The Winter Rose (2 page)

She'd taken what she could find after he'd died--a bit of charring, a
few hours behind the counter of a tuckshop. And then a full-time job
had come along at a jam factory. It paid, but not enough. She got behind
on the rent, and then the factory went under. It was wintertime when
the place closed. People were hungry and cold and desperate for work.
Every job in East London was taken. When she was two months in arrears,
the bailiff evicted her. She slept rough with her children for a few
days, but then a pair of cops had caught her begging and they'd taken
the children to the workhouse. Sometimes, in her sleep, she still heard
them screaming, still saw their little hands knotted in her skirts as
the officers pulled them from her.

Desperate, she'd done the only thing left to do--she went on the
game. She forced herself to go numb while she was with the men, and she
let her-self cry afterward--but she made money, for unlike a lot of
women on the streets, she still had her looks. She'd managed to earn a
few shillings, and was just beginning to have hopes of renting a new
room, a place to bring her children, when she'd been arrested.

Alvin Donaldson's men had done it. Word had it Lytton leaned on him
to clear the streets. She and a dozen other women had been rounded up
and kept overnight. They'd been let go the next day--all of them except
for Lily, for Donaldson had taken a liking to her.

He'd had her brought up from the cells to his office. He'd closed the
door, and then he told her what he wanted. He said he'd send her down
for good if she refused him. He knew she needed money badly. And he knew
she couldn't earn it if she was in prison. He'd taken her then and
there, and many times afterward. In filthy alleys and lodging houses.
Behind pubs. And he'd never given her a penny.

One night, after she'd been on the streets for a few months, Sid had caught sight of her.

"Lily?" he'd called out. He knew her from when she'd worked at the
tuckshop. She'd tried to hurry away, but he'd run after her. "Tell me
you're not on the game," he'd said.

She hadn't answered. She couldn't; she'd been too ashamed.

"Don't do this, Lily. You're not the type. You'll never survive it."

"I've no choice. I've lost me job. Me kids are in the spike," she'd
said, her voice cracking. He'd given her a new job on the spot. Barmaid
at the Barkentine. He'd told her a girl had just quit and Desi was
shorthanded. It was a lie; she'd known it was. The fact that he'd taken
the trouble to tell it had made her cry.

"Here now, none of that," he'd said sharply, for he didn't like
tears. Then he'd marched her to the Bark, pointed at pile of dirty
glasses, and told her to get busy.

Lily Walker knew who Sid Malone was; she knew what he did, but she
didn't care. He'd done more for her than any cop, any priest, any Sallie
Army do-gooder ever had. He'd given her her children back, and as long
as she lived, she would never forget it.

"Bloody woman! Where the hell are you?" Bennett suddenly yelled, star-tling her.

He'd finished his smoke. There was no more putting it off. She took a deep breath, then stepped out from behind the pilings.

"What took you?" he asked.

"Had to wait till me guv's back was turned," she answered. "He's not too keen on his help sneaking off."

"Come on, then," Bennett said, reaching for her.

"Not so fast, luv. Business before pleasure," she said, stalling.

Bennett reached into his pocket. He counted out fifty pence and gave
it to her. She counted it again, then pocketed it. He pulled her close
and kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. She nearly gagged.
His rough hands were everywhere--inside her blouse, between her legs. It
was all she could do not to push him away.

Bloody hell, Sid, where are you? she wondered desperately.

She twined her arms around his neck. Bit his ear. Whispered dirty
things to him. Did anything and everything she could think of to play
for time. But he was getting impatient.

"Lift your skirts, girl," he said. "Quick, or I'll have my money back."

Lily did as he asked. There were only four people she cared for on
this earth, only four people she'd do anything for, anything--her three
children and Sid Malone.

And then, just as Bennett had dropped his trousers, a match flared
behind him. He spun around. Lily looked past him and saw Sid and
Frankie. They were standing at the bottom of the stone steps. Frankie
was lighting a lantern.

"That'll do, Lily," Sid said.

Lily spat the man's taste from her mouth, then ran back into the
Bark's basement to fix her clothing. The door was half off its hinges.
She peered around it as she buttoned her blouse. If Sid was in trouble,
she wanted to know.

