Regency Buck

Chapter XVIII

Upon the following morning Miss Taverner despatched her groom post-haste to London to fetch down her phaeton, and no sooner had it arrived, and her horses been rested, than she startled Brighton by driving it to Donaldson’s at the fashionable hour to change her book. No one observing her air of calm assurance could have guessed what an effort it cost her to appear thus unconcerned. She met Captain Audley on the Steyne, and took him up beside her, and drove him to the Chalybeate Spring at Hove and back again. At the ball at the Castle inn that evening one or two people ventured to comment on it. She raised her brows and said coolly: “My phaeton? Yes, it has just arrived from town. Some trifling fault made it necessary for me to send it to the coachmaker’s, which is why you have seen me walking lately. You must know that I am used to drive myself wherever I go.” She passed on with a smile and a bow.

“Excellent, Miss Taverner!” murmured Mr. Brummell. “You are so apt a pupil that if I were only ten years younger I believe I should propose for your hand.”

She laughed. “I cannot suppose it possible. Did you ever propose to any lady, sir?”

“Yes, once,” replied Mr. Brummell in a voice of gentle melancholy. “But it came to nothing. I discovered that she actually ate cabbage, so what could I do but cut the connection?”

If Miss Taverner’s phaeton did not succeed in putting an end to all criticism of her drive from town it did silence a good many tongues. Her habit of driving herself all over Brighton was soon looked on as an idiosyncrasy allowable in a lady with a fortune of eighty thousand pounds. But although the dowagers, with one or two exceptions, might agree to look indulgently on her oddities there was one person who gave no sign of having forgiven her. Lord Worth continued to hold aloof, and when they met conducted himself towards her with a cold civility that showed her how fresh in his mind were the events at Cuckfield. Having frequently assured herself and him that nothing could exceed her dislike of him, there was no other course open to her than to treat him with similar coldness, and to flirt with Captain Audley. The Captain was all readiness to oblige her, and by the time they had twice danced half the evening together, and twice been seen driving along the parade in the perch-phaeton it began to be pretty freely circulated that the Captain was to be the lucky man.

Even Mrs. Scattergood began to take a serious view of the affair, and having watched in silence for a week at last ventured to broach the subject one evening after dinner. “Judith, my love,” she said, very busy with the yards of fringe she was making, “did I tell you that I met Lady Downshire in East Street this morning? You must know that I walked back to Westfield Lodge with her.”

“No, you did not tell me,” replied Miss Taverner, laying down her book. “Was there any reason why you should?”

“Oh, none in the world! But I must own I was rather taken aback by her asking me when your engagement to Charles Audley was to be made known. I did not know what to say.”

Judith laughed: “Dear ma’am, I hope you told her that you did not know?”

Mrs. Scattergood shot her a quick look. “To be sure, I told her that I had no apprehension of any such engagement taking place. But the case is, you see, that people are beginning to wonder at the preference you show for Charles. You must not be offended with me for speaking plain.”

“Offended! How should I be?”

Mrs. Scattergood began to look a little alarmed. “But Judith, is it possible that you can be contemplating marriage with Charles?”

Miss Taverner smiled saucily, and said: “I am persuaded you can no longer see to make your fringe, ma’am. Let me ring for some working-candles to be brought you!”

“Pray do not be so teasing!” besought her chaperon. “I have nothing in the world to say against Charles. Indeed I have the highest value for him; but a younger son, my dear, and without the least prospect of enlargement! for it is not to be supposed that Worth will stay single to oblige him, you know. I could tell you of any number of young ladies who have set their caps at him. He will certainly be thinking of getting married one day soon.”

“I shall be happy to wish him joy whenever that may be!” said Miss Taverner sharply. She picked up her book, read a few lines, lowered it again, and inquired hopefully: “Was it he who told you to discover whether I mean to marry Captain Audley or not?”

“Worth? No, my dear, upon my word it was not. He has not spoken to me of it at all.”

Miss Taverner resumed her book with an expression so forbidding that Mrs. Scattergood judged it wisest to say no more.

She was at a loss to know what to think. A natural shrewdness had induced her to suppose from the outset that Judith stood in very little danger of falling in love with the Captain. A hint that people were beginning to couple their names should have been enough, if she did not mean to marry him, to make her behave with more circumspection; but it had no effect on her at all. She continued to flirt with the Captain, and her brother in high good-humour, remarked to Mr. Taverner that he believed the pair would make a match of it yet.

