"I remember filing her information," Ella had said, standing outside the caf�She'd closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her forehead.
"Is this a conjuring trick?" India asked.
"Shh! Little, Little, Alice Little. It was Hoxton, I know it was. And flowers, something to do with flowers, I'd teased her about it... about the name being wishful thinking." Her eyes snapped open. "Myrtle! Myrtle Walk. That's it. I'm sure of it."
"You're a marvel, Ella, thank you!" India had said, already starting down the street.
"Hold on a mo'! Why are you looking for her?"
"I'll explain later!"
She'd been so certain she'd find Alice in Myrtle Walk. What would she do now? As she stood on the pavement a gas lamp flickered to life above her. Night was coming. She would go home and work out her next step there. She had just begun walking when the door to Number 40 opened again.
"Oi!" the man called. India turned. "You sure she's on Myrtle Walk? The missus says there's also a Myrtle Close."
"Where?"
A scrawny woman, arms folded over her chest, popped out from behind her husband. "Go to the end of this street, straight up Hoxton Street, and turn right on Nuttall Street. It'll be on your left."
"Thank you," India said, heading off.
Fifteen minutes later she arrived--breathless and panting--at Myrtle Close. The streets had grown dingier as she'd walked north and the people on them poorer-looking. The close was tiny and had only nine houses on it--four facing four across a narrow patch of muddy cobbles and one at the end. India started at number 1. She told herself she was only prolonging her fool's errand, but when the blowsy woman at Number 3 who an-swered her knock said, "Wotcher want with Alice?" she couldn't believe her luck.
"To speak with her. I'm her doctor," India said.
"That right?" the woman asked, eyeing her suspiciously. "Since when have they got lady doctors?"
"Since 1849 when Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from the Geneva Medical School in New York," India said. "May I see Mrs. Little, please?"
The woman snorted. "She ain't no missus. Never will be, neither. Won't find no man to marry her. Men want only one thing from the likes of her."
India smiled tightly, nearly beside herself with impatience. "Might I see her?"
The woman turned and bellowed up the stairs. "Oi! Allie! Someone here for you!"
India heard the sound of a door opening, a baby crying, and then footsteps. A wan young woman whom India immediately recognized came down the stairs. She stopped midway; her eyes widened when she saw India. She was about to fiee back up the stairs, when the landlady--glaring at India--said, "Am I a bleedin' doorman? Come in or go out!"
In a flash India was up the steps. She grabbed Alice's arm just as she was about to disappear into her flat.
"Please, miss. I don't want no trouble," Alice said, flinching.
"Nor do I. I just want to talk to you." A baby wailed again from inside the flat. "May I come in?"
The woman nodded.
The flat was one small, dingy room. A choking stink of mutton, onions, and soiled nappies hit India as she entered it. A single kerosene lamp lit the room, throwing its weak light over a table and two chairs, a narrow iron bed and a crib pushed up against the wall. A sad-eyed toddler stood in it on bowed legs, blinking in the gloom. Next to her lay a wailing infant. Alice lifted the baby out of the crib and rocked her. The infant's cries became whimpers. Alice fed her a spoonful of goody--a sop made from bread, wa-ter, and sugar--from a bowl on the table. A fly crawled over its rim.
"You're not nursing her?" India asked.
Alice gave India a sullen look. "That wouldn't go over well in my line of work."
"What is your line of work?"
Alice looked at the floor and did not answer.
India sighed. This was not going well. She had so many questions. She needed answers--and she dreaded them. She tried another tack. "Your mother said you live with her. You don't, do you?"
"No. As you can see."
"Alice, your mother came to see Dr. Gifford--my superior--three days after you came to see me. She told him that you are mentally unstable. Is that true?"
Alice laughed bitterly. "Between the punters and the sprogs, I'm sure I am."
"She also reported me for dispensing a contraceptive to you. Dr. Gifford forbids it. I took a huge risk helping you. When your mother told him what I'd done, he dismissed me."
Alice looked at India, stricken. "I'm so sorry, miss! I didn't mean you no harm. I never thought... He told us what to do and say, but he didn't tell us why. Not me, not Nora neither. I should've figured it was something evil. He's evil."
"Wait, slow down. I don't understand. Who's Nora? Is she your mother? Why did she go to Dr. Gifford?"
Alice shook her head. "She ain't me mum. She's me employer. Me real mum don't speak to me. Lad put me up the spout two years ago. That's how I got Mary, me eldest. Said he was going to marry me, but he buggered off. Me dad threw me out. Nora found me. Put me to work." She paused, then said, "She's a madam, is Nora. So you know what that makes me."
India suddenly felt light-headed. "May I sit?" she asked.
Alice hurriedly pulled out a chair for her. "I'll get you some tea."
"No, thank you," India said woodenly.
