Just as Anstice was starting out next morning an urgent telephone
message came through, requesting his help at a suddenly imperative
operation at a country house some miles distant.
Although he had been in the district only a few months, Anstice was
already known to his professional brothers as a daring and skilful
surgeon; and one man--the one who now called upon his services--was in
the habit of wondering openly why so brilliant a man was content to bury
himself in the country instead of seeking fame and fortune in some one
of the big cities of the world.
There were those who could have given a very good guess at the reasons
which led Anstice to shun notoriety and welcome the obscurity of
Littlefield; but in the meantime Dr. Willows was left to wonder in vain;
though his wonder was leavened with a genuine admiration for his
colleague's skill, and a fervent gratitude for the other man's
unwearying willingness to give his aid.
On receiving the message Anstice frowned.
"That you, Willows? Is it an urgent case? Oh--of course I'll come ... I
must make a few arrangements first ... yes ... yes ... I'll be with you
in half an hour, if that will do."
He hung up the receiver, and now his manner was alert and keen. There
was about him none of the weariness, the indifference which too often
characterized his demeanour, and led some of his patients to complain
that he took no interest in them or in their sufferings. This was the
man who before that fatal day in India had stood, so it was whispered,
upon the threshold of a brilliant career--the man who, young,
resourceful, scientific, had taken a very real and deep interest in
every detail of his profession, and had led even the most cautious of
his teachers to prophesy for him a life of unvarying success.
He even looked younger as he consulted his notebook this morning; and
the shoulders which had begun to stoop ever so little were squared, the
head held erect as he scanned the pages before him with quick, resolute
eyes.
Luckily there was nothing very important on the morning list, no visits
that could not be safely postponed till the afternoon; and one or two
telephone messages soon put things straight and left him free to keep
his appointment with Dr. Willows.
He had a moment's indecision over the case of his new patient at Cherry
Orchard, but reflecting that if necessary they would probably ring him
up, he judged it safe to put off his visit to Mrs. Carstairs till his
return; and finally went out to his motor with an easy mind.
Returning home, fatigued but jubilant, at two o'clock, he applied
himself to his lunch; and then attacked his afternoon's work with an
energy engendered by the excellent results of the operation which he, in
company with his friend, had performed that morning.
Being delayed on various pretexts, it was five o'clock before he found
himself at the pretty house in its fragrant garden; and he rang the bell
rather hastily, with an absurd feeling that the servants would look
reproachfully on his tardy arrival.
The man seemed, however, to welcome him as he had done the previous
night; and when, a second later, the queerly named Tochatti arrived, her
face wrinkled into a discreet smile.
"Mrs. Carstairs up to-day?"
"She is in her room, sir. Will you come up, if you please?"
He followed her up the broad, shallow stairs, which this afternoon she
took at a more moderate pace; and then she ushered him into the room he
had visited before, falling back so that he went in alone.
Mrs. Carstairs was lying on a deep couch by one of the open windows, her
white gown set off by vivid blue cushions; and as he advanced Anstice
noticed that she looked even younger than he had judged her on the
preceding night. Her air of utter exhaustion had vanished; and there was
more colour in her lips, though her cheeks still retained their ivory
transparency.
By her side was a little table bearing a tea-tray, and as Anstice shook
hands, congratulating her at the same time on her restored appearance,
she drew his attention to the teacups.
"I was just going to have some tea. Be nice and have some with me. Will
you?"
"Thanks very much." He accepted promptly. "I've been busy all day and
should enjoy a cup of tea. But first--are you really better this
afternoon?"
"Yes, really." She spoke indifferently, as though the subject failed to
interest her. "I should have gone out, I daresay, but I felt tired, or
lazy, and succumbed to the charms of this delightful couch."
"You did quite right." He took the cup she held out to him and sat down
in a chair beside the deep Chesterfield. "You know I think you must make
up your mind to take care of yourself for a week or two."
"I can quite easily do that," Chloe Carstairs answered quietly. "I
hardly think I shall find it difficult to do what the new-woman novels
used to call 'living one's own life'--down here."
"Certainly there isn't much going on." Anstice was puzzled by her
manner. "Do I understand that you 'belong' here, as the country folks
say?"
She put down her cup rather suddenly, and faced him squarely, her blue
eyes full of a resolution which added several years to her age.
"Dr. Anstice." Her deep voice had lost its richness and sounded hard. "I
should like to tell you something of myself. Oh"--she laughed rather
cynically--"I'm not going to bore you with a rhapsody intended to convey
to you that I am a much misunderstood woman and all the rest of it.
