Diksha Sundriyal
The third season of HBO’s ‘The Gilded Age’ introduces a love interest for Peggy Scott, and things get pretty serious pretty fast between them. Dr. William Kirkland comes into the picture when Peggy falls seriously ill, and he is brought in to treat her. After she gets better, William calls on her, and the more time he spends knowing her, the more he seems to fall for her. Despite the disapproval of William’s mother, it seems that the duo is headed towards a wedding, but then, Mrs. Kirkland drops a bombshell about Peggy’s past, which changes everything. SPOILERS AHEAD.
William Confronts Peggy About Her Past
There were several reasons for Mrs. Kirkland not to want Peggy as her daughter-in-law, but it was when she found out that Peggy had a secret child that she finally found the weapon against her. Instead of talking to Peggy and clarifying things with her, she immediately goes to her son and tells him all she knows, even though she herself doesn’t know how much of it is true. Discovering that the woman he loves may have been married before and even had a child makes William question what he has with Peggy. However, unlike Marian, he refuses to jump to conclusions and believes in hearing her out.
William promptly goes to the Forte-Van Rhijn house and intends to clear things up. However, his conversation with Peggy is interrupted when George is shot, and William is the only doctor in the vicinity. He catches up with her the next day before she is to leave for Newport for the ball. At first, she and her mother think that his sudden desire to talk to her so urgently might have something to do with a marriage proposal. But then, it turns out to be about her past. Peggy had been working up the courage to tell William about it, and she is more distressed about how he found out about it rather than the fact that he found out about it at all.
Peggy tells him the whole thing, about her father’s intervention, her marriage getting annulled, and her believing that her son died because that’s what she was told following childbirth. She apologizes to William for not telling him sooner, and he decides to take a walk to gather his thoughts. His reaction makes Peggy think that he is gone for good. She knows Mrs. Kirkland told him all this because she knew it would impact her son’s perspective towards the woman he wants to marry. As William goes radio silent, it seems evident that he has made up his mind and broken up with Peggy. But then, events take quite a surprising turn.
William Proves to Be Much More Kind-Hearted and Accepting Than Imagined
Peggy and her mother’s beliefs about William taking a U-turn on the courtship after finding out about her past are not unfounded. Most men wouldn’t want to associate with a woman who has been secretly married and had a kid before. However, as proven time and again, Dr. William Kirkland is not most men. Had he been like the others, he would have instantly broken off things with Peggy the moment his mother broke the news about her past to him. He might not have had the capacity to give her the space to speak her side of the story, and he mightn’t have had the emotional intelligence to empathise with her. Fortunately for Peggy, he is a much better man than she’d previously anticipated.
Instead of breaking up with Peggy, William takes some time to process the whole thing, which includes the depth of his feelings for her. Instead of being angry with her about her secrets, he gets angry with his own mother for revealing them in a way that disrespected Peggy’s privacy and painted her in a much worse light than it should have. He knows that his mother’s intentions were nefarious, and she didn’t do it because she cared about the truth. She did it because she has never liked Peggy, and William is too smart not to see through his mother’s scheming. Even his father agrees with him on this.
As his family prepares to leave for the ball, William wonders if she should attend at all. His mother wants to use it as an opportunity to introduce him to other, more eligible women. However, he is still in a bind about his feelings for Peggy. In the end, his father advises him to figure out what kind of man he wants to be, and this self-reflection leads William to the fact that he loves Peggy more than letting her secrets come between them. When he shows up at the ball, it is with the intent to marry her. He asks for her father’s permission, which he is swiftly granted, and then he walks right to her while she is on the dance floor with someone else.
Peggy is shocked and delighted to see him at the same time. She thought she’d lost him for good, but not only does he come back, he proposes to her right then and there, in front of everyone, and to the dismay of his mother. She giddily accepts, and it is clear that the duo will be married in the next season. This, however, doesn’t confirm that Peggy will be accepted by her mother-in-law. This hurdle will continue to be a thorn in her married life for a while. However, given how understanding and rational a man William is, it will be much easier for her to navigate this complexity in an otherwise lovely relationship, which will only get better with time.
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