The Dark Tower

by Phyllis Bottome

  “Oh, no, Winn,” she whispered; “I’m not. I’m not going to do it. If you wanted it, if you really wanted it with all of you, you wouldn’t be rough with me; you’d be gentle. You’re not being gentle because you don’t think it right, and I’m never going to do what you don’t think right.”

  Winn drew a deep, hard breath. He threw his arms round her and pressed her against his heart.

  “I’m not rough,” he muttered, “and you’ve got to do it! You’ve got to give in!”

  Claire made no answer. She only clung to him, and every now and then she said his name under her breath as if she were calling to something in him to save her.

  Whatever it was that she was calling to answered her. He suddenly bowed his head and buried it in her lap. She felt his body shake, and he began to sob, hard, dry sobs that broke him as they came. He held her close, with his face hidden. Claire pressed her hands on each side of his temples, feeling the throbbing of his heart. She felt as if something inside her were being torn to pieces, something that knocked its way against her side in a vain endeavor to escape. She very nearly gave in. Then Winn stopped as suddenly as he had begun.

  “Sorry,” he said, “but this kind of thing is a bit wearing. I’m not going to unlock that door. Do you intend to stay all night here, or give me your promise?” He spoke steadily now; his moment of weakness was past. She could have gone then, but nothing would have induced her to leave him while he cried.

  “I don’t intend to do either,” Claire said with equal steadiness. “When you think I ought to go, you’ll let me out.”

  It struck Winn that her knowledge of him was positively uncanny.

  “I don’t believe,” he said sharply, “you’re only nineteen. I believe you’ve been in love before!”

  Claire didn’t say anything, but she looked past him at the door.

  Her look maddened him.

  “You’re playing with me!” he cried. “By Jove! you’re playing with me!” He caught her by the shoulders, and for a moment he believed that he was going to kill her; but her eyes never wavered. He was not hurting her, and she knew that he never would. She said:

  “O my darling boy!”

  Winn got up and walked to the window. When he came back, his expression had completely changed.

  “Now cut along to bed,” he said quietly. “You’re tired. Go – at once, Claire.”

  This time she knew she ought to go, but something held her back. She was not satisfied with the look in his eyes. He was controlled again, but it was a controlled desperation. She could not leave him with that.

  Her mind was intensely alert with pain; she followed his eyes. They rested for a moment on the stand by his bed. He pushed the key across the table toward her, but she did not look at the key; she crossed the room and opened the drawer under the Bible.

  She saw what she had expected to see. It was Winn’s revolver; upon it lay a snap-shot of Peter. He always kept them together.

  Claire took out the revolver. Winn watched her, with his hands in his pockets.

  “Be careful,” he said; “it’s loaded.”

  She brought it to him and said:

  “Now take all the things out of it.” Winn laughed, and unloaded it without a word. “Now open the window,” she ordered, “and throw them into the snow.” Winn obeyed. When he came back she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Now I’ll go,” she said.

  “All right,” agreed Winn, gently. “Wait for me in the cloak-room, and I’ll take you across. But, I say, look here – will you ever forgive me? I’m afraid I’ve been a most fearful brute.”

  Then Claire knew she couldn’t stand any more. She turned and ran into the passage. Fortunately, the cloak-room was empty. She pressed herself against a fur coat and sobbed as Winn had sobbed up-stairs; but she had not his arms to comfort her. She had not dared to cry in his arms.

  They walked hand in hand across the snow from his hotel to the door of hers.

  Claire knew that she could say anything she liked to Winn now, so she said what she had made up her mind to say.

  “Winn dearest, do you know what I came down for this evening?”

  He held her hand tighter and nodded.

  “I guessed,” he said. “That was, you know, what rather did for me. You mean you aren’t going to let me come with you down the pass?”

  “We mustn’t,” Claire whispered; and then she felt she couldn’t be good any more. It cost too much. So she added, “But you can if you like.” But there wasn’t any real need for Claire to be good now; Winn was good instead.

