Reprise Part 10

"Again," he added. "I refer obliquely to plagiarism, if that remark seems inappropriate."

"It will hardly do you credit. Not one of my brighter epigrams. But to answer your question, I am fine, thank you. And yourself?"

"Fine."

"He steals my answer, too. My bonnet, my question, my answer. I had better have an eye to my change purse, or he'll be relieving me of my shillings and pence."

"Youwill require all you possess, if you mean to shop here. Shockingly expensive."

"I know it well. I am throwing caution to the winds to venture in here. You have led me into these expensive habits. It was you who introduced me to the establishment."

Dammler was bereft of a clever answer. He had been away from her too long. His wits had become rusty, and to add to hisgene, there stood Miss Penny, casting questioning glances on him. Still he wished to stay with Prudence, prolong the casual meeting. "What are you writing these days?" he asked.

"You wish to steal my plots and characters, too, I suppose, but I still carry on withPatience. Truth to tell, I become impatient with the girl. What are you doing?"

"Oh-this and that. A few translations, nothing of much interest."

"Ah, well, if it istranslations you are into, show off, my opinion would be of no use to you. I am quick enough to criticize Lord Dammler, but if it is Homer or one of those lofty gents you are tackling, I leave your fate to the reviewers."

This sounded marvelously encouraging. As good as an offer to call. How should she give her opinion on what he was doing if he didn't bring it for her to see? He quickly invented some work that would make a visit plausible. "I have started a novel," he said, then remembered he had also finished the novel at the end of Chapter Two by burning it. He'd scribble it up again.

"Indeed! How interesting! What is it about?"

Her eager friendliness dissolved any last traces of being standoffish. "Why don't I give you a drive home and we can discuss it? I have my chaise right around the corner." Oh, Lord-how was he to get it here from the studio? And what was he to do with Miss Penny? "Or do you have a carriage waiting?" he asked, in some little doubt and confusion.

"No, I came in a hired cab. Uncle, you must know, has set up a studio off the premises and keeps his carriage away all day. I am bursting with curiosity to have a look at the studio."

"Have you not seen the atelier? I have been there several times."

"He didn't say so!" she answered, surprised.

There were a million .things she wanted to say to him, and the feeling was mutual. With a worried glance over his shoulder to Miss Penny, he tried to think of some way of getting out without letting on he was with her. But Miss Penny, overhearing that he was offering to take the lady home, came towards him.

"I hope you don't plan to leave me here alone!" she said in an injured voice.

Prudence looked at the girl and felt a perfect fool. Dammler had come here with that woman! It was what she should have expected. The girl was a high flyer, pretty, a shade vulgar. And here she had thought he followed herself into the shop. The laughing and talking-it was him with this woman! All his little bits of constraint were clear to her now. He had been wanting to be rid of her the whole time. Watching her, Dammler read her every thought.

"Prudence, it's not what you think," he said, taking her by the elbow and leading her quickly to the door. "She is an actress fromShilla. I only brought her here to buy a feather."

"Only a feather! You are become clutch-fisted in your old age. You used to buy them the whole bonnet, and a gown to go with it."

"The girl is nothing to me. I scarcely know her. I'll send her off in a cab. Wait!" He turned to speak to Miss Penny.

Prudence could not trust herself to speak. She left quickly without another word, but a look that expressed all her disgust with him.

Chapter 13.

The incident provided justthe incentive Prudence needed to jostle her out of her lethargy. No point thinking if she sat around waiting long enough Dammler would come back. He was into his old habits of carrying on with the lightskirts, straight on the road to h.e.l.l, and it was the right road for him. Her new friends had fallen off with a sudden rush after the duel. She didn't know whether Dammler himself had a hand in it, but in any case Hettie was cutting her dead, and Hettie wielded considerable influence in society. No matter, there was more than one society in London. In the literary circles her credentials were still untarnished. She invited a few of the lesser luminaries in her own sphere to a social evening at Grosvenor Square. Miss Burney, the well-known novelist, sent in her regrets, but others came and soon a few invitations were being received to genteel do's. She did not precisely enjoy them, but they helped to get by the long days and interminable evenings.

Dammler, she a.s.sumed, had given up literature entirely, for there was never a sign of him. Even at a small, select dinner given by Mr. Moore for quite the cream of writers, he was not present, and he was known to be a particular friend of Thomas Moore. His name did arise, however, when Leigh Hunt inquired if anyone had heard of him recently.