Alice bit her lip. She sat down across the table from India. "I'm sorry, miss. Truly I am. I needed the money. He paid us well. Five quid each. But I never would have done it if I'd known you'd get the sack. I swear it."
"Alice..." India began, then--losing her nerve--she stopped.
"Yes, miss?"
"You mentioned a he. Who is that?"
"A punter."
"Does he have a name?"
"Freddie something. They never tell us their full names."
India felt nauseous. She closed her eyes.
"You all right?"
"Far from it."
When the roiling inside her subsided, India opened her eyes again. "Is he blond? Tall?" she asked.
"Aye."
"Do you see him regularly?"
"Me? No. He only chose me once. When Winnie, his usual girl, wasn't working. That's fine by me. I don't like him. He's a mean bloke. And rough. It hurts with him."
Yes, it does, India thought. "And he paid you to do this?" she asked. "He paid you to visit me at Varden Street and for Nora to go to Dr. Gifford posing as your mother?"
"Yes."
India nodded. She felt hollow. It all made sense now--Freddie knowing her patient's name. Bingham's talk of a dowry. The Berkeley Square house. Her mother's involvement. It all made sickening sense.
"Thank you for your help, Alice," India said, rising to leave.
"You won't tell him, will you?" Alice asked. "Freddie, I mean."
"Alice, I have to tell him. I'm engaged to him."
"But you can't, miss! If you do, he'll twig that I'm the one who told you. He'll tell Nora and she'll throw me out. I need me job."
"I needed mine, too," India said.
Alice looked away, shamefaced. Her baby had started to whimper again.
India reached into her purse and took out ten pounds. It was the last of her money. She had a pound note or two inside a tea canister in her flat, and some coins in a bowl, but that was it. She put the money on the table. "Don't go back, Alice. Find something else. Anything else. Syphilis is a long and horrible death. Your children need you."
"Blimey, miss, thank you!" Alice said, quickly pocketing the note. "What will you do now? For work, I mean?"
"I don't know."
"You can always go on the game," Alice said, trying for a laugh. "Pretty woman like yourself, you'd make enough to see you through."
India thought of her months at Gifford's. She thought about how she'd set her ideals and convictions aside again and again to keep her job and how dearly it had cost her to do so. She thought of Freddie and how he'd pressured her all these weeks to set a wedding date. How he'd told her he loved her and needed her. How he'd sa
id they would do good things together. For London. For England.
And then she stood and said, "Thank you, Alice, but that won't be nec-essary. I've been whoring long enough."
Chapter 42
"Lytton, get the door, will you?"
Freddie stopped winding his gramophone. He could see his old school friend Dougie Mawkins--who was sprawled out on the sofa, his head resting in the lap of a fetching brunette--pointing at something, but he couldn't hear a word he was saying.
"What is it, old man?" he yelled. "This sodding thing's made me deaf!"
"The door! There's someone at the door!"
"Right-o." Freddie gave the machine one last crank. Ragtime tinkled out of it, as light and bubbly as the champagne he'd poured, as giddy as the women drinking it.
"Who is it, Freddie?" Bertie Gardner, another friend, asked. He swayed as he spoke.
"Dunno. Elliot maybe? That plonker's always late."
Freddie looked at his watch. It was after eleven. He hoped Elliot hadn't brought too many chaps with him. The ratio was rather thin as it was. Any more fellows and there wouldn't be enough girls to go round. Champagne, either.
He grabbed an open bottle and refilled glasses on his way to the door. He'd invited some of the chaps from his club home with him. A few of the fellows had automobiles, and they'd gone round to the Theatre Royal in Haymarket and found some girls. Freddie knew one of the actresses in a show playing there. He'd paid the back-door man a pound to let him in and surprised her in her dressing room. She'd brought some friends with her-- girls who were eager to ride in automobiles and meet posh chaps.
Freddie had felt like a party tonight. He'd been working damned hard. The word had come down that Parliament would be dissolved by the end of September and the General Election would officially be called. The Commons had a mountain of unfinished business to plow through before then, and Freddie had been working day and night. He was eager for the campaigning to begin. He was ready for the fight, and would shortly--finally-- have the money he needed to finance it.
India had been sacked a few days ago. They'd had dinner and she'd told him all about it. He'd had to appear shocked, then sympathetic, but he'd managed.
"Where's more Bolly, Lytton?" George Manners shouted across the room.
"In the bathtub," Freddie shouted back.
He smiled as he thought about how India was practically penniless now. Wish's will had been read today, Freddie knew. She had no income, and thanks to Wish, her savings were gone, too. She still had donor money, but it was a trifling amount--only a couple thousand pounds or so, nowhere near enough to fund a clinic. Perhaps now--without Wish and without funds--she would see how futile the idea of a clinic was and give up on it altogether. It was a good plan, he thought, using Alice and Nora to get India sacked, a good investment. It had cost him only ten quid, but it would bring him thousands.
