Regency Buck (22 page)

Taverner frowned. “I don’t entirely understand you, sir. I did not come here to insult you with accusations which must be absurd, but I think it will not be inopportune to assure you that I have the interests of my cousins very much at heart, and should not hesitate to serve either of them to the utmost of my power.”

“I am profoundly moved by your assurance, Mr. Taverner,” said the Earl, with an unpleasant smile, “but I cannot help feeling that you would be wiser to refrain from meddling in your cousins’ affairs.”

Taverner stiffened. “If I read you correctly, my lord, you mean rather that I should be wiser to refrain from meddling in your affairs.”

“Well, that is to put the matter very crudely,” said the Earl, still smiling. “Nevertheless, you do read me quite correctly. Those who meddle in my affairs do not prosper.”

“Please do not address threats to me, Lord Worth!” said Taverner quietly. “I am not to be frightened out of a proper regard for my cousins’ well-being.”

The Earl spoke so softly that no one but Taverner could catch his words. “Let me remind you, Mr. Taverner, that the well-being of your cousins does not lie in your hands, but in mine. You have been very assiduous in your attentions, but if you are cherishing dreams of a bridal, banish them. You will never marry Judith Taverner.”

Mr. Taverner’s hands clenched involuntarily. “I am grateful to you for showing me your hand so plainly, sir,” he said. “In my turn I would remind you that your jurisdiction over Miss Taverner expires within the year. It did not need this conversation to convince me that you are nursing designs which are as unscrupulous as they are shameless. Understand, if you please, that I am not to be cowed into standing out of your way.”

“As to that, Mr. Taverner, you will do as seems best to you,” said the Earl. “But you will bear in mind, I trust, that when I find an obstacle in my way I am apt to remove it.” This was said without heat, even blandly, and the Earl, not waiting to see how it was received, bowed slightly and walked away towards the parlour door.

Chapter XII

Not very long after the episode of his frustrated duel Peregrine went off to stay in Hertfordshire with the Fairfords, who removed from London early in December with the intention of spending some weeks in the country. The invitation was cordially extended to Miss Taverner as well, but she was obliged to decline it, having received just previously a very gratifying invitation to spend a week at Belvoir Castle with the Duke and Duchess of Rutland.

The Duchess, who had lately been on a visit to town, had made the acquaintance of Miss Taverner at Almack’s, Miss Taverner having been presented to her by Mr. Brummell, a close friend of the Rutlands. The Duchess remembered Miss Taverner’s father, seemed to be pleased with the daughter, kept her talking for some time, and ended by sending her, a few weeks later, an invitation to join a house-party at Belvoir.

Miss Taverner journeyed north in a private chaise, and arrived to find herself one of a distinguished company. Chief amongst the guests was the Duke of York, who had arrived a day previously. His visit being quite unexpected, some slight disturbance had been caused, for the Duke of Dorset had been allotted the rooms that were invariably kept for York, and had had to be dispossessed in a hurry. However, as it was quite an understood thing that York and Brummell should both have their particular apartments both at Belvoir and at Cheveley, his grace of Dorset acquiesced in the alteration, and was only glad that so notable a whist-player should have joined the party.

Frederick, Duke of York, was the second son of the King, and had been living for the last few years in a sort of retirement consequent upon the Clarke scandal. He had lately been reinstated as Commander-in-Chief, and at this present date, when Miss Taverner had the honour to be presented to him, he seemed to be in excellent spirits, and not at all the sort of man who could be suspected of selling Army promotions through the machinations of his mistress. He was nearing fifty, a tall, stout man, with a florid complexion and a prominent nose. He had a ready laugh, a kindly, inquisitive blue eye, and was easily amused. He was married to a Prussian princess from whom he lived apart on very excellent terms. The Duchess resided at Oatlands, where she led an eccentric but blameless existence, surrounded by as many as forty pet dogs of every imaginable breed. The Duke was used to bring down parties of his friends to spend the week-ends at Oatlands. The Duchess had not the least objection, and without making any change in her own manner of life, entertained her guests in a charming and unceremonious way that endeared her to everyone who knew her. No one was ever known to refuse an invitation to Oatlands, though the first visit there must always astonish, and even dismay. The park was kept for the accommodation of a collection of macaws, monkeys, ostriches, kangaroos; the stables were full of horses which were none of them obtainable for the use of the guests; the house swarmed with servants, whose business never seemed to be to wait on anyone; the hostess breakfasted at three in the morning, spent the night in wandering about the grounds, and was in the habit of retiring unexpectedly to a four-roomed grotto she had had made for herself in the park. Dinner was always at eight; the Duke never rose from the table till eleven, and when he did rise it was to play whist for five-pound points and twenty-five pounds on the rubber, until four in the morning.

