The Coral Tree (9 page)

CHAPTER TEN

CARY WAS pleased when Mr. O
’
Flynn arrived in the morning instead of the afternoon. Now that she had compiled her list for Mr. Farrell she was anxious to be off, and by leaving before lunch she could catch the earlier city train and be in Sydney tonight.

They arrived in Sunset in time for a pot of tea at the Grande and a tasty lunch to be packed by Cook for Cary to eat in the train.

Once again the women lined up and waved Cary goodbye. She stepped out at Central seven hours later, and spent the night at a quiet hotel.

After breakfast she sat in the lounge reading the papers until she judged it time for Mr. Farrell
’
s office to be opened for business. She rang him from the lobby bureau, and he was warm in his invitation that she come round at once. She did so, still feeling the inner excitement and stimulation, or, as she related later to Sorrel, that welcome sensation of “getting somewhere at last.”

Before she could start on any details, Mr. Farrell handed her a letter. The postmark was Mungen and the address was Clairhill. She looked at the solicitor in surprise, and he explained that for some time all Clairhill mail had been delivered here. “I must now give other instructions,” he added, “as that will be, Miss Porter?” She looked at the letter. “I think I can answer you after I read this. Do you mind?”

He smiled: “Of course not. Go right ahead.”

The close-filled pages were from both Jan and Else Bokker. The letter was the long informative one that Else had promised. In their practical fashion the two women had enclosed a list of essential equipment. Cary was pleased over that. It was just what she needed. It was what, and a slight pink crept under her cheeks, she had started to write for last night.

She saw at once that her own list was almost identical, and remarked upon this to Mr. Farrell.

“May I see it, Miss Porter?”

She handed it to him a little nervously. Jan and Else had written that every item of it was necessary; she felt it was necessary herself, but would it sound too much?

But Mr. Farrell was agreeable and helpful—much more so than Cary had dared hope. He nodded favorably over every unit that she had written down, and actually suggested extras he would consider essential.

Eventually they exhausted the long list of furnishings and equipment, both practical and medical, and he put down the pages. “You
’
re sure you
’
re not stinting yourself, Miss Porter?”

“Not for a start, Mr.
Farrell, but of course when I get going with my plans—”

“Just what are your plans?”

She told him as briefly as she could. She related the story of the lodge in Mungen and how polio, muscular and arthritic conditions in the young there were being fairly favorably and sometimes even successfully treated in a special after-care slanted particularly on the outdoors.

“And particularly again, I have been given to understand,” said Mr. Farrell, “on the exercise involved in horse-riding.”

“Yes,” said Cary.

“You ride yourself?”

“
...
Yes.” She hoped he did not notice her brief hesitation. Before yesterday, she thought ruefully, my answer would have been strong and confident, but that man
’
s derision was as certain a deflation to my ego as a pin to a balloon.

He did not notice it. He asked her for particulars. She related the gentle but insidious exercise on important muscles needed in the sitting, and later the management, of a pony.

“Of course,” she said humbly, “although that
’
s what I eventually want to come to, there will be earlier preparation for it in the new gym after it is fitted and equipped. Remedial bars, pedal bicycles, all the tested aids to form a prelude to the riding
.
”

Again Mr. Farrell nodded.

“Your patients will be entirely children, Miss Porter?”

“Mrs. Bokker called them guests,” smiled Cary.

“How many did you estimate?”

“Twelve for a start.”

“Both sexes?”

“Yes, but not necessarily the same disabilities.”

Now came the question that Cary had anticipated.

“
How
disabled?
”
asked Mr. Farrell.

She sat still a moment, trying to choose the right words.

“That is my problem,” she admitted. “If they were
very
disabled
—
I really mean under immediate medical care, I should think permission to take them, from the medical authorities, might be difficult to obtain. However, with a lesser chronic disability which if it did not get any better could not worsen, I do believe I should secure sanction without any trouble.”

“So that
’
s what you propose to do, restrict your intake to such lesser afflicted children?
”

Again Cary hesitated.

“It
’
s what I propose to do
now
,”
she admitted honestly, “but it
’
s not what I
want
.”

She drew a deep breath. Then she turned her grey eyes on him. They were big and shining, he noticed, they were lit—just as Jan Bokker
’
s eyes had been lit, had Cary known it—with steadfast resolution. “I want to take a badly-afflicted child, Mr. Farrell,” she said, “and I want to bring him back to health.”

“You are asking a lot.”

“Mrs. Bokker did it.”

“She asked a lot, too.”

“But she did it,” persisted Cary.

Mr. Farrell said gently but stubbornly: “It
’
s still asking a lot.”

“I know, but it has to be like that. Can
’
t you understand that, Mr. Farrell? Mrs. Marlow expected it.”

Mr. Farrell rearranged some papers on his desk. “She did not expect miracles,” he said presently. “No one does.” There was a significance in his words and Cary could not help but comprehend.

