The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  "Your daughter needs wholesome foods like milk and vegetables," India had told her, holding up the colorful illustrations she'd brought.

  Mrs. Burns had given her a look. "Aye, missus. I do know what a carrot is."

  India colored. She put the pictures away. "Is she getting any milk?" she asked.

  "It's not often we've the money for milk," Mrs. Burns said. "And me old man, he's not too fond of greens."

  When India pointed out that if there was money for brandy snaps, there must be money for milk, Mrs. Burns said, "Ah, now, missus, the poor little mite likes her sweets, don't she? And as me old gran always said, �A little of what you fancy does you good.' "

  Milk did you better. And spinach and porridge. India tried to tell her pa-tients this, over and over again. She'd watched her professors at the Royal Free Hospital do the same with their patients. Often to no discernible effect.

  She sat down now to write up her notes on her last patient, but before she could start, Ella poked her head in to tell her there was one more. "A Miss Emma Milo," she said. "I tried to tell her to come back tomorrow, but she's in a bit of a state."

  "What's wrong?"

  "She won't say. Said she heard there was a lady doctor here and she has to see her."

  "Send her up and then we'll go home."

  She returned to her file. A few minutes later, a voice said, "Excuse me, miss?"

  India looked up. A red-haired girl, no more than eighteen, stood in the doorway.

  "Sit down," she said, gesturing to the chair in front of Gifford's desk. "How can I help you, Miss Milo?"

  Miss Milo didn't reply. She was fretting the drawstring on her small silk reticule.

  "Miss Milo?"

  "I need something ething to prevent babies from coming. I've heard there are such things. Devices that doctors have." She looked up at India with eyes that were huge and pleading. "I thought with you being a lady doctor, you might help me." She dropped her eyes. "Please, miss," she whispered. "Please."

  "I'm afraid I can't help you," India said regretfully. "This is Dr. Gifford's surgery, and he does not dispense contraceptives. I don't agree with his policy, but my hands are tied. If you are having relations and don't wish to become pregnant, you must stop having them."

  The young woman smiled bitterly. "It's that easy, is it?" she said.

  "Miss Milo, I--"

  "Thank you," she said and then she was out of her chair in a flurry of swirling skirts, and for an instant India saw another young woman hurrying away--not Emma Milo, but Bea Mullins, Hugh's sister. Emma Milo turned back once to look at India, but India didn't see her, she saw only Bea--pale, bloodied, mutely accusing. She willed the vision away. There was nothing she could do. Nothing. Gifford had made his views on contra-ceptives clear during India's interview. He felt they were immoral devices that encouraged licentious behavior in the lower classes, and he would not prescribe them. India had thought him a dinosaur. She'd wanted to tell him that the greater immorality was the poverty and wretchedness that came from too frequent pregnancies, but she bit her tongue. She'd had to--it was Gifford's job or no job.

  It was the first compromise she'd made. She saw now that it would not be the last. She sat back in her chair. Her eyes traveled over the wall oppo-site the desk, over all of Dr. Gifford's awards and honors. No one at med-ical school--not Professor Fenwick, not the dean--had warned her of this. How many compromises were too many? Four? Ten? A thousand? Would denying Emma Milo contraceptives make her moral? Was lying to Eliza-beth Adams mercy? Or murder?

  "Excuse me, Confucius, are you ready to go?" It was Ella.

  India blinked, lost in her thoughts. "I am," she said, shuffling her papers together. "I'll finish these at home." She was weary and wanted to get her boots off her swollen feet and eat a bowl of soup. She turned off the lights, made her way downstairs, and was just helping Ella tidy the waiting room when the door opened. It was Dr. Gifford. He was dressed in evening attire.

  "How did you fare?" he asked.

  "Very well," India said. "We got through the entire roster."

  "Well done!" Gifford exclaimed, looking over the patient log. "Fifty-four patients seen. Not bad for a first day, Dr. Jones."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "I was just checking in. Must dash. Dinner with the bishop. You don't mind locking up?"

  India was too tired to turn the key in the lock, but she said she didn't mind a bit. Gifford was bidding herself and Ella goodbye when there was a battering on the door.

  "Hold on a mo', will you?" Ella shouted, opening it.

  A boy was standing on the step. "Can you come help us? The baby's stuck!" he cried. India groaned. The soup would have to wait. Wondering what kind of bandages she should bring, she asked the boy, "What did the baby get stuck in? A drain? A chimney flue?"

  "No, no! It's stuck inside me mum! It won't come out! She's in a bad way, miss, you've got to come!" the boy said.

  "You can handle this, can't you?" Gifford said.

  "Of course, Dr. Gifford," India said, reaching for her kit bag. She opened it to check her supplies and realized she was low on a few things. "Ella, do we have gauze? And I'm nearly out of chloroform. Have we any?"

  Gifford, already on his way out, turned around. "That won't be neces-sary," he said.

  "Beg your pardon, sir?"

  "The chloroform won't be necessary," he said. "I do not allow the use of anesthesia on laboring women."