“Audley and your sister!” said his cousin, turning a little pale. “Surely it is not possible!”

“Not possible! Why not?” asked Peregrine. “He is a capital fellow, I can tell you; not at all like Worth. I thought the instant I clapped eyes on him that he would do very well for Judith. It’s my belief that they have some sort of an understanding. I taxed Ju with it, but she only coloured up and laughed, and would not give me an answer.”

Peregrine’s own affairs soon took a turn for the better. He had lately fallen into the habit of driving over to Worthing twice a week, and spending the night with the Fairfords; and he was able to inform Judith on his return from one of these expeditions that Sir Geoffrey, being dissatisfied with the uncertainty of his daughter’s engagement, was coming to Brighton to seek an interview with Lord Worth.

“We shall see how that may answer,” said Peregrine in a tone of strong satisfaction. “However little Worth may attend to my entreaties, he cannot fail to pay heed to a man of Sir Geoffrey’s age and consequence. I fancy the wedding-bell will be soon fixed.”

“I do not depend upon it, though I am sure I wish it may,” Judith replied. “I shall own myself surprised if Sir Geoffrey finds his lordship any more persuadable than we have done.”

Peregrine, however, continued sanguine, and in a very few days events proved him to have been justified. They were sitting down to dinner in Marine Parade one evening when the butler brought in Sir Geoffrey’s card. Peregrine ran out to welcome him and learn his news, while Mrs. Scatter good cast an anxious eye over the dish of buttered lobster, and sent down a message to the cook to serve up the raised giblet-pie as well as the fricando of veal. She was still wondering whether the cheese-cakes would go round and lamenting that a particularly good open tart syllabub should have been all ate up at luncheon when Peregrine brought their visitor into the dining-parlour. Peregrine’s countenance conveyed the intelligence of good news to his sister immediately; his eyes sparkled, and as Judith rose to shake hands with Sir Geoffrey, he burst out with: “You were wrong, Ju! It is all in a way to be done! I knew how it would be! I am to be married at the end of June. Now wish me joy!”

She turned her eyes towards him with a look of amazement in them. She had not thought it to be possible. “Indeed, indeed, I do wish you joy! But how is this? Lord Worth agrees?”

“Ay, to be sure he does. Why should he not? But Sir Geoffrey will tell it all to us later. For my part I am satisfied with the mere fact.”

She was obliged to control her impatience to know how it had all come about, what arguments had been used to prevail with Worth, and to beg Sir Geoffrey to be seated. The impropriety of discussing his interview with Worth before the servants was generally felt, and it was not until they were all gathered in the drawing-room later that their curiosity could be satisfied.

It was not in Sir Geoffrey’s power to remain long with them; he had made no provision for spending the night in Brighton, and wished to be back in Worthing before it grew dark. There was very little to tell them, after all; he had guessed that Lord Worth’s refusal to consent to the marriage taking place arose from scruples natural in a man standing in his position. It had been so, his lordship had felt all the evils of a marriage entered into too young, but upon Sir Geoffrey’s representation to him of the proved durability of Peregrine’s affections (for six months, at the age of nineteen, was certainly a period) he had been induced to relent.

“There was no difficulty, then?” Judith inquired, fixing her eyes on his face. “Yet when I spoke of it to him he answered me in such a way that I believed nothing could win him over! This is wonderful indeed I There is no accounting for it.”

“There was a little difficulty,” acknowledged Sir Geoffrey. “His lordship felt a good deal of reluctance, which I was able, however, to overcome, I am not acquainted with him, do not think I have exchanged two words with him before to-day, so that I cannot conjecture what may have been in his mind. He is a reserved man; I do not pretend to read his thoughts. I own that it seemed to me that something more than a doubt of the young people being of an age to contemplate matrimony weighed with him.”

“What made you think so?” Miss Taverner asked quickly. “He can have had no other reason!”

Sir Geoffrey set the tips of his fingers together. “Well, well, I might be mistaken. His manners, which are inclined to be abrupt, may easily have misled me. But upon my making known to him the object of my call his first words were of refusal. That he had no objection to my daughter’s character or her situation in life he at once made clear to me, however.”

