Fiona noticed that even in her anger, the doctor kept her voice steady, her emotion controlled. She was intrigued by this woman, who seemed to be boiling with passion, and yet contained it.
Ella smiled bitterly. "Well, Dr. Gifford did take the time to see that I got Mrs. Brindle's bill made out. He handed it to her husband--right after I'd handed him his daughter--then told him good day. Good day. To a man newly widowed with a poorly baby in his arms. Can you imagine?"
"He must be stopped," India said.
"Why can't you report him?" Wish asked.
"It would be professional suicide," Ella said. "His word against India's. A doctor--a male doctor--with forty years' practice under his belt, or a woman who graduated from medical school a little over a month ago. Whose side will the BMA take?"
"The BMA?" Wish echoed.
"It's short for Boys, Men, and Arseholes," Ella said.
Fiona bit her lip to keep from laughing.
"It stands for the British Medical Association," India said.
"Doesn't matter what it stands for," Ella retorted. "There's nothing we can do. We can't stop Gifford."
"No, Ella, we can stop him," India said quietly.
"Oh, aye? How?"
"If we open the clinic, we can take his patients. You said his business was up since I joined the surgery, didn't you? And that most of the new patients are mine? If I go, they'll follow me."
"Doesn't sound entirely sporting, old girl," Wish said.
"What choice do I have? I can say nothing and watch more women die. Or I can report him and probably have my own license revoked for my trou-ble. What would you do, Wish?"
The doctor's voice shook now, ever so slightly. She rose to her feet and Fiona saw the emotion in her face. Her courage touched Fiona deeply. She was brave, this woman, brave in a way no man would ever understand. But Fiona understood, for she well knew the price a woman paid for admit-tance to a man's world.
"That's why you want this building," the man said. "To make a start. Anything is better than nothing."
India nodded. "It is cheap, Wish."
Stop her, a voice inside Fiona said. And help her.
"No, it isn't cheap, actually," she said, stepping forward. "The back wall's buckling. Over there, can you see it? The roof's not sound. And that's water damage, the white stain on the brick. It's highway robbery at half the price. If your estate agent's been telling you otherwise, sack him."
India turned around. She looked puzzled for a few seconds, then she smiled. "Mrs. Bristow! You're alive and well!"
"Only thanks to the both of you. And it's Fiona, please. I've been searching all over for you ever since the rally. I wanted to tell you how grateful I am for your help. You saved us." Her hand slid to her belly. "Both of us."
Fiona told them that she'd stayed under the platform until the worst was over, then crawled out and called up to her frantic husband, who promptly took her home. "How did you fare?" she asked them. "Did you make it out of the square?"
"Kicking and screaming," Ella said. "Well, that was me. India was out cold thanks to a police horse. We both spent the night in the nick."
"You what?" Wish said, flabbergasted.
"Thank you, Ella. Thank you very much," India said.
"You spent a night in the nick... you!" Wish laughed out loud. "You were at the Labour rally? India Selwyn Jones, what a checkered life you lead. Does Freddie know all this?" Wish asked.
"No! And don't you tell him either. He has enough to worry about with the campaign."
"Freddie? Campaign?" Fiona echoed. "You don't mean Freddie Lytton?"
"I do. I'm his flanc�" India said.
Fiona smiled. "The incumbent's flanc�and the challenger's wife. Together clandestinely in a tumbledown warehouse in the Whitechapel slums. Oh, if only Mr. Devlin were here. I'm sure he'd find a story in this."
India blanched. "I'm sure he would," she said nervously. "How did you know to look for us here?" she asked, changing the subject.
"I finally thought to ask Dr. Hatcher, who told me to go to Varden Street. I was just there, but the surgery was closed. A neighbor told me to try the Moskowitzes' restaurant on Brick Lane, and a woman there told me where you were. She also told me about your clinic and suggested that I give you twenty pounds for it," Fiona said, laughing.
Ella groaned. "Gott in Himmel! I'm sorry. That was my mother."
"No, don't be sorry. Please. What she told me sounded interesting. I'd like to hear more."
India and Ella told her of their plans. Fiona listened intently, nodding and frowning. When they finished, she peppered them with questions.
"You shouldn't buy outright," she said. "Even if you have the money. Take out a mortgage. Claim interest payments and depreciation against income. You do plan to incorporate, don't you? You could also rent the building. There might be greater tax benefits that way. Have you worked up balance sheets both ways? What does your accountant advise?"
India and Ella traded glances. "We don't ...we don't have one," India said.
"Why not?" Fiona asked.
"They can't afford one. They don't have much to account for as yet," Wish said. "Only about four hundred pounds, I'm afraid."
"I'm so sorry! I haven't even introduced you," India said. "Fiona Bristow, this is my cousin, Aloysius Selwyn Jones, our director of development. He's been working very hard on our behalf soliciting donations. When he can spare the time, that is. We don't pay him anything, you see. We can't afford to." There was an awkward silence as India looked at her boots, then she turned her eyes up to Fiona's and said, "I can't imagine how backward we must appear. Our strength--mine and Ella's--is medicine, not money. We want to build a place where no mother, no child, is ever turned away. Most people cannot understand that." She smiled at Wish. "Even my dear cousin has difficulty with it. Can you understand?"
