Evergreen Falls (43 page)

She got up. She went a little farther, then pushed herself to go farther again. She stopped and rested, then pushed herself once more.

Then she heard a sound that made her whole body warm. A voice. Not awful Sweetie’s voice.

Clive’s voice. “Violet? Violet?”

“Here!” she cried, in a voice so weak it frightened her.

Then she heard footsteps, lumbering footsteps as he pounded as fast as he could through the slush and snow. He was there, hands grasping her shoulders. “You’re soaked. We need to get you back to the hotel.”

“No. Did you see Sweetie on your way down here?”

“I saw nobody. Why?”

“He locked me in the flying fox all night, then this morning he tried to drown me.”

“What? I—Violet, we need to get you somewhere warm. You’re blue.”

“I can’t go back to the hotel. I don’t know what’s happening. Oh, Clive. Sam’s dead. And Tony and Sweetie think I know something about it and they’re willing to do anything to cover it up.”

“The cave,” he said.

“That’s where I was heading.”

He put his arm around her. “Come on, then. Out of this rain.”

When she couldn’t keep up with him, he lifted her so her feet skimmed across the snow, then put her down for a few steps on her own. She hungrily clung to his side, his body heat. They climbed the last few rocky steps up to the cave, then finally they were out of the rain.

Clive was already shrugging out of his greatcoat, scarf, hat, and gloves. “Take those wet clothes off,” he said.

“I can barely move,” she replied, her shaking fingers jumping about on her buttons.

He came to her, stopping a few inches in front of her. His face was sad, and she started to cry.

“He’s gone, Clive, he’s gone.”

“I know. I saw his sister this morning.” He reached across the space between them, and, as gentle and patient as a parent undressing a child, he undid her buttons one by one. He slipped the dress off her shoulders and it landed at her feet. He left her underwear on her for modesty’s sake. “I’m sorry this is awkward,” he said, removing his own shirt and trousers so he stood in his long johns, “but you need clothes.” He offered them all to her. “Put these on.”

She indicated he should turn around, and she struggled out of her wet underwear, stockings, and shoes. Then she wrapped herself in his clothes, fastening his trousers around her waist with the damp tie from her wrist. Then his shirt, his scarf, his coat. Instant relief. He pulled off his Wellington boots, the same ones she had worn on her mercy dash to Malley’s, and his socks, and offered them to her.

“You’ll be cold.”

“I’m not soaking wet. I’ll be fine.”

She pulled on the boots but refused his socks. Bare feet in this cold were too much to ask of him. She gratefully took his hat and gloves, then collapsed on the floor of the cave. He sat next to her, his shoulder pressed against her.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he said, indicating their proximity. “Body heat.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” She leaned into him. Minutes passed. The rain hammered, but they were dry. The shivers began to ease. Her tired brain began to slow.

“We will have to make our way to the village,” Clive said. “When the rain stops.”

“It seems as though it will never stop.”

“You look so tired,” he said.

“I didn’t sleep. I’m sore and sad and frightened.”

“You can sleep now.” He pulled her down, shifted so he lay curled behind her, his arms around her. “Sleep. You’re warm and safe.”

The floor of the cave was cold and rough beneath her, but the weariness that penetrated her bones responded to his kindness, his warmth. “I’ll just close my eyes a little while,” she said.

“We can keep each other warm,” he said.

She lay with her eyes open, Clive’s arm over her waist. She watched the rain, falling and falling outside. Her gaze went to the carved heart on the stone, Sam’s initials still there. Sam was gone, but the mark of her love would be there long after today, long after her baby was born, long after she died. Something about that thought made her smile, and the haze of sleep descended.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

F
lora had wrapped up as well as she could, and of course she had taken an umbrella. But she hadn’t counted on the rain splashing under it, or the melting snow getting into her boots.

Her heart was glad, though, to see that other people were out in it, that the great isolating snowfall had lost its grip on the world. A man swaddled in layers of warm, waterproof clothing was sweeping snow off the train platform, and a tractor was clearing roads on the other side of the rail line. The rails themselves were clear, so no doubt the trains would come again soon. Probably today. Life had begun again.

