Imprudent Lady

by Joan Smith

  “Well, he knows where you stay. I gave him your address when he called in London. We will be seeing him before the day is out.”

  When he failed to appear, Clarence decreed that he had been driving all night, and was likely tucked into his bed, not wanting to show Prudence such a harried face. "Those handsome fellows are as vain as ladies about their looks. He will be along tomorrow.”

  Dammler would have liked to have gone along to the memorized address that same day, but the Pillar had other plans. She had invited the presiding minister at Bath Abbey and a few honoured guests to join her for luncheon, to meet Lord Dammler and set his feet on the path to righteousness. In the afternoon she requested his escort on a drive in the country to commune with nature and a widowed friend seventy years old, and at six o’clock it was back to Bath for a heavy dinner of mutton. The evening saw him taking her to a church discussion group on Dissenters. By eleven o’clock he was more than ready for bed. He felt as if he had swum to America and back.

  On Monday a trip to the Pump Room was made by the Countess to set her up for the rigours of the week. It was also necessary for Clarence Elmtree. No one at all had seen them on Sunday, with Prudence hustling them into the carriage and home so fast. He was torn between being there early to make a good long visit, and entering late and causing a fuss. He opted for the former and drank two glasses of the foul sulphur water to keep his chest in shape till he got back to Knighton, who, over the few days, had become established as his physician. His advice was quoted on several complaints to people in Bath. He was just informing a Mrs. Plunkett of the efficacy of a certain paregoric draught when Lady Cleff and Lord Dammler came into the Pump Room.

  Scanning the room Dammler's eyes stopped when he saw Clarence’s party. He bowed formally and smiled before sitting down with his cousin to partake of the water. Soon some elderly friends of the Countess had joined them and Dammler sat on staidly, conversing with them. Prudence didn’t see him smile once the entire time he was there. What a dull time he is having, yet he doesn’t bother coming to talk to us, she thought. In half an hour, she convinced her uncle it was time to go and look at her cartoon in the window again. It was necessary for them to pass the Dowager’s table to get out, and as they approached, Dammler arose to greet them, bowing to the ladies and shaking Elmtree’s hand. He begged the honour of presenting them to his cousin, which honour was granted.

  The Dowager raised her lorgnette and examined them one by one, as if they were three indifferent specimens of Lepidoptera pinned on a board, said “Charmed” to Mrs. Mallow and Prudence, and allowed Clarence to shake three fingers briefly. She was in a particularly genial mood that day.

  They were just turning to leave—no offer of joining the Pillar’s table was extended—when another gentleman seated across the room hastened towards them. He was of Dammler's approximate age and height, but slender and of fair complexion. Lady Cleff’s smile broadened as she spotted this addition to the group.

  “Ah, Mr. Springer,” she said, offering him all four fingers and the thumb. “Dammler, here is someone who knows you, I believe. Just the very friend for you. I think you are dull with no companions but my old crones.”

  A few stiff and stilted phrases were exchanged between the two old colleagues, giving a foretaste of how agreeable they found each other’s company. The Mallows and Mr. Elmtree made their farewells and left.

  “I see you are anxious to be off, Mr. Springer,” the Dowager said coyly. “We shan’t detain you, but you must be sure to call. We will look forward to seeing you at Pulteney Street very soon.”

  Springer fairly dashed off after the departing company, and Dammler was left with yet another obstacle in his wooing of Miss Mallow. A rival, one who had the advantage of a long acquaintance and an unblemished reputation.

  He turned to his cousin. “Springer is Miss Mallow’s beau, I take it?”

  “Yes, he is often with her. Usually escorts her home from the Pump Room. Truth to tell, I wish him success with her. She seems a nice enough sort of a girl, now that I have met her. Not forthcoming in the least. I had heard she was just a trifle fast—oh, not loose. I do not mean to imply she is loose. With a good solid husband like Springer she would be no poor addition to Bath society.”

