The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  There were more cheers. Whistles. Shouts. Joe barely heard them. He was still talking, still haranguing Freddie.

  Parliament had been dissolved a week ago and a general election had been called for the twenty-fourth of October. Throughout the country, candidates for Parliament were canvassing in the month allotted them, making speeches, debating with rivals, jousting with hecklers. All of Britain was in the grip of election fever, but no contest had captured the public's interest quite like that for the Tower Hamlets seat.

  It was nearly ten o'clock at night now. Joe had been campaigning at a nearby union hall when word came in that Freddie Lytton was in the pub across the street with reporters in tow. Joe's supporters, eager for a debate, had practically picked him up and carried him into the Bells. His voice was hoarse, he'd had no rest, and yet he did not hesitate. Anger was fueling him, and there was so much of it inside of him, he felt like he would never run dry.

  He was angry all the time now. Angrier than he'd ever been in his life. The rage drove him. It kept him knocking on doors, talking to voters, giving interviews, making speeches, long after other men would have dropped from exhaustion.

  He was angry at East London. Angry at the deprivation and crime, the despair, the bleak, unending poverty. It had been years since he'd shivered in a patched jacket. Years since he'd seen his father skip his breakfast so that he and his brother and sisters could have a bit more to eat for theirs. He and Fiona were wealthy. They'd left poverty behind, but he saw now that it would never leave them.

  Poverty tore families apart. It didn't matter how far you got from it, it would still catch up with you. He knew this for a fact now. It had torn his apart. He and Fiona were no longer together. He had left her three weeks ago and was now living in the Coburg. She was at 94 Grosvenor Square with Katie. And it was all because of Sid Malone, her brother. Because once--long ago--poverty and despair had worked on him, changed him, pulled him into a dark underworld, and Fiona could not accept it.

  Joe wanted to stamp it out, that poverty. He wanted to crush it as fiercely as its brutal legacy was now crushing him, forcing him to spend day after day apart from those he loved best in this world, his wife and daughter.

  "Those are fine, high-flown words!" Freddie mocked now, as Joe finished speaking. "But words are cheap. It's experience that counts in government. The ability to work within the system, to get things done."

  "Experience?" Joe shot back. "I'll tell you what my experience is, mate. Being hungry. Being cold. Working sixteen-hour days in all kinds of weather. What's your experience? You know what it's like to work hungry, Freddie? You know what it's like to be cold? Of course you don't!"

  "Let's speak to the issues, Joe, shall we?" Freddie blustered.

  "I thought I was!" Joe said, provoking laughter.

  "I think you should tell these good people your plans for controlling Whitechapel's terrible crime. Have you any plans?"

  "Yes, I do. I plan to build more schools."

  Freddie burst into laughter. "Schools? We don't need schools, if any-thing we need--"

  "What? More prisons?"

  "I didn't say--" Freddie began, but Joe didn't give him the chance to finish.

  Joe was goading him, leading him, but he didn't have him quite where he wanted him. Not yet.

  "Can I tell you why Mr. Lytton thinks prisons are more important than schools?" he asked. "It's because he'd rather jail you than educate you! Ed-ucated people ask too many questions. You might start asking why you're working fourteen-hour days for only a pound a week. Why your kids have to go into factories and mines and sculleries, while other people's children go to Oxford and Cambridge."

  "Why, that's nothing but a load of Marxist claptrap!" Freddie shouted, outraged. "If government determines more schools are needed, then more schools will be provided. Of course they will. I promise you that..."

  Freddie railed on, and for the first time that evening Joe smiled. He turned to a man sitting close by, a reporter who was scribbling in a notepad.

  "You getting all this?" he asked him.

  "Every word," the man said, still writing.

  The newspapers were all covering the Tower Hamlets contest, and they put into print every barb and insult the candidates tossed at each other and every promise they made. In his heart of hearts, Joe doubted he'd ever see the inside of Westminster, but when the election was over, he would make it his business to see that every promise made by the winner and documented by the press was a promise kept. And maybe come the new year, with a new government, there'd be a few more schools in Whitechapel, a few more health visitors, a few less broken homes, a few less desperate men.

  Joe took a swallow of the pint someone had brought him. The porter was soothing to his raspy throat. He licked foam from his lips and waited for his chance, waited to jump in and challenge his rival to fund more clinics, build another soup kitchen, another orphanage, another widows' home.

  Unlike Freddie, Joe was fighting for more than the Tower Hamlets seat, for more than the honor of sitting in Parliament. For more than a career in politics.

  He was fighting for justice for the people of East London. For opportu-nities and rights. He was fighting for an end to poverty and ignorance. An end to hopelessness.

  And he was fighting--in the only way left to him--to get his family back.

  Chapter 49

  Sid could see her--India. His India now. She was hurrying up Richmond Hill ahead of him in the cool, darkening evening. One hand was pressed to

  her head, holding her hat in place. The other held a carpetbag. A wine bot-tle poked out from under its flap.

