The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “Oh, God,” she said in a choked voice. “Seamie, wait … stop. … I can’t do this. We can’t do this. It’s not right. There’s another person involved now, not just us. There’s Jennie. Your wife. You can’t betray her.”

  Seamie rolled onto his back. He stared into the gloom of the small, lamplit room, then said, “I already have. I betrayed her when I first saw you again. In the parlor of your parents’ house. And I’m going to keep on betraying her. Every day of my life. A hundred times a day. By wishing I was with you.”

  Willa rested her head against his shoulder. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know, Willa,” he said. “I wish to God I did.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “You can’t go back to London, Jennie. I won’t let you. Who will I talk to? There’s nothing here but squirrels and cows. I’ve only been here for three weeks and that was enough to drive me barmy. How am I going to manage for another seven months?” Josie Meadows wailed.

  Jennie, sitting by the cozy fireplace of her Binsey cottage with a pile of knitting and a pot of tea, gave Josie a stern look. “Would you like to go back to London?” she asked her. “I hear Billy Madden’s in quite a state over your departure.”

  Josie paled. She quickly shook her head no.

  “I didn’t think so,” Jennie said. “You’ll find things to occupy yourself. You can knit. I know you can. I taught you myself. Knit something for the baby. She’ll need a few things. And you can read, too. Improve your mind. You can even study a bit of French for when you go to Paris. I’ll find a lesson book and post it to you.” Josie nodded miserably and Jennie softened toward her. “It’s only a few months, you know, and then you’ll have the baby, and I’ll take her to an orphanage, and you’ll be free to go to Paris and start a new life.”

  Jennie thought Josie might smile at her words—she’d tried to make them sound encouraging—but Josie did not.

  “She’ll go to an orphanage then, my baby?” she said quietly.

  “Yes. Where else would she go?”

  “I don’t like orphanages. Me mum was in an orphanage. Back in Dublin. And cor, the stories she tells. They make your hair stand on end. I don’t want that for her, Jennie. I don’t. Can’t we find her a family to go to? A good one, with a sweet mum and a kind dad? With people who will love her and care for her?”

  Jennie put her knitting down and thought about this. “We could try,” she said. “I’m not sure how to go about it, but I can ask some friends. Some doctor friends who care for expectant mothers. They might know how to make inquiries.”

  “Would you?” Josie asked. “She can’t go to an orphanage, my baby. She just can’t.”

  “I’ll do it as soon as I get back. Don’t fret about it, Josie. We’ll figure something out. We’ve got time. The most important thing right now is that you’re safe and well and far away from Billy Madden.”

  “You’re right. Of course you are. Only, I still wish you weren’t leaving tomorrow,” Josie said, suddenly petulant again.

  “I’ll be back again in a fortnight. I promise,” Jennie said.

  “A fortnight?” Josie said. “I can’t take another two weeks here all by myself. I just can’t!” She started to cry.

  “Now, Josie,” Jennie said soothingly.

  “‘Now Josie’ my arse!” Josie raged. “It’s not you stuck here. I wish it was you instead of me. I wish I was you. You’re so lucky. You can go back to London tomorrow. You’re married to a good man and carrying a baby you both want. You’ve a wonderful, wonderful life and no worries at all!”

  Jennie almost laughed out loud. No worries? She had nothing but worries. She worried Billy Madden would find out where Josie had gone. She worried Seamie would find out what she was really doing at Binsey. She worried he was going to find out the truth about her accident. She worried, with every twinge and ache and cramp, that she was going to lose the baby. And she worried that he was going to leave her for Willa Alden. She had seen his face when he was holding Willa. In the parlor at her father’s funeral. She had seen that he loved her. Still. It was in his eyes, in the softness of his expression, in the tender way he’d rested his cheek against hers.

  “We all have worries, Josie,” she said now softly.

