Regency Buck

Chapter XIX

Why she had been so anxious to inform her guardian that she did not mean to marry Mr. Bernard Taverner was a question that occupied Miss Taverner’s mind for an appreciable time. If an answer to the riddle did occur to her she at least would not admit it to be the correct one, and as no alternative answer presented itself to her she was forced to conclude that the agitation of the moment had made her speak at random.

Mrs. Scattergood, observing her spirits to be low, supposed that she must be looking forward with a good deal of melancholy to her brother’s marriage, and did what she could to cheer her by promising to stay with her for as long as her companionship was required, and by prophesying many pleasant visits to the young couple at Beverley. But the truth was that the prospect of being separated from Peregrine was not oppressing Miss Taverner’s spirits as much as the thought of her own approaching freedom. She did not know what was to become of her. Lord Worth was provoking, tyrannical, and very often odious, but he managed her fortune for her to admiration, and disposed of importunate suitors in a way that she could not hope to equal. She might quarrel with him, and resent his interference in her schemes, but while he stood behind her she had a feeling of security which she had scarcely been aware of until now when she was so near to having his protection withdrawn. And when he was not being disagreeable and over-bearing he had been kind to her. He had given her a recipe for snuff, and allowed her to drive his greys, and invited her to stay in his house. Until that unfortunate encounter at Cuckfield she had been liking him very well. Naturally she could never like him after his intolerable behaviour on that fatal day, but in spite of that the thought that in a short while she would be able to forget his very existence had so lowering an effect upon her that she was hard put to it to keep the tears from her eyes. And if, as an alternative to this course, he intended her to marry his brother he would find that he had made a mistake. She foresaw that she was doomed to a lonely spinsterhood.

Meanwhile she continued to take her part in all the gaieties that Brighton had to offer, squandered a good deal of money, and drove over with Peregrine to spend a couple of days in Worthing. That experience was one which she was not tempted to repeat, for while she could value Sir Geoffrey’s worth as she ought, and be grateful to Lady Fairford for her motherly kindness, the spectacle of two happy lovers was not one that was likely to elevate her spirits. After the one visit she was resolute in refusing all other invitations, and when urged by Peregrine to accompany him said playfully that now that he had at last engaged a groom who knew one end of a horse from the other it was no longer a source of anxiety to see him drive off without her.

Peregrine protested loudly against this aspersion being cast on his driving, but admitted under pressure that Tyler was a better groom than Hinkson. Hinkson had never found favour with Miss Taverner. She thought (in the idiom employed by Mr. Fitzjohn) that he was cow-handed, and she disliked his square, pugnacious face even more than his rough manners. Mr. Bernard Taverner’s man was very much more to her taste. He knew his work, could handle a team, and was not only respectful, but did not regale his young master’s ears with grim tales of the Ring—a fault in Hinkson which Miss Taverner had always strongly deprecated. She had not the least hesitation in attributing to Hinkson such of Peregrine’s vulgar expressions as a bunch of fives, drawing his cork, wisty castors, and milling a canister, and hoped that the excellence of his new groom would gradually wean him from his predilection for Hinkson.

Hinkson, as might have been expected, showed signs of resenting Tyler’s presence, and was always ready with some excuse to prevent his being taken over to Worthing in his stead. Judith learned from her own groom that a good deal of dissension was rife in the stables, Hinkson being a rough customer, very ready with his fists, and suspicious of his fellows. Judith mentioned the matter to her brother, representing to him the advisability of turning the man away, but he only laughed, and said that she was prejudiced against him. She admitted it to be true. She neither liked nor trusted Hinkson, and thought that his face, with its broken nose and rugged lines, was almost villainous. But not even when Tyler brought the tilbury round one Thursday in Hinkson’s stead because Hinkson had been imbibing Blue Ruin rather too freely in a neighbouring tavern could Peregrine be induced to say that he would dismiss the man. All he did say was: “Oh, well, it’s the first time he’s been bosky, after all! Stark Naked puts us all under the table once in a while, you know, Ju.”

