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‘Not to my knowledge,’ he said, raising his brows. ‘Why should I?’
‘I thought it was you who –’ she broke off, cross with herself at having said so much.
‘Oh no,’ he replied.‘Blackader chose it.’ He turned his head to look at Peregrine, and an expression of pain crossed his features. ‘My good boy, are you emulating the style of Mr Fitzjohn and his associates, or is that monstrous erection round your neck due merely to the clumsiness of your valet?’
‘I was in a hurry,’ said Peregrine defensively, and reddening in spite of himself.
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sp; ‘Then do not be in a hurry again. Cravats are not to be tied in an instant. I hear you bought Scrutton’s bay mare at Tattersall’s.’
‘Yes,’ said Peregrine.
‘I thought you would,’ murmured his lordship.
Peregrine looked suspicious, but judged it wiser not to ask the meaning of this somewhat cryptic remark.
The Earl’s gaze returned to Miss Taverner. He said softly:‘You should ask me to sit down, you know.’
Her lips quivered: she could not but appreciate his lordship’s methods. ‘Pray be seated, sir!’
‘Thank you, Miss Taverner, but I do not stay. I came only to discuss your affairs with Peregrine,’ said Worth with marked politeness.
It was too absurd; she had to laugh. ‘Very well, sir. I understand there is nothing to be done with my father’s unfortunate Will.’
‘Nothing at all,’ he said. ‘You had better accept me with a good grace. You will only be made to appear ridiculous if you don’t, you know.’ Then, as she stiffened, he laughed, and putting out his hand tilted her face up with one careless finger under her chin. ‘Poor Beauty in distress!’ he said. ‘But the smile was all that I hoped it might be.’ He turned. ‘Now, Peregrine, if you please.’
They went out of the room together, nor did she again set eyes on the Earl that day. Peregrine came running up the stairs half an hour later, and finding his sister with Mrs Scattergood, who was deep in the pages of a fashion journal, he announced impetuously that he rather thought they might do very well with Worth for their guardian.
Judith looked warningly towards Mrs Scattergood, but Peregrine was not to be checked. He had very early in their acquaintanceship insinuated himself into that lady’s good graces, and treated her already with a marked lack of respect, and a good deal of affection. ‘Oh, Cousin Maria don’t give a fig for Worth!’ he said airily. ‘But he has been talking to me, and I can tell you something, Judith, he don’t mean to keep too tight a hold on the purse-strings. I fancy we shall have no trouble with him at all. Cousin Maria, do you think Worth will trouble us?’
‘No, indeed, why should he? My love, I read here that strawberries crushed on the face and left all night will clear sunburn and give a delicate complexion. I wonder whether we should try it? You know, you have just the suspicion of a freckle, Judith. You will always be going out in the sun and wind, and my dear, nothing is so destructive of female charms as contact with fresh air.’
‘My dear ma’am, where will you find strawberries at this season!’ said Miss Taverner, amused.
‘Very true, my love; I was forgetting. Then it must be the Denmark Lotion after all. I wish you will buy some, if you mean to drive with Perry.’
Judith promised and went away to put on her hat and her gloves. When she drove out presently alone with her brother, she spoke to him seriously of their guardian. ‘I cannot like him, Perry. There is something in his eyes, a hardness, a – mocking look – which I don’t trust. There is a lack of civility, too – oh, worse! His whole manner, his being so familiar with me – with us! It is very bad. I don’t understand him. He would have us think that he wanted to be our guardian as little as we wished to be his wards, and yet is it not odd that he should busy himself so particularly with our affairs? Even Mrs Scattergood thinks it strange he should not be content to let the lawyers settle everything. She says she has never known him to exert himself so much as he does now.’
Thus Miss Taverner, in a mood of disquiet.
The Earl, however, seemed to be in no hurry to repeat his call. They saw nothing of him for some days, though their visitors were many. Lady Sefton came with one of her daughters, and Mr Skeffington, a very tall thin man with a painted face and a yellow waistcoat. He was lavishly scented, which set the Taverners instantly against him, and talked a great deal about the theatre. There did not seem to be an actor alive with whom he was not on terms of intimacy. They discovered later that he had written some plays himself, and even produced them. His manners were particularly gentle and pleasing, and it was not very long before the Taverners were quite won over to him. He was so kind one must forgive the paint and the scent.
Lady Sefton had to be liked also; and Mrs Scattergood assured her charges that neither she nor her popular husband had an enemy in the world.
Lady Jersey, another of the all-powerful patronesses of Almack’s, came with Mrs Drummond-Burrell, a lady of icy good-breeding, who said little and looked to be insufferably haughty. Lady Jersey seemed to be very good-natured in her restless way. She talked incessantly throughout her short visit, and fidgeted with anything that came in the way of her fluttering hands. Getting into her carriage again when the call was over, she said:‘Well, my dear, I think – don’t you? – a charming girl? Quite beautiful! And of course the fortune! They tell me eighty thousand at the very least! We shall see all the fortune-hunters at work!’ She gave her fairy-laugh. ‘Alvanley was telling me poor dear Wellesley Poole has left his card in Brook Street already.Well, I am sure I wish the girl a good husband. I think her quite out of the common.’
Mrs Drummond-Burrell slightly shrugged her shoulders, ‘Farouche,’ she said in her cold way. ‘I detest provincials.’
It was unfortunate for Miss Taverner that this judgment should soon be endorsed by another. Mr John Mills, who was called the Mosaic Dandy, went from curiosity to pay a morning call in Brook Street, and came away to spread the news through town that the new beauty might better be known as the Milkmaid. His manners had not pleased Miss Taverner. He was affected, talked with a great air of conceit, and put on so much insolent condescension that she was impelled to give him a sharp set-down.
Mrs Scattergood admitted the provocation, but was worried over it. ‘I don’t like the creature – I believe no one does. Brummell hates him, I know – but there’s no denying, my love, he has a tongue, and can make mischief. I hope he may not try to ruin you.’
But the nickname he had bestowed on Miss Taverner was sufficiently apt to catch the fashionable fancy. Mr Mills declared that no gentleman of taste would admire such a blowsy prettiness. A great many people who had been doubtful whether to approve or condemn Judith (for her frank, decided manners were something quite new, only to be tolerated in persons of rank) were at once convinced that she was pert and presuming. Some snubs were dealt her, the throng of would-be admirers began to lessen, and more than one lady of fashion turned her shoulder.
The nickname came to Judith’s ears, and made her furious. That any dandy should have it in his power to sway public opinion was not to be borne. When she discovered the extent of the harm he had worked she was not dismayed or tearful, but on the contrary eager for war. She would not change her manners to suit a dandy’s taste; she would rather force Society to accept her in the teeth of them all, Brummell included.
It was in such a dangerous mood that she set out with her brother and Mrs Scattergood to make her first appearance at Almack’s. Lady Jersey, adhering, even in the face of Mrs Drummond-Burrell’s expressed disapproval, to her original opinion, had sent the vouchers: the most important door into Society was open to Miss Taverner. It must be for her, Mrs Scattergood said urgently, to do the rest.The door might yet close.
