‘You’re a Doll, Daisy!’ Chapter Ten — In Which We Are Introduced to Captain George Fielding.

It was neither a great strife nor distance for Tom to discover the whereabouts of George Fielding, for he had been playing billiards with him only two hours earlier. If there were two necessary facts for the reader to know about George Fielding, it would be these: that he was not at all a sensible man, and when he had been far younger, and even less sensible, he had, for a short while, been married to Daisy.

The former will shortly prove self-evident, and the latter we shall reserve for an explanation at a later stage of our tale. A more tragical hero could not have appeared at Captain Fielding’s lodgings that late night; the knowledge of Daisy’s brutal punishment produced a torrent of tormenting images to percolate through every path of Tom’s mind and overwhelmed all but the most animal of his senses.

The threat of even the most trifling of offences flung in Daisy’s direction had always brought about a passionate and dauntless gallantry in Tom. Certainly, as a besotted boy, Tom would have died for Daisy, and he would happily die now if it would ensure her security and safety; if only the answer to relieving her suffering was so simple. Long, quivering limbs tripped and trembled through the barely dark streets, eyes red and mangled with tears, little able to find their way. When Tom arrived at George’s door, he had a gun in his hand and a horrifying tremor in his voice.

Tom had been quite correct. Daisy had barely spoken to George in seven years and was always avoiding his conversation and company. Thus, Tom had not spoken of his continued friendship with his cousin in all this time. Though constant, it was not a very serious friendship; the two did not so much seek out one another’s company as stumble upon it. They played cards and billiards and talked mostly of guns and horseraces. George would often talk about women and Tom would feign interest in one or two from time to time, though he simply mimicked the thoughts of his friend, thinking really that all women looked perfectly alike; excepting, of course, Daisy, who possessed more beauty than every other woman combined.

‘Damn me! What is it, Tom? You look like you’ve escaped from Hell! But–’ Here the half-undressed captain interrupted Tom before he could answer. ‘If it’s not very urgent, be a friend, would you, and wait here twenty minutes in the parlour? I’ve had my eye on this pretty little drab all week, and she’s finally–’

‘Urgent!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘Odd’s life! The deuce is in it, George! It is Daisy. She is gone, and… by gad–’ The tears appeared to have fallen down Tom’s throat, preventing him momentarily from completing his thought. ‘…if we act not with haste, sure as a gun… sure as hell, she may shortly be dead!’

‘Dead!’ replied the Captain, suddenly forgetting the woman he had left in his bed. But Tom could utter not another word of explanation, and for many minutes drove George’s worry and curiosity into a frenzy by pacing about the room crying and pulling at his hair till Captain Fielding was nearly as mad as he was. ‘For God’s sake, Tom! I wish you would die if you will not explain what has happened to Daisy!’

‘Daisy is taken with the maternal state,’ said Tom in a quiet, emotionless tone, forcing some composure over himself.

‘Good God!’ replied George, laughing at first. ‘I did not think the old baronet had it in him! And Daisy, I thought she could not–’

‘It is my child.’

‘What!’

‘It is not my father’s child. It is my child.’

‘Oh,’ answered the captain looking genuinely surprised. ‘Good for you, Tom!’ George firmly slapped his cousin on the shoulder. ‘I always thought it behoved her to let you have a few cracks at it after jilting you and all that. Just for the sake of common decency. One cannot go about leading men into ideas of marriage for years and years only to at last choose his father’s fortune over his own without thought of some compensation. I tell you, that’s a good lot to fall upon for any man; to have your enjoyment of the wife without any of the expense or harassments of actually marrying her! But are you sure this child is yours? Always best to wait until they come out the other side and get a good look at the thing before accepting any of that, I say! Even if it does look like you, you can always claim otherwise. There are several plucky youths trotting about England who look so like me that one might think I had split myself in two and duplicated.’

Here Captain Fielding was greatly amused at his own thought. ‘But I remain convinced that my previous intimate knowledge of their mothers is nothing more than a coincidence. Learn from me, you must simply take offence at one or other of the child’s features and exclaim with fury that nobody in your family has ever possessed a chin, or nose, or ears that look like–’

‘It is my child!’ exclaimed Tom earnestly and quite furious with this calumny against the faithful nature of his beloved and yet more furious at the notion that he should ever deny the child’s being his. ‘There is no doubt of it. I have been in Daisy’s bed at least twice a day, every day since the week she married my father, except when I have had cause to be away from her, which is not very often. If I had believed this may have been a consequence… by Gad, I should not have taken such freedoms. But we had made a plan, and everything would have been fine, had not, by some miserable accident, my father prematurely learnt the truth. And so he has sent me here to first lie to you and claim that Daisy and her baby are lying flogged to death in some ditch, and secondly, to kill you in a duel.’

‘What!’ replied George, not sure which part of the above explanation he was most astounded by. ‘Me?’ he said, latching onto the last revelation. ‘Why should your father wish for me to die when it is you who has been slipping into his wife’s bed!’

As we are already privy to this information we shall not traverse old ground by witnessing Tom explain what he understood of the circumstance to George. Why Daisy had not owned Tom as the father needed little explanation. If you knew Captain Fielding’s reputed penchant for married women and the complicated path that constituted his history with our heroine, you should not wonder at why she had happened upon his name as a perfectly plausible culprit for this offence against Sir Charles. George, though somewhat concerned for the material consequences of this charge, was not displeased to have been named by Daisy.

In her seven years of marriage to his old uncle, the captain had frequently put himself among public parties in which Daisy was also present. Ever she had behaved with a haughty coolness. She smiled at him, of course, but then Daisy smiled at everybody. In her conversation there was no depth, no familiarity, no hint of their long acquaintance, nor that she had once been his wife.

