The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  "I told you why. It's good money."

  Maggie shook her head. "I don't believe you. You've that same look in your eye."

  "What look's that?"

  "The look you had when I first hired you. When you were out in the fields every night, trying to work yourself to death."

  Sid flapped a hand at her and changed the subject back to planting. He was leaving to guide a surveyor north to Mount Kenya. He'd told Maggie he wanted the money he'd earn to buy a stove. It was half true. He did want a stove, but he already had the funds set aside for it. The real reason for his departure had come from Lucy Thompson and her mother.

  They'd come to call on Maggie a week ago and happened to still be on her veranda when Sid came in from the barn to tell her a jackal had got at the chickens. Maggie had offered him a cup of tea. Mrs. Thompson had asked him if he'd heard the news. He'd gulped his tea and said he hadn't.

  The undersecretary and his family had arrived in Mombasa. They were staying there for a week, then they would travel upcountry.

  "To Nairobi!" Lucy said, all atwitter. There would be a ball for them at the governor's house. It would be the social event of the year.

  What Lucy told him next was even worse. "After the ball, the governor's going to take his guests on safari," she said. "To Thika! Can you believe it? They're going to camp where the two rivers meet, then move west to the Aberdare mountains. Mr. Lytton wants to bag a lion, and of course we're lousy with them."

  Sid had thought his heart would stop. It had taken him days to recover from the news that Freddie and India were coming to Africa, but he finally had, assuring himself that there was no possible way their paths would cross. Maggie's farm was too remote to allow it. But Lucy's news had changed all that. Sid knew the area where they would set up camp, and he knew that Maggie's farm was a good ten miles north of it. Most likely, the hunting party would never even come close, but he wasn't prepared to take a chance.

  Mrs. Thompson, still chattering and looking pointedly at Sid, said that she and Lucy would be making a trip to Nairobi the next day to do a bit of dress shopping. Sid excused himself, ran to his bungalow, and hurriedly scribbled a note to the DC saying he'd heard from Delamere that a guide was needed to take a surveyor around, and that he'd be happy to do it, and could they please leave immediately. Then he'd run back to Maggie's and asked Mrs. Thompson if she would mind delivering the letter.

  She had smiled broadly, telling him of course she wouldn't. In fact, she'd be delighted to. Lucy, not Mrs. Thompson, had brought him the man's handwritten reply two days ago, and she had not been smiling.

  "It's about a surveyor," she'd said angrily, slapping it down on his table.

  "That's right," he said, puzzled by her tone.

  "The DC told me. He said you were taking his man to Mount Kenya. To make maps."

  "Yes, I am. Is there something wrong with that?"

  "I thought it might be about the governor's ball. I thought you'd written for an invitation. For you. For us."

  Stupidly, Sid had burst out laughing. Him at the governor's ball? He could just see it: "Hello, India. Hello, Freddie. How the hell are you?"

  But Lucy had not found it funny. Not one bit. There had been words and tears. She'd stormed out. Maggie had come by a few minutes later. She'd asked him what had happened and he told her.

  "Bloody hell, Sid. I told you she was sweet on you."

  "I thought you were joking."

  "No, I wasn't. That poor girl. What did you say to her?"

  "Nothing."

  "You must've said something."

  "I ...I laughed."

  Maggie looked daggers at him. "You're an arsehole, you know that?"

  "I didn't mean to! She caught me by surprise."

  "She's a good girl. From a good family. Hard worker and pretty as a pic- ture. She'd make a damned good wife. You could do a lot worse."

  "She could do a lot better."

  Maggie had gone quiet then and he'd told her about his plans to guide the surveyor and asked if she could spare him.

  "You're mad," she said. "Traipsing around the back of beyond with some bloke when a lovely girl wants to go dancing with you."

  "Maggie, I'm not going to that ball and that's the end of it. Not with Lucy. Not with anybody. I have my reasons."

  "Fine," she'd said angrily. "Go on safari, then. I hope a lion bites your balls off."

  That was two days ago. She'd mellowed some since then and had come round to his bungalow to make sure he'd packed his quinine.

  As she sat there now, drinking his whisky, she picked up the Mombasa paper that was lying on his table.

  "I haven't seen this. Where'd you get it?"

  "Jo Roos left it."

  "Becoming a man of letters in your old age?" she asked, eyes narrowed.

  "What's that?" he said. He was bent away from her, buckling a strap on his rucksack.

  "Never known you to read a newspaper. Not one. What's so fascinating about this one?" It was wrinkled and stained and looked as if had been read and reread.

  Sid straightened. "Nothing," he said.

  Maggie held his gaze. Her expression told him that she didn't believe him.

  She looked through it, carefully taking in every headline. Finding nothing, she closed it and pushed it away. But then something on the cover caught her eye--a photo of the visiting undersecretary, Frederick Lytton. He was standing by Fort Jesus with his wife and daughter. The child was squinting at the ground. Lytton was frowning. His wife was looking directly at the camera. Her face looked blurred. Maggie picked the paper up again and looked at it closely. It wasn't the photograph that was blurry, it was the newsprint. It was smudged--as if someone had brushed his fingers over it again and again.

