The Coral Tree

by Joyce Dingwell

  Mr. O’Flynn broke in on her thoughts. “All in good order,” he encouraged. It was obvious he was anxious for Clairhill to begin functioning again.

  Cary looked around her. The furniture was in dustcovers and the carpets rolled and stacked and there was that air of stifling closeness that all empty houses seemed to gather, but it was as Mr. O’Flynn said, in fair order.

  As the window-boards were removed—“Can’t open the windows yet; they’re nailed too tight,” called Mr. O’Flynn busily—Cary even found herself sufficiently encouraged to climb the wide stairs. It was a disadvantage, she thought, that Clairhill was not the same as most Australian homesteads, built on a single level. Though she had liked the idea in the old days of going upstairs to bed, she realized now how much easier it would have been if all the rooms had been on the same deck.

  She had mentioned this to Jan and Else in Mungen, and they had agreed, though they had cheerfully shown her how steps could be an asset at times. The therapy exercise they quoted was the descending on all fours of the lowergrade steps. “Little pups,” Jan had called it. She said that the “little pups” loved it simply for the fun and that their sick limbs loved it because it did them good.

  All the same, thought Cary, the “pups” could have exercised just as ably in a gymnasium without any steps if only Clairhill had been Currabong and—

  She stopped abruptly, her hand resting on the dusty banister, her mind running extravagantly ahead.

  What if Clairhill grew to be so successful and established one day that the two stations merged! She saw her own house as the headquarters and Currabong as the remedial wing...

  With a smile she jerked herself back to reality. It was her imagination, not Currabong, that had taken wing. She laughed.

  Her first feeling of utter futility had given place to enthusiasm, however reluctantly at first, a little dubious, but quickly becoming a warm and eager thing. Mr. O’Flynn sensed it, and followed her up pointing out Clairhill’s marvellous possibilities and the very little that would have to be done.

  He even lit the fire in the vast kitchen and boiled the kettle. “Mother packed some provisions for a meal,” he smiled.

  “Did she pack much?”

  “Why, Miss Cary, are you that hungry?”

  “No, but it will have to last until tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow—you mean you intend staying.”

  “I intend staying.” The idea had only just come to Cary, but she said it firmly in case Mr. O’Flynn objected.

  Mr. O’Flynn did not. Australian men expect self-reliance in their women, and the idea of this girl spending a night in this great lonely house did not alarm him.

  “I don’t know whether I’ll be able to start the electric plant, though,” he told her.

  “There’ll be lamps.”

  “I won’t be able to budge those windows unless I find some tools.”

  “The place was always too airy.”

  He grinned at her. “Determined, aren’t you?”

  Cary grinned back. “Yes,” she said.

  “Will I come in the morning or later?” Mr. O’Flynn poked more wood in the stove.

  Cary considered. “There’s a lot I want to look into. Could you make it the afternoon?”

  He went after lunch, the old jalopy bouncing between the corals and occasionally slipping on the rank weed.

  Cary watched him out of sight, then took a notebook and pencil and started a detailed tour of the house.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THERE WERE FOUR bedrooms on the top floor, not three. Better and better, thought Cary smugly, making a note on the credit side of the book. She had decided to gather a complete inventory of Clairhill and Clairhill’s furnishings and discuss what she could use and what else she would need with Mr. Farrell when she returned to Sydney.

  The rooms were large and airy. Each could take its full quota of beds.

  Downstairs she dismissed her first idea of using the lobby for another dormitory and decided to think about changing it into a therapy room instead.

  She was still determined to glass in the veranda to trap the sun and cheat the wind and provide the perfect winter corner to assist in the healing of small wasted limbs.

  “I’ll want ray lamps,” she said aloud, “massage tables, remedial gym equipment. I must write tonight to Jan Bokker for advice as to what to order. Sorrel must come to my rescue with the right hospital equipment. We must have a full medicine chest.” Still talking to herself, Cary wandered back to the kitchen.

  There would be no trouble here, she decided. The range was big and efficient and of the type that not only cooked but centrally heated and supplied ample hot water. Everything, admitted Cary fairly, that Mrs. Marlow had possessed had been the best—everything, she added sadly, but the spirit of this house.

  But it was never too late, she resolved with determination. It had not been too late for Mrs. Marlow to change her heart, so it should not be too late for Clairhill. She put the book and pencil in her bag so that she would not go without them the next day, and wandered outside again.

  She turned her steps in the direction of the stables. She wondered if Matt Wilson had taken the horses to his own small-holding across the next hill or whether he still watered and fed them here.

  A whinny answered her. “That will be Toby,” she said excitedly, and fairly ran the rest of the way. Whether the chestnut remembered her or was simply friendly she did not know, but she decided to accept his eager nuzzling as an intimation that he was glad she was back.

  Toby, Candy, Bunty, Felix—she patted them as she passed. They were glossy and groomed, but that was only to be expected of old Matt. He loved horses.

  Molly and White Nose were in the wrong stables. She smiled as she put Molly in “Molly” and White Nose where a white-nosed pony obviously should be stalled.

  As she stood there looking at them there were steps behind her. She turned round to smile at old Matt.

