He was not intolerant of her ideals. He was pulled back to them against reason, even, by old sentiment, the romance of history, by the very ghosts of England. He could understand her resentment of change which meant the downfall of Holme Ottery, as one symbol of a passing era. He understood and grieved with her, because he loved the old stones of England and every brick in every wall. But he saw the inevitability of change, the need and right of it.
He stood with his face to the future, not weeping with his head turned backwards to the past. He had tried to make her understand his view of life. She’d not troubled to understand. Because he had not agreed with abject submission to her ideas, her old-fashioned, out-worn creed, she’d used that word “traitor!” and cut his heart open.
As for his being able to keep her, he had understood that she wasn’t in a hurry for him