  Josie cried even harder. “Oh, Jennie, I’m so sorry. What a selfish git I am. Of course you have worries. You’re due the same time as me, and you’ve got to worry about me and my baby as well as your own. Can you forgive me?” She got up from her chair, knelt down, and put her head in Jennie’s lap.

  “Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to forgive,” she said, stroking Josie’s hair. “I know it’s hard on you. I do. But you’ve only seven more months to go. It’s not so long. You’ll see.”

  Josie snuffled and nodded. And Jennie, still stroking her hair, raised her head and looked out of the sitting room window, at the evening’s gathering gloom.

  Only seven more months, for you, too, she said to herself. It’s not so long. You’ll see. Only seven more months.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Well, well, if it ain’t Mr. Stiles. Always a pleasure,” Billy Madden said, looking up from his newspaper.

  “I need to speak with you,” Max said tersely. “Alone.”

  Billy gave a curt nod, and the three men sitting with him stood up and made their way to the bar. Max sat down with Billy.

  “You see this?” Billy said, pointing to a story on the front page of his paper. “Two blokes in Whitechapel shot each other over a few quid a few nights ago. One of ’em was called Sam Hutchins. Wasn’t he one of yours? The one who was taking your swag out to meet the boat in the North Sea?”

  “Yes, he was,” Max said tersely. “The other one worked for me, too. Apparently, they fought over payment for a job I had them do. It’s buggered everything for me. That’s why I’m here.”

  It was not a total lie. The papers hadn’t printed the real story about the mess at Duffin’s. Max knew the government would never have allowed it. They’d printed what they were told—that two friends had been drinking and started to argue violently over money. One man pulled a gun out and shot his rival. When he realized what he’d done, he shot himself.

  There was no mention about the third man who’d been there. The man who’d realized they’d been followed, shot the others, then escaped through a window. No, nothing about him.

  Max remembered the horrible scene. He remembered pulling the pistol out. The look of horror on Bauer’s face. The stoic resignation on Hoffman’s. It had been quick, at least. He was an excellent marksman and had hit them both squarely between the eyes. And then he’d run, managing to elude the police and the man from the SSB, but only barely.

  Two agents gone. The chain to Berlin hopelessly broken. And all because that fool Bauer had panicked and come to London when he should have stayed in Govan, at the shipyard. It was unspeakably frustrating. The system Max had set up had worked like a perfectly calibrated piece of machinery—Gladys to Hoffman, Hoffman to the boatyard, and then a quick trip to the ship waiting in the North Sea. And now that machine was smashed. Berlin desperately wanted the information from the Admiralty in London, and from the shipyards on the Clyde, that Max had been supplying to them, and now he no longer had any way of doing so.

  Max had received a message from Bauer two days before the shooting. In it, Bauer had said that they were on to him; he was certain of it. He’d said he had something for Berlin, something big, and he had to get it to London. Now. Max had sent word that he was to stay put and wait for a courier. But he hadn’t. He’d got on a train and shown up on Hoffman’s doorstep—Hoffman, of all people—Max’s most valuable courier. Hoffman had got word to him, Max, that Bauer had arrived in London, and Max had told Hoffman to bring Bauer to Duffin’s.

  Bauer must’ve been followed the entire way to Duffin’s, for the knock on the door and the constable telling them to open up had happened only moments after he and Hoffman arrived. Max had had only seconds in whic
h to execute the two men, throw Bauer’s documents into the fire, and flee. That he had not been caught was a miracle. They’d shot at him, and one bullet had come uncomfortably close. They would’ve killed him if they could have.

  “The boat is off,” Max said to Billy now. “That’s what I came to tell you.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know,” Max said. “As long as it takes me to find a new courier.”

  “Why can’t you get your swag to the boat yourself?” Billy asked. “Business as usual.”

  “It wouldn’t be wise right now.”

  “The busies are making things a bit hot?”

  “Yes,” Max said. “They are.”

  That, too, was not completely a lie. It wasn’t the London constabulary Max was worried about, though. It was the British SSB. Max was a German in London and, as such, was under suspicion. He knew that he’d been followed on more than one occasion. He also knew that he was in the clear, for among all the documents Gladys had brought to him were letters bound for his own dossier, all of which showed that the SSB did not consider him a threat.

