The Coral Tree (22 page)

So it was true
...
Doctor Phillips had not been mistaken
...
Then it came to Cary that the solicitor had said that they had lost Richard
’
s services, not that they were going to lose them. Did this mean, could it mean—?

“Mr. Farrell,” she said unevenly, grateful for the distance between them that must make her emotion seem only some fault of the wires, “when does Mr. Stormer go?”

“My dear Miss Porter,” replied Mr. Farrell cheerfully, “he has gone.”

No letter came. No explanation. Drearily Cary accepted the fact at last that Richard had intended it so.

She supposed that she should be thankful at least that Richard had not let his disregard of her stand in Clairhill
’
s light. Doctor Phillips was well disposed to their home. At least their monetary future was assured, and that, after all, was the thing that mattered most, not one
’
s peace of heart. It was the children who mattered, and they depended on Clairhill, and Clairhill depended on Mrs. Marlow
’
s legacy, and that depended no longer on Doctor Stormer, but on an older, kindlier man.

We should be grateful, Cary repeated again and again to herself. Richard Stormer would never have hesitated to interfere if he had not seen eye to eye with us. Doctor Phillips will always be satisfied with our course.

None the less her heart cried out often in unhappiness and bewilderment. Why had Richard gone away like that?

She knew she had been over-long in doing what he had asked her, in breaking off her association with Jan, but he must have known that such things take time if they are not to wound a heart.

The only conclusion she could reach was that the old poison had done its damage to Richard again, the poison of remembering. Julia, she thought, Julia doing what she did to Gerard and making Gerard
’
s twin unable ever to forget.

Eventually she forced herself to face the fact that if Richard
’
s love for her could not overwhelm this memory, he had no love at all.

Her own love for him she could not dismiss so easily. Even in the knowledge that it was not returned, it was still an aching thing.

Jan had set out the track for his grass ski-ing. They went up one day and watched him stem down the slope. He persuaded Sorrel and Cary to try, and after a few descents they were quite expert.

“A Christy stop?” inquired Cary, laughing, and Jan laughed back.

“Not much harm can come to you here,” he informed. “Oh, yes, I know that snow is softer than earth, but the incline is much gentler; there could never be such momentum, such speed. Tell me, please, do you feel any pull on your muscles?”

“I do,” panted Sorrel, “but probably I
’
m out of condition. The only exercise I ever take is checking running temperatures.” She smiled teasingly. “And I stand still to do that.”

“You joke at me,” protested Jan. “You, Cary, you feel new sinews?”

“I believe I do,” said Cary. “Should I?”

“That is the exercise,” beamed Jan. “Little limbs are pulled and strengthened. One day, pouf, a muscle does not cramp back; it is stretched and strong. You see?”

“I believe I do,” marvelled Cary. She looked up at the hill speculatively. “Isn
’
t it too steep? Won
’
t it frighten them?”

“They will go only half that distance—the gentle lower half.”

“The ones with crutches?”

“No crutches will be needed. Balance in movement will hold them. I shall be waiting at the bottom, and I shall not fail them. One, two, go and they will stem down like birds. The knowledge that they have moved without their aids will give them pride and confidence, and pride and confidence are very good things. Even the little ones who cannot stand unaided will be able to descend in time.”

Right from the first, unlike the ponies, the grass sk
i
-ing was a grand success. There was a vast difference, it seemed, in trying something on your own feet to trying something on somebody else
’
s four. Nervous but eager, one by one, they grabbed the stocks in the way Uncle Jan had shown them and descended slowly into his arms.

A week went past, a fortnight, the fortnight grew into a month.—Had Richard been gone four weeks? asked Cary. For all her activity and her growing sense of achievement, often it seemed as many years. How long, then, would be one year, two, a lifetime if Richard came “to feel that way about the place?”

She never inquired about him now, not even from Mr. Farrell. She had found, to her vast relief, that one could summon up pride even in love.

Reward and fulfilment, almost sufficient to blot out the pain, came when Sorrel, measuring and manipulating one day, made the triumphant announcement that Robert
’
s leg had grown a quarter inch. “Not grown, of course, but stretched, as Jan said it would. And our Marilyn; Cary, just watch her. Is that back straighter or are my eyes amiss?”

