Regency Buck (8 page)

“If Mr. Brummell should not think you the thing you are lost!” said Mrs. Scattergood impressively. “Nothing could save you from social ruin, take my word for it. He has but to lift his eyebrow at you. and the whole world will know that he finds nothing to admire in you.”

Miss Taverner’s antagonism was instantly aroused. “I do not care
that
for Mr. Brummell!” she said.

Mrs. Scattergood gave a faint scream, and implored her to be careful.

Miss Taverner, however, was heartily tired of the sound of the dandy’s name. Mr. Brummell had invented the starched neckcloth; Mr. Brummell had started the fashion of white tops to riding-boots; Mr. Brummell had laid it down that no gentleman would be seen driving in a hackney carriage; Mr. Brummell had his own sedan chair, lined and cushioned with white satin; Mr. Brummell had abandoned a military career because his regiment had been ordered to Manchester; Mr. Brummell had decreed that none of the Bow-window set at White’s would acknowledge salutations from acquaintances in the street if they were seated in the club-window. And Mr. Brummell, said Mrs. Scattergood, would give her one of his stinging set-downs if she offended his notions of propriety.

“Will he?” said Miss Taverner, a martial light in her eye. “Will he indeed?”

She was annoyed to find her brother inclined to be impressed by the shadow of this uncrowned king of fashion. Peregrine went to be measured for some suits of clothes at Weston’s, escorted by Mr. Fitzjohn, and when he debated over two rolls of cloth, unable to decide between them, the tailor coughed, and said helpfully: “The Prince Regent, sir, prefers superfine, and Mr. Brummell the Bath coating, but it is immaterial which you choose: you must be right. Suppose, sir, we say the Bath coating?—I think Mr. Brummell has a trifle the preference.”

Peregrine’s days during the first week were quite as full as his sister’s. His friend, Mr. Fitzjohn, took him thoroughly in hand. When he was not being fitted for boots at Hoby’s, or hats at Lock’s, he was choosing fobs in Wells Street, or riding off to Long Acre to look at a tilbury, or knowingly inspecting carriage-horses at Tattersall’s.

The house in Brook Street, somewhat to Miss Taverner’s annoyance, proved to be admirable in every respect, the saloons handsome, and the furnishings just what she liked. She was installed there within three days of seeing Mr. Blackader, and a number of her new gowns having been delivered in neat bandboxes, her hair having been fashionably cut, and her maid taught to dress it in several approved classical styles, Mrs. Scattergood declared her to be ready to receive morning callers.

The first of these were her uncle, the Admiral, and his son, Mr. Bernard Taverner. They came at an awkward moment, Peregrine, who had spent the great part of the morning in a brocade dressing-gown, while the barber and a breeches-maker waited on him, being at the moment engaged in trying to arrange his starched neckcloth.

His sister, who had walked unceremoniously into his room to demand his escort to Colburn’s Lending Library, was an interested and rather scornful spectator. “What nonsense it is, Perry!” she exclaimed, as with an exasperated oath he threw away his fourth crushed and mangled cravat. “That is the fourth you have spoiled! If only you would have them made more narrow!”

Peregrine, his face and head quite obscured by his turned-up shirt collar, said testily: “Women never understand these things. Fitz says it must be a foot high. As for four spoiled, pooh, that’s nothing! Fitz says Brummell has sometimes ruined as many as a score. Now try it again, John! Fold my collar down first, you fool!”

Someone knocked on the door. Peregrine, with a neckcloth a foot wide round his neck, and his chin to the ceiling, shouted: “Come in!” and in doing so produced a crease in the neckcloth which he felt could hardly have been bettered by the Beau himself.

The footman entered, and announced the arrival of Admiral and Mr. Taverner. Peregrine was too much engaged in making further creases by the simple expedient of gradually lowering his jaw, to pay any heed, but Judith jumped up at once. “Oh, Perry, do make haste! It is our cousin! Beg the Admiral to wait, Perkins. We will come directly. Is Mrs Scattergood downstairs? Oh then, she will see to it all! Perry, will you never have done?”

The cravat had by this time been reduced to more normal proportions. Peregrine studied it anxiously in the mirror, tried with a cautious finger to perfect one of the creases, and announced gloomily that it would have to do. It was still too high to permit of his turning his head more than an inch or two to either side, but this he assured Judith was nothing at all out of the way.

The next business was to get him into his new coat, an elegant blue creation made of the prescribed Bath coating, with long tails, and silver buttons. It fitted him so exactly that the services of the footman had to be engaged to assist in inserting him into it. It seemed at one time as though not even the united efforts of two able-bodied men could succeed in this, but after a grim struggle it was done, and Peregrine, panting slightly from his exertions, turned to his sister and proudly asked her how he looked.

There was a laugh in her eye, but she assured him he was quite the thing. In any other man she would have ruthlessly condemned so absurdly waisted a coat, so monstrous a cravat, such skin-tight pantaloons, but Peregrine was very much her darling, and must be allowed to dress himself up in any dandified way he pleased. She did indeed suggest that his golden locks were in considerable disorder, but upon being informed that this was intentional, and had taken him half an hour to achieve, she said no more, but took his arm and went down with him to the saloon upon the first floor.

Here they found Mrs. Scattergood seated on a confidante beside a stout flushed-looking gentleman with grizzled hair, in whom Miss Taverner had no difficulty in recognizing her late father’s brother. Mr. Bernard Taverner occupied a chair opposite to them, but upon the door opening to admit his cousins, he immediately got up, and made his bow. There was a certain warmth in his smile; his look seemed to approve, even to admire. Judith could only be glad that she had chosen that morning to put on the jonquil muslin dress with the lace trimming, and the new kid shoes of celestial blue.

The Admiral had got up ponderously from the confidante, and now came forward with his hand held out and a look of decided relish upon his florid countenance. “So!” he said. “My little niece! Well, my dear! Well!”

She had a moment’s fear that he was going to kiss her, a circumstance she could not look forward to with any equanimity, since he smelled strongly of spirits. She put out her hand in a decided way, and after a moment’s hesitation he took it, and held it between both of his. “So you are poor John’s daughter!” he said with a somewhat gusty sigh. “Ah, that was a sad business! I was never more shocked in my life.”

Her brows drew together slightly; she bowed, and withdrew her hand. She could not suppose him sincere, and while determined on showing him all the observance which their relationship demanded, she could not like him. She said merely: “My brother Peregrine, sir.”

They shook hands. The Admiral clapped his nephew on the shoulder, supposed him to be come to town to cut a dash, did not blame him, but begged him to be careful of his company, else he would find himself without a feather to fly with. This was all said with a great air of joviality, while Peregrine smiled politely, and inwardly consigned his uncle to the devil.

Mr. Taverner had moved over to stand beside Judith, and now put a chair forward for her. She took it, reflecting that he did not in any way favour his father.

He drew up a back-stool, and sat down on it. “My cousin is pleased with London?” he said smilingly.

“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 recognized 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 recognize 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—Charlie 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 faint 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. Scattergood 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 corkbrained 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.