Rupert Godwin

ESTHER VANBERG HAS HER WAY.

Esther Vanberg thought very little more of Violet after the base scheme, in which she had assisted, had been successfully carried out.

Her lovely rival was gone; that was all she cared about. The stage was now clear for herself. Mr. Maltravers was in a dilemma, and was glad to allow the handsome and dashing Esther to appear in the very part he had intended for Violet. Most complete, therefore, was the triumph of the Jewess.

She had but little dramatic ability, or she would long ago have been elevated to a more important position in the theatre—in the days when her beauty had been fresher than it was now. But she managed to speak the few lines allotted to her without breaking down, and she looked superb.

The character she had to perform was that of a woman of rank; which gave her an opportunity of displaying some of the jewels which had been presented to her by the wealthy and generous young Duke of Harlingford.

Her dress was a triumph of art from a court milliner in Clarges-street—a satin train of the softest pink almost covered by a tunic of Malines lace. The delicate hue of the dress contrasted exquisitely with the girl’s pale-olive skin; and she looked as perilously lovely as that “Serpent of old Nile,” whose fatal eyes cost Antony a world.

A diamond bracelet encircled one of her slim wrists; a massive band of yellow lustreless gold clasped with a large ruby star adorned the other. Her purple-black hair was drawn off from her proud clearly-cut face, coiled in a heavy knot at the back of her head, and secured by a diamond comb.

Attired thus, Esther Vanberg looked indeed worthy of the rank and title of duchess.

There were many that night in the crowded theatre who thought as much; but there was one young man sitting alone in a private box, who would gladly, ay even proudly, have bestowed upon her that rank and title.

This solitary young man, whose handsome face brightened as he watched the beautiful actress, was no other than the Duke of Harlingford, Esther Vanberg’s doting admirer.

The haughty girl had quarrelled with him about some absurd trifle, and had dismissed him from her drawing-room as coolly as a sovereign would banish an offending courtier. During three or four weeks the infatuated young nobleman had in vain sought for admission to the pretty little house in Mayfair. Every day he received the same kind of answer—Miss Vanberg was not at home; or Miss Vanberg was engaged.

The Grand Monarque himself, in the plenitude of his power, could scarcely have treated his subjects with more supreme hauteur than the Duke had to endure from this friendless, nameless ballet-girl.

But unfortunately opposition only increased the young man’s infatuation. The worse Esther Vanberg behaved to him, the more ardently he worshipped her.

Every night found him at his post in the private box, which he had hired for the season, content to gaze at his idol, who did not even condescend to glance towards the spot where he sat.

He had the privilege of entering the green-room of the Circenses whenever he pleased; but when last he was there, Esther Vanberg had passed him by with a look of superb disdain. He had spoken to her; but she had not deigned to reply to him. So that now the weak-minded young man had not the courage to intrude in that charmed circle.

But to-night, to the Duke’s surprise and delight, the lovely Jewess was pleased to be gracious. She looked towards his box with the most bewitching smile of recognition. The enraptured young nobleman saw that he was forgiven. He hurried round to the stage-door directly the piece was over, and made his way to the green-room. There were several members of the company assembled there, engaged in discussing the merits of the new piece, and amongst them the Duke beheld the object of his adoration.

Esther Vanberg was seated on a sofa, fanning herself with an Indian fan of gaudy feathers and exquisitely carved wood. She beckoned the Duke to her side with a wave of her fan.

He was only too glad to obey the summons. In a moment he was by her side, bending over her in an attitude of respectful devotion.

Strange as it may seem, the Duke respected this capricious, self-willed woman. Her despotic temper, her insolence and pride, kept him at her feet.

She gave him her slender jewelled hand with a gesture of superb condescension.

“Come, Vincent,” she said, “let us be friends once more. I am tired of seeing your gloomy face in that stage box. Who were those people that used to place a death’s-head upon their banquet-table, to remind them of their mortality? I’m sure you would make a very good substitute for the skeleton head, if that sort of thing were the fashion nowadays. You look absolutely funereal.”

“My dear Esther, when a fellow calls at your house a dozen times, and is told every time that you are out, though he hears you strumming—”

“What?”

“I beg your pardon, playing the piano.”

“Well, say no more,” replied Miss Vanberg graciously; “I daresay I have behaved rather badly to you during the last fortnight. But I’m sure I must have had awful provocation—though I can’t exactly remember what it was. However, you may consider yourself forgiven.”

“My darling Esther—” exclaimed the enraptured Duke.

“Stay!” cried the young lady, with an imperious wave of her fan; “you are only forgiven conditionally. I want you to do me a favour.”

“My adorable angel, is there anything you could ask that I would refuse to do?”

“Of course not,” answered Esther with the air of an empress: “you will not refuse to do anything that you can do. But in this case the question is, whether you can or not.”

“My dearest Esther, if it is possible, consider it done; if it is impossible, be assured that it shall be done.”