But it was all damned tiring, too, and tonight he wanted a break from all his worries. He wanted some fun. He would have it, too, with a luscious redheaded dancer with whom he'd been necking before the blasted grammo ran out of steam. She was staring at him now from across the room. Staring and smiling. She blew him a kiss and he pretended to catch it--and then a fresh volley of knocking was heard.
Freddie rolled his eyes. He pretended a big hook was dragging him to-ward the door. Laughing, his collar open, his shirt undone, he was still looking at the redhead as he opened the door. "Steady on, Elliot, you tosser, you--"
He didn't get to finish his sentence. As he turned to face his guest, he felt a stinging blow across his cheek. He took a step back, shocked and furious. India was standing in the doorway.
"Good God!" he said, his hand coming up to his cheek. "India? What the devil are you... why did you hit me?"
"I know, Freddie," she said, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched into fists.
"Know what?" he said, slipping into the hallway and pulling the door closed behind him. "Darling, I don't understand."
"I spoke to Alice Little today. She told me what you did. You are despi-cable. A fraud."
Freddie felt his heart lurch. "India," he said smoothly, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I also found out that you and my mother have been talking. About dowries. And town houses. How much did I cost, Freddie? How much did she have to pay to get me married off? I can't imagine any price would have been too high for her."
"India, darling, I never--"
"When you asked me to marry you, I told you that my parents had cut me out of their will. You said it didn't matter. You said you loved me for my-self alone. And that we would live modestly and make our own way in the world. But that was a lie, wasn't it? Why else would you negotiate with my mother? And scheme for my dismissal? It wasn't me you wanted, was it? It was my family's money."
"Who have you been talking to? Who's been telling you these lies?"
"Freddie, don't you understand? It's over. I know everything." She laughed bitterly. "Well, almost everything. I still don't know how I never saw what sort of man you are." She reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out the engagement ring and the gold pocketwatch he'd given her, and put them into his hand. "Or rather, what sort of man you've become."
She looked into his face and he saw anger in her gray eyes, and sorrow, and bewilderment. "When did you change, Freddie?" she asked softly.
"I didn't ...I haven't..." he stammered, reaching for her.
"Freddie, I know you. Knew you. We grew up together, remember?" She backed away, looking at him as if she no longer recognized him. "You didn't used to be like this. You used to be good. Kind. Is there anything left of the Freddie I once knew?"
"India, please."
She shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. "I never want to see you again. Never." With those words, she turned and ran down the stairs.
"India! Wait!" he shouted. But she didn't. He heard her boot heels on the steps, and then a door slamming below.
Freddie pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Fuck," he said. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." He'd just watched his entire future, everything he'd worked so long and so hard for, turn on its heel and walk away.
No, he told himself. He would get her back. Somehow. He would con-vince her it had all been a misunderstanding, a terrible mistake. But he knew she would not listen to him. She never wanted to see him again. Never. It was gone, all gone. The money, the house. The life he'd been carefully constructing for years, bloody years, had disappeared in a heart-beat. The game was over. He had lost.
He walked back into his flat, through his sitting room, past his guests, and into his bedroom. George Darlington had a girl on the bed. Her skirts were up around her knees.
"Get out," he said to them.
"In a minute, old man. Rather busy just now," George said testily.
"I said get out."
"Bugger off, Freddie, will you?"
Freddie was across the room in a few quick strides. He hauled George off the bed and threw him through the doorway. The girl followed, clutching the sides of her blouse together. Freddie locked the door behind them, then sat down on his bed and stared at the wall. The Red Earl stared back.
There was a knock on the door, then pounding. His friends called his name, one after another. The redheaded dancer wheedled prettily, but he did not respond. He just sat motionless, staring at the painting. The clock struck midnight. Then one. The music stopped playing. The voices faded. And still Freddie sat.
In the dim, flickering lamplight, he had never looked more like his an-cestor. There had been humor in his face, a readiness to smile, some small shred of humanity. Now there was only a ruthless resolve.
When did you change, Freddie? India had asked, tears in her eyes.
When did I? he wondered. After my father? After Hugh?
He had deceived her cruelly. India. One of his oldest friends. The girl who had cried for him one summer's day on the banks of a pond at Black-wood. The only person who had ever cried for him. He
had lied to her, ma-nipulated her, bartered for her. He had cost her her livelihood, her dreams of a clinic. He had killed two men whom she had loved dearly. All in the hope of obtaining her money.
With Wish, Hugh, even with his father, Freddie had felt grief and remorse over what he had done. Now he felt nothing. Nothing except a cu-rious freedom. Once things like love, compassion, and conscience had limited him. Now he knew that nothing would. Nothing could. Ever again.
Winter Rose, The Page 43