Judith, accepting the posy with a word of thanks, hardly knew how to reply to this, and could only beg him to be seated. He made her a very gallant bow, indicating the sofa with a wave of his hand, and, feeling a little helpless, she sat down in one corner of it.
He took his place beside her, and fixing his bright blue eyes on her face said jovially: ‘This is a luxurious state indeed, to be finding myself tête-à-tête with you! But you know that we have not settled it that you are to spend Christmas at Bushey. Come now, you will not be so unkind as to refuse me! We will have a snug party. I will engage for your liking Bushey excessively. Everyone does! It is a neat little box, I can tell you. I was used to have a house at Richmond, but from one cause or another I gave it up, and when they made me Ranger of Bushey Park I went to live there. It suits me very well. I don’t care so much for the river, do you?’
‘Perhaps it may be damp to live beside,’ said Judith, glad to be getting away from the subject of Christmas. ‘I must own I have a decided partiality for it, however.’
‘Well, for my part, I don’t see what there is to make so much of in the Thames,’ said the Duke. ‘You are all in raptures over it, but I am quite tired of it. There it goes, flow, flow, flow, always the same!’
She was obliged to hide a smile. Before she could think of any suitable rejoinder he was off again. ‘But I did not come to talk of the river, after all. Christmas! Now what do you say to it?’
‘I am very grateful to you, sir – honoured as well, I am sure beyond my deserts – but it must not be.’
‘Grateful – honoured! Pho, pho, don’t use high-sounding phrases to me, I beg of you! You should know I am a plain sort of man, never stand upon ceremony, think it all stuff and nonsense! Why should you not come? If you are thinking it would not be just the party you would like I will engage for it it will be. You may have the ordering of it, may look over the list of guests, and have it all as you choose.’
‘Thank you, thank you, but you misunderstand me, sir! Consider, if you please, how particular an appearance my joining your party must present! It is not what either of us could wish.’
‘Well, there you are quite in the wrong,’ said the Duke bluntly. ‘It is of all things what I should like most. It cannot seem too particular for my taste.’ He leaned towards her, and seized her hands. ‘My dear, dear Miss Taverner, you cannot be unaware of my feelings! You won’t expect pretty speeches from me; you know how it is with me: I am just a sailor, and say what I think: but I have the deepest regard for you – damme, I am head over ears in love with you, my dear Miss Taverner, and don’t care who hears me say it!’
He had her hands clasped so tightly that she was unable to move. She could only turn her head away, saying in a good deal of confusion: ‘Please say no more! You do me too much honour! Indeed, I am sorry to give you pain, but it is impossible!’
‘Impossible! How so? I see no impossibility. Ah, I daresay you are thinking I am too old a fellow to be addressing you, but I have the best health of all my family, you know. You will see how I shall outlive them. Have you thought of that?’
She made another attempt to disengage herself. ‘No, indeed, how should I? I am sure I wish you may, but it cannot concern me. It is not on the score of your more advanced age that I find myself obliged to decline your offer, but our different situations, my own feelings – I beg of you, let us speak of this no more!’
An idea dawned on him; his rather protuberant blue eyes gleamed with intelligence. ‘I see how it is!’ he said in his hurried way. ‘I am a clumsy fellow, I do not make myself plain! But it is marriage, you know, that I am offering you – everything in proper sailing trim, upon my word of honour!’
‘I did not mistake you,’ she said in a suffocating voice. ‘But you must perceive how impossible such an alliance would be! Were I to consent to it can you suppose that there would be no opposition from your family?’
‘Oh, you mean my brother, the Regent! I do not know why he should oppose it. He is not at all a bad fellow, I assure you, whatever you may have heard to the contrary. There’s Charlotte to succeed him, and my brother York before me.You may depend upon it he thinks the Succession safe enough without taking me into account. But you do not say anything! You are silent! Ah, I see what it is, you are thinking of Mrs Jordan! I should not have mentioned her, but there! you are a sensible girl; you don’t care for a little blunt speaking. That is quite at an end: you need have no qualms. If there has been unsteadiness in the past that is over and done with. You must know that when the King was in his senses we poor devils were in a hard case – not that I mean anything disrespectful to my father, you understand – but so it was. We have all suffered – Prinny, and Kent, and Suss, and poor Amelia! There’s no saying but that we might all of us have turned out as steady as you please if we might have married where we chose. But you will see that it will all be changed now. Here am I, for one, anxious to be settled, and comfortable. You need not consider Mrs Jordan.’
