Regency Buck (16 page)

The Earl’s hand closed over his wrist, and the grip of his slender fingers made Peregrine wince. “Let them fall,” he said quietly.

Peregrine, who had caught up the torn notes, continued to clutch them in his prisoned hand. “I won’t! I lost the money in fair play, and I don’t choose to put myself under such an obligation to you! You are very good—extremely kind, I am sure—but I had rather lose my whole fortune than accept such generosity!”

“Let them fall,” repeated the Earl. “And do not flatter yourself that in destroying the notes I am trying to be kind to you. I do not choose to figure as the man who won over four thousand pounds from his own ward.”

Peregrine said sulkily: “I do not see what that signifies.”

“Then you must be very dull-witted,” returned the Earl. “I should warn you that my patience is by no means inexhaustible. Put those notes down!” He tightened his grip as he spoke. Peregrine drew in his breath sharply, and allowed the crumpled papers to fall back into the basket. Worth let him go. “What was it you wanted to say to me?” he asked calmly.

Peregrine swung over to the window, and stood staring blindly out, one hand fidgeting with the curtain-tassel. His whole pose suggested that he was labouring under a strong sensation of chagrin. The Earl sat and watched him, slight smile in his eyes. After a moment, as Peregrine seemed still to be struggling with himself, he got up and slipped off his dressing-gown, tossing it on to the bed. He strolled over to get his coat, and put it on. Having adjusted it carefully, flicked a speck of dust from his shining Hessians, and scrutinized his appearance critically in the long mirror, he picked up a Sevres snuff-box from his dressing-table, and said: “Come! we will finish this conversation downstairs.”

Peregrine turned reluctantly. “Lord Worth!” he began on a long breath.

“Yes, when we get downstairs,” said the Earl, opening the door.

Peregrine made a stiff little bow, and stood back for him to go first.

The Earl went in his leisurely fashion down the stairs, and led the way into a pleasant library behind the saloon. The butler was just setting a tray bearing glasses and a decanter on the table. He arranged these to his satisfaction, and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

The Earl picked up the decanter, and poured out two glasses of wine. One of them he held out to Peregrine. “Madeira, but if you prefer it I can offer you sherry,” he said.

“Thank you, nothing for me,” said Peregrine, with what he hoped was a fair imitation of his lordship’s own cold dignity.

Apparently it was not. “Don’t be stupid, Peregrine,” said Worth.

Peregrine looked at him for a moment, and then, lowering his gaze, took the glass with a murmured word of thanks, and sat down.

The Earl moved towards a deep chair with earpieces. “And now what is it?” he asked. “I apprehend it to be a matter of some importance, since it sends you looking all over town for me.”

His guardian’s voice being for once free from its usual blighting iciness, Peregrine, who had quite determined to go away without mentioning the business which had brought him, changed his mind, shot a swift, shy look at the Earl, and blurted out: “I want to talk to you on a—on a very delicate subject. In fact, marriage!” He gulped down half the wine in his glass, and took another look at the Earl, this time tinged with defiance.

Worth, however, merely raised his brows. “Whose marriage?” he asked.

“Mine!” said Peregrine.

“Indeed!” Worth twisted the stem of his wineglass between his finger and thumb, idly watching the light on the tawny wine. “It seems a trifle sudden. Who is the lady?”

Peregrine, who had been quite prepared to be met at the outset with a flat refusal to listen to him, took heart at this calm way of receiving the news, and sat forward in his chair. “I daresay you will not know her, sir, though I think you must know her parents, at least by repute.”

The Earl was in the act of raising his glass to his lips, but he lowered it again. “She has parents, then?” he asked, an inflection of surprise in his voice.

Peregrine stared. “Of course she has parents! What can you be thinking of?”

“Evidently of something quite different,” murmured his lordship. “But continue: who are these parents who are known to me by repute?”

“Sir Geoffrey and Lady Fairford,” said Peregrine, watching very anxiously to see how this disclosure would be met. “Sir Geoffrey is a member of Brook’s, I believe. They live in Albemarle Street, and have a place near St. Albans. He is a Member of Parliament.”

“They sound most respectable,” said Worth. “Pour yourself out another glass of wine, and tell me how long you have known this family.”

