Reprise (12 page)

“Widgeon! Seville can’t apologize. I know that much. It was Dammler who called him a coward.”

“But it was Seville who called me a trollop.”

“Worse!” Clarence told her, smiling fondly on her.

“Oh!” She hardly dared ask what.

“That is only a part of it, however. When Seville refused to fight, Dammler called him a coward, and that is what we are going to let on the duel is about, to save your face.”

She recognized the hand of Dammler in this face-saving pretext, and realized, too, the inefficacy of it. The truth would soon be bruited about.

“Just what
did
Seville call me?” she asked, steeling herself to hear the worst.

“He is saying he never asked you to marry him at all, the liar, and he sending you all those diamonds.”

“Allan said it couldn’t be marriage he meant when he sent them. I wonder if he was right.”

“Did Seville ask you to marry him or not?”

“I thought he did. I don’t know. In my stupidity, perhaps I misunderstood.”

She dredged her memory in vain for an actual, outright, unmistakable offer of marriage, and while she recalled mention of a carriage and team of her own, an apartment or house, jewelry, the actual words “Will you marry me,” did not come back to her, for they had never been spoken.

“Aye, well he’s calling it a
carte blanche
now, and if that’s the way it was, there will be no apologies. Dashed insult, asking a nice girl like you to be his mistress.”

“He didn’t say anything like that.”

“What he meant--told Dammler so.”

She could see it all now. Seville, thinking them alienated, had told Dammler the truth. That was the truth then, he had never wanted her to marry him at all. In her naive stupidity she had misunderstood, had told Dammler and a few others. Had remained friends with Seville all these months! And Dammler had known it all along, or suspected. No wonder he had tried repeatedly to turn her against Seville. She was promised to attend Malvern’s house party in company with him, too. That must be cancelled. But first there were more urgent matters to attend to. She couldn’t think it right to go on urging apology after this insult, and knew Allan would not accept one, in any case. There would be a duel. It must not be Dammler, in no way associated with her now, who fought it.

While they were still talking, Alvanley arrived, and she was told again to run along and write a book, while the men attended to matters. Alvanley was a little surprised to be offered wine and a viewing of a bunch of artworks when he had come to arrange a duel. He was a strict sportsman; had told Seville he must by no means accept an apology for the “coward,” or he would be laughed out of the Four Horses Club. This being the case, Seville was not inclined to apologize for his part in the name calling. In the end, there was no mention of any apologies, but only the fixing of the date and place, at seven the next morning, at Hampstead Heath, and the arrangement for a physician.

“Knighton. I always have Knighton,” Clarence advised.

Alvanley was hard put to suppress a chuckle. “Knighton does not take part in such affairs as this. Marlowe is our man. I have arranged it.”

“Good. Excellent chap, Marlowe. Does he know what he is about?”

“You may be sure he does, Mr. Elmtree. Now, I think that is all.”

“Just one little detail. About the second--I think Dammler and I will switch.”

“That is highly irregular, sir.”

“Aye, so it is, but the thing is, they are really fighting over that damned foreigner insulting my niece, and as Dammler isn’t going to marry her, after all, I think it is my place to fight.”

“They are fighting over Dammler’s calling Seville a coward.”

“Devil a bit of it. That is only done to try to save the girl’s name.”

“In that case, sir, the less said of it the better.”

“Ho, what’s the point of that, with Seville shouting from the rooftops he offered her a mistress-ship?”

“I hadn’t realized it was done in quite so public a way as that,” Alvanley proclaimed, shocked to find himself on the side of such a dastard.

“To go announcing it at Lord Petersham’s ball is as good as putting it in the papers,” Clarence informed him.

Alvanley began to suspect Seville had been withholding details from him, and was rather inclined to side with the uncle. “Dammler is not marrying her, you say?”

“No, he has sheered off on her.”

“His challenging Seville indicates..."

“He never could stand the fellow. No more could I--sending her diamonds.”

“I wonder you didn’t call him out sooner!”

“So do I. I would have done it, but he kept getting away on me. I would have done it long ago if I could have ever caught up with him.”

