As the weeks passed Anstice's acquaintance with the Waynes ripened into
something which he found strangely pleasant.
Although he had long ago decided that for him the simple human things of
life, friendship, social intercourse with the world of men and women,
were, since that bygone Indian morning, forbidden, even his acquired
misanthropy was not proof against the kindly advances made to him by Sir
Richard and his daughter.
Busy as he was, he still found time to accept some of their invitations
to Greengates, and he and Sir Richard enjoyed a quiet chat over their
cigars now and again when by chance he had an evening to himself.
On their side the Waynes found him, each in his and her own degree, an
agreeable companion. Sir Richard approved of his quiet and reserved
manner, and was not inclined to quarrel with his occasional fits of
moodiness--for there were times when the ghosts which haunted him
refused to be exorcised, and Anstice felt himself unfit, by reason of
the handicap which Fate had imposed upon him, to mingle with the happy,
the careless, the innocent ones of the earth.
To Sir Richard, kind-hearted, uncritical, undiscerning, such fits of
silence, even of gloom, were natural enough in a man whose life was
spent largely in the service of the sick and suffering among humanity.
He was probably worried over some difficult case, Sir Richard concluded,
when he found the younger man's conversation halting, his manner absent,
or, on rare occasions, morose; and it must be noted that as a rule
Anstice had too much respect for his friends to inflict these moods upon
them. As for Iris, quicker of discernment than her father, of a more
analytical turn of mind, she guessed that the changing moods which
characterized her new acquaintance were not induced by any external or
professional worries, but were the marks of a trouble far more serious,
far more vital to the man himself. Of the nature of this trouble Iris
had naturally no very clear idea, though now and again she considered
the probability of him having been what she called, rather
school-girlishly, crossed in love. But though her phraseology might be
childish there was something purely womanly in the compassion with which
she thought of Anstice; and on one occasion when a fit of melancholy had
overcome him unexpectedly in her presence, he was startled, not to say
dismayed, to notice something of this half-tender, half-impersonal pity
in the soft, brooding glance of her eyes as they rested on him for a
moment.
It was not with the Waynes alone that he grew more intimate as the days
went by. A short time after his introduction to Greengates Anstice
received a summons to Cherry Orchard, and on repairing thither found
that his patient on this occasion was Cherry Carstairs. With all her
demure dignity Cherry was at times possessed of a very spirit of
perversity; and being, although of such tender years, absolutely devoid
of fear, she had tried conclusions in secret with a shaggy pony in a
field close by her home, with the result that, owing to the pony's
stubborn refusal to allow her to climb upon his back, Cherry received a
kick, more in sorrow than in anger, which snapped the bone in her tiny
forearm, and sent her stumbling home, very pale and shaky, her dignity
sadly in abeyance, to seek her mother.
Anstice, on arrival, soon had the small arm set and comfortably
bandaged; and once safely in bed, although more upset than she wished
anyone to imagine, Cherry regained her usual half-affectionate
half-patronizing manner, and insisted upon Anstice sitting down beside
her "for at least five minutes, my dear!"
With a smile, Anstice sat down as requested; and Cherry instantly began
to question him on the subject of Greengates.
"Isn't it a fassynating house, my dear?" Cherry never employed a short
word when she thought a long one fairly appropriate. "Have you seen
Iris' bedroom?--all done in white and purple and green--and irises
everywhere--on the walls and the curtains--just like a gorjus purple
iris what grows in the garden?"
"No, I've not seen Miss Wayne's bedroom," owned Anstice rather hastily.
"But it couldn't be prettier than this--why, those bunches of cherries
on the wall are so life-like that I wonder the birds don't come in to
make a meal of them!"
"Do you like them?" Cherry was openly gratified by his approval. "But I
wish you could see Iris' room. She always takes me there to wash my
hands and face, and the basin is all over irises too."
"Fassynating" as these details of Miss Wayne's domestic arrangements
might be, Anstice judged it safer to switch his small patient on to
another topic; and in an animated discussion as to the proper age at
which a young lady might begin to ride a motor-bicycle--Cherry inclining
to seven, Anstice to seventeen years--the promised five minutes flew
swiftly away.
"You'll come again, my dear?" Cherry's anxiety to ensure his attendance
was flattering, and he laughed and assured her he would visit her every
day if she desired it.