"More than you might think," Fiona said, remembering another night in Whitechapel, twelve years ago, when her frantic mother had gone out into the darkness to fetch a doctor for her baby. "I lived here once. Only a few streets over. We were very poor. We had nothing, in fact. My baby sister became gravely ill and my mother had to go out very late one night to fetch a doctor..." Her voice trailed off.
How like Sid's story, India thought. "Did she find one?" she asked.
Fiona shook her head. "No," she said. "No, she didn't. It was too late. Too late for all of us. We lost them both."
"I'm sorry," India said.
"I am, too," Fiona said. She felt embarrassed and a little angry with her-self for telling such a personal story to three people whom she barely knew. And yet she had wanted India to know that she understood her. "Make sure medicine remains your strength, Dr. Jones," she said, "and perhaps your cousin and I can work on the money." She looked at Wish. "Would you visit me at my office tomorrow? I'll have a check ready for you."
"Can I put you down for twenty pounds, then?" Wish asked, eagerly pressing his advantage.
Fiona smiled, but her eyes never left India. She was gazing at her, taking her measure. There was something about her. She was so contained, so controlled, and yet Fiona sensed there was fire inside of her, and fear-lessness, and a quiet defiance. She sensed, too, that India Selwyn Jones would have her clinic. With or without anyone else's help. She'd have it if she had to earn every penny of its price herself, and if it took her fifty years to do so.
"No, Mr. Selwyn Jones," she said. "You can put me down for a thousand."
Chapter 33
"Did you know Sunny's uncle shot a dachshund once?" Bingham said, squinting in the sunshine.
"Whatever for? Was it attacking him?" India asked, distractedly.
"He thought it was a partridge. It was in the fields, you see. It belonged to a friend. The lady was terribly upset. His uncle thought he ought to put it right. So he had the dog stuffed and gave it to the woman as a present."
"Oh, Bing, he didn't!"
"He did, the dreadful man. That was his idea of thoughtfulness. Can you ima
gine? Sunny said the poor woman cried for a week."
India laughed out loud. She couldn't help it; it was too horrible.
Bing smiled. "It's good to hear you laugh, old mole. You've been mighty glum. Anything wrong?"
Yes, she thought, I'm marrying your brother in a few weeks' time, but I am in love with someone else.
"No, Bing. Nothing. Nothing at all," she said brightly.
"Are you quite certain?"
India gave him a smile. "I'm positive," she lied, keeping her feelings as tightly reined in as the horse she was riding.
She and Bingham were at Blenheim Palace, the country estate of Sunny Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough and Bingham's good friend. He'd invited Bing, Freddie, Maud, Wish, and India for the weekend. It was now Saturday afternoon and Sunny had declared that they must spend it chasing a fox. Freddie and Wish--who'd not been able to come up yesterday because of a dinner party he had to attend in London and who'd only ar-rived at the house that morning--had been in the lead. India and Bingham had fallen behind. They'd ridden to the crest of a hill to see if they could spot them, but had had no luck. They could see the tawny limestone of Blenheim behind them, and the estate's fields and woods in front of them, but no flash of a red riding jacket, no horses or hounds.
India was desperate to rejoin the chase. She was anxious and restless, and she wanted to ride. Fast. So fast that she couldn't think about anything but the next hill or hedgerow. Her mount seemed to sense this; he shook his head unhappily at having to stand still and stamped his feet.
"Indy, do you know what I love best about Blenheim? And Longmarsh, too?" Bingham asked.
"No, what?" India said, feigning interest.
"The furniture polish."
"What?"
"It's a mad thing, I know. Proust had his madeleine and I have Goddard's. I love to stand in the dining room right after the maids have polished and breathe it in. It lingers. Have you noticed that? It's always there, mingling with kippers and bacon in the morning, with pheasant and mushrooms in the evening. I love that smell. It's the smell of my school holidays. My Christmases and New Years. Why, if a woman had a mind to catch me, all she'd have to do is dab a bit of Goddard's behind her ears. I'd be her slave." He went silent for a minute, then said, "I wish it could last forever, Indy. This day. This moment. I wish time would just stop. Right here and now. With all of us together. I want to never move forward and never go back."
"Wouldn't that be lovely? Strawberries and cream on Blenheim's lawns for all eternity," she said.
But that was a lie. She didn't want strawberries and cream. Or Blenheim or this damned stupid fox hunt. She wanted a pint of porter. In Whitechapel. With Sid. She wanted to talk about things that mattered in a place she'd grown to love, with a man she didn't dare to love.
"Croquet on the lawn. Long walks at dusk. And all the females in white walking about so fetchingly with roses in their hair. Heaven's got nothing on England in August." His smile faded. "Won't, though, will it?"
