Imprudent Lady (18 page)

Prudence assumed he had an important meeting he must attend, and while she thought, when she saw his mother sitting at her ease and leafing through a novel, that she might safely have been sent home in a hackney, she was not entirely incensed. Ashington had been kind to her. She agreed with no ill humour to take his mother home, happy that she would be home within three-quarters of an hour herself, and not likely to miss Dammler. This always was at the back of her mind.

“I had planned to drop by your place later on,” Ashington added. “This will save me the trip.” He offered her a largish sheaf of papers. ‘These are some notes I have dashed off on my lecture the other night. You liked it, I hope?"

“Yes, it was very enlightening,” she congratulated, not for the first time, but she hoped for the last. She thought the notes were meant for her further perusal, and took them with a heavy heart.

“How kind of you to say so. I hope it shed some light on the subject. We are publishing it in the magazine next month."

“I see. How very nice.” Why did he not wait and let her have a printed copy—easier to read than these notes, which were quite crossed out and jumbled up, with lines and arrows all over, and a disheartening number of footnotes, she saw at a glance.

“Again I must impose on your kindness. Would you be so good as to act as my amanuensis?"

“I beg your pardon?” The last word was not known to her.

“They need to be copied out. They are quite a mess, but you will sort them out. You are a clever girl."

The meaning of the unknown word was becoming clear. “Do you mean you want me to copy them out?” she asked, her anger rising, and the full imposition of not only this but the use of her as a delivery woman for his mother also descending on her with clarity.

“If you will be so kind. Reading them will help settle it in your mind. There is a good deal of material there. It will be helpful to you."

“Yes, a
very good deal!"
she said. “Too much for me to possibly copy I'm afraid.” She handed it back to him.

He did not seem to understand. “Oh not
today,
Miss Mallow. I will not need it for a day or two—do it at your leisure—a little break from your story writing.” He shoved it back at her.

With great firmness and a martial light in her eye there was no pretending to ignore she pushed the papers back.

“I do not copy out material any longer, Dr. Ashington. I finished with that some time ago.” During her talks she had mentioned to him her early work as a copier. “I know a few people who do that sort of work at four pence a page, if you would like their names."

He was greatly offended. “Well! Well! This is gratitude, I must say,” he declared angrily.

“You may accept my taking your mother home as my gratitude for any slight favour you may have done me,” she charged back. “You do not ask Mr. Hazlitt or Lard Dammler to do your copying for you, I notice."

“Well, but they are
men
..."

“They are
writers,
like myself. Good day, Dr. Ashington."

She climbed into the carriage without his assistance, and the coach bowled down the street

“So kind of you, my dear,” Mrs. Ashington smiled, not having heard the altercation through the window. “Lawrence appreciates it. It wouldn't do for him to miss his appointment. He must get his hair trimmed, for he dines with the Philosophical Society tonight."

“Dr Ashington is on his way to get his
hair trimmed?"
Prudence asked. Her voice was cold, but a volcano was forming beneath it.

“Yes, he always goes to Rolland—so hard to arrange an appointment with him, but it is worth waiting for, he does it so well. He would have had to wait two or three days if he hadn't made it this afternoon. Otherwise he would never have disturbed you, for he is so very thoughtful."

“Yes, I appreciate his
thoughtfulness,"
Prudence answered with awful irony that went undetected. Until she had half carried his invalid mother in to Miss Gimble's waiting arms, Prudence could not give full vent to her anger, but when she was alone, she beat the seat of the carriage in frustration. So
that's
what he thinks of me. Calling me on a fool's errand, interrupting my lunch and speaking of
urgency,
when he means only to get his hair trimmed! While that old fool gets his hair cut, Lord Dammler sits cooling his heels ... And Dammler using her like dirt too. Saying he would come when he had no intention of doing anything but dashing off to Finefields to see the Countess. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes flashing when she entered the house.

