He put out his hand quickly. “My dear child! Of course I believe you. If I looked angry you must blame circumstance, which has forced me to—” He broke off, and smiled at her.
“Shall we put the memory of that day at Cuckfield out of mind?”
“If you please,” whispered Miss Taverner. “I am aware—have been aware almost from the start—that I ought not to have driven myself from London as I did.”
“Miss Taverner,” he said, “I am seriously alarmed. Are you sure that you are yourself?”
She smiled, but shook her head. “I am not sufficiently myself to quarrel with you to-night, provoke me how you may.”
“Poor Clorinda! I won’t provoke you any more, I promise,” he said, and drawing her hand through his arm, led her to the door into the Chinese Gallery and so out to her carriage.
Chapter XXI
Mr. Brummell, who had elected to stroll across from his lodgings on the Steyne to the Earl of Worth’s house on the morning after the party at the Pavilion, set the red Pekin sweetmeat-box of carved lacquer down on the table with tender care, and sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I am inclined to hazard the opinion that it is quite genuine. Ch’ien Lung. Pray remove it from my sight.”
The Earl restored the box to its place in the cabinet. “I found it in Lewes, of all unlikely places. Charles will not allow it to be worth a guinea.”
“Charles’s opinions on old lac leave me supremely indifferent,” said Brummell. He crossed one leg, beautifully sheathed in a pale biscuit-coloured pantaloon, over the other, and leaned his head against the back of the chair to look lazily up at Worth. “Well, I have seen the Great Man,” he said. “You are quite out of favour, you know.”
The Earl gave a short laugh. “Yes, until he wants my judgment on a horse or a brand of snuff. Did you come to tell me that?”
“Not at all. I came to tell you that he has taken a chill for which he apparently holds you responsible.”
“I can only say that I hope it may prove fatal,” replied the Earl.
“He seems to think that probable,” said Brummell. “I left him on the point of being cupped. I am not unreasonable; if he likes to make being cupped a hobby it is quite his own affair; but he had the deplorable bad taste to tell me how much blood he had had taken from him these thirty years. It will come to this, you know, that I shall be obliged to drop him. I begin to think that I made a great mistake to bring him into fashion at all.”
“He doesn’t do you much credit, certainly,” remarked the Earl with the glimmer of a smile.
“On the contrary, he does me considerable credit,” said Brummell. “You must have forgotten what he was like before I took him up. He was used to flaunt abroad in green velvet and spangles. Which reminds me, you will like to know that I punished him for you after you had left last night. He actually asked my opinion of that coat he was wearing.” He inhaled a pinch of snuff, and delicately dusted his fingers. “I thought he was going to burst into tears,” he said reflectively.
At this moment the door was quickly flung open, and Captain Audley came into the room. He looked straight across at his brother, and said without preamble: “Are you at liberty, Julian? Miss Taverner is here, and wishes to see you—on a matter of grave importance.”
The Earl turned, and their eyes met for an instant. “Miss Taverner wishes to see me?” repeated the Earl, a slight inflection of surprise in his voice.
“Urgently,” said Captain Audley.
“Then pray bring her in,” said the Earl calmly. He walked to the door. “My dear Miss Taverner, will you not come in? I do not know what Charles is about to leave you standing in the hall.”
Judith came swiftly towards him. She was dressed in her driving-habit, and she looked unusually pale. “Lord Worth, something has happened to Perry!” she said. “I have come at once to you.”
He drew her into the saloon, and shut the door behind her. “Indeed! I am extremely sorry to hear it. What is it? Has he overturned his curricle?”
Her eyes alighted on Brummell, who had risen at her entrance and was regarding her with an expression of civil concern. “I beg your pardon. I thought you were alone. You must forgive me for breaking in on you so abruptly, but I hardly know what I am about. I have just learned that Perry did not go to Worthing yesterday!”
The Earl raised his brows. “From whom have you learned this? Are you quite sure?”
