Imprudent Lady (12 page)

“I expect you would like to go home?” he said a moment later.

She nodded. “I'm sorry,” she said, before she descended from the coach. “I hope we may continue friends?"

“You should be more careful in your friends, Miss Mallow,” he ventured to warn her. Why, the chit was not up to snuff at all. Leading him on—no one with the least bronze would have mistaken his intentions. Her, gallivanting with Dammler and the wildest bucks in town. Who would have thought her still wet behind the ears?

“I am careful, Mr. Seville,” she answered calmly. “Goodbye."

He didn't bother going with her to the door, though he descended and handed her down from the carriage. He brushed his brow when she was gone, and thanked a merciful providence at his close escape.

Prudence longed to go to her room, to lie down and worry whether she had done the right thing, but no such luxury was allowed her. Clarence and her mother had to be told the whole story, and berate her with words and glances respectively for her folly. To escape them, she said that now she had chosen a career over marriage, she must get to work, and went to her study.

“I hope your daughter knows what she is about,” Clarence said to his sister. She was not his niece today, turning off a Nabob.

Prudence closed the door behind her and sighed. What a dear refuge her study was! Shakespeare, Milton and Aristotle chided her silently from matching frames with their subtle smiles, but she ignored them and pulled out her manuscript.

It was a quarter of an hour before she was sufficiently calmed to work, and immediately she was interrupted. But it was a happy Interruption. Dammler tapped on the door and stepped in, having dispensed with even the appearance of formality by telling Rose she needn't bother announcing him.

“Hello, Miss Mallow,” he said smiling cheerily. “Shilla and I bring our humblest apologies for missing our appointment, but we have an excellent excuse."

An excuse she felt was the right word for it, for the
reason
she still held to be Phyrne. “But before we get on with the good news, I will convey the bad,” he said, assuming an aspect of severity that was at odds with his jaunty manner. “It has come to my burning ears that you did not heed my warning. You've been gallivanting with the Nabob again. Don't deny it!” His finger waved at her in a playful manner. “Riding in the park with him yesterday and hanging on his arm in the most vulgar manner. I mean to be firm with you and Shilla in future. Give you an inch and you take a mile. You girls are all alike. Next thing he will be offering you a
carte blanche.
There I go depraving you again. I daresay you think a
carte blanche
is no more than a little white card."

“You overestimate the depths of my innocence."

“Say height rather."

“Say what you like, you do Mr. Seville an injustice."

“I wonder. He is trotting after you pretty hard, and his intentions you know..."

“Don't judge everyone by yourself, Lord Dammler,” she shot back angrily.

“Oh, ho, I've touched a nerve! This bower of bliss in which you create, I suppose was provided by the Nabob.” He looked around at the vases of flowers, two of which had been put in her study. “When a man starts sending too many flowers it is time to beware. He is up to no good. Next it will be a diamond bracelet, and from there—it is well known no lady can resist diamonds—it is the love nest, and a garish turnout for the park with matched horses. Are you sure you're not hiding a diamond bracelet up your sleeve?” He grabbed her hand, and looked at her wrist, his eyes narrowed in playful suspicion.

“I see you know the procedure well, milord."

“I am familiar with the moves of the game, shall we say?"

“By all means, let us talk at cross purposes. We wouldn't want to sink into too clear an understanding. But you look in the wrong place for diamonds. It was a necklace offered, not a bracelet. Mr. Seville meant to treat me more lavishly than you treat your flirts."

“You are joking, of course. He wouldn't dare..."

“His daring knows no bounds. He dared to offer me his hand in marriage."

“Prudence!” It was a shout of abundant but undefined passion. He looked to see if she joked, but read a contradiction on her face. “You hussy! You didn't bring the Nabob round your little ink-stained thumb! Good God, how Hettie will stare. So you are an engaged woman, and truly rid of the opprobrious title of Spinster."

“I do not find it opprobrious, nor am I so anxious to relinquish it as you seem to think I should be."

“Well, you surely never
rejected
him?"

“I have not accepted his flattering offer."

“Prudence, you fool! It would be the making of you."

“Et tu,
Brute."

