The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  He walked to the window and looked out over the rooftops of London. Where was she? She was supposed to have been here an hour ago. It was already six o’clock. They had so little time together, he didn’t want to miss a second spent with her, never mind an entire hour.

  He had a surprise for her—a key to their cottage near Ben Nevis. He’d finalized the arrangements just this afternoon and the agent had given it to him. They would leave for Scotland in a few days’ time. Seven days they would have together. Seven days of walking and climbing. Of looking up at the stars at night and searching for Orion. Of sitting by the fire. Cooking breakfast together. Reading. Doing the washing up. Six nights of making love to her without watching the clock, of lying next to her in the dark and listening to her breathe.

  Jennie had looked unhappy this morning when he’d told her of his plans to climb Ben Nevis. She’d looked as if she were about to protest, but then she’d forced a smile and wished him a wonderful trip. He’d wondered then, just for a moment, if she suspected. How could she? They’d always been so careful, he and Willa. They’d never taken chances.

  He told himself he was being foolish, and yet something still nagged at him. Something in Jennie’s eyes as he’d put her on the train to Oxford. Not suspicion exactly, no. It was more like sadness. It would have to stop one day. What he and Willa were doing. And likely the day would come soon. One day, yes, he thought. But not yet, he begged the fates. Please, not yet.

  He heard a knock at the door. Finally, he thought. But when he opened it, a bellhop was standing there, not Willa.

  “Letter for you, sir,” the man said, handing Seamie an envelope. There was no name on it, just his room number.

  “A letter? When did it arrive?” Seamie asked.

  “Just a few minutes ago.”

  “Who brought it?”

  “I didn’t see, sir.”

  Seamie reached into his pocket, gave the man a tip, and closed the door. He opened the envelope and unfolded the sheet of paper inside. It was covered with Willa’s handwriting.

  My dearest Seamie,

  I cannot do this anymore. It’s not right and it never was. Jennie deserves better. Your child deserves better. I am sorry for leaving a note—again. But if I come upstairs right now, and say good-bye to you in person, I will do what is wrong, not what is right. I love you, Seamie. I always have and I always will. Wherever you go in this wide world, and whatever you do, never forget that.

  Willa

  “Well,” he said aloud. “It looks like the day has come. Sooner rather than later.”

  He folded the note, put it back in its envelope, and tucked it in his jacket pocket, next to his heart. He was not angry. Not this time. He knew that Willa was right—that she’d somehow found the courage to do what he could not.

  He knew, too, that he must try to forget her now. That he must go back to the woman he’d married and try his best to love her again. To be a proper husband to her and a good father to their child. She needed him. He had made her a promise, had taken a vow.

  A long time ago, Willa had lost her leg, and she had learned to live without it. He had lost his heart. Twice now. He would have to learn to live without that. And without her—the woman who shared his soul.

  He poured himself another glass of wine, emptying the bottle, and took his time in drinking it. He didn’t have to be home at any particular hour tonight. Jennie was in the country. When he’d finished his drink, he collected his things and left a few coins on a table for the maid. He settled his bill downstairs and told the receptionist that he would not be needing the room again.

  Dusk was coming down by the time he left the hotel. The doorman asked him if he required a hackney and he told him no. It was a mild night—warm and overcast. He would walk. He took off his jacket, slung it over his shoulder, and set off. He looked up at the sky once as he walked London’s dark streets, but he could not see the stars.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “All that’s left for tonight is the sleeper to Edinburgh … or the ferry train,” the man in the ticket booth said.

  “What time does that one leave?” Willa asked.

  “Nine-twenty. Which one will it be, luv?”

  “I … I don’t know. How much is the Edinburgh fare? And the other one? The fare to Calais?”

  The ticketing agent patiently explained the different prices, depending on whether she wanted a berth and, if so, whether she wanted it in first, second, or third class.

  Willa was standing at a ticket window in Kings Cross Station, dazed and heartbroken, two large suitcases nearby. She had left the note for Seamie at the Coburg, then hailed a hackney cab back to her home, where she’d quickly packed her bags, said good-bye to her brother and tearful mother, and promised to write soon.

