The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  "The rubber johnnie."

  "Freddie, you didn't!"

  "Don't worry. I'm sure it's all right. I'm sure nothing happened. And... and if it did, well, we'll be married soon, won't we? We'll just tell everyone the baby came a bit early."

  He was gratified to see her already pale face turn white. He was about to say more when his mantel clock sounded. It was six. "Blast, is it that late? We're going to have to get bathed and ready for dinner."

  "Yes, I suppose we are," she said. She pulled her chemise over her head, got out of bed, and put her clothes on.

  "I love you, India. So much. You know that, don't you? I can't wait to be married. To have a home, a family, a life with you."

  She twisted her hair up, secured it with her comb, then turned to him and smiled. "I can't wait for those things, either."

  "I'll hardly be able to live without you until dinner. Wear something lovely. Pick out something just for me."

  India said she would, then unlocked his door. As soon as she closed it behind her, Freddie collapsed back into his bed, heaving a long, ragged sigh. He raised his glass to his lips and drank deeply. He'd done it. Secured a wedding date and bedded that cold bitch at last. And with any amount of luck, she was up the duff. How he'd relished the look on her face when he'd told her he hadn't used anything. India fancied herself an emancipated woman, but even she wasn't insane enough to bear a child out of wedlock. The stigma, for both her and the child, would be crushing. Gifford would sack her immediately, and the British Medical Association would strip her of her license.

  Freddie got up, shrugged into a dressing gown, and turned his gaze to the open windows. Longmarsh's lands loomed in the distance, wild and un-tended. There wasn't money enough for gardeners. His drunken father had seen to that. Freddie remembered how it had been before the accident-- creditors at the door. Things being sold. Small things at first, rings and pill-boxes. Then larger things such as paintings and furniture. Daphne in worn dresses, their collars and cuffs turned and mended. Bingham called home from Eton because their mother couldn't pay the school fees.

  His gaze drifted to the music box again. He opened it, listening to the sad, halting strains of Chopin, then opened the drawer and lifted the drag-onfly comb out again. It was beautiful, the exact match to the one he'd pulled from India's hair only moments ago. It had lived in the secret drawer of his music box for a long time. Years, in fact. Ever since the day he'd slipped it into his pocket as he handed its mate to Hugh Mullins.

  Take it, Hugh. No one will ever know....

  Freddie saw Hugh again. Pale, frightened. Standing in the stables. He hadn't slept in days. Bea, his sister, was in serious trouble. She was preg-nant. It was a boy from the village, and he'd done a runner as soon as she'd told him. She needed help. Needed money to pay a woman in the village who could take care of it. Otherwise it would mean disaster for her family. She'd lose her position; so would Hugh, and their father. They'd be forced to leave their home, a cottage that belonged to Lord Burnleigh.

  Freddie had found all this out only days after he'd seen India and Hugh together and learned of their plans to elope. Maud had told him. She said India knew, and was trying to figure out how to get the money from her par-ents without explaining what it was for. He hadn't thought much more about it--he was too mired in his own misery over losing India--until a distraught Isabelle asked him to help her find a pair of missing hair combs.

  "They've disappeared, Freddie," she said. "I can't think where I left them. My husband will be furious with me if I've lost them. He had them made especially for me."

  "When did you last see them?" Freddie had asked, glad of a distraction from his own sorrows.

  "I wore them to Cardiff yesterday, when I went to do some shopping. I remember taking them out before I arrived home--they were hurting me-- and putting them into my reticule. I haven't seen them since."

  Freddie had asked to see the reticule and discovered that it had split along a seam. Isabelle had been very upset when she'd seen it, convinced that the combs were gone forever, but he told her to remain calm. Perhaps they'd fallen out as she walked from the stables to the house and were lying in the grass. He himself would go look for them. He looked everywhere-- in the grass, on the path, in the drive, and in the stables themselves. Finally he thought to look in Isabelle's carriage.

  There, he spotted them. One was on the seat, the other on the carriage floor. As they glinted up at him, he had an idea. He would take one. He would say he'd found only a single comb and then he would sell the other. Quietly. To some London pawnbroker. He was desperate for money. As al-ways. He'd put the first in his pocket and was just reaching for the second when he heard a voice behind him.

  "Freddie? Is that you? Does Lady Burnleigh need her carriage brought round?"

  It was Hugh.

  The sound of Hugh's voice infuriated him. Jealousy over India boiled up in him again. He wanted to take a swing at Hugh. To flatten him. But he didn't. Because as his fingers closed around the second comb he suddenly had another, better idea. A wonderful idea.

  He closed the door to the carriage and put the comb in Hugh's hand. "Take it, Hugh," he said. "No one will ever know."

  Hugh looked at the comb, puzzled. "Take it? Why?"

  "To help Bea."

  Hugh drew in a sharp breath. "You know?"

  Freddie nodded. "Maud told me. She tried to get ten quid from her mother, but Isabelle refused when she wouldn't say what it was for. Maud's upset. We all are. She said you'll be tossed out if her father finds out what's happening. Your whole family. Take it. Don't be stupid."

  Hugh looked at the comb. "It's Lady Burnleigh's, isn't it?"

