Afterwards Part 29

"Just look after the child a moment or two, will you?" he said. "Mrs.

Carstairs, may I have a word with you? Oh, don't be alarmed--I only want to hear a little more about the affair."

Tochatti shot a quick look at him from her beady black eyes; and Anstice was momentarily puzzled by her curious expression. She looked almost as though she resented his presence--and yet she should have welcomed him, seeing that he was there to do his best for the child she adored. But as she moved to the side of the bed, and took Cherry's unhurt hand in her own brown fingers with a touch of almost maternal tenderness, he told himself impatiently that he was fanciful; and turned to Mrs. Carstairs with a resolute movement.

"Will you come into my room, Dr. Anstice?" Chloe's s.p.a.cious bedroom led out of her little daughter's pink and white nest; and as Anstice followed her she pulled the door to with a nervous action curiously unlike herself.

"Dr. Anstice, will she die?" Her lips were ashy, and in her white face only the sapphire eyes seemed alive. "If she dies, I will never forgive Tochatti--never!"

"Tochatti?" Anstice was surprised. "Was she to blame for this?"

"Not altogether." Chloe could be just, it seemed, even in the midst of her sorrow. "I will tell you what happened. As perhaps you know, Cherry was to have been one of Iris Wayne's bridesmaids, and at her own request Tochatti had made her dress, a flimsy little thing all muslin and lace.

She had spent days over it--she embroiders wonderfully, and when it was done it was perfectly exquisite. She finished it last evening, and Cherry insisted on a dress rehearsal. She was to pay me a surprise visit in the drawing-room just before dinner, and it seems that when she was quite ready Tochatti slipped downstairs to find Hagyard and admit him to a private view, leaving Cherry alone in the room--against all rules--with two candles burning on the dressing-table."

She paused.

"I think I understand," said Anstice quietly. "Cherry took up a candle to get a better view of her pretty frock, and----"

"Not exactly," Chloe interrupted him. "She leaned forward, it seems, in order to look at herself more closely in the gla.s.s--you know children are fond of seeing themselves in pretty clothes--and, as you might imagine, she leaned too close to the candle and her sleeve caught fire."

"She cried out?"

"Yes--luckily we all heard her." Through all her marble pallor Chloe flushed at the remembrance of that poignant moment. "We rushed in and found her shrieking, and Tochatti beat out the flames with her hands."

"With her hands? Is she burnt, too, then?"

"Yes--I believe so." Chloe's tone expressed no pity. "She tied up her hand--the left one--herself, and says it is nothing much."

"I see." Privately Anstice determined to investigate the woman's hurt before he left the house. "Well--and what then?"

"When we got the flames under we found that Cherry had fainted, and we telephoned at once for you." She stopped short, taken aback by the strange expression on his face.

"Yes--and I wish to G.o.d I'd heard your call!" Anstice bit his lip savagely; and Chloe, uncomprehending but compa.s.sionate, hastened on with her story.

"You couldn't help being ill! Iris told me how your maids were all in the Park watching the fireworks--and then when my brother and Iris came down you were too ill to come. Are you better now?"

"So they went for Willows and brought him back with them?" He disregarded her question--possibly did not hear it.

"Yes, and as I have told you he was most kind. But of course Cherry did not know him, and she kept on crying for you----"

Chloe, who had intended the last words kindly, thinking to please him by this proof of the child's affection for him, was aghast at the result of her speech.

"Mrs. Carstairs, for G.o.d's sake don't tell me that!" Anstice's voice almost frightened her, so bitter, so full of remorse was it. "It only wanted _that_ to make the horror complete--the knowledge that I failed a little child in her need!"

"The horror?" She stared at him. "I don't understand."

"No, and there's no reason why you should." With a great effort he resumed his ordinary tone. "Mrs. Carstairs, forgive me. I ... as you know--I was--ill--last night, and I'm not quite myself this morning.

But"--he turned the subject resolutely--"what I want to say is this.

Cherry will need very careful nursing for some days, and I think it will be well for me to send you a nurse."

Chloe received the suggestion rather dubiously.

