The Dark Tower

by Phyllis Bottome

  “But he’s beastly difficult to say no to,” he added. “You mean to somehow, but you don’t.”

  “I expect he’s trying to manage you,” Mr. Roper cleverly hinted.

  This decided Maurice once and for all. He refused all further invitations. He had a terror of being managed, and though he always was managed, gusts of this fear would seize upon him at any effort to influence him in any direction favorable to himself. He was never in the least uneasy at being managed to his disadvantage.

  Baffled in his main direction, Winn turned his mind upon the subject of Mr. Roper. Mr. Roper was slippery and intensely amiable; these were not the qualities with which Winn felt himself capable of direct dealing. He would have liked to destroy Mr. Roper, and he thought that the situation might eventually arrive at this point; but until it did, he saw that he had better leave Mr. Roper alone. “You can’t do anything with a worm but tread on it,” he said to himself, and in hotels people had to be careful how they trod on worms. There was still Mrs. Bouncing, but a slight study of that lady, which took place in the hall after dinner, put this possibility out of the question. She called Winn a “naughty man” and suggested his taking her tobogganing by moonlight.

  Mr. Bouncing was a side issue, but Winn, despite his own marriage, held the theory that men ought to look after their wives. He felt that if there had been any question of other men he could have managed Estelle; or, even short of managing Estelle, he could have managed the other men. It occurred to him now that perhaps Mr. Bouncing could be led to act favorably upon the question of his wife’s behavior.

  Mr. Bouncing could not walk at all; he could get out to the public balcony in the sun, and when he was there, he lay with the “Pink ’Un” and “The Whipping Post” on his lap and his thermometer beside him. All he asked was that he should have his hot milk regularly four times a day. He hardly talked to anybody at all. This was not because it made him cough to talk – it didn’t particularly; he coughed without being made to – but because he had exhausted his audience.

  There was only one subject left to Mr. Bouncing, and that was his health; after he had told people all his symptoms, they didn’t want to hear any more and there was nothing left to talk about. So he lay there in the sunshine thinking about his symptoms instead. There were a good many of them to think about, and all of them were bad.

  Mr. Bouncing was surprised when Winn sat down to talk to him, and he explained to him at once exactly what the doctors thought of his case. Winn listened passively, and came back the next day at the same time.

  This surprised Mr. Bouncing still more, and little by little the subjects between them widened. Mr. Bouncing still talked about himself, but he talked differently. He told Winn things he had never told any one else, and he was really pleased when Winn laughed at a joke he showed him in “The Pink ’Un.”

  “You can laugh,” he said almost admiringly. “I daren’t, you know; that’s one of the things I’m told not to do, but I often wish some one would come here and laugh at the jokes for me. It’s quite an effort for me sometimes not to burst out; and then, you see, hemorrhage! I knew a poor chap who literally died of it – died of laughing. They might put that in the ‘Pink ’Un,’ mightn’t they?”

  Winn said he thought one might die of worse things.

  “Yes, I know,” agreed Mr. Bouncing, “but I’m not going to be caught like that. I dare say you don’t know, but I believe I’m the worst case in the hotel. I’m not quite sure; that’s what worries me. There’s a Mrs. Maguire who stays in bed. I’ve made all sorts of inquiries about her; but people are so stupid, they don’t know the right symptoms to ask about, and I can’t go in and look at her, can I? And my wife won’t. She says one death’s-head is enough for her and I quite see her point. Perhaps Mrs. Maguire’s case is partly nerves. My wife thinks I’m very nervous. So I am, you know, in a way. I have to be careful; but, Lord! when I see the things people do up here! The risks they take! You, for instance. I’ve seen you do heaps of things that are perfectly deadly; and yet there you are getting better. Funny, isn’t it?”

  Winn said it was funny, but he supposed one must take his chance.

