The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  It started raining harder. Perfect, Max thought. He pulled his collar up around his neck and shivered visibly.

  “Here …,” she said, holding her umbrella so that it covered them both.

  Max made a show of looking around. “There’s a pub,” he said. “The Blind Beggar. Would you accompany me there?”

  The girl shook her head. “I don’t frequent pubs,” she said.

  “There might be a ladies’ area in that one,” Max said hopefully.

  The girl still hesitated, but her eyes looked hungry and sad. She was lonely, as he’d known she would be from the way Jennie Wilcott had described her when they’d all been waiting for cabs and carriages outside Holloway: a single woman with a poorly mother, a knitting group, suffrage work. She was desperate for a man’s company. He could see that. Anyone could.

  “Right. Well, I won’t keep you,” he said, tugging on the brim of his cap. “Good night, miss.”

  “Maybe just one drink,” she suddenly said. “A lemonade or some such. My mother waits up for me. But I don’t think she’ll miss me. Not just yet. I sometimes get home a bit late from my knitting circle.”

  Max smiled. “That’s wonderful. I’m glad you changed your mind. Just one drink, then. It’s the least I could do after nearly knocking you down. I’m Peter, by the way. Peter Stiles,” Max said, offering her his arm.

  The woman’s glasses had slid down her nose. She pushed them back up and gave him a shy smile.

  “I didn’t get your name,” he said.

  “Oh! Right. Silly me,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “It’s Gladys. Gladys Bigelow. Very pleased to meet you.”

  Chapter Ten

  “The Stove goes where, guv? There? Are you quite certain? It’s a church,” Robbie Barlow, the deliveryman, said.

  “It’s a very cold church,” Seamie said.

  “Is the door open? This thing’s bloody heavy, you know. Once we get it off the cart, we’ll want to get it straight inside.”

  Seamie nodded. “It’s always open. The reverend keeps it that way.” He jumped off the cart, trotted up the church steps, opened the door, and called out, “Hello? Anyone here? Reverend Wilcott? Jennie?”

  There was no answer, so he went inside and tried again.

  “Hello? Is there anyone here?”

  He heard footsteps, and then a young woman, a very pretty young woman in an ivory blouse and beige skirt, came out of a room off the church’s vestibule.

  “Seamie Finnegan? Is that you?” she said.

  “Jennie! You’re here!”

  “Yes, of course. I finished with the children a few minutes ago. I was just tidying up.”

  “I was hoping you’d be here.”

  Hope had nothing to do with it. It was a Saturday, the day Jennie taught school. He knew she would be here.

  Just then the church door opened again. “Pardon me, missus, but where’s the stove going?” Robbie said. He and another man had just carried it inside and were straining under its weight.

  “What stove?” Jennie asked.

  “I’ve brought you a new stove,” Seamie said. “To replace the old one. You said it didn’t work. And the children looked so cold the other day.”

  “I can’t believe you did this,” Jennie said.

  “It’s nothing. Really,” Seamie said. “I just wanted to help.”

  It was true. Mostly. What he’d really wanted was to see her again. Very much. He hadn’t stopped thinking about her since he’d said good-bye to her a week ago. He hadn’t wanted to think about her. Hadn’t wanted to remember the color of her eyes, the curve of her waist, or the sound of her laughter, but he couldn’t help it. It was a bit crazy—coming here like this with a delivery wagon and a stove—he knew it was, but he didn’t care. It gave him a reason to see her again.

  “I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Thank you so much,” Jennie said now, visibly moved by his gift.

  “Oi, missus!” Robbie wheezed. “Save the thank-yous for later. Where the devil do you want this thing?”

  “I’m so sorry!” Jennie said. “This way, please.”

  She turned and led the men into the small sacristy that served as her classroom. They put the stove down with a bang, then stood bent over, hands on knees, chests heaving.

  “Is the old stove hot?” Robbie asked when he’d caught his breath.

  “No, it isn’t. We couldn’t use it today. I couldn’t get it to work. I think the flue’s finally broken.”

