Reprise (21 page)

“And my sonnets. Don’t leave me out of it. I want a line in history, too.”

“The circulation of your sonnets is hardly a phenomenon that will immortalize either of us, as you suppressed them.”

"Terms, Miss Mallow. I insist on proper terminology. It was a noumenon--a non-event, devoid of actual occurrence. I make you a present of the word. I know you enjoy collecting them up.”

“A noumenon is not likely to immortalize us in any case, is it?”

“It isn’t really the sonnets I was hoping to discuss with you. Why didn’t you come to see me after the duel?”

Regarding him, she noticed the evidences of offense on his face, and was unable to account for them. “It is more usual for the gentleman to call on a lady. I could hardly go trotting over to Berkeley Square alone.”

“You might have come with Clarence. As I was bedridden, there could be no question of
my
going to
you."

"Bedridden?”
she asked, her eyes widening in astonishment. “I heard nothing of it. What was the matter? Were you ill?” His look told her she was wrong. “Allan, you never mean
you
fought the duel, after all?” she asked, totally dumbfounded.

“Didn’t Clarence tell you?”

“Not a word! I had no idea at all. Oh, Allan, I’m sorry! But were you
wounded?
I hope it wasn’t serious. Why didn’t Uncle tell me?” The questions came tumbling out on top of each other.

“No, it wasn’t serious, but I can’t quite credit Clarence didn’t let it slip out,” he said, frowning at her.

“I promise you I had no idea! Oh, and
that
is why you didn’t come."

She looked so humbled, so sorry, that the possibility of her being angry at his part in the duel was forgotten entirely. All was explained in a highly satisfactory way to Dammler.

“And that’s why Hettie cut me dead. What must she think of me!” Prudence exclaimed.

“She thought you an unnaturally hardhearted woman, and so did I,” he said, taking her hand eagerly.

“You know I would have been there if I’d known. Where were you hit? How serious was it? I didn’t see you about for
weeks.”

He rubbed his shoulder. “Just a scratch, but it became infected. I was in bed a week, and housebound for another, cursing you for a hussy the whole time. What did you think I was about last night, rhyming off all the female butchers to you and trying to look wounded?”

“I thought you were just showing off to Fanny.”

“No, to you.”

“Oh I’m surprised you should bother, if that’s what you thought of me. Why didn’t you
tell
me, Allan?”

“How could I ever imagine you didn’t know? I felt sure Clarence would have told you all about it within five minutes.”

They discussed it until Prudence knew the whole story, and she reached her own conclusions on her uncle’s unwonted silence. “He was ashamed of himself, and well he might be! Oh, and there’s another matter dealing with Uncle I must discuss with you. Who is the woman he is painting at his studio? Mama has taken the notion--she mentioned it in her letter today--that he has formed some sort of liaison with her. I
know
you know the whole, and I wish you will tell me.”

“Not woman, women. There’s safety in numbers. Actresses from Drury Lane. You saw one of them at Mademoiselle Fancot’s the day I went with her to buy a feather, for
Clarence,
I might add. It seemed hard I should be given such a frigid shoulder for it, too.”

"You
arranged it for him, actresses from
Shilla?”

“I got the first, and she sent along others. He pressed me to do it for him, but don’t lay the atelier in my dish, if you please. He was all set up for business before he asked me to hire him a model--and it is only a
model
I arranged, Prue, not anything else, if that is the notion germinating in your head. I know what to think when your brow darkens up in that way.”

Her brow lightened somewhat, but still she was worried. “You don’t think he might go fancying himself in love with one of them?”

“Much good it would do him! The Mogul’s ladies aim higher than a patron with two thousand pounds a year. Don’t fret your head on that score."

“Still, he makes himself look ridiculous. People are laughing at him. I wish he hadn’t done it. As you have been there during his painting sessions, tell me how he goes on. Is he a laughingstock?”

“He’s happy as a dog in a sausage factory. I never saw him so merry.”

“Yes, but is he making a fool of himself in public?”

