The Coral Tree (7 page)

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
cr
ossed 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. Ma
r
low
’
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 warned 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?

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 a
l
l 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
h
ave 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, an
d
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
Clai
rhill 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 Bo
k
ker 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
h
erself, 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 s
h
ut 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 w
h
at 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 far 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 h
e
r 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 an
d
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.