“Do you have any dark-haired dolls?”
“I shall have to look in the back. They are more costly since dark hair is actual human hair, and we only ever have one or two.”
She disappeared for a few minutes while Matthew picked up another doll and then another. He gave a furtive glance into the bazaar’s main thoroughfare, dreading the notion of any of his friends seeing him examining the wee outfits while wondering which one Diana might like best.
But when the toy-seller returned, he knew he’d found the one.
“Tell her nurse to bringDiana to my study,” Matthew said when he returned home, more excited than he ought to be about presenting his gifts. He’d also bought a cradle and a little chair for the doll, and with embarrassment that had caused his face to turn scarlet, he had picked out a change of clothes, too.
“I shall be drummed out of Boodle’s,” he muttered to himself, but he was joyful all the same.
“Never mind,” he said, changing his mind. “I shall go to the nursery.”
He hardly ever went up to that floor, as his butler’s expression showed.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Jacobs,” Matthew assured him. “Chaos shall not descend upon us.”
Taking the stairs two at a time, Matthew found the nursery door open, the curtains pulled to let in the light, and a tidy room with a little girl sitting on a sofa. Diana was singing to herself despite how Mrs. Caldwell sat nearby reading her a book.
“Daddy,” Diana yelled, jumping down and almost knocking everything out of his arms. Quickly, he set the packages down and lifted her to his hip.
“How is my little bug today?”
“Good.”
“Has she been good?” he asked Mrs. Caldwell, whose face reminded him of freshly baked bread, although he couldn’t say why. Something about her puffy cheeks, he supposed. In any case, he’d been lucky to find her on short notice.
“Miss Diana is always good, aren’t you, poppet?”
“Do you mind when she sings while you read?” he asked.
“Not at all,” the nurse said. “She’s smart as a whip. She knows the story even if she’s doing something else. When I ask her about it, I know she’s been listening.”
He smiled down at the wriggling creature in his arms, looking up at him with soft brown eyes.
“Is it your birthday?” he wondered.
“I don’t think so,” Diana said.
“Is it Christmas?”
“No,” she said more assuredly.
“Hm.Shall I return what I’ve bought you then?” he teased.
“No, Papa!” She pushed at him and squirmed, trying to look down at the packages now she knew they were for her.
“Very well.” He set her down. “This one first,” he said.
She pulled the lid off the box with her sweet pudgy fingers and then ripped at the tissue paper, making him doubly glad he hadn’t bought anything porcelain or breakable. In the next instant, she gasped as she saw the doll’s head. Then she drew it out more carefully.
“A baby!” she exclaimed. “A pretty baby!”
Dark-haired and blue-eyed, the doll came wearing a light-blue cotton dress and matching hat, but Matthew bent down and handed Diana the next bundle of tissue paper.
She dropped the baby on her lap to rip it open. A pink dress appeared, not the usual color for a girl, but he thought it lovely anyway, having seen the like on Purity.
“Ooh,”Diana cooed and hugged the dress to her as firmly as she’d hugged the doll. It was so easy to make a little girl happy. He needed to learn to do better with an adult female.
