The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Britain—already aligned with France as the result of the Entente Cordiale, a treaty signed in 1904 after both countries had settled their skirmishes over colonial territories in Africa—saw an alliance with Russia as also advantageous, and so the Anglo-Russian Entente had been signed in 1907. Britain had pledged to come to the defense of both France and Russia should they be threatened by Germany, and they had pledged the same for her.

  In addition to strategizing with his country’s allies, the prime minister had also approached Britain’s own Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener—a soldier and statesman who’d distinguished himself on several major battlefields—and asked him to become secretary of state for war.

  Joe had spoken with Kitchener and had learned that, unlike many of Asquith’s advisors, the field marshal did not expect a war with Germany to be quickly fought and won. On the contrary, he had made the dire and unpopular prediction that such a war would last at least three years and would result in enormous casualties—a prediction that gave Joe renewed energy with which to argue against the warmongers in the Commons.

  But his arguments were all to no avail. Joe could see that. Everyone could. Kitchener himself had come up to Joe in the Commons dining room, after he had spent the day giving a speech in the House and listening to many more. “Save your breath, old chap,” he’d counseled Joe. “It doesn’t matter what I say. It wouldn’t matter what God said, had He the patience to sit in the Commons and endure Churchill’s endless harangues. They will have their war.”

  It would be soon, Kitchener felt. Perhaps as soon as the coming autumn.

  Weary and dispirited now, Joe wheeled himself across Cromwell Green to the line of carriages waiting just past it on the street. He saw his carriage in the queue and knew that Tom, his driver, would be nearby—fetching water for the horses or talking to one of the other drivers. As Joe drew up to his carriage, he saw a flower girl walking up and down the queue, trying to sell bouquets of roses. She was having little luck.

  Joe stopped to watch her. He watched as people walked by her, deaf to her entreaties, blind to the holes in her shoes and the hollows in her cheeks. And he felt as if his heart was breaking. For he knew that while this child—she couldn’t have been more than ten years old—walked the dark streets of London, desperately trying to make a few bob, men who had been raised in great homes and palaces, who had all the privileges wealth and power conferred, swept their make-believe armies across maps of the world. While she shivered and pulled her threadbare shawl around her thin shoulders, they poured more port into their crystal glasses and lit cigars.

  They thought of borders broken and territories taken, these men. They thought of victories won and of medals gleaming, but they did not think—not once—of the struggle this child endured, every day, to simply survive. And they did not think to wonder what would become of this child and of every child like her, poor children in every town and every village in Britain and Europe, if they lost their fathers to bullets, their houses to cannons, their fields and animals to the pillaging of foreign invaders.

  It was this child I fought for, Joe said to himself. And it’s this child I’ve failed.

  He wanted to go to her now. He wanted to tell her that he’d tried. But she would think him mad if he did that. So instead he wheeled himself over to her and told her that he wanted to buy all her flowers, everything she had.

  “What? All of them?” she asked, stunned.

  “Yes,” Joe said. He turned to Tom, who had joined him now. “Tom, could you put these in the carriage, please?”

  “Right away, sir,” Tom replied, picking up the child’s heavy basket.

  Joe gave the child more than the price of the flowers. “You keep the extra for yourself,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir! Oh, thank you!”

  “You’re welcome,” Joe replied.

  Tom gave the child her basket back, and Joe watched as she hurried off, her money still clutched in her hand.

  “That was good of you, sir. To help that child,” Tom said.

  “I didn’t help her, Tom,” Joe said. “A year from now, she’ll likely be worse off than she is. With her father at the front. Her brothers, too, if she has any. Men earn a lot more than women do. It’ll be her and her mum and her sisters, all shifting for themselves on factory wages and what they can make selling flowers. Poor little thing should be in school, learning how to read and write. Not out on the streets at all hours.”

  “Can’t fix the entire world, sir. Not even you. Not tonight, leastways,” Tom said.

