Regency Buck Page 7

‘Yes, indeed,’ she responded. ‘Though I have seen very little yet. Only some of the shops, and the wild beasts at the Exeter Exchange, which Perry took me to yesterday.’

  He laughed. ‘Well, that is a beginning, at any rate.’ He glanced at Mrs Scattergood, who was joining in the conversation between the Admiral and Peregrine, and lowered his voice. ‘You have a lady of quality to live with you, I see. That is just as it should be. I had not had the pleasure before to-day of meeting her, but she is known to me a little by repute. I believe her consequence to be very just. You are fortunate.’

  ‘We like her extremely,’ Judith replied in her calm way.

  ‘And Peregrine, I perceive, has been busy,’ he said, the smile returning to lurk in his eyes. ‘Will you be offended with me if I confess I looked twice before I recognised in him the young gentleman I met in Grantham?’

  There was a twinkle in her own eyes. ‘At us both, perhaps, sir?’

  ‘No,’ he replied seriously. ‘I should always recognise you, cousin.’ He became aware of the Admiral at his elbow wanting to claim Judith’s attention, and rose at once. ‘I beg pardon, sir. You were speaking?’

  ‘Oh, you are pleased to be aground there, my boy, I don’t doubt!’ said his father, poking a finger at his ribs. ‘I was saying, my dear, it’s a thousand pities young Perry here wasn’t put into the Navy. That’s the life for you youngsters – ay, and that goes for you too, Bernard. With this war, you know, any likely fellow may make his fortune at sea. Damme, if I was but twenty years younger there’s nothing would suit me better than to be commanding a snug little frigate to-day! But that’s how it is with the young men nowadays! All of them as shy as be-damned of venturing a mile from town!’

  ‘Come, come, sir, that won’t do!’ protested Mrs Scattergood. ‘I am sure it is quite dreadful only to think of all the officers gone off to that horrid Peninsular, and here are you saying young men won’t stir out of town! I could name you a dozen charming creatures gone off to be murdered by the French. I myself have a young relative’ – she nodded at Judith – ‘Worth’s brother, you know – Charles Audley – the most delightful, audacious wretch – who is there now.’

  ‘Oh, the Army! We do not count the Army, I can tell you, ma’am,’ said the Admiral. ‘Why, what do they know of the matter, playing at war as they do? They should have been with us in the Trafalgar action! Ay, that was real fighting!’

  ‘You are not serious, sir,’ interposed his son. ‘They have seen some hard fighting in Spain.’

  He spoke quietly, but with a decided air of reproof, fixing his expressive eyes on his father’s face. The Admiral looked a little confounded, but laughed it off. He had nothing to say against the fellows in the Army; he had no doubt they were a very good set of men; all he meant was they had better have gone to sea.

  It was evident from his remarks that the Admiral had less than common sense. Miss Taverner, glancing from him to his son, detected a look of contempt in the latter’s face. She was sorry for it, yet could scarcely blame him. To relieve the awkwardness of the moment she turned to the Admiral, and began talking to him of the Trafalgar action.

  He was pleased enough to tell it all to her, but his account, concerned as it was merely with his own doings upon that momentous day and interspersed with a great many oaths and coarse expressions, could be of little interest to her. She wanted to be hearing of Lord Nelson, who had naturally been the hero of her school-days. It was her uncle’s only merit in her eyes that he must actually have spoken with the great man, but she could not induce him to describe Nelson in any other than the meanest terms. He had not liked him, did not see that he had been so very remarkable, never could understand what the women saw in him – a wispy fellow: nothing to look at, he gave her his word.

  Mr Taverner had moved to one of the windows with Peregrine, and was engaged in talking of horse-flesh with him. A servant came in with a message for Mrs Scatter good which took her away in a flutter of apologies and gauze draperies. The door had no sooner closed behind her than the Admiral’s conversation took an abrupt turn. Pulling his chair a little closer to Judith’s, he said in an under-voice: ‘I am glad she is gone. I daresay she is very well, but a poor little dab of a woman, ain’t she? You know, my dear, things are left very awkwardly. You won’t like to be in a stranger’s hands. And this fellow, Worth, to have the handling of your fortunes! I don’t like it. He’s a gamester, none too plump in the pocket, I was hearing. There’s no denying that was a cork-brained Will of your poor father’s. But I daresay he was not himself, hey?’