  She was trying to walk, but kept breaking into a run. She turned the cor-ner onto Arden Street and let herself into a small, three-story house. He had insisted on this--on a flat far away from their own homes. It was the only way he would see her. The only way to keep people from finding out-- his people. The only way to keep her safe.

  He found his key and let himself into the building's narrow foyer. She was already pounding up the stairs to the second floor. He heard her greet an elderly neighbor on the first floor. "Hello, Mrs. Ainsley. How are you keeping?"

  "Very well, dear, thank you. How's Mr. Baxter?"

  Mr. Baxter. He smiled at that. It was how he had introduced them to the landlady the day they'd inquired about the flat: "I'm Sidney Baxter and this is me wife, Theodora." He'd gotten the name from an advertisement for Baxter's cocoa on the side of a bus. He said he was a traveling salesman and that his wife spent most of her time with her mother in the country because she didn't like being alone. They wouldn't be there much and they'd pay in advance. Would a year's rent do? The landlady, astonished at her good luck, had let them the flat immediately, no questions asked.

  He heard India bid Mrs. Ainsley good day, run up the last flight of stairs, and unlock their door. He followed her, letting himself in. She'd dropped her bag and coat in the entryway and was moving through the rooms, calling for him. He closed his eyes and listened, loving the sound of his name on her lips. Loving the eagerness in her voice. The happiness.

  He knew it wouldn't take her long to find out he wasn't in any of the rooms. The flat was modest, just a large, open sitting room with a huge, sunny window, a bedroom, scullery, and loo. It had come with a few pieces of furniture and she'd bought rugs and curtains. He closed the door behind him. She came running out of the bedroom and stopped short when she saw him.

  "Hello, Mrs. Baxter," he said, smiling as he held out a bunch of white roses. "Went out to get these. Planned to be back before you, but I--"

  He didn't get to finish because she ran to him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him wildly.

  "I was so worried," she said. "When I saw you weren't here, I was so worried you weren't coming."

  He kissed her back, then turned away from her--just for a second--to talk about something else. It was too much, this love. It would drown him.

  "You hungry?" he asked. "Must be, after working all day. I bro
ught food." He went to the scullery and came back with a basket and two glasses. He set the basket on the table under the window and began to take things out of it.

  India shook her head no. "I want only you," she said, kissing him again.

  "How about a drink? A glass of wine?" He fished the wine bottle out of her carpetbag. As he did, the bag toppled over and a folder slid out, spilling hand-tinted photographs of rolling green meadows, a cobalt bay, and soaring sea cliffs. He picked them up and looked at them and for a few seconds he was stunned into silence.

  "What is this place?" he asked, still staring at the pictures.

  "It's the land my cousin left me in California. Point Reyes. The land I can't sell, at least according to the American estate agent. Sid? What's wrong? You look so strange."

  Sid shook his head and laughed. "I ...I don't know. Just had the oddest feeling. As if I'd seen this place before. In my dreams, maybe. Daft."

  And then he remembered. It was when he first held her. In the tunnels. That's when he'd first seen this place--Point Reyes. It was when he'd wanted to keep walking with her. Out of London. To someplace beautiful and new. To the sea. It was this place he'd envisioned. This place exactly. He wanted to tell her that, but she was too busy kissing him.

  He put the pictures down and kissed her back. Then he uncorked the wine and poured two glasses. India took hers from him. She drank half of it, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then pulled him into the bedroom.

  "Blimey! If I'd known I was going to be molested, I would've brought my men to protect me," he said, trying not to slosh his wine.

  "They wouldn't have stood a chance. Not against me," she said, unbuttoning his waistcoat. She opened his shirt and kissed his chest, his throat, his mouth. She undid his trousers. They dropped to the floor. She pushed his drawers down.

  "Hold on, missus!" he protested. "How about a little sweet talk first? You know: �How are you, Sid? How was your day?'"

  "Later. When I've had my way."

  She took his wine away from him, then pushed him back onto the bed-- a wide, ornately carved thing she'd found in a second-hand shop. He sank into the plump feather duvet. She had her own things--or most of them-- off in a flash, throwing her jacket, blouse, and skirt onto the floor as if they were rags, tossing her eyeglasses onto a night table. She straddled him, still in her camisole and stockings, took his face into her hands, and kissed him long and hard. He closed his eyes, remembering their first time, the time she'd told him she was cold. Cold? She was the most passionate lover he'd ever had.

  She reached for his hands and pinned them against his pillow. She kissed his cheek, his eyes, his lips. She buried her face in his neck, breathing him in. Then she stretched her slender body against him and he was suddenly inside of her. She was soft, so soft. And so wet. After only a few seconds, she shuddered and cried his name.

  Sid blinked at the ceiling. He'd barely had time to get hard. When she opened her eyes again, he looked at her, laughing, and said, "That's it? That's all? I feel so cheap." He sat up and kissed her. "I'm just an object to you. That's all I am," he said, pulling a jeweled comb out of her hair. Her blond curls fell down over her shoulders. He unbuttoned her camisole, pushed it off her arms, and kissed her breasts, his hands trailing over the silken skin of her back.

