Regency Buck Read online

  ‘I beg pardon – I do not wish to intrude, but there seems to be some muddle. I should be glad to place my rooms at your disposal, ma’am, if you would do me the honour of accepting them.’

  The man at her elbow looked to be between twenty-seven and thirty years of age. His manner proclaimed the gentleman; he had a decided air of fashion; and his countenance, without being handsome, was sufficiently pleasing. Judith sketched a curtsy. ‘You are very good, sir, but you are not to be giving up your rooms to two strangers.’

  He smiled. ‘No such thing, ma’am. We cannot tell but what my rooms should properly be yours. My friend and I –’ he made a slight gesture as though to indicate someone in the group behind him – ‘have acquaintances in the neighbourhood, and may readily command a lodging at Hungerton Lodge. I – rather I should say we – are happy to be of service.’

  There was nothing to do but thank him, and accept his offer. He bowed again, and withdrew to rejoin his friends. The landlord, relieved to be extricated from a difficult situation, led the way out of the coffee-room, and delivered his new guests into the care of a chamber-maid. In a very little time they found themselves in possession of two respectable apartments on the first floor, and had nothing further to do than to await the arrival of their trunks.

  It was one of Miss Taverner’s first concerns to discover the name of her unknown benefactor, but by the time she had seen her baggage bestowed, and arranged for a truckle-bed to be set up in the room for her maid, he had left the inn. The landlord did not know him; he had arrived only a few minutes before themselves; he was not an habitual traveller upon that road.

  Judith was disappointed, but had to be satisfied. There was no finding out in the crowd flocking to Grantham who one individual might be. She owned herself pleased with him. He had a well-bred air; the delicacy with which he had managed the whole business; his withdrawing just when he ought, all impressed her in his favour. She would not be sorry to make his better acquaintance.

  Peregrine agreed to his being a civil fellow, owned himself much beholden to him, would be glad to meet him again, thought it odds they must run across each other in the town, but was more immediately concerned with the means of getting to the scene of the fight next day. It was to be at This tleton Gap, some eight or more miles to the south-west of Grantham. A conveyance must be found; he would not go in his chaise: that was unthinkable. A curricle must be hired, or a gig, and before he could sit down to his dinner he must be off to see whether he could come by one.

  It was four o’clock, and Miss Taverner had not been used to fashionable hours. She would dine at once, and in her room. Sir Peregrine patted her shoulder, and said she would be more comfortable in her own room.

  Judith curled her lip at him. ‘Well, you like to think so, my dear.’

  ‘You couldn’t dine in the coffee-room,’ he assured her. ‘It may do very well for me, but for you it won’t answer.’

  ‘Go and find your curricle,’ said Judith, between amusement and exasperation.

  He needed no further encouragement; he was gone in a trice, nor did he return until after five o’clock. He came in then, highly elated, full of his good fortune. There was no coming by a curricle – no gentleman’s carriage to be had at all, but he had heard of a gig owned by some farmer, a shabby affair, scarce an inch of paint on it, but it would serve – and been off immediately to drive the bargain. The long and short of it was he had driven the gig back, and was ready now to do all that a brother should for his sister’s entertainment in taking her out to see ruins, or whatever else she chose. Dinner? Oh, he had eaten a tight little beefsteak in the coffee-room, and was entirely at her disposal.

  Miss Taverner could not but feel that with the town seething with sporting company, it was hardly the moment for an expedition, but she was heartily sick of her own room, and agreed to the scheme.

  The gig was found upon inspection to be not quite so bad as Peregrine described, but still, a shabby affair. Miss Taverner grimaced at it. ‘My dear Perry, I had rather walk!’

  ‘Walk? Oh, lord, I have had enough of that, I can tell you! I must have tramped a good mile already. Don’t be so nice, Ju! It ain’t what I’d choose, but no one knows us here.’

  ‘You had better let me drive,’ she remarked.

  But that, of course, would not do. If she thought she could drive better than he, she much mistook the matter. The brute was hard-mouthed, not a sweet-goer by any means, no case for a lady.

