Imprudent Lady (7 page)

“Will they put such a thing on the stage, milord? I hadn't realized it was so risqué a story you were engaged in."

“You should have!” He threw back his head and laughed. “Really, Miss Mallow, the name is Prudence, not
prude.
It is a comedy, but in the best classic tradition, anything of interest will occur offstage. You didn't think I planned to show the seduction?” Prudence was shocked but hid it as best she could, for like any lady of strict upbringing she was anxious to be thought more worldly than she was.

“The thing is,” he went on, “she is supposed to pretend she is sick to stave him off a little longer—waiting for God only knows what—I have no plan to rescue her. But the silly chit is falling in love with him. Now, what shall I do with her?"

“What is she telling you she wants to do?"

“I blush to confess it, but she plans to run away in the dead of night in the melodramatic manner of popular fiction. She must have been dipping into Mrs. Radcliffe's Gothic novels when my back was turned. She hopes for him to come after her and make her number one wife, I imagine."

“It sounds an excellent plan. The ladies will adore it, whatever the gentlemen may think. They would prefer him to use brute force or some vile scheme to have his way with her, I suppose, but if Shilla has decided she will bolt, bolt it is."

“You don't think it too hackneyed?"

“No, you will wrap it up in your fine silver phrases and the world will take it for a new thing."

“It would never happen in the East,” he shook his head dubiously.

“Who will know that except yourself?"

“Only
you.
Can I count on your discretion?"

“You may be sure I won't mention it to a soul."

“I'll let her bolt then. Now, you have helped
me.
What is your stumbling block? If you have a refractory hero on your hands I will be happy to trim him into line for you."

“No, it's not that. I'm not in the mood, that's all."

He looked around the room, and for the first time spotted Uncle Clarence's pictures. “Good God! No wonder you've run dry with such a gallery to watch you. The work of Mr. Elmtree, no doubt. I recognize the pose. Oh, yes, and a symbol apiece. Who are they?"

“What an ignoramus,” she jeered. “You don't recognize Shakespeare? Don't be fooled by the luxuriant head of curls. Uncle did not like him to have a receding hairline."

“It was the candle that fooled me. But I won't ask its significance. And the other fellow?"

“Milton, of course. Looking quite like his old self, but for the inch or so Uncle took off the end of his nose. And the other in the night gown is Aristotle."

“They bear a remarkable resemblance to each other, do they not?"

“How can you say so? Shakespeare has a moustache."

“Still, they could be taken for brothers."

“There is a certain similarity between all my uncle's pictures. You must develop an eye for the fine points.
You
will come out looking much like them when he gets around to doing you. You can't escape forever you know."

“You do me too much honour, but I must always be distinguished by my black patch."

“Cretin!” she laughed. “You cannot think he would paint anything so different. You will have two round agates like the rest of us."

He smiled, but picked her up on it all the same. “What a little diplomat you are, Miss Mallow. He wouldn't paint anything so
different.
So grotesque you mean. He only paints over a fault. But you must not regard me in disgust because of it. The patch comes off shortly."

“It is not in the least grotesque. Quite makes you, in fact. I like it excessively."

“You put me at a disadvantage,” he smiled oddly.

“What can you mean? You are going to start finding fault with me. That's it."

“No, but I had hoped to ask you to exchange your cap for my patch one of these days. Today, in fact, or tonight rather, for the ball. My patch will have to stay on ’til a little later."

“Oh, you go to the ball?” she said, relieved. She had hoped he would be there, that she would have at least one friend.

“I thought
we
were going together. But it was presumptuous of me. No doubt you have made other plans."

“No,” she corrected hastily, smiling so there was no possibility of offence taken on his side, and clearly none on hers.

“I should have told—asked you sooner. I meant to bring the invitation myself and arrange it, but I have been busy writing and I see Hettie has bungled it. No matter; you don't know her set yet, and I'll have you to myself this once."

Such gallantry as this set her maiden heart aflutter. There was never any flirtation between them. Their friendship was real friendship and no more, but her heart was not stone and it beat faster at such words as these.

“I had planned to go alone; I shall be happy for your escort."

