“Oh, India,” she said, releasing her. “I’m so happy to see you. Thank God you and the children made it here safely.”
India Baxter nodded. She tried to speak, but burst into tears. “I’m so sorry, Fiona. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry about Maud anymore. Not in front of the children,” she said.
India’s small son looked at his mother, saw that she was crying, and promptly burst into tears, too. The baby, tired and flushed, followed suit.
“I’m sure he’s wet,” India said tiredly. “And hungry. I’ll just go change him and then—”
“No, India, you must sit down. Miss Simon, where’s Pillowy?” Fiona asked.
“Right here, ma’am!” a large voice boomed.
It was the children’s nurse. Her real name was Mrs. Pillower, but when Katie was tiny, she had christened her Pillowy because she was large, soft, and comforting.
“I’ve just drawn baths—one for Miss Charlotte and another for Mrs. Baxter’s wee ones,” she said. “I’ll get them washed and dressed in fresh clothes, and then we’ll pop down to the kitchen for a nice meal.”
“Come on, Charlotte,” Katie said, taking her cousin’s hand. The two girls were almost the same age. “You’re sleeping in my room. I’ll show you where it is, and then you can have your bath.”
Charlotte followed her cousin, and Mrs. Pillower offered her hand to six-year-old Wish, but he shook his head.
“I don’t want a bath and I’m not hungry,” he said, hiding behind his mother’s skirts.
Mrs. Pillower put her hands on her large hips and shook her head sadly. “You aren’t? What a pity! Cook’s just made the loveliest berry pudding and a big dish of whipped cream to go with it. I suppose I shall have to eat it all myself now.”
“No, Pillowy! Don’t!” Patrick, one of Fiona’s twin boys, said. “We want some!”
“And I would love to let you have some, my ducks, but I can’t, you see. I’ve got to get Master Aloysius here bathed, and I can’t very well let you two loose in the kitchen on your own. Cook will have my head.”
“Oh, come on, Wish!” Patrick said. “Just get your bath, will you? It’ll only take a minute and then we can all have pudding!”
“Pudding! Pudding! We want pudding!” Michael, the other twin, started chanting.
“Pudding,” Wish said solemnly, taking a tentative step out from behind his mother. “Pudding!” he said again, with more conviction.
“That’s the spirit, old son,” Mrs. Pillower said. “Now, tell me, do you like a little demerara sugar sprinkled on top of your cream? I do. Gives it a bit of crunch. Sometimes I like to put a few fresh raspberries on top, too.”
“I like raspberries,” Wish said shyly.
“Course you do! Who doesn’t? Nutters, that’s who.” Mrs. Pillower paused and affected a worried look, as if she’d just thought of something disturbing. “You’re not a nutter, are you?” she asked Wish.
The little boy giggled. He quickly shook his head no.
“Didn’t think so,” Mrs. Pillower said. “But it pays to ask. You can’t be too careful these days.” She gently took Elizabeth from India’s arms, and when she started to fuss, Mrs. Pillower produced a rattle from her pocket, which made the baby smile again. “Oh, you’re damp as a mop, you,” Mrs. Pillower said. Then she turned to India and added, “I’ll have them back in an hour, washed, fed, and good as new.”
India smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Pillower,” she said. “I’m very grateful to you.”
As Mrs. Pillower disappeared upstairs with Wish and Elizabeth, the twins and Charlotte following her, Fiona led India into the drawing room, where a pot of tea and a tray of scones, cakes, and biscuits had been thoughtfully set out.
“Mr. Foster, no doubt,” India said when she saw it. “How is he?”
“Well,” Fiona said. “Getting on a bit, as we all are. The under butler’s doing more of the heavy work, but Mr. Foster is still captain of the ship. Thank God. It would be utter chaos without him.”
The two women sat down on a settee. India rested her head against the back of it as Fiona poured the tea. She handed India a cup. “This will knit body and soul back together,” she said. “Sarah, the maid, is unpacking your things. After you’ve rested a bit, I’ll have her draw you a bath.”
