The Wild Rose Read online

  The man turned around. He wore spectacles, was clean-shaven, and looked to be in his fifties. His hair was graying, his expression kindly and befuddled.

  He squinted at them, lifted his glasses, and said, “Ah! Mr. Bristow. Well met in Islington, eh?”

  “Hardly, Reverend. Jennie’s been arrested, too, then?”

  “Indeed she has. I’ve come to collect her, but she doesn’t appear to be here. I’m most concerned. The warden has released many of the women to family members, but not Jennie. I’ve no idea why. I spotted Mr. von Brandt a moment ago, looking for Harriet. Ah! Here he is now.”

  A tall, well-dressed man with silvery blond hair joined them. Introductions were made and Seamie learned that Max von Brandt—German and from Berlin originally, but currently living in London—was Dr. Harriet Hatcher’s cousin and had been sent by Harriet’s anxious mother to fetch her.

  “Have you found her?” Joe asked him.

  “No, but I did see the warden briefly, and he told me that Harriet and several other officers from the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies are being held elsewhere in the prison.”

  “Why?” Joe asked.

  “He said it was for their own safety. He told me that he’d had to separate officers of Mrs. Fawcett’s group from those of Mrs. Pankhurst’s. There were some harsh words between them, apparently, and he feared further hostilities would take place. He said they would be released shortly, but that was an hour ago and there’s still no sign of them.”

  Joe, frustrated, wheeled himself over to a harried wardress to try to find out more. Max went with him. Katie continued to interview marchers and scribble notes. Seamie and the Reverend Wilcott attempted to make polite conversation. The reverend knew Seamie’s name and asked about his adventures in Antarctica. Seamie learned that the reverend headed a parish in Wapping and that his daughter Jennie, who lived in the rectory with him, ran a school for poor children in the church.

  “It’s also a de facto soup kitchen,” the Reverend Wilcott explained. “As Jennie always says, ‘Children who are hungry cannot learn, and children who cannot learn will always be hungry.’ ”

  As Reverend Wilcott was talking, a gate at the far end of the receiving room was opened and a group of dazed and weary-looking women walked through it. Seamie recognized his sister immediately, but his relief at seeing her soon turned to dismay. Fiona’s face was bruised. There was a cut on her forehead and blood in her hair. Her jacket was torn.

  As the women entered the receiving area, a cheer went up from their fellow marchers—those who had been released but had refused to leave. There were hugs and tears and promises to march again. Joe and Katie hurried to collect Fiona. Seamie followed them. Women’s voices swirled around him as he made his way across the room. Seamie didn’t know most of the women, but he recognized a few of them.

  “God, but I need a cigarette,” one woman said loudly. Seamie knew her. She was Fiona’s friend Harriet Hatcher. “A cigarette and a tall glass of gin,” she said. “Max, is that you? Thank God! Give us a fag, will you?”

  “Hatch, is that a cigarette? Have you got an extra?” Seamie knew that voice, too. It belonged to Maud Selwyn Jones, the sister of India Selwyn Jones, who was married to his and Fiona’s brother Sid.

  “You all right, Fee?” Seamie asked his sister when he finally got to her. Joe and Katie were already on either side of her, fussing over her.

  “Seamie? What are you doing here?” Fiona asked.

  “I was at home when your message arrived. I accompanied Katie.”

  “Sorry, luv,” Fiona said.

  “No, don’t apologize. I’m glad I came. I had no idea, Fiona. None. I … well, I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  He was upset to see the marks of violence on her. Fiona had raised him. They’d lost both parents when she was seventeen and he was four, and she’d been both sister and mother to him. She was one of the most loving, loyal, unselfish human beings he had ever known, and to think that someone had hurt her … well, he only wished he had that someone here now, right in front of him.

  “What happened?” Joe asked her.

  “Emmeline and Christabel happened,” Fiona said wryly. “Our group was marching peacefully. There were crowds there, and police constables, but very little heckling or baiting. Then the Pankhursts showed up. Christabel spat at a constable. Then she lobbed a rock through a pub window. Things went downhill from there. There was a great deal of shouting. Fights broke out. The publican’s wife was furious. She walloped Christabel, and went after other marchers, too. The police started making arrests. Those of us who had been marching peacefully resisted and, as you can see, paid for it quite dearly.”

