Reprise (3 page)

“I have a heart, and I have eyes and a mind too, and my mind doesn’t like what my eyes see. How could you
do
such a thing? Our wedding only two weeks away!”

“I don’t know. At three o’clock this morning, it seemed the right, the charitable thing to do, and to hell with convention.”

“You were never much of a one for convention, but you’ve outdone even yourself this time. I didn’t like the fact that you
had
a mistress before our engagement. I didn’t like your constantly dashing off to Finefields with Lady Malvern, and quite frankly, I didn’t like many of the things you said to me, an unmarried lady. Too unconventional for my simple tastes. I was right. I should have listened to myself. You’re too far beyond convention for me.”

“You’re not going to break off our marriage just because I let Cybele stay overnight!” he shouted, in the tone of a command, but the anger in his voice was edged with fear. Already he was regretting not having pushed the wedding ahead in Bath.

"The very fact that you think it negligible makes me realize how different we are. I think it was a
gross, unforgivable, horrible
thing for you to do. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it. I was...“ She stopped, unable to find words to express her disgust.

“I know you were,” he said, apparently reading her mind. "Prudence, I’d do anything if this could have been prevented.”

“It
could
have been, Allan! It was surely not impossible for you to put her into your carriage and send her to an hotel, or go to one yourself.”

“I didn’t think of that! I wish I had. I told you I’d been drinking. I meant to send her away this morning.”

“And never tell me a word about it. I’m glad I went. I’m glad I saw you two together. It may be horrible for a while, but I’ll get over it. We would never have suited. I’m not marrying you.”

She pulled the engagement ring from her finger and handed it to him.

“You don’t trust me. That’s what you’re saying,” he said, reproachful, but still angry.

“Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I no more trust you with Cybele than I’d trust a dog with a roast.”

“I didn’t sleep with her.”

“I think you did.”

“I tell you I didn’t!” he shouted, the pulse in his temple throbbing. He looked at her, waiting, but he saw no signs of wavering, of backing down. “Well?”

“That’s your story, and you’re welcome to stick to it. In that case I expect
I
shall be indicted as the villain of the piece, turning you off for no good reason. A flirt--a jilt! A new role for me. As well some of the bloom has been brushed off my innocence by association with you. Three months ago no one would have believed it of me, but a lady who managed to get herself engaged to
you
will be considered up to anything.
Your
gilded reputation will escape untarnished--this time.”

“You know I don’t give a damn about that.”

“You don’t give a damn about anything except chasing girls. Go on--go back to her. Give her the diamond ring. You had her dripping with gems from ears to wrists, but you neglected to give her a diamond ring you once told me.”

His nostrils flared dangerously. She expected some searing tirade, but he just turned and strode out of the room. She sat on alone with dry eyes, her shoulders sagging, listening as he banged his way down the hall, out the front door. Then she went up to her room and cried on the bed.

Chapter Three

Clarence had a busy day.
He realized there was some little altercation between the lovebirds, but was too much the optimist to consider it serious. Prudence’s mother, Wilma, shook her head sadly and told him he’d better send in the notice to the papers canceling the wedding, but he pooh-poohed this as nonsense. “A lovers’ quarrel. The course of true love never runs smooth. My wife and I had a dozen fallings out. You don’t go turning off a marquess just for that.”

“It is more serious than that, Clarence. The fact is, he had a
woman
in his apartment.”

“What of that? He’s a poet. Some lady or other calling on him. They are a trifle unconventional.”

“It wasn’t a
lady,”
she said discreetly, hoping she would have to say no more.

“By gad... You mean...“ He cocked an eyebrow and gave a sly little smile. She nodded her head.

“The rascal! He is up to all the rigs. And the wedding not two weeks off. I should think he could have waited... Well, well. So that is why she is in the boughs! I thought it was something serious.”

“It
is
serious,” Wilma pointed out gently. “I always felt his character to be unsteady. He is a jolly fellow, very easy to like, but I confess I was always worried by his reputation.”

 “Pooh! What is one more woman to the likes of Dammler? They are all running after him. Prudence is lucky to have a look-in at all. She knew he wasn’t a saint.”

