by Joan Smith
Her prolonged and confused explanation caused a wary light to come into his eyes. It sounded to him more like an excuse being concocted as she went on than a reason. But still he pressed on with his pursuit. “I’m having a party later at our--my new house on Berkeley Square. I have moved in and am refurbishing it. I’ll send you a card. May I hope to see you there?” he asked, a little less friendly than before.
“Oh, but we are going with Sir Alfred and Mrs. Hering,” she explained.
“The whole party will be invited, of course.”
“In that case, I expect Uncle will be delighted,” she answered with relief that some plan had at last been worked out.
“Prudence!” he said, shaking his head with a rueful smile. “You know it is not Uncle’s presence I am trying to insure. You will come?”
All his words, the spontaneous mention of house, the reversion to calling Clarence “Uncle”--all sounded miraculously like a resumption of the prerupture status, and though she had adamantly assured herself all summer she would have none of him, she found her heart beating with wild gratitude. “Of course,” she said.
A slow smile formed on his lips, and his eyes were happy. She had seen him look so dozens of times, most often just before he kissed her. He didn’t say a word, or have to. She knew what was in his mind.
Clarence, watching them jealously, figured two minutes was long enough for a swift worker like Nevvie, and returned to the attack. Dammler, in his eager resolve to reinstate himself, told Clarence the plan of the party at once. Clarence was all magnanimity. “We will be sure to go. Don’t worry I’ll let her wiggle out of it. She’ll be there if I have to drag her.”
“He won’t have to drag you, will he, Prue?” Dammler asked with a warm, intimate smile. She was back to Prue, and the reconciliation was off to a flying start.
She even dared to make a joke. “I sha’n’t put him to the expense of a team of wild horses. The bays he got for his high perch phaeton wouldn’t be up to it.”
“Ho, they are up to anything. Sixteen miles an hour,” he exaggerated, remembering the magical number always quoted for a pair of prime goers, though his own sedate team had hardly exceeded six.
“Well, enough shilly-shallying. Let us get on into the hall and see what sort of a shindig it is,” Elmtree said, rubbing his hands in anticipation. “I see the Castlereaghs are here. She grows an inch wider every week. I’ll speak to him about that new bill he is pushing through.” This was the most arrant nonsense. He had not yet scraped an acquaintance with the foreign minister, and had no more notion what bills were in progress than he had of metaphysics, but he knew what he heard others say, and liked to say the proper things.
“I’ll see you later then,” Dammler said to Prue. Just as she turned to follow her uncle, who set a hot pace in the pursuit of the mighty, he grabbed her hand. “I believe I overlooked complimenting you on your gown. Very elegant.” He looked pointedly at the amber beads, saying nothing about topaz and diamond necklaces, but his quizzing smile told her what was in his mind, and her confused "Thank you,” let him know she understood.
Somehow, he didn’t see her later, not at close range in any case. She had as many partners as she wanted, but she didn’t once have the one she wanted. Dammler danced with a great many girls, including Lady Malvern. He twice smiled at herself, and three times looked as though he were heading in her direction, but once another gentleman beat him to the draw, and twice he was waylaid before he made it. When she and her uncle went home, they had not exchanged another word. She could not be sure Dammler’s unusual effervescence at the party had anything to do with herself, but he had been much friendlier than she had expected.
Chapter Five
Clarence’s talk over breakfast was all of Dammler, his being after Prudence again, the post-play party. Mrs. Mallow cast a fearful look on her daughter. She said no words, but the look was enough. Don’t do it! the look said. Don’t get involved with him again, to have your heart broken. “Did you stand up with him?” Wilma asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“That’s good.”
“He didn’t ask me.”
“I see. He is just being friendly then. That is best.”
“Friendly?” Elmtree leapt in. “He couldn’t get next or nigh her for the rush of black jackets.”
Prudence didn’t think it best at all, nor did she think that was the way affairs stood between them. She fully expected to see him at the door that same day, and so, of course, did Clarence. Miss Mallow said not a word of this, but her uncle pulled out his turnip watch a dozen times between ten and eleven, wondering aloud each time what was keeping him. When he still was not battering down the door at eleven-thirty, Clarence could control his eagerness no longer, and had his high perch phaeton called out to go scouting down Bond Street to look for him. Dammler did not come that day, nor the next, nor any day that week. The cards for the party arrived, to be stuck in a corner of the saloon mirror for pointing out to callers.
As day succeeded day, Prudence reviewed the meeting for the hidden cause of his neglect. He had called her Prue, had said our house, had called Clarence Uncle, and his smile had been warm, but on the other hand he had danced with Lady Malvern and had not danced with herself. It began to look as though he were playing some nefarious game of cat and mouse. Why did he not come? Was it to be no more than friendship between them, after all? Was this the polite way of smoothing over a broken engagement when two persons were likely to go on meeting? He was redoing the house--would it not be appropriate for him to consult with her if there was a possibility she was to share it with him? Dammler’s taste, to judge by his apartment, was a little garish. She had no wish to spend the rest of her life in a saloon that boasted no sofas, but required the inhabitants to be seated on backless ottomans, with the only tables so far below hand level that setting a teacup down was an inconvenience.