  “The warden told us you were being held downstairs for your safety,” Joe said. “That there was scuffling between the two factions here at the prison.”

  Fiona laughed wearily. “Is that what he told you?”

  “It’s not true, Mum?” Katie asked.

  “No, luv, it’s not. The warden held us downstairs, but not for our safety. There was no scuffling between us. The warden wanted to scare us, and he did. But he didn’t scare us off. He’ll never succeed in doing that.”

  “What do you mean, scare you off?” Seamie asked.

  “He put us all in a cell next to one in which a woman, another suffragist on a hunger strike, was being force-fed. He did it on purpose. So we would hear it. It was terrible. We had to listen to the poor thing scream and struggle, and then she was violently sick. So they did the whole thing over again. And again. Until she kept the food down. They made sure we saw her, too. Afterward. They marched her right by our cell when it was over. She could hardly walk. Her face was bloodied. …”

  Fiona paused, overcome by emotion. When she could finally speak again, she said, “We were all quite undone, sickened ourselves, and cowed, every one of us. Except Jennie Wilcott. She was the only one amongst us with any presence of mind. She was magnificent. As the woman was marched by us, Jennie started to sing. She sang ‘Abide with Me,’ and the woman heard her. Her head was hanging down, but when Jennie sang, she looked up. And then she smiled. Through the blood and the tears, she smiled. And then we all started singing. I think the whole prison must have heard us and taken heart. And it was all because of Jennie.”

  “Fiona, what exactly is force—” Seamie had started to ask, when a young woman suddenly stumbled and bumped into him. She was small and blond, about twenty-five or so, he guessed, and she had the ugliest black eye he’d ever seen.

  “Pardon me! I’m ever so sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “It’s this eye. I can’t see terribly well with only one.” She was holding tightly to the Reverend Wilcott’s arm.

  “There’s no need to apologize,” Seamie said. “None at all.”

  “Mr. Finnegan, this is my daughter Jennie Wilcott,” the Reverend said. “Jennie, this is Seamus Finnegan, Fiona’s brother and a very famous explorer. He found the South Pole.”

  “Very pleased to meet you, Miss Wilcott,” Seamie said.

  “Likewise, Mr. Finnegan. How on earth did you get from the South Pole to Holloway? Some great misfortune must have befallen you.”

  Before Seamie could answer her, Katie tugged on his arm. “Uncle Seamie, we’re leaving now. Are you coming?”

  Seamie said he was, then turned back to the Wilcotts. “Please, take my arm, too, Miss Wilcott. It’ll be easier for you with someone on either side of you. I know it will. I went snowblind once. On my first trip to Antarctica. Had to be led around like a lamb.”

  Jennie took Seamie’s arm. Together, Seamie and the Reverend Wilcott walked her out of the receiving area, toward the long, gloomy passageway that led from the prison to the street.

  “Fiona’s just been telling us about your ordeal,” Seamie said as they walked. “You must be the same Jennie who sang ‘Abide with Me’?”

  “Did you now, Jennie?” the Reverend Wilcott said. “You told me about the force-feeding but you didn’t tell me that. I’m glad you sang
that one. It’s a lovely old hymn. It must have given that poor woman a great deal of comfort.”

  “My motivation had more to do with defiance than comfort, I’m afraid, Dad,” Jennie said. “I sang to that woman, yes. But also to her tormentors. I wanted them to know that no matter what they do to us, they will not break us.”

  “What is force-feeding?” Seamie asked. “And why were the wardresses force-feeding a prisoner?”

  “Do you not read the London papers, Mr. Finnegan?” Jennie asked. There was an edge to her voice.

  “Indeed I do, Miss Wilcott,” Seamie replied. “But they are hard to come by in New York, Boston, or Chicago. To say nothing of the South Pole. I only returned to London a month ago.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Finnegan. For the second time. It has been a very trying day,” Jennie said.

  “Once again, there is nothing to forgive, Miss Wilcott,” Seamie said. He turned toward her as he spoke. Her eye was horribly swollen. He knew it had to be very painful.

