Evergreen Falls Read online

  “Good-bye, then,” Clive said.

  She waved, then picked up her pace.

  In the end, they were both right, curse them. Violet ran up the stairs from the room she shared with three other waitresses, still buttoning her uniform, curls damp, exactly ten minutes after her start time. Ada smiled smugly from the dining room, where she distributed white china plates to a table of businessmen.

  “You’re late,” said Mr. Palmer, her mealymouthed young boss.

  “Yes, I was unavoidably delayed. I’ll work back instead.”

  “Swimming. You were unavoidably delayed swimming.”

  “Did Ada tell you that?” Violet would knock her flat for such a betrayal.

  “No. Your wet hair told me. You look a disgrace, and I’m certainly not going to allow you in here to serve my best customers.” He indicated her blouse, which she saw was misbuttoned, the front gaping, and the world could see clear through to her singlet. “It’s over, Violet. You’re fired.”

  “No.” Sunshine and swimming and flirting with Clive all evaporated in her mind, and she was left only with the image of her poor mother, sewing with arthritic fingers. “Please. I’ll work back, I’ll try much harder.”

  “You’ve already had two warnings,” Mr. Palmer said, and he was telling the truth, but she wanted to argue with him anyway.

  “You can’t fire me!” she exclaimed, raising her voice until it took on a shrillness that even she couldn’t stand. “I’ll make a complaint to the hotel owner.”

  “Go right ahead,” he replied in a soft voice, turning away from her. “Be packed and gone by tomorrow at ten. Hand in your uniform as you leave. It’s halfway off you already.”

  Violet clutched at her blouse, desperate to say the very thing that would make him change his mind. Mama would be so disappointed with her. So very, very disappointed.

  * * *

  Violet couldn’t face Mama with no job. She simply couldn’t. She sat at the back of the tram, in the dark where she couldn’t be seen by other passengers, and cried. Wrapped in her misery, she nearly missed her stop but remembered just in time to pull the bell. She alighted two streets from where her mother worked as a laundress and seamstress for a wealthy family, the Ramseys, in Roseville. They had four children who were noisy, and one who was quiet and covered in teething hives and who was compelled to wear white socks over his hands to stop him scratching his sores raw. Mama received only her bed and board for her work, and relied on a little money from Violet to help out.

  Violet stopped a few doors away, her small suitcase and portable gramophone suddenly very heavy, and took a deep breath. “Mama, I lost my job,” she said under her breath. Mama would look sad, maybe make that tutting sound she made, ask what happened, and find a way to blame Violet. But she wouldn’t say, I rely on you, what will I do without that money? She was far too proud for that. Violet had to leave the money under the tea tin when her mother wasn’t looking. They never spoke of it. In fact, her mother often talked of the importance of being independent, ever since Violet had turned fourteen and Mama had forced her out of school to find work. That was nearly six years ago, and her employment record had been patchy ever since.

  Violet glanced up. The lights were on in Mama’s room at the side of the house. “Mama, I lost my job,” she said again, and she strode with purpose towards the house.

  She let herself in to save her mother getting up. Mama’s knees grew worse as the months went by. Violet had no idea how she stood by the copper every day, stirring sheets and pillow slips and towels. Violet’s mother was not old—only forty-five—but her own mother and grandmother had succumbed early to arthritic pain. Violet wondered if it would come to her one day, too, or if she had inherited her father’s joints. Not that she knew where or even who her father was.

  Mama looked up from her threadbare chair by the window, gave Violet a puzzled smile and said, “I saw you up the street. Why do you have your trunk with you?”

  “Mama, I . . .”

  Mama waited, expectant.

  “I’ve got a new job. Up in the mountains.”

  “Really?”

  “The Evergreen Spa Hotel. Much fancier than the Senator.”

  “Good girl. When do you start?”

  “Soon. Can I stay with you until then? I had to give notice at work, and they were beastly about it and kicked me out straightaway. I’ll help with the laundry, and I have a spot of money saved, so I can pay for my own food.” Violet’s heart was hammering in her throat. A lie, a great big lie. Now she had to convince Clive to find her a job, or it would all fall apart.