Wilma rolled an uncomprehending eye at him, and was glad when the door knocker sounded to interrupt them. Not so glad when Dr. Knighton was admitted, and she had the unwelcome chore of telling the foremost physician in London her daughter did not wish to see him.

“I hurried away from Princess Marie to come here!” Knighton said, astonished at such a reception.

Clarence smiled benignly, storing up this lovely morsel for relaying to his crones. “Run back to her,” he advised the doctor. “It doesn’t do to offend the royal family. They might take it amiss and hire another doctor. Just leave a few drops of something for my niece."

“Your note said it was urgent--most
urgent!”

“It is. She’s too sick to see you,” Clarence explained happily. Knighton looked to Mrs. Mallow for guidance, rather wondering whether it wasn’t the gentleman before him who was ill of a brain fever.

He was finally gotten rid of, and made a silent vow that he would come no more to Grosvenor Square. Prudence stayed in her room, not melodramatically barring the door and refusing food and drink, but trying manfully to sip and nibble a little something. Her mother spent some time with her, giving her what she felt in her heart was good advice, though it was not the advice the daughter wished to hear. Mrs. Mallow had always had reservations regarding Dammler. Certainly he was handsome, rich, talented, titled, personable and all the rest, but he was too high a flyer for her Little Prudence. He was known in several countries as a famous flirt. What had good, simple people like themselves to do with such a man?

“Better you find out what he’s like now than later,” she consoled. “It will be hard at first, but there was that nice Mr. Springer at Bath who liked you, Prue, and Mr. Seville--you remember he wanted to marry you a month ago--so very eligible.”

But Mr. Seville was already married to another, and Mr. Springer only a country gentleman with none of Dammler’s charm. There was only one Dammler in the world. She had won him, and she had lost him--to the muslin company. It was for the best, as Mama said, but why must the best seem so dreadfully like the very worst thing imaginable? She couldn’t bear to think of life without him. The happy dream of going to Longbourne Abbey, of helping him set up his hostel for unmarried mothers, of working and writing side-by-side with him both there and in London, of being included in the opening of his play,
Shilla and the Mogul--all
of it. Every single act of her future life had held the promise of bliss, and now it was reduced to this nothingness. To continue living with Uncle Clarence and Mama, doing the same dull things she had been doing forever, seeing Dammler no more. Or worse-- could it possibly be worse?--seeing him with someone else, some other girl, and eventually a wife.

It was her own fault. She should never have allowed herself to fall in love with such a man, a notorious womanizer, really. His first fame was based on a public disclosure of his international affairs. Disguised of course, but based on fact. She knew all that, and idiot that she was, had thought she could reform him. Thought she
had
reformed him. He was not capable of reform, and this proved it. The thing to do was to put him out of her mind, forget she had ever known him. She had not been miserable before knowing him. She had been content, even happy when Murray had taken a couple of books. She would be happy again. Her eyes fell on her wedding gown, a beautiful white crepe de chine, an extravagant thing that Allan had insisted on, and paid for, incidentally. More lack of convention. More weakness on her part, to have let him. She had let him change her too much, too easily. Broad-minded they called it, to smile at their friends’ lovers and affairs, but before knowing him she would have called it sinful, and so it was. This was what came of it. Now she was expected to be broad-minded about her groom, but she hadn’t changed that much, and she thanked God for it.

It was a combination of anger and religion that overcame her weakness, her deep-down desire to take him back, pretend it was all right. It was all wrong, and she wouldn’t accept it. What hellish kind of a marriage would it be, with a groom whose hobby was philandering? It would be even worse than this hell. She dried her tears, hardened her heart, and tried to begin formulating some plans. Her work--at least she had that. Her latest novel,
Patience,
had lain half finished for weeks. She would get back to work at it. Mid-July, with so many people out of town, was a good time for it. By the fall, maybe the worst of it would be over.

Dammler returned to his apartment crestfallen, to find Cybele and Hettie chatting gaily over a cup of cocoa. “How did it go?” his aunt asked him.