“I lag Clarence in my sentiments, I collect? But he's right, you know. It would be no poor thing for you to be set up so richly for life. I can't credit it yet that it was
marriage
he had in his mind. Quite sure you understood the nature of the offer?"

“There is no doubt in my mind, and I find it unflattering that you choose to doubt it."

“You needn't rip up at me. It is only what anyone would think."

“How can you think I should have accepted, if he is so ramshackle?"

“Oh, well, if it was marriage he meant all along, that's different."

“You called him a jackrabbit!"

“A very rich jackrabbit. I should have known when he treated you so
very properly
it wasn't a left-handed marriage he had in mind. What a feather in your cap. Are you holding out for a title then, or why did you refuse?"

“I don't love him."

“Oh
love,
what is that? Everyone prattles on about it, but I don't think there is any such thing in the whole world. I never met a man yet who was in love for two days running with the same woman, nor any woman who did much better."

“Strange talk for the Romancer of the Western World."

“Romance, that is something quite different. Fiction, in fact, of the sort you and I in our different ways deal in. It's easy to be in love with a paper character. I adore Shilla—have been in love with her for a week—a new record for me. We can make them into our idealized version of a mate, with the dull and annoying bits left out. We have them at our beck and call, and if we choose to let them run amok a little, we know with the stroke of a pen we can bring them to their senses. What has that to do with love?"

“We don't see eye to eye on the matter. I conceive of love as something quite different."

“What?"

“Caring for someone else more than you care for yourself."

“But that's not love—it's a maternal instinct or devotion or some such thing—another form of self-love really. Our children are parts of ourselves. I'm talking about mature love between a man and a woman."

“So am I."

“Then you're talking nonsense, and I expect you know it very well, or you wouldn't be blushing like a schoolgirl. Never mind, I never did understand women. But I know this, when they talk of love they only want you to take them out to show off to their friends, or to buy them some new jewels or an annuity. They're after something."

“If a woman is interested in a man at all, she takes what is offered by him. If those are the terms in which you couch your offers, then you can't blame a woman for accepting them. For myself, I shouldn't have thought it had anything to do with
love."

“You're either a fool or a very wise woman, I don't know which. In any case, your Seville seems to share my opinion on the matter. It
was
diamonds he offered, was it not?"

“Yes, and they were not accepted. I didn't mistake them for love."

“You can't know so much of the matter as you let on. You never have loved anyone but that jackanapes of a Springer, and you didn't love him enough to accept him in the long run. I'll not be bludgeoned into taking lessons in love from a sp—ahem,
fellow writer."

“It wasn't intended for a lesson, but an opinion. A solicited opinion, I might add."

“My apologies, ma'am. You have put me firmly in the wrong, as usual. Now shall we proceed to the good news? You put it out of my mind with your conquest of the Nabob. It is a conquest of a different sort for you. A literary conquest."

“What, have you been to Murray?” She thought a new edition might be required as her books were selling better now.

“No, Murray came to me yesterday, with Dr. Ashington in tow. It is why I had to break our date."

“Ashington of the
Blackwood Magazine?
Does he mean to do a piece on your cantos?"

“Yes, but that could not be good news for
you.
He is doing your books, too. He's devoting an issue to new young writers. You are to represent the novelist, myself the poet, Sheridan the dramatist though he's not
young
any longer, but he's the best living dramatist they could come up with. Hunt and Hazlitt are running in tandem for the essayist. We're in good company."

"Me?
But he cannot have heard of me. I am not a serious writer."

“No more am I, but they mean to make us serious by lionizing us. They'll be reading philosophy and politics and religion into our stuff till we won't know what we meant when we scribbled it down. I daresay you'll turn out to be a cynic when he's through with you, and here you take yourself for a romantic."

“And you a moralist, when you think you're a rake."

“He wants an introduction. That's why I am come, to see when it would be convenient to bring him. You have no objection, I take it?"

“I'm thrilled out of my wits. Does he mean to come here?"

“Yes, if you don't mind. I'll bring him along and introduce him, then shab off to let him pick your brain in peace. Don't let him talk to Clarence, he'll discover your trick and you'll be revealed for the nasty little baggage you really are."

