Imprudent Lady

by Joan Smith

  “Ring?” Prudence asked in alarm. She had expected to have to make excuses for Seville’s absence, but counted on her cartoon in the window to tide her over. That Clarence thought Dammler to be on the verge of offering for her was a nasty shock.

  “He came chasing after you to give you a ring, did he not?”

  “No, he is not here. He has never been here at all. You read perhaps that he was at the inn at Reading...“ His appearance at “The George” at that ill-fated moment had bothered Prudence considerably. She assumed that it was pure bad luck that had brought him.

  “Read it? Why, he told me himself the day you left he would be there at Reading if he had to drive all night.”

  “What—he called on you that day?” Prudence asked, wondering if there was so much as a grain of truth in this.

  “In a great pelter he was. Jealous of that Spanish fellow you know—Barcelona is it, or Madrid . . .“ Seville was out of it entirely. His name had not once appeared in the papers.

  “How could he know Seville had come to Bath? He could not have heard it at Finefields surely.”

  “I didn’t think to ask him how he knew, but he certainly knew of it.”

  “Did you tell him?” Prudence asked.

  “I don’t know.” Clarence for once in his life admitted to ignorance, there being no glory attached to any other course. “But certainly he knew—got your address from me and said he would catch you if he had to drive all night. He was very put out at your coming here with Seville.”

  “I did not come with Seville. He was gone before we arrived.”

  “Ho, you are a sly puss, playing them all off, one against the other.”

  Prudence couldn’t press her innocence as she had encouraged Clarence to think Seville was her reason for coming, but she desired to hear more of Dammler's visit. “Did Dammler think I came with Seville?” she asked.

  “No, I told him you came with your mother and four horses.” The four horses had a ring of truth to it. Certainly Clarence would have mentioned that startling fact. “He was very jealous. ‘I will knock his nose out of joint,' he said. Very angry and jealous, just as he should be.”

  This statement had too much of the aroma of Clarence’s own brand of daydreaming to be taken seriously. “Where is he anyway?” he persisted. “He has gone on to get his abbey ready for after the marriage, I collect?”

  Clarence had too often wed her to all her acquaintances for her to place the least faith in his word. “There is no marriage, Uncle,” she said.

  “You turned him down, did you?” he asked, a little disappointed. “I thought he was a pretty good fellow.”

  “He didn’t make me an offer.”

  “Ho, prudent as ever. But it is nothing to be ashamed of—a marquis, and a pretty good rhymster from what I hear. Still, there is no saying, with your going to Carlton House, that you couldn’t do better than a poor deformed poet. They could bend the Royal Marriage Act a little if they took it into their heads. It is only to keep actresses and Papists out of the palace. The Duke of Clarence was always sweet on you..."

  Prudence looked at her mother and sighed. There was no getting any sense out of Clarence. She’d leave, before he had her married to one of the royal dukes.

  She deduced Dammler had indeed been at Grosvenor Square, but what he might have said would never be known. The fact of his having been there at all gave her a point to ponder. He had come to “The George” just to see her then, and if he had been to see Uncle in the afternoon, he must also have driven half the night. And then there was that very satisfying jealous passion. She had expected to see him again soon, but now ten days had passed, and not a sign of him.

  The days had passed in an interesting manner. As Prudence was now a celebrity, she was invited everywhere. She had her regular suitors for drives and walks and standing up at the balls—old retired soldiers and widowers and such, but a pleasing number of them. And also—really it was too ridiculous—who should be here but Ronald Springer! For years she had sighed after him, and now when she no longer cared, he seemed to be developing quite a tendre in her direction. A day seldom passed that he did not call on some pretext or other. Now accustomed to such interesting men as Dammler and Seville, Prudence was no longer impressed by his country elegance. There was also just a little something of Ashington in Springer—a dropping of a classical quotation, a too-frequent reference to his Cambridge days, an assurance that he was doing her a favour to call. No, she did not look towards him in any romantic way, but it was rather interesting that he was here, and dangling after her. She remembered with a smile that Dammler never liked him.