Only, if you are to see me again, I think I should like you to know just
who and what I am."
Mystified, Anstice bowed.
"Whatever you tell me I shall be proud to hear--and keep to myself," he
said.
"Thanks." Her manner had lost its slight animation and was once more
weary, indifferent. "Well, first of all, have you ever seen me before?"
"No. Though I confess that something in your face seemed familiar to me
last night."
"Oh." She did not seem much impressed. "Well, to put it differently,
have you ever heard of me?"
"No," said Anstice. "To the best of my belief I have never heard your
name before."
"I see. Well, I will tell you who I am, and what I am supposed to have
done." No further warmth enlivened her manner, which throughout was
cold, almost, one would have said, absent. "When I was eighteen I
married Major Carstairs, a soldier a good many years older than myself.
Presently I went out to India with him, and lived there for four years,
coming home when our child was three years old."
She paused.
"I came here--this was my husband's old home--and settled down with
Cherry. And when I had been in the parish a year or so, there was a
scandal in Littlefield."
She stopped, and her mouth quivered into a faint smile.
"Oh, I was not the chief character--at first! It was a case in which the
Vicar's wife won an unenviable notoriety. It seemed there had been a
secret in her life, years before when she was a pretty, silly girl,
which was known to very few besides her husband and, I presume, her own
people. Now you would not think I was a sympathetic person--one in whom
a sentimental, rather neurotic woman would confide. Would you?"
And looking at her, with her air of cold indifference, of complete
detachment from the world around her, Anstice agreed that he would not
expect her to be the confidante of such a woman.
"Yet within a month of our meeting Laura Ogden had confided her secret
to me--and a silly, futile story it was." Her pale face looked disdain
at the remembrance. "No harm, of course, was done. I kept her secret and
advised her not to repeat what she had told me to anyone else in
Littlefield."
"She followed your advice?" Anstice had no idea what was coming, but an
interest to which he had long been a stranger was waking slowly in his
heart.
"_Chi lo so?_" She shrugged her shoulders. "Afterwards she swore she had
told no one but me. You see it appeared she very soon regretted having
given me her confidence. It happened that shortly after she had told me
her story we had--not a quarrel, because to tell you the truth I wasn't
sufficiently interested in her to quarrel with her--but there was a
slight coolness between us, and for some time we were not on good terms.
Then--well, to cut a long story short, one day anonymous letters and
post cards began to fly about the parish, bearing scurrilous comments on
that unhappy woman's past history. At first the Vicar tried to hush up
the matter, but as you may imagine"--her voice rang with delicate
scorn--"everyone else thoroughly enjoyed talking things over and
wondering and discussing--with the result that the Bishop of the Diocese
heard the tale and came down to hold a private inquiry into the matter."
She stopped short and held out her hand for his cup.
"More tea? I haven't finished yet."
"No more, thank you." He rose, placed his cup on the tray and sat down
again in silence.
"The Bishop suggested it was a matter for the police. The writer of
those vile communications must be discovered and punished at all costs,
he said. So not only the authorities but all the amateur detectives of
both sexes in the neighbourhood went to work to find the culprit. And
_I_ was the culprit they found."
"You?" For once in his life Anstice was startled out of his usual
self-control.
"Yes. They fixed upon me as the anonymous writer of those loathsome
scrawls; and the district was provided with a sensation after its own
heart."
"But the idea's absurd--monstrous!" Looking at her as she leaned back
among her cushions, with her air of delicate distinction, Anstice could
hardly believe the story she was telling him.
"So I thought at first." Her blue eyes narrowed. "But in some marvellous
manner they brought the charge home to me. I was the only one, they
said, who knew the story. I had wormed it out of the silly woman, they
alleged, and had then, owing to the subsequent coolness between us,
traded upon my knowledge in order to drive her out of the place."
"But others must have known the story?"
"Yes. But I was the only one in Littlefield who knew it."
"So they said. But in reality----"
"In reality, of course, it was known to someone else. But that person
took care to keep in the background. When once I had been suggested as
the culprit a quantity of evidence was forthcoming to clinch the matter,
so to speak. I was never particularly popular here, and people were
quite ready to believe me capable of the deed." She smiled faintly. "I
confess one or two things looked black for me--the letters were written
on the kind of paper I used, and though of course the handwriting was
disguised, there was, in one or two letters, an undeniable similarity to
some of my writing."