  "It's her, isn't it?" she said. "That's why you won't go to the ball. And why you're running out of here like a man with his arse on fire."

  "I don't know what you're on about."

  "The undersecretary's wife. India Lytton. She's the one who made you a bachelor. I told you I was going to find out who had, and now I have. That's why you're off on this mad safari, isn't it? To avoid her."

  "What a load of rubbish."

  "Don't lie to me, Sid. You've never lied to me."

  "I've never had to," he snapped. They'd lived by an unwritten rule--no prying--and now she was breaking it.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm worried about you."

  "It's complicated," he said. "There's a lot to it. More than you'd ever want to know. Much more."

  Maggie nodded. She looked at the photograph again. "She's beautiful. Even smudged."

  "She's more than beautiful, Maggs." He didn't say anything else. He didn't need to. The emotion in his voice--the pain and the longing--said it all.

  Maggie pushed her chair back and stood.

  "You off home, then?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "I'm off to pay a call to the Thompsons," she said. "Someone has to tell poor Lucy she doesn't have a prayer."

  Chapter 90

  "Mummy, do we really have to take our teeth out?" Charlotte Lytton whispered, wide-eyed. "The conductor said all passengers are advised to remove their teeth."

  "False teeth, darling," India said, smiling.

  "But why?"

  "No ballast, my dear!" Lord Delamere bellowed. "Bloody idiots laid the tracks right on the ground."

  "Hugh! That is not language fit for a little girl's ears."

  Delamere shrugged. "I forget she's a child," he said. "She's better read, and better spoken, than most of the men I know."

  "Be that as it may..." Lady Delamere cautioned.

  "Right, right, right," Delamere said. He bent down close to Charlotte so that only she could hear him. "They're still idiots, even if I'm not allowed to call them bloody," he whispered. Charlotte giggled. "You'll soon see why. When we hit the plains, and there's no padding on the rails, the wheels will bounce the teeth right out of your head." He grabbed a meringue off a passing waiter's tray. "We'll have to stuff our
mouths with plenty of these. As padding. It's the only thing for it," he said, popping the sweet into his mouth, then giving her a pillowy pink grin.

  Charlotte dissolved into laughter. India, in conversation with Lady Delamere, stopped talking and laughed along with her. "He's marvelous with her!" she said.

  "That's because he's an overgrown child himself," Lady Delamere said.

  India rarely heard her daughter laugh like this, and it delighted her. She'd been so worried about bringing Charlotte to Africa, terrifled that she would come down with some dreadful disease. Instead, after a week in Mombasa, Charlotte was flourishing. Her cheeks were pink, her gray eyes lively. She had spent her days on Mombasa's white beaches with Mary, India's maid, collecting shells and throwing her lunch to the gulls. She'd met people there she liked, including a young couple who said they were hiking to Kilimanjaro. Even the official events she had to attend as her father's daughter had been exciting for her. She'd marveled at the different faces she saw-- English, African, Arabian, Indian--and at the different languages she heard. By her second day in the town she was calling Mary her ayah, asking for scones and chai, and pestering for rupees to spend in the dukas.

  "Did you know, Mummy," she'd said to India, "that the Swahili word for a white man is Mzungu. Only it doesn't translate as white man, it translates as strange or startling thing." She'd furrowed her little brow, then said, "Do you suppose Father knows this?"

  Sitting by the window in Governor James Hayes Sadler's private railway carriage, in a white blouse, khaki split skirt, and lace-up boots, ready to depart for Nairobi with her parents, the Delameres, and various colonial officials, she looked as if she'd been in Africa her entire life. She wore a cluster of bright Masai beads around her neck that Lord Delamere had given her and which she refused to take off.

  "Do you like animals, Charlotte?" he asked her now, after swallowing his meringue.

  "Yes, sir. Very much."

  "You're in for a treat, then. You're about to see hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. When we cross the Athi Plains."

  Charlotte gave him a skeptical look.

  "You think I'm making it up?"

  "Your figures do sound a bit exaggerated, sir."

  Delamere roared with laughter. "Tell you what, old girl, you count them, and I'll give you one rupee for every zebra, an anna for every giraffe, and a pice for a lion. Do we have a deal?"

  "Oh, yes!" Charlotte said eagerly.

  Hayes Sadler joined them. He put his hand on Delamere's shoulder. "Freddie has questions on the Colonists' Association. Thought you could answer them better than I can."

  "Certainly will!" Delamere said. "In fact, he's going to get an earful from me on how shabbily London's been treating us." He bade Charlotte goodbye, told her to have her figures ready for him, then followed Hayes Sadler to the compartment ahead of them. Freddie was in it, writing reports and dispatches, all business, as ever.

  Suddenly, a whistle blew. The conductor yelled, "All aboard!" Doors were slammed down the length of the train. The engine released a volcanic cloud of steam and the train lurched forward, its iron wheels screeching against the track. Fifteen minutes later they were leaving Mombasa Island and crossing a long bridge to the mainland.

