Winn wanted, if possible, a home without rows. He knew very little of
homes, and nothing which had made him suppose this ideal likely to be
realized.
Still he went on having it, hiding it, and hoping for it.
Once he had come across it. It was the time when he had decided to
undertake a mission to Tibet without a government mandate. He wanted
young Drummond to go with him. The job was an awkward and dangerous one.
Certain authorities had warned Winn that though, if the results were
satisfactory, it would certainly be counted in his favor, should
anything go wrong no help could be sent to him, and he would be held
personally responsible; that is he would be held responsible if he were
not dead, which was the most likely outcome of the whole business.
It is easy to test a man on the Indian frontier, and Winn had had his
eye on Lionel Drummond for two years. He was a cool-headed, reliable
boy, and in some occult and wholly unexpressed way Winn was conscious
that he was strongly drawn to him. Winn offered him the job, and even
consented, when he was on leave, to visit the Drummonds and talk the
matter over with the boy's parents. It was then that he discovered that
people really could have a quiet home.
Mrs. Drummond was a woman of a great deal of character, very great
gentleness, and equal courage. She neither cried nor made fusses, and no
one could even have imagined her making a noise.
It was she who virtually settled, after a private talk with Winn, that
Lionel might accompany him. The extraordinary thing that Mrs. Drummond
said to Winn was, "You see, I feel quite sure that you'll look after
Lionel, whatever happens."
Winn had replied coldly, "I should never dream of taking a man who
couldn't look after himself."
Mrs. Drummond said nothing. She just smiled at Winn as if he had agreed
that he would look after Lionel. General Drummond was non-committal. He
knew the boy would get on without the mission, but he also seemed to be
influenced by some absurd idea that Winn was to be indefinitely trusted,
so that he would say nothing to stop them. Lionel himself was wild with
delight, and the whole affair was managed without suspicion, resentment,
or hostility.
The expedition was quite as hard as the authorities had intimated, and
at one point it very nearly proved fatal. A bad attack of dysentery and
snow blindness brought Lionel down at a very inconvenient spot, crossing
the mountains of Tibet during a blizzard. The rest of the party said
with some truth that they must go forward or perish. Winn sent them on
to the next settlement, keeping back a few stores and plenty of
cartridges. He said that he would rejoin them with Drummond when
Drummond was better, and if he did not arrive before a certain date they
were to push on without him.
They were alone together for six weeks, and during these six weeks Winn
discovered that he was quite a new kind of person; for one thing he
developed into a first-rate nurse, and he could be just like a mother,
and say the silliest, gentlest things. No one was there to see or hear
him, and the boy was so ill that he wouldn't be likely to remember
afterwards. He did remember, however, he remembered all his life. The
stores ran out and they were dependent on Winn's rifle for food. They
melted snow water to drink, and there were days when their chances
looked practically invisible.
Somehow or other they got out of it, the boy grew better, the weather
improved, and Winn managed, though the exact means were never specified,
to drag Lionel on a sledge to the nearest settlement, where the rest of
the party were still awaiting them.
After that the expedition was successful and the friendship between the
two men final. Winn didn't like to think what Mrs. Drummond would say to
him when they got back to England, but she let him down quite easily;
she gave him no thanks, she only looked at him with Lionel's steady eyes
and said, smiling a little, "I always knew you'd bring him back to me."
Winn did not ask Lionel to stay at Staines Court until the wedding. None
of the Staines went in much for making friends, and he didn't want his
mother to see that he was fond of any one.
The night before the wedding, however, Lionel arrived in the midst of an
altercation as to who had ordered the motor to meet the wrong train.
This lasted a long time because all the Staines, except Dolores, were
gathered together, and it expanded unexpectedly into an attack on
Charles, the eldest son, whose name had been coupled with that of a lady
whose professional aptitudes were described as those of a manicurist.
There was a moment when murder of a particularly atrocious and
internecine character seemed the only possible outcome to the
discussion--then Charles in a white fury found the door.
