Regency Buck (30 page)

Peregrine was vexed. He coloured and said in a displeased voice: “My cousin is a great deal too busy! What concern of his are my affairs?”

“But Perry, is it true, then? Do you owe money to Lord Worth? I had not thought it to have been possible?”

“No such thing. I wish you will not bother your head about me!”

“Bernard said he had it from one who was present.”

“Lord! cannot you let it be? I did play macao at Worth’s table, but I don’t owe him anything.”

“Bernard said Lord Worth has vowels of yours amounting to four thousand pounds.”

“Bernard said! Bernard said!” exclaimed Peregrine angrily. “I can tell you, I don’t care to recall that affair! Worth behaved in a damned unpleasant fashion—as though it were anything extraordinary that a man with my fortune should drop a few thousands at a sitting!”

“That he—your guardian—should win such a sum from you!”

“Oh, do not be talking of it for ever, Judith! Worth tore up my vowels, and that is all there is to it.”

She was conscious of a feeling of relief out of proportion to the event. The loss of four thousand pounds would not be likely to cause Peregrine embarrassment, but that Worth should win considerable sums of money from him shocked her. She had not believed him capable of such impropriety: she was happy to think that he had not been capable of it.

The visit to Osterley Park passed very pleasantly, and the Taverners returned to London again midway through February with the intention of remaining there until the Brighton season commenced. Nothing was much changed in town; no new diversions were offered; no startling scandal had cropped up to provide a topic for conversation. It was the same round of balls, assemblies, card-parties, theatres; with concerts of Ancient Music in Hanover Square, or a visit to Bullock’s Museum, just opened in Piccadilly, for those of a more serious turn of mind. The only novelty was supplied by Mr. Brummell, who created a slight stir by the announcement that he was reforming his way of life. Various were the conjectures as to what drastic changes this might mean, but when he was asked frankly what his reforms were he replied in his most ingenuous manner: “My reforms—ah, yes! For instance, I sup early; I take a—a little lobster, an apricot puff, or so, and some burnt champagne about twelve, and my man gets me to bed by three.”

The Duke of Clarence, after one more attempt to win Miss Taverner, returned to the siege of Miss Tylney Long, but in the clubs his chances of success were held to be slim, the lady having begun to show signs of favouring Mr. Wellesley Poole’s suit.

At the beginning of March all other subjects of interest faded before a new and scintillating one. One name was on everybody’s lips, and no drawing-room could be found without a copy of
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
lying upon the table. Only two cantos of this work had been published, but over these two everyone was in raptures. Lord Byron, sprung suddenly into fame, was held to have eclipsed all other poets, and happy was the hostess who could secure him to add distinction to her evening party. He had been taken up by the Melbourne House set; Lady Caroline Lamb was known to be madly in love with him, as well she might, for surely never had such beauty, such romantic mystery clung to a poet before.

“Confound this fellow Byron!” said Captain Audley humorously. “Since
Childe Harold
came out none of you ladies will so much as spare a glance for the rest of us less gifted mortals!”

“Do not level that accusation at my head, if you please,” replied Miss Taverner, smiling.

“I am sure if I have heard you murmur raptly: ‘
Adieu, adieu! my native shore Fades o’er the waters blue
’
once, I must have heard you murmur it a dozen times! Do you know that we are all of us growing white-haired in the endeavour to be poets too?”

“Ah, his poetry! I could listen to that for ever, but pray do not confuse my admiration for that with a partiality for his lordship. I have met him at Almack’s. I will allow him to be as handsome as you please, but he has such an air of pride and puts on so much melancholy grandeur that it gave me quite a disgust of him. He fixes his brilliant gaze upon one, bows, speaks two words in a cold voice, and that is all! It put me out of patience to see everyone flock about him, flattering, admiring, hanging on his lips. Only fancy! he was asked to dine in St. James’s Place with Mr. Rogers himself, came late, refused every course that was offered, and ended by dining on potatoes mashed up with vinegar, to the astonishment, as you may imagine, of all. I heard it from one who was present, and who seemed to be much struck. For my part I think it a piece of studied affectation, and cannot smile at it.”

“Excellent! I am delighted,” said the Captain. “I need not try to emulate his lordship, I see.”