  Mr Taverner must have had remarkably acute hearing, for he turned his head sharply, looking very hard at his father, and before Judith was at the necessity of answering what she could only feel to be an impertinence, he had come across the room towards them, and said pleasantly: ‘Excuse me, sir, I think such a discussion must be painful to my cousin. Judith – I may venture? – I have been trying to engage Peregrine to give me the pleasure of his company at the play. May I hope that you and Mrs Scattergood will also honour me? I think you have not visited the theatre yet.’ He smiled down at her. ‘May mine be the privilege of escorting you to your first play? What shall it be? There’s Kemble and Mrs Siddons at Covent Garden, or Bannister at Drury Lane, if your taste should be for comedy. You have only to name it.’

  Her cheeks glowed with pleasure. She thanked him, and accepted, choosing, to Peregrine’s disgust, the tragedy. Her uncle was still busy congratulating his son on his good fortune in having secured such a beauty to be his guest when the door opened, and the butler announced the Earl of Worth.

  Miss Taverner, taken quite by surprise, exchanged a swift glance with her brother, and began to instruct the butler to convey their excuses to his lordship. It was too late, however; the Earl must have followed the servant up the stairs, for he entered the room while the words of denial were on Judith’s lips.

  He certainly heard them, but he gave no other sign of having done so than a faint curl of his lips. His coldly appraising gaze took in the company; he bowed slightly, and said in his languid voice that he was fortunate to have found his wards at home.

  Judith was obliged to present her uncle and cousin.

  The Earl’s visit could not have been worse-timed: she cared nothing for his opinion, but to introduce the Admiral to him must still be a mortification. She fancied she could perceive a look of disdain in his face, and it was with relief that she brought her cousin to his notice. There at least she had nothing to be ashamed of.

  A few civilities were exchanged, the Earl bearing his part in these with a formality that set off Mr Taverner’s easier, more open manners to advantage. A silence, which the Earl made no effort to break, soon fell, and while Judith was trying to think of something to say, and wishing that Mrs Scattergood would come back into the room, her cousin, with what she must feel to be instinctive good taste, reminded the Admiral that they had another engagement in the neighbourhood, and should be taking their leave.

  The bell was pulled, the footman came up to usher the visitors out, and in a few minutes they were gone.

  The Earl, who had been calmly inspecting Judith through his eye-glass, let it fall, and said: ‘I see you have been taking my advice, Miss Taverner.’ He glanced round the room. ‘Is this house to your liking? It seems to be rather above the general run of furnished houses.’

  ‘Have you not been inside it before?’ she demanded.

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ he said, raising his brows. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘I thought it was you who –’ she broke off, cross with herself at having said so much.

  ‘Oh no,’ he replied.‘Blackader chose it.’ He turned his head to look at Peregrine, and an expression of pain crossed his features. ‘My good boy, are you emulating the style of Mr Fitzjohn and his associates, or is that monstrous erection round your neck due merely to the clumsiness of your valet?’

  ‘I was in a hurry,’ said Peregrine defensively, and reddening in spite of himself.

&nb
sp; ‘Then do not be in a hurry again. Cravats are not to be tied in an instant. I hear you bought Scrutton’s bay mare at Tattersall’s.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Peregrine.

  ‘I thought you would,’ murmured his lordship.

  Peregrine looked suspicious, but judged it wiser not to ask the meaning of this somewhat cryptic remark.

  The Earl’s gaze returned to Miss Taverner. He said softly:‘You should ask me to sit down, you know.’

  Her lips quivered: she could not but appreciate his lordship’s methods. ‘Pray be seated, sir!’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Taverner, but I do not stay. I came only to discuss your affairs with Peregrine,’ said Worth with marked politeness.

  It was too absurd; she had to laugh. ‘Very well, sir. I understand there is nothing to be done with my father’s unfortunate Will.’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ he said. ‘You had better accept me with a good grace. You will only be made to appear ridiculous if you don’t, you know.’ Then, as she stiffened, he laughed, and putting out his hand tilted her face up with one careless finger under her chin. ‘Poor Beauty in distress!’ he said. ‘But the smile was all that I hoped it might be.’ He turned. ‘Now, Peregrine, if you please.’

