Over his mantelpiece were photographs of Dorothy and Susan, and a small boy—Digby—in knickerbockers and an Eton collar; Dorothy as a girl of eighteen, with her hair “up” for the first time, wonderfully pretty in an evening frock of a style now hopelessly old-fashioned; Susan as a girl of sixteen, with a short white frock, and long black stockings, laughing like a tomboy. The last few years of history had made a difference to them. Dorothy was Frau von Arenburg, a “Hun’s” wife; Susan the wife of an Irish rebel now in prison; Digby, the boy in knickerbockers, a Black and Tan. And Bertram, their brother, staring at these old photographs, touching his old books, sitting on his bed with his head in his hands, was ex-Major of machine guns, now unemployed, and ex-husband of Lady Joyce Bellairs, of Holme Ottery, in the county of Sussex.
He had received one letter from Joyce since that night at Holme Ottery. He had read it ten times or more, and then torn it up into small pieces.
My Dear Bertram:
The scene you made last night was inexcusable, except on the score that you are still suffering from shell-shock or some war neuritis. It’s impossible for us to live together while you continue in that mental state. I suppose your sudden departure this morning means that you are of the same opinion. Whether we ever come together again depends on you. When you can afford to keep me, and when you prove your loyalty to my ideals, I shall be glad to live with you again. Not till then. I’ve decided to give up Holland Street and stay here with Mother until Holme Ottery is sold, which I pray will not be soon.
I know you think I’ve been hard and “unsympathetic,” and unkind. Of course, there’s something to be said on your side. I know you’ve loved me in your passionate, emotional way, as much as any man could. I’m grateful for good times we had in the beginning. But that’s only one side of love, the animal side which I dislike. I want the other side of love, which is, surely, communion of ideas, comradeship in understanding, the same faith and code. That you’ve not given me. However—it’s past argument now.
Yours,
Joyce.
Past argument now! Well, he was not going to re-open the argument. So he told her in his answer to that letter. Perhaps he’d been a fool to write so much—sheet after sheet, revealing the secret things of his mind, the strain and stress of his nature, pulled two ways by two strains of blood, a conflict between old tradition and the new hopes of humanity, resistance to extremes of thought, so that he might plod along the Middle of the Road.
The strain and stress of his nature! He had made her understand, if words were plain, that she was the cause of his irritable temper, so much of his impatience. His love for her was passionate, as she said, and a man couldn’t suppress passion too long, without nerve-storms. Long before the child was born, and ever since, she had made no response to his emotion, and kept him at a distance, coldly. Her presence, the scent of her hair, the turn of her head, the touch of her finger-tips, made his thrill to her, but though she had been so close to him, always putting this strain upon his senses and his vital nature, she had repulsed him, resisted any intimate contact with him, deliberately held him in exile. She hadn’t played the game by him. She had shirked her marriage vows. She had made his married life an agony—and intolerable, because of the very greatness of his love! She wrote about communion of ideas. Yes, he agreed with that, utterly. But communion means exchange, give and take, a little yielding on both sides, tolerance, understanding. She had never troubled to get his point of view. She had never stood on tip-toes to see over his side of the hedge.
She had taken her stand with the Old Caste and the least liberal part of that, the extreme high and dry section of it, left behind by the great tide of changing life, now in England, at last, after the opening of the sluice gates by the shock of war.