“You are not living up to your reputation, Miss Prudence Mallow. If you went alone, you would be taken up by the most raffish element at the party. Hettie will have a very mixed company. A brace of the royal dukes, rubbing elbows with nabobs and other parvenus."

“Am I so abandoned-looking? I made sure my cap would protect me."

“Ah, but you are not going to wear your cap, are you?” He looked at the cap she wore as he spoke.

“I had planned to, certainly."

“I wish you would not. But about your question, no, you are not abandoned-looking in the least. It is only that a new lady coming on the scene is discovered first by the blades. Your finer specimen waits for an introduction, but the caper merchants will be all over you."

She laughed this warning away, believing herself too old and much too plain to attract anything in the nature of a rake.

“I'll hold them all at bay, and introduce you to nothing but bishops and vegetarians.” He arose. “I am taking up too much of your time with my foolishness. I'll call for you at eight. ’Til then!” He raised one hand in a salute and was off.

Her writing block was miraculously cured. She wrote away till dinner time, and over the meal she was able to inform her protectors at what hour her ‘beau,’ as Clarence would persist in calling him, was calling for her, without ever having to reveal there was ever any question of his coming.

Clarence would not miss such an event as his niece setting off for a ball at the home of a countess on the arm of a marquis. In fact, he was so thrilled he too rigged himself in formal black satin breeches and white silk hose to see them off.

“A fine looking couple we have together there,” he congratulated his sister. “A pity he is maimed, but I will paint it out. I see Prue has taken off her cap. That will give him the clue she is thinking of accepting him. I shall paint her without her cap. It was a mistake for her to set it on. I urged her not to do it, but girls will be girls. Well, Wilma, will it be piquet or Pope Joan? We haven't played Pope Joan for a week."

Miss Mallow was well aware of the attention caused when Dammler rode out in his carriage, but she was not prepared to fall heiress to such a large overflow of it herself. She looked dignified and pretty in the green gown she had had made, but had she looked a dowd she would have attracted attention due to her escort. Any female Dammler bothered to bring to a polite party was fair game for quizzing by the gentlemen, and jealousy from the ladies. He made some initial efforts to protect her from the wilder bucks, but once she began dancing they separated, and she stood up with anyone who asked her, and was thankful to every man who did so. Two or three times Dammler hastened to her side at the conclusion of a dance to whisk her away from her partner.

“You don't want to encourage old Malmfield,” he warned Prudence the first time. “A bit of a devil with the ladies."

“He is old enough to be my father."

“His mistress is young enough to be your daughter. Your best protection from him is that you are too old."

“I hope I am not too old at twenty-four for a man in his fifties!” she laughed. “His present friend, I take it, is an infant."

“I thought you were older than that,” Dammler said frankly, regarding her face critically, almost as though he didn't believe her.

“Thank you. I wonder you asked me to remove my cap. You had in mind I should switch to a turban, I collect."

“You mean to say you're younger than
I
am?” he asked, quite clearly shocked at the idea.

“You never told me how old you are."

“Good grief, and I always took you for an older woman—oh, Lord, I'm making a botch of this. I should be feigning astonishment that you're over twenty. But, really, you look so mature—and very pretty. Oh damn— here comes Clarence."

A vision of her uncle was instantly called up by this admonition. “Clarence who?” she asked, looking to see a red-faced gentleman with a head shaped like a pineapple rolling towards them.

“The Duke of Clarence, Miss Mallow, brother to the Prince of Wales. The one who was in the navy. I wonder Prinney isn't here. You want to watch the whole lot of the royal dukes, if there are any more of them lurking about."

“Aha! A new filly tonight, Dammler?” the Duke said gruffly.

Dammler made introductions, and when the music began, the Duke grabbed her arm without a word of request and loped to the set forming for a quadrille. He danced badly, conversed in a sort of one-sided shout which required no answer, and afterwards pressed her to take several glasses of wine. Dammler, with a worried frown, ran them to ground in the refreshment parlour.

“Fine looking wench,” the Duke congratulated him in a loud voice. “Has she much money?"

“Not a sou,” Dammler answered, shaking his head sadly.

“They never have, the lookers. Pity.” Clarence wandered off without saying thank you or goodbye.