  He must remain above suspicion, though, and that meant making no unusual movements. It wouldn’t look right for a West End playboy, one accustomed to staying at the Coburg and dining in London’s most stylish clubs and homes, to suddenly be seen hanging around a ramshackle East End boatyard.

  Billy, who’d been blowing smoke rings, now said, “Could you get yourself to Whitechapel? Or Wapping? At night?”

  “Why?” Max asked. He’d gone to Whitechapel many times, but it would be risky now after what had happened. He couldn’t afford to be seen and identified by Mrs. Duffin or any of her boarders.

  “The tunnels, lad,” Billy said, stubbing his cigarette out.

  “What tunnels?” Max asked, his interest piqued.

  “The ones that run under East London. From Whitechapel to Wapping to Limehouse and all the way under the river to Southwark.”

  Max sat forward in his chair. “I had no idea such tunnels existed,” he said.

  “They do. They’re a right maze. Very dangerous if you don’t know your way through them, but very handy if you do. For avoiding the busies and for moving swag.”

  “Where, exactly, are they, Billy?”

  “All over. One even runs from the basement in a church—St. Nicholas’s—right to my boatyard. If you could get yourself to the church and drop the goods there, I could send my man Harris through. He’d pick them up and get them to your man in the North Sea. Many’s the time one of my lads has hidden something in St. Nick’s and another’s picked it up by coming through the tunnels. Couldn’t be easier.”

  “Doesn’t the Reverend Wilcott mind this?”

  “Oh, you know him, do you? Nah, he’s a daft old git. Leaves the doors open all day long just in case someone’s soul needs saving. Easy as can be to nip down to the basement.”

  “But doesn’t he see the things you put down there?”

  “He doesn’t have a clue about any of it. Doesn’t even know there’s a door down there, or where it leads. I don’t think he ever goes down himself. There’s no reason to. It’s a right nasty place. Dark and damp. Only thing down there is rats. Some old, rotted church pews. And a broken statue of St. Nicholas. It fell and smashed several years ago, when some yobs dropped it as they were trying to steal it. It’s all in pieces now. Good thing is, the head’s hollow. Makes a great place to hide guns and jewels and other smalls. Or forget Wapping and go into the tunnels in Whitechapel. At the Blind Beggar. Then walk to the boatyard from there. It’s a longer walk, but my men have done it loads of times. You want to give it a go?”

  Max thought about what Billy had said. There was something in it. He liked the idea of moving the documents underground, away from prying eyes, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to make it work. At least, not yet.

  “It’s a good idea. But I can’t do the trip myself. I still need a new courier.”

  A man, thick-browed, bald, and built like a barrel, came over to Billy. Billy looked up at him. “Any word?”

  “No, guv. There’s no sign of her. Nothing whatsoever.”

  Billy slammed his fist on the table. “Fucking cunt!” he shouted. “I’m going to gut her when I find her!”

  “Lady troubles?” Max asked.

  “It’s this tart I was shagging. Little actress from the halls. A blonde named Josie Meadows. You ever see her here?”

  Max nodded. He recalled a young, blond woman with bruises on her face, sitting by a window. “Once, I think,” he said.

  “She disappeared on me.”

  “Actresses are thick on the ground in London. Can’t you find another one?”

  “This one took something with her that belongs to me,” he said.

  Max had the feeling there was more to the story than Billy was telling him, but he didn’t push him for the details.

  “You know, I’m thinking you might come across her,” Billy said. “Might see her skulking around somewhere.”

  “It’s possible,” Max said, hesitantly.

  “You don’t have to get your hands dirty, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Billy said. “All I’m asking is that you let me know if you see anything or hear anything. I’d be grateful.”

