The Tea Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  He was still not fully recovered, but because of Fiona and her family and the Munros, he was better than he had a right to be, and had even begun thinking that he might soon be up and about. Eckhardt, that angel of darkness, was supposed to visit him that afternoon and tell him when he could get out of bed.

  Mary finished his sponge bath, slid fresh bottoms on him, and pulled the sheets up to his chest. He tried to thank her, but she shushed him. She went to dump the bathwater, then came back with the baby in her arms. “I’ve got to get the supper started,” she said. “Could I leave Nell with you for a bit? Are you up to it?”

  Nick said he was. She tucked the baby into the crook of his arm, gave him a rusk for her, and bustled off to the kitchen, humming as she went. As the baby gummed her biscuit, Seamie came bounding into his room, crawled up on the bed, and demanded a story.

  “Where have you been? You’re black as a sweep!” Nick said to him.

  “Trapping slugs. They’re eating the flowers.”

  “Did you dig a bunker to do it? Look at your ears!”

  “There you are!” Michael said, striding into the room. “Come on. It’s time for a bath.”

  “Noooo!” Seamie howled, carrying on as if his uncle had threatened him with the guillotine instead of the tub.

  “Mary said you’re to have one. You’re too dirty to sit at the table.”

  “But, I don’t want one!”

  “It’s very simple, laddie – no bath, no supper.”

  Seamie looked to Nick for a reprieve. He shook his head sorrowfully. “I’m afraid there’s no help for it, old man. She made me have one, too.”

  Seamie capitulated. He followed his uncle out of Nick’s room, his head hanging down, a condemned man. Nick was trying to stop Nell from mashing the soggy rusk into her dress when he heard a soft knock at the door.

  “Signora!” he exclaimed, delighted to see Maddie standing there. “Ciao, mia bella!”

  “Ciao, bello. Do you have a moment? I want to show you the drawing for Fiona’s tea boxes. It’s almost complete, but I think the background needs work. See where it folds to make the lid? What do you think?”

  “Bring it closer, Maddie … here, why don’t you pull up a chair?”

  She sat down near the bed and held the illustration up. “I see what you mean,” Nick said. “Once the box is cut and folded, the bungalow’s going to disappear. Get rid of it. You don’t need it. The parade’s busy enough. Just extend the greenery over the top and …”

  As they were talking, a terrible caterwauling started in the bathroom.

  “I’m a rambler, I’m a gambler, I’m a long way from home,

  And if you don’t like me, then leave me alone.

  I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I’ll drink when I’m dry,

  And if whiskey don’t kill me, I’ll live till I die

  “What is that?” Maddie asked, alarmed.

  “Seamie and Michael singing,” Nick said, laughing. “Isn’t it awful?”

  He was about to resume his critique of Maddie’s work when they both heard the door to the flat bang open, then slam shut. Sharp, determined footsteps came down the hallway.

  “Michael!” Fiona bellowed, stalking by Nick’s door with a large metal scoop in her hand.

  Nick and Maddie made uh-oh faces at each other.

  “What do you want? I’m busy!” he shouted back.

  “Did you leave a bag of cinnamon on top of the tea chest in the shop? The whole bloody thing stinks! Smell it! That’s a good fifty pounds of tea ruined!”

  “Don’t come in, Fee, I’m naked!” Seamie yelled. “You’ll see my willie!”

  “Oh, Seamie, nobody’s interested in your willie. And I don’t want to hear you singing that daft drinking song!”

  “Is it always this noisy here?” Maddie asked, giggling.

  “This is nothing,” Nick said. “You should’ve been here two nights ago when Seamie bounced on the settee and went right through it. There were some fireworks then.”

  Mary came into the room with a cup of beef broth. Maddie took the baby from Nick so he could drink it. “You’re to get it all down you, Nick,” Mary said. “Every drop. And I want you to try a little solid food later. A bit of mash and gravy.”

  She left. A few seconds later a wet, naked Seamie went whizzing by the door, with Michael in hot pursuit. A few more minutes passed, then Fiona came in with a tea tray.

