Afterwards. Kathlyn Rhodes
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."
CHAPTER IV
Anstice was destined to renew his acquaintance with Iris Wayne sooner than he had anticipated.
On the Sunday afternoon following the little luncheon party at Cherry Orchard, he was tramping, pipe in mouth, over the golf-links when he saw her ahead of him, in company with an elderly gentleman whom he guessed must be her father.
She had just holed her ball by a deft stroke, and as he approached Anstice heard her utter an exultant exclamation.
"Very good, my dear." Her companion patted her arm. "A little more care and you will make quite a fair player."
"Fair player indeed!" Iris tossed