As a matter of fact he did visit her with some regularity; for she
managed, with a perversity known only to imps of a like nature, to catch
a severe chill which puzzled her attendants, none of them knowing of a
certain feverishly delightful ten minutes spent in hanging out of the
window holding an interesting conversation with the gardener's boy below
on the subject of broken bones. In any case, Anstice found it necessary
to call at Cherry Orchard on several consecutive days; and during the
child's illness and subsequent convalescence he was perforce obliged to
come into contact with Mrs. Carstairs herself.
As a physiological study Chloe interested him strongly. Although she
appeared genuinely fond of her little daughter and waited on her night
and day with a solicitude which never varied, there was nothing in her
manner to denote passionate affection, nor did the child appear to
desire it. Even to Cherry her voice, rich and deep as it was, never
softened; and she rarely used an endearing term. Yet Cherry appeared to
be quite satisfied; and Anstice came to the conclusion that the child's
fine instinct was able to pierce behind this apparent coldness to the
warm human love which doubtless lay beneath.
One fact about Mrs. Carstairs he was not slow in discovering. With the
exception of Iris Wayne and her father, Chloe appeared to be absolutely
devoid of friends, even of casual acquaintances. The Littlefield people,
who had been first surprised, then outraged, by her reappearance among
them, had long since decided that for them Cherry Orchard was _tabu_;
and although the Vicar, Mr. Carey, successor to the man whose wife had
raised the storm in which Chloe Carstairs' barque had come to shipwreck,
had called upon her, and endeavoured, in his gentle, courtly fashion, to
make her welcome, his parishioners had no intention of following his
example.
That Mrs. Carstairs felt her isolation in a social sense Anstice did not
believe; but that she must feel very lonely at times, find the days very
long and empty, he felt pretty well assured. She was not an accomplished
woman in the usual sense of the word. He never found her playing the
piano, or painting water-colour pictures as did so many of the women ha
visited. She did not appear to care for needlework, and in spite of the
books scattered about the house, he rarely saw her reading; yet all the
while he had a feeling that had she desired to shine in any or all of
the arts peculiar to women she would have no difficulty in doing so.
That she ordered her household excellently he knew from the glimpses he
had obtained of her domestic life; but there again she was assisted by a
staff of superior servants who all, from her personal attendant, the
devoted Tochatti, down to the boy who cleaned the knives, worshipped
their mistress with a wholehearted affection which held about it a touch
of something almost resembling fanaticism.
One day Anstice did find her with a book in her hand; and on venturing
to inquire into its contents was informed it was a well-known _Treatise
on Chess_.
"Do you play?" he asked, rather astonished, for in common with many men
he imagined chess to be almost purely a masculine pastime.
"Yes--at least I used to play once," she admitted slowly. "I can't very
well indulge in a game nowadays. Even the grownup Cherry declines to
play, though I hope in time I may incite her to learn!"
"I used to play--indifferently--once," Anstice said meditatively; and
Chloe looked at him with a faint smile.
"Did you? Some day when you are not too busy will you drop in to tea and
play a game with me?"
"I'd like to immensely." His tone was sincere, and Chloe's manner warmed
ever so little.
"Can you stay now?" The hour was just on five; and Cherry, who had that
day been promoted to tea downstairs, seconded the invitation as usual
from her nest on the big Chesterfield.
"Do stay, my dear, and I'll help you to move all the funny little men
and the castles!"
Anstice could not refuse this double invitation; and after a hasty cup
of tea he and his hostess sat down to the board and set out the ancient
ivory chessmen which were so well suited to the pretty, old-fashioned
room in which the players sat.
To Anstice's quite unjustifiable surprise Chloe Carstairs played an
admirable game. Her moves were clearly reasoned out, and she displayed a
quickness of thought, a brilliance of man[oe]uvre, which soon convinced
Anstice he was outplayed.
At the end of fifteen minutes Chloe had vanquished him completely; and
while most of his men were reposing in the carved box at her elbow, the
ranks of her army were scarcely thinned.
"I give in, Mrs. Carstairs!" He laughed and rose. "You won't think me
unsporting if I run away now? I'm beat hollow, and I know it, but if you
will condescend to play with me another day----"
"I shall look forward to another game," she said serenely; and Anstice
departed, feeling he had been permitted to obtain another sidelight on
her somewhat complex character.
Two days later he made another and rather disconcerting discovery, which
set him wondering afresh as to the real nature of the woman who, like
himself, had been the victim of a strangely vindictive fate.
The day was Sunday, and Cherry had been permitted the indulgence of
breakfast in bed; so that Anstice interviewed his young patient in her
own pink-and-white nest, where, attended by the faithful Tochatti, she
gave herself innumerable airs and graces, but finally allowed him to
examine her small arm, which was now practically healed.