  “But why are you leaving so suddenly, Willa?” her mother asked. “You only just got here.”

  “Now, Mother, that’s not true. I’ve been here for quite a while,” Willa said. “I’ve done my presentations. Finished the text for my book and turned it in. It’s time I went back east. I’ve so much more to do. I’ve got to get back to my work.”

  “But we should have a going-away dinner. You can’t just leave.”

  “I must, and anyway, I hate long good-byes. I’ll write. I promise. And with any luck, the letters will go back and forth between us more speedily than they have been. Oh, please don’t cry, Mum. You’re making it even more difficult than it already is.”

  Albie had put a hand on their mother’s shoulder. “We mustn’t be selfish, Mother,” he’d said. “We must think of Willa and let her get back to her mountain.”

  But Willa wasn’t going back to her mountain. Not just yet. She couldn’t bear to get there and look at yet something else she loved and could never have. She would go to Paris instead. Or Edinburgh. And knock around either place for a few days until she figured out what to do next. The important thing was that she put distance between herself and Seamie.

  “Have you decided yet, miss?” the ticketing agent asked her. “Where will it be?”

  She was just about to say Edinburgh, when she heard a voice calling her name. She turned around and saw Tom Lawrence hurrying toward her. He was wearing a linen suit and looked handsome and dashing.

  “I say, Willa, I thought that was you!” he said cheerfully. “How are you? Where are you headed? I hope you’re on my train—the ferry train to Calais. I’m going to visit Paris for a few days, then head to Italy.”

  “Whatever will you do there, Tom?”

  “I’m taking a steamer across the Mediterranean to Turkey, then it’s through the Straits to Cairo. I hope, at least. If the Germans haven’t got hold of them by then. I’ve officially joined up, you see. I’m working under General Murray at the Bureau of Arab Affairs. I do hope you’re on my train. I’d love to have a spot of tea with you en route. Hear more about Everest and Tibet.”

  “Miss? What train do you want?” the ticketing agent asked impatiently. “There are people behind you waiting.”

  Willa suddenly got an idea—a mad, impossible idea.

  “Take me with you, Tom,” she said.

  Lawrence blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Take me to Cairo with you. I don’t want to go back to Tibet. Not just yet, at least. I want to do something else. I can pay my way. I have enough money. And once I’m there, I’d be happy to work for the place you mentioned—the Bureau of Arab Affairs.”

  “Willa, you can’t be serious. It’s a bloody long way, you know. And I can’t guarantee you any sort of employment once we arrive.”

  “Couldn’t you find me something? I can survey. Make maps. Ride a camel. Type letters. Mop floors. Empty rubbish bins. Anything, Tom. Anything at all. Just please, please take me with you.”

  “You are a damned good surveyor,” Lawrence said. “Good navigator, too. I’m sure Arab Affairs could find some way to make you useful.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Well, General Murray will have my head, but what the devil.” He
turned to the ticketing agent and said, “Good evening, sir. We’ll take two for Calais, please.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Max Von Brandt sat in his hotel room, smoking.

  He was attending a supper at the Asquiths’ tonight. The PM would not be there, of course. He had things other than dinner parties to occupy him just now. But many others would be. Margot was a shimmering social butterfly, and her circle was not limited to politicians. There would be writers and artists, people who knew people. He was sure to learn things there. He always made it a point to learn things.

  He would have to leave shortly, but not just yet. He would relax for a little while longer, savoring both his cigar and the moment.

  The chain was whole. The information so critical to Berlin was moving along it smoothly once more. Just in the nick of time.

  Gladys was handing copies of everything that went in and out of Burgess’s office to Jennie. Jennie was hiding it all in the basement of her father’s church. And a new man, one who’d come up to London from Brighton—Josef Fleischer, also known as Jack Flynn—was picking the material up every fortnight and taking it through the tunnels to Billy Madden’s man, John Harris. Together Fleischer and Harris were sailing out of London with the documents twice monthly, on the fifteenth and the thirtieth, to meet the boat in the North Sea.