"Hunt wants to borrow money," Moore warned her aside. "Always putting the bite on his friends. Keep your reticule closed, Miss Mallow, or he'll be hitting you up for a loan." Then Moore turned to the group and said he had heard Dammler was doing some translations.

"He is also working on a novel," Prudence added.

"Humbug!" Mr. Rogers laughed. "Dammler ain't writing at all nowadays. He has taken up painting, instead."

"Really! Well, he always was interested in art," Moore mentioned.

"More interested in the models," Rogers pointed out with a knowing look. "He is to be found two afternoons out of three at Bond Street, where a new artist has set up his shop."

Prudence listened, trying to suppress her gasps of astonishment. They could not mean Clarence's studio! Yet Dammler had mentioned being there, and it was on Bond Street. And hadn't Uncle been acting very sly lately? Wearing Belcher kerchiefs for one thing, but she had thought he was only aping the artistic school. Was it possible Clarence was painting young women of shady reputations? What else could account for Dammler's being there?

"Whose shop is that?" one of the throng asked.

"Fellow name of Oaktree, something of the sort," Rogers replied.

"Was it, by any chance, Elmtree?" Prudence asked, trembling inside.

"That's it! Fellow's a regular block in any case. It struck me he was well named. Churns out portraits as if they were sausages-cooked sausages. He uses a deal of brown. Yes, it was quite a pretty little sausage he was dabbing up on canvas t'other day I stopped by. An actress from Drury Lane. Dammler's flirt, I believe. He was there dancing attendance, in any case."

At this point it was recalled by Mr. Moore that the young lady at his left had an historical interest in Lord Dammler, and he adroitly steered the conversation aside. It chanced to be a subject that also interested the lady greatly. "I am going to Finefields for a house party," he mentioned to the group. "Lady Malvern is having a literary gathering next week. You go, I think, Mr. Rogers?"

"I go, but I have warned Malvern I will take my paper and books with me and excuse myself from the duty of making up to his wife. I fancy she'll ask Dammler along, as the rest of the party is such dull dogs as you and I, Tom," he said in a joking way to Moore.

Mr. Moore was having uphill work getting off the topic of Lord Dammler. In desperation, he turned to Prudence. "Have you been to Finefields, Miss Mallow?"

"No, I was invited earlier this year, actually, but was unable to attend."

"You should come along next week. You will find the company to your liking, I think."

"Yes," she answered, a little wistfully. But how was it possible to go without an invitation? She was the last person in the world to be asked, when she had specifically told Constance she disliked being in company with writers. Such a foolish thing to have said, but it was only a jibe at Allan.

The conversation that evening was bright. These men and women possessed some of the keenest minds and liveliest wits in London, but they might as well have discussed the weather for all the attention Prudence paid to them. What was going on in Clarence's studio? Had Dammler led Clarence into leading the sort of life he led himself? It sounded strangely like it, yet Clarence was generally to be found at home in the evenings, or his absence accounted for by some innocent diversion. She must get down to that studio.

She tackled Clarence on the subject the next morning over breakfast. So involved as she had been in her own life, she had hardly observed the gradual change in his appearance, but as she scrutinized him across the breakfast table, she observed he had been metamorphosed into a poor caricature of an artist. He had let his hair grow down past his ears. It was not brushed sedately back as he used to wear it, but floated wildly about him in a henna halo. He had tinted his hair before-the shade was not entirely new, perhaps brighter. Around his neck rested not a white cravat but a gaudy scarf in blue and green. His shirt was open at the neck, and a small golden chain hung there, partially concealed by the scarf. The chain she felt was a recent enough addition to warrant a comment.

"What is that gold chain you wear, Uncle?" she asked.

He colored up red as a beet. "It is a lucky charm," he answered sheepishly.

"May I see it?"

"Just a little locket," he said, tucking it under the scarf. Clarence was never reluctant to show off a new acquisition. Quite the contrary. It was a wonder she hadn't been required to aid in the selection, as well as admire the thing.

She glanced quickly to her mother, who was shaking her head un.o.btrusively from side to side, indicating this line of questioning was not to be pursued. As soon as Clarence left, however-and he left very early these days-it reemerged.

"Mama, what is Uncle Clarence up to?" she demanded.

"I don't know, Prue, but I think he is involved with a woman. He has taken to using scent-you must have noticed.''

