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 lustre to a sudden failure of the wax candles; but I knew 'twas but two pairs of eyes that had ceased to shine upon the assembly. 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."
"'Tis those short nights that shorten the measure of life, madam," said Durnford gravely. "Mrs. Bosworth will be older by ten years for the pleasures of a single season."
Her ladyship honoured the speaker with a slow, supercilious stare, and deigned no other answer.
"0, but there are some things worth wasting life for, Mr. Durnford," replied Irene, smiling at him; "the opera, for instance. I would barter a year of my old age for one night of Rinaldo or Theseus."
"A lady of eighteen is as free with the treasure of long life as a minor with his reversion," said Durnford. "Both are spendthrifts. But I, who have passed life's zenith, which with a man I take to be thirty, am beginning to be chary of my declining years. I hope to win some prize out of life's lottery, and to live happy ever after, as they say in fairy tales. Now I conclude that 'ever after' in your story-book means a hale old age."