“Objection!” cried Peregrine, with strong indignation. “What objection could he have, sir?”

“None, I trust,” replied Sir Geoffrey placidly. “But his countenance led me to suppose that my application was very unwelcome. He said positively that you were too young. I ventured to remind him that a six-months’ engagement was his own suggestion, whereupon he exclaimed with a degree of annoyance that surprised me that he had been guilty of a piece of the most unconscionable folly in consenting to any engagement at all.”

“Well, and so I thought at the time,” remarked Mrs. Scattergood. “It seemed to me highly nonsensical, as I daresay it did to you, sir. For I quite depended on it being no more than a passing fancy with them both, you know.”

“But why? Why?” demanded Judith, striking the palms of her hands together. “A doubt of Peregrine’s not being old enough could not weigh so heavily with him. I am at a loss to understand him! What did he say then? How did you prevail?”

“I must hope,” said Sir Geoffrey, with a smile, “that the reasonableness of my arguments induced his lordship to relent, but I am more than a little persuaded of his not having heard above half of them. His own reflections seemed to absorb him.”

“Ah, I daresay!” nodded Mrs. Scattergood. “His father was just the same. You might talk to him by the hour together, as I am sure I have done often, and find at the end that he had been thinking of something quite different.”

“As to that, ma’am, I cannot accuse his lordship of letting his mind wander from the subject of my visit. All I meant to say was that his own thoughts operated on his judgment more than my arguments. He took several turns about the room, and upon Captain Audley coming in at that moment briefly informed him of the reason of my being there.”

“Captain Audley! Ah, there you found an ally!”

“Yes, Miss Taverner, it was as you say. Audley immediately advised his brother to consent. With the greatest good nature he declared himself to be in the fullest sympathy with Peregrine’s impatience. He said there could be no object in delay. Lord Worth looked at him as though he would have spoken, but said nothing. Captain Audley, after the shortest of pauses, remarked: ‘As well now as later.’ Lord Worth continued looking at him for a moment, without, however, giving me the impression of attending very closely to him, and suddenly replied: ‘Very well. Let it be as you wish.’”

“So much for prejudice!” said Peregrine. “But I knew how it would be when he came face to face with you, sir. And now you see what a disagreeable fellow we have for a guardian! Ay, you do not like me to say it, Maria, but you know it is so.”

“I confess I had been thinking his lordship very much what you had described to me,” said Sir Geoffrey, “but I am bound to say that from the moment of his giving his consent nothing could have exceeded his amiability. These fashionable men have their whims and oddities, you know. I found him perfectly ready to discuss the details with me; we talked over the settlements, and what income it would be proper for Peregrine to enjoy until he comes of age, and found ourselves in the most complete agreement. He pressed me with the utmost civility to dine with him—an invitation I should have been happy to have accepted had I not felt it incumbent on me to lose no time in coming to set your mind at rest, my dear Perry.”

“Well, and I am sure it has all ended very much to Worth’s credit,” said Mrs. Scattergood. “You and I, my dear sir, can easily understand his scruples, however little these impatient young people may.”

Shortly after this Sir Geoffrey got up to take his leave of them, and until the tea-table was brought in the others were fully occupied in talking over what had passed. A knock on the front door put them in the expectation of receiving another visitor, but in a few minutes the butler came in with a note for Peregrine which had been brought round by hand from the Steyne. It was from Worth, requesting Peregrine to call at his house on the following morning for the purpose of discussing the marriage settlements. Judith listened to it being read aloud, and turned away to pick up one of the volumes of Self-Control from the sofa-table. But not even Laura’s passage down the Amazon had the power to hold her interest. It was evident that Worth had no desire to meet her; he would otherwise have appointed a meeting with Peregrine in Marine Parade.

The interview next morning served to put Peregrine in a mood of the greatest good humour. Worth became once more a very tolerable sort of a fellow, and if his harshness at Cuckfield was not quite forgotten it was in a fair way to being forgiven.

