The Winter Rose (52 page)

"Thank you," India said, heading off.

Fifteen minutes later she arrived--breathless and panting--at Myrtle
Close. The streets had grown dingier as she'd walked north and the
people on them poorer-looking. The close was tiny and had only nine
houses on it--four facing four across a narrow patch of muddy cobbles
and one at the end. India started at number 1. She told herself she was
only prolonging her fool's errand, but when the blowsy woman at Number 3
who an-swered her knock said, "Wotcher want with Alice?" she couldn't
believe her luck.

"To speak with her. I'm her doctor," India said.

"That right?" the woman asked, eyeing her suspiciously. "Since when have they got lady doctors?"

"Since 1849 when Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from the Geneva
Medical School in New York," India said. "May I see Mrs. Little,
please?"

The woman snorted. "She ain't no missus. Never will be, neither.
Won't find no man to marry her. Men want only one thing from the likes
of her."

India smiled tightly, nearly beside herself with impatience. "Might I see her?"

The woman turned and bellowed up the stairs. "Oi! Allie! Someone here for you!"

India heard the sound of a door opening, a baby crying, and then
footsteps. A wan young woman whom India immediately recognized came down
the stairs. She stopped midway; her eyes widened when she saw India.
She was about to fiee back up the stairs, when the landlady--glaring at
India--said, "Am I a bleedin' doorman? Come in or go out!"

In a flash India was up the steps. She grabbed Alice's arm just as she was about to disappear into her flat.

"Please, miss. I don't want no trouble," Alice said, flinching.

"Nor do I. I just want to talk to you." A baby wailed again from inside the flat. "May I come in?"

The woman nodded.

The flat was one small, dingy room. A choking stink of mutton,
onions, and soiled nappies hit India as she entered it. A single
kerosene lamp lit the room, throwing its weak light over a table and two
chairs, a narrow iron bed and a crib pushed up against the wall. A
sad-eyed toddler stood in it on bowed legs, blinking in the gloom. Next
to her lay a wailing infant. Alice lifted the baby out of the crib and
rocked her. The infant's cries became whimpers. Alice fed her a spoonful
of goody--a sop made from bread, wa-ter, and sugar--from a bowl on the
table. A fly crawled over its rim.

"You're not nursing her?" India asked.

Alice gave India a sullen look. "That wouldn't go over well in my line of work."

"What is your line of work?"

Alice looked at the floor and did not answer.

India sighed. This was not going well. She had so many questions. She
needed answers--and she dreaded them. She tried another tack. "Your
mother said you live with her. You don't, do you?"

"No. As you can see."

"Alice, your mother came to see Dr. Gifford--my superior--three days
after you came to see me. She told him that you are mentally unstable.
Is that true?"

Alice laughed bitterly. "Between the punters and the sprogs, I'm sure I am."

"She also reported me for dispensing a contraceptive to you. Dr.
Gifford forbids it. I took a huge risk helping you. When your mother
told him what I'd done, he dismissed me."

Alice looked at India, stricken. "I'm so sorry, miss! I didn't mean
you no harm. I never thought... He told us what to do and say, but he
didn't tell us why. Not me, not Nora neither. I should've figured it was
something evil. He's evil."

"Wait, slow down. I don't understand. Who's Nora? Is she your mother? Why did she go to Dr. Gifford?"

Alice shook her head. "She ain't me mum. She's me employer. Me real
mum don't speak to me. Lad put me up the spout two years ago. That's how
I got Mary, me eldest. Said he was going to marry me, but he buggered
off. Me dad threw me out. Nora found me. Put me to work." She paused,
then said, "She's a madam, is Nora. So you know what that makes me."

India suddenly felt light-headed. "May I sit?" she asked.

Alice hurriedly pulled out a chair for her. "I'll get you some tea."

"No, thank you," India said woodenly.

Alice bit her lip. She sat down across the table from India. "I'm
sorry, miss. Truly I am. I needed the money. He paid us well. Five quid
each. But I never would have done it if I'd known you'd get the sack. I
swear it."

"Alice..." India began, then--losing her nerve--she stopped.