  She moaned softly, buried her hands in his hair.

  "I think you should say you're sorry," he said.

  "Do you? For what?"

  "For treating me like a plaything. Like a kept man."

  She laughed out loud and he smiled, loving her laughter. He grabbed her hips and thrust into her. And then again. Her smell made him achingly hard.

  "Oh, Sid," she whispered. "I'm ...I'm ..."

  "Yes?"

  "Not sorry in the least!" She giggled.

  "Ah. Well, then. We'll just have to make you sorry."

  He buried his face in her breasts, teasing her with his tongue and teeth until he felt her grow wet again and breathless. He rocked into her, back and forth, back and forth, until he felt her arch into him, then he stopped.

  "No, don't... oh, don't! Please..."

  "Sorry yet?"

  "No!" she cried, twining her slender arms around him, biting his ear. He brought her to the edge of pleasure over and over, always stopping just short, until she was mad with her need of him.

  "How about now? Are you--"

  "No," she said, stopping his mouth with a kiss. And then another. She pulled away and looked at him, her gray eyes large and dark and suddenly serious in the twilight of their bedroom.

  "I'm not sorry, Sid," she said fiercely. "Do you hear me? Not for making love to you. Not for loving you. I'm not now and I never will be. Never."

  He gathered her into his arms, overcome with emotion, and made love to her as he had their first night together, passionately, desperately, wanting only to lose himself in her. Afterward, as the night came down, he pulled her to him and held her curled within the safety of his arms. When he heard her breathing deepen, he rose, careful not to wake her. He pulled the covers up over her shoulders, kissing the damp curls on her neck, then frowned. She looked so pale in the darkness, so slight and fragile.

  He pulled on his trousers, then padded off to cobble together a meal. She worried him. She was too thin. She worked too hard and ate too little. The clinic was due to open in a month's time, and she and Ella were working around the clock soliciting donations to keep the repair work going, barking at builders and deliverymen, making sure every tile, spout, lamp, and doorknob was just so. He had stopped by a few days ago to see how things were going and found her sitting on the floor of the lying-in ward, a chisel, screwdriver, and bucket of grout nearby, resetting a drain cover by herself. The chisel had slipped and sliced her finger open. She'd bandaged it and kept right on working.

  "It has to be perfectly flush," she'd explained. "And the seams have to be sealed. Otherwise matter will build up in the cracks and breed disease."

  "Why didn't you have the builder's men do this?" he asked, kneeling down to do it himself.

  "I did. Twice. They didn't get it right. They don't care."

  She did, though. Deeply. He saw that in her. She cared enough to de-vote herself to the poor women and children of Whitechapel. To make a change for the better. To make a difference.

  She was so unlike any woman he'd ever been with. Most of them had wanted jewels and furs and dresses. Not India. She didn't give two seconds' thought to her wardrobe. If her clothing was clean and presentable, if her sleeves could be unbuttoned and rolled up, she was happy. Jewelry held no interest for her; she thought it a nuisance. Her eyes lit up over the most god-awful things, things that made him feel light-headed just from glancing at them--sharp, shiny metal things, mostly. Scalpels, clamps, and syringes. Chloroform masks. Bottles of this and vials of that. Needles and tubes, beakers and flasks.

  The day a thing called an incubator--a contraption of metal and glass with a gas boiler attached--arrived from New York, she'd been so excited she couldn't sleep. "It will save babies, Sid," she said. "The early ones. The ones we've never been able to help."

  His money had paid for these things. The money she'd tried to give back. He'd finally convinced her to take it. "Take it for them," he said, meaning her patients. "And for me." Giving her the money was the second-best thing he'd ever done; loving her was the first.

  Pottering about in the kitchen now, Sid made a nice tray of foods he thought might tempt her. He'd stopped at Harrods before he'd come here. He'd heard that that was where toffs shopped for food, and since India had come from a wealthy home, he thought there might be things there that she'd like more than fish and chips or pork pies. He was just placing the opened bottle of wine on the tray when he heard her cry his name. She sounded upset, frightened.

  "Sid!" she cried again.

  "What is it? What's wrong? I'm right here," he said, rushing into the bed-room with the tray.

  She was sitting up in bed, blinking in the darkness. "I thought
you'd gone," she said plaintively. "I thought you'd left. I thought it was morning."

  Sid put the tray down on the bedside table. "Shh. I'm right here. I just went to get us some supper."

  India rubbed her eyes. She looked confused. Sid sat down on the bed and kissed her furrowed forehead. It was so hard to steal time together. So bloody hard. They'd had the flat for a month, and had been together in it only twice. India had to be back at the clinic tomorrow before dinnertime to supervise the installation of an operating table. And he had visits to pay. To Teddy Ko. And to the Blind Beggar. Visits he dreaded. But he wouldn't think of that now. That belonged to tomorrow, not tonight.