  “No,” he said; “it’s much wiser not. You look thoroughly done up. I’m not going to have any more of this. Let’s breakfast together. You come over at eight sharp and arrange with Maurice to take you down at ten. That’s quite enough for you.”

  Claire laughed. Winn stared at her, then in a moment he laughed, too.

  “We’d better not take any more chances,” he explained. “Next time it might happen to us both together. Then you’d really be had! Thanks awfully for seeing me through. Good night.”

  She went into the hotel without a word, and all her heart rebelled against her for having seen him through.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  The hour of parting crept upon them singularly quietly and slowly. They both pretended to eat breakfast, and then they walked out into Badrutt’s Park. They sat in the nearest shelter, hand in hand, looking over the gray, empty expanse of the rink. It was too early for any one to be about. Only a few Swiss peasants were sweeping the ice and Winn hardly looked upon Swiss peasants as human.

  He asked Claire exactly how much money she had a year, and told her when she came of age what he should advise her to suggest to her trustees to put it in.

  Then he went through all the things he thought she ought to have for driving down the pass. Claire interrupted him once to remind him about going to see Dr. Gurnet. Winn said he remembered quite well and would go. They both assured each other that they had had good nights. Winn said he thought Maurice would be all right in a few years, and that he didn’t think he was shaping for trouble. He privately thought that Maurice was not going to have any shape at all, but he omitted this further reflection.

  He told her how much he enjoyed his regiment and explained laboriously how Claire was to think of his future, which was to be, apparently, a whirl of pleasure from morning till night.

  They talked very disconnectedly; in the middle of recounting his future joys, Winn said:

  “And then if anything was to happen to me, you know, I hope you’d think better of it and marry Lionel.”

  Claire did not promise to marry Lionel, but she implied that even without marriage she, like Winn, was about to pass into an existence studded with resources and amusements; and then she added:

  “And if you were to die, or I was, Miss Marley could help us to see each other just at the last. I asked her about it.” Despite their future happiness, they seemed to draw more solid satisfaction out of this final privilege.

  The last ten minutes they hardly talked at all. Every now and then Winn wanted to know if Claire’s feet were warm, and Claire asked him to let her have a photograph of Peter.

  Then Maurice came out of the hotel, and a tailing party stood in the open doorway and wondered if it was going to snow. The sleigh drove up to the hotel, jingling in the gayest manner, with pawing horses. Winn walked across the courtyard with her and nodded to Maurice; and Maurice allowed Winn to tuck Claire up, because, after he’d looked at Winn’s eyes, it occurred to him that he couldn’t do anything else.

  Winn reduced the hall porter, a magnificent person in gold lace, with an immense sense of dignity, to gibbering terror before the lift-boy and the boots because he had failed to supply the sleigh with a sufficiently hot foot-warmer.

  Finally even Winn was satisfied that there was nothing more to eat or to wear which the sleigh could be induced to hold or Claire agree to want. He stood aside then, and told the man briefly to be off. T
he driver, who did not understand English, understood perfectly what Winn meant, and hastened to crack his whip.

  Claire looked back and saw Winn, bare-headed, looking after her. His eyes were like a mother’s eyes when she fights in naked absorption against the pain of her child.

  He went on looking like that for a long while after the sleigh had disappeared. Then he put on his cap and started off up the valley toward Pontresina.

  It had already begun to snow. The walk to Pontresina is the coldest and darkest of winter walks, and the snow made it heavy going. Winn got very much out of breath, and his chest hurt him. Every now and then he stopped and said to himself, “By Jove! I wonder if I’m going to be ill?” But as he always pushed on afterward with renewed vigor, as if a good idea had just occurred to him, it hardly seemed as if he cared very much whether he was going to be ill or not. He got as far as the Mortratsch Glacier before he stopped.