But not for Sam.

Flora was sodden and freezing when she climbed Will Dalloway’s front steps, and it occurred to her for the first time that he might not be here, that he might have been one of the clever people who evacuated to Sydney before the snowstorm. The thought knocked the breath out of her lungs. She raised her hand wearily and grasped the knocker with her glove. She gave it three hard raps and stood back to wait.

Almost immediately she heard footsteps inside. The door opened, and Will was there.

“Flora,” he said, surprised.

“Will, you have to help me.”

“Come in. Come in. I have a fire burning in the sitting room. What’s happened?”

She followed him inside, in through the door marked
PRIVATE
. His house was warm and neat. He pulled the wing-backed chair close to the fire and offered it to her.

“Sit down,” he said.

“Can I take my shoes off?”

“Of course. I can’t believe you came out in this weather. I haven’t seen anyone in days.”

She unbuttoned her shoes and slipped them off. Her stockings were sodden, but she’d rather they were damp than take them off in front of Will, and he didn’t seem to notice. She stretched her feet towards the fire, and the warmth was penetrating and good.

Will pulled an ottoman up beside her and sat on it. “What has brought you here?”

Flora took a deep breath, and the story poured out. Sam’s withdrawal, finding his body, being pressured by Tony to let them dispose of it in the wilds, Violet’s disappearance. Through it all, he didn’t touch her or make a sound. He listened, shocked but silent, his eyes fixed on hers. Her voice seemed to go on forever in the warm, fire-lit room, then finally it wound down and stopped.

“Oh, Flora,” he said. “I can’t begin to express my sympathy.”

“Will you help me?”

“I will do anything in my power. What particularly do you want my help with?”

“How did he die? You said the withdrawal wouldn’t kill him.”

Will nodded sadly. “The pouch with the syringe that you found,” he said. “It sounds as though somebody obtained for him an injectable drug to ease his pain. There’s an injectable opiate called heroin
that works very quickly. Unfortunately, it’s much stronger than he would have been used to. Too much and . . .”

“It killed him?”

“Yes. That’s my educated guess.”

“But how did he get it? He couldn’t leave the hotel. He could barely leave his room—”

Flora froze as the answer became clear. It was Violet. Violet, who would have done anything to relieve Sam’s pain. Violet, whom Flora had seen that day with florid cheeks and damp hair, as though she had been roaming outside. Violet, who couldn’t know that her actions would kill him. Anger and pity warred in Flora’s breast.

“This is a horror,” she whispered, gazing at the fire in the grate. “A nightmare.” Then she lifted her head to look at Will. “I want to find his body, and I want to take him home and bury him properly. I don’t care what Father thinks.”

“I can help. Once the rain has eased, once the road is open. Later today, maybe tomorrow. I will go down there myself and look for him.”

“Good. Thank you. If Father cuts me off . . . well, then I will survive anyway. And if Tony no longer wants to marry me because my name is muddied, then I no longer want to marry Tony.” She paused, listening back to her own words.
I no longer want to marry Tony
. The thought gave her such freedom. “I no longer want to marry Tony,” she said again, more emphatically.

“Nor should you if all he’s interested in is—”

“No, no. You don’t understand. I mean under any circumstances. I don’t want him.”

Will’s eyes were soft. “Don’t you love him?”

“I don’t know anymore. He’s not the man I thought he was. There’s something cold in his heart. His friends are awful. They’re either sycophants or thugs. Sometimes both.” The idea of a life not
subject to the opinions of her father or Tony seemed an impossible bliss. “Do I have to marry him?”

Will smiled. “I’ve never thought you should.”

She smiled back, then stopped herself because it felt wrong to smile the day after Sam had died. “First things first. Find Sam.”

“First things first. Let me make you food and tea and wait for the rain to ease. Perhaps by this evening I’ll be able to take my car out of the garage, and then we can get help from anyone you need: Miss Zander, the police, your family; whoever you think can help. But until then, I will keep you warm and safe, and you aren’t to worry. Save your energy for grieving.”

Impulsively, she reached for him, grasped his hand in hers, and ran her thumb over his knuckles. He looked from her hand to her face, and she could see the tenderness in his eyes.