Yet, to see himself named and blamed by her for this licentious crime appeared to be such a pleasing confession of a continued secret affection. To inculpate him in this offence, when she might have named any man in the world, was seeking his assistance; it was throwing herself into his power and falling prostrate at his gallantry.

The lady, it seemed, would still rely upon his benevolence and protection all these years after the dissolution of his conjugal duties. Whatever her airs and appearances had been at their public meetings, it was clear that Daisy, generous-minded and forgiving as she was, held still her veneration for his fortitude and skill in all matters of conflict and that she was willing, for a second time in her life, to depend her happiness upon the strength of his protection. Captain Fielding’s vanity was flattered in the extreme.

‘Will you help me, George?’ asked Tom after his cousin had become distracted gazing at his own reflection in a looking-glass.

‘The Devil take you, Tom! I ought to be hanged if I had not the feeling of heart to help you save the life of the woman who was once my wife! But what should you have me do? My uncle wants you to shoot me. Yes,’ he said, thoughtfully, drawn again to his own handsome image in the mirror, ‘perhaps I would take a bullet for Daisy. Nowhere fatal, of course. But an arm or leg, I could suffer that for her, I think. Though our legal union is long since abolished, I must confess, I have never felt myself truly absolved of my spousal duty. And, damn me, I do feel the weight of my own misdeeds in the circumstances of our parting. Faith, Tom, I have quite convinced myself! You may shoot me, for Daisy’s sake. Best do it quickly before I change my mind!’

‘By Gad, there’s no need for any of that talk!’ began Tom, feeling a little jealous of his position as Daisy’s gallant. ‘I have, I believe, come to a sort of plan,’ he continued. ‘I believe… I believe I will need you to shoot me, George.’

I never met that young lady who would spend her evening employed in satisfying the demands of Captain Fielding in a manner very different than those she had conceived at the beginning of her night in his bedroom. Knowing Captain Fielding, I imagine she was decked with the charms of great beauty and an accomplished affectation of perfect feminine stupidity. That the young lady was not stupid is quite evident from her capable undertaking of the role unexpectedly thrust upon her.

She was to report an entirely fictional sequence of events, to be witness to the confrontation that would lead an army captain to murder his own cousin before turning the gun on himself. Though he would not see her many retellings of this fictional narrative, she hoped George would be pleased with the results of her cunning perfidy.

He had offered her two hundred pounds to play her part but, infatuated as she was, the girl would accept nothing for payment but the promise that he would send for her when he was free of danger. Whether or not Captain Fielding intended to honour this promise, I shall allow the reader to surmise for themselves. But the young lady was convinced, and thus, Tom’s scheme began.

Allow me to give my reader a little stimulating variety in the presentation of this narrative, or I fear we shall all get very tired of one another. You will, below, find an excerpt of a letter written by the young lady who had been waiting in George Fielding’s bedroom during the course of his above conversation with Tom.

It was one of many letters she sent to newspapers and magazines, addressed to the editor and signed anonymously. This particular letter would be published in a periodical under the ever-popular section of the ‘Cuckold’s Chronicle’ a week after the events of this night, wedged between the narrative of a sixty-year-old Duchess who ran off with her young footman and some other very witty anecdote proving beyond doubt the innate wickedness of the female sex.

‘Sir — I am under the necessity of communicating my witness account of a famous scandal of heroic gallantry and abominable cowardice. For the length of an unfortunate se’nnight, I found myself a lodger in the same house in Bath as the now dead and lately infamous murderer Captain Fielding, who was, by the bye, not half as handsome as he has been reported to be by the dozens of giddy and vain creatures of whom he has been the ruin. I hope my narrative might illuminate the hours preceding this wicked Captain’s murder of his poor cousin. If only he had lived to be justly punished for this awful crime!

Quite some time after midnight of that fateful morning, I was awoken by Captain Fielding’s ugly and cruel voice, shouting from a sitting-room below my bedroom. Feeling a little stupid with indignation, I sought the man out, but paused before entering the parlour when I realised the impropriety of my attire, for I have heard many times that he is a violent ravisher of innocent women. Before I could return to my room, I heard a second voice, much softer, and very gentlemanly and virtuous in its quality, which I later learnt was the voice of the Captain’s poor cousin, the late Mr Thomas Finsbury. I heard not much of their conversation but this, which I shall relate as exactly as my memory shall allow:

Mr F: Pardon me, good sir. My dear stepmother, what, oh what have you done to my poor mamma!

Capt: Your mamma? Indeed I have the greatest regard for your mamma! I have nothing for which I must answer but regarding her as the best of women.

Mr F: Libertine! You have done far more than only regard her! You must answer for her ruin! How unnatural it is to do this to your aunt, sir!’

Capt: Oho, cousin! She is not your natural mother, and she is not my natural aunt. But beauty as she is, even if she were–

Mr F: Lord, strengthen me! What a devil you are, sir!

Capt: That is just what your mother used to say to me. Though in a far more charming voice!

Mr F: Damn your eyes! You shall answer for your crimes, wretch!

Capt: And who shall make me answer, cousin? I will be gone from Bath this very hour, and from England by tomorrow.

Mr F: I shall make you answer for your wicked sins! You shall not leave while I am here to prevent you.

That is all I heard of the fateful conversation. I saw Mr Finsbury leave the house shortly afterwards, followed by the murderer and his duelling pistols an hour later. Other than his wicked murderer, I may be the last person to have seen the poor man alive. — A young lady who wishes her name and location to remain anonymous. I pray daily that the bodies of these young men will shortly be recovered from the river into which they were seen falling.’

[image error]