The Coral Tree

by Joyce Dingwell

  “Can’t I learn about it down here?”

  “It has to be demonstrated.—Besides, you have something to say to Jan, and he’s waiting for you to say it. Had you forgotten that?”

  “No, I hadn’t, Solly. I would have preferred to have said it days ago.” Cary hesitated. She had been about to add: “I promised Richard I would.”

  Presently she asked: “What about the children?”

  “I’m sending Maysie out with them. They need some exercise after all the luxuries they have had this last week. Cakes three days running, hot scones twice. Then one of the V.I.P.’s left a huge box of chocolates. Unfortunately he left it with them. You can imagine how few are left, and the effect on their young turns.”

  “Will Maysie be responsible enough to supervise them?”

  “My dear Cary, they will be walking, and you know what that means.”

  Unhappily Cary did. The little braced legs would be doing well to cover even a quarter of a mile. No harm could come to them, even under such uninterested eyes as Maysie’s, in such a short distance.

  “Very well,” she told Sorrel. “I shall go up to Pudding Basin Hill with Jan.”

  They left after the midday meal, walking down the drive beneath the corals, over the flat, then climbing the gentle slope.

  “I think it’s a jam pudding,” Cary informed Jan, laughing; “it’s one of those suety ones that emerge from the basin rather short and squashed.”

  “It is an excellent place,” said Jan gravely. “I saw that at once.” Jan indicated the grass, and Cary sat down. After a moment he sat down as well.

  “I am sorry, Cary.”

  “It’s I who should say that, Jan. Don’t make me feel ashamed.”

  “But you are not, are you? You are not ashamed?”

  She looked at him apologetically, then nodded an admission. “No Jan, I’m not. The only wrong thing I feel I have done is not to have told you how things were the moment you arrived here. You took me by surprise, though. I never guessed...”

  She paused a while.

  “Jan,” she said anxiously, “am I saying all this too late? Have you burnt your boats behind you? I mean”—as his brows creased in puzzlement—“can you return to your home again and on the old terms?”

  He shook a decisive head. “I have no wish to go back, old terms or new. Cary, I shall be very honest. Perhaps a great deal of your charm to me was the fact that in you was an avenue of escape. I was tired of Europe, yet I would never have left, perhaps, if I had had no incentive to do so. You provided that incentive, with your talk of Australia—with your gift.”

  He took out the opal pin and looked down at it thoughtfully.

  “I am stateless, Cary. It is a very involved story of borderline countries, of wars, of confusion. I shall not burden you with the discouraging details. Sufficient to state that I had no roots to keep me in the country that was no longer mine; no people; that I wanted to go somewhere, to do something, but I did not know where or what it was—until I met you.”

  “Richard said,” Cary proffered, a little embarrassed, “that you were financially independent. You said so yourself on your arrival here. Jan, could that be true?”

  She was hoping it was. It would be dreadful if he had spent all his money on a journey that ended like this.

  Jan inclined his head. “It is true. Many of my friends had their wealth in lands which became valueless. I had tangible wealth. I still have. Don’t let the loss of a position teaching rather stupid tourists worry you, liebchen.”

  She smiled mischievously. “Was I stupid?”

  “You were very quick, very alert. It was a pleasure to instruct. Perhaps that helped to make me feel towards you as I did.” He paused, then added frankly: “Yet you were also a little unwise.”

  “Unwise?”

  “In my country—I mean, the country to which I no longer belong, young women do not make such gifts.”

  He stared down again on the opal pin.

  “It is beautiful,” he said. “It is dark as your friend is dark. She is a red rose, Cary.”

  “Sorrel?”

  “Yes, Sorrel.”

  Again he paused.

  “They do not,” he went on quietly, and this time there was reproach in his voice, “gesture so!” He blew a kiss in the air. “They do not say good-bye in a way that indicates they do not wish to sever an association.”

  “Jan, did I do all those things?”

  “You did.”