  "But Dr. Gifford, there's no threat of danger to the mother. Simpson and Kelly both agree that chloroform does not impede labor, and furthermore--"

  Gifford cut her off. "Thank you, Dr. Jones, but I do not require instruction on anesthesia from my junior. I am well aware of chloral's properties. Labor pain is Eve's legacy, and to ameliorate it would be against God's will. Birth pains are good for women. They build character and inhibit indecent feeling."

  India looked at the man, aghast. Had she thought him old-fashioned? A bit of a dinosaur? He was downright medieval. A monster from the dark ages.

  "Don't let me keep you, Dr. Jones. You have a patient to attend to," he said curtly. "Give her a rag to bite or a piece of cloth to pull. And remind her of our dear Lord's sufferings."

  Chapter 5

  Fiona Bristow sunk her hands into a wooden tea chest, lifted a mound of fragrant leaves to her face, closed her eyes, and inhaled.

  All around her, the dockers of Oliver's Wharf stopped what they were doing to watch. Old hands leaned on their tea rakes, well used to this sort of thing from Mrs. Bristow, but the new men stared goggle-eyed, unaccustomed to the sight of a woman in a warehouse. Few women ven-tured into the docklands. Fewer still made the trip in a silk suit and plumed hat, striding past sailors and stevedores, sidestepping ropes and winches, to inspect a tea ship's cargo. But Mrs. Bristow was no ordinary woman.

  "Darjeeling," she finally said, opening her eyes. "A good one."

  "No prizes for that," Mel Trumbull, the foreman at Oliver's Wharf, said. "A child could have told me as much."

  "Hold on a mo'. I'm not finished yet. It's a single estate... ," Fiona said.

  "Which one?"

  The men nodded and nudged one another; coins changed hands.

  Fiona closed her eyes and inhaled again. "Margaret's Hope."

  "Harvest?"

  She hesitated, then said, "Second flush." She opened her eyes and grinned. "Plucked from a north-facing field on a Wednesday afternoon by a woman in a pink sari."

  The men roared laughter.

  "All right, all right. Very funny," Mel sputtered.

  "Am I right?" Fiona asked.

  Mel didn't answer. Instead he grudgingly reached into his trouser pocket, pulled out a sixpence, and tossed it to her. Fiona caught it. A cheer went up.

  "Are you lot paid to lark about?" Mel barked. "Back to work!"

  "I was right!" Fiona crowed. "I won the wager! I told you I could name any tea in here blind. Any tea at all!"

  "Don't be such a gloater, Mrs. B. It's unbecomi
ng." Mel sniffed.

  Fiona laughed. "Don't be such a sore loser!" she said, as her workers went back to their tasks. "And do give me two pounds of that Darjeeling. It's wonderful."

  "I can't. We can't spare it."

  "Why not?"

  "The Kensington shop just rang up. They've sold five chests and want four more. Knightsbridge wants three. That leaves me with six. And Buckingham Palace wants eight. Seems the princess is very partial to it."

  Fiona frowned, all business now. "I knew I should have bought more. Short the Kensington shop and give the palace whatever they want. With our compliments."

  "What ...for free?" Mel squawked. "That's four hundred pounds of premium tea! Cost us a small fortune!"

  "Yes, but they'll make us a big one, Mel, don't you see? Princess Alexandra hasn't ordered yet. We have a royal warrant from the queen. We've got one from Prince Edward, but not from Alexandra, and we need her. She's a fashion plate. She's in every magazine, on all the social pages. Every woman in the country wants to be like her. If she drinks TasTea, they'll drink TasTea, too. Her patronage is the kind of publicity a thousand adver-tisements can't buy."

  Mel looked doubtful. "It's a bit of a gamble, Mrs. B."

  "And I'm a bit of a gambler," she said, tossing his sixpence in the air and catching it again. "But you know that."

  "All too well," he grumbled.

  "Have one of the men take the chests to the palace in the morning. And throw in a chest of our vanilla tea. She might like that, too. Has the Numalighur Assam arrived yet?" she asked, already halfway up the stairs to the second floor. "Have you sampled it? Let's get a chest opened up then. It had better be good...."

  Mel ran after her, sweating in the June heat. He was always chasing af-ter her. Everyone was. She was a hard woman to keep up with. At thirty years of age, Fiona Bristow was head of her own company, TasTea--a multimillion-pound tea empire that was begun with a few crates of tea in a small shop in New York and now included TasTea shops and Tea Rose tea-rooms in all of the world's most fashionable cities.

  "This is very good," she said now, examining a handful of rich, dark leaves. "I'm thinking of launching a new label, Mel. Something strong enough and bold enough to appeal to coffee drinkers. This could be the ticket."

  The rest of her words were drowned out by a loud and cheery, "Fiona, old trout! There you are!"

  She turned and saw a tall blond man striding toward her. "Freddie? Is that you?"

  "None other. I looked for you at Mincing Lane. Your girl told me you were here."

  "This is a surprise."

  "Not at all, just your Member of Parliament at work for you and for East London." He drew an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to her.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "Open it and see."

  She did. It contained a bank draft for five hundred pounds made out to the Toynbee Mission Girls' School.

  "From the government. House approved my request," Freddie said, smiling. "I'm delivering it to the Reverend Barnett, but I wanted you to see it first."

