The Anatomist - Bill Hayes [90]
But I can’t, for I know that a very messy chain of events has already been set in motion. It started in a seemingly innocent way when Carter took four days’ leave in the town of Khandalla, a trip he mentioned only in passing in an entry from mid-May 1859. After this, however, he did not write a single entry until two and a half years later, by which point he had much to get off his chest. That’s all I will say for now, though. Apart from adding clarifying facts and the occasional word to assist the flow of language, I am not needed here. This is H. V. Carter’s story to tell.
“LAST DATE, I noted a short trip to Khandalla,” he recaps in the November 1861 entry. He then continues.
There I met a young woman passing as the wife of an officer in the 89th Regiment (Capt. Barnes Robinson, a young man of not much over 24 years)—with whom I fell into conversation. Lady-like, very lively and agreeable, though she was sick. She made a transitory impression. Returning to Bombay, while living at Fort George, I occasionally visited my namesake Surgeon Carter; there I saw her again—
“Surgeon Carter” is Henry John Carter [or, “C.”], 1813—95 (no relation to H.V.), a professor of ophthalmic surgery at Grant Medical College. The senior Carter’s interest in the young woman piqued H. V. Carter’s.
This is when I learnt the real state of things—she was recently divorced at the Cape and not married to Capt. Robinson [“R.”]. She had come over to join R. but…he had been suddenly sent off up country. He sent her money at long intervals and she was really in want. She had a long and severe illness—acute dysentery—and occupied rooms opposite to mine, for I had taken up quarters at Hope Hall Hotel [where the other Dr. Carter also lived] during the monsoon. Naturally, I sympathized with her condition, without communicating with her, but Carter and self were constantly talking of her. He was greatly taken up with the subject and attended to her health along with Dr. Leith and was kind to the little boy she had with her—
Her child from her first marriage.
After a narrow escape, she began to recover. As she had little money, we both wondered what she would do to get back to England. R. had almost ceased writing, probably having heard from some men of his Regiment who had passed through Bombay, visiting the Hotel, that some thing was going on between Mrs. B. and a Dr. Carter. How I became mixed up in the matter, was probably mistaken for the older man, but anyway, I began to allow self to shew some interest in her, and finding this every means was used to increase this by her, until I became more intimate than C. was.
Things came to a pass, he [C.] was not to be beguiled,…and I suffered myself to be so. I was then in a wretched state of mind—working hard at paper on Calculi in own room, but victim of sensuality and utter despondency. Visits were forced on me, every inducement and opportunity offered. She begged me to attend her for some fancied uterine complaint—and I yielded—even willingly. On 16th August crisis reached overpowering blandishments—and on 17th with the encouragement of a hasty kiss—she afterwards, dead of night, forced herself in my room—my God! What a night!
Perhaps Carter should have checked that all the curtains were drawn.
All this was witnessed by some railway engineers…who afterwards sent to me an anonymous account of all they had seen and heard, written in dogged lines, date and event.
Afterwards the course was reckless…. Though separate, we lived together. It became a matter of notoriety—drove out together in the buggy—everywhere. We then took fresh rooms in the Hotel, but [the new owners,] Parsees, found things getting too hot, and in October gave her a written notice to leave (I had previously become written security for her debts and paid them all).
…I found and furnished a small house