Imprudent Lady

by Joan Smith

  Miss Mallow was well aware of the attention caused when Dammler rode out in his carriage, but she was not prepared to fall heiress to such a large overflow of it herself. She looked dignified and pretty in the green gown she had had made, but had she looked a dowd she would have attracted attention due to her escort. Any female Dammler bothered to bring to a polite party was fair game for quizzing by the gentlemen, and jealousy from the ladies. He made some initial efforts to protect her from the wilder bucks, but once she began dancing they separated, and she stood up with anyone who asked her, and was thankful to every man who did so. Two or three times Dammler hastened to her side at the conclusion of a dance to whisk her away from her partner.

  “You don’t want to encourage old Malmfield,” he warned Prudence the first time. “A bit of a devil with the ladies.”

  “He is old enough to be my father.”

  “His mistress is young enough to be your daughter. Your best protection from him is that you are too old.”

  “I hope I am not too old at twenty-four for a man in his fifties!” she laughed. “His present friend, I take it, is an infant.”

  “I thought you were older than that,” Dammler said frankly, regarding her face critically, almost as though he didn’t believe her.

  “Thank you. I wonder you asked me to remove my cap. You had in mind I should switch to a turban, I collect.”

  “You mean to say you’re younger than I am?” he asked, quite clearly shocked at the idea.

  “You never told me how old you are.”

  “Good grief, and I always took you for an older woman—oh, Lord, I’m making a botch of this. I should be feigning astonishment that you’re over twenty. But, really, you look so mature—and very pretty. Oh damn— here comes Clarence.”

  A vision of her uncle was instantly called up by this admonition. “Clarence who?” she asked, looking to see a red-faced gentleman with a head shaped like a pineapple rolling towards them.

  “The Duke of Clarence, Miss Mallow, brother to the Prince of Wales. The one who was in the navy. I wonder Prinney isn’t here. You want to watch the whole lot of the royal dukes, if there are any more of them lurking about.”

  “Aha! A new filly tonight, Dammler?” the Duke said gruffly.

  Dammler made introductions, and when the music began, the Duke grabbed her arm without a word of request and loped to the set forming for a quadrille. He danced badly, conversed in a sort of one-sided shout which required no answer, and afterwards pressed her to take several glasses of wine. Dammler, with a worried frown, ran them to ground in the refreshment parlour.

  “Fine looking wench,” the Duke congratulated him in a loud voice. “Has she much money?”

  “Not a sou,” Dammler answered, shaking his head sadly.

  “They never have, the lookers. Pity.” Clarence wandered off without saying thank you or goodbye.

  “He’s broken with Mrs. Jordan. Hanging out for a fortune,” Dammler explained.

  “And I see you are eager to turn him away from me,” she joked. “I have a few sous, you know.”

  “He requires more than a few to support his brood. Ten by-blows at the last count, and that’s just with Jordan."

  "Oh, well, I draw the line positively at five,” she answered. “There must be some limit to what I will stand still for, even in a royal duke.”

  Lady Melvine joined them for a moment, and Dammler recounted to her Miss Mallow’s experience and her joke. She quickly relayed it to a Mr. Jamieson, and before the night was over, it was circulated as the witticism of the evening, for the sole reason that it gave people something concrete to say about Dammler’s latest flirt.

  She met other people, too, some of them ladies and gentlemen of the first stare. At dinner one gentleman, who had asked her to dance but been refused because he was too late, joined them. Dammler remembered that the fellow had wanted to meet Prudence, and was sorry they must sit with him, for he was the very kind of person he wished to keep her away from—a man-about-town, too worldly wise for Prudence, but with a surface of respectability that allowed him to be at such parties as this. Dammler introduced them, but added no little detail to encourage conversation. Prudence thought he had been a little abrupt, and turned to speak to the gentleman to cover it up.

  “Is your name Seville, like the Spanish city?” she asked.

