Rupert Godwin

MISS VANBERG IS MALICIOUS.

Rupert Godwin left Clara Westford with rage and vengeance burning in his breast. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” says the poet; but the mind of a bad man who finds himself despised by the woman he loves is the habitation of that devil whose name is legion. There was no vengeance too base, too cruel, for the banker. He determined to heap the bitterest of all earthly sufferings upon the woman who had defied him.

He laughed aloud as he thought of the widow’s weakness. Poverty-stricken, friendless—what could she do in the strife with him, who had wealth and power on his side?

Rupert Godwin had been an infidel from his very boyhood. His philosophy was of the Garden, and not of the Porch. In his creed a man had but one duty, and that was allegiance to himself. For himself and for his own pleasure he had lived, and now that the passions of youth had been sated by the pleasures of youth, a darker and more stormy passion held the mastery of his mind. That passion was revenge. His offended pride, his baffled love, his outraged self-esteem, alike demanded the humiliation of Clara Westford.

From the Waterloo-road he went straight to a West-end club, where he had promised to meet the young Marquis.

He had pledged himself to introduce Lord Roxleydale to Violet Westford. But he had only done this in order that he might gain time to mature his schemes. If Clara had yielded to the temptation of his wealth, or the fear of his power, he would then have protected Violet from the Marquis.

But Clara had defied him, and he was now determined on a course which must result in unspeakable misery for her.

He found Lord Roxleydale waiting for him in the smoking-room of the club. The apartment was almost deserted at this hour, and the young Marquis had no better amusement than to lounge in one of the windows, puffing laboriously at a gigantic regalia, with the air of a man who has sworn to smoke himself into a galloping consumption within a given period.

For once in a way he had contrived to escape from the society of his hanger-on and flatterer, Mr. Sempronius Sykemore; but he had only done this at the cost of a fifty-pound note, which he had lent to the needy Sempronius, who was always tormented by a kind of demon avenger in the shape of a “little bill,” which required to be taken up with money borrowed from Mr. Sykemore’s wealthy friends. “I should paste a bit of calico behind that ‘little’ bill of yours, if I were you, Sykemore,” remarked one of his victims. “It has been taken up so many times that I am sure it can’t hold together much longer.”

“Well, Godwin!” exclaimed Lord Roxleydale, turning eagerly to meet the banker; “have you managed that business? Have you seen her, and have you arranged matters for my introduction to her?”

“Unluckily, no, my dear boy,” Mr. Godwin answered coolly. “I have not forgotten you, but I find that I have made a slight mistake. I have been making inquiries at the theatre this morning, and I have discovered that Miss Watson, the girl who plays the Queen of Beauty, is not the person I fancied.”

“Then you can’t introduce me to her?”

“Unhappily, my dear boy, I have not that privilege. But I am a man of the world, and I think I can give you a few useful hints as to the best way of getting an introduction.”

Lord Roxleydale shrugged his shoulders with an impatient gesture.

“Sempronius could do as much as that,” he said.

“Sempronius is a cad,” answered the banker, “who ought not to be trusted with any business requiring the smallest amount of tact. He’s a very good sort of person to send on a message to your tailor, or to get you long odds from the bookmen when you want to back anything. He may be useful to us by-and-by; but for the present we are better off without him. Do you know that girl—that handsome Jewish-looking girl? Miss Vanberg, I think you called her.”

“Yes, I know her.”

“She is the person to be of use to us. She will be able to tell us all about this Miss Watson. Suppose you were to call upon her, taking me with you?”

“It seems rather a roundabout way of doing business,” the Marquis said contemptuously; “but I’m agreeable. My phaeton is waiting. I can drive you to Miss Vanberg’s at once, if you like.”

“I am ready,” answered the banker. “I want to see this Miss Vanberg.”

He spoke carelessly, but in his face there was a lurking expression in which a physiognomist might have perceived an almost feverish anxiety.