"Yes, miss?"

"You mentioned a he. Who is that?"

"A punter."

"Does he have a name?"

"Freddie something. They never tell us their full names."

India felt nauseous. She closed her eyes.

"You all right?"

"Far from it."

When the roiling inside her subsided, India opened her eyes again. "Is he blond? Tall?" she asked.

"Aye."

"Do you see him regularly?"

"Me? No. He only chose me once. When Winnie, his usual girl, wasn't
working. That's fine by me. I don't like him. He's a mean bloke. And
rough. It hurts with him."

Yes, it does, India thought. "And he paid you to do this?" she asked.
"He paid you to visit me at Varden Street and for Nora to go to Dr.
Gifford posing as your mother?"

"Yes."

India nodded. She felt hollow. It all made sense now--Freddie knowing
her patient's name. Bingham's talk of a dowry. The Berkeley Square
house. Her mother's involvement. It all made sickening sense.

"Thank you for your help, Alice," India said, rising to leave.

"You won't tell him, will you?" Alice asked. "Freddie, I mean."

"Alice, I have to tell him. I'm engaged to him."

"But you can't, miss! If you do, he'll twig that I'm the one who told
you. He'll tell Nora and she'll throw me out. I need me job."

"I needed mine, too," India said.

Alice looked away, shamefaced. Her baby had started to whimper again.

India reached into her purse and took out ten pounds. It was the last
of her money. She had a pound note or two inside a tea canister in her
flat, and some coins in a bowl, but that was it. She put the money on
the table. "Don't go back, Alice. Find something else. Anything else.
Syphilis is a long and horrible death. Your children need you."

"Blimey, miss, thank you!" Alice said, quickly pocketing the note. "What will you do now? For work, I mean?"

"I don't know."

"You can always go on the game," Alice said, trying for a laugh.
"Pretty woman like yourself, you'd make enough to see you through."

India thought of her months at Gifford's. She thought about how she'd
set her ideals and convictions aside again and again to keep her job
and how dearly it had cost her to do so. She thought of Freddie and how
he'd pressured her all these weeks to set a wedding date. How he'd told
her he loved her and needed her. How he'd said they would do good things
together. For London. For England.

And then she stood and said, "Thank you, Alice, but that won't be nec-essary. I've been whoring long enough."

"Lytton, get the door, will you?"

Freddie stopped winding his gramophone. He could see his old school
friend Dougie Mawkins--who was sprawled out on the sofa, his head
resting in the lap of a fetching brunette--pointing at something, but he
couldn't hear a word he was saying.

"What is it, old man?" he yelled. "This sodding thing's made me deaf!"

"The door! There's someone at the door!"

"Right-o." Freddie gave the machine one last crank. Ragtime tinkled
out of it, as light and bubbly as the champagne he'd poured, as giddy as
the women drinking it.

"Who is it, Freddie?" Bertie Gardner, another friend, asked. He swayed as he spoke.

"Dunno. Elliot maybe? That plonker's always late."

Freddie looked at his watch. It was after eleven. He hoped Elliot
hadn't brought too many chaps with him. The ratio was rather thin as it
was. Any more fellows and there wouldn't be enough girls to go round.
Champagne, either.

He grabbed an open bottle and refilled glasses on his way to the
door. He'd invited some of the chaps from his club home with him. A few
of the fellows had automobiles, and they'd gone round to the Theatre
Royal in Haymarket and found some girls. Freddie knew one of the
actresses in a show playing there. He'd paid the back-door man a pound
to let him in and surprised her in her dressing room. She'd brought some
friends with her-- girls who were eager to ride in automobiles and meet
posh chaps.

Freddie had felt like a party tonight. He'd been working damned hard.
The word had come down that Parliament would be dissolved by the end of
September and the General Election would officially be called. The
Commons had a mountain of unfinished business to plow through before
then, and Freddie had been working day and night. He was eager for the
campaigning to begin. He was ready for the fight, and would
shortly--finally-- have the money he needed to finance it.

India had been sacked a few days ago. They'd had dinner and she'd
told him all about it. He'd had to appear shocked, then sympathetic, but
he'd managed.

