Imprudent Lady Read online

  “Surely you don’t consider yourself an employment agency! Your job is to restore these girls to a decent life. Their success depends on where you place them.”

  “Oh, as to that, if they are put in too strict a home, they only run off in a month. The fact is, milord, they are no good, nine-tenths of them, or they wouldn’t be here.”

  “They are desperate, ten-tenths of them, or they wouldn’t stay in this hell hole,” Dammler said and arose abruptly. “Come along, Miss Mallow, I've seen what I wanted to see.”

  Mulroney accompanied them to the door, trying to pour oil on the ruffled waters, with a very poor success.

  Dammler was highly incensed with the visit, and to get him started talking, Prudence asked him what he thought of Mulroney.

  “The man is a jackass, and totally unfit for the position he fills. To be speaking of those poor unfortunate little girls—God, did you notice how young they are—as though they were hardened street-walkers. You need a man with compassion and understanding for such a post as that. Someone who is concerned for their welfare, who cares about them, and not a dammed accountant. Hastening them through faster and cheaper is all he thinks of, so it will look well on his record. He’s pushing to become a bishop, no doubt. Teaching them nothing, and shoving them into any house that will take them. I heard a gentleman—a rake, a pervert of the worst sort—say the other day he was going there to pick up a new maid and he said it with a very meaningful leer, which is why I asked that particular question about selection. Picture one of those pathetic little girls being placed into the hands of a man like—well, never mind his name, but I shall see he doesn’t get one.”

  “How can you do that?”

  “By getting rid of Mulroney.”

  “You can’t get rid of him, Dammler. You are only a visitor.”

  “Of course I can. Lucas is in charge of it. I’ll speak to him. He’s a good man, but so busy he doesn’t know what’s going on. Let Mulroney go back to preaching his fire and brimstone sermons. He is good enough at that. However, I learned what I wanted to know.”

  “What, about Mulroney? Is that why you went, to see what he’s like?”

  “Mulroney? No, I had no idea he was in charge. I know now what charity I am interested in. The insane are pitiful, and half the prisoners in the jails are no more guilty than you and I, but I know I’m lazy and insensitive, and if I’m not deeply interested in a project, I won’t follow it through.”

  “No, you’re not lazy or insensitive.”

  “Yes I am. But I’m interested in those girls—no comments, please. Aren’t they enough to tear your heart out? Babies, and already producing more babies. I didn’t think to ask what is done with the new babies. That’s the proper time to catch them, before they go, or more probably are led, astray.”

  “I thought you’d burst during the sermon. I nearly did myself.”

  “Show—all show. That, I fancy, was put on to impress us. As though ringing a peal over them could help. You’d think they’d purposely set out to ruin themselves. More likely ruined by some son of..." He stopped suddenly. “I’m getting carried away. But it makes my blood boil. Such a criminal waste of human life and potential. We think ourselves advanced here in England. I didn’t see much worse than what I saw today in the most backward countries of the East. Yes, this is a project I can become enthusiastic about.”

  Two days later Dammler asked Prudence what she did with the earnings from her books. She hadn’t seen him in the two intervening days. “I buy hats with them,” she replied. She was wearing her navy glazed bonnet with the red rose.

  “No, seriously, what do you do?”

  The question seemed irrelevant; it did not seem impertinent, which it was. “Well, I pay my bills. What else should I do? And save when I can. I should like to go on a little holiday with Mama. We haven’t been anywhere since we came to London, except home to Kent once to visit friends for two weeks.”

  Dammler said nothing for a moment, but he seemed much struck by her answer. “You’re not telling me you have to write for the money?” he asked.

  “To keep body and soul together you mean?” she asked in a mock tragic voice. “No, we managed to scrimp along before I sold anything, but I confess the extra income has been a great comfort to us. We hadn’t much left when Papa died, for the estate, you remember I told you, was entailed.”

  “But your uncle—you seem to live in a very good style with Mr. Elmtree.”