Miss Taverner succeeded at last in drawing her hands away. ‘Sir, if I could return your regard perhaps the thought of that lady might not weigh with me, but surely she must be considered, cannot be put quite out of mind?’
‘Oh,’ said the Duke earnestly, ‘I was never married to her, you know. No, no, you have that quite wrong! There are no ties binding us, none at all!’
She could not forbear giving him a look of shocked reproach. ‘No ties, sir?’
‘You mean the children, do you?’ said the Duke eagerly. ‘But you will like them excessively! I do not believe there can be better children in the world.’
‘Yes, sir, indeed I have always heard – but you do not understand me! It is not on that count that I – pray believe, sir, that what you propose can never be! You must marry some lady of rank, some princess; you know it must be so!’
‘Not at all, not at all!’ declared the Duke, puffing out his cheeks. ‘There can be no objection, no hitch of any sort. You are not to be thinking this is cream-pot love, as they say, because, when I am married, you know, Parliament will make me a grant, and I shall pay off my debts, and be all right and tight.We shall do delightfully!’
Miss Taverner got up, and moved away from him to the window. ‘We should not suit, sir. I thank you for the honour you have done me, but do most earnestly beg you not to distress me by persisting in it. I cannot return your regard.’
The Duke looked very much crestfallen at this, and asked in a desponding voice whether her affections were bestowed elsewhere. ‘I thought it might be so; I was afraid someone might have been before me, for all I’ve crowded all sail to be first with you.’
‘No, sir, my affections are not engaged, but –’ ‘Oh well, in that case there is no need to be down in the mouth,’ said the Duke, brightening. ‘I have taken you too much by surprise, but when you have thought it over you will see how you will come round to it.’
‘I assure you, sir, my resolution is formed. For your friendship, which you have been so kind as to bestow on me, I have the highest value; but anything of a warmer nature – you understand me: I need say no more.’
‘No, no, where’s the use in talking?’ agreed the Duke. ‘I have been too quick; you are not well enough acquainted with me yet to give me an answer.’
Miss Taverner began to despair of making any impression on him. She turned. ‘It is useless, sir. Apart from my own sentiments, you must know that my guardian, Lord Worth, is resolved not to consent to my marriage while I remain his ward. He will not countenance so much as a betrothal. He has said it, and, I believe, means it.’
The Duke looked much struck by this, blinked rapidly once or twice, and began to walk about the room with his hands under his coat-tails. ‘Well, well! Bless my soul!’ he ejaculated.
‘What should he do that for? This is very odd hearing, upon my word!’
‘Yes, sir, but so it is. His mind is made up.’
‘The strangest fellow! However, though I am not one to make a great parade of my rank, I
hope, I am not quite anybody, and you may depend upon it Worth will sing a different tune when I see him. That is what I shall do; that will be best. I do not set a great deal of store by such things, you know, but I like to have everything ship-shape, and I will get Worth’s permission to pay my addresses. I should like to have it all done with propriety. Ay, that’s the best tack: I must see Worth, and then, you know, you can have no objection. And I’ll tell you what! I have a famous notion in my head now! I will have Worth come to spend Christmas at Bushey with us!’
He beamed upon her with such goodwill, and seemed to have so simple a pride in his famous notion that Miss Taverner had not the heart to protest further. She could only trust in her guardian’s ability to rescue her from her difficulties, and wish the Duke good-day with as much reserve of manner as was compatible with the civility she must feel to be his due. He impressed upon her once more that he should approach her guardian; she assented; and so they parted.
She was not without hope that a period of calm reflection might damp her royal suitor’s ardour; she had no notion of his hurrying off post-haste to call upon Worth, and had every intention of warning the Earl at the first opportunity of what was in store for him.
