She looked at him. “No …” she said slowly, a smile of wonder and joy breaking across her face. “I’m fine. The baby kicked, Joe. I felt it. I felt it.” She reached for his hand and pressed it against herself. He felt nothing. She was looking at him, but her gaze was inward. “There!” she whispered excitedly. “Did you feel it?” He hadn’t. She pressed his hand in harder and suddenly he did feel it. An impossibly small elbow. Or a knee, or maybe a heel. A tiny, defiant flutter. The baby – his baby – was suddenly real.
Strong, roiling emotions ripped through him – fatherly feelings, fierce and protective, and feelings of utter desolation. He knew with an awful and ancient certainty that he would love this child. And he knew that he wished it had never come into being. His future – as this baby’s father, as Millie’s husband – rose up in front of him. Tears came to his eyes, tears of love and grief for this baby that was his, but not his and Fiona’s, for this hopeless, empty life. He tried to blink them away. He heard Millie, her silk nightgown rustling, move toward him.
“Ssshhh,” she whispered, kissing him. “It’s all right. You’ll love the baby, Joe. You will. And the baby will love you. He does already. And maybe, when he comes, you’ll love me. And then we’ll be a family and everything will be all right.”
“Mr. Bristow?”
The sound of the doctor’s voice pulled Joe out of the past and into the present. His head snapped up. “ ’Ow is she?” he asked.
“She’s had a very hard time of it, but she’ll be fine.”
He felt relief wash over him. “And the baby?”
“I’m afraid the baby was stillborn. We couldn’t stop the contractions. It was a mercy he went as he did.”
“It was a boy,” Joe said dully.
The doctor nodded. He put a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “It was too early in the term for an infant to survive outside the womb. He would only have suffered. There will be others for her. In time.”
“Should I go in to ’er?” Joe asked. He started to get to his feet.
Dr. Lyons kept a steady pressure on his shoulder, forcing him to stay seated. “No, no,” he said quickly. “That’s not a good idea. Not just yet. Mr. Peterson will be out momentarily. He’ll advise you.” The doctor went off in search of some breakfast, saying he would be back to check on Millie in an hour or so.
Joe slumped back on the bench, too empty to weep. The baby was stillborn. Like everything else in his life, all his dreams, his hopes. Like everything he’d always wanted to be – good, kind, upstanding. A loving husband and father. Ever since he had felt the little thing kick, he had hoped to hold it and care for it and love it. Its tiny, questing movements had seemed like a promise that something good would come out of all the misery. But now the baby was dead. Because of him.
The door to Millie’s room opened and his father-in-law came out.
Joe stood and faced him. “Does she want to see me?” he asked.
Tommy stood motionless, his fists clenched at his side, his face frozen in an expression of cold fury. “The only reason I’m not going to kill you right here is because of Millie,” he finally said. “She told me everything. How it’s been between you two. About the girl. Fiona. I don’t know if she meant to. She was delirious from the pain and the chloroform. She told me about Guy Fawkes night… and her part in it. A hard thing to hear.” He looked at the floor, his jaw working, then at Joe again. “I want you out of the house. Out of our lives. Take what’s yours and go. There will be a divorce on the grounds of adultery. Yours. If you contest it, I’ll –”
“I won’t,” Joe said. Divorce, he thought. He would have his freedom. Should he feel glad of that? He didn’t. He felt sorry and ashamed. No one got divorced. It was a drastic, ugly, scandalous thing and the fact that Tommy had demanded it only indicated how much he despised him. He, Tommy Peterson, the man whose approval had once meant the world to him. Joe picked up his jacket. He glanced at the door. “I’d like to tell ’er I’m sorry,” he said.
Tommy shook his head. “Leave her be.”
As Joe walked down the corridor, Tommy shouted at him. “Why? Why, you stupid sod? You had it made. You had it all – everything you could ever want.”
Joe turned and gave him a sad, bitter smile. “Everything, Tommy, and nothing at all.”
Chapter 28
“And I want two lamb chops … those there, the big ones, yes … a pound of pearl onions, a bunch of parsley, and half a pound of sweet butter. You got the porridge oats, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mrs. Owens,” Fiona said, scrambling after her customer as she moved through the crowded shop. “Seamie, luv, bring up some more apples,” she shouted at her brother. He dumped the lemons he was carrying into a bin and hurried back down the cellar stairs.
