Regency Buck (37 page)

“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.”