Free Island Hospital by Elizabeth Houghton Page B

heady perfume of the little English violets, went through the front door into the cool shadows of a house where the furniture had the soft lustre that only loving care and polish could give it. She sat down in an armchair whose chintz must have been woven on an English loom, but the view before her could only be Canadian.
    In the distance the islands merged in the backdrop of the Coast Range, while on her right Stanley Park rose high and green, its giant firs and cedars linking a modern city with a past so ancient that its records were only written in the rings of their vast trunks, and below her small boats tugged at their moorings, and children played on the sands or ran laughing into the wave that lapped the shining shore.
    Sheila accepted the cup of tea put into her hand and ate the thin slices of buttered bread, and only she knew that she was remembering the thick slices, the savory hamburgers, the mugs of tea that could almost hold a spoon upright in its thick sweetness.
    She answered her cousins’ questions politely, and it was some time before she realized that the vague period of years they kept referring to meant that it was 40 years since they last trod on English soil. She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice.
    “I suppose you’ll be making a visit soon? Mother did say something about it the last time I was home.”
    The two elderly women looked at one another uneasily and then at Sheila. “It’s all rather difficult, you know, with the exchange rate and so on. And of course, there is the garden ... it needs such constant care, and the gardeners are such a price and so unreliable. Why, when Mrs. Palmer—our neighbor and such a nice woman—went away last summer just for a month, she came back to find the lawns were burned to a crisp and some of her best plants dead ... the wretched gardener had done the weeding, but had never put a drop of water on the garden.”
    Sheila knew then, and was sure that in their secret hearts they knew it too, that these two women would never see the green shores of England again. They had been away too long. They might be aliens too gentle and too different to be absorbed into the broad background of Canada, so they kept green their precious garden as a reminding link with their homeland, but even England might have changed too much by now unless they found a niche in an English village too remote to be in touch with time.
    They kept shaking their heads at Sheila’s answers to their questions. “You mean they’ve built a housing estate on the Manor’s grounds and the general public have the run of the gardens at half a crown a time? ... it’s unbelievable!”
    Sheila tried to explain. “It’s the heavy taxation and all the death duties. The Welfare State costs a lot of money ... and of course the National Health Service with all the new hospitals they are planning and the modernization of the older ones just eats up money. And, of course, the roads ... and the housing schemes ... ”
    Sheila fell silent. She couldn’t bear to watch their faces as they saw the England of their memories and their dreams dying beneath the touch of her words.
    The two women stirred at last. “What would you like to do now, dear? We can't offer to show you anything at the moment, as there’s dinner to see to. One can’t get resident help nowadays ... not since the war, with high wages and all, and nothing to show for the money paid.”
    Sheila stood up. “I’d like to walk toward Stanley Park.” She felt she must get into the air, a freer air, not heavy with crumbling dreams. “Is it far?”
    Her cousins looked at one another. It was Annie, the younger one, that spoke.
    “If you follow the curve of the Bay you can’t miss it. She should be all right, Edith. It will be daylight for a long time yet.” She looked for approval from her elder.
    Sheila stared at them in surprise. “But it’s just a park like Kew Gardens.”
    Annie showed a glimmer of a smile. “And like Kew