‘Drive my phaeton?’ she repeated.
‘Of course. Upon every occasion, and where you would be least expected to do so. Did I not tell you once, Miss Taverner, never to admit a fault?’
She said slowly: ‘I see. You are right; that is what I should have done at once. I am in your debt.’
People were beginning to move down the gallery towards the looking-glass doors at the north end. These had been flung open into the Music Room, where a concert was to be given. The Regent called to Mr Brummell, desiring his opinion on a piece of Sèvres he had been showing to one of his guests; Miss Taverner rejoined her chaperon, and taking her place in the procession soon found herself in a huge room which cast anything she had yet seen into the shade.
At first sight it was all a blaze of red and gold, but after her first gasp of astonishment she was able to take a clearer view of the whole, and to see that she was standing, not in some fantastic dream-palace, but in a square apartment with rectangular recesses at each end, fitted up in a style of Oriental splendour. The square part was surmounted by a cornice ornamented with shield-work, and supported by reticulated columns, shimmering with gold-leaf. Above this was an octagon gallery formed by a series of elliptical arches, and pierced by windows of the same shape. A convex cove rose over this, topped by leaf ornaments in gold and chocolate; and above this was the central dome, lined with a scale-work of glittering green and gold. In the middle of it a vast foliated decoration was placed, from whose calyx depended an enormous lustre of cut-glass in the shape of a pagoda. To this was attached by chains a lamp made to resemble a huge water-lily, coloured crimson and gold and white. Four gilded dragons clung to the under-side of the lamp, and below them hung a smaller glass water-lily.
The recesses at the north and south ends of the room were canopied by convex curves of imitation bamboo, bound by ribands, and contained the four doorways of the apartment, each one of which was set under a canopy of crimson and gold, embellished with bells and dragons. These canopies were held up by gilt columns, entwined by yet more dragons. The walls were hung with twelve views of the neighbourhood of Pekin, executed in bright yellow on a crimson background, and set in frames enwreathed by dragons. Still more dragons writhed above the window draperies, which were of blue and crimson satin and yellow silk. The floor was covered by a gigantic Axminster carpet where golden suns, stars, serpents, and dragons ran riot on a pale blue ground; and the sofas and chairs were upholstered in yellow and dove-coloured satin.
A fire burned in the fireplace of statuary marble on the western wall, and above it, on the mantel-shelf, a large clock presented an appearance of the most striking incongruity, for although its base was entwined by an inevitable dragon, upon the top were grouped, rather surprisingly, Venus and Cupid, with the Peacock of Love, and Mars climbing up to them.
Miss Taverner was quite overpowered, and could only blink at what she saw. The heat of the room was oppressive; all the ladies were fanning themselves. Miss Taverner began to feel a little faint; dragons and lights started to dance oddly before her eyes, and had she not at that moment found a chair to sink into she believed she must have lost possession of her senses.
She recovered in a few minutes, and was able to enjoy the concert. The Regent, who had been taught to play the violoncello in his youth by Crossbill, and was very musical, beat time with one foot; the Duke of Cumberland stared all the prettiest women out of countenance; Mr Brummell gazed before him with an air of weary patience; and Sir John Lade, who looked for all the world like a stage-coachman strayed by mistake into the Pavilion, went to sleep in the corner of a sofa, and snored gently till it was time to go home.
Eighteen
UPON THE FOLLOWING MORNING MISS TAVERNER DESPATCHED her groom post-haste to London to fetch down her phaeton, and no sooner had it arrived, and her horses been rested, than she startled Brighton by driving it to Donaldson’s at the fashionable hour to change her book. No one observing her air of calm assurance could have guessed what an effort it cost her to appear thus unconcerned. She met Captain Audley on the Steyne, and took him up beside her, and drove him to the Chalybeate Spring at Hove and back again. At the ball at the Castle inn that evening one or two people ventured to comment on it. She raised her brows and said coolly: ‘My phaeton? Yes, it has just arrived from town. Some trifling fault made it necessary for me to send it to the coachmaker’s, which is why you have seen me walking lately. You must know that I am used to drive myself wherever I go.’ She passed on with a smile and a bow.
‘Excellent, Miss Taverner!’ murmured Mr Brummell. ‘You are so apt a pupil that if I were only ten years younger I believe I should propose for your hand.’