“Your eyes are perfect, Sorrel,” said Cary happily. Suddenly she felt her own eyes prick. Richard should have been here to witness this small thing that to them had all the properties of a miracle. But Richard
was not.

One by one they examined and reported on the children. With only one exception they showed marked improvement. The exception was Jim.

“He
’
s at a standstill; but, then, it
’
s only to be expected. I told you from the beginning, Cary, his particular trouble has no future at all.”

“He improved at one time.”

Sorrel agreed. “Vagaries do happen in medicine, especially with a complaint with a nervous origin like Jim
’
s. That improvement was a vagary. Let
’
s pray it comes again.”

But it would not come again, thought Cary. Jim had improved because, through her, he had been completely happy. He could only grow strong when he was happy. Since in some way she and Jim seemed to communicate with each other, Jim was not happy now, so his state of health stood still.

For the little boy
’
s sake she tried desperately to put aside her secret feelings, but the sense between them was too unerring, too strong. Jim was at a standstill—no worse, perhaps, but never better. With a sigh, Cary turned to William and Frederick and Marilyn and Janet, less sensitively drawn, but the more fortunate, she thought, for that.

Returning across the paddock from Pudding Basin one evening, she saw that a car was pulled up on the front driveway. For a moment her treacherous heart leapt eagerly. Any unfamiliar car could mean a visitor—perhaps a visitor not now so familiar because six weeks had passed since he was here. It could mean that—Doctor Stormer was back.

It was not Richard, of course. Mrs. Heard said: “A lady to see you, Miss Cary. I put her in the office. Mrs. Stanton
’
s her name.”

It meant nothing to Cary. She went along to meet her. There was something slightly familiar in the stance, however, the dark eyes, yet only fleetingly and a little uncertain.

Mrs. Stanton nodded as though reading her thoughts. “Yes, most people do find a small resemblance, but it is only that. The twins were identical, of course, but between them and their big sister there was only the usual family likeness. Tell me, Miss Porter, has Richard ever mentioned me? Told you of Annette?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CARY SAT down at the other
side of the desk. She answered calmly, so calmly that it surprised her. “Yes, Mrs. Stanton, he has. You come from Byways.”—Byways, she thought, the nearest homestead to Pan
’
s Meadow. For a moment her heart twisted in pain.

Resolutely she put the pain behind her. Ri
c
hard had decreed it this way. It was of his making. In time she would accept, if not forget.

“You have,” she smiled, “three children.” She recalled Richard speaking of two boys and a girl. What had he said of the little girl?—She remembered now. Remembered with deep sympathy. He had said that she had no prognosis; that she would never grow up.

Mrs. Stanton was watching Cary closely. Perhaps she saw the softer expression and knew the reason, for instantly she bent forward. “It
’
s because of Phyllida I have come.”

“But why, Mrs. Stanton?” Cary looked up at her in alarm. She felt that already she guessed the trend of her visit, and her heart sank. Surely Annette Stanton could not intend asking her to—? No, that would be too much.

But she had read the situation correctly. Without any preamble, Richard
’
s sister reached across the desk and took hold of Cary
’
s hand.

“Miss Porter—Cary, as I have come to think of you—will you have her here? Will you take Phyl?”

Cary did not disengage her hand, though she would have liked to. It might have given her the courage she lacked, the courage she knew she would never summon while her palm was still pressed by those soft, urgent fingers.

“Mrs. Stanton, you are overwrought.”

“I knew you would say that, but believe me I have never been calmer in my life. Would I be asking you to accept my baby if I had not thought all this out?”

“You mean—accept your daughter as a patient?”

“Yes.”

“You have looked after her all these years, why are you asking this now?”

“Because time is running out for Phyllida,” said Annette flatly. “Because I want her, even for a short while, to be a small girl.

“Oh, I know”—futility—“that she will be happy Up There. I am not a disbeliever, Miss Porter. But I want her to live the same as all small children live down here first. I don
’
t want her a small angel without being a small child.”

“She is a small child.”

“No, she is a little human in a small cot in a large house. Briefly, when the boys are home from school, she is Phyllida Stanton, but then and only then, and it is very fleeting. Normal children—children like Gregory and John—are too much for Phyl. But children like these little ones at Clairhill—”

Cary disengaged her hand resolutely. Immediately she felt braver. “You don
’
t know what you
’
re asking, Mrs. Stanton. Phyllida is, I believe—” she hesitated, then murmured, “incurable.”