Dammler preceded her by a quarter of an hour, coming directly from his luncheon with Murray. Clarence had informed him of the note and the urgent flight to Hatchard's. He confided that she was to meet some great famous person of unknown or at least unstated name. But the name Ashington had registered clearly, and Dammler was already in a certain mood himself, the charter in his pocket forgotten. Clarence's inconsequential chatter, usually amusing, irritated him and the quarter hour that he waited seemed much longer.

When she entered, he arose and said curtly, “It was a short interview. We are all curious to know who Ashington called you to meet. Odd he did not see fit to bring the person here."

Prudence was still furious, but not about to admit to the ignominy of her meeting. “It was no visitor, but his mother who fell ill. Quite ill."

“Fortunate he is a doctor,” Clarence said. “Speaks six languages. He would know just what to do."

“Yes, call a young lady who speaks only one,” Dammler returned.

“But why did he call
you?"
her mother asked. “A doctor surely..."

“A doctor will be called, certainly. I took her home,” Prudence explained.

“Why
you?"
Dammler asked. “You went with them in the carriage, I suppose. A woman's presence might have been helpful, but I should have thought Miss Gimble..."

“Miss Gimble has her in charge now."

“He never called you from your luncheon on such an errand as this,” Mrs. Mallow continued. “That is very odd—why, I don't think that was very considerate of him, Prudence."

No more did Prudence, but she disliked to appear such a footmat in front of Dammler. “Who else should he call?” she asked angrily.

“Why, one of his family."

“Well, he called me,” Prudence replied, and felt as foolish as she looked, with Dammler regarding her, with some expression between a grin and a frown on his face.

“Very strange. Very strange, indeed,” Clarence decided, then went on to figure it out in his own fashion. “But Prudence is practically family. That is why he turned to her. Mrs. Ashington is very fond of Prudence."

It was discussed a little longer in this useless fashion, then Dammler decided enough time had been wasted. “Can you show me that passage from Rousseau we spoke of yesterday, Miss Mallow? You have it in your study, I think. I have only a moment to stay."

Mrs. Mallow suspected some chicanery here, but the study visits had become an accepted thing, and she did not object. She hardly knew how to handle a daughter who had grown up and become half-famous.

Prudence didn't hesitate a second, but jumped up smartly to go with her deceitful friend to look up a passage in a book she did not possess. “It is well Uncle doesn't know you have ten thousand books,” she chided. “Just as well he doesn't know I have no Rousseau, too."

“Have you not, Miss Mallow? I'll give you mine—but it is in the original French, of course."

“Of course—I didn't think you linguists would weary your eyes reading plain English. Your French book is of no use to me. But tell me why you wanted to escape into my study."

“Just to see you before I leave.” Prudence didn't point out the obvious, that she was as highly visible in the saloon as she was in her study. “Why does Clarence say you are practically one of Ashington's family? Does the Doctor plan to adopt you?” he asked with a jeering look.

“You know that was not his meaning."

“Marriage, then—that's it?"

“Yes, that it what my uncle meant, and if he thinks for one minute I'd have that...” She stopped abruptly. Oh dear, she hadn't meant to reveal her disgrace.

“My dear girl,
what
has got you in the boughs? I am consumed with curiosity to discover the whole truth of this urgent business. It was shabby of him to call you only to get his mother home, but in an emergency you know, he might have lost his head."

“It was no emergency, and he didn't lose his head, not by a hair."

“What then?"

“You were right about him! There, I didn't mean to tell you, but I can't keep it to myself a moment longer."

“You haven't told me a thing. Come, cry on my shoulder. If he's insulted you, I will be charmed to call him out."

“Well, he
has,
but it's not the sort of thing he can be called to account for. He meant it for a rare compliment, I expect, for me to be his ‘amanuensis,’ as he calls it. And I suppose you know what that fine word means?"

“I do,” he said, and seeing that the nature of the insult had not been serious, and particularly as he had foreseen it himself, he fell into unholy mirth. “Am I right then in assuming you and the Doctor have had a falling out? I see you brought no papers with you to transcribe."

“You may be sure I did not! I only wish I had scattered his lecture on drama to the four winds, all over Bond Street. It would serve him well. Not that the wind would carry such heavy stuff. It would sit in a heap on the corner and break through the cobblestones with the weight of all his facts and figures."