She laughed. ‘I cannot suppose it possible. Did you ever propose to any lady, sir?’
‘Yes, once,’ replied Mr Brummell in a voice of gentle melancholy. ‘But it came to nothing. I discovered that she actually ate cabbage, so what could I do but cut the connection?’
If Miss Taverner’s phaeton did not succeed in putting an end to all criticism of her drive from town it did silence a good many tongues. Her habit of driving herself all over Brighton was soon looked on as an idiosyncrasy allowable in a lady with a fortune of eighty thousand pounds. But although the dowagers, with one or two exceptions, might agree to look indulgently on her oddities there was one person who gave no sign of having forgiven her. Lord Worth continued to hold aloof, and when they met conducted himself towards her with a cold civility that showed her how fresh in his mind were the events at Cuckfield. Having frequently assured herself and him that nothing could exceed her dislike of him, there was no other course open to her than to treat him with similar coldness, and to flirt with Captain Audley. The Captain was all readiness to oblige her, and by the time they had twice danced half the evening together, and twice been seen driving along the parade in the perch-phaeton it began to be pretty freely circulated that the Captain was to be the lucky man.
Even Mrs Scattergood began to take a serious view of the affair, and having watched in silence for a week at last ventured to broach the subject one evening after dinner. ‘Judith, my love,’ she said, very busy with the yards of fringe she was making, ‘did I tell you that I met Lady Downshire in East Street this morning? You must know that I walked back to Westfield Lodge with her.’
‘No, you did not tell me,’ replied Miss Taverner, laying down her book. ‘Was there any reason why you should?’
‘Oh, none in the world! But I must own I was rather taken aback by her asking me when your engagement to Charles Audley was to be made known. I did not know what to say.’
Judith laughed. ‘Dear ma’am, I hope you told her that you did not know?’
Mrs Scattergood shot her a quick look. ‘To be sure, I told her that I had no apprehension of any such engagement taking place. But the case is, you see, that people are beginning to wonder at the preference you show for Charles. You must not be offended with me for speaking plain.’
‘Offended! How should I be?’
Mrs Scattergood began to look a little alarmed. ‘But Judith, is it possible that you can be contemplating marriage with Charles?’
Miss Taverner smiled saucily, and said: ‘I am persuaded you can no longer see to make your fringe, ma’am. Let me ring for some working-candles to be brought you!’
‘Pray do not be so teasing!’ besought her chaperon. ‘I have nothing in the world to say against Charles. Indeed, I have the highest value for him; but a younger son, my dear, and without the least prospect of enlargement! for it is not to be supposed that Worth will stay single to oblige him, you know. I could tell you of any number of young ladies who have set their caps at him. He will certainly be thinking of getting married one day soon.’
‘I shall be happy to wish him joy whenever that may be!’ said Miss Taverner sharply. She picked up her book, read a few lines, lowered it again, and inquired hopefully: ‘Was it he who told you to discover whether I mean to marry Captain Audley or not?’
‘Worth? No,
my dear, upon my word it was not. He has not spoken to me of it at all.’
Miss Taverner resumed her book with an expression so forbidding that Mrs Scattergood judged it wisest to say no more.
She was at a loss to know what to think. A natural shrewdness had induced her to suppose from the outset that Judith stood in very little danger of falling in love with the Captain. A hint that people were beginning to couple their names should have been enough, if she did not mean to marry him, to make her behave with more circumspection; but it had no effect on her at all. She continued to flirt with the Captain, and her brother, in high good-humour, remarked to Mr Taverner that he believed the pair would make a match of it yet.
‘Audley and your sister!’ said his cousin, turning a little pale. ‘Surely it is not possible!’
‘Not possible! Why not?’ asked Peregrine. ‘He is a capital fellow, I can tell you; not at all like Worth. I thought the instant I clapped eyes on him that he would do very well for Judith. It’s my belief that they have some sort of an understanding. I taxed Ju with it, but she only coloured up and laughed, and would not give me an answer.’
Peregrine’s own affairs soon took a turn for the better. He had lately fallen into the habit of driving over to Worthing twice a week, and spending the night with the Fairfords; and he was able to inform Judith on his return from one of these expeditions that Sir Geoffrey, being dissatisfied with the uncertainty of his daughter’s engagement, was coming to Brighton to seek an interview with Lord Worth.
