"and you 've had about as much experience of civilized women as a European baby has of crocodiles, and you'll be just about as safe and clever with them. As for you, Peter, I should think you might begin to save toward the damages of Winn's divorce proceedings now." Sir Peter's oaths accompanied his wife across the dining-room to the door, which her son opened ceremoniously for her. Their eyes crossed like swords. "If I get that girl, you'll be nice to her," Winn said in a low voice. "As long as you are," replied Lady Staines, with a grim smile. He did not bang the door after her, as she had hoped; instead, he went to see the girl. CHAPTER II It was eleven o'clock when Winn arrived at the Fanshawes. Estelle was barely dressed; she always slept late, had her breakfast in bed, and gave as much trouble as possible to the servants. However, when she heard who had called to see her, she sent for a basket and some roses, and five minutes later strolled into the drawing-room, with her hat on, and the flowers in her hands. Her mother stayed in the garden and nervously thought out the lunch. Winn seized the basket out of Estelle's hands, took her by the wrists. She was n't frightened of him, but she pretended to be. She said, "Oh, Major Staines!" She looked as soft and innocent as a cream-fed kitten. Winn cleared his throat. It made him feel rather religious to look at her. He did not of course see her as a kitten; he saw her approximately as an angel. "Look here," he said, "my name 's Winn." "You 're hurting my wrists," she murmured. He dropped them. "Winn," she said under her breath. "Look here," he said after a moment's pause, "would you mind marrying me?" Estelle lifted her fine China blue eyes to his. They were n't soft, but they could sometimes look very mysterious. "Oh," she said, "but, Winn-it 's so sudden- -so soon!" "Leave 's short," Winn explained, "and besides, I knew the moment I looked at you that I wanted you. I don't know how you feel, of course; but-well-I 'm sure you are n't the kind of girl to let a fellow kiss you, are you, and mean nothing?" Estelle's long lashes swept her cheeks; she behaved exquisitely. She was, of course, exactly that kind of girl. "Ah," she said, with a little tremble in her voice, "if I do marry you-will you be kind to me?" Winn trembled, too; he flushed very red, and suddenly he did the funniest, most unlikely thing in the world: he got down on his knees beside her, and taking both her hands in his, he kissed them. "I'll be like this as much as ever you 'll let me," he said gravely. ESTELLE'S wedding was a great success, but this was not surprising when one realized how many years had been spent in preparation for it. Estelle was only twenty-three, but for the last ten years she had known that she would marry, and she had thought out every detail of the ceremony except the bridegroom. You could have any kind of bridegroom,-men were essentially imperfect,-but you need have only one kind of ceremony, and that could be ideal. Estelle had visualized everything from the last pot of lilies-always annunciation ones, not arum, which look paganat the altar, to the red cloth at the door. There were to be rose-leaves instead of rice; the wedding was to be in June, with a tent in the garden and strawberries. If possible, she would be married by a bishop; if not, by a dean. The bishop having proved too remote, the dean had to do. But he was a fine-looking man, and would be made a bishop soon, so Estelle did not really mind. The great thing was to have gaiters on the lawn. afterward. The day was perfect. Estelle woke at her usual hour in the morning, her heart beating a little faster than it generally did, and then she remembered with a pang of joy the perfect fit of her weddinggown hanging in the wardrobe. She murmured to herself: "One love, one life." She was not thinking of Winn, but she had always meant to say that on her wedding morning. The village church was comfortably full, and with her eyes modestly cast down Estelle managed to see that all the right people were there, including the clergyman's daughters, whom she had always hated. At the top of the aisle Winn waited for his bride. Instead of looking as if he were waiting for his bride, he looked exactly as if he were holding a narrow pass against an enemy. His very figure had a peculiarly stern and rock-like expression. His broad shoulders were set, his rather heavy head was erect, and when he did look at Estelle, it was an inconceivably sharp look, as if he were trying to see through her. She did n't know, of course, that on his way to church he had thought every little white cloud in the blue sky was like her, and every lily in a cottage garden. Then the service began, and they had the celebration first, and afterward the usual ceremony, perfectly conducted, and including the rather over-exercised "Voice that Breathed o'er Eden." In the vestry Winn began to be tiresome. The vicar said: "Kiss the bride," and Winn replied: "No, thanks; not at present," looking like a stone wall, and sticking his hands into his pockets. The vicar, who had known him from a boy, did not press the point; but of course the dean looked surprised. Any dean would. When they drove off, Estelle turned toward Winn with shining eyes and quivering lips. It was the moment for a judicious amount of love-making, and all Winn said was: "Look here, you know, those highheeled things on your feet are absolutely murderous. They might give you a bad tumble. Don't let me see you in 'em again. Are you sure you 're quite comfortable, and all that?" He made the same absurd fuss about Estelle's comfort in the railway carriage; but it was one of the