“I wish you would not use that horrid cant. A moment ago you said he had been drinking Blue Ruin.”

“It’s the same thing,” grinned Peregrine. “You can call it a Flash of Lightning, if you like, or Old Tom. It means gin, my dear.” He laughed at her face of disgust, gave her a careless embrace, and with a glance at the clock exclaimed that it was after three already, and he must be off. Her only satisfaction was in seeing him drive away with a competent groom up beside him instead of one who would have been more at home in a prize ring.

The road to Worthing ran through the village of Hove, past the ruins of Aldrington, and along the low cliffs to New Shoreham and Lancing, and thus on by Sompting and Broadwater. Peregrine drove past the end of the Steyne and up on to the East Cliff at a sedate pace, and just beyond the Old Ship was about to let his horses show their paces along the less crowded West Cliff when a light phaeton suddenly swept round the corner of West Street, and its driver, catching sight of him, pulled up his horses and signalled to him to stop.

Peregrine obediently drew rein alongside the phaeton, and hoped that his guardian did not mean to detain him long. “How do you do? I am just on my way to Worthing.”

“Then I have caught you in time,” replied the Earl. “I want your signature to one or two documents.”

Peregrine pulled a face. “Now?” he asked.

“Yes, certainly now. There is also another matter of business which I must discuss with you, but I hardly think the street is a suitable place for that.”

“But could I not call on you to-morrow?” said Peregrine.

“My good boy, is your engagement in Worthing so pressing that you cannot spare me half an hour? To-morrow might suit you better, but it would be highly inconvenient to me. I am going to the races.”

“Oh well!” sighed Peregrine. “I suppose I must come then, if you make such a point of it.”

The Earl felt his horses’ mouths with a movement of his long fingers on the reins. “I have often had it in mind to ask you, Peregrine, why your father omitted to send you up to Oxford,” he remarked. “It would have done you so much good.”

Peregrine reddened, turned his horse, and followed rather sulkily in the wake of the phaeton.

The house which Worth rented on the Steyne stood on the corner of St. James’s Street, and had the advantage of a yard and stables to the rear. Worth led the way into the cobbled alley that ran behind the house, drove his phaeton into the yard, and got down. Henry scrambled from his perch and took charge of the horses, just as Peregrine’s tilbury entered the yard.

“You had better tell your man to take the horses into the stable,” said the Earl, stripping off his gloves.

“I thought he might as well walk them up and down,” objected Peregrine: “I shall not be as long as that, surely?”

“Just as you please,” shrugged the Earl. “They are not my horses.”

“Oh, very well, do as his lordship says, Tyler,” said Peregrine, climbing down from his seat. “I shall want them again in half an hour, mind!”

This was said in a firm tone that-was meant to indicate to the Earl that half an hour was the limit Peregrine had fixed to the interview, but as Worth was already strolling away towards some iron steps leading up to a back door into the house it was doubtful whether he had heard the speech. Peregrine went up the stairs behind him wishing that he were ten years older, and able to assume a manner ten times more assured than the Earl’s own.

The door opened into a passage that ran from the hall to the back of the house. It was not locked, and the Earl led Peregrine through it to his book-room, a square apartment with windows on to St. James’s Street. The room was furnished in a somewhat sombre style, and the net blinds that hung across the window while preventing the curious from looking in also obscured a good deal of light.

The Earl tossed his glove on to the table and turned to see Peregrine glancing about him rather disparagingly. He smiled, and said: “Yes, you are really better off on the Marine Parade, are you not?”

Peregrine looked quickly across at him. “Then this was the house my sister wanted!”

“Why, of course! Had you not guessed as much?”

“Well, I did not think a great deal about it,” confessed Peregrine. “It was Judith who was so set on—” He stopped, and laughed ruefully. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know which of the two she did want!” he said.

“She very naturally wanted the one I told her she was not to have,” replied the Earl, moving over to a console-table where a decanter of wine and two glasses had been placed. “Fortunately I was able to read her intention just in time to retrieve my own mistake in ever mentioning this house.”