The Duke, who never saw his wife except at Oatlands, had naturally not brought her with him to Belvoir. He was accompanied by Colonel Wyndham, a smart man-about-town, for whom the Duchess had an inordinate dislike.

The other guests, besides the Duke and Duchess of Dorset, consisted of what seemed at first sight to Miss Taverner an enormous number of ladies and gentlemen, most of whom were unknown to her. Lord and Lady Jersey, Mr. Brummell, and Lord Alvanley were her only acquaintances amongst them. She felt a little shy, and was not as displeased as she might otherwise have been when hardly an hour after her own arrival a chaise drove up and deposited Lord Worth on the doorstep.

She was bearing her part in a conversation with a very haughty young lady, who seemed to eye her with great superciliousness, when Worth entered the saloon with his hostess. She looked up, and seeing him was betrayed into a smile. He came at once towards her, his rather hard face softened, and having exchanged a word of greeting with her companion, sat down beside her sofa, and asked her how she did.

The haughty young lady, who was all flattering complaisance towards him, did what lay in her power to claim and keep his attention. Miss Taverner could not but be amused: the lady was so very anxious to please, the gentleman so politely unresponsive. But Mr. Pierrepoint came up presently, and took the lady away with him to inspect Mr. Brummell’s water-colour sketch of their hostess, and the Earl was left alone with his ward.

Miss Taverner had had time to reflect while Worth was engaged with Miss Crewe that he had not shown any surprise on meeting her. When Miss Crewe had walked off she asked him in her abrupt way whether he had expected to find her at Belvoir.

“Why, yes,” he replied. “I believe I was informed of it.”

The gleam in his eye made her suspect him strongly of having had some say in her being invited. She said: “Oh! I, on the other hand, had not the least notion of finding you here.”

“If you had you would not have come, I daresay.”

She raised her brows. “I hope I am not so prejudiced that I cannot be staying in the same house with you.”

“That is very encouraging,” said the Earl. “Do you know, I was presumptuous enough to think that you were quite glad to see me when I came in?”

She hesitated, and then said with a rueful smile: “Well, perhaps I was a little glad. I have been feeling rather strange amongst a set of company I don’t know. That lady—Miss Crewe, I think you call her—has been trying for the past twenty minutes to show me what a countrified nobody I am, and that, you know, when one knows it to be the melancholy truth, makes one feel sadly out of place.”

“You will have your revenge upon her if you mean to hunt to-morrow,” remarked the Earl. “She has the worst hands imaginable, and is generally off at the first fence.”

She laughed. “Yes, I do mean to hunt, but I hope I am not ill-natured enough to wish Miss Crewe a tumble. Shall you hunt also?”

“Certainly; to keep an eye on my ward.”

She put up her chin, a quizzical gleam in her eye. “I will give you a lead,” she promised.

He was amused. “Come, we begin to understand one another tolerably well,” he said. “How do you like your snuff?”

“To tell you the truth I don’t often take it,” confided Judith. “I only pretend.”

“You are in excellent company then, for you follow the Prince Regent. Let me see you take a pinch.”

She obeyed him, extracting from her reticule a gold box with enamelled plaques on the lid and sides.

He took it from her to inspect it more closely. “Very pretty. Where did you get it?”

“At Rundell and Bridge. I bought several there.”

He gave it back to her. “You have good taste.”

“Thank you,” said Judith. “To have earned the approval of so notable a connoisseur as yourself must afford me gratification.”

He smiled. “Do not be impertinent, Miss Taverner.”

She flicked open the box, and offered it to him. “You mistake me, Lord Worth: I was being civil—in your own manner.”

“You have not mastered the precise way of it,” he answered. “No, don’t offer your box to me; it is not a mixture that I like.”