  This suggestion of Springer being considered as a husband for Prudence threw Dammler into alarm. “Surely they are not on the point of an engagement. Prudence— Miss Mallow—has not been here above two weeks.”

  “It is a long-standing attachment. Quite romantic, really. Friends for years in Kent. It often happens that old friends met under different circumstances become more than friends. I think she might get him if she plays her cards well.”

  This idea so appalled Dammler that he abandoned his plans of being circumspect and wearing the costume of a dull, respectable gentleman for a few weeks. He went that very afternoon to Laura Place and asked Prudence to drive out with him. In fact, he arrived just as she was leaving the luncheon table.

  Her chagrin was possibly greater than his own. She had already given Springer permission to call that same afternoon. “I am busy this afternoon,” she said, in a stricken voice.

  “Oh. I see,” he answered with sinking heart. “Busy, eh? Well, I had better leave you then.”

  “Oh, no—that is, I do not go out until four o’clock. It is only a little after two o’clock. We have time for a little visit.”

  Clarence was smiling and nodding in one corner, and Mrs. Mallow furrowing her brow across the room. There was no private study where they could pretend to be discussing literature, and the situation appeared hopeless.

  “Would you like to go for a short drive?” Dammler asked, knowing it sounded absurd, as she had mentioned her outing was to be a drive.

  “Yes, that sounds delightful,” she answered promptly, and went straight off to get her bonnet.

  There was so much to be said between them, yet both were bereft of meaningful words. They mentioned the weather, the sights of Bath, even their respective states of health.

  Sensing that his precious bit of time was slipping away, Dammler asked bluntly, “Are you angry with me for coming to Bath?”

  “No, why should I be? You are free to roam as you like,” was her unencouraging reply. “You have been in London 'til now, I collect?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is Lady Melvine?”

  “Very well. Murray also. I told him I would enquire how your book goes on.”

  “I have written to Mr. Murray just recently.”

  “He cannot have had your letter when I saw him last then.”

  “No.”

  After a quarter of an hour’s uninteresting conversation of this sort, they were on Milsom Street, and Dammler asked her if she would like to get down and walk a little. The outing was going so poorly that he feared he had lost her to Springer, but he didn’t want to hear it confirmed, so he did not ask.

  As they strolled they passed the circulating library, and Dammler drew up to see her cartoon in the window.

  “Your uncle will like this,” he said. “You might get that other shelf out of him yet.”

  “Oh, now, with you borrowing all my books I scarcely have need of the two I have.”

  “Have I been borrowing your books?” he asked, hoping to get back on the old footing with these joking references to old times.

  “Indeed you have, and you with ten thousand of your own. Hog.”

  A few people were standing beside them looking in the window display, where Miss Mallow’s three novels were on view. One lady, her attention caught by the prepossessing appearance of Dammler, noticed that the lady with him was none other than Miss Mallow. She had just bought The Cat in the Garden and, with an apology for disturbing them, asked if the author would sign it.

  “I read all your books, Miss Mallow. I like them very much.”

  "Thank you; you are very kind,” Prudence said, signing her name.

  “I am surprised you come to Bath to work,” the woman went on. “Y
ou must find it dull after London.”

  “No, I like it very much.”

  “I have heard a rumour Lord Dammler is here, too, but I shouldn’t think it’s true.”

  “Oh,” Prudence turned to Dammler, thinking to present him, but he shook his head discreetly.

  “No, there would be nothing here to interest him,” the lady continued in a disparaging tone. “No harems or Indian princesses.” She thanked Miss Mallow and went on her way.

  "Lo, how the mighty have fallen,” Dammler said sadly.

  “It is your not having on your patch that prevented her recognizing you,” Prudence consoled him.

  “You try to put a good face on it to recover my disgrace, but it is clear you have outpaced me.”

  “How nonsensical you are.”

  “She has my number. Harems and Indian princesses. But you see she is wrong. I am here in dull old Bath.”

  “Why are you here, if you find it dull?”