“Ay, and devilish cross you made her,” said Peregrine.

“There is nothing very new in that,” said the Earl in his driest voice.

“Oh, she had not been disliking you for a long time then, you know,” said Peregrine, inspecting a round table snuff-box with a loose lid that stood on the Earl’s desk. “In fact, quite the reverse.”

The Earl was standing with his back to the room, but he glanced over his shoulder, holding the decanter poised for a moment over one of the glasses. “Indeed! What may that mean?”

“Lord, nothing in particular!” said Peregrine. “What should it mean?”

“I wish I knew,” said the Earl, and returned to his task of filling the glasses.

Peregrine looked at him rather sharply, and after fidgeting with the lid of the snuff-box for a moment blurted out: “May I ask you a question, sir?”

“Certainly,” said the Earl, replacing the stopper in the decanter.

“What is it?”

“I daresay you won’t like it, and of course I may he wrong,” said Peregrine, “but I am Judith’s brother, and I did think at one time, when my cousin hinted at it, that you might be—well, what I wish to ask you is—is, in short—”

“I know exactly what you wish to ask me,” said the Earl, handing him one of the glasses.

“Oh!” Peregrine accepted the glass, and looked at him doubtfully.

“I can appreciate your anxiety,” continued the Earl, a trifle maliciously. “The thought of being saddled with me as a brother-in-law must be extremely unnerving.”

“I did not mean that!” said Peregrine hastily. “Moreover, I don’t believe there is the least fear—I mean, chance—of it coming to pass.”

“Possibly not,” said the Earl. “But ‘fear’ was probably the right word. Would you like to continue this conversation, or shall we turn to your own affairs?”

“I thought you would not like it,” said Peregrine, not without a certain satisfaction. “Ay, let us by all means settle the business. I am ready.”

“Well, sit down,” said the Earl, opening one of the drawers in his desk. “This is the deed of settlement I want you to sign.” He took out an official-looking document and gave it to Peregrine.

Peregrine reached out his hand for a pen, but was checked by the Earl’s raised brows.

“I am flattered by this blind trust in my integrity,” Worth said, “but I beg you won’t sign papers without first reading them.”

“Of course I should not do so in the ordinary way! But you are my guardian, ain’t you? Oh lord, what stuff it is! There’s no making head or tail of it!” With which pessimistic utterance Peregrine fortified himself with a gulp of wine, and leaned back in his chair to peruse the document. “I knew what it would be! Aforesaid and hereinafter until there is no sense to be made of it” He raised the glass to his lips again and sipped. Then he lowered it and looked at the Earl. “What is this?” he asked.

The Earl had seated himself at his desk, and was glancing over another of the documents that awaited Peregrine’s signature. “That, my dear Peregrine, is what Brummell would describe as the hot, intoxicating liquor so much drunk by the lower orders. In a word, it is port.”

“Well, I thought it was, but it seems to me to taste very odd.”

“I am sorry that you should think so,” replied the Earl politely. “You have the distinction of being alone in that opinion.”

“Oh, I did not mean to say that it was not good port!” said Peregrine, blushing furiously. “I am not a judge. I’ve no doubt of it being capital stuff!” He took another sip, and returned to the task of mastering the deed of settlement. The Earl sat with his elbow on the desk, and his chin resting on his hand, watching him.

The words began to move queerly under Peregrine’s eyes. He blinked, and was conscious all at once of a strong feeling of lassitude. Something in his head was making a buzzing sound; his ears felt thick, as though wool had been stuffed in them. He looked up, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I beg pardon—don’t feel quite the thing. A sudden dizziness—can’t understand it.” He lifted his half-empty wine-glass to his lips, but paused before he drank, staring at Worth with a look of frightened suspicion in his eyes.