‘We shall see how that may answer,’ said Peregrine in a tone of strong satisfaction. ‘However little Worth may attend to my entreaties, he cannot fail to pay heed to a man of Sir Geoffrey’s age and consequence. I fancy the wedding-day will be soon fixed.’
‘I do not depend upon it, though I am sure I wish it may,’ Judith replied. ‘I shall own myself surprised if Sir Geoffrey finds his lordship any more persuadable than we have done.’
Peregrine, however, continued sanguine, and in a very few days events proved him to have been justified. They were sitting down to dinner in Marine Parade one evening when the butler brought in Sir Geoffrey’s card. Peregrine ran out to welcome him and learn his news, while Mrs Scattergood cast an anxious eye over the dish of buttered lobster, and sent down a message to the cook to serve up the raised giblet-pie as well as the fricando of veal. She was still wondering whether the cheese-cakes would go round and lamenting that a particularly good open tart syllabub should have been all ate up at luncheon when Peregrine brought their visitor into the dining-parlour. Peregrine’s countenance conveyed the intelligence of good news to his sister immediately; his eyes sparkled, and as Judith rose to shake hands with Sir Geoffrey, he burst out with: ‘You were wrong, Ju! It is all in a way to be done! I knew how it would be! I am to be married at the end of June. Now wish me joy!’
She turned her eyes towards him with a look of amazement in them. She had not thought it to be possible. ‘Indeed, indeed, I do wish you joy! But how is this? Lord Worth agrees?’
‘Ay, to be sure he does. Why should he not? But Sir Geoffrey will tell it all to us later. For my part I am satisfied with the mere fact.’
She was obliged to control her impatience to know how it had all come about, what arguments had been used to prevail with Worth, and to beg Sir Geoffrey to be seated. The impropriety of discussing his interview with Worth before the servants was generally felt, and it was not until they were all gathered in the drawing-room later that their curiosity could be satisfied.
It was not in Sir Geoffrey’s power to remain long with them; he had made no provision for spending the night in Brighton, and wished to be back in Worthing before it grew dark. There was very little to tell them, after all; he had guessed that Lord Worth’s refusal to consent to the marriage taking place arose from scruples natural in a man standing in his position. It had been so; his lordship had felt all the evils of a marriage entered into too young, but upon Sir Geoffrey’s representation to him of the proved durability of Peregrine’s affections (for six months, at the age of nineteen, was certainly a period) he had been induced to relent.
‘There was no difficulty, then?’ Judith inquired, fixing her eyes on his face. ‘Yet when I spoke of it to him he answered me in such a way that I believed nothing could win him over! This is wonderful indeed! There is no accounting for it.’
‘There was a little difficulty,’ acknowledged Sir Geoffrey. ‘His lordship felt a good deal of reluctance, which I was able, however, to overcome. I am not acquainted with him, do not think I have exchanged two words with him before to-day, so that I cannot conjecture what may have been in his mind. He is a reserved man; I do not pretend to read his thoughts. I own that it seemed to me that something more than a doubt of the young people being of an age to contemplate matrimony weighed with him.’
‘What made you think so?’ Miss Taverner asked quickly. ‘He can have had no other reason!’
Sir Geoffrey set the tips of his fingers together. ‘Well, well, I might be mistaken. His manners, which are inclined to be abrupt, may easily have misled me. But upon my making known to him the object of my call his first words were of refusal. That he had no objection to my daughter’s character or her situation in life he at once made clear to me, however.’
‘Objection!’ cried Peregrine, with strong indignation. ‘What objection could he have, sir?’
‘None, I trust,’ replied Sir Geoffrey placidly. ‘But his countenance led me to suppose that my application was very unwelcome. He said positively that you were too young. I ventured to remind him that a six-months’ engagement was his own suggestion, whereupon he exclaimed with a degree of annoyance that surprised me that he had been guilty of a piece of the most unconscionable folly in consenting to any engage ment at all.’
‘Well, and so I thought at the time,’ remarked Mrs Scattergood. ‘It seemed to me highly nonsensical, as I daresay it did to you, sir. For I quite depended on it being no more than a passing fancy with them both, you know.’