  He couldn’t get any farther because when he got into the inn for lunch, something or other happened to him. A fool of a porter had the impertinence to tell him afterward that he had fainted. Winn knocked the porter down for daring to make such a suggestion; but feeling remarkably queer despite this relaxation, he decided to drive back to the Kulm.

  He wound up the day with bridge and a prolonged wrangle with Miss Marley on the subject of the Liberal Government.

  Miss Marley lent herself to the fray and became extremely heated. Winn had her rather badly once or twice, and as he never subsequently heard her argue on the same subject with others, he was spared the knowledge that she shared his political views precisely, and had tenderly provided him with the flaws in her opponent’s case.

  When he went to bed he began a letter to Claire. He told her that he had had a jolly walk, a good game of bridge, and that he thought he’d succeeded in knocking some radical nonsense out of Miss Marley’s head. Then he inclosed his favorite snap-shot of Peter, the one that he kept with his revolver, and said he would get taken properly with him when he went back to England.

  Winn stopped for a long time after that, staring straight in front of him; then he wrote:

  “I hope you’ll never be sorry for having come across me, because you’ve given me everything I ever wanted. I hope you’ll not mind my having been rather rough the other night. I didn’t mean anything by it. I wouldn’t hurt a hair of your head; but I think you know that I wouldn’t, only I thought I’d just mention it. Please be careful about the damp when you get back to England.”

  He stopped for half an hour when he had got as far as “England,” and as the heating was off, the room grew very cold; then he wrote, “I didn’t know men loved women like this.”

  After that he decided to finish the letter in the morning; but when the morning came he crossed the last sentence out because he thought it might upset her.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  He had been afraid that Davos would be beautiful, but the thaw had successfully dissipated its immaculate loveliness. Half of the snow slopes were already bare, the roads were a sea of mud, and the valley was as dingy as if a careless washerwoman had upset a basket of dirty linen on her way to the laundry. All the sport people had gone, the streets were half empty, and most of the tourist shops were shut. Only the very ill had reappeared; they crept aimlessly about in the sunshine with wonder in their eyes that they were still alive.

  Winn had put up at the nearest hotel and made the earliest possible appointment with Dr. Gurnet. Dr. Gurnet was obviously pleased to see him, but the pleasure faded rapidly from his face after a glance or two at Winn. The twinkle remained in his eyes, but it had become perceptibly grimmer.

  “Perhaps you would be so kind as to take off your things,” he suggested. “After I have examined you we can talk more at our ease.”

  It seemed to Winn as if he had never been so knocked about before. Dr. Gurnet pounced upon him and went over him inch by inch; he reminded Winn of nothing so much as of an excited terrier hunting up and down a bank for a rat-hole. Eventually Dr. Gurnet found his rat. He went back to his chair, sat down heavily, and looked at Winn. For rather an ominous moment he was silent; then he said politely:

  “Of course I suppose you are aware, Major Staines, of what you have done with your very excellent chances?”

  Winn shook his head doubtfully. He hadn’t, as a matter of fact, thought much lately about these particular chances.

  “Ah,” said Dr. Gurnet, “then I regret to inform you that you have simply walked through them – or, in your case, I should be inclined to imagine, tobogganed – and you have come out the other side. You haven’t got any chances now.”

  Winn did not say anything for a moment or two; then he observed:

  “I’m afraid I’ve rather wasted your time.”

  “Pray don’t mention it,” said Dr. Gurnet. “It is so small a thing compared with what you have done with your own.”

  Winn laughed.

  “You rather have me there,” he admitted; “I suppose I have been rather an ass.”

  “My dear fellow,” said Dr. Gurnet, more kindly, “I’m really annoyed about this, extremely annoyed. I had booked you to get well. I expected it. What have you been doing with yourself? You’ve broken down that right lung badly; the infection has spread to the left. It was not the natural progress of the disease, which was in process of being checked; it is owing to a very great and undue physical strain, and absolutely no attempt to take precautions after it. Also you have, I should say, complicated this by a great nervous shock.”

  “Nonsense!” said Winn, briefly. “I don’t go in for nerves.”