  They went down the main street at a sober pace, but once clear of the town Sir Peregrine let his hands drop, and they jolted away at a great rate, if not in the best style, bumping over every inequality in the road, and lurching round the corners.

  ‘Perry, this is insupportable,’ Judith said at last. ‘Every tooth rattles in my head! You will run into something. Do, I beg of you, remember that you are to take me to see the Roman castle! I am persuaded you are on the wrong road.’

  ‘Oh, I had forgot that curst castle!’ he said ruefully. ‘I was meaning to see which road I must take to-morrow – to Thistleton Gap, you know. Very well, very well, I’ll turn, and go back!’ He reined in the horse as he spoke, and began at once to turn, quite heedless of the narrowness of the road at this point, and the close proximity of a particularly sharp bend in it.

  ‘Good God, what will you do next?’ exclaimed Judith. ‘If anything were to come round the corner! I wish you would give me the reins!’

  She spoke too late. He had the gig all across the road, and seemed in danger of running into the ditch if his attention were distracted. She heard the sound of horses travelling fast and made a snatch at the reins.

  Round the corner swept a curricle-and-four at breakneck speed. It was upon them; it must crash into them; there could be no stopping it. Peregrine tried to wrench the horse round, cursing under his breath; Judith felt herself powerless to move. She had a nightmarish vision of four magnificent chestnuts thundering down on her, and of a straight figure in a caped overcoat driving them. It was over in a flash. The chestnuts were swung miraculously to the off; the curricle’s mudguard caught only the wheels of the gig, and the chestnuts came to a plunging standstill.

  The shock of the impact, though it was hardly more than a glancing scrape, startled the farmer’s horse into an attempt to bolt, and in another moment one wheel of the gig was in the shallow ditch, and Miss Taverner was nearly thrown from her seat.

  She righted herself, aware that her bonnet was crooked, and her temper in shreds, and found that the gentleman in the cur-ricle was sitting perfectly unmoved, easily holding his horses. As she turned to look at him he spoke, not to her, but over his shoulder to a diminutive tiger perched behind him. ‘Take it away, Henry, take it away,’ he said.

  Wrath, reproach, even oaths Miss Taverner could have pardoned. The provocation was great; she herself longed to box Peregrine’s ears. But this calm indifference was beyond every thing. Her anger veered irrationally towards the stranger. His manner, his whole bearing, filled her with repugnance. From the first moment of setting eyes on him she knew that she disliked him. Now she had leisure to observe him more closely, and found that she disliked him no less.

  He was the epitome of a man of fashion. His beaver hat was set over black locks carefully brushed into a semblance of disorder; his cravat of starched muslin supported his chin in a series of beautiful folds; his driving-coat of drab cloth bore no less than fifteen capes, and a double row of silver buttons. Miss Taverner had to own him a very handsome creature, but found no difficulty in detesting the whole cast of his countenance. He had a look of self-consequence; his eyes, ironically surveying her from under weary lids, were the hardest she had ever seen, and betrayed no emotion but boredom. His nose was too straight for her taste. His mouth was very well-formed, firm but thin-lipped. She thought it sneered.

  Worse than all was his languor. He was uninterested, both in having dexterously averted an accident, and in the gig’s plight. His driving had been magnificent; there must be unsus
pected strength in those elegantly gloved hands holding the reins in such seeming carelessness, but in the name of God why must he put on an air of dandified affectation?

  As the tiger jumped nimbly down on to the road Miss Taverner’s annoyance found expression in abrupt speech: ‘We don’t need your assistance! Be pleased to drive on, sir!’

  The cold eyes swept over her. Their expression made her aware of the shabbiness of the gig, of her own country-made dress, of the appearance she and Peregrine must present. ‘I should be very pleased to drive on, my good girl,’ said the gentleman in the cur-ricle, ‘but that apparently unmanageable steed of yours is – you may have noticed – making my progress impossible.’

