Reprise Part 5

He could hardly have been more irate when the person he ended up talking to was Mr. Seville, her rescuer at the inn at Reading. Next to Prudence Mallow there wasn't a person in London he hated more. "I see our little writer has pulled off a new trick," Seville stated, smiling towards the crowd around her.

"New trick?" he asked in a frigid tone.Our little writer. d.a.m.n the fellow for an upstart! Prudence hadturned him off-she had at least that much taste. Seville examined him, sensing his hostility, and changed his tack. "They are sayingI am 'Mr. Rogers.' All a hum, I daresay."

'Mr. Rogers' was the uninspired name of her uninspired hero. "I daresay," Dammler agreed, yawning

behind his fingers.

"He is a nabob at any rate, and they call me The Nabob, you know."

"So I hear."

"You are 'Guelph,' of course."

"Mmm, possibly." His voice had a.s.sumed the drawling accents it took on when he disliked his

companion.

"Must be you. Everyone is saying so."

Hettie, fearing disaster to see these two together, dashed to Seville's rescue. "Dammler, how late you

are. Where have you been?"

"I had to see Cybele," he said, hoping it would get back to Prudence, and having a pretty good idea it would.

"Such fun! I have a.s.sembled the whole cast of her book, without realizing I was doing it. Except for

Cybele of course. Pity I couldn't have asked her." "You don't seem to carewho you ask here anymore, Het," Dammler replied, his scathing eye flickering off her star performer and Mr. Seville, the latter of whom turned and walked away. "It seems amonstrous dull do. I think I'll wander on down to Brooks." "Nonsense, everyone who is in town is here. And having a grand time." "Having a good laugh at me!" "Truth to tell, they are laughing ather. Roasting her-all in fun, of course. She made her villain more attractive than her hero; he gets all the good lines." "Fair is fair. It is thevillain who originally spoke them." "Constance has asked her to Finefields. Isn't itinsane? She says it is a good place to write, for you wrote your second batch of cantos there. I never thought I'd see the day!"

"What did she say?" Allan asked, pried by curiosity out of his sulks.

"She said thank you very much, but what had inspired Lord Dammler to such heights was not likely to

have the same effect on her."

"Meaning I was carrying on with Constance?"

"But of course, goose! What else?"

"What else indeed?" he asked through clenched jaws, and walked forth angrily to detach Lady Malvern at least from Prudence's circle of admirers. It wasn't too hard to do.

"Constance, my dear, how ravis.h.i.+ng you look this evening. Criminally beautiful. There ought to be a law against a woman having violet eyes. I wonder Parliament hasn't gotten around to outlawing them. They have taken away all the other good things."

"Or taxed them beyond the reach of most of us," Hettie threw in, darting a look to Prudence, to see if she were aware of Dammler's move. She was, but gave no indication of it.

"We'll have to smuggle you into our boudoir, like a keg of brandy," Dammler said, bending his head close to Lady Malvern's.

"What are you writing next, Miss Mallow?" one of her court asked her. "Are you doing a sequel to Babe?"

"No, something quite different," she answered. "I am tired of that set of characters. They have ceased to amuse me."

"They ceased to amuse the rest of us some time ago," Dammler said in his drawling sarcastic voice, ostensibly to Lady Malvern, but pitching his words just loud enough that they might be audible to a sharp listener like Prudence.

"As we are amongst them, you are hard on us, Dammler," Constance pointed out.

"You may understand yourself to be excepted,a va sans dire," he told her with an intimate smile.

"Why don't you try your hand at a play next, Miss Mallow?" some lady suggested to her.

"I had thought of it, but my best lines are already being shouted from the stage by someone else. Someone has plagiarized me," she answered, never looking within a right angle of the plagiarist, who was bristling with the desire to announce that ifthey were her best lines, she had best lay aside her pen.

"She is writing a book calledPatience," Clarence spoke up. He was not far from his niece's side that night. "She has been writing it forever. Didn't dash it off like this last one. This one didn't take her a month."

"One would have thought a week more than sufficient," Dammler remarked, again to Constance, who might have been an empty dress for all the note he was actually taking of her.

Prudence heard all his jibes, and knew they were meant for her ears. She was as angry as she could be, but also strangely exhilarated. She couldn't talk to him, but she could let him know what she thought of him all the same, and proceeded to do it. "I feel the characters inPatience worthy of more than a month of my time.Babe was a mere diversion, a month's pastime in the dullness of summer."

"To provide us all a couple of hours' dullness with the reading of it, now that autumn is come," Constance was informed.

