The story he had heard on the occasion of his second visit to Cherry
Orchard haunted Anstice for days. There was something so incongruous in
the notion of this woman having served a sentence of imprisonment for an
offence which, of all others, might well be supposed the most impossible
for any decent person to commit; yet Anstice knew instinctively that
Mrs. Carstairs had spoken the truth; and although for the last few years
he had been far too much occupied with his own private grudge against
Fate to spare any pity for the woes of others, he did feel a surprising
sympathy for the young and apparently lonely woman whom the world had
treated so cruelly.
That she was innocent of the crime with which she was charged, Anstice
never doubted. Since the catastrophe which had altered his whole outlook
on life, he had been inclined to be cynical regarding the good faith of
mankind in general; but Mrs. Carstairs' manner had carried conviction by
its very lack of emphasis. She had not protested her innocence--indeed,
he could barely remember in what words she had given him to understand
that she was not guilty of the loathsome deed; yet her very quietness,
the very indifference of her manner as she told her story carried more
weight than an avalanche of protestation would have done.
As a medical man Anstice was something of a student of physiognomy; and
although Mrs. Carstairs' face was not one to be easily read, the shape
of her brow and the classical outline of her features seemed to Anstice
to preclude any possibility of the morbid and degenerate taint which
must have inspired the communications of whose authorship she had been
accused.
The very fact that she did not appear to care whether or no he believed
in her strengthened Anstice's belief that she was an innocent and
much-wronged woman; and in his mind he linked her with himself as one of
the victims of an unfavourable and ruthless destiny.
After attending her for a week Anstice declared her to be in no further
need of his services; and she acquiesced with the same air of half-weary
graciousness with which she had welcomed his visits.
He noticed that she was rarely to be seen in the village or small town
of Littlefield. Occasionally she would pass him on the road in a
beautiful motor with which he supposed her husband to have endowed her,
and at these times she had generally her small daughter, wrapped in
furs, on the seat beside her.
Anstice's introduction to the latter took place about a fortnight after
his last visit to Cherry Orchard in a professional capacity. It chanced
that he was interested in a small Convalescent Home for Children which
had recently been opened in the neighbourhood, and on one or two days
had cut short his visit to Mrs. Carstairs on the grounds that his
presence was required at the Home. Rather to his disappointment Mrs.
Carstairs had not evinced the slightest interest in the scheme, and his
surprise was proportionately great when, on one fine spring morning, he
received a large bunch of beautiful daffodils from Cherry Orchard, with
a rather carelessly worded request that he would give them to the Home
if they were likely to be welcome there.
Anstice took the flowers with him on his morning visit, and the pleasure
they gave and the gratitude with which they were received led him to
snatch a moment on his way home to call upon the donor and thank her in
person for her kindly gift.
As he turned his car in at the gate he hoard sounds of laughter, and a
few words in a child's high-pitched voice; and when he was half-way up
the drive he discovered from whence the merriment issued.
Just ahead of him was a motor-cycle, driven, it would appear, by a girl
in a trim motoring-suit, while perched on the carrier at the back, in a
fashion which made Anstice's blood run chill, was a small child whom he
recognized as the daughter of the house, Cherry Carstairs, aged
something less than six years.
The two were chattering and laughing, the driver sounding her horn in a
delightfully irresponsible fashion, and both were much too intent on
their progress and on the noise they were making to realize that a car
was coming up the drive immediately behind them.
Instinctively Anstice slowed up, wishing the lively pair at Jericho; but
luckily they had nearly reached the front door, and in another minute
the motor-cycle had come to a standstill and the riders dismounted in
safety.
"There--we've not come to grief, this time, have we, Cherry Ripe!" The
elder girl spoke gaily. "And now we'll see what Mother has to say--oh!"
At that moment she beheld the car, which was coming to a standstill, and
she looked at the man who drove it with a frankness which was curiously
unselfconscious. At the same minute Mrs. Carstairs came slowly forward
onto the steps, and Anstice, dismounting, approached her without doing
more than glance at the girl-motorist.
"Good morning, Mrs. Carstairs. I have come to thank you for your lovely
flowers." They shook hands as he spoke. "The Matron at the Home made me
promise to come and convey her thanks to you at the first possible
moment. That's my excuse for calling now!"
He had spoken more impulsively than usual, with a genuine desire to show
his gratitude for her kindness; but there was no answering warmth in her
voice, and, not for the first time, he felt chilled by her lack of
response.
"I'm glad they liked them." Her tone was perfunctory. "But I'm afraid
the gratitude is not due to me. It was my small daughter who was fired
to enthusiasm by something Tochatti told her, and insisted on cutting
the daffodils herself."
