It still lacked ten minutes to eleven, but although people were continuing to arrive there was no sign of Peregrine. Judith guessed him to be only too glad of an excuse not to come, for he did not care to dance, but she had never felt more lonely in her life, and hoped every moment to see him walk in.
Mrs Scattergood, having met with several of her friends, was deep in conversation, but broke off suddenly to dart up to her charge. ‘Mr Brummell!’ she hissed in Judith’s ear. ‘Do pray, my love, hold yourself up, and if he should speak to you I implore you remember what it may mean!’
The very mention of any dandy’s name was quite enough at this moment to fan Miss Taverner’s wrath to a flame. She looked anything but conciliating, and when she turned her eyes to the door and observed the gentleman who had just entered, an expression of undisguised contempt swept over her face.
A lady in a purple turban adorned with an aigrette bore down upon Mrs Scattergood, and drew her aside with so much condescension that Judith would hardly have been surprised to learn that it was Queen Charlotte herself. She turned away to enjoy to the full her first sight of Mr George Bryan Brummell.
She could scarcely forbear to laugh, for surely there could be no greater figure of fun. He stood poised for a moment in the doorway, a veritable puppet, tricked out in such fine clothes that he cast the two gentlemen who were entering behind him in the shade. It could not be better. From his green satin coat to his ridiculously high-heeled shoes he was just what she had expected him to be. His conceit, evidently, was unbounded. He surveyed the room through his quizzing-glass, held at least a foot away from his eye, and went mincing up to Princess Esterhazy, and made her a flourishing bow.
Judith could not take her eyes from him; he was not looking her way, so she might permit herself to smile. Indeed, the wrath had died out of her face, and given place to a twinkling merriment. So this was the King of Fashion!
She was recalled to a sense of her surroundings by a quiet voice at her elbow. ‘I beg pardon, ma’am: I think you have dropped your fan?’
She turned with a start to find that a gentleman whom she recognised as one of the two who had entered behind the Beau was standing beside her, with her fan in his hand.
She took it with a word of thanks, and one of her clear, appraising looks. She liked what she saw. The gentleman was of medium height, with light brown hair brushed à la Brutus, and a countenance which, without being precisely handsome, was generally pleasing. There was a good deal of humour about his mouth, and his eyes, which were grey and remarkably intelli gent, were set under a pair of most expressive brows. He was very well-dressed, but so unobtrusively that Judith would have been hard put to it to describe what he was wearing.
He returned her look with something of drollery in his eyes. ‘It is Miss Taverner, is it not?’ he asked.
She noticed that his voice was particularly good, and his manner quiet and unassuming. She said with decided friendliness: ‘Yes, I am Miss Taverner, sir. I don’t know how you should recognise me though, for I think we have not met, have we?’
‘No, I have been out of town this week,’ he replied. ‘I should have called, of course.Your guardian is a friend of mine.’
This circumstance was hardly a credential in Miss Taverner’s opinion, but she merely said: ‘You are very good, sir. But how came you to know me?’
‘You have been described to me, Miss Taverner. I could not mistake.’
A flush stole up into her cheeks; she raised her eyes and looked very steadily at him. ‘By Mr Mills, perhaps, sir?’
One of his mobile brows went up. ‘No, ma’am, not by Mr Mills. May I ask – or is it an impertinence? – why you should have thought so?’
‘Mr Mills has made it his business to describe me in so many quarters that it was a natural conclusion,’ said Judith bitterly.
‘Indeed!’ He looked down at her rather penetratingly. ‘I am such an inquisitive creature, Miss Taverner. I hope you mean to tell me why you are looking so very angry,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I should not, I know. But I must warn you, sir, it is not the fashion to be seen talking to me.’
Both brows went up at that. ‘On the authority of Mr Mills?’ inquired the gentleman.
‘Yes, sir, as I understand. Mr Mills has been good enough to christen me the Milkmaid, and to declare that no one of fashion could tolerate my – my person.’ She tried to speak lightly, but only succeeded in letting her indignation peep through.