“Thank you,” India said. “It’s so good to finally be here, Fiona. There were days when I thought we’d never make it. Two weeks to get from California to New York,” she said. “And then three more on the ship from New York to Southampton. I don’t ever want to see a train, a boat, or a hackney cab again. At least not until the children are grown. I had no idea Wish would be seasick. Charlotte isn’t. I think it’s because she’s constantly out with Sid on his boat.”
“How is my brother?” Fiona asked.
India smiled. “Happy and well. Delivering a calf one minute, off to meet the fishing boats to collect our supper the next. I’ve never seen anyone take to a new life so quickly. It’s as if he’d been born at Point Reyes. We all miss him, of course. It’s been weeks and weeks since we’ve seen him, and it’ll be months before we return home.”
“I wish he could have come,” Fiona said.
“He wishes it, too. We all do,” India said. “But it’s not safe for him in London, given his past.”
Fiona nodded. Her brother had spent many years in London’s underworld, as one of the East End’s leading crime bosses. Many of the people he’d known were dead, but many were still alive—and possessed of long memories.
She looked at India, who was too thin and too pale, and had dark smudges under her eyes, and said, “And how are you?”
India shook her head. “I don’t know, Fiona. I’m heartbroken, of course. But I think I’m mostly still in shock, really. Maud died nearly six weeks ago now, and yet I still cannot get her death through my head. It makes no sense to me. Suicide, of all things. That’s something I’d never thought she’d do in a million years. Not Maud.”
“But if she was addicted to morphine, perhaps she was not in her right mind,” Fiona said.
“That makes no sense, either,” India said. “She used to smoke opium, quite frequently, but she’d stopped. For the most part. I think she still indulged in the odd doctored-up cigarette, but that was all.”
“Perhaps she’d started again,” Fiona said gently. “Max von Brandt—the man she was seeing at the time of her death—seemed to think that she had.”
“That must be it, then,” India said. “She must’ve started taking drugs, and more heavily than she ever had before. There’s no other way her death can be explained. I can’t imagine Maud killing herself over anything, least of all a man, if she was in her right mind.”
India drained her teacup. Fiona poured her more.
“She left everything to me,” India said. “The London flat, the Oxford estate. I’ll have to sell them both, and most of her things. And I can’t bear to even think about it. The thought of going into her house, and her not being there, is too painful.”
“No, don’t think about it right now,” Fiona said. “I’ve already engaged an estate lawyer to help you. You can meet him in a few days, after you’ve rested and recovered from your journey. I’ll help you with Maud’s belongings, too. I’ll go with you, if you like, to sort through them.”
“Would you?” India said. “I feel like it’s too much to ask of you. I’ve already descended upon you with the children, when I should probably just have gone to Maud’s house. You have enough on your plate without us moving in.”
“Don’t be silly, and don’t you dare say another word about going to Maud’s house. Joe and I want you here, and so do the children. They were wild with excitement when they heard you were coming.”
India looked down at her teacup. “I think I’ll go to her grave site first, before anything else,” she said.
“I’ll go with you. We’ll take the train,” Fiona said. Maud had been buried in Oxford. In a small churchyard on her estate.
India looked at he
r, her eyes suddenly fierce and full of tears. “And I’m going to the police, too,” she said. “I’m going to look at the coroner’s pictures. I want to see her for myself. See the needle marks on her arms. See the bruises. Maybe that will make it real for me. Maybe that will help me make some sense of it.”
Fiona shuddered at the idea of India doing any such thing. How could cold, black-and-white photographs of Maud’s lifeless body offer her any comfort? It was her grief speaking—mad and wild and searching for answers.
Fiona put an arm around her. “I know you are very upset, India, but are you certain you want to do that?” she asked her. “Wouldn’t it be better to remember Maud the way she was—beautiful and funny and full of life?”
India leaned her head against Fiona and gave vent to her grief. “Full of life,” she sobbed. “That was my sister. My God, Fiona, what went wrong?”