  * * *

  Violet arrived at Central Station at ten minutes to eight, dressed carefully in a gray silk dress and black wool stockings. She wanted to look appealing, but not too appealing. She made her way across the busy concourse. The train waited at the crowded platform, and Violet feared that he might already be on board and she’d missed him. Would she have to follow him all the way to the Blue Mountains? She pushed through the crowd, searching for his pale hair, but all the men in brown and gray suits wore brown and gray hats, so she started calling, “Clive! Clive!”

  In the end, he found her, approaching her from behind and grasping her shoulder so that her heart gave a little jump.

  “Violet! You came!” His gray eyes were shining, and it almost hurt to say what she had to say next.

  “Clive. I’m in a terrible mess. I’ve lost my job. I wondered if . . . you could ask about a position for me at the Evergreen Spa?”

  The light in his eyes dulled, and for a moment irritation crossed his brow. But the expression was fleeting and he smiled nonetheless. “Not only will I ask, I’ll tell them you’re the best waitress I’ve ever worked with.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and released the half breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding on to. “I’m so grateful. I’m not proud. I could be a chambermaid just as well as a waitress. I simply . . . I simply can’t be out of work for long. Mama’s joints are bad and I know she worries she won’t be able to work much longer.”

  “You can rely on me,” he said, then hesitated, about to say something else.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Can I rely on you?”

  “Rely . . . I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Her heart was in her throat. Was he asking her for some kind of favor she wasn’t prepared to give? He didn’t seem that sort of fellow, but she had to admit she’d led him on terribly.

  “If I tell them you’re the best waitress I’ve ever worked with, you won’t make a liar of me, will you? You won’t turn up late or be rude to the head waiter or flirt with the customers?”

  Violet winced. It was a painful but true portrait of her behavior at work. “Clive, I should be so grateful that I will grow up. All the way up. I will not besmirch your good name, I promise.”

  “Good.” His eyes were kind. He tapped her chin with his thumb.

  Violet knew he wanted to kiss her, but she dropped her head to discourage him.

  “Well, then. I hope to see you very soon.”

  “Send a telegram to my mother’s if they say yes. I’ll be on the next train.”

  He straightened his hat and headed for the train. Violet did the right thing and waited until it pulled away from the platform, waving to Clive and even blowing a kiss to him, though he was turning away from the window and didn’t see it. Perhaps it was for the best.

  * * *

  Flora stood in the corridor, bags on the thick rug at her feet, and waited.

  Tony tapped his foot impatiently. “Is he coming?”

  “He says he is.”

  She knocked on the door again. “Sam? Do hurry up. We’ll miss the train.”

  “I should have arranged a car to come for us,” Tony said.

  “Then he’d make the car wait. He knows the train won’t wait. It will make him hurry up.”

  She waited. The silence stretched out. Farther down the corridor, another of the hotel room doors opened and
a chambermaid emerged with a ball of dirty sheets. She gave them a curious glance. Flora put her hand to her fair hair, pinned in an elaborate knot at the back of her head, covering her face with her forearm. How she hated people looking at her.

  “Sam?” she said again.

  “Not coming.”

  The muffled answer made Tony’s eyes roll and his hands fly up in the air, a characteristic gesture. “I give up. Sort him out. I’ll tell the others we’re probably staying.”

  Flora helplessly watched him go. She knocked on the door again, dropping her voice. “Sam, let me in. Tony’s gone.”

  She heard movement as he rose from the bed. Then the door opened and he peered out, checking for Tony.

  “I told you. He’s gone.”

  “You’ve lied to me before, sister.” His dark, dark eyes were glazed and a familiar sweet, organic smell filled the room. Syrup and geranium.

  Flora pushed the door in and Sam let her by, then returned to the bed and his tray of precious things. A lamp. Awls and scissors and tweezers. And, of course, the long, elaborate pipe. She indicated the equipment accusingly. “You promised me.”