"Michael Bennett, is it?" she heard him say.

Bennett, holding his trousers up with both hands, stared, but made no reply.

"My guv asked you a question," Frankie said.

"Are you...are you Malone?" he stammered, buttoning his fly.

"What do you want?" Frankie growled. "Who sent you?"

"I'm not looking for any trouble," he said. "I only came to pass on a
mes-sage, that's all. A woman I know wants to see Sid Malone. She'll
meet him anytime, anywhere, but she's got to see him."

"You a cop?" Frankie asked. "Did Lytton send you?"

Bennett shook his head. "It's nothing to do with Lytton. I'm a private de-tective. That's the truth."

Malone cocked his head, appraising Bennett.

"You've got to give me an answer," Bennett said to him. "You don't know this woman. She won't stop. She'll come herself."

Malone still hadn't said anything, but he was listening. Bennett seemed to take encouragement from this. He grew bolder.

"Never takes no for an answer, that one. Can't tell you her name. She
don't want it known. She's a right pushy bitch, though, that's
something I can tell you," he added, venturing a laugh.

Later, Lily would remember that Sid's mouth had twitched at the word
bitch. She would remember how he had walked up to Bennett, slowly,
easily, as if he were going to shake his hand, grateful for the
information. Instead he grabbed the man's forearm, and in one quick,
fluid motion, broke it with a cosh. The pain dropped Bennett to his
knees, but it was the sight of his bones protruding from his skin that
made him shriek.

Sid grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head back, choking
off his noise. "That's me answer. Loud and clear," he said. "You tell
Fiona Finnegan the man she's after is dead. Dead as you'll be if I ever
see you again."

Sid released him, and he crumpled into the mud. He turned and walked away. Frankie followed.

"Who is this girl, guv?" Frankie asked. "She up the duff?"

Sid made no response.

"She a relation, then?"

In the darkness, Lily could only hear Sid's voice; she couldn't see
his face. If she had, she'd have seen the pain there, deep and abiding,
as he said, "She's nobody, Frankie. No relation. She's nothing to me at
all."

"Jones!"

India Selwyn Jones turned at the sound of her name. She had to squint to see who'd shouted it. Maud had taken her eyeglasses.

"Professor Fenwick!" she finally shouted back, beaming at the bald
and bearded man hurtling toward her through a sea of bobbing
mortarboards.

"Jones, you clever little cat! A Walker grant, a Lister, and the Dennis Prize! Is there anything you didn't win?"

"Hatcher got the Beaton."

"The Beaton's a humbug. Any fool can memorize anatomy. A doctor needs
more than knowledge, she needs to be able to apply it. Hatcher can
barely apply a tourniquet."

"Shh, Professor! She's right behind you!" India whispered,
scandalized. The graduation ceremony was over. The students had exited
the audito-rium's small stage to the strains of an inspiring march and
were now posing for photographs or chatting with well-wishers.

Fenwick flapped a hand at her. Nothing scandalized him. He was a man
who spoke freely, pointedly, and usually at the top of his lungs. India
had firsthand experience of his scorching invectives. They'd been
directed at her often enough. She remembered her first week in his
classroom. She'd been assigned to question a patient with pleurisy.
Afterward Fenwick had called on her to open her case book and describe
her findings. She could still hear him roaring at her for starting with
the words "I feel..."

"You what? You feel? You are not in my classroom to feel, Jones. This
is not Early Romantic Poets. This is diagnosis, the taking of cases.
You are here only to observe, for you are far too ignorant to do
anything else. Feelings cloud judgment. What do they do, Jones?"

"They cloud judgment, sir," India had replied, her cheeks blazing.

"Very good. Feel for your patient and you harm him with foolish
precon-ceptions. See him, Jones ...see the oedematosis of heart disease
and

know it from kidney failure ...see the olic of gallstones and know it
from lead poisoning ...only see him, Jones, with clarity and with
dispassion, and you will cure him."

"Well, come on, come on, let's have a look," Fenwick said now,
motioning impatiently to the leather folder tucked under India's arm.