“No, in the privacy of his own studio. Well, it’s not Clarence the men go to watch you may be sure. If he earns an occasional smirk, it is his right to make a bit of a fool of himself over the thing he loves. His art, I mean. He’s too old for you to try to rule his life, Prue. He’s your uncle, not your son. So a few fellows give a wink at his little folly--where’s the harm? The audience is as foolish in my book.”

“You are frequently in the audience, I assume?”

“I was there a few times, to keep an eye on him for you. He’s enjoying himself immensely, and doing no one any possible harm. He’s nudging sixty, having his last fling."

“I don’t like his being seen on the streets with one of the models, as Mama said in her letter.”

“That would be because
I
was not there to fetch and carry for him. He probably required some prop to dress one of the ladies up as a zephyr. It was a feather I was after when you saw me that day, but you will perhaps recognize it for a fern when you see his rendition of Rembrandt’s Flora, or alternatively, a vine in a Botticelli.”

“What, has he switched allegiance from Rembrandt, and he with two gallons of brown paint at home that will go to waste?”

“I believe I spotted a Leonardo amongst the canvases. Changing as fast as his models.” He felt uneasy about one of the models, about Cybele, and toyed with the idea of mentioning her, but thought it gave too much significance for him to do so.

She felt some relief and said lightly, “I am dying to see the atelier, to view the new masterpieces.”

“You must see them, but make your visit in his off hours, or you’ll run into a bunch of females you would rather not know.” Oh dear, and see Cybele perched on her shell, too. Have to get rid of that! He’d ask Clarence for it--buy it. Send him a letter that very day, to deliver it to Berkeley Square.

“Mmm, such as the little lady you were buying a feather,” she added in a quizzing way. “And why is it, Lord Dammler, who speaks of a career in Parliament, fritters away his afternoons amidst the lightskirts?”

“Because his inspiration deserted him. He found himself unable to write a word, equally unable to bear the solitude of his home without you.” He squeezed her hand, bestowing a tentative, questioning smile on her.

“You lacked my presence behind you, whispering in your ear you’d never make it, in other words.”

“Just so. All we geniuses require that sort of encouragement.”

“One does not hear of Michelangelo ever having a woman behind him, or your old idol, Alexander Pope, or..."

“No!” he held up a hand. “I am
hoarse
de combat-- verbal combat that is, and don’t mean to pull that crow any more today.”

“Still making those inferior bilingual puns,” she smiled, shaking her head.

“Continue with the chorus. Don’t forget to remind me they are the
lowest
form of humor, that being the standard refuge of those too slow-witted to make one themselves. Shakespeare felt, and I myself feel, differently, however.”

“Harnessing yourself right up with William, I see.”

“Certainly. Aim for the top. A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a
meta
for?”

“Improving,” she said, considering the word judiciously.

“I must confess it is a borrowing.”

“Just
pun
ishment for your pride, to have to confess it,” she said, peering up at him with a laughing sidewise glance.

“Prudence, you wretch! How
dare
you top me! That was my best one!”

“No, you could do much better
if
you weren’t so punctilious. All right, I’ll stop!” she squealed, as he began to close his fingers around her throat in a playful rendition of murder. “I’m glad you promised to behave!”

“It is all that saves you,” he said in a menacing voice, but those glowing eyes looking into hers promised a fate from which she had not the least desire to be saved.

She reached up to pull his hands away, and he grabbed at them hastily. “It’s been so good to talk to you again, Prue. That is what I miss most of all, your sweet siren call in my ear--you’re a damned fool. And so am I, about you. May I call when I get back to London?”

“If the Houses of Parliament and the actresses can spare you for an hour, I should be delighted to receive you."

“Why don’t you come with me to Longbourne?” he asked impulsively. “You’ve never been there.”

“Allan! You know I can’t go there with you alone.”

“We’ll bring Fanny Burney along to play propriety. She’d love to come, and I must confess I grow to like her better as I get to know her.”

“I’m not ready for another trip. I am promised to Lady Malvern 'til the end of the week. And they expect me at home."

“Me
hopes
the lady doth protest too much? Say you would
like
to come at least.”

“I would adore to, but I must get home and rescue Clarence from the lightskirts.”

