“It can make very little difference,” said the Earl, who seemed to be fast losing interest in the affair. “Do as you please about it: your prospective mother-in-law will no doubt inform all her acquaintance of it, so it may as well be as formal as you like.”

“Lady Fairford,” said Peregrine severely, “is a very superior woman, sir, quite above that sort of thing.”

“If she is above trying to secure a husband with an estate of twelve thousand pounds a year for her daughter she is unique,” said the Earl with a certain tartness.

Chapter IX

The betrothal was announced in the columns of the Morning Post, and its most immediate effect was to bring Admiral Taverner to Brook Street with a copy of the paper under his arm, and an expression of strong indignation on his face. He wasted no time in civilities, and not even the presence of Mrs. Scattergood had the power to prevent him making known his mind. He demanded to know what they were all about to let Peregrine make such wretched work of his future.

“Miss Harriet Fairford!” he said. “Who is Miss Harriet Fairford? I thought it had not been possible when I read it. ‘Depend upon it,’ I said (for Bernard was with me), ‘Depend upon it, it is all a damned hum! The lad will not be throwing himself away on the first pretty face he sees.’ But you don’t speak; you say nothing! Is it true then?”

Miss Taverner begged him to be seated. “Yes, sir, it is quite true.”

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.

“Well, my love,” remarked Mrs. Scattergood, “I should not wish to be severe on a relative of yours, but I must say that I do not think the Admiral quite the thing.”

“I know it,” replied Miss Taverner.

“It is quite plain to me that he does not like to think of Perry with a nursery-full of stout children standing between him and the title. You must forgive me, my dear, but I do not perfectly know how things are left.”

“My uncle would inherit the title if Perry died without a son to succeed him, and also a part—only what is entailed, and it is very little—of the estate,” Judith answered. “It is I who would inherit the bulk of the fortune.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Scattergood thoughtfully. She seemed to be on the point of making some further remark, but changing her mind merely proposed their ordering the carriage and driving to a shop in Bond Street, where she fancied she would be able to match a particularly fine netting cotton.

Miss Taverner, having a book to change at Hookham’s Library, was quite agreeable, and in a short time both ladies set forth in an open barouche, the day (though it was November) being so extremely mild that even Mrs. Scattergood could not fear an inflammation of the lungs, or an injury to the complexion.

They arrived in Bond Street soon after two o’clock and found it as usual at that hour very full of carriages and smart company. Several tilburies and saddle-horses were waiting outside Stephen’s Hotel, and as Miss Taverner’s barouche passed the door of Jackson’s Boxing Saloon she saw her brother going in on Mr. Fitzjohn’s arm. She waved to him, but did not stop, and the carriage drawing up presently outside a haberdasher’s shop she set Mrs. Scattergood down and drove on to the library.

She had just handed in Tales of Fashionable Life, and was glancing through the volumes of one of the new publications when she felt a touch on her sleeve and turned to find her cousin at her elbow.

She gave him her hand, gloved in lemon kid. “How do you do? I believe one is sure of meeting everyone at Hookham’s, soon or late. Tell me, have you read this novel? I have just picked it at random from the shelf. I don’t know who wrote it, but do, my dear cousin, read where I have quite by accident opened the volume!”

He looked over her shoulder. Her finger pointed to a line. While he read she watched him, smiling, to see what effect the words must produce on him.

“I am glad of it. He seems a most gentleman-like man; and I think, Elinor, I may congratulate you on the prospect of a very respectable establishment in life,”

“Me, brother! What do you mean?”

“He likes you. I observed him narrowly, and am convinced of it. What is the amount of his fortune?”

“I believe about two thousand a year.”

“Two thousand a year?”and then working himself up to a pitch of enthusiastic generosity, he added: “Elinor, I wish with all my heart it were twice as much for your sake.”

A laugh assured Miss Taverner that this passage had struck her cousin just as she believed it must. She said, closing the volume: “Surely the writer of that must possess a most lively mind? I am determined to take this book. It seems all to be written about ordinary people, and, do you know, I am quite tired of Sicilians and Italian Counts who behave in such a very odd way. Sense and Sensibility! Well, after Midnight Bells and Horrid Mysteries that has a pleasant ring, don’t you agree?”

“Undoubtedly. I think it has not yet come in my way, but if you report well of it I shall certainly bespeak it. Are you walking? May I be your escort?”

“My carriage is waiting outside. I have to call at Jones’s for Mrs. Scattergood. I wish you may accompany me.”

He was all compliance, and having handed her into the carriage, took his seat beside her, and said with a grave look: “I believe my father has been to call on you this morning.”

She inclined her head. “Yes, my uncle was with us for about an hour.”

“I can guess his errand. I am sorry for it.”

“There is no need. He considers that Perry is too young to be thinking of marriage, and in part I agree with him.”

“Perry’s friends must all feel the truth of that. It is a pity. He has seen very little of the world, and at nineteen, you know, one’s taste is not fixed. My father has never been a believer in early marriages. But it may yet come to nothing, I daresay.”