Chapter Forty-Three
Willa sat at a table for two at the Dorchester, fiddling with her napkin.
The tearoom, with its low tables and silver trays and overstuffed chintz chairs, had been Albie’s idea. She would never have chosen to come here. But then again, the idea to have afternoon tea together, out of their mother’s house, was his idea, too.
“Why, Albie? Why can’t we talk in the parlor, for God’s sake?” she’d asked him earlier this morning, after he’d proposed the idea.
“We need to talk, Willa, and it will be easier without Mother nearby,” he’d said.
He was right about that. They were still not on the best of terms, and their frequent silences or brusque exchanges upset their mother.
Willa was relieved her brother finally wanted to talk, and she hoped he would say what he had to say, get it off his chest, and get over it. He was mad about their father’s funeral—and her coming home so late—but there was nothing else she could have done. She had loved their father, too. She hadn’t meant to be away from him when he was ill, and as soon as she’d found out about his condition, she’d tried to get home as quickly as possible. It wasn’t her fault letters took as long as they did to reach her in Rongbuk. She hoped she could make Albie understand that.
Willa checked her watch again. Albie was late and she wished he’d get here. She planned to see Seamie after she’d finished with her brother, and she didn’t want to miss even one minute of the precious little time she had to spend with him. She would see him tonight and then, a few days later … in Scotland. They’d made plans to go to Ben Nevis next week, she and Seamie, and she was counting the hours.
“I can get away, Willa. For a whole week,” he’d told her a few nights ago, in bed at the Coburg. “Come to Scotland with me. To Ben Nevis. Let’s try for a climb.”
He told her that Jennie often went to a cottage she owned in Binsey to rest and relax and that she’d be going the following week. It was August now, and people were taking their holidays. He himself was entitled to a bit of time off from the RGS. He planned to say that he was going to Scotland on a climbing trip. It was nothing out of the ordinary; he often went hiking or climbing.
He would rent a cottage, a tiny place situated somewhere wild and remote. They would travel up separately, avoiding any risk of being seen together. They’d each buy some provisions and meet at the cottage. And then they would spend an entire week together. Seven glorious days. Of hiking and climbing. Of eating every meal together. Talking. Going to bed in the dark together. Waking up in the light.
“Please come, Willa. Say you will,” he said.
She’d tried to say no. She’d tried to do the right thing, and once again she’d failed. She wanted to be with him, and more than anything, she wanted to climb with him again. And she would.
On Seamie’s advice, Willa had spent a good deal of her time in London investigating artificial limbs. Her inquiries had finally led her to Marcel and Charles Desoutter, two brothers who’d recently invented something called the duralumin alloy leg—a prosthetic leg made from light metal. It was half the weight of a wooden leg and had a frictional knee control that would allow Willa to manage the speed and length of her stride. Best of all, it had a feature called a cushion-joint foot, which moved and flexed in the manner of a real human foot.
Willa had tried one and had been so excited by its possibilities that she’d had one made for herself immediately, using the advance she had from Clements Markham for her Everest book to pay for it. The new leg was nothing like her old one. Its comfort and lightness left her less fatigued and bruised at the end of the day and its flexibility broadened her range of movement considerably. She was hopeful now that it might even allow her to attempt a climb. A real one. She couldn’t wait to try it out on Ben Nevis.
Willa looked at her watch now. It was a quarter past four already. Maybe Albie had got caught up in work and wasn’t coming. She would give him ten more minutes. In the meantime, she went back to fiddling with her napkin. She’d just made a rabbit’s head out of it, when she heard a voice say, “Hello, Willa.”
Willa looked up. “Albie?” she said, confused.
He looked flushed and a little disheveled. He looked like a man who’d been drinking, and he was, in fact, carrying two glasses of scotch. He put one down in front of her, then sat down across the table from her and knocked his back in one gulp.
“Albie, what are you doing?” she asked him.
“Drinking,” he replied.
“Yes, I can see that. But why?”
“What do you intend to do, Willa?” he asked her.
Willa felt even more confused. “About what?” she said.