“Indeed! How odd!” said Miss Taverner, raising a pinch to one nostril with a graceful turn of her wrist. “I do not like it either.”

“That is probably because you have drenched it with Vinagrillo,” said the Earl calmly. “I warned you to be sparing in the use of it.”

“I have not drenched it with Vinagrillo!” said Miss Taverner, indignantly shutting her box. “I used two drops, just to moisten the whole!”

A gentleman who was standing beside Colonel Wyndham in the middle of the saloon had been looking at Miss Taverner in a dreamy, unconcerned way, but when he saw her take out her snuff-box a look of interest came into his eyes, and he wandered away from the Colonel, and came towards the sofa. He said very earnestly to Worth: “Please present me! Such a pretty box! What I should call a nice visiting-box, but not suitable for morning wear. I was tempted when they showed it to me, but it did not happen to be just what I was looking for.”

Judith stared at him in a good deal of astonishment, but Lord Worth, betraying no hint of surprise, merely said: “Lord Petersham, Miss Taverner,” and got up.

Lord Petersham begged permission to sit beside Miss Taverner. “Tell me,” he said anxiously, “are you interested in tea, I wonder?”

She was not interested in tea, but she knew that his lordship had a room lined with canisters of every imaginable kind, from Gunpowder to Lapsang Souchong. She confessed her ignorance, and felt that she had disappointed him.

“It is a pity, a great pity,” he said. “You would find it almost as interesting as snuff. And you are interested in that, are you not? You have your own mixture; I saw the jar at Fribourg and Treyer’s.”

Miss Taverner produced her box. “I wish you will do me the honour of trying my sort,” she said.

“Mine will be the honour,” said his lordship, bowing. He dipped his finger and thumb in her box, and held a pinch to his nostrils, half-closing his eyes. “Spanish bran—a hint of Brazil—something else besides, possibly a dash of masulipatam.” He turned. “It reminds me of a mixture I think I have had in your house, Julian.”

“Impossible!” said Worth.

“Well, perhaps it is not precisely the same,” conceded Lord Petersham, turning back to Miss Taverner. “A very delicate mixture, ma’am. It is easy to detect the hand and unerring taste of an expert.”

Miss Taverner, with her guardian’s ironic eye upon her, had the grace to blush.

It was soon time to go upstairs and change her gown for dinner. She was placed at table between Lord Robert Manners and Mr. Pierrepoint, nowhere near the Earl, and as he joined the Duke of York after dinner, with his host and another inveterate whist-player, whom everyone called Chig, she did not speak to him again that evening.

She was not the only lady to join the Hunt next day, but no more than three others had enough energy or enthusiasm to appear, and by no means all the gentlemen. She was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Brummell attired for riding when she came down to an early breakfast, and opened her eyes at him.

He drew out a chair for her beside his own. “I know,” he said understandingly, “but it has a good appearance, and one need not go beyond the second field.”

“Not go beyond the second field!” she echoed. “Why, won’t you go farther, Mr. Brummell?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he replied very gravely. “There is sure to be a farmhouse where I can get some bread and cheese, and you must know there is nothing I like better than that.”

“Bread and cheese instead of hunting!” she said. “I cannot allow it to be a choice!”

“Yes, but you see, if I went very far I should get my tops and leathers splashed by all the greasy, galloping farmers,” he replied softly.

But even her partiality for him could not induce Miss Taverner to smile at such a speech as that. She looked reproachful, and would only say: “I am persuaded you do not mean it.”

She was to discover later that he had for once spoken in all sincerity. He abandoned the Hunt after the first few fields, and was no more seen. She commented on it with strong disapproval to her guardian, who had drawn up beside her at a check, but he merely looked faintly surprised, and said that the notion of Brummell muddied and dishevelled from a long day in the saddle was too absurd to be contemplated. Upon reflection she had to admit him to be right.

Mr. Brummell, encountered again at dinner, was unabashed. He had discovered a very excellent cheese in a farmhouse he had not previously known to exist, had regaled himself on it, and having satisfied himself that no speck of mud sullied his snowy tops, had ridden gently back to Belvoir to discuss with his hostess a plan for landscape gardening which had occurred to him in the night watches.