"Mrs. Carstairs not up yet?" It was ten o'clock--but there was no sign
of Cherry's mother.
"Yes, sir." Tochatti spoke slowly, her foreign accent more strongly
marked than usual. "My mistress has a slight headache and is in her own
room. She would like to see you before you go."
Accordingly, after a prolonged parting from Cherry, who shamelessly
importuned him to neglect his other and less important patients, Anstice
accompanied Tochatti to Mrs. Carstairs' sitting-room where its owner
presumably awaited him.
The room itself was in its way as uncommon as its occupant, being
furnished entirely in black and white. The walls were white, the carpet
black. The chairs and couches were upholstered in black-and-white
chintz, with a profusion of cushions of both hues, and the pictures on
the white walls were etchings in black oak frames. On the mantelpiece
was a collection of carved ivory toys of all kinds, with here and there
an ebony elephant from Ceylon or Assam. The paint on doors and windows
was black, yet in spite of the sombreness of the general scheme there
was nothing depressing, nothing sinister in the finished effect.
Possibly because Chloe Carstairs was an artist--or a wise woman who knew
the value of relief--one note of colour was struck in the presence of a
huge china bowl filled with tulips of every conceivable shade of flame
and orange and yellow and red; but with that exception black and white
predominated, and when Chloe Carstairs rose from her low chair near the
window and advanced towards him, she, too, carried out the subtle
suggestion of the whole room.
Dressed in white, her silky black hair and blue eyes the only bits of
colour about her, she looked paler than usual, and Anstice jumped to the
conclusion she had sent for him to prescribe for her.
"Good morning, Dr. Anstice." Anstice, who hated shaking hands with most
people, always liked her firm, cool handshake. "How is Cherry? You find
her better?"
"Yes, she is really quite herself again, and her arm has healed most
satisfactorily." He stood in front of her as he spoke, and studied her
face carefully. "But you don't look very fit, Mrs. Carstairs. Can I do
anything for you now that your little daughter has finished with me?"
She looked at him with a smile which was more melancholy than usual.
"I think not," she said slowly. "You see, I am not ill, only a little
tired--tired with remembering days that are gone."
"Isn't that rather a fatal thing to do?" His own bitter memories gave
him the clue to her state of mind. "No good ever comes of remembering
sad things. I think the perfect memory would be one which would only
retain the happiness of life. You know the old motto found on many
sundials: 'I only record sunny hours.'"
"I don't agree with you," she said quietly. "It's the shadows which give
value to the high lights, isn't it? And sometimes to remember dreadful
things is a happiness in itself, knowing they are gone for ever. I can
quite well bear to remember that horrible prison"--as always when
speaking of it, her lips whitened--"because no power on earth can ever
put me back there again."
"I don't think it can do you any good to dwell on such memories," he
persisted. "If you are wise you will forget them. No wonder your head
aches if you dwell on such unpleasant things."
She looked at him more fully, and in her eyes he read something which
baffled him.
"You are quite right--and delightfully sane and sensible," she said.
"But as a matter of fact, I wasn't really thinking of the prison to-day.
You see, this is the anniversary of my wedding day, and my thoughts were
not altogether sad ones."
He looked at her, nonplussed for the moment, and suddenly Chloe's face
softened.
"Dr. Anstice, forgive me. The fact is, I had a bad night, and am all on
edge this morning."
"Why do you sit in here?" asked Anstice abruptly. "It is a lovely
morning--the sun is warm and there's no wind. Why not go out into your
charming garden? Lie in a low chair and sleep--or read some amusing
book. Is this a particularly engrossing one?"
He picked up the volume she had laid down at his entrance, and she
watched him with a faint hint of mockery in her blue eyes. His face
changed as he read the title.
"De Quincey's _Confessions_! Mrs. Carstairs, you're not interested in
this sort of thing?"
"Why not?" Her manner was ever so slightly antagonistic. "The subject is
a fascinating one, isn't it? I confess I've often felt inclined to try
opium--morphia or something of the sort, myself."
"Morphia?" His voice startled her by its harshness. "Don't make a joke
of it, Mrs. Carstairs. If I thought you really meant that----"
"But I do--or did." She spoke coolly. "I even went so far as to purchase
the means of indulging my fancy."
"You did? But--forgive me--why?"
