Imprudent Lady (3 page)

Next morning when Dammler stepped into Murray's office for a business meeting, the publisher gave him the three volumes of Miss Mallow's first book.

“How extremely kind of her,” he said with a sort of sneering smile. “I am now expected to call in person and thank her, I collect."

“A note will suffice."

“I shan't encourage her advances.
You
will kindly thank her on my behalf, John."

John smiled, used to Dammler's offhand ways. A half hour later Dammler was sitting in Lady Melvine's saloon being scolded for leaving early the evening before.

“I have brought you a gift to make it up,” he said, giving her the volumes from Miss Mallow. “By a new writer Murray is encouraging. Very good he tells me."

“Miss Mallow,” Lady Melvine read the name. “I am not familiar with her writing. Is she pretty?"

“No."

“What is she like?"

“I have no recollection, but she cannot have been pretty or I would have. I seem to recall she wore a cap."

“Ah, an older lady."

He nodded, and began to quiz his aunt about some foolishness or other.

“You are looking pulled today, Prudence,” Clarence said in a jolly mood as a result of her glorious evening just past. How Sir Alfred, currently posing for his portrait, would stare when he mentioned casually that his niece had met Dammler, and thought him a pretty good sort of a fellow. Prudence was his niece when she was good, and Wilma's daughter when she was not. “It is a result of gallivanting with all the smarts and swells. So you saw Lord Dammler, eh? I daresay you will be taking off your caps and legging it after him, like all the other girls."

Prudence smiled wanly but said nothing.

“Prudence is too prudent for that,” her mother countered gaily with the stale old joke.

“I have been thinking, Prue,” Clarence continued, “now that you are famous and hobnobbing with all the elite, you will want your portrait taken."

“No indeed, there is no need for another. You have done three or four of me already, Uncle,” Prue reminded him.

“Don't be shy. I would like to do it. Sitting three-quarters profile, like Mona Lisa, with a pen in your hand or a book in your lap to show your calling.” Here was a daring departure from the usual pose. A pen in the hand would be a new challenge for Uncle Clarence, and as to adding a book, this use of symbols was a whole new career for him. “I shall have Sir Alfred stick a flower in his lapel,” he added, beaming with anticipation as the full possibilities of this ploy washed over him. “He is a horticulturalist, you see. Raises flowers in that little box he calls a conservatory. Well, well. I don't see Sir Thomas Lawrence using this idea. I daresay he will snap it up when he hears what I am up to. Don't mention it if you happen to be talking to Lawrence,” he warned Prudence, apparently under the misapprehension that henceforth her days would be spent gadding about from one gathering of celebrities to another.

She did not bother to mention it to Sir Thomas Lawrence or anyone else, though Clarence certainly imparted his secret to everyone he met. Mrs. Hering was to return her portrait to have a feather painted into her hand, symbolic of her passion for her “wee feathered friends,” as she called them. Clarence was desirous of adding a symbol to the three-quarters profile of Mr. Arnprior, still drying against the studio wall, but did not like to put a fish into his hand, although fishing was his sole enjoyment. The day was saved by remembering Prue's book. He would paint a copy of Walton's
Compleat Angler
and hang it cunningly in mid-air beside the sitter, there being no table or other object in the picture to hold it. Clarence's backgrounds were filled in with a wide brush in one solid colour, blue if the model was a blond, pink for a brunette, and yellow for those aged persons with blue or purple hair.

Prudence was not required to chaperone Sir Alfred's sitting, so she was free to pursue her own interests for the next three days. She was pleasantly surprised and highly gratified to receive a visit from Miss Burney a day after the dinner party, and elated to be invited the next day to ride out in her carriage. It seemed the walls of social London were at last beginning to tumble down and let her enter. During the ride, Miss Burney took her to call on “a dear friend,” Lady Melvine, one of the leading hostesses of society.

Imagine Prue's joy to discover, when she entered Lady Melvine's saloon, a copy of her novel lying on the side table. Lady Melvine was a tall, handsome woman in her middle years, with a sharp tongue and a ready wit. She liked to discover new personalities and to be the first to have them at a party. Prudence found her interesting, but not particularly likable.