“O, it’s the simplest thing in the world, if you only go to work about it cleverly. You know how fond I am of riding, and how anxiously I look forward to the hunting-season, when I mean to go down to Berkshire, and enjoy the delight of a run across country. Well, a few evenings ago, Captain Angus Harding was in the green-room, and was talking most rapturously about a crack hunter that was to be sold at Tattersall’s the following day at two o’clock. A magnificent creature, he said; a chestnut, without a white hair about him; a perfect flyer, with only one defect, and that the common fault of chestnut horses—ahem!—and dark-haired women—rather a queer temper. The animal is called Devilshoof, and has been ridden by the great steeplechaser Mr. Palgrave Norton. Captain Harding declared that he would have given a thousand pounds for such a horse, if he could possibly have afforded the money.”

“Poor dayvil!” drawled the Duke. “Angus Harding is always hard-up. He ought to be called Angus Hardup, by Jove!” added the young nobleman, delighted with his feeble attempt at wit.

Miss Vanberg laughed heartily. She was in a charming humour to-night.

“Well,” she continued, “of course you may imagine that after hearing such an account of this horse, I was seized with a desire to have him. I kept my own counsel but determined to send my groom to Tattersall’s to bid any money for Devilshoof. I gave him my orders early the next day, and my man was in Tattersall’s yard at a quarter before two; but—would you believe it?—that abominable Harding had misled me as to the hour of the sale. Devilshoof had been sold for seven hundred guineas at half-past one. Imagine my annoyance.”

“Yes; it was provoking,” answered the Duke; “but as the horse is a queer temper, I call it rather a lucky escape.”

“Temper!” exclaimed Esther Vanberg, with a scornful laugh. “Do you think I should have been afraid of the animal’s temper? I like a spirited horse. I like my temper to be at war with the animal I ride, for I know I shall conquer, and I feel a thrill of pride and triumph in the sense of power. I hate a quiet horse. I would just as soon stay at home and sit on the sofa, as go jogging up and down the Row on one of your placid animals which are warranted ‘quiet for a lady.’ Now, my dear Harlingford, what I have to say to you is this: when I set my heart upon a thing, I am not accustomed to be disappointed. I have set my heart upon this horse; so you must get him for me.”

“But, my dearest Esther, you say that he was sold.”

“What of that? He can be bought again, I suppose? The man who bought him may be induced to sell him for a higher price?”

“That depends upon the character of the purchaser. Who is he?”

“Lord Bothwell Wallace.”

“Then I’m afraid the matter is quite impossible,” replied the Duke. “Bothwell Wallace is a great man in the shires, and will scarcely care to part with a horse he fancies.”

Miss Vanberg tossed her head disdainfully, while her brilliant eyes flashed angrily upon the Duke.

“O, very well,” she exclaimed; “let it be just as you please. I shall know how to estimate the worth of your pretended affection, when you cannot even gratify me in a little whim like this.”

Now, this was a cruel speech, and a very unjust one into the bargain; for the Duke had already spent a fortune upon the gratification of Esther Vanberg’s little whims, never having been in the habit of denying her anything, from Marie Antoinette’s own writing-table, in tortoise-shell and Sèvres, to the title-deeds of the prettiest villa on the banks of the Thames. But the weak young man was ready to do anything, however foolish, rather than incur one angry glance from the bright eyes of his idol.

“Well, my darling,” he said, almost piteously, “I will exert myself to the utmost to accomplish what you want. But Wallace is awfully rich; and I really don’t see how I am to induce him to part with a horse he likes. However, I’ll do my best.”

“Pray do,” answered Esther, rising languidly, and drawing a costly Indian shawl about her shoulders, “and don’t come near me until you can tell me that Devilshoof is mine. Never presume to approach me again if you fail in getting him, for the sight of you will be actually obnoxious to me. Good-night.”

She held out her hand once more. The Duke kissed the jewelled fingers, and accepted his sentence of banishment as meekly as if Esther Vanberg had been the Emperor of all the Russias.

He wrote on the following day to Lord Bothwell Wallace, offering that nobleman a thousand guineas for the horse which had been bought at Tattersall’s for seven hundred. He informed Lord Wallace that the horse was wanted for a lady who had set her heart upon possessing him.

The Duke fully expected a decided refusal to this offer; but the letter which he received did not contain an actual refusal. Lord Wallace wrote:

“My Dear Harlingford,—I shall be very glad to get rid of Devilshoof for the sum which I paid for him; but I will not sell him to a lady. I and my grooms have tried him, and we find him one of the worst-tempered brutes it was ever our bad fortune to encounter. You’ve been in my harness-room at the Caravansera, and you know I’m rather great in the invention of teasers in the shape of bits. I’ve tried all my latest discoveries on Devilshoof without effect. The brute is an incorrigible bolter; and whatever good there ever was in him has been taken out of him by gentleman jocks. He is so bad a temper that I don’t care to keep him in my stud, in spite of his good looks. I shall send him back to Tattersall’s, and have him sold for whatever he will fetch. But no lady shall ride him with my concurrence.

“Yours faithfully,
“Wallace.”

