The Wild Rose (3 page)

And I never will, Seamie said to himself. He had lost Willa, the love of his life, eight years ago, and though he’d tried, he’d never found a woman to come close to her. No other woman had Willa’s lust for life, for adventure. No other woman possessed her bravery or her passionate, daring soul.

“It’s all my fault,” Seamie said now. “She wouldn’t be there, a million miles away from her family, her home, if it hadn’t been for me. If I’d handled things properly on Kilimanjaro, she’d be here.”

He would never forget what had happened in Africa. They’d been climbing Kilimanjaro, he and Willa, hoping to set a record by being the first to climb the Mawenzi peak. Altitude sickness had plagued them both, but it had hit Willa especially hard. He’d wanted her to go down, but she’d refused. So they went up instead, summitting much later than they should have. There on Mawenzi, he’d told her something he’d felt for years, but had kept to himself—that he loved her. “I love you, too,” she said. “Always have. Since forever.” He still heard those words. Every day of his life. They echoed in his head and in his heart.

The sun was high by the time they’d begun their descent, too high, and its rays were strong. An ice-bound boulder, loosened by the sun’s heat, came crashing down on them as they were heading down a couloir. It hit Willa and she fell. Seamie would never forget the sound of her screams, or the twisting blur of her body as it flew past him.

When he finally got to her, he saw that her right leg was broken. Jagged bone stuck through her skin. He went down the mountain to their base camp to get help from their Masai guides, only to find they’d been murdered by hostile tribesmen. He’d had to carry her off the mountain, and through jungle and plains, alone. After days of walking, he’d found the train tracks that run between Mombasa and Nairobi. After flagging down a train, he managed to get Willa to a doctor in Nairobi, but by the time they got there, the wound had turned gangrenous. There was no choice, the doctor had said; it would have to be amputated. Willa begged and pleaded with him not to let the man cut her leg off. She knew she’d never climb without it. But Seamie hadn’t listened to her pleas. He’d let the doctor amputate to save her life, and she’d never forgiven him for it. As soon as she was able, she left the hospital. And him.

I wake up every morning in despair and go to sleep the same way
, she’d written in the note she left for him.
I don’t know what to do. Where to go. How to live. I don’t know how to make it through the next ten minutes, never mind the rest of my life. There are no more hills for me to climb, no more mountains, no more dreams. It would have been better to have died on Kilimanjaro than to live like this.

Eddie reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Stop blaming yourself, Seamie, it’s not your fault,” she said resolutely. “You did everything a human being could have done on that mountain. And when you got her to Nairobi, you did the only thing you could do. The right thing. Imagine had you not done it. Imagine standing in my sister’s drawing room and telling her that you did nothing at all, that you let her child die. I understand, Seamie. We all do.”

Seamie smiled sadly. “That’s the hard thing of it, though, Eddie,” he said. “Everyone understands. Everyone but Willa.”

CHAPTER TWO

“Pardon me, Mr. Bristow,” Gertrude Mellors said, poking her head around the door to her boss’s office, “but Mr. Churchill’s on the telephone, the
Times
wants a comment from you on the trade secretary’s report on child labor in East London, and Mr. Asquith’s requested that you join him for supper at the Reform Club this evening. Eight o’clock sharp.”

Joe Bristow, member of Parliament for Hackney, stopped writing. “Tell Winston if he wants more boats, he can pay for them himself. The people of East London need sewers and drains, not dreadnoughts,” he said. “Tell the
Times
that London’s children must spend their days in schools, not sweatshops, and that it’s Parliament’s moral duty to act upon the report swiftly and decisively. And tell the prime minister to order me the guinea hen. Thanks, Trudy luv.”

He turned back to the elderly man seated on the other side of his desk. Nothing, not newspapers, not party business, not the prime minister himself, was more important to him than his constituents. The men and women of East London were the reason he’d become a Labor MP back in 1900, and they were the reason why, fourteen years later, he remained one.

“I’m sorry, Harry. Where were we?” he said.

“The water pump,” Harry Coyne, resident of number 31 Lauriston Street, Hackney, said. “As I was saying, about a month ago the water started tasting funny. And now everyone on the street’s ill. Lad I talked to works down the tannery says they’re dumping barrels of lye on the ground behind the building at night. Says the foreman don’t want to pay to have the waste carted away. Water lines run under that building and I think the waste from the tannery’s getting into them. Has to be. There’s no other explanation.”

“Have you told the health inspector?”

“Three times. He don’t do nothing. That’s why I came to you. Only one who ever gets anything done is you, Mr. Bristow.”

“I have to have names, Harry,” he said. “Of the tannery. The man in charge. The lad who works there. Anyone who’s been ill. Will they speak to me?”