He drew up a chair. ‘Let me assure you, Miss Taverner, that there is not the least need for you to let Mr Mills’s insolence distress you. May I sit down?’
She signified assent; she could only be glad that he should want to. He might not wear a green-spangled coat, and lead all London by the nose, but she had rather be talking to him than to any dandy. She said frankly: ‘I know I should not – and indeed, it doesn’t distress me. It only makes me angry. You see, we – my brother and I – have never been in London before, and we wanted very much to – to enter into Polite Circles. But it seems that Society agrees with Mr Mills – though a great many people have been very kind, of course.’
‘Do you know, Miss Taverner, you make me feel that I have been out of town longer than I realised?’ said the gentleman, with one of his comical looks. ‘When I left London for Cheveley Mr Mills was not leading Society, I assure you.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you must not think I do not know who does that! I have had the name of Beau Brummell dinned into my ears until I am heartily sick of it! I am told that I must at all costs win his approval if I am to succeed, and I tell you frankly, sir, I have not the least notion of trying to do it!’ She saw a slightly startled look in his eyes, and added defiantly: ‘I am sorry if he should be a friend of yours, but I have made up my mind I neither wish for his good opinion nor his acquaintance.’
‘You are quite safe in saying what you think of him to me,’ replied the gentleman gravely. ‘But what has he done to earn your contempt, ma’am?’
‘Well, sir, you have only to look at him!’ said Judith, allowing her eyes to travel significantly towards the gorgeous figure at the other end of the room. ‘A spangled coat!’ she pronounced scornfully.
His gaze followed the direction of hers. ‘I am in agreement with you, Miss Taverner,’ he said. ‘Though I should not myself call that thing a coat.’
‘Oh, and that is not all!’ she said. ‘I am for ever hearing of his affectations and impertinences! I am out of all patience with him.’
She had the impression that he was laughing at her, but when he spoke it was perfectly solemnly. ‘Ah, ma’am, but it is Mr Brummell’s folly which is the making of him. If he did not stare duchesses out of countenance, and nod over his shoulder to princes he would be forgotten in a week. And if the world is so silly as to admire his absurdities – you and I may know better – but what does that signify?’
‘Nothing, I suppose,’ said Judith. ‘But if I cannot succeed without being obliged to court his approval I had rather fail.’
‘Miss Taverner,’ he replied, the smile dancing in his eyes again, ‘I prophesy that you will become the rage.’
She shook her head. ‘How can you think it, sir?’
He rose. ‘Why, I don’t think it, ma’am. I am sure of it. Every eye is even now upon you.You have held me in conversation for close on half an hour.’ He made his bow. ‘I may do myself the honour of calling on you?’
‘We shall be glad, sir.’
‘I wonder?’ he said with a quizzical look, and moved away to where Lord Alvanley was standing against the wall.
Miss Taverner became aware of Mrs Scattergood at her elbow, in a twitter of excitement. ‘My love, what did he say to you? Tell me at once!’
Judith turned. ‘Say to me?’ she repeated, bewildered. ‘He asked if he might call on us, and –’
‘Judith! You don’t mean it? Oh, was ever anything so – Well! And you was talking for ever! Pray, what else was said?’
Judith looked at he
r in a good deal of surprise. ‘But what can it signify, ma’am?’
Mrs Scattergood gave a suppressed shriek. ‘Mercy on us! You hold Mr Brummell by your side for half an hour and then ask me what it can signify?’
Judith gave a gasp, and turned pale. ‘Ma’am! Oh, good God, ma’am, that surely was not Mr Brummell?’
‘Not Mr Brummell? Of course it was! But, my dearest love, I particularly warned you! What have you been about?’
‘I thought you meant that odious creature in the green coat,’ said Judith numbly. ‘How could I imagine –’ She broke off, and looked across the room at Mr Brummell.
Their eyes met; he smiled; unmistakably he smiled.