The first person to share the news was Mr. Bernard Taverner, whom Peregrine met in East Street, outside the post office. Peregrine had been feeling a good deal of coldness towards his cousin ever since the affair of his frustrated duel, but his present happiness made him at one with the whole world, and induced him to extend a cordial invitation to Mr. Taverner to drink tea with them in Marine Parade that evening. The invitation was accepted, and shortly after nine o’clock Mr. Taverner’s knock sounded on the door, and he was ushered into the drawing-room, to entertain the ladies with an account of the races, which he had been attending that afternoon, to wish Peregrine joy, and to make himself generally so agreeable that Mrs. Scattergood, feeling all the undoubted attraction of air and manner, could almost find it in her to be sorry that his situation in life made him so ineligible a suitor. He had never been a favourite with her, but she did him the justice to acknowledge that he bore the news of his cousin’s approaching nuptials well—very much better, she guessed, than the Admiral would when next they had the doubtful pleasure of seeing him.

Peregrine’s marriage naturally formed the topic of a great part of their conversation. He was in spirits, and when he had talked over all his own plans, found it easy to quiz his sister, to exclaim at her ill-luck in being obliged to see him married before herself, and to throw out a good many dark hints that she would not be long in following him to the altar. “I do not mention any names,” he said roguishly. “I am all discretion, you know! But it is safe to say that it will not be a certain gentleman who was bred to the sea, nor a tall, thin commoner with his calves gone to grass, nor that cursed rum touch who took you and Maria to the British Gallery, nor—”

“How can you talk so, Perry?” interrupted his sister, turning her head away.

“Oh, I would not betray you for the world!” he replied incorrigibly. “If you have a preference for a red coat that is nothing out of the way! With females a red coat is everything, and if there is one officer amongst your acquaintance who is more dashing and gallant than the rest, I am sure no one can have the least notion who he may be!”

She was put quite out of countenance by this speech, and did not know how to meet her cousin’s grave look. Mrs. Scattergood began to scold, for such talk did not suit her sense of propriety, but her efforts to check Peregrine only provoked him to be more teasing than ever. It was left to Mr. Taverner to give the conversation a more proper direction, which he did by saying suddenly: “By the by, Perry, all this talk of being married puts me in mind of something I had to say to you. You will be enlarging your household, I daresay. Have you room for another groom? I am turning away a very good sort of a man, and should be happy to find him an eligible situation. He leaves me for no fault, but I am putting down my carriage, you know, and unlike you wish to reduce my household.”

“Putting down your carriage!” exclaimed Peregrine, his thoughts instantly diverted. “How comes this about? Do not tell me your pockets are to let!”

“It is not as bad as that,” replied Mr. Taverner, with a slight smile. “But I like to be beforehand with the world when I can, and I believe it will be prudent for me to retrench a little. My father keeps his carriage, of course, so I beg you will not be fancying me forced to walk. But if you have a place for my lad in your stables I should be glad to recommend him to you.”

“Oh, certainly, there must always be something for a second groom to do,” said Peregrine good-naturedly. “Let him come and see me. I will engage for Hinkson’s being obliged to you at least!”

“I can readily believe that he may well be tired of the road to Worthing,” said Mr. Taverner slyly.

If Peregrine could have had his way Hinkson would have seen even more of that road, but happily for him Sir Geoffrey Fairford’s fondness for his son-in-law was not quite enough to make him view with complacence that young gentleman’s presence in his house every day of the week. He bad laid it down as a rule that Peregrine might only visit Harriet on Mondays and Thursdays, but since Lady Fairford’s solicitude would not allow her to permit Peregrine to drive back to Brighton after dark these visits always lasted until the following day, and the lovers were not so very much to be pitied after all.

Mr. Taverner thought it was rather Judith who should be pitied, and said as much to her one evening at the Assembly at the Castle inn. “Perry neglects you sadly,” he remarked. “He thinks of nothing but being at Worthing.”

“I assure you I don’t regard it. It is very natural that he should.”

“You will be lonely when he is married.”

“A little, perhaps. I don’t think of it, however.”

He took her empty glass of lemonade from her, and set it down. “He should count himself fortunate to possess such a sister.” He picked up her shawl, and placed it carefully round her shoulders. “There is something I must say to you, Judith. In your own house Mrs. Scattergood is always beside you; I can never get you alone. Will you walk out with roe into the garden? It is a very mild night; I do not think you can take a chill.”

Her heart sank; she replied in a little confusion: “I had rather—that is, there can be no occasion for that degree of privacy, cousin, surely.”