  “He has been marvelously kind to us. We should have ended up in some horrid rented lodgings but for him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I told you ages ago. The first time we went out, or shortly after. What, did you think I should be constantly bemoaning my cruel fate? We are very lucky. We want for nothing with my uncle.”

  “I thought—I just assumed you had money. Stupid of me, of course. I never think of things like that. And you let me take you to Fannie’s and bludgeon you into buying two ferociously expensive hats! Dammit, Prudence, you should have told me.”

  “They weren’t so very expensive.” He hadn’t noticed he used her first name. It had taken a fit of anger to make him do it.

  “You can’t fool me about Fannie’s prices. I am an old customer. Now, I am going to make a grossly indecent suggestion. Prepare your reticule to beat me about the head and shoulders. I want to pay for them.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “I'm not. Like a cloth-head I dragged you to the most expensive shop in town without considering—I have had the pleasure of them, and I want to pay.”

  “I would really prefer not to discuss this any further,” Prudence said in a tight voice.

  He dropped the matter immediately, but felt the greatest, blindest fool in the kingdom. And a boor for having mentioned it at all. Poor people were always sensitive about money.

  “Anyway, why did you ask the question?” Prudence said, to break the uncomfortable silence.

  “I thought you might want to join with me in my project.”

  “What project?”

  “My home for unwed mothers. I told you that was what I had decided to do with my earnings.”

  “Ah, I thought perhaps your earnings too went to Fannie, as you are so familiar with her prices.”

  “No, I pay for my pleasures out of my own pocket.”

  “If your earnings aren’t out of your own pocket, what is?”

  “A nobleman, my dear Miss Mallow, does not work for gain. Infra-dig. We lords are too toplofty to engage in common labour for a wage. The taint of having earned money by the sweat of our brows can only be removed by donating it to charity. No, we are allowed to keep anything we wring out of our tenants by starving them in a hovel, but honestly earned money must be got rid of immediately.”

  “How ridiculous you make it sound.”

  “The truth often has a ridiculous ring to it. Well, I don’t have to tell you. It’s what your books are all about, isn’t it?”

  “I never thought so.”

  “You may not have known you thought it, but you wrote it. There was your Lady Allyson de Burlington, remember? The illiterate who kept the house full of books to hide the truth; and your Sidney Greenham—half greenhead and half pig I assume—who would never allow pork to be served at his table as he had his humble beginnings in a sausage factory. Hiding the truth at every turn, because it is unpalatable. In any case, I am not allowed to keep my hard-earned money, and I mean to give it to my favourite people—ruined females.”

  He made a joke of it, but Prudence knew he was serious about helping the girls, and was proud of him. “Where will you set up your Magdalen House, here or in Hampshire?”

  “I have pretty well decided on Hampshire, not too far from the Abbey, so I can keep an eye on it personally. I refer to the running of it—the finances and employees and most of all, where the girls are placed when they leave.”

  “Which brings to mind old Mulroney. Had you any success with that man—Lucas was it?—who wa
s to get rid of him?”

  “He’s on his way out. We have managed to get him a rung up on the ecclesiastical ladder in a nice rich town, where he can’t do much harm. He’ll never dare to scare the wits out of a bunch of fat squires with his sermons and Bible readings. Let him herd as many people as he can to swell his church attendance and give him a good record. He’ll concentrate his accounting skills on getting some stained glass windows and an organ for St. Martin’s and have something to show for his efforts.”

  “You mentioned your home would be in Hampshire so you could keep an eye on it. Do you plan to return to Longbourne Abbey soon then?”

  “Yes, after the Season."

  “Oh.” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  "I'll be in London a good deal, of course. I plan to take my seat in the House.”

  "This sounds like a new Lord Dammler about to emerge. What of the poet?”

  “He’ll have to keep his nose to the grindstone to support his women. I refer to my charity girls,” he explained with a lift of the eyebrow.

  “My, with all your women of one sort or another, you’ll be busy.”