  Joe watched the child as she turned the corner and disappeared into the night. “Ah, Tom,” he said, shaking his head. “Why did I tell her ‘You’re welcome’? When I should’ve told her ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Max Von Brandt loved churches.

  Churches were quiet and peaceful. Sometimes they had magnificent works of art to look at or wonderful choirs to listen to. But what he loved best about churches was that they were full of good people and good people were so easily used.

  He opened the door of St. Nicholas’s, in Wapping, removed his hat, and went inside. He moved quietly through the foyer into the nave. The church was empty, except for one person—a young blond woman. Gladys Bigelow had told him the woman would be here, that she cleaned the altar and brought fresh flowers for it every Wednesday.

  She wasn’t cleaning now, though. She was kneeling in a church pew near a statue of the Virgin Mary, her blond head bent, praying. He could see her belly, looking rounder. How interesting. It had not looked that way last week, when he’d seen her hanging out the washing at the back of her cottage at Binsey.

  Max had decided to take a look around the village after learning from notes Harriet had written in her file that Jennie was staying there. He’d had to stay out of sight for most of the time he was there—skulking in the woods behind the cottage during the day, listening at the window at night, cooling his heels in his room at the pub—but even so, it had been such a productive trip. He’d discovered so much.

  As he stood patiently now, waiting for Jennie to finish her prayers, he heard a sob escape her. And then another. She was weeping. Max was certain he knew why. He was certain, too, that her tears—and the reason behind them—would make his present task easier.

  My God, he thought watching her, what havoc love wreaks. What damage it does. And had done. To Gladys Bigelow. Maud. Jennie. To Seamie. And Willa. And to him.

  Even he had not escaped love’s destruction, try as he might. He’d had his dinner with Willa. She had been friendly and lovely, but that was all, for she was in love with another man. And he? He had sat next to her for two hours, tortured the whole time by his feelings for her—feelings he knew she did not return. Afterward, he had made a vow, again, never to be so dangerously moved by his emotions.

  He walked up the aisle to where Jennie was seated. “Mrs. Finnegan?” he said, gently touching her arm.

  Jennie quickly sat up and wiped her eyes. “Mr. von Brandt … this … this is very unexpected,” she stammered.

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Finnegan, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I tried the rectory first, but no one was there,” Max said. He paused, then hesitatingly continued, “It grieves me to see you so upset. If I may be so bold … what is troubling you? Tell me. Perhaps I can be of help.”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all, really,” Jennie said, trying hard to smile. “It’s my condition, I’m afraid. It makes me rather prone to moods and tears.”

  Max looked down at his hat. He fingered its brim, then said, “I don’t believe you, Mrs. Finnegan.” He looked up again and said, “Is it Willa Alden?”

  Jennie paled. She looked as if she wanted to be sick. “Willa?” she said, working to keep her voice even. “No. Of course not. Why do you ask?”

  Max affected a flustered look. “No reason,” he said. “I misspoke. Please forgive me.”

  But Jennie pressed him, as he’d known she would, until finally, with feigned reluc
tance, he said, “I thought you knew. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that I was so certain that’s why you were crying.”

  “Mr. von Brandt … please,” Jennie said, her voice strained. She made room for him in the pew, and he sat down next to her. “What do you know about Willa Alden?”

  “I know that Willa and your husband are having an affair,” Max said. Jennie said nothing. It was very quiet inside the church. Max could hear horses clopping past the open window, hear their traces jingling and their driver shouting at someone to get out of his way. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Jennie nodded. She sat back in the pew. Then she put her head in her hands and wept again. Max patted her hand. He waited until she composed herself, then he said, “I’m sure that I can help you.”

  “How?” Jennie asked miserably.

  “I’m acquainted with Miss Alden. I may be able to prevail upon her to stop seeing your husband.”

  Jennie laughed unhappily. “But will my husband stop seeing her?” she said.

  “I will convince her to leave London.”

  “She might not wish to.”

  “I think she will.”

