Evergreen Falls by Kimberley Freeman

Author:Kimberley Freeman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Evergreen Spa was due to close on the first of July, and the staff quarters were busy with activity as people packed and moved out. The mood was sometimes light and sometimes miserable, depending on whether staff had somewhere to go for the holiday or work to tide them over before their return in spring.

Myrtle was in high spirits as she packed her things. She told Violet about visiting her sister in northern Queensland, where the weather was warm and mild and where the beach was only a ten-minute walk away.

“Imagine, you’ll be up here in the snow, and I’ll be swimming in the sea,” Myrtle gloated, and Violet had to admit that swimming in the warm sea sounded very appealing indeed.

“It might not snow.”

“Well, I’ve never seen the snow here, to be honest,” Myrtle said, snapping her suitcase clasp on her finger. “Ow!”

“You really are clumsy, Myrtle.”

She sucked her finger. “I was going to say,” she continued, “that everybody’s talking about snow and lots of it. One of the coldest winters predicted. I’m glad to be getting away.”

Violet closed her case for her. “There. What time does your train leave?”

“In an hour. I have to wipe down the drawers and my dresser now. Miss Zander insists on it. You can’t leave a thing behind, not so much as a hair.”

Violet pitched in to help and they busied themselves meticulously cleaning out the drawers Myrtle had used for the past year. “I’m quite looking forward to being on skeleton staff,” Violet said, “though I have to make the beds on the ladies’ floor every day.”

“Only a handful,” Myrtle said. “There aren’t many staying.”

“I suppose.”

Myrtle wrung out her cloth in her bucket again, and kept working. “The Honeychurch-Blacks are staying, are they?” she asked in a too-casual tone.

“As far as I know,” Violet replied, equally casually, as though she and Sam hadn’t passionately celebrated the fact that they would be together another two months in a near-empty hotel.

“She’s nice, isn’t she? Miss Honeychurch-Black? She has a lovely way about her, and she’s a bit . . . queenly.”

“I don’t know.” Violet stopped dusting and drew her brows down, thinking of Sam’s warnings that Flora would try to stop them being together. “I think she’s quite bossy.”

Myrtle stopped and turned. “She’s not bossy. I’ve served her dinner most nights for weeks. I’ve never met a less fussy, more kindly guest.” She put down her cloth and fixed Violet in her gaze, and Violet knew there were warnings and judgments coming.

Violet sighed. “Go on, then,” she said. “Say your piece.”

“Miss Zander called me in to see her, directly after Christmas in June. She asked if there was any chance I could change my plans and stay for the winter.”

“So?”

“I told her no, and I asked her why. Was she expecting more guests? But she just shook her head and said it was ‘a passing concern.’ ”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t you see, Violet? I’m a waitress. You’re a waitress. She was thinking of replacing you with me.

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