She felt someone take her elbow. “I want some of your tea, luv. I have the coupon from your flyer … the one for a quarter pound? You won’t run out, will you?” It was Julie Reynolds, who lived across the street.
“Miss! Miss!” another voice called. “I want some of the Madeira cake before it’s gone!”
“Right away, ma’am,” Fiona shouted back. She turned back to Mrs. Reynolds. “Not to worry, Mrs. Reynolds. I’ve two more chests in the basement. Just give me one minute.”
Fiona heard a sharp rapping. “Young man, can you get me some flour, please!” It was an elderly woman knocking the handle of her cane against the counter.
“Right away, my lovely,” Nick said, careening toward Fiona. He weighed out a pound of apples as she dug in a basket for pearl onions. They traded quick, harried smiles. “Lord, the place is crawling! I’ve a wad of coupons in my pocket from your flyer and reams more in the till. We’re going to need another tea chest up from the basement soon. How many ads did you run?”
“Just the one in the little neighborhood paper!”
“All this business from one little ad? Nate’s right. Advertising does work!”
He shot off to ring up the apples and Fiona blessed him for being here to help. She would’ve been lost without him. He was so charming and chatty. The ladies loved him and he loved playing shopkeeper. It was another game, a prank, and Nick, an overgrown child, delighted in it.
She weighed and wrapped the lamb chops, the butter and the pearl onions, stacked them next to the bag of porridge oats, and tossed a bunch of parsley on top of it all. “Have you tried our ginger biscuits?” she asked Mrs. Owens, handing her one. “They’re very nice. I can’t keep Seamie out of them,” she added, knowing from Mary that Mrs. Owens was a fond mother to her five children, hoping to add a little more to her bill.
“Homemade, are they?” the woman asked, savoring the bite she’d taken.
“Just this morning. Mary Munro did them. She made all the baked goods.”
“Oh, I know Mary! She’s a wonderful baker. Give me half a dozen. They’ll keep the kiddies quiet. I need a quart of milk and two pounds of flour, too. And don’t forget my tea, Fiona! Here’s my coupon. It is good? I don’t want any rubbish.”
“It’s an excellent tea, Mrs. Owens. It’s T-G-F-O-P,” she said, with a meaningful nod. “Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe.” She’d seen Joe do that. Drop some rarefied term into the conversation. It implied a shared, superior understanding of the product, made a customer feel in the know.
“I saw that on the chest. What does it mean?”
“It’s the tea’s grade. It tells you you’ve got nice large leaves with lots of bud. It means it’s all new growth, plucked from the top of the bush, not a lot of tough, old leaves from down the branches.” She lowered her voice. “There’s some who wouldn’t know the difference,” she said, glancing around, “but those who do, insist on the better grade.”
Mrs. Owens nodded knowingly. “Give us our quarter pound, lass. Lord knows how long it’s been since I had good tea – years!”
Fiona smiled at Mrs. Owens’s enthusiasm. She shared it. If there was one thing she could not abide, it was bad tea. Frustrated by the offerings of her uncle’s supplier,
she’d closed their account with him and trekked down to South Street, to Millard’s, her friend Stuart’s importing firm, and had him devise a custom blend of Indian tea. She told him what she wanted, and using Assam leaves from three estates, Stuart had concocted a blend that was full-bodied and brisk, with a bright, malty character. He was glad to do it. He was having difficulty moving his Indian tea. His American customers only wanted to buy what they knew, which was China tea. His Indian tea was better, but he hadn’t been able to sway them. Fiona, however, would have nothing else. She immediately recognized its quality. She’d known that her customers would like it, too. Thanks to Mary, she’d met many of them before today. Young working-women, or wives of dockers and factory men – almost all immigrants – they were partial to good tea. It was the one small luxury their workaday lives afforded them.
Fiona weighed Mrs. Owens’s tea and plunked the bag on the counter with the rest of her things. Then she wrapped her ginger biscuits, weighed out two pounds of flour, and ladled milk from a large two-handled dairy can into the quart-size jug Mrs. Owens had handed her. “Will that be all?” she asked, starting to total her purchases.
