Reprise

by Joan Smith

  Her plans bore little fruit. Dammler soon fell into the routine of walking off into the park or woods with his notebook right after breakfast and staying there for the greater part of the day. What he was writing she didn’t know, but it seemed to keep him in good humor, so that he helped her entertain the company in the evenings. He discussed his work with no one. Occasional notices appeared in the London papers of the departure and arrival of guests at Lady Melvine’s place. Such celebrities as Lord Dammler and the Malverns did not go unannounced.

  “I see Lady Melvine has got the Malverns to go to her for the last half of August,” Clarence said, sipping his tea one fine morning. “And the Swazies. I expect you know all these folk, eh, Prudence?”

  “I know of them,” she replied, clenching her jaw to control her anger. Lady Malvern! He had gone running back to her! “A pity she didn’t ask us. I would like to get away from the sweltering heat of the city for a week or two. But they will all be back in September. All our friends will be turning up one of these days. I confess I miss them.”

  To call these people “friends” was another of Clarence's delusions. To hear he expected to continue association with them filled Prudence with forebodings of despair. Clarence would not like having all his vicarious glory snatched from him. He had remained civil to her all summer long, but if September did not return him to his recent pinnacle of fame, he would soon turn on her. Uncle was capable of wretched behavior under the strains of deprivation. She tried to give him a hint that things would be different. He wouldn’t hear of it.

  “Pooh--Dammler ain’t the only fish in the sea. Glad you turned him off. I always thought you would have done better to take Seville. There was a man knew how to treat a lady. Called in Knighton when Wilma took sick at Reading. That was well done in him.”

  “Mr. Seville is married now, Uncle,” she reminded him.

  This was too much reality to quibble with. “So he is. To that Scots baroness, wasn’t it? Well he had an odd knot or two in him. A foreigner, after all. I didn’t like him nearly so well as that Springer lad that hounded your every step in Bath.”

  “Mr. Springer has gone home to Kent. He does not come to London.”

  “Just as well. He is nobody, when all’s said and done. Do you mind that royal duke that used to trail at your skirts, Prue? York was it, or Kent...?

  “The Duke of Clarence--I remember him, certainly.”

  She remembered as well that his trailing at her skirts was limited to once standing up with her at one of Hettie’s balls.

  “That would be something, eh? A royal duke.”

  “Yes,” Prudence said weakly, unable to say more.

  “Oh, Clarence, that is looking a good deal too high,” his sister told him.

  “Aye, so it is. The old king would never let him do it. But we will have Dammler pounding down our door soon, if I know anything.” They had gone full circle, right back to Lord Dammler. “What a lad he is. Up to anything. The women are all over him.” In this manner he whiled away the summer. He had a few actual activities as well. He visited Stultz for a new pair of coats, dashed off a couple of Rembrandts a week, the dispersal of which consumed a good deal of his time. Not every one of his friends wanted a brown picture in the saloon. His most outstanding activity, however, outshone all of these. It quite wiped Dammler and Lady Melvine from his mind for three days.

  He mentioned his plan over breakfast one morning, sliding it in calmly between bites of egg, not to lessen its wonder, but to show how very much he had fallen into his new role as confidant of lords and ladies. “I guess it’s time I take a run down to Drury Lane and pick out our box,” he said.

  Never in his life before had he hired a box for the season. Seldom did he even go to the theatre. He got all the astonishment he craved.

  “Oh, Clarence, that will be very dear,” Wilma said at once.

  “You don’t mean you are going to hire a box!” Prudence said, right on top of her mother’s exclamation.

  There was a good deal of discussion, with Wilma against the extravagant plan and Prudence delighted with it. Clarence was actually interested in no one’s opinion but his own, however, and didn’t let Wilma talk him out of it. He wore one of his new jackets for the trip down the Strand, sitting on the high perch of his phaeton, and toying with the notion of taking the ribbons himself, a thing he had never dared to tackle thus far. But a man who could hire a box for the season was up to anything, and if the coal carrier had looked what he was about as he came ripping out of St. Martin’s Lane, there wouldn’t have been a hitch in it. The scratch on the side of the phaeton hardly showed, and the horses weren’t hurt in the least.