  Miss Taverner was not used to such a form of address, and it did not improve her temper. The farmer’s horse, in its frightened attempts to drag the gig out of the ditch, was certainly plunging rather wildly across the narrow road, but if only Peregrine would go to its head instead of jobbing at it, all would be well. The tiger, a sharp-faced scrap of uncertain age, dressed in a smart blue and yellow livery, was preparing to take the guidance of matters into his own hands. Miss Taverner, unable to bear the indignity of it, said fiercely: ‘Sir, I have already informed you that we don’t need your help! Get down, Perry! Give the reins to me!’

  ‘I have not the slightest intention of offering you my help,’ said the exquisite gentleman, rather haughtily raising his brows. ‘You will find that Henry is quite able to clear the road for me.’

  And, indeed, by this time the tiger had grasped the horse’s rein above the bit, and was engaged in soothing the poor creature. This was very soon done, and in another minute the gig was clear of the ditch, and drawn up at the very edge of the road.

  ‘You see, it was quite easy,’ said that maddening voice.

  Peregrine, who had till now been too much occupied in trying to control his horse to take part in the discussion, said angrily: ‘I’m aware the fault was mine, sir! Well aware of it!’

  ‘We are all well aware of it,’ replied the stranger amicably. ‘Only a fool would have attempted to turn his carriage at this precise point. Do you mean to keep me waiting very much longer, Henry?’

  ‘I’ve said I admit the fault,’ said Peregrine, colouring hotly, ‘and I’m sorry for it! But I shall take leave to tell you, sir, that you were driving at a shocking pace!’

  He was interrupted somewhat unexpectedly by the tiger, who lifted a face grown suddenly fierce, and said in shrill Cockney accents: ‘You shut your bone-box, imperence! He’s the very best whip in the country, ah, and I ain’t forgetting Sir John Lade neither! There ain’t none to beat him, and them’s blood-chestnuts we’ve got in hand, and if them wheelers ain’t sprained a tendon apiece it ain’t nowise your fault!’

  The gentleman in the curricle laughed. ‘Very true, Henry, but you will have observed that I am still waiting.’

  ‘Well, lord love yer, guv’nor, ain’t I coming?’ protested the tiger, scrambling back on to his perch.

  Peregrine, recovering from his astonishment at the tiger’s outburst, said through his teeth: ‘We shall meet again, sir, I promise you!’

  ‘Do you think so?’ said the gentleman in the curricle. ‘I hope you may be found to be wrong.’

  The team seemed to leap forward; in another minute the cur-ricle was gone.

  ‘Insufferable!’ Judith said passionately. ‘Insufferable! ’

  Two

  TO ONE USED TO THE SILENCE OF A COUNTRY NIGHT SLEEP AT the George Inn, Grantham, on the eve of a great fight was almost an impossibility. Sounds of loud revelry floated up from the coffee-room to Miss Taverner’s bedchamber until an early hour of the morning; she dozed fitfully, time and again awakened by a burst of laughter below-stairs, voices in the street below her window, or a hurrying footstep outside her door. After two o’clock the noise abated gradually, and she was able at last to fall into a sleep which lasted until three long blasts on a horn rudely interrupted it at twenty-three minutes past seven.

  She started up in bed. ‘Good God, what now?’

  Her maid, who had also been awakened by the sudden commotion, slipped out of the truckle-bed, and ran to peep between the blinds of the window. She was able to report that it was only the Edinburgh mail, and stayed to giggle over the appearance presented by the night-capped passengers descend ing from it to partake of breakfast in the inn. Miss Taverner, quite uninterested, sank back upon her pillows, but soon found that peace was at an end. The house was awake, and beginning to be in a bustle. In a very short time she was glad to give up all attempt to go to sleep again, and get up.

  Peregrine was knocking on her door before nine o’clock. She must come down to breakfast; he was advised to start in good time for Thistleton Gap if he wanted to procure a good place, and could not be dawdling.

  She went down with him to the coffee-room. There were only a few persons there, the passengers on the Edinburgh mail having been whisked off again on their journey south, and the sporting gentlemen who had made so much uproar the evening before apparently preferring to breakfast in the privacy of their own apartments.