“Oh, a full month!” Peregrine assured him, getting up and going over to the table.

“That is certainly a period,” said the Earl gravely.

“Oh, yes,” said Peregrine, “you need not be afraid that I have just fallen in love yesterday. I am quite sure of my mind in this. A month is fully long enough for that.”

“Or a day, or an hour,” said the Earl musingly.

“Well, to tell you the truth,” confided Peregrine, reddening, “I was sure the instant I set eyes on Miss Fairford, but I waited, because I knew you would only say something cut—” He broke off in some confusion. “I mean—”

“Something cutting,” supplied the Earl. “You were probably right.”

“Well, I daresay you would not have listened to me,” said Peregrine defensively. “But now you must realize that it is perfectly serious. Only, from the circumstances of my being under age, Sir Geoffrey would have it that nothing could be in a way to be settled until your consent was gained.”

“Very proper,” commented the Earl.

“Sir Geoffrey will have no scruple in agreeing to it if you are not against it,” urged Peregrine. “Lady Fairford, too, is all complaisance. There is no objection
there
.”

The Earl threw him a somewhat scornful but not unkindly glance. “It would surprise me very much if there were,” he said.

“Well, have I your permission to address Miss Fairford?” demanded Peregrine. “It cannot signify to you in the least, after all!”

The Earl did not immediately reply to this. He sat looking rather enigmatically at his ward for some moments, and then opened his snuff-box, and meditatively took a pinch.

Peregrine fidgeted about the room, and at last burst out with: “Hang it, why should you object?”

“I was not aware that I had objected,” said Worth. “In fact, I have little doubt that if you are of the same mind in six months’ time I shall quite willingly give my consent.”

“Six months!” ejaculated Peregrine, dismayed.

“Were you thinking of marrying Miss Fairford at once?” inquired Worth.

“No, but we—I had hoped at least to be betrothed at once.”

“Certainly. Why not?” said the Earl.

Peregrine brightened. “Well, that is something, but I don’t see that we need wait all that time to be married. Surely if we were betrothed for three months, say—”

“At the end of six months,” said Worth, “we will talk about marriage. I am not in the mood today.”

Peregrine could not be satisfied, but having expected worse, he accepted it with a good grace, and merely asked whether the betrothal might be formally announced.

“It can make very little difference,” said the Earl, who seemed to be fast losing interest in the affair. “Do as you please about it: your prospective mother-in-law will no doubt inform all her acquaintance of it, so it may as well be as formal as you like.”

“Lady Fairford,” said Peregrine severely, “is a very superior woman, sir, quite above that sort of thing.”

“If she is above trying to secure a husband with an estate of twelve thousand pounds a year for her daughter she is unique,” said the Earl with a certain tartness.

Chapter IX

The betrothal was announced in the columns of the
Morning Post
,
and its most immediate effect was to bring Admiral Taverner to Brook Street with a copy of the paper under his arm, and an expression of strong indignation on his face. He wasted no time in civilities, and not even the presence of Mrs. Scattergood had the power to prevent him making known his mind. He demanded to know what they were all about to let Peregrine make such wretched work of his future.

“Miss Harriet Fairford!” he said. “Who is Miss Harriet Fairford? I thought it had not been possible when I read it. ‘Depend upon it,’ I said (for Bernard was with me), ‘Depend upon it, it is all a damned hum! The lad will not be throwing himself away on the first pretty face he sees.’ But you don’t speak; you say nothing! Is it true then?”

Miss Taverner begged him to be seated. “Yes, sir, it is quite true.”

The Admiral muttered something under his breath that sounded like an oath, and crumpling up the paper threw it into a corner of the room. “It does not signify talking!” he said. “Was there ever such an ill-managed business? D—n me, the boy’s no more than nineteen! He is not to be getting married at his age. Upon my soul, I wonder at Worth! But I daresay this is done without his knowledge?”

Miss Taverner was obliged to banish the gleam of hope in her uncle’s eyes by replying quietly that the betrothal had been announced with the Earl’s full consent.

