The Winter Rose (41 page)

"Is it possible that you are pregnant? I did forget the rubber
johnnie, you know. Please don't worry if you are, my love. I would be
delighted by the news."

"I am not," she said briskly.

"You're sure?"

"Quite."

"Ah," he said, disappointed. But then he asked himself, What did it
mat-ter? It was July. He would be married in August. If she wasn't
pregnant now, he would soon make her so, and once she was with child he
would insist she give up doctoring. It was too strenuous for an
expectant mother, and all those filthy poor people with their disgusting
diseases were too dangerous for an unborn child. He would not allow it.

"Well then," he said, clapping his hands together. "How about a spot of supper before tonight's event?"

"What event is that?"

"Um ...I'm sorry, old girl, but I can't quite remember. I've
misplaced the invite," he said, digging through a pile of calling cards
and invitations on the mantel.

"Oh, yes. I'd forgotten myself. It's a talk, isn't it? Henry Mayhew on his study of the London poor. At the Fabian Society."

Freddie frowned. It was unlike India to forget something like that.
It was the sort of thing she lived for. He eyed her closely and he
noticed, for the first time, a livid red line on her temple.

"Darling, what happened to you?" he said, peering at it.

India's fingers hovered over the gash, blocking it from his sight. "It's nothing," she said. "Flailing patient."

"Are you all right?" he asked. "It looks quite nasty."

"I will be," she said. "I mean, I am. I've been a bit ...under the weather."

"Simpson's will be just the place, then," he said cheerily. "We'll
have a big slab of beef and some roast potatoes. Just the thing to build
you back up."

His credit was still good there, thank God. Unlike his club and his
tai-lor, they hadn't started hounding him about his balance. Not yet.

"That sounds lovely, Freddie. We can talk about the ceremony while
we're there. It might be hard to book a church at such short notice.
Perhaps we could marry at Longmarsh? Get the local vicar to come to the
chapel and have a wedding supper at the house. Would it be all right
with Bingham and your mother?"

Freddie felt that urge to pinch himself. Was he dreaming? Was this
really India talking? Would he really be married to her, and to her
lovely money, in only a few weeks' time? Something nagged at him, some
small voice inside him told him that this sudden turn of events was too
good to be true. He promptly silenced it. Things had been too bad to be
true for yonks. He was ready for a change, ready for his fortunes to
turn.

"Come, Lady Lytton," he said, standing and pulling her up with him. "Let us go to dine."

"Shh, Freddie. Not Lady Lytton. Not yet. It's bad luck," she said.
Too quickly. And was it his imagination, or had she a strange look in
her eyes? A sorrowful look. As if she'd lost something. Or someone. He
looked again and it was gone. She was smiling.

He smiled, too. "No, not yet. But soon, darling. Very, very soon."

"What a week," Ella said, stuffing folders into her filing cabinet. "We started it in a jail house..."

"And ended it in a workhouse," India said, sighing. "Has it ended?"
she asked. "Is it really Friday?" She was lying down on a wooden bench
in Dr. Gifford's waiting room, eyes closed, exhausted.

She'd seen sixty-one patients today. By noon she'd felt as if she
were a butcher instead of a doctor, grinding through people as if they
were sausages. Lumbago, ringworm, rheumatism, catarrh ...the list of
ailments was endless. Nine women asked her for contraceptives--begged
her, actually--but she hadn't been able to help them because she didn't
have any yet. And the children--six had come in with rickets; five more
had shown signs of scurvy. These diseases upset her almost more than
killers such as tuberculosis and typhus because they were so sinfully
easy to prevent.

"Is the baby drinking milk?" she would ask, examining a toddler's bandy legs.

"I daren't feed it him, missus. Makes him sick. Shopkeepers near us are dirty," the child's mother would reply.

"Can you give your girl oranges? Say, three a week?" she would ask, noting an eight-year-old's lethargy, her bleeding gums.

"I'd be lucky to get her one a month. We can't afford it," was the answer.

"Supplementary nutrition, Ella," she said aloud now.

"Speak in full sentences, please. I'm not a flippin' mind reader."

India opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow. "We need a
way to supplement children's diets. If we could do that, we'd keep half
of them out of the clinic in the first place. We need to establish a
soup kitchen as part of the clinic. Only we'll dispense milk, too. And
fresh fruit. I wonder how much extra space we'd need for that."

"Plenty. At the rate you're going, we'll have to buy Victoria Station. How much have we got anyway?"

"Two hundred and thirty pounds," India said. "And Wish says Colman's Mustard gave him fifty damaged tins."

"Wonderful. We can put it on nonexistent sausages and feed them to our nonexistent patients," Ella said.

"I told him about Fiona Bristow," India said hopefully. "He knows who she is and said that he'll approach her."

"Well, that and tuppence will buy me a cup of coffee. Good thing you
got her to safety at the rally. It could have gone very badly for her
otherwise."

"Yes, it could have," India said, relieved that Fiona Bristow had been spared any harm.

"Could have gone badly for you, too. You're lucky that horse only cut
your head and didn't crush it," Ella said, slamming a file drawer shut.
"Well, that's me done. I'm ready to get out of here. What are you doing
to-night?"

"Collapsing."

"No romantic suppers with the dashing MP?"

"I'm afraid not. I barely see Freddie these days. His party is
fashioning its war cabinet in preparation for September. Though we're
both invited to a house party in a fortnight's time," she said, forcing
herself to sound excited.

Ella smiled wickedly. "No outings with Sid Malone, either?"

"I beg your pardon?" India said, sitting up.

"I heard about your midnight tour, Dr. Jones."

"How?"

"Word travels fast in Whitechapel."

"It was a fact-finding trip, Ella. Purely professional."

Ella snorted. "Oh, aye," she said. "Find a lot of facts, did you?"

"Ella!" India said indignantly. "You can't possibly think that Sid Malone and I... that we..."

"Oh, I'm just winding you up. Don't get so shirty. Since you've no plans tonight, why don't you come home with me?"

"Thank you, but I couldn't. I really must get to my own home."

"What for? A bowl of soup and The Lancet? Come have a proper supper."

"But Ella, it's your Sabbath."

"Which will be made even more blessed by the company of a friend."
She laughed. "God, I sound just like my mother. Come on, India. You need
some feeding up."

India was awfully hungry, and Mrs. Moskowitz's food was so good, and
company would take her mind off Sid. "All right," she said, "I will."

The two women turned out the lights, locked up the surgery, and
headed for Brick Lane. When they arrived, India was surprised to see
that the caf�indows were dark. "The restaurant is closed?" she asked.

"We close early every Friday," Ella replied. "Mama needs ample time to cook and clean and drive everyone mad."

The Moskowitzes lived above their restaurant. As India and Ella
climbed the stairs to the flat, mouth-watering smells of saffron and
cinna-mon welcomed them.

"I'm home, Mama!" Ella called out, heading to the kitchen.

"Ella! I'm so glad you're here! I'm behind with everything. Your
father will be home from shul soon and just look at this place!" Mrs.
Moskowitz said. She was stirring a pot with one hand, lifting a
beautiful braided loaf out of the oven with the other.

"Don't worry, everything will get done," Ella soothed.

"Hello, India dear. Have you come to share our Sabbath meal?"

"I have, Mrs. Moskowitz."

"Good. Take the challah, please, and put it on the sideboard. In the dining room."

"The what?"

"The bread. Cover it with napkins. On the table... you'll see.
Rebecca! Come here and let me do your hair! Ella, catch your sister,
please."

"Rebecca? Do you have another sister?" India asked Ella on her way to the dining room.

"That's Posy's real name," Ella explained, bending over to grab her
little sister. "A customer once told her she was pretty as a posy, and
ever since she won't answer to Rebecca. Be still, Posy!" she scolded.
She sat down, held the squirming girl between her knees, and began to
plait her hair.

Mrs. Moskowitz, still stirring, opened the kitchen window. "Miriam! Solomon! The carpet!" she bellowed out of it.

India found the dining room. Its curtains had been washed and
starched. The furniture had been pushed to the walls. She walked
carefully across the freshly waxed floor to get to the sideboard. On her
way back to the kitchen she was nearly run down by two children
staggering under the weight of a heavy wool rug.

"Did you get it clean?" Mrs. Moskowitz yelled from the kitchen.

