The Coral Tree

by Joyce Dingwell

  Mr. Beynon explained that he had a representative in Sydney. This Edward Farrell would furnish him with the reports that would keep the Marlow allowance to Clairhill at a steady pace. “Steady,” he reminded, “but by no means extravagant, Miss Porter.”

  “I suppose not,” she nodded resignedly. “All charitable institutions have their monetary cares, so why not Clairhill?” She thought a moment, then looked at the solicitor. “Is he a reasonable man, though?” she asked. “I mean, it will take some time for me to get established. I can’t get everything achieved at once.”

  “You will find him very reasonable,” assured Mr. Beynon, “have no fear of that. Naturally Farrell in his turn will depend on medical reports from someone qualified for the task, but doctors are not ogres, my dear.”

  “No,” murmured Cary, remembering one who was.

  She visited the Beynons one night for dinner. “I have been in touch with Farrell,” said Mr. Beynon. “He is looking forward to seeing you. Your medical yea or nay, he informs me, will depend on one of their child after-care specialists, name of Stormer, Richard Stormer.”

  Cary said politely: “Oh, yes.”

  On receiving a card from the Whitneys she met them at Victoria Station and later visited them in Kent. But all the while she was aware of a rising impatience. She was sick of marking time; she wanted to be off.

  And then at last she was off, England crying so bitterly for her departing sons and daughters that it was almost impossible to see Mrs. Beynon in the red sweater and ruby earrings fluttering a handkerchief from the wharf.

  It was unruly weather until they reached Madeira, and Cary’s fellow passenger, a girl, she judged, perhaps a few years older than herself, never raised her head from the pillow.

  As most of the passengers were also under the weather and the stewardesses almost run off their feet Cary took over the care of this patient.

  It was not until they had left the picturesque island behind them, most of the passengers unable to sight-see and the time available for the more stalwart souls so brief that any impressions were rather vague and ephemeral, that Sorrel Browning could be persuaded to sit up.

  “Have I missed much?”

  Cary gave the girl a quick travelogue of the bullock-carts on the steep, narrow island streets, the sledges pulled by oxen bearing the famous wine, the rich variety of trees.

  “I wish you could have come,” she concluded.

  The girl in the bed regarded her with affection.

  “I do believe you mean that. You’ve been an angel to me. Incidentally”—curiously—“are you a nurse?”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “You have all the earmarks—and that comes from a nurse.”

  “You’re one yourself?”

  Sorrel Browning nodded. “I qualified in Australia, did a year in London, and then a year with an English family in Alexandria. Now I have itchy feet, but a yen for home, so I’m going to look around my own backyard. Odd, isn’t it, how one neglects one’s own country? I never realized how much until I was asked questions in England that I couldn’t answer. Do you know, apart from overseas, I’ve never been out of my capital city? I’ve never been north, south, or west.”

  She stopped and smiled. It was a wide, friendly smile; Cary liked the dimple it brought and the sparkle to the dark brown eyes that matched exactly the dark-brown curly hair. “Now,” she said, “it’s your turn.”

  Cary told her story in the same breezy way that the nurse had told hers. When it came to her hopes for Clairhill, Sorrel became very interested.

  “It should be splendid,” she enthused. “It’s never been done before. Of course there are after-care establishments, but not after-care slanted especially and with emphasis on the outdoors.”

  “What should be my chances of approval from the medical authorities?” asked Cary, mentioning the doctor’s name that Mr. Farrell had given. “Do you think such a scheme would be welcomed?”

  “It should be, though I know that Richard Stormer is a very demanding gentleman. I have worked under him, and he is thorough, to say the least.”

  “You make him sound a bogey.”

  Sorrel looked contemplative. “No, he’s certainly not that, but I would say he was a perfectionist.”

  Cary nodded feelingly. “I know the type—impatient of little failings. There was one at Mungen...” She sat silent a moment remembering—and not liking—those moments of both silent and spoken censure.

  “I hope Mr. Stormer won’t be too difficult,” she said at length.