Never in a long career of arranging such matters as this had Lord Alvanley found himself in just such a pickle. A lady publicly slandered, and being defended by a gentleman who had already called off the wedding. “It seems to me in this circumstance Dammler has behaved irregularly. You are the girl’s guardian. If he is not to marry her..."

“He has no thought of it. None at all. Well, his behavior has always been a trifle irregular, if it comes to that. Writing verses... So you agree with me then that
he
should be the second--Dammler.”

“Yes, but in that case it is Dammler I ought to be meeting with this morning.”

“Run along and see him. Tell him we have decided he is to be the second.”

Alvanley began to think it a very good idea to have a word with young Dammler, and left to do so. They exchanged words for an hour, with Alvanley, the senior gentleman, an acknowledged master on all matters of sportsmanship, laying down the law quite severely. “It is for her guardian to defend her name. He wishes to do so, Dammler, and it will add an unnecessary air of intrigue to the affair for you, no longer involved with the girl, to call him out.”

“Damme I’ve already called him out, and he’s accepted.”

“You shouldn’t have. There is really no excuse your being mixed up in this at all. I have a mind to tell Elmtree to choose a different second.”

A vision of Sir Alfred arose in Dammler’s mind. Those two babies at the mercy of Seville and Alvanley filled him with horror. “In that case, I’ll become her fiancé again. Will that do, sir?”

“Oh certainly, but can it be done?”

“It can, if necessary.”

“Highly irregular. How am I to arrange a duel when the principals keep changing place? We’ll have to postpone it a day. Make it the day after tomorrow--same time and place. I’ll have to see Marlowe
again.
What a nuisance it is. It is what comes of letting parvenus into the Four Horses Club.”

“All right. Day after tomorrow. Seven o’clock, you said?”

“Yes, and mind you don’t kill your man, Dammler. Damned ramshackle business. A hit in the shoulder will satisfy the lady’s honor.”

Dammler, as quick to settle down as to wrath, was already half wishing he had been satisfied with drawing Seville’s cork, but was not about to admit it. When his caller left, he put on a clean shirt and went around to Grosvenor Square, just as Prudence was setting out for Hettie, whose company she meant to ask for to go with her to Dammler.

“I must speak to you,” she said.

He knew then Clarence had told her about it. Foolish to hope he would not. “Come, we’ll talk in the carriage,” he said, handing her into his closed carriage, driven on this occasion to give him some privacy, as he had discovered he was once again a subject of curiosity to the gawkers.

“Why did you call Seville out?” she began, deeming it wise to take the offensive in an effort to gain the upper hand.

"I called him a coward because he is one."

“No one will believe that story! You’re fighting him because he insulted
me,
aren’t you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Don’t treat me like an idiot. Clarence told me everything.”

“Why do you waste time asking then?”

“It is not for
you
to take up the cudgels on my behalf. If Seville has been telling anyone he made me an improper offer, it is for my uncle to deal with him. It has nothing to do with you.”

“I happen to be the one he told! I called him a coward, and I shall fight him. Now there is a little unpleasant business connected with it, Prudence.”

“A marvel of understatement.”

“One bit more unpleasant than the rest, I mean. I have been talking to Alvanley. In order for me to fight this duel, he feels it will be more proper if we resume our engagement, temporarily.”

“No! We are a big enough laughingstock already, turning our engagement off and on like a tap. Oh, I’ll never dare to show my face on the streets again. I am ruined.”

“It is precisely to avoid that possibility that this duel is being fought.”

“No, it is being fought because you have an uncontrollable temper! Will it add to my consequence that I have caused a duel? Since when is that considered a feather in anyone’s bonnet?”

“It’s more of a feather than having Seville tell the world the truth. He never asked you to marry him. Never meant that at all, as I suspected all along. How could you be so
ignorant
as to think he meant anything of the sort?”

“Sorry I couldn’t have jauntered off to Cambridge for four or five years to be sly enough to understand the deceit and duplicity of
men!”

“Oh you’re naive to the point of absurdity,” he said.

