It was after his mother’s funeral that Bertram’s courage failed him. He
had a letter from Joyce which put all but the finishing touch to his
sense of abandonment by any kindliness of fate. She wrote to him from
Paris—the Hotel Meurice—where she had gone with Lady Ottery. She still
called him “My dear Bertram,” but her letter did not warm his soul.
She had been horrified to hear about Digby—that ought to kill his
sympathy with Irish rebels, if anything would. She was also deeply sorry
to hear about Mrs. Pollard’s death, though not surprised, after so much
worry and so much tragedy.
She wished to let him know that Holme Ottery was being bought by an
American, and that, to avoid the unhappiness of seeing the old house
pass into new hands, she and her Mother had gone to Paris, on the way to
Italy—while arrangements were being made by Alban to warehouse some of
the old furniture and family treasures.
Her father had taken a new house in town, rather bigger than the little
old house in John Street.
They had sold the Lely portrait of Rupert Bellairs, and she had wept to
see it go. It was the symbol of the great smash in the family fortune.
England was doomed by a prodigal Government, playing into the hands of
Bolshevism.
One passage in the letter stabbed him.
. . . Kenneth Murless has shown me your articles in _The New
World_. That one—the first?—called “The Mind of the Men” made
me want to use bad language. No wonder you refused that offer
from General Bellasis! Your words might have been spouted by a
Hyde Park orator on an orange box to a mob of shifty-eyed
hooligans. How can you, Bertram? How _can_ you? To me it’s
incredible, after your war-service! It’s nothing but rank
treason. . . .
There was something in the letter about the beauty of Paris in May. Then
another line or two about the hatred of France for Germany, and for the
English Liberals who were playing into the hands of Germany.
. . . The French won’t tolerate any breach of the Treaty.
They will force Germany to pay, or march across the Rhine and
seize her industrial cities. I quite agree with them. After all,
we _did_ win the war, though some people behave as though it
were a shame to do so. . . .
Well, well, Joyce’s views on foreign politics didn’t matter very much.
Some other words in her letter mattered more to him.
Kenneth Murless has come over to Paris in the Embassy—as First
Secretary. I see a good deal of him and he keeps me amused. When
are you going to be sensible and make a career for yourself? I’m
a little tired of being a grass widow, though as a rest-cure it
has done me good! I’m ready to forget and forgive, if you care
to join me here. Besides, _it must be one thing or the
other_. . . .
Those words were underlined.
At the end of her letter she signed herself “Yours affectionately,” and
Bertram laughed aloud at the words, but not with any merriment of soul.
She had wept when the Lely had gone, not much when he had gone! . . .
Kenneth Murless amused her. She saw a lot of him. . . . She was ready to
forget and forgive!
He wrote a raging letter to her, and then tore it up. He accused her of
damned heartlessness, told her that he would never play her lap-dog
again, reminded her of the things she had said to him at Holme Ottery,
and ended by saying that if Kenneth Murless amused her so much, she had
better make it one thing or the other, as far as he was concerned. He
would be glad to know her decision.
Having written all that, he heard, almost with physical audibility, the
words his mother had spoken to him on her death-bed. “Work for Peace,
Bertram!” She meant peace in Europe, between peoples, with Ireland, but
the spirit of peace must begin in the heart of the individual, between
one and another—even between husband and wife. He wrote another letter,
less violent.