by Maya Rodale
“I cannot imagine what you were even doing there. My son, in a ladies’ cosmetics shop!” Prescott Senior said, oblivious to the emotional turmoil his son was experiencing. “I do not want to imagine what you were even doing there.”
Theo thought if only . . . he could tell his father the truth: that he’d gone into business and wasn’t making a total hash of it. But in his father’s book, business was the urging of iron and steel; it was construction; it was poorly paid hard labor (others’ of course). Business was ruthless, dirty, and a man’s work.
Business was not clever text, glass jars, and lavender paper. It was not Daisy’s hours of dedicated study and experimentation to find just the right formula to make a woman feel beautiful. It was not something for women or the people who cared to cater to them.
Yet for the first time, Theo had money he’d earned in his suit pocket. It was his share of their sales. He had earned it.
And he felt he couldn’t tell his father that.
This struck him as terribly sad.
Theo also knew that he couldn’t confide in his father about other things . . . For example, oh, just off the top of his head, that he was possibly falling for a girl he’d always ignored and disliked when he’d bothered to think of her at all. Now he couldn’t get her out of his mind and wasn’t sure he needed to.
Theo wanted, badly, to ask for advice. But his father didn’t discuss matters of the heart, and his friends were equally ill-equipped to offer guidance or commiseration. Business advice, maybe. But not lady business.
Today Prescott Senior was only concerned with appearances.
“How am I supposed to explain this to people when they inquire? Because they will inquire. First the Saratoga Scandal and now this. A skirmish, Theo. Not even a brawl or a fight. Something more dignified.”
“You would have preferred that I brawled in a store full of women?”
“I would have preferred that you not be in a store selling ladies’ cosmetics at all. There are no good conclusions to draw.”
Theo shrugged and said, “Tell them I was buying it for my fiancée.”
It was a rather inspired answer if he thought so himself. It would make it seem glamorous, aspirational, and acceptable all at once, if word got round that two members of the Four Hundred found the Midnight Miracle Cream a suitable gift to exchange.
That was not the conclusion his father arrived at.
“So the courtship is progressing.”
Theo found himself saying, “Not particularly.” Again.
Because it was starting to feel like he and Daisy were none of anyone else’s business.
Especially if to say yes, it was progressing, meant a declaration that his father had been right. That their parents had done a good thing by meddling so monumentally in their lives. He was certain Daisy would agree that it was impossible they should admit their parents were right.
To say no meant to deny the something brewing between him and Daisy and it wasn’t just Dr. Swan’s Midnight Miracle Cream. He wasn’t ready to talk about it, or declare his feelings, but he couldn’t deny that she was no longer the last girl in Manhattan he’d consider marrying.
Fortunately, his father was not one to wait for another person to contribute to the conversation.
“Your courtship ought to be progressing, given that Mrs. Swan is busy planning the wedding. I have received requests for a guest list. There are seven hundred names on it.”
A real wedding was in the works for a fake engagement.
That was something of a predicament.
“Is that all?” Theo asked. He would have to talk to Daisy. About their predicament. But that would then require him to analyze and discuss his feelings for her. There it was again: that hitch in his throat and pressure in his chest. It was so much, too much.
“You’ll join the company after the wedding, of course,” his father carried on either oblivious or unconcerned with Theo’s increasingly anxious state. He kept talking about roles, responsibilities, growing families, and all other manner of panic-inducing topics.
As if it wasn’t all pretend.
Which Theo could not say.
There was no end to it—first the engagement, then the wedding, then after the wedding. There was no end to his father’s meddling and machinations in his effort to shape Theo into a miniature version of himself. Theo had long suspected this, and it was only now that he could parse the difference between being a replica and being himself, a man both he and his father could be proud of. For his father, there was no distinction.
Finally, his father asked, “Does that work for you?”
There was only one reply. “Not particularly.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mrs. Evelina Swan has been confiding in her friends about her daughter’s dress for her upcoming wedding. One expects that for a wedding this anticipated, the gown will be stunning and require no less than hundreds of hours of work by a dedicated team of seamstresses working round the clock. One hopes they are already at work on it, for the wedding itself is fast approaching.
—The New York Post
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
Washington Place, New York
It was a Wednesday, which meant the Ladies of Liberty were up to either good or no good, depending upon whom one was asking. On this precise morning, they were gathered outside a factory near Washington Square Park.
On a normal day young ladies of limited means and opportunities would be inside behind locked doors and closed windows sewing and sewing and sewing. From dawn until dusk they would sew. Stitch after stitch after stitch.
For this they would receive a pittance.
Today, however, the ladies were all outside.
Today the ladies were on strike.
“What are we protesting today?” Daisy asked Harriet as she joined the throngs of women on the sidewalk.
It seemed there was always something to protest these days.
“The insufficient wages and deplorable working conditions of the city’s seamstresses,” Harriet explained.