The Earl was sitting quite still, impassively regarding him. One of the cut-steel buttons on his coat attracted and held Peregrine’s cloudy gaze until he forced himself to look away from it. His brain felt a little stupid; he found himself speculating on the snowy folds of Worth’s cravat. He himself had tried so often to achieve a Water-fall, and always failed. “I can’t tie mine like that,” he said. “Water-fall.”

“You will one day,” answered the Earl.

“My head feels so queer,” Peregrine muttered.

“The room is a trifle hot. I will open the window in a minute. Go on reading.”

Peregrine dragged his eyes away from that fascinating cravat and tried to focus them on the Earl’s face. He made an effort to collect his wandering wits. The paper he was holding slipped from his fingers to the ground. “No!” he said. “It’s not the room!” He staggered to his feet and stood swaying. “Why do you look at me like that? The wine! What have you put in the wine? By God, you sh-shall answer me!”

He stared at his glass in a kind of bemused horror, and in that instant Worth was on his feet, and in one swift movement had got behind him, and seized him, gripping the boy’s right hand from over his shoulder in a cruel hold that clenched Peregrine’s fingers tightly round the wine-glass. His left arm was round Peregrine, forcing the boy back against his shoulder.

Peregrine struggled like a madman, but. the dreadful lassitude was stealing over him. He panted: “No, no, I won’t! I won’t! You devil, let me go! What have you done to me? What—” His own hand, with that other grasping it, tilted the rest of the wine down his throat. He seemed to have no power to resist; he choked, spluttered, and saw the room begin to spin round like a kaleidoscope. “The wine!” he said thickly. “The wine!”

He heard Worth’s voice say as from a long way off: “I am sorry, Peregrine, but there was no alternative. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

He tried to speak, but could not; he was dimly aware of being lifted bodily from the ground; he saw Worth’s face above him, and then he slid into unconsciousness.

The Earl laid him down on the couch against one wall and loosened the folds of his cravat. He stood frowning down at him for a minute, his fingers lightly clasping one slack wrist, his eyes watchfully intent on Peregrine’s face. Then he moved away to where the empty wine-glass lay on the carpet, picked it up, and put it on the table, and went out of the room, locking the door behind him.

There was no one in the hall. The Earl let himself out through the back door on to the iron steps, and went down them into the yard. The tiger met him, and grinned impishly. The Earl looked him over. “Well, Henry?”

“Shapleys’s not back yet from wherever it was you sent him off to, guv’nor, and you know werry well you let the under-groom go off for the day.”

“I had not forgotten it. Did you do what I told you?”

“O’ course I did what you told me!” answered Henry, aggrieved. “Don’t I always? I knew he wouldn’t say no to anything out of a bottle. ‘Flesh-and-blood this is,’ I says to him, but Lord love yer, guv’nor, he wouldn’t have known different if I’d said it was daffy! He tosses it off, and smacks his lips, and I’m blessed if he didn’t sit down right there under my werry nose, and drop off to sleep! I never seen anything like it in all my puff!”

“The sooner you forget that you saw it at all, the better,” commented the Earl. “Where is Hinkson?”

“Oh, him!” Henry sniffed disparagingly and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Putting the horses to, he is, which is about all he’s good for, and not so werry good at that either, if you was to ask me.”

“Don’t be jealous, Henry. You have done your part very well, but you cannot do everything,” said the Earl, and walked across the yard to the stables just as Hinkson led out Peregrine’s two horses. “Get those horses put to, Ned. Any trouble?”

“No, my lord, not at my end of the business—not yet, that is. But Tyler’s been getting smoky about me. I gammoned him I was boozy, and he thought he’d left me safe under the table. But I’m scared of this, my lord; properly scared I am. Broad daylight!”

“There you are, what did I tell you, guv’nor?” demanded Henry scornfully. “Him a prize-fighter! You’d have done better to let me handle the whole job. You’ll have that chicken-hearted shifter handing Jem Tyler over to a beak if you ain’t careful.”