India opened it, eager herself to look again at what it contained--a
buff-colored document with her name written in copperplate, the date--26
May 1900--the seal of the London School of Medicine for Women, and the
proclamation there for all the world to see. She had earned her degree
in medicine. She was now a doctor.

"Doctor India Selwyn Jones. Has a nice ring, doesn't it?" Fenwick said.

"It does, and if I hear it a few more times I might actually start to believe it."

"Nonsense. There are some here who need a piece of paper to tell them that they're doctors, but you're not one of them."

"Professor Fenwick! Professor, over here... ," a woman's voice shrilled.

"Ye gads," Fenwick said. "The dean. Looks like she's got the head of
Broadmoor with her, the poor devil. Wants me to convince him to hire
some of you lot. You're damned lucky you got Gifford's job, you know."

"I do, sir. I'm very eager to start."

Fenwick snorted. "Really? Do you know Whitechapel?"

"I did a bit of clinical work at London Hospital."

"Any house calls?"

"No, sir."

"Hmm, I take it back then. Gifford's the lucky one."

India smiled. "How bad can it be? I've done house calls in other poor areas. Camden, Paddington, Southwark..."

"Whitechapel's like nowhere else in London, Jones. Be prepared for that.

You'll learn a lot there, that's for certain, but with your mind,
your skills, you should have a nice research fellowship at a teaching
hospital. And your own surgery. Like Hatcher. Private practice. That's
where you belong."

"I can't afford to open my own surgery, sir."

Fenwick gave her a long look. "Even if you could, I doubt you would.
One could hand you the keys to a fully furnished Harley Street office
and you'd hand them right back and scuttle off to the slums."

India laughed. "I'd like to think I'd walk, sir."

"Still dreaming your pipe dreams, eh?"

"I prefer to think of them as goals, sir."

"A clinic, is it?"

"Yes."

"For women and children."

"That's right."

Fenwick sighed. "I remember you and Hatcher talking about it, but I never thought you were serious."

"Harriet isn't. I am."

"Jones, have you any idea what's involved in that sort of thing?"

"Some."

"The raising of monies...the hunt for a suitable location... why, the
administration alone simply boggles the mind. You need time to get a
clinic off the ground, oceans of it, and you won't have a spare minute.
You'll be worked off your feet at Gifford's practice. How will you
manage it all?"

"I'll find a way, sir. One must try to make a difference," India said resolutely.

Fenwick cocked his head. "Do you know you said the same thing to me
six years ago? When you first came here. What I've never understood is
why."

"Why?"

"Why an aristocratic young woman from one of Britain's wealthiest families feels she needs to make a difference."

India colored. "Sir, I'm not ...I don't ..."

"Professor! Professor Fenwick!" It was the dean again.

"I must go," Fenwick said. He was quiet for a few seconds, seeming to
study his shoes, then added, "I don't mind telling you that I'll miss
you, Jones. You're the best student I've ever had. Rational, logical,
unemotional. A shining example to my current crop of ninnies. I also
wish I could tell you that the hard part is over, but it's only
beginning. You want to make a difference, to change the world, but the
world might have other ideas. You know that, don't you?"

"I do, sir."

"Good. Then know this--no matter what happens out there, remember
that you are a doctor. A very good one. No one can take that from you.
And not because it's in here"--he tapped on the diploma--"but because
it's in here." He tapped India's forehead. "Never forget that."

It was India's turn to study her shoes. "I won't, sir," she whispered.

She wanted to thank him for all that he'd done, for taking a
know-nothing girl of eighteen and making her into a doctor, but she
didn't know how. Six years it had taken. Six long years of hardship,
struggle, and doubt. She'd made it only because of him. How could she
thank him for that? Where would she even begin?

"Professor Fenwick..." she said, but when she looked up he was gone.

Feelings of loss and loneliness swept over her. Around her, fellow
grad-uates laughed and chattered, surrounded by friends and family, but
she was alone. Except for Maud. Freddie was away on government business.
Wish was in America. Her parents were at Blackwood, hundreds of miles
away, but even if they'd lived next door to the school they wouldn't
have come. She knew that.