"But your word--wasn't that sufficient?"
The apathy of her manner relaxed for one moment into a kind of cold
amusement.
"Oh, I gave my word--at first--quite freely. Knowing nothing of the
letters, of course I said so; but I was not believed. I confess
everything was against me. Most of the letters were posted in the pillar
box not a hundred yards from this house--but on one occasion when I had
gone down to Brighton for a couple of days, one of those vile things
bore the Brighton postmark."
"But----"
"Oh, I've nearly done." She glanced at the clock. "I am detaining
you--you're in a hurry? Don't mind saying so--this delightful story can
be continued in our next."
"Please go on." Anstice would not willingly have foregone the rest of
the recital.
"Well, after various suspicious happenings, which I won't inflict upon
you now, and after being interviewed by the Bishop, by detectives, by a
hundred and one individuals who revelled in the case, I was accused,
tried, and found guilty."
"Found guilty? Impossible!" He sprang up, quite unable to sit still
another moment. Somehow he had not expected this climax.
"Yes. I was found guilty." Her voice held little expression. "And
sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. The judge who sentenced me
informed me--and the world at large--that he deemed it expedient to
'make an example' of me--only he put it more legally--as an educated
young woman, of apparent refinement, who had committed a crime connected
generally with illiterate and ignorant persons of degenerate
tendencies."
"But you--you never served the sentence--such a vindictive sentence,
too!"
"Yes, I did." For the first time her face changed, a hint of tragedy
appeared in her studiously passionless eyes. "You look surprised, but I
assure you it is true. I served my sentence, and came out of prison
exactly eight weeks ago."
"Eight weeks? But you have only just come here?"
"Yes. First I went down into Kent to stay with an old family friend who
had taken charge of Cherry--my little girl--while I was"--she hesitated,
then spoke with a directness he felt to be brutal--"in prison. I only
came here yesterday, and I suppose the shock of finding myself back in
my happy home"--he was sure she was speaking ironically now--"was too
much for my--nerves."
"But, Mrs. Carstairs"--he looked down at her with perplexity in his
face--"do I understand you to mean you have deliberately come back to
live in the place which has treated you so shamefully?"
"Why not?" Her long, blue eyes were inscrutable. "I'm not ashamed of
coming back. You see, I really don't care in the very least what these
people say about me. I don't even bear them malice. Prison life is
supposed to make one bitter, isn't it? You hear a lot about the 'prison
taint,' whatever that may be. Well, I don't feel conscious of having
sustained any taint. I have suffered a great wrong"--her contralto voice
was quite unmoved as she made the assertion--"a very grievous injustice
has been done to me; but now that the physical unpleasantness of the
ordeal is over I don't feel as though I--my ego, my soul, if you
like--had undergone any particular degradation."
"I suppose"--the question was forced from him by his interest in the
human document she was spreading before his eyes--"I suppose what you
call the physical unpleasantness is really hard to bear?"
He was sorry he had put the question as he saw the slow shudder which
for a moment convulsed her immobility.
"Yes." For a second her voice was almost passionate. "I don't think I
could make you understand the horror of that side of imprisonment. Most
prison reformers, as I say, prate of the injury done to the soul of the
prisoner. For my part--it if were worth while, which it isn't--I would
always refuse to forgive those enemies who subjected my body to such
indignities."
Her vehemence, so much at variance with her usual manner, made Anstice
uneasy about her.
"See here, Mrs. Carstairs." He sat down on the couch beside her, and
spoke persuasively. "You must promise me not to let your mind dwell on
your terrible experience. Honestly, do you think it wise to stay here?
Won't it be painful for you to live among the people who know you?
Wouldn't it be better to go away for a short time, travel a little?
There are plenty of places off the beaten track where you would be able
to rest and get back your health and your spirits."
She turned to him with a hint of a kindlier manner than she had hitherto
displayed.
"Dr. Anstice, to tell you the truth I don't want to travel. I shall be
happier here, in my own home, with my old servants round me, able to do
exactly as I choose from morning to night."
She hesitated a moment; then resumed in her former indifferent tone:
"You see, my husband, although he refuses to believe in my innocence,
has handed over this house to me; and under my marriage settlement I
have quite a large income----"
He interrupted her abruptly--
"Mrs. Carstairs, forgive me--did you say your husband refused to believe
you innocent?"
"Yes. My husband--like the majority of the world--believes me guilty,"
said Chloe Carstairs.