Imprudent Lady

by Joan Smith

  “You’re either a fool or a very wise woman, I don’t know which. In any case, your Seville seems to share my opinion on the matter. It was diamonds he offered, was it not?”

  “Yes, and they were not accepted. I didn’t mistake them for love.”

  “You can’t know so much of the matter as you let on. You never have loved anyone but that jackanapes of a Springer, and you didn’t love him enough to accept him in the long run. I’ll not be bludgeoned into taking lessons in love from a sp—ahem, fellow writer.”

  “It wasn’t intended for a lesson, but an opinion. A solicited opinion, I might add.”

  “My apologies, ma’am. You have put me firmly in the wrong, as usual. Now shall we proceed to the good news? You put it out of my mind with your conquest of the Nabob. It is a conquest of a different sort for you. A literary conquest.”

  “What, have you been to Murray?” She thought a new edition might be required as her books were selling better now.

  “No, Murray came to me yesterday, with Dr. Ashington in tow. It is why I had to break our date.”

  “Ashington of the Blackwood Magazine? Does he mean to do a piece on your cantos?”

  “Yes, but that could not be good news for you. He is doing your books, too. He’s devoting an issue to new young writers. You are to represent the novelist, myself the poet, Sheridan the dramatist though he’s not young any longer, but he’s the best living dramatist they could come up with. Hunt and Hazlitt are running in tandem for the essayist. We’re in good company.”

  “Me? But he cannot have heard of me. I am not a serious writer.”

  “No more am I, but they mean to make us serious by lionizing us. They’ll be reading philosophy and politics and religion into our stuff till we won’t know what we meant when we scribbled it down. I daresay you’ll turn out to be a cynic when he’s through with you, and here you take yourself for a romantic.”

  “And you a moralist, when you think you’re a rake.”

  “He wants an introduction. That’s why I am come, to see when it would be convenient to bring him. You have no objection, I take it?”

  “I’m thrilled out of my wits. Does he mean to come here?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind. I’ll bring him along and introduce him, then shab off to let him pick your brain in peace. Don’t let him talk to Clarence, he’ll discover your trick and you’ll be revealed for the nasty little baggage you really are.”

  “I can’t believe it—Dr. Ashington. What is he like? Is he old?”

  “Yes, a dull old stick—too old for you to charm. You’d better count on your considerable powers of conversation, and not your big blue eyes. He has no use for Scott, by the by, and thinks the world of Coleridge and Southey, if you want to butter him up a bit. I can’t see how he reconciles two such different sorts as that last pair, but then if he likes your stuff and mine, he must have catholic tastes. Or more likely Blackwood has urged us on him, to get Ashington out of the past. A classicist by inclination. Just think, Miss Mallow, we’ll be bound up for eternity in one magazine together. Does it appall you? I see you are underwhelmed at the idea, but you’ll have Hunt and Hazlitt to spell you from me. They are both sensible fellows, and Sherry can provide the comic relief. I don’t mean that in any disparaging way; I wish I had half his comic genius.

  “I can’t believe it’s true—Dr. Ashington—the Blackwood Magazine—it’s like a dream come true.”

  “You had dreams of such conquests, had you? And when you wake up, you can consider having wangled an offer of marriage from the Nabob. No mean feat that. I still can’t believe it. It surprised me more than Ashington’s article. Quite took the wind out of my sails, in fact. Will tomorrow be all right to bring the Doctor along?”

  “Yes, any time he likes.”

  “Don’t be so available. Impress him with your heavy calendar. We’ll make it the day after tomorrow.”

  “No, tomorrow! He might change his mind.”

  “You underestimate yourself, but if you like, it will be tomorrow. I’ll drop by Hettie and tell her the news.”

  “She’ll never believe I am to be interviewed by Ashington.”

  “Ninnyhammer, she’ll never have heard of him. I meant the news about your other victory.”

  “Oh, no, I do not mean to tell it around, since I refused him. It would not be at all the thing. I wish you would not tell anyone.”

  “Just let me tell Hettie. She won’t tell anyone if I ask her not to.”

  “But she prattles—you said so yourself.”