The woman was casting a longing glance at the shop window. “Oh, those new potatoes look so good. Let me have two pounds and a bunch of asparagus, too. Mr. Owens is partial to it. I think that’ll do for now. I’ll barely be able to carry what I’ve got.”
“Would you like this delivered?”
“Delivered? Finnegan’s delivers now?”
“Yes, ma’am. All day Saturday and afternoons during the week when my delivery boys get out of school.”
“How much?”
“No charge for you, Mrs. Owens.” There was no charge for anyone, but why mention it?
“Well, yes, then!” the woman said, flattered and delighted. “And give me a bunch of those pretty daffodils, too. I’ll take them with me since I don’t have anything else to carry. And see that those boys mind my milk jug!”
Mrs. Owens paid for her goods and left. Without missing a beat, Fiona turned to her next customer. “Now then, Mrs. Reynolds, thank you so much for waiting. What can I get for you?” And after Mrs. Reynolds was taken care of, there was still a steady stream of women to attend to. Fiona was being run off her feet and she was ecstatic. People were buying! They purchased milk and bread and flour – the staples – but they also bought the more expensive items: bunches of fresh-cut flowers, Mary’s biscuits, and new spring vegetables right out of the window!
Fiona had agonized over that window. She’d left it to the last minute, only completing it at six that morning. She’d never arranged a window before and hadn’t known where to start, but she knew it had to be beautiful and so eye-catching that it pulled people in off the street. Standing alone in the middle of the shop, she’d looked around at all the goods that had been delivered – oats, pickles, milk, flour – wondering how on earth to create a display from them. As she saw the sun’s first rays brighten the street, she started to panic. Then she heard Joe’s voice in her head, saying, “It’s all in the presentation, Fee. That’s what makes punters want to buy.” Her eyes came to rest on a crate of asparagus – she hadn’t planned to buy it, it was dear – but the veg man convinced her, saying that people craved fresh vegetables after the long winter and would pay extra for them. Her gaze moved to the new potatoes, so little and rosy in their tender jackets … the golden loaves of bread delivered by the baker’s boy … the daffodils that Alec had procured … and the duck eggs, brown and speckled in their hay-lined crate … and then she had a brainstorm.
Tearing upstairs, she took a white tablecloth from Molly’s linen closet. She grabbed a green vase from the sitting room and a blue-and-white-spattered enamel bowl from the kitchen and ran back downstairs. In the shop’s cellar, she dug up an empty fruit crate, a big round biscuit tin, and a few baskets, climbed in the window and got to work. When she had finished, she went outside to view the result.
What she had wrought was a perfect picture of spring. A burst of bright yellow daffodils in the green vase stood in the center of the window atop the biscuit tin, which she’d covered with the white linen cloth. Behind them, standing in a tall wicker basket, were long golden loaves of bread. Next to them, on top of the wooden crate, was another basket, piled high with new potatoes. Next to that, asparagus bundles tied with twine stood in the blue-and-white bowl. And in front, in a small hay nest she’d made, were six perfect duck eggs. Rustic and inviting, Fiona’s display was utterly unlike any other shop window, stuffed as they were with tins of boot black, faded packets of soap, and tired-looking boxes of sweets. Her little tableau spoke of the warm, green days to come. Of tulips poking up through the moist earth and tiny buds on trees. It was heartening and cheerful and delighted passersby fed up with winter fruit and old potatoes.
The window illustrated for Fiona the first and most important rule of retailing, one she had learned from Joe, from the markets and shop windows of Whitechapel, and one she understood instinctively: Create a desire for something and people will buy it.
A woman staring at the window came in, followed by a breathless Ian. Fiona pointed at Mrs. Owens’s order and gave him the address. He quickly packed the groceries in a crate and was off. Robbie came in as he was leaving and Fiona gave him Mrs. Reynolds’s order to deliver. She thought, with irritation, how very helpful it would have been to have her uncle working alongside her as well, instead of pickling himself at Whelan’s. She’d dragged him in yesterday, and made him fix the sticky till drawer and show her how to unroll the awning. It had cost her another dollar. And while he was in the shop, he’d criticized many of her purchases.
