Imprudent Lady Read online

  “Can that possibly be Miss Mallow with the Nabob?” Hettie asked Dammler, levelling her glasses at them. “Yes, certainly it is. How well she looks when she smiles. Only see the collection of old roués with them—Seville should know better. For that matter, Miss Mallow should know better than to be here with him alone. Well, well, she’s flying high.”

  “There’s Barrymore. Dash it, Seville shouldn’t present her to him,” Dammler said, frowning.

  “Why don’t you drop in on them before intermission is over?”

  “To lend the party an air of respectability? It would have rather the opposite effect, I’m afraid.”

  “How true. To rush from one light o’ love to another. Too titillating. The cats would love it. I daresay Cybele wouldn’t.”

  “Miss Mallow is not in the same category as...“ he slid an eye to his fair charmer, who pouted at him, demanding attention.

  “You’d better slip her word when you next see her. Not the thing.”

  “I will,” he said, with a last scowl across the hall, then he turned to his female.

  Prudence did some soul-searching that night alone in her bed. After spending several hours in Mr. Seville’s jolly company, she immediately forgot him and considered another. She was becoming fonder of Dammler than was wise. For romance he would naturally favour Incomparables of the sort she had glimpsed this evening. It was a byword that every beauty in town was after him. How absurd for her to entertain the idea he felt anything but friendship for herself. He never had, and she had known it from the start. The wonder was that he found anything in her to attract him as a friend. Well, you prudent girl you, she said to herself, time to put all the prudence to use and get yourself in line. Don’t sit waiting at your desk for him to come. If your friend drops by, you will be happy to see him. Too happy, but never mind. You won’t show it, and it will never occur to him. He half thinks you are a man.

  The next afternoon, Miss Mallow was honoured once again with a call from Dammler. It was raining, and she assumed they would not be going out. “Hard at it, I see,” he said, seeing she was at her desk, with her hair tousled and her fingers stained with ink. “With all your skylarking you must make use of any odd minute the suitors leave you. You make me realize how hard I should be working.”

  “I am not entirely given over to dissipation,” she said, striking an expression that did not go a jot beyond the limits of platonic affection.

  “You are on the pathway to hell, milady,” he jeered, waggling a finger at her and smiling more widely than she allowed herself to. “We will have to be rechristening you if you keep up this pace. Hobnobbing with nabobs—too many obs in there—your finely tuned ear won’t like it.”

  “That’s all right. We may say what we daren’t write.”

  “And sing what is too foolish to say.”

  “How is Shilla doing? Leading you a merry chase, I hope.”

  He sat in a casual fashion just short of sprawling which she felt instinctively he would not do if he wished to appear at his best with a lady in whom he was interested. “We were wrong to let her bolt on us. The hoyden has fallen in with a caravan of unholy men, and how Wills is to get a dozen camels on stage is beyond me.”

  "The excitement occurs off-stage, does it not?”

  “Damme, something must happen on stage. She’s become so brazen there’s not a move she makes that can be seen in polite company I can’t have the Mogul wringing his hands and cursing in frustration for two hours. I may have to bring her back to the harem and start all over. But I’ll put her into a novel later and let her go her length. I am too fond of her to give her up.”

  “Cutting into my territory, I see. Take care or I’ll put Clarence into a play or a poem.”

  “Good idea, but you are diverting me from my errand. I am here to ring a peal over you, Miss Imprudence. No my girl, widening your big blue eyes at me won’t save you from a scold. You know well enough you were the talk of the opera last night, with every rake and rattle in town drooling over you.”

  “How nonsensical you are,” she said, happy to know he had seen her moment of glory.

  “And as to making me a laughing stock with that curst viper’s tongue of yours. My Phyrne was furious; she is justly proud of her locks. You may be sure she heard of your wit.”

  “There was no wit in it. I only said..."

  “I know well enough what you said, and what you meant.”

  “I only meant she coloured her hair.”