“So
you
are Miss Mallow,” she said, examining Prudence closely. Not at all fashionable, she observed. “I thought you'd be older. There's a good deal of discernment in your books, my dear. You've a sharp tongue. I like that. Too mealy-mouthed, most of our female writers. Oh, not
you,
Fanny. Don't poker up on me. And certainly not Madame de Staël—
au contraire
in
her
case. I have been reading
The Composition
all afternoon—a strange title you have chosen, Miss Mallow. Not very catching, if you will pardon my saying so."

"The Composition
assumes more interest as the story progresses,” Prudence pointed out. “I believe you must still be on Volume One.” This volume lay open, face down, on the table.

“So I am. I am a slow reader, but I like it immensely.” She picked the book up and pointed out to Prudence how far she had got. “I'm just here where the niece Is being driven mad by her aunt's eternal playing of the pianoforte."

With the book in her hands now, Prudence noticed little indentation in the upper corner, exactly where the copy she had given Dammler had been marred. Curious, she opened the cover and examined the fly leaf. Her surprise was great to see it was the same copy, with her own words inscribed. Lady Melvine noticed her expression and explained, “Dammler gave it to me yesterday. He particularly recommended it to me."

“Did he indeed?” Prudence asked. “He enjoyed it then?” He hadn't read a word—she only sent it to Murray yesterday. It was a slap in the face.

“I'm sure he did."

“That's odd. He must be a remarkably fast reader, ma'am. He hadn't read it Monday evening, and I sent it to Murray Tuesday, the same day he passed it to you."

“Well, there now, we are found out!” Lady Melvine laughed. “It never does to lie, does it? The fact is, Miss Mallow, Dammler seldom reads a novel. He likes philosophy and history and that serious sort of thing. Novels are for us ladies."

“His poetry would not indicate a taste for philosophy or history or anything so serious,” Prudence was goaded by her hurt into saying. “In fact his
Cantos from Abroad
are nothing but a totally incredible novel in rhyme. Mine is at least believable."

Lady Melvine was delighted to hear this. She had been looking for a needle to annoy Dammler and hoped she had found one. “You
dislike
the book then?"

The fact was that Prudence adored the cantos, so swashbuckling and splendidly told, but it was the hero, and the knowledge of his alter ego that made them so enjoyable. She equivocated, “I liked it well enough—something different you know."

“Damning with faint praise!” Lady Melvine encouraged her. “What did you find particularly incredible?"

“It was a strain to credit that he had single-handedly rescued three Indian maidens while being pursued by a band of marauding scalp-hunters, and on the very same evening got out of the wilderness in time to attend a ball in some large city or other, and be seduced by the governor's wife."

“Oh, but the matter of being chased by Indians is true—it is how he injured his eye,” Lady Melvine assured her.

“I'm sure it is true he attended a ball as well, and even made love to the governor's lady, but it is unlikely so much excitement occurred in one day."

Fanny Burney, with her usual tact, refused to criticize a popular writer. “It is a matter of pacing, Miss Mallow. The events naturally did not occur one on top of the other, but for the sake of maintaining excitement, Dammler plunges us on from one adventure to another without describing the duller portions of the trip. And what are
you
planning to write next? My next is to be set in Rome."

“Since Dammler is taking the
world
for his background, ma'am, I mean to send my next heroine into the cosmos, and confront her with planetary creatures to give a little excitement, which seems to be what is craved today. She will fly up from Plymouth in a balloon in the morning, land on the moon for a quick battle with twenty thousand or so strange creatures, free a prison full of hostages before lunch, be initiated into the secret of longevity, and bounce back to London for tea with the Prince of Wales. I don't want the thing to drag."

Lady Melvine chuckled in glee, but Fanny Burney said, “How droll you are, Miss Mallow,” and determined to drop the quaint creature before she became an embarrassment. The two ladies later took their leave, and Miss Mallow realized from the manner of her new friend that she had displeased. There was no mention made of their going out together again. That evening Prudence reread
Cantos from Abroad
and found an inconsistency in every line. The story was ridiculous, the happenings so farfetched as to be absurd. The whole could hardly have been compressed into a lifetime, let alone a couple of years. As she read, a smile lingered on her face at the charm of the account.

