The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  "You're blufflng," India said, certain now that he was desperate, con?-dent that she had the upper hand. "You have to prove me morally lacking and you can't. Because I'm not. I've not put one foot wrong in all the years of our marriage and you have nothing that says otherwise."

  "Not during our marriage, no, but certainly before it. How about the contraceptives you underhandedly dispensed as a new doctor? I'm sure Edwin Gifford would be only too happy to testify about that. And the time you spent with Malone, a known criminal. Your landlady in Arden Street can tell the court how you pretended to be man and wife. And then there's your mad dash from the Moskowitzes' to warn him of the trap the police had set, so we can add aiding and abetting a fugitive to the list. Hardly the sort of activities a mother of high moral standards engages in. Don't you agree? No? Well, it doesn't matter if you do or you don't. The magistrate will."

  Freddie had finished with his tie and was standing close to her now--so close that she could smell the scent of the soap he used, the starch in his shirt. She forced herself to look at him.

  As their eyes met, he said, "Divorce me, and you will never see her again. Never. Not the odd weekend. Not Christmas. Not even her birthday. I'll send her to live at Blackwood with only a governess for company--a governess that I select and instruct. A bitter, severe old woman. I'll tell her that you abandoned her because you no longer love her. I'll break her heart, India, and I'll blame it all on you. It's your choice to make--your lover or your child."

  India closed her eyes. What a fool she was to think she could beat him. There was no choice. There never had been.

  A sharp knock was heard at the door.

  "Enter," Freddie barked.

  It was the maid. "Pardon me, Lady India," she said. "I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, but will you be needing your formal gowns for your fortnight at Mount Kenya or may I pack them for the return trip to London?"

  Slowly, quietly, her heart tearing in two, India said, "Send them to London, Mary. Pack my tea gowns and riding habit."

  "Yes, ma'am," Mary said, closing the door behind her.

  "Quite sensible of you, old girl. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. And you have packing. Just think ...a family holiday. A fortnight together. What a jolly good time we'll have. I'm so looking forward to it."

  Chapter 113

  Seamie stood on the porch of Dr. Ribeiro's surgery, peering in through a window. The sun wasn't up yet, but a paraffin lamp was burning inside, illuminating the small room. He could see a man sitting on a chair by a bed, reading. That was the doctor. Willa was lying in the bed under a sheet, motionless.

  Seamie rapped on the window softly. In a few seconds the door opened and the doctor stepped out. "Mr. Finnegan, is it?" he asked wearily.

  Seamie nodded. He could see from his bleary eyes and rumpled clothing that the man hadn't slept. He'd been keeping vigil over Willa.

  "I thought you'd be here early, but not this early. It's not even five o'clock yet. Couldn't you find the Norfolk?"

  "I found it. Took a room. Had a wash. Tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I had to come back," Seamie said. "Is she all right?" he asked, looking at Willa again.

  "She will be," Dr. Ribeiro said. "She's a fighter. She lost a bit of blood during the operation, of course, and she's weak, but her fever's come down a little. Now that the gangrene's gone, she'll make a good recovery. I'm sure of it." He frowned, then added, "Of course, it's very hard on a woman--an operation like that. They put a great deal of stock in shapely legs and dainty ankles."

  "Willa didn't," Seamie said. "She put stock in strong legs. She climbed mountains."

  "Well, she won't be doing any more of that, and it's a good thing, too. What was she thinking? The top of a mountain is no place for a woman."

  "It was a place for her," he said quietly.

  "Was it? Look where it got her," the doctor replied briskly, obviously unused to being corrected.

  "I brought her these," Seamie said, holding up a bag containing some new clothes, and the latest newspapers. "I bought them yesterday. Can I leave them by her bed?"

  "You may. Just be careful not to wake her. She needs her sleep. Sleep is the great healer." He bustled off to the back of the room. Seamie heard water running, smelled paraffin and coffee.

  He walked to Willa's bedside as quietly as he could. As he was placing the bag down, he saw that she was awake. Her eyes were open; she was staring at the ceiling. She looked so pale to him, so lifeless and small.

  "Wills?" he whispered, touching the back of his hand to her cheek. "How are you feeling?"

  She didn't turn to him; she didn't look at him. "My leg's gone," she said in a dull, lifeless voice.

  "I know it is," he said, forcing himself to look. He saw the bulge of her thigh under the sheet, her knee, and then nothing.

  "How could you let him do it?"

  "I had no choice. You would have died."

  "I wish I had."

  "Don't say that. You don't mean it. You're in shock."

  "How will I climb?"

  "I don't know, Willa," Seamie said, his voice faltering. "I don't know."

  She closed her eyes. Tears leaked from under her dark lashes.

  "Please don't cry. It'll be all right. You'll see." He didn't know what to do. He wanted to take her into his arms, to kiss her pale cheek, but he was afraid to. Afraid of her anger, of her despair. Afraid that she was right. That the doctor had taken more than her leg. That he'd somehow cut away her spirit, too.

