It took Winn a month to realize that he had paid his money, had his shy,
and knocked down an empty cocoanut.
He couldn't get his money back, and he must spend the rest of his life
carrying the cocoanut about with him.
It never occurred to him to shirk the institution of marriage. The
church, the law, and the army stood in his mind for good, indelible
things. Estelle was his wife as much as his handkerchief was his
handkerchief. This meant that they were to be faithful to each other, go
out to dinner together, and that he was to pay her bills. He knew the
great thing in any tight corner was never under any circumstances to let
go. All the dangers he had ever been in, had yielded, only because he
hadn't.
It was true he had not been married before, but the same rule no doubt
held good of marriage. If he held on to it, something more bearable
would come of it. Then one could be out of the house a good deal, and
there was the regiment. He began to see his way through marriage as a
man sees his way through a gap in an awkward fence. The unfortunate part
of it was that he couldn't get through the gap unless Estelle shared his
insight.
He would have liked to put it to her, but he didn't know how; he never
had had a great gift of expression, and something had brought him up
very short in his communications with his wife.
It was so slight a thing that Estelle herself had forgotten all about
it, but to a Staines it was absolutely final. She had told the gardener
that Winn wanted hyacinths planted in the front bed. Winn hadn't wanted
a garden at all, and he had let her have her way in everything else; but
he had said quite plainly that he wouldn't on any account have
hyacinths. The expression he used about them was excessively coarse, and
it certainly should have remained in Estelle's memory. He had said, that
the bally things stank. Nevertheless, Estelle had told the gardener
that the master wanted hyacinths, and the gardener had told Winn. Winn
gazed at the gardener in a way which made him wish that he had never
been a gardener, but had taken up any other profession in which he was
unlikely to meet a glance so "nasty." Then Winn said quietly:
"You are perfectly sure, Parsons, that Mrs. Staines told you it was _my_
wish to have the hyacinths?" And the gardener had said:
"Yes, sir. She _did_ say, sir, as 'ow you 'ad a particler fancy for
them." And Winn had gone into the house and asked Estelle what the devil
she meant? Estelle immediately denied the hyacinths and the gardener.
People like that, she said, always misunderstand what one said to them.
"Very well, then," Winn replied. "He has lied to me, and must go. I'll
dismiss him at once. He told me distinctly that you had said I liked
them."
Estelle fidgeted. She didn't want the gardener to go. She really
couldn't remember what she'd said and what she hadn't said to him. And
Winn was absurd, and how could it matter, and the people next door had
hyacinths, and they'd always had them at home!
Winn listened in silence. He didn't say anything more about the gardener
having lied, and he didn't countermand the hyacinths; only from that
moment he ceased to believe a single word his wife said to him. This is
discouraging to conversation and was very unfair to Estelle; for she
might have told the truth more often if she had not discovered that it
made no difference to her husband whether she told it to him or not.
Estelle knew that her heart was broken, but on the whole she did not
find that she was greatly inconvenienced.
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.
"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."
He could stay on for two years at the War Office, and Estelle meant him
to stay without inconvenience to herself. He tried bargaining with her;
but her idea of a bargain was one-sided.
"I sometimes feel as if you kept me out of everything," she said at
last.
Estelle was feeling her way; she thought she might collect a few extras
to add to her side of the bargain.
Apparently she was right. Winn was all eagerness to meet her. "How do
you mean?" he asked anxiously.
"Oh," she said contemplatively, "such heaps of things! One thing, I
don't expect you've ever noticed that you never ask your friends to stay
here. I've had all mine; you've never even asked your mother! It's as if
you were ashamed of me."
"I'll ask her like a shot if you like," he said eagerly. Estelle was not
anxious for a visit from Lady Staines, but she thought it sounded better
to begin with her. She let her pass.
"It's not only your relations," she went on; "it's your friends. What
must they think of a wife they are never allowed to see?"
"But they're such a bachelor crew," he objected. "It never occurred to
me you'd care for them--just ordinary soldier chaps like me, not a bit
clever or amusing."
Estelle did not say that crews of bachelors are seldom out of place in
the drawing-room of a young and pretty woman. She looked past her
husband to where in fancy she beheld the aisle of a church and the young
Adonis, who had been his best man, with eyes full of reverence and awe
gazing at her approaching figure.
"I thought," she said indifferently, "you liked that man you insisted on
having instead of Lord Arlington at the wedding?"
"I do," said Winn. "He's my best friend. I meet him sometimes in town,
you know."
"He must think it awfully funny," said Estelle, sadly, "our never having
him down here."
"He's not that sort," said Winn. "He was my sub, you know. He wouldn't
think anything funny unless I told him to. We know each other rather
well."
"That makes it funnier still," said Estelle, relentlessly.
"Oh, all right," said Winn, after a moment's pause. "Have him down here
if you like. Shall I write to him or will you?"
"He's your friend," said Estelle, politely.
"Yes," said Winn, "but it's your idea." There was a peculiar look in his
eyes, as if he wanted to warn her about something. He went to the door
and then glanced back at her, apparently hoping that she had changed her
mind.
Estelle hadn't the faintest intention of changing her mind. She had
already decided to put sweet peas in Lionel's room and a marked copy of
"The Road Mender."
"You may as well ask him yourself," said Winn, "if you really want him
to come."