"Don't we all sigh for oblivion now and then?" She put the question
calmly, looking him squarely in the face the while. "I have always
understood that morphia is one of the roads into Paradise--a Fool's
Paradise, no doubt, but we poor wretches can't always choose our
heavens."
"Nor our hells!" He still spoke vehemently. "Yes, there are times in all
our lives when oblivion, forgetfulness, seems very desirable, very
alluring. But let me entreat you, Mrs. Carstairs, not to seek to enter
Paradise by that devil's key!"
Her almond-shaped eyes grew still more narrow as she looked at him.
"I wonder why you speak so impressively," she said slowly. "As a doctor
doubtless you are _au fait_ in the subject, yet your vehemence seems to
imply----" She paused.
"As a doctor I've seen enough of the havoc the opium fiend plays in the
lives of men--and women," he said steadily, "to realize the danger that
lies in the insidious habit. I have seen women--women like you"--he had
no idea of sparing her--"young, of good position and all the rest of it,
who have slid into the deadly thing on the flimsiest of pretexts--and
then, too late, have realized they are bound--for life--with fetters
which cannot be broken."
"Yet the deadly thing is fascinating, isn't it? Else why do so many fall
under its sway?"
"Fascinating?" With an inward shudder Anstice recalled those months
after Hilda Ryder's death--those horrible, chaotic months when, in a
vain endeavour to stifle thought, to deaden remorse, he had invoked the
aid of the poppy, and by so doing had almost precipitated a moral
catastrophe which should have been more overwhelming than the first.
"For God's sake, Mrs. Carstairs, don't become obsessed by that idea. The
morphia habit is one degrading slavery of mind and body, and only the
miserable victims know how delusive are its promises, how unsatisfactory
its rewards. What can you expect from a cult whose highest reward--the
only thing, indeed, it has to offer you, is--oblivion?"
Chloe Carstairs did not reply. Instead, she turned away and moved across
the room to a small black escritoire which stood against the white wall.
Bending down she opened it, and after pressing a spring, released what
appeared to be a secret drawer. From this she lifted out a little packet
wrapped in white paper and sealed with red wax, and holding it in her
hand she came slowly back to where Anstice stood, made vaguely
uncomfortable by her curious, almost secretive manner.
"Dr. Anstice"--she held out the packet--"will you take charge of this
for me? It is the key--what you called the devil's key just now--to the
Paradise I have never had the courage to enter."
Anstice took the little parcel from her with something of sternness in
his face.
"Yes, Mrs. Carstairs. But what, exactly, is this thing?"
"An hypodermic syringe and a supply of morphia," she informed him
tranquilly. Then, as he pursed his lips into an involuntary whistle, she
went on, with more than a hint of mockery in her manner: "Oh, I came by
it quite honestly, I assure you! I didn't steal it from a doctor's
surgery--I bought it at a chemist's shop in London."
"You did?"
"Yes, and I made the young man show me how to use it." She smiled rather
ironically. "Naturally I was ignorant in the matter, and I didn't want
to make a blunder in its use."
"Really? Well, Mrs. Carstairs, this is your property, but I wish I might
persuade you to leave it in my keeping for the present."
"You think it would be safer there?" She looked at him as though
considering the matter. "Well, I wonder?"
"You wonder--what?" He spoke dryly.
"Whether it _is_ safer with you. Of course, as a doctor you can get
plenty of your own----"
"I shan't be tempted to steal yours for my private use," said Anstice a
trifle grimly; and the Fates who rule the lives of men probably smiled
to themselves over the fatuity of mankind.
"Well, I gave it to you myself, so you may as well keep it," said Chloe
indifferently, as though already tired of the subject; and without more
ado Anstice slipped the little white packet into his pocket, and took
leave of its former owner before she had opportunity to change her mind
on the subject.
He could not dismiss the figure of Chloe Carstairs from his thoughts as
he went about his day's work. Intuitively he knew that she was a
bitterly unhappy woman, that her life, like his own, had been rent in
two by a cataclysm of appalling magnitude, such as visits very few human
beings, and he told himself that this woman, too, had been down in the
depths even as he had been. And no man, no woman, who has once known the
blackness of the abyss, that "outer darkness" in which the soul sits
apart in a horror of loneliness, can ever view the world again with
quite the clear-eyed vision of the normal human being to whom,
fortunately for the sanity of the race, such appalling experiences are
mercifully unknown.
On a morning a week later Anstice received a note from Mrs. Carstairs.
"DEAR DR. ANSTICE,"
"My brother has unexpectedly written to offer himself for a couple
of nights, and I shall be pleased if you will come to dinner this
evening at half-past seven to meet him. I have invited Miss Wayne,
so please complete our quartette if you can."
