The Wild Rose (14 page)

Willa. Again, he thought, his heart suddenly heavy. Always Willa. Even now as he lay naked next to Jennie. Would he never be free of her? Of the memories? The longing? The torment? He wished he could rip her out of his head. And his heart.

By God, he would rip her out of himself. He’d do it. He’d rid himself of her. Break her hold over him. End the misery he felt whenever he thought of her. Here. Now. Forever.

He propped himself up on one elbow. “I love you, Jennie,” he said.

Jennie, who’d been drowsing, opened her eyes. “What?” she whispered.

“I love you,” he said, hoping she couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice. “I do.”

I do love her, he told himself. I do. Because she’s beautiful and wonderful and I’d be completely mad not to.

Jennie blinked at him. She looked as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t get the words out. Seamie’s heart sank. He’d said too much. Or maybe he hadn’t said enough. Yes, that was the most likely thing. He should’ve followed up his mad declaration with a proposal. He’d just made love to her, taken her virginity. He should be on bended knee now, asking her to marry him. But he couldn’t do it. Because it wasn’t her lovely hazel eyes he saw when he imagined asking that question, it was Willa’s green ones. Still. Always.

“I’m a fool, Jennie,” he quickly said. “You don’t have to answer. I understand,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything. I—”

“You’re not a fool, Seamie,” she said. “Not at all. I . . . I . . .” She took a deep breath, then said, “I love you, too. Madly.” A tear rolled down her cheek, and then another.

Seamie brushed her tears away. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I don’t know what I’m doing, Jennie. I don’t know if I’m going to be on a ship bound for Antarctica in a few months, or behind a desk at the RGS. I don’t know if . . .”

He wanted to be honest with her. He wanted to tell her that he wished he knew what to do. Whether to go or to stay. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, he did, as best he could. He wanted to ask her, to beg her, to somehow make him love her more. Enough to make him forget Willa Alden forever. But he didn’t know how to say those things, not without hurting her. He tried. He stuttered and stammered, until she finally stopped him.

“Shh,” she said, touching her finger to his lips. “It’s all right, Seamie.”

“Please don’t be sad,” he said. “I can’t bear to see you sad.”

She shook her head and kissed him. “I’m not sad. Not at all. I’m happy. Very, very happy. I have your love. It’s all that I want and more than I ever thought I’d have.”

He wondered at her words. How could a woman as beautiful and good and smart as Jennie have thought for a second that a man’s love was more than she’d ever have? Jennie Wilcott could have a thousand men, and every last one of them would have counted himself beyond lucky to have won her. Why on earth didn’t he love her as much as he loved Willa? Why couldn’t he ever get over Willa—the woman who’d smashed his heart and left him to pick up the pieces? What was wrong with him?

These questions hounded Seamie now; they tortured him. He wanted to get up, to get dressed, and go walking in the rain-soaked fields. He wanted to walk until the anger was out of him. Until the despair was gone. Until he had his answers.

But Jennie didn’t let him. She kissed him softly and pulled him down to her.

“It’s all right,” she said again.

And in her arms, for a few sweet hours, it was.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Ah! There she is! My green-eyed heretic!”

Willa Alden smiled. She stood up and bowed to the man who’d just walked into Rongbuk’s one and only public house—a corner of an enterprising villager’s yak barn.

“
Namaste, Rinpoche,
” she said warmly, greeting him—an elder and a lama—first, as tradition demanded. She addressed him not by his name but by the honorific
Rinpoche
—“precious one.”

“
Namaste,
Willa Alden,” the lama replied. “I should’ve known to look for you in Jingpa’s. Have I not often told you that alcohol obscures the path to enlightenment?” His words were chiding, but his eyes were kind.

Willa lifted the bamboo cup she was holding. It was filled with chang, an ale-like drink made from barley. “Ah,
Rinpoche,
I am in error!” she said. “I thought Jingpa’s chang
was
the path to enlightenment.”

The lama laughed. He pulled up a low wooden stool and sat down at Willa’s table—a plank stretched across two tea chests, placed close to the fire. He pulled off his sheepskin hat and mittens and unbuttoned his coat. The night was brutally cold, and the wind was howling outside, but inside Jingpa’s stone barn it was warm, for his fire and his animals gave off a great deal of heat.

“Will you have a sip of something hot,
Rinpoche
?” Willa asked. “The night is cold and the body desires warmth.”

“My body desires little, Willa Alden. I have mastered my desires, for desire is the enemy of enlightenment.”

