The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  While Sid comforted his children—telling him he’d been in a bit of an accident, that’s all, and that’s why he looked so terrible and hadn’t come home to them right away, but now he was here, home again, and Mummy would take care of his hurts—Jennie herded James and the other children back outside into the garden. Foster poured brandy for the adults, then made some hot chocolate. He poured it into mugs, put some biscuits on a plate, and asked Charlotte, who was still in the kitchen, if she could help him carry the treats out into the garden.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Foster,” Charlotte said politely. “But I do not require cocoa and biscuits. I require a proper explanation.”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Foster,” Sid said. “She’s old enough to know what’s going on now. She can stay.” To his daughter, he said, “You were going to have to find out the truth about me and my past sometime. Might as well be now.”

  By the time Mr. Foster had gone outside, India had emptied her brandy glass and stopped sobbing. Fiona, Joe, and Jennie had drunk theirs, too. Sid sat down at the table and emptied his in one swallow.

  “You can usually be counted on to turn up,” Joe said. “Even when all the odds are against you. This time, though, you had even me worried. What the devil happened to you?”

  Sid picked up the bottle and refilled everyone’s glass.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “Every last thing. But get that down yourselves first. Otherwise, you’re never going to believe me.”

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  “Do you remember it, Willa? Mombasa? Do you remember the turquoise sea? And the pink fort? And the white houses? Do you remember the hotel where we spent our first night? They didn’t have two rooms for us. We had to share a bed. I don’t think I slept at all. I stayed up all night, just listening to you breathe. You didn’t. Stay up, I mean. You fell asleep and snored.”

  Seamie was talking fast.

  I sound like a madman, he thought. No, a salesman, rather.

  For that’s what he was doing—trying to sell Willa on the idea of staying. Here. In this world. He was trying to sell her on the idea of life. Her life. He talked to her of their childhood. Of sails with her, Albie, and her parents. Of climbs on Snowdon and Ben Nevis. Of rambles in the Lake District. He talked to her of Kilimanjaro and their time together in Africa. He reminded her of the animals moving across the veldt, the sunrises, the impossibly vast sky. He told her how much he loved her photographs of Everest. And how he dreamed, still, of going there with her one day. He tried to bring back her best memories, tried to create images for her fevered mind of the things she loved most in this world. He tried to make her hold on, to stay with him.

  She was sick. God, she was so horribly sick. He’d given her aconite and opium. He’d tried quinine. Nothing worked. Nothing broke her fever, nothing stopped the spasms that racked her body. No food stayed in her. No water, either. It was as if her body, battered and broken from the years of punishment she’d meted out to it, was trying to expel the fierce and terrible spark that animated her—her will, her drive, her very soul.

  He told her of the search for the South Pole, and how the howling of the Antarctic wind and the ceaseless groaning of the sea ice could drive a man mad. He told her about existing in a world devoid of all color, a world of white, and of the infinite ocean of stars at night.

  He ran out of adventures to talk about, and so he told her about the rest of his life. About James, the son he loved beyond all reason. He told her about the small cottage in Binsey, where the boy was born. He told her about the mistakes he’d made, the things he regretted, and the things he refused to regret. He told her about Haifa and the ship that waited for him there, and that he had to go, but didn’t want to leave her.

  And then he stopped talking suddenly and rested his head in his hands. For two whole days he’d nursed her, watching over her, bathing her blazing skin, holding her as she shivered and retched and arched against the pain inside her. He had barely slept since he’d first arrived at Lawrence’s camp, and was so exhausted now, he was nearly delirious himself. He had searched for her by plane but hadn’t been able to spot her from the air, so he had ridden out from Lawrence’s camp and during his second day of riding, had found her.

  “Please don’t die, Willa. Don’t go,” he said. “Don’t leave me here in this world without you. Just knowing you’re somewhere on this planet, doing something brave and amazing, makes me happy. I love you, Willa. I’ve never stopped loving you. I never will.”