But the Marquis was by no means skilled in reading either the faces or the minds of men. He had gone through the usual curriculum at Eton and Oxford, and had done the usual Continental tour with a tutor whose life he endangered at every available opportunity by upsetting him on the highways and byways of Europe out of divers vehicles, and had evinced altogether an exceptional capacity for remaining in a state of primitive ignorance. His career at the University had awakened him to the comprehension of the fact that those Latin fellows who wrote stupid histories about each other’s wars and that kind of thing were a confounded bore, and the Greek fellows a still more confounded bore; that getting up early in the morning was humbug; and that wine-parties were slow, because fellows had got so doosid sober and so doosid intellectual, that they were always chopping damm’ logic and talking damm’ crack-jaw stuff about Homer and Æschylus and that kind of thing, instead of enjoying themselves like gentlemen.

This was Hector Augustus Front d’Airain, Baron of Hursley in Staffordshire, Marquis of Roxleydale in Scotland,—a fair-haired, yellow-whiskered, baby-faced young gentleman, with the morals of a Rochester and the intellect of a Master Slender. He was the very last of men whom Rupert Godwin would have chosen for a companion from any but mercenary motives.

The two men drove straight to Miss Vanberg’s house, which was a bijou mansion in Bolton-row. It was between four and five o’clock in the afternoon by this time, and the young lady was at home.

A man-servant ushered the two gentlemen up the richly-decorated staircase, where nymphs and satyrs in Florentine bronze smirked and capered in the recesses of the pale grey wall, relieved by mouldings and medallions in unburnished gold. Everything in the elegantly-appointed house betokened the presence of wealth. The Duke of Harlingford’s purse had to pay very largely for the caprices of the lovely Jewess, who honoured him by spending his money.

The afternoon’s sun was shining between the leaves of the tropical flowers that shaded the open window of Miss Vanberg’s drawing-room. Near this window the Jewess was half-seated, half-reclining on a low luxurious sofa covered with amber satin.

Esther Vanberg wore a clear white muslin dress, high to the throat, and fastened round her waist by a broad crimson sash tied in a loose knot. A crimson ribbon secured the rich masses of her purple-black hair.

Her slender figure was half-buried in the amber satin pillows of the sofa, whose brilliant hue contrasted marvellously with her dark hair and flashing black eyes.

Seated thus, Esther Vanberg might have been a worthy study for any living painter.

But in the broad summer sunlight the havoc which her reckless life and evil temper had wrought in her constitution was only too plainly visible.

Rupert Godwin saw the feverish light in her eyes, the hectic flush upon her cheek; and he knew that the beautiful Jewess was doomed to make a speedy finish to her reckless career.

She half rose as the two gentlemen entered the room.

“Pray don’t disturb yourself, Miss Vanberg,” said the Marquis; “I’ve only dropped in for a few minutes’ chat, with my friend here, Mr. Godwin, the great banker. You must have heard of Godwin’s bank, eh? That’s quite in your style, you know. You’ve got quite a genius for getting rid of money, you know, and that kind of thing. You’re not looking very well this afternoon. You’re tired, I daresay. Long rehearsal, and so on. Fatiguing life, I should think, the drama, eh?”

“Very fatiguing,” answered the Jewess, shrugging her shoulders contemptuously, “especially when one’s ambition is blighted by the senseless stupidity of one’s employers. I want to be an actress, not a ballet-girl; but Mr. Maltravers will not allow me to open my lips; and yet he has picked up some girl in the streets whom he has chosen to place in the most conspicuous position in the great scene of our new burlesque.”

“You mean Miss Watson,” exclaimed the Marquis. “Well, I don’t wonder Maltravers was knocked over when he saw her: she’s the loveliest creature I ever beheld.”

Esther Vanberg looked at the young nobleman with a frown which was almost too much for the young man’s nerves. Rupert Godwin gave him a warning glance at the same moment; and, dull as Lord Roxleydale was, he saw that he had been imprudent in the undisguised utterance of his admiration.