  As she had guessed, Peregrine had been of the company overnight. He had made the acquaintance of a set of very good fellows, though he could not recall their names at the moment, and had cracked a bottle with them. The talk had been all of the fight; his talk was still of it. He would back the Champion: Judith must know he had been trained by Captain Barclay of – of – he thought it was Ury, or some such queer name, but he could not be sure. At all events, he was the man who went on walking matches – she might have heard of him. It was said he had reduced Cribb to thirteen stone six pounds. Cribb was in fine fettle; he did not know about the Black, though there was no denying he could give Cribb four years. Cribb must be going on for thirty now. So it went on, while Judith ate her breakfast, and interpolated a yes or a no where it was required.

  Peregrine had no qualms about leaving her to her own devices for the morning: the town would be empty, and she might walk abroad with perfect propriety; need not even take her maid.

  Soon after he had finished his breakfast he was off, with a packet of sandwiches in one pocket and a bottle in the other. He had no difficulty in finding out the way: he had only to follow the stream of traffic a distance of eight miles. Everyone was bound for Thistleton Gap, in every conceivable kind of conveyance, from unwieldy coaches to farm-carts, and a great number, those who could not beg or buy a place in a wagon, afoot.

  Progress was necessarily slow, but at last the scene of the fight was reached, a stubble-field, not far from Crown Point. It seemed already thick with people. In the middle men were busily engaged in erecting a twenty-five-foot stage.

  Peregrine was directed to a quarter of the ground where the carriages of the gentry were to be ranged, and took up a position there, as close to the ring as he might. He had some time to wait before the fight was due to begin, but he was in a mood to be pleased, and found plenty to interest him in watching the gradually thickening crowd. The company was for the most part a rough one, but as midday approached the carriages began to outnumber the wagons. The only circumstances to mar Peregrine’s enjoyment were the facts of his having not one acquaintance amongst the Corinthians surrounding him, of his gig being out of the common shabby, and of his coat boasting no more than three modest capes. These were evils, but he forgot them when someone close to him said: ‘Here’s Jackson arrived!’

  Loneliness, coat and gig were at once nothing: here was Gentleman Jackson, one-time champion, now the most famous teacher of boxing in England.

  He was walking towards the ring with another man. As soon as he jumped up on to the stage the crowd set up a cheer for him, which he acknowledged with a smile and a good-humoured wave of his hand.

  His countenance was by no means prepossessing, his brow being too low, his nose and mouth rather coarse, and his ears projecting from his head; but he had a fine pair of eyes, full and piercing, and his figure, though he was over forty years of age, w
as still remarkable for its grace and perfect proportions. He had very small hands, and models had been made of his ankles, which were said to be most beautifully turned. He was dressed in good style, but without display, and he had a quiet, unassuming manner.

  He left the ring presently, and came over to speak with a redheaded man in a tilbury near to Peregrine’s gig. A couple of young Corinthians hailed him, and there was a great deal of joking and laughter, in which Peregrine very much wished that he could have joined. However, it would not be very long now, he hoped, before he, too, would be offering odds that he would pop in a hit over Jackson’s guard at their next sparring. And no doubt John Jackson would refuse to bet, just as he was refusing now, with that humorous smile and pleasant jest, that it would be no better than robbery, because everyone, even Sir Peregrine Taverner, who had never been nearer to London than this in his life, knew that none of his pupils had ever managed to put in a hit on Jackson when he chose to deny them that privilege.

  Jackson went back to join a group of gentlemen beside the ring in a few minutes, for he was to act as referee presently, and as usual had been put in charge of most of the arrangements. Peregrine was so busy watching him, and thinking about his famous sparring school at No. 13, Old Bond Street, and how he himself would be taking lessons there in a very short while, that he failed to notice the approach of a curricle-and-four, which edged its way in neatly to a place immediately alongside his own gig and there drew up.

  A voice said: ‘Starch is an excellent thing, but in moderation, Worcester, for heaven’s sake in moderation! I thought George had dropped a hint in your ear?’

  The voice was a perfectly soft one, but it brought Peregrine’s head round with a jerk, and made him jump. It belonged to a gentleman who drove a team of blood-chestnuts, and wore a greatcoat with fifteen capes. He was addressing an exquisite in an enormously high collar and neck-cloth, who coloured and said: ‘Oh, be damned to you, Julian!’