“Adeline brought the matter to our attention,” Ava added. While Adeline was the dressmaker for the most fashionable women in Manhattan—and about to become a duchess—she hadn’t forgotten the girls she’d grown up with, especially those who worked in the factories. She now used her position to help theirs.
Similarly, Daisy was using her new business to create decent positions for young women, either as chemists or shopgirls. She did not require them to work long hours and she did her best to pay them a fair wage.
“Did you know the seamstresses work ten hours a day?” Miss Archer asked. “And they are not even permitted to visit the necessary if necessary!”
“They also lock the doors so no one can sneak out for a break or leave early. How barbaric.”
Daisy picked up a sign and joined the hundreds of young women in shirtwaists, skirts, and smartly tailored jackets embellished with bits of lace and ribbon, likely whatever castoffs they could afford. They wore brooches—made of paste, of course—and feathered hats. One even noted the occasional fur among the Ladies of Liberty who had joined them.
A protest, it seemed, was an occasion to dress up for. Daisy noted how their well-dressed appearances leant an air of credibility and respectability to the strike. How could one be opposed to these fine ladies having a place to hang their hats, fair wages, and time to spend with their families?
A few dozen women held signs and banners and together they all made a statement with their mere presence in front of the factory. Daisy was proud to be among them.
“How goes the wedding planning?” Ava inquired. “I hold out hope that I’ll receive an invitation.”
“Or are you planning the cancellation of the wedding?” Harriet asked, eyes bright at the possibility. “Shall we help plan your escape?”
“You know, I haven’t even thought about it recently.”
This stopped both Ava and Harriet in their tracks. Ava’s smile
revealed that she found this to be a most welcome turn of events. Not thinking about standing up the groom was definitely a step on the way to happily-ever-after.
Harriet, however, was less thrilled. Her eyes narrowed as she asked, “You haven’t thought about how to end the engagement to the man you despise?”
“I might not despise him anymore?” Daisy said.
“Is that a statement or a question?”
“You kissed him, didn’t you!” Ava said with unconcealed glee.
Daisy opened her mouth to protest with a “just once!” or “it didn’t really mean anything” or “it was just a kiss.” But none of those things were true and she didn’t lie to her friends.
“I don’t even want to know,” Harriet replied, shaking her head. Which was good because Daisy did not want to explain.
Her friends would ask questions about when and how was it and what did it mean and did this change her plans for the wedding. In the process of answering, Daisy would be forced to reckon with her thoughts and feelings about Theo and kisses and what it meant for their future plans. This was not what she’d ever imagined, and everything lately had been such a whirlwind she hadn’t had a moment to consider it.
Also, it had to be noted that thinking about it or talking about it was not high on her list of things to do. It ranked somewhat above a trip to the surgeon but below taking a final exam she hadn’t studied for.
Besides, she had other things on her mind.
“The reason I have not been planning an escape from my engagement is because I’ve been busy with something else.” Indeed, Daisy had neglected her studies, her wedding planning, and even Theo to spend hours and hours at the laboratory experimenting with ingredients and processes until she hit upon something that would work. “Something scandalous. Sensational. Something pretty.”
“Well, do tell.”
“I’m going to make cosmetics,” Daisy declared proudly. And loudly. Harriet, Ava, and a few nearby clubwomen around her slowed their steps and gave their full attention.
“Cosmetics? Like lip paints and powders?”
“Exactly like that.”
“The complexion balm is one thing, but cosmetics . . . ?”
Once again, Daisy had hoped for enthusiasm. Hoped that Dr. Swan’s Apothecary had helped make it all seem a little more acceptable. It quickly became clear that was too much to ask for.
Perhaps polite interest? Blank faces told her even that was also too much to ask for. Respectable women did not wear cosmetics. They presented their bare faces—as God had made them—to the world to signal their virtue.
To do otherwise was to risk unwanted assumptions and attentions.
To be labeled one of those women.
Daisy knew this. Every woman was brought up knowing this.
But she also knew that she felt prettier when she applied paint to her lips and some color to her eyes and a rouge to her cheeks. When she felt prettier, she felt like maybe she could stand beside Theo—or any of these smart-looking women—in a crowd without a sense of inadequacy. More than just holding her own, she felt like she could take on the world.
She’d had success with the Midnight Miracle Cream—sales were brisk, and she had been able to bring on more women to help her with it. She and Theo were making money. This, too, made her feel like she could take on the world. She thought she’d be content with enough. It turns out she wasn’t.
That was the feeling she wanted to give to other women who wished for it. She wanted them to demand more.
“That’s a scandal waiting to happen, Daisy,” Ava said. “What if it poorly affects sales of Midnight Miracle Cream?”
Daisy didn’t have an answer to that.
“You’d be lucky if it’s a scandal. I daresay you won’t even be able to sell it,” Harriet said frankly.