  They went out of the room together, nor did she again set eyes on the Earl that day. Peregrine came running up the stairs half an hour later, and finding his sister with Mrs Scattergood, who was deep in the pages of a fashion journal, he announced impetuously that he rather thought they might do very well with Worth for their guardian.

  Judith looked warningly towards Mrs Scattergood, but Peregrine was not to be checked. He had very early in their acquaintanceship insinuated himself into that lady’s good graces, and treated her already with a marked lack of respect, and a good deal of affection. ‘Oh, Cousin Maria don’t give a fig for Worth!’ he said airily. ‘But he has been talking to me, and I can tell you something, Judith, he don’t mean to keep too tight a hold on the purse-strings. I fancy we shall have no trouble with him at all. Cousin Maria, do you think Worth will trouble us?’

  ‘No, indeed, why should he? My love, I read here that strawberries crushed on the face and left all night will clear sunburn and give a delicate complexion. I wonder whether we should try it? You know, you have just the suspicion of a freckle, Judith. You will always be going out in the sun and wind, and my dear, nothing is so destructive of female charms as contact with fresh air.’

  ‘My dear ma’am, where will you find strawberries at this season!’ said Miss Taverner, amused.

  ‘Very true, my love; I was forgetting. Then it must be the Denmark Lotion after all. I wish you will buy some, if you mean to drive with Perry.’

  Judith promised and went away to put on her hat and her gloves. When she drove out presently alone with her brother, she spoke to him seriously of their guardian. ‘I cannot like him, Perry. There is something in his eyes, a hardness, a – mocking look – which I don’t trust. There is a lack of civility, too – oh, worse! His whole manner, his being so familiar with me – with us! It is very bad. I don’t understand him. He would have us think that he wanted to be our guardian as little as we wished to be his wards, and yet is it not odd that he should busy himself so particularly with our affairs? Even Mrs Scattergood thinks it strange he should not be content to let the lawyers settle everything. She says she has never known him to exert himself so much as he does now.’

  Thus Miss Taverner, in a mood of disquiet.

  The Earl, however, seemed to be in no hurry to repeat his call. They saw nothing of him for some days, though their visitors were many. Lady Sefton came with one of her daughters, and Mr Skeffington, a very tall thin man with a painted face and a yellow waistcoat. He was lavishly scented, which set the Taverners instantly against him, and talked a great deal about the theatre. There did not seem to be an actor alive with whom he was not on terms of intimacy. They discovered later that he had written some plays himself, and even produced them. His manners were particularly gentle and pleasing, and it was not very long before the Taverners were quite won over to him. He was so kind one must forgive the paint and the scent.

  Lady Sefton had to be liked also; and Mrs Scattergood assured her charges that neither she nor her popular husband had an enemy in the world.

  Lady Jersey, another of the all-powerful patronesses of Almack’s, came with Mrs Drummond-Burrell, a lady of icy good-breeding, who said little and looked to be insufferably haughty. Lady Jersey seemed to be very good-natured in her restless way. She talked incessantly throughout her short visit, and fidgeted with anything that came in the way of her fluttering hands. Getting into her carriage again when the call was over, she said:‘Well, my dear, I think – don’t you? – a charming girl? Quite beautiful! And of course the fortune! They tell me eighty thousand at the very least! We shall see all the fortune-hunters at work!’ She gave her fairy-laugh. ‘Alvanley was telling me poor dear Wellesley Poole has left his card in Brook Street already.Well, I am sure I wish the girl a good husband. I think her quite out of the common.’

  Mrs Drummond-Burrell slightly shrugged her shoulders, ‘Farouche,’ she said in her cold way. ‘I detest provincials.’

  It was unfortunate for Miss Taverner that this judgment should soon be endorsed by another. Mr John Mills, who was called the Mosaic Dandy, went from curiosity to pay a morning call in Brook Street, and came away to spread the news through town that the new beauty might better be known as the Milkmaid. His manners had not pleased Miss Taverner. He was affected, talked with a great air of conceit, and put on so much insolent condescension that she was impelled to give him a sharp set-down.

  Mrs Scattergood admitted the provocation, but was worried over it. ‘I don’t like the creature – I believe no one does. Brummell hates him, I know – but there’s no denying, my love, he has a tongue, and can make mischief. I hope he may not try to ruin you.’

