Esmeralda was getting almost tired of being surprised, and she
looked at the appointments of the room, the table, with its snowy
damask and glass and silver, amidst which the hot-house flowers
seemed to be growing; at the two footmen, who moved to and fro
noiselessly, and had handed the dishes as if they were automatons,
with a kind of dull wonder.
“I thought it would be nice to be alone to-night,” said Lady
Wyndover. “I hope you won’t find it dull, dear.”
Esmeralda laughed, as she thought of the solitude of Australia, and
the hours she had spent in the hut with only Mother Melinda, asleep
in a corner, for company.
Lady Wyndover ate a dinner that would have scarcely satisfied a
healthy sparrow; but Esmeralda, upon whose appetite the cake had
produced no effect, partook of everything that was offered to
her, and Lady Wyndover leaned back and watched her, with a smile
of wonder and envy. What the butler and footmen thought can be
imagined; their faces, of course, showed nothing.
When the meal, which appeared to Esmeralda to be interminable,
at last came to a close, Lady Wyndover took her back to the
drawing-room.
“Choose the most comfortable chair, dear,” she said, as she
reclined on a lounge. “I forgot to ask if you played or sung.”
“The piano, do you mean?” said Esmeralda. “No, I can’t. There was a
piano in the Eldorado, and one or two of the men used to play; but
there was no one to teach me.”
“The Eldorado? That was the school, I suppose. What a funny name
for it!”
“The school?” said Esmeralda. “No, there isn’t any school. It was
Dan MacGrath’s drinking saloon.”
Lady Wyndover half closed her eyes. It was really too dreadful.
“I used to sing sometimes,” Esmeralda continued. “I thought
I could sing until”--she had nearly said, “until I heard The
Rosebud,” but she checked herself. Somehow, she felt reluctant to
mention him to Lady Wyndover.
“Perhaps you’d better take lessons,” said her ladyship, looking at
her thoughtfully. “You are not too old. One quite forgets that you
are so young; you are so tall and--and grown-uppish.”
“I don’t think any one could teach me,” said Esmeralda, calmly. “I
shouldn’t have the patience. The Penman used to say that the only
way to keep me sitting quiet would be to tie me down, hands and
feet; and that wouldn’t do for learning the piano, would it?” and
she laughed.
Lady Wyndover didn’t ask who and what “The Penman” was; she was
almost exhausted by the series of shocks she had endured already.
“I saw that there was a habit among your things, and you said you
rode from somewhere, with your luggage on your back, or was it on
the saddle? You can ride, at any rate!”
“Yes, I can ride and shoot and swim--and that’s about all,” said
Esmeralda. “Can you play the piano? I should like to hear you,
if you’re not tired,” she added, glancing at her ladyship’s
half-closed eyes and indolent attitude.
Lady Wyndover went to the piano, and played softly, and Esmeralda
listened with her great eyes fixed dreamily on the player. Lady
Wyndover, happening to look at her, was struck by their beauty, and
the grace of the lithe form, which seemed to be listening, too,
in its every limb, and she stopped suddenly, and went over to the
chair beside her, and, taking Esmeralda’s hand, said, in almost
awe-struck tones:
“My dear, do you know that you have a very great future before you?”
Esmeralda was still listening to the music, though it had ceased,
and she started slightly as she looked round.
“Yes,” said Lady Wyndover, “you have the world before you. It will
be at your feet--all society at your feet--before many weeks, days,
have passed.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Esmeralda, with her brows drawn
together.
Lady Wyndover patted her hand, and hesitated a moment, then she
laughed softly.
“I might as well tell you now as leave you to find it out
for yourself,” she said. “You must learn it, sooner or
later--sooner!--and it isn’t fair to let you go into the midst of
the battle unarmed. My dear child, you are not only one of the
richest women in England, perhaps in the world, but--but”--she bit
her lip softly; it was harder than she thought, this enlightening
of the uncultivated girl--“but--well, you are not bad-looking; in
fact, you are--” She paused, silenced by the grave, innocent eyes.
“Well, you will have all the men making themselves idiots about
you, and wanting to marry you.”
The color rose slowly to Esmeralda’s face.
“You are going to be the sensation of the season,” continued Lady
Wyndover, “and,” with a little rueful laugh, “I have got a nice
time before me, I can see! You will be a good girl, and do as I
tell you, won’t you, dear? And you will tell me everything, will
you not? You see, you are so--so young, and so--so fresh; and some
of the men, who ought not to do so, will make love to you--the men
you ought not to marry always do--and we shall have to be very
careful! For, now I have seen you, I have set my heart upon your
doing really great things, and--and-- Do you understand me, dear?”