She tried to find face-saving excuses for his absence. Impossible not to remember he had a play in preparation--with Cybele in the cast. He would be spending a good deal of time at the theater. Was it Cybele that kept him so busy he couldn’t find half an hour to call? As to his host of other friends, she could not but wonder if Lady Malvern were not seeing him.
Dammler was spending his time more innocently than she could have imagined. Between the play, the proofs of the sonnets to be read and corrected, the house to be got ready and new servants to be interviewed, he had hardly a minute free. What minutes he had were passed in restraining himself from running to Grosvenor Square, where he was by no means sure of his reception. Prudence had been friendlier than he dared hope. The rancor was spent, but there had been no eagerness in her welcome. She had made excuses not to join him in his box, had been particular to show him she went to the party to please Clarence, and had not offered him a copy of whatever it was she had given Murray. What could it be? She was open to further advances, but they would be careful and seemly. No eager puppy trotting back with his tail wagging this time. Meanwhile he prepared the house with a lavish hand, in a way he hoped she would like. The coup de grace was to be the book of sonnets. When they were bound, he would take her a copy and let his poems do the job of courting for him.
He was happy with them. Sitting out in the meadow with the warm summer sun beating on his shoulders, he had gone over all the days of their meeting and friendship that had ripened into love. The poems were an unabashed tribute to her, and they were good. The best thing he had done. He knew it before Murray told him. They would tell her in a civilized way what he felt, but couldn’t put into words. When he spoke, his tongue ran away with him. It was his besetting fault, that tongue. In the written work he had pared away the excesses and left the essence. She would recognize in them allusions to herself that would pass for generalizations to others, but she would know they were for her. A note in her own particular copy would confirm it.
He counted heavily on the efficacy of poetry to appeal to a lady of literary leanings. By a great pressure on hi
s inclinations, he waited for the auspicious moment to approach her, after she had read and digested them.
For the meanwhile, he had plenty to do. A more concrete appeal to her hedonism, a quality which was in fact lacking to her, was the care taken for the redoing of their mutual study in the new house on Berkeley Square. A pair of desks were found, his own having by legend, probably false, been used by Alexander Pope, whom he idolized, and hers by Madame du Barry. He had the walls lined with shelves, which were in turn lined with his books, with the requisite two rows left for her few volumes. Pictures, chairs, drapes and the necessary pieces were also chosen with care, as he envisaged many happy hours spent there. He had arranged the desks so she would have a view of the garden, and he a view of her.
When his sonnets came off the press, he got the first copy and inscribed it, after careful thought, to her using the words, “For Prudence, my inspiration, with love from Allan.” He would have put more, but wished to express the thought without becoming maudlin. The copy was placed on Madame du Barry’s desk, waiting for her.
The night for the opening of Shilla finally came-- one of the opening salvos of the season. The play was an immediate success. Sitting in Clarence’s box, Prudence’s cheeks were flushed as she recognized her own sentiments, even her own words, being flung into the theater to be received with rapture. It quite went to her head. Lest the listeners not realize Clarence could have read it all long before had he wished, he decided he had done so, and occasionally reached across Mrs. Hering to inquire, “He has changed that bit, I think?” of Prudence. He laughed and clapped at all the right places, like everyone else, only a few seconds after the others, and several times discovered amusement where no one else did.
During the intermission he was busy hobbling over to acquaintances to ask, “We will be seeing you at Dammler’s party after the play, I fancy?” and was aux anges when the reply was a jealous negative. He hadn’t had such a night in his life before. The expensive theater box had been a sound investment. Next year he would get a better one--closer to the royal family, and hang the expense. He even enjoyed the play, especially the crowds of fillies all with their black hair and funny looking outfits.
"There is a dashed pretty young thing--the one in the pink,” Clarence said to the company at large. Prudence had been spending a good part of her attention to search out Cybele, a job made nearly impossible by the black hair of all the girls. Training her glasses on this particular one, she discovered it to be Cybele. She had no lines to say, but did her little dance with her hips swaying very convincingly. At one point she was the last to leave the stage, having a flirtation with the Mogul. Clarence leaned forward to get a better look at her. “I would like to paint her,” he said. “An excellent subject. She would be no trouble at all.”
At length the performance was over, Dammler was taking his bows, and Prudence thought--it was hard to be sure--that he looked in her direction. She was so proud she wanted to burst. The cream of society was on its feet applauding him. She marveled that she had actually spurned an offer of marriage from this man, who seemed at that moment the most desirable man in the world. How had she been so foolish? The doubts of the past months were clapped and cheered away amidst the uproar in the theater. She could be the hostess of his party this night of his triumph had she wished. Lady Dammler, standing beside him, secure in her future, bathed in the glow of his achievement. Instead, she was to go as a mere guest, and grateful even for that, to the house bought for her. A hundred regrets swirled in her brain, a thousand fears she would not have a repeat chance, and as many resolutions to grab the chance if it offered--if it was not too late. Too late! Surely the saddest words in the language.