  “Yes, like the anglicized version of Sevilla, but I am not Spanish at all, as you no doubt know to see me.” He was slightly dark of skin, but no more so than Dammler, or any sporting gentleman who was regularly out of doors. He was thirtyish, tall and dark-eyed, and not particularly handsome.

  “Interesting, the origin of names. My own name, Mallow, is that of a herb, but I daresay it is really corrupted from some other word entirely.”

  “You would be interested in words, being a writer. Dammler tells me you write very fine novels.”

  After a brief conversation, Prudence discovered they had not much in common and turned to her other partner. Mr. Seville made quite a different discovery; Miss Mallow was exactly the kind of cultivated lady he required to lend him a little tone. Before they left the dining table, he asked if he might call on her. She agreed, thinking it mere politeness, and that she would never see him again.

  There was one person Dammler was very eager for Prudence to meet, and that was Lady Jersey—”Silence.” He longed to see Miss Mallow’s blue eyes widen when confronted with that veritable torrent of words. Just before he left he managed to bring them together.

  “My dear, I am thrilled to meet you,” Lady Jersey began. “I saw you being bruised on the floor by poor old Billy the Tar. Clarence, you must know. What an ass he is. You should have saved her, Dammler. Oh, have you heard? Billy has been jilted by Miss Wyckham. That is why he is here tonight, to see if he can sniff out another fortune. I take it as very mean for Parliament not to raise his allowance, when he has done so much for the nation. I mean, it stands to reason some of his brood must be talented like their mama, doesn’t it? Dorothy is such a charm. So very talented.

  “Everyone is talking about you, Miss Mallow. So clever—you draw the line at five! You are broad-minded, but then you are a writer. They are always up to anything. I adore writers. I shall send you a voucher to Almack’s if you like. Very select do’s we have there, but of course you know that. Hettie tells me you are sending your heroine off to the moon in your next book. I shall certainly read it, and I have thought up a good title for you. Hettie tells me you have a deal of trouble with your titles. The Girl in the Moon you must call it. Isn’t that clever? Like The Man in the Moon, you see. How is your play coming on, Dammler?” Dammler knew better than to attempt an answer, and waited for her to tell how it progressed.

  “Very well, I daresay. I will write my memoirs one day, but there is never time for anything. About a harem, isn’t it?” He nodded. “So clever of you. I hope you have lots of lovely eunuchs. I know with you writing it there will be plenty of beautiful young ladies. How you will enjoy casting and rehearsals. Dolly Entwhistle swears she will have her hair dyed black and try out. It turned quite red with grief when her husband passed on you must know. Oh, there is the Princess waving to me. She will be wanting to get my approval to give someone a voucher to Almack’s. You must come to us one evening, Miss Mallow. We all agree to have you, and I will be happy to send you a ticket. So charmed to make your acquaintance. I will tell everyone how clever you are.” She sailed away, smiling and talking still.

  Dammler looked expectantly at Miss Mallow. “I have been waiting weeks to hear you deliver a verdict on her.”

  “Unlike your friend, I am speechless,” she replied.

  “I would like to quote that bon mot, but I shan’t. Old Sally wields a big stick. Will you go to Almack’s?”

  “Perhaps.” After her night of glory, a voucher to Almack’s, which would have been a cherished object a few months ago, was not important. Although a dull club, it was the pinnacle of Society. Entrance was severely restricted, and to be of
fered a voucher was a greater honour than Miss Mallow realized.

  As they rode home, Dammler said, “Now that I have given Shilla her head, the play is going nicely. I am learning to be industrious from you. I’ll stay home and work on it tomorrow.”

  This was understood, at least by the lady, to mean she would not see him. She commented that she too planned to work.

  “How did you enjoy the ball?” he asked as he handed her down from the carriage.

  “I enjoyed it very much.”

  “Aren’t you glad I made you put off your cap?”

  “Very glad.” She yawned and blinked her eyes. Three o’clock was an unnatural hour for them to be still open.

  “You’re not used to such late hours, eh, Miss Prudence? Take care or your uncle will have to be exerting his skill to paint the circles out from under your eyes next time.”