  “Do you want it removed?”

  Seamie said they did. The two men detached it from its vent pipe and took it to their cart.

  “I … I don’t know what to say,” Jennie said after they’d left. “It’s far too kind of you.”

  Seamie waved her thanks away, took off his jacket, and rolled up his sleeves. He opened the bag of tools he’d brought with him from Joe’s house and got busy installing the new stove. He’d tinkered with Primus stoves and the stove on board the Discovery so often that hooking up this one was no great challenge. Half an hour after he started, he was finished.

  “There!” he said, crawling out from behind the stove. “You’ll all be warm as toast in here now.”

  Jennie looked at him and burst into laughter.

  “What?” he asked, looking back at her.

  “You’re black as a chimney sweep! You should see your face. You look like you fell down a coal hatch. Wait there. I’ll get a basin and some water.”

  She was back in a few minutes with water, soap, and a flannel. She bade him sit down, then scrubbed at the soot on his cheeks and neck. He closed his eyes as she washed him. Her hands were soft and gentle and he liked the feeling of them. So much so that he let his feelings get the better of him. He’d planned to be very proper, very formal. He’d planned to go to her house and speak with her father first. Instead, he reached up, caught her hand in his, and said, “Jennie, come walking with me.”

  “Yes. All right. I’d like a walk. I’ve got to go to the market, and—”

  “No. I mean tomorrow. After services. In Hyde Park.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “That sort of a walk.” She looked down at their hands and did not pull hers away.

  “I’d call for you in a carriage. All proper.”

  She looked up at him then and smiled. “Yes, all right, then. That would be lovely.”

  “Good.”

  “Yes. Good.”

  “I’ll … um … I’ll walk you home.”

  “My home is right next door, Seamie.”

  “I know that. I’d like a word with your father.”

  “About the stove?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have to. He doesn’t expect it. I’m twenty-five, you know. All grown up.”

  “I know. I still want to talk to him, though.”

  She laughed. “All right, then. If you insist.”

  The Reverend Wilcott was seated at the kitchen table with a pot of tea, working on his sermon. He looked up when Jennie and Seamie came in.

  “Seamus! Good to see you again, my boy! Will you have a cup of tea?”

  “No, Reverend. No, thank you.”

  “What brings you our way?”

  And Seamie, who’d braved uncharted seas, howling gales, and subzero temperatures, suddenly found that his nerve had deserted him. He felt like a six-year-old lad in short pants asking for tuppence to spend at the fair. He’d never asked permission to take a woman walking. The women he’d been with in the last few years—well, walking wasn’t in it—and he found now that he didn’t know how.

  “I … uh … well, sir I … I want … I mean I’d like to ask your permission to take Jennie walking tomorrow.”

  The Reverend Wilcott blinked at him, but didn’t say a word.

  “Unless that would be a problem, Reverend,” Seamie said nervously.

  “No, no! It’s not that at all,” the reverend said, laughing. “It’s just that I’m not used to being consulted, that’s all. My Jennie does what she likes.
She always has. She’s a very independent girl. But if it makes you happy, then yes, you have my permission to take her walking tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’ll call at two, shall I?”

  “Call whenever you like,” the reverend said.

  “Two would be lovely,” Jennie said.

  Seamie bid the reverend good day, and Jennie walked him to the door.

  “You didn’t need to do that,” she said, before she opened it.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Next you’ll be insisting on a chaperone.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. “It would be all right. If you want one, I mean,” he quickly said.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. And then she went up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

  Before he even had time to respond, she’d opened the door. “Until tomorrow,” she said.

  “Right. Yes. Until tomorrow,” he said.

  She closed the door then and he knew he should go. But he didn’t. Not right away. For a few seconds, he just stood there, touching the place she’d kissed, touching his fingers to his cheek, wonderingly.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Darling, have you seen my new German?”

  “No, Elinor, I haven’t. Have you misplaced him?” Maud Selwyn Jones asked.