  The summer seemed to them all to last a very long time, but at last it was over. When September rolled around, Prudence, who had done little but write the past six weeks, sent her new manuscript to her publisher. Mr. Murray read it with astonishment. It was so very different from her customary work! She, who usually wrote of her own class in an understated way, had tackled high society, and done a successful job of it. It was not as sound a book as she generally turned out. The characters were thin, superficial except for the two main protagonists, and these he soon recognized for herself and Dammler.

  He came around to Grosvenor Square to discuss the matter. “Are you sure you want to go ahead with this, Miss Mallow?” he asked with diffidence. He was dying to publish it. It would be an immediate hit, but Dammler after all was still his major writer, and it wouldn’t do to antagonize him.

  “Why else do you think I wrote it?” she asked. “You forget I am not one of the privileged few who write for my own amusement. I write for money, and I happen to be in need of funds.” Her trousseau, hanging idle in a closet, had rendered her bankrupt. She had actually had to borrow from Mama to buy a new set of pens. “It seems a little personal is all I meant.”

  "Personal? How can you say so, Mr. Murray? There are no real people in it. Just my imaginary characters, as usual.”

  “I think your Duke of Guelph has just a little something of your ex-fiancé in him?” he asked.

  “I could have written of an aged humpback and it would be taken for Dammler at this point. That can’t be helped.”

  “Yes, but you haven’t written of an aged humpback; you have chosen for your hero a handsome young peer.”

  “Guelph is not the hero!”

  “Well--major character--you know what I mean. I am not at all sure it is wise.” But as he thumbed through the manuscript, picking out lively scenes, dialogues sparkling with witty repartee, he felt a very strong urge to get it between covers. If he didn’t, someone else would. Colchester, now, would die to get his hands on it.

  After a moment’s consideration he suggested, “What do you say we put it out under a nom de plume?”

  “An anonymous gentlewoman, you mean?”

  “Your anonymity would not last long. A name, I think, would be better, and we’ll invent a biography for her.”

  Prudence felt just a twinge of concern when Murray had so quickly found out her stunt. She had gone a little far, she admitted, and leapt on the idea of hiding her authorship. “Excellent! Who shall I be?”

  “You’ve made your heroine a minister’s daughter. Why not make yourself the same? A Miss Brown would lend a nice touch. Plain, without quite giving it away for an alias by using Smith or Jones.”

  “Why not Miss White, as I have made her so pure? Miss Mary White. How does that strike you?”

  “You’ve called your heroine Mary. Let’s make it Jane.”

  “Jane White. I like it excessively. As bland as pap-- it doesn’t give a single hint of anything.”

  “Done! I shall launch my new authoress as soon as possible. I’ve just got a manuscript from Dammler,” he went on.

  She was on tiptoes to hear all about it, but could not sink so low as to show her eagerness. “What is it, poetry, a play, what?” she asked nonchalantly.

  “Poetry,” he replied, a little ill at ease.

  “Ano
ther batch of the cantos?”

  “No, sonnets. A collection of love sonnets.”

  “Ah, he has got his summer’s experience on paper already, has he? There will be a good profit for you, Mr. Murray.”

  “I expect they will do very well. They are excellent, in my estimation. Perhaps you’d like to look them over when I have the proofs ready?”

  “I can wait till they’re in the stores. I am not that interested in Lord Dammler’s work any more. Now, about my Babe in the Woods, sir, it is not a large book. I think two volumes will do for it?”

  “Yes, there’s not enough here to require three volumes this time.”

  “I hope you don’t mean to pare down my money accordingly? I am very short at the moment.”

  “Same price. I’ll send the cheque right over, if you’re short. And you won’t tell anyone who wrote it?”

  “Not unless it is a runaway success,” she returned impishly.

  “It will be that. It’s Dammler I’m thinking of, actually.”