  He sat up and stared at her. “Oh, no, you didn’t,” he contradicted flatly. “You said it very nicely, I grant you, but you called her a Phyrne. We all admit tacitly to these things, but we don’t run around broadcasting them, calling names.”

  "Dammler, tell me so that I shan’t blunder again. Is her name not Fern?”

  “Prudence Mallow,” he said, shaking his head, “you are either the biggest greenhead in town or the best actress.”

  “What did I say?”

  He hunched his shoulders, and threw up his hands in the gesture of helplessness so characteristic of him. “Where do I begin?" he asked himself. “Phyrne, sweet idiot, is not a name like Mary or Joan—it is a title, like Princess or Prostitute. Rather more like the latter, if you follow me."

  Prudence was stunned, but she had resolved some time ago to match her new acquaintances in sophistication, and she tried gamely to rally. Still her shock was quite evident to him. “I see,” she said.

  “You are disappointed in me."

  “No,” she answered quickly. “Why should I be?”

  “Why indeed, I never led you to believe I was a saint. Oh, Prudence, why did I ever meet you? You are giving me back my conscience. I was well rid of it. I haven’t felt such a reprobate since the first time I got drunk and Mama cried for two hours.”

  "I am not crying,” she laughed at his boyish despair, and a little, too, at his using her first name without realizing it. “I am just a little surprised that you would be seen in such a public way with a—one of those women.”

  “Well, everyone does. Half the females there last night were prostitutes. I hold them to be every bit as respectable as a married woman who commits adultery—more so, in fact. They’re not hypocrites. They have not promised to love, honour and obey anyone’s desires but their own. Why should it add to a woman’s virtue or reputation to deceive her husband with a lover? Surely that compounds the trespass. No, no, I won’t allow anyone to tell me I must restrict my amours to married ladies.”

  “You ought to restrict yourself to an appearance at least of respectability.”

  “Where did you get the bizarre idea my Phyrne is not respectable? Top of the frees. She has none but the most elevated of lovers, and only one at a time. Unlike the married ladies, who require at least two, and preferably three or four. It is better to consort with a Phyrne than with a married lady. There is no question of it in my mind. Tell me you disagree. On what logical grounds can you possibly refute me?”

  “I don’t. There is much in what you say, but that is not to say that consorting with either one is good. You set up a home for ruined girls on one hand, and ruin them on the other. There is no logic in that.”

  "Prudence, we’re talking about two very different species. Those little girls—young, ignorant without the sense to know what they’re getting into... My Phyrne—the mistresses of gentlemen, are in a different class entirely. They knowingly go into this sort of a life because they don’t want to work. They prefer a life of leisure and luxury, they have a beautiful body to buy it with, and they sell it. It is a business transaction.”

  “Oh, don’t try to tell me it is a good thing to keep a mistress.”

  “I didn’t say it was good.”

  “You said it was better to have a mistress than to take another man’s wife. Surely better is a degree of good. Take it a step further, you lover of logic, and you must agree best would be to take no lovers at all. A chaste married lady or a spinster is better than either a Phyrne or an adulteress, s
urely.”

  “Not to me she isn’t,” he replied unequivocally. “Oh, all right, if you’re talking theology or religion or some damned thing. I thought we were talking about real life, and not philosophy. In actual practice, it is less immoral—does that satisfy you—to keep an unmarried mistress than to go poaching on your friends’ private property.”

  “Yes, I’ll accept that partial victory, before you convince me I’m a scoundrel for not selling my own old ramshackle body to help my uncle pay the bills.”

  “Oh, I don’t go quite that far, Prudence,” he replied, throwing his head back in uncontrolled laughter. “And to think, I came here to read you a lecture! How did I end up giving you the notion you should take to the streets? We—Lady Melvine and myself--do not approve of your consorting with the Nabob.”

  “Is Mr. Seville so rich then?”

  “Full of juice. An uncle from the East India Company died and left him a million, literally.”