“I can’t answer for the tannery man, but the rest will,” Harry said. “Here, give us that pen.” As Harry wrote down names and addresses, Joe poured two cups of tea, pushed one over to Harry, and downed the other. He’d been seeing constituents since eight o’clock that morning, with no break for lunch, and it was now half past four.

“Here you are,” Harry said, handing the list to Joe.

“Thank you,” Joe said, pouring more tea. “I’ll start knocking on doors tomorrow. I’ll pay a personal visit to the health inspector. We’ll get this solved, Harry, I promise you. We’ll—” Before he could finish his sentence, the door to his office was wrenched open. “Yes, Trudy. What, Trudy?” he said.

But it wasn’t Trudy. It was a young woman. She was tall, raven-haired, blue-eyed—a beauty. She wore a smartly tailored charcoal gray coat and matching hat, and carried a reporter’s notebook and fountain pen in her gloved hands.

“Dad! Mum’s been arrested again!” she said breathlessly.

“Bloody hell.
Again?
” Joe said.

“Katie Bristow, I’ve told you a hundred times to knock first!” Trudy scolded, hot on her heels.

“Sorry, Miss Mellors,” Katie said to Trudy. Then she turned back to her father. “Dad, you’ve got to come. Mum was at a suffrage march this morning. It was supposed to be peaceful, but it turned into a donnybrook, and the police came, and she was arrested and charged, and now she’s in jail!”

Joe sighed. “Trudy, call the carriage, will you? Mr. Coyne, this is my daughter, Katharine. Katie, this is Mr. Coyne, one of my constituents,” he said.

“Very pleased to meet you, sir,” Kate said, extending a hand to Mr. Coyne. To her father she said, “Dad, come on! We’ve got to go!”

Harry Coyne stood. He put his hat on and said, “You go on, lad. I’ll see meself out.”

“I’ll be on Lauriston Street tomorrow, Harry,” Joe said, then he turned to his daughter. “What happened, Katie? How do you know she’s in jail?” he asked her.

“Mum sent a messenger to the house. Oh, and Dad? How much money have you got on you? Because Mum says you need to post bail for her and Auntie Maud before they can be released, but you can do it at the jail, because they were taken straight there, not to the courts, and crikey but I’m parched! Are you going to finish that?”

Joe handed her his teacup. “Did you come all the way over here alone?” he asked sternly.

“No, I have Uncle Seamie with me and Mr. Foster, too.”

“Uncle Seamie? What’s he doing here?”

“He’s staying with us again. Just for a bit while he’s in London. Didn’t Mum tell you?” Katie said, between gulps of tea.

“No,” Joe said, leaning forward in his wheelchair and peering out of his office. Amid five or six of his constituents sat Mr. Foster, his butler, upright, knees together, hands folded on top of his walking stick. Upon seeing Joe looking at him, he removed his hat and said, “Good afternoon, sir.”

Joe leaned farther and saw his usually brisk, no-nonsense secretary fluttering madly around someone. She was blushing and twisting her necklace and giggling like a schoolgirl. The someone was his brother-in-law. Seamie looked up, smiled, and gave him a wave.

“I wish Mum had let me go to the march. I wanted to. Would have, too, but she said I had to stay put in school,” Katie said.

“Too right,” Joe said. “This is the third school we’ve put you in this year. If you get thrown out of this one, it won’t be so easy to find another that will take you.”

“Come
on,
Dad!” Katie said impatiently, ignoring his warning.

“Where were they taken?” he asked.

“Holloway,” Katie said. “Mum wrote in her note that over a hundred women were arrested. It’s so unfair! Mum and Dr. Hatcher and Dr. Rosen—they’re all so accomplished and smart. Smarter than a lot of men. Why won’t Mr. Asquith listen to them? Why won’t he give them the vote?”

“He feels it won’t go over well with the Liberal Party’s voters, all of whom are men, and most of whom are not yet ready to acknowledge that women are every bit as smart, if not smarter, than they are,” Joe said.

“No, I don’t think so. That’s not it.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “It isn’t?”

“No. I think Mr. Asquith knows that if women get the vote, they’ll use it to throw him out on his bum.”

Joe burst into laughter. Katie scowled at him. “It’s not funny, Dad. It’s true,” she said.

“It is indeed. Stuff those folders in my briefcase and bring it along, will you?”

Joe watched her as she put her pad and pen down and then collected his things, and as he did, his heart filled with love. He and Fiona had six children now: Katie, fifteen; Charlie, thirteen; Peter, eleven; Rose, six; and the four-year-old twins, Patrick and Michael. Looking at Katie now, so tall and grown-up, so beautiful, he remembered the day she was put into his arms, the day he became a father. From the moment he held her, and looked into her eyes, he was a changed man. He’d held that tiny girl in his arms that moment; he would hold her in his heart forever.