  “O’Flynn told me you were here, Miss Cary, so I thought I’d ride over on Pat.” Matt pulled the horse forward and said proudly. “He was off color, so I had him home with me, but he’s better now. Look at that gloss.”

  “They all look good, Matt. You’ve done an excellent job. Do you know I never realized how much I had missed them—” Cary ran her fingers lovingly down Pat’s sensitive nose.

  “The cure for that’s a ride, Miss Cary. I’ve kept your saddle in good trim.”

  Everything was in good trim: the feed-bins, the grooming brushes, the clean-swept floor. Cary saw that even her old jodhpurs and tartan shirt had been neatly hung up.

  “All waiting for you,” nodded Matt enticingly. “I’ll saddle Toby.”

  “Do you think I’ll manage Toby? He was always more difficult than the others, and after this break—”

  “Have to manage him some time,” returned Matt laconically. She heard him go along to Toby’s stall, calling him in that curiously soft voice for a big, rough man.

  She shut the door and took down the jodhpurs, then climbed into them in the quick, expert way she had learned when time off from attending Mrs. Marlow had been very precious and of doubtful duration. One had never known when she would querulously demand an immediate return.

  She was ready when Matt came back with the pony. “Go steady with him, Miss Cary,” he advised. “No letting him on the wing today. Are you right? Then up.”

  Cary was tense at first, and Toby probably sensed it. He stepped out delicately, as usual his beautiful muscles giving him the sensation of speed because he had always been a smoothly co-ordinated horse.

  Confidence came back with every step, however, and by fifty yards Cary was moving at a trot and enjoying the run.

  She turned Toby and came back to Matt. He had mounted Pat and was preparing to go back to his farm.

  “Mind what I said about going steady,” he advised. “I’ll keep Pat a week longer. Good-bye, Miss Cary. You’ll be settling in soon?”

  She nodded and rode as fa
r as the gate with him, then returned in a canter. In the sudden mood of ecstasy she had often known on horseback she veered past the house and along the northern paddock.

  It was a delirious sensation, especially after twelve months’ exile. She flanked the bordering fence that separated Clairhill from Currabong and rode on for several miles.

  She was nearing the end of the property now. She knew it by the little gully creek. This was the junction of four stations—Clairhill, Currabong, Fortescue’s and Ten Mile. It was generally regarded as no man’s land.

  It was a pretty spot where tranquillity was the keynote, where there was no sound except the chirp of crickets, the occasional song of a bird, the lazy tinkle of the stream after a spell of rain. Cary knew it was favored for country picnics, though, of course, Mrs. Marlow had frowned on picnics, so it had only been on treasured rides like this that she had come to the creek.

  Perhaps in her eagerness to see it again now, she dug her feet into Toby’s flanks, perhaps she forgot the sloping ground and kept giving the pony too full a rein.

  Whatever it was, whose fault it was, Cary could not have told clearly. She only knew that suddenly a figure seemed to be underneath her and Toby, beside the figure a cropping horse, that in an instant Toby had reared and turned and was streaking, out of her control now, towards the bordering trees beyond the gully.

  She did not see the man roll out of the way of the approaching hooves, turn quickly, estimate the situation, jump to his feet and leap into his own saddle and streak after her on his larger, faster mare. By this time she was only concerned with her own inability, after twelve months’ absence, to deal with the chestnut. She was only aware of the chestnut’s wicked knowledge that she had lost her touch.

  “Pull in,” called a voice sharply. Through her agitation it came to Cary that she had heard that voice before. Someone from Sunset, she wondered vaguely, someone she had known? And yet she had known so few in Sunset. There had not been any opportunity, any chance.

  “Pull in, you utter oaf!” The voice was dominant now.

  “I can’t. There were tears in her admission not caused entirely by her precarious situation. It was unpleasant to be shouted down as an utter oaf.

  “Then hold tight,” resumed the voice, “I’m coming.”

  She had scarcely time to obey when he reached her. She saw a lean hand shoot out for her rein. There were a few nightmarish seconds while Toby was on his hind legs and she felt herself slipping. Then, just as her feet cleared the stirrups, she was whipped out of the saddle, deposited in front of the rider until they cleared the rearing Toby, then dropped, none too gently, to the ground.

  She stood there badly shaken, unreasonably angry, wondering whether to thank or abuse him, wondering whether he would speak first and apologize for what he had said.

  He was galloping after Toby now, and the chestnut, at length subdued, was submitting to being led back. As he came closer Cary put any idea of receiving an apology from him right out of her mind. He would never apologize, whether right or wrong, she thought blankly. He was not the type to regret his words, either here—or in Mungen at the foot of the Horn at Lannwild Mountain.

  He was not that sort of man.

  “So,” said Richard Stormer.

  He still held Toby, but he had released his own horse, who was quietly cropping. “So we meet again, and in similar circumstances.”

  Cary was more controlled now. Brightly, too brightly, she returned: “I wouldn’t say that. Europe is a long way from Australia.”

  “I said circumstances, not location. If you recall, madam, there also you were determined to ride me down.”

  “And was censured for so doing,” nodded Cary. “One thing, here there is no one to whom to report.”

