“You will be needing the carriage then. I am happy I had John Groom give it a good scrubbing down for you. We will hire an extra team and send you off in style with four. We wouldn’t want Seville to think us skints.”
"I am not going there for the purpose of meeting Mr. Seville,” Prudence pointed out very precisely. “It was not his idea, but my own.”
“Ho, you are waking up now, milady. You are well named. Very prudent of you to tag along after him. Well, I don’t expect he will be surprised to see you show up all the same. The idea will not be displeasing to him.” Before many more such sentences, it was Seville who was following her there, a week before her.
A trip to Bath for a month’s holiday might have been a small undertaking for some, but for the Mallows, who hadn’t spent a night away from Mr. Elmtree’s house since their moving in with him but for their two weeks’ visit with friends in Kent, it was an operation of major dimensions. There were many trips to the agent’s office to determine where they would stay, whether they must take their own linen and plate, what servants, if any, were provided, and a dozen other details. A week was hardly long enough to arrange it, but the great day was finally looming close before them.
Prudence was anxious to know one more thing before she left. When did Dammler intend to return to London?
She also wanted to tell someone he knew and whom he would be seeing where she was going. She didn’t hope he would actually drive all the way to Bath to see her, but she wanted him to know she was there, in case he should be in the vicinity. Lady Melvine occurred to her only to be rejected; they were not close enough to make such a quizzing visit possible. A much better person would be Murray, their publisher. She must tell him she was leaving. If she went in person, he might have news of Dammler. She went to his office the day before she left, and it was he who mentioned his most famous writer, but alas, he didn’t know when he would come back.
Nor at Finefields did Dammler know himself when he would be returning to town. He had arrived in a peaceful state of mind, happy to be away from the hurly-burly of London to get down to serious work. The first two days went amazingly well. Shilla agreed to part with her fakir with no reluctance at all-almost seemed glad to get rid of him. He knew his choosing Finefields for a retreat had raised eyebrows in certain quarters, but his and Lady Malvern’s relationship was not what it appeared to the world. She had quite a different lover hovering in the neighbourhood, but he was not known or glorious, and she was happy to give the illusion of being better occupied than she actually was. Dammler was content to let the world think what it would; it gave him some measure of relief from the other importunate females who badgered him. They met only at meals, and for a ritual flirtation under her husband’s nose for half an hour after dinner. Old Malvern took it as a personal insult if you didn’t fall in love with his lovely wife. He was more jealous of her suitors than she, and more demanding. He would not have approved of Mr. Varley, the present possessor of Constance’s heart.
Dammler wrote in the mornings, rode or hunted in the afternoon, for he was an active person and couldn’t stay cooped up all day, and returned to his work at night. But after almost two days of successful writing, he came to a halt. Shilla, having parted with her fakir, dug in her heels and refused utterly to return to either the Prince or the Mogul. Under duress, he forced her back to the first, then the other, but she wouldn’t say a clever word. He could not think a sullen, scowling face would please the audience at Drury Lane for two acts. He wished Miss Mallow were there for him to talk to. Shilla had a lot of Prudence in her, he realized. What would Prudence do in such a circumstance? She had turned off her hypocritical Doctor friend, just as Shilla had given her fakir the boot. He wondered if the Ashington incident had influenced him. Very likely, and here he had thought it a fine inspiration on his part.
Sitting at the Louis XVI desk in Lord Malvern’s spacious study set aside for his use he found himself thinking about Miss Mallow more than his play. Well, they were related-he had really turned Shilla into a good likeness of Prudence. The same sharp tongue, the same innocent mind in a milieu too sophisticated for her, though Prue would die sooner than admit it. Their many conversations replayed themselves in his head. Well then, quit deceiving yourself; Shilla is anyone but Prudence. Give her her head, and let us see what develops. Miss Mallow’s heroine-surely herself in disguise-did not sit down halfway through the book and content herself with turning off one lover without having a better one in view. He needed a new character to be acceptable to Shilla-Prudence. Now why was it himself in his literary guise as Marvelman that darted into his head? Why was it himself and no one else he wanted to put into the last acts to rescue Shilla from her woes? Would Prudence approve? “Patience,” he thought, would not. “Looks are not enough,” “a handsome face,” “a fine tooth and a tumbling lock of black hair” were soon replaced by a worthier hero.
Dammler looked into the large gilt-framed mirror across the room, and the first thing that struck his eye was the black lock falling across his brow. Oh, yes, she was too polite to say it, but it was this lock of hair she took exception to. “A fashionable fribble” she had called Hero Number One, and had replaced him by chapter ten. His black jacket, tailored by Weston, set to perfection on his fashionable shoulders. His white cravat was immaculate and tied intricately. Even alone, working at his desk, he was not dishevelled. How often he had gone into Prue’s ascetic little study and seen her head over her work, ink on her fingers, and her hair tumbling about her ears or tucked up under that cap!
“You are quite the ‘Tulip,’ ass!” he told his reflection. He had flaunted his Phyrne in her face, and called her prude. Shilla vanished from his mind and it was now only of Prudence and himself that he thought. His thoughts were not pleasant company. Prudence could hardly think worse of him if he had purposely set out to disgust her. Not a redeeming trait. Women and warm talk, urging her to have Seville, running down Ashington in a fashion she disliked-in a jealous, spiteful manner. How had he not realized, when he wanted to kill Ashington, that he loved Prudence? He had some thought of it the last time he had seen her. More outrageous behaviour! Had whined and begged for sympathy by parading his poor weak attempts at virtue before her, and telling her he was an orphan. What a fool! What a snivelling, underhanded way to try to get around her. But she wasn’t fooled for a minute. “I wasn’t hellraking last night either, but I hadn’t meant to brag to you about it.”
So, jackanapes, you are in love with a clever little prude, and like the simpleton you are, have turned her against you. You will have to get busy and do a volte face to win her over. After a day’s deliberation, he did put Marvelman into the play. Wills would like it-Marvelman had gone over well, and his appearance would ensure some interest in the play. But he’d have to keep Wills from putting an eye patch on whomever played the part. He worked hard, often with success, but as often with worries scuttling through his head that had nothing to do with the play. He postponed his return to London in hopes of finishing it and of being free for romance when he got there.
In the second week of his visit, his man of business found a building he considered suitable for his Magdalen House, and he took a few days off to inspect it. While in the vicinity, he also went to Longbourne Abbey to begin putting it in shape. He didn’t want to have it in a shambles when they arrived. Presumption! In his mind it was quite a settled thing that Prudence would accept him.
And then Hettie’s letter arrived to send his plans all to pieces.