“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. Scatter good 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 I 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.”