Regency Buck (7 page)

“Oh!” groaned Miss Taverner, sinking down upon one of the gilt and crimson couches.

“But the name!” said Peregrine. “My father must have written the name down!”

“Your father,” said Worth, “left you to the sole guardianship of Julian St. John Audley, Fifth Earl of Worth. The name was certainly my father’s. It is also mine. The mistake—if it is a mistake—is in the title. Your father named mine the Fifth Earl in error. I am the Fifth Earl.”

An unfilial expression was wrenched from Miss Taverner. “He would!” she said bitterly. “Oh, I can readily believe it!”

Peregrine gulped, and said: “This must be set right. We are not your wards. We had rather be anything in the world than your wards!”

“Possibly,” said the Earl, unmoved. “But the distressing fact remains that you are my wards.”

“I shall go at once to my father’s lawyer!” declared Peregrine.

“Certainly. Do just as you please,” said the Earl. “But do try and rid yourself of the notion that you are the only sufferer.”

Miss Taverner, who bad been sitting with one gloved hand covering her eyes, now straightened herself, and folded both hands in her lap. It was evident to her that this conversation led nowhere. She suspected that what Worth said was true, and they would find it impossible to overset the Will. If that were so this bickering was both fruitless and undignified. She quelled Peregrine with a frown, and addressed herself to the Earl. “Very well, sir, if you are indeed our guardian perhaps you will be good enough to inform us whether we are at liberty to establish ourselves in London?”

“Subject to my permission you are,” replied Worth.

Peregrine ground his teeth, and flung over to the window, and stood staring out on to the square.

Miss Taverner’s fierce blue eyes met her guardian’s cool grey ones in a long look that spoke volumes. “You may, through an error in my father’s Will, be our guardian in name, sir, but that is all.”

“You cannot have read the Will, Miss Taverner,” said the Earl.

“I am aware that the control of our fortune is in your hands,” snapped Miss Taverner. “And I am anxious to come to an agreement with you!”

“By all means,” agreed Worth. “You will not find me at all difficult. I shall not, I hope, find myself obliged to interfere in your lives very much.” He added, with the flicker of a smile: “I am not even going to make myself unpleasant to you on this question of your coming to London against my advice.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Taverner witheringly.

He moved towards the secretaire and opened it. “That was, after all, a piece of advice given to suit my own convenience. I have no real objection to your having come to town, and I will do what lies in my power to see you comfortably established.” He picked up a document and held it for Miss Taverner to see. “I have here the lease of a furnished house in Brook Street which you may move into at your earliest convenience. I trust you will find it to your liking.”

“You are extremely obliging,” said Miss Taverner, “but I do not know that I should care to lodge in Brook Street.”

The smile gleamed again. “Indeed, Miss Taverner? And in which street would you care to lodge?”

She bit her lip, but replied with dignity. “I am as yet wholly unacquainted with London, sir. I should prefer to wait until I can decide for myself where I desire to live.”

“While you are making up your mind,” said Worth, “you may lodge in Brook Street.” He put the lease back into its pigeonhole, and closed the secretaire. “The task of engaging your servants can be left to my secretary. I have instructed him to attend to this.”

“I prefer to engage my own servants,” said Miss Taverner, goaded.

“Certainly,” replied Worth suavely. “I will instruct Blackader to direct those he considers the most suitable to call on you at your hotel. Where are you putting up?”

“At Grillon’s,” said Miss Taverner in a hollow voice. A vision of butlers, footmen, housekeepers, serving-maids, grooms, all streaming into Grillon’s hotel to be interviewed, most forcibly struck her mind’s eye. She began to perceive that the Earl of Worth was a foe well worthy of her steel.

The Earl lowered his sword—or so it seemed to her. “Unless you would prefer to see Blackader himself, and give him your commands?”

Miss Taverner, with a chilly haughtiness that concealed her inward gratitude, accepted this offer.

Peregrine looked over his shoulder, and said belligerently: “I shall be sending to Yorkshire, for certain of my horses, but we shall be needing others, and a carriage for my sister.”

“Surely you can buy a carriage without my assistance?” said Worth in a weary voice. “You will probably be cheated in buying your horses, but the experience won’t harm you.”

