"Why should I not be happy?" he asked himself. "Why should I not live to taste this golden fortune that Fate has flung into my lap—at last! at last! A broken constitution can be patched up again. A heart that has taken to irregular paces can learn to beat quietly in an atmosphere of peace and joy. I have burnt life's candle at both ends hitherto. I must be sober. Shall I despair because of that mystic warning, which may have been, after all, but a waking dream? Yes, I will believe that sweet sad voice—my mother's very voice—was but a supreme effect of a fevered imagination. I know that I was not asleep when I saw that luminous figure, when I heard that unearthly voice; but there may be a kind of trance in which the mind can create the image it looks upon, and the sound that it hears. Hark, there are the horses! She is here, she is here: and where she is death cannot come."
The clatter of six horses upon a frost-bound drive was unmistakable. There were a couple of outriders, too, and Captain Asterley was on horseback, making nine horses in all. The footmen ran to fling open the hall-door, the butler came to the threshold, Herrick and Irene appeared from the saloon, and Lavendale went out into the dusk, bare-headed, to receive his mistress. She was scarce less eager than her lover. She flung open the coach-door before footmen could reach it, and sprang almost into Lavendale's eager arms. She wore a wide beaver hat with an ostrich plume, and a long velvet pelisse bordered with fur, like a Russian princess. She was flushed with the cold air, and her eyes sparkled; never had she looked lovelier.
"Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear!" cried Lavendale, kissing her audaciously before all the world, and then holding out a hand to Lady Polwhele, who was closely hooded, and whose white-lead complexion looked ghastlier than ever where the cold had turned it blue. "What ample provision hast thou made against Jack Frost, love! Have you borrowed Anastasia Robinson's sables?"
"Do you suppose nobody but a soprano can wear a fur-trimmed coat?" she asked gaily. "I bought this yesterday, and I can tell you that it is handsomer than anything Peterborough ever gave his wife. They say she is really married to him, and she and her mother are established in his house at Parson's Green; but he has sworn her to secrecy, and won't even let her wear her wedding-ring."
"He is a fool," answered Lavendale, "and his pride is of the basest quality. King Cophetua was not ashamed of his beggar-maid. He knew his own power to exalt the woman of his choice. Mrs. Robinson is only too good for Mordanto, who will be half a madman to the end of the chapter. Welcome to Lavendale Manor, my northern princess. 'Tis but a faded old mansion for you, who are used to such splendours—"
"Do not speak of them," she said hurriedly, "forget that I have ever known them. Would to God my own memory were a blank! Ah, there is your young friend Mrs. Durnford smiling welcome at me, and her clever husband, too;" and Lady Judith ran into the house, and was presently embracing Irene, whom she had not seen since last winter.
Lady Polwhele and the two other ladies had stayed by the coach all this time, squabbling with the two maids, who had travelled in the rumble, and who were broadly accused of having left nearly everything behind, because this or that precious consignment could not be produced on the moment.
"I feel certain my jewel-case is lost!" exclaimed the Dowager, "and if it is I am a ruined woman; for it contains some of the very finest of the family diamonds, which are heirlooms, and must be given up to my son's wife whenever he marries. I wouldn't so much have minded my own rubies and emeralds, though the ruby necklace is worth a small fortune; and to think that careless hussy should have forgotten where she put it!"
"Indeed, your ladyship carried it to the coach—nay, 'twas Captain Asterley carried it, and your ladyship ordered where it was to be put."
"Ifackens, so I did, wench!" cried the Dowager, who was very vulgar when she was in a good temper. "'Tis on the floor of the coach, Lyddy, and I had my feet on it all the way down. Lord, what a no-memory I have, child!" tapping Mrs. Lydia Vansittart archly with her fan, and ignoring the falsely-accused abigail, who stood by with an aggrieved countenance.