last occasions on which he did it, because he discovered almost immediately that however many things you could think of for Estelle's comfort, she could think of more for herself. Estelle had a great deal that she wanted to talk over about the wedding. Winn listened hard and tried to follow intelligently all the family histories she evolved for him. At last after a rather prolonged pause on his part, just at a point when he should have expressed admiration of her guidance of a delicate affair, Estelle glanced at him and discovered that he was asleep! They had n't been married for three hours, and he could go to sleep in the middle of their first real talk! But Winn was old,-he was thirtyfive, and she could see quite plainly now that the hair round the tops of his ears was gray. She looked at him scornfully, but he did n't wake up. When he woke up he laughed. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I believe I've been to sleep!" but he did n't apologize. He began instead to tell her some things that might interest her, about what Drummond, his best man, and he had done in Manchuria, just as if nothing had happened; but naturally Estelle would n't be interested. She was first polite, then bored, then captious. Winn looked at her rather hard. "Are you trying to pay me back for falling asleep?" he asked with a queer little laugh. "Is that what you 're up to?" Estelle stiffened. "Certainly not," she said; "I simply was n't very interested." Winn leaned over her, with a wicked light in his eyes, like a naughty school-boy. "Own up!" he said, laying his rough hand very gently on her shoulder. "Own up, old lady!" But has anybody ever owned up when being spiteful? Estelle did n't. She looked at Winn's hand till he withdrew it, and then she re marked that she was feeling faint from want of food. After she had had seven chicken sandwiches, pâté de foie gras, half a melon, and some champagne, she began to be agreeable. Winn was delighted at this change in her and quite inclined to think that their little "breeze" had been entirely due to his own awkwardness. Still, he wished she had owned up. IT took him a month to realize that he had paid his money, had his shy, and knocked down an empty cocoanut. He could n'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 and go out to dinner together, and he was to pay her bills. He knew the great thing in any tight corner was never in any circumstances to let go. All the dangers he had ever been in had yielded only because he had n'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 out 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 could n't get through the gap unless Estelle shared his insight. He would have liked to put it to her, but he did n'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 had n'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 would n'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 informed. Winn, always misunderstood 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 did n't want the gardener to go. She really could n't remember what she 'd said and what she had n't said to him. And Winn was absurd, and how could it matter in any case, and the people next door had hyacinths, and they 'd always had them at home. Winn listened in silence. He did n't say anything more about the gardener having lied, and he did n'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. CHAPTER III 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. 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 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. 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 one need n'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 toward 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." 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 sixpence 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. But I'm off in March, and that 's that." A tear rolled down Estelle's cheek and splashed on the table-cloth; 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 it!" "But you knew we were always going out in March, did n't you?" he asked, as if that had anything to do with it. "I never knew I should be so unhappy!" she moaned. Winn looked extremely foolish and rather consciencestricken. "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? I dare say I 've been rather a brute, but I shall be a lot better company when I'm back in the regiment. 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." "How can you be so disgustingly coarse!" shuddered Estelle. "Besides, I'm far too delicate. Not that you would care if I died; of course you 'd just marry again." "Oh, no, I should n't do that," said Winn in his horrid quiet way which might mean anything. "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." 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 did n't think the susceptibilities of her mind were nice at all. He was not awed by her purity. He did n'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 was n't; he talked quietly. "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. 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. But if you do what I ask about the child, I'll meet you all the way round. 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 had n't been for Travers. Travers would be as impervious to handling as a battery mule. She really would n't be able to do anything with Travers. He looked as if he drank; but he did n't. Of course having a baby was simply horrid; lots of women got out of it nowadays who were quite happily married. Her wistful blue eyes expanded. "I can't," she said touchingly, "decide all this in a minute." |