The Tea Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Fiona sat on Nick’s settee. “Mrs. Mackie,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, her anger under control, “I’m not sure he can be moved right now.”

  “Either you move him or I’ll move him. And all his goods, too. Right into the street!”

  Fiona took a deep breath, trying desperately to figure out a way to deal with her very sick friend, his flat, his things. She didn’t want to move him, he was too ill, but it appeared she had no choice. Mrs. Mackie had been standing in the next room while she and Dr. Eckhardt were talking. She’d heard everything.

  Fiona watched the woman as she continued to rant. Fiona’s terrible temper reared at the sight of her, kicking inside of her skull like a wild horse. This woman had come in here to get her rent money. She had seen Nick, seen the condition he was in, and she had returned to her flat, leaving him to suffer – soaked in his own piss, shivering in his sweat. She hadn’t even given him a glass of water. Now she was throwing him out. Fiona felt her hands ball into fists. She wanted nothing more at this very second than to knock Mrs. Mackie on her righteous arse. But she couldn’t; she needed her cooperation.

  “Look, Mrs. Mackie,” she finally said. “I’ll take Mr. Soames with me right now, but please allow me to keep his things here for the next two weeks. We’ll pay you an extra month’s rent for the inconvenience.”

  Mrs. Mackie pursed her lips, mulling her offer. “Plus I keep the security deposit,” she finally said. “All of it.”

  Fiona agreed, relieved. Nick’s paintings, mistakenly routed to Johannesburg instead of New York, had finally arrived and were downstairs in crates. She couldn’t let this shrew put them out on the street. She had no idea where she herself would put them, but she’d deal with that problem later. Right now she had to take care of Nick.

  When she walked back into his room, she found him propped up against his pillows. His eyes were closed, but his breathing sounded better and his skin didn’t have quite the same pallor. He still looked heartbreakingly frail, though, and she wondered how on earth she was going to get him dressed and into a cab.

  “He told you,” he said weakly.

  “Yes.”

  He turned his face away. “I expect you’ll be leaving now. I quite understand.”

  His words were like a match to the fuse of her anger – anger at Mrs. Mackie, at Dr. Eckhardt and the matter-of-fact way he’d told her about Nick’s illness, and anger at Nick for letting himself get so sick. The fuse caught and her fury exploded. “You stupid, stupid man!” she shouted. “Is that what you think? That I want to leave you just because you’re ill? Is that why I pleaded with a God I don’t even believe in to save your sorry arse? So I can walk out on you?”

  Nicholas said nothing.

  “You answer me, Nick! Why did you lie to me?”

  “I had to!”

  “Not to me!”

  “I… I thought I’d lose you, Fiona. For God’s sake, it’s syphilis!”

  “I don’t care if it’s the plague; don’t you ever lie to me again! I knew something was wrong and you told me there wasn’t! You could’ve died!”

  “Please don’t be so mad at me,” he said quietly.

  Fiona realized she was yelling at a very sick man. She walked around to the other side of the bed so she could see his face. “I’m not mad at you. But no more fibs, all right? We’re in this together. You’re coming home with me and you’re going to get well.”

  Nick shook his head. “I can’t burden you like that.”

  “It’s not a burden,” she said, sitting on the bed. “You can sleep in my room. Mary and I can take turns looking after you, and –”

  “Fiona, there’s something I need to tell you. There are things you don’t know about me. I didn’t get this disease from … from a woman.”

  She nodded and Nick pressed on, awkwardly trying to explain his sexual predilections, until she stopped him.

  “Nicholas … I know. I saw the photo. It fell out one day as I was putting your watch away. He looked so happy, the man in the picture. I thought you must’ve taken it and that he must be your lover.”

  “He was,” Nick said sadly.

  “Was? Where is he now?” she asked.

  Nick closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, they were bright with tears. “In Paris. In the Pére Lachaise cemetery. He died last autumn.”

  “Oh, Nick, I’m so sorry. How? What happened?”