  “Yes, I know; that is what people keep saying,” Mr. Bouncing admitted. “You can take it if you’ve got it; but my point is, if you haven’t got it, you can’t take it, can you? Now, as far as I can see, looking back from the start, you know, I never had a dog’s chance. It’s years since I went out in a wind without an overcoat on, and once in the very beginning I got my feet wet; but for the last five years I’ve been as careful as a girl with a new hat. I think I shall live till the spring if I don’t get influenza. I hope you’ll remember not to come near me if you feel a cold coming on.” Winn assured him that he would. “I asked Dr. Gurnet the other day,” Mr. Bouncing went on musingly, “if he thought I should ever be able to walk to the post-office again – I used to get there and back last winter, you know – but he wouldn’t give me a direct answer. He said he thought I could rely on the hotel porter. He’s not quite definite enough – Dr. Gurnet. I told him the other day how difficult it was to get up in the morning, and he said, ‘Well, then, why not stay in bed?’ But I’m not going to do that. I believe you go quicker when you stay in bed. Besides, I should be dull lying there in bed. I like to sit here and watch people and see the silly things they do. That young boy you sit at table with – he won’t come to any good. Silly! He thinks my wife likes him, but she doesn’t; it’s just that she must have her mind taken off, you know, at times, poor thing. I like to see her amused.”

  “And what about you?” asked Winn. “It seems to me she might better spend some of her time amusing you.”

  Mr. Bouncing pointed to the “Pink ’Un.”

  “I’ve got plenty to amuse me,” he explained, “and you mustn’t think she doesn’t look after me. Why, the other day – when I had the high temperature, you know, and stayed in my room – she came to the door after she’d been skating, and said, ‘Still coughing?’ That shows she noticed I was worse, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m sure she must be awfully anxious about you,” Winn assented with more kindliness than truth. “But do you care for her knocking about so with young Rivers and that chap Roper? It seems to me she’s too young and too pretty. If I were you, I’d call her in a bit; I would really.”

  Mr. Bouncing leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. This always made Winn a little uneasy, for when Mr. Bouncing’s eyes were shut it was so difficult to tell whether he was alive or dead. However, after a few minutes he opened them.

  “They are five minutes late with my hot milk,” he said. “Do you mind just getting up and touching the bell? And you’ve got such a sharp way of speaking to waiters, perhaps you wouldn’t mind hauling him over the coals for me when he comes?” Winn complied with this request rapidly and effectively, and the hot milk appeared as if by magic.

  Mr. Bouncing drank some before he returned to the subject of his wife.

  “Yes,” he said, “I dare say you would call her in. You’re the kind of man who can make people come in when you call. I’m not. Besides, you see, she’s young; she’s got her life to live, and, then, ought I to have married her at all? Of course I was wonderfully well at the time; I could walk several miles, I remember, and had no fever to speak of. Still, there were the symptoms. She took the risk, of course – she was one of a large family, and I had money – but it hasn’t been very amusing for her, you must admit.”

  Winn didn’t admit it, because it seemed to him as if it had been extremely amusing for Mrs. Bouncing, a great deal more amusing than it had any right to be.

  “Perhaps you think she oughtn’t to have married for money,” Mr. Bouncing went on when he had finished the hot milk and Winn still sat there saying nothing. “But you’re quite wrong if you do. Money is the most important thing there is – next to health of course. Health and money – one’s no use without the other, of course; but I don’t honestly think anything else really matters. I know what the chapla
in says; but he’s always been quite strong.”

  “That’s all very well,” said Winn. “I’m not a religious man myself, but people oughtn’t to take something for nothing. If she’s married you for your money, she ought to be more with you. She’s got the money, hasn’t she, and what have you got? That’s the way I look at it.”

  Mr. Bouncing did not shake his head – he was too careful for that – but he looked as if he were shaking it.

  “That’s one point of view, of course,” he said slowly; “but how do you know I want to have her more with me? She’s very young and strong. I expect she’d be exciting, and it wouldn’t be at all good for me to be excited.

  “Besides, she has no sense of humor. I wouldn’t dream of asking her to laugh at my jokes as I do you. She wouldn’t see them, and then I shouldn’t like to show her the improper ones. They’re not suitable for ladies, and the improper ones are the best. I sometimes think you can’t have a really good joke unless it’s improper.”