  “And you took me seriously?”

  “I packed my belongings and came after you, didn’t I?”

  “I am ashamed.”

  Cary stared down at the shallow valley. Maysie and the children were moving slowly over the flat. In the far distance a car was beginning to cross the straight dusty road.

  “You are ashamed, yet not ashamed,” summed up Jan shrewdly. “I have stated your case, now I must, in all fairness, state mine. Here beside you, Cary, is a foolish man, a man who read too much in a laughing word—or so our good Sorrel has said.”

  “Sorrel?”

  “She showed me my error. She insisted I admit it to you.” Jan smiled and spread his big hands. “I am admitting it now. I sought a meaning in everything you said and did, Cary. In my heart I should have suspected it could all mean nothing, that it was just the friendly gesture of a friendly girl from a friendly country whose easy ways I did not comprehend. But I would not admit it. I was determined to find something that was not there, therefore I forced myself upon you. I did these things, so I, too, am ashamed.”

  “Ashamed, yet not ashamed,” suggested Cary.

  He considered, nodded, then put out his hand to touch hers. “You are quite sure how you feel towards me?” he asked.

  “Quite sure, Jan.”

  “There is someone else, I believe, and that makes you more certain than ever?”

  Cary hesitated, flushing.

  “Come, Cary.”

  “Yes—there is someone else.”

  The car was getting nearer to the valley. Cary looked at it unseeing.

  “And you, Jan,” she ventured, “are you very hurt?”

  “My pride a little. That was inevitable. But it will also be good discipline to me. Apart from that—no hurt at all.” Again he spread his hands. “I shall tell you something. I believe I prefer red roses.” He looked at Cary meaningly and smiled.

  Cary stared back bewildered, slowly deciphered his words, then frowned.

  At her expression of concern, he beamed widely. “Don’t worry; I shall never rush in again. Not this time, my friend. This time, you see, I think I could be hurt. It is different. She is different.” For a moment his eyes dreamed.

  Cary frowned again. She realized what he meant. Jan was a dear. She thought so. Sorrel had admitted so. But liking a person was not loving them ... She looked hesitantly at the man, and as though reading her thoughts, he bent forward and tilted her chin.

  “Don’t worry, it is only a feather in the air as yet. One note does not make a song. I have told you only to make you feel better in yourself. You understand?”

  “Yes—yes, Jan, I do understand.”

  “And that little cloud that has been between us, not even permitting a friendship, it is gone?”

  “It is gone.” She smiled up at him.

  “It is good, then, we can know each other like this. You are my dear friend always, I am yours.”

  He bent over and kissed her gently, gravely. Cary accepted and returned the kiss in the manner it was given.

  On the flat Maysie turned the children back towards Clairhill. On the valley road the car that before had been a speck in the distance passed beneath them.

  “And now my project,” said Jan busily, “my scheme for this Pudding Basin Hill. When you took that expedition in Mungen, Cary, to meet the good Bokkers, it was winter. Otherwise, perhaps, you might not have been there.”

  “No, Jan, I only went for the sports.” I went for that, she thought to herself, and for the soluti
on. Something shining within her assured her that the happy answer was near her hands at last. “Yet in spring and summer, Mungen is even more lovely. There is the scent of pine, good and sweet and clean; there is the velvet darkness of the trees. There are also slopes at the foot of Lannwild as gentle as your jam pudding.” He laughed at her. “I was interested in the Bokker institute. We all of us in the village were interested. Everyone is interested in a child.”

  Cary murmured: “Especially a sick child.”

  Jan nodded. “That is why,” he recounted eagerly, “I saw how advantageous it could be at once.”

  “Advantageous?”

  “The low foothills. Had you visited in spring or summer, Cary, you would have seen your guide teaching little ones, not adults, to descend a grassy slope, not a snowy incline. Grass skiing is a marvellous exercise, and one, if properly supervised, that can do a lot of good to small sick limbs.”

