“I’m talking business with Alban,” said Joyce, in a most determined voice, as though announcing an ultimatum to Alban himself.
He took it as such, and groaned a little.
“Certainly, old girl, much as I hate such palavers.”
Talking business with Alban. Not for Bertram to intervene. He had no right to “barge in” upon such discussions, though Joyce happened to be his wife. Well, he might do a slope down into the village, and buy an afternoon paper, or perhaps tramp over the Common, and watch the village boys starting the season’s cricket. Holme Ottery was not very sociable to-day to an outsider like himself.
That was what he did, and he recovered his sense of humour a little as he watched the game of cricket between the youngsters of Ottery. He even laughed aloud at the argumentative interruptions of the game, with wild and angry shouts of “How’s that?” “That ain’t fair!” . . . “Who’s umpire?” . . . “Umpire be blowed!” Youth didn’t change, in spite of social upheavals, the passing of the Old Order, houses to let, falling Empires, ruin in Europe, threatened strikes, any damn thing. Boyhood survived, with its laughter, its quarrels, its passionate excitement, its game of life. Survived, in spite of war’s massacre! Many of those kids must have lost fathers and brothers. The shadow of the War had been over their childhood. They’d seen women weeping at the news of death. But it had not spoilt the spirit of youth. They’d forgotten the shadow. Bertram wondered if any of them would live to see another Great War, would live to die, as fathers and brothers had died, in the same old battlefields, blown to bits, sliced by flying steel, gassed, plugged with machine-gun bullets. Not if he could do anything to save them. Not if his book had any luck.
How wonderful was the fruit blossom this year! The little orchards round the Common were snowed under with white and pink petals. The April wind was laden with scent of apple-blossom, cherry-blossom, pear-blossom, and drenched with the stronger perfume of lilac, splendid in the cottage gardens. It stole into his senses like an opiate. Why worry? This beauty of England endured through the centuries, through civil strife, foreign wars, all kind of trouble, soon forgotten. Spring had come again, with its English loveliness, calling to his heart, putting its spell upon the senses. Romance and love should go hand in hand in little old villages like this. So they had gone hand in hand, a year ago, when he and Joyce had wandered through Ottery village, not caring because the village folk smiled to see their love, glad of their friendly, smiling glances. A year ago! They didn’t go hand in hand just now. Something had come between them, some coldness. Perhaps with the coming back of spring again, their love would come back. He would woo Joyce again, as a humble lover, as a passionate but patient lover. This very night he would sue for her kisses, as once she had kissed him with sweet lips. He would entice her down to the little wood beyond the lake where one night they’d stood listening to a nightingale, with their arms about each other, like children, like Adam and Eve, like any man and any woman in the spring-time of life, with pulses thrilling to the tune of love, freshly heard.
Sentiment! Romantic stuff! Well, why not?
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.