"Sincerely,"
"CHLOE CARSTAIRS."
For some moments Anstice sat inwardly debating the question, the note in
his hand.
He had no engagement for the evening. The people of Littlefield,
puzzled, perhaps a little piqued, by the aloofness of his manner, rarely
invited him to their houses in anything but his professional capacity,
though they called upon his services in and out of season; and Sir
Richard Wayne and Mr. Carey, the gentle, courtly Vicar of the parish,
were the only two men with whom he ever enjoyed an hour's quiet chat
over a soothing pipe or cigar.
So that there was no reason why he should hesitate to accept Chloe
Carstairs' invitation for that particular evening, yet hesitate he did,
unaccountably; and when, after fifteen minutes indecision, he suddenly
scribbled and dispatched an acceptance, the messenger had barely gone
from his presence before he felt an unreasoning impulse to recall the
letter.
What lay at the bottom of his strange reluctance to enjoy Chloe's
hospitality he had not the faintest notion. He had no special aversion
to meeting her brother, nor was he in any way reluctant to improve his
acquaintance with Iris Wayne.... Did his heart, indeed, beat just a
shade faster at the thought of meeting her? Yet something seemed to
whisper that this invitation was disastrous, that it would set in train
events which might be overwhelming in their sequence.
He tried, vainly, to banish the faint premonition of evil which had
fallen upon him when he realized it was too late to recall his
acceptance. Throughout the day it persisted, and when at length he went
to his room to dress for the evening, he felt a strong inclination to
excuse himself over the telephone on the plea of an urgent call to whose
importance he could not turn a deaf ear.
Such an excuse would, he knew, pass muster well enough. A doctor can
rarely be depended upon, socially, and when he was dressed he went
downstairs with the intention of ringing up Cherry Orchard and
regretting his inability to make a fourth at Mrs. Carstairs'
dinner-table that night.
Yet at the last moment Fate, or that other Higher Power of which we know
too little to speak with any familiarity, intervened to restrain his
impulse, and with a muttered imprecation at his own unusual vacillation
he turned away from the telephone and went out to his waiting car
impatiently.
Arriving at Cherry Orchard, the elderly manservant relieved him of his
coat with a deferential smile.
"I think I'm a little late, Hagyard." Anstice glanced at the grandfather
clock in the corner. "Or perhaps your clock's a bit forward."
"I daresay it is, sir." Hagyard accepted the suggestion with
well-trained alacrity. "Miss Wayne has only been here a moment or two."
He threw open the door as he spoke and Anstice entered the drawing-room
with a sudden unwelcome return of his premonition strong upon him.
Yet the room, with its shaded lamps, small wood-fire, and latticed
windows open to the sweet spring twilight, looked peaceful enough. As
usual there were masses of flowers about, tulips, narcissi, anemones;
and the atmosphere was fragrant as Anstice went forward to greet his
hostess, who stood by one of the casements with her guests beside her.
She came towards him with her usual slow step, which never, for all its
deliberation, suggested the languor of ill-health; and as he began to
apologize for his late arrival she smiled away his apologies.
"You're not really late, Dr. Anstice, and in any case we should have
given you a few minutes' grace."
She stood aside for him to greet Iris, and as he shook hands with the
girl Anstice's heart gave a sudden throb of pleasure, which, for the
moment, almost succeeded in banishing that uncanny premonition of evil
which had come with him to the very gates of Cherry Orchard.
She was very simply dressed in a frock of filmy grey-green chiffon whose
colour reminded him of the spiky leaves of a carnation; but he had never
seen her look prettier than on that mild spring night; and his eyes
unconsciously softened as they dwelt upon her face for one fleeting
moment.
Then as Chloe's soft, deep voice, introducing her brother, stole on his
ear, he turned to greet the other man; and instantly he realized, too
late, the meaning of that presentiment of ill which had haunted him all
day; understood why the inner, spiritual part of him had bidden him
refuse Chloe Carstairs' invitation to Cherry Orchard that night.
For the man who turned leisurely from the window to greet the new-comer
was the man whom he had last seen in a green-walled bedroom in an Indian
hotel, the man whom, by a tragic error, he had robbed of the woman he
loved, from whom he had parted with a mutual hope that their paths in
life might never cross again.
* * * * *
Mrs. Carstairs' brother was the man whom Hilda Ryder had loved, Bruce
Cheniston himself.