  “Why do you think?” he asked with a long look that caused Prudence to take a great interest in her cartoon. He said no more, but offered her his arm to continue their walk."

  “You are staying with Lady Cleff, aren’t you?” Prudence asked.

  “Yes, she is a cousin. A very respectable cousin.”

  “She is quite the terror of Bath. You will not care much for her set, I think.”

  “I like them excessively. I hardly know whether I am more interested with the Right Reverend Thomas Tisdale or the gentleman—the name eludes me but he resembles a sheep—who is doing a study on the Dissenters. I was shocked to see you missed the lecture on Dissenters, Miss Mallow. Very informative. The Scottish Anglicans, you know, are not included in the group, nor are the Recusants. They dissent, but for some reason they are not officially included in the group.”

  “You are become highly religious.”

  “Our company is not comprised solely of Divines. We also include a brace of octogenarians interested in finding a cure for gout and a man, or possibly a lady with a moustache, who means to revolutionize the calendar and give us a whole month of summer. The three days in June we presently enjoy do seem insufficient to me after my sojourn in the tropics. I mean to take up membership in the moustache’s group.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” Prudence laughed, shaking her head, and happy to see him behaving more like himself.

  “Yes I have. Truly I have, Prudence, but I must just let off a little steam after being under such pressure with my cousin.” He sounded so intense that Prudence stared at him.

  They resumed their seats in the carriage, and Prudence decided to discuss what must be in both their minds, the evening at Reading. “Did you see anything of Mr. Seville in London?” she asked, to initiate the subject.

  “No, but he was to call on Hettie—told her about having offered for you. I did him an injustice,” he admitted stiffly.

  “But you didn’t tell him so?”

  “I am telling you so, that is more to the point. I behaved very badly and have been wanting to apologize.”

  “Yes, you did behave abominably,” she agreed. He said nothing, but firmed his resolve to reform.

  Prudence thought he might now give some reason for his atrocious behaviour. Surely the reason had been jealousy, and jealousy just as surely must have been rooted in his love for her, but though she allowed him a full minute to say so, he said nothing.

  “Oh, there is Sir Henry Millar," she said, nodding and smiling to a passing acquaintance. “He is down here to rent and furnish a house for his mistress, an actress from Covent Garden. No doubt you know her—she goes by the name Yvonne duPuis, though she is actually from Cornwall. She is not here at the moment."

  This coming on top of his own efforts at respectability angered Dammler. “I dislike to hear you speak so openly of these matters, Prudence. They are not things a young lady ought to discuss with a gentleman.”

  She was first dumbfounded, then scornful. “I have always heard a leopard does not change his spots, Dammler. Tell me now, as a world traveller, is not that true, or are you an exception to the general rule? You were not used to be so nice in your ideas of subjects suitable for discussion with a lady."

  “You don’t have to remind me of my past. I am trying to change...”

  “Your behaviour or your conversation?”

  “Both.”

  “But we writers, you know, are up to anything, as your old friend ‘Silence’ Jersey says. Come, you claim to detest hypocrisy. Confess the truth. You are bored to finders in dull Bath, and languishing to get back to the City and your Phyrne.”

  “I have got rid of my Phyrne.”

  “Wilted on you, did she?”

  She could see he was reining in his temper and about ready to burst with the effort, but was in no way dismayed. “No, she was flourishing under the protection of a certain baron when I left.”

  “I should like to know, in case I ever have to write about it, how one goes about getting rid of a Phyrne. Is she given an annuity, or just sold outright to the highest bidder?”

  “Prudence!” he said in a warning voice.

  “Or was she on straight wages—so much a day, or night.”

  “You are not likely to require such information for anything you write, unless you have changed your style of writing a good deal.”

  “Ah well, who knows? Seville only offered marriage, but I may end up with a carte blanche in my pocket yet.”

  “That is not amusing, Prudence,” he said, a flash of anger leaping in his eyes.