  “Tell him what you like. Tell him Jane White wrote it, and has since entered a convent. That is bound to divert any incipient interest he may have felt in the authoress.”

  “He won’t take the idea it’s about him if he believes it was actually written by someone he doesn’t know.” John Murray, not so very intimate with the day-to-day doings of his two favorite writers, had no way of knowing Dammler would recognize a phrase of his own on every page.

  “He is convinced he is the hero of my other book, Patience, and won’t be looking for himself so soon in anything written by me. But we won’t say I wrote this. Meanwhile, I shall go on with Patience.”

  “Do that. I like the chapters you showed me. If we could bring Patience out soon, no one would think you had written this one as well. You did a fast job of it, this time.”

  “I was inspired.”

  They discussed printing and finances, and soon Murray was leaving. Prudence sat behind, wondering how soon she might get ahold of a copy of Dammler’s sonnets, and realizing her eagerness would be less if she had put him out of her mind and heart as she had hoped she could do. That he had written love sonnets intrigued her. She sat wondering if she could guess from the poems whom he was writing to. The images of Cybele and Lady Malvern were in her mind, along with those names visiting Hettie to which she could put a face. She was required to chase out the scampering thought that there might be one or two to herself. She was becoming as foolish as Uncle Clarence, to think he would write love poems to a lady who jilted him, and called him a mutt.

  There had never been any formal cancellation of the wedding in the papers. Clarence couldn’t bring himself to do it, and Prudence was so distracted she forgot all about it. It devolved on Mrs. Mallow to send out individual cards telling the news. As a result, those returning to town in the fall, those who had not been invited, were in some little confusion as to what had happened. Prudence received some few calls from the more elevated persons she had come in contact with through Dammler. Even a few invitations were extended to her. Accepting them smacked of using him, the worst of his charges in her view, but turning them down augured such a tedious autumn that when Clarence set a pen in her fingers and commanded her to accept--on his behalf as well as her own--she snatched at this poor excuse, of pleasing Uncle, and did as she was told. She was only human flesh and blood after all; she wasn’t Jane White.

  There lurked as well the unworthy hope that she would see Dammler at some of these do’s. She had tried her very best to root him out of her heart, but like a mint plant or an ivy, the last corner of root refused to be eradicated, and flourished without a bit of encouragement. Two consecutive evenings she made a careful toilette, accepted Clarence’s delighted escort to ton parties, and spent the better part of her time scanning the crowds for Allan, without any luck.

  Clarence was pleased with her. Dammler hadn’t yet come breaking down her door, but new names were learned, new faces to bow to on the street and mention to his cronies were assimilated. There was enough novelty in peeking around corners of fashionable homes and informing the owner she had a fine Canaletto or Rubens there to keep him happy. Each new day brought another card or two to his door, and there was the thrill of trying to remember what the sender looked like, and wondering whether the address mentioned was the big brick place on the corner, or the little dab of a spot next it. Often the phaeton was harnessed up to check on these matters before the invitation was accepted. Clarence Elmtree didn’t mean to honor just any old place no bigger than his own with his presence.

  The third outing brought Prudence face to face with her quarry. She wore one of the gowns from her trousseau, and wondered if Dammler recognized it. It was a gold silk gown he had informed her would set off his late mother’s topaz and diamond necklace to a nicety. It was set off on this occasion, however, by no more than a short string of amber beads belonging to her own mother. Even before she and Clarence got into the hall, they saw him at the doorway to the main saloon, standing with two gentlemen and a matron. His face was brown and relaxed; he looked younger, more handsome than she remembered, with just that tip of a brow tilting up to lend him a slightly raffish air. As usual, he was talking away, gesturing with his well-shaped hands, leading the conversation, laughing and joking. “... said he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his wife in six months, so I took him home, and sure enough, there she was,” he finished up some story, being outrageous as usual. Then as his listeners espied Prudence and her uncle approaching, their glances went to her in an expectant way.

