The Tea Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “Let them! Qu’est-ce-que vous regardez, eh? Mélez-vous de vos affaires!” he barked at a pair of nosy matrons. He looked Nick in the eye. “Tell him to go to hell, Nicholas. Let him cut you off. You can make your own success. You are Durand-Ruel’s best salesman. Every gallery in Paris wants to fire you –”

  “Hire me –”

  “You can open your own gallery and make offices in London, Amsterdam, Rome –”

  “Henri, you don’t understand, it’s not that simple –”

  “Messieurs, s’il vous plait …” the guard cautioned.

  A stony silence followed. Henri feigned interest in a Vermeer. Nick regarded him as he stood scowling, arms crossed, his dark hair cascading down his back. Such a beautiful man, he thought, so good-hearted and warm. Talented. Smart. Stubborn as hell. And I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone. Beyond all reason.

  Henri cast a baleful glance in the guard’s direction, then hissed at Nick, “You want to go home. You miss the ugly London. The rain. The clouds. You cold English, you don’t love me.”

  “Englishman, Henri. And I do love you. Madly. But, I –”

  Henri cut him off. “Then you do not love yourself. If you go back, it will be your death, you know that, don’t you? You don’t owe him your happiness, Nicholas. You don’t owe him your life.”

  “I feel I do.”

  “Mon Dieu … why?”

  “Duty, I suppose. I’m his only son. Our ancestors started Albion over two hundred years ago. Six generations have run it; I’m supposed to be the seventh.”

  “But you despise banks, Nicholas! You don’t balance your accounts … you don’t even go to deposit your commissions. I have to do it.”

  “I know, I know …”

  “And you could leave Paris for a bank? Your life here? Your work? You could leave me?”

  “But that’s the whole bloody problem, isn’t it, Henri? I can’t leave you.”

  Nick had fallen in love with Henri the night he met him and Henri returned his feelings. He had made love before – furtive, closeted fumblings that left him feeling soiled and ashamed, but he’d never been in love. Now he was. The wonder of it! Suddenly, the most banal activity was imbued with magic. Buying a chicken was an indescribable delight because he would bring it to Henri, who would cook it with herbs and wine for their supper. Finding white roses in the market was his day’s greatest achievement – never mind that he’d sold six paintings – because they were Henri’s favorite flower. And to go to Tasset & Lhote on a Saturday and select the best paints, the finest brushes – things Henri couldn’t hope to afford – and quietly leave them by his easel gave him an unspeakable joy. Within a month, they had taken a flat together and what followed was a year of perfect happiness. Nick was promoted twice. Durand-Ruel said he had never seen such sure instincts in one so young. And every night, there was Henri to come home to. To talk to and laugh with and rehash the day with.

  But there had been a black cloud on the horizon – his father. He’d been furious when Nick left for Paris. He’d left him alone at first, hoping that his interest in art was merely a phase. But now he wanted him home. He’d turned twenty-one, he’d written, and it was time to take up his responsibilities. His father wanted to expand the bank’s influence, to open branches throughout England and Europe. The world of business was changing, he said. He wanted to take Albion public and he wanted his son by his side helping to engineer its growth.

  When Nick refused to return, he cut off his allowance. That hadn’t worked, so now he was threatening to disinherit him. If this happened, he stood to lose a staggering legacy: millions of pounds in cash, trusts, and investments; a London town house; an Oxfordshire estate; holdings in Devon and Cornwall; a seat in the House of Lords. He’d written his father with a proposition: If he gave him a little more time, just the summer, he’d come to London in September to talk. The man had agreed. It was the beginning of July now. He and Henri would leave Paris for Arles in two days’ time, and over the coming weeks, he would try and figure out what to do.

  A chill wind blew in through the hackney’s window. Still lost in his reverie, Nick didn’t feel it. He and Henri had rented a beautiful old stone house in Arles. They went for hikes across the countryside, slept soundly at night, woke rested, and swore they’d never go back to noisy, dirty Paris. Henri painted during the day and Nick corresponded with artists and clients, or read. Sometimes they walked to town to take supper in a café, but mostly Henri cooked. The night he’d told him of his decision, Henri had made an onion tart. Nick hadn’t been able to eat a bite …

  “I’m very worried about Vincent, Nicholas. He’s not right,” Henri said, pouring himself a glass of white wine. They were having supper in the garden.

