‘You’re a Doll, Daisy!’ Chapter Six — In Which Tom Takes Pragmatically to Fatherhood.
Beyond the steamy windows of that rented house on Milsom Street, the gay guests and residents of Bath flitted and meandered about in all the glory of the most constant sun that had been produced of any day yet that week. It really was a glorious day.
The arm-linked girls, the bustling old widow, the pretty young creature in sprig muslin and her enamoured beau were all making their dance on the pavement. Hot with the effects of yet unquenched anticipation, Daisy sat by the window of her bedroom and, enjoying that regularly occurring repose of her ancient husband, was struck to the heart by meeting eyes with her lover who was returning home.
So easily won was she by a single glance from this man. Tom stopped suddenly in the street; he had an armful of little parcels and, shifting their weight to only his left arm, he employed the service of the other to doff his hat to the beauty in the window. He could love her in the street, amongst the sharp eyes of onlookers, but only at a studied distance. It was then that he waved to her and, for a moment, Daisy forgot that Tom was not her husband.
I will forbear entering into the precise details of Tom’s journey from the street below into Daisy’s apartment, but let it be said, in a most handsome and gallant manner did the pretty giant make the necessary walk. The spot in the street in which he had last stood continued to hold Daisy’s attention.
She attempted in vain to reclaim that forgetful instant; she attempted in vain to forget that his awful father was truly her husband. After a few moments of searching for that delightful feeling, Daisy was met with another. She felt the soft salutations of his tongue upon her ear.
Her door opened and that voice, brimming with West End airs, said, ‘What ho, Dais! How are things?’ She turned to discover the fellow, whose eyes were studded with utter delight, standing, in all his great height, by her bed. Was not this the most perfect man in all the world?
‘By Gad, Daisy. I tell you, my damn pockets felt light on the walk home today!’
Daisy smiled a real smile. ‘But what heavy arms, though! What on Earth have you been buying? Why did not you take a servant out with you? It is mighty strange for people to see a nobleman’s son walking through the streets holding all his own parcels!’
‘Hang what anybody thinks, Daisy. I should not have had any man in the world but I carry these things home to you!’
‘Oh,’ Daisy sighed, so pleased with his declaration that she did not think to ask what was in the parcels. Could her heart really be conscious of its agitations and fear at present? That sweet face, overcome with a joyous sort of pride — how could she take in the perfection of its presence and feel anything but utter contentedness? If only — if only he could always be at her side. Her mind had stumbled upon that blissful, forgetful thought once again. There was no husband in her heart but Tom.
‘Well — would not you like to open them?’ replied Tom, pouring the heap atop the bed.
‘I am certain I have never been in such eager anticipation in all my life, Tom. Whatever could you have bought me!’
Dear Tom, I must tell the reader, had not bought a single thing for Daisy. There were, within these parcels, two tiny sheets of linen for a crib, some knitted mittens in soft blue wool, three tiny plain cotton gowns, an extraordinarily small pair of silk shoes, and a white bonnet overgrown with the most elaborate floral stitches; it was this Daisy took instantly into her hands. ‘Odd’s life, Daisy! Do not you see how small it is? Hang me if that is not the smallest bonnet I’ve ever seen in all my life! What!’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, it is very small,’ replied Daisy quietly, smiling a strange smile.
‘By Gad! That’s a sorry smile you’re pulling.’ Tom’s eye could discern the markings of a true Daisy smile, and this was not her happy smile, nor was it her false smile; it was something altogether different. ‘It’s not bad luck or something, is it, Dais? Hang it… I hadn’t thought of that. It was a little shop I walked past, that’s all. I can give them away to some–’
‘No! Good Heavens! Do not give them away,’ said she in absolute earnest, almost breaking into a sob that had crept upon her unnoticed. ‘They are all quite perfect. I could not have bought a thing better myself! I have never in all my life made nor bought a thing for– when you are made certain of disappointment, who would further raise their hopes? And yet, I am sure I never once hoped for a child if it were not yours, Tom. Do you think God means to tell us something?’
Daisy held still the little white bonnet in her hands. There had been one not unlike this — she remembered it with astounding vividity — in a milliner’s shop window she had once been in the habit of viewing.
Her younger sister was only a few days old the first time she saw it; our young heroine, then a grand ten years old, possessed, at that exact moment, not even a tenth of its price, and for many days she had walked to visit her sister’s bonnet, as it became in her mind.
She had written to her brother to ask him for the necessary funds but he was spent up for the time being and would have no means of conveying the money to her till he could go home to his father. It mattered not; a friend of her mother, a young gentleman of about three or four-and-twenty bought the bonnet for Daisy.
She cried a real, happy cry and clasped her wiry little arms about his neck. Daisy cried often at that age. The gentleman had also gifted Daisy a five-pound note to do with ‘as you like, my little wife.’ Daisy gave the money to her mother who permitted her daughter to buy some ribbons which the girl knotted into a sort-of bracelet.