“Do not refuse me!” he said. “Do you not owe me this much at least, that I should be allowed five minutes alone with you?”

“I owe you a great deal,” she said. “You have been all that is kind, but I beg you to believe that no purpose can be served by—by what you suggest.”

They were standing in one of the rooms adjoining the ballroom, and since another set was forming there no one but themselves now remained in the smaller apartment. Mr. Taverner glanced round, and then clasping Judith’s hand, held it fast between both of his, and said: “Then let me speak now, for I can no longer be silent! Judith—dearest, sweetest cousin!—is there to be no hope for me? You do not look at me! you turn your head away! God knows I have little enough to offer you: nothing indeed but a heart that has been wholly your own from the first moment of setting eyes on you! Your circumstances and mine—alas, so widely apart!—have held me silent, but it will not do! I cannot continue so, be the event what it may! I have been forced to see others soliciting what I have not dared to ask. But it has grown to be more than a man may bear! Judith, I entreat you, look at me!”

She did contrive to raise her eyes to his face, but it was with considerable agitation that she answered: “I beg of you to say no more! Dear cousin, for your friendship I am and shall always be grateful, but if I have (unwittingly, believe me) led you to suppose that tenderer sentiments—” Her voice became totally suspended; she made a gesture, imploring him to say no more.

“How could I—how could any man—know you and not love you? I cannot offer you a title, I cannot offer you wealth—”

She recovered her voice enough to say: “That would not weigh with me if my affections had been touched! I give you pain: forgive me! But it can never be. Let us not speak of it again!”

“Once before I asked you if there were another man. You told me ‘No’, and I believe it was true then. But now! Now could you return that answer?”

A deep flush suffused her cheeks. “You have no right to ask me such a question,” she said.

“No,” he replied, “I have no right, but this I must and will say, Judith!—No man, I care not who he may be, can feel for you what I do! While Worth continues to be your guardian I know well that you will never be permitted to marry me, but in a very little while now you will be free, and no considerations of that—”

“My refusal has nothing to do with Worth’s wishes!” she said quickly. “I should desire always to be your friend; I esteem and value you as a cousin, but I cannot love you! Do not tease me further, I beg of you! Come, may we not remain good friends?”

He controlled himself with a strong effort, and after looking steadily into her face for a moment or two, raised her hand to his lips, and passionately kissed it.

A very dry voice said immediately behind them: “You will forgive me for intruding upon you, Miss Taverner, I trust.”

Miss Taverner snatched her hand away and turned. “Lord Worth I You—you startled me I”

“Evidently,” he said. “I am charged with the office of finding you. Your carriage is spoken for, and Mrs. Scattergood grows anxious.”

“Thank you. I will come at once,” she murmured. “Good night, cousin!”

“Will you not let me take you back to Mrs. Scattergood?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head. She was still sadly out of countenance, and it was quite meekly that she laid her hand on the Earl’s proffered arm, and allowed him to lead her away. Once out of earshot she managed to say, though in a very small voice: “I daresay it may have looked very particular to you, but you are quite mistaken.”

“In what?” said the Earl coldly.

“In what you are thinking!”

“If you are able to read my thoughts at this moment you must be very clever.”

“You are the most disagreeable man I have ever met!” said Miss Taverner, a break in her voice.

“You have told me as much before, Miss Taverner, and my memory, I assure you, is peculiarly retentive. Console yourself with the reflection that in a short time now you will be able to forget my very existence.”

She said unsteadily: “I do not suppose that I look forward to that day more eagerly than you.”

“I have never made any secret of the fact that my guardianship of you has been irksome in the extreme. But do not anticipate too much, Miss Taverner. You are still my ward. These affecting passages with your cousin would be better postponed.”

“If you imagine I have—I have an understanding with Mr. Bernard Taverner you are wrong!” she said. “I am not going to marry him!”

He looked down at her, and it seemed for a moment as though he was about to say something. Then Mrs. Scattergood came up to them, and the opportunity was lost. He escorted both ladies out to their carriage, and it was only at parting that Miss Taverner could trust her voice sufficiently to say: “I have been wanting to thank you, Lord Worth, for giving your consent to Peregrine’s marriage.”

“You have nothing to thank me for,” he replied rather curtly, and bowed, and stood back to let the carriage move forward.