  “None of you is,” Nick replied.

  “Do not make jokes. This is serious.” Henri went on to describe the trouble with Vincent Van Gogh, who was also in Arles for the summer, but Nick hardly heard him. All summer they’d talked about art, their friends, food, wine – everything but the one thing that weighed most heavily upon them. Tonight, however, they would have to talk about it. Nick had made his choice. That afternoon, while Henri was out painting, he’d walked to the post office and mailed a letter to his father informing him of his decision. Then he’d sat down on a bench nearby and waited until the post office closed and the postmaster came out with a sack of mail and took it to the railway station and put it on the Paris-bound train, so he knew he couldn’t get it back. When he got home, he’d found Henri pulling the tart out of the oven. He’d tried to tell him then, but Henri had thrust cutlery at him and told him to set the table.

  “I saw Vincent in town this afternoon,” Henri continued. “He is so thin, I barely knew him. He had on an old jacket and threadbare trousers. I thought he was a vagrant. He invited me in to look at his work.”

  “How is it?”

  “Astonishing. He has a still life with a coffeepot that you must see, and a portrait of a Zouave boy … the colors! So strong, so completely original.”

  “In other words, it’ll never sell.”

  “Well…” he said, giving Nick a hopeful look, “… maybe in the hands of a good salesman, the best in Paris …”

  Nick swallowed a mouthful of wine and gave him a long look in return.

  “Would you at least try?”

  “Yes.” Nick put his wineglass down, but his hand was shaking so, he knocked it over.

  Henri jumped up to wipe up the spill. “Nicholas, you are clumsy … look, it’s all in your plate.” Nick had not touched his food, Henri noticed. “Why aren’t you eating? Don’t you like the tart?”

  He didn’t answer. He chest felt compressed, as if all the breath had been squeezed out of him.

  “Nicholas, what is it?”

  “Henri, I …” He couldn’t get the words out. “Oh, God …” he moaned.

  “Tell me what’s wrong! Are you ill?”

  He looked at Henri, reached for his hand. “I… I wrote my father today …” He saw Henri’s face go white and rushed to finish, “… I told him I would not… I would not be coming home.”

  Henri knelt by Nick’s chair and touched his cheek. Nick pulled him close and held him tightly, until he felt him sobbing. “Henri, why are you crying?” he asked. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  “I am happy, you idiot. Happy for myself. I’m crying for you … for all that you’ve lost. Your home, your family … so much.”

  “Sshhh, it’s all right. You’re my home now. And my family.”

  They had shed more tears that night and they had laughed, too. Nick had known he would grieve over his decision for some time yet. But it was the right decision. They returned to Paris halfway through August. Nick dived back into his work, determined to provide his artist friends with the money and validation that a sale brought. Henri’s work began to sell. Two canvases at Durand-Ruel, three at Goupil. When August turned into September and Nick had had no word from home, he decided his father had made good
on his threat and that there would be no further contact. It pained him deeply, but he could bear it. He had found an abiding love with Henri and that was what he needed most. At the time he’d thought their happiness would last forever …

  The cab jerked to a stop on the east side of Irving Place, wrenching Nick out of his memories for good. He climbed out, fumbled for his wallet, and paid the driver. Genteel, he thought, taking in the aspect of the neighborhood. Old money. He smiled, wondering how old could old money possibly be in New York? A generation? Two? Old or new, he didn’t care, as long as New Yorkers bought his paintings.

  And they would. Durand-Ruel had come to New York in ’86 with three hundred Impressionist canvases and the response had been overwhelming. There were many wealthy people here with the requisite sophistication to appreciate the new art. And he would have plenty to sell to them. Before he’d left for America, he’d wired thousands of pounds to the gallery – almost all the money he had – along with a telegram telling his former colleagues what he wanted and instructing them to send the paintings to a bonded warehouse in New York. They would arrive within the week. And when they did, seeing each canvas would be like seeing the face of an old friend. Each contained a little piece of the artist’s life, his soul. Something of his life was in those canvases, too. His and Henri’s. If he succeeded with his venture, if he opened up markets for the new painters, provided them with income so they could keep working, then something good would come from all he’d suffered.