  Winn did not say anything; but he thought that however limited Mrs. Bouncing’s sense of humor might be, she would have enjoyed the improper ones.

  Mr. Bouncing took out his thermometer.

  “It is five minutes,” he said, “since I’ve had the glass of milk, and I think my tongue must have cooled down by now. So I shall take my temperature, and after that I shall try to go to sleep. But I don’t believe you are really anxious about my wife; what you’re worried about is young Rivers. I’ve seen you taking him for walks, and it’s no use your worrying about him, because, as I’ve said before, he’s silly. If he didn’t do one silly thing, he’d do another. However, he’s selfish, too. That’s always something; he won’t be so likely to come to grief as if he were merely silly. It’s his sister I should be worried about if I were you.”

  “Why?” asked Winn without looking at him. Mr. Bouncing looked at Winn, but he made no answer. He had already got his thermometer in his mouth.

  CHAPTER XV

  Winn had a feeling that he ought to keep away from her, but Davos was an inconvenient place for keeping away. People were always turning up when one least expected them, or one turned up oneself. Privacy and publicity flashed together in the sunny air. Even going off up a mountain with a book was hardly the resource it seemed; friends skied or tobogganed down upon you from the top, and carried you off to tea.

  Winn had an uneasy feeling that he oughtn’t to go every morning to the rink, though that was naturally the place for a man who was only allowed to skate to find himself. It was also the place where he could not fail to find Claire. There were a good many other skaters on the rink, too; they were all preparing for the International Skating Competition.

  The English, as a rule, stuck to their own rink, where they had a style of skating belonging to themselves. Their style was perpendicular and very stiff; it was by no means easy to attain, and when attained, hardly perhaps, to the observer, worth the efforts expended. Winn approved of it highly. He thought it a smart and sensible way to skate, and was by no means a bad exponent; but once he had seen Claire skating on the big rink, he put aside his abortive circling round an orange. It is difficult to concentrate upon being a ramrod when every instinct in you desires to chase a swallow. She wore, when she skated, a short, black velvet skirt, white fox furs, and a white fur cap. One couldn’t very well miss seeing her. It did not seem to Winn as if she skated at all. She skimmed from her seat into the center of her chosen corner, and then looked about her, balanced in the air. When she began to skate he could not tell whether the band was playing or not, because he felt as if she always moved to music.

  She would turn at first mysteriously and doubtingly, trying her edges, with little short cuts and dashes, like a leaf blown now here and now there, pushed by a draught of air, and then some purpose seemed to catch her, and her steps grew intricate and measured. He could not take his eyes from her or remember that she was real, she looked so unsubstantial, eddying to and fro, curving and circling and swooping. There was no stiffness in her, and Winn found himself ready to give up stiffness; it was terrible the amount of things he found himself ready to give up as he watched her body move like seaweed on a tide. Motion and joy and music all seemed easy things, and the things that were not easy slipped out of his mind.

  After a time Maurice would join her to practise the pair-skating. He was a clever skater, but careless, and it set Winn’s teeth on edge to watch how nearly he sometimes let her down. He would have let any other woman down, but Claire knew him. She counted on his not being exactly where he ought to be, hovered longer on her return strokes, pushed herself more swiftly forward to meet him, or retreated to avoid his too impulsive rushes. Winn was always glad when Maurice, satisfied with his cursory practice, left her circling alone and unfettered like a sea-gull on a cliff.

  This was the time when he always made up his mind not to join her, and felt most sure that she didn’t care whether he joined her or not.