  “Concealing a flaw is his major skill. He threatens to do me again without my cap. Good night, Lord Dammler. Thank you.”

  “The pleasure was mine, Miss Mallow.”

  He turned and ran down the stairs two at a time and waved from the carriage. It had been a nearly perfect night, yet there was some little sense of disappointment left with Prudence as he rode away. What had she expected, she asked herself. He had behaved with perfect propriety. Yes, that was it. He would not have done so had he thought of her as more than a friend. Just so would he wave to a male he had been in company with. “What foolish notions are you getting in your head, Miss Prudence?” she asked herself. Remember your name.

  Chapter Seven

  Clarence’s niece rose to a new height in her uncle’s favour when it was revealed she had stood up for a quadrille with the Duke of Clarence. She was urged to have a fire in her study if she liked. She hoped he would remember his generosity when autumn rolled around. There was really no need of it in May. She needed all of his good will to jolly him into accepting a new series of activities Dammler undertook on her behalf. They had wasted enough time driving around the countryside, Dammler decreed. It was time they discovered the city itself. It was no childish trip to see the horses at Astley’s Circus or Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum he had in mind, but the very depths and dregs of it. They went one day for a drive through the worst slums of the east side, and on another to the middle-class suburbs of such places as Hans Town. Dammler, she noticed, made notes as if he were doing some serious research. Prudence naturally enquired what purpose he had in mind, thinking it was some literary endeavour.

  “It’s time I was taking my seat in the House,” he explained. “I left the country when I was still quite young, and don’t know it as I ought. There’s no point listening to some long-winded politician read a list of statistics. You have to see it for yourself.” Prudence could not but wonder why she was included in his trips, but having no desire to be excluded, she remained silent. He did mention occasionally that a knowledge of these things would be helpful in her writing. She knew a view of the facade of a row of slums was not sufficient to enable her to write about the destitute, nor had she any desire to broaden her field of writing into sociology; but it was always pleasant to be with Dammler, and so she agreed with him.

  He had always some new place to take her. Places she had known to exist only by name, and had never thought to see in person. They went one day with baskets of fruit to Bedlam to see the inmates. Prudence was shocked and horrified to see the conditions under which the insane lived.

  “I can’t believe people live like that,” she said when they left.

  “Just as well they’re insane. If they weren’t when they entered, they soon would be. And virtually nothing is done to cure them.”

  “Well—but I don’t suppose they could be cured.”

  “They don’t all have damaged brains. Haven’t you known people who go off on a crazy spell for a time, but come back to sense later? I have. If it’s someone from our class, he is tended privately and as often as not recovers. If it happens to a poor person, he’s tossed into Bedlam and left forever."

  “Can nothing be done about it?”

  “Not by you or me alone. Politics is the answer. A problem of that magnitude can only be handled by society collectively—politics, in other words. Newgate is worse, but I shan’t take you there.”

  “Do you plan to go?”

  “Yes, I go once in a while.”

  “Why do you subject yourself to that?”

  “I have been around the world. Now I want to see how other Englishmen live. We writers have to see these things.”

  “Yes.” She had lived in London for four years, she estimated, and had seen nothing but her uncle’s friends and a few shopkeepers. She felt herself richer for this spreading of her horizons, even if she never wrote about it.

  "I'm going to see the Jane Shores tomorrow,” he said that same day. "Would you like to come? It won’t be pleasant either, but it is something a lady writer might be interested in."

  “Where are the Jane Shores?” she asked, imagining them to be some part of the docks.

  “In a Magdalen House. I am talking about the Jane Shores who are in the process of being reformed. Did you think I intended to take you to meet Harriet Wilson?” Prudence only smiled, not knowing Harriet Wilson was the city’s leading courtesan.

  "There’s one beyond Goodman’s Field. I've arranged a visit to see how it’s set up. Don’t wear one of Fannie’s bonnets; it would look out of place. Wear that old round bonnet you saved.”