"I see." In spite of himself Anstice felt repulsed by her manner, which,
made his warmly spoken gratitude appear superfluous. "Well, in any case
the result is the same--delight in the wards and something beautiful and
fragrant to lighten the children's sufferings."
"Pray tell Cherry--she will be pleased." Possibly Mrs. Carstairs had
noted the stiffness of his speech, and in her languid way desired to
soothe his feelings. "I forget if you have seen my little daughter. I
must introduce you to her--and----" she turned to the young girl who
stood by and laid a hand on her arm--"to her friend--and mine."
Anstice glanced towards the two who still stood, hand-in-hand, on the
top step, and Mrs. Carstairs performed the ceremony of introduction in
the deep, rich voice which was somehow part of her personality.
"Iris, let me introduce Dr. Anstice ... Miss Wayne."
Anstice bowed, but the girl held out her hand with a youthful
friendliness which was attractive.
"How d'you do? I'm glad I didn't know your car was behind me as we came
up the avenue. I don't mind what I meet, but I always hate things coming
up behind my cycle," she said pleasantly.
"If you are in the habit of giving such youthful passengers rides I
don't wonder you're nervous," he replied; and the girl opened her grey
eyes widely.
"Nervous! I'm not!" She spoke indignantly. "But when your allowance is
strictly limited, and you have to pay for repairs yourself, you don't
want people running into you from the back and perhaps smashing up your
pet Douglas!"
"I see." He smiled discreetly, and Mrs. Carstairs claimed his attention
once more.
"And this"--she drew the child forward--"is Cherry."
"How are you?" Anstice, who was always polite to children, shook hands,
and the child looked at him with a pair of very clear brown eyes.
"Quite well, thank you, my dear," she responded gravely, and Iris Wayne
was secretly much diverted by the expression of astonishment which this
form of address evoked in the face of the hearer.
"You like motoring?" Anstice felt constrained to keep up the
conversation, and Cherry nodded calmly.
"Very much, my dear. Do you?"
"Yes...." Anstice experienced an overwhelming desire to repeat her
endearing term, but luckily refrained. "This is my car--will you come
for a ride with me one day?"
For a second Cherry regarded him with a pensive courtesy which was
almost embarrassing. Then:
"With pleasure, my dear," she replied, and Iris laughed outright.
"You fickle child! And you have always declared you liked my motor
better than any car that ever was seen!"
"So I do." Cherry looked up at her with unsmiling gravity. "But----"
"But now you must all come in and have lunch." Mrs. Carstairs turned to
Anstice. "Dr. Anstice, you can spare us a little time, can't you? Lunch
is quite ready, and Cherry, I'm sure, endorses my invitation!"
He hesitated, torn between a desire to accept and an uncomfortable
suspicion that he could not afford the time.
"You will have to lunch somewhere, you know!" Her manner was a trifle
warmer than usual. "And it will really save time to do it here!"
"My lunch is a very hurried affair as a rule," he said, smiling. "But if
I may run away as soon as I've finished I'll be delighted to stay."
He felt a small hand slip into his as he spoke, and looked down, to meet
Cherry's clear eyes.
"Do stay, my dear!" Her tone was a quaint imitation of her mother's, and
before the twofold invitation Anstice's scruples were put to flight.
"I'll stay with pleasure," he said, patting the kind little hand; and
with an air of satisfaction Cherry led him into the hall, her mother and
Miss Wayne following their lead.
Once seated at the pretty round table, sweet with the fragrance of
hyacinths in a big Swansea bowl, and bright with silver and glass,
Anstice owned inwardly to a feeling of pleasure at his position.
Although as a rule he loved his solitude, welcomed the silence of the
old panelled house he had taken in Littlefield, and shunned those of his
kind who had no direct need of his services, there were times when his
self-sought loneliness weighed heavily upon his spirit, when the ghosts
of the past, whose shrouded forms were ever present to remind him that
he had made a fatal mistake on that bygone morning in India, were but
poor company.
At first, during that first haunted year, when Hilda Ryder's face was
ever before his eyes, her sad and tender accents in his ear, he had
sought many and dubious ways of laying those same ghosts. It had seemed
to him, during those dreadful days, that although some instinct within
him forbade him to end his own life, none could doubt his right to
alleviate his mental suffering by any means he knew; and when temporary
oblivion, a blessed forgetfulness, could be purchased at the price of a
pinprick, it seemed not only overscrupulous but foolish to forgo that
Nirvana.
But that indulgence, too, had nearly ended in disaster; and for the last
two years his only use for the alluring drug had been to alleviate the
pain of others. Yet the struggle was a hard one; and he wondered
sometimes, rather hopelessly, if he would have the strength to continue
it to the bitter end.
But to-day, sitting in the pretty room, with the sun pouring in through
the casement windows, widely opened to the green garden beyond, Anstice
owned that for once life seemed to be in harmony with the beautiful
spring world around.