  “Hi, Maddie, how’s the tea box coming? Hi, Nick, how are you feeling?” she asked them. Before either could answer, she said, “Taste this for me, would you? Tell me if you like it. Michael left a big bag of cinnamon sticks on top of the tea. I thought he’d wrecked it, but now I think he might just have invented a whole new product – scented teas! Just imagine – we could do the same thing with vanilla beans. And cloves. And maybe some dried orange peel.”

  “I think it’s awfully good,” Nick said.

  “It’s wonderful!” Maddie chimed in, taking another sip.

  The doorbell rang. “Coming!” they heard Mary call. Fiona sat down on the end of Nick’s bed. She took her boots off and tucked her feet up under her. As they sat discussing other ideas for other flavors, Nate poked his head in.

  “How’s the patient?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Very well,” Nick said.

  “I passed a newsstand on my way back from a client’s office. Thought you might like a paper. Hi, Fee. Hi, Mad.” He crossed the room, bent over, and kissed his wife. “What smells so good?”

  Fiona, all charged up by her latest idea, launched into a breathless explanation. Nate loved the idea and he and Maddie immediately started tossing out ideas for names. Seamie, wearing clean clothes, his wet hair combed back, ran in with a picture book and crawled into his sister’s lap. The doorbell went again. Michael walked by, grumbling that his flat was turning into Grand Central Station.

  They were all chattering away, sipping cinnamon tea, when suddenly Dr. Eckhardt appeared in the doorway, his black bag in hand. He took a look around the room, then said, “If I recall correctly, I instructed rest and quiet.”

  There were sheepish expressions all around.

  “Come on, Seamie, we have to go now,” Fiona said, pushing him off her lap.

  “Why? I want a story!”

  “Later. The doctor has to examine Nick so he can make him better.”

  “Is he going to kiss his boo-boo?”

  Fiona snorted laughter. So did Nate, Maddie, and Nick. A withering look from Eckhardt sent them scurrying. The doctor shut the door after them, then proceeded to examine his patient, spending a long time listening to his heart, feeling his abdomen, inspecting his fingers and toes. When he was finished, he told Nick he was doing better than he expected.

  “That’s good news,” Nick said happily. “What’s done it? The medicine?”

  Eckhardt shrugged. “I doubt it. Laughter, comfort, good care … these are far more potent medicines than I can offer. But you must continue to take bed rest. You may walk around the apartment a few times a day, in fact I advise it, but no more than that. If you feel like eating some real food, do so. As for everything else” – he inclined his head toward the doorway – “the specialists in the other room seem to have it well in hand. Your family, I presume?”

  “No, they’re my …” Nick paused. He thought of his father, who’d thrown him against a wall. He thought of his mother and sisters, who had not written to him in all the weeks he’d been here. He thought of Mary, touching him so tenderly. Of Seamie and Michael and Ian and Alec. And he thought of the person he loved most in all the world, Fiona. Then he smiled broadly and said, “Yes, Dr. Eck. My family.”

  Chapter 37

  “Bloody hell, Mary! Where did they all come from?” Fiona asked, trying to take in the scores of red roses – in vases on end tables; in canning jars on the windowsill, the mantel, the secretary; in buckets on the floor.

  “I don’t know! They came an hour ago. I tried to get your attention, but you and Michael were bus
y, so I had the deliveryman bring them up and I put them in water. There must be two hundred of them. Oh, I almost forgot! There’s a card …”

  Fiona looked at the name on the front. “It’s for … Michael?” she said in disbelief. “Who’d be sending him all these roses?” She was miffed and more than a little jealous. No one had ever sent her two hundred roses.

  “Hothouse flowers.” Alec sniffed dismissively, inspecting the blooms.

  Seamie was holding one long stem like a wand, tickling Nell’s nose with the petals, making her giggle.

  “Fiona?” Michael yelled from the doorway.

  “In here,” she shouted back.

  “Do you have the shop key? I can’t find … Jaysus! What’s with all the flowers? Your horse win the derby?”

  “No. Is there something you want to tell us?”

  “Tell you?”

  “Here.” She handed him the card. “They’re for you.”

  “What?” He snatched the card, saw his name on the envelope, and ripped it open. “That figures,” he said derisively. “A typical eejit with far too much money. Has to send four thousand roses when a bunch of tulips would do.”