Peregrine choked. “I did not mean that! For sure, I don’t need your assistance! All I meant was—what I wished to make plain—”

“I see,” said Worth. “You want to know whether you may set up your stable. Certainly. I have not the least objection.” He came away from the secretaire, and walked slowly across the room to the fireplace. “There remains, Miss Taverner, the problem of finding a lady to live with you.”

“I have a cousin living in Kensington, sir,” said Miss Taverner. “I shall ask her if she will come to me.”

He glanced down at her meditatively. “Will you tell me, Miss Taverner, what precisely is your object in having come to London?”

“What is that to the point, sir?”

“When you are better acquainted with me,” said the Earl, “you will know that I never ask pointless questions. Is it your intention to live upon the fringe of society, or do you mean to take your place in the world of Fashion? Will the Pantheon do for you, or must it be Almack’s?”

She replied instantly: “It must be the best, sir.”

“Then we need not consider the cousin living in Kensington,” said Worth. “Fortunately, I know a lady who (though I fear you may find her in some ways extremely foolish) is not only willing to undertake the task of chaperoning you, but has the undoubted entr6e to the world you wish to figure in. Her name is Scattergood. She is a widow, and some sort of a cousin of mine. I will bring her to call on you.”

Miss Taverner got up in one swift graceful movement. “I had rather anyone than a cousin of yours, Lord Worth!” she declared.

He drew out his snuff-box again, and took a pinch between finger and thumb. Over it his eyes met hers. “Shall we agree, Miss Taverner, to consider that remark unsaid?” he suggested gently.

She blushed to the roots of her hair. She could have cried from vexation at having allowed her unruly tongue to betray her into a piece of school-girlish rudeness. “I beg your pardon!” she said stiffly.

He bowed, and laid his snuff-box down open on the table. He had apparently no more to say to her, for he turned to Peregrine, and called him away from the window. “When you have visited a tailor,” he said, “come to me again, and we will discuss what clubs you want me to put your name up for.”

Peregrine came to the table, half sulky, half eager. “Can you have me made a member of White’s?” he asked rather shyly.

“Yes, I can have you made a member of White’s.” said the Earl.

“And—and—Watier’s, is it not?”

“That will be for my friend Mr. Brummell to decide. His decision will not be in your favour if you let him see you in that coat. Go to Weston, in Conduit Street, or to Schweitzer and Davidson, and mention my name.”

“I thought of going to Stultz,” said Peregrine, making a bid for independence.

“By all means, if you wish the whole of London to recognize your tailor at a glance,” shrugged his lordship.

“Oh!” said Peregrine, a little abashed. “Mr. Fitzjohn recommended him to me.”

“So I should imagine,” said the Earl.

Miss Taverner said with an edge to her voice: “Pray, sir, have you no advice to offer me in the matter of my dress?”

He turned. “My advice to you, Miss Taverner, is to put yourself unreservedly in the hands of Mrs. Scattergood. There is one other matter. While you are under my guardianship you will, if you please, refrain from being present in towns where a prizefight is being held.”

She caught her breath. “Yes, my lord? You think, perhaps, that my being in such towns might lay me open to some insult?”

“On the contrary,” replied the Earl, “I think it might lay you open to an excess of civility.”

Chapter V

The events and impressions of her first week in London left Miss Taverner with her brain in a whirl. On the very afternoon of the day she and Peregrine called on their guardian he not only brought Mrs. Scattergood to see her, but later sent Mr. Blackader to discuss the question of servants.

Mrs. Scattergood took Miss Taverner’s breath away. She was a very thin lady of no more than medium height, certainly on the wrong side of forty, but dressed in an amazingly youthful fashion, with her improbably chestnut-coloured hair cropped short at the back, and crimped into curls in front, and her sharp, lively countenance painted in a lavish style that quite shocked the country-bred Judith.

She was dressed in a semi-transparent gown of jaconet muslin, made up to the throat with a treble ruff of pointed lace, and fastened down the back with innumerable little buttons. Her gown ended in a broad embroidered flounce, and on her feet she had lace stockings and yellow kid Roman boots. A lavender chip hat, tied under her chin with long yellow ribands, was placed over a small white satin cap beneath, and she carried a long-handled parasol, and a silk reticule.

Her twinkling eyes absorbed Judith at a glance. She stepped back as though to see the girl in perspective, and then nodded briskly. “I am charmed! My dear Worth, I am quite charmed! You must, you
shall
let me have the dressing of you, child! What is your name—oh no, not that stiff Miss Taverner! Judith! Worth, what do you stay for? I am to talk of fashions, you know. You must go at once!”