Joe loved all his children fiercely, and delighted in their differences, their passions, their opinions and abilities, but Katie, his first-born, was more truly his child than any of the others. In looks, she was a younger version of her mother. She had Fiona’s Irish loveliness, her slender build and her grace, but Katie had got her driving passion—politics—from him. She was determined to go up to Oxford, read history, and then go into politics. She’d declared that once women were fully enfranchised, she would run for office on the Labour ticket and become the country’s first female member of Parliament, and already her ambitions had gotten her into hot water.

Six months ago, she’d been asked to leave the Kensington School for Young Ladies after she’d single-handedly got the school’s cleaners and groundsmen into a labor union. He and Fiona had found her a place at another school—Briarton—and then, three months ago, she was asked to leave that school, too. That time, it was three unexplained absences from her afternoon French and deportment classes that had gotten her into trouble. After the third infraction, the headmistress—Miss Amanda Franklin—had called Katie into her office. There, she asked Katie why she had missed her classes and what could possibly be more important than French and deportment.

For a reply, Katie had proudly handed her a single sheet newspaper, printed front and back. On the front, at the top, were the words
Battle Cry,
in twenty-two-point type. Followed by
KATHARINE BRISTOW, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
, in eighteen-point.

“I should have told you about it, Miss Franklin. I would have, but I wanted to wait until it was finished, you see,” she said proudly. “And here it is, hot off the presses.”

“And what exactly is it, may I ask?” Miss Franklin had asked, raising an eyebrow.

“My very own newspaper, ma’am,” Katie replied. “I just started it. I used my allowance money to get the first edition printed. But money from advertisements will help with the next one. I intend for it to be a voice for working men and women, to chronicle their struggle for fair working conditions, higher wages, and a stronger voice in government.”

Katie’s newspaper featured a story about the prime minister’s refusal to meet with a delegation of suffragists, another about the appalling work conditions at a Milford jam factory, and a third about the enormous turnout for a Labour rally held in Limehouse.

“Who wrote these stories?” Miss Franklin asked, her hand going to the brooch at her neck, her voice rising slightly.

“I did, ma’am,” Katie said brightly.

“You spoke with factory workers, Miss Bristow? And with radicals? You sat in upon debates in the Commons?” Miss Franklin said. “By yourself?”

“Oh, no. I had our butler with me—Mr. Foster. He always goes with me. Do you see those there?” Katie asked, pointing at advertisements for men’s athletic supporters and bath salts for women’s troubles. “I got those by myself, too. Had to knock on quite a few doors on the Whitechapel High Street to do it. Would you like to buy a copy, Miss Franklin?” Katie asked her eagerly. “It’s only three pence. Or four shillings for a year’s subscription. Which saves you one shilling and two pence over the newsstand price. I’ve already sold eleven subscriptions to my fellow students.”

Miss Franklin, whose students included many privileged and sheltered daughters of the aristocracy—girls who had no idea that men had bits that needed supporting, or that women had troubles only bath salts could solve—went as white as a sheet.

She declined Katie’s offer, and promptly wrote to her parents to inquire if their daughter’s extracurricular activities might be more fully fostered at another school.

Joe supposed he should have been stern with Katie after she was sent down for a second time—Fiona certainly was—but he hadn’t been able to. He was too proud of her. He didn’t know many fifteen-year-old girls who could organize a labor force—a small one granted, but still—or publish their very own newspapers. He’d found her a new school, one that offered no deportment lessons and that prided itself on its progressive teaching methods. One that didn’t mind if she missed French to attend Prime Minister’s Questions—as long as she made up her homework and did well on her tests.

“Here you are, Dad. All packed,” Katie said now, handing Joe his briefcase. Joe put it on his lap and wheeled himself out from behind his desk. Katie picked up her pad and pen and followed him.

Joe had been paralyzed by a villain’s bullet fourteen years ago and had lost the use of his legs. An East End man by the name of Frank Betts, hoping to discredit Fiona’s brother Sid—then a villain himself—had dressed like Sid, appeared in Joe’s office, and shot him twice. One of the bullets lodged in Joe’s spine. He’d only barely survived and spent several weeks in a coma. When he finally came to, his doctors gave him no hope of a normal, productive life. They said he would be bedridden, an invalid. They said he might well lose both his legs, but Joe had defied them. Six months after the shooting, he was healthy and strong. He’d had to give up the Tower Hamlets seat he’d won just before he’d been shot, but in the meantime, the MP for Hackney had died and a by-election had been called. Joe went out campaigning again, this time in a wheelchair. He won the seat for Labour handily and had held it ever since.