Before Prudence could reciprocate for this taunt, a flurry was created around Dammler by the approaching of a little group of ladies who wished to compliment him ons.h.i.+lla. They hovered just beyond him, waiting for an opportunity to advance. He smiled and beckoned them forward, nodding at their praise. "Ladies, you may stroke me. I am tame," he told them. "Now before someone has the poor taste to proclaim me a plagiarist, let me announce Dr. Johnson as the source of thebons mots. Themale of the species of literary lion doesn't scratch. We leave that to the females.'"

Prudence had the experience of hearing him verbally stroked while the attention was gradually but surely drawn away from herself. "Shall we run along, Constance?" he asked, when he had finished putting Miss Mallow in her place.

Constance proved recalcitrant. She was torn by the conflicting desires of making off with Dammler and insuring Prudence's attendance at her next house party at Finefields. One had to have some women, and she preferred they not be attractive enough to rival herself, while yet adding some amus.e.m.e.nt to the proceedings. Miss Mallow was eminently suitable on both counts. "I'll be right with you, Dammler. Just a word with Miss Mallow first. You will come to us on that date, Miss Mallow-the weekend of October first?"

"I will be happy to, Lady Malvern, but only providing you promise there will be no otherwriters present. One hates the prospect of talking shop all weekend. One hopes to meet more interesting people than writers. We are an abominably stupid, dull lot."

Lady Malvern was by no means slow, and knew very well it was Dammler she was not to ask. She felt she could have him any time, and rashly promised there would be no other writers present.

"In that case I will be charmed to come."

"And your uncle, too. You will come, Mr. Elmtree?"

"I will be happy to. I'll bring my paints with me-but I trust you won't have any other painters there." This sounded a proper qualification to him, or Prue wouldn't have said it. Prudence looked at him with surprise. There was nothing Clarence would have liked better than to meet a real artist, and it seemed a pity he had spiked his own gun.

"What a strange party you will find on your hands, Constance," Dammler laughed, "if every guest must be unique. Only one lady and one gentleman, mind, and the rest to be made up of the other s.e.xes."

"Hush," she said to him. "Very well, Mr. Elmtree. You will be the only artist, but I hope you have no objection to Canova, the sculptor. He is already invited. He is doing a statue of me."

"Oh a dago!" Clarence said knowingly. "I will like to meet him. I admire the Italians. Leonardo and Michelangelo, a fine bunch of artists. Ask any of them you like. I will be happy to meet them."

Prudence's head sunk on her chest at this absurdity. She sneaked a peek at Dammler to observe how he was taking it. He was preparing some jibe, some setdown. There was an antic.i.p.atory smile on his face, and a sparkle in his eyes she could not trust. He just glanced at her, and saw her chagrin, the mute appeal in her eyes.

"Let's go," he said to Constance, and they went off together, arm in arm.

It was of course humiliating to see him leave with this acknowledged love G.o.ddess, but at least he had held back whatever Parthian shot he had been readying- she knew it would have been lethal. He was getting himself a little in check. This was madness to spar with him in public; she was bound to come off second best. He had pulled away her admirers in two minutes.

When they went their separate ways home, each had to consider the other's insults, and found enough to keep their ire at a high pitch. Still, Prudence had found him less cutting than she had feared. At least he had not laid down any ultimatums about herself attending parties. It never even occurred to her that she was the one who had done that. Dammler was relieved that no one had jeered at him about "Guelph." Society seemed to be taking the thing lightly enough. He wondered if Prudence was actually so short of money she hadhad to sell the book. He knew she couldn't afford the wedding gown she had wanted, and that he had wanted for her. It must be the very devil to be so short of funds.

Chapter 8.

The two feuding loversmet again a few nights hence at Lord Petersham's ball, one of the first of the season, and always one of the best. Everyone was there.

Prudence's book was still one of the majoron-dits, but the suppression of Dammler's sonnets was beginning to be talked of, too. Murray had delivered the boxes of copies to the new house on Berkeley Square, but there had been no bonfire. Dammler had all the boxes but one carted off to the attics. One sat in the middle of his study, ruining the effect of all the place's finery. A copy was given to an occasional caller and friend, mostly literary cronies, whom he a.s.sured his conscience would view it only as a literary work, with no personal significance. They were all too nice to inquire who had inspired the love poems, and accepted his word that they were to Venus. But when Hettie went along with her largest reticule and absconded with half a dozen copies to distribute to her set, and said quite frankly they were to have been dedicated to his fiancee before they had broken up, there wasn't much secret left in the matter. Anyone with an ounce of ingenuity had read the book and knew all about it.

Prudence went to the ball with her most favored escort, Uncle Clarence, but neither felt it necessary to waste any time with the other after arriving. Clarence had a das.h.i.+ng matron, a Mrs. Peabody, in his eye. He had read and heard enough to know any artist worth his salt had a mistress, and was eager to acquire one. The one he really wanted was the pretty little actress froms.h.i.+lla, an out-and-outer, everyone said so, but there was some little trouble in getting ahold of her. She seemed to be living with old Lord Exxon, which was a matter of mystery to Clarence. He a.s.sumed they were relations, but the fellow had been pretty huffy when he went to call, and told him Cybele did not drive out with gentlemen. They were keeping the girl wrapped up tight as a nun. A regular prude she must be, and it was odd Exxon let her run around the stage half naked, in diaphanous pants you could see her legs through. Mighty fine legs they were.

Clarence's courting of Mrs. Peabody left Prudence free to pursue her own ends; the major end she had in mind was to get within earshot of Dammler. She had no real desire to cross swords with him again in public, but she did wish to see how he was behaving. So far as she had seen and heard, he was running after every girl in the city. She found him not difficult to keep in sight. Even when she got stuck in a corner with stuffy old Lord Malvern for half an hour, Dammler came and stood not three yards away from her, turned sideways so that he could have seen her if he had wished, but he didn't once turn his head toward her.

He was with a Miss Grenfell, a pretty young heiress, blond and pet.i.te. She was one of the elect who had been allowed to stroke him at Hettie's. Dammler's loud talk was first about her hair. "How attractive to see a blonde with brown eyes. One sees such coloring often in Italy, but in England blue eyes are more common. Too common," he added.

Prudence's blue eyes snapped, but as Lord Malvern was telling her about some political business, she could hardly turn the talk around to Lord Liverpool's eyes.

"Is it true you have written a book of sonnets and decided not to distribute them?" Miss Grenfell asked, smiling happily at her conquest.

"Yes, it is true. Unlike some people, when I write something unworthy of me, I don't insist on foisting it on the public. Some works are best suppressed."

"I don't know how anyone can write poems, and especially such clever ones asyou write. I have heard said the sonnets are even better than the others. How I would love to read them."

"So you shall, but you will have to let me take a copy and read them to you myself. They are not being pa.s.sed around. You see how cleverly I manage to insinuate myself into your saloon, Miss Grenfell."

"I'm sure it is an honor, Lord Dammler. But I know ever so many people that have a copy. May I not have one?" She went on to reel off a longish list.

After having told Prudence she had the only copy left, Dammler was discomfited at this. "Will you be home tomorrow morning, Miss Grenfell?"

"Oh, yes! Will you come tomorrow?"

"I'lltry to wait till tomorrow," he told her, leaning closer to her, and looking into her brown eyes, while trying to see in the mirror across the room whether Prudence was watching. As she seemed to be paying not the slightest heed, he was obliged to turn away from Miss Grenfell and discover his old friend, Lord Malvern, in the corner.

"Ah, Harold! There you are. How do you do? Where is Constance this evening? I hope you have not left your beautiful wife home? You know all we bachelors only come to these do's in the hopes of having a waltz with Constance."

"You may be sure she is here. She is off waltzing herself to a shadow with young Fotheringham. Her latest flirt, you must know," the fond husband said proudly.

"Careful, now, you are making me jealous," Dammler chided.

"Oh, we are all jealous of her. She is up to anything. I was just telling Miss Mallow how happy we are she is coming to us at Finefields. I am delighted Constance is beginning to ask some pretty young gels to her do's. She usually asks nothing but old dowds and dowagers, you know."

"She knows how to pick the proper foils for herself, but when Constance is in the room, no man looks at any other woman."

Prudence sat silent, refusing to rise to any of his jibes. It was Malvern who spoke up again. "Mr. Elmtree, Miss Mallow's uncle, is to come, too. You would know him, I expect?"

"I have the privilege of his acquaintance. He is an artist, you know."

"So he tells me. He offered to do me while he is there."

"How nice. You must be careful his niece does not do you as well, Harold," he said, smiling.

"Eh? You don't paint, do you, Miss Mallow?"

"No, I don't."

"I was referring to word pictures. Miss Mallow has been known to give us a portrait in prose. Not so

well rendered as her uncle's likenesses, I'm afraid."

Still Prudence said nothing, though it became harder by the moment. "Canova is to sculpt your wife, I

understand," she said to Malvern, turning her shoulder to Dammler.

"Lucky man," he said behind her back.

"Yes, he is doing her as Aphrodite, a Greek G.o.ddess, I believe."

"The G.o.ddess of love," Dammler supplied. "I recently dedicated a volume of verses to Venus myself."

"Oh yes, your sonnets," Malvern nodded. "Constance has a copy. Very nice."

"Everyone has a copy. For an undistributed work, they are amazingly widely read," Prudence

volunteered. To Venus, were they? He meant Constance, and he had said they were toher! And he had given Constance a copy, too, after telling her she had the only one.