  “It was a fellow suffragist the wardresses were force-feeding,” Jennie said slowly. “One who’d been arrested for damaging Mr. Asquith’s carriage. She’s been in prison for a month now and is in the process of starving herself.”

  “But why would she do that?”

  “To protest her imprisonment. And to call attention to the cause of women’s suffrage. A young woman starving herself to death in prison makes for a good news story and elicits a great deal of sympathy from the public—which makes Mr. Asquith and his government very unhappy.”

  “But surely you can’t force a person to eat if she doesn’t wish to.”

  Jennie, who’d been looking straight ahead as she walked, turned her head, appraising him with her good eye. “Actually, you can. It’s a very dreadful procedure, Mr. Finnegan. Are you sure you wish to know about it?”

  Seamie bristled at her question, and at her appraisal of him. Did she think he couldn’t handle it? He’d handled Africa. And Antarctica. He’d handled scurvy, snowblindness, and frostbite. He could certainly handle this conversation. “Yes, Miss Wilcott, I am sure,” he said.

  “A female prisoner on hunger strike is subdued,” Jennie began. “She is wrapped in a sheet to prevent her from flailing and kicking. Of course she does not wish to cooperate with the wardresses, or the prison doctor, and so clamps her mouth shut. Sometimes, a metal gag is inserted between her lips to force her mouth open and she is fed that way. At other times, a length of rubber tubing is forced into her nose and down her gullet. Needless to say, that is very painful. The doctor pours nourishment through the tube—usually milk mixed with powdered oats. If the woman is calm enough, she can breathe during the procedure. If she is not … well, if she is not, then there are difficulties. When the allotted amount of milk has been fed, the tube is removed and the woman is released. If she vomits it up, the doctor begins again.”

  Seamie’s stomach turned. “You were right, Miss Wilcott,” he said, “it is a dreadful thing.” He caught her glance and held it. She knew a great deal about the procedure. He shuddered as he guessed the reason why. “It’s been done to you, hasn’t it?” he asked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. It was not the sort of thing one asked a woman one had only just met.

  “Yes, it has. Twice,” Jennie said, unflinchingly. Her frankness surprised him.

  “Perhaps we should find a pleasanter subject to talk about with Mr. Finnegan, my dear,” the Reverend Wilcott said gently. “Look! Here we are. Out of the lion’s den and into the light. Just like Daniel.”

  Seamie looked ahead of himself. They’d come to the end of the long stone passageway and were now outside of the prison. He saw that his family had preceded him to the street. Darkness was coming down and the streetlamps were glowing.

  Fiona was sitting on a bench, her eyes closed. Katie sat next to her scribbling in her notepad. Joe, Seamie guessed, had gone off in search of the carriage. The street had been filled with carriages when they’d arrived, and his driver had not been able to park in front of the prison. Harriet Hatcher, standing next to the bench, had found a fresh cigarette. Max and Maud were with her. Maud was laughing throatily over something Max had just said.

  “I must find a hackney cab. Mr. Finnegan, would you be so good as to stay with Jennie while I do?” the Reverend Wilcott asked.

  Seamie said that he would. “Let’s get you to a bench, Miss Wilcott,” he said.

  They passed under a streetlight on their way, and Seamie, glancing once again at Jennie’s face, let out a low whistle. He examined the puffed and blackened flesh in the lamplight and winced.

  “Is it very bad?” Jennie asked.

  “It is. It’s awful.”

  “Why, thank you,” Jennie said, laughing. “Thank you very much! Ever hear of something called tact?”

  Seamie laughed, too. He had seen something else when he’d looked at her just now—that she was very pretty, even with a black eye. A few seconds of awkward silence followed, and Seamie found he didn’t want their conversation to end. He quickly thought of something to say to make sure it didn’t.

  “Your father mentioned that he heads a church in the East End.”

  “Yes, that’s right. In Wapping. St. Nicholas’s. Are you familiar with the saint?”

  “No,” Seamie said, suddenly worried that she would give him some dull, proselytizing description of the saint and all his miraculous doings, and then admonish him to start attending church on Sundays, but again she surprised him.

  “He’s the patron saint of sailors, thieves, and prostitutes,” she said. “Which means he’s perfect for us, really, since we have plenty of all three in Wapping. You should see the High Street on a Saturday night.”