  “I’ll still find time for you,” he said with a smile. “You’ll have to come to visit me at Longbourne Abbey some time.”

  Comforted with this promise, she accepted the inevitable.

  Chapter Eight

  Mr. Seville had called on Miss Mallow two days after the ball and found her out with Dammler. When he returned two days later, he found her at home and asked her to drive out in the park with him. It was not the same exciting adventure as going out with Dammler, but it was better than sitting home with Clarence, and her escort exerted himself to be entertaining. He was not a serious man; Prudence had his measure within a quarter of an hour. He was a man of the world. His conversation was of balls and the ton, of horses and fashion. He didn’t seem to think a lady capable of discussing more weighty matters, or perhaps he was incapable of it himself, but he was amusing.

  “Have you heard the latest on dit about Clarence and the Princess?” he asked, leaning closer to her.

  How very odd that she should know him to be referring to the Duke of Clarence, and either of two other princesses not of English royalty.

  “Lieven or Esterhazy?” she asked, with a feeling of being very much in on things.

  “Lieven,” he replied, not finding her answer remarkable, “was being shown to her carriage at the Pavilion t’other night by Billie, and what must the old slice do but pop in on top of her and try to make love to her.”

  “He is a courageous man,” she answered, laughing at the picture called up by this incongruous couple.

  “Aye, false courage—in his cups certainly. But Lieven is awake on all suits. She told him the Congress of Vienna was giving Hanover to Prussia, and England going along with it for a wedge of Westphalia. You may imagine his reaction—a confirmed Hanoverian. Lovemaking was forgotten. ‘God damn! Does my brother know this?’ says he. She assured him he did not, and he turned the carriage about to go back and tell Prinney the news. Famous it was. Prinney twigs him about it ten times a day. All a hum, of course.”

  “I hear Miss Wyckham has given him his congé," she remarked, remembering Dammler’s gossip.

  “She’d snap him up fast enough, but the Cabinet won’t hear of it. It’ll be some dull old Austrian princess for him, poor soul. But he’s had the best of Jordan, so he don’t need my pity.”

  “Rather pity Mrs. Jordan.”

  “Clarence will provide, never fear. He'll come down heavy. Thinks the world of his family—as any man should, of course,” he added hastily. “The least he can do. I have no opinion of men who seduce and abandon, as the saying goes.”

  Prudence found the tone of this conversation displeasing and attempted to divert their discussion. “Lord Dammler is writing a new play,” she said as an opener.

  “You are pretty thick with Dammler, I believe?”

  “We are friends. Both being writers you know..."

  “Professional thing, is it? Just a common interest.”

  “A little more than that perhaps. We are friends.”

  “He ain’t your lover?”

  The bluntness of this question shocked her even more than its content. “Mr. Seville! Indeed he is not. The notion is absurd.”

  “No offence, Miss Mallow. No offence in the world. But you ain’t seven years old, and his affairs are no secret. He’s not a bit too good for you. Not in the least.”

  She was silent a while after this interchange. “Now I’ve gone and hurt your feelings, and that I didn’t mean to do. I would never have suspected it myself, but it’s only what’s being said. Wouldn’t have asked you out if I’d thought it for a minute. Just wanted to be sure. A man can’t be too careful of such details.”

  Poor Prudence, reared in a retired village and unused to the ways of high life, took his concern to be for being seen with a lightskirt, when he was only worried that he was stealing Dammler's property. The talk went better after that, and when he deposited her at her door she had concluded that these ton people talked a little warm, but in their hearts they were strict moralists.

  She was flattered to receive next day a bouquet from Seville, and not ill-pleased at the note with it requesting her company at the opera two nights hence. She had been there twice with her uncle, but not in a box with the upper members of Society. Her taste of high living had whetted her appetite, and she sent off a note accepting his offer. So this is all there is to it, she thought as she had her hair dressed and the gold gown worn to Mr. Wordsworth’s dinner party slipped over her head. One had only to meet a few of the right people and she was on her way to balls and the opera and drives in the park. She read both the Society column and the Court column to be up on the trivia that passed for conversation with Mr. Seville.