  “I have no objection to the fact. Do you disapprove of money per se?”

  “No, I am excessively fond of it, but...“

  She looked, waiting.

  “Your Mr. Seville—ah—likes the ladies. Of a certain sort.”

  “The sort who use the title Phyrne?”

  “Yes, those certainly, and those who use the title Duchess or Baroness even better. It is generally considered he is looking for a title, to ease his own way into the peerage. He cannot mean to marry you; he is well into negotiations with Baroness McFay, and for entertainment he prefers the muslin company. Why do I feel like a child molester telling you these things?”

  “I don’t know, but you misjudge him. He is not like that at all. He has very strict notions of propriety.” She toyed with the idea of telling him Seville had feared she was Dammler’s lightskirt, but decided against it.

  “Seville! He has no more notion of propriety than a jackrabbit.”

  “How can you say so? He’s your friend. You introduced him to me.”

  “Yes, and that is why I am worried. I never thought you’d catch his eye. You aren’t his type. I wonder if the old fool has decided to take up with the literary society. Might think it would lend him a vicarious air of intellect. God knows he could use it. He is very proper in his dealings with you?”

  “Of course. Oh, he gossips about the ton, but you may be sure he does not take me for any loose piece of baggage.”

  “There—I’ve depraved you. For Miss Mallow to be speaking of herself in terms of loose baggage! Well, he is up to something, but apparently it isn’t what we feared. I don’t like the company he introduces to you, however. I wish you would see less of him, or at least not go about with him without some other company. Some respectable married couple, or some such thing.”

  “I am not really fond of him. I don’t expect I’ll be seeing much of him—we have little in common.”

  “If the old Benedict gets out of hand, call on me, and I’ll come galloping ventre à terre on my white steed to rescue you. Promise me, Prudence.”

  “Promise.” She found herself aping his shrug, and felt foolish.

  “What a lot of bother you women are. Whoever would have thought I would end up playing Dutch uncle to a little greenhead of a spinster.” Prudence gave a mental wince at this, but concealed it quite well. At least he had come to realize she was not a man.

  “Now I have shocked you with my heedless tongue again.” She realized she had not concealed it as well as she thought. “You are only twenty-four, and not a spinster any more, I suppose, since I foolishly induced you to take off your caps. Do me a favour, Miss Mallow, put them back on and start pretending you are forty or so again, so I can stop worrying about you.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I have a family to protect me. Worry about Shilla and her Mogul. When is she due to tread the boards?”

  “Not this season. It isn’t half done.” He arose. “I’m off, Miss Mallow. May I call on you tomorrow? I’d like you to look over Shilla for me and see what you think of her. There is no one whose opinion I respect more.”

  “I should be happy to,” she answered with real pride. Her womanhood had been laid low by his thoughtless words, but how fine to have a poet of Dammler's stature pay her such a compliment.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning Prudence received two notes, one of them accompanied by a spray of violets, which she had happened to mention liking, from Mr. Seville. He requested her company for a drive that afternoon. Just as well I cannot go with him, she thought, remembering her appointment with Dammler. The other envelope bore a crest, and when she opened it, it was a scrawl of two lines from Dammler. “Miss Mallow: I can’t bring Shilla to you this p.m. after all. She has other plans, and we daren’t buck her. See you soon. Be Prudent about S. Dammler.”

  She felt a letdown of no small magnitude, then read the note again for any hidden compliment or insult. It was facetious—but he was always joking. Some business had come up that detained him. There was no one whose opinion he valued more than hers. He would come soon. “Be Prudent about S.” Seville, of course. Strange he hadn’t said what detained him. Had it been herself breaking the appointment, she would have felt a complete explanation necessary. And no explanation occurred to her either which could be important enough to break a date with Dammler. From suspicion she slid easily into jealousy, and she was soon possessed of the idea that Shilla should more accurately read Phyrne. That would account for his not giving her the reason. No doubt a gentleman friend would have understood at a glance what he meant and accepted it. Her eye fell on Mr. Seville’s spray of violets. It never occurred to Dammler to send her a flower. Why should she sit home while he was out enjoying himself? She picked up her pen and accepted Mr. Seville’s offer. A drive in the park was quite unexceptionable, and she was not doing it to spite Dammler. Not the highest stickler could take exception to it, and she hoped she met Dammler head-on with his Phyrne.

