Holme Ottery for sale? No, impossible! It had been in the Bellairs family for four hundred years or more. It was a part of English history. Its beauty, its tradition, its ghosts, its very soil, belonged to the spirit of the family that had played some part, not insignificant, in the making of England—as soldiers, courtiers, statesmen. It was Alban Bellairs, Earl of Ottery, who had been one of Elizabeth’s favourites before he died with Essex on the scaffold. Rupert Bellairs, fifth Earl, had been an exile in Holland with Charles II., and afterwards Master of the Horse at Whitehall. Joyce Bellairs, the great-great-grandmother of this Joyce, was the famous beauty to whom Steele wrote some of his sonnets. Holme Ottery was in the history books. It meant all that and more to this girl, his wife. Every fibre of her body belonged to that heritage. The tradition of her house was the corner-stone of her own spirit. In pride and faith she was a Bellairs of Ottery, this girl whom he—a young officer “without a bean”—had married when War had broken down for a time the strongest thing in English life, which was caste.
“Some mistake—” he said.
Joyce was weeping passionately. He had never seen her weep before, and it hurt him poignantly. He put his arms about her, trying to say words of comfort, but she shook herself away from him, and paced up and down the room like an angry boy. It was anger which dried her tears.
“Father’s done this without saying a word to me! Even Mother hasn’t written! It’s treachery to the whole family. I won’t allow it.”
Bertram was silent. He remembered what his father-in-law had said to him outside the House of Lords—something about Holme Ottery bleeding him to death.
“Do you think Alban knows?” he asked.
As the eldest son, Bellairs must have been consulted, must have given his consent to sell.
“Alban is weak as water! Father may have talked him over. I’ll go down this very day, and let ’em know what I have to say on the subject!”
Later she rang the bell, and told Edith to pack her bag.
“I’ll come with you,” said Bertram.