With this resolve in mind she was glad when, at Almack’s that evening, she perceived her guardian to be present. He was standing beside Lady Jersey when she came in, his handsome head bent to hear what her ladyship was saying, but he soon caught sight of Miss Taverner, and bowed.A very friendly smile brought him across the room to her side to beg the honour of a dance.
Judith, who was looking quite her best in Indian mull muslin draped with gold Brussels lace, expressed her willingness, but before going with him to take her place in the set which was forming, she put out her hand to draw forward Miss Fairford, who had come to the Assembly in Mrs Scattergood’s charge. ‘I think, sir, you are not acquainted with Miss Fairford. Harriet, you must permit me to present Lord Worth.’
Miss Fairford, who, from hearing Peregrine’s unflattering description of his guardian, already stood in considerable awe of him, was quite overpowered by his commanding height and air of consequence. She hardly dared raise her eyes to his face. He bowed, and said something civil enough to embolden her to peep up at him for a moment. Her soft eyes encountered his hard ones, which seemed to be looking her over with a sort of indifferent criticism. She blushed, and retreated again to Peregrine’s side.
Lord Worth led Judith into the set. ‘Do you like timid brown mice?’ he inquired.
‘Sometimes, when they are as good as Miss Fairford,’ she replied. ‘Do not you?’
‘I?’ he said, lifting his brows. ‘What a singularly stupid question! No, I do not.’
‘I don’t understand why you should call it a stupid question,’ said Judith with spirit. ‘How should I know what you like?’
‘You might guess, I imagine, but I shall not gratify your vanity by telling you.’
She gave a start, and shot a quick, indignant look up at him. ‘Gratify me! That would not gratify me, I assure you!’
‘You take too much for granted, Miss Taverner. What would not gratify you?’
She bit her lip. ‘You lose no opportunity to put me in the wrong, Lord Worth,’ she said in a mortified voice.
He smiled, and as their hands joined in the dance pressed hers slightly. ‘Don’t look so downcast. I did mean just what you thought. Are you satisfied?’
‘No, not at all,’ said Judith crossly. ‘This is a foolish conversation; I do not like it. I was glad to see you here to-night, for I wanted particularly to speak to you, but you are in one of your disagreeable moods, I see.’
‘On the contrary, my temper is more than usually complaisant. But you are behindhand. I have heard the news, and must wish you joy.’
‘Wish me joy?’ repeated Judith, looking at him in a startled way. ‘What can you mean?’
‘I understand you are to become a Duchess in the near future. You must allow me to offer you my sincere felicitations.’
They were separated at this moment by the movement of the dance. Judith’s brain, as she went down the set, was whirling; she could scarcely perform her part in the dance, nor contain her impatience till she and Worth came together again. No sooner were they confronting each other once more than she demanded: ‘How can you talk so? What do you mean?’
‘I beg pardon. Is it to be kept a secret?’
‘A secret!’
‘You must forgive me. I had thought that only my consent was wanting before the engagement was to be made public.’
She turned quite pale. ‘Good God! You have seen him, then!’
‘Certainly. Did you not send him to me?’
‘Yes – no! Do not trifle with me! This is dreadful!’
‘Dreadful?’ said his lordship, maddeningly calm. ‘You could hardly make a more brilliant match, surely! You will have all the comfort and consequence of a most superior establishment, a position of the first consideration, and a husband who must be past the age of youthful folly.You are to be congratulated; I could not have wished to see you more creditably provided for. In addition you will be assured of suitable female companionship in the person of your eldest daughter-in-law, Miss Fitzclarence, whom I believe to be near your own age.’
‘You are laughing at me!’ Judith said uncertainly. ‘I am sure you are laughing at me! Do pray tell me you did not give your consent!’
He smiled, but would not answer. They were again separated, and when they met once more he began to talk in his languid way of something quite different. She answered very much at random, trying to read his face, and when the dance came to an end, suffered him to lead her into the tea-room, away from her own party.
He procured a glass of lemonade for her, and took up a position beside her chair. ‘Well, my ward,’ he said, ‘did you, or did you not, send Clarence to me?’