“Maybe I am, but I still don’t want you fighting a duel with Seville over me. I want Clarence to do it.”

“Prudence, he wouldn’t have the chance of a snowball in hell against Seville! He’s an expert shot.”

“I suppose you are, too?”

“Certainly I am.”

“What must be done then is to get Seville to delope. Likely when he sees it is only Clarence standing up against him, he
will
delope. He can have nothing against Uncle, after all.”

“Uncle is not standing up against him!
I
am, and as you have caused all this bother, you can damned well be engaged to me for a few more days. You won’t look half so foolish as I do, risking my hide for a woman who makes a mockery of me in public.”

“Why did you do it then, if you hate me so much?”

“I didn’t say I hate you. It is my fault you ever got mixed up with the likes of Seville. I hope I know my duty. I put you in this position, and I shall extricate you.”

“What happened
exactly?
What did Seville say?”

“He made some disparaging statements about you-- you know the nature of them. There is no point repeating all that unpleasantness.”

“I want to know. What did he say?”

“He said he offered you a
carte blanche
, and you chose to tell everyone he had offered you marriage.”

“I didn’t tell a soul but you and Hettie, and of course my family.”

“He will tell considerably more people his story if he is not stopped.”

“Yes, he must be stopped. I see the necessity for that, but you sha’n’t be the one to do it. If I have made you look a fool by my book--and I must say no one else takes it so much amiss--then I sha’n’t aggravate the offense by having you defend my name.”

“No one else was engaged to you.

"Neither were you, at the time you challenged him.”

“You never formally cancelled the engagement-- there was no notice printed in the papers."

“The date of the wedding came and went. You didn’t find me at the church, did you? Mama sent out cards to those invited. For the others, it is none of their business. Neither is this duel any of yours. Alvanley is quite correct--he is bound to know the proper procedure, and if he says it is up to Clarence, then I shall abide by his decision. We all must.”

“Alvanley says if we resume the engagement..."

"
If
, but we are not going to!”

“We are!”

She turned on him, furious. “Since when is it possible for a man to become engaged to a woman who has turned him down?”

“It isn’t to be a real engagement, if that’s what you fear.”

“It isn’t to be a false one, either. My God, what you were thinking of to call him out! Raking up all that old business again, when it was well forgotten.”

“It wasn’t forgotten by Seville. It was
he
who raised the point, and I must say I find it hard in you to revile me for doing the proper thing.”

“I don’t know why men must feel the most troublesome, vexatious,
brutish
course is the proper one. Why didn’t you just punch him, if you felt it necessary to defend my tarnished name?”

“I did,” he answered, with a certain satisfaction.

“Not at the ball! Not in front of everyone!”

“There weren’t many people around, and he hightailed it out .pretty fast.”

“Oh I think you
like
being the center of attention. You glory in it. Why else would you carry on as you do, going into public with Cybele, setting up that garish apartment with Turkish trappings, and asking those girls to
stroke
you, as though you were an alley cat!”

“No, no, Prudence. I am a dog. You can’t have it both ways."

“You probably arranged for me to find you with Cybele so I’d break the engagement and put you in the limelight again. This duel is more of the same.”

He stared at her, beyond words, but Dammler was never long speechless. “By the same token, I suppose I chose the most illustrious bride I could find? The exalted, famous Miss Prudence Mallow, cynosure of all eyes!”

“Oh, no. It was
expected
you would choose a gaudy beauty. You got better coverage out of an unknown spinster. A certain shock value attached to Lord Dammler’s marrying a nobody.”

“You were not unknown!”

“No, not after you got through with me. I’ll never be unknown again. Thanks to you I’ll go down in history as one of your playthings, a curious footnote in the infamous career of the Marquess of Dammler. Well I’ll tell you this, Allan, I don’t mean to be remembered as the cause of your untimely demise. If I am in the unenviable position of requiring my honor defended, it isn’t you who will do it.”

“I have no intention of meeting my end at Seville’s hands. I have withstood daggers and arrows, swamp fever and malaria, and it will take more than that damned jackrabbit to finish me off.”