“You are a lovely man, Will Dalloway,” she said.

He hid a smile, gently extricated his hand. “I’ll make tea,” he said.

Flora leaned back in the chair, taking deep breaths and watching the fire, letting the tears fall freely down her warm cheeks.

*  *  *

Violet woke to a hacking noise. Disoriented, she blinked rapidly. Shifted. Felt the hard ground under her and remembered where she was.

What was the noise? Where was Clive? She sat up. Clive, dressed only in his long johns, was crouched in front of the stone, the one with the lovers’ heart etched into it, and was scratching furiously at it with a sharp rock. But that wasn’t the hacking noise.

The noise was his cough.

“What are you doing?” she asked, groggy and sore.

He dropped the rock and looked around guiltily.

“Why would you do that?” she asked.

“Because he caused you nothing but sorrow.”

“I loved him,” she protested. “He’s the man I loved, and he died, and you would do something as . . . petty as that?”

He coughed again, a deep rattling cough in his chest that alarmed her.

“How long have I been asleep?” she asked.

“A few hours,” he replied.

She rose, shrugged out of his overcoat. “How long have you been coughing like that?”

“Just the past hour or two. No, you keep the coat.”

As she reached for him, she realized his skin was burning. “You have a fever.”

He shrugged. “I had it when I left the hotel this morning. It started last night.”

“Yet you came out in the cold and the wet and you stripped to your underwear?”

“What was I to do, Violet? Flora was worried that you were in some kind of trouble, and she was right. So, I came looking for you.”

She glanced from him to the scratched-up love heart and back again.

His voice grew quiet. “That’s what real love is, Violet. It isn’t empty promises and drawings on rocks and desire that can’t contain itself.” He looked pointedly towards her belly. “It’s sacrifice and selflessness. Tell me one time that man was selfless, one thing he sacrificed for you.”

She couldn’t answer him. Wouldn’t answer him. “Put your coat back on. I’m dry now. We’ll share the clothes.”

He slipped the coat on and she pulled off her scarf and tied it firmly around his neck. She heard the wheeze as he breathed in, breathed out, and noted the thin film of perspiration on his upper lip.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes going to the love heart. “It was childish of me.”

Violet remembered Sam scribbling over Clive’s name on her portrait, and it made it easy to forgive him. “You are very ill.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

She touched his forehead. He was burning up.

“We can’t do anything now,” he said. “We have to wait out the worst of the rain.”

So they sat, silent, waiting and waiting. The rain seemed to grow deeper rather than lighter. His cough worsened. An hour passed, two. His decline was rapid, horribly evident, right before her eyes.

Violet could stand it no longer. “We have to go for help.”

“But the rain—”

“I’ll go.”

“That’s madness. What if Sweetie or Tony are on the walking paths?”

“I won’t take a walking path. I’ll find my way up another route. There are houses on the escarpment, on the western side of the hotel. Somebody up there will help.”

Clive coughed again, for such a long time that Violet was afraid he would never catch his breath. Then, finally, he said, “We’ll both go. I need shelter, a fire. I’ll die out here.”

They commenced their ascent from the far side of the cave, towards a ledge that led up to a narrow groove, steep but passable. Clive climbed up first then put his hand down to help Violet. They made their way upwards, over tree roots and rocks. The rain soaked them in minutes, soaked them to the bone. When they came to a gap between two bulging boulders, Violet went through first, turning on her side and breathing in. Her hip bones caught then slid through. Clive got stuck, and leaned for a moment on the rock, coughing and coughing.

“Go back if you can’t get through.”

“I can’t go back. We must keep pushing in this direction.” With
a huge effort, he hauled himself through, calling out in pain as the rocks tore at his clothes and broke his skin. Blood bloomed over his kidneys.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“It’s a graze, that’s all. We have to keep moving.”

They found themselves under a huge overhang. No snow had collected here, but the ground was green and slimy with years of no sunshine. They made their way along, crouching as the overhang descended dramatically, then out the other side onto a steep, bushy slope. Rain and snowmelt poured down it, through their shoes.