The Coral Tree by Joyce Dingwell Read Free Book Online Page B

have their monetary cares, so why not Clairhill?” She thought a moment, then looked at the solicitor. “Is he a reasonable man, though?” she asked. “I mean, it will take some time for me to get established. I can ’ t get everything achieved at once.”
    “You will find him very reasonable,” assured Mr. Beynon, “have no fear of that. Naturally Farrell in his turn will depend on medical reports from someone qualified for the task, but doctors are not ogres, my dear.”
    “No,” murmured Cary, remembering one who was.
    She visited the Beynons one night for dinner. “I have been in touch with Farrell,” said Mr. Beynon. “He is looking forward to seeing you. Your medical yea or nay, he informs me, will depend on one of their child after-care specialists, name of Stormer, Richard Stormer.”
    Cary said politely: “Oh, yes.”
    On receiving a card from the Whitneys she met them at Victoria Station and later visited them in Kent. But all the while she was aware of a rising impatience. She was sick of marking time; she wanted to be off.
    And then at last she was off, England crying so bitterly for her departing sons and daughters that it was almost impossible to see Mrs. Beynon in the red sweater and ruby earrings fluttering a handkerchief from the wharf.
    It was unruly weather until they reached Madeira, and Cary ’ s fellow passenger, a girl, she judged, perhaps a few years older than herself, never raised her head from the pillow.
    As most of the passengers were also under the weather and the stewardesses almost run off their feet Cary took over the care of this patient.
    It was not until they had left the picturesque island behind them, most of the passengers unable to sight-see and the time available for the more stalwart souls so brief that any impressions were rather vague and ephemeral, that Sorrel Browning could be persuaded to sit up.
    “Have I missed much?”
    Cary gave the girl a quick travelogue of the bullock-carts on the steep, narrow island streets, the sledges pulled by oxen bearing the famous wine, the rich variety of trees.
    “I wish you could have come,” she concluded.
    The girl in the bed regarded her with affection.
    “I do believe you mean that. You ’ ve been an angel to me. Incidentally”—curiously—“are you a nurse?”
    “What makes you ask that?”
    “You have all the earmarks—and that comes from a nurse.”
    “You ’ re one yourself?”
    Sorrel Browning nodded. “I qualified in Australia, did a year in London, and then a year with an English family in Alexandria. Now I have itchy feet, but a yen for home, so I ’ m going to look around my own backyard. Odd, isn ’ t it, how one neglects one ’ s own country? I never realized how much u ntil I was asked questions in England that I couldn ’ t answer. Do you know, apart from overseas, I ’ ve never been out of my capital city? I ’ ve never been north, south, or west.”
    She stopped and smiled. It was a wide, friendly smile; Cary liked the dimple it brought and the sparkle to the dark brown eyes that matched exactly the dark-brown curly hair. “Now,” she said, “it ’ s your turn . ”
    Cary told her story in the same breezy way that the nurse had told hers. When it came to her hopes for Clairhill, Sorrel became very interested.
    “It should be splendid,” she enthused. “It ’ s never been done before. Of course there are after-care establishments, but not after-care slanted especially and with emphasis on the outdoors.”
    “What should be my chances of approval from the medical authorities?” asked Cary, mentioning the doctor ’ s name that Mr. Farrell had given. “Do you think such a scheme would be welcomed?”
    “It should be, though I know that Richard Stormer is a very demanding gentleman. I have worked under him, and he is thorough, to say the least.”
    “You make him sound a bogey.”
    Sorrel looked contemplative. “No, he ’ s certainly not that, but I would say he was a