Before he had gone out of earshot Sir Peter asked Lionel what his father
would do if presented with a possible daughter-in-law so markedly frail?
Sir Peter seemed to be laboring under the delusion that he had been
weakly favorable to his son's inclinations, and that any other father
would have expressed himself more forcibly. Lionel was saved from the
awkwardness of disagreeing with him by an unexpected remark from Lady
Staines.
"A girl from some kind of a chemist's shop," she observed musingly. "I
fancy she's too good for Charles."
Sir Peter, who was fond of Charles, said the girl was probably not from
a chemist's shop; and described to the horror of the butler, who had
entered to prepare the tea-table, just what kind of a place she probably
was from.
Lady Staines looked at Winn, and said she didn't see that it was much
worse to marry a manicure girl than one who looked like a manequin. They
were neither of them types likely to do credit to the family. Winn
replied that, as far as that went, bad clothes and good morals did not
always go together. He was prepared apparently with an apt illustration,
when Isabella's husband, the Rev. Mr. Betchley, asked feebly if he might
go up-stairs to rest.
It was quite obvious to everybody that he needed it.
The next morning at breakfast the manicure girl was again discussed,
but in a veiled way so as not really to upset Charles before the
wedding.
Winn escaped immediately afterwards with Lionel. They went for a walk,
most of which was conducted in silence; finally, however, they found a
log, took out their pipes, and made themselves comfortable.
Lionel said, "I wish I'd seen Miss Fanshawe; it must be awfully jolly
for you, Winn."
Winn was silent for a minute or two, then he began, slowly gathering
impetus as he went on: "Well--yes, of course, in a sense it is. I mean,
I know I'm awfully lucky and all that, only--you see, old chap, I'm
frightfully ignorant of women. I know one sort of course--a jolly sight
better than you do--but girls! Hang it all, I don't know girls. That's
what worries me--she's such a little thing." He paused a moment. "I hope
it's all right," he said, "marrying her. It seems pretty rough on them
sometimes, I think--don't you--I fancy she's delicate and all that."
Lionel nodded. "It does seem rather beastly," he admitted, "their having
to have a hard time, I mean--but if they care for you--I suppose it
works out all right." Winn paid no attention to this fruitless optimism.
He went on with his study of Estelle. "She's--she's religious too, you
know, that's why we're to have that other service first. Rather nice
idea, I think, don't you, what? Makes it a bit of a strain for her
though I'm afraid, but she'd never think of that. I'm sure she's
plucky." Lionel also was quite sure Estelle must be plucky.
"Fancy you getting married," Lionel said suddenly. "I can't see it
somehow."
"I feel it funny myself," Winn admitted. "You see, it's so damned long,
and I never have seen much of women. I hope she won't expect me to talk
a lot or anything of that kind. Her people, you know, chatter like so
many magpies--just oozes out of 'em."
"We must be off," Lionel said.
They stood up, knocked the ashes out of their pipes, and prepared to
walk on.
It was a mild June day, small vague hills stretched behind them, and
before them soft, lawn-like fields fell away to the river's edge.
Everywhere the green of trees in a hundred tones of color and with
delicate, innumerable leaf shadows, laid upon the landscape, the
fragrance and lightness of the spring.
They were in a temperate land, every yard of it was cultivated and
civilized, immensely lived on and understood. None of it had been
neglected or was dangerous or strange to the eye of man.
Simultaneously the thought flashed between them of other lands and of
sharper vicissitudes; they saw again bleak passes which were cruel death
traps, and above them untrodden alien heights; they felt the solemn
vastness of the interminable, flawless snows. They kept their eyes away
from each other--but they knew what each other was feeling, adventure
and danger were calling to them--the old sting and thrill of an unending
trail; and then from a little hollow in the guarded hills rang out the
wedding bells.
Lionel looked a little shyly at his chief. "I wonder," he said, as Winn
made no response, "if we can ever do things--things together again, I
mean--I should like to think we could." Winn gave him a quick look and
moved hastily ahead over the field path toward the church. "Why the
devil shouldn't we?" he threw back at Lionel over his shoulder.