XXVI
It was impossible to get a private word with Joyce before dinner. Her “palaver” with Alban was still in progress when Bertram returned, as he found when he went searching for her in the morning-room, her bedroom, at the end of the gallery, and at last in Alban’s little room on the other side of the great stairway.
Alban called “Come!” sharply in answer to his tap at the door, and did not look friendly when Bertram went in, smiled at Joyce, and said, “Any chair for a mere husband?”
Joyce’s face was flushed. She and Alban were seated at the table, which was strewn with papers. The brother and sister were wonderfully alike, Bertram thought, as they sat together, side by side. Joyce had the same profile as Alban, though softened and more delicate, the same line of forehead and nose, finely cut, like a Greek cameo. She took no notice of Bertram’s entry, but went on talking to her brother.
“Then it comes to this: You insist on bleeding father to the extent of four thousand a year, and Holme Ottery must go to some horrible Profiteer!”
“That’s the position, apart from the word ‘bleeding,’ ” answered Alban irritably. “You can see for yourself. The Governor is paying taxes out of capital, borrowing for upkeep, wages, and interest on mortgages, and breaking into capital again for my little bit, and yours. When he pegs out, death duties will swallow most of what’s left.”
“It’s disgraceful!” said Joyce. “It’s a damned disgrace!”
She rose from the table, flinging back the papers, and went over to the window, staring out into the dusk of the park.
Alban laughed, and drummed on the table with his finger-nails.
“It all comes of having a democratic government, pandering to the working-classes, bribing them with doles, and ruining trade and capital by excessive taxes.”
“Somebody must pay for the war,” said Bertram.
Alban became aware of his presence again, and answered him gloomily.
“Not in that way. The Germans ought to pay.”
It was Bertram’s turn to laugh.
“Even Germany can’t pay for the ruin of the whole world, after her own losses.”
Joyce swung round from the window seat.
“For Heaven’s sake, Bertram! Don’t go pro-German, after being pro-Irish, pro-Bolshevik, and anti-everything that’s English and patriotic!”
“Quite so!” said Alban, associating himself with his sister’s protest in a somewhat pompous manner.
Bertram felt a sudden warmth in his blood creeping up the back of his neck. He was not annoyed with Joyce, because he could understand her sense of tragedy about the old house. He was not angry with her, though her words hurt him hideously, after his thoughts about her beauty and the chance of re-capturing her love. But he had no use for that “Quite so!” of his brother-in-law.
“I fancy I did my job pretty well in the war,” he said quietly. “If England ever needs me again . . .”
He checked himself. What was the good of arguing? Joyce and Alban were both on edge because of this family crisis. Anyhow, he would be an idiot to proclaim his love for England. It might be taken for granted after his service.
“Oh, bother all that!” cried Joyce.
She dismissed the need of argument on that score by another attack on her brother.
“I’m not going to let this business end in mere talk, Alban! If there’s any chance of saving Holme Ottery—”
Alban’s temper mastered him for a moment, and he interrupted his sister harshly.
“Haven’t I told you there’s no earthly chance? What’s the good of playing about with unrealities? Facts are facts. Figures are figures.”
“Yes, and your four thousand belong to the facts and the figures,” answered Joyce, just as angrily. “If you gave up gambling and racing, you could put some back into the family pot.”
Alban stared at his sister with that hard look which sometimes came into his eyes, as Bertram knew. But he answered icily, after a moment’s hesitation:
“Don’t let’s have an altercation, or get down to personalities. Four thousand is not too much for my position. I’m extremely economical. I might remind you that father settled two thousand a year on yourself. What about that?”
Joyce spoke in a low voice.
“I’d cut every penny of it to save Holme Ottery.”
Alban leaned back in his chair, regarding his finger-nails, and laughed more amiably.
“Heroic, and all that, but utterly useless, little sister. Besides, what about your own home? Bertram isn’t making a fortune just now.”
“He’ll have to get a job,” said Joyce.
So the attack had come round to Bertram now. He was to be made responsible, perhaps, for the necessity of selling Holme Ottery! Perhaps, after further conversation, he might be accused of instigating the Strike, and would be saddled with the sins of the Government!
“I don’t think I’ll get dragged into this family discussion,” he said, with a desperate effort to be patient and calm. “Anyhow, it’s time to dress for dinner. Coming, Joyce?”
“Presently,” said Joyce. He didn’t wait for her, and went up to his own room on the north side of the gallery, and having shut the door with a bang, sat down on the bed with his knees hunched up and his face in his hands.
“He’ll have to get a job’ ” Joyce had said.
Well, he’d found his job, and written his first book, now in the publisher’s hands, and his first article, already published, in The New World. Not much, but a good beginning. He objected to Joyce’s way of speaking that sentence—“He’ll have to get a job!” She had spoken it harshly. Did she imagine that he hadn’t tried to get a job, that he had been a slacker, an I-won’t-work? He had gone the round of all his friends, answered advertisements—even gone to a Labour Exchange!—in the hope of finding some decent kind of work. He had agonised because of his idleness, until he had sat down to write a book and found himself writing it.
Not one of her precious Family had offered to help him. Ottery had just stared vaguely at him when he had asked for his influence. Alban wouldn’t walk a yard to get him anything. Not all the crowd in Joyce’s set had put anything in his way, though some of them pulled the social wires. He must have a straight talk with Joyce before the day was out. He must put himself right with her and bring her back to him. Impossible that things should go on in this way—this frightful, soul-destroying way.
So he brooded, and was late for dinner, and received the rebuke of Lady Ottery’s frigid glance.