Cary was laughing back now, but it was hysterical laughter. She could not understand this man. She never had. How much did he mean? How far was he baiting her?
As though to reply, he took a step towards where she stood. Afraid all at once, she retreated. She went and stood by the window and looked out.
Jimmy was walking down the avenue. There was something different about him. She looked again, aware of a great surging excitement. His back was straighter. He walked awkwardly, but unaided. His little crumpled face was almost though not absolutely straight. Her gasp brought Richard to her side.
“Jim—” she said.
He stared with her.
“His condition was always emotionally controlled and founded, not physically,” he marvelled. “Once in a great many years a miracle like this can happen. Can you explain it, Cary?”
She told him tremblingly of Mr. Ansley’s letter.
“I wanted Jim, I’ve always wanted him. But the answer had to be no, of course.”
“On your lips, but not in your heart. Hearts know first, Cary, and because Jim’s heart is attuned to yours, he, too, knew in advance. He knew he belonged. To you. To us.”
“You mean to us at Clairhill?”
“To us wherever we go—Currabong, Clairhill, the two of them together, as I know you always dreamed of; but I don’t think it will ever be far from Sunset, my girl. The house has blossomed, Cary. One does not leave a place of flowers.
“I have another thing to tell you—no, show you. As well as the remembering heart, Clairhill was my defeat. When I came into this room just now I went and stood at the window. There I saw it—and I knew you had done it. You alone, because you are a flower yourself, Cary. You pinned your sweetness on the barren old tree.” Suddenly she was shivering with excitement. Leaning out, she looked to where his hand pointed.
It was only a small bud yet—a blunt, soft, pink thing, but it was robust and it would grow bigger, and when the other trees had finished blooming, it would be warm and glowing and red.
“The coral,” she called gladly. “My coral tree is blooming.”
“The home years have started,” he whispered, “the harvest has come back.”
His lips were on hers, gently seeking. Love and tenderness were there, protection, passion; all so intertwined that they were inseparable as once he and Gerard had been.
She put her arms up to him trembling with a rush of feeling so poignant that no words could express it.
They stood there together—and in the sweet silence they heard the small noises.
Somewhere a door closing ...
Somewhere a final footfall ...
They looked at each other, and knew the answer.
The ghosts had left the house.
The Coral Tree Page 20