Afterwards Part 8

"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.

CHAPTER III

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 cla.s.sical 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 pa.s.s 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 grat.i.tude with which they were received led him to s.n.a.t.c.h 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 h.o.a.rd 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 grat.i.tude 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 grat.i.tude 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 grat.i.tude 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 pa.s.sengers 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 embarra.s.sing. 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!"