  Prudence felt a home for fallen women was more to her interest than Bedlam and agreed with enthusiasm to go to see them. This particular house, Dammler told her, catered especially to young unwed mothers. “Try not to show your shock if every second one is enceinte,” he warned her.

  It was a fine looking building outside, red brick, solid and respectable, but inside it was austere. The young girls were about to go to a church service when Dammler and Prudence arrived and they too went to the chapel. Row upon row of girls came in, wearing greyish-brown stuff gowns, broad bibs, and flat straw hats with blue ribbons tied under the chin. Prudence was struck by their youth—most of them could not be more than fifteen or sixteen—and their innocent faces. She had expected to see bold, hardened women, but these girls walked with heads bent, eyes down, and their hands folded. They looked more like novitiate nuns than prostitutes.

  The sermon was an embarrassment to listen to—upbraiding these children for their “sins of the flesh,” as though they were experienced harlots. Prudence longed to stand up and tell the minister to stop. Glancing at her escort, she saw Dammler’s hands clenched into fists, and his lips clamped in a rigid line. Their tour of the house was much more complete than yesterday’s visit to Bedlam. They saw the dormitories where the girls slept, their narrow white cots lined up like loaves of bread at a baker’s. They saw the girls at work, cleaning the building, cooking, sewing, scrubbing, and also saw them sit down to eat at an uncovered table, each with a bowl and a spoon, and a half a glass of blue milk. Dammler even asked for a bowl of the stew they ate. He took one bite and had difficulty in swallowing it.

  After the tour they went to the manager’s office for tea, which was served on fine china from a silver pot, at noticeable odds with the girls' meal. Dammler asked a number of questions, a great many having to do with money. Prudence was surprised at his practical streak. She had assumed his interest, like hers, would be in the girls’ personal histories.

  “How many girls do you accommodate here?” he asked.

  “A hundred at a time,” Dr. Mulroney answered. He was the minister who had given the sermon, also the chief executive of the place.

  “And how long do they stay on the average?”

  “About six months, depending, of course, on how advanced their condition is when they come in.”

  “You mean how soon they give birth to the child?” Dammler clarified.

  Mulroney looked at Prudence as though to intimate such matters were not for a lady’s ears. Dammler ignored this.

  �
��Yes, just so. We used to have about two hundred girls a year through here—less when I came. Only one hundred and fifty prior to my taking over. I raised it to two hundred, and am aiming for two hundred and twenty-five this year.”

  “Are you on a commission?” Dammler asked. Prudence wasn’t sure whether he was serious, or if it was a setdown.

  “Certainly not! I do not undertake work of this sort for any monetary consideration,” Mulroney answered, offended.

  “What is done to prepare them to leave? If they come out of here without having learned any useful skill, they’ll end up back on the streets.”

  “You have been at the church service, milord. They attend service three times a day, and extra Bible readings on Sunday, and for punishment if they misbehave. We hope to raise their morals to awaken them to the dangers of immortal hell if they persist in their abandoned behaviour.”

  “You’d do better to raise their ability to make an honest living.”

  “Each girl is given a Bible upon leaving.”

  “Yes, she can hawk that, but what does she do the next night, when the shilling is gone?”

  Dr. Mulroney lifted his eyebrows at this. Prudence felt Dammler was going a little far, but knew there was no hope of curbing him. “They are not released without having a place to go. They are usually placed in a home as a domestic servant.”

  “Are the homes carefully selected?”

  “Selected—what do you mean? I don’t understand the import of your question, my lord.”

  “It must have occurred to you gentlemen of a sort will come here looking for domestics.”

  “They are well-to-do families we place the girls with.”

  “Money is beside the point; the girls will see little or nothing of it. What of the morals?”

  “You can’t expect me to ask a gentleman such a question!” Again Mulroney looked at Prudence with an uncomfortable expression.

  “No, asking them would certainly be pointless. Character references could be obtained though.”

  “What—ask character references for the hiring of a servant who is costing the city twenty-five pounds a year to keep? Upon my word, I never heard of such a thing. We are lucky to be rid of these—girls—to whomever will take them off our hands.”