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 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 had 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.’
He took her empty glass of lemonade from her, and set it down. ‘He should count himself fortunate to possess such a sister.’ He picked up her shawl, and placed it carefully round her shoulders. ‘There is something I must say to you, Judith. In your own house Mrs Scattergood is always beside you; I can never get you alone. Will you walk out with me into the garden? It is a very mild night; I do not think you can take a chill.’
Her heart sank; she replied in a little confusion: ‘I had rather – that is, there can be no occasion for that degree of privacy, cousin, surely.’
‘Do not refuse me!’ he said. ‘Do you not owe me this much at least, that I should be allowed five minutes alone with you?’
‘I owe you a great deal,’ she said. ‘You have been all that is kind, but I beg you to believe that no purpose can be served by – by what you suggest.’
They were standing in one of the rooms adjoining the ballroom, and since another set was forming there no one but themselves now remained in the smaller apartment. Mr Taverner glanced round, and then clasping Judith’s hand, held it fast between both of his, and said: ‘Then let me speak now, for I can no longer be silent! Judith – dearest, sweetest cousin! – is there to be no hope for me? You do not look at me! you turn your head away! God knows I have little enough to offer you: nothing indeed but a heart that has been wholly your own from the first moment of setting eyes on you! Your circumstances and mine – alas, so widely apart! – have held me silent, but it will not do! I cannot continue so, be the event what it may! I have been forced to see others soliciting what I have not dared to ask. But it has grown to be more than a man may bear! Judith, I entreat you, look at me!’
She did contrive to raise her eyes to his face, but it was with considerable agitation that she answered: ‘I beg of you to say no more! Dear cousin, for your friendship I am and shall always be grateful, but if I have (unwittingly, believe me) led you to suppose that tenderer sentiments –’ Her voice became totally suspended; she made a gesture, imploring him to say no more.
‘How could I – how could any man – know you and not love you? I cannot offer you a title, I cannot offer you wealth –’
She recovered her voice enough to say: ‘That would not weigh with me if my affections had been touched! I give you pain: forgive me! But it can never be. Let us not speak of it again!’
‘Once before I asked you if there were another man.You told me “No”, and I believe it was true then. But now! Now could you return that answer?’
A deep flush suffused her cheeks. ‘You have no right to ask me such a question,’ she said.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘I have no right, but this I must and will say, Judith! – No man, I care not who he may be, can feel for you what I do! While Worth continues to be your guardian I know well that you will never be permitted to marry me, but in a very little while now you will be free, and no considerations of that –’
‘My refusal has nothing to do with Worth’s wishes!’ she said quickly. ‘I should desire always to be your friend; I esteem and value you as a cousin, but I cannot love you! Do not tease me further, I beg of you! Come, may we not remain good friends?’
He controlled himself with a strong effort, and after looking steadily into her face for a moment or two, raised her hand to his lips, and passionately kissed it.
A very dry voice said immediately behind them: ‘You will forgive me for intruding upon you, Miss Taverner, I trust.’
Miss Taverner snatched her hand away and turned. ‘Lord Worth! You – you startled me!’
‘Evidently,’ he said. ‘I am charged with the office of finding you. Your carriage is spoken for, and Mrs Scattergood grows anxious.’
‘Thank you. I will come at once,’ she murmured. ‘Good night, cousin!’
‘Will you not let me take you back to Mrs Scattergood?’ he asked quietly.
She shook her head. She was still sadly out of countenance, and it was quite meekly that she laid her hand on the Earl’s proffered arm, and allowed him to lead her away. Once out of earshot she managed to say, though in a very small voice: ‘I daresay it may have looked very particular to you, but you are quite mistaken.’
‘In what?’ said the Earl coldly.
‘In what you are thinking!’
‘If you are able to read my thoughts at this moment you must be very clever.’
‘You are the most disagreeable man I have ever met!’ said Miss Taverner, a break in her voice.<
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‘You have told me as much before, Miss Taverner, and my memory, I assure you, is peculiarly retentive. Console yourself with the reflection that in a short time now you will be able to forget my very existence.’
She said unsteadily: ‘I do not suppose that I look forward to that day more eagerly than you.’
‘I have never made any secret of the fact that my guardianship of you has been irksome in the extreme. But do not anticipate too much, Miss Taverner. You are still my ward. These affecting passages with your cousin would be better postponed.’
‘If you imagine I have – I have an understanding with Mr Bernard Taverner you are wrong!’ she said. ‘I am not going to marry him!’
He looked down at her, and it seemed for a moment as though he was about to say something. Then Mrs Scattergood came up to them, and the opportunity was lost. He escorted both ladies out to their carriage, and it was only at parting that Miss Taverner could trust her voice sufficiently to say: ‘I have been wanting to thank you, Lord Worth, for giving your consent to Peregrine’s marriage.’
‘You have nothing to thank me for,’ he replied rather curtly, and bowed, and stood back to let the carriage move forward.
Nineteen
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 up 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 horses, 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 st
ables 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.