  Seamie laughed again. “Have you been in Wapping a long time?” he asked her.

  “We’ve been there for twenty-five years now. Well, my father has,” Jennie said. “Dad took over a poorly attended church and made it vital again. My mother opened a school for neighborhood children about twenty years ago. I took it over six years ago. One hundred percent of our children stay until they’re fourteen. And twenty percent of our graduates go on to a vocational school,” Jennie said. “Of course, we don’t do it alone,” she continued. “That the school is still open is due mostly to the generosity of your sister and brother-in-law, Mr. Finnegan. It is their school as much as mine. In fact, they just gave us money for ten more desks and a blackboard.”

  Seamie found that he was very interested in the work she was doing. He wanted to ask her more about it, but they’d reached the bench. Fiona and Katie moved over to make room for Jennie. Harriet, Max, and Maud, having finished their cigarettes, walked over to join them.

  “Were you just talking about your school, Jennie?” Fiona asked, opening her weary eyes.

  “I was,” Jennie replied. “In fact, I was just telling your brother about yours and Joe’s contributions.”

  Fiona smiling tiredly, pointed at a poster stuck to the side of an idling omnibus. “I was just thinking about the school myself. I see that one of your former students, little Josie Meadows, has done quite well for herself,” she said. “‘Princess Zema, Ancient Egypt’s Most Mysterious Enigma.’ Mysterious and an enigma. Top that if you can!”

  Jennie, looking at the poster now, too, sighed. “I suppose she has. If you call dancing around half-naked and carrying on with villains doing well.”

  “Villains?” Fiona echoed.

  “Half-naked?” Seamie said.

  “Princess Zema?” Harriet said. “Why do I know that name?”

  “Because it’s on every billboard, every telephone pole, and every bus in London,” Jennie said, shaking her head. “Josie Meadows, a girl I used to teach, is the lead.”

  “In Princess Zema,” Fiona said. “Eighty exotic dancers, twenty peacocks, two panthers, and a python bring to life the story of an Egyptian princess, stolen from her palace bed on the eve of her wedding, sold into slavery by a false, fierce, and felonious pharaoh.”

&n
bsp; “Sounds fantastically fabulous,” Max joked.

  “My goodness, Fiona, how do you know all that? You haven’t seen it, have you?” Jennie said.

  Fiona shook her head. “Charlie, my eldest boy, had the poster. God knows where he got it. I took it away from him. It’s rather risqué, as you can see.”

  “Josie was actually more than just a student of mine,” Jennie explained to Seamie and the others. “She was like a sister to me. I’d taught her since she was ten years old. She’s nineteen now. She desperately wanted to be on stage. And now she is. As an exotic dancer. She does a number with veils, I’m told, that leaves very little to the imagination.”

  “What’s this about villains?” Fiona asked.

  “Rumor has it that Billy Madden’s taken a fancy to her,” Jennie said quietly.

  “Billy Madden,” Fiona said grimly. “My god, what a foolish girl. She doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into.”

  She traded glances with Seamie. They both knew who Billy Madden was—the most powerful crime lord in all of London. Sid, their brother, and once the boss of the entire East End crime world, had told them Madden was one of the most brutal, vicious men he’d ever known.

  “Oh, I think she does know,” Jennie said sadly. “I saw her the other day. Diamonds on her fingers and bruises on her face.”

  “Yegads, how ghastly,” Maud said. “As if today wasn’t depressing enough already. Let’s change the subject. Or better yet, let’s have another smoke. Harriet, darling, care to join me? Max?”

  “I guess I had better, Miss Selwyn Jones,” Max said. “Since I’m the one with the cigarettes.”

  As Maud, Max, and Harriet headed to the curb so as not to blow smoke all over the others, Fiona turned back to Jennie. “Never mind Josie and her villains. Tell Seamie about one of our successes,” she said. “Tell him about Gladys.”

  But before Jennie could tell him, Joe arrived with his carriage. Fiona and Katie said their good-byes and offered to take Maud with them and drop her at her home. Maud thanked them, but said she would go to the Hatchers’ house with Harriet and Max. Seamie said he would wait with Miss Wilcott until her father returned, and then get his own cab to Fiona and Joe’s house.