“Very true, my love; I was forgetting. Then it must be the Denmark Lotion after all. I wish you will buy some, if you mean to drive with Perry.”
Judith promised and went away to put on her hat and her gloves. When she drove out presently alone with her brother, she spoke to him seriously of their guardian. “I cannot like him, Perry. There is something in his eye, a hardness, a—mocking look—which I don’t trust. There is a lack of civility, too—oh, worse! His whole manner, his being so familiar with me—with us! It is very bad. I don’t understand him. He would have us think that he wanted to be our guardian as little as we wished to be his wards, and yet is it not odd that he should busy himself so particularly with our affairs? Even Mrs. Scattergood thinks it strange he should not be content to let the lawyers settle everything. She says she has never known him to exert himself so much as he does now.”
Thus Miss Taverner, in a mood of disquiet. The Earl, however, seemed to be in no hurry to repeat his call. They saw nothing of him for some days, though their visitors were many. Lady Sefton came with one of her daughters, and Mr. Skeffington, a very tall thin man with a painted face and a yellow waistcoat. He was lavishly scented, which set the Taverners instantly against him, and talked a great deal about the theatre. There did not seem to be an actor alive with whom he was not on terms of intimacy. They discovered later that he had written some plays himself, and even produced them. His manners were particularly gentle and pleasing, and it was not very long before the Taverners were quite won over to him. He was so kind one must forgive the paint and the scent.
Lady Sefton had to be liked also; and Mrs. Scattergood assured her charges that neither she nor her popular husband had an enemy in the world.
Lady Jersey, another of the all-powerful patronesses of Almack’s, came with Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, a lady of icy good-breeding, who said little and looked to be insufferably haughty. Lady Jersey seemed to be very good-natured in her restless way. She talked incessantly throughout her short visit, and fidgeted with anything that came in the way of her fluttering hands. Getting into her carriage again when the call was over, she said: “Well, my dear, I think—don’t you?—a charming girl? Quite beautiful! And of course the fortune! They tell me eighty thousand at the very least! We shall see all the fortune-hunters at work!” She gave her fairy-laugh. “Alvanley was telling me poor dear Wellesley Poole has left his card in Brook Street already. Well, I am sure I wish the girl a good husband. I think her quite out of the common.”
Mrs. Drummond-Burrell slightly shrugged her shoulders, “ Farouche,” she said in her cold way. “I detest provincials.”
It was unfortunate for Miss Taverner that this judgment should soon be endorsed by another. Mr. John Mills, who was called the Mosaic Dandy, went from curiosity to pay a morning call in Brook Street, and came away to spread the news through town that the new beauty might better be known as the Milkmaid. His manners had not pleased Miss Taverner. He was affected, talked with a great air of conceit, and put on so much insolent condescension that she was impelled to give him a sharp set-down.
Mrs. Scattergood admitted the provocation, but was worried over it. “I don’t like the creature—I believe no one does. Brummell hates him, I know—but there’s no denying, my love, he has a tongue, and can make mischief. I hope he may not try to rum you.”
But the nickname he had bestowed on Miss Taverner was sufficiently apt to catch the fashionable fancy. Mr. Mills declared that no gentleman of taste would admire such a blowsy prettiness. A great many people who had been doubtful whether to approve or condemn Judith (for her frank, decided manners were something quite new, only to be tolerated in persons of rank) were at once convinced that she was pert and presuming. Some snubs were dealt her, the throng of would-be admirers began to lessen, and more than one lady of fashion turned her shoulder.
The nickname came to Judith’s ears, and made her furious. That any dandy should have it in his power to sway public opinion was not to be borne. When she discovered the extent of the harm he had worked she was not dismayed or tearful, but on the contrary eager for war. She would not change her manners to suit a dandy’s taste; she would rather force Society to accept her in the teeth of them all, Brummell included.