She laughed. “Emulate such genius! No one could do that, I am sure. You must know that my abuse of Lord Byron has its root in pique. He barely noticed me! You will not expect me to do him justice after
that
!”

Lord Byron continued to obsess the thoughts of Society.

His connection with Lady Caroline was everywhere talked over, and exclaimed at; his verses and his person extravagantly extolled: even Mrs. Scattergood, who was not bookish, was able to repeat two or three consecutive lines of
Childe Harold
.

Peregrine, as might be supposed, was not much interested in his lordship. He had thrown off his cough, seemed to be in good health, and had only two things to vex him: the first, that Worth could not be prevailed upon to consent to his wedding-date being fixed; the second, that not even Mr. Fitz-john would put his name up for membership to the Four-Horse Club. This select gathering of all the best whips met the first and third Thursdays in May and June in Cavendish Square, and drove in yellow-bodied barouches to Salt Hill at a strict trot. There the members dined, either at the Castle, or the Windmill, having previously lunched at Turnham Green, and refreshed at the Magpies on Hounslow Heath. The return journey was made the next day, without change of horses. Judith could not see that there was anything very remarkable in the club’s performance, but for fully two months the sum of Peregrine’s ambition was to have the right to join that distinguished procession to Salt Hill, driving the bay horses, which (though the colour was not absolutely enforced) were very much
de rigueur
.
He could never see Mr. Fitzjohn in the club’s uniform without a pang, and would have given all his expensive waistcoats in exchange for a blue one with inch-wide yellow stripes.

“No, really, my dear Perry, I can’t do it!” said Mr. Fitzjohn, distressed. “Besides, if I did, who should we get to second you? Peyton wouldn’t, and Sefton wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t have asked me to put you up if you could have got Worth to do it.”

“I am pretty well acquainted with Mr. Annesley,” said Peregrine. “Don’t you think he might second me?”

“Not if he has seen you with a four-in-hand,” said Mr. Fitzjohn brutally. “Anyway, you’d be blackballed, dear old fellow. Try the Bensington: I believe they are not near so strict, and there’s no knowing but they may have a vacancy.” But this would by no means satisfy Peregrine; it must be the F.H.C. or nothing for him.

“The fact of the matter is,” said Mr. Fitzjohn frankly, “you can’t drive, Perry. I will allow you to be a bruising rider, but I wouldn’t sit behind you driving a team for a hundred pounds! Cow-handed, dear boy! cow-handed!”

Peregrine bristled with wrath, but his sister broke into low laughter, and later reproduced the expression, which had taken her fancy, to her guardian. She came up with his curricle when she was driving her phaeton in the Park, and drawing up alongside, said prettily: “I have been wishing to meet you, Lord Worth. I have a favour to ask of you.”

His brows rose in surprise. “Indeed! What is it, Miss Taverner?”

She smiled. “You are not very gallant, sir. You must say: ‘Anything in my power I shall be happy to do for you’; or, more simply: ‘The favour is yours for the asking.’”

He replied in some amusement: “I mistrust you most when you are cajoling, Miss Taverner. What is this favour?”

“Why, only that you will contrive to get Perry elected to the Whip Club,” said Judith in her most dulcet voice.

“My instinct for danger seldom fails me,” remarked his lordship. “Certainly not, Miss Taverner.”

She sighed. “I wish you might. He can think of nothing else.”

“Recommend him to approach his friend Fitzjohn.
He
might put him up, even though
I
shall blackball him.”

“You are very disagreeable. Mr. Fitzjohn is as bad. He says Perry is cow-handed.”

“I imagine he might, but I can see no need for you to use the expression.”

“Is it very vulgar?” inquired Judith. “I thought it excessively apt.”

“It is extremely vulgar,” said the Earl crushingly. “Well,” said Judith, preparing to drive on, “I am very glad I am not your daughter, Lord Worth, for you are a great deal too strict in your notions, I think.”

“My daughter!” exclaimed the Earl, looking thunderstruck. “Yes; are you surprised? You must know I should not like to have you for my father at all.”

“I am relieved to hear you say so, Miss Taverner,” said the Earl grimly.

Miss Taverner bit back a smile at having put him out of countenance, bowed, and drove on.