  All the links were sound. John Harris would do what Billy Madden told him to. Gladys would do what he, Max, told her to, or some very unsavory pictures would be sent to her boss, and Jennie … Jennie would also continue to do as he wished, if she didn’t want her husband to find out that his child, the one that Max guessed would happen to be born in Binsey, was really Billy Madden’s bastard.

  Of course, Jennie’s continued tractability depended a great deal upon her husband. She wanted him. And he wanted Willa. If he had left Jennie for Willa, Jennie might well have given up her charade of a pregnancy and Max would have had no leverage over her. So he’d removed that particular impediment as well—by enlisting Albie Alden’s help.

  Willa Alden was gone. Nobody knew where, not even her brother, for Max had questioned him.

  “Willa’s left London,” Albie had said to him, at a party they’d both attended, after Max had asked how she was.

  “That was rather sudden, no?” he said. “I assume she’s gone back east?”

  “I suppose so,” Albie had said. “To be truthful, though, I actually don’t know where she’s gone. We’ll have a letter at some point. Or perhaps not. Willa follows her own rules.”

  “Indeed she does,” Max said to himself now. He had no doubt that Willa would turn up again—in a place that was just like she was—beautiful, desolate, and wild.

  For a moment, Max felt a heaviness in his heart, and he wished—desperately—that things had been different. He wished that he and Willa had been different people and that she could have been his. She was the only woman he’d ever truly loved, and he wished he could have spent his life with her in a place like Tibet—far away from Europe and its madmen.

  He stubbed out his cigar and stood. He smoothed his lapels, tugged his cuffs straight, boxed his feelings away. It was eight o’clock, time to get going. Margot Asquith started her evenings punctually.

  Max smiled grimly as he thought about Margot. They had formed a sudden and close bond, he and the prime minister’s wife, having found themselves united in their sorrow over Maud’s death.

  Max had let her find him sitting alone in the drawing room at Maud’s Oxford estate after the funeral, staring down at a ruby ring he was holding in his palm—a ring he’d found only moments before on the mantel.

  “Max? Is that you? Whatever are you doing in here all alone?” Margot had asked him.

  “She asked me to marry her once, Margot. Did you know that? She took this ring off her hand and put it on my little finger and said we were engaged.” He had smiled sadly, then said, “She tried to say she was only joking and that she wanted it back, but I wouldn’t give it to her. I’d … I’d hoped to find a way, you see …” His voice broke. He brushed at his eyes.

  “Max, darling. Don’t,” Margot said, hurrying to his side.

  “The thing that hurts me, the thing that is so hard to bear, is that no one knows the truth,” he said.

  “What is the truth? Tell me.”

  “The truth is that I cared for her a great deal. And if things had been different, if I hadn’t had the family obligations that I do, I would never have broken it off. I would have married her.”

  Margot, greatly moved by this admission of love, had taken him to her heart then. She rang him up constantly, invited him to all her soirees and weekends, made sure he was not too much alone. He was spending every weekend, and many weeknights, in the homes of politicians, military men, cabinet ministers. Which made Berlin very happy.

  A man’s tears were a powerful enticement to a woman, he knew. Women could not resist them. Let a woman see you cry and she thought she owned you. But actually, you owned her—heart and soul.

  Dusk was just beginning to fall as Max walked out of the Coburg’s lobby. He waited patiently as one doorman hailed a cab for him, and watched with interest as two more took down the Union Jack that always flew above the hotel.

  He wondered, as he watched them fold the flag with care and respect, if the Union Jack would always fly over the Coburg. And the Houses of Parliament. Buckingham Palace. He wondered if one day the kaiser’s troops would march down Pall Mall. Germany’s army and her navy were unsurpassed now in size and strength. The kaiser had put it about that he’d be in Paris in a week or two and in London shortly thereafter. Max was not quite so optimistic.