“I don’t know,” said Esmeralda, with a puzzled air. “Why should the
men want to marry me? And what does it matter? I’m not obliged to
marry any of them.”
Lady Wyndover laughed as if she were pleased.
“That is delightful! You couldn’t have said anything better!” she
exclaimed in her low, thin voice. “That is exactly it! My dear
child, you can marry whomsoever you please. Don’t forget that!
Remember it always--always! With your face and fortune you can take
the very best of them! Oh! I wonder how long Cerise will be?”
Esmeralda, as she lay drowsily falling asleep that night, felt as
if she had exchanged places with some one else, and as if the girl
of Three Star Camp had been, not herself, but some one of whom she
had only heard or read; and the strange feeling grew more vivid as
the days passed and the new life unfolded itself.
Lady Wyndover was far too clever a woman of the world to let her
ward, the great Chetwynde heiress, be seen until she was properly
clothed, and she kept herself and Esmeralda carefully secluded
while Madame Cerise was at work. She would not even let Esmeralda
ride in the park, though she begged to be allowed to do so,
and Lady Wyndover was bound to admit that the habit could defy
criticism.
“No, dear,” she said to the puzzled Esmeralda, “you must keep
out of sight until Cerise is ready. If you were to be seen in
the Row, people would insist upon knowing you--and the season is
just commencing, and there are plenty of people up already--and
I don’t want you to appear until you can do so to the fullest
advantage. You must be content, for a few days, with a ride in the
brougham--you couldn’t keep the window-shades up, I suppose?--and
with my society alone. Oh! yes, you can walk before breakfast, in
the park; no one is up until after twelve; but you must take Thomas
or Barker.”
“Why?” demanded Esmeralda, amazedly.
“To take care of you, my dear.”
Esmeralda laughed.
“Barker might take me to take care of her,” she said; “and I don’t
think Thomas, for all he’s tall as a lamp-post, would be much use
in a row. He looks as if he’d break off if he bent too suddenly.
Besides, there never is any row, is there? It always looks so quiet
when we drive through. And those policemen--what are they for? No.
I won’t have Barker or Thomas, and I’ll go alone--if you won’t come
with me.”
Lady Wyndover almost shrieked.
“_I_ go out before breakfast, walking in the park! My _dear_ child!
It would kill me, I really believe.”
“Don’t you believe it,” said Esmeralda. “Just try it, and risk it,
some morning.” And she went out of the room with her clear, ringing
laugh.
This was about a week after her arrival, and she sallied out next
morning--much to the amazement of the house-maid, who was cleaning
the steps--and made her way into the park.
It was a lovely spring day, and as she looked at the trees and
listened to the birds, she thought, very naturally, of Three Star
and the folk she had left behind her. She had already written to
Varley Howard, and was wondering how soon she could get an answer.
She wanted to know how they all were, and if they missed her. Twice
in the curiously spelled letter she had reminded her old guardian
of his promise to take her back if she should be unhappy.
She was not altogether unhappy yet; but she was feeling just a
little dull, notwithstanding the novelty of her surroundings. She
was getting used to the luxury and splendor of Lady Wyndover’s
house, and just a tiny bit tired of driving to shops and buying
endless things--dresses, hats, jackets, ornaments--which sometimes
seemed to her downright ugly, but which Lady Wyndover assured her
were the right things. Once or twice they had gone to a jeweler’s
in Bond Street, and bought some jewels, which Esmeralda had
admired, but anything but enthusiastically, and, of course, with
no appreciation of their value. As she walked along the side of
the Row, with her light, graceful gait, utterly unconscious of the
admiring gaze of the few persons whom she passed, she was picturing
to herself the camp, with its crowd of rough miners, and hearing
the click of the pick and the rattle of the “cradle.”
There were one or two early riders on the tan-laid course, and
after awhile, she stopped, and with her hand resting lightly on
the iron rail, watched them as they rode by. Presently she saw,
approaching the spot where she stood, a lady and gentleman, and
something about them attracted her attention. The gentleman was
tall and slim, and singularly handsome, but not with the beauty
of the barber’s wax figure, though his features were almost as
regular. He was dark, with grave and rather sad eyes; and he rode a
hard-looking chestnut.