  “It was too hard a promise to keep.”

  “Then we must go home. We must get back to the farm, where you have family who can help.” They had been sent to the Evergreen Spa Hotel by their father in the hope that the fresh air and the spa water—imported from Germany—would improve Sam’s health. Flora, five years older, had been put in charge of making her brother better. But it was a task at which she was doomed to fail: the opium had him so strongly in its grip, and she was fairly certain he had found a regular supplier up here. This was the reason he didn’t want to leave.

  Tony’s father, a good friend of her own father, had suggested he join them. They had been engaged for six months now, and were no closer to a wedding date. Both families hoped that an extended holiday together would throw a little fuel on a fire that hadn’t kindled as readily as they had expected.

  “I think we should stay a little longer,” Sam said. “I saw a poster. Christmas in June. Let’s just stay for that. It’s only five weeks away.”

  “Five more weeks?”

  “Come on, Sissy.” He lit another pipe, sitting cross-legged on his bed. “Don’t be a grump.”

  She clamped her teeth tightly to stop herself from screaming. “I’m meant to look after you. I’m not making your life hard because I enjoy doing so.”

  “The Iti does.”

  “Don’t call Tony that. Besides, he’s not Italian. He’s American.”

  “American Italian, though. Oily as a—”

  “He’s my fiancé,” she interjected hotly. “He’ll be your brother-in-law soon.”

  “Where is he now? Making a deal with the mob?”

  “Sam, stop.”

  “Brown eyes and bullets. That’s what you’re marrying.”

  “Our father has approved. Your opinion of Tony is irrelevant.” Their father had more than approved the marriage. He had arranged it. “Anyway, I love Tony,” she added, realizing it sounded defensive. “He’s been more than patient with you.”

  Sam was slipping away into his golden bubble now, his breathing slowing and his eyes half closing.

  Frustrated tears welled in Flora’s eyes, but she blinked them back. “Sam, you must stop that.”

  “I can’t,” he said, in a small voice.

  “Then you must see a doctor.” Suddenly this seemed the best idea she’d ever had, and she brightened. “Will you see a doctor while we’re up here? If you promise to, I’ll write to Father and tell him we’re going to stay. Until Christmas in June.”

  He waved her away. “Yes. Yes, if that’s what it takes. You arrange it.”

  A small ray of hope lit her heart. “Consider it done,” she said, then left him lying on the bed. As she closed the door behind her she saw that the same chambermaid had moved farther up the hall. Again, she eyed Flora curiously, perhaps wondering what she was doing on the men’s floor. Flora raised her chin and refused to make eye contact as she strode past. Now she had to give Tony the news that she was staying five more weeks. He wasn’t going to like it.

  * * *

  Flora eventually found Tony at the tennis court, in a leisurely doubles game with Vincent, Harry, and Sweetie (the latter, a hulking thug of a man, was so named for his habit of calling every woman he met “sweetie”). She stood for a while watching. Their white clothes were dazzling against the green tennis court, and they laughed and shouted merrily to each other. Tony and his friends were so different from Sam. They were men who readily understood the world, and made it spin with casual, confident hands. Sam was a cipher in the margins, pale and rose-cheeked, with hair and eyes darker even than Tony’s. Sam had ever been a strange boy: fey and somehow bewildered. Since the moment he had come into the world, Flora had been compelled to look after him—both by her parents, who had little time for children, and by her own heart, which loved him immeasurably and fearfully.

  By contrast, here was Tony, all gleaming olive skin and well-muscled forearms, banging the tennis ball about with his dark hair flopping forth over his eyes. How her heart had stung when she’d first seen him. Handsome and worldly, the heir to his grandfather’s shipping business, Tony was all charm and poise. Flora loved him, loved him madly. It was the idea of marriage she was not enamored of. Not yet.

  He still hadn’t acknowledged her presence, so she tried a wave; it was Vincent who held his serve and said, “Tony, you can’t ignore her forever.”

