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
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
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