  “Who sent them?” Fiona asked.

  “Who’s an eejit?” Seamie asked.

  “Never mind, Seamie. Uncle Michael, who sent them?”

  “William McClane.”

  Fiona arched an eyebrow. “Really? I had no idea it was like that between you two.”

  “That’s very funny, Fiona, but he didn’t send them to me. They’re for you …”

  Fiona’s eyes widened.

  “… the card’s for me. He wants to take you to Delmonico’s on Saturday, but he wants my permission first. He says the flowers are a small token of his esteem. He says –”

  “Give me that!” she demanded, grabbing the card.

  “What’s it say, lass? What’s it say?” Mary asked excitedly, slipping her arm through Fiona’s.

  Fiona read it aloud.

  “Dear Mr. Finnegan,

  “With your consent, I would like to invite your niece to supper at Delmonico’s on Saturday evening. I would call for her at seven o’clock. Reservations would be for eight o’clock. I would have her home by midnight. Please ask your niece to accept these roses as a small token of my esteem. I await your reply.

  “Respectfully,

  “William Robertson McClane.”

  She hugged the card to her chest.

  “Oh, Fiona, how exciting!” Mary squealed. “William McClane, no less!”

  He wanted to see her again. And she wanted to see him. And the notion that he’d been thinking about her, that he’d gone to a florist and picked out red roses – far too many of them – and sent them to her just because he knew she liked them made her indescribably happy. It felt so nice that somebody – that a man – wanted to please her.

  “Delmonico’s is a fancy place, isn’t it, Mary?” she said, her eyes shining. “What will I wear?”

  “We’ll go shopping, Fiona. One afternoon when the shop is quiet and you can steal away, I’ll leave Nell with Alec and we’ll go to Sixth Avenue and find you a dress.”

  Michael glowered at Mary, visibly unhappy with her enthusiasm. “What’s so exciting about Will McClane, anyway?” he groused. “I’ve seen him. He’s not so much. He’s the wrong church, you know. Wrong party, too. He’s a Republican,” he said darkly, as if informing them all that Will was a mass murderer. “And besides, I haven’t made up me mind yet.”

  “Don’t you even think of saying no,” Fiona warned him.

  “How can I say yes? I can’t play chaperon to someone ten years older than me.”

  “Chaperon? I don’t need a chaperon, Uncle Michael. I’m eighteen years old!”

  “And he’s forty-odd and too damned rich! No niece of mine is gadding about the city at night on the arm of a –”

  “What’s going on?” Nick asked groggily. He’d stumbled out from the bedroom and was knotting the belt on his silk dressing gown. “I heard voices. I thought I was dreaming.” He blinked at the sea of roses before him. “My word, look at all the flowers! Did somebody die?” he asked, alarmed. He put his hand over his heart and checked for a beat. “Good God! I hope it wasn’t me!”

  Chapter 38

  “Bugger off, Baxter, you noisy sod,” Joe muttered. He pulled his blanket over his head and burrowed down deeper into the hay. The rapping continued, forcing him out of sleep and into consciousness. He groaned loudly. He didn’t want to be awake. Awake meant the return of all the demons sleep had banished. He tried not to hear the noise, tried to will himself back into sleep, but it persisted. “Baxter!” he shouted. “Pipe down!”

  The rapping stopped. Joe listened, hoping that was the end of it, but then it started up again, more furiously than before. He realized it wasn’t the horse. Baxter stamped when he wanted something. This was knocking – loud and insistent.

  “Joe! Joe Bristow!”

  That ruled out Baxter for certain.

  “Joe! Are you in there? Open the door! Right now!”

  Joe sat up. He knew that voice. Better than he knew his own. He got up and quickly pulled on his clothing. He ran down the steps from the hayloft, buttoning his shirt as he went, unlocked the door and yanked it open.

  “Mum.”

  “Ah, so you do remember me?” Rose Bristow said tightly. Her face was flushed from pounding on the door and her straw hat was askew. She carried a large, heavy-looking basket.

  “ ’Ow’d you know I was ’ere?”

