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.”