  He raised his head and looked at her, at the ruined wraith of a woman lying on the ground in a tent in the middle of this godforsaken desert, in the middle of this godforsaken war. Yes, he loved her, and she loved him, and their love had brought them only grief. Was it love at all? he wondered now. Or was it merely madness?

  “I love you, too, Seamie,” Willa said, her eyes suddenly open.

  “Willa!” Seamie said, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. “You’re awake!

  She swallowed, grimacing, then motioned for water. Seamie got her some, and sat her up to drink it. When she finished, he gently eased her back down on her pillow. Sweat had broken out across her brow, and her breathing was shallow and labored. He could see the effort it had cost her merely to drink.

  “Lawrence?” she said, her voice raspy.

  “On his way to Damascus with Auda and an army. They’re heading well west of Jabad al Duruz, and the traps set for them there. Because of you.”

  Willa smiled. She gazed at him for a while, gathering her strength, then said, “You have to go now.”

  “How, Willa? I can’t leave you here … you’ll die … I can’t …”

  “I’m finished, Seamie,” she said. “I’m so tired … so ill … I’m played out.”

  “No, Willa, don’t say that,” Seamie said, his voice breaking.

  “I … I heard you … talking,” she said. “About us. James. Your ship. Go, or you’ll be court-martialed and shot.” She swallowed again. Her eyes were filled with pain. “Is that what you want for your son?” she finished softly.

  “No, but—”

  She cut him off. “We have to let go, Seamie. Once and for all. We’ve hurt each other long enough. Hurt too many others.” There were tears in her eyes now. “Go to Haifa,” she said. “Stay alive. Please. Survive this damn war and go home again. Jennie … and James … they need you—”

  Willa abruptly stopped talking. She leaned over and vomited into the brass urn at the side of her bed. Seamie held her head, then wiped her face. As he settled her down on her pillow once more, he felt her body go limp in his hands.

  “No!” he shouted, terrified that he’d lost her. “Willa, no!”

  He quickly checked her breathing and her pulse. She was still alive, but unconscious again. Her skin was horribly hot to the touch. Grabbing a rag, he dipped it into a bowl of water, and sponged her face and body.

  “Don’t go, Willa,” he whispered. “Please don’t go.”

  As he sat in the tent, in the stench and heat of Willa’s sickness, trying desperately to cool her, he suddenly heard bells in the desert and the sound of camels bawling. He wondered who was coming. The camp was nearly deserted. Lawrence, Auda, and Khalaf, together with four thousand troops, had left this morning. They were going to ride east, not north, turn west again to meet Faisal at Sheik Saad and then march to Damascus, avoiding certain slaughter at Jabal ad Duruz. Because of Willa. If it hadn’t been for her, for her courage, her luck, her refusal to quit, they would have ridden into a trap, one they could not possibly have fought their way out of.

  Only a few men remained behind to guard Seamie and Willa. Seamie stood up now, stepped outside of the tent, and shaded his eyes against the sun. What now? he wondered, too spent to be afraid. What the hell is happening now?

  He quickly saw that it was not the Turks. That’s something, he thought. It was a group of Bedouin, some fifty strong. Men were in the lead, followed by a litter. More men brought up the rear. When they g
ot close to him, the lead man, tall and angry-looking, dismounted from his camel, walked up to Seamie, and bowed.

  “I bring Fatima, first wife of Khalaf al Mor, and her women. She has heard that the woman Willa Alden is here and in need of help. You will take her to see Willa Alden. You will do this now.”

  Fatima and her women, all heavily veiled, came forth. When she saw Seamie, Fatima removed the veil from her eyes.

  “You found her, Seamus Finnegan,” she said.

  Seamie bowed. “I did. With your help.”

  “Not with my help. With Allah’s help,” she said. “Take me to her.”

  “She is very sick, Fatima,” he said brokenly. “I’ve tried everything. For two days, I’ve tried everything I can think of.”

  “I have remedies. Desert herbs. They may help,” Fatima said. “And I have her necklace. The one I gave her to keep evil spirits away. She will need it now.”