  “Cheeky girl,” Elinor Glyn said. “Do come. He’s playing piano across the hall and making all the ladies swoon. You’ll adore him. He’s positively glorious. His name is Max von Brandt. He came with his cousin, Harriet Hatcher. The lady doctor. Do you know her?”

  “I do. And him, too.”

  “Wonderful! The Hatchers were great friends with the Curzons, of course. Mrs. Hatcher and Mary Curzon were like sisters, I’m told.”

  A servant walked by carrying a tray of crystal goblets filled with champagne. “Here,” Elinor said, plucking one. “You look parched.”

  “I am. Thank you,” Maud said.

  “Drink up. We’ve plenty. I found twelve cases in George’s cellar this afternoon,” Elinor said, winking. And then she was off, trailing silks and perfume. “We’re just across the way, darling!” she trilled over her shoulder.

  Maud smiled. Across the way was no short distance at Kedleston Hall, the sprawling ancestral home of George Nathaniel Curzon, Earl Curzon of Kedleston, and a widower. She had come up for a weekend party at Elinor’s urging, and though she’d been at Kedleston several times, she never failed to marvel at the size and beauty of the Adam-designed house. It was very old and very beautiful and quite excessive, and she loved it.

  Elinor adored it, too, Maud knew, and would love nothing more than to become its mistress. She was already Curzon’s mistress, and made no secret of her desire to become his wife as well. But there were impediments. Her reputation, for one. She was a scandalous lady novelist whose books included It, Three Weeks, and Beyond the Rocks—racy stories no respectable woman would be caught dead reading. And then there was her husband—Sir Richard. Once wealthy, he had become a spendthrift and a debtor. Elinor had started writing back in 1900 and churned out a book a year now to pay the bills. They sold by the lorry load.

  Maud didn’t particularly feel like music tonight. She was bored by George and the other politicians who were visiting Kedleston for the weekend. Even her good friend Asquith, the prime minister, bored her tonight. She’d been feeling awfully restless, actually, and had been thinking about taking a stroll through Kedleston’s gardens, or simply going to bed with a book. But now Max von Brandt was here and that changed things. She remembered him. Very well. A woman never forgot a man with a face like his. In fact, she’d thought about him ever since she’d met him that day at Holloway.

  She placed her empty champagne glass on a table, took a cigarette from her purse, and lit it. It was a special cigarette, one with a touch of opium mixed into the tobacco—courtesy of a Limehouse drug lord named Teddy Ko. She’d visited him a few days ago for a fresh supply. She’d improved over the years. She didn’t frequent the East London opium dens anymore, and she didn’t even smoke as many of these things as she used to, but she still allowed herself the odd one. Every now and again.

  She inhaled deeply, blew out a plume of smoke, then walked to the music room. It was enormous, of course, like every other room at Kedleston, and filled with a thousand distracting things—paintings, porcelain, furniture, and people—but even so, she spotted Max immediately.

  He was seated at the piano playing “In the Shadows.” His silver-blond hair was brushed back from his forehead. He was beautifully dressed in a black tuxedo and every bit as impossibly handsome as she’d remembered.

  He looked up suddenly and smiled at her, and she felt herself go weak in the knees. Like some silly sixteen-year-old girl. It had been a long time since a man had had that effect on her.

  He sang the next few songs to her, all songs she loved—“Destiny,” “Mon Coeur S’ouvre a ta Voix,” “Songe d’Automne”—never taking his eyes off her, and to her dismay, she found herself looking away and, worse yet, blushing.

  As the last notes of “Salut d’Amour” rose and faded, he declared himself exhausted and in need of a drink and abruptly left the room. There was applause and shouts of “Bravo!” but Maud felt as if the whole world had suddenly gone dark.

  “Do get hold of yourself,” she whispered.

  She walked out of the music room and down the hall to the ballroom. It was empty, but a pair of French doors was open, and she quickly walked through them, badly in need of some air. Kedleston’s marble terrace was bathed in moonlight. No one else was outside.

  “Thank God,” she sighed.

  The quiet and the coolness of the night calmed her, but her hands still trembled slightly as she fished another cigarette from her purse.