  “Meg Byrne’s Matt told me ’e saw you,” she said, her eyes bright with anger. “Said ’e ’elped you get a job. ’E also told me that you’d left ’ome. That Millie lost the baby. That you’re getting divorced. Tiny things, I guess, but it would’ve been nice of you to let us know. Bloody ’ell, lad, I’ve been worried sick about you! Didn’t know what ’ad ’appened to you. Still wouldn’t if it ’adn’t been for Matt. Ashamed I was, to ’ear it all from ’im. Not knowing what ’appened to me own son!”

  “I’m sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

  “Didn’t mean to make me worry? What else would I be doing? Not ’earing from you, never seeing you, not even knowing where you’d gone …”

  Joe looked down at the floor. Now he could add his mother to the list of people he’d hurt and disappointed. It grew longer by the day.

  Rose kept up her tirade for a few more minutes, then her angry expression softened. “Oh, never mind,” she said, hugging him tightly. “At least I’ve found you now. And not before time, from the looks of things.” She released him. “What’s ailing you? Why ’aven’t you come round? You should be at ’ome with your own, not living in a stable like the mule you are. Are you going to invite me in or not?”

  “Aye, come in, Mum. It’s not much. ’Old on, I’ll get you something to sit on.”

  Rose bustled inside and seated herself on a wobbly milking stool that Joe produced. He sat on the third step of the wooden stairs.

  “Where do you sleep?” she asked, looking around the stable.

  “In the ’ayloft.”

  “What do you eat? You’re thin as a rail. Your clothes are ’anging off you.”

  “There’s a tuckshop nearby.”

  “Oh, luv, this is ’orrible. What are you doing ’ere? What ’appened?”

  Joe told her everything. From his awful wedding night to his discovery of what had befallen Fiona to Millie’s miscarriage.

  Rose sighed as he finished, her face weary, angry, and sorrowful all at once. “That is one glorious mess you’ve made of things, I must say.”

  He nodded miserably.

  “Come ’ome,” she said. “You should be with your family now.”

  “I can’t, Mum. After everything I’ve done, I just want to be alone. I can’t be with people. I ’urt everyone I touch. I’ve ruined Fiona’s life. Millie’s, too. I killed me own child.” He covered his face with his hands, trying to hold back his tears. He felt so guilty for what h
e’d done – so corrosively guilty – and so achingly sad.

  Rose stroked her son’s head. “Listen to me, Joe. Look at me …” He lowered his hands. His eyes were filled with such pain, such suffering that his mother’s eyes filled with tears as she looked into them. “I don’t give a damn what ’appened to Millie,” she said. “She’s a selfish, scheming girl. Always was, always will be. She chased you, got you to bed, and got what she wanted. Not that you’re innocent, mind you, not by a long shot, but there will be another ’usband for Millie, and children, too. She’ll do all right and maybe she’ll learn not to take what isn’t ’ers. As for the baby, I think ’e’s far better off going back to God. I do. There’s nothing worse for a child than being born to parents who don’t love each other. The poor little thing got the lie of the land. ’E ’eard the rowing, felt the coldness, and decided to turn back and wait, that’s all.”

  Joe closed his eyes and wept. He’d been trying hard to hold back his tears, he didn’t want to cry in front of his mother, but he couldn’t help it, they were pouring out of him like blood from a deep wound. He knew Fiona hated him. Millie hated him. Tommy hated him, too. He hated himself. He had expected his mother to hate him, but she didn’t, and her words, her kindness, felt like redemption.

  Rose wiped his eyes, shushing him, soothing him with her touch, her voice, just as she’d done when he was a child. “You’re paying for your mistakes, lad. And you’ll continue to. You lost the one you loved, lost a child. That’s an ’igh price. Damned ’igh. But you’ve got to bear up. You can’t let yourself sink. I won’t ’ave it. You’re made of tougher stuff than that. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone ’as to live with what they’ve done. You’re no exception.”

  Joe nodded and blew his nose.

  “ ’Ere, look what I brought you,” she said. She reached into her basket and pulled out a steak-and-kidney pie, a bowl of mashed potatoes, a jug of gravy, plates and cutlery.