  Seamie led Fatima to Willa’s tent. He went inside with her. Fatima tried to hide her shock at the sight of Willa’s emaciated body, but failed.

  “She’s very bad, isn’t she?” Seamie said.

  “You will go to another tent now and sleep or I will be nursing two sick people, not one,” she said sternly, fastening the necklace around Willa’s neck.

  “I can’t. I have to leave. I have to get to Haifa.”

  “You will sleep first. If only for a few hours, or you will never make it to Haifa,” Fatima said.

  Seamie was too tired to argue. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Please save her.”

  “I will do all that I can for her, but it is in Allah’s hands, Seamus Finnegan, not mine.”

  Seamie nodded. “Talk to Him, Fatima. He listens to you. Tell Him if He wants a life, He can have mine. A life for a life. Mine, not hers. Tell Him, Fatima. Tell Him to please let Willa Alden live.”

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  “… And Jennie’s gathering the statistics on the number of single London women under thirty who own property, which we’ll need for the letter-writing campaign to the Commons,” Katie Finnegan was saying.

  But Jennie didn’t hear her. She was sitting in Fiona and Joe’s drawing room, attending her Tuesday-night suffrage meeting, but she was a million miles away. Katie was talking about the group’s latest campaign—a push to lower the voting age for women—but Jennie was back at the Brambles, two nights ago, listening to Sid’s dreadful story. She was feeling her blood run cold as he told them why he had gone to Teddy Ko’s, what had happened to him, and what he had learned—about Maud, and about Max von Brandt. She was remembering how she had sat there, barely moving, barely breathing, as Sid told them that Max was in all likelihood a German spy, and a murderer, too—Maud’s murderer. She remembered India’s terrible shock at the news—and her grief. And she remembered Joe’s fury.

  “We have to tell the PM about this. Immediately,” he’d said. “Von Brandt left London, but it sounds like his man Flynn’s still moving information. He has to be caught. And stopped. Now. Before any more British lives are lost.”

  “Hold on, Joe,” Sid had said. “John Harris—the man who saved my life—is all mixed up in this. He never wanted to be, but he had no choice. Madden threatened him. I promised I would help him, that I would get him and his family out of London. We can’t make a move on Flynn until we figure out a way to do it that won’t land John in prison.”

  “But we can’t allow Flynn to remain at large,” Joe said. “He could do a runner at any second.”

  “We have a few days,” Sid said. “Today’s Sunday. John told me that the next rendezvous would be this Friday. That’s when we have to move. We have to catch Flynn with the goods on him or we’ve got nothing—just an innocent man, wrongfully accused.”

  Nobody had noticed Jennie as they talked. Nobody noticed how pale she’d suddenly gone, or that her whole body had begun to tremble. And ever since then, she’d been veering wildly between belief and denial, between terror and despair, and it was tearing her in two.

  One minute she would tell herself that Sid had made a mistake—Max was on the side of peace, just as he’d told her. The next minute, she would believe that he was all the things Sid said he was. After all, what reason did John Harris have to lie? No honorable man engaged in a good endeavor would have anything to do with the likes of Billy Madden. No honorable man would buy morphine from a drug lord, and no honorable man’s paramour would turn up dead from an overdose only days after he’d bought it. Max von Brandt was a German spy. He’d been hurting the Allies, not aiding them. He’d been sending thousands upon thousands of British fighting men to their deaths. And she, Jennie herself, had helped him. She had blood on her hands as surely as he did.

  The truth of this was so unbearable that Jennie could not accept it. So she didn’t. She told herself, again, that Sid was wrong. And John Harris, too. And that it would all come out when they found the man they were searching for—Flynn. He would tell them who Max really was and what he was doing. He would set them all straight.

  “Do you think you could have those figures ready by early next month, Auntie Jennie? Auntie Jennie?”

  It was Katie.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry, Katie. I don’t know where my head is tonight,” Jennie said.

  “You look a little peaky. Are you all right?”