  Sorrel looked at her warily—too warily. “A lot might depend on the way you go about things,” she suggested slyly. “It might be well to pander a little, offer a few attractions.”

  “Like?”

  Sorrel, said over-innocently: “Like a certificated sister on the staff.”

  Cary glanced quickly at the nurse, but it was too early yet to meet her half-way. They had still a long distance to Cape Town, and after that there was Durban, then over five thousand miles to Fremantle and the rest of the Australian ports. She decided to take her time.

  During the following days Cary and Sorrel became firm friends, though never to the extent of discussing their futures.

  They were a popular twosome on board, and the fair and the dark, the quiet stream and the chattering brook. By Cape Town they lacked no escorts to take them ashore.

  They both loved the dignified city nestling beneath Table Mountain and Lion’s Head. They delighted in the Marine Drive flanked by the twelve apostles and the sea. They admired the Dutch-styled buildings, the churches with their surprising air of antiquity and tradition.

  It was the same enjoyment at Durban, only less dignified, perhaps, more gay.

  After that, with no ports of call until Fremantle, with five thousand six hundred nautical miles before them, and with only the deck-games and the pool for amusement, they began to talk more seriously of tomorrow.

  “Cary,” Sorrel said one night as they lay in their twin beds, “you were in dead earnest when you told me of Clairhill and what you proposed to do?”

  “I’ve come to do it,” replied Cary stoutly. “That’s why I’m here.”

  A pause from Sorrel, and then:

  “I am applying for the position.”

  “What position?”

  “Sister.”

  “Does there have to be a sister? Did I mention a vacancy?” Cary could not help teasing her, though already she knew, and for some weeks had known, her answer to this.

  “There doesn’t have to be,” returned Sorrel unperturbed, “but what better way to win that medical support you yearn for than to include a nurse on your staff?” She finished succinctly: “Also, though you didn’t mention a vacancy, you must admit it’s an idea.”

  Carry nodded. “It is, but—”

  “But?”

  “I don’t like to tie you up, Sorrel. I mean, I might not get going, or I might get going and then flop. It all depends, as I told you, on this solicitor’s reports from the doctor’s reports to Beynon. You might come to Clairhill, stop only a few months and then be faced with the problem of securing a new post.”

  “That would be my worry, wouldn’t it?”

  Cary said promptly. “No, Sorrel, it would be mine, too.”

  The nurse, leaning up on one elbow, regarded her fondly. “You’re a darling. Well”—with a sigh—“it’s all settled.”

  “You mean”—Cary knew a quick pang of disappointment—“it would be wiser for you to forget the whole idea.”

  “I mean what I just said. “It’s all settled. I start at Clairhill. You can tell your Mr. Farrell, Cary, I’m number one member, after you, on the staff.”

  As Sorrel spoke, Cary knew all the old excitement surging up within her again. She propped herself up against a pillow and began to babble her plans. Mrs. Heard, she told her companion, would be sure to oblige her in the domestic section. She believed she could secure some local girl to help, or perhaps Maysie, Mrs. Heard
’s daughter, would be old enough now for that. With a stable-hand, a handy-man, probably Joe Heard, for the garden, perhaps an assistant cook, they should manage nicely.

  She painted such a rosy picture that her inherently honest heart prompted her sharply.

  “But Sorrel,” she said in the middle of her chatter, “are you quite sure? It’s a rather depressing place—I told you so before, and with your experience you could do much better. Tell me now. I won’t mind,” and she waited, anxious-eyed, for the nurse. She waited a long time and she waited for nothing. Sorrel was fast asleep.

  In the morning, though, Cary’s fears were banished like frost in the sun. “It wasn’t all roses in Sydney, and the view from Lady Anne Hospital in London was no picture in a frame; then Alexandria, too, might have had its moments, but, believe me, it had more moments that were not.”

  Sorrel grinned. “No, it’s no use, Cary, depressing or not, no opportunity or not, I’m coming.”

  “Come, then,” welcomed Cary, and she sat back in her deck-chair and relaxed.

  Between dances and movies and the usual shipboard fun they discussed and planned until they reached Australia. Fremantle, Adelaide and Melbourne brought an intake of local tourists and the entertainment ran high until Sydney, journey’s end.