“He's broken with Mrs. Jordan. Hanging out for a fortune,” Dammler explained.

“And I see you are eager to turn him away from me,” she joked. “I have a
few
sous, you know."

“He requires more than a few to support his brood. Ten by-blows at the last count, and that's just with Jordan."

“Oh, well, I draw the line positively at five,” she answered. “There must be
some
limit to what I will stand still for, even in a royal duke."

Lady Melvine joined them for a moment, and Dammler recounted to her Miss Mallow's experience and her joke. She quickly relayed it to a Mr. Jamieson, and before the night was over, it was circulated as the witticism of the evening, for the sole reason that it gave people something concrete to say about Dammler's latest flirt.

She met other people, too, some of them ladies and gentlemen of the first stare. At dinner one gentleman, who had asked her to dance but been refused because he was too late, joined them. Dammler remembered that the fellow had wanted to meet Prudence, and was sorry they must sit with him, for he was the very kind of person he wished to keep her away from—a man-about-town, too worldly wise for Prudence, but with a surface of respectability that allowed him to be at such parties as this. Dammler introduced them, but added no little detail to encourage conversation. Prudence thought he had been a little abrupt, and turned to speak to the gentleman to cover it up.

“Is your name Seville, like the Spanish city?” she asked.

“Yes, like the anglicized version of Sevilla, but I am not Spanish at all, as you no doubt know to see me.” He was slightly dark of skin, but no more so than Dammler, or any sporting gentleman who was regularly out of doors. He was thirtyish, tall and dark-eyed, and not particularly handsome.

“Interesting, the origin of names. My own name, Mallow, is that of a herb, but I daresay it is really corrupted from some other word entirely."

“You would be interested in words, being a writer. Dammler tells me you write very fine novels."

After a brief conversation, Prudence discovered they had not much in common and turned to her other partner. Mr. Seville made quite a different discovery; Miss Mallow was exactly the kind of cultivated lady he required to lend him a little tone. Before they left the dining table, he asked if he might call on her. She agreed, thinking it mere politeness, and that she would never see him again.

There was one person Dammler was very eager for Prudence to meet, and that was Lady Jersey—"Silence.” He longed to see Miss Mallow's blue eyes widen when confronted with that veritable torrent of words. Just before he left he managed to bring them together.

“My dear, I am thrilled to meet you,” Lady Jersey began. “I saw you being
bruised
on the floor by poor old Billy the Tar. Clarence, you must know. What an ass he is. You should have
saved
her, Dammler. Oh, have you heard? Billy has been jilted by Miss Wyckham. That is why he is here tonight, to see if he can sniff out another fortune. I take it as very mean for Parliament not to raise his allowance, when he has done so much for the nation. I mean, it stands to reason some of his brood must be talented like their mama, doesn't it? Dorothy is such a charm. So very talented.

“Everyone is talking about you, Miss Mallow. So clever—you draw the line at five! You are broad-minded, but then you are a writer. They are always up to anything. I adore writers. I shall send you a voucher to Almack's if you like. Very select do's we have there, but of course you know that. Hettie tells me you are sending your heroine off to the moon in your next book. I shall certainly read it, and I have thought up a good title for you. Hettie tells me you have a deal of trouble with your titles.
The Girl in the Moon
you must call it. Isn't that clever? Like
The Man in the Moon,
you see. How is your play coming on, Dammler?” Dammler knew better than to attempt an answer, and waited for her to tell how it progressed.

“Very well, I daresay. I will write my memoirs one day, but there is never time for anything. About a harem, isn't it?” He nodded. “So clever of you. I hope you have lots of lovely eunuchs. I know with you writing it there will be plenty of beautiful young ladies. How you will enjoy casting and rehearsals. Dolly Entwhistle swears she will have her hair dyed black and try out. It turned quite red with grief when her husband passed on you must know. Oh, there is the Princess waving to me. She will be wanting to get my approval to give someone a voucher to Almack's. You must come to us one evening, Miss Mallow. We all agree to have you, and I will be happy to send you a ticket. So charmed to make your acquaintance. I will tell everyone how clever you are.” She sailed away, smiling and talking still.