‘I declare I could positively embrace him!’ said Mrs Scattergood, avidly drinking in this exchange of glances. ‘You are made, my dear! What a set-down for John Mills! Brummell must have heard of what he said of you, daring to try to set people against you! Such impertinence!’
‘He did,’ said Miss Taverner dryly. ‘I told him.’
Six
TWO DAYS LATER MR BRUMMELL CAME TO CALL IN BROOK Street, and stayed for three-quarters of an hour. Miss Taverner offered him a frank apology for her unwitting rudeness, but he shook his head at her.‘A great many people have heard me say rude things, ma’am, but no one has ever heard me commit the folly of apologising for them,’ he told her. ‘The only apology you should make me is for having mistaken Mr Frensham for me. A blow, ma’am, I confess. I thought it had not been possible.’
‘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.’
‘You had much better go to Sir Harry Peyton,’ recommended Worth. ‘I will give you a note for him.’
The tiger turned a look of indignant reproach upon him. ‘Yes, and where would you be if I did?’ he demanded.
Miss Taverner gave her horses the office to start, and said imperatively: ‘Stand away from their heads! If you are afraid, await us here.’
The tiger let go the wheelers and made a dash for his perch. As he scrambled up into it he said with strong emotion: ‘I’ve sat behind you sober, guv’nor, and I’ve sat behind you foxed, and I’ve sat behind you when you raced Sir John to Brighton, and never made no complaint, but I ain’t never sat behind you mad afore!’ with which he folded his arms, nodded darkly, and relapsed into a disapproving silence.
On her mettle, Miss Taverner guided the team down the street at a brisk trot, driving them well up to their bits. She had fine light hands, knew how to point her leaders, and soon showed the Earl that she was sufficiently expert in the use of the whip. She flicked the leader, and caught the thong again with a slight turn of her wrist that sent it soundlessly up the stick. She drove his lordship into Hyde Park without the least mishap, and twice round it. Forgetting for the moment to be coldly formal, she said impulsively: ‘I was used to drive all my father’s horses, but I never handled a team so light-mouthed as these, sir.’
‘I am thought to be something of a judge of horse-flesh, Miss Taverner,’ said the Earl.
Strolling along the promenade with his arm in the Honourable Frederick Byng’s, Sir Harry Peyton gave a gasp, and exclaimed: ‘Good God, Poodle, look! Curricle Worth!’
‘So it is,’ agreed Mr Byng, continuing to ogle a party of young ladies.
‘But with a female driving his greys! And a devilish fine female too!’
Mr Byng was sufficiently struck by this to look after the
cur-ricle. ‘Very odd of him. Perhaps it is Miss Taverner – his ward, you know. I was hearing she is an excessively delightful girl. Eighty thousand pounds, I believe.’
Sir Harry was not paying much attention. ‘I would not have credited it! Worth must be mad or in love! Henry, too! I tell you what, Poodle: this means I shall get Henry at last!’
Mr Byng shook his head wisely. ‘Worth won’t let him go. You know how it is – Curricle Worth and his Henry: almost a byword. They tell me he was a chimney-sweep’s boy before Worth found him.’
‘He was. And if I know Henry he won’t stay with Worth any longer.’
He was wrong. When the curricle drew up again in Brook Street, Henry looked at Miss Taverner with something akin to respect in his sharp eyes. ‘It ain’t what I’m used to, nor yet what I approves of,’ he said, ‘but you handles ’em werry well, miss, werry well you handles ’em!’
The Earl assisted his ward down from the curricle. ‘You may have your perch-phaeton,’ he said. ‘But inform Peregrine that I will charge myself with the procuring of a suitable pair for you to drive.’
‘You are very good, sir, but Peregrine is quite able to choose my horses for me.’
‘I make every allowance for your natural partiality, Miss Taverner, but that is going too far,’ said the Earl.
The butler had opened the door before she could think of a crushing enough retort. She could not feel that it would be seemly to quarrel with her guardian in front of a servant, so she merely asked him whether he cared to come into the house.
He declined it, made his bow, and descended the steps again to his curricle.