XXV
He stood outside a quaint kind of shop on the edge of Ottery Common, and wondered if he could get an evening newspaper with late news from London.
It was an old thatched cottage converted into a shop by the simple plan of using the front garden as a show place for antique furniture, brass warming pans, old china on old tables, wooden toys—“made by Blinded Soldiers”—queer odds and ends from attics and lumber rooms—a violin without a bridge, silver spurs, a spinning wheel, a portrait of the Prince Consort by Winterhalter, an oak cradle.
In one of the cottage windows, with its little panes of knobby green glass, was the notice, “Tobacco, Eggs, and Ferrets.” In another window were the words, “London Papers; Lending Library; Home-made Jams.” A useful kind of shop! Anyhow, here was a chance of getting an evening paper.
Other people thought so too. A pretty girl, whom Bertram dimly remembered as one of Joyce’s friends—the Vicar’s daughter, perhaps,—rode up on a bicycle, left it against the garden wall, and stepping over the oak cradle, cried out in a merry voice:
“Papers in yet, Mr. Izzard?”
A voice from the cottage answered as cheerily:
“Not a damn one, Miss Heathcote!”
“Well, I’ll wait. I want the latest news about the strike. Is there going to be Civil War, do you think?”
The girl—it was the Vicar’s daughter, as Bertram remembered—asked the question as lightly as she might have enquired about the chance of a shower. As lightly it was answered through the open doorway of the cottage.
“Not as far as I’m concerned. Having been a little hero once, I’ve turned Pacifist. No more naughty strife for me! Live and let live is my philosophy.”
“No good hedging like that!” said Miss Heathcote, who was sitting on an iron-bound chest, turning over some old engravings. “ ‘He who is not with me is against me.’ Our wicked Bolshevists will demand allegiance or hang you up to one of your own oak beams.”
“Oh, I’ll sacrifice to the false gods!” said the voice inside. “No martyr stuff for me. Thrice was I wounded in Flanders. . . . Peace! Peace!”
“Caitiff!” cried Miss Heathcote.
Bertram went into the shop, and said “Hullo, Izzard! What on earth are you doing here?”
He’d remembered in a flash—that name and that voice. Major Arthur Izzard, D.S.O., and a double bar to his M.C., the most reckless fellow he had ever met in a front line trench, and one of the most comical. They’d spent some merry and memorable evenings in old Amiens, down from the line, between one “show” and another. Izzard had been a great lad for the eggnogs in Charlie’s Bar, and proclaimed his passion for Marguérite in the restaurant of “La Cathédrale.” Now he seemed to be proprietor, serving-man, and shop-boy in this village storehouse.
When Bertram hailed him, he was sitting on the counter with his legs dangling, arranging some eggs in a basket. Deliberately he let one of the eggs fall and smash, as a sign of his astonishment and delight at seeing Bertram.
“Great Scott! My old college chum!” (This had no foundation in fact.) “My trusty comrade-in-arms! My fellow-consumer of cocktails behind the lines of Armageddon!”
He gripped Bertram’s hand, and pump-handled vigorously, and called in the Vicar’s daughter to be introduced to another “little hero.”
“What’s the game with this shop?” asked Bertram.
Captain Arthur Izzard, D.S.O., said it was no game, but the real business. Like thousands of other officers of the Great War, he had worn out many boots, seeking a job in London. Vainly. England was surfeited with home-coming heroes. She’d nothing to offer them, after they’d won the dear old war. She wanted to forget them. They were a damned nuisance. So in a moment of brilliant inspiration, he had set up this business for himself. It amused him vastly. It also provided him with something to eat. It also enabled him to do good to his fellow beings, by spreading spiritual and intellectual light. He was the centre of village culture. Mothers came to him for advice upon the feeding of babies, maidens desired information on the comparative merits of Ethel M. Dell and Zane Grey. Farmers consulted him on insecticides. Miss Heathcote discussed with him auto-suggestion and the Freudian theory. He bought old furniture from Sussex cottages and sold it, at outrageous profits, to the New Rich, and occasionally Americans. He was a beneficent influence in Sussex, and all the ladies loved him.
“Some of the foolish ones,” said Miss Heathcote, laughing and blushing in a way that suggested affectionate familiarity with this good-looking fellow and his whimsical ways.
“What about social caste?” asked Bertram, and his question amused young Izzard vastly.
“Caste? The damn thing has broken up like a jig-saw puzzle! Not even the Countess of Ottery, poor old darling—your mother-in-law, by the way!—can keep it going nowadays, when Younger Sons are drifting into trade. Why, Billy Wantage—Lord William of that ilk—is keeping a pub at Wadcombe, and doing very well.”
The conversation was interrupted by a red-haired boy who rode up on a bicycle with a bag slung round his shoulders, which he dumped into the cottage.
“You infernal young scoundrel!” said Arthur Izzard, “I believe you’ve been watching the cricket-match.”
“Train late,” said the boy, grinning.
Izzard seized the papers, and disregarding his customers, read the news for himself.
“Hell!” he murmured to the company, which had increased by two ladies, and an old gentleman of Mid-Victorian aspect, with white whiskers.
“What’s the latest?” asked Miss Heathcote.
“Strike officially begun. Two million men ‘out’ already. The Triple Alliance will probably join.”
“What will that mean?” asked Bertram.
Arthur Izzard gave him a queer look.
“It may mean something like social revolution in little old England. No trains, no supplies, no industry anywhere. General paralysis until something smashes.”
“Abominable!” said the old gentleman with white whiskers. “We must smash the Trade Unions. They’re the curse of the country. I’d flog every man who comes out on strike.”
“Five million, maybe,” said Arthur Izzard, and he winked at Bertram, as though with secret understanding. He said something else, under his breath.
“The Comrades of the Great War.”
“I’d turn the machine-guns on to them,” said Miss Heathcote. It was the opinion of Lord Ottery’s groom.
Arthur Izzard smiled at her as he sat on the counter and swung his legs.
“I wonder if that would be wise—or kind—or safe?”
He waved his hand, as Bertram left the shop.
“Come in again, old man! I’ve excellent tobacco, new-laid eggs, home-made jam, young ferrets, old instruments, any old thing! And a private room for pals!”
“I certainly will!” said Bertram.
He walked back to Holme Ottery, thinking a little about the Strike, but, strangely enough, not very much. He was thinking more about Joyce. Something had stirred his senses, this breath of spring, this countryside, this scent of lilac and apple-blossom and wet earth. The memory of his love-making, here, a year ago, recalled to his mind and heart the joy of it, and his boyish ardour. London had put his nerves on edge, and made him impatient, irritable, moody. Perhaps Joyce had suffered too, in the same way, from the artificial life, the depressing and lowering atmosphere of London after war. It was better here. They might put themselves straight again, recapture their former gladness in each other, thrill again to the touch of each other’s hands, and lips, to the warmth of body and soul. He would talk to Joyce and woo her here back again.
Holme Ottery was wonderful in the dusk of this April day, with a silver streak, through a pile of dark clouds, above its many gables and high chimneys, and shadows closing about its grey walls. Through some of the windows in the west wing, lights were gleaming, in a homely way. Joyce was in one of those rooms, with her gold-spun hair, and slim body, and all the beauty of the Bellairs women—like that Joyce whom Steele had loved—and all their pride and quality.
A pity the old house was up for sale, but Joyce’s beauty belonged to him.