Emma compels Arthur to acknowledge Daisy as his child

Emma compels Arthur to acknowledge Daisy as his child by turning a private confrontation into a contest over power, reputation, and inheritance. Pregnant by another man while married to Arthur, she refuses to disclose the father’s identity and insists that Arthur recognize the baby as his. When he rejects the demand and threatens divorce, Emma produces evidence of his conduct and threatens to show it to his father. The scene demonstrates how she uses information and financial leverage to defend her decision to have the child, though the evidence does not show Arthur conceding or formally recognizing Daisy.

Background: a history of concealed paternity

The confrontation echoes Emma’s earlier experience with an unmarried pregnancy. When she told Edwin Fairley that she was expecting his child, he recoiled from the prospect of marriage, fearing his father’s anger, the loss of his prospects, and the gulf between a gentleman and a working-class servant. Emma recognized his refusal in his silence and left the encounter with her dignity intact but without his support. The memory gives her later insistence on protecting her child a longer history: she has already faced a man’s retreat from responsibility and the social hierarchy that made that retreat seem expedient.

After Edwina’s birth, the law created another problem. Blackie O’Neill reminded Emma that she would have to register the birth in Leeds and provide a father’s name. She would not identify the real father. Blackie proposed that his own name appear instead, arguing that a named father would be preferable to an unknown one, and insisted on accompanying her to the registrar. The episode shows that a child’s public identity could be shaped by registration requirements even when the truth remained private. It also establishes the protective alliance on which Emma relied before she had the wealth and influence she later commands.

Years afterward, when Emma accepted Joe Lowther’s proposal, she told him that Edwina was illegitimate but withheld the father’s identity, repeating the account she had given Blackie. She wanted to begin the marriage without deceiving Joe about her circumstances or her child, yet continued to guard the most consequential fact. Concealment, in this history, is not a single act but a method Emma uses to shield her children from exposure and to manage what others can know.

The confrontation with Arthur

Emma tells Arthur that she is going to have a baby and is almost four months pregnant. She says she intends to carry the child and that he will recognize it as his, without naming the actual father. Arthur responds with ridicule and demands to know who the father is. When Emma refuses to tell him, he declares that he will not give his name to the child and threatens to divorce her.

Emma answers his threat with documents. She opens a concealed safe behind a panel in the bookshelves, takes out papers, and explains that they record Arthur’s infidelities, drinking, gambling, and relationships that would shock his conservative father. She says that if Arthur obstructs her or attempts to divorce her, she will give the documents to that father, who could cut Arthur out of his will. The safe and its contents make her counter-threat concrete: she has not merely guessed at Arthur’s vulnerabilities but has collected evidence about his private life through a detective who has followed him for years.

Arthur calls the evidence a bluff, then takes the papers and tears them up before throwing the pieces into the fire. Emma lets him finish. Only afterward does she tell him the papers were copies and that she has kept the originals securely. His attempt to destroy her leverage therefore fails, and the exchange ends with Arthur furious and vowing that she has won only one round. The scene does not record his agreement to recognize the baby; instead, it establishes Emma’s means of compelling him and the continuing conflict between them.

Outcomes and significance

The later outcome is shaped by inheritance as well as by the confrontation. After Arthur’s mother dies, his elderly father also dies, and Arthur comes into his inheritance. He then permits Emma to divorce him on the grounds of adultery. Emma has bought this apparent act of gallantry for ten thousand pounds. The marriage ends, but the evidence does not establish that Arthur’s earlier demand for recognition was resolved by a formal acknowledgment of Daisy.

Emma’s tactics contrast with her earlier dependence on Blackie’s willingness to stand in for an absent father on Edwina’s birth certificate. With Arthur, she can defend her choice by threatening consequences to his standing and inheritance. The shift is not simply from secrecy to disclosure: she still withholds the father’s identity, while making Arthur’s own concealed conduct available as a weapon. The child’s paternity remains protected, and Emma refuses to let Arthur’s threatened divorce determine whether she will have the baby.

The later family history also contrasts Arthur’s hostility with Daisy’s place in Emma’s life. Emma considers Daisy the child who truly loves and trusts her, and regards her as loyal rather than implicated in the schemes of her older siblings. That later bond gives the earlier confrontation its maternal stakes: Emma’s determination to secure a place for her unborn child is part of a continuing effort to protect Daisy, even as the means available to her change from an ally’s offered name to her own formidable command of evidence and wealth.