As for Iris Wayne, he told himself presently that he had rarely seen a
prettier girl! Although at present his admiration was quite impersonal,
it was none the less sincere; and his approval of her grey eyes, set
widely apart beneath her crown of sunny hair, of the delicately rounded
face, the frank mouth, which disclosed teeth as white as milk, was
enhanced by the fact that every line, every tint spoke of flawless
health and a mind attuned to the simple, gracious things of life rather
than those which are complex and hard to comprehend.
Looking from Iris, bright-eyed and alert, to Chloe, sitting at the head
of her table in a white cloth gown which somehow looked elaborate in
spite of its utter simplicity, Anstice was struck by the contrast
between them. Although the difference in their actual ages was not
great, they might well have been at different stages of life. For all
her youth, all her grace, her black and white distinction, Chloe was a
woman, and no one looking at her would have doubted that to her had come
some of the most vital moments of a woman's life. But Iris Wayne was
only a girl, an untried warrior in the battle of existence. The glance
of her large and radiant eyes was far more akin to that of the child
Cherry's brown orbs than to the serious, rather cynical regard which
habitually dwelt in Mrs. Carstairs' sapphire-blue eyes; and in every
look, every word, was the delicious freshness of a joyous youth. Yet he
fancied there was something in the curve of her lips, in the shape of
her head, which betokened strength of character as well as lightness of
heart. He fancied that her mouth could be tender as well as gay, that
her eyes might one day look into the eyes of a man with a promise in
their depths of strong and steadfast womanhood.
It chanced presently that Anstice was offered some strawberries,
floating in a delicious-looking syrup; and a glance at his hostess
betrayed his half-humorous perplexity.
"I know it isn't the right season for strawberries," said Mrs. Carstairs
with a smile. "But these are some of our own, bottled by a famous method
of Tochatti's. Do try them and give us your opinion."
Anstice complied; and found them excellent.
"They are delicious," he said, "and bring summer very close. Don't you
like them?" he asked Cherry, who was demurely nibbling a macaroon.
"No thank you, my dear," replied Cherry gravely. "They give me a pain in
my head."
"Oh, do they?" Anstice was nonplussed by this extraordinary assertion,
the grounds for which were not borne out by such medical skill as he
possessed; but chancing to look across the table at Iris Wayne he found
her dimpling deliciously at his perplexity.
"You look puzzled, Dr. Anstice!" She laughed outright. "You see you
don't understand how it happens that a pain in the head is connected
with strawberries!"
"I don't," he said, "but if you will kindly explain----"
"May I, Cherry?" She looked at the child with a mischievous sparkle in
her eyes, and Cherry nodded.
"If you like, my dear. But _I_ think it's rather a silly story."
Notwithstanding this expression of opinion Iris entered forthwith into
an explanation.
"You see, Dr. Anstice, Cherry came to stay with me last summer when the
strawberries were ripe; and seeing the bed covered with netting--to keep
off the birds"--she smiled--"she thought it very hard that the poor
little things should not have their share."
"You had heaps and heaps for yourself," came a reproachful voice from
the bottom of the table where Cherry sat in state.
"Certainly--until you came on the scene, Cherry Ripe! Well, Dr. Anstice,
to cut a long story short, Cherry thought us so selfish and cruel to
prevent the poor birds sharing our fruit that she slipped into the
kitchen garden one very hot morning, and devoted a good hour to taking
up the netting--with the result that the stooping down with the sun
beating on her head gave her a touch of sunstroke."
"You forget I had eaten a few strawberries--just to encourage the
birdies." Evidently Cherry liked accuracy in any statement, even when it
militated against herself.
"Well, whether it was the sun or the strawberries, the fact remains
Cherry was in bed for three days, and since then strawberries are
_tabu_. Isn't it so, Mrs. Carstairs?"
"Yes, Iris." Chloe's voice was more weary than usual, as though the
subject did not interest her; and suddenly Anstice remembered that
during the previous summer she had been shut away from the beautiful
world of sun and strawberries and roses red and white....
A moment later Chloe rose from the table; and Anstice stole a look at
his watch as they passed into the hall.
As though she divined his action Chloe turned to him.
"You will spare time for a cup of coffee? We have not lingered over our
lunch."
Anstice hesitated, and Cherry again added her entreaties to the
invitation.
"Do stay a little longer, my dear. Iris will have to go in a minute, but
I want her to sing me a song first."
"Do you sing, Miss Wayne?" Looking at her firm round throat and deep
chest he thought it possible she sang well.
"Yes." She shook her head at Cherry. "But how can I sing after meringues
and strawberries, you bad child?"
"You always say that," returned Cherry placidly. "And then you sing most
bee-autifully!"
Iris coloured at this obviously genuine compliment and Anstice laughed
outright.
