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‘I hope it may. You do not look very well. Are you in health?’
‘Oh, never better! If I look a trifle baked to-day that is because Fitz, and Audley, and I had a pretty batch of it last night.’ He pulled out his snuff-box and offered it. ‘Do try some of my mixture! It is famous snuff, quite the thing!’
‘Is this the snuff you were given at Christmas? No, I thank you! With Judith’s eyes upon me I dare not be seen taking scented snuff.’
‘Well, you very much mistake the matter,’ said Peregrine, helping himself and shutting the box. ‘Even Petersham pronounced it to be unexceptionable!’
‘But I care more for Judith’s opinion than for Petersham’s.’
‘Oh, lord! That’s nonsensical!’ said Peregrine, with brotherly scorn.
He soon took himself off to join Mr Fitzjohn, and Mr Taverner, turning to Judith, who sat quietly sewing by the fire, said: ‘Is he in health? He looks a trifle sickly, I think. Or do I imagine it?’
‘He has not been in good health,’ Judith replied. ‘He had a troublesome cough – a chill caught on our journey to Worth, but I believe him to be quite on the mend now.’
‘You do right to take him out of London. Another run of bad luck, and he will be quite in the basket, as they say.’
She sighed. ‘I cannot stop him gaming, cousin. I can only trust in Lord Worth. He is keeping Perry on an allowance, and I believe has an eye to him.’
‘An eye to him! If you had said an eye to his fortune I could more readily believe you! I have it on the authority of one who was present that Lord Worth rose from the macao-table at Watier’s a couple of months ago with vowels of Perry’s in his pocket to the tune of four thousand pounds!’
She looked up with an expression of startled alarm in her face, but was prevented from answering him by the entrance of Captain Audley. The Captain had been walking down Brook Street, and would not pass the house without coming in to pay a morning call. M
iss Taverner made the two men known to each other, and was glad to see that no such formal civility as had been the result of presenting her cousin to Worth was the outcome of this introduction. Captain Audley’s manners were too easy to permit of it. A cordial hand-shake was exchanged; Mr Taverner made some polite reference to the Captain’s wound; and the talk was directed at once to events in the Peninsula. The news of the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo had not long been made known; there was plenty to say; and half an hour passed apparently to both men’s satisfaction. Upon the Captain’s departure Mr Taverner acknowledged him to be a very pleasant fellow, and one whom he was glad to make the acquaintance of; and in discussing him the original subject of conversation was forgotten. It was recalled to Judith’s mind later, and when she saw Peregrine again she repeated what their cousin had said, and desired to know the truth of it.
Peregrine was vexed. He coloured and said in a displeased voice: ‘My cousin is a great deal too busy! What concern of his are my affairs?’
‘But Perry, is it true, then? Do you owe money to Lord Worth? I had not thought it to have been possible?’
‘No such thing. I wish you will not bother your head about me!’
‘Bernard said he had it from one who was present.’
‘Lord! cannot you let it be? I did play macao at Worth’s table, but I don’t owe him anything.’
‘Bernard said Lord Worth has vowels of yours amounting to four thousand pounds.’
‘Bernard said! Bernard said!’ exclaimed Peregrine angrily. ‘I can tell you, I don’t care to recall that affair! Worth behaved in a damned unpleasant fashion – as though it were anything extraordinary that a man with my fortune should drop a few thousands at a sitting!’
‘That he – your guardian – should win such a sum from you!’
‘Oh, do not be talking of it for ever, Judith! Worth tore up my vowels, and that is all there is to it.’
She was conscious of a feeling of relief out of proportion to the event. The loss of four thousand pounds would not be likely to cause Peregrine embarrassment, but that Worth should win considerable sums of money from him shocked her. She had not believed him capable of such impropriety: she was happy to think he had not been capable of it.
The visit to Osterley Park passed very pleasantly, and the Taverners returned to London again midway through February with the intention of remaining there until the Brighton season commenced. Nothing was much changed in town; no new diversions were offered; no startling scandal had cropped up to provide a topic for conversation. It was the same round of balls, assemblies, card-parties, theatres; with concerts of Ancient Music in Hanover Square, or a visit to Bullock’s Museum, just opened in Piccadilly, for those of a more serious turn of mind. The only novelty was supplied by Mr Brummell, who created a slight stir by the announcement that he was reforming his way of life.Various were the conjectures as to what drastic changes this might mean, but when he was asked frankly what his reforms were he replied in his most ingenuous manner: ‘My reforms – ah, yes! For instance, I sup early; I take a – a little lobster, an apricot puff, or so, and some burnt champagne about twelve, and my man gets me to bed by three.’
The Duke of Clarence, after one more attempt to win Miss Taverner, returned to the siege of Miss Tylney Long, but in the clubs his chances of success were held to be slim, the lady having begun to show signs of favouring Mr Wellesley Poole’s suit.
At the beginning of March all other subjects of interest faded before a new and scintillating one. One name was on every body’s lips, and no drawing-room could be found without a copy of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage lying upon the table. Only two cantos of this work had been published, but over these two everyone was in raptures. Lord Byron, sprung suddenly into fame, was held to have eclipsed all other poets, and happy was the hostess who could secure him to add distinction to her evening party. He had been taken up by the Melbourne House set; Lady Caroline Lamb was known to be madly in love with him, as well she might, for surely never had such beauty, such romantic mystery clung to a poet before.
‘Confound this fellow Byron!’ said Captain Audley humor ously. ‘Since Childe Harold came out none of you ladies will so much as spare a glance for the rest of us less gifted mortals!’
‘Do not level that accusation at my head, if you please,’ replied Miss Taverner, smiling.
‘I am sure if I have heard you murmur raptly: “Adieu, adieu! my native shore fades o’er the waters blue” once, I must have heard you murmur it a dozen times! Do you know that we are all of us growing white-haired in the endeavour to be poets too?’
‘Ah, his poetry! I could listen to that for ever, but pray do not confuse my admiration for that with a partiality for his lordship. I have met him at Almack’s. I will allow him to be as handsome as you please, but he has such an air of pride and puts on so much melancholy grandeur that it gave me quite a disgust of him. He fixes his brilliant gaze upon one, bows, speaks two words in a cold voice, and that is all! It put me out of patience to see everyone flock about him, flattering, admiring, hanging on his lips. Only fancy! he was asked to dine in St James’s Place with Mr Rogers himself, came late, refused every course that was offered, and ended by dining on potatoes mashed up with vinegar, to the astonishment, as you may imagine, of all. I heard it from one who was present, and who seemed to be much struck. For my part I think it a piece of studied affectation, and cannot smile at it.’
