The Coral Tree

by Joyce Dingwell

  All except this fellow, she thought ruefully, this one that was, as Bennow had put it, “not a good ‘un”.

  Sorrel had come after her, and she, too, stood looking up through the leaves.

  “Mark wanted to cut it down.”

  “That would be a pity. It must be lovely when the flowers push through the window.”

  “It doesn’t flower,” said Cary slowly. She touched the tough trunk, and, standing there, suddenly she made a wish.

  The carpenters got to work on partitions, cupboards, shelves and such small but important details as lowering large old-fashioned door-handles to levels accessible to little hands.

  Sorrel’s sick-bay took shape—ample storage space, a cabinet an adult could only reach on tiptoe for drugs and medicines, a table big enough for manipulations, several day-beds.

  They decided on all white for the sick-bay. There would be sufficient color, said Cary, in the rest of the house not to make this too frighteningly austere.

  The boys’ dormitory was sunshine yellow, the girls’ a soft mauve. In the littlies’ room color ran riot. So did a mural of town-going, rainbow-trousered, pert little pigs.

  The kitchen was face-lifted; the space set aside for the remedial gymnasium sanded and outfitted; the seventy yards of material from Mallarkey’s sewn into curtains, bed-covers and runners for small chests of drawers.

  “I’d like a heated swimming-pool,” dreamed Cary, “and a covered walk to it from the house.”

  “One thing you wouldn’t walk on it,” chided Sorrel fondly. “These days you’re on wings, my dear. Swimming-pool, indeed! You haven’t even allotted yourself an office yet.”

  “Must I? Couldn’t I just put a chair beside the phone?”

  “You could not. As Doctor Richard pointed out, you’re a boss now, Cary Porter.”

  “He also reminded me that as receiving a fortnightly pay envelope I was in the same category as the employees.” Cary wished Sorrel had not brought up Stormer’s name. In the excitement of the past week she had successfully forgotten the specialist on whose reports, in a manner, she would be dependent for Clairhill’s steady flow of monetary resources.

  She dismissed the dismal thought now with the gay announcement to Sorrel of a plan not so ambitious as a swimming-pool. “The exterior of the house,” she explained.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s always been a discouraging sulphur yellow.”

  “It’s not now; it’s a discouraging laundry grey.”

  “And will be again in due time if we have it re-washed sulphur.” Sorrel said cautiously but with a dimple of anticipation in her cheek: “What color, Cary?”

  Cary said: “Rosy pink.”

  She brought out the paint chart, and the two girls went into a huddle over it. “With the slate-grey roof to add a soothing dove-like touch it will be just perfect. The children will love their pink house.”

  “I love it already,” admitted Sorrel.

  “But, unfortunately, not Carter,” sighed Cary. “Carter is typical Sunset-stuff, Sorrel. He only believes in exteriors of cream, stone and upon frivolous occasion a dull green. Even our yellow-and-mauve dorms offended him, and as for the room with the pigs ... when I stipulate a rosy paint he’ll take a fit.”

  “In which case you will need Sister Browning,” giggled Sorrel. “Come on, we’ll plead the cause of the pink house.”

  Carter was plainly put out, but he was also not proof against two pretty and determined young women. Grumblingly, he ordered the paint, and the next day Clairhill began to emerge from its yellow doldrums into a soft and charming rosiness that even the surprised painter had to admit looked good.

  Several evenings later Cary walked beyond the stables as far as the Currabong boundary in order to have a long view of the house. There was no denying she had chosen well. The pink walls in their green garden setting, the white windows with the rose-sprigged curtains made extra frilly and lavish because Mr. Mallarkey had been so generous with the material, delighted her so much she clapped her hands.

  “I have often met self-admiration,” said a voice behind her, “but this is the first time I’ve met self-applause.”

  The last clap echoed away. Cary s hands returned to her sides. Without moving she said perfunctorily: “Good evening Mr. Stormer.”