  “She can be as discreet as a diplomat when she likes. Why, the stories she could tell about me if she wanted to but she will love to hear it.”

  “Very well, but let her know it is a secret.”

  “Yes, Miss Prudence. Well now, you’ve turned him down, so we shan’t have any excuse to come serenading you.” Prudence naturally looked mystified at this, and he explained. “Did I not tell you what I did last night? Oakhurst is being married soon, you know, and I was telling him of the custom in Spanish countries of serenading the bride-to-be. The groom hires a group of minstrels and they serenade her under her window. She comes out and throws some flowers at them. We decided to get a band of us together and go serenading Miss Philmont. Had a merry time. Philmonts had us in after for a drink. Oakhurst and some of the others went on to a club, but I went home to work on Shilla. I'm hard at it revising, and didn’t bring her along for you to see today.”

  There seemed a certain pointedness in his telling her of his innocent evening’s entertainment, conveyed more by his conscious manner than by the words themselves. “When shall I see her?” she asked.

  “I can drop her off with Ashington tomorrow, and perhaps you will be kind enough to scan her over the next day or so. Let me know if she’s too risqué. She is developing a streak of propriety, I'm happy to say. I believe she’s given up Mrs. Radcliffe’s stuff and taken to your novels. She is beginning to talk up marriage to me.”

  “To the Mogul?”

  “No, she’s got clean away from him and is reforming one of the unholy men in that caravan I told you about. She’s after me to make him a prince in disguise or something. She’ll be wanting a cottage with a picket fence next. I absolutely draw the line at a batch of chickens. Don’t you agree?”

  “It doesn’t seem to go with a prince.”

  “King George would disagree with you. Made everyone of his princes take a turn cultivating a garden and rearing fowl, but of course they are commoners in disguise as princes. And with that piece of treason I shall leave you.” He laughed and left the room.

  Hettie was amused but incredulous at her nephew’s tale that Miss Mallow had brought Seville up to scratch. “No, it cannot be possible. I have heard in a dozen different quarters that he is chasing the Barren Baroness—McFay you know, that doughty old Scots lady who is a baroness in her own right; the title dates from Queen Anne. She has two husbands in the grave already, and never a babe in the basket, which is why they call her the Barren Baroness, of course. With such a wife in his eye, it is easy to understand Seville’s wanting a love o’ life, but he surely never offered marriage to Miss Mallow.”

  “Oh, no, an offer in form she tells me. I trust the lady knows the difference.”

  “Is it possible you trust too much in her worldliness?”

  “She tells me I overestimate her innocence.”

  “Does she indeed? Well, she sounds brassy enough, if that is the sort of conversation she carries on. I hadn’t thought her so bold.”

  “No, no, she is not bold; just bright and clever. Quite a greenhead, actually.”

  “Is she a greenhead, or is she not? You can’t have it both ways, Dammler.”

  “She is a strange combination of innocence and worldliness. But in any case she says old Seville always treats her with respect and propriety, which he wouldn’t have done if he’d had in mind to set her up as his mistress. She hardly seems the mistress type, you must confess.”

  Lady Mel
vine sat digesting the matter. “I recall her little joke at the opera—your Maidenhair Phyrne, you recall. Their conversation cannot have been entirely innocent if that is the sort of thing they were discussing. And there was her drawing the line at five bastards at my ball, too. I personally should draw the line much higher, and I do not consider myself naive.”

  “That was joking, Hettie. She is always joking—it is her liveliness that leads her on to say things a little out of line sometimes. Well, I do the same myself.”

  “And as you, of course, are as innocent as a new-born lamb—voila! It is settled. She is as innocent as Lord Dammler—a minx, in other words. And would have rubbed along very well with Seville. The wonder of it is that she turned him off, if it was marriage he had in mind.”

  “She doesn’t love him.”

  “If that is her only reason, she has reached a pitch of innocence almost beyond pleasing.”

  “It pleases her,” he answered, and from the satisfied look on his face, Hettie thought it seemed to please Dammler pretty well, too.