"Do you think it is really necessary?" she said at length. "I'm as strong as a horse, and as for Tochatti, I'm afraid she wouldn't like to feel herself superseded. She is devoted to Cherry, you know, and she is a very jealous woman."

"Yes," he said, "but even although you and Tochatti are ready to give yourselves up to the child, in a case of this sort skill is wanted as well as affection." He smiled to soften the harshness of his words, and Chloe inconsequently thought that he looked very weary this morning.

"Of course, and if we don't prove competent you are at liberty to send us a nurse. But"--she spoke rather wistfully--"mayn't we try, Tochatti and I? I would a thousand times sooner nurse Cherry myself than let a stranger be with her."

Touched by something in her voice, remembering also the peculiar position in which this woman stood--a wife without a husband, with no one in the world, apparently, to care for her save her child--Anstice yielded the point for the moment.

"Very well, then. We will try this arrangement first, and if Cherry goes on well there will be no need to call in other help. Now I should like to see Tochatti, and give you both instructions."

Without a word Chloe led him back to the smaller bedroom where Cherry lay uneasily dozing; and Anstice beckoned to Tochatti to approach the window.

She came forward rather sullenly; and Anstice, irritated by her manner, spoke in rather a peremptory tone.

"Let me see your hands, please. I understand you were burnt last night."

Unwillingly the woman held out her left hand, which was wrapped round with a roughly constructed bandage; and as Anstice took it and began to unwind the folds he heard her draw in her breath with an odd little hiss.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, surprised, and the woman answered stolidly.

"No, thank you, sir. You did not hurt me at all."

Her manner struck him as peculiar; it almost seemed as though she resented his efforts on her behalf; and as he unwrapped the last of the bandage Anstice told himself she was by no means an attractive patient.

But when he saw her hand he forgave her all her peculiarities; for she must have suffered untold pain during the hours which had elapsed since the accident.

"I say--why didn't you show your hand to the doctor last night?" He spoke impetuously, really shocked to see the extent of her burns. "You have given yourself a lot of unnecessary pain, and it will take much longer to heal. You must let me dress the place at once."

a.s.sisted by Chloe, who fetched and carried for him deftly, he dressed and bound up the burnt hand; and though the woman never flinched, there was a look in her eyes which showed him she was enduring great pain.

"There." He finished his work and looked at her closely. "That will feel easier soon. But you know you should lie down and try to sleep for an hour or two--and that hand will be quite useless for some days. Really, Mrs. Carstairs"--he turned to Chloe--"I think you will have to let me send for a nurse, after all. You can't do everything, and Tochatti is more or less disabled----"

He was surprised by the effect of his words. Tochatti turned to her mistress eagerly, and began pouring out a stream of Italian which was quite incomprehensible to Anstice, who was no better at modern languages than the average public school and University product. And Chloe replied in the same tongue, though without the wealth of gesture employed by the other woman; while Anstice waited, silently, until the colloquy was concluded.

Finally Chloe turned, apologetically, to him and explained the subject of the woman's entreaties.

"Tochatti is so terribly upset at the idea of a strange woman coming to nurse Cherry that I have promised to try to persuade you to reverse your verdict," she said. "Do you mind? Of course if we can't manage you must do as you think fit--but----"

"We will try, by all means." In spite of himself, he was touched by the woman's fierce devotion to her charge. "And now I'll tell you exactly what I want you to do until I come again this afternoon."

He proceeded to give them full instructions how to look after the child, and when he had a.s.sured himself that they understood exactly what was to be done, he took his leave, promising to call again in the course of a few hours.

As he drove away he mused for a moment on the Italian woman's peculiar manner towards him.

"Seems as if she hated me to speak to her ... she's never been like that before--indeed, when Cherry broke her arm she used to welcome me quite demonstratively." He smiled, then grew grave again. "Of course the woman was in pain to-day--she was a queer colour, too--looked downright ill. I expect the affair has been a shock to her as well as to the child."

And with that conclusion he dismissed Tochatti from his mind for the time being, his thoughts reverting to the one subject which filled his mental horizon to-day.