The Dark Tower

“Do!” he snorted, “Write and tell ’em when they’ve got any kind of job on the size of six-pence I’ll be in it! And if not Tibet’s about as useful to draw up a report on — as ice in the hunting season — and I’m off in March — and that’s that!”

A tear rolled down Estelle’s cheek and splashed on the tablecloth; she trembled harder until her teaspoon rattled.

Winn looked at her. “What’s up?” he asked irritably. “Anything wrong?”

“I suppose,” she said, prolonging a small sob, “you don’t care what I feel about going to India?”

“But you knew we were always going out in March didn’t you?” he asked, as if that had anything to do with it! The absurd face value that he gave to facts was enough to madden any woman. Estelle sobbed harder.

“I never knew I should be so unhappy!” she moaned. Winn looked extremely foolish and rather conscience-stricken; he even made a movement to rise, but thought better of it.

“I’m sure I’m awfully sorry,” he said apologetically. “I suppose you mean you’re a bit sick of me, don’t you?” Estelle wiped her eyes, and returned to her toast. “Can’t you see,” she asked bitterly, “that our life together is the most awful tragedy?”

“Oh, come now,” said Winn, who associated tragedy solely with police courts and theaters. “It’s not so bad as all that, is it? We can rub along, you know. I dare say I’ve been rather a brute, but I shall be a lot better company when I’m back in the regiment. We must buck up, that’s all! I don’t like to bother you about it, but I think you’d see things differently if we had a kid. I do really. I’ve seen heaps of scratch marriages turn out jolly well — when the kids began to come!”

“How can you be so disgustingly coarse!” shuddered Estelle. “Besides, I’m far too delicate! Not that you would care if I died! You’d just marry again!”

“Oh, no! I shouldn’t do that,” said Winn in his horrid quiet way which might mean anything. He got up and walked to the window. “You wouldn’t die,” he observed with his back turned to her. “You’d be a jolly sight stronger all the rest of your life! I asked Travers!”

“Oh!” she cried, “you don’t mean to tell me that you talked me over with that disgusting red-faced man!”

“I don’t talk people over,” said Winn without turning round. “He’s a doctor. I asked his opinion!”

“Well,” she said, “I think it was horrible of you — and — and most ungentlemanly. If I’d wanted to know, I’d have found out for myself. I haven’t the slightest confidence in regimental doctors.”

Winn said nothing. One of the things Estelle most disliked in him was the way in which it seemed as if he had some curious sense of delicacy of his own. She wanted to think of Winn as a man impervious to all refinement, born to outrage the nicer susceptibility of her own mind, but there were moments when it seemed as if he didn’t think the susceptibilities of her mind were nice at all. He was not awed by her purity.

He didn’t say anything of course, but he let certain subjects prematurely drop.

Suddenly he turned round from the window and fixed his eyes on hers. She thought he was going to be very violent, but he wasn’t, he talked quite quietly, only something hard and bright in his eyes warned her to be careful.

“Look here,” he said, “I’ve thought of something, a kind of bargain! I’ll give in to you about this job, if you’ll give in to me about the other! It’s no use fighting over things, is it?

“If you’ll have a kid, I’ll stay on here for a year more; if you won’t, I’ll clear out in March and you’ll have to come with me, for I can’t afford two establishments. I don’t see what else to offer you unless you want to go straight back to your people. You’d hardly care to go to mine, if they’d have you.

“But if you do what I ask about the child — I’ll meet you all the way round — I swear to — you shan’t forget it! Only you must ride straight. If you play me any monkey tricks over it — you’ll never set eyes on me again; and I’m afraid you’ll have to have Travers, because I trust him, not some slippery old woman who’d let you play him like a fish! D’you understand?”

Estelle stared aghast at this mixture of brutality and cunning. Her mind flew round and round like a squirrel in a cage.

She could have managed beautifully if it hadn’t been for Travers. Travers would be as impervious to handling as a battery mule. She really wouldn’t be able to do anything with Travers. He looked as if he drank; but he didn’t.

Of course having a baby was simply horrid; lots of women got out of it nowadays who were quite happily married.

It was disgusting of Winn to suggest it when he didn’t even love her.

But once she had one, if she really did give way, a good deal might be done with it.

Maternity was sacred; being a wife on the other hand was “forever climbing up the climbing wave,” there was nothing final about it as there was in being able to say, “I am the mother of your child!”

Her wistful blue eyes expanded. She saw her own way spreading out before her like a promised land. “I can’t,” she said touchingly, “decide all this in a minute.”