‘But why? Why?’ demanded Judith, striking the palms of her hands together. ‘A doubt of Peregrine’s not being old enough could not weigh so heavily with him. I am at a loss to understand him! What did he say then? How did you prevail?’
‘I must hope,’ said Sir Geoffrey, with a smile, ‘that the reasonableness of my arguments induced his lordship to relent, but I am more than a little persuaded of his not having heard above half of them. His own reflections seemed to absorb him.’
‘Ah, I daresay!’ nodded Mrs Scattergood. ‘His father was just the same. You might talk to him by the hour together, as I am sure I have done often, and find at the end that he had been thinking of something quite different.’
‘As to that, ma’am, I cannot accuse his lordship of letting his mind wander from the subject of my visit. All I meant to say was that his own thoughts operated on his judgment more than my arguments. He took several turns about the room, and upon Captain Audley coming in at that moment briefly informed him of the reason of my being there.’
‘Captain Audley! Ah, there you found an ally!’
‘Yes, Miss Taverner, it was as you say. Audley immediately advised his brother to consent. With the greatest good nature he declared himself to be in the fullest sympathy with Peregrine’s impatience. He said there could be no object in delay. Lord Worth looked at him as though he would have spoken, but said nothing. Captain Audley, after the shortest of pauses, remarked: “As well now as later.” Lord Worth continued looking at him for a moment, without, however, giving me the impression of attending very closely to him, and suddenly replied: “Very well. Let it be as you wish.”’
‘So much for prejudice!’ said Peregrine. ‘But I knew how it would be when he came face to face with you, sir. And now you see what a disagreeable fellow we have for a guardian! Ay, you do not like me to say it, Maria, but you know it is so.’
‘I confess I had been thinking his lordship very much what you had described to me,’ said Sir Geoffrey, ‘but I
am bound to say that from the moment of his giving his consent nothing could have exceeded his amiability. These fashionable men have their whims and oddities, you know. I found him perfectly ready to discuss the details with me; we talked over the settlements, and what income it would be proper for Peregrine to enjoy until he comes of age, and found ourselves in the most complete agreement. He pressed me with the utmost civility to dine with him – an invitation I should have been happy to have accepted had I not felt it incumbent on me to lose no time in coming to set your mind at rest, my dear Perry.’
‘Well, and I am sure it has all ended very much to Worth’s credit,’ said Mrs Scattergood. ‘You and I, my dear sir, can easily understand his scruples, however little these impatient young people may.’
Shortly after this Sir Geoffrey got up to take his leave of them, and until the tea-table was brought in the others were fully occupied in talking over what had passed. A knock on the front door put them in the expectation of receiving another visitor, but in a few minutes the butler came in with a note for Peregrine which had been brought round by hand from the Steyne. It was from Worth, requesting Peregrine to call at his house on the following morning for the purpose of discussing the marriage settlements. Judith listened to it being read aloud, and turned away to pick up one of the volumes of Self-Control from the sofa-table. But not even Laura’s passage down the Amazon had the power to hold her interest. It was evident that Worth had no desire to meet her; he would otherwise have appointed a meeting with Peregrine in Marine Parade.
The interview next morning served to put Peregrine in a mood of the greatest good humour. Worth became once more a very tolerable sort of fellow, and if his harshness at Cuckfield was not quite forgotten it was in a fair way to being forgiven.
The first person to share the news was Mr Bernard Taverner, whom Peregrine met in East Street, outside the post office. Peregrine had been feeling a good deal of coldness towards his cousin ever since the affair of his frustrated duel, but his present happiness made him at one with the whole world, and induced him to extend a cordial invitation to Mr Taverner to drink tea with them in Marine Parade that evening. The invitation was accepted, and shortly after nine o’clock Mr Taverner’s knock sounded on the door, and he was ushered into the drawing-room, to entertain the ladies with an account of the races, which he had been attending that afternoon, to wish Peregrine joy, and to make himself generally so agreeable that Mrs Scattergood, feeling all the undoubted attraction of air and manner, could almost find it in her to be sorry that his situation in life made him so ineligible a suitor. He had never been a favourite with her, but she did him the justice to acknowledge that he bore the news of his cousin’s approaching nuptials well – very much better, she guessed, than the Admiral would when next they had the doubtful pleasure of seeing him.
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