The next day she set to work on a new book of her own and pushed her daydreams aside. Uncle Clarence would not be put off; yet another likeness of her had to be taken, and during the three days she sat with a book in her lap and an enigmatic smile on her face, like Mona Lisa, no writing was possible, but her time was well spent in planning her plot and characters. Between bouts of agreeing with her uncle that he had indeed outdone them all to paint a book into the picture—and her own book, too, with the title perfectly legible—-she dreamed up her new heroine and named her Patience.

“Da Vinci now,” Clarence informed her, “would never have made the title clear enough to read. Couldn't even remember an eyelash. I have used Gothic script, too, just like
your
book."

The portrait done, it lined up to dry with Mrs. Hering and her feather and Sir Alfred and his flower. There was no difficulty in telling which was hers. She wore a cap.

Uncle Clarence's next victim was to be a young boy of eight years, so again Prudence was released from playing chaperone. Her mama requested her company to go to Bond Street to shop, but her creative juices were flowing and she elected to stay home and write. Uncle Clarence was having a small dinner party that evening to show her off to his friends and let them feast their eyes on a girl who had actually met Lord Dammler, and so her evening would be wasted. She sat in the study which had been given over to her on the day her first book was published. Uncle Clarence was a great appreciator of success. Since her meeting with Dammler there was talk of installing a row of shelves in the study to hold her books. The room's sole claim to its title at the moment was its holding a desk and a set of pens.

Great was her surprise when a servant came to the door and told Prudence she had callers. “Mr. Murray and another gentleman,” Rose said with importance. “He's wearing a black thing on his eye, miss. Handsome as can be. Would it be the poet?"

The description sounded very much like it, and Miss Mallow felt overcome. He had come in person to thank her for the book!

His coming (it was indeed Dammler) was not so flattering as it appeared. He had bumped into Murray downtown, wanted to talk to him, and when the latter said he had to stop at Miss Mallow's for a moment, Dammler had perforce come with him. The lady's name had not even registered until Murray reminded him who she was. But he was well-bred, and when Prudence went with shaking knees to the saloon, he claimed joy at another chance of talking to her, and thanked her for sending him her book. She was overwhelmed anew at his grandeur. No hint of a sharp insinuation as to what he had done with the book was made. She said so little that she was afraid she was appearing stupid.

Mr. Murray gave her some papers to sign, and she wrote her name blindly without looking to see what she was putting her signature to.

“Miss Mallow is a trusting person, John,” Dammler chided upon seeing this, and Murray made a joking reply which went unheard, and consequently unanswered, by Miss Mallow.

One thought was uppermost in her mind. She had not complimented Dammler, and that she was determined to do. “I have read all your poems,” she said in a stricken voice. “I liked them very much."

“Thank you, ma'am,” he replied. As she said nothing further, he went on in the interest of civility to add mendaciously, “and I read the book you so kindly sent me, and liked it very much indeed. We writers must stick together and praise each other, must we not?"

“Yes,” she said, and thought to herself—he's lying. How well he lies. She could see that the visit, an unparalleled chance for making a favourable impression on Dammler, was going poorly. Not a word could she think of to say. But the meeting soon took a turn for the worse. Uncle Clarence, alerted by a servant as to who had come to call, came dashing into the saloon, a white rag in his hands with which he wiped paint from his fingers.

“Lord Dammler, indeed this is an honour,” he said in a sonorous voice, without waiting for an introduction. “My niece has been telling me all about you.” He grabbed Dammler's hand and pumped furiously.

“This is my uncle, Mr. Elmtree,” Prudence said helplessly, and from that one speech on, she couldn't have got a word in if she had wanted to. Dammler's works, which Clarence had never read, were praised to the skies. Shakespeare, Milton—all those fellows were nothing to him. From Lord Dammler he turned to his niece's works. There was no danger of her being Wilma's daughter today. They too were admired, unread, as being the only thing in the English language capable of comparison to Dammler's cantos. “I don't give praise lightly,” he added in a judicial manner. “I have no opinion of books in general—go a year at a time without opening a book—but serious literature of the sort you two write is always a pleasure to read. Yes, I will certainly read
Cantos from Abroad.
Read them
again,"
he amended, as Lord Dammler's mouth fell open at this conclusion to his long encomium.