“Oh yes, there can be no mistake. I have spoken with Lady Fairford. She and Miss Fairford have come over to Brighton to make some purchases. I was driving up East Street when I saw them. I stopped, and before I could speak Lady Fairford had asked me whether Peregrine was indisposed that he had not kept his engagement with them yesterday.” She paused, and lifted her hand to her cheek. “Perhaps you will think I am needlessly alarmed—there may be a dozen simple explanations! I tell myself so, but—I cannot believe it! Lord Worth, Perry left me yesterday afternoon, and he is not back!”
One of Mr. Brummell’s mobile brows went up. He glanced from Worth to Charles Audley, but said nothing.
The Earl drew a chair forward. “Yes, I think there might be several explanations,” he said. “Will you not be seated? Charles, pour out a glass of wine for Miss Taverner.”
She made a gesture of refusal. “Thank you, thank you, I do not want anything. What explanation can there be? All I can think is that some accident has befallen him, but even that will not do, for how is it possible that I should not have heard of it by now? He was not alone; his groom was with him. Lord Worth, what has happened to Perry?”
“I am afraid I can scarcely answer that question,” replied the Earl. “But since he was accompanied by his groom, it seems safe to assume that he has not met with an accident. The more probable explanation is that he has gone off to see a cock-fight, or something of that sort, and did not wish you to know of it.”
“Oh,” she said eagerly, “do you think that might be so? It is quite true that he would not wish me to know. But the Fairfords—oh no, he would not have made so positive an engagement—he was to accompany them to an Assembly—if he had not meant to keep it!”
“Well, let us suppose that he did mean to keep it,” said the Earl. “From my knowledge of him I should not imagine that if, at the last moment, some acquaintance desired him to go off to see a mill, or some cocking, he would find him very hard to persuade.”
“No, perhaps not,” she conceded doubtfully. “But would he not have returned by now?”
“Apparently not,” said the Earl.
The matter-of-fact way he spoke had its effect on her. She tried to smile, and said with a faint blush: “You make my fears sound ridiculous. Of course something of the kind must have occurred. Ten to one I shall find him at home when I get there. Only—Lord Worth, do you indeed think that? You do not see any need for anxiety?”
“Not yet, at all events,” he replied. “If you have no news of him by dinner-time, send me word, and I will come round to discuss what is best to be done. Meanwhile, I will certainly make inquiries on the Worthing road. I think, if I were you, I would not mention the matter to anyone. If Peregrine were to return and find the whole town talking of his escapade, he might not be best pleased.”
“You are very right. I shall say nothing. Of course, there must be some very simple reason for his disappearing.” She got up. “I must not stay. Mrs. Scattergood will be wondering what has become of me.”
Captain Audley, who had retired to the window, stepped forward. “You will allow me to accompany you?” he said.
She smiled. “Yes, indeed, I should be glad. I daresay we shall find Perry in Marine Parade after all. Mr. Brummell, I wish you had not been here, for I am aware how I must have sunk in your estimation! You told me once never to betray emotion, and here I am, on the high road to hysterics! No, no, do not come out with me, Lord Worth! Captain Audley has me in charge.”
The Earl, however, accompanied her to her phaeton, handed her up into it, and saw her drive off. When he returned to the
saloon he found Mr. Brummell standing where he had left him, sipping a glass of Madeira. Mr. Brummell said in his pensive way: “It occurs to me, Julian, that though I might not be so well informed, the news of a mill to be fought in the district must have reached your ears.”
“You would think so,” replied the Earl shortly.
Mr. Brummell looked at him over the rim of his wine-glass. “Well, do you know, I do think so,” he said. “The cocking was a better notion, and if you are satisfied with it, it would be absurd for me to cavil.”
“I am not in the least satisfied with it,” said the Earl. “But something had to be said. If you have any suggestion to offer I shall be glad to hear it. What is in your mind, George?”
“Who,” asked Mr. Brummell, “is the heir to Peregrine’s fortune?”
“To a great extent, his sister.”
Mr. Brummell shook his head. “I cannot feel that Miss-Taverner would be guilty of the impropriety of murdering her brother.”
