Joan Smith - Imprudent Lady / An Imprudent Lady

Prudence was not utterly lost to thrift. She decided to keep it, but with a recklessness new to her, she took the chip straw and the navy glazed, and said airily to send the bill to Grosvenor Square.

“That’s more like it,” Dammler congratulated her. “Where shall we go to show off the new bonnet? Dare we risk the park?”

Prudence was strongly inclined to risk it, but it seemed Dammler had only been joking. They drove through Bond Street-and didn’t risk getting out and walking-to show it off. Prudence felt that just perhaps the male heads turned to view them took a look at her as well as her escort. The females, she knew, had their eyes turned on Dammler alone.

“This will put your suitors at each others’ throats,” he quizzed her. “Clarence will have to bar the door.”

On their next trip out-the trips were becoming a regular thing-she wore the chip straw. The bill that arrived the next day had been staggering but was worth it. She had the money saved from her parsimonious shopping in the past, so there was no worry of running into debt.

Dammler set his head on one side and declared, “Very chic. People will be saying you’re my new flirt if you keep this up.” This promising speech was followed by a chuckle to show how well they two understood the unlikelihood of such a thing. Prudence laughed a little harder than he, and waltzed gaily out the door with a heart slightly cracked.

Some subtle changes took place in their relationship as it progressed. Dammler’s attitude could not have been described as reverential or anything like it even at the beginning. He admired and respected Miss Mallow’s books and brains initially, then he began to like her dry wit, her understatement, her way of not pretending to be impressed with his past (and present) affairs, which he coloured bright, to shock her. When she wore her new bonnets, he thought she was rather sweet looking, in an old-fashioned way. They talked and laughed together for hours. If anyone had told him they were well suited, he would have been shocked.

More than one friend did enquire of Dammler the name of his new friend, and he was at pains to make clear she was a professional friend. “The new lady novelist Murray is all excited about,” he would explain. Murray had, in fact, taken more interest in her since Dammler had taken her up. “ You must have read her marvelous books-very clever. I adore them.” Both the books and the author gained more from such speeches as these than from a hundred less exalted persons liking them. They were put on the reserved list at the lending libraries so that several ladies had to purchase a copy for themselves.

One day Dammler met an acquaintance as he came out of Hettie’s house. It was a Mr. Seville, a nabob with whom Hettie had become friends. She wasn’t overly particular, Dammler noticed. “Oh, Dammler, how have you been?” Seville asked.

“Splendid, what’s the news?"

“Little to tell. Say, who’s the pretty new chit I see you driving with these days?”

“You mean Miss Mallow, I believe. Not a chit, by the way, but a lady. A professional friend-a novelist. Very clever woman."

“That so? Not your chère amie then?”

“Good Lord, no! You must have seen me with Cybele. Well, you were at the opera last night.” Dammler spent many afternoons with Miss Mallow, but his evenings were still given over to his customary pursuits.

“Yes, I did see you, but since when do you limit yourself to one?”

“When the one is Cybele, who can afford two?”

“No, she didn’t come cheap, I’ll swear. Lovely gel, though. And this Miss Mallow is a writer you say.”

“Yes…” Dammler went on to mention her books. “A very superior person. The best female novelist we have today I think.”

“I’d like to make her acquaintance some time.”

“I’ll try to arrange it,” he said, and thought to himself, in a pig’s eye.

The day finally came when Prudence received her first invitation to a ton party. It was Lady Melvine, eager to attach a new talent and always inviting twice as many people as her rooms would hold to ensure a squeeze, who sent her her first card. Prudence was greatly thrilled, yet there were problems, too. The card had only her name on it; her mama and uncle were not known to Lady Melvine. She was not a little girl, yet to go all alone to her first fine social occasion could not but be intimidating. Suppose she got there and didn’t know a soul except the hostess? And even she might very well not recognize her to see her again. She really wondered that her name had been recalled, imagining Dammler to have been instrumental in the invitation. A further difficulty loomed in that both her mother and Uncle Clarence assumed she was going with Dammler. She disliked to disabuse them of the assumption lest they should think she ought to stay home, or worse, that Clarence would start to be happy to escort her.

Dammler, she knew, had begun his play for Drury Lane and was not calling as often as formerly. The day of the ball arrived and though she had sent in an acceptance and had a new gown ready, she was by no means sure she wouldn’t develop a migraine when the hour for leaving rolled around. It was three o’clock. Writing proved impossible with such a decision before her and she sat in her study, now not only shelved but with several portraits of literary giants decorating the walls. Uncle Clarence had been busy while she gallivanted. There were Shakespeare and Milton on the east wall, and Aristotle between the windows, all regarding her with enigmatic smiles between closed lips, and all with their hands folded, a pen or a book to indicate their calling. With startling ingenuity, Shakespeare held a candle, which in some obscure manner represented his particular field to be drama. It was at the candle that Prudence was looking when a servant came to the door and announced Dammler. The marquis was not a foot behind her, for he never paid much heed to formality.

“Thank you,” he said over his shoulder to Rose and stepped in. “Do I disturb the genius at work? You should keep a dish of apples to throw at inconsiderate scoundrels like myself who barge in uninvited when you are busy. Shall I leave? I can come back later-just tell me when you will be free.”

“No, do come in. I am particularly stupid today. I can’t get a word down on paper."

“That was exactly my problem, so I came to you.”

“What, are you run into difficulties with the play? You said it was going well.”

“So it was, till this hussy of a heroine I’ve saddled myself with started cutting up on me. She is supposed to be a concubine of a Mogul but she has taken the notion into her head she’s real, and I can’t keep her in line.”

“But that is marvelous! When that happens, I know I am on the right foot. Give her her head. She will know what to do better than you.”

“But I have a plot of whose exigencies she is unaware, you see.” He sat down and threw one leg over the other. As usual, he was dressed in the height of fashion, and Prudence was aware of her own plain bombazine gown. “Her name is Shilla. She was sold to the Mogul at the tender age of eight-they snare ‘em young in the East. She is now a virgin of sixteen, having by a series of ingenious ruses saved herself from his advances, but he is quite determined to have her.”

“Will they put such a thing on the stage, milord? I hadn’t realized it was so risqué a story you were engaged in."

“You should have!” He threw back his head and laughed. “Really, Miss Mallow, the name is Prudence, not prude. It is a comedy, but in the best classic tradition, anything of interest will occur offstage. You didn’t think I planned to show the seduction?” Prudence was shocked but hid it as best she could, for like any lady of strict upbringing she was anxious to be thought more worldly than she was.