  He knew she would. He’d met Willa’s brother at Jennie and Seamie’s wedding. Albie was still in London. Max would contrive to meet him, seemingly by chance, and make sure to mention that he’d bumped into both his sister and his good friend Seamus at the Coburg recently.

  Jennie looked at Max with anguished eyes now. “If you could do that, Mr. von Brandt, if you could get Willa to leave London, I would be forever in your debt.” She wiped her eyes again, and then, as if remembering herself, she said, “I’m certain you did not come here today with the intention of discussing my marital problems.”

  Max smiled. “No, I didn’t actually. I came here to ask for your help.”

  Jennie looked surprised. “I cannot imagine how I could be of help to you, Mr. von Brandt.”

  “It’s very simple,” he said. “I need you to help me pass along some information. Some rather crucial information. If you decide to help me, every fortnight Gladys Bigelow will give you an envelope containing documents. She will do this at your women’s suffrage meetings. You would bring them here to the church during your Wednesday visits. You would go into the church, just as you always do, then go down to the basement. There’s a statue of St. Nicholas down there. It’s broken. All you would have to do is put the envelope inside the statue’s head.”

  Jennie’s expression changed from one of surprise to one of anger. “Do you take me for a fool, Mr. von Brandt?” she said.

  “I do not,” Max said.

  “I know where Gladys works,” Jennie said. “And for whom she works. What will be in those envelopes? Secrets? Information for your government?”

  Max had anticipated this question and was prepared for it.

  “Forgeries will be in those envelopes, Mrs. Finnegan,” he said earnestly. “Fake travel papers, fake histories. Fake work contracts. Fake lives. They are to be delivered to dissidents in Germany—high-ranking professors, scientists, and ministers—pacifists all. Men who have been vocal critics of Germany’s militarization. We are trying to help them and their families get out. Now. Before it’s too late. We’ve already lost some. A physicist, a professor at one of our universities, tried to leave the country two days ago. His papers were confiscated. No one has heard from him or seen him since. Two ministers were jailed last week for speaking out against war. We are doing our best to get to them quickly, but sometimes we are not quick enough.”

  “Who is ‘we’?”

  “Britain’s Secret Service. I am a spy, Mrs. Finnegan. A double agent. The kaiser thinks I am working for Germany. I am not. I am working against her. Germany is trying to start a war. An unjust war. I am doing all I can to stop it.”

  Jennie looked as if she was wavering, just a little. “And Gladys … is she a willing participant in this?” she asked.

  “She is,” Max replied. “But you must never discuss it with her. You must simply accept the envelope she gives you, put it in your own bag, and then bring it to St. Nicholas’s basement. Everyone is watched. Gladys, too.”

  “But why me?” Jennie asks. “Why couldn’t you get someone else?”

  “Because you had the misfortune to be perfectly placed.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We needed a friend of Gladys Bigelow’s, someone whom Gladys sees regularly and has for years. If Gladys suddenly changed her daily patterns—if she suddenly started meeting a new person and traveling to a new place to do so—it would raise suspicions.”

  “Whose suspicions?”

  “My fellow spies. Both British and German. There are double-agents everywhere. There are British agents who are feeding secrets to Germany as we speak. For money. If they figure out what Gladys is doing, the people we’re trying to help are lost.”

  “Surely Gladys has other friends besides me,” Jennie says.

  “Yes, of course, but none with ties to this church. There is a network of tunnels under Wapping, Mrs. Finnegan. And under St. Nicholas’s. Our man will be using them to move the documents. So you see, you are the critical link. Of course you must say nothing of this to anyone. Not your husband. Your father. No one. The more people who know about this, the more dangerous it becomes for all involved.”

  “I cannot do it, Mr. von Brandt. I cannot keep secrets from my husband,” Jennie said resolutely, shaking her head.

  Max had thought that perhaps he had her, but no, he’d lost her. No matter, he would get her back. He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but it had.

