Regency Buck Read online

  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.’

  ‘Excellent! I am delighted,’ said the Captain. ‘I need not try to emulate his lordship, I see.’

  She laughed. ‘Emulate such genius! No one could do that, I am sure. You must know that my abuse of Lord Byron has its root in pique. He barely noticed me! You will not expect me to do him justice after that!’

  Lord Byron continued to obsess the thoughts of Society. His connection with Lady Caroline was everywhere talked over, and exclaimed at; his verses and his person extravagantly extolled: even Mrs Scattergood, who was not bookish, was able to repeat two or three consecutive lines of Childe Harold.

  Peregrine, as might be supposed, was not much interested in his lordship. He had thrown off his cough, seemed to be in good health, and had only two things to vex him: the first, that Worth could not be prevailed upon to consent to his wedding-date being fixed; the second, that not even Mr Fitzjohn would put his name up for membership to the FourHorse Club. This select gathering of all the best whips met the first and third Thursdays in May and June in Cavendish Square, and drove in yellow-bodied barouches to Salt Hill at a strict trot. There the members dined, either at the Castle, or the Windmill, having previously lunched at Turnham Green, and refreshed at the Magpies on Hounslow Heath. The return journey was made the next day, without change of horses. Judith could not see that there was anything very remarkable in the club’s performance, but for fully two months the sum of Peregrine’s ambition was to have the right to join that distinguished procession to Salt Hill, driving the bay horses, which (though the colour was not absolutely enforced) were very much de rigueur. He could never see Mr Fitzjohn in the club’s uniform without a pang, and would have given all his expensive waistcoats in exchange for a blue one with inch-wide yellow stripes.

  ‘No, really, my dear Perry, I can’t do it!’ said Mr Fitzjohn, distressed. ‘Besides, if I did, who should we get to second you? Peyton wouldn’t, and Sefton wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t have asked me to put you up if you could have got Worth to do it.’

  ‘I am pretty well acquainted with Mr Annesley,’ said Peregrine. ‘Don’t you think he might second me?’

  ‘Not if he has seen you with a four-in-hand,’ said Mr Fitzjohn brutally. ‘Anyway, you’d be blackballed, dear old fellow. Try the Bensington: I believe they are not near so strict, and there’s no knowing but they may have a vacancy.’

  But this would by no means satisfy Peregrine; it must be the F.H.C. or nothing for him.

  ‘The fact of the matter is,’ said Mr Fitzjohn frankly, ‘you can’t drive, Perry. I will allow you to be a bruising rider, but I wouldn’t sit behind you driving a team for a hundred pounds! Cow-handed, dear boy! cow-handed!’

  Peregrine bristled with wrath, but his sister broke into low laughter, and later reproduced the expression, which had taken her fancy, to her guardian. She came up with his curricle when she was driving her phaeton in the Park, and drawing up alongside, said prettily:‘I have been wishing to meet you, Lord Worth. I have a favour to ask of you.’

  His brows rose in surprise. ‘Indeed! What is it, Miss Taverner?’

  She smiled. ‘You are not very gallant, sir. You must say:“Anything in my power I shall be happy to do for you”; or, more sim-ply: “The favour is yours for the asking.”’

  He replied in some amusement: ‘I mistrust you most when you are cajoling, Miss Taverner. What is this favour?’

  ‘Why, only that you will contrive to get