  Still smiling, he set off for the realtor’s. Eckhardt can stuff all his gloom and doom, he thought. He had no plans for an imminent departure. Not today. Not tomorrow, either. He had important work to do and he intended to see it done.

  Chapter 24

  “Uncle Michael?” Fiona called from the doorway of her uncle’s bedroom. “Uncle Michael, can you hear me? You have to wake up now.”

  There was no response from the sleeping man. He was lying on his back in his bed, tangled in his sheets. He wore a grimy union suit and socks that were full of holes.

  “Maybe he’s dead,” Seamie ventured.

  “Don’t start that again, Seamie. He’s not dead. Dead men don’t snore.”

  She called her uncle’s name again. When he still didn’t answer, she gave him a shake. He snored on, oblivious. She slapped his cheeks lightly, then grabbed his arms and pulled him up. He flopped back down. Fed up, she gave him a shove, then marched off to the bathroom.

  Over the course of her first, sleepless night in New York, Fiona had come to realize that Michael must not lose his shop. His livelihood and hers depended on it. Yesterday, after she had put Seamie down for a nap, she’d gone out to buy groceries. She’d had to walk seven blocks before she found a decent shop. The shopkeeper there was a chatty sort who asked her who she was, then said he knew her uncle, knew how hard he’d worked to save up to buy the building. “He made a good living out of that shop. He could again if he’d just stop the boozing,” he added.

  After she’d returned, she rolled up her sleeves, knotted her skirts, and got busy cleaning. She discovered that under all the rubbish was a roomy, well-appointed flat. In addition to Michael’s room there was a second bedroom that she’d slept in and a nursery that Seamie used. There was a real indoor bathroom with a flush toilet and a porcelain sink and tub. Plus a parlor, and a kitchen with a new oven, a double sink, and a big round oak table. As she’d dusted and swept, she saw many pretty touches. A green glass vase with the words “Souvenir from Coney Island” painted on it. A pair of pressed-glass candlesticks next to a trinket box embellished with seashells. Framed pictures of flowers. There was a tufted three-piece suite covered in plum velveteen in the parlor, and a wool rug in shades of moss and light green. None of these was first quality, but they’d been carefully chosen and spoke of a solid working-class prosperity.

  Obviously, her uncle had made a good living and he could do so again. She herself was not going to work in a tea factory or clean pubs for a pittance; she was going to work for him, just as she’d planned. She was going to learn the business and then she was going to open her own shop with Burton’s money. She’d only spent forty pounds so far of the five hundred she’d taken from him. She’d changed fifty on board the ship and they’d brought her two hundred fifty American dollars. Her remaining four hundred and ten pounds would bring her over two thousand more. It was a fortune, this money, but it was also her and Seamie’s future and she had to preserve it. She knew from experience that factory wages barely covered the rent on a shabby room and meager meals. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up using the money to make ends meet, eventually whittling it away to nothing. And then she’d end up as poor as she was in Whitechapel. And she was determined she was not going to be poor ever again. She was going to be rich. She had promises to keep regarding William Burton and Bowler Sheehan, and though she had no idea yet what form her revenge would take, she knew she would need money – piles of it – to effect it. She was going to go up in the world, not down, and that snoring wreck in the next room was going to help her.

  In the bathroom she took a glass she found resting on the sink and filled it with cold water. Then she returned to the bedroom and poured it on her uncle’s head.

  He gasped, sputtered, and sat up. He blinked at her and said, “Who the divil are you? And why are you trying to drown me?”

  She stared at him, incredulous. “Don’t you remember us? We’re your niece and nephew. Fiona and Seamie. We talked to you in Whelan’s yesterday. You told us we could stay here.”

  “I t’ought I dreamed that,” he said, reaching down to pick his trousers up off the floor.