  “I wonder at you. I really do,” she told herself. She was too old for this sort of schoolgirl behavior. At least, she thought she was.

  “Ah. There you are,” a voice said from behind her. A warm, rich voice, colored by a German accent. Maud slowly turned. Max was standing a few feet away. He held a bottle of champagne in one hand. “I thought you’d left. I thought all I’d find was your glass slipper,” he said.

  “I … I went outside. To take the air,” she said.

  Max smiled. “Yes, I see that. May I?” he asked, reaching for her cigarette.

  “What? This? No, you don’t want this,” Maud said, hiding the cigarette behind her back.

  “Yes, I do,” Max replied. He leaned close, so that his face was only inches from her own. She could smell him—champagne and sandalwood and leather. He reached behind her and pulled the cigarette from her fingers. He took a deep drag and blew the smoke out slowly. His brown eyes widened. “You must tell me the name of your tobacconist,” he said, coughing.

  “Give that back,” she said.

  “Oh, no. Not yet,” he said. He took another drag, smiling at her. “It’s so nice to see you again. I didn’t expect to.”

  “Nor I you,” Maud said. “I enjoyed your playing. It was beautiful.”

  “I enjoyed you. Your dress is beautiful.”

  She didn’t reply. He was playing with her. Teasing her. Mocking her. He must be.

  “Fortuny, no?” he said.

  “Very good,” she replied. “Most men wouldn’t know Fortuny from a tuba.”

  “Amethyst is your color. You should only ever wear amethyst. I’ll buy you a dozen amethyst dresses. A rare jewel should only have the very best setting.”

  Maud burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it. “Oh, Max. How absolutely full of shit you are!”

  Max laughed, too. “Yes, I am, and it’s a relief to hear you say so.” He took a slug from the champagne bottle. “So you’re a woman who likes to hear the truth, eh?” He handed her the bottle, motioned for her to take a drink. “Here it is then: I want to make love to you. I have since I laid eyes on you. I won’t be happy until I do.”

  Maud nearly choked on the champagne. She wasn’t shocked by much, but she was shocked by that.


  “Cheeky sod,” she said, wiping bubbly off her chin. She handed him the bottle, then turned to go back inside.

  “I see,” Max called after her. “Like most women, you only thought you wanted the truth. Should I have lied to you? Sent you roses? Chocolates? Spouted poetry?”

  She stopped.

  “You are poetry, Maud.”

  Slowly, she turned around again. And then she walked back to him, took his face in her hands, and kissed him. Hard. Hungrily. She felt his hands on her waist, her back. He pulled her close and she felt the heat inside him, and inside herself, and suddenly she wanted him as she had never wanted a man. Wildly. Desperately.

  “Where?” she whispered.

  “My room,” he said. “In half an hour.”

  He pressed a key into her hand. It had a number on it. All the bedrooms in Kedleston were numbered. She kissed him again, biting his lip, and then she quickly left him, her heels clicking against the marble tiles as she walked across the terrace, her heart pounding in her chest.

  She didn’t look back. Not once. So she did not see the smile that played upon Max von Brandt’s lips. A smile tinged with sorrow. A smile that did not touch his eyes.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Order! Order!” The speaker of the house boomed, pounding his gavel. “Order, please!”

  No one listened. On both sides of the aisle, MPs cheered and jeered.

  “You’ve done it again, Joe,” Lewis Mead, a Labour MP for Blackheath, whispered to him. “Can’t you ever take the easy road? Suggest something uncontentious for a change? New flower boxes at Hackney Downs? More benches at London Fields?”

  Joe laughed. He leaned back in his wheelchair, knowing it would take several minutes for the speaker to restore the peace. He looked around the room as he waited, taking in its soaring ceiling, its graceful Gothic windows and paneled galleries. These, plus the room’s high, leaded windows and long, raked benches, always made him feel he was in a cathedral. It was an association that pleased him, for there was no place in all of Britain as sacred to him as this one, the House of Commons’ chamber, and no calling as holy to him as that of member of Parliament.