The Admiral muttered something under his breath that sounded like an oath, and crumpling up the paper threw it into a corner of the room. “It does not signify talking!” he said. “Was there ever such an ill-managed business? D—n me, the boy’s no more than nineteen! He is not to be getting married at his age. Upon my soul, I wonder at Worth! But I daresay this is done without his knowledge?”
Miss Taverner was obliged to banish the gleam of hope in her uncle’s eyes by replying quietly that the betrothal had been announced with the Earl’s full consent.
The Admiral seemed to find this difficult to believe. He exclaimed at it, blessed himself, and ended by saying that he could not understand it. “Worth has some devilish deep game on hand!” he said. “I wish I knew what it may be! Married before he is twenty! Ay, that will mean the devil to pay and no pitch hot!”
Mrs. Scattergood, at no time disposed in the Admiral’s favour, shut up her netting-box at this, and said in a tone of decided reproof: “I am sure I do not know what you can mean, sir. Pray, what game should my cousin be playing? It is no bad thing, I can tell you, for a young man inclined to wildness to be betrothed to a respectable female such as Miss Fairford. It will steady him, and for my part I have not the least doubt She will make him a charming wife.”
The Admiral recollected himself. “Mean! Oh, d—n it, I don’t mean anything! I had forgot you were related to the fellow. But Perry with his fortune to be throwing himself away on a paltry baronet’s daughter! It is a pitiful piece of work indeed!”
He was evidently much put out, and Miss Taverner, guessing as she must the real reason behind his annoyance, could only be sorry to see him expose himself so plainly. She had no means of knowing what else he might have said, for the footman opening the door to announce another caller the conversation had to be abandoned.
This second visitor was none other than the Duke of Clarence, who came in with a smile on his good-humoured face, and a bluff greeting for both ladies.
Miss Taverner was distressed that he should have come when her uncle was sitting with her, but the Admiral’s manners when confronted by Royalty underwent a distinct change. If he did not, with his red face and rather bloodshot eyes, present a very creditable appearance, at least he said nothing during the Duke’s visit to mortify his niece. His civilities were too obsequious to please the nice tone of her mind, but the Duke seemed to find nothing amiss, so that she supposed him to be too much in the way of encountering such flattery to think it extraordinary. He stayed only half an hour, but his partiality for Miss Taverner, which he made no attempt to conceal, did not escape the Admiral’s notice. No sooner had the Duke made his bow, and gone off, than the Admiral said: “You did not tell me you was on such easy terms with Clarence, my dear niece. This is flying high indeed! But you will be very ill-advised to encourage his attentions, you know. Ay, you may colour up, but you won’t deny he is in a way to make you the object of his gallantry. But there is nothing to be hoped for in that quarter. These morganatic marriages are not for you. Nothing could be worse! Think of Mrs. Fitz-Herbert, gone off to live at Golders Green! Think of that poor creature Sussex married in Rome—and she was of better birth than you, my dear, but it was all annulled, and there she is, I don’t know where, with two children, and a beggarly allowance, quite cast-off!”
“Your warning, sir, is quite unnecessary,” said Miss Taverner coldly. “I have no intention of marrying the Duke of Clarence even if he should ask me—an event which I do not at all anticipate.”
The Admiral evidently felt that he had said enough. He begged pardon, and presently took himself off.