Free Evergreen Falls by Kimberley Freeman Page A

appointment for today.
    Staring into the mirror, Flora frowned, noting how it drew a furrow between her brows. Then she lifted her expression and watched her forehead turn smooth and pale. How like her father she looked, with her straight nose and straight mouth, as if whoever had drawn her had run out of inspiration. Plain. Not a kind way of saying ugly, for she wasn’t ugly. She was just . . . plain. It had always seemed unfair to her that her outward appearance gave nothing away about the treasures within: her intellect, her kindness, her sense of duty.
    She sniffed, stood up straight. What did it matter? Beauty wouldn’t attract more good fortune than she already had. She glanced at the carriage clock by the bed. Five minutes after two. Sam was late. Had he forgotten? The car would be waiting.
    Flora pulled on a narrow-brimmed felt hat and picked up her leather purse. Sam was on the next floor down, the men’s floor. She didn’t like to go there often. Tony’s thuggish friend Sweetie was often there, despite Tony being back in Sydney, and he was always far too pleased to see her.
    She made her way down the stairs and along, then knocked gently on Sam’s door.
    No answer.
    Louder. Calling, “Samuel Honeychurch-Black. You promised me. You promised me.”
    Still no answer.
    She scrabbled in her purse for the spare key to his room, which Tony had managed to charm out of Miss Zander for her. “I’m coming in, Sam,” she called, hoping he would be dressed. More than once she had walked in on him half dressed or naked. He seemed to care little who saw him.
    No Sam.
    His disappearance was as predictable as it was frustrating. His suitcase sat open on the Oriental bedspread, clothes were strewn about over the bed and gilded chair, and his tray of opium smoking paraphernalia lay on the carved wooden desk. Flora hesitated. What if she simply threw it all away? What if she simply took it down to the escarpment and let it all tumble down into the valley among the rocks and leaves?
    Yes, what if she did exactly that, and then withdrawal from his addiction made Sam so sick he died? She had watched him try to give up more than once, and the fevers and chills that racked his body had been so alarming she had breathed in relief only once he had smoked a pipe. She knew too little about the drug, about what it was doing to him, about whether he might die. She lived, instead, with a constant, quiet buzz of anxiety.
    Flora resolved she would visit Dr. Dalloway anyway. She could use the time to ask him all the questions for which she needed answers, and it would probably be better if Sam wasn’t there for some of them.
    She locked the room behind her and made her way down thestairs, checking in the library just in case—Sam often hid in there—then across the parquetry foyer and out into wintry sunshine. The sky was as pale as watercolor, and the sun a long way off. The car was waiting, and she gave the driver the card with Dr. Dalloway’s address and sat back on the long leather seat to watch the scenery speed by.
    Shortly, they were outside the doctor’s surgery. She instructed the driver to wait for her and took a deep breath before heading up the path. The doctor’s house was a pretty painted cottage with roses in tidy pots crowded on the patio. There had been a time when Flora had wanted to be a doctor. Her father wouldn’t hear of it, of course, but nonetheless she had made inquiries at the universities and built the fond fantasy of a life helping others, unlocking the puzzles of illness, using the sharper edges of her mind. But she was far too rich and well bred a woman to be allowed to study medicine.
    She rang the bell, expecting a maid or a wife to answer the door. Instead, a young man greeted her. He was an inch taller than her and stocky, with curling auburn hair, and dressed beautifully in white serge trousers and a striped silk shirt. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, the kind known as Harold Lloyds, after the famous