Imprudent Lady

Chapter 19

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 inconvenient 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.

“You shouldn’t have let him near you. I daresay he gave you a sharp nose and too wide a form.”

Prudence drew in a sharp breath at this telling description of their caller, and looked at the Countess in fear. She found a smile of gratification on that white and orange face. Glancing at Dammler, she thought he was unmoved, till she noticed the laughter lurking in his eyes.

“You should have Mr. Elmtree do a proper likeness of you, Cousin,” he suggested to the Dowager.

“I am past all that,” she demurred, but in no very conclusive manner.

“Nonsense,” Clarence stated firmly. “I could make you look very nice. I know just how to get that bright orange for the cheeks, and the nose would be no problem. I am quite good at a nose.”

These blatant insults were accepted with a smirk, and a preening hand went to the turban on the Countess’ head. “Well, I may have another portrait done. I never thought Romney did me justice.”

“Mr. Elmtree is the very one to do you justice,” Dammler said, flickering a look at Prudence, who shook her head ever so slightly in disapproval.

“I have my paints with me,” Clarence urged on the scheme. “I should be very happy to try my hand at such a challenging model.”

The Countess read even this slur into a compliment, not knowing the challenge lay in her ugliness. “I shall consider it,” she decreed.

She accepted a cup of tea, and when she arose to take her leave she said, “You will call and take Miss Mallow out for a ride one day, Dammler.” She had found the persons satisfactory.

No one present, even including Clarence, saw fit to tell her he had already done so. “She will be happy to go,” was his only comment. “She works too hard.” Prudence had hardly set pen to paper since coming to Bath, and never when he was present to see it.

Dammler made no protest whatsoever, and the Countess said when leaving, “It is settled then,” very well pleased with this highhanded manner of arranging young peoples’ lives.

As the two drove home, the Countess said to Dammler, “I am happy to see you have some worthwhile friends in London. Mrs. Mallow has nothing to say, but Mr. Elmtree is quite unexceptionable, and the girl is well enough. She does just as she is bid by her uncle, and it is reassuring to see that in a young lady nowadays. No doubt she will settle down now that her uncle is here. She was racketing about not chaperoned as she should be, but that will come to an end.”

“Yes, she has a great respect for her uncle,” the deceitful creature corroborated, without a blush.

The Countess had bid him drive out with Miss Mallow, and he intended doing so the next day, but alas his cousin had other plans for him. She was ordering new draperies for her Purple Saloon, and required his escort to the drapery shop. There was only one bolt of purple in the shop, but this by no means meant she only looked at it. She also had to consider red and blue and a dozen patterned ells before agreeing to the purple, while Dammler walked back and forth, drawing out his watch and calculating how quickly he could get her home if they left immediately. He knew he had missed his chance when they had been there an hour and a quarter. It was graphically illustrated when they at last went out into the street in time to see Prudence atop Ronald Springer’s curricle. She waved to them in a friendly manner.

“My, it is Springer, with that Mallow girl,” the Countess said. “Perhaps you shouldn’t take her out after all. Springer might take it amiss.”

This was the very phrase to ensure that Dammler would be at her door early the next morning and so he was, only to hear that she had gone off for the day to see Blaize Castle with Springer and a group of young people.

Help came from an unexpected quarter. To pay homage to her caller, and to show off her new purple drapes, the Countess would throw a party. Dammler was permitted to ask a few people under seventy, and he was not tardy in sending a note to the Mallows and Clarence. Unfortunately, the Dowager had the inspiration of including Springer, as well, but it could not be helped. The party was scheduled for three days hence, and the only sight Dammler had of Miss Mallow in the interim was to bow to her twice across the Pump Room in the mornings; the rest of the time he was kept busy.

The party, which the Dowager called a drum, was a major event in her life, and much discussed. “It is what the rackety crew nowadays call a rout,” she explained to Dammler. “Cards and conversation for the civilized members of the party, with a small parlour given over to dancing for the savages. I shall hire a fiddle.”

