“Leave me with at least the shadow.”
“Lud, Dammler, what a dead bore you are turned into. What do you mean to do? Wallow in self-pity and remorse? Turn Methodist and give up wine, women and song?”
“You don’t have to be a rakehell to have fun. I had more enjoyment sitting with Prudence Mallow talking about books and other things than I have had anywhere else. I mean to reform.”
“I wash my hands of you, absolutely.”
“And I’ll reform you, too, old cat,” he said, standing up with a smile. "Though if you go on wearing those damned turbans I shan’t have to worry about the men pestering you. You look dreadful”
“I see you don’t plan to reform your manners. There might be hope for you yet.”
He came to rigid attention, but with a glint of amusement lurking in his eyes. “Your most obedient servant, Lady Melvine,” he bowed formally. “May I have your kind permission to call tomorrow?”
“Devil, you couldn’t reform if your life depended on it.”
“It does, and I can.” With a careless wave he was gone.
He proceeded to make good his promise of reforming. He dropped his flightier friends, worked during half the day, dined with dowagers and their dull friends, and was perfectly miserable. He had no illusion it was the loss of his drinking companions and women that had him in the hips. It was the absence of a quiet little lady with eyes of a penetrating blue, that widened when she was shocked or amused, and turned this damned gray world bright again.
For a week he was a model of propriety, but the futility of it was soon borne in on him.Prue was in Bath. She wouldn’t know he had changed. It was not reported that Lord Dammler sat at his desk six hours a day trying to work, or dined with his publisher. No, he would have to risk going to Bath and incurring her displeasure to demonstrate how saintly he had become. Not daily and badger her, or bring any of his infamous friends along. Attach himself to some perfectly respectable people and proceed with caution. She might hate him, but he felt sure she loved him, too. She wouldn’t have ripped up so about his Phyrnes if she’d been indifferent. She didn’t fly into the boughs to hear any other gentleman of her acquaintance had a mistress. Hadn’t used to bother her that he had either, but it bothered her now. That was a hopeful sign.
He settled on the Dowager Countess of Cleff as the likeliest person to lend him respectability in Bath. A cousin of his late mama, a prude and a crashing bore, but with no shred of disrepute. Harbouring himself would be the closest she had ever come to sin, and she would do it only if she were assured she was saving him from the brink of brimstone. Prue had called him “morally lax” and he recognized it for a euphemism. She was too nice to call him what she thought him-a rake, a lecher, a libertine. Well, he would change.
And in Bath, Prudence regretted she had ever called him anything so strong as “morally lax.” He was modern, sociable, a little free perhaps, and she was a prude. They each set about changing to be what they were not to please the other, although each was, in fact, very well pleased with the original.
The Dowager took him in, after first subjecting him to an endless lecture on what rumours had reached her ears-and really she seemed to have heard very little. She had a nose like a parrot, the stature of a grenadier, and the voice of a sergeant major. Her sagging cheeks, painted orange, jiggled as she harped on at him. It would be nearly unendurable, he saw, but he would endure it for as long as it took to convince Prudence he was not utterly lost to decency. The evening at the Italian concert was the first entry into the gay whirl of Bath society. It was tolerable because Prue was there to look at, letting on she didn’t see him, but turning her head his way every two minutes. That was on Saturday.
The next morning Dammler was rudely surprised to be jostled from a sound sleep by his doughty hostess in person, decked out in the ugliest peignoir he had ever seen-cerise and peacock blue, with black swansdown trim. Now who would have thought the Pillar had such a streak of barbarism buried beneath all those stays? In public she appeared in nothing but black.
“It’s ten o’clock, Allan,” she said.
"Ten o’clock,” he repeated stupidly. “Ten o’clock, eh?” What, he wondered, was the magic significance of the hour.
“Church is at eleven o’clock,” she told him.
“Church?!” he asked in alarm.
“Church,” she repeated, staring down her parrot nose at him. “I trust you go to church on Sunday.”
“Yes. ›Oh,yes,” he told her. Good Lord, what had he gotten into? She’d be enrolling him in Bible classes next.
“I’llsend up cocoa and toast. We’ll eat an early lunch after.”
“Thank you,” he said in a small voice, then when she left, put his head beneath the pillow and laughed till his valet came to see if he was ill.
“My best morning coat, Scrimpton. I am going to church.”
“Yes, my lord,” Scrimpton answered, taking the news like a rock.
At five minutes to eleven, the Marquis of Dammler and the Dowager Countess of Cleft caused a considerable stir when they walked up the aisle of Bath Abbey, not least in the heart of Miss Mallow, who stared after them as though they were a pair of tigers or elephants. Clarence nudged her in the ribs and nodded sagely, as though to say, there he is, chasing after you again. Her mother glanced at her, too, but with an unreadable face that was trying not to smile.
Once again Prudence felt she would be accosted by Dammler after church, but on this occasion he could hardly be accused of dallying. He looked at her several times and smiled the smile that went with his shrug, though in company with the Pillar, one did not shrug. Coming to her was physically impossible for the crowd that hovered around, having heard who was visiting the Countess and wishing to meet him.
“We'll just wait till those few people go along, to say how do you do to Lord Dammler,” Clarence suggested. His niece would have none of it. She had him into his carriage and on the way home before anyone got a look at his jacket.
“Well, he knows where you stay. I gave him your address when he called in London. We will be seeing him before the day is out.”
When he failed to appear, Clarence decreed that he had been driving all night, and was likely tucked into his bed, not wanting to show Prudence such a harried face. "Those handsome fellows are as vain as ladies about their looks. He will be along tomorrow.”
Dammler would have liked to have gone along to the memorized address that same day, but the Pillar had other plans. She had invited the presiding minister at Bath Abbey and a few honoured guests to join her for luncheon, to meet Lord Dammler and set his feet on the path to righteousness. In the afternoon she requested his escort on a drive in the country to commune with nature and a widowed friend seventy years old, and at six o’clock it was back to Bath for a heavy dinner of mutton. The evening saw him taking her to a church discussion group on Dissenters. By eleven o’clock he was more than ready for bed. He felt as if he had swum to America and back.
On Monday a trip to the Pump Room was made by the Countess to set her up for the rigours of the week. It was also necessary for Clarence Elmtree. No one at all had seen them on Sunday, with Prudence hustling them into the carriage and home so fast. He was torn between being there early to make a good long visit, and entering late and causing a fuss. He opted for the former and drank two glasses of the foul sulphur water to keep his chest in shape till he got back to Knighton, who, over the few days, had become established as his physician. His advice was quoted on several complaints to people in Bath. He was just informing a Mrs. Plunkett of the efficacy of a certain paregoric draught when Lady Cleff and Lord Dammler came into the Pump Room.
Scanning the room Dammler's eyes stopped when he saw Clarence’s party. He bowed formally and smiled before sitting down with his cousin to partake of the water. Soon some elderly friends of the Countess had joined them and Dammler sat on staidly, conversing with them. Prudence didn’t see him smile once the entire time he was there. What a dull time he is having, yet he doesn’t bother coming to talk to us, she thought. In half an hour, she convinced her uncle it was time to go and look at her cartoon in the window again. It was necessary for them to pass the Dowager’s table to get out, and as they approached, Dammler arose to greet them, bowing to the ladies and shaking Elmtree’s hand. He begged the honour of presenting them to his cousin, which honour was granted.