"Yes, Mama! Yes, Mama! Yes, Mama, yes!" Miriam and Solly yelled back.

When India reached the kitchen, she was sent straight back to the
dining room with orders to make sure the carpet was indeed clean. Ella
joined her and together they moved the furniture back and set the table
for sup-per, using a snowy linen cloth and the best dishes and glasses.
When a place had been made for everyone, Ella put two gleaming silver
candle-sticks and a silver chalice on the table. While they did this,
Posy blessed the challah repeatedly, waving a knife over it like a wand.

"Are you doing a blessing or a magic trick? Enough already!" Ella scolded.

India had never seen a Sabbath observance quite like this one. She
remembered her own church-going days. The long walk to Blackwood's
chapel. The tepid sermons and tedious Sunday dinners at which her family
barely spoke, never mind bellowed.

"Ella?" she said.

"Mmm?"

"Is this typical?"

"Of what?"

"Of your Sabbath. I expected yours to be rather like mine--quiet and somber."

Ella burst into laughter. "Quiet? Somber? In this house? Not likely!"

"Can India be our Shabbas goy?" Posy asked.

"Your what?" India asked.

"Jewish law forbids work after sundown on Fridays," Ella explained.
"We can't even light our candles or stoves. So we must find a Christian
to light them for us. Will you do the honors?"

"Gladly," India said.

She was happy she'd accepted Ella's invitation. There was a spirit of
bustling anticipation in the Moskowitz household, a sense of something
won-derful coming, and it was impossible not to be caught up in it. When
she and Ella finished in the dining room, they found Mrs. Moskowitz
inspecting the ears, necks, and hands of her younger children. When
she'd made sure her entire brood was respectably turned out, she turned
her attention to India.

"That hair," she said, frowning. "Come."

India followed her, feeling like an errant child. Mrs. Moskowitz led
her to her bedroom, sat her on the bed, and pulled the dragonfly comb
out of her knot. She brushed India's blond mane with sure, firm strokes.
India sat stiffly at first, waiting for a reproving remark--her mother
had always taken her to task over her hair--but none came.

"Such beautiful hair you have. Like spun gold," Mrs. Moskowitz said.

India thanked her, then closed her eyes, enjoying her motherly touch. Her own mother had never brushed her hair, only her nanny.

"You are too quiet this evening. You must be in love."

India caught her breath. My God, how does she know? she thought
wildly. Can she see? Then she realized Mrs. Moskowitz was only teasing
her.

"Yes, I am in love," she replied, trying to keep her voice even.

"Mazel tov, my darling! Did this just happen?"

"Oh, no," she quickly said. "My flanc�nd I have been engaged for two years."

Mrs. Moskowitz looked puzzled. "Two years? That's a long time, no?"

"I suppose it is. We've chosen to make a life together, but we've had
to wait a bit to marry. There was my work, you see. And his..."

Mrs. Moskowitz frowned. "Chosen, you say?"

"Did I say something wrong?"

"You do not choose love, my India. Love chooses you," Mrs. Moskowitz
said, in a voice that implied India must be simple not to know such a
thing.

She finished brushing India's hair, made a soft twist, and secured
it. "There!" she said. "Much better." Then she rummaged in her jewelry
box and found a pretty brooch for her collar. "A woman must look her
best for the Sabbath," she said. "After all, God is a man, is He not?"

They returned to the others. Mrs. Moskowitz asked India to light the
candles in the dining room and the gas lamps in the rest of the flat.
When she had finished, she rejoined the family in the parlor.

"Now we wait for Mr. Moskowitz," Mrs. Moskowitz said. "Yanki, the
Shir HaShirim. In English, please, so that our guest may follow."

As the sun set, and the darkness came down, the Moskowitz children
gathered around their mother and listened to their elder brother read
the "Song of Songs."

"Such a voice. A cantor's voice," Mrs. Moskowitz sighed as Yanki began.

Aaron rolled his eyes. Miriam and Solly made faces whenever kissing
was mentioned. Posy nestled in Ella's lap. And India listened,
transported by the beautiful voice of the serious young man, by the
passion of his words: "By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul
loveth; I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about
the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my
soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not..."