Some of the vendors had sold her double what he would’ve ordered for the week, taking advantage of her inexperience. She heard about that until her ears burned. Then he cracked an egg on a plate, poked the flat yoke, and told her it was old. He stuck his hand into the flour barrel, sifted some between his fingers, and found weevils. He saw the three chests of tea from Millard’s and told her she’d bought way too much and that it would go stale before she sold it all. He prodded a fish, examined its gills, and told her it was off. She angrily retorted that none of it would’ve happened if he’d been there to help her with the buying. Grumbling, he’d moved the chests of tea and coffee, along with rusks, oatmeal, and a few other necessities that women came in for often, closer to the counter, and the glass jars of cocoa, nutmeg, and cinnamon sticks out of the sun; then he told her to get the matches off the meat cooler, lest they take the damp.
For just a moment, he was the knowledgeable, competent shopkeeper she knew he could be, but just as she thought he might stay and help her, he left, saddened by the place. On his way out, he belittled her pretty touches – the lace valance, the glass plates for Mary’s pastries, the window boxes, and the hand-painted OPEN sign Maddie had made for her. This was a working-class neighborhood, he’d said. People were interested in value for money, not frippery.
He was wrong, Fiona knew he was. Working people loved beauty as much as wealthy people. Maybe more so, since they had so little of it in their lives. But his words had upset her and Nick, who had come over to help her get ready, had to restore her shaken confidence. He’d told her her missteps were only beginner’s mistakes and she had time to put them right. He told her what mattered most were talent and ability, and she had plenty of both. He’d taken her face in his hands and ordered her to march to the fishmonger and tell him to shove that old cod he’d sold her straight up his bum, fins and all. She had, and she’d gotten a beautiful, fresh fish to bring back with her. Then she’d made the miller replace the flour and the poultry man give her new eggs.
As she wrapped the last of the ginger biscuits for a customer – all gone and it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet! – Fiona realized that she’d done it: she’d reopened the shop. She had customers – dozens of them! So many that she was running out of things left and right. She would have to restock, and quickly. “You can’t sell off an empty cart,” Joe used
to say. She was so relieved it had all gone well, but more than that, she was happy. And proud. The tea, the pastries, the pretty window – they were all her ideas and they’d all worked. It was an amazing feeling, to succeed at something. It was a new feeling for her – part happiness, part pride – and she relished it. With a painful twinge of regret, she remembered sitting on the Old Stairs with Joe as he tried to tell her about his successes at Peterson’s and what they meant to him. She’d been too jealous, too threatened, to listen. If only she had listened to him. If only she’d tried to understand him, instead of fighting with him. If only, if only.
As she held the door open for a customer who wanted to take her purchases with her, Fiona saw a van pull up outside the shop. The driver came up to the door, asked her name, then handed her a box.
“What is it?” she asked him.
“With him, you never know,” he said, already back in his van and snapping the reins.
Fiona looked at the box. It was a shimmering blue rectangle, about twelve inches by fourteen, with a hinged lid inlaid with pieces of iridescent glass. She turned it over. The words “Tiffany Studios” were etched on the bottom. Puzzled, she opened it. She was surprised to find a newspaper inside – a copy of the New York World. The words “Turn to page 5” were written on the front page. She did, and saw that her ad, the one Nate and Maddie had done, the one she’d run in the Chelsea Crier, took up the entire page. She was stunned. How had this happened? She hadn’t run this. She couldn’t afford to. The World was a huge city paper, not some little neighborhood rag. Maybe that explained why the shop was so full of people.
A small white card slid out from between the pages and fluttered to the ground. She picked it up. The writing was large and masculine. It said:
My Dear Miss Finnegan,
I hope this small gift contributes to your success. Best wishes,
William R. McClane
William McClane wondered if he was losing his mind. He was late for a supper at Delmonico’s and he could not afford to be. It was a private supper hosted by the mayor. Many of the city’s leading financiers were attending. It would be the perfect forum to talk up his plans for a city-wide subterranean railway, to generate interest and excitement among the very people whose support would be crucial to his success.
The Tea Rose Page 32