It was some time before Peregrine could recover from his disappointment, but by the middle of April his thoughts took a turn in another direction, and he began to urge Judith to approach Worth on the subject of their spending two or three months at Brighton. She was very willing; London, from the circumstance of the Regent having celebrated his birthday, on April 12th, at Brighton, was growing already rather thin of company; and from all she had heard they would be in danger of missing their chance of acquiring a suitable lodging at Brighton if they delayed much longer. It was arranged between them that if Worth gave his consent Peregrine would drive down with their cousin to arrange accommodation for a date early in May.

The Earl gave his consent with the utmost readiness, but contrived to provoke Miss Taverner. “Certainly. It will be very desirable for you to go out of town for the summer. I had fixed the 12th May as a convenient date, but if you like to go sooner I daresay it can be arranged.”

“
You
had fixed—!” repeated Miss Taverner. “Do you tell me you have already made arrangements for
out
going to Brighton?”

“Naturally. Who else should do so?”

“No one!” said Miss Taverner angrily. “It is for Peregrine and me to arrange! You did not so much as mention the matter to either of us, and we will not have our future arranged in this high-handed fashion!”

“I thought you wished to go to Brighton?” said the Earl. “I
am
going to Brighton!”

“Then what is all this bustle about?” inquired Worth calmly. “In sending Blackader to look over suitable houses there I have done nothing more than you wanted.”

“You have done a great deal more. Perry is going to drive down with my cousin to select a house!”

“He may as well spare himself the trouble,” replied Worth, “there are only two to be had, and I hold an option on both. You must know that houses in Brighton for the season are excessively hard to come by. Unless you wish to lodge in a back street, you will be satisfied with one of the two Blackader has found for you. One is on the Steyne, the other on the Marine Parade.” He looked at her for a moment, and then lowered his gaze. “I strongly advise you to choose the house on the Steyne. You will not like Marine Parade; the Steyne is a most eligible situation, in the centre of the town, within sight of the Pavilion—the hub of Brighton, in effect. I will tell Blackader to close with the owner. Thirty guineas a week is asked for the house, but taking into account the position it cannot be thought excessive.”

“I think it ridiculous,” said Miss Taverner instantly. “From what my cousin has told me I should infinitely prefer to lodge on the Marine Parade. To be situated in the centre of the town, in the midst of all the bustle, can be no recommendation. I will consult with my cousin.”

“I do not wish you to take the house on Marine Parade,” said the Earl.

“I am sorry to disoblige you,” said Miss Taverner, a martial light in her eye, “but you will have the goodness to instruct Mr. Blackader to hire that and no other house for us.”

The Earl bowed. “Very well, Miss Taverner,” he said.

Judith, who had anticipated a struggle, was left triumphant and bewildered. But the Earl’s unexpected compliance was soon explained. Captain Audley, meeting Miss Taverner in the Park, got up beside her in the phaeton, and said: “So you are to go to Brighton, Miss Taverner! My doctor recommends sea air for me: you will certainly see me there as well.”

“We go next month,” replied Judith. “We shall lodge on the Marine Parade.”

“Yes, I was present when Blackader came back from Brighton. The place will be full this summer. There were only two genteel houses to be had, and one was on the Steyne—no very eligible situation for you, Worth thought.”

Miss Taverner’s lips parted; she turned her eyes towards the Captain, and regarded him with painful intensity. “He wanted me to choose the other?” she demanded.

“Why, yes; I am sure he had no notion of your lodging on the Steyne. It is very smart, no doubt, but you would have your front windows for ever stared into, and all your comings and goings ogled by young bucks.”

“Captain Audley,” said Miss Taverner, controlling herself with a strong effort, “you must get down immediately, for I am going home.”

“Good God!” exclaimed the Captain, in lively dismay. “What have I said to offend you?”

“Nothing, nothing! It is only that I have remembered I have a letter to write which must be sent off without any loss of time.”

Within a quarter of an hour Miss Taverner was seated at her desk, furiously mending her pen, her gloves and scarf flung down on the floor beside her. The pen mended to her satisfaction, she dipped it in the standish, and drew a sheet of elegant, hot-pressed paper towards her. After that she sat nibbling the end of her pen while the ink slowly dried. At last she nodded briskly to herself, dipped the pen in the standish a second time, and began to write a careful letter to her guardian.