  Chapter Ten

  Having whistled Mr. Seville’s fortune down the wind was in part forgiven when Lord Dammler returned, and when Prudence gave the news that she was to be interviewed for a famous magazine, she was once again Clarence’s niece, riding high in his favour.

  “So we are to read about you in the Morning Observer?” he said, smiling fatuously.

  “No, not a newspaper, Uncle, a literary magazine. It is called Blackwood’s.”

  “The Observer is sure to pick it up and give it a column or two. They won’t pass up a story like that. Your name in the papers—next we will be seeing cartoons of you in the shop windows, like Dammler.”

  “It is not that sort of a magazine—not a popular one, you know, but very prestigious in literature. Other writers and educated people read it, but it will not lead to cartoons in shop windows.”

  “You are always putting yourself down, Prue,” he chided her. “You let on Mr. Seville and Dammler were only friends, too, but they see fit to send you diamonds and speak of their intentions.”

  “Only Mr. Seville did so.”

  "Dammler will take the hint and get cracking. I hope you told him.”

  “Yes, I mentioned it.”

  “That was prudent,” he joked across the table at Wilma, who smiled her agreement.

  “Well, well, what a merry chase you are leading us all. How should we dress to meet Dr. Ashington for the interview tomorrow?”

  The word “we” struck her ear a cruel blow. “I think I shall put back on my cap. Dammler says he is an older man—conventional, I believe.”

  “There will be no need for us to do more than welcome him,” Wilma told her brother. She realized Prudence’s discomfort at her uncle’s intrusions. “We will say how do you do, and then leave them alone for the interview. It is literature they will be discussing. We know nothing about it.”

  "I have been reading a good deal lately, and I will pick up a copy of the Backwoods Review, too. Odd name they have chosen for it.”

  Mrs. Mallow rolled up her eyes, and Prudence swallowed her mirth. “Your ordinary clothes will be fine. The occasion doesn’t call for formal wear.”

  “I shall get a new suit of formal wear made up all the same. We are doing a deal of running about lately, and my satin breeches are getting tight. So you mean to put on a cap to impress the Doctor, do you? Sly puss, I don’t know why you ever took it off. It is more appealing than anything else on a young lady, with pretty ribbons to give some colour, of course. I like it excessively.”

  Prudence saw she could do no wrong, with or without her cap—or her gown for that matter. She was doing exactly right so long as she brought fame and glory to the house. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see a rug laid on the study floor for her. It had at present a thread-bare scatter mat, but with the shelves and the oil paintings this antique was looking out of place.

  The next afternoon Dammler came, but Ashington was not with him. Clarence, Mrs. and Miss Mallow were surprised when he entered the house alone. “Ashington is at a meeting and will meet us here shortly. I came on ahead to await him and make you introduced. I see you have put on your cap to impress him with your age and seriousness,” he teased Prudence.

  “Aye, she looks well in her cap I am always telling her so,” Clarence assured Dammler.

  “And here I have been leading her astray and advising her to remove it,” Dammler replied.

  “Yes, I frequently tell her she looks too old in her cap,” Clarence said, with no awareness of his own contradiction.

  “How does the painting go on, Mr. Elmtree?” Dammler asked, his motive not so innocent as his polite face would suggest.

  “I have invented a new way of painting diamonds,” he answered wisely. “It is not done as Rubens and the old fellows thought at all—making it transparent like glass, with just a little dab of white or blue. And it isn’t done like a garnet or emerald either. It is a prism—that’s how it is done. All colours of the rainbow. I discovered it while holding my niece’s diamond necklace to the light. You heard about Seville offering for her?” Dammler nodded. “A great box of diamonds he sent her, big as eggs, but she didn’t care for him, being a foreigner, you know. There are queer knots in all foreigners, say what you will. He was pretty cut up, poor fellow, but he’ll get over it.”

  “You were actually speaking to him about it yourself?” Dammler asked. This was proof positive that Hettie was wrong. He was relieved to hear it.

  “We talked it over a dozen times,” Clarence told him misleadingly, with no intention of lying, but from a constitutional inability to distinguish fact from what he wanted to think. “He was always hinting around that he wanted to marry her.”

  “The acquaintance surely was not a long one?” Dammler asked. Damme, Prue hadn’t known the fellow more than a couple of weeks.