  With all her going about and partying, Prudence had had to enlarge her wardrobe. She had become one of the models followed by the young fashionable Society of Bath. If she wore a green bonnet with her yellow sarsenet gown to church on Sunday, one or the other of the shops on Milsom Street was sure to have a similar ensemble in the window on Monday. When she pinned a bouquet of posies on her sun parasol one day, she had the satisfaction of seeing a dozen ladies with theirs similarly adorned the next afternoon. Encouraged by these successes, she went a little further. Her gowns, while always remaining within the bounds of propriety, became more sophisticated, décolleté, and Colonel Bereseford told her she had shoulders like the “Venus de Milo.” She undertook to repay some of the social favours conferred on her, and set up a small salon, to which select groups were invited to talk about literature. Twice she was so daring as to attend public functions with no chaperone, but only a male escort. She purposely chose elderly gentlemen for this honour to squash any rumour of her being fast, but Springer had not liked it. Still, it had not slowed down his visits.

  A few elderly eyebrows were raised at her daring. The Countess of Cleff, known locally as the Pillar of Propriety, was said to have frowned. Twenty years earlier she had been the supreme arbiter of the ton, but as she aged and conventions relaxed she had become dated. Still, she wielded considerable power, and one did not intentionally offend her. Prudence curtailed her unchaperoned appearances when she heard of the Countess’ displeasure. The “Pillar” had not yet passed judgment on Miss Mallow. She liked to see young notables come to her city, and so long as Miss Mallow could be directed, she might take her up. She watched and waited.

  Yes, Bath was a more pleasant change than Prudence had dared to hope, yet she would gladly have been back in her little study, unknown, if only it meant Dammler would come unannounced to her door every few days to entertain her. To think she might have thrown over a chance for even greater familiarity than that bothered her. Ten days had passed, and the silence from her old friend was deafening.

  In the morning, Clarence had to view the cartoon and the Pump Room, where his niece was treated with enough curiosity to satisfy him. “I see there is a concert at the Upper Rooms tonight,” he said, reading a poster.

  “Yes, but it is only an Italian singer,” Mrs. Mallow pointed out. “You will not want to bother with that.”

  “Why, there is no one who can sing a tune like an Italian. Certainly we will go.” He had a new jacket, purchased in honour of his niece’s future attendance at Carlton House, that would be previewed on this occasion. He could hardly wait to put it on. He purchased three tickets before they left to ensure getting a good seat. Wilma decided not to go, but Prudence knew there was no getting out of it.

  She went to the concert happily enough. It was better than sitting home with Clarence, and the literary salons would be curtailed if her uncle came. She looked forward to daydreaming her way through the concert in peace.

  She was not allowed to do so. No sooner had she taken her seat than she saw a tall, dark-haired man enter on the arm of the Dowager Countess of Cleff and take up a seat across the hall from her. It was Dammler, and if he glanced at the stage at all, it was no more than a glance.

  His head was turned in her direction throughout the first half of the performance, until she was fatigued with pretending not to see him.

  Ch
apter Eighteen

  Prudence dreaded intermission, yet thought it would never come. The Italian sang at length to thunderous applause. The only change in posture of her observer was a brief mild clapping of the hands at the end of each selection, without once looking to the stage. Her uncle had reserved a table for tea at the intermission, and with her equilibrium in tatters, Miss Mallow went on his arm to take her place. Dammler would come now. Say something—she hardly knew what. Present them to the Dowager very likely. They had not met, but the Countess was known by sight to Prudence. And what on earth was Dammler doing in the company of such a stickler?

  He didn’t come. She refused to gape about the room to find him, but as they resumed their places in the hall, he bowed ceremoniously from the waist in her direction. She wondered that he had not come to say a few words at the break; was he still angry over the incident at Reading? It was strangely unlike him to bear a grudge. Flare up and then have done with an argument was his usual manner of proceeding.

