Her mind was full of her insult, and she could not let it go. “My writing is nothing you see, deciphering his hen’s scratching was to be a pleasant diversion for me.”
“What is it you’re writing anyway?” he asked to change the topic. “You’re very close about it. The theme I know is too large to be put into words, but the plot, the characters, what of them?”
She tried to shake off her agitation. “It’s about a young girl who thinks herself in love with a very handsome fribble of a fellow, only because nature gave him straight teeth and a fine head of hair, and because everyone else is in love with him. But she is brought to her senses and realizes, just in the nick of time, of course-that it is really a plainer but more worthy fellow she has cared for all along. I plan to pretend, if any critic asks me, that my theme is the age-old one of distinguishing between appearances and reality. That has a good sincere ring to it, don’t you think? It seems to me to encompass most of experience.”
“Yes, vague enough for anything. And your heroine, she is not fooled by the teeth and the hair. She prefers a butter tooth and a lank of mousey lock in the end?”
“How foolish you make it sound. The second hero is not so inferior as that. His teeth are left to the imagination, and the hair is just dark, not rhapsodized over. I hope by chapter ten the hero’s flashing smile and tumbling black locks will begin to pall on the reader, and she’ll use all her powers of imagination to make the second hero into a good likeness of the first, with virtue thrown in. Mere looks are not enough.”
He listened closely, nodding his head. “Tell me, Prue, do you find, as you write, that the people you know and see regularly begin to creep into your characters? Have you any particular straight tooth and tumbling lock in mind?”
“None in the world. I don’t write about real people.”
“There was your cat in the garden, and Aunt Clarence, the composer.”
“No, no, only characteristics, not characters.”
“I see. It’s different with me. Strange the way the imagination works, isn’t it?”
“Do you know what I think?” Prudence asked suddenly.
“What?”
“I think he just pretended his mama was ill to get me to go to Hatchard’s, so he wouldn’t have to bother bringing his writing here.”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Dammler agreed, happy to abet any ill she had to say of Ashington, though it interrupted his own interesting line of thought.
With Prudence in such a mood his little charter of good behaviour seemed inappropriate, and he left it in his pocket. The visit was not going as he expected, but he was happy to see she was on to Ashington. “So while you are opening your heroine’s eyes to the glories of bad teeth and hair, I shall be trying to cajole Shilla back to her prince, or her Mogul. I wonder how she would like your hero?”
“We’ll ask her when my Patience comes out. That is the title I have chosen, for her and the book. She has been dipping into my novels, I think you said.”
“Patience, eh? Will we by any chance be reading that she is well named?”
“I may have borrowed a little something from the similarity,” she admitted. “Having listened all my life to it, I decided to put it to use; but she is not me.”
“No, your printed reincarnation will of course be as man-that is your method, is it not? I will keep a sharp watch for you. If I read of a young gentleman being put upon by an aged female critic, I shall know what to make of it.”
“You won’t read it! I mean to put him out of my mind entirely. Such a person is best forgotten.”
“Well, I mean to get busy and finish my play in a week, if possible.” He thought again of the charter in his pocket, and wondered if he should produce it. “I need the money for my charity girls. I didn’t go out at all last night. Stayed home and got the second act written in rough.”
This was the second time he had mentioned in a seemingly casual fashion the innocent nature of his nights, and Prudence decided to chide him about it. “I wasn’t hellraking last night, either, but I hadn’t meant to brag to you about it.”
“Oh, what a heartless wench she is! You complained loud enough when I was out carousing. Won’t you say a kind word on my improvement?”
“I did not complain! Don’t cast me in the role of guardian of your morals.”
“Well, I hoped to please you by improving. No one else ever was kind enough to worry about me, or care whether I ran to perdition.”
“What a plumper! Your mama cried for two hours when you got drunk.”
“But she’s been dead for ten years. I started drinking young. And my father has been dead for fifteen years. Just a poor orphan waif really. Couldn’t you pat my head and bless me, or must I lie on the floor and hold my breath to excite any interest?”
“Indeed it is not necessary to choke yourself. Good boy,” she reached out and patted his head, and felt sorry for him, in spite of his shameless bid for pity. “And if you do a good job on Shilla, I’ll buy you a sugar plum, and possibly an ice.”
“How do you put up with me?” he asked. “I think I must try the patience of a saint. Hettie would rant to hear me call myself an orphan. She has begged me a dozen times to move in with her.”
She was glad he hadn’t. “She is not exactly motherly, is she?”
“Lord, no. But you are. Do you think Clarence might adopt me? I would make you a very good brother.”
She felt a wave of despair wash over her. She had graduated from male friend to bothersome female, only to end up his sister! “I suppose it is my luxurious study you have your eye on by this ploy,” she laughed, to hide her disappointment.
“No, he’d have to build me one with more shelves-I bring a dowry of ten thousand books, you recall.”
“And an Ottoman. Such heathen articles have no place in Grosvenor Square.”
“But this heathen article feels very much at home here. Too much so. I let on I was in a hurry when I lured you in here. I’d best leave, before Clarence gets his eye to the key hole to see if I’m having any luck putting my ring on your finger.”
He arose as he spoke and walked to the door. “Remember now, we are agreed to work hard this next week. Until our next chin,” he waved, and smiling a rather sad smile, as though he were in no hurry to leave, finally he went.
