Volume I Part 19 (1/2)
”Just as if you were an experienced fine lady,” laughed Mademoiselle; ”how quickly my woodland nymph has accustomed herself to the ways of this crowded fas.h.i.+onable town! But to return to Lord Lavendale: if you do not meet him oftener than you do other people, I think that at least you enjoy more of his society. You and he are often talking together, Mrs. Amelia told me.”
”O yes, we are very good friends,” the girl answered carelessly. ”I think he is pleasanter than most people.”
”Heart-whole, and likely to remain so, as far as Lavendale is concerned,” thought the little Frenchwoman with satisfaction; for she knew too much of his lords.h.i.+p's past history to approve of him as a suitor for her beloved pupil.
After a pause she said,
”By the bye, Rena, Mr. Durnford called yesterday when you were out with Lady Tredgold. It is the fifth time he has called and found you gone abroad.”
Irene blushed crimson.
”O, why did you not beg him to stop till I came home?” she asked.
”My dear child, this is not my house. I have no right to give invitations.”
”Yes, you have. You could have detained him if you had liked. The fifth visit! What must he think of me?”
”He confessed that he thought you somewhat a gad-about. He told me that he tried to waylay you in public resorts--in the Ring, or at the auction-rooms; but even there he had been unfortunate: when he went west, you had gone east.”
Irene looked piteously disappointed.
”Five times! and I have not been told of one of those visits!” she exclaimed indignantly. ”Why was that?”
”Because your aunt's footmen forgot all about it, I daresay,” replied Mademoiselle. ”Footmen have a knack of forgetting such visitors, especially when the visitor wears a shabby coat and may forget to emphasise his inquiries with a crown. I doubt you would never have heard of this last visit, if I had not happened to come in from my walk in St.
James's Park just as Mr. Durnford knocked at the door. He stopped for a few minutes' chat on the doorstep. I told him you were to be at the opera to-night.”
”Then perhaps he will go there!” cried Rena, suddenly becoming radiant, and confirming the shrewd little Frenchwoman in a suspicion which she had harboured for some time.
What a pity that Herrick Durnford was poor, and without rank or lineage to counterbalance his poverty! She knew that Squire Bosworth would favour Lavendale's suit, and would in all probability disinherit his daughter if she presumed to marry a penniless scribbler. Mdlle. Latour had enjoyed opportunities of studying the character of both these young men, and she had decided that Durnford's was the n.o.bler nature, though there was a.s.suredly some good in Lavendale.
CHAPTER XI.
”AND BEAUTY DRAWS US WITH A SINGLE HAIR.”
Christmas was near at hand, the fox-hunting season was in full swing, and Lady Judith and Mr. Topsparkle had made up a large party for sport and music at Ringwood Abbey. Her Grace of Marlborough and Mr. Congreve were to be there; Sir Robert Walpole had promised to spend half a week away from the charms of his own beloved Houghton and his still dearer Molly Skerritt. The two spendthrift Spencers were asked, and Chesterfield; while Bolingbroke, whom Lady Judith pretended to admire more than any man living, was to be the chief star among so many luminaries.
Lady Judith affected to have taken a fancy to the new heiress, and was so pressing in her invitation to Lady Tredgold to bring her sweet niece to Ringwood for the Christmas holidays, that the good lady could not resist the temptation to visit at a house which she had so often joined in rancorously abusing for its riotous extravagance and corrupt taste.
But as Lady Judith had pointedly ignored the two gaunt daughters in her invitation, Lady Tredgold considered herself under no obligation to be grateful. She left the daughters in Arlington Street under the charge of Mdlle. Latour, and started for Ringwood with Rena and two maids in a coach and six. Had she been travelling at her own expense, she might have managed the journey with four horses, bad as the roads were; but as Mr. Bosworth had to pay, she considered six indispensable. Had the journey been at her own cost, she might even have gone in the great heavy Salisbury coach, which, although periodically surprised by highwaymen between Putney and Kingston, or on Bagshot Heath, was perhaps somewhat safer in its strength of numbers than any private conveyance.
On this occasion she took a couple of footmen armed with blunderbusses, hid her own and the heiress's jewels in a little leather bag under the seat, and put her trust in Providence for the rest. Despite of these precautions and of her six horses she might, perchance, have fared badly, had it not been for an unexpected reinforcement in the persons of Lavendale and Durnford, who overtook the carriage on Putney Common in the sharp frosty morning of December 21.
They were both well mounted on powerful roadsters, and followed by two grooms upon horses of scarcely inferior quality; gentlemen and servants were both armed.
Irene blushed and sparkled at sight of the two cavaliers, and Lavendale, spoiled by a decade of successes, made sure those smiles were for him.
”You are early on the road, ladies,” he exclaimed gaily, ”considering that it was past two this morning ere you plunged the Ridotto in untimely gloom by your departure. There were some blockheads who put down that diminished l.u.s.tre to a sudden failure of the wax candles; but I knew 'twas but two pairs of eyes that had ceased to s.h.i.+ne upon the a.s.sembly. Pray how far do you propose travelling to-day, Lady Tredgold?”
”Only as far as Fairmile. We are to lie at my brother's house to-night, and pursue our journey at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. It is odious rising so early in winter. My niece and I dressed by candlelight, and the watchman was crying half-past six o'clock and a frosty morning when my maid came to wake me. It seemed but half an hour since I left the Ridotto.”