Esmeralda just glanced at him, and then, woman-like, transferred
all her attention to the lady; and as she looked, a little thrill
of admiration ran through her; that tribute to another woman’s
beauty which a beautiful, generous woman is always ready to pay.
The lady was fair--but genuinely, not artistically fair, like Lady
Wyndover--and she was so graceful and supple that she seemed part
and parcel of the horse on which she rode. And there was a kind of
proud, imperial air about her which struck Esmeralda, though she
did not fully grasp it.
Esmeralda looked at her and the horse--a clean-cut
thorough-bred--admiringly, and at the latter a little enviously.
How soon would Lady Wyndover let her ride? What a time that Madame
Cerise was over those stupid dresses! And what did it matter
whether people saw her or not!
The pair rode slowly up to her, the gentleman bending slightly
toward the lady, and talking in a low tone, she listening with
eyes slightly downcast, and with a faint smile curving her proud
lips. It was evident, even to Esmeralda, that they were absorbed in
each other, and regardless of everything going on around them; and
she was not surprised when both horses, ridden with a loose rein,
started and reared at a dog which ran suddenly across the ride.
The gentleman had his horse in hand, and checked it in a
moment, but the lady was not so prompt, and the high-spirited
thorough-bred, taking advantage of its mistress’s confusion, sprung
aside and reared again.
“Take care!” said the gentleman, quietly enough, but gravely. “You
are very near the rail.”
She was so near that the horse’s hoofs seemed to be just above
Esmeralda’s head, and she drew back a step, still watching intently.
She knew what the horse wanted--a sharp little cut between the
ears, and a downward tug of the snaffle--and she waited for these
to be administered. But the lady, though she looked so exquisite in
her well-fitting habit, did not seem to know what was required, and
the horse, master of the situation, took advantage, and rose again.
The gentleman was fully occupied with his own animal, the groom was
a long way behind, and Esmeralda, who knew a horse and its tricks
as thoroughly as it is possible to know them, saw that, unless
the lady received some assistance, she would be thrown, and, not
improbably, right across the rails.
She hesitated a moment, then she slipped under the rail, and taking
a firm grip of the bridle, just above the bit, forced the animal on
to its feet.
“Take him by the snaffle, not the curb,” she said in her low, clear
voice.
The lady had her reins bunched up after the manner of ladies, but
eventually got hold of the snaffle ones. Esmeralda held on with
what looked like perfect ease, though the horse tried to rear all
it knew, until the rider had regained control; then she let go
the bridle, and was about to pass under the rail again, when the
gentleman rode up to her, and taking off his hat, said:
“Thank you! Thank you very much!”
His dark face was slightly flushed, and his eyes, as they rested on
Esmeralda’s, seemed to glow as she had never seen any other man’s.
“That’s all right,” she said in her calm way.
“It was not only kind--it was exceedingly brave of you,” he went on
in a low voice. “He might have come down upon you!”
Esmeralda looked at the horse, not contemptuously but
contemplatively.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I should have been too quick for him. I should
have stepped aside.”
He seemed struck by her coolness, and the absence of any
embarrassment on her part, and, with his hat still in his hand,
leaned forward in his saddle and looked at her fixedly, after the
manner of men when they feel that they ought to say something and
do not know what.
The lady had not yet spoken, but had sat erect in her saddle,
looking steadily, with a kind of subdued hauteur on her beautiful
face. At this juncture, as Esmeralda and the gentleman gazed at
each other, the lady spoke.
“It was extremely kind and brave of you,” she said, “and I am quite
sure I should have been off if you had not come to my assistance.
Thank you--very much.”
The words were right enough--well chosen and gracefully spoken--and
yet there was something in the tone in which they were said that
jarred upon Esmeralda, and caused her to raise her head almost
defiantly and resentfully.
The tone was cold, almost icily so, the manner that of an empress
graciously thanking an inferior.
“That horse is too much for you,” she said, with the faint drawl
which had always brought her subjects at Three Star to their knees.
“I should advise you to sell him.”
The lady smiled. One knows the smile so well; half amused, half
contemptuous, and cutting as a whip.
“Thank you for your advice--as well as your assistance,” she said,
with a faint lisp. “Shall we go on?”
The gentleman started slightly; then he leaned forward, and
murmured to Esmeralda, “Thank you, once more,” and the two rode
away.
And Esmeralda stood looking after them, little guessing that she
had met the man and the woman who were to work the happiness and
the misery of her life!