  Satisfied at the effect of her goading, she answered quite sweetly, “It was supposed to be.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. Don’t talk like that.”

  "I was under the misapprehension you held a high opinion of the world’s oldest profession. Much better than wives who carry on intrigues, you said.”

  “You are not a wife yet.”

  “And not likely to be in the near future,” she returned airily. She was vastly annoyed that he did not follow up this excellent lead, but he looked quite relieved. He didn’t know what degree of intimacy she had achieved with Springer, but apparently marriage was not in her mind.

  “My aunt tells me you see a good deal of Ronald Springer,” he said, making it sound careless.

  Piqued at his lack of saying anything more to the point than this, she answered, “Yes, we are quite back on the old footing. There is hardly a day I don’t see him. In fact, we ought to be getting back. What time is it?”

  “About half past chapter ten,” he replied, without looking at his watch.

  She looked at him with the blankest incomprehension. “What would that be, Greenwich time?” she asked.

  “Three thirty. I’ll take you home.”

  He asked if he might bring his aunt to call the next day, and Prudence agreed. When she went into the house, she was displeased with the outing. He had intimated he was here only because of her, but made no move towards an offer. What was he up to? And there was a new stiffness, almost amounting to priggishness, in his manner, that irked her excessively. But she would take care of that!

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next day Dammler brought his cousin to visit, and after reminding them of each others’ names, he took a seat beside the Pillar. The Pillar then began her catechism, to see whether or not she had erred in coming to visit persons in rented lodgings.

  “Dammler tells me you write,” she said to Prudence in an accusing tone, lifting the lorgnette.

  “Yes ma’am I write a little—novels.”

  “I suppose they are Gothic novels.”

  “No, they are realistic modem novels.”

  “I do not read novels,” she said, and turned to Mrs. Mallow. “You have been ill, I hear.”

  Illness proved more acceptable than writing novels. The nature of the malady was explained, and the Countess shook her head sadly. “It Is an error to eat at inns. One should not eat when travelling.”

  “Lord Dammler would have found that inconv
enient on his tour around the world,” Prudence remarked, becoming annoyed at this haughty tone.

  “He should not have gone travelling,” she was told, as though such a corollary should have been self-evident.

  “Knighton took good care of my sister,” Clarence mentioned, always wanting to be mentioning a famous name. “He is very good about making a call.”

  “You had Knighton,” the Countess said, nodding her head in approval. About one tenth of her chill dissipated, though nothing approaching a smile appeared on her orange cheeks.

  “I always have Knighton when I am out of sorts,” Clarence told her.

  “I will give you my doctor’s address, here in Bath,” she offered. “Remind me, Dammler. You are fond of art, I believe, Mr. Elmtree,” she said next, having apparently had a resume of each before coming.

  “Yes, I am always painting. I did the whole Chiltern family just before coming. Seven of them. I hope to get a little time in on some landscapes while I am here.”

  “You will want to paint Beecher Hill,” she said. “There are some nice scenes there.”

  Clarence stored up the name, to write in his first note to Sir Alfred that the Countess of Cleff had recommended it. “I usually do portraits, but each spring I find myself drawn outdoors to try my hand at Nature.”

  Lady Cleff approved of Nature. "That is wise,” she allowed. “What sort of portraits do you do?”

  “Oh pretty good ones, I think, if I don’t flatter myself too much. I think Dammler will tell you I paint a pretty good picture.”

  “Very good,” Dammler confirmed readily. “In the style of Mona Lisa, Cousin.”

  “I like that,” she declared. "There is too much of dressing people in outlandish outfits like Grecians or nymphs and sitting them in strange poses. Phillips and Romney, for instance—always rigging their people out in ridiculous costumes.”

  “Ho, Romney, he knew nothing of painting,” Clarence said with enthusiasm. “He is dead, you know. One ought not to speak ill of the dead, but he knew nothing of painting.”

  “Romney painted me,” the Countess informed him, her parrot’s nose achieving a sharp point in disapproval.