  "She lost it. I said I'd look for it. When I go back in, I'll say I couldn't find it. She won't question me. She already thinks it's gone."

  Hugh shook his head. He tried to hand it back, but Freddie wouldn't take it.

  "It's only silver. The stones aren't real. It's not very valuable at all, but it'll bring you a few pounds at the pawnbroker's. Enough to help Bea. Think of her, Hugh. Think of Bea."

  Hugh was struggling with himself. Freddie could see the anguish in his face. Finally he nodded, and without a word, put the comb in his pocket.

  A week later, Bea was dead and Hugh was in jail. The pawnbroker had turned in the comb, and Hugh, to the police. Hugh hadn't peached on Freddie. He hadn't said a word. He was an honorable man. Freddie knew that.

  Lord Burnleigh was outraged when he'd learned what had happened. India begged him to drop the charges against Hugh, and moved by her pleading he agreed to--if Hugh returned the second comb. But Hugh didn't. Because he couldn't. Because he didn't have it. Freddie did.

  So Hugh went to prison, all the time insisting he didn't have the second comb, that he'd never had it. The place he was sent was a hell hole, full of vermin. He caught typhus from the lice in his mattress and was dead within a month. Mrs. Mullins, Hugh's mother, unable to bear the loss of her children, hanged herself. Hugh's father, homeless and alone, had wan-dered the countryside, sometimes sane, sometimes mad. His body had been found later that year in a nearby valley. He'd died of exposure.

  Woulds't be king? First rip out thine own heart....

  That summer, he'd stilled the feeling in his heart almost completely.

  By the time September came, and he was back at Oxford, everything and everyone had changed. Hugh and Bea were dead. India had fallen out with her parents and left Wales for London. Maud was about to make what would turn out to be a disastrous marriage. Their days spent together at Blackwood were gone forever. Their childhood was over.

  The Red Earl was right. It was so much easier to function in the world without a heart. Easy to despise India, whom he'd once loved. Easy to watch her heartbreak unmoved, to offer only feigned sympathy, when the man she loved died. Easy to contemplate a loveless marriage to her when a distraught Isabelle visited him during his third year at university and begged him to marry India and put an end to her medical studies. He wou
ld never have India's heart, never have anything more than affection from her, so he would take her money instead. It was far more useful.

  There was another knock on his door. Freddie put the comb back into the drawer. He'd never sold it; he never would. It was too dangerous. With the Tiffany mark and Isabelle's initials, it was too identifiable to show to even the most discreet of pawnbrokers.

  "Enter," he said.

  "Beg pardon, sir, but I've come to draw your bath." It was his man.

  "Thank you, Armstrong," he said, putting the box down. "Armstrong..."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "When you've finished, will you please tell the butler to bring out some champagne before dinner? I wish to celebrate this evening. I will be announcing my wedding date."

  "Very good, sir. And if I may offer them, my sincere congratulations."

  Freddie accepted the man's good wishes. He felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders. And indeed, one had--penury. He'd fixed that particular problem quite nicely. As he'd fixed other things. Because no one else would. And someone had to. Soon he would fix himself a starring role in the Liberal Party--something a damn sight better than backbencher--chief whip perhaps, or shadow foreign secretary. He would do it with his Home Rule speech and with his anti-crime efforts. Donald-son would continue to harass Malone. He would turn up something even-tually, Freddie was certain. India had told him that Malone had nearly died in the hospital. He'd told her to make certain to keep him alive, for he wanted the pleasure of sending him down. By October, he'd be returned as MP for Tower Hamlets, married, and happily ensconced at Berkeley Square. Perhaps in November he'd take a journey to Blackwood, too, to inspect his future estate.

  Blackwood didn't have Longmarsh's pedigree--it hadn't been designed by Wren--but it was much bigger, and it had all the modern conveniences. Today even this shit-heap of a Longmarsh was out of his reach, but soon nothing would be. Not even the one thing he wanted more than anything in the world--the sound of people calling him not Sir Frederick or Honorable Member, but Prime Minister.

  He would do it. With brains and boldness and India's money. He had ripped out his heart, just as the Red Earl had advised, and one day he would be king.

  Chapter 19

  Maud Selwyn Jones sat at the vanity table in her room at Longmarsh, trimming her jet-black bangs. She snipped and shaped, then sat back in her chair, assessing the result. She shook her head, loving the way the bobbed ends felt against her neck. Freddie's and Bing's mother had blanched when she'd seen the cut. Maud smiled at the memory. She enjoyed shocking the wrinklies.

  She picked up a coral earring. As she fastened it to her earlobe, her arm started to itch. "Have you gone and got yourself fieas, you dirty imp?" she asked Jerome, the tan pug who was lying at her feet. The dog looked up at her, blinking his coal black eyes. "No? Hmmm. Must be the beastly wallpaper then. Toile always brings me out in hives."

  But Maud knew it wasn't the wallpaper. And she knew the itching would engulf her entire body, making her feel as if there were thousands of ants crawling on her. Unless she did something about it. Immediately.

  She rose, opened the wardrobe, and dug in the pockets of her duster. To no avail. She opened her hat boxes and dragged her suitcases out, cursing the maid all the while.