‘Yes, I did – that is to say, he said he should go to you, and I agreed, because I could not make him realise that I don’t wish to marry him. I thought I might depend on you!’
‘Oh!’ said Worth. ‘That is not precisely as I understood the matter. The Duke seemed to be in no doubt of the issue once my consent was obtained.’
‘If you thought that I would ever marry a man old enough to be my father you did me a shocking injustice!’ said Miss Taverner hotly. ‘And if you had the amazing impertinence to suppose that his rank must make him acceptable to me you insult me beyond all bearing!’
‘Softly, my child: I thought neither of these things,’ said his lordship, slightly amused. ‘My experience of you led me instead to suppose that you had sent your suitor to me in a spirit of pure mischief. Was that an injustice too?’
Miss Taverner was a little mollified, but said stiffly: ‘Yes, it was, sir. The Duke of Clarence would not believe I meant what I said, and the best I could think of was for you to help me. I made sure you would refuse your consent!’
‘I did,’ said the Earl, taking snuff.
‘Then why,’ demanded Miss Taverner, relieved, ‘did you say you wished me joy?’
‘Merely to alarm you, Clorinda, and to teach you not to play tricks on me.’
‘It was no trick, and you are abominable!’
‘I humbly beg your forgiveness.’
She flashed an indignant look at him, and set her empty glass down on the table with a snap. The Earl offered her his snuff-box. ‘Will you try this mixture? I find it tolerably soothing to the nerves.’
Miss Taverner relented. ‘I am very sensible of what an honour that is,’ she said, helping herself to an infinitesimal pinch. ‘I suppose you could do no more.’
‘Not while I continue to occupy the post of guardian,’ he agreed.
She lowered her gaze, and said in a hurry: ‘Did the Duke mention his plan of inviting me (and you too) to Bushey for Christmas?’
‘He did,’ said the Earl. ‘But I informed him that you would be spending Christmas at Worth.’
Miss Taverner drew in her breath sharpl
y, inhaled far more of his lordship’s snuff than she had meant to, and sneezed. ‘But I am not!’ she said.
‘I am sorry if it should be repugnant to you, but you are certainly spending Christmas at Worth,’ he replied.
‘It is not repugnant, precisely, but –’ ‘You relieve my mind of a weight,’ said his lordship satirically. ‘I was afraid it might be.’
‘It is very obliging of you, but since you have refused your consent to the Duke’s paying his addresses to me he cannot now expect me to make one of his party. I should prefer to spend Christmas with Perry.’
‘Naturally,’ said the Earl. ‘I was not proposing that you should come to Worth without him.’
‘But Perry has no notion of going to Worth!’ protested Miss Taverner. ‘I daresay he has quite different plans in mind!’
‘Then he will put them out of his mind,’ replied the Earl. ‘I prefer to keep Perry under my eye.’
He offered his arm, and after a slight hesitation she rose, and laid her hand on it, and allowed him to lead her back into the ballroom. It had occurred to her that she was by no means averse from going on a visit to Worth.
Fourteen
IT WAS FORTUNATE FOR MISS TAVERNER THAT, BY REASON OF Christmas being at hand, she must soon be removed from the Duke of Clarence’s neighbourhood. He by no means despaired of winning her, and though momentarily cast-down, and inclined to be indignant at Worth’s refusing his consent, he was very soon consoling himself with the reflection that Miss Taverner would be free in less than a year from the Earl’s guardianship. He was sanguine, and, calling in Brook Street again, assured Judith that when she came to know him better she would perceive all the advantages of the match as clearly as he did himself.
Peregrine’s feelings upon being informed that he was to go to Worth were not at all complacent. He asserted that he should not go, thought it a great imposition, suspected the Earl of trying to fix his interest with Judith, and had a very good mind to write a curt refusal. However, the intelligence that Miss Fairford had received a most distinguishing invitation from Lady Albinia Forrest, the Earl’s maternal aunt, to make one of the party, quite put an end to his ill-humour. The Earl became immediately a very good sort of a fellow, and from having been disconsolately expecting a party insipid beyond everything, he was brought to look forward to it with no common degree of pleasure.
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