“I can't believe it—Dr. Ashington. What is he like? Is he old?"

“Yes, a dull old stick—too old for you to charm. You'd better count on your considerable powers of conversation, and not your big blue eyes. He has no use for Scott, by the by, and thinks the world of Coleridge and Southey, if you want to butter him up a bit. I can't see how he reconciles two such different sorts as that last pair, but then if he likes your stuff and mine, he must have catholic tastes. Or more likely Blackwood has urged us on him, to get Ashington out of the past. A classicist by inclination. Just think, Miss Mallow, we'll be bound up for eternity in one magazine together. Does it appall you? I see you are underwhelmed at the idea, but you'll have Hunt and Hazlitt to spell you from me. They are both sensible fellows, and Sherry can provide the comic relief. I don't mean that in any disparaging way; I wish I had half his comic genius.

“I can't believe it's true—Dr. Ashington—the
Blackwood Magazine—it's
like a dream come true."

“You had dreams of such conquests, had you? And when you wake up, you can consider having wangled an offer of marriage from the Nabob. No mean feat that. I still can't believe it. It surprised me more than Ashington's article. Quite took the wind out of my sails, in fact. Will tomorrow be all right to bring the Doctor along?"

“Yes, any time he likes."

“Don't be so available. Impress him with your heavy calendar. We'll make it the day after tomorrow."

“No, tomorrow! He might change his mind."

“You underestimate yourself, but if you like, it will be tomorrow. I'll drop by Hettie and tell her the news."

“She'll never believe I am to be interviewed by Ashington."

“Ninnyhammer, she'll never have heard of him. I meant the news about your other victory."

“Oh, no, I do not mean to tell it around, since I refused him. It would not be at all the thing. I wish you would not tell anyone."

“Just let me tell Hettie. She won't tell anyone if I ask her not to."

“But she prattles—you said so yourself."

“She can be as discreet as a diplomat when she likes. Why, the stories she could tell about
me
if she wanted to but she will love to hear it."

“Very well, but let her know it is a secret."

“Yes, Miss Prudence. Well now, you've turned him down, so we shan't have any excuse to come serenading you.” Prudence naturally looked mystified at this, and he explained. “Did I not tell you what I did last night? Oakhurst is being married soon, you know, and I was telling him of the custom in Spanish countries of serenading the bride-to-be. The groom hires a group of minstrels and they serenade her under her window. She comes out and throws some flowers at them. We decided to get a band of us together and go serenading Miss Philmont. Had a merry time. Philmonts had us in after for a drink. Oakhurst and some of the others went on to a club, but I went home to work on Shilla. I'm hard at it revising, and didn't bring her along for you to see today."

There seemed a certain pointedness in his telling her of his innocent evening's entertainment, conveyed more by his conscious manner than by the words themselves. “When shall I see her?” she asked.

“I can drop her off with Ashington tomorrow, and perhaps you will be kind enough to scan her over the next day or so. Let me know if she's too risqué. She is developing a streak of propriety, I'm happy to say. I believe she's given up Mrs. Radcliffe's stuff and taken to your novels. She is beginning to talk up marriage to me."

“To the Mogul?"

“No, she's got clean away from him and is reforming one of the unholy men in that caravan I told you about. She's after me to make him a prince in disguise or something. She'll be wanting a cottage with a picket fence next. I absolutely draw the line at a batch of chickens. Don't you agree?"

“It doesn't seem to go with a prince."

“King George would disagree with you. Made everyone of his princes take a turn cultivating a garden and rearing fowl, but of course they are commoners in disguise as princes. And with that piece of treason I shall leave you.” He laughed and left the room.

Hettie was amused but incredulous at her nephew's tale that Miss Mallow had brought Seville up to scratch. “No, it cannot be possible. I have heard in a dozen different quarters that he is chasing the Barren Baroness—McFay you know, that doughty old Scots lady who is a baroness in her own right; the title dates from Queen Anne. She has two husbands in the grave already, and never a babe in the basket, which is why they call her the Barren Baroness, of course. With such a wife in his eye, it is easy to understand Seville's wanting a love o’ life, but he surely never offered
marriage
to Miss Mallow."