  Over the course of the next hour, with pauses for water or a rest, Nick told Fiona all about Henri. He told her how they met and how much Henri had meant to him. So much, in fact, that he’d turned his back on his family to stay in Paris with him. He had been happy, he told her, and he hadn’t regretted his choice, but one September evening his happiness was taken away.

  He and Henri were walking by the Seine, he explained. Henri hadn’t felt well. He had chills and aches. Nick felt his head, then put a comforting arm around him. Normally, he didn’t touch Henri in public – it was too dangerous – but he was so concerned, he’d done it without thinking. The gesture was seen by a group of louts walking behind them. They were set upon and thrown into the river. Henri went under, but Nick was able to pull him out. “He was conscious when I got him to the street,” he said. “But by the time help arrived, he’d passed out.”

  He himself had been roughed up; he’d suffered cuts and bruises, a black eye, nothing too serious. Henri, however, had a fractured skull. He never regained consciousness and died two days later.

  “I was devastated,” Nick said. “I couldn’t eat or sleep. I didn’t show up for work for over a month and lost my job.”

  The hospital notified Henri’s parents – a proper bourgeois couple who lived outside Paris. They hadn’t approved of their son’s painting, or his companions, and refused to allow any of them to attend his funeral.

  “I grieved alone,” Nick said. “I thought I would go mad with sorrow. I couldn’t bear the sight of our flat, the streets we’d walked down, the cafés where we’d eaten.”

  Then, two weeks later, he’d received a letter from his mother, begging him one last to time to reconsider, to come home. Her words caught him at a weak moment. Distraught, in need of the comfort of his family – even though he knew he could never tell them about Henri – he decided to go back. There was nothing left in Paris for him.

  When he arrived home his mother and sisters were happy to see him, but his father was hateful; he berated him constantly for ignoring his responsibilities. Nick tried his best to please the man. He took up his duties, worked hard, oversaw the opening of new bank branches, even undertook the grinding preparatory work on a string of public offerings that Albion was underwriting by poring over countless balance sheets, deeds, and payrolls; by visiting factories and dockyards, mines and mills – but nothing he did was good enough. He became severely depressed, started to drink, and even contemplated suicide. He went out every night just to avoid his father. Sorrowing, bitter, desperate for distraction from his pain, he allowed himself to fall in with a group of upper-class wastrels – spoiled, decadent young men, most of whom were of the same persuasion as he was. One drunken, out-of-control evening, they ended up at a male brothel in Cleveland Street and he slept with one of the rent boys. It was human contact, a way to lose himself. He’d regretted it the next morning, but he’d done it again, many times. He continued to drink and woke up many mornings unable to remember where he’d been the night before or how he’d gotten home.

  His health began to suffer. He felt weak, lethargic. His mother noticed and made him see the family physician, Dr. Hadley. He assumed the man would treat his case with discretion, but he was wrong. Dr. Hadley diagnosed syphilis and promptly reported it to his father, who beat him bloody. He threw him against a wall in his study, called him an abomination, and cursed God for giving him such a son. He told him to get out of his house. He gave him a choice: Go to America and die there quietly and he’d establish an investment fund for him, one that would provide a generous income
. Or stay in London and die penniless in the streets.

  “I was lying on the floor, Fee, trying to catch my breath. My father was walking out of his study when he suddenly came back, leaned over me, and told me he knew what I was. He said he knew about Paris and Arles, and Henri, too. I felt my blood go cold. He told me what the house I lived in looked like and the names of the cafés I frequented. ‘If you know all that, then you know about Henri’s death, don’t you?’ I said to him. And as I said it, hatred flooded me. I’d always known he was a monster, but to think he’d known of my loss and said nothing! And then, Fiona, he smiled and said, ‘Knew about it? Nicholas, I paid for it!’ ”

  Fiona was weeping as Nick finished his story. Her heart was breaking for him. That a father could do to a child what his father had done to Nick was inconceivable to her. To have his son’s lover murdered. To throw his own flesh and blood into the streets like a dog.

  Nick wiped his eyes. The small reserve of strength he’d built up after Eckhardt’s visit was ebbing away again. Fiona realized she had to get him home fast, before it was gone completely.

