“You see what I have here?” he asked, handing her the magazine. “Your name in print.”
She accepted it and thanked him.
“I came to bring it to you, and to tell you there is no need for you to have your uncle’s carriage wait for you this evening, or return for you. I will be happy to conduct you home after the evening is over. You will hear some good talk. Coleridge is an interesting speaker, and Dammler makes a good joke.”
“Is Dammler coming?” she asked. Not having seen him lately, she had not heard this before.
“He did not send in an acceptance until yesterday. He is a bit careless of the formalities, I fear. I should have been out in my numbers had he not accepted, but someone could always be found at the last minute. There are many writers who would be happy to accept a last-minute invitation from me, and would not feel ill-used to do so.”
“I am sure they would be happy to come.”
“I shall leave you in peace to peruse the article. Until tonight then. I quite look forward to having you at my table.”
His smile was warmer than formerly, and Prudence had a sinking feeling that there was some significance to all these marks of attention the great man was bestowing on her. But she was curious to see how the same words she had read in handwriting looked in print, and soon forgot it. She read the whole thing again, and set it aside with not a smile, but not a frown either.
In his rooms in the Albany, Dammler was similarly occupied in reading his copy of the review. He read his own first, shrugged his shoulders and turned to Miss Mallow’s. He began with a smile that rapidly faded, then became a frown. His indignation turned to wrath as he read, and when he flung it aside he said, “The swine!” in a contemptuous voice.
He was in a foul mood when he left for Ashington’s, and his mood did not improve to find Prudence there before him, seated between Ashington and his mother, and being treated as quite a member of the family. Nor did she seem the least incensed at the carving Ashington had given her work, but was smiling agreeably and hanging on the old fool’s every word, as if he were Solomon, spouting off some words of wisdom. The final straw was that she wore her damned cap, and a grandmother’s gown that made her look forty. She was fixing herself up to appeal to that great pretentious ass of an Ashington. He wanted to shake her.
“Ah, Lord Dammler, we are just discussing the latest issue of Blackwood’s, ”the host said, making him welcome.
“Can we not find a more interesting subject?” Dammler asked with a charming smile and a bow to all the assembled company. He was the last to arrive.
Ashington’s eyes narrowed at this remark, and Prudence’s widened. “It cannot be of interest to the other writers among us-and non-writers,” he added, acknowledging Mrs. Ashington and a Mr. Pithy, neither of whom was in the field of writing. There was another woman present to whom no one introduced him.
“I hope Mr. Coleridge and Miss Burney are broad-minded enough to be interested in writing other than their own,” Ashington said in reply.
“Do you?” Dammler asked, and took up the last spare seat in the room. “You expect too much of people, Doctor. One would not have thought from your writing that you expected the ladies to be interested in anything but food and frocks.”
“Oh, more than that, Dammler. You are too hard on me. They may legitimately lay claim to an interest in society and human relationships. I fancy they know as much about that as any of us.”
“A good deal more than some of us,” Dammler replied haughtily. “But as you are speaking of the magazine, let us hear what Miss Mallow thought of her review.”
“I was pleased with it,” she answered promptly.
“Very complimentary,” Miss Burney took it up. “You were quite right in pointing out her craftsmanship, Dr. Ashington. Certainly Miss Mallow has mastered her craft remarkably well for such a young writer.” She saw she had been too hasty in cutting Miss Mallow, and had full intention of taking her up again.
“That would be just praise for a good carpenter,” Dammler parried, “but Miss Mallow does not deal in wood, fashioning tables and chairs. Craftsmanship in a writer is the polish on the diamond. You forget the quality of the stone, Doctor.”
“I disagree with you, Dammler," Coleridge spoke out in stentorian tones, looking very like a statue with his egg-shaped head and Grecian nose. “Craftsmanship is all in a writer. My subject matter has been considered odd by some, but the manner of writing has always given me a good audience.”
“It is more important in a poet. Poetry must be musical, lyrical, for the truth of the matter is we aren’t saying anything of much import, but a serious novelist has a point to make, and if the point is well taken, the craftsmanship is the icing on the cake.”
“But a female writer is not working with serious ideas, but merely a story,” Ashington pointed out.
“What, no theme?” Dammler asked, quizzing Prudence, who lowered her brows at him, with a face like a thunder cloud.
Observing this, he behaved civilly for a short space, until he happened to glance over and see Ashington patting Miss Mallow’s hand, and she not scolding him as she ought for his patronising gall, but accepting it calmly. He arose abruptly, just as Mr. Pithy was about to impart to him his views on the latest session of Parliament, and walked over to Prudence. “I haven’t managed to find out from you what you thought of my first act, Prudence,” he said, casually throwing in her first name, as he never did but when they were alone. “So odd the way the chairs are set up in this room, as though the company were not meant to converse except in little clusters.”
“I was about to see if dinner is ready,” Ashington said, and arose with a cool glance at the interruption. “I believe this is the seat you want, is it not, milord?"
“How discerning of you, Doctor,” he smiled icily, and sat down.
“My opinion of your first act upon entering this room, Dammler, and every act that has followed it, is just what you are about to hear. What has gotten into you tonight?”
“I referred to Shilla and the Mogul.”
“I know what you referred to, and I trust you read me as clearly.”
“What a boring party this promises to be.” He looked around the room with disdain, not answering her question. “Coleridge waiting for a chance to give us all a lecture on his new literary philosophy that is now twenty years old, and that long-nosed Burney toadying to anyone she thinks might do her any good. And as to you and Ashington…”
“Be quiet. His mother will hear you.”
“I don’t care who hears me. I won’t have you fawning on him in this manner. It’s disgusting!”
Fortunately, dinner was called. Ashington made straight for Miss Mallow and took her arm, while Dammler looked on, seething, and offered his arm to the crippled mother. Mr. Pithy was required to bolster her up on the other side, which left a Miss Gimble, who appeared to be a deaf-mute relation of the family, to enter unescorted.
Conversation at the table began auspiciously enough with Coleridge entering on a longish tale of how he and Wordsworth had come to hit on their idea of writing in a more modern, everyday manner than had been fashionable when they began to write. He was roundly applauded by Miss Burney, who evened out her praise by mentioning that Dammler had taken it a step further in his Cantos from Abroad.
But from there, the party disintegrated. Ashington, a confirmed classicist who acknowledged other writing only under duress from his colleagues, stated that he did not like to see form abandoned so entirely as it was by the modem poets.