  Mr. Seville called at three o’clock, carrying a large bouquet of flowers. Her innate sense of taste and comedy laughed at this second shower of blooms in one day, but she accepted the roses with a good grace. “I see you wear my violets next to your heart,” Mr. Seville teased, his brown eyes dancing.

  “Be Prudent about S” darted into her head. “Oh, but a spray of flowers is generally worn on the jacket, you know, and the left side is less in the way than the right.”

  “They are lucky violets,” he said with a sigh as they went out the door. He let his eye rest long on them, or possibly the bosom beneath them.

  “Shall we go, Mr. Seville?”

  “Yes, there is no privacy here, in your uncle’s house.” Clarence, informed that Mr. Seville was a nabob, had been fawning.

  “Uncle likes to meet my friends,” she explained.

  “Yes, that is natural. He seemed not to dislike me,” he said, in an excess of understatement.

  “He likes you very much,” Prudence assured him.

  “Still, it must be difficult for you, under his roof, with no privacy to meet your friends at your own ease. You, who move in literary circles, must often feel the want of a place of your own.”

  “I sometimes feel I could work better if I had a place of my own, but Mama and I are in rather straitened circumstances since my father died.”

  “It seems a pity, if money is all that stands in your way.”

  “But money is important, especially when you haven’t much of it.”

  “A lady like you shouldn’t have to worry about money. You should be dressed in fine gowns and jewels.” Prudence looked down at her very best blue outfit and thought the remark uncalled for. “Real diamonds, I mean, not those little chips you wore the other evening.”

  “I am not likely ever to have diamonds. I manage to get along without them.”

  “Did you never have a desire to dress yourself in silk and jewels?”

  “Occasionally,” she admitted, a vision of Phyrne in her chiffon and diamonds passing through her head.

  “Yo
u’d take the shine out of them all, Miss Mallow. Countenance—you have countenance. It is your being a literary woman, and so dashed clever. Able to drop a droll word into any conversation and make it sparkle. Better than diamonds. Diamonds can be bought, but wit is inherited, like a title.”

  “Or money,” she laughed in agreement, thinking he was not so bad after all.

  “Yes, by Jove, like money. Well, there’s more than one way of getting the blunt, what?”

  “Yes, one can earn it by hard work.”

  “An attractive lady wouldn’t have to work too hard to earn it. A man of means would be happy to share his with her.” Mr. Seville reached out and grabbed her gloved hand. She hardly knew what to think, but she quickly decided to be prudent about S; and recovering her hand, she edged a little closer to her own side of the carriage.

  “What a smart phaeton that is,” she said, pointing out the window to where a high-perch phaeton was being tooled past by a very dashing lady. Prudence looked closely to see if she recognized her, but she was having no luck in spotting Dammler and his friend.

  “Would you like to have such a rig?”

  “Yes, indeed, I’m sure anyone would, though I shouldn’t know how to handle it so well as that lady does.”

  “Her nags are nothing out of the ordinary. I have a pair of matched bays, high stepping fillies—smashing they’d look harnessed to a bang-up little phaeton or dormeuse.”

  “That sounds very nice. Why don’t you get such a carriage for them, Mr. Seville?”

  “I will, by Jove,” he answered promptly. “Anything you like.”

  “Only if you like, I meant,” she countered in a little confusion.

  “I think we like pretty well the same things,” he said, smiling with satisfaction at his progress.

  “Shall we get out and walk a little?” Prudence suggested as they were entering the park, and the carriage suddenly seemed too small.