"He was always very leery of women! He wouldn't paint one without a chaperone."

"You notice he no longer asks us to chaperone him. His moving into a studio was a bad move. I come to think he did it to avoid our knowing what he is up to."

Prudence was strongly of a mind to tell her mother what was being said. She desisted for two reasons.

The worry of it might be hard on her health, but more importantly, she had taken the notion it was Lord Dammler who was responsible for the awful state of affairs. She would go to the studio. It had to be done, to see for herself just what sort of an a.s.s Clarence was making of himself. She would go that very day.

Before she did it, however, she was the recipient of a call that put everything else out of her head. Lady Malvern came in person at eleven o'clock to give her an invitation to her literary house party at Finefields.

Constance was ravishing, as usual. Her black hair grew in a widow's peak and her face was exquisite, with those criminally beautiful violet eyes aglow. She was outfitted in a bonnet that surpa.s.sed even the expensive creations of Mademoiselle Fancot, and a suit that did justice to the bonnet. It was enough to make one despair to be in the same room with so much elegant good taste and beauty. But when the nature of the visit was outlined, there was little room for despair.

"Tom Moore tells me you have overcome your aversion to literary lions, Miss Mallow, and I hope you will do me the honor to join a little party I am throwing. You really must come-you have called off on me before, and owe me a visit. Your old friend Miss Burney will be there. Tom Moore, Mr. Rogers, old Sheridan, if he can make it.Do say you will come."

Prudence was enraptured. The Malverns were the apex ofton. To be included would return her to high society, where she felt a strong desire to be, not so much for the eminence as for the chance to see Dammler.

Not a single thought of the immorality of the crew occurred to her, though a party that included the likes of f.a.n.n.y Burney was hardly likely to be dissolute. She longed to hear whether Dammler would be of the party, but disliked to ask outright.

As though reading her mind, Lady Malvern went on to raise the point. "Dammler can't make it, but then one hears he has lost an interest in literature."

That she had been speaking to Tom Moore was now evident. That Dammler had some new flirt under his patronage was equally evident, but why in the world was he drawingClarence into the affair? If he wanted his lady's likeness taken, why not go to a real artist? It looked almost like revenge.

Prudence accepted the invitation, which entailed a busy week of arranging a toilette to do it justice, but she did not quite forget Clarence's studio in her rush. She cornered him the next morning over breakfast.

"When are you going to take Mama and myself to see your studio, Uncle?" she asked.

"Any time you like."

"Good, I should like to go today. I shall drop in this afternoon. I have some shopping to do, and shall stop by then."

"No!" he said at once. Too fast, too loud, too horrified!

She looked at him in alarm. "You said any time."

"I must have a warning. That is-there are any number of men hanging around watching me work. The place is always cluttered up with young bucks. I will want to clear the riffraff out of my atelier before you come.

"Tomorrow, then." Not that it would serve the purpose. She wanted to catch him unawares, and was sorry she had given a hint of her plan. That foreign atelier confirmed Dammler's hand in it.

"No." Less fast, less loud, less horrified, but very firm. "I have a special model I am working on."

"Who is that?"

"No one you would know. She is very shy, and doesn't like to have anyone but her patron watching when I paint her."

So much for the crowd of wild bucks! "Who is her patron?" Prudence asked.

"You wouldn't know him either!"

"What sort of a woman has apatron, Clarence?" Wilma asked suspiciously.

"A professional woman," he answered vaguely.

"What is her profession?" Prudence demanded. But she knew the answer. The oldest profession in the world; the woman was a prost.i.tute. She also had strong suspicions as to the ident.i.ty of the patron.

"She is an actress. A very serious actress, you know, like Mrs. Jordan."

"You never mean the Duke of Clarence is there in your studio!" Mrs. Mallow asked.

"Damme, I didn't say itwas Mrs. Jordan. Someone like her, but prettier."

This sent the women scanning the great dramatic actresses of the day, but it soon sent Prudence right back to Lord Dammler. It was probably Mrs. Tempest, the woman who playedShilla in the play!