“If you call that insipid flaxen-haired doll a beauty, you must be as stupid as Maltravers himself,” said the Jewess unceremoniously.

Mr. Godwin took this opportunity of striking in.

“Well, for my part, I think she’s a pretty girl, in a very insipid style, as you say, Miss Vanberg, and by no means my style of beauty. I like something flashing, queen-like, Oriental—the Cleopatra type of loveliness.”

He looked at the Jewess as he spoke, and it was evident that her offended vanity was somewhat appeased by the compliment implied in his words.

“However,” continued the banker, “insipid as the young lady is, a friend of ours, a certain Mr. Sempronius Sykemore, a tuft-hunter and vulgarian, has chosen to fall desperately in love with her. He is pining for an introduction, and is ready to carry her off and make her Mrs. Sempronius Sykemore at the shortest notice, if she will accept him for a husband.”

“He is rich, I suppose?” inquired Esther.

“Not he. The fellow is a low-born adventurer, without a sixpence in the world, beyond what he contrives to borrow from some obliging friend.”

“He is young, handsome, perhaps?” suggested Esther.

“Neither. He is five-and-forty at the least, wears the most obvious of wigs, and is strongly suspected of being guilty of false teeth.”

Esther Vanberg’s face lighted up with a gracious smile.

“And he wants to marry Miss Watson, the stage-manager’s favourite, the Queen of Beauty?”

“He does.”

“And if she refuses to marry him?”

“Well, my dear Miss Vanberg,” answered the banker, “that’s the very thing the Marquis and I have been thinking of; and we want to concoct a little plot—a pleasant little practical joke, you know, by which we may have some innocent fun ourselves, and secure our dear Sempronius a pretty wife. Now, unfortunately, Sykemore is so confoundedly vulgar and ugly, and fat and conceited, that if he were to ask Miss Watson to marry him she’d be sure to say No. So in this case we want to plan an elopement. We shall try and arrange some little ruse, by which Miss Watson will be lured into a travelling carriage; post-horses will be ready on the road, and our friend Sykemore shall carry the young lady off to a lonely place in Essex, belonging to our friend Lord Roxleydale. Once there, the Queen of Beauty, who is a very prudish, stuck-up young person, as I understand, will feel that her reputation is compromised. Sempronius will be ready with a special licence and a parson, the knot will be tied, and Miss Watson will disappear into domestic life as Mrs. Sykemore, and will thus leave the stage of the Circenses clear for one infinitely more calculated to charm the public than her most insipid self.”

The Marquis of Roxleydale sat open-mouthed, listening to this speech. He felt that some subtle plot was being concocted, but he was just clever enough to know that he was stupid, and he trusted himself entirely in the hands of his friend and adviser—the man of the world.

To Esther Vanberg there was a terrible temptation in the proposition made by the banker.

She hated Violet Westford; hated her alike for her superior beauty, the favour that had been shown her by Mr. Maltravers, and the admiration that had been lavished on her by the press and the public.

It had been whispered in the theatre that Violet would be permitted to play some small part in a new piece that was about to be produced, in order that the audience might see more of her fresh young beauty.

This was a terrible mortification to the haughty girl, who so earnestly aspired to be an actress, and who had never been allowed to open her lips on the stage of the Circenses.

For these reasons Esther Vanberg hated Violet. She hated her also because of the girl’s quiet dignity, that calm and placid demeanour which resisted insult more completely than any violence of temper could have done.

Thus it was that Esther Vanberg was tempted to join in a plot which might remove Violet from her path, and the success of which would humiliate her unconscious rival by uniting her to an unworthy husband.

The temptation was a powerful one, and Esther had never been accustomed to withstand temptation.

“What do you want me to do in order to assist your scheme?” she asked, after an interval of thought.

“We only want you to introduce us to Miss Watson in such a manner as to throw her off her guard. The Marquis can get admittance to the green-room of the theatre for himself and any of his friends.”