  Suavely, he commented: “You must be familiar with my voice, Miss Porter, not to turn to see who I am. None the less, I must admit it would seem more courteous.”

  She felt the color rising in her cheeks. Just as blandly she answered: “I recognized the pattern of the words, not the voice, and I’m sorry if you find me discourteous.”

  He ignored the apology, but seized on the first answer. “You’re not used to frankness, are you? You’ve led a life where everyone addresses you in flattering little phrases dressed up to go to parties.”

  Flattering phrases ... For a moment the inaccuracy of it made Cary clench her hands. There had never been any flattering phrases. Neither from Mother nor from Mrs. Marlow. There had been complaints, criticism, carping, harshness, intolerance, even unkindness. There had been words spoken expressly to hurt.

  The pride she had felt in the house fell down like a pack of cards. She forced herself to say politely: “You flew up, Doctor?”

  He nodded to the field behind her, and this time she did turn to look.

  It was a neat craft, as Sorrel had said, but it wobbled up and down, for all at once, and absurdly, there were tears in her eyes.

  Perhaps, though he could not see those tears, Stormer sensed them, for presently he said, gruffly as though it came unwillingly: “I must add my applause to yours, Miss Porter. Clairhill has emerged from its ordeal better than I thought.”

  It was poor praise, but she accepted it eagerly. “You like the color?”

  He considered, then conceded: “It looks all right from this distance. How about the interior?”

  “You must discover that for yourself.”

  “I certainly will.” The ends of his mouth had gone down again; his moment of softening, if it had been softening, was over.

  “Will you come, now?”

  For answer he stepped over the fence and together they approached the house. He did not comment over the mown lawns and weeded gardens. To bridge the rather awkward silence she found herself babbling about the coral tree that she would not permit Bennow to cut down.

  “Why did he want to cut it?” Stormer asked.

  “It doesn’t flower.”

  “I see. And you, Miss Porter, have belief that one day it will blossom?”

  She felt suddenly embarrassed and would have changed the subject, only there was about him now an odd persistence that seemed to demand a reply.

  “Yes,” she said lamely, “I have belief.” She could not tell him further. She could not tell him that with that blossoming—she knew it—would bloom a house.

  They went through each room. He neither praised nor condemned. Sorrel, hearing them, came out of the sick-bay and conducted the doctor over her realm. Remembering how he had closed the door on her before, Cary took the opportunity to escape.

  She did not see him after that. Sorrel came in later full of enthusiasm over the doctor’s reaction to the new Clairhill. “He’s pleased, Cary.”

  “Did he say so?”

  “No, but you could tell it.”

  “All I could recognize was the usual overall disapproval.”

  “Darling, you’re touchy, and I don’t wonder. You’ve done a mighty job and now you’ve gone phut.”

  “I am a bit depleted,” admitted Cary, sinking down on the softest chair she could find. She added, yawning: “I wonder what comes next.”

  Who comes next would have been a better choice.

  The following morning Cary was busy on some reports for Mr. Farrell when Sorrel ran in, her face wreathed with smiles. “Come on, darling; it’s operation cheesecake. Wait a minute while I tidy that hair.”

  “Sorrel, what is this?”

  Sorrel would n
ot pause to explain. “There, that’s better. Out in front of the porch with you, Cary, and later on he wants one of you by the stables.”

  “Sorrel—”

  It was no use, she was being literally pushed into the brilliant sunlight. A camera clicked and a pleasant young man said: “Thanks, Miss Porter; another shot with a bigger smile?”

  “Sorrel, if this is the press—”

  “It is, but only the local District Times, Cary. That’s the worst of setting’ one’s undertaking in the remote outback. It only gets published in a little pond.”

  Again the camera clicked. Under protest Cary posed by the stables, one hand on Toby’s head. The photographer clicked his tongue as he clicked the catch of the camera. It looked a good shot.