  Was that what he was doing? Ignoring her? Well, she could withstand that. Wounded pride was for fussy women.

  He turned and she waved again, then called, “I have to speak to you.”

  “Go,” said Vincent, always the kindest of Tony’s entourage. “We’ll meet you in the coffeehouse later.”

  Tony handed his racquet to Sweetie and came to take Flora’s arm. “Come on, Florrie. Let’s take in the view.”

  The tennis court was on the edge of the escarpment, and they walked across it towards the gleaming white stone fence that lined the boundary of the hotel gardens. When Flora was sure they were out of earshot of his friends, she said, “Sam isn’t going.”

  “Then you and I will leave him here.”

  “You know we can’t. Father was very particular. I’m to take care of him.”

  “Take care of him? The impossible task. Does your father know?”

  “About the opium? I . . . I don’t know. Maybe he does and he pretends he doesn’t. But if he knew . . . It’s just . . .” Her eyes darted away.

  Tony stopped and turned her to him. “What is it?”

  “I can’t leave him.”

  “He’s nearly twenty.”

  “No, I can’t. I’m to stop him from doing anything foolish if I hope to . . . inherit.” She knew she shouldn’t talk about money. Tony had plenty, but her family had more. Much, much more. The Honeychurch-Black family owned property and titles the world over, and had for centuries.

  “Ah. I see.” He tilted his head a little to the right. “That’s cruel.”

  “Father’s not cruel. He’s sensible. He wants to make sure Samuel is safe.”

  Tony nodded, then he pulled her close against him and bent his lips to her ear. “You will be all right. Don’t you worry.”

  “How do you know that? You don’t know that for sure.”

  He didn’t reply. Instead, he began to croon to her slowly, softly. She loved it when he sang to her. La Boheme or Tosca or any other bel canto tune. She closed her eyes and leaned in to him; his tennis whites smelled like lemon and sunshine.

  “Do you really think everything will work out?” she breathed after a time, when her heart didn’t feel so trapped behind her ribs.

  “I promise you it will.” Then he gently pushed her away from him. “But I can’t stay another day. I’ll take the afternoon train down to Sydney.”

  “You’ll be back?”

  “As soon as I can. A few days. I have business
that won’t wait as prettily as you.” He grazed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Gorgeous girl.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “Sam said he’ll let me take him to a doctor. That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is, Florrie. Don’t stop hoping.”

  They walked hand in hand back towards the tearoom. Don’t stop hoping. She wouldn’t. Not as far as Sam was concerned. Not ever.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A grumbling gray sky awaited Violet when she stepped off the train at Evergreen Falls station. She pulled the collar of her wool coat up high and tightened her silk scarf: the rust-colored one with hieroglyphics on it that she had bought the day before. It contrasted beautifully with her structured white dress. Scarves and hats were her weakness. And dresses. And also shoes. She needed to slow down and save her money, especially as the Evergreen Spa had only promised her two months of work. They were closed over the winter, and she would be sent back to Sydney then.

  But still. She had a job after only a week out of work. Bless Clive.

  Where was he?

  He had promised to meet her. She searched the platform but couldn’t see him. She sat on the long painted seat and waited. People arrived, collected loved ones, headed off. Noise and movement. Motorcars and sulkies on the road. Then just Violet, left by herself. A rough wind drove dry leaves skittering up the platform. Cold gray clouds moved in and started to spit.

  Of course she didn’t have a brolly. Planning ahead was not her forte.

  The clock on the station wall told her forty minutes had passed. She couldn’t wait here in the rain forever. Violet pulled her hat down tighter over her ears, grasped her suitcase in one hand and her gramophone in the other, and went to the porter’s office for directions to the hotel.

  It was raining hard by the time she had walked the half mile to the Evergreen Spa, a cream-colored building of arched windows and colonnades, flanked by a row of pine trees. Her clothes were damp and her shoes were squelching and sodden from deep puddles. Her suitcase seemed to weigh a ton, wearing a deep, purplish groove in her hand. But at last the doorman pulled open the tall front door and ushered her in.