  During the second act, Dammler looked mainly towards the stage, with only a dozen turns of his head to the left, each seen and counted by Miss Mallow out of the corner of her eye. They did not pass in leaving, and it was with a strange mixture of feelings that Prudence took her way home. Clarence had not seen him at all, which was a blessing. She didn’t have to hear that he had come dashing down to Bath, driving all night, to marry her. But why had he come?

  After leaving Prudence in a high state of resentment at “The George” in Reading, Dammler had driven back to London. First he went to Hettie, to inform her she was mistaken about Seville’s intentions towards Prudence.

  “I know it well. He has been here already,” she told him. “Such a pity about her mama. He told me the whole story, how he happened to be there and got Knighton to help them. Shocking the way these inns behave. Is Mrs. Mallow recovering?”

  “Yes, she will be all right. What did Seville say?”

  “I must have mistaken him previously. He was quite cut up that Miss Mallow rejected him. He had meant to reform, one supposes. He found her innocence refreshing, he says, which would account for his treating her with respect, as you say he did. I still find it difficult to see how Phyrnes... but never mind. He was quite sincere, and asked me to let him know if I hear anything, so what have you to tell me?”

  “They were to go on to Bath in a few days.”

  “And?”

  “And I have been turned off.”

  “The fool! She turned you down, too? What ails the girl?”

  “I never had a chance to offer. Such a trimming as she gave me, Hettie, and well deserved, too, every word of it. My moral laxity, my lightskirts, my drinking..."

  “Why, you don’t drink more than your bottle a day, and as to the other...“

  “I got her started by lacing into her because Seville happened to be there when I arrived.”

  “What time did you arrive?”

  “Midnight.”

  “She was with Seville at midnight?”

  “I thought he told you all that?”

  “He didn’t tell me it was midnight!”

  “Don’t start working me up about Seville again. I still have a strong urge to kill him. Nothing would put me more in her black books than that. She has a high opinion of him. A perfectly honourable and worthy gentleman.”

  “Perfect poppycock.”

  “We judge him by our own standards.”

  “I judge him by the new piece of fluff he had picked up on the eve of his nuptials to the Baroness.”

  Dammler shrugged. “I am determined to say nothing against him.”

  “And finding it grim going, if I am to judge by the clenching of your jaws.”

  He smiled ruefully at this, then fell into a brown study, looking at the floor.

  “What you need is a new love o’ life to cheer you,” Hettie said gaily.

  “Hettie, damn your eyes, can’t you see I'm in love?”

  "There is nothing like a new love to shake off the shadow of the old.”

  “Leave me with at least the shadow.”

  “Lud, Dammler, what a dead bore you are turned into. What do you mean to do? Wallow in self-pity and remorse? Turn Methodist and give up wine, women and song?”

  “You don’t have to be a rakehell to have fun. I had more enjoyment sitting with Prudence Mallow talking about books and other things than I have had anywhere else. I mean to reform.”

  “I wash my hands of you, absolutely.”

  “And I’ll reform you, too, old cat,” he said, standing up with a smile. "Though if you go on wearing those damned turbans I shan’t have to worry about the men pestering you. You look dreadful”

  “I see you don’t plan to reform your manners. There might be hope for you yet.”

  He came to rigid attention, but with a glint of amusement lurking in his eyes. “Your most obedient servant, Lady Melvine,” he bowed formally. “May I have your kind permission to call tomorrow?”

  “Devil, you couldn’t reform if your life depended on it.”

  “It does, and I can.” With a careless wave he was gone.

  He proceeded to make good his promise of reforming. He dropped his flightier friends, worked during half the day, dined with dowagers and their dull friends, and was perfectly miserable. He had no illusion it was the loss of his drinking companions and women that had him in the hips. It was the absence of a quiet little lady with eyes of a penetrating blue, that widened when she was shocked or amused, and turned this damned gray world bright again.