"After that testimonial, Miss Wayne, I hope you don't expect me to run
away without hearing you!" He turned to his hostess. "I will stay for a
cup of coffee with pleasure, Mrs. Carstairs, and you will persuade Miss
Wayne to sing, won't you?"
"Certainly." They were in the cool, hyacinth-scented drawing-room by
now, and Chloe drew the girl towards the grand piano which stood by one
of the big latticed windows. "Sing to us at once, Iris, before you have
your coffee. Will you?"
"Of course I will." She seated herself as she spoke. "What shall it be?
Cherry, you know all my songs. What do you want to-day?"
After due consideration Cherry gave her verdict for "the song about the
lady in the wood;" and although both Mrs. Carstairs and Iris rallied her
on the mournfulness of her choice, Cherry stuck to her guns; and to
judge from the rapt expression in her big brown eyes as the singer
prophesied the lonely and tragic fate of poor unhappy Mélisande, the
idea of that fate proved exquisitely soothing to the youthful listener.
Anstice's supposition had been correct. Iris Wayne could sing well. Her
voice, a clear mezzo-soprano, had been excellently trained, and in its
purity and flexibility gave promise of something exceptional when it
should have attained its full maturity. She accompanied herself
perfectly, in nowise hampered by the lack of any music; and when she had
brought the song to a close, Anstice was sincere in his request for
another.
"I've just got some new songs," said Iris, twisting round on the stool
to face her hostess. "A book of Indian love-lyrics. Shall I sing you one
of those?"
And without waiting for an answer she turned back and began to play an
accompaniment which subtly suggested the atmosphere of the East,
accentuated by the sound of the bells of some wayside Temple pealing
through the dusty, sun-baked land.
"The Temple bells are ringing----"
With the first line of the song Anstice was back in the hideous past,
back in the fatal Temple which had proved the antechamber to the halls
of Death ... he heard again the chatter of native voices, smelt the odd,
indescribable perfume of the East, felt the dread, the impotent horror
of that bygone adventure in the ruined Temple of Alostan....
The drawing-room in which he sat, bright with chintz, sweet with the
fragrance of hyacinths, faded away; and he saw again the dimly lighted
hut in which he and Hilda Ryder had spent that last dreadful night. He
heard her voice imploring him to kill her before the men should rush in
upon them, saw the anguish in her eyes as she understood that no help
was forthcoming from the world without; and he knew again the great and
unavailing remorse which had filled his soul when he realized that Hilda
Ryder had died too soon....
When the song ended he rose abruptly, and Chloe was startled by the
change in his manner.
"I must really say good-bye, Mrs. Carstairs." He had not touched his
coffee. "Many thanks for your hospitality." He shook hands with her and
turned to Iris with something of an effort. "And many thanks for your
songs, Miss Wayne." He tried to smile as they exchanged a handshake, but
the attempt was a failure.
"I'll come to the steps with you, my dear," volunteered Cherry politely,
and without further leave-taking Anstice went out into the hall, seized
his hat, and stumbled towards the door, half-blinded by the pain of that
terribly acute inward vision.
He took leave of Cherry with a hasty courtesy which would have hurt some
children, but was not displeasing to the stately Cherry; and three
minutes later he was driving down the avenue at a furious pace, in a
vain endeavour to outstrip the phantoms which a girl's careless song had
evoked from their place in the background of his thoughts.
* * * * *
After his abrupt departure Iris turned impulsively to her hostess.
"Mrs. Carstairs"--her voice was disturbed--"what was wrong with Dr.
Anstice just now? Did my singing displease him? He got up and went
so--so unexpectedly."
For a moment Chloe said nothing. Then:
"Don't you think you are rather too imaginative, Iris? Probably Dr.
Anstice remembered some urgent case, and thought he ought to go at
once."
"No. I don't think that was it." Iris sank down on to the cushioned
window-seat and gazed thoughtfully ahead. "I think----I wonder if that
last song could have any associations for him? Has he been in India?"
"I don't know." Chloe smiled faintly. "You must ask him, Iris. I suppose
your father would send for him if he were ill, wouldn't he, now that Dr.
Meade is really gone?"
"I suppose so." Iris spoke rather dreamily. "At first I thought he was
quite old--at least forty," said the schoolgirl. "And then, when he
talked to Cherry I was not really sure. I guessed he might be worried
about professional things and look older than he was. And now----"
She broke off, and for a moment Chloe Carstairs made no rejoinder,
though her blue, almond-shaped eyes held a slightly quizzical
expression.
"And now"--she said at length--"what is your opinion now?"
"Now"--Iris spoke very slowly, and in her eyes was something of the
womanly tenderness and strength whose possibility Anstice had
divined--"I think he has the very saddest face I have ever seen in my
life."