The Duke of Harlingford imagined that this letter would perfectly satisfy Esther Vanberg. She would, of course, not care to possess a horse which a hunting-man like Bothwell Wallace refused to ride. The Duke put the letter in his pocket, ordered his cab, and drove at once to the coquettish little mansion in Mayfair.

Esther was at home, fluttering about her drawing-room in an exquisite morning-dress of muslin and lace. She was arranging the hot-house flowers in her vases, and looked up with a cry of delight as the Duke entered the room. Looking up thus, in her dainty summer dress, with her hands full of flowers, and all the colour and brightness of her sunlit drawing-room for a background, she made a picture which a Meissonier might have been pleased to paint.

“I triumph!” she exclaimed. “Devilshoof is mine!”

“No, my dearest Esther; but——”

“But what?” interrupted the Jewess. “I will have no such word as ‘but’ uttered in my house. I thought I told you not to come near me until that horse was mine?”

“Precisely, my darling,” answered the Duke, handing Lord Wallace’s letter to the angry beauty; “but if you will only read that, you will understand why I have not bought him.”

Esther Vanberg read the letter, and then tossed it from her with a gesture of disdain.

“Well!” she exclaimed; “of course you wrote to say that you would buy the horse?”

“My dear Esther!—after receiving such an account of him?”

“Bah!” cried the Jewess contemptuously. “What cowards you men are, in spite of all your pretended love of manly sports! A horse is a little hot-tempered, and you are actually afraid to ride him. I should despise myself for such cowardice! Write to Lord Wallace immediately, and tell him that you will give him his own price for Devilshoof.”

“But, my darling Esther, you would never be so rash as to ride him? It would be sheer madness.”

“Never mind what it would be; sit down and write.”

The Jewess pointed imperiously to the Marie Antoinette writing-table.

For some time the Duke resisted; but Esther Vanberg’s power over him was boundless, and in the end she triumphed.

He wrote to Lord Wallace, telling him that the lady had set her heart on the horse, and would have him at any price.

It was with great unwillingness that the weak-minded young man wrote this letter; for the thought of danger to his beloved Esther inspired him with utter dismay; but he had not firmness enough to oppose any fancy of the woman he so tenderly loved.

He received a reply from Lord Wallace in a few hours.

It ran thus:

“Dear Harlingford,—If the lady whom you wish to gratify has set her heart on committing suicide, she may as well do so in one way as in another. I can only tell you once more, that Devilshoof is unsafe for a lady to ride. He requires to be ridden by a man with a wrist of iron, and a temper as determined as his own.

“Always yours,
“Wallace.”

The Duke hurried off to Mayfair with this second letter. Esther Vanberg received it eagerly, and laughed gaily after reading it.

“A wrist of iron, and a temper as determined as his own!” she exclaimed, repeating the Viscount’s words. “Well, well; I don’t know about the wrist of iron; but I know that no horse that ever was foaled can have a more determined temper than I have. We will see which is the stronger Devilshoof or I.”

“You mean to ride the horse then, in spite of Wallace’s warning?”

“Mean to ride him?—of course I do!” cried the Jewess, who was walking up and down the room in the highest spirits. “How gloomily you look at me! Poor Harlingford! one would suppose I was going to jump over a precipice, or to do something or other that would be certain death. You men are all cowards. I’ll show you that a horse can be conquered. Send Lord Wallace a cheque for a thousand pounds, and tell him to send Devilshoof to my stables.”

Again the Duke remonstrated, entreated, implored; but again Esther triumphed, and the foolish young man acceded to her request. Had she ordered him to jump out of her drawing-room window into the street below, his compliance with her command would have only been a question of time.

The cheque was sent; and early next morning Esther went round to her stables to look at the animal.

It was a pouring-wet day, and the Jewess could have found it in her heart to quarrel with the very elements, so great was her disappointment. She wanted to have ridden Devilshoof that morning.

“I suppose to-morrow will be fine,” she said. “Mind, Harlingford, you hold yourself disengaged, to ride with me at eleven in the morning. I shall ride as far as Richmond Park or Wimbledon Common, for the sake of a gallop on the turf.”

“I shall be ready, Esther,” answered the Duke gravely; “but I wish you would ride any other horse than Devilshoof. You used to be so fond of your mare Waterwitch.”

“Yes; but that is ages ago. I’m tired of her now: she’s almost as fat as one of those horrible animals you took me to see at Islington; and I mean to ride this chestnut beauty.”

She laid her little white hand on the animal’s arching neck, and he looked at her with his large brown eyes, which had something almost demoniac in their fiery brightness. The appearance of the horse fully justified his name of Devilshoof.

“I don’t know how it is,” exclaimed the Duke. “I suppose Wallace’s letter has made a coward of me. But I give you my honour, Esther, I would gladly sacrifice every penny I possess if you would promise me never to ride that horse.”

“My dear Harlingford,” cried the Jewess gaily, “you shall not be allowed to give way to such foolish fancies. I never felt in better spirits than I do to-day; and I anticipate a most delightful ride to-morrow.”