“You will, but I doubt that you will find a sufficient audience,” Miss Archer said, putting it very delicately. “A woman has nothing but her reputation in this world.”
It was a sad but true fact. They all acknowledged it.
“It’s an audacious scheme, I know,” Daisy said with a sigh. “But I really believe I’m onto something. If you’ll just try it and see. And see how it makes you feel.”
“There are real problems in the world, Daisy,” Harriet pointed out gently. She gestured to the women gathered to support the girls on strike. “These girls work ten-hour days, six days a week, and barely earn enough to survive. They cannot afford to be concerned with a little lip paint.”
Daisy bit her tongue. The problem, as she saw it, was not the lip paint. Or even the priority of feeling pretty. She raised her sign.
They should all be able to afford a little adornment, if they wanted it. They should have the liberty and money to pursue their dreams without relying on a respectable reputation and a man to achieve them. They should have a little color to brighten their days, if they wished for it.
“Daisy, I’m worried that if you pursue this, you’ll find yourself married because of it. You cannot afford a scandal that will jeopardize your current sales. You cannot afford to cause a scandal that will require you to wed just to survive. The last thing any of us wishes for you is a marriage you don’t embrace with your whole heart.”
Daisy pressed her lips—her unfashionable, unremarkable lips—into a firm line.
She kept marching. This time she stomped her feet. There was so much to protest these days.
“Have you considered faking your own death?” Harriet asked. Daisy laughed.
“It’s not on the top of my to-do list, no.”
“What are you planning in order to get out of the wedding?”
“Success selling cosmetics.”
“I think you should consider faking your own death. It’ll be easier.”
There was also the small, somewhat consequential matter of if she still wanted to get out of the wedding. There was the intimacy she shared with Theo. God, yes, that. What woman wouldn’t want such pleasure in her life? She could do worse than a man who was eager to discover what pleased her—and her alone—and then deliver.
But they had agreed in no uncertain terms that they would never say I do.
Did she dare risk their burgeoning success and imminent freedom on lip paint?
Maybe there was a way she could have her lip paint, her reputation, and true love, too.
No, she would not be faking her own death.
Yes, she would risk everything.
No, she still had no idea what to do about the looming, alleged, anticipated wedding that was quite possibly going to take place in just thirty days.
Chapter Eighteen
The women of Manhattan all look a little more radiant, all of a sudden. We are told it’s all due to Dr. Swan’s Midnight Miracle Cream, which has been flying off the shelves.
—The New York Post
Later
27 Union Square
It was a week after their exquisite, all-the-way-uptown kiss and just a few weeks before the alleged wedding, and Theodore Prescott the Third was venturing where no man had gone before. Probably.
The laboratory in the back of Dr. Swan’s Apothecary was bustling with women at work, with starched white aprons over their shirtwaists and dark skirts as they worked to produce more of the Midnight Miracle Cream. It had been flying off the shelves, especially once they introduced discreet packaging for carrying it home, so no one needed to know that a woman sought help in caring for her complexion or got ideas that a woman didn’t wake up perfect.
Theo paused in the doorway to take in the scene. Though she was dressed like all the others, one particular woman caught his attention and held it. Daisy. She was hard at work at something . . . pink.
He strolled over and leaned on the counter next to her.
“What is Manhattan’s most famous secret chemist working on now?”
“Famous and secret?” Daisy laughed. “How impressive that I should manage to be both those things at the same time.”
; “Famous because Dr. Swan’s Midnight Miracle Cream has taken the town by storm. Sales are increasing by the day. I have already been able to repay the loan. And secret because still, no one knows that it’s all the work of a high-society girl and her fake fiancé.”
“You repaid the loan already?” That got Daisy’s attention. “That surpasses my expectations. But the real sign of success is that I saw a jar on my mother’s bedside table. We are both pretending not to know that I am involved, which I have decided to take as tacit approval and a sign of success.”
It went without saying that Theo had not seen a jar of the Midnight Miracle Cream on his father’s bedside table. And that improbable event seemed more likely to happen than Theo telling his father he’d gone into the ladies’ toiletries business and receiving his father’s approval for it.
Theo also ought to be ecstatic that they were experiencing this runaway success. It meant that everything was going according to plan. It meant they would not have to marry. It also meant that they had no excuse for their engagement. Which would be fine if Theo wasn’t starting to have complicated feelings about that. It was no longer the most dire fate he could imagine.
“Anyway, I am working on something new,” Daisy said. “Lip paint. Perhaps a rouge, as well. But I am having all sorts of problems with the formulations, to say nothing of finding the right shades of pink . . .” She went on, explaining the science behind it all, but Theo could only repeat her words. Lip paint. Rouge. Cosmetics.
They had only just launched their business and now she was chasing a new challenge. One that seemed more impossible than the impossible one they had already embarked on. One that was keeping him busy from dawn till dusk learning the ropes of production and sales and promotion. It was exhilarating.