  “I don’t know why you’re so down on publicity,” Sorrel remarked as the pleasant young man drove off".

  Cary shrugged. One thing, she thought, Richard Stormer in mind, Sydney’s papers and little Sunset’s would have entirely different ideas on news values.

  But she was wrong. The last shot, as the young man had hoped, was one of those occasional studies about which photographers dream. It had appeal, it had sympathy, it caught Cary’s sweet wistfulness in such winning reproduction that the local Times sold it at once to a city syndicate, and two nights later it appeared on every front page.

  Cary stared at it, a day later again, feeling both alarmed and aghast. Sorrel looked at it in triumph and satisfaction.

  “Now we’ll be inundated with letters,” she said.

  They were. Most were from parents of afflicted children anxious to have their own particular little sufferer a future guest at Clairhill. Some were from readers praising the project. Many enclosed a little sum to help in any way it could.

  There was one letter that Cary put aside immediately. Without opening it, she knew whom it was from. There was something so unmistakably Richard Stormer in that strong, decisive hand.

  Later, she ripped across the envelope and took out the single sheet. There were only three words, then his initials, but she knew they referred to her “splash” in the city press. He had taunted her about this, she remembered, made it one of her reasons for taking on Clairhill, but how could a man concern himself so much as to go out of his way to write, stamp and despatch such a thing?

  “Congratulations, Miss Porter,” it said. Then there were the letters, “R.S.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CARY CRIED over some of the pages from the parents. Her loving heart went out to the anxious writers. She would, if she could, have gathered all their children to her at Clairhill.

  “Here is Lesson One,” said Sorrel sternly; “don’t make all children one child, and that one child your child. You can never help by being sentimental.”

  “Neither can you help by being hard.”

  “Darling, be reasonable. Doctor Stormer is selecting your guests. It’s no use you mooning over these letters. Your patients will be medically sifted, some rejected, some accepted. Then, and then only, can you step in.”

  “It’s my project,” said Cary stubbornly. Then she added bitterly: “At least, it was.”

  Sorrel ignored that last, and said: “It’s only your project for so long as there’s money to run it, and that depends on a practical routine.”

  “It appears to me it depends more on Richard Stormer.” Cary’s voice was resentful.

  “If Mr. Farrell has decided to accept the doctor’s word and the doctor has taken it upon himself to choose your children there’s nothing you can do about it,” returned the nurse. “Frankly, I think it’s good of Richard to concern himself so much. You can depend on it, Cary, every one of our twelve will only be admitted after a lot of serious thought.”

  “That’s what I don’t want. I just want to gather them to me in love.”

  “I know, and be overrun within a week.” Sorrel glanced down at the letters. “I’m just as sad about these as you, darling—don’t think otherwise—but where would you be if you opened your arms to every one of these small unfortunates?”

  “Is there anything so wrong in that?”

  “Yes, very wrong. You’ve received forty-five letters, and so far we have accommodation for only twelve kiddies.”

  “We could fit in more.”

  “We won’t.” Sorrel’s voice was now the disciplined voice of an experienced nurse. “We’re doing this thing correctly, Cary, medically correctly, and there’ll be no ‘fitting in’.”

  “There is one, though, I must have, Solly,” conceded Cary reluctantly. She leafed eagerly through the letters. “Jimmy Leslie,” she read.

  “Let me see,” said Sorrel briskly, and she took the letter that had come from a Mr. Ansley and scanned it quickly.

  “... Hmm ... Hemiplegia ...” she murmured thoughtfully. Then— “No, I don’t think so, darling.”

  “Why?”

  “Doctor Stormer could explain it better than I. Sufficient for me to tell you that any treatment we could ever afford little Jimmy would be definitely non-progressive.”

  “I suppose you’re right. But”—with an obstinate thrust of her chin—“I want Jim Leslie.”