  Sorrel wanted Cary to stay with her at her parents’ home in the suburbs. Cary thanked her, but refused. “I’m only remaining in Sydney long enough to see Mr. Farrell, and then I’ll be off. I’ll come back again, of course, but I must go to Clairhill, Sorrel.”

  “I’d like to come with you,” said Sorrel, “only I feel that after all this time I should spend a few weeks with Mum and Dad.”

  “Of course you should spend them,” insisted Cary, “just as I should go to Clairhill.”

  She meant that. Of late she had kept on thinking about the old house. She had found herself tallying up the bedrooms. Were there three on the top floor, or four? And could that lobby on the ground floor level be changed into a small dormitory? and the open veranda to a suntrap? She knew she was impatient to re-discover Clairhill, she, who once had dreaded to return. Now she could not go back too soon.

  Mr. Farrell, briefly visited, turned out now to be an Australian counterpart of Mr. Beynon. Cary saw at once that the London solicitor had been right when he had promised that there would be no unreasonableness here. She came out of the office both relieved and inspired.

  The obvious thing now would be to interview the medical authority, Mr. Richard Stormer to be precise, but before she did that Cary determined first to go back to the old stone house. She must get the feel of it again, she must try to find in it what she had never found before. She must also, she thought practically, tally up the bedrooms. Were there three, or four, on that top floor?

  So the next day she returned to that place of unhappy memories, to the ghosts of Ian, Megan and Alison and all their shattered dreams.

  She went back to Clairhill.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT WAS LATE afternoon when the Western Mail pulled in at Sunset. Cary had always loved the variety in Australian place-names, some of English origin, some aboriginal, some pure whimsy like Come-by-Chance and Wait-a-While—or little Sunset with its one general store and friendly hotel.

  She crossed the peppercorn-bordered road to the single storied inn. It had three annexes all built in different directions, which made it look something like a star. Someone, Cary recalled, had even suggested renaming it The Star, but Mr. O’Flynn, the host, had persisted in sticking to The Grande.

  Previously she had decided she would stop overnight at Sunset and not travel to Clairhill until the next day. For all her enthusiasm and her eagerness to begin she was not going to find it easy to step over the threshold of that unhappy house.

  Gerald O’Flynn greeted her with open arms.

  “Welcome, Miss Porter. We were very happy when we heard the news.”

  “What news?” asked Cary cautiously.

  “That Clairhill was to open its doors and fling back its windows again. To be closed up is a bad thing for a house.”

  “Did you know in what way it is to be reopened, Mr. O’Flynn?”

  “Yes, and I said to Mother, ‘Here’s the very girl to put Home Sweet Home on the wall.’ ” Mr. O’Flynn smiled and patted Cary’s shoulder. “It’s a coincidence,” he added, “that Currabong should be passing into other hands at the same time, but, having been abroad, you might not have known that old Willoughby died and left the estate to his sister’s son.”

  Cary did not know, and not having met the Willoughbys because of Mrs. Marlow’s refusal to meet anyone apart from her own restricted circle, the news did not interest her very much.

  She was only aware that the properties touched, and that though Clairhill was large, Currabong was larger still.

  Cary inquired whether Mrs. Heard was still in the district.

  “If—I mean when I get going I would like her help,” she told the host.

  “I think you’ll find her available,” he nodded. “She was very fond of you. Want me to drive you out to Clairhill in the morning?”

  “Thank you,” said Cary. “I hoped you’d ask.”

  In spite of her firm resolution to deplete her laden breakfast plate the next day, Cary was forced to send it back scarcely touched. She went out to the cook to apologize personally. “I’m all churned up,” she admitted. “It’s a long while since I’ve seen Clairhill, and last time I was only the paid companion and now—now, as Mr. O’Flynn says, I have to open the doors and fling back the windows and put Home Sweet Home on the walls.”

  “And you can do it, lovie,” said Cook enthusiastically. “Rumour has it you have to make it a sort of hospital or convalescent home. Is that right?”