“Miss Watson is an ill-bred insolent creature,” exclaimed Esther impatiently, “and she and I are scarcely on speaking terms. However, if you will wait till Monday night I’ll try and arrange matters in the mean time. I must be on tolerably friendly terms with this girl before I can introduce you to her.”

“To be sure,” answered the banker. “Monday night will do very well indeed.”

The Marquis of Roxleydale looked crestfallen. His weak mind was entirely filled with the image of Violet, and he could not bear the thought of delay. He was eager to see her, to give utterance to his admiration—his worship. Left to himself, his love might have been a generous affection: as it was, that love would speedily degenerate into the base passion of a profligate, for he was under the influence of a man of the world.

“I should have liked to see—I mean, I should have liked Sempronius to see her to-night,” he said; “Monday seems such a doosid long time to wait.”

Esther Vanberg shrugged her shoulders with the disdainful gesture that was peculiar to her.

“It can’t possibly be managed before Monday,” she said; “and as it is, it will give me a great deal of trouble.”

“For which you shall be recompensed, my dear Miss Vanberg,” answered the Marquis eagerly; “if the handsomest diamond bracelet to be bought at Harry Emanuel’s will content you.”

Esther smiled. Revenge was sweet, but precious gems were also very dear to the heart of the ballet-girl. Rupert Godwin watched her keenly, and with a strange shadow of melancholy overspreading his countenance.

There was something very horrible in the idea of this girl, with the doom of death stamped upon her face, but with her mind entirely absorbed by schemes of vengeance and greed of gain.

“Who is she, and whence does she come?” thought the banker. “There is a strange coincidence in the likeness she bears to the dead. And then that talk of the ancient Jews of Andalusia. Strange!—strange!”

Rupert Godwin roused himself by an effort from the reverie into which he had fallen, and rose to take his leave of Miss Vanberg.

After some further discussion, a meeting in the green-room of the Circenses was arranged for the following Monday evening. Lord Roxleydale was hand-and-glove with the manager of the theatre, and his influence was sufficiently powerful to procure the admission of his friend.

The two gentlemen left Miss Vanberg’s elegant little domicile and drove back to the club, where the banker was to dine tête-à-tête with the Marquis. Of late Rupert Godwin had occupied a pied-à-terre in St. James’s, preferring to live anywhere rather than at Wilmingdon Hall, though Julia complained bitterly of his desertion.

“Now, Godwin,” exclaimed the Marquis, when the two men were seated opposite to each other at the glittering little dinner-table in the club-room, “tell me why you introduced Sempronius into this business.”

“As a tool, my dear Marquis; and a very convenient one,” answered the banker. “Couldn’t you see through that girl Vanberg’s jealousy? She is envious of the other girl’s superior beauty. If she knew that you admired Miss Watson, she would do all in her power to baulk your schemes; for she would be afraid of helping her rival to become a Marchioness. But, on the other hand, she will cordially assist in a plot that will unite the girl she hates to a vulgar penniless husband.”

“I see. You’re a clever fellow, upon my word, Godwin. So far, so good. And how about the rest of your plot?”

“Nothing can be more simple. You have a place in Essex, called the Moat?”

“I have.”

“What sort of a place is it?”

“Well, I think It’s about the loneliest and dreariest old dungeon in the civilized world.”

“Have you many servants there?”

“No; only two poor old creatures, who wither away among the cobwebs and mildew of the place. They are a superannuated coachman and his wife, who served my father, and were pensioned by him. They are both of them as deaf as posts, and as blind as beetles.”

“Nothing could be better—unless, indeed, they had been dumb into the bargain,” answered Rupert Godwin, with a grim smile. “The very people of all people; the very place of all places. I have my little schemes all prepared, and before midnight on Monday, Vio—Miss Watson, the Queen of Beauty, will be in a travelling carriage behind four horses on her road to the Moat.”

“With Sempronius Sykemore?”

“No, my dear Roxleydale; with you.”