Prudence sat on alone, contemplating his visit. She hadn’t realized he was so alone in the world. Just Hettie, and while she was jolly company, she would be no sort of defender for a young man like Dammler. Quite the contrary-she would spur him on to anything. Perhaps this explained his not going to Longbourne. To go to a house empty but for servants could not be pleasant. He was really nearly alone in the world as far as family ties were concerned. Was that why he kept coming back here then? To feel he had a family? It was odd he expressed affection for Clarence, when she considered it, but not so odd he found a sister in her. Their shared interest in writing had started the friendship and from there it had come to the sort of hellish fraternal relationship he spoke of. That would explain his ire at Ashington’s poor review of her work. She admitted now it was an insult. Explained too his not minding seeing her married to a wealthy man such as Seville. Oh yes, it explained everything, except what she was to do about being in love with this self-imposed brother.
Chapter 14
Dammler was off to Finefields with Shilla and Lady Malvern (and Lord Malvern), and Prudence was left home with Uncle Clarence and her mother. There was no correspondence between them, and when Fanny Burney called one day a week later, Prudence agreed eagerly to accompany her to call on Lady Melvine. She hoped to hear from his aunt how he progressed, and more importantly, when he was to return. His whereabouts had purposely been kept secret from the press. As Prudence carefully set the buff chip straw bonnet from Mademoiselle Fancot’s on her curls, she had a hope Dammler might even be there. One week was the duration mentioned for his stay, and Hettie was surely the first person he would call on. His only family-a tender pity for him had been growing during the past week. It was this rootlessness that she held to be responsible for his wilder extravagances.
But her hopes were dashed; he was not there, and what she heard of him was of a nature to discourage her completely. The writing was not going well, Hettie told her, there were too many distractions. Prudence felt only one of the distractions was necessary to keep him from his play. He had written mentioning prolonging his visit another week. Possibly two.
“Was it really work he had in mind when he went to Finefields?" Miss Burney asked archly.
“Now Fanny, don’t ask embarrassing questions,” Lady Melvine retorted. She looked to Prudence with a smile as she spoke, trying to understand the girl. Dammler spoke of her a good deal, but whether she was a young innocent thing or a scheming, designing woman always remained unclear. Prudence forced out a worldly laugh, and Hettie said to herself, innocent is it? She is the slyest girl in town. And jealous, too, though she tries not to show it. “He did take his manuscript with him, or said he did,” she added.
“Strange the aura of secrecy surrounding the visit. But they would not want company descending on them,” Miss Burney mentioned.
“No, Dammler is beginning to hide his amours and put on a respectable face. He never tells me of his chères amies any more. I sometimes wonder if he is thinking of marriage. He asked me to write him of all the births, deaths, marriages and important court decisions while he is away. You don’t suppose he is waiting for that perfectly dreadful Lady Margaret to get her divorce?”
“Or for Lord Shelhurst to die?” Fanny laughed.
The specific names meant nothing to Prudence, but the import was clear enough. He had been carrying on with these ladies, while prating to her about improving to please her. In a snit she said, “Perhaps it is the births he is interested in.”
“Miss Mallow, you are too horrid,” Lady Melvine approved happily. She personally had no use for missish women, and felt much more at home with Miss Mallow, the worldly sophisticate. “I shouldn’t think he would marry anyone like Lady Margaret or the Shelhurst woman,” Hettie said consideringly. “They are well enough for flirts, but when it comes to settling down it will be some prim-faced little duke’s daughter with a fat dowry he will settle on. His sort always does. No, he can’t have marriage in mind at all, or he’d have gone to Longbourne Abbey to get things in shape. He said he was purposely not going there as he had such a lot to do at the Abbey he wouldn’t find time to write if he went there.”
Here was another blow for Prudence. That Dammler would look to a high-born, well-dowered lady for a wife had never occurred to her. Here she had been wasting her time being jealous of the Phyrnes, who were actually to be pitied. Naturally it would be a title and a fortune he would eventually marry.
This visit plunged Prudence into gloom, and she could not find solace even in her writing. The sanctity of her study without a little enlightening mischief from Dammler proved too pure. She made any excuse to get out of it. Two days later she wanted to go down town with her mama. She foolishly imagined the carriage would be at her disposal, but was informed otherwise. With never a prestigious caller for nine days save a lady writer Clarence had never heard of, and who looked suspiciously like a nobody, his carriage was busy sitting idle in the stable.
The Backwoods Review arrived and sat unopened on the table. The building of the third shelf to hold it and its brothers was put off, with no one to admire it. “Strange Dr. Ashington does not call,” Clarence said a dozen times a day. He also reverted to the halcyon days of the Marquis de Sevilla. “That Spanish grandee who sent you all the flowers and diamonds, Prue, what do you hear of him lately?”
“Nothing. I do not see him at all.”
“I read in The Observer he has joined the Four Horse Club. He is making his way in the world. He would not have been a bad catch for you. I think your daughter was too quick in turning him off, Wilma.”
Prudence sighed wearily, and her mother, interpreting it, said, “Lord Dammler should be returning soon, should he not, Prudence?”
“No, he has prolonged his stay at Finefields. He does not write his aunt of returning soon.”
“I expect he is working hard on his play,” the mother said.
“Ho, playing hard is more like it,” Clarence corrected. It rankled that he had never got that form on canvas. Thrice he had hinted, and thrice the hint had been ignored on the pretext of work, but he always found time to sit around laughing with Prudence, keeping her from her writing. “I am happy he has stopped badgering Prue. There was no getting anything down with him borrowing all her books twice a day. I suppose he took that French book off with him, did he?” he asked sharply.
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