“And perhaps someone to play the pianoforte,” he suggested.

“No, no, Allan. It will be only a few country dances. A fiddle is what Papa always had.”

“Yes, but nowadays, Cousin…"

“Fiddle!” she said with a hard stare, and a fiddle it was.

The refreshments were to be equally antiquated and austere. Orgeat, lemonade and punch were to be the beverages. Not a mention of champagne, and the food was to be a frugal luncheon with no lobster or oysters or even roasted fowl. Dammler began to perceive the drum was an appalling idea, but the invitations were out and accepted before the full meagerness of the evening’s entertainment dawned on him. Decorations consisted of one palm tree rented from the floral shop, and an extra brace of candles lit in the main saloon, to show off the purple drapes.

The austerity of the whole was made more ludicrous by the degree of formality to be observed. Formal dress was called for, and she spoke of “a reception line,” to consist of the pair of them, to greet the guests as they arrived, thence to be handed over to the butler for announcing. She kept notes to help the Bath Journal write it up for the social column, and sent her distracted cousin on a dozen useless errands to arrange various details of the “orgy.” The only consolation Dammler could see in the scheme was that Prudence would see him in a new light-respectable, above reproach. She would see there was a serious, worthwhile side to his nature.

The great evening of the drum finally arrived. Lady Cleff decked herself out in a severe black gown, enlivened with a gray fall of Mechlin lace and a cameo for the night’s frolic. Dammler took up his post beside her in the doorway of the main saloon, wearing satin breeches, a black coat, and his most dazed expression. The majority of the guests, relicts like the Dowager herself, saw nothing absurd in the proceedings, but both Springer and later Miss Mallow were stunned. Prudence gazed in wonder to see Dammler playing his part in this charade, standing at attention with his aged relative, shaking hands with doddering old crones. She remembered him smiling and debonair at the opera, at Hettie’s ball, and at a hundred other gay places which existed for her only in imagination from his having mentioned them. She could hardly credit he was the same person. Formal wear being called for, she had worn a new gown of pale lilac, cut low in front, with lilacs at the bodice. Lady Cleff glared at her shoulders and lifted her lorgnette to Dammler as though to say, “What have we here?”

Prudence observed, and she too looked at Dammler with a question in her eyes. The first opportunity she had after the reception line broke up she said to him, “You should have warned me it was to be a mourning party and I would have worn black like everyone else. I feel a very peacock among the crows.”

“My cousin is old-fashioned, but even she, I am sure, does not expect a young lady to wear black to a drum.”

“Except perhaps to a “hum drum,” she replied, looking about the room, where everyone sat in silence. No one had yet gone to dance or play cards.

“You look lovely, Prudence,” he said, taking in every detail of her toilette.

“Oh thank you. My shoulders are much admired here in Bath, but I do wish I had brought a shawl, preferably black.”

Dammler felt a pulse of anger at this remark. “Who in Bath particularly admires them?”

“The gentlemen,” she answered pertly. “I can’t recall that I ever received a compliment on my shoulders from a lady.”

“I suppose ladies who wear immodest gowns lay themselves open to that sort of impertinence,” he said angrily.

She was too shocked to answer. Her gown she knew was beautiful and not immodest-certainly not to a person accustomed to London styles, as Dammler was. “You are hard to please, milord,” she said when she had her speech back. “You have upbraided me before for wearing grandmother’s gowns, but I hadn’t thought you would object to this.”

“I object to gentlemen making impertinent speeches to you, and I object to your inviting them.”

“I cannot think I invited this particular impertinence,” she said, and turned angrily away.

Luck was not with Dammler that evening. The first person to come up to Prudence was Springer, and the first words to leave his mouth were, “How stunning you look this evening, Miss Mallow. What a marvelous gown.”