The Admiral seemed to find this difficult to believe. He exclaimed at it, blessed himself, and ended by saying that he could not understand it. “Worth has some devilish deep game on hand!” he said. “I wish I knew what it may be! Married before he is twenty! Ay, that will mean the devil to pay and no pitch hot!”

Mrs. Scattergood, at no time disposed in the Admiral’s favour, shut up her netting-box at this, and said in a tone of decided reproof: “I am sure I do not know what you can mean, sir. Pray, what game should my cousin be playing? It is no bad thing, I can tell you, for a young man inclined to wildness to be betrothed to a respectable female such as Miss Fairford. It will steady him, and for my part I have not the least doubt She will make him a charming wife.”

The Admiral recollected himself. “Mean! Oh, d—n it, I don’t mean anything! I had forgot you were related to the fellow. But Perry with his fortune to be throwing himself away on a paltry baronet’s daughter! It is a pitiful piece of work indeed!”

He was evidently much put out, and Miss Taverner, guessing as she must the real reason behind his annoyance, could only be sorry to see him expose himself so plainly. She had no means of knowing what else he might have said, for the footman opening the door to announce another caller the conversation had to be abandoned.

This second visitor was none other than the Duke of Clarence, who came in with a smile on his good-humoured face, and a bluff greeting for both ladies.

Miss Taverner was distressed that he should have come when her uncle was sitting with her, but the Admiral’s manners when confronted by Royalty underwent a distinct change. If he did not, with his red face and rather bloodshot eyes, present a very creditable appearance, at least he said nothing during the Duke’s visit to mortify his niece. His civilities were too obsequious to please the nice tone of her mind, but the Duke seemed to find nothing amiss, so that she supposed him to be too much in the way of encountering such flattery to think it extraordinary. He stayed only half an hour, but his partiality for Miss Taverner, which he made no attempt to conceal, did not escape the Admiral’s notice. No sooner had the Duke made his bow, and gone off, than the Admiral said: “You did not tell me you was on such easy terms with Clarence, my dear niece. This is flying high indeed! But you will be very ill-advised to encourage
his
attentions, you know. Ay, you may colour up, but you won’t deny he is in a way to make you the object of his gallantry. But there is nothing to be hoped for in that quarter. These morganatic marriages are not for you. Nothing could be worse! Think of Mrs. Fitz-Herbert, gone off to live at Golders Green! Think of that poor creature Sussex married in Rome—and
she
was of better birth than you, my dear, but it was all annulled, and there she is, I don’t know where, with two children, and a beggarly allowance, quite cast-off!”

“Your warning, sir, is quite unnecessary,” said Miss Taverner coldly. “I have no intention of marrying the Duke of Clarence even if he should ask me—an event which I do not at all anticipate.”

The Admiral evidently felt that he had said enough. He begged pardon, and presently took himself off.

“Well, my love,” remarked Mrs. Scattergood, “I should not wish to be severe on a relative of yours, but I must say that I do not think the Admiral quite the thing.”

“I know it,” replied Miss Taverner.

“It is quite plain to me that he does not like to think of Perry with a nursery-full of stout children standing between him and the title. You must forgive me, my dear, but I do not perfectly know how things are left.”

“My uncle would inherit the title if Perry died without a son to succeed him, and also a part—only what is entailed, and it is very little—of the estate,” Judith answered. “It is I who would inherit the bulk of the fortune.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Scattergood thoughtfully. She seemed to be on the point of making some further remark, but changing her mind merely proposed their ordering the carriage and driving to a shop in Bond Street, where she fancied she would be able to match a particularly fine netting cotton.

Miss Taverner, having a book to change at Hookham’s Library, was quite agreeable, and in a short time both ladies set forth in an open barouche, the day (though it was November) being so extremely mild that even Mrs. Scattergood could not fear an inflammation of the lungs, or an injury to the complexion.

They arrived in Bond Street soon after two o’clock and found it as usual at that hour very full of carriages and smart company. Several tilburies and saddle-horses were waiting outside Stephen’s Hotel, and as Miss Taverner’s barouche passed the door of Jackson’s Boxing Saloon she saw her brother going in on Mr. Fitzjohn’s arm. She waved to him, but did not stop, and the carriage drawing up presently outside a haberdasher’s shop she set Mrs. Scattergood down and drove on to the library.