Imprudent Lady

Chapter 18

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 barbarism 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’llsend 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.

“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. “You 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.”

“Ahwell, 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.”

"Iwas 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!