  For a week he was a model of propriety, but the futility of it was soon borne in on him. Prue was in Bath. She wouldn’t know he had changed. It was not reported that Lord Dammler sat at his desk six hours a day trying to work, or dined with his publisher. No, he would have to risk going to Bath and incurring her displeasure to demonstrate how saintly he had become. Not daily and badger her, or bring any of his infamous friends along. Attach himself to some perfectly respectable people and proceed with caution. She might hate him, but he felt sure she loved him, too. She wouldn’t have ripped up so about his Phyrnes if she’d been indifferent. She didn’t fly into the boughs to hear any other gentleman of her acquaintance had a mistress. Hadn’t used to bother her that he had either, but it bothered her now. That was a hopeful sign.

  He settled on the Dowager Countess of Cleff as the likeliest person to lend him respectability in Bath. A cousin of his late mama, a prude and a crashing bore, but with no shred of disrepute. Harbouring himself would be the closest she had ever come to sin, and she would do it only if she were assured she was saving him from the brink of brimstone. Prue had called him “morally lax” and he recognized it for a euphemism. She was too nice to call him what she thought him—a rake, a lecher, a libertine. Well, he would change.

  And in Bath, Prudence regretted she had ever called him anything so strong as “morally lax.” He was modern, sociable, a little free perhaps, and she was a prude. They each set about changing to be what they were not to please the other, although each was, in fact, very well pleased with the original.

  The Dowager took him in, after first subjecting him to an endless lecture on what rumours had reached her ears—and really she seemed to have heard very little. She had a nose like a parrot, the stature of a grenadier, and the voice of a sergeant major. Her sagging cheeks, painted orange, jiggled as she harped on at him. It would be nearly unendurable, he saw, but he would endure it for as long as it took to convince Prudence he was not utterly lost to decency. The evening at the Italian concert was the first entry into the gay whirl of Bath society. It was tolerable because Prue was there to look at, letting on she didn’t see him, but turning her head his way every two minutes. That was on Saturday.

  The next morning Dammler was rudely surprised to be jostled from a sound sleep by his doughty hostess in person, decked out in the ugliest peignoir he had ever seen—cerise and peacock blue, with black swansdown trim. Now who would have thought the Pillar had such a streak of ba
rbarism buried beneath all those stays? In public she appeared in nothing but black.

  “It’s ten o’clock, Allan,” she said.

  "Ten o’clock,” he repeated stupidly. “Ten o’clock, eh?” What, he wondered, was the magic significance of the hour.

  “Church is at eleven o’clock,” she told him.

  “Church?!” he asked in alarm.

  “Church,” she repeated, staring down her parrot nose at him. “I trust you go to church on Sunday.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes,” he told her. Good Lord, what had he gotten into? She’d be enrolling him in Bible classes next.

  “I’ll send up cocoa and toast. We’ll eat an early lunch after.”

  “Thank you,” he said in a small voice, then when she left, put his head beneath the pillow and laughed till his valet came to see if he was ill.

  “My best morning coat, Scrimpton. I am going to church.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Scrimpton answered, taking the news like a rock.

  At five minutes to eleven, the Marquis of Dammler and the Dowager Countess of Cleft caused a considerable stir when they walked up the aisle of Bath Abbey, not least in the heart of Miss Mallow, who stared after them as though they were a pair of tigers or elephants. Clarence nudged her in the ribs and nodded sagely, as though to say, there he is, chasing after you again. Her mother glanced at her, too, but with an unreadable face that was trying not to smile.

  Once again Prudence felt she would be accosted by Dammler after church, but on this occasion he could hardly be accused of dallying. He looked at her several times and smiled the smile that went with his shrug, though in company with the Pillar, one did not shrug. Coming to her was physically impossible for the crowd that hovered around, having heard who was visiting the Countess and wishing to meet him.

  “We'll just wait till those few people go along, to say how do you do to Lord Dammler,” Clarence suggested. His niece would have none of it. She had him into his carriage and on the way home before anyone got a look at his jacket.