"Where's more Bolly, Lytton?" George Manners shouted across the room.

"In the bathtub," Freddie shouted back.

He smiled as he thought about how India was practically penniless
now. Wish's will had been read today, Freddie knew. She had no income,
and thanks to Wish, her savings were gone, too. She still had donor
money, but it was a trifling amount--only a couple thousand pounds or
so, nowhere near enough to fund a clinic. Perhaps now--without Wish and
without funds--she would see how futile the idea of a clinic was and
give up on it altogether. It was a good plan, he thought, using Alice
and Nora to get India sacked, a good investment. It had cost him only
ten quid, but it would bring him thousands.

But it was all damned tiring, too, and tonight he wanted a break from
all his worries. He wanted some fun. He would have it, too, with a
luscious redheaded dancer with whom he'd been necking before the blasted
grammo ran out of steam. She was staring at him now from across the
room. Staring and smiling. She blew him a kiss and he pretended to catch
it--and then a fresh volley of knocking was heard.

Freddie rolled his eyes. He pretended a big hook was dragging him
to-ward the door. Laughing, his collar open, his shirt undone, he was
still looking at the redhead as he opened the door. "Steady on, Elliot,
you tosser, you--"

He didn't get to finish his sentence. As he turned to face his guest,
he felt a stinging blow across his cheek. He took a step back, shocked
and furious. India was standing in the doorway.

"Good God!" he said, his hand coming up to his cheek. "India? What the devil are you... why did you hit me?"

"I know, Freddie," she said, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched into fists.

"Know what?" he said, slipping into the hallway and pulling the door closed behind him. "Darling, I don't understand."

"I spoke to Alice Little today. She told me what you did. You are despi-cable. A fraud."

Freddie felt his heart lurch. "India," he said smoothly, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I also found out that you and my mother have been talking. About
dowries. And town houses. How much did I cost, Freddie? How much did she
have to pay to get me married off? I can't imagine any price would have
been too high for her."

"India, darling, I never--"

"When you asked me to marry you, I told you that my parents had cut
me out of their will. You said it didn't matter. You said you loved me
for my-self alone. And that we would live modestly and make our own way
in the world. But that was a lie, wasn't it? Why else would you
negotiate with my mother? And scheme for my dismissal? It wasn't me you
wanted, was it? It was my family's money."

"Who have you been talking to? Who's been telling you these lies?"

"Freddie, don't you understand? It's over. I know everything." She
laughed bitterly. "Well, almost everything. I still don't know how I
never saw what sort of man you are." She reached into her jacket pocket,
pulled out the engagement ring and the gold pocketwatch he'd given her,
and put them into his hand. "Or rather, what sort of man you've
become."

She looked into his face and he saw anger in her gray eyes, and
sorrow, and bewilderment. "When did you change, Freddie?" she asked
softly.

"I didn't ...I haven't..." he stammered, reaching for her.

"Freddie, I know you. Knew you. We grew up together, remember?" She
backed away, looking at him as if she no longer recognized him. "You
didn't used to be like this. You used to be good. Kind. Is there
anything left of the Freddie I once knew?"

"India, please."

She shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. "I never want to
see you again. Never." With those words, she turned and ran down the
stairs.

"India! Wait!" he shouted. But she didn't. He heard her boot heels on the steps, and then a door slamming below.

Freddie pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Fuck," he said.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." He'd just watched his entire future,
everything he'd worked so long and so hard for, turn on its heel and
walk away.

No, he told himself. He would get her back. Somehow. He would
con-vince her it had all been a misunderstanding, a terrible mistake.
But he knew she would not listen to him. She never wanted to see him
again. Never. It was gone, all gone. The money, the house. The life he'd
been carefully constructing for years, bloody years, had disappeared in
a heart-beat. The game was over. He had lost.

He walked back into his flat, through his sitting room, past his
guests, and into his bedroom. George Darlington had a girl on the bed.
Her skirts were up around her knees.

"Get out," he said to them.

"In a minute, old man. Rather busy just now," George said testily.