  "I brought you some things. New clothes, the papers..."

  "I'm tired," she said, not opening her eyes.

  Seamie nodded, feeling wounded by her words, by the accusation in them. He wanted to hear her say that she still loved him. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. Instead he said, "All right, then. I'll come back later."

  He took the clothes out of the bag and put them on a chair at the foot of her bed. He put the newspaper on a small table by her head. A headline about a local man's arrest shrieked up at him. He barely noticed.

  As he was making his way toward the door he noticed the doctor motioning to him from the back of the room. He joined him.

  "She was awake? Talking?" Dr. Ribeiro asked.

  "Barely," he said. "She blames me for what happened. She's angry."

  "They all are at first. It's hard to lose a limb. Acceptance comes slowly, but it does come. Give her time."

  Seamie nodded, rubbing a hand over his face.

  "Mr. Finnegan, have you eaten anything recently?"

  "I don't know," he said. He didn't. It was so hard to remember. The last few days had passed by in a blur of fear and desperation. "I think the conductor gave me something on the train. A sandwich."

  "Listen to me, if you don't take care of yourself, you'll wind up in here, too. Go back to the Norfolk, have a proper breakfast, and then sleep. Let Miss Alden sleep. And the next time the two of you talk, things will be better. You'll see."

  Seamie thanked him and headed for the Norfolk. On the way, he told himself that the doctor was right. He and Willa were both spent. He would visit her again tonight when they were both a bit recovered. Things would be different then. They each needed time to adjust.

  Nairobi was not a large town and Seamie was back at the Norfolk in fifteen minutes. It was a pretty hotel--built of stone, with a shingled roof and a long veranda.

  "The dining room's not open yet, sir. It doesn't open until seven," the clerk at the front desk told him when he inquired about breakfast. "However, the bar's open. If you'd like to sit there, I can have some toast and coffee brought."

  Seamie made his way to the bar. Other men were already seated in the room. Three or four looked like planters. There was a priest, two military men, and a traveling salesman. He found an empty table and sat down. A waitress came almost immediately with a steaming pot of Kenyan coffee. Seamie poured himself a cup and savored it. The waitress came back with hot toast, fresh butter, and a pot of strawberry preserves. After days of dried
goat meat and muddy water, coffee and toast seemed like the greatest of luxuries to him.

  He decided that after he ate he would have a long hot bath and a kip. And when he woke things would look brighter. He was sure of it. Willa was still in shock. As she recovered, she would begin to think more clearly and see that he'd done the only thing he could do. He hadn't forgotten what had happened on the mountain. Nothing could make him forget. Not the accident. Not the five hellish days that followed. He'd told Willa that he loved her. And she'd said that she loved him, too. That was all that mattered. They were strong and they had each other and they would get through this.

  He ate another piece of toast, sipped the bracing black coffee. He was beginning to feel like a human being again. Now all he needed was a newspaper. And maybe a cigarette. There was no sign of any tobacco for sale at the bar, but he did spot a paper folded up on a table near one of the planters.

  "Excuse me, is that yours?" he asked the man, pointing to it. "Do you mind if I take a look at it?"

  "Not at all," the man said, handing it to him. He turned back to his friends. "You see that headline?" he asked them, his voice loud with amazement. "Baxter's been arrested."

  "Sid Baxter? Bloke who works up at the Carr farm?"

  "The very same. Turns out he's wanted in London for murder. Killed some actress there a few years back. Got out of London on a supply ship. Changed his name."

  Seamie froze. He put his cup down and unfolded the paper.

  "No," he told himself. "It's not him. It can't be. World's not that small. It's just a coincidence, that's all."

  But it was him. There was a photograph. Black and white, grainy. And with a long jagged line running through it, as if the plate had been cracked. It showed a man coming down the steps of someone's porch, his hands cuffed. His head was slightly bent, but Seamie knew him all the same.

  It was Sid Malone. His brother.

  Chapter 114

  Sid sat on the dirt floor of his jail cell, his back against the wall, his head in his hands. A bowl of suferia, a slop made of boiled beans, sat untouched beside him. A mattress, filthy and bug-ridden, lay on the floor. A battered tin chamberpot stood in one corner.

  Sid's eyes were closed, but he was not asleep. He hadn't slept all night. Images from his past, hellish memories of his time in prison, replayed behind his eyes, torturing him. He heard the footsteps again, coming to his cell at night. Felt the desperation, the fear. He heard the guards' laughter, heard Wiggs telling him he'd be back one day.

  This was his life now--this despair, this suffocating fear, this desperate loneliness--and he knew it would be until the day he stood on the gallows and a guard put a noose around his neck. Wiggs was dead, but there were more like him. Plenty more. And they were waiting for him.