  "Where did that damned girl put it, Jerry?" she said, raking her nails over her forearm. She bit her lip, turning around in the center of her room. Her eyes, frantic now, came to rest on the night table. She ran to it and pulled open the drawer.

  "There you are!" she said, lifting out a slim enameled case. She drew a cigarette from it, lit it, and took a deep drag. She held the blue smoke in her lungs, then slowly exhaled, eyes closed. When she opened them again, they were soft and liquid.

  "God bless Teddy Ko," she murmured, smiling. He'd rolled a bit of pow-dered opium with tobacco for her to make what looked like proper cigarettes. She had just settled herself down at her vanity again when the door to her room was abruptly opened. It was India, still in her riding habit.

  "Good ride?" Maud asked.

  India said nothing. She closed the door, pulled off her jacket, and tossed it on the bed. Then she tossed herself on the bed, flopping into the soft cushions.

  Maud turned around. She saw from her sister's face that she was upset. "Indy? What's wrong? What happened?"

  India didn't answer. She just lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling. "Maud, am I cold?" she finally asked.

  Maud walked to the bed. She felt India's forehead. "You feel quite warm, actually. Are you ill?"

  India sat up. "Oh, Maud. Not that kind of cold. I mean ...you know... cold."

  "Ah," she said. "Trouble with Freddie?"

  "Yes," India said. She twisted her engagement ring as she spoke. It was an old-fashioned emerald that had belonged to Freddie's mother. India wore it only around him to please him. She didn't care for jewelry; it har-bored bacteria. "We settled on a wedding date."

  "Did you? That's splendid news!"

  "Yes, I suppose it is. Afterward, he kissed me, you see. And...and more. It didn't go very well. Does that mean I'm cold?"

  "You and Freddie just made love?"

  "Yes."

  "But you've been engaged for two years! Do you mean to tell me you haven't slept with him in all this time?"

  "Yes."

  "India, you are hopeless," Maud said, sitting down at the vanity again.

  "I suppose I am," she said miserably.

  Maud softened. "Look, don't despair. There's nothing wrong with you that a little practice won't put right. Men are like bicycles. Not much fun till you learn how to ride them," she said, taking another drag of her ciga-rette.

  "How... how do you learn?" India asked.

  Maud coughed up a lungful of smoke. "How?! Didn't they teach you anatomy in medical school?"

  India looked at the floor, pink with embarrassment, and Maud saw that this was painful for her. She regretted her flippant remark. "Look, darling, next time have a nice bottle of wine first," she said. "Then just let your feelings take over."

  India nodded uncertainly.

  "India, you do know what I'm talking about, don't you? You do have those feelings?"

  "For Freddie?"

  "Yes, of course for Freddie!"

  India frowned as if concentrating on some thorny medical problem, then said, "Yes. Yes, I do. He'll make a wonderful husband." She continued talking, telling Maud what a brilliant leader Freddie was and how much he cared about the poor. "Why, just last week he accompanied me to a lecture by Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, the Quaker reformer, on his ground-breaking study of poverty in the city of York. We'll be so effective as a cou-ple, Maud. We'll do such important work together."

  Maud sighed, exasperated. "Yes, Indy, I know all that. The question is: Do you want to fuck him?"

  India blushed crimson. "Maud!"

  "Oh, stop being such a prude. It sounds to me like you love Freddie the way I love Jerome. Or Wish."

  "You love Wish? Well, of course you do! Who wouldn't love Wish?" Wish boomed, striding into the room.

  "Does anyone believe in knocking?" Maud asked.

  "Never! Gives a girl too much warning. How am I to catch a glimpse of ankle that way? Or something even better?" He hooked his finger in the V of Maud's silk robe and peered down the gap. She slapped his hand away.

  "You didn't used to mind showing me your bosoms," he said.

  "When I was ten and had none. And besides, you used to pay me for a look then."

  "I'll pay you now. As much as you like. I'm about to have pots of money. Pots and pots and pots," Wish said. He plunked himself down at Maud's feet and scooped Jerome into his lap. Maud picked up a hairbrush and at-tempted to make order out of Wish's unruly brown mop. He smiled, enjoying the petting. "Don't you want to know how?"

  "No," Maud and India said in unison.

  "I knew you would. I'll tell you all about it." And with that, he launched into a pitch for his latest investment scheme--a land deve
lopment project in California. "The place is called Point Reyes, and it's paradise," he said. "It's about fifty miles north of San Francisco. You've never seen anything so beautiful. You've never even dreamed anything so beautiful. It's an outcrop-ping of land on the California sea coast. And twelve hundred acres of it are for sale. I'm going to buy the entire parcel and put a hotel at the water's edge. Not just any hotel, mind you, a luxury hotel. There's more money than you can possibly imagine in San Francisco, and I'm going to lure it north. The venture can't fail. You've got to get in on it. Both of you. I'll make you a bloody fortune."

  "That would make a change," Maud said. "You lost me a bloody fortune on that South African diamond mine."

  "How did I know they'd start a war over there? I made you money on U.S. Steel, didn't I? Quite a bit, actually."