Once at the party, she realized she was not just one guest, but a very special one. Allan had claimed the saloon would not hold more than fifty comfortably, but there were close to four times that number of people milling about within various rooms--writers and politicians, ambassadors and dukes, even a royal prince or two, but when she entered she felt she was the one he had been waiting for. She knew him well enough to read his thoughts by his mobile face. A look almost of peace descended on his features when he took her hand. He said no more than, “Hi, Prudence. Glad you could come.” The eyes said the rest. He made the rest of the party welcome, then turned back to her. “How do you like the house?” he asked. She had thought it would be the play he inquired about.
“It looks wonderful,” she complimented, drawing her eyes away from him to glance at newly done walls, new furnishings, new mirrors and huge tubs of flowers everywhere. The place had been old, poorly furnished. He had had it refinished from ceilings to floors.
“I hope you like the way I have fixed it up?” he asked. Did she imagine the nervous tone in this question. She read volumes into the platitude. What should it matter what she thought of it if she were to spend only an evening here as a guest at a party? “No oriental splendor, you see. The ottomans and hassocks all done away with. Good old Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Hettie gave me a hand with it. I left the black and white marble entrance floor. You said you liked the patterned floor.”
Not too hard to read meaning into this remark. When he went on to point out the red carpeting on the stairs, he was as well as saying the place was hers. He had already told her he thought red carpeting a trifle nouveau riche, but she had proclaimed it of particular appropriateness to herself in that case, and if he had put in red carpeting, it was not for his own pleasure.
“It’s bright as afternoon in here,” Clarence said, frowning at this phenomenon.
“Gaslight,” Dammler explained aside. There were other guests waiting to be welcomed, but he held on to her hand a moment longer. “I want to show you the study later. I have something for you there.”
In her mind she felt it must be the engagement ring, and went off into the main saloon with a heart that was in flight. It took a little plummet when the first face she saw was Lady Malvern, talking to Hettie, but when Hettie made an excuse and fled right to her side, she rallied. Hettie and Dammler were as close as peas in a pod, so that this distinction was not negligible.
“Well, Prudence, nice to see you again. Are you satisfied with the job we have done on the house?” she asked eagerly.
“Dandy. Just dandy,” Clarence answered for her. “Gaslight--I like it excessively. I am thinking of installing it myself.” The thought had flashed into his head the minute he saw the bright illumination of the place. Here was a step up on Sir Alfred, and how it would show up his paintings! The brown paintings required a better light than his orange and blue da Vincis had.
Hettie nodded at this praise, but her eyes rested on Prudence. “It’s lovely. Very rich,” she answered, her glance running from freshly-painted walls that threw the embossings into relief, to silk window hangings, to chandeliers throwing off a million prisms.
“Not too rich for your taste, I hope? Allan vetoed gilt lamps. I tried to talk him into velvet settees, but he insisted you prefer brocade. Done in blue, you see,” she added, blue being well established as Prudence’s preferred color.
“Charming,” she replied, coloring up noticeably.
“He hasn’t shown you your desk yet?” Hettie went on, with a mischievous twinkle. She wore a puce turban topped off with a pair of pink ostrich plumes, tethered with a hideous garnet pin.
Miss Mallow replied, all af1uster, that Allan was to show her the study later. “You will like it I think. He got the desk from France--beat me to it, and it was I who heard it was up for auction. But I don’t begrudge it to you. You will put it to better use than I would. I never write a word if I can help it.”
The desk--was that then what he had got for her? She was disappointed, but it was impossible to fall into actual depression with so much singular attention being showered on her. The desk, surely, was not to be carted off to Grosvenor Square. She was to use it here, under his and her own roof.
The party necessarily began late, after the play, and it was well after two before Da
mmler, busy seeing to his guests and of course receiving many congratulations, managed to slip away to Prudence’s side for a moment. Hettie was showing some people through the downstairs chambers, and Prudence had attached herself to this group, curious to see how the place was done up. Suddenly he was at her elbow, taking her arm. “Would you like to see the study now?” he asked. She must be imagining that trace of uncertainty, shyness, in him. “I locked the door to keep out the throng. My study is sacred. At Hettie’s place last summer a souvenir hunter waltzed off with one of my sonnets. But I had made a copy of it, so it was no matter. It’s this way."
He led her off from the others, pulling a key from his pocket to open the door. It was dark within, and he busied himself lighting the gas lamps.
“Uncle is very impressed with your gaslight,” she said. “He speaks of installing it at home. You’ll bankrupt him, with so many luxuries to have to compete with.”
The room sprang into illumination, showing her the pair of desks, sitting at right angles. She suppressed a gasp, but it was not with the pleasure or admiration he expected. On the corner of his desk, right under her nose, sat her book Babe in the Woods. She didn’t have a copy herself yet, but the title and author’s name were easily legible. Dammler, gone to pick up his own sonnets, had been given one of the first copies by Murray. She looked away, her face a shade paler, then darted a fearful look to Dammler, who was regarding her steadily.
“You don’t like it,” he said, disappointed. More than disappointed, dejected.
She felt a wretched traitor, and in guilty confusion forced herself to look around the room, hardly seeing any of his careful work. In her mind’s eye the green volume loomed larger than the whole house. “It’s very nice, elegant.”