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‘You see, sir, you came in behind him – and he was so very fine,’ she excused herself.
‘His tailor makes him,’ said Mr Brummell. ‘Now I, I make my tailor.’
Miss Taverner wished that Peregrine could have been present to hear this pronouncement.
By the time Mr Brummell got up to go all the favourable impressions he had made on her at Almack’s were confirmed. He was a charming companion, his deportment being particularly good, and his manners graceful and without affectation. He had a droll way of producing his sayings which amused her, and either because it entertained him to take an exactly opposite view to Mr Mills, or because he desired to oblige his friend Worth, he was good enough to take an interest in her début. He advised her not to abate the least jot of her disastrous frankness. She might be as outspoken as she chose.
Miss Taverner shot a triumphant glance at her chaperon. ‘And may I drive my own phaeton in the Park, sir?’
‘By all means,’ said Mr Brummell. ‘Nothing could be better. Do everything in your power to be out of the way.’
Miss Taverner took his advice, and straightway commissioned her brother to procure her a perch-phaeton, and a pair of carriage-horses. Nothing in his stables would do for her; she only wished that she might have gone with him to Tattersall’s. She did not trust his ability to pick a horse.
Fortunately, the Earl of Worth took a hand in the affair before Peregrine had inspected more than half a dozen of the sweet-going, beautiful-stepping, forward-actioned bargains advertised in the columns of the Morning Post. He arrived in Brook Street one late afternoon, driving his own curricle, and found Miss Taverner on the point of setting out for the promenade in Hyde Park. ‘I shall not detain you long,’ he said, laying down his hat and gloves on the table. ‘You have purchased, I believe, a perch-phaeton for your own use?’
‘Certainly,’ said Miss Taverner.
He looked her over. ‘Are you able to drive it?’
‘I should not otherwise have purchased it, Lord Worth.’
‘May I suggest that a plain phaeton would be a safer con veyance for a lady?’
‘You may suggest what you please, sir. I am driving a perch-phaeton.’
‘I am not so sure,’ he said. ‘You have not yet convinced me that you are able to drive it.’
She glanced out of the window at his tiger, standing to the heads of the restless wheelers harnessed to the curricle. The Earl was not driving his chestnuts to-day, but a team of greys. ‘Let me assure you, sir, that I am not only capable of handling a pair, but I could drive your team just as easily!’ she declared.
‘Very well,’ said the Earl unexpectedly. ‘Drive it!’
She was quite taken aback. ‘Do you mean – now?’
‘Why not? Are you afraid?’
‘Afraid? I should like nothing better, but I am not dressed for driving.’
‘You may have twenty minutes,’ said the Earl, moving over to a chair by the table.
Miss Taverner was by no means pleased at this cool way of dismissing her, but she was too anxious to prove her driving skill to stay to argue the point. She whisked herself out of the room, and up the stairs, set a bell pealing for her maid, and informed her astonished chaperon that there would be no walk in the Park. She was going driving with my Lord Worth.
She joined his lordship again in just a quarter of an hour, having changed her floating muslins for a severely cut habit made of some dark cloth, and a small velvet hat turned up on one side from her clustering gold ringlets, and with a curled feather hanging down on the other. ‘I am ready, my lord,’ she said, drawing on a pair of serviceable York tan gloves.
He held open the door for her. ‘Permit me to tell you, Miss Taverner, that whatever else may be at fault, your taste in dress is unimpeachable.’
‘I do not admit, sir, that there is anything at fault,’ flashed Miss Taverner.
At sight of her the waiting tiger touched his hat, but bent a severely inquiring glance on his master.
Miss Taverner took the whip and reins in her hands, and mounted into the driving-seat, scorning assistance.
‘Take your orders from Miss Taverner, Henry,’ said the Earl, getting up beside his ward.
‘Me lord, you ain’t never going to let a female drive us?’ said Henry almost tearfully. ‘What about my pride?’
‘Swallow it, Henry,’ replied the Earl amicably.
The tiger’s chest swelled. He gazed woodenly at a nearby lamp-post and said in an ominous voice: ‘I heard as how Major Forrester was wanting me for his tiger. Come to my ears, it did. Lord Barrymore too. I dunno how much he wouldn’t give to get a hold of me.’
