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. Fitz-john would put his name up for membership to the Four-Horse 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?”