Willa suppressed a smile. It was a game they played, she and this wily old man. He was the village’s spiritual leader, head of the Rongbuk Buddhist monastery, and must not be seen to be enjoying himself in a public house. Tomorrow Jingpa, a gossip, would talk to the entire village of the lama’s visit. If he stayed to drink with her, he must be seen to be doing it for her sake only.

“Ah,
Rinpoche,
have pity on me. I am not as fortunate as you. Enlightenment eludes me. My desires control me. Even now, for I greatly desire the pleasure of your esteemed company. Will you deny a poor heretic the comfort of your light and knowledge?”

The lama sniffed. “Since you ask it, I will take a small cup of tea,” he said.

“Jingpa! Po cha, please,” Willa called out.

Jingpa nodded. He began whisking together the ingredients for the restorative drink—hot black tea, salt, yak milk, and butter. When he was finished, he poured the steaming mixture into a bamboo cup and brought it over. The lama held the hot cup in his hands, warming them, then took a sip and smiled. Jingpa bowed.

“What brings you here,
Rinpoche
?” Willa asked.

“A group of men, traders from Nepal, has just come through the pass on their way to Lhasa. They are staying overnight in the village. There is one among them—a Westerner—who is asking for you,” the lama said.

Willa felt her heart leap at his words. For a wild, hopeful second, she allowed herself to believe that it was him—Seamie Finnegan—here somehow and wanting to see her. Then she silently scolded herself for her foolishness. Seamie wanted nothing to do with her. Why would he? She had left him, told him to live his life without her.

“His name is Villiers. He is a Frenchman, I believe,” the lama continued. “A heretic like yourself. Determined to climb that which cannot be climbed, our holy mountain mother. He wishes to hire you as a guide. Shall I tell him where to find you? And endanger your soul? Or shall I say that there is no such person in Rongbuk and, by doing so, bring you closer to the Buddha?”

“I thank you for your concern,
Rinpoche,
and though my soul longs for transcendence, my body longs for sampa, po cha, and a warm fire at night. I must have the money I earn from guiding to buy these things, and so I will meet your Frenchman now, and the Buddha not quite yet, but soon.”

“Soon. Always soon. Never now,” the lama sighed. “As you wish, Willa Alden.”

The lama finished his drink quickly and readied himself to return to the monastery.

“Will you please tell the man to meet me at my hut,
Rinpoche
?” Willa asked him as he pulled his mittens on.

The lama said he would. Willa thanked him, then asked Jingpa to fill an earthen bowl with hot chang and cover it with a plate. She knew the Frenchman would need it after trekking over the pass. She put her outer things on, paid Jingpa, and took the pot from him. She walked home through the village holding the pot close to her body, warming it as it warmed her.

As she passed by the monastery, she could smell the incense, smoky and thick, wafting from under the door and through cracks in the shutters. Under the wind’s banshee howl, she could hear the monks chanting, their strong voices carrying through the monastery’s walls. She loved the deep-voiced chants and was greatly moved by them. They sounded older than time, like the mountain itself speaking.

Willa stopped for a minute to listen. She had been inside the temple often and knew the saffron-robed monks would be seated to either side of their Buddha, eyes closed, palms turned up. She knew the Buddha would be gazing down on them, his face radiant with kindness, acceptance, and serenity.

She remembered the lama’s words now and how he had wished to bring her closer to the Buddha. He wanted her to accept the Buddhist way. To detach herself from desire, to transcend it.

Willa knew the lama meant well for her, but what he was asking . . . well, it was like asking her to transcend the need to breathe. She simply could not do it. Her desire, her drive, they were what kept her going. They got her up and out in the morning when it was twenty below. They kept her working, photographing, trying to find a route up the mountain, even though she was hobbled by the loss of her leg. They kept her here year after year, though she was lonely and often longed for her family. She
was
her desire. To not want Everest, to not want to explore as much as she could of this magnificent mountain, was inconceivable to her. To stop desiring, to stop questing, was to die.

The lama called her, and all those who came to Rongbuk wishing to climb Everest, heretics. The mountain was holy, he said, and must be left undefiled by man. Yet he was kind, and though he tried his best to convert Willa and the other Westerners who made their way to Rongbuk, he also allowed them to stay in the village. He made sure they were provided for and prayed for their acceptance of the Buddha.

Willa walked on, certain the lama had worn out many beads praying for her, and certain he would wear out many more. She continued toward her home, more than a bit reluctant to meet the stranger who waited for her there. She needed his money—for food and drink and supplies, as she’d told the lama, and also for opium. Her leg was playing up something fierce. Her supply had dwindled and she would need to buy a fresh stock of the drug from the trading party that had stopped in Rongbuk, if they had any.