  “... Jimmy is seven,” had written Mr. Ansley, “and was affected in his fourth year following an attack of encephalitis. One arm is paralysed, the opposite leg, and, partially, his face. But his eyes are merry, and very blue. He has freckles, a dimple in his chin and his hair is soft mouse.

  “He is not ours, really. He was left behind by a couple we had working on the farm. They have never returned, so have forfeited any right to him, and he now belongs to the State. We don’t intend to be here long, as we are returning to England. We won’t be taking Jim because we have our own two Sons ...” The letter went hopefully on.

  “His eyes are merry.”

  Cary read that over and over. It did not matter that one arm was paralysed, the opposite leg, and, partially, his face, his eyes were merry. Cary’s own eyes, she knew, were wet.

  “I want Jim,” her heart said over and over again.

  Shortly after this she received a long-distance call from Sydney. It was Richard Stormer. He requested her to be ready to fly east the next morning.

  “I doubt if I can make an air reservation at so short a notice.”

  “You will not need a booking, you will be coming with me.”

  “With you?”

  “Why that note in your voice? Are you afraid?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I shall not challenge that spirited reply, Miss Porter. I remember now how you were always the brave, courageous type; how the English ladies loved to broadcast it.”

  Cary let that pass. Politely, she asked: “Why do you require me in Sydney, Mr. Stormer?”

  “To check over your first intake. I presume”—his voice was clipped—“that you do intend making a start?”

  “Certainly I intend it, I simply questioned the necessity of my travelling down. Couldn’t the list be fixed up here?”

  Irritably he answered: “It could not. I have interviewed a tentative number of children. You are to make a selection from them.”

  “That,” said Cary a little too evenly, “was very good of you.”

  “Not at all; it was merely necessary. Without supervision you would have overloaded the place with the wrong type.”

  “Can afflicted children be a wrong type?” she asked very coldly.

  “You know I did not mean that. You know I meant a type not suited to progress under the particular remedial equipment you will happen to possess.”

  “But I thought you did not want progress.”

  “Again you misquote me, Miss Poster. When I spoke before on progress I contrasted it with miracles, which you seemed to hanker after. Miracles don’t happen—not with a project like yours. You can benefit, but never cure.”

  There was a silence.

  Cary said stiffly: “There’s no need for you to fly up to fetch me.”

  Sarcastically, he returned: “What gives you
such a flattering idea? I shall be flying up anyway to give an eye to Currabong.”

  “Not to Clairhill, as previously warned?”

  “I can give that,” he answered smoothly, “at the same time. I will arrive at five in the morning. We shall leave at six. I shall return you in the afternoon.”

  “It seems a very full program for the pilot. Perhaps I could return by train.”

  “I have to return, Miss Porter, whether you wish it or not, so in view of the fare money which I am sure Mr. Farrell, as treasurer for Clairhill, would prefer you to save—” His voice trailed significantly off. He waited.

  “Very well,” said Cary unwillingly.

  “Six?” he persisted.

  “Six,” she said.

  It was barely daylight when Cary opened her eyes. Since Mrs. Heard had taken over she had enjoyed the luxury of an early cup of tea, but this morning she did not wait for the friendly clatter of cup and saucer, but jumped straight out of bed. One thing she was determined on, she would not give Richard Stormer another opening, by being late, for his particular brand of sarcasm.

  She dressed carefully and neatly in a pink linen suit, but, as was her custom, left her fair head bare. As she ran a comb through the short curls she heard his plane putting down on the Currabong strip. She glanced at her bedroom clock. He was on time, of course.

  She went softly out and brewed a quick cup of coffee, drinking it and eating one of Mrs. Heard’s cookies as she still kept her eye on a clock.

  At five to six she left the house and walked past the stables down to the boundary fence. He was waiting there to hold up the wire so that she could pass through with more ease. “We must have a stile built,” he suggested, “or a gate.”

  “Is it necessary,” she asked, “when one receives such service as this?”

  “One might not always receive it. I just happened to be coming across to hurry you up.”