“She is more than incurable,” said Annette without expression, “her life has always been counted in years. Now it is in days.”

Cary looked at her sympathetically. “You have been tol
d
this?”

“No, they never tell, but a mother knows.”

“You may be mistaken.”

“I am not mistaken. I know; I
know,
I tell you. Phyl is going, Miss Porter, and even though it means being away from her, seeing less of her, I want it to be a happy time for my little girl, and I know it could be if she were here.”

“You are asking the impossible.”

“You could make it possible.”

“Your brother would never countenance it.”

“Richard,” said Annette, “is away.”

“Did you ever speak of such a thing with him? Did you ever mention placing Phyllida at Clairhill?”

“Yes, and he forbade it very forcibly,” admitted Annette frankly. “He would have nothing to do with the idea.”

“And yet you ask me—”

“Miss Porter, Cary, I
’
m begging you. There are boys and girls here the same age as Phyllida. All of them are incapacitated. What I mean is, they know the same things, they are part of the same family. For a little time at least
Phyl could be the same as they.”

“What of the effect on these other children?” Cary added hurriedly, in case Annette misunderstood: “Not that it could be even considered, Mrs. Stanton.”

“There would be no effect, believe me. Children have blessedly brief memories. Death, too, is not the same to them.”

“We have no room.”

“You could make room. I
’
d even build a room myself. I have money. I could do that—if there was time.”

“No—no, it wouldn
’
t work. Richard—Mr. Stormer is away now, but that need not mean that he has severed his interest in Clairhill. Doctor Phillips might only be acting in his absence. If I went above Mr. Stormer
’
s head like this
,
it could lead to anything—even to the breaking up of a home. We depend for our wherewithal on our progress reports. No, Mrs. Stanton, I wouldn
’
t dare.”

“Can you dare to deprive a child of laughter? Miss Porter, I love my baby. Do you think it
’
s easy for me to ask you like this? If I leave Phyl with you now, quite possibly I might never see her again. Yet that
’
s what I want to do. That
’
s what I
’
m begging—for Phyllida
’
s sake.”

“If you leave Phyl
now
—” echoed Cary, startled. “You don
’
t mean—you can
’
t mean—”

Annette Stanton nodded. “I have her in the car.”

“Was that wise?”

“Even wisdom cannot keep her any longer. I
know,
I tell you. Mothers always know. She is going, Miss Porter. I don
’
t want it to happen in a big house with only her father and mother; I want the echo of children
’
s voices, perhaps the touch of their little hands.”

“I can
’
t.”

“Richard need never know.”

“Even then I would be doing a wrong thing.”

“In your heart, would you?”

Cary paused. In that moment she was beaten, because she knew that in her heart she would not be doing a wrong thing. A rash thing, perhaps, a disobedient thing, but could love and compassion ever be wrong?

“Who is with the child now?”

“My husband. Phyl
’
s Daddy.”

“He—he is in agreement, too?”

“He wants it,” said Annette simply. “We both want it like that.”

Cary got up and went to the window. At the end of the green flat rose Pudding Basin Hill. This afternoon they had stemmed down, clumsily perhaps but happily, her thirteen little souls.

But outside, unable ever to stem down even clumsily, unable to move, was one little soul who had been deprived even of the little agility they had been given. Could she turn her back on this? She knew she couldn
’
t. Wheeling round, she said: “I don
’
t know what Sister Browning will say—”

She put her hand on the bell.

When Sorrel came in Cary explained briefly that they were admitting another patient. Perhaps Sorrel sensed what was being left unsaid. She reminded warningly: “We are filled up, Miss Porter.”

Cary leaned back and avoided Sorrel
’
s glance.

“There is always room for one more.”

A cot was made up. Mrs. Stanton went out to the car, and in a short time her husband was carrying in the little girl. She was a beautiful child, but fragile as porcelain.

Cary saw Sorrel looking at her thoughtfully. They both went out as the parents said good-bye.

“I hope you know what you
’
re doing, Cary.”

“Could
you
do otherwise?”

Sorrel hesitated unwillingly. She bit her lip and frowned. “No, I don
’
t suppose so. Would Doctor Stormer know about this?”

“
No.”

“If he did, would he permit it?”