  “Well, t’ink again,” she said angrily. “You didn’t dream it. No more than you dreamed that the flat was clean or your bed was made or that there was a pork chop on a plate in the kitchen. Who do you think cooked it? Fairies?”

  “Divils, more like. It was burned to shite.” He got out of bed and hunted for his shoes.

  “Why, thank you,” Fiona said, her voice growing louder. “Thank you very much!”

  Michael pressed his palms to his ears, grimacing. “Me head hurts. Don’t talk so much.”

  Fiona was furious now. “I will talk, and you’ll listen. You’ve got to stop drinking, Uncle Michael. I’m sorry Molly died, I know it must be hard for you, but you’re going to lose your shop.”

  “It’s already lost,” he said. “I owe hundreds of dollars. Money I haven’t got.” He opened the top drawer in his bureau as he spoke.

  “But I do.”

  He laughed. “Not that kind of money,” he said, rooting around in the drawer.

  “Yes, I do. I have a … a settlement. From my father’s employer. For his accident. I’d loan you what you need. You could pay off the bank and all your creditors.”

  “Ah!” Michael said, having found what he was looking for. He pulled out a flask, opened it, and took a long pull.

  “No, stop that!” Fiona cried, dismayed. “Uncle Michael, please! Listen to me –”

  “No, you listen to me,” he said, frightening her with the sudden ferocity of his anger. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want your help. What I do want is to be left alone.” He took another swallow of whiskey, shrugged on a shirt, and left the bedroom.

  Fiona trailed after him and Seamie after her. “But don’t you care about the shop?” she asked. “Don’t you care about yourself? Your baby? Don’t you care about us?”

  Michael snorted. “Care about you? Lass, I don’t even bloody know you.”

  Fiona recoiled as if she’d been slapped. You bastard, she thought. If it had been the other way around, if his children had come to her parents for help, her da wouldn’t have treated them so poorly.

  “You’re going to end up on the streets, you know,” she said, her temper flaring like the fuse on a stick of dynamite. “A dosser with nowhere to go. Sleeping in alleys. Eating out of rubbish bins. Just because you won’t get hold of yourself. Do you think other people haven’t suffered los
ses? Do you think you’re the only one? I almost lost my mind when I lost my parents, but I pulled through. Seamie, too. Truth of it is, a five-year-old boy has more … more balls than you do!”

  That stopped him. “You don’t give up, do you?” he said, reaching into his pocket. Fiona flinched as he chucked something at her. It landed with a clunk at her feet. “There!” he shouted. “Take it! Take the fucking shop! It’s yours. Just leave me alone, ya banshee!”

  He left, slamming the door behind him. Fiona felt tears welling. She looked down at the floor so Seamie wouldn’t see them. As she did, the object Michael had thrown caught her eye. It was silvery and shone brightly against the dark boards. It was a key. Michael’s words echoed in her ears. Take it. It’s yours. She bent down and touched it, then quickly pulled her hand away.

  What was she thinking? Was she mad? A person needed to know a lot to manage a shop – how to order the right amount of supplies, how to keep track of inventory and read a balance sheet. She didn’t have that kind of knowledge, Joe did. But Joe isn’t here, is he? a voice said. The voice deep inside her that always pointed out things she’d rather not have pointed out. He’s in London, it continued, with Millie Peterson. And you’re in New York with no job, living in a building that’s going to be sold right out from under you if you don’t stop moaning and whining and find a way to prevent it.

  She reached out her hand again and curled her fingers around the key. As she did, she heard footsteps on the stairs outside, then a tentative knocking. The door swung open on squeaky hinges. “Hello? Michael?” a voice called. “Are you there?”

  She snatched the key off the floor, put it in her pocket, and stood up.

  “Hello?” A woman poked her head in. “Michael? Oh!” she exclaimed, startled. “My goodness! You made me jump.” She came inside, one red, sodden hand pressed to her chest. She was small and sturdily built, with thick chestnut hair pinned back in a bun, a sweet round face and large brown eyes. Her sleeves were rolled up, her forearms were flecked with soap suds. “I’m Mary Munro, Michael’s tenant. I live upstairs,” she said.