Dammler did not hear the rest of the speech, but he heard that, and he knew that Prudence knew it, too, which irked him. He hurried after them, and by a dexterous bit of maneuvering toward two chairs, he got Prudence to himself. "I'm sorry about that,” he said, quite humbly. “My nerves are a bit on edge.”

“It’s no wonder, if this is the way you’ve been spending your time.” She looked around the room at this spectacle that was called a party and suddenly laughed at the incongruity of Dammler's being here. “Are we permitted to speak aloud, or should I be whispering?” she asked.

“You may speak, but don’t laugh-just smile.”

“A pity Uncle hadn’t brought his paints. It looks as if he would have a roomful of models, not moving a muscle the whole night long.”

“It may not be a gay party, but you must own it is eminently respectable,” he pointed out.

“Must the two be mutually exclusive?”

“At one of my cousin’s drums, I’m afraid so. Shall we dance?”

“By all means, if it gives us an excuse to leave this wake. But we daren’t go alone. How do we get permission, and five or six chaperones?”

“I’ll speak to Lady Cleff.”

The Countess duly announced dancing for the youngsters, and Prudence went with Dammler to the tiniest dancing parlour she had ever been in. The marquis took her arm, with a jealous glance at Springer, who followed close behind them.

“If there are to be more than six couples in here, we will enjoy an indecent degree of intimacy,” Prudence said.

“Certainly I plan to enjoy it,” Dammler answered, before he set a guard on his tongue.

“Oh, ho, your celibacy is getting to you. You will be in pinching the dowagers before the night is over, and breaking your thumbs on their stays.”

This talk bordered on the edge of what Dammler had decided to avoid. He knew his own propensity to talk too freely and feared from the permissible levity he would sink into indecency. “I don’t think so, Miss Mallow,” he said rather stiffly. “We are to lead off.”

Little conversation was possible during the country dance, and at its end they changed partners. Mr. Springer was waiting for Prudence. She fared better than Dammler, who was obliged to partner a Miss Milligan who taught at a local lady’s seminary. She regaled him with an often-repeated tale of woe regarding a vicious girl who had spread lies that she was beat at school. They then changed partners again, and at the end of three dances the fiddler required a rest, and a glass of beverage that looked depressingly like pure lemonade.

Dammler found his way across the room to Prudence’s side. “Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

“About as much as you were with Miss Milligan. I gathered from your consoling expression she was telling you ‘the lie’.”

“An unfortunate incident,” he allowed, still on his best behaviour. Prudence had hoped for a little frivolity from him to dilute the tedium of the evening, and raked her mind for something to get him started.

“This is quite a change from your regular evenings out in London,” she essayed.

It was not a successful gambit, being the very topic he wished to avoid. “A less mixed company,” he admitted cautiously.

“I should say so. What possessed you to go along with this? You.are like a fish out of water.”

“I hope I know how to behave in any company.”

“I hope so, too, but I doubt your staying power. You must confess a rolling drunkard or a nice vulgar Cit would liven us up no end."

"I don’t know why you think I dislike being in respectable company.”

“Oh, Dammler, what are you up to?” she asked in honest bewilderment. “Next you will be saying you never had such a fine time.”

“I can honestly say there is nowhere I would rather be,” he told her with a glowing eye that somewhat mitigated his strange behaviour earlier. From his look there seemed little doubt why he enjoyed the party.

“And nothing you would rather be drinking than a glass of orgeat, I suppose?” she parried, accepting a fluted glass of the almond-flavoured drink. Springer and Miss Milligan joined them, and ruined the promising chat

“Delicious punch,” Miss Milligan complimented the host. “I do believe your aunt has put a drop of wine in it.”

“Possibly a drop,” Dammler agreed.

“Delicious. How lovely to be out in such charming company. Very lively we are become in Bath these days. I really should not stay late. I must be in the classroom tomorrow at eight-thirty as usual. No rest for the wicked. But I shall leave early.”

“Do you have a drive home, ma’am?” Springer asked, thinking to make an early exit himself from the dull drum.

“Lady Cleff sent her carriage for me, and it will take me home. So very kind of her.”