“I know what you
’
re trying to tell me,” she smiled back, “and I appreciate it. You
’
re wanting me to know that so far as you
’
re concerned a satisfactory house satisfactorily run would satisfy you and consequently Mr. Beynon and so assure my allowance. But it
’
s more than that to me, Mr. Farrell, it
’
s a matter of a satisfied heart
—my
satisfied heart. It
’
s that—and a house that will blossom.
”

Mr. Farrell said quietly: “I understand you perfectly, Miss Porter.” He paused, then added: “And I wish you well, my dear.” Cary repeated that, like Mrs. Bokker, she would accept children with varying disabilities. “She has told me it makes for greater cheerfulness and understanding in the child. They begin to take an interest in each other.”

“And how do you propose to gather these little ones?”

“From medical sources, probably. Hospitals and clinics who have finished their job on them will pass them over to us. Nurse Browning tells me”—and Cary
’
s voice was saddened—“that the finding will be only too easy. The refusing because of the numbers afflicted will be the hard part.” She asked Mr. Farrell if it had been all right for her to promise Sorrel a post.

“Quite all right. How many staff do you estimate?”

“I thought we could manage with Mrs. Heard, who was Mrs. Marlow
’
s old domestic, a local girl, Sister Browning, Matt Wilson, perhaps a gardener, probably Joe Heard, and myself.”

“And you, I presume, intend concentrating on the equestrian part of the therapy?”

“If I can, if I
’
m capable,” said Cary with humility once more.

T
he solicitor was looking at her sympathetically. “I gather you have some sort of idea as to what such a project as this entails?”

Cary nodded.

“Yes, it entails medical approval and supervision. It also means that I shall have to
‘
beggar my cause
’
. It
’
s something that has never been tried out here before. It will be difficult, I anticipate that. Mrs. Bokker met difficulty when she started off. However, I feel that if there is any beggaring—or even fighting—to be done, I can do it. I only hope that this Mr. Sto
r
mer—”

“Stormer— Ah, I remember now, our good specialist in child after-care, the man to whom you will have to answer for your good reports.”

Cary said: “Yes.” She added, after a pause: “Nurse Browning has met him. She warns me he is hard and thorough.” She made a little mouth.

Mr. Farrell nodded sympathetically again. “What would you say if I rang for an appointment at once?” he proposed. “Now, while this letter has you keyed up, eager and ready to begin?”

“I would say that that was a good move,” smiled Cary. “I do feel really keyed up, as you say, and that
’
s the time when one should take a forward step.”

Mr. Farrell was leafing through the telephone directory. Cary sat quietly staring through the window at the Sydney skyline. Six weeks ago, she thought, I was sitting looking at a London skyline and telling Mr. Beynon my decision. Now I am waiting for Mr. Farrell to arrange for this Mr. Stormer to give his decision. I only hope he will be reasonable, as Mr. Farrell has been reasonable. I don
’
t ask sympathy, even encouragement, I only ask to be able to begin.

The solicitor was speaking on the phone by this time. Cary wished she had mentioned to him the close proximity now of a doctor to Clairhill. It was quite possible that Mr. Stormer might have appreciated that fact without making any move to contact his medical brother who had inherited her neighboring estate.

She wondered, though without much interest, where the doctor had practised before he had inherited Currabong—then, as the solicitor finished speaking and put down the phone, she forgot the subject and looked eagerly to him across the desk.

“You
’
re fortunate, Miss Porter. Not only has Stormer been abroad and only recently returned, but he has been absent from Sydney and has just flown in. I gave him a general outline, but no particulars as to locality and so on. If you care to go round, he
’
ll see you at once.”

She shook Mr. Farrell
’
s hand, accepted Mr. Stormer
’
s name and address on a small white card, then went out of the office and down the stairs.

Her step was light but purposeful as she hurried up King into Macquarie Street. She looked down the long, broad, treelined way with the medical buildings on one side, the green of the Gardens on the other, with the blue Harbor at its foot. She started down, scrutinizing each number as she went.

The rooms were no
t
rouble to find. They were well situated in a well-appointed building. The lift was smooth-running and the attendant courteous. Yes, this was the floor for Mr. Richard Stormer.

She turned to the left as directed and stood a moment reading the name on the door; and after it the degrees and letters. She knocked and waited. Almost at once the door opened, and as he was awaiting her there was no receptionist or nurse.

For a moment she stood disbelieving, for a longer moment she stood aghast.

“No—!” she breathed at last.

He responded evenly, although she could see that he, too, was completely surprised: “I might say the same.
You
are the person Mr. Farrell rang about?”

“Yes.”

He had stepped back to consult a memo pad by the telephone. “You are—Miss Porter?”

“Cary Porter.”

For another moment they both stood silent, regarding each other across the room, then
C
ary said, rather to break the awkward pause: “And you are Mr. Stormer. But how—why?”

He did not speak. Instead he returned to and held back the door and bowed her in, indicating a chair, then he took a chair himself.

“So,” he said thoughtfully but unrevealingly at length—the same, she remembered, as he had said it by t
h
e creek where the Currabong land joined Clairhill.

It was typical of him, she fumed, not to bother to reply to her stammered query. It was typical of the man to regard her with that cool detachment that seemed to exclude everything from him, then deliberately to take his time in lighting a cigarette—still leaving any answer unsaid.