“How do you think? She turned me off.”

“Ninny. I’ll go talk to her.”

“I think not, Hettie. But if you want to be of help to me, let us decide what is to be done with Cybele. She can’t go back to Danfers. What can we do with her?”

Cybele sat smiling, perfectly satisfied to have her fate arranged in this arbitrary fashion.

“She could go back home to Manchester,” Dammler mentioned, over her head.

“I don’t like Manchester,” she said.

“She’d die of boredom,” Hettie said. “And with such a ravishingly pretty creature, there is no point thinking to turn her into a servant or modiste, Allan. She will certainly end up under some gentleman’s protection. The thing to do is find a nice gent for her. Vissington is between
chères amies.”

“That old man! Good God, Het. We can do better than that for her. What would you like to do, Cybele?”

“I want to be an actress,” she told him, her green eyes star-struck and a smile on her lips. “Can I be in your play?”

“It’s a bit late for that. They’re well into rehearsals already.”

“A small part, Dammler,” Hettie took it up.
“You
could do it for her. It will get her out of your hair, and Wills will arrange accommodation with one of the other actresses. It will do for the present.” It was unnecessary to state this vision of loveliness would not long be employed. Some wealthy man would soon have her under his wing.

“Very well. Come along, Cybele,” he said.

She got up, obedient as a child, and went with him. Wills accepted her with equanimity. He had two dozen such voluptuous stage props. Dammler’s ex-mistress would add a note of interest. He observed, of course, that the woman never spoke above a whisper, which made it impossible to give her any spoken lines, and the hair would be a bit of a problem as Dammler supported the girl in not wanting to have it dyed, but a black wig could be arranged easily enough, and soon it was all arranged, even to quarters shared with another actress who lived above a milliner’s shop on Conduit Street at the corner of Bond.

“Thank you,” Cybele whispered with a smile. Wills gazed at her, besot, as all men were at her incredible, staggering beauty.

Dammler left and went home to consider his plight. He couldn’t believe Prudence had turned him off forever only for this accident. She’d come around in time, but he hoped it wouldn’t take too much time, with the wedding only thirteen days away now. He went to his man of business, to his bank, finalizing papers on the new house. Then he went to the house itself, wishing he had got a better one, that it would offer more temptation to Prudence. But he knew really that she would be unswayed by material things. He spent a mixed up day, not able to settle down to either work or sport or socializing. In the evening he remembered he was supposed to take Prudence to a small party at the home of some friends who were still in town. Certainly that must be settled; it made a sufficient excuse to go to her again.

They were to be there at nine. At eight-thirty he was pounding at Clarence’s knocker, and was told she was indisposed.

“Knighton has been to see her. He left some drops and she is out like a lamp. You must make her excuses, Nevvie. Drop around in the morning; she will want to see you.”

“Did she say so?” he asked, knowing from past experience the futility of asking Clarence a question. He lived in a world of his own, untroubled by reality except as it impinged occasionally on granting him glory.

“Certainly she did,” he was assured, and like the party, it was an excuse to return.

He sent in a written excuse for himself and Prudence to the party, then went home, telling himself he was working, when in fact he did no more than pace the apartment, rehearsing things to say to her at their next meeting. Occasionally he took up a book, only to set it aside after two minutes’ inattentive perusal. He went early to bed, knowing sleep would not favor him that night. He had the idea of reading one of Prudence’s books. It made him feel close to her. He read his favorite,
The Composition.
In it she had turned her painting uncle into a piano-playing aunt. Dammler read it with admiration and amusement. He convinced himself a woman with such wit, discernment and humor would come to her senses and laugh at her own foolish behavior before morning. He’d go back and all would be well again between them.

His opinion was unchanged in the morning, but not so firm that he neglected to scan the notices in all the newspapers. She hadn’t sent in any cancellation of the wedding, so she didn’t really mean to jilt him. This gave him confidence, but when he got to the front door, doubts began to assail him. He had waited till ten-thirty to come, but still Clarence told him she was in bed. Prudence never slept past eight.