  “No?” His eyebrows had shot up. She remembered this habit of his as they had sat over a bottle of Spiezer and a tankard of ski-water in the lounge of the Palace.

  “What about your host?” he reminded coolly. “He might not take such a generous view of a guest’s misuse of one of his horses.” Evidently he had taken it for granted that Cary was visiting one of the properties that finished in this no man’s land. She saw no reason why she should enlighten him.

  “I was not misusing Toby,” she said.

  “You were not riding him in a proper manner.”

  “It was your fault. The chestnut got a scare. He never expected to find you there.”

  “Nor did you, I dare suggest.” The tone was a drawl.

  Cary did not answer his question. Instead, she retaliated: “Perhaps I could remark the same about you. Did you expect me?” He was rolling a cigarette. “You don’t smoke, I seem to recall. No, madam, you’re wrong about my not expecting to find you here, for never once have you even remotely intruded into my thoughts.”

  “You haven’t in mine.” She flung it back spitefully, and knew that it sounded childishly tit for tat. It sounded an echo because she could find nothing of her own to retort.

  “I suppose now you will make a banal remark about the world being small and fancy meeting you here,” he said, handing her Toby’s reins and reaching for his own lead.

  She did not answer; she could not trust herself even to look up. “To satisfy your curiosity, I must inform you that it’s no wild coincidence, but merely a cog in the wheel of time, another turn of destiny. My late uncle owned this estate, and eventually it has reached me.”

  “What estate?” she did find her tongue this time, and she asked the question almost rudely.

  “The estate on which you stand—Currabong.”

  “You are Mr. Willoughby’s heir?” To herself she said: “You are my future neighbor.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a pause.

  “But this is not Currabong property,” Cary dismissed triumphantly. “This creek is no man’s land.”

  “It is Currabong, madam; rest assured of that. You might also inform your host’s household when you return today. Incidentally, you should tell them to prevent any future trespass.”

  “Trespass?”

  “You are trespassing at this moment. This is my country.”

  As she still looked unconvinced, he said: “Would you care to accompany me to the homestead to refer to the map and legend?” Not so sure of herself as she would have liked, Cary evaded pettishly: “What good will Currabong be to you, a doctor?”

  He smoked a moment.

  “I see you recall my profession.”

  “Most certainly. You assured me you did not attend little Paul Masser as a skier or skater, remember?”

  He shrugged carelessly. “Was any of our encounter worth remembering?” He appeared sardonically amused when she flushed with annoyance.

  As they climbed the bank to the corner of the paddock where Toby had bolted, Cary thought wistfully: “Now any pipedream I ever had of attaining Currabong in the distant future and using it as an annex to Clairhill is dissolved forever.” It came forcibly to her how very satisfactory it would have been, when eventually she did attain an interview with the great Richard Stormer, to have added the advantage of the handy proximity of a medical man to her schemes for the functioning of Clairhill. A sister, a doctor—what more could be asked? But, of course, she would not dare to. Not with this man. Any subsequent report of his to Mr. Stormer of anything to do with her would be depreciative, she realized bitterly, biased, adverse.

  She stood, still holding Toby, frankly dreading to mount. Her lack of exercise had made her slack. She gravely doubted whether she could clamber up unaided. The gallop had made her unbearably stiff.

  Fortunately she was spared the indignity of making an exhibition of herself. With a curt good afternoon and the barest nod he swung himself into the saddle of his own horse and in a few moments was out of sight.

  She stood hesitant a while, then, being the coward she was, especially as no one was there to see, decided to walk back.

  Her foot kicked at something. It was a hook, a slim volume, she found, bending over, of
poems. Evidently he had been relaxing in the sun reading, the horse cropping, when she had almost ridden him down.

  The book was open. Curiously she glanced at it, wondering at this man’s taste for poetry. She would not have believed that he would read that sort of literature at all.

  Instinctively her eye fell on the verse he had been absorbing. She knew he must often have lingered over the lines, for the book fell open naturally at this point.

  Slowly, wonderingly, she read:

  “... Music, laughter, fireside embers,

  All the things the heart remembers—”

  She closed the book again, put it in her pocket, then led Toby over the northern paddock back to the house.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE PLEASANT canter that had turned into a wild gallop—or had it been that unexpected meeting?—had unsettled her.

  As soon as she had stabled the chestnut she went into the homestead and lay down on one of the many dust-sheeted divans. I’m out of practice, she thought ruefully; six weeks of shipboard idleness, a luxury holiday before that, have made me soft. I must toughen up; I have a tough job ahead.

  She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on practical things—trying not to think of the unpleasant encounter, the man’s cold, hard look, his probing, derisive stare. The air was warm and heavy, the cicadas were drumming, she fell asleep.

  She woke with a start to find it was almost dusk. She had been dreaming, and in the dream she had been arguing that it was much too hot for a fire. Why had she dreamed that, she puzzled, lying relaxed and inert on the couch. Then she recalled the words of that verse.

  “... Music, laughter, fireside embers...”

  Fireside embers, that had set her off, she decided. She smiled, yawned and stretched.

  Then, like the returning theme of a song, came the second line of the poem.