  Sid heard footsteps again. They were coming down the hallway outside his cell. He flinched at the sound.

  "Jesus Christ, it is you! You know something? This is getting pretty bloody old."

  He looked up. A face looked back at him through the bars. He thought he knew it, but it seemed so haggard, so hollow.

  "It can't be," he finally said. "It bloody can't be. Seamie?"

  Seamie nodded. "In the fiesh," he said. "What's left of it."

  Sid was on his feet in no time. Seamie reached a hand through the bars to him; he took it.

  "How the hell did you get here?" Seamie asked.

  "Might ask you the same thing."

  "It's a long story."

  "You've got a captive audience."

  Seamie laughed wearily.

  "Sit down," Sid said, pointing to a chair behind his brother.

  Seamie pulled it over to the bars and sat. He leaned over, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him, and grinned at his brother. "Can't believe this," he said.

  "Nor me. You look terrible. Bloody awful," Sid said, forgetting his own misery. "What happened to you?"

  "I climbed Kilimanjaro," he said. "On a bet."

  Sid listened in amazement as Seamie recounted the whole adventure for him, all the way from a dare made in a pub in Cambridge to the trek off the mountain to Willa's operation. He gave a low whistle when Seamie finished.

  "Is she going to be all right?" he asked.

  "The doctor says she will. I don't know. She looked awful just now."

  "She's bound to, though. She must've been in terrible pain. And then the infection and the operation..."

  Seamie shook his head. "It's more than that," he said. "She looked gutted. As if they'd taken a lot more than her leg. Climbing's everything to her and now she'll never climb again. She blames me. I know she does."

  "Who is she to you?"

  Seamie stared down at his clasped hands. "No one special. Just the love of my life."

  Sid's heart ached for him. "She'll be all right, lad. You'll see."

  Seamie nodded, but didn't look convinced. "Well, anyway, that's my sad story," he said, trying to buck up. "Tell me yours."

  Sid told him everything. For the first time, he told him about India. He told him about coming to Africa and meeting Maggie and achieving some small measure of peace. He told him how grateful he'd been for that peace and how it had been smashed forever only days ago when he'd come face-to-face with India again. And then her husband.

  "The paper says he's having you returned to London to face charges in the Dean case."

  "He means to hang me. I know he does."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm a threat."

  "To his marriage?"

  "To his millions."

  "Luckily, he's not the one who'll make that decision. There has to be a trial. With a judge and jury. They'll see there's no case and set you free. They'll have to."

  "You don't know Lytton. When it comes to villainy, he makes me look like a bleedin' amateur. He'll get his verdict. By buying the judge or intimidating him." The despair he'd felt, momentarily chased away by the shock of seeing his brother, came flooding back. "I'm a dead man, Seamie."

  "Look, you can't--" Seamie began.

  His words were drowned out by the sound of angry voices coming down the hallway.

  "You must wait here!" a man said. Sid recognized it; it was the guard's. "Nairobi law states that a prisoner is allowed only one visitor at a time."

  "Get out of my way, George! I've traveled two bloody days to get here. I've been forced to leave my farm in the hands of a drunken ninny. My women won't work. And seven hundred acres of coffee are going to hell while I'm standing here. All because that damned Hayes Sadler arrested my foreman. So you can take your Nairobi law and stuff it up your arse. Let me through!"

  Sid recognized that voice, too.

  "Hello, Maggs," he said, as she strode into view. "You got past George, I see."

  "Self-important fool," she growled. "You'd think he had Jack the Ripper in here. Crikey! Who's this? He's the spitting image of you!"

  Seamie stood.

  "Meet my brother, Seamus Finnegan. Seamie, may I present my employer, Mrs. Margaret Carr."

  "How did you get here?" Maggie asked him.

  "It's a long story, ma'am," Seamie said.

  "You can tell me later, then. We've other things to discuss now." She sat down heavily on the empty chair. "I've been to see Tom Meade, the weasel. I shamed him into telling me what's going on. They're going to hold you for three more days then put you on a train to Mombasa. Then it's a packet ship to London and Wandsworth."

  Sid closed his eyes at the mention of the prison. He felt sick to his very soul.

  "Sid? Sid! Are you listening to me? Pay attention. We have to make a plan. We have to talk about this."

  He opened his eyes. "Talk about what?"

  Maggie lowered her voice. "Your escape."

  "I'm not escaping. They can take me to London. I don't care anymore. I've got little enough to live for."

  "Don't talk that way. Don't even think that way. You have to get out of here. Go on the lam. To Ceylon. China. Somewhere Lytton'll never find you."
r />   "How, Maggie? How?"

  "We'll think of a way. This isn't Newgate, you know. It's a two-bit ramshackle chicken coop of a jail. People have broken out before. You can, too."

  Sid shook his head. Despondency had overtaken him once more. He had lost the will to fight.