“Are you planning on returning to Everest?”
“I’m not sure. Not yet. Why—” she began.
“Because I think you should. Father’s funeral is over. Mother is coping now. And I think you should go back. As soon as possible.”
Willa was taken aback—by her brother’s questions and his tone and the smell of scotch coming off him. Her confusion turned to anger.
“Albie, just what do you mean by coming in here and speaking to me so rudely? I’ve explained over and over why I couldn’t get home before Father died and—”
“I know, Willa,” he said, cutting her off.
“You know? Know what?” she asked.
“What the hell do you think? About Seamie.”
Willa felt as if he’d struck her. “How do you know?” she asked in a small voice.
“I figured it out. After I found out you’ve been visiting the Coburg. And Seamie, too.”
“Who told you that?”
“I’m not going to tell you, so don’t bother asking.”
Willa continued to press him, but he would not reveal who’d told him. And then it hit her. How could she have been so stupid? “It was Max von Brandt, wasn’t it?” she said, knowing that Max and Albie had met.
Albie didn’t reply right away, but Willa could see from his expression that she was right, and she said so.
“Yes. All right, then. It was him,” Albie said. “He didn’t do it on purpose, though. I bumped into him on the street. He told me that he’d seen you in the lobby of his hotel, and that you’d had dinner together and he’d had such a nice time. He said he’d seen Seamie at the Coburg once, too. Max might have thought it a coincidence, but I didn’t. I waited in the lobby one afternoon. I saw Seamie come in, saw him take the elevator to the fifth floor. You were about ten minutes behind him. You also went to the fifth floor.”
Willa, stricken, said nothing.
“The next evening, I went to Seamie’s flat, intending to have it out with him. He wasn’t there. Jennie was, though. She was upset. She’d been crying. I sat down with her and we talked. She knows, too, Willa.”
“But that’s not possible. She couldn’t know,” Willa says. “We’ve been so careful.”
“Not careful enough, apparently,” Albie said. “Jennie’s distraught. She isn’t sleeping or eating properly, which is not good for her baby.” He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes hard with anger. “Did you ever think abo
ut that, Willa? Either of you? Did you ever think about the damage it would do to other people? To Jennie? To me? To our mother, if she ever found out?”
“Stop it, Albie. Please.”
“No, I won’t stop. I can’t imagine either of you did think about anyone else. You never do. You never have. You’ve always done just as you pleased. Doesn’t matter who gets hurt, does it? Doesn’t matter who worries, who suffers, who gets left behind. All that matters is the bloody quest. Being first. Getting to the top. Getting what you want. Or, in this case, whom you want. And icebergs and mountains, and people—yes, even people—are all just obstacles to be got round.”
Willa’s defenses crumbled. Albie was right. All along, she had been so wrong, so selfish. She’d wanted Seamie so badly, and so she’d taken him, with no thought for the woman he’d married, the woman who was going to have his child. Shame and remorse engulfed her now.
“I never meant to hurt her, Albie. Or you. I love him, that’s all. I love him more than my own life and I wanted to be with him. Oh, God,” she whispered, covering her face with her hands. “What have I done?”
Albie must’ve heard the sorrow in her voice, for he softened slightly. “You have to stop this, Willa. For Jennie’s sake. And Seamie’s. And their child’s. And for your own sake, too. It’s an impossible situation, can’t you see that?”
Willa lowered her hands and nodded. Tears were running down her cheeks. She was frightened suddenly. She, who had climbed Kilimanjaro and nearly died, who’d journeyed to one of the most forbidding places on the planet and made it her own. She was terrified, because she knew now what the worst thing was that could ever happen to her—and it wasn’t losing a leg, or not being able to climb. It was losing the one she loved most in this world. Again.
“What will I do?” she asked her brother, though she already knew the answer.
“You have to leave, Willa,” he said. “You have to leave Seamie. You have to leave London. There’s nothing else you can do.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Seamie poured himself another glass of wine. His third. If he didn’t stop, he’d be tipsy when Willa arrived.
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