  “You must allow me to correct you,” said Dr. Gurnet, gently. “You are a human being, and all human beings are open to the effects of shock.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t quite played the game,” Winn confessed, after a short pause. “I hadn’t meant to let you down like this, Doctor Gurnet. I think it is due to me to tell you that I shouldn’t have come to you for orders if I had intended at the time to shirk them. You’re quite right about the tobogganing: I had a go at the Cresta. I know it shook me up a bit, but I didn’t spill. Perhaps something went wrong then.”

  “And why, may I ask, did you do it?” Dr. Gurnet asked ironically. “You did not act solely, I presume, from an idea of thwarting my suggestions?”

  Winn’s eyes moved away from the gimlets opposite them.

  “I found time dragging on my hands, rather,” he explained a trifle lamely.

  “Ah,” said Dr. Gurnet, “you should have done what I told you – you should have flirted; then you wouldn’t have found time hanging on your hands.”

  Winn held his peace. He thought Dr. Gurnet had a right to be annoyed, so he gave him his head; but he had an uncomfortable feeling that Dr. Gurnet would make a very thorough use of this concession.

  Dr. Gurnet watched Winn silently for a few moments, then he said:

  “People who don’t wish to get well don’t get well; but, on the other hand, it is very rare that people who wish to die die. They merely get very ill and give everybody a great deal of highly unnecessary trouble.”

  “I’m not really seedy yet,” Winn said apologetically. “I suppose you couldn’t give me any idea of how things are going to go – I mean how long I’ve – ” he hesitated for a few seconds; he felt as if he’d been brought up curiously short – “I’ve got to live,” he finished firmly.

  “I can give you some idea, of course,” said Dr. Gurnet; “but if you take any more violent or irregular plunges, you may very greatly shorten your time. Should you insist on remaining in your regiment and doing your work, you have, I fancy, about two years more before a complete breakdown. You are a very strong man, and your lung-tissue is tough. Should you remain here under my care, you will live indefinitely, but I can hold out no hope of an ultimate recovery. If you return to England as an invalid, you will most undoubtedly kill yourself from boredom, though I have a suggestion to make to you which I hope may prevent this termination to your career. On the whol
e, though I fear advice is wasted upon you, I should recommend you to remain in the army. It is what I should do myself if I were unfortunate enough to have your temperament while retaining my own brains.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Winn, rising to go; “of course I sha’n’t chuck the army. I quite see that’s the only sensible thing to do.”

  “Pray sit down again,” said Dr. Gurnet, blandly, “and do not run away with the idea that I think any course you are likely to pursue sensible in itself. If you were a sensible man, you would not take personal disappointment as if it were prussic acid.”

  Winn started.

  “It isn’t disappointment,” he said quickly; “it was the only thing to do.”

  “Ah, well,” said Dr. Gurnet, “Heaven forbid that I should enter into a controversy with any one who believes in moral finality! Sensible people compromise, Major Staines; but do not be offended, for I have every reason to believe that sensible people do not make the best soldiers. I am asking you to remain for a few minutes further because there is one other point to which I wish to draw your attention should you be able to spare me the time?”

  “All right,” said Winn, with a short laugh; “I’ve got time enough, according to you; I’ve got two years.”

  “Well, yes,” said Dr. Gurnet, drawing the tips of his fingers carefully together. “And, Major Staines, according to me you will – er – need them.”

  Winn sat up.

  “What d’ you mean?” he asked quickly.

  “Men in my position,” replied Dr. Gurnet, guardedly, “have very interesting little side-lights into the mentality of other nations. I don’t know whether you remember my asking you if you knew German?”

  “Yes,” said Winn. “It went out of head; but now you speak of it, I do remember.”

  “I am delighted,” said Dr. Gurnet, blandly, “to have reconstructed your brain-tissue up to that point. I had a certain reason for asking you this question. I have a good many German patients, some French ones, and a most excellent Belgian professor has placed himself under my care.”