  Cary was instantly enthusiastic. “Jan, it’s a marvellous scheme. And you think this hill could be utilized?”

  “I am sure of it. I have examined it carefully. I have measured and tested. There will be nervousness at first, of course. There was, Sorrel tells me, even a little apprehension with the ponies. But I shall go slowly, Cary, and the children will love it in the end—and benefit as well.”

  “It’s wonderful. You are wonderful, Jan.”

  “Children are wonderful,” he corrected. “For them we must think of wonderful things. I have already spoken to several people of my idea. The journalist was impressed, Sorrel was very keen, the good doctor—”

  “We must tell Richard as soon as he flies up,” said Cary eagerly.

  “This time he drove,” nodded Jan to the valley. “He went by in that car, Cary.”

  “Richard did—!” Cary stared at Jan.

  “Yes, I know his car. I drove with him in Sydney in it. He told me he was coming up quite soon by road.”

  Cary nodded this time, staring down at the little saucer of land, feeling excited and happy. Richard was here, and she had told Jan what she had promised she would. She could meet Richard as she had not been able to meet him before.

  The car was out of sight now. Only the stragglers among Maysie’s children were to be seen. Maysie herself was a long way ahead of her charges. Usually a slow walker, suddenly she had quickened her pace.

  Not caring how the little ones got back to the house, she slipped under the wire of the fence that separated Clairhill from Currabong, and raced up to the neighboring homestead.

  Richard had garaged the car, and was standing on the wide veranda talking to his housekeeper. He wheeled round as Maysie approached. “Is there anything wrong?” he asked.

  Maysie lowered her lids.

  “I’d like to talk to you if I could, Doctor Stormer.”

  The doctor gave her a quick look. Professionally alerted, he led the way into the house.

  “Sit down, Miss Heard.”

  Maysie squirmed with pleasure. It was gratifying to be treated as an adult like this. And just as well he was treating her so, too, she thought, for the things she had to tell him were by no means juvenile. She had seen that embrace on the hill. She was not going to let that pass. The thing was to go about it quietly. Not burst it out spitefully but talk about other things first. Drop a hint here, a suggestion there. You could do a lot like that. Look at the gossip she had started that night at Ten Mile at the dance.

  And it would serve Miss Porter right, the sneak. Mum had said she had found out about her french leave because of the mud on her shoes. But she, Maysie, was not as silly as all that. Cary Porter had put Mum wise.

  Richard only half listened to the girl. His heart was unaccountably heavy. All the week he had expected a letter from Cary telling him that she had made everything right with Jan.

  Things like that were difficult, he realized. They could not be burst out in a moment. They had to be introduced gently, for fear they inflict a hurt. But it seemed now they had never been uttered at all. How, otherwise, would she have been sitting with Luknit on the hill ... sitting close ... sitting like that? ...

  He remembered what had happened between himself and Cary in Sydney. He remembered that tentative thing that had seemed too new and fragile for examination. He remembered the delirious gladness it had brought.

  She had promised she would speak to Jan. Obviously she had not. There was only one conclusion to be drawn, and Richard drew it. For a quick moment he felt sick with disappointment, then just as rapidly came the old familiar disgust and anger.

  In the middle of it crept Maysie’s sly voice, dropping ugly innuendos, dripping subtle poison.

  Richard rose quickly.

  “Go home at once,” he said tightly. “You are a nasty, underhand little girl.”

  Maysie rose with alacrity. She would be glad to be out of the place. She had always been a little scared of Doctor Stormer.

  Besides, there was no need to talk any more now. The thing was done. She was no fool. She could tell for all his inattention that the doctor had heard her ... and she could tell that her seeds of spite and hate had not fallen on entirely barren ground.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  FOR THE REST of the day Cary kept watching for Richard’s familiar figure striding across the paddock that separated Currabong from Clairhill.

