“Less Phyrne-like?” she suggested daringly.
“Viper. She is not supposed to be anyone’s maiden aunt. That remains unchanged.” He picked up his hat and cane. “When am I to see your new work?”
"When it is printed between covers.”
“You don’t have this problem then, with your characters changing on you?”
“No, not at all, neither in appearance nor behaviour. They don’t always do what I want them to, but they stay in character. They don’t go reforming or turning bad on me without a good and sufficient reason that is inherent in the plot.”
“It never happened to me before. But this is my first attempt at developing a character. In the cantos the characters slipped in and out so quickly as Marvelman toured all over that he was the only constant, and he was in no danger of reforming. Well, I’ll pick Shilla up in a day or two. Be kind to her.”
“Still in love with her?”
“I become steadily more infatuated.” He bowed and left, softly closing the door behind him.
Prudence sat down and read the whole first act without a break. It was good-witty and sparkling, as Dammler’s work always was, but the problem was glaringly obvious. Shilla started out a hussy and in one act was changed into a conventional girl. The early pages would need a good deal of revision, but it would be a sensation. The settings and costumes would be exotic and different, and with the magic of Dammler’s reputation and some staggering beauty playing the lead, it would be the talk of the Season when finally presented.
Chapter 11
On Sunday, Prudence went to tea and met Mrs. Ashington, an invalid, half crippled, who obviously doted on her clever son.
“Lawrence tells me you are a writer,” the woman said in awed accents, though in her position she must surely have met many writers.
“Yes, ma’am, I write novels.”
“Very good ones,” Dr. Ashington added. “Very good indeed for a woman. I shall bring Miss Mallow’s works home for you to read, Mama. You like to read a good lady’s book.”
“Oh, yes, I read all Miss Burney’s books. Such nice stories, and Hannah More’s. Lawrence has written a very good piece about you, Miss Mallow. I copied it out for him. He says you write very well. Quite complimentary.”
“Perhaps Miss Mallow would like to scan the article before it goes in for publication,” Ashington suggested. Before he took her home, he gave her his own copy, and as soon as it was possible she read it with great eagerness.
There was not a single word of abuse in it, yet when she put it down, she was disappointed. It sounded as though he were reviewing books for children. The whole tone was condescending. She wrote “very well for a lady,” “did not concern herself with the serious problems of society,” “had a knack for turning a telling phrase,” “stuck to what she knew and did so well,” and “was a careful craftsman.” Had she been reading the article without knowing herself the subject, she would not have been tempted to run out and buy the books. She felt a bit dispirited. She gave it to her mama and Clarence to look over, and they expressed a view exactly contrary to hers. They were delighted with the criticism, and congratulated her on her good luck in being brought to public attention.
She was talked around to thinking she was fortunate. She had expected too much. She knew her canvas to be small, that point was well taken. To a learned man like Dr. Ashington, her stories must indeed seem childish. Any lingering sense of pique she felt against the Doctor was banished when he called to pick up his copy a day later and invited her to a dinner party. Coleridge would be there, and Miss Burney, he told her.
“It is time you met the other writers of your generation. One cannot write in a vacuum.”
“I have met Miss Burney,” she replied.
“Indeed?” He did not appear pleased with this. He had wanted to confer the treat himself. He stayed to tea, and impressed the family with his talk of philosophy and history, half of it in Latin quotations. Goethe and Kant rolled off his tongue, too, as easily as Smith and Brown and Jones. He mentioned rare tomes of which he had the only copies in existence. His library numbered five thousand volumes, he announced.
Clarence didn’t bother mentioning the two shelves he had installed in his niece’s study, or take the Doctor to see them. In fact, Clarence was reduced to near silence, saying only ‘indeed,’ or ‘you are quite right,’ or ‘I have often thought so’ at suitable pauses, or nearly suitable. He sometimes erred, being Clarence. Prudence was invited to view the five thousand books and glean what knowledge she could from surveying their Morocco leather bindings and reading a dozen titles. Within the hour three books were opened for her inspection, but as they were in Latin, Greek and Russian, she could do no more than comment on the clarity of the print and say she wished she could read those languages. Ashington smiled grandly, saying that he would be happy to translate any passage she was interested in, as he was quite familiar with all three tongues, and three others. But one set of foreign symbols looked very much like another, and she selected no passage for translation.
“A lady is better off not bothering her head with these things,” he said, nodding in approval, and they went to take a glass of sherry and a stale macaroon with his mother.
When Prudence arrived home, she was told that Dammler had called, and taken his manuscript with him.
“He will speak to you about it another time,” Clarence told her. “He is anxious to hear what you have to say about it. I told him he would do better to hand it over to Dr. Ashington for criticism. He would know whether there is anything in it, but he declined. He was in a bad skin about something or other. Didn’t stay a minute.”
“Did he say when he would come back?” Prudence asked.
“No, but he will likely come by later in the day, or tomorrow. We had a little chat about Goethe and Kant, but he only stayed a minute.” Prudence’s eyes rounded at this, and she wished more than ever that she had been home, instead of inhaling dust and wisdom in Dr. Ashington’s library.
“I have been thinking, Prue,” Clarence continued, “we ought to add another row of shelves in your study. I see you have those two shelves all filled up, and I daresay there are a dozen more books lying around the house that might be there. I have a Bible in my room, and there is a dictionary somewhere that Anne used to use, to say nothing of the Backwoods Review I have subscribed to. We will want to keep those issues to refer to.”
“Have you subscribed to it, Uncle?”
“Indeed I have. I have been letting up on my reading a bit lately, but there is nothing like books when you come down to it.I daresay all the titles would be listed there, and a word or two to tell you about them. I shall certainly put a book in Dr. Ashington’s hand when I paint him. What a lot of books the man reads. He is worn to the bone with them.”
Two days later, the day of Dr. Ashington’s dinner party, the monthly copy of Blackwood’s Magazine was published and the Doctor personally brought a copy to Prudence. He caught her at work with her cap off and looked a little surprised. “Well, Miss Mallow,” he said, “I have caught you en dishabille. But we are old friends now, and you needn’t blush at my finding you so.”
She looked questioningly at him, and he stood staring at her pretty little face, as he found it. “You are without your cap,” he chided.
“Oh, yes, I sometimes work without it.” Especially when I am expecting Lord Dammler, she thought. He hadn’t been to see her in several days.
“I shall leave the door open,” he said, carefully opening the door wide behind him. Prudence felt he was surprised that she didn’t call her mother to chaperone them. Strange, even with the door open, the place seemed stuffy today.