“I will be happy to take you, and I must leave early myself,” Springer continued.

After more talk, the fiddler scraped his bow and the dancing resumed. No party ever extended beyond midnight at Lady Cleff’s home. When Miss Milligan spoke of leaving early, she meant eleven o’clock, but as the sparse food was served at that hour, she stayed to partake of it, and got her wrap at eleven-thirty.

“May I give you a lift home, Miss Mallow?” Springer asked.

“Miss Mallow will be returning with her mother,” Dammler told him.

“Thank you, Ronald. I shall wait for Mama,” Prudence added in a kinder tone.

He was charged to deliver two other ladies home, and the party was in a fair way to breaking up.

“Your friend has some peculiar notions-offering to take you home,” Dammler said aside to Prudence.

“You would have done the same-about two hours earlier-had your situations been reversed,” she replied. “And I should have gone with you, too.”

Her last phrase pleased him, and he thawed sufficiently to say, “It was bad, wasn’t it?”

“No, Dammler. It was horrid. And horrid of me to say so, too, but then I hope I don’t have to keep up a good face to you.”

“At least I was in your company for one evening. That made it worthwhile to me.”

Yes, pretty fine speeches, Prudence thought. “But what is to prevent you from being in my company as much as you wish? And so well chaperoned, too, that I could not pester you with my unsuitable conversation, or lure you with my immodest gown. Next time don’t feel you require your cousin plus a bishop and two judges. Lady Cleff will always be sufficient to keep me in line.”

He longed to answer her in kind, or better to sweep her into his arms and kiss that saucy smile. When had Prudence become such an accomplished flirt? “My cousin may be enough to hold you in check; I require the full weight of clergy and the law.”

“You have set yourself a new standard, I gather?”

“Yes.”

“And are quite determined to stick to it?”

“I am.”

“Tant pis,”she said with a toss of her head, and turned to join Clarence and her mother.

Provoking girl, he thought, watching her go. No, provocative girl. She is doing it on purpose to bait me, but she won’t succeed.

Across the room, Prudence was similarly occupied in considering Dammler's behaviour. He had become as stiff and proper as a martinet. The old lightness and fun had gone from him, and she couldn’t understand it. In off-guard moments, she noticed his eyes looking at her longingly, so why was he being distant? If he had come to offer for her, why didn’t he do it?

While the youngsters and savages had been dancing, Elmtree and the Countess had made great advances in their friendship. They were two chunks cut from the same bolt, and hadn’t a flaw to find in each other. Elmtree had received gracious permission to paint her, and the very next morning was agreed upon as the first of the three sittings. Prudence felt a great fear she would be called upon to chaperone them, and to make it more inconvenient, the picture was to be painted here, at the Countess’ home.

“I will want a corner of the room in the background,” she was saying. “The Purple Saloon, I think, with Papa’s picture in the background.

“We can do better than that for a symbol,” Clarence informed her. “Some heraldic emblem or crest. We won’t want any room in the background. Your colouring calls for a solid curtain of blue, to bring out your bright cheeks, with the family crest for a symbol.”

The Countess considered this, and found it not wanting in taste. It was agreed, but when Clarence mentioned that he would go to Beecher Hill one day and paint some Nature, the Countess was visited by inspiration. “Gainsborough,” she said. “You will paint me surrounded by Nature, as Gainsborough painted my mother.”

“A green curtain would do as well as a blue, with the orange cheeks,” Clarence said. Certainly frees, grass and shrubs would merge into a curtain of undifferentiated green in his rendition. It was settled that the green curtain of Beecher Hill would provide the backdrop for tomorrow’s painting session.

“You will come with me, Dammler,” she decreed.

“Why do we not all go and make a picnic of it?” he suggested, to secure Prudence’s company.

Mrs. Mallow hastily excused herself, but Prudence agreed to go, and the next morning under a lead grey sky they went to Beecher Hill to paint sunny Nature.