Hinkson turned on him wrathfully, but upon the tiger saying at once: “Yes, you pop in a hit at me, and see what you get from my guv’nor!” a slow grin spread over his unprepossessing countenance, and with an apologetic look at the Earl he went on harnessing the horses to the tilbury. Henry cast a professional eye over the buckles, and watched with considerable interest his master and Hinkson hoist the inanimate form of Jem Tyler into the tilbury, and cover it with a rug.

Hinkson gathered up the reins and said gruffly: “I won’t fail you, my lord.”

“No, because if you did you’d lose a fatter purse than you’ve ever fought for, or ever will!” retorted Henry.

“And when all’s clear,” said Hinkson, settling himself on the box-seat, and addressing the tiger, “I shall come back into this yard and wring your skinny neck, my lad!” With which he jerked the reins, and drove out of the yard into the alley.

The Earl watched him go, and turned to look down at his tiger. “You know me, don’t you, Henry? One word of this on your tongue and it is I who will wring your neck, long before Hinkson has the chance of doing it. OS with you now!”

“And I’d let you, guv’nor, which is more than what I would that lump o’ lard!” replied Henry, unabashed.

An hour later Captain Audley went softly into the book-room and shut the door behind him. The Earl was writing at his desk, but he looked up and smiled faintly. Captain Audley glanced across at Peregrine’s still form. “Julian, are you quite sure—?”

“Perfectly.”

Captain Audley walked to the couch and bent over it. “It seems a damned shame,” he said, and straightened himself. “What have you done with the groom?”

“The groom,” said Worth, picking up a wafer and sealing his letter, “has been taken to a spot somewhere near Lancing, and shipped aboard a certain highly suspicious vessel bound for the West Indies. Whether he ever reaches his destination is extremely problematical, I imagine.”

“Good God, Worth, you can’t do that!”

“I have done it—or, rather, Hinkson has done it for me,” replied the Earl calmly.

“But Julian, the risk! What if Hinkson turns on you?”

“He won’t.”

“You’re mad!” Captain Audley exclaimed. “What should stop him?”

“You must think I choose my tools badly,” commented the Earl.

The Captain glanced towards Peregrine again. “I think you’re a damned cold-blooded devil,” he said.

“Possibly,” said Worth. “Nevertheless, I am sorry for the boy. But the date of his marriage being fixed was his death-warrant. He must be put out of the way, and really I think I have chosen quite as land a way of doing it as I could.”

“Yes, I know, and I see it had to be, but—well, I don’t like it, Julian, and there you have it! How I’m to face Judith Taverner with this on my conscience—”

“You can comfort yourself with the reflection that it is not on your conscience at all, but on mine,” interrupted the Earl.

“She is going to the Pavilion to-night,” said Captain Audley inconsequently.

“Yes, and so am I,” replied the Earl. “Do you go too, or do you propose to sit and mourn over Peregrine’s plight?”

“Oh, be quiet, Julian! I suppose I must go, but I tell you frankly I feel little better than a murderer!”

“In that case you would be wise to order dinner to be put forward,” recommended the Earl. “You will feel better when you have eaten and drunk.”

“How are you going to get him out of the house?” asked the Captain, looking towards the couch again.

“Very simply. Evans will come in by the back way and I shall give the boy over to him. He will do the rest.”

“Well, I hope to God it does not all fail!” said Captain Audley devoutly.

But no hitch occurred in the Earl’s plans. At eleven o’clock a plain coach drove unobtrusively into the alley, and a couple of sturdy-looking men got out, and softly entered the yard through the unlocked gate. No one was stirring above the stables, and the men made no sound as they went up the iron steps to the back door. It was opened to them by the Earl, who had changed his cloth coat and pale yellow pantaloons for knee-breeches, and a satin coat. He pointed silently to the book-room. Five minutes later he had seen Peregrine’s limp body, wrapped round in a frieze cloak, put into the coach, and had returned to the house, and locked the back door. Then he examined the set of his cravat in the mirror that hung in the hall, picked up his hat and gloves and walked out of the house, across the Steyne to the Pavilion.