"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."
Chapter 30
"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 bega
n 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..."
She knew the poem was an allegory about mankind's love for God--at least that's what the vicar at Blackwood had said--but it wasn't God whom the poem made her think of, it was Sid. She closed her eyes, trying desper-ately to hear only Yanki's words, trying to push every memory of their night together out of her mind, but she failed. She could hear him, feel him. She could see him as he'd looked when she'd taken his face in her hands, and when he'd kissed her. She'd kissed him back passionately...and then, feeling a terrible guilt over betraying Freddie, she'd driven him away.
The next day, frightened by herself, by how easily she'd allowed her emotions to overcome her judgment, she'd finished early at Gifford's, gone directly to Freddie's flat, and asked him to move up their wedding date. He'd been pleased, and she'd been grateful to him for acquiescing to her wishes. She vowed to herself that she would never betray him again, never give him a moment's worry. She would be a good wife. Helpful. Supportive. Concerned. He deserved that, for he was a good man.
They'd talked about the ceremony during their supper at Simpson's and decided to have it at Longmarsh, on the third Saturday in August. It was only five weeks away. She wished it were sooner, but Freddie had work or social obligations almost every weekend until then. She wanted it to be behind her. Done. Irrevocable. She hoped that when she was married, she would stop thinking about Sid. Stop longing for him.
She had thought of him constantly since that night. Worse yet, she often found herself talking to him in her head. Arguing with him sometimes, but more often telling him about her work at Gifford's and her hopes for her clinic. And at day's end, when she was alone and quiet, curled up by her fire with some thick, daunting text, she found herself picturing his face--his green eyes, the depths as hidden as the deepest Welsh valleys, his generous smile. She would hear his voice, mocking sometimes or tinged with sadness. She would remember what it felt like to be held by him.
And then she would be overwhelmed by guilt and fear and anger and she would tell herself that Sid was the Janus face of Freddie, that he was a man as dedicated to dark and selfish pursuits as Freddie was to the common good--but even she didn't quite believe it.
Could a man who gave money to Kitty the beggar, who watched over Ada and Annie Armstrong, and who found work for Maggie Harris's hus-band be a bad man? Ella had once told her that she saw only in black and white, and Sid was a study in gray. There was good in him as well as bad; she knew there was. She had seen him at Teddy Ko's. She had seen his blowsy women at the Bark. Had heard about the Stronghold Wharf. Yet she had also seen him tenderly cover a poor, damaged child with his own jacket and give money to orphan boys. He had a kind heart, but a wounded one. Something had happened to him. Something terrible. He had told her about losing his mother, his family--but she sensed there was more. She had glimpsed his heart, ever so briefly, before he'd closed it off again. And now, even though she knew it was impossibl
e and insane and wrong, she still wanted to touch that wounded heart, to heal it.
"Papa! Papa!" Posy suddenly squealed. She jumped out of Ella's lap and ran to the door. India heard the tramp of feet up the stairs, and then Mr. Moskowitz was in the parlor.
"Shabbat shalom, Zeeskyte!" he said, swinging Posy off the ground and into his arms.
"Shabbat shalom, Papa!" Posy said, kissing his cheek.
He greeted the rest of his family, then India, then he turned to his wife and with a sheepish expression said, "I've brought guests. Two brothers. I met them at shul. And a sister. From St. Petersburg. They arrived just yes-terday."
The Winter Rose Page 34