Eden Falls by Jane Sanderson Read Free Book Online

were accustomed to – the seats were wooden, and the long upward sweep of Eden Hill rutted – the journey was swiftly accomplished, at least once the crowded harbour was behind them.
    At the hotel, the atmosphere of the group lightened. The elegant porticoed entrance and polished wooden floors of the foyer did much to lift flagging spirits and the great flat blades of the ceiling fans stirred the damp air, bringing a modicum of relief to the suffering souls in their suits, gowns and hats. Ruby, in a loose cotton frock and with bare feet, circulated with a tray of lemonade, pitying them. Lady Millbank stood with her brother Charles. They had little to say to each other, and nothing to say to anyone else. Charles took a glass from the tray offered by Ruby and raised it at her in a salute of silent thanks. Lady Millbank took another and peered into it with an expression of profound distaste, as if it were full of frogspawn.
    ‘Odd colour,’ she remarked without looking up.
    ‘It’s lemon-colour,’ Ruby said, not being facetious but simply stating a fact. ‘If you taste it, you’ll find it very refreshing.’ She smiled, because unlike Scotty, Ruby always tried to give the guests the benefit of the doubt: she was minded to like them, or at any rate to speak with them, noting as she did the nuances of pronunciation that would raise her own English to the standard to which she aspired.
    ‘I would like a glass of water,’ Lady Millbank said, replacing her drink, untasted, on the tray. She had set her gaze just above Ruby’s head, for optimum
froideur
.
    Ruby said, ‘Very well, but first I shall offer around what is on my tray.’ She was pleased with the way she sounded, pleased particularly with her ‘my’, which was full and rounded and quite unlike the short, lazy ‘ma’ she had grown up using.
    Now Lady Millbank was forced to look upon the young woman who stood before her. Ruby smiled again, though she was beginning to realise that her attempt at pleasantness was falling on stony ground; there was no warmth in the woman’s expression.
    ‘Insolent creature,’ Lady Millbank said, raising her voice so that conversations stopped and people turned to stare. ‘In future you will address me as “Your Ladyship”. In the meantime, you will do as I ask, and you will do it at once.’
    Ruby pursed her lips. The Englishwoman, stout and overheated, glared at her with prominent, angry eyes. If she would but take off her bonnet and sip her lemonade she’d feel a deal less botheration, thought Ruby. She sighed and said, ‘If you ask me again, but nicely, I might oblige.’ Her tone was weary, like a mother teaching manners to a child. She waited for a long moment, head cocked in expectation, quite undaunted by Lady Millbank’s horrified gasp, and then, when it became apparent that no progress was to be made, she shook her head almost sadly, but not quite, and sashayed away. There were, here and there, a few sympathetic tuts, but Lady Millbank, whose face was now a study in shades of purple, had made few friends on the Atlantic crossing, so there was very little interest in her plight. She turned for support to her brother who, standing beside her, lifted his own glass of lemonade, which was already half finished.
    ‘It’s very good, Mildred,’ he said.
    She glared at him. ‘That’s hardly the point, Charles.’
    ‘Isn’t it?’
    ‘No! The point is, that girl just addressed me in the most offensive manner.’
    ‘Mmm.’ He took another deep drink and lemonade splashed from the glass on to his nose and chin. He whipped a silk handkerchief from his top pocket to dab at his face, and though he wasn’t trying to further annoy her, he did.
    ‘After all, Mildred, we were tipped the wink about the natives, remember? Brunswick’s been more than once to Jamaica and he’s never yet found a man willing – not to mention able – to dress him.’
    ‘I’m not looking for a valet, I’m looking for a glass of water,’