The Earl poured himself out a glass of wine, and tasted it before he answered. “Murder, George, is a very strong word,” he said. “There was also a groom, and a tilbury, and a pair of horses.”
“True,” agreed Brummell. “Yet I am of the opinion that a resourceful person might—at a pinch—find the means of disposing of a groom, a tilbury and even a pair of horses.”
“It is a possibility that has already occurred to me. It is not, however, one that I intend to present to Miss Taverner.”
Mr. Brummell set down his glass, and opened his snuff-box again. “How many years have I known you, Julian?” he inquired.
“Precisely eighteen,” replied the Earl, with disastrous promptness.
“Nonsense!” said Brummell, considerably startled. “It was not as long ago as that, surely, that I joined the regiment?”
“You were gazetted to the 10th Hussars in June of ’94, and you left us in ’98—upon the regiment’s being moved to Manchester,” said the Earl inexorably.
“I remember that,” admitted Brummell. “But how very shocking! I must be thirty-four or five!”
“Thirty-four,” said the Earl.
“My dear Julian, I beg you won’t mention it to anyone!” said Brummell earnestly.
“I won’t. What was it you wanted to say?”
“Oh, merely that during the years I have known you I have always thought you a man of considerable resource,” said Brummell.
“I am obliged to you,” said the Earl. “You have only to add that the most determined suitor to Miss Taverner’s hand is one Charles Audley, and we shall understand one another tolerably well.”
“But I have known you for eighteen years,” objected Brummell. “And it does seem to me that I have seen another determined suitor—a very civil gentleman who is, I think, a cousin.”
“Admiral Taverner’s son,” said the Earl briefly.
Brummell nodded. “Yes, I met the Admiral in Brook Street once. He is a fellow, now, who would send his plate up twice for soup. I am perfectly willing to suspect any son of his.”
“Yes,” said the Earl, “I rather fancy that if nothing is heard of Peregrine, suspicion will point to Mr. Bernard Taverner. That would be unfortunate for Mr. Bernard Taverner.”
“I collect,” remarked Brummell, “that the gentleman in question is no friend of yours.”
“So little my friend,” replied the Earl, “that I shall own myself surprised if he does not presently set it about that it was I who caused Peregrine, and his groom, his tilbury, and his horses to disappear.”
“Which is absurd,” said Brummell.
“Which,” agreed the Earl, “is naturally absurd, my dear George.”
In Marine Parade Miss Taverner spent an uncomfortable day, running to the window at the least sound of carriage wheels stopping outside the house, and trying to think of some good reason for Peregrine’s prolonged absence. While Mrs. Scattergood did her best to reassure her, it was evident that she too felt a considerable degree of alarm, and when, at six o’clock, there was still no sign of Peregrine, it was she, and not Miss Taverner, who sent a footman round to the Steyne with an urgent note for the Earl of Worth.
He came at once, and was ushered into the drawing-room, where both ladies were awaiting him. Miss Taverner was looking pale, and greeted him with a rather wan smile. “He has not come back,” she said, trying to speak calmly.
“No, so I am informed,” he replied. “And you, I perceive, have been fancying him dead this hour and more.”
His coolness, though it might argue a lack of sensibility, had always the power to allay any extraordinary irritation of nerves in her. She had been thinking Peregrine dead, but she at once felt such fears to be nonsensical. But Mrs. Scattergood exclaimed, with a strong shudder: “How can you say such things? If that is what you think—”
“No, it is what Miss Taverner thinks,” he answered. “Am I right, my ward?”
“Lord Worth, what am I to think? He has disappeared. I know no more than that.”
“You would do well not to imagine more,” he said. “Your brother is an extremely careless young man, but because he has chosen to slip off on some adventure without letting anyone know of it, is no reason to be in despair.”
“It will not do,” she said. “You know how much reason I have to fear the worst. All day long I have been recalling that duel, the attempt to shoot him on Finchley Common—even his illness in your house! Have you forgotten these things?”