  Before she left Uncle Clarence, decked out in garments suitable to escort her, though he was in fact staying home to play piquet with her mama, handed her a black leather box. “I want you to wear my dear late wife’s necklace,” he said.

  She accepted with thanks and put it on—a small set of diamonds no bigger than grains of rice, but real diamonds, he assured her. “My, there is nothing like diamonds to make a lady sparkle,” he said, standing back to admire the chips. “Dammler will be sorry he lost you.” There had been a two-day interval since his last visit.

  “We are still friends, Uncle. That’s all we ever were.”

  “Ho, you are the slyest girl in town,” he ran on. “You think to make him jealous by parading yourself before him with another man. I hope it may turn the trick for you. Seville is well enough, but no title at all. He is just plain Mr. Seville, even if he has the name of a city. It was not named after him, you may be sure. Well, well, you look very nice. You are in looks tonight with Ann’s diamonds.”

  “You will have to paint me thus, Uncle,” she teased in a merry mood.

  Her amazement was great when he did not concur. “There is no painting a diamond,” he acknowledged sadly. “A pearl now comes out nicely with a dab of white for a highlight, but a diamond cannot be painted. None of the old masters had the knack of it. I’ve tried all their tricks, but a bit of red or blue or green doesn’t begin to do it. I can’t do it, and in short it can’t be done. It only comes out looking like a sapphire or a garnet. Well, water is the same. Water can’t be painted either. Turner thinks to hide his deficiency by always putting what he is painting upside down in the lake as a reflection, but he fools no one. We are all on to him. I’ll just step along to the saloon and meet Mr. Seville. We want him to know you have a family to protect you. A young lady on her own might be taken up as fair game. I shall just mention Sir Alfred and Lord Dammler to let him know we are not quite nobody.” He mentioned them so often that Seville could not but conclude they were indeed acquainted, intimately.

  Seville had a box at the opera by the season. It held six seats, but only the two of them were in the party. Prudence had supposed she was on
ly one of his guests; she was surprised to find herself quite alone with him, and worried a little at it; but they were not stared at or scorned, so she thought it must be all right. Several persons acknowledged Seville, and a few nodded and smiled to her.

  At intermission she espied Dammler across the auditorium with a large party, one member of which occupied his whole attention. She was a lovely vision in white chiffon and diamonds, with a riot of some unnatural but lovely shade of curls on her head. She wore a very low-cut gown, and she never took her eyes from Dammler for a fraction of a second. They seemed indecently engrossed in each other, unaware that half the crowd was ogling them. Prudence knew from Dammler's conversation that he had a very active social life quite apart from his afternoons with her, but other than Hettie’s ball she had not actually seen him engaged in It. She found it a distressing sight, but such an interesting one that she could not draw her eyes away from his box.

  “I see your friend Dammler is here tonight,” Seville remarked, noticing her staring at him.

  “Yes. Who is the lady with him, do you know?”

  “Some Phyrne or other,” he answered, raising his glass to examine her more closely with a smile of appreciation. Cybele, of course, but it wouldn’t do to let on to Miss Mallow he was interested in the girl.

  “Not a maidenhair fern, I take it,” Prudence said, wondering by what adulteration the girl had achieved such a stunning hue to her hair.

  She was at a loss to understand Mr. Seville’s bark of laughter, and why he should say, “That’s a good one, Miss Mallow. A very good one indeed. You are an Original!” No more did she think it worth repeating when a whole bevy of callers came to their box, everyone of them gentlemen. But they all agreed it was a gem of the first water.

  This sudden influx into their box attracted a certain degree of attention to it. Lady Melvine, one of Dammler's group, noticed and called it to his attention, but by the time he was looking at them, Prudence’s attention was directed at their guests. They all seemed extremely lively and good-natured. Two of them were being called milord, but she didn’t catch the name, which Uncle Clarence would like to know when she got home.