  Jennie, smiling, waved her concern away. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

  Katie asked her question again, and Jennie said she would indeed have the figures ready for her next month. Katie thanked her, smiling sympathetically. Jennie knew that Katie would attribute her fatigue to the scare the whole family had been through with Sid, but in reality it was the dreadful doubts she’d been entertaining about Max that made her feel ill. She had a headache all the time now, and often felt attacks of nausea, or shivered with a sudden chill.

  With difficulty, she forced herself to listen and participate in the rest of the meeting, but she was glad when it was over and she could return to Wapping—to James and her father. As usual, she walked to the bus stop with Gladys Bigelow. They rode the same bus east, though Jennie got off it earlier than Gladys did. When the bus had stopped for them, and they’d climbed aboard and seated themselves, Gladys wordlessly handed Jennie an envelope, as she had been doing for more than three years now.

  Jennie was just about to put the envelope in her carpetbag, when instead she took hold of Gladys’s hand.

  “What is it?” Gladys asked her, in that flat, dead voice of hers. “What’s wrong?”

  “Gladys, I have to ask you something,” Jennie said.

  Gladys’s eyes grew wide. She shook her head. “No, you don’t,” she said.

  “I do. I have to know about Max.”

  Gladys yanked her hand free of Jennie’s grip.

  “I have to know, Gladys,” Jennie said. “I have to know that he’s who he says he is. He told me he was a double agent. That he’s helping sabotage Germany’s war efforts. I have to know what’s in this envelope.”

  Gladys shook her head. She started laughing, but her laughter quickly turned to tears. She turned away from Jennie and would not speak. Watching her, Jennie realized with a sickening certainty that Sid was right—Max was a German spy.

  “Gladys,” she said. “We have to tell someone. We have to stop him.”

  Gladys turned around. She grabbed Jennie’s arm and squeezed it hard. “You shut your mouth,” she hissed. “You don’t tell anybody anything! Do you hear me? You don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s capable of. But trust me, you don’t what to find out.”

  “Gladys, you’re hurting me! Let go!” Jennie said.

  But Gladys didn’t. She tightened her grip. “You keep delivering that envelope. Just like you’re supposed to. The war will end one day, and then we can put it all behind us and never talk about it, never even think about it, again.”

  And then she stood up, took a seat away from Jennie, and stared out of the window into the darkness. She was still sitting like that when Jenni
e reached her stop.

  As Jennie walked home from the bus stop, she felt anguished. She didn’t want to believe the worst of Max, but it was getting harder and harder not to. If he was indeed working for Germany, she had to tell someone. It was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

  But then something that Gladys had said came back to her: You don’t know what he’s capable of. But trust me, you don’t want to find out.

  Jennie thought back to the time that Max had come to visit her in the rectory. She remembered how he’d told her of his mission and had asked her to help him. He’d been courtly and kind, as he always was, but when she wavered, when she tried to say no to him, his eyes had hardened and he’d threatened to tell Seamie about Binsey.

  The memory was like a knife to her heart now. She’d just sent Josie Meadows a letter, with a picture of James. In it, she’d told her old friend what a beautiful child James was, that he was growing strong and healthy, and that he was loved. So dearly.

  She’d addressed it to Josephine Lavallier—Josie’s new stage name. She felt frightened now to think that Max knew about Josie, about their letters, about James. She could not bear for Seamie to know the truth about what she’d done, could not bear for James to one day know that she and Seamie were not his real parents.

  Jennie arrived at her father’s house. A light was on in the hallway, but the rest of the house was dark. Her father and her son were already asleep. She did not take off her coat and jacket, but hurried directly into the kitchen.

  There, she put the kettle on, but not for tea. She was going to steam the envelope open.

  It was time to find out once and for all just who Max von Brandt really was.

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Jennie sat at the kitchen table, in the light of a small, single lamp, and stared at the large manila envelope in front of her. The house was quiet except for the ticking of the clock atop the mantel. She was supposed to take the envelope to the church basement and put it in its usual hiding place. Instead, she had steamed it open. She had not yet pulled its contents out and read them, though. She was too afraid.