  “No, not long, but he was here all the time. Quite lived in her pocket.”

  Some recollection of having seen Prue most days of the first week of her acquaintance with Seville caused Dammler to view Clarence’s words with suspicion, but the full extent of the inaccuracy of Elmtree’s story did not occur to him. He thought Seville must have spoken to Clarence once about the offer.

  “That must be Dr. Ashington at the door now,” Prudence said with infinite relief.

  He came in and was introduced, and when Dammler took his leave, Clarence and Mrs. Mallow left the room with him. Ashington was an intellectual-looking gentleman, almost an aesthete. Tall and cadaverously thin, with hollow cheeks, he had eyes that were bright and penetrating. His hair was brown, just turning grey. Prudence placed his age at forty or so. When they were alone, he said, “I did not expect to be meeting a young lady. Your books led me to expect a woman of more advanced years—well, let us say mature. I do not mean to imply they are old hat.”

  “I am twenty-four,” Prudence said.

  “You have accomplished a great deal for your age. Three books to your credit, and another in the works Lord Dammler tells me.”

  “Yes, I am at work on another.”

  “Good, good. Regular output, that is what it takes to establish a reputation. Oh, I don’t mean churning them out like sausages as Scott does, but a book a year or so to keep yourself in tune, to flex your muscles and learn your craft. I see an improvement, a logical growth in your books.”

  “Thank you,” Prudence said, wondering what he meant. “I was surprised to hear you mean to write an article about my books. I did not look for such recognition from such a famous magazine.”

  This artless praise went down well. “I confess I was not acquainted with your work till Dammler called it to my attention. There are so many novel writers you know, and in general one does not look to female writers for any purpose more serious than amusement.”

  As Prudence’s sole interest had been to amuse, she was lost for a reply. She said “Thank you,” again, and as she said it, she pondered his other comment. Dammler had called
her to his attention. She owed this interview to him.

  They talked for some time about her work. She was questioned closely as to her theme, when she had never thought an inch beyond plot and characters, and decided between them that her theme was no less than the whole fabric of upper-class English society, and what held it together. Next she was interrogated as to her views on Miss Wollstonecraft and feminism.

  “I am scarcely familiar with her works at all,” she confessed. “I have glanced at her Vindication of the Rights of Women, but do not consider myself a feminist.”

  “You do not advocate higher education for women then?”

  “Good gracious, no! I only attended a seminary for five years myself. If the occasional few women want it, and it does not interfere with their lives—their duties—but in general, you know, I cannot think Latin and Greek of much interest to women.” She also thought it quite a waste of time for men to spend years learning a couple of dead languages, but wisely kept it to herself. The Doctor had a nasty habit of throwing a Latin phrase at her, and there was no point in antagonizing him.

  He smiled benignly at her answers. “I notice you do not concern yourself with the broader problems of modem society—war, politics, economics, the general revolutionary trend of Western society.”

  “My canvas is small. I have often heard it said that a writer should stick to what she knows, and my life has been sheltered. But I write for women—women are interested in the home, society in the limited sense of friends and neighbours, and in the case of young ladies, finding a husband. That is my subject. I leave the other fields to men.”

  She spoke the simple truth. When he talked of “revolutionary trends” and “liberal minds” she scarcely knew what he meant. She just wrote about people—their minds and hearts as Shakespeare and other writers before her had done. Her answers pleased him. It allowed him to admire her achievement without fearing he had a feminist and an intellectual on his hands. He disliked feminists intensely. He was dyed deep in conventionality, felt threatened by women who challenged men's preserves, and was all for keeping them in the home. As a literary man, he liked a woman who read a little, and it was admissible in his scheme of things for a few women to write stories for the others to read. If they wrote it well, so much the better. He was willing to admit Miss Mallow wrote in a lively style. She had no pretensions, and he liked her. He liked that she lived with her family as a decent Christian, that she wore a cap, was modest and deferential to himself. He also liked her blue eyes and her trim figure, but that was quite a different matter. He stayed two hours, took tea with her, and left with a high opinion of Miss Mallow.