The Dark Tower

In an unhappy marriage the woman generally scores unless she is in love with her husband. Estelle never had been in love with Winn; she had had an agreeable feeling about him, and now she had a disagreeable feeling about him, but neither of these emotions could be compared with beaten-brass hot-water jugs, which she had always meant to have when she was married.

If Winn had remained deeply in love with her, besides making things more comfortable at meals it would have been a feather in her cap. Still his cruelty could be turned into another almost more becoming feather.

She said to herself and a little later to the nearest clergyman, “I must make an offering of my sorrow.” She offered it a good deal, almost to every person she met. Even the cook was aware of it; but, like all servants, she unhesitatingly sided with the master. He might be in the wrong, but he was seldom if ever in the kitchen.

They had to have a house and servants, because Estelle felt that marriage without a house was hardly legal; and Winn had given way about it, as he was apt to do about things Estelle wanted. His very cruelty made him particularly generous about money.

But Estelle was never for a moment taken in by his generosity; she saw that it was his way of getting out of being in love with her. Winn was a bad man and had ruined her life — this forced her to supplement her trousseau.

Later on when he put down one of his hunters and sold a polo pony so that she could have a maid, she began to wonder if she had at all found out how bad he really was?

There was one point he never yielded; he firmly intended to rejoin his regiment in March.

The station to which they would have to go was five thousand feet up, lonely, healthy, and quite unfashionable. Winn had tried to make it seem jolly to her and had mentioned as a recommendation apparently that it was the kind of place in which you needn’t wear gloves. It was close to the border, and women had to be a little careful where they rode.

Estelle had every intention of being careful; she would, she thought, be too careful ever to go to the Indian frontier at all. She had often heard of the tragic separations of Anglo-Indian marriages; it was true that they were generally caused by illness and children, but there must be other methods of obtaining the same immunities.

She had never had any difficulty with the doctor at home; she relied on him entirely, and he had invariably ordered her what she wanted, after a nice quiet talk.

Travers, the regimental doctor, was different, he looked exactly like a vet, and only understood things you had actually broken. Still Estelle put her trust in Providence; no self-respecting higher Power could wish a woman of her type to be wasted on a hill station. Something would happen to help her, and if not, she would be given grace to help herself.

One day Winn came down to breakfast with a particularly disagreeable expression. He said “good-morning” into his newspaper as usual without noticing her pathetic little smile.

He only unburied himself to take his second cup of coffee, then he said, without looking at her,

“It’s a beastly nuisance, the War Office want me to extend my leave — hanged if I do.”

Estelle thanked Heaven in a flash and passed him the marmalade. She had never dreamed the War Office could be so efficient.

“That shows,” she said gracefully, “what they think of you!”

Winn turned his sardonic eyes towards her. “Thanks,” he drawled, “I dare say it’s the kind of thing you’d like. They propose that I should stay on here at the Staff College for another year and write ’em a damned red tape report on Tibet.” His irony, dropped from him. “If it was a job,” he said in a low voice, “I’d go like a shot.”

“Mightn’t it mean promotion?” she asked a little nervously. Winn shrugged his shoulders. “I can write anything they want out there,” he said gloomily. “All I want is ink! What I know I’ve got in my head, you see. I’d take that with me.”

“But you couldn’t talk things over with them or answer their questions, could you?” Estelle intelligently ventured. She had an intelligence which ripened along the line of her desires.

“I could tell them anything they want to know in ten minutes!” said Winn impatiently. “They don’t want information, they want a straight swift kick! They know what I think — they just want me to string out a lot of excuses for them not to act! Besides the chief thing is — they’d have to send for me, if there was a row — I know the ground and the other chaps don’t. I wish to God there’d be a row!”

Estelle sighed and gazed pathetically out of the window. Her eyes rested on the bed where the hyacinths were planted, and beyond it to gorse bushes and a corrugated iron shed.

They were at Aldershot, which was really rather a good place for meeting suitable people. “What do you intend to do?” she asked, trembling a little. Winn was at his worst when questioned as to his intentions; he preferred to let them explode like fire-crackers.