  As she was hunting for clean clothes to put on him, he said, “At least now it won’t be long before I join Henri.”

  “Don’t you talk that way,” she told him, her voice fierce. “Henri is just going to have to wait. You’re in my hands now. And you’re going to get better. I’m going to make you.”

  Chapter 35

  “Their numbers are growing,” Davey O’Neill said. “Scores more are joining every week. They’re not afraid. They’re bloody angry and they’re not going to back down. They’ll strike before the year is out. My guess is autumn at the latest.”

  O’Neill watched as William Burton’s face darkened. He saw him slide his hand into his pocket, saw his fingers curl around something inside of it.

  “Careful now, guv. Cut the other one off and we’ll ’ave to get someone else to do your earwigging,” Bowler Sheehan said, snickering.

  Davey didn’t flinch. He didn’t budge. It was better not to. Burton reminded him of a savage animal – a wolf or a jackal – the sort of animal that watched and waited and never chased until you ran. Burton had cut him once, here on Oliver’s Wharf, and Davey did not want to feel his knife again, though the physical pain, as bad as it was, had been short-lived. It was the other kind, the kind that came from inside, from the scabbed place where his soul used to be, that drove him mad. A pain that made him want to cut his own throat every time he sat in a union meeting, memorizing names and dates and plans. Or listened to one of his fellow dockers wonder aloud how it was that the owners and foremen always seemed to know the union’s next move before they themselves did. He would have topped himself, too, if it weren’t for his wife and children. They would be destitute without him. As it was, Burton’s money had given them the only security they’d ever known. He could afford a doctor for Lizzie now and the right medicine. Seeing the color come back into her cheeks and watching her frail matchstick limbs fill out were the only things that brought him any joy.

  Sarah, his wife, had never questioned the story he’d told her about his ear or the sudden change in their fortunes. She just took the extra money he handed her every week without comment, grateful to have it. There was meat for everyone at teatime now. There were warm woolen underthings and new boots for the children. She’d asked for a new jacket and skirt for herself, too, but he’d said no. And she’d wanted to move the family to a better house a few streets over but he would not allow that, either. She’d protested and he’d told her she was to mind what he said and not question him for he had good reasons.

  But one day, fed up with his tightfistedness, she’d bought herself a new hat – a pretty straw boater with red cherries on it. She’d come home wearing it, pleased and proud of the only new thing she’d ever had. He’d ripped it off her head and thrown it into the fire. Then he’d slapped her so hard he knocked her down. He’d never hit her before. Never. She’d cowered and cried and he’d felt sick to his stomach, but he’d warned her that if she ever disobeyed him again, she’d get far worse.

  Dockers weren’t stupid. If a man’s wife suddenly flaunted a flashy hat, if his kids had new clothes, it was noticed and remarked upon. Though Tillet and the other leaders expressly forbade violence, Davey knew there were rank-and-file members who would rip him limb from limb if they ever found out he was spying.

  Sarah hadn’t bought herself anything new after that. She didn’t smile much anymore, either. She turned away from him when he came to bed, and her eyes, when she could bring herself to look at him, were cold. He’d overheard her once talking to her mother, telling her she thought the money had come from thieving. Oh, Sarah, he’d thought, if only it were that noble!

  Burton took his hand out of his pocket and cracked his knuckles. “What are the exact numbers? What have they got in their war chest?”

  “Impossible to say exactly,” Davey replied, hoping he could bluff.

  “Try, Mr. O’Neill, try. Or my colleague here will walk into your flat and snap your daughter’s neck as if she were nothing more than an unwanted kitten.”

  Sickened yet again by his utter powerlessness, Davey talked. “The Tea Operatives and General Laborers’ ’ave about eight hundred members,” he said.

  “And the money?”

  “Nothing to speak of.”

  Sheehan laughed at that and asked Burton what he was worrying about. But then Davey told them that the stevedores’ union was nearly five thousand strong and had three thousand pounds in their coffers. And they had pledged their support. If the dockers walked off the river, the stevedores would be right behind them. So would the lightermen and watermen. Burton raised an eyebrow at that, but Sheehan flapped a hand at Davey’s words.