  “In a way,” nodded Cary, thinking of Mrs. Marlow’s letter and her wish for the house to “blossom”.

  “It’s not finally decided in what capacity yet,” she added cautiously. “I have my ideas, of course...” Her voice trailed off.

  “I wonder,” she said presently, rather to Cook’s bewilderment, “if the ponies are still there.”

  “They’re there. Old Matt Wilson was commissioned to look after them. He was the only employee, apart from yourself, whom Mrs. Marlow kept on. I’m afraid you’ll find the place wild—”

  “I expect so.” Cary hearing Mr. O’Flynn backing out his ancient car, shook Cook’s hand and ran out to climb into the steep tourer.

  “Good luck,” came a chorus of voices. It was Mrs. O’Flynn and the girls. They are dear people, thought Cary.

  Mr. O’Flynn sped over the uneven road at the alarming pace most of these country people did. Corrugations were a mere detail. Bumps did not matter. It was all a part of the pattern of the west.

  The land was bare and dusty for a few miles, the only vegetation the eternal peppercorns, then the flatness gave way to gentle slopes that rose in the distance to a halfcircle of dreamy blue summits.

  On a tiny rise between the third and fourth foothill that Cary remembered as Pudding Basin, Mr. O’Flynn stopped dramatically.

  Together they looked down on the two groups of buildings set in two large estates, but with the homesteads quite close to each other. Not, thought Cary ruefully, that it had made any difference to Clairhill. Mrs. Marlow had never encouraged neighborliness with the adjoining Currabong, the Willoughby station. The two farms might have been a country apart. She wondered musingly whether, now they were both in new hands, a state of friendlier settlement would be declared. She hoped so. She liked people. She wanted to like her neighbors as well.

  Mr. O’Flynn had started the car again. They were descending Pudding Basin into the slight saucer between the foothills. Cary thought excitedly: “Why, it’s set exactly the same as that lodge in Mungen.” It made her feel it was a good omen. She felt uplifted and eager.

  But the eagerness died somewhat when they passed through the Clairhill gates. She had not imagined that a year could make such a difference to a place. As Cook had war
ned her, it was wild.

  She remembered how it used to be kept immaculately neat, if decidedly cold, uninspired and quite unlovable. She recalled the relentlessly pruned hibiscus, the clipped oleander, the sulky disciplined crotons. No rioting annuals had ever been permitted to make a blaze of color for a few glorious weeks and then untidy the plots. Everything was subdued and controlled. But even a frigid garden, she thought now, was better than this overgrown mass.

  At the end of the avenue of planted coral trees the house confronted her. The sun, slipping round the corners from east to west, sent long shafts of light on the boarded windows and painted the walls pink and amber. It was rather pretty and promising in this aspect, but Cary knew that when the sun magic was done the house would stand sulphurous and uncared for, its plaster discolored and looking like badly-washed woolies, the garden and shrubbery an unwieldy mass of weeds and odd lumps. She sighed.

  Nothing here,” encouraged Mr. O’Flynn, ignoring her sigh and disregarding the shabbiness, “that a pot of paint and a pair of shears can’t put in order. Don’t be downhearted. Go inside.”

  She did so almost reluctantly. This was the house to which she had vowed she would never return, the place she had wanted to put forever out of her mind. But instead of that she was stepping over the threshold, remembering Ian shouting out those bitter words that dreadful afternoon, slamming the door, never coming back. Seeing Megan leaning against the massive bookcase in the corner and saying in that stifled little voice, “I can’t give it up, Cary; why can’t you see that? Why can’t she see I have to dance?” Hearing Alison racing down the staircase to search through the mail, but the letter Allie waited for was always gone. Mrs. Marlow saw to that.

  She remembered the little things, the small tyrannies, the injustices. She remembered young local girls who came eager to work and earn, but who went away discouraged and resentful so soon after. She remembered the harsh criticisms of those who did stay, Mrs. Heard, Matt Wilson—Cary Porter. As well as a hard mother, she had been a tyrannical mistress, thought Cary. How could a house that had known all this hope to flower?