“No,” he replied, “I have not forgotten them. I am leaving for London to-night. I can get no news of him on the Worthing road. You must try to trust me, Miss Taverner. Meanwhile, I wish that you will remain in Brighton, and continue as much as possible your ordinary pursuits. Until we have more precise information it would be undesirable to start any public hue and cry. The fewer people who know of Peregrine’s disappearance the better.”
“I have told no one but my cousin,” she said. “You can have no objection to that.”
“None at all,” he said with a grim little smile. “I should even be interested to hear how he received the news.”
“With a concern that did him more honour than your sneer does you, Lord Worth!” she retorted fierily.
“I can believe it. Have you ever asked yourself, Miss Taverner, who would be the person most interested in Peregrine’s death?”
“Don’t, don’t use that dreadful word!” besought Mrs. Scattergood. “Not but what I think you are right. I never did like the man!”
Miss Taverner got up swiftly, and stood leaning one hand on the table, her eyes fixed on the Earl’s face. “You forget, I think, that you are speaking of one who is nearly related to me: of one, moreover, who has earned my trust in a way that must for ever preclude my lending ear to such suspicions. Had my cousin wished to kill Peregrine he would not have stopped his duel with Farnaby last year.”
“I had certainly forgotten that,” agreed the Earl.
“Perhaps you might, but I never shall. Mr. Bernard Taverner had nothing to do with Perry’s disappearance. He dined with friends, and was with them until past midnight.”
“And was it not Mr. Bernard Taverner who recently introduced a servant of his own into your household—a servant who, by the oddest coincidence, is also missing at this moment?” inquired the Earl.
Mrs. Scattergood gave a sharp scream. “Mercy on me, so he did! Oh dear, what will become of us? I shall not sleep a wink to-night!”
“Lord Worth, you shall not make these insinuations!” Miss Taverner said. “If Peregrine was overpowered, so too must Tyler have been.”
“Miss Taverner, you have said that you fear Peregrine may have met with foul play. If your cousin is to be above suspicion, whom do you mean to choose for your villain? Since he has only one arm, Charles, I fear, is ineligible. There remains myself.”
Her eyes sank. “You are wrong. There is another,” she said, in a low voice. “I have—always held him in mind, even though every feeling must be outraged by such a thought! But
my father did not trust him. I cannot get that out of my head.”
“Are you referring to your uncle?” asked the Earl. She nodded. “I see. Your cousin, meanwhile, to remain blameless. It does not seem to me very likely, but time will show. I shall hope to be able to send you more certain tidings in a day or two. Until then, I can only advise you to wait with as much patience as you can.”
“What do you mean to do in London?” asked Mrs. Scattergood. “Do you think Perry can have gone there?”
“I have no idea,” answered the Earl. “I am hoping that the Bow Street Runners will be able to help me to find out.” He held out his hand, and Miss Taverner put hers into it. “Goodbye,” he said curtly. “Keep a stout heart, Clorinda.” He bowed, and in another minute was gone.
“What was that he called you?” asked Mrs. Scattergood, momentarily diverted.
“Nothing,” replied Miss Taverner, flushing. “A stupid jest, that is all.”
She saw her cousin on the following morning, when he called to inquire whether any news had been heard of Peregrine. She informed him of Worth’s having gone to London, and requested him not to mention Peregrine’s absence to anyone. He said quickly: “I should certainly not speak of your affairs without leave, but why do you particularly wish me to be silent? Is this Lord Worth’s doing?”
“He thinks it best not to spread it abroad. I daresay he may be right. I must be guided by him.”
He took a turn about the room, and presently said with a little reserve: “I am aware that it is not for me to criticize. But what reason can he have for wishing to keep Perry’s disappearance secret? You tell me he has gone to Bow Street: that would be well done indeed—if he may be believed. You are to do nothing, to set no inquiries on foot: it is all to be left to him. Does he know that I am in this secret?”
“Yes,” she said. “Certainly he knows.”
He looked at her intently. “Ah, I understand! I am suspect.”
Regency Buck Page 33