  “I understand your reservations, Mrs. Finnegan,” he said. He was no longer feigning earnestness, concern, or anything else. His voice was quiet now and deadly serious. “Let us discuss it with your husband, then. Perhaps he would like to join us—all of us—you, myself, and Miss Meadows, in that lovely cottage of yours in Binsey. I took the train there last week. What a beautiful little village. I stayed at the King’s Head.”

  Jennie’s eyes widened. Her hand came up to her mouth. “No,” she said. “Stop. Please, stop.”

  But Max didn’t stop. “Of course, if we were to do that,” he said, “we might have to explain more than my request, mightn’t we? We might have to explain Miss Meadows’s presence at your cottage. We might also have to explain the contents of your file—the one I read a few weeks ago in Harriet Hatcher’s office while Harriet was in the loo. And we might have to explain what, exactly, you have up under your skirts. I don’t think it’s a baby, is it, Mrs. Finnegan? Not anymore. At least, that’s what Mrs. Cobb, Dr. Cobb’s wife, said to Mrs. Kerrigan, the publican’s wife, as Mrs. Kerrigan was doing her washing last week. I’m sure they thought no one could hear them, but my window faced the yard. Of course, Mrs. Cobb thinks it was Josie Meadows who lost her baby. Which, I must say, was an exceedingly clever idea. Tell me, was it yours? Or Josie’s?”

  “My God,” Jennie said, a look of horror on her face. “You are a monster. A monster.”

  “Your husband will be leaving the RGS in about a half hour’s time, I believe. I shall ask you one more time, Mrs. Finnegan … will you help me? Or do I tell him what’s been going on at Binsey?”

  Jennie looked at the altar, at the statue of Christ on the crucifix. Then she looked at her hand, the one with her wedding ring on it.

  “I will help you,” she said. “And God help me.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Finnegan. Regarding the other matter we discussed, I shall do all that I can. Immediately. Good day.”

  “Good day, Mr. von Brandt,” Jennie said woodenly.

  Max moved quickly once he was outside of the church. He headed west, toward the Katharine Docks, where he hoped to hire a hackney cab. He did not want to be seen and recognized in Wapping.

  He thought of Sarajevo as he walked. Of the kaiser’s determination to go to war. Of the armaments on both sides. War was coming, of this he was certain. He had seen war, and what it did, and he wanted a quick an
d decisive battle, with as few lives lost as possible.

  He thought of all the young German men ready and willing to fight, and of all the young men in England and France and Russia and Austria ready to do the same. They had no idea what they were in for. Young men never did. They thought it was all a great adventure. Which made it that much easier for old men to send them to the slaughter.

  By the time Max found a cab, he felt good—better than he’d felt in many weeks. He’d finally been able to reestablish the chain of communication to Berlin, and not before time. Berlin was getting restive. They were doubting him, and that was not good.

  Thank God for good people, Max thought again, as he climbed into the cab and shut the door behind him. Good people were loving and kind and charitable. They had the best intentions. Like Jennie Finnegan. She only wanted to save her marriage, to give her husband a child so that he might love her. Max closed his eyes. He leaned back in his seat and sighed. How very odd, he thought, that it’s always people’s best intentions, not their worst, that bury them.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “Madam, I believe—”

  Mr. Foster didn’t get to finish his sentence. Fiona was already out of her chair, out of the drawing room, and racing down the hallway to the foyer of her home.

  The front door was open. The driver and the under-butler were carrying bags. Miss Simon, the governess, was corralling the excited children. In the midst of it all stood a weary-looking blond woman holding a small boy by the hand and a baby in her arms. A willowy, beautiful girl, blond with huge gray eyes, stood next to her.

  Wordlessly, Fiona ran to them. She threw one arm around the woman’s neck, enfolding her and the baby. With her other arm, she gathered the girl and the little boy into her embrace. The blond woman hugged her back. Fiona could feel her tense, hitching breaths, and knew that she was trying hard not to cry. Tears ran down Fiona’s own cheeks.