Willa always needed money, but solitude was what she wanted now, not visitors and their money, for she was finishing up her photographs and maps of her proposed route up Everest, and she needed to keep that route a secret. She didn’t want anyone—and certainly not this man Villiers—to go back to Europe and claim her findings as his own.

Hopefully he wouldn’t be too much trouble. He’d likely been trekking for weeks, and would need a few days to rest and recover from his exertions. That would give her the time she needed to do the climbing she wanted to do, finish taking notes, and write up her findings. Then she’d have to post them to Clements Markham at the RGS, which meant surrendering them to the first trading party heading to India and the British post office at Darjeeling.

As Willa neared her small, one-roomed hut at the eastern edge of the village, she spotted him, standing by her door, stamping his feet and clapping his hands to keep warm. As she got closer to him, she saw that he was gaunt and trembling. His lips were puffy and blue. There were white patches on his nose and chin.

“Miss Alden?” he called out.

“Mr. Villiers, I presume,” she replied.

“Yes. M-M-Maurice Villiers. From France. I’m . . . I’m an alpinist, Miss Alden, and h-h-have heard of your f-f-familiarity with the north face of Everest. I w-w-wish to retain a guide and was w-w-wondering if you would consent—”

Willa laughed. The man was shivering so hard he could barely speak. “Stop talking and come inside,” she said. “Before you drop dead.”

She pushed her door open, then pushed him in, shaking her head as she did. She had begun to see Europeans as the Tibetans did. This man would insist on formalities and politenesses and the proper form of address even as he was freezing to death.

“Sit down. There,” she said, pointing to a chair by the hearth. He did as he was told, putting his pack down first, while Willa immediately set about warming the room. She built up the fire she’d banked earlier, then lit a lamp. Then she pulled off her guest’s hat, inspecting his ears, cheeks, and chin. Next she took off his mittens and turned his blue, swollen hands over in her own.

“They look worse than they are. You won’t lose any fingers,” she said. She poured a cup of Jinpa’s chang, still steaming, from the earthen bowl and handed it to him. He took it gratefully, drank it quickly, and asked for more.

“In a minute,” Willa said. “First let’s see about your toes.”

The fire had thawed his frozen laces. She untied them, opened his boots, and took them off. He made no protest. Not when his boots came off. And not when his socks wouldn’t—because they were frozen to his swollen, blackened toes. She waited until the socks had thawed, too, then carefully peeled them off.

“How bad is it?” he asked her, not looking.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“Am I going to lose my toes?”

“One or two.”

He swore and raged. Willa waited for him to stop, then gave him a bowl of sampa. He was still shivering convulsively even after he’d finished eating, which worried her greatly. She quickly took his coat off and then his clothing. His underwear was sodden. She took a pair of scissors and cut the legs of it so that she could ease it over his damaged feet. He didn’t want to take it off, but she made him.

“It’s wet,” she said. “You can’t get in my bed in wet underwear. Here, put these on. I won’t look,” she added, giving him a tunic and a pair of wide-leg trousers. She turned away. When he’d dressed himself, she wrapped him in a wool robe and helped him hobble to her bed. The bed was piled high with sheepskins and furs.

“Get in and turn on your side,” she said. He did. She got in next to him, pressed her body to his, and wrapped her arms around him.

He turned suddenly and kissed her violently, then grabbed her breast.

She slapped his hand away. “Do that again,” she said, “and I shall beat you with the poker.”

“But . . . but you touched me . . . you held me . . . ,” Maurice said, through his blue lips.

“You’re hypothermic, you bloody fool,” Willa said. “I’m trying to save your life. Turn around now. Unless you want to be buried in Rongbuk.”

Maurice Villiers did as he was told, and Willa put her arms back around him, holding him tightly, giving him her warmth. The heavy pelts held the heat around them. After an hour or so, his shivering stopped. A little while later, he fell asleep. When Willa heard his breathing deepen and even out, and felt his chest rising and falling steadily, she got out of bed and stoked the fire. She hoped he would sleep until morning. He needed it. She knew that eventually the pain in his thawing feet would wake him, and when that happened, she would give him some of her opium.

Willa was tired herself. She quickly tidied up the room—hanging up her visitor’s wet things and opening up his boots so that they would dry properly. She was just about to douse the lamp and go to bed herself when Maurice Villiers rolled over in bed.

“The letters,” he said groggily. “I forgot them. . . .”

“Go to sleep, Mr. Villiers,” Willa said, not bothering to look at him, certain he was talking in his sleep.

“. . . letters . . . in my pack.”

Willa turned to look at him. “What letters?”