Her twinkling eyes absorbed Judith at a glance. She stepped back as though to see the girl in perspective, and then nodded briskly. ‘I am charmed! My dear Worth, I am quite charmed! You must, you shall let me have the dressing of you, child! What is your name – oh no, not that stiff Miss Taverner! Judith! Worth, what do you stay for? I am to talk of fashions, you know. You must go at once!’
Miss Taverner, who had intended politely to decline Mrs Scattergood’s services, felt powerless. The Earl made his bow, and left them together, and Mrs Scattergood immediately took one of Judith’s shapely hands in her own tightly-gloved ones, and said coaxingly: ‘You will let me come and live with you, won’t you? I am shockingly expensive, but you won’t mind that, I daresay. Oh, you are looking at my gown, and thinking what a very odd appearance I present. You see, I am not pretty, not in the least, never was, and so I have to be odd. Nothing for it! It answers delightfully. And so Worth has taken a house for you in Brook Street! Just as it should be: a charming situation! You know, I have quite made up my mind to it you are to be the rage. I think I should come to you at once. Grillon’s! Well, I suppose there is no more genteel hotel in town, but a young lady alone – oh, you have a brother, but what is the use of that? I had better have my boxes packed up immediately. How I do run on! You don’t wish me to live with you at all, I daresay. But a cousin in Kensington! You would find she would not add to your consequence, my dear. I am sure, a dowdy old lady. She would not else be living in Kensington, take my word for it.’
So Miss Taverner yielded, and that very evening her chaperon arrived at Grillon’s in a light coach weighed down by trunks and bandboxes.
Mr Blackader, who sent in his card at about four o’clock in the afternoon, was much more easily dealt with. He was a shy young man, who looked at the heiress with undisguised admiration. He seemed to be extremely conscientious, and most anxious to oblige. He frowned over the credentials of at least a dozen servants, and fluttered over the leaves of a sheaf of papers, until Miss Taverner laughingly implored him to stop.
Mr Blackader’s solemnity disappeared into something remarkably like a grin.‘Well, do you know, ma’am, I think if you was to let me settle it all for you it would be quicker done?’ he suggested apologetically.
So it was arranged. Mr Blackader hurried away to engage a cook, and Miss Taverner walked out to take a peep at London.
She turned into Piccadilly, and knew herself to be in the heart of the fashionable quarter. There was so much to see, so much to wonder at! She had not believed so many modish people to exist, while as for the c
arriages, she had never seen any so elegant. The shops, the buildings were all delightful. There was the famous Hatchard’s, with its bow windows filled with all the newest publications. She could almost fancy that the gentleman coming out of the shop was the great Mr Scott himself, or perhaps, if the author of the Lady of the Lake was in Scotland (which was sadly probable), it might be Mr Rogers, whose Pleasures of Memory had beguiled so many leisure moments.
She went into the shop, and came out again after an enchanting half-hour spent in turning over any number of books, with a copy of Mr Southey’s latest poem, the Curse of Kehama, under her arm.
When she returned to Grillon’s her chaperon had arrived, and was awaiting her. Miss Taverner entered in upon her in an impetuous fashion, and cried out: ‘Oh, ma’am, only to think of Hatchard’s at our very door! To be able to purchase any book in the world there, as I am sure one may!’
‘Lord, my dear!’ said Mrs Scattergood, in some dismay. ‘Never say you are bookish! Poems! Oh well, there may be no harm in that, one must be able to talk of the latest poems if they happen to become the rage. Marmion! I liked that excessively, I remember, though it was too long for me to finish. They say this young man who has been doing such odd things abroad is becoming the fashion, but I don’t know. He was excessively rude to poor Lord Carlisle in that horrid poem of his. I cannot like him for it, besides that someone or other was telling me there is bad blood in all the Byrons. But, of course, if he is to be the fashion one must keep an eye on him. Let me warn you, my love, never be behind the times!’
It was the first of many pieces of worldly wisdom. Miss Taverner, led from warehouse to warehouse, from milliner to bootmaker, had others instilled into her head. She learned that no lady would be seen driving or walking down St James’s Street; that every lady must be sure of being seen promenading in Hyde Park between the hours of five and six. She must not dare to dance the waltz until she had been approved by the Patronesses of Almack’s; she must not want to be wearing warm pelisses or shawls: the lightest of wraps must suffice her in all weathers; she need extend only the barest civility towards such an one; she must be conciliating to such another. And above all, most impor tant, most vital, she must move heaven and earth to earn Mr Brummell’s approval.
‘If Mr Brummell should not think you the thing you are lost!’ said Mrs Scattergood impressively. ‘Nothing could save you from social ruin, take my word for it. He has but to lift his eyebrow at you, and the whole world will know that he finds nothing to admire in you.’
Miss Taverner’s antagonism was instantly aroused. ‘I do not care that for Mr Brummell!’ she said.
Mrs Scattergood gave a faint scream, and implored her to be careful.