Miss Taverner, who had intended politely to decline Mrs. Scattergood’s services, felt powerless. The Earl made his bow, and left them together, and Mrs. Scattergood immediately took one of Judith’s shapely hands in her own tightly-gloved ones, and said coaxingly: “You will let me come and live with you, won’t you? I am shockingly expensive, but you won’t mind that, I daresay. Oh, you are looking at my gown, and thinking what a very odd appearance I present. You see, I am not pretty, not in the least, never was, and so I have to be odd. Nothing for it! It answers delightfully. And so Worth has taken a house for you in Brook Street! Just as it should be: a charming situation! You know, I have quite made up my mind to it you are to be the rage. I think I should come to you at once. Grillon’s! Well, I suppose there is no more genteel hotel in town, but a young lady alone—oh, you have a brother, but what is the use of that? I had better have my boxes packed up immediately. How I do run on! You don’t wish me to live with you at all, I daresay. But a cousin in Kensington! You would find she would not add to your consequence, my dear. I am sure, a dowdy old lady. She would not else be living in Kensington, take my word for it.”

So Miss Taverner yielded, and that very evening her chaperon arrived at Grillon’s in a light coach weighed down by trunks and bandboxes.

Mr. Blackader, who sent in his card at about four o’clock in the afternoon, was much more easily dealt with. He was a shy young man, who looked at the heiress with undisguised admiration. He seemed to be extremely conscientious, and most anxious to oblige. He frowned over the credentials of at least a dozen servants, and fluttered over the leaves of a sheaf of papers, until Miss Taverner laughingly implored him to stop.

Mr. Blackader’s solemnity disappeared into something remarkably like a grin. “Well, do you know, ma’am, I think if you was to let me settle it all for you it would be quicker done?” he suggested apologetically.

So it was arranged. Mr. Blackader hurried away to engage a cook, and Miss Taverner walked out to take a peep at London.

She turned into Piccadilly, and knew herself to be in the heart of the fashionable quarter. There was so much to see, so much to wonder at! She had not believed so many modish people to exist, while as for the carriages, she had never seen any so elegant. The shops, the buildings were all delightful. There was the famous Hatchard’s, with its bow windows filled with all the newest publications. She could almost fancy that the gentleman coming out of the shop was the great Mr. Scott himself, or perhaps, if the author of the
Lady of the Lake
was in Scotland (which was sadly probable), it might be Mr. Rogers, whose
Pleasures of Memory
had beguiled so many leisure moments.

She went into the shop, and came out again after an enchanting half-hour spent in turning over any number of books, with a copy of Mr. Southey’s latest poem, the
Curse of Kehama
,
under her arm.

When she returned to Grillon’s her chaperon had arrived, and was awaiting her. Miss Taverner entered in upon her in an impetuous fashion, and cried out: “Oh, ma’am, only to think of Hatchard’s at our very door! To be able to purchase any book in the world there, as I am sure one may!”

“Lord, my dear!” said Mrs. Scattergood, in some dismay. “Never say you are bookish! Poems! Oh well, there may be no harm in that, one must be able to talk of the latest poems if they happen to become the rage.
Marmion
! I liked that excessively, I remember, though it was too long for me to finish. They say this young man who had been doing such odd things abroad is becoming the fashion, but I don’t know. He was excessively rude to poor Lord Carlisle in that horrid poem of his. I cannot like him for it, besides that someone or other was telling me there is bad blood in all the Byrons. But, of course, if he is to be the fashion one must keep an eye on him. Let me warn you, my love, never be behind the times!”

It was the first of many pieces of worldly wisdom. Miss Taverner, led from warehouse to warehouse, from milliner to bootmaker, had others instilled into her head. She learned that no lady would be seen driving or walking down St. James’s Street; that every lady must be sure of being seen promenading in Hyde Park between the hours of five and six. She must not dare to dance the waltz until she had been approved by the Patronesses of Almack’s; she must not want to be wearing warm pelisses or shawls: the lightest of wraps must suffice her in all weathers; she need extend only the barest civility towards such an one; she must be conciliating to such another. And above all, most important, most vital, she must move heaven and earth to earn Mr. Brummell’s approval.