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Miss Taverner snatched her hand away and turned. ‘Lord Worth! You – you startled me!’
‘Evidently,’ he said. ‘I am charged with the office of finding you. Your carriage is spoken for, and Mrs Scattergood grows anxious.’
‘Thank you. I will come at once,’ she murmured. ‘Good night, cousin!’
‘Will you not let me take you back to Mrs Scattergood?’ he asked quietly.
She shook her head. She was still sadly out of countenance, and it was quite meekly that she laid her hand on the Earl’s proffered arm, and allowed him to lead her away. Once out of earshot she managed to say, though in a very small voice: ‘I daresay it may have looked very particular to you, but you are quite mistaken.’
‘In what?’ said the Earl coldly.
‘In what you are thinking!’
‘If you are able to read my thoughts at this moment you must be very clever.’
‘You are the most disagreeable man I have ever met!’ said Miss Taverner, a break in her voice.
‘You have told me as much before, Miss Taverner, and my memory, I assure you, is peculiarly retentive. Console yourself with the reflection that in a short time now you will be able to forget my very existence.’
She said unsteadily: ‘I do not suppose that I look forward to that day more eagerly than you.’
‘I have never made any secret of the fact that my guardianship of you has been irksome in the extreme. But do not anticipate too much, Miss Taverner. You are still my ward. These affecting passages with your cousin would be better postponed.’
‘If you imagine I have – I have an understanding with Mr Bernard Taverner you are wrong!’ she said. ‘I am not going to marry him!’
He looked down at her, and it seemed for a moment as though he was about to say something. Then Mrs Scattergood came up to them, and the opportunity was lost. He escorted both ladies out to their carriage, and it was only at parting that Miss Taverner could trust her voice sufficiently to say: ‘I have been wanting to thank you, Lord Worth, for giving your consent to Peregrine’s marriage.’
‘You have nothing to thank me for,’ he replied rather curtly, and bowed, and stood back to let the carriage move forward.
Nineteen
WHY SHE HAD BEEN SO ANXIOUS TO INFORM HER GUARDIAN that she did not mean to marry Mr Bernard Taverner was a question that occupied Miss Taverner’s mind for an appreciable time. If an answer to the riddle did occur to her she at least would not admit it to be the correct one, and as no alternative answer presented itself to her she was forced to conclude that the agitation of the moment had made her speak at random.
Mrs Scattergood, observing her spirits to be low, supposed that she must be looking forward with a good deal of melancholy to her brother’s marriage, and did what she could to cheer her up by promising to stay with her for as long as her companionship was required, and by prophesying many pleasant visits to the young couple at Beverley. But the truth was that the prospect of being separated from Peregrine was not oppressing Miss Taverner’s spirits as much as the thought of her own approaching freedom. She did not know what was to become of her. Lord Worth was provoking, tyrannical, and very often odious, but he managed her fortune for her to admiration, and disposed of importunate suitors in a way that she could not hope to equal. She might quarrel with him, and resent his interference in her schemes, but while he stood behind her she had a feeling of security which she had scarcely been aware of until now when she was so near to having his protection withdrawn. And when he was not being disagreeable and over-bearing he had been kind to her. He had given her a recipe for snuff, and allowed her to drive his greys, and invited her to stay in his house. Until that unfortunate encounter at Cuckfield she had been liking him very well. Naturally she could never like him after his intolerable behaviour on that fatal day, but in spite of that the thought that in a short while she would be able to forget his very existence had so lowering an effect upon her that she was hard put to it to keep the tears from her eyes. And if, as an alternative to this course, he intended her to marry his brother he would find that he had made a mistake. She foresaw that she was doomed to a lonely spinsterhood.
Meanwhile she continued to take her part in all the gaieties that Brighton had to offer, squandered a good deal of money, and drove over with Peregrine to spend a couple of days in Worthing. That experience was one which she was not tempted to repeat, for while she could value Sir Geoffrey’s worth as she ought, and be grateful to Lady Fairford for her motherly kindness, the spectacle of two happy lovers was not one that was likely to elevate her spirits. After the one visit she was resolute in refusing all other invitations, and when urged by Peregrine to accompany him said playfully that now that he had at last engaged a groom who knew one end of a horse from the other it was no longer a source of anxiety to see him drive off without her.
Peregrine protested loudly against this aspersion being cast on his driving, but admitted under pressure that Tyler was a better groom than Hinkson. Hinkson had never found favour with Miss Taverner. She thought (in the idiom employed by Mr Fitzjohn) that he was cow-handed, and she disliked his square, pugnacious face even more than his rough manners. Mr Bernard Taverner’s man was very much more to her taste. He knew his work, could handle a team, and was not only respectful, but did not regale his young master’s ears with grim tales of the Ring – a fault in Hinkson which Miss Taverner had always strongly deprecated. She had not the least hesitation in attributing to Hinkson such of Peregrine’s vulgar expressions as a bunch of fives, drawing his cork, wisty castors, and milling a canister, and hoped that the excellence of his new groom would gradually wean him from his predilection for Hinkson.
Hinkson, as might have been expected, showed signs of resenting Tyler’s presence, and was always ready with some excuse to prevent his being taken over to Worthing in his stead. Judith learned from her own groom that a good deal of dissension was rife in the stables, Hinkson being a rough customer, very ready with his fists, and suspicious of his fellows. Judith mentioned the matter to her brother, representing to him the advisability of turning the man away, but he only laughed, and said that she was prejudiced against him. She admitted it to be true. She neither liked nor trusted Hinkson, and thought that his face, with its broken nose and rugged lines, was almost villainous. But not even when Tyler brought the tilbury round one Thursday in Hinkson’s stead because Hinkson had been imbibing Blue Ruin rather too freely in a neighbouring tavern could Peregrine be induced to say that he would dismiss the man. All he did say was: ‘Oh well, it’s the first time he’s been bosky, after all! Stark Naked puts us all under the table once in a while, you know, Ju.’
‘I wish you would not use that horrid cant. A moment ago you said he had been drinking Blue Ruin.’
‘It’s the same thing,’ grinned Peregrine. ‘You can call it a Flash of Lightning, if you like, or Old Tom. It means gin, my dear.’ He laughed at her face of disgust, gave her a careless embrace, and with a glance at the clock exclaimed that it was after three already, and he must be off. Her only satisfaction was in seeing him drive away with a competent groom up beside him instead of one who would have been more at home in a prize ring.
The road to Worthing ran through the village of Hove, past the ruins of Aldrington, and along the low cliffs to New Shoreham and Lancing, and thus on by Sompting and Broadwater. Peregrine drove past the end of the Steyne and up on to the East Cliff at a sedate pace, and just beyond the Old Ship was about to let his horses show their paces along the less crowded West Cliff when a light phaeton suddenly swept round the corner of West Street, and its driver, catching sight of him, pulled up his horses and signalled to him to stop.
Peregrine obediently drew rein alongside the phaeton, and hoped that his guardian did not mean to detain him long. ‘How do you do? I am just on my way to Worthing.’
‘Then I have caught you in time,’ replied the Earl. ‘I want your signature to one or two documents.’
Peregrine pulled a face. ‘Now?’ he asked.
‘Yes, certainly now. There is also another matter of business which I must discuss with you, but I hardly think the street is a suitable place for that.’
‘But could I not call on you to-morrow?’ said Peregrine.
