Tilly walked alongside the river, deep in thought. So much had happened to her that had not been of her choosing that she had never considered what she really did want. Now she had the time to think about herself, the effort of it pleated her brow into deep furrows.
Part of her heart yearned for her mother and her father and for the strength that came from their love and support. That strength was what she needed now. They had believed in and loved each other utterly, despite her mother’s occasional grumbling, which was offset by her father’s unruffled demeanor.
She half-smiled as she remembered the numerous times he had winked at her behind her mother’s back. It was never done in a malicious way, more making them allies until her mother’s usual good nature was restored. It never took long, especially if her father nuzzled her mother’s neck, making her giggle and half-heartedly push him away.
If she truly wanted anything, Tilly realized, it was to have that kind of a relationship. Her position at the hotel was for here and now. It was no more than a stop-gap on the way to finding something more suitable and, if the afternoon with Ryan had made only one thing clear to her, it was that she needed to be outside.
Making beds, cleaning bathrooms, following the rigid but necessary housekeeping rules at the hotel, hemmed her in as much as the mountains did. Impressive though they were, she could not shake off the burning ache for the grand sweep of the prairies where she had grown up. In her mind’s eye she saw again the long line of the endless horizon, an uninterrupted seam of land and sky.
She remembered a time when the rain had fallen and the sun shone in equal measure, creating the correct combination of heat and moisture to coax the crops out of the ground. There was no better sight, she thought, than that sea of breeze-rippled green, waving stalks, ebbing and flowing as did the tides. As the season progressed, so the green changed from the vibrant freshness of that first growth to the gold of ready-to-harvest grain.
But then everything changed. The sky was no longer blue but a brassy haze in which the sun hung like a burnished copper plate. The wind, when it came, was no longer gentle and cooling but stung like a hornet and bore in its passing every inch of the topsoil on which they depended. One year trailed into two, then three, repeating the droughts of the 1920’s, which she barely remembered, and no one knew when it would end.
Being so deep in thought, she missed her turning to the hotel. Rather than go back, she continued on, drawn by the whisper and hiss of the river as it rushed along between its steep banks. She peeked between the branches, amazed at the speed at which the water raced past her. Contemplating the Bow Falls from the top floor of the hotel was a poor substitute for the reality of being beside it. Tons of water plunged through the hundred-foot gap between steep banks and cascaded down a thirty-foot drop in a froth of churning white water.
She stood at the river’s edge, looking in wonder at all that water. She had never seen so much in her life nor had she imagined the sound of it. When someone touched her on the shoulder, she jumped and whirled about to find herself face to face with Burma Evans.
“You’re the new girl, aren’t you?” Burma wore a red plaid tam o’shanter with a matching scarf wrapped around her throat. She’d pulled her coat collar up to her ears and stuffed her hands into her pockets. She looked thoroughly miserable.
“Not quite so new now, Miss Evans.” Tilly smiled at her a little nervously. Miss Richards had been very firm in her instructions about fraternizing with guests, although this encounter could hardly be deemed her fault. “I understand this is your second visit here?”
“Oh, that Fliss girl must have been talking.” Burma shrugged. “One has to suppose that staff will chatter.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Tilly put her hands into her own pockets. The sun was already sliding down the sky into evening and the bulk of the hillside behind them cast its shadow across the river. The dampness in the air began to chill her.
Burma shrugged again. “If one has someone to talk to, I suppose.”
“But I thought you were here with your fiancée. Don’t you talk to him?” Tilly blurted out the words before she considered what their impact may be.
“That was the plan, but I’ve hardly seen Frederic since we arrived.” Burma kicked moodily at a pebble. Tilly’s instincts told her the girl was deeply unhappy. “You see, he brought a couple of his friends with him, which was the last thing I expected. They’re either off playing golf or going climbing and tonight, when I thought we might at least have dinner together, he’d arranged to play in a water-polo tournament. I watched it for a bit, but it’s not really my idea of entertainment.”
“But there must be several ladies that you could become friendly with.”
“Yes, if I wanted to play tennis, or swim, or trail ride. I ask you, have you seen the nags they provide for that? I wouldn’t give you a thank you for any one of them.”
“Maybe,” Tilly said slowly, remembering what Ryan had told her and considering her words carefully, “they are chosen for being the most suitable horses for the job.”
“I should have insisted that I bring my own horses with me,” Burma continued without giving any indication that she had heard Tilly. “My trainer says it is too long a trip for highly strung thoroughbreds, but at least I would be suitably mounted.”
“Um, pardon me, but I understood that you live in New York City. Where can you keep horses there?”
Burma threw back her head and laughed out loud. “Oh, you ninny. I don’t keep my horses there. We have a farm near Albany.”
A long time had passed since Tilly sat with her father in their kitchen, poring over an atlas, both of them searching for answers to questions posed by her mother. After a moment of search her memory, she recalled certain maps and the place names dotted over them.
“That’s in upstate New York, isn’t it?”
One of Burma’s elegant eyebrows crept upwards. “I’m surprised you knew that.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
The two girls glared at each other, one indignant and the other suddenly defensive.
“Why would it surprise you that I knew where Albany was?” Tilly demanded. “Do you think that because I am a chambermaid, I am uneducated and ignorant?”
“In my experience the two frequently go hand in hand.”
“Oh, really? And just how many chambermaids do you actually know?” Tilly pulled her hands out of her pockets and fisted them on her hips.
“Well, now I come to think of it,” Burma drawled, “I don’t actually know any. Why would I?”
“Because it suits you not to know that these are people just like you except for their circumstances?” Tilly suggested. “They can be happy, they can bleed, they can be hurt when their boyfriends don’t take them to dinner. Sound familiar?”
“My goodness, aren’t you the little spitfire.” Burma took a step back and looked Tilly up and down. “No one speaks to me like that. I shall have to report you to your supervisor.”
The threat had the effect of cooling Tilly’s temper, but only slightly. “Do what you like. I’m sure you always do.”
Silence fell between the two of them and Tilly shivered. Arguing with Burma Evans had not been on her agenda, nor did she feel that an apology was in order. Burma had insulted her, not the other way around. Yet Burma had not rushed off in a high dudgeon at Tilly’s outburst. Rather, she seemed not to want to leave and Tilly suddenly found herself feeling rather sorry for the girl.
“Do you want to stay here, or walk back up to the hotel with me?” she asked.
“Would you mind very much if I walked with you?” The tone in Burma’s voice told Tilly that was as much of an apology as she was likely to get.
“Come on.” Tilly clambered over some driftwood up to the pathway. “Why don’t we stop into Sam’s and have a coffee to get warm?”
“I’d like that.” There was a note of relief in Burma’s reply. “Can we start again?”
“Start what again?” Already striding up the hill, Tilly turned and looked back at Burma’s disconsolate figure.
“Being friends?”
Tilly looked beyond the expensive clothes and the girl’s finely drawn features. The world of hurt in Burma’s anxious eyes touched her more deeply than she had been prepared for.
“On one condition,” she said.
“Which is?”
That eyebrow lofted upwards again and Tilly decided it was a trick she would have to learn.
“Just be real with me,” she said. “Don’t put on airs and graces, don’t take me for a fool, and I promise not to lose my temper with you again.”
“My goodness, Tilly.” Burma stared at her as if astonished. “If you think that was losing your temper, just wait until you see me lose mine.”
Tilly couldn’t help but laugh, yet beneath her apparent light heartedness there lurked an uncomfortable thought.
What if Burma did complain to Miss Richards? And if she did, what might the result of that complaint be?