Within a week the rich Miss Taverner’s phaeton was one of the sights of town, and several aspiring ladies had attempted something in the same style. But since no one, with the exception of Lady Lade, who was so vulgar and low-born (having been before her marriage to Sir John the mistress of a highwayman known as Sixteen-String Jack) that she could not be thought to count, could drive one horse, let alone a pair, with anything approaching Miss Taverner’s skill, these attempts were soon abandoned. To be struggling with a refractory horse, or jogging soberly along behind a sluggish one, while Miss Taverner dashed by in her high phaeton could not add to any lady’s consequence. Miss Taverner was allowed to drive her pair unrivalled.
She did not always drive, however. Sometimes she rode, generally with her brother, and occasionally with Lord Anglesey’s lovely daughters, and very often with her cousin, Mr. Bernard Taverner. She rode a very spirited black horse, and it was not long before Miss Taverner’s black was as well known as Lord Morton’s long-tailed grey. She had learned the trick of acquiring idiosyncrasies.
In a month the Taverners were so safely launched into Society that even Mrs. Scattergood admitted that there did not seem any longer to be anything to fear. Peregrine had not only been made a member of White’s, but had contrived to get himself elected to Watier’s as well, its perpetual President, Mr. Brummell, having been induced to choose a white instead of a black ball on the positive assurance of Lord Sefton that Peregrine would bring into the club not the faintest aroma either of the stables or of bad blacking—an aroma which, in Mr. Brummell’s experience, far too often clung to country squires.
He went as Mr. Fitzjohn’s guest to a meeting of the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks at the Lyceum, and had the felicity of seeing there that amazing figure, the Duke of Norfolk, who rolled in looking for all the world like a gross publican, and presided over the dinner in dirty linen and an old blue coat; ate more beefsteaks than anyone else; was very genial and good humoured; and fell sound asleep long before the end of the meeting.
He took sparring lessons at Jackson’s Saloon; shot at Manton’s Galleries; fenced at Angelo’s; drank Blue Ruin in Cribb’s Parlour; drove to races in his own tilbury, and generally behaved very much as any other young gentleman of fortune did who fancied himself as a fashionable buck. His conversation became interlarded with cant expressions; he lost a great deal of money playing at macao, or laying bets with his cronies; drank rather too much; and began to cause his sister a good deal of alarm. When she expostulated with him he merely laughed, assured her he might be trusted to keep the line, went off to join a party of sporting gentlemen, and returned in the small hours considerably intoxicated, or—as he himself phrased it—a trifle above par.
Judith turned to her cousin for advice. With the Admiral she could never be upon intimate terms, but Bernard Taverner had very soon become a close friend.
He listened to her gravely; he agreed with her that Peregrine was living at too furious a rate, but said gently: “You know I would do anything in my power for you. I have seen all you describe, and been sorry for it, and wondered that Lord Worth should not intervene.”
She turned her eyes upon him. “Could not you?” she asked.
He smiled. “I have no right, cousin. Do you think Perry would attend to me? I am sure he would not. He would write me down a dull fellow, and be done with me. It is—” he hesitated. “May I speak plainly?”
“I wish you would.”