Peregrine was frowning across the house. “Yes, but he seems actually to be trying to catch our attention. Ju, you do not know him, do you?”
She looked fleetingly towards the opposite door. The Earl kissed his hand to her, and Captain Audley turned to her with a surprise question in his eyes. “My dear Miss Taverner, are you acquainted with Barrymore?”
She said in a good deal of confusion: “No, no! I have never spoken to him in my life.”
“Well, I think perhaps I will go round and inform him of it,” said the Captain, rising from his chair.
She laid her hand on his sleeve, and said with strong agitation: “It is of no consequence! I am persuaded he mistakes me for another. See, he has found his error for himself, and is no longer looking this way! Pray sit down again, Captain Audley!”
Civility obliged him to comply, though he looked to be far from satisfied. But the third act commenced almost immediately, and as the Earl went away before the farce no further annoyance was suffered that evening.
But the effects of his having recognized in Miss Taverner the curricle-driver at Horley were soon felt. Knowledge of her identity did not prevent him from describing the circumstances under which he had first met her, and by the time she entered the Assembly-rooms at the Old Ship with Mrs. Scattergood on the following evening her name was being bandied about pretty freely, and two ladies who had hitherto treated her with marked amiability bowed with such cold civility that she felt almost ready to sink.
The rooms were full, and a large part of the gathering was composed of officers, with whom, from the circumstance of a Cavalry barracks being situated a little way out of the town on the Lewes road, Brighton always teemed. The Master of Ceremonies presented several of the younger ones to Miss Taverner, but she stood up for the first two dances with Captain Audley.
It might have been her fancy, but she thought that she could detect a shade of reserve in his manner, a grave look in his usually merry eyes. After a little while she said as lightly as she could: “I daresay you have heard by this time of my shocking conduct, Captain Audley. Are you disgusted? Do you think you should stand up with such a sad character as myself?”
“You refer to your drive from town, I collect. I should not have described it in such terms.”
“But you do not approve of it. I can see that you think ill of me for having done it.”
He smiled. “My countenance must be singularly deceptive, then. I think ill of you! No, indeed, I do not!”
“Your brother is very angry with me.”
He returned no answer, and after a moment or two she said with a little laugh: “It was not so very bad, after all.”
“Certainly not. What you do could never be bad. Let us say rather that it was not very wise.”
She was conscious of a constriction in her throat; she overcame it, and replied: “I am sure I do not care. Such an excessive regard for public opinion is what I have no patience with. Your brother is not here to-night, I think.”
“He was engaged to dine with some friends, but I daresay he will be here presently.”
They went down the dance at this moment, and when they stood opposite to each other again another topic for conversation came up, and continued to occupy them for the rest of the time they were together.
As she walked back beside the Captain to where they had left Mrs. Scattergood, Miss Taverner saw that Worth had entered the room, and was standing talking earnestly to her chaperon. From the glance Mrs. Scattergood cast in her direction she felt sure that she was the subject under discussion, and it was consequently in a very stiff manner that she greeted her guardian.
His bow was formal, his countenance unsmiling; and for the few minutes that he remained beside them he talked the merest commonplace. Tuesday’s events were not referred to, but that they held a prominent place in his thoughts Miss Taverner could not doubt. All the mortifications of her last meeting with him were vividly recalled to her memory by the sight of him, and no softening in his manner, no kinder light in his eyes came to alleviate her discomfort. Upon her civility being claimed towards an officer who approached to lead her out for the next dance, the Earl walked away to the other end of the room, and presently took his place in another set opposite a young lady in a diaphanous gown of yellow sarcenet. He left the ballroom before tea, and without once having asked his ward to stand up with him. She saw him go, and was wretched indeed. As for his taste, she thought very poorly of it, for she could not perceive the least degree of beauty in the lady in yellow sarcenet—nothing, in fact, to have made it worth the Earl’s while to have attended the ball.
The evening provided her with a fair sample of what she guessed she would be obliged to endure until her escapade was forgotten. Several dowagers eyed her with a good deal of severity, and her particular friends seemed to have agreed amongst themselves to behave towards her as though nothing had happened, which they did so carefully that her spirits sank lower than ever. The gentlemen saw the affair as a famous joke; they were ready enough to talk of it, and to applaud her daring; and the boldest amongst them quizzed her with a kind of familiar gallantry which galled her pride beyond bearing.
To make matters worse Mrs. Scattergood bemoaned the results of her imprudence all the way home, and prophesied that the evils of such conduct would be felt for many a long day.
At the end of the week the Regent arrived in Brighton, accompanied by his brother the Duke of Cumberland; and somewhat to Miss Taverner’s surprise a card was received by Mrs. Scattergood inviting them both to an evening party at the Pavilion on the following Tuesday. The royal brothers were seen in church on Sunday: the elder stout, with a sallow sort of handsomeness, and an air of great fashion; the younger lean, extremely tall, and with his black-avised countenance disfigured by a scar from a wound received at Tournai.
Miss Taverner could not forbear looking at him with a good deal of interest, for the scandals attaching to his name were many, and he was generally credited with nearly every form of vice, including murder. Only a couple of years before his valet had committed suicide, and there were still any number of persons who did not scruple to hint that the unfortunate man had not met his end in the way that was officially given out. The Duke of Clarence, who, like every one of his brothers but Cumberland himself, was an invincible and an indiscreet talker, had referred to that particular scandal upon one occasion, and while assuring Miss Taverner that there was no truth in it, had added: “Ernest is not a bad sort, only if he knows where you have a tender spot on your foot he likes to tread on it.” Looking at the Duke of Cumberland’s face, Miss Taverner could well believe this to be true.
Before the party at the Pavilion took place Judith had the comfort of knowing that her cousin was in Brighton. He and her uncle arrived at the Castle inn on Monday at four o’clock, having come down from the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly, in a little under six hours, travelling post; and called at Marine Parade after dinner. Peregrine had driven out to Worthing earlier in the day, and was not yet back, but both the ladies were at home, and while Mrs. Scattergood was engaged with the Admiral, Judith was able to take her cousin apart, and pour into his ears an account of her disgrace and its cause.
He listened to her with an expression of concern, and twice pressed her hand with a look of such sympathetic understanding that she was hard put to it not to burst into tears of self-pity. The relief of being able to unburden her heart was great; and the knowledge that there was one at least who did not condemn her induced her to show a more marked degree of preference for her cousin than she was aware of doing.