Our heroine was still in possession of that ribbon jewellery. It lived in a drawer near to her bed in which she kept a stock of handkerchiefs, a little phial of hartshorn salts and a pretty enamel box of cigars for Tom, who only liked to smoke after being abed with his elderly father’s wife.
‘Oh,’ sighed she half-despondently, ‘I really think Mrs Prudence cannot be right. What matters it how a child came to be? One child born cannot be more destined for eternal misery than another simply because their parents are not and cannot be married.’
‘The deuce fetch me if I cannot provide for the eternal happiness of my own child, Daisy! We must do all but that which we cannot do. I have thought on it at great length.’
‘Have you really?’ said she with genuine surprise. ‘But we cannot do the one thing of any material purpose and we cannot change how or when this child was brought into being. I really think we can only yet hope that Mrs Prudence is misguided in her notions; I am sure she means only to moralise us.’
‘I don’t know, Dais. What if the old woman is not wrong?’
‘If she is not wrong — Oh!’ Daisy cried out, falling into Tom’s great arms. ‘If she is not wrong, then am not I damned too? For my mother was never lawfully married to any man. And for that, will all her children be punished for eternity? There is something sounding quite unchristian in all of that!’
‘By Gad, Dais. What’s the matter? You are crying again. It is not like you to cry so. Does your bladder ail you? I can fetch the doctor. And, faith, Dais! How could a perfect creature like you be damned for no good reason at all? What have you ever done deserving of damnation? I’m sure you’ve never done a thing wrong a day of your life.’ Here, Tom kissed his father’s wife; a happily received and tender act of consolement. ‘Let me fetch you the doctor, Daisy. You do not look well.’
‘No, good Heavens, do not call the doctor! But what can we do for this child? The one thing we could do is something that cannot lawfully be done. We cannot get married, Tom. We must surely run off. Even if I would — and I would not — wish to disguise the child as your father’s, he should not believe me. He may be old, but he is not senile. So we must live illegitimately together. What a crime Mrs Prudence says that shall be! Unless, oh, unless–’ Here Daisy was belied to a most ferocious attack of weeping. ‘…unless you mean to abandon me!’
Tom mopped her tears with the corner of one of the tiny cotton gowns. ‘Abandon you! Odd’s life, Daisy! If I did not suspect all this child-growing business to have weakened your mind, I should really be quite offended. But as it is, I am not going to abandon you. My father was fifty when I was born, Dais. He surely cannot live too much longer. The very day you are his widow, I shall make you my wife. One day, I shall set it all right. But till then — as I had been saying — I have been thinking on all this and I really believe there are some things we might do.’
Dear Tom had indeed been thinking on what he might do to provide for the eternal happiness of the woman he would make his wife and the child she would shortly deliver him. He was not married to Daisy, and this he could not yet correct. But could he be, then he would in an instant, and besides, the two had, many years ago, been engaged to be married, which he believed ought to count for something.
He loved no other woman, and she no other man. They were unwaveringly faithful to one another. Each knew the very depths of the other’s heart. Their passion was undeniably a sin and a crime in the face of her marriage to his father but they could stop all that for a short while, purify their souls, wait to get married and then live happily ever after.
‘…so, I’ll sell my properties and put all the money somewhere my father cannot get at it. Once that’s all sorted, we’ll get a little cottage somewhere quiet. Tell everyone that we’re married, but separate beds and all that till we can truly be wed. Go to church every Sunday. Get the little chap — or girl — christened. Make them learn their prayers and that sort of thing. I really can’t see how things could go sour. What!’
‘I see,’ replied Daisy, who was now sitting on the bed amongst the heap of infant things. ‘This is all very practical of you, Tom. I am quite impressed!’
‘Faith, nothing will turn a man to pragmatism like impending fatherhood!’
‘And do you really think that we must keep to separate beds? You said yourself that we are, in our hearts, married, and if we could be, we would be. The child is made already; the damage, in that respect, is long done. I do not see what good keeping to separate beds might do and — good Heavens! — it might be years before your father dies!’
‘My wife! That is what I shall soon call you. Faith, Lady Finsbury, how sweet it shall sound upon you when you are my wife. I like your reasoning,’ smiled Tom, very pleased with how Daisy had set her tender caresses upon the more delicate parts of his person. ‘Yet I had thought, before I knew about the child, that you had been more — well, you know — than usual of late. I could not swear that I was in any way unhappy with the change. By Gad, Daisy! Look at you! What sensible man could complain that the prettiest woman in the world was desiring him too often? But the doctor himself said the condition will set your mind at a funny angle. And if you cannot think clearly, then I must do so for both of us. I will enquire with some men of theology to help us come to an answer on that question, Dais. But till then, perhaps it’s best to play things cautiously. It is best, I think, if I keep from your bed.’
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