  Dammler looked across the hall and saw her. The smile left his face. The group fell silent, watching to see what would occur as a result of this first public meeting since the break. For a long moment, nothing happened but that they stood staring at each other, each overcome by the dreadful premonition of being about to be cut dead. Clarence’s roving eye lit on Dammler at this moment, and he bounced forward with his hand out, leaving Prudence behind.

  “Well, well, so you’re back, eh, Dammler?” he asked happily, not yet daring to use the “Nevvie” that longed to come out. “We have been scanning the papers every day to see when you would get here. Had a good holiday with your aunt, I trust?”

  “Very good, thank you,” he answered politely, his eyes sliding past Clarence to the niece, who cringed to hear her uncle blurt out the devastating truth, the lowering fact that they had all been following his moves, awaiting his return. Prudence saw the astonishment clearly on his face, the little widening of the eyes and lift of the brows.

  Clarence forged on with the welcome. “Good for you. There is nothing like getting away from the heat in the dead of summer. We would have been happy to go somewhere ourselves, but Prudence was scribbling away like crazy, and has got a new book sent off to Murray.”

  This news was to have been suppressed at all costs. How had she not thought to warn Clarence of it? But he seldom spoke of her work; she hardly realized he knew she had given Murray the manuscript.

  “Indeed?” Dammler asked with the quickest of interest, using it as an excuse to approach the forbidden lady. He took three steps towards her, and executed a bow. “You have had a fruitful summer, I take it?” he asked her, careful to keep the talk impersonal.

  “Not so fruitful as Uncle would indicate. I have not finished Patience yet.”

  “Nonsense. Murray took a great box of papers away two weeks ago or more,” Clarence threw in. “‘Another book, eh, Mr. Murray?’ I asked him, for I was coming in just as he went out, and he said, ‘The girl’s a demon for work. At this rate, she’ll outrun Burney.' Frances Burney, he meant. She’s a writer, too,” he told Dammler, who had no need to be informed of the employment of a good friend and the most famous female writer in the country.

  Prudence was sure the fat was in the fire, but soon realized Allan was hardly listening to her uncle babble on. He was looking at her, not hearing much of anything, she thought. “I have been writing too,” he told her.

  “Murray mentione
d it. I am eager to see your sonnets,” she answered in confusion.

  “I’ll bring you a copy when they’re ready--if I may?” he asked. He sounded uncertain, but there was a definite trace of conciliation in him.

  She was so relieved to discover he was not angry, not dead set against her, that she forgot all her good resolutions and answered, “That would be very nice.

  “You must give me a copy of your new work, as well. When will Patience make her bows?”

  “Oh, I have not finished Patience yet,” she told him quickly.

  “What book is it Murray has then?”

  She hesitated. She could not like to lie outright and say he had none, but liked even less to own up to what she had done. It seemed suddenly a gross thing, to have painted this forgiving man as an absolute monster. Clarence had wandered off to meet those Dammler had abandoned, and without him to overhear her, she said, “You must not put total reliance on my uncle’s words. He sometimes is confused.”

  “Was he confused in thinking you had been looking out for my return?” he asked.

  It was as close as he could come in public to asking whether he were still in the doghouse, where a mutt, of course, belonged. “Not totally confused,” she answered, embarrassed pink, but happy to see the subject of her new work being dropped. To ensure that it not come up again, she asked quickly, “I assume Shilla will be opening on schedule? I look forward to seeing it.”

  “I’ll send you tickets,” he said at once. “I would be happy if you would share my box. It is a good one. You recall, perhaps, its location?” As they had gone together to select the box in the halcyon days of their engagement, this statement was weighted with more meaning that a bystander might think.

  This offer went well beyond mere conciliation to plain pursuit. Unfortunately, she was required to put him off. Clarence, so thrilled with his box for the season, had got together a party for the first performance, of which Prudence was the main star. She told Dammler of the plan, softening her refusal in a way that she hoped would give him no offence, for in her heart she wanted to go with him. She was Shilla-- what more fitting than that she see the play with the author, in their box?