we go up?’
‘You go on up, my love,’ he answered. ‘I think I’ll go to the saloon and have a whisky … and maybe a cigar as well. Even a game of billiards, if I can find somebody to play against. Do you mind?’
‘No, course not.’ She truly did not mind. It was considerate of him. It meant she would be able to undress without that first embarrassment and awkwardness she was sure to feel if he was there to watch. She could be in bed, covered up in her nightgown by the time he came up. Possibly asleep. There would be no deflowering anyway. Not tonight.
‘I’ll see you later. I’ll try not to wake you if you’re asleep.’
She stood up but hesitated to go. ‘I’m so sorry, Lawson … To be such a disappointment on your wedding night.’
He smiled tolerantly. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he whispered. ‘I can wait.’
Reassured, she went up to their room and he headed for the saloon. He ordered himself a whisky, bought a cigar and meandered into the billiards room. There was no other soul in there. He set up the three balls and cued a few casual shots, potting the red, then making a couple of cannons but, uninterested in playing alone, he returned to the saloon. He sat down and contemplated events. The significance of what he had done that day in marrying Daisy was only then beginning to dawn on him. This delightful, innocent young woman depended on him. She trusted him. Like any gem, she was beautiful; the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on. Not that her beauty overawed him. It did not. He could handle it. Certainly he would be the envy of all his friends with a wife so lovely and so delightful. But it was not just in outward beauty that she outshone everybody else. She was blessed with a serenity that most other women lacked.
But did he love her?
Whether or no, she was a prize worth the having. He admired and desired her. But love? Love, surely, tended to be associated with need. The greater your need for somebody, the more you seemed to love them. Much depended on what your need was. If you needed somebody to cook and sew you could hire a maid, of course. If you needed somebody just to fornicate with, you could hire a prostitute and have a different one every night of the week so long as you could afford it. If, on the other hand, you needed somebody to enhance people’s perception of you, then your need was based on vanity. A beautiful woman, somebody you could wear like a glittering piece of jewellery, was hugely effective in gaining the attention and respect of others. And the more beautiful the woman – the more desirable – the higher your peers would esteem you. Was not that the way of the world? Did it not come down to personal vanity or personal well-being in the long run? Did not vanity and well-being fuel need, and thus our self-regard, which we pretend is our love for somebody else?
But a woman’s needs … They were subtly different to a man’s. A woman needed security, somewhere comfortable and safe to raise her brood. When she met a man who declared his love – which was the irresistible hook that caught any and every woman – would she not surrender herself to him and trade her sexuality to acquire his security and protection? Then, would she not justify her submission by convincing herself that she loved him?
Love. Need. Vanity. Sex. Marriage … Children.
Children … Ugh!
The prospect of children horrified him. The thought of witnessing the physical beauty of his wife marred by the disfiguring ugliness of pregnancy was abhorrent. But he would see how it went, this marriage lark – without children. In the long term he had no doubt it would not change him. He was a realist if nothing else. In bed, in the dark, one woman was much like another. Poking the same fire, night in night out, tended to become a chore, whoever’s grate it was and however beautifully constructed. And if it was his own grate … Well, he was going to be master in his own house; he could pick and choose if and when he would poke his own fire and liven the flames that burned in it. But tonight, he would honour his bride with his presence, if only a passive, admiring presence.
He stubbed out his cigar and drained his glass. He stood up and walked out of the saloon and headed towards the stairs. At the front door, two young women, flightily dressed and flaunting smooth, rounded bosoms, bantered with each other in their strange cockney accents and giggled. One of them saw him through the glass and she nudged her friend. With big eyes, she beckoned Lawson to come to them. Prostitutes. He never went with prostitutes. Why take the risk of catching something incurable? Nonetheless, it was tempting. They were young. They might be clean.
He smiled at their vivacity and, with a great effort of will, turned his back and walked upstairs.
Lawson had not seen Daisy with her hair down before and he looked at her for some seconds as she brushed it, savouring the sight. He unfastened his cuffs, took off his necktie and removed his collar.
‘Tomorrow we’ll hire a hansom and have a look at the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll have a bite to eat and go to the Tower of London and see how they’re getting on with that Tower Bridge they’re building.’
‘I wouldn’t mind spending a whole day in the National Gallery,’ she answered as she got up from her stool. ‘You know how I enjoy nice paintings.’
‘We’ll go there on Monday. On Sunday afternoon we’ll go to tea at Buckingham Palace, eh? I bet her blessed Majesty Queen Victoria would be keen enough to hang the kettle over the fire, lay her best chenille cloth over the table and bring out her home-made fruit cake.’
Daisy laughed happily as she pulled back the bedclothes and slid between the sheets. She looked at him and sighed. ‘Oh, I love you so much, Lawson …’
He sat beside her on the bed and put his arm around her. He kissed her on the cheek affectionately. ‘I love you as well, Daisy. With all my heart. Now get some sleep.’
‘But I want to feel the warmth of your body next to mine,’ she breathed. ‘I’ve been dreaming about it for weeks.’
He shook his head and chuckled. ‘I want to feel your body next to mine, my love. I want nothing more. But I’m not about to get myself worked up into a lather if I can’t have you because of your … your circumstance. If I take my beauty sleep instead and appear to ignore you, you won’t be offended, will you?’
‘Oh, Lawson, I’m so sorry about tonight …’
Paddington Station was overtly grand and pungently aromatic, as well as being excessively noisy with the hideous roar of steam locomotives and their ear-splitting whistles. Porters and guards hurried to and fro, opening carriage doors, stowing luggage and giving other unmistakable signs that the departure of the 9.45 to Bristol was approaching. A footplateman was leaning out of his cab, routinely watching, waiting for the signal to depart. Lawson hurriedly gave a silver threepenny bit to the porter who was leaving them, having stashed their luggage inside their first-class carriage just in time. A whistle blew and the great blast of steam from the locomotive’s funnel was like Krakatoa erupting.
‘We only just made it,’ Daisy said, feeling the first forward movement of the train as she got her breath back.
‘Well, you were in no rush to get up and have breakfast.’
She chuckled. ‘I’m on honeymoon.’
‘The honeymoon begins at Bath,’ he proclaimed.