  "Then you weren't just..." She paused, unsure how to tactfully say what she wanted to.

  "What? Blowing smoke? Talking rubbish? No, I wasn't. I'm very serious about working hard to make things better for my constituents, Fiona. I only hope that my dedication is noted and remembered. ...I say, what are you doing?"

  Fiona was turning the paper over and over in her hands. "Looking for strings," she said cheekily.

  "You won't find any," Freddie huffed, taking the draft back. "But it would be awfully nice of you to put in a good word for me with Joe."

  "For five hundred quid, I'll put in two. Thank you, Freddie. I'm very, very grateful to you. Truly."

  Freddie nodded. "You might also want to tell him that I'm working on a new Irish Home Rule Bill, with my Irish constituents-- and your workers-- very much in mind. And I'm working night and day on my anti-crime measures."

  "Would you care for a cup of tea?" Fiona asked, hoping to change the subject. "We've plenty here, as you can see. A nice Darjeeling, perhaps?"

  "No, thanks. Must dash," Freddie said, barely pausing for breath. "But do tell Joe that I've been meeting officials from Scotland Yard and the Home office. And we are absolutely getting things done. Funds have been apportioned to pay for extra officers in Tower Hamlets. Five men from the Wapping station nabbed a pair of housebreakers two nights ago and some Whitechapel chaps broke up a counterfeiting ring last week. Sid Malone is next. I'm certain he's a concern both to Joe and yourself, to any merchant who uses the wharves. Malone's gang has struck twice along the river in the past six months alone. But I assure you, I'm getting closer to him every day. I almost had him for the wages robbery, and I nearly got him the other night in Limehouse. Turns out he's got his busy fingers in opium, too. The pressure's on and he knows it. He's a vicious, brutal man and he deserves the harshest punishment. Pity hangings are no longer public. His would be one I'd dearly love to attend."

  Terror gripped Fiona. She felt as if she couldn't breathe, but she forced herself to smile. Freddie must not see her emotion.

  "Well, I must be off. Do give my regards to Joe," he said.

  Fiona said she would and bade him goodbye. Mel, who'd been busying himself with another tea shipment while Fiona and Freddie talked, returned to her side.

  "Come have a gander at the Keemun... Mrs. Bristow? Is there something wrong, ma'am? You've gone as white as chalk."

  Fiona shook her head. She tried to tell him she was fine, but her knees buckled. She grabbed for the edge of a tea chest, but managed only to slow her fall.

  "Bloody hell!" he shouted, catching her just before she hit the floor. He lifted her up and sat her down on the chest.

  "Mrs. Bristow? Mrs. Bristow, are you all right?"

  Fiona nodded weakly. "Just a little... dizzy. Must be the heat ...and the baby. I'm expecting."

  "I'll call for a doctor."

  "It's not necessary. I'll be fine. It was just a spell." She mustered a smile, but Mel looked unconvinced.

  "Can I fetch you something? A glass of brandy?"

  "No brandy, but a cup of tea would be nice."

  "Can you walk downstairs?"

  "I'd rather sit here for a minute. I don't trust my legs just yet. Would you bring it up?"

  "But you shouldn't be alone, Mrs. Bristow. What if you faint again? I'll send a man up to sit with you...."

  "No, Mel, really. I want to be alone. Just for a minute or two. To gather myself."

  Mel nodded uncertainly, then hurried downstairs to his office where he kept a kettle simmering on top of a small iron stove.

  As soon as he was gone, Fiona covered her face with her hands, sick with fear. Freddie Lytton had stood next to her, smiled, and said he was going to kill her brother. He'd said the same things at the garden party for the girls' school. They'd upset her then, too, but after he'd left she'd denied his words, telling herself that he was only grandstanding, as politicians did. She'd pushed the fear from her mind, but it had returned now with a vengeance.

  She stood and took a few faltering steps toward the stairs. She had to find Charlie. Right away. She had to warn him before it was too late. "But how?" she whispered, stopping dead. She couldn't send anyone else after him, not after what he'd done to Michael Bennett.

  She remembered Bennett's arm, and Freddie's voice echoed in her head. He's a vicious, brutal man....

  Joe had said the same thing. He'd said Charlie was dangerous, and insisted that she stop looking for him. How could she do that? He was her brother.

  Tears suddenly welled in her eyes as she remembered the way Charlie once was. Not brutal, but good and kind. Full of life and laughter. She remembered how he used to play football with their little brother, Seamie, or take him to the riverside to watch the ships. She remembered how he fetched grofficeries from the corner shop for neighbors too old or ill to get there themselves, refusing to take money from them even though he needed it.

  They'd had so
little then. Nothing, really. They'd lived in Whitechapel in a draughty two-up, two-down. There was barely enough money to buy food after the rent had been paid. And yet they'd had everything--parents who loved them. Songs and stories by the fire at night. Laughter. Hope. Dreams. Until, almost overnight, it had all been taken away. They'd lost their father. Their mother. Their baby sister. Finally, Charlie disappeared, too. She and Seamie had survived only because of caring people who'd helped them--their uncle Roddy, their uncle Michael in America, her first husband, Nicholas.