildest, he lifted his glass above his head, and cried:

“I drink this to Clara, and to the fulfilment of an old vow!”

He drained the glass, and then flung it against the wall opposite to him. The crystal shivered into a hundred fragments.

“So will I break your proud spirit, my haughty Clara!” he exclaimed.

The Marquis and Sempronius were both too tipsy to take much notice of the banker’s wild talk; or, if they heard it, they little dreamed how deep a meaning lurked beneath those threatening words.