  When he did not come by dusk she went to the telephone and took up the receiver. There she hesitated. It was a party line, like all country connections, and whatever she said would be public property; still, it was not that fact that kept her silent. Perhaps even as early as this she knew an odd premonition that everything all at once had gone wrong.

  The rest of the household seemed very cheerful. The children were undergoing an angel period, Sorrel seemed particularly happy, Jan was full of his new project, Mrs. Heard was her usual busy self and even Maysie went around with a smile on her lips.

  That it was a mean little smirk did not matter. It was an upward turn to her mouth instead of a downward, and for such small mercies, thought Cary, one should be grateful.

  She went from room to room feeling curiously unsettled. Perhaps Jan had been wrong, and it had not been Richard’s car. Cars were so alike. None the less, she sat expectantly on the edge of her chair after dinner and was reluctant, when Jan and Sorrel got up yawning at eleven, to go at the same time to bed.

  She slept badly ... part of her still listened for the ring of the telephone, for a remembered footfall. She was wide awake when Maysie brought in the tea.

  The smirk was still on the girl’s face—how had she ever thought of it as a smile?

  “Jim’s poorly again,” she commented, pulling up the blind.

  Cary sat up.

  “What’s wrong with Jimmy?”

  “How should I know? I’m not the nurse—or the doctor.” Was there a slight emphasis on that last word?

  Cary decided to be diplomatic. “No, of course you wouldn’t know. How foolish of me! It was good of you to report it, though, Maysie. I must get medical advice at once.”

  Again the smile, more triumphant than mean this time. Maysie took the tray and went out.

  After the door had closed Cary sat back, forgetting the tea, and stared at the ceiling. She was not over-alarmed about the girl’s report on Jim’s health. Maysie was prone to exaggeration, and she knew if there had been anything grave to tell her, Sorrel would have been in long before this. All the same the curious communication between her own and little Jim’s well-being struck forcibly inwards. There was something intuitive between them. They loved each other, and love is never meaningless, Cary thought.

  She showered and dressed and ran along to the dormitories to help Sorrel.

  “I’m keeping Jim-Jam in bed,” said the nurse. “Nothing much wrong, but his temp is more than it should be.”

  Breakfast was as edgy a business for Cary as dinner and supper last night. If Richard had arrived, as Jan had asserted, he might have been too snowed down with Currabong affairs to slip across until
this morning. Cary felt her heart quicken with anticipation at every step.

  Richard did not come.

  During the morning she felt she could bear it no longer. She remarked as casually as she was able to Jan: “You were wrong, after all, about the doctor’s car.”

  He raised surprised brows. “No, Cary, it was Mr. Stormer. He left again last night.”

  “Left—!” She hoped her voice did not sound as hollow as she felt.

  Whether Jan suspected the emptiness in her or not, his reply was reassuring—too reassuring.

  “He is very busy in his city practice, of course.”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “No, but he would be; isn’t that so?”

  “Yes,” agreed Cary as anxious to be reassured as Jan seemed anxious to be reassuring, “he is busy.”

  All the same, her acceptance of Jan’s explanation was only surface deep. As she moved about her day’s tasks she knew the blankness and the emptiness again. Why had Richard come—and gone—like that? Why had she lost that a little flame had been extinguished?

  At noon Sorrel reported that Jim was no better.

  “I’ll call the Sunset doctor,” said Cary.

  Sorrel thought this would be a wise action, so they telephoned at once.

  Doctor Phillips came during the afternoon. He examined Jim, but could find nothing actually wrong with him. “A little rest might do the trick; he’s probably tired out. A sensitive youngster, I should say; touchy to atmospheres.”

  “Our atmosphere has been very smooth lately,” informed Sorrel; “we’re undergoing an angel period.”

  “Some kiddies go even deeper than that,” said Doctor Phillips. “Did you say tea?”

  “I didn’t,” smiled Sorrel, “but I couldn’t let you come all this way and not get it.”

  “Lead me to it—and as regards future offerings, and it appears now you will be making them. I take sugar but no milk.”