"Won't what?" she asked. She'd barely heard what he'd said.
"Last."
"The summer?"
Bingham shrugged. "The summer. Us. This life."
India turned to him, struck by his wistful tone. "Goodness, Bing, now who's glum?"
"Times are changing, Indy. A few years ago--just last year, in fact-- Freddie would have romped home with the Tower Hamlets seat. The very idea of Labour mounting an effective opposition would have been laugh-able."
India's attention was suddenly riveted. "Bing, you don't think Freddie's going to lose, do you?"
Bingham hesitated, then said, "I think he might. The Tories are making hay out of the Stronghold disaster. And he's underestimated Joe Bristow. The press adores the man. He's in the papers nearly every day, and the election isn't even official yet. It's going to be a three-way race and damned hard to call, but if I had to put money on it, I'd go with Bristow. He speaks to workingmen in their language. And that's something neither Freddie nor Dickie Lambert does." He nodded at Blenheim, golden in the afternoon sun. "This can't last. Too few have had too much for too long."
"Is that what you argued about last night?" India asked.
The men had had a terrible fight in the billiard room after supper.
"That, too," Bingham said. "Freddie was cross and in his cups. A terrible combination. He told Sunny he was a silly man who wanted only to chase foxes. And he said Wish was a vulgar man who wanted only to chase money."
India winced. "How dreadful of him. Glad Wish wasn't here last night to hear that. I hope he left you out of it."
Bingham shook his head. "He accused me of cowering in my study with Byron and Longfellow while socialists and radicals overrun the country."
"Oh, dear. I'm sure he didn't mean it, Bing. He's under so much pres-sure."
"He did mean it. And he's right. Freddie's the best man out of all of us. He's the only one with courage enough to enter the fray."
Freddie had been very upset last night; India knew he had. She tried to cheer him by telling him about her clinic, and Wish's new role as its fund-raiser, but it only seemed to make things worse. He'd been quite drunk, too. Drunk enough to whisper, "Leave your door unlocked, darling," as they were all going up to bed.
But she hadn't; she'd locked it. Then she'd sat up in her bed, in the dark, unable to sleep. She'd heard him trying the knob, then rapping softly. He hadn't dared to make any real noise. Someone might have heard him. He'd been cross with her this morning over it. They'd had words after breakfast. She'd told him it was an accident. A habit developed from living alone in London. She'd turned the key in the lock automatically, she'd said, then she'd fallen asleep and hadn't heard him.
It was a plausible explanation and it had mollified him, but it wouldn't work twice. She didn't know what she would do tonight. He wanted to make love to her. Of course he did. He was her flanc�She should want to make love to him, too. But she didn't. There was a man whose touch she craved, though, a man whose body she longed to feel against her own. And a week ago, he'd told her he never wanted to see her again.
"Halloooo! Indy! Bing! Where are the others?"
India turned in her saddle, grateful for the distraction from her tortured thoughts, and saw Maud riding up behind them.
"My word! What happened to you?" India asked her.
Maud was splattered with mud--her riding costume, her hands, her face. Her hat was gone; there were twigs and leaves in her hair. "I was fol-lowing the others. We jumped a high wall. The mud on the other side was a foot deep. They made it through. I didn't."
"Are you all right?"
"Mostly."
"Where are they now?"
"Buggered if I know. They disappeared into the woods, Freddie yelling that the fox was his and Wish yelling it was his, and Sunny blowing on his blasted bugle, and the damned dogs baying like hellhounds."
"What's going to happen if those two do actually catch the fox?" Bing-ham asked. "Does Wish have his pistol on him?"
"Yes, he was brandishing it earlier," Maud said. "Frightened a parlor-maid."
Wish loved the chase, but he couldn't abide the savagery of its conclu-sion. He was an excellent shot and always put the animal out of its misery immediately.
Freddie had teased Wish about this over breakfast, telling him he'd never make a politician, for the savagery in the Commons was far worse.
Bingham sat up in his saddle. "Look! There they are!"
Wish and Freddie were galloping through a clearing toward them, clearly racing each other. Wish flashed by, followed by Freddie, then they slowed to a trot and doubled back.
"You owe me twenty quid, old boy," Wish said to Freddie, as they ap-proached. He looked at Maud, still muddied, and laughed. "Not sure that rouge suits you. A bit dark if you ask me."
"Haw, haw, haw, Wish," Maud said. "Freddie, you did that on purpose."
"Did what?"
"Took us over that hedge."
"Certainly did. But I was hoping to dump Wis
h in the mud, not you. Sorry, old girl."
"Where's Sunny?" India asked.
"Dunno," Wish said. "He was ahead of us, but we lost him. But listen, India, speaking of Sunny, I've a bit of good news for you. I was talking to him about Point Reyes--trying to get him to invest when I take the whole thing public--and I mentioned your clinic to him, too. I think he's inter-ested. He's talking about making a contribution."
"Is he really?" India asked excitedly. "That is good news. Thank you, Wish!"
The Winter Rose Page 37