  Billy smiled his horrible, black smile. Looking at it, and at the cruel, soulless eyes above it, Max thought that this girl, this Josie Meadows, would do well to get out of London. Max had known men like Billy before, men who took pleasure in hurting and killing, and he knew that if Billy ever found this girl, she would sorely wish that he hadn’t.

  Well, that wasn’t his worry. Reestablishing the links in the chain, that was his worry. That and staying alive. He took an envelope from his jacket and put it on the table.

  “Keep the boat ready for me,” he said.

  Billy nodded. He picked the envelope up and tucked it inside his jacket.

  “I’ll be in touch again when I can,” Max said, standing up to leave. He thought about Duffin’s again, about his narrow escape, and the bullet whizzing past his cheek. “If I can,” he added.

  Chapter Thirty

  Seamie took a swallow of the whiskey he’d poured for himself. It burned his throat. Made his eyes water. He took another.

  Glass in hand, he walked to the window of his hotel room, at the Coburg, and looked out of it. Night had come down. The street lamps were all aglow. He gazed at the street below but did not see the person he was looking for. He turned from the window, caught sight of himself in a mirror, and quickly looked away.

  “Leave,” he said out loud. “Now. Get out of here before it’s too late.”

  He could do it. He still had time. He would do it. He put his glass down and grabbed his jacket. He was across the room in a few quick strides, had his hand on the doorknob—and then he heard it: a knock at his door. He stood there, frozen. Ran a hand through his hair. The knock came again. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

  “I didn’t know if you’d really be here,” Willa said.

  “Neither did I,” he replied.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Sorry.”

  He took her jacket and hat and placed them on a chair with his own jacket. She was wearing a cream silk blouse under it and a navy skirt. He commented on her outfit and she told him she hated it, but had worn it to blend in. She didn’t want to be recognized here.

  He offered her tea, but she wanted whiskey. He was so jittery, he sloshed some on her as he handed it to her.

  “It’s all right, Seamie,” she said. “We can just talk, you know. Like adults. We can try to sort things out.”

  That’s what they’d decided to do at Lulu’s party. They hadn’t made love. Instead, they decided they would meet in a private place, at a time when emotions were not running as high, and there they would put the old ghosts to rest. They would talk about Africa, and about what had happened there, and when they’d finished, t
hey would go their separate ways. They would part friends—not enemies and not lovers, but friends.

  Seamie laughed mirthlessly now. “I told myself that, too, Willa. On my way over. I told myself all we would do tonight was talk. But I knew if I came here, I’d do more than talk. And I think you knew that, too.”

  He had booked a suite—a room with settees and chairs and a desk—so that the large, inviting hotel bed would be firmly out of sight. He’d hoped that would help. It hadn’t. He wanted her so badly right now, it was all he could do not to take her on the floor.

  She nodded at his words, looking at him as she did. Her eyes were frank and unflinching. He could see the love in them, and the longing.

  “One time, then, all right?” she said quietly. “Just this one time and never again.”

  As she spoke, she put her drink down and started undoing the buttons of her blouse. She shrugged it off and let it fall to the floor. She had nothing on underneath it. She undid her boots and stockings. Then unbuttoned the waistband of her skirt and let that fall, too.

  She stood before him, unashamed of her nakedness, or of the scars on her body, and he moved toward her as if in a trance. He knew what he was doing was wrong, and he knew, too, that he would pay a heavy price for his sins. The memories of this night would torture him for the rest of his life.

  But he would pay that price. He’d pay any price to be with her.

  He didn’t take her in his arms. He would, but not yet. He wanted to see her, to discover and know every inch of her. And so he went slowly, taking his time.

  He kissed her gently on the lips. Then on her neck. He took her hand, held her arm out, and kissed his way from her shoulder to her palm, brushing his lips along her muscled upper arm, the hollow of her elbow, over the veins and sinews of her forearm, to her hand, scarred and strong.

  He kissed her throat, the bronzed skin of her chest. His mouth moved to her breasts, and he felt her arch against him as he teased her small, hard nipples with his tongue and teeth.