  But the nickname he had bestowed on Miss Taverner was sufficiently apt to catch the fashionable fancy. Mr Mills declared that no gentleman of taste would admire such a blowsy prettiness. A great many people who had been doubtful whether to approve or condemn Judith (for her frank, decided manners were something quite new, only to be tolerated in persons of rank) were at once convinced that she was pert and presuming. Some snubs were dealt her, the throng of would-be admirers began to lessen, and more than one lady of fashion turned her shoulder.

  The nickname came to Judith’s ears, and made her furious. That any dandy should have it in his power to sway public opinion was not to be borne. When she discovered the extent of the harm he had worked she was not dismayed or tearful, but on the contrary eager for war. She would not change her manners to suit a dandy’s taste; she would rather force Society to accept her in the teeth of them all, Brummell included.

  It was in such a dangerous mood that she set out with her brother and Mrs Scattergood to make her first appearance at Almack’s. Lady Jersey, adhering, even in the face of Mrs Drummond-Burrell’s expressed disapproval, to her original opinion, had sent the vouchers: the most important door into Society was open to Miss Taverner. It must be for her, Mrs Scattergood said urgently, to do the rest.The door might yet close.

  Privately, she thought the girl’s looks should carry the day. Judith, in a ball dress of white crêpe with velvet ribbons spangled with gold, and her hair in a myriad of loose curls confined by a ribbon with a bow over her left eye, was a vision to please even the most exacting critic. If only she would be a little conciliating!

  The evening began badly. Mrs Scattergood was so much taken up with her own and Judith’s toilet that she had no glance to spare for Peregrine. It was not until the carriage that bore all three of them was half-way to King Street that she suddenly discovered him to be wearing long pantaloons tightly strapped under his shoes.

  She gave a muffled shriek. ‘Perry! Good God, was there ever anyone more provoking? Peregrine, how dared you put those things on? Oh, you must stop the carriage at once! No one – no one, do you understand?
– not the Prince Regent himself ! is admitted to Almack’s in pantaloons! Knee-breeches, you stupid, tiresome boy! You will ruin everything. Pull the checkstring this instant! We must set you down.’

  It was vain for Peregrine to argue; he did not realise how inflexible were the rules at Almack’s; he must go home and change his dress – and even that would not do if he came to Almack’s one minute after eleven: he would be turned away.

  Judith broke into laughter, but her afflicted chaperon, bund ling Peregrine out into the street, assured her it was no laughing matter.

  But when the two ladies at last arrived at Almack’s it did not seem to Judith that the club was worth all this to-do. There was nothing remarkable. The rooms were spacious, but not splendid; the refreshments, which consisted of tea, orgeat, and lemonade, with cakes and bread and butter, struck Miss Taverner as being on the meagre side. Dancing, and not cards, was the object of the club; no high stakes were allowed, so that the card-room contained only the dowagers, and such moderate gentlemen as were content to play whist for sixpenny points.

  Lady Sefton, Princess Esterhazy, and Countess Lieven were the only patronesses present. The Austrian ambassador’s wife was a little roundabout lady of great vivacity; Countess Lieven, reputed to be the best-dressed and most knowledgeable lady in London, looked to be clever, and almost as proud as Mrs Drummond-Burrell. Neither she nor the Princess were acquainted with Mrs Scattergood, and beyond staring with the peculiar rudeness of the well-bred at Miss Taverner, she at least took no further interest in her. The Princess went so far as to demand of her partner, Sir Henry Mildmay, who the Golden Rod might be, and upon hearing her name, laughed, and said rather audibly: ‘Oh, Mr Mills’s Milkmaid!’

  It was left for Lady Sefton to come forward, which indeed she did, as soon as she perceived the new arrivals. Several persons were presented to Miss Taverner, and she presently found herself going down the dance with Lord Molyneux, her ladyship’s son.

  She had not heard Princess Esterhazy’s comment, but she had caught the expressive look that went with it. There was an angry lump in her throat; her eyes were more than usually brilliant. She looked magnificent, but so stern that she put Lord Molyneux in a panic. The sight of Mr John Mills in conversation with a lady by one of the windows did nothing to soften Miss Taverner’s mood. Lord Molyneux felt nothing but relief when the dance came to an end, and having led her to a chair against the wall escaped on the pretext of procuring a glass of lemonade for her.