  He had not talked with her alone since their lunch at the Schatz Alp nearly a week ago. Every one of her hours was full, her eyes danced and laughed as usual, the secretive bloom of youth hid away from him any sign of expectation. He did not dream that every day for a week she had expected and wanted him. She couldn’t herself have explained what she wanted. Only her gaiety had lost its unconsciousness; she was showing that she didn’t mind, she was not, now minding. It seemed so strange that just when she had felt as if they were real friends he had mysteriously kept away from her. Perhaps he hadn’t meant all the nice things he had said or all the nicer things he hadn’t said at all, but just looked whenever her eyes met his? They did not meet his now; he always seemed to be looking at something else. Other men put on her skates and found her quickest on the rink, and the other men seemed to Claire like trees walking; they were no longer full of amusing possibilities. They were in the way. Then one morning Winn, watching her from a distance noticed that Maurice didn’t turn up. Claire actually looked a forlorn and lonely little figure, and he couldn’t make up his mind not to join her.

  He skated slowly up to her.

  “Well,” he said, “where’s Maurice? He oughtn’t to be missing a good skating morning like this?” It suddenly seemed to Claire as if everything was all right again. Winn was there for her, just as he had been on the Schatz Alp; his eyes looked the same, and the intentional bruskness which he put into his voice was quite insufficient to hide its eagerness.

  “Oh,” she said, “Major Staines, I didn’t mean to tell anybody, but I shall tell you of course. It’s rather sickening, isn’t it? Maurice doesn’t want to go in for the competition any more; he says he can’t spare the time.”

  “What!” cried Winn; “look here, let’s sit down and talk about it.” They sat down, and the music and the sunshine spread out all round them. Everything swung into a curious harmony, and left them almost nothing to be upset about. “He can’t throw you over like this,” Winn protested. “Why, it’s only a fortnight off the day, and you’re one of the tiptop skaters.”

  Claire did not say what she knew to be true, that people had been saying that too much to Maurice, and Maurice only liked praise that came his own way.

  “I think it’s Mrs. Bouncing,” she said dejectedly. “He’s teaching her to skate, but she’ll never learn. She’s been up here for years, and she doesn’t know her edges! It looks awfully as if he really liked her, because Maurice skates quite well.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been of very little use to you about Mrs. Bouncing,” Winn said apologetically. “I thought Bouncing might help us, he’s quite a good chap; but I’m afraid he’s too down in the mouth. Still, I think I may be able to do something if things get to look really bad. Don’t worry about that, please. But, by Jove! this skating matter is serious. What are you going to do about it?” Anything that stopped sport seemed to Winn to be really serious; something had got to be done about it. “Isn’t there any one else up here not going in for it that you could lick into shape?”

  Clai
re shook her head doubtfully.

  “They’d have to give up every bit of their time,” she explained, “and virtually hardly breathe. You see, pair-skating is really very stiff. Of course, if I got a new man, I’d do most of the figures; but he’d have to be there to catch me at the right times, and awfully steady on his edges, and waltz of course.”

  “What about me?” Winn asked quietly.

  “I’m steady on my edges, and I can waltz after a fashion, and I’d promise not to breathe for a fortnight.” He looked at her, and then looked away quickly. He was a damned fool to have offered himself! How on earth was he going to stand a fortnight with her when he could barely keep himself in hand for five minutes?

  “Oh,” she said, “you!”

  Afterward she said a good deal more, but Winn only remembered the way she said “you,” because her voice had sounded different, as if she had found something she had wanted to lay her hands on. Of course what she really wanted was to go in for the pair-skating; it was much the most fun.

  They began from that moment to go in for it. Winn had to speak to Dr. Gurnet about the skating, because four hours wasn’t enough, and Claire insisted upon Dr. Gurnet’s consent.

  Dr. Gurnet had consented, though he had raised his eyebrows and said, “Pair-skating?” and then he had asked who Major Staines had chosen for his partner. Naturally Winn had become extremely stiff, and said, “Miss Rivers,” in a tone which should have put an end to the subject.

  “Well, well!” said Dr. Gurnet. “And she’s a woman, after all, isn’t she?” Winn ignored this remark.

  “By the by,” he said, “my friend’s coming out in about a fortnight – the one I told you about, Captain Drummond.”

  “I remember perfectly,” said Dr. Gurnet; “a most estimable person I understand you to say. In about a fortnight? The skating competition will just be over then, won’t it? I am sure I hope you and Miss Rivers will both make a great success of it.”