  For most of the day, the train ran westward through a green jungle, humid and dense and filled with bright birds, butterflies, and flowers. Here and there it passed plantations where rubber, cotton, or sisal grew; skirted valleys and gorges; and stopped at little substations that were neatly painted and planted with flower boxes and looked as if they belonged in a suburb of London instead of in the wilds of Africa. Charlotte was glued to the window the entire time, taking everything in. She had to be called away for luncheon and again for tea.

  By evening, they had left the jungle well behind them and were entering the grasslands. It was there, against the backdrop of a blazing African sunset, that Charlotte saw them--all the animals Delamere had promised her and more.

  "Oh, Mummy! Mummy, look!" she cried, upon seeing her first herd of zebra. "There must be fifty of them!"

  "More like five hundred, I should think." It was Delamere. He'd dashed out of Freddie's compartment, where he'd spent most of the day, and rushed to sit down next to Charlotte. It was impossible to tell who was more excited.

  Charlotte reminded Lord Delamere of his pledge, then gleefully started counting, reaching one hundred in no time.

  "My husband has bankrupted us," Lady Delamere exclaimed.

  "Tell the damned man to slow the bloody train!" Delamere suddenly shouted. "How can anyone see anything?"

  Lady Hayes Sadler blinked. Lady Delamere shook her head. An eager young man in a linen suit, Tom Meade, the assistant district commissioner of Kenya Province, dashed off to have a word with the engineer. And India bit back a smile, more than willing to put up with the odd profanity in order to see her daughter so happy.

  "Florence? Florence! Where are my blasted field glasses?"

  "Really, Hugh, must you shout so? They're right here!" Lady Delamere said, fumbling them out of her valise.

  Delamere grabbed them and handed them to Charlotte. "There!" he shouted. "Ten o'clock! Do you see them, girl?"

  Charlotte was silent for a few seconds then, in a hushed voice, she said, "Lord Delamere, are they really giraffes? Truly?"

  "Six of them!" he crowed. "Plain as day."

  "And look over there ...a herd of Tommies--Thomson's gazelles... and there--those big ugly brutes? Wildebeest. Do you know what the Masai say about them, Charlotte? They say God put them together with what he had left over from all the other animals."

  "What about lions, Lord Delamere?" Charlotte said, her eyes scanning the plains. "Do you see any?"

  "I don't, but not to worry. If we don't see some here, we'll surely bag ourselves some on safari at Thika. Last time I was up there I shot three."

  Charlotte looked stricken. "But I don't want to shoot them," she said.

  Lady Delamere gave her husband a look so scorching that he blanched.

  "I meant with a camera, my dear," he said quickly. "We shan't shoot them with a gun, of course not! In fact, I know the most wonderful guide. He refuses to shoot anything. We'll have him take us to see lions. We'll look him up as soon as we get to Thika. His name is Sid Baxter."

  India had been looking out of the window. She slowly turned around. "Did you say Sid Baxter?" she asked, before she could stop herself.

  "I did. Do you know him?"

  "No, no, of course not," she said, forcing a laugh. The name had to be a coincidence. Sid was dead. "I ...I heard the name in Mombasa," she lied. "He's very good, I gather."

  "The best. He works for a planter up past Thika. He's a bit of a loner, but we shall draw him out. If he can't find Charlotte lions, no one can."

  Lord Delamere continued to talk, but India barely heard him. God, but it hurt. Still. For an instant, she had been back at Arden Street in their flat. Sid was standing in the doorway, a bunch of white roses in his hand. "Hello, Mrs. Baxter," he said, before gathering her into his arms.

  "Mummy? Mummy, are you all right?" Charlotte asked, concern darkening her face.

  India quickly smiled at her. "I am, darling. Just feeling a bit tired suddenly."

  Charlotte stared at her for a few seconds, as if weighing her words and wondering whether to believe them.

  "Why don't you lie down for a bit, India, dear?" Lady Delamere suggested. "We'll keep Charlotte company."

  "Will you be all right?" India asked her daughter.

  Charlotte nodded, then watched her mother leave the main salon for one of the sleeping compartments. Her mother was lying; she knew she was. She'd seen that look in her eyes before--the sad one she'd seen only seconds ago. It was there when she gazed too long at the vase of white roses she always kept on her desk. And sometimes it was there when she gazed too long at her.

  "She's fine, Charlotte, darling," said Lady Delamere, patting her hand. "Just weary from all the traveling."

  Charlotte real
ized that her feelings were on her face. She nodded and quickly rearranged her expression into one of pure, unadulterated joy. Though she was not quite six, she had already worked out that grown-ups asked fewer questions of smiling, happy children, and she did not want any questions right now--only answers.

  She turned back to the window and looked over the darkening plains, pointing at this animal and that for Lord Delamere's benefit, but she was no longer interested in them. She was too busy wondering who Sid Baxter was and why the mention of his name had made her lovely mother so sad.