Miss Taverner, however, was heartily tired of the sound of the dandy’s name. Mr Brummell had invented the starched neckcloth; Mr Brummell had started the fashion of white tops to riding-boots; Mr Brummell had laid it down that no gentleman would be seen driving in a hackney carriage; Mr Brummell had his own sedan chair, lined and cushioned with white satin; Mr Brummell had abandoned a military career because his regiment had been ordered to Manchester; Mr Brummell had decreed that none of the Bow-window set at White’s would acknowledge salutations from acquaintances in the street if they were seated in the club-window. And Mr Brummell, said Mrs Scattergood, would give her one of his stinging set-downs if she offended his notions of propriety.
‘Will he?’ said Miss Taverner, a martial light in her eye. ‘Will he indeed?’
She was annoyed to find her brother inclined to be impressed by the shadow of this uncrowned king of fashion. Peregrine went to be measured for some suits of clothes at Weston’s, escorted by Mr Fitzjohn, and when he debated over two rolls of cloth, unable to decide between them, the tailor coughed, and said helpfully: ‘The Prince Regent, sir, prefers superfine, and Mr Brummell the Bath coating, but it is immaterial which you choose: you must be right. Suppose, sir, we say the Bath coating? – I think Mr Brummell has a trifle the preference.’
Peregrine’s days during that first week were quite as full as his sister’s. His friend, Mr Fitzjohn, took him thoroughly in hand. When he was not being fitted for boots at Hoby’s, or hats at Lock’s, he was choosing fobs in Wells Street, or riding off to Long Acre to look at a tilbury, or knowingly inspecting carriage-horses at Tattersall’s.
The house in Brook Street, somewhat to Miss Taverner’s annoyance, proved to be admirable in every respect, the saloons handsome, and the furnishings just what she liked. She was installed there within three days of seeing Mr Blackader, and a number of her new gowns having been delivered in neat band boxes, her hair having been fashionably cut, and her maid taught to dress it in several approved classical styles, Mrs Scattergood declared her to be ready to receive morning callers.
The first of these were her uncle, the Admiral, and his son, Mr Bernard Taverner. They came at an awkward moment, Peregrine, who had spent the great part of the morning in a brocade dressing-gown, while the barber and a breeches-maker waited on him, being at that moment engaged in trying to arrange his starched neckcloth.
His sister, who had walked unceremoniously into his room to demand his escort to Colburn’s Lending Library, was an interested and rather scornful spectator. ‘What nonsense it is, Perry!’ she exclaimed, as with an exasperated oath he threw away his fourth crushed and mangled cravat. ‘That is the fourth you have spoiled! If only you would have them made more narrow!’
Peregrine, his face and head quite obscured by his turned-up shirt collar, said testily: ‘Women never understand these things. Fitz says it must be a foot high. As for four spoiled, pooh, that’s nothing! Fitz says Brummell has sometimes ruined as many as a score. Now try it again, John! Fold my collar down first, you fool!’
Someone knocked on the door. Peregrine, with a neckcloth a foot wide round his neck, and his chin to the ceiling, shouted: ‘Come in!’ and in doing so produced a crease in the neckcloth which he felt could hardly have been bettered by the Beau himself.
The footman entered, and announced the arrival of Admiral and Mr Taverner. Peregrine was too much engaged in making further creases by the simple expedient of gradually lowering his jaw, to pay any heed, but Judith jumped up at once. ‘Oh Perry, do make haste! It is our cousin! Beg the Admiral to wait, Perkins. We will come directly. Is Mrs Scattergood downstairs? Oh then, she will see to it all! Perry, will you never have done?’
The cravat had by this time been reduced to more normal proportions. Peregrine studied it anxiously in the mirror, tried with a cautious finger to perfect one of the creases, and announced gloomily that it would have to do. It was still too high to permit of his turning his head more than an inch or two either side, but this he assured Judith was nothing at all out of the way.
The next business was to get him into his new coat, an elegant blue creation made of the prescribed Bath coating, with long tails, and silver buttons. It fitted him so exactly that the services of the footman had to be engaged to assist in inserting him into it. It seemed at one time as though not even the united efforts of two able-bodied men could succeed in this, but after a grim struggle it was done, and Peregrine, panting slightly from his exertions, turned to his sister and proudly asked her how he looked.
There was a laugh in her eye, but she assured him he was quite the thing. In any other man she would have ruthlessly condemned so absurdly waisted a coat, so monstrous a cravat, such skin-tight pantaloons, but Peregrine was very much her darling, and must be allowed to dress himself up in any dandified way he pleased. She did indeed suggest that his golden locks were in considerable disorder, but upon being informed that this was intentional, and had taken him half an hour to achieve, she said no more, but took his arm and went down with him to the saloon upon the first floor.
Here they found Mrs Scattergood seated on a confidante beside a stout flushed-looking gentleman with grizzled hair, in whom Miss Taverner had no difficulty in recognising her late father’s brother. Mr Bernard Taverner occupied a chair opposite t
o them, but upon the door opening to admit his cousins, he immediately got up, and made his bow. There was a certain warmth in his smile; his look seemed to approve, even to admire. Judith could only be glad to think that she had chosen that morning to put on the jonquil muslin dress with the lace trimming, and the new kid shoes of celestial blue.