  “The more the merrier, they’ll all starve,” he said. “Three thousand quid won’t feed the whole riverside. Not for long. Even if they do call a strike, they’ll come crawling back in two, maybe three days. Soon as their beer money runs out.”

  “I hope you’re right, Mr. Sheehan,” Burton said quietly. His calm, low tone unnerved Davey. “I can’t afford a strike. Not now. My capital’s spread far too thin.”

  “It’ll never ’appen,” Sheehan said. “You’re worrying over nothing, guv’nor. Just like that Finnegan girl. I told you she’d disappear and she ’as. Probably dead by now.”

  Burton reached into his breast pocket and handed Davey an envelope. Their gaze locked for a few seconds as he took it from him, and Davey saw that Burton’s eyes were as flat and impassive as a shark’s. They were devoid of fury and that should’ve comforted him, but it did not. He would’ve preferred anger to what he saw in them now – a black, yawning emptiness. Bottomless and terrifying.

  “There are river rats below us. I can hear them scrabbling,” Burton said.

  Davey didn’t hear anything. “I … I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Rats will eat anything if they’re hungry. Even human flesh. Did you know that?”

  “N-no, sir. I didn’t.”

  “Go home, O’Neill,” he said. “Go home and keep the rats away.” Then he turned and walked to the edge of the dock.

  Confused, Davey looked at Sheehan, but Sheehan only shrugged. Davey left then. He went back through the dark warehouse, just as he always did, walking at first, then suddenly he broke into a panicked run, stumbling once, righting himself, and running even faster until he reached the street door. As he grasped the handle, he looked back over his shoulder, expecting to see Burton right behind him, his knife raised, his awful dead eyes boring into him. He hurriedly let himself out and ran down the Wapping High Street, more afraid than he’d been the night Burton cut him, more afraid than he’d ever been in his life.

  Chapter 36

  “Keep them up for one more second, duck, whilst I get this on you. Just one more second … there!” Mary said, threading Nick’s arms through the sleeves of a fresh pajama top. She tugged the opening over his head, buttoned the neck, then leaned him back against h
is pillows. “That was very good! You couldn’t do that last week; I had to hold your arms up for you.”

  “I’ll be running the hundred-yard dash in a week,” Nick said, smiling. “Just you wait.”

  “I doubt that, but you are making progress. Your color’s improved and you’ve more strength than you had. If only we could get some meat on those bones. All right, now for the bottom half.” Mary slid his pants off, dipped her sponge in warm water, and washed him down.

  Nick had been mortified the first time she bathed him. No one had ever done that except his Nanny Allen and he’d been a child then. He’d protested, saying he could take a proper bath, in a tub, by himself, but Mary paid him no attention. She’d bustled him out of his clothes, kidding him until he got over his modesty. “I’ve seen one before, you know,” she’d said. “Mr. Munro, God rest him, had some fine equipment on him. How do you think I got Ian?”

  Nick had laughed despite himself. “I’m sure mine will be a disappointment to you, Mary. I can’t compete with a strapping Scotsman. They build their men big over there.”

  “Indeed they do, lad,” she’d said, with such a note of lusty desire in her voice, she made him laugh even more.

  He looked at his night table as Mary dipped her sponge and wrung it out again. There was a vase of roses on it from Alec, a book of verse by Walt Whitman from Nate and Maddie, and a self-portrait that Seamie had made. They had all been so good to him. He was astonished by their kindness. He felt Mary’s gentle hands kneading his calves, chafing his ankles. To keep the blood moving, she’d explained. His own mother had never touched him so.

  And Fiona … a lump rose in his throat at the thought of her. She’d saved him. He was only alive because of her, his lionheart. She’d begged and bullied him into pulling through. Her devotion amazed and humbled him. She’d given up her bed and had been sleeping on the floor next to him on a mattress. The first few nights, when he’d been afraid, she’d talked to him in the dark. When the pain got very bad, she’d reached up and taken hold of his hand. The strength in that hand … he knew it was a mad notion now, but then he’d felt as if her fierceness, her formidable will, flowed out of her and into him, giving him courage.