A smile showed triumphantly on Dammler's face. “The lecture too was a failure, was it?"

“It was a disaster. I wished I had a cup of coffee to keep me awake, or better a glass of undiluted laudanum to put me happily to sleep."

“But how ill was his mother? That was just a pretext, was it?"

“She had some slight dizzy spell, and as the Doctor had to get his
hair cut,
he naturally could not break his appointment."

Dammler sat down, put his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands. “Does he have any hair left to cut, or did you yank it out on the spot?"

“I would have, but we were gone by then, his mama and myself.
She
let it out—he didn't have the nerve.” Prudence paced to and fro as she spoke, too angry to be seated.

“And it's all my fault. I brought him down on your innocent head, thinking he might do you some good."

“How could
you
know what he's like? He keeps up a decent face to
men.
He would not try such a stunt with a man."

“Sit down,” Dammler said on her next passage past his chair, and he grabbed her wrist. “We've wasted enough time on the Doctor. I must leave in a moment.” She sat on a chair beside him, still breathing hard.

Her mind was full of her insult, and she could not let it go. “My writing is nothing you see, deciphering his hen's scratching was to be a pleasant diversion for me."

“What is it you're writing anyway?” he asked to change the topic. “You're very close about it. The
theme
I know is too large to be put into words, but the plot, the characters, what of them?"

She tried to shake off her agitation. “It's about a young girl who
thinks
herself in love with a very handsome fribble of a fellow, only because nature gave him straight teeth and a fine head of hair, and because everyone else is in love with him. But she is brought to her senses and realizes, just in the nick of time, of course—that it is really a plainer but more worthy fellow she has cared for all along. I plan to pretend, if any critic asks me, that my theme is the age-old one of distinguishing between appearances and reality. That has a good sincere ring to it, don't you think? It seems to me to encompass most of experience."

“Yes, vague enough for anything. And your heroine, she is not fooled by the teeth and the hair. She prefers a butter tooth and a lank of mousey lock in the end?"

“How foolish you make it sound. The second hero is not so inferior as that. His teeth are left to the imagination, and the hair is just dark, not rhapsodized over. I hope by chapter ten the hero's flashing smile and tumbling black locks will begin to pall on the reader, and she'll use all her powers of imagination to make the second hero into a good likeness of the first, with virtue thrown in. Mere looks are not enough."

He listened closely, nodding his head. “Tell me, Prue, do you find, as you write, that the people you know and see regularly begin to creep into your characters? Have you any particular straight tooth and tumbling lock in mind?"

“None in the world. I don't write about real people."

“There was your cat in the garden, and Aunt Clarence, the composer."

“No, no, only characteristics, not characters."

“I see. It's different with me. Strange the way the imagination works, isn't it?"

“Do you know what
I
think?” Prudence asked suddenly.

“What?"

“I think he just pretended his mama was ill to get me to go to Hatchard's, so he wouldn't have to bother bringing his writing here."

“I wouldn't be a bit surprised,” Dammler agreed, happy to abet any ill she had to say of Ashington, though it interrupted his own interesting line of thought.

With Prudence in such a mood his little charter of good behaviour seemed inappropriate, and he left it in his pocket. The visit was not going as he expected, but he was happy to see she was on to Ashington. “So while you are opening your heroine's eyes to the glories of bad teeth and hair, I shall be trying to cajole Shilla back to her prince, or her Mogul. I wonder how she would like your hero?"

“We'll ask her when my
Patience
comes out. That is the title I have chosen, for her and the book. She has been dipping into my novels, I think you said."

"Patience,
eh? Will we by any chance be reading that she is well named?"

“I may have borrowed a little something from the similarity,” she admitted. “Having listened all my life to it, I decided to put it to use; but she is not me."

“No, your printed reincarnation will of course be as man—that is your method, is it not? I will keep a sharp watch for you. If I read of a young gentleman being put upon by an aged female critic, I shall know what to make of it."