  It would begin soon, though—in a mere matter of days, if his sources were to be trusted—a war that would span all of Europe, if not the entire globe. Sarajevo had merely been a convenient excuse. If it had not happened, the kaiser would have found another one.

  Max’s cab arrived. He climbed inside and gave the driver the Asquiths’ address. Then he sat back in his seat and opened the window. He wanted to smell the air. It was a warm night, and beautiful in a fragile, fleeting way—as only English summer nights could be.

  It was the first of August today. Already, Max thought. Summer would soon be over. For a very long time.

  As the carriage skirted Hyde Park, so full of leafy trees and lush flowers and couples enjoying an evening stroll, Max’s heart, hidden and unknowable, clenched. He was suddenly very glad that Willa had left London. He hoped she climbed to the top of Everest and stayed there, far away from what was about to come. He was glad, too, that he had nothing and no one now—no wife, no children—to love.

  For the world was about to change. Suddenly, violently, and forever.

  And love had no place in it.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Fiona, Busily putting the finishing touches on a birthday cake for Rose Bristow, her mother-in-law, glanced out of the dining room window of her and Joe’s Greenwich estate and groaned.

  “Katie, luv,” she said, “can you get your brothers down out of the tree? And can you tell your little sister to get out of my dressing room? I know she’s in there, spraying perfume all around. I can smell it. The whole house stinks. This cake is going to taste like Narcisse Noir.”

  Katie put an arm around her mother and kissed her cheek. “Calm down, Mum. Everything’s fine. Nothing stinks and Gran’s in no hurry for her cake. She’s only just finished her supper and she’s having a wonderful time. Auntie India gave her Elizabeth to hold and you know she’s never happier than when she’s got a baby on her lap.”

  “And your grandfather? He’s all right?” Fiona asked fretfully.

  “He’s having a better time than anyone. Who do you think bet the twins they couldn’t get up that tree?” Katie said, laughing. “Don’t worry so much, Mum. Come outside and enjoy the party.”

  Fiona smiled. “All right, then. I will,” she said. Then she walked through the dining room’s huge French doors into a gloriously beautiful summer
evening.

  Her smile broadened and her blue eyes sparkled as she regarded the scene before her. A huge table had been set up on the lawn and decorated with a white lace cloth and masses of tea roses, all clipped from her gardens. Seated around it talking and laughing—or racing up and down the lawn, or hanging from trees, or playing croquet—was her large and boisterous family. Nearly every one of them.

  Her children. Her brother Seamie and his wife, whose first child would soon arrive. Joe’s sisters and brothers and their many children. Rose and Peter Bristow, Joe’s parents. And Fiona’s sister-in-law India and her three children. Fiona wished, with a deep pang of longing, that her brother Sid was here, too. But it could not be.

  They were all here to celebrate Rose’s birthday, and looking at them now, Fiona felt her heart swell with love and gratitude. And she, who had spent so much of her life arguing with God, sent Him a quick and heartfelt thank-you—thank you for these people, thank you for this incredible day, and thank you for not letting the twins fall out of the tree onto their heads.

  She talked for a bit with Rose, who was completely taken with Elizabeth, allowed the twins to tie a serviette over her eyes for a game of blindman’s buff, admired the latest edition of Katie’s newspaper, which Katie had passed out to nearly everyone present, and then sat down to drink a glass of punch with India. As she did, Sarah, the maid, came up to Fiona and said, “Excuse me, ma’am, the supper dishes have all been cleared. Shall I bring the cake now?”

  “Oh, my goodness. I’d quite forgotten about the cake. Yes, Sarah, do. No! Hold on a moment,” she said, looking around. “Where’s Mr. Bristow? He should be here.”

  Fiona realized she hadn’t seen Joe for quite some time—at least an hour.

  “Have you seen him, Ellen?” she asked his sister. But Ellen had not. No one had. Not since the party began.

  “He must be in his study working, as always,” Fiona said. “I’ll drag him out. Wait on the cake, please, Sarah, until I return.”