“I shall be in Grosvenor Square
very soon,
to rescue Prudence from her cold study.”

“There is no such a thing as cold, Allan,” she informed him blandly.

He arose reluctantly, pulling her to her feet, throwing his wrinkled jacket over his shoulder, and with an empty wine bottle in one hand, he pointed to the glasses. She took them both in one hand, and with their free hands tightly clasped, they strolled slowly back to the house, reconciled and happier than either of them had been for weeks.

Chapter Seventeen

The remainder of the visit
passed quickly and pleasantly for Prudence, unhampered by any embarrassing questions from the other guests. Allan had left immediately without any more specific wording of a reconciliation than that he would call, but she knew in her own heart she had got him back. Maybe she was a fool to have him with his unstable streak, but when she learned the truth about the past, she could not find it in her to turn him off. He had risked his life for her. Was there a woman anywhere in the world who would not be influenced by that? He was generous too to have even spoken to her, thinking what he did. It was hard to put herself in a man’s place, but she doubted she would have been so forgiving. If she had risked her life for him and he had never so much as nodded in recognition of the fact, she didn’t think she would have shown him a jot of affection. That, coming on top of her novel--he must well and truly love her to want her still.

As she jogged back to London in Mr. Moore’s coach, she could hardly tear her thoughts from him long enough to consider her uncle. She disliked what he was doing, disliked that Allan had a part in it, and considered means of putting an end to the studio. As it turned out, he had done it himself during the latter part of her visit to Finefields. He had put a padlock on the door and went no more to Bond Street. The cessation of his visits there was as mysterious as their commencement. He said nothing, but the golden locket was missing from his neck. His hair was cropped, and he wore a decent cravat. For the rest of it, he might as well have been in mourning. His face was miserable, his temperament not the sharp, faultfinding one Prue expected, but gentle. Uncle had
never
been gentle.

Those people visiting his studio have insulted him, she thought. He has caught them out laughing at him, and is ashamed of himself. An indirect question showed her it was no such a thing. “The lads will miss going there,” he said sadly. “They liked very well to watch an artist at work. Neither Romney nor Lawrence ever had such hordes at their elbows.”

Prudence thought it unlikely in the extreme these artists would have allowed such hordes in, but this was not what she said. “Why are you robbing them of their fun?” she asked in a jesting way.

“Fun? There is no longer any fun in it,” he replied with a deep sigh.

“Why is that, Uncle?”

“I lost my model. My favorite model.”

"There are any number of models would be happy to pose for you. Hire another.”

“No, Prudence, when you have painted the best, your hand refuses to touch the next best. I have put aside my brushes. This hand will never hold a brush again."

“Who was the model?”

“No one you would know,” he said, and walked away to sit in a chair by the window, gazing out onto the empty street.

It occurred to her she might discover the secret by going to the studio and studying the canvases. A positive identification might be difficult, but whatever he had put down would give an idea at least. “Have you sublet the studio?” she asked.

“No, it sits idle like myself.”

“You should bring your things home, Uncle. Your pictures and canvases and so on."

“I haven’t the heart for it, Prue,” he said.

“Shall I do it for you?”

“That would be very nice of you. Take the carriage. I never use it these days. I don’t like the high perch carriage so well as my old coach.”

She was saddened to see Clarence so despondent. His painting and his high perch phaeton had been his two main joys in life. What would become of him if even these ceased to cheer him?

She went to the studio, full of curiosity, with the carriage, a footman and the key. Several finished pictures sat around the edge of the floor, for Clarence was never one to linger over a painting. There was one on the easel unfinished. It was better than the others. Not good, nor even passably acceptable, but recognizable. It was Cybele. She realized as she regarded it that there was something of Cybele in all Uncle’s paintings of women. He eliminated all faults, strove for the ideal of beauty, and as he had found it in Cybele, she looked more like herself than any of his other models had. He had worked harder on it, too. There was shading in such spots as the backs of the cheeks and the temples where shading had never been shown before in his work. Yes, he had lavished his meager skill on this one until it was quite clearly recognizable as Cybele, done in the old style of Leonardo.