They could get no name from him. He became quite testy when they persisted. Prudence by no means gave up on discovering the secret. She could hardly go in person when the atelier was a hang-out for such persons and when she had been told firmly not to, but there was nothing to prevent her taking a stroll past the studio every time she was downtown, and she was there three days in a row with all the items to be bought to wear at Finefields. The studio, unfortunately, was on the second story, so that she couldn't even peek in the window. She could see without the aid of a window, though, that there was heavy traffic in and out. The model seemed to be shy only of female viewers; all the gayest bucks of the town were there. On the third day, she saw as well that Dammler's curricle was standing by. It was easily recognizable by the tiger skin coverings on the seats. Prudence made three pa.s.ses in front of the studio that day, timed at roughly half-hour intervals. The curricle was still there on her last trip. It was either Mrs. Tempest, or the girl he had been buying a bonnet at Mademoiselle Fancot's. She didn't think it was the latter. She wasn't gaudy enough.

Chapter 14.

Prudence had become sointrigued with the goings-on at her uncle's studio that she was reluctant to leave town, even for a visit to Finefields with the most interesting crew London could throw up. She knew Dammler was not to attend, but that, for once, was not the real sore point. She had given up on reclaiming him. Her aim now was to prevent his ruining Clarence. The mystery of the charm around his neck continued to engross her. The little locket had been seen to fall out of the open neck of his shirt more than once. It was a small, round locket, just as he claimed, but what was in it? Once he even opened it when he sat across the room from her. He had looked at it with a bemused smile, then with an audible sigh closed it up. It had something to do with a woman. Of that she was sure. Men didn't wear that fatuous, foolish smile for any other purpose. Had Clarence fallen under the spell of a fair charmer? It looked powerfully like it, but then if the woman were Dammler's flirt, Clarence could hardly hope to compete.

Her mother was drawn in to a.s.sist in getting a look at the locket. She hadn't much better luck than Prudence, for it never left his body, but she had been at his elbow once when it fell open, and she thought there was a lock of hair in it-a curl. A blond curl. Prudence already knew the charm involved a woman. One who was either a blonde, a redhead or a brunette, so this added little knowledge. It did arouse a suspicion, but when she quizzed her mother she could not say that the blond curl was platinum.

"Marjorie, his wife, was a blonde," Wilma said hopefully.

"Yes," Prudence said-but so was Cybele a blonde, and Clarence never spoke of his late wife from one year's end to the next.

The matter was still unresolved when she set out for Finefields in Mr. Moore's well-sprung chaise. Clarence was not to be parted from his carriage at all these days, nor would the high perch phaeton have done her much good for a long trip, in any case. She was always required to hire a cab, but for the long trip, Mr. Moore had offered to deliver her.

It was an excellent gathering. Finefields offered the optimum in comfort and elegance, and at this particular time, the best of society in Miss Mallow's view. She renewed acquaintance with Miss Burney in the mornings, discussed books and writing with her. Miss Burney was getting on in years, but a lady who had enjoyed the society of Dr. Johnson, been keeper of the robes to the Queen and been interned by Napoleon of France due to her marriage to a French general must always be an interesting talker. In the afternoons they went for walks and drives about the estate with an a.s.sortment of companions. The dinners in the evening were beyond anything Prudence was accustomed to, yet for all this she had no feeling of being above herself. With the single exception of Lady Malvern, there were no dauntingly beautiful or elegant females present. A leftover trousseau served very well, along with the bits of garniture bought to dress it up. Three days pa.s.sed so pleasantly that Clarence and the locket were slipping to the back of her mind. Not out of it entirely, but to the rear for consideration upon her return to London.

They had arrived on Friday. Tuesday morning the group was at the table taking a leisurely breakfast when the mail was brought in. This was a part of the routine. On this occasion, Prudence was surprised to receive a letter herself, forwarded by her mother. It was not an important doc.u.ment, from an ex-neighbor back home, but it lent a cozy feeling, to be sitting opening and perusing a letter amongst this prestigious crew. Lady Malvern generally received an impressive stack of letters, as she did this day. She flipped through them, lifting out one with some interest to scan over quickly. She looked pleased when she set it down, then glanced to Prudence with a questioning look.

"A note from Dammler. He means to look in on his way to Longbourne. He goes there tomorrow-no, today. Tuesday, he says. He usually stops off on his way by to bait his horses. He says he wants to speak to you, Mr. Moore, about something or other. How nice. We shall ask him to dinner."

"Good!" Moore answered. "I have been looking him up without success for a week. He has been making himself too scarce of late."

Prudence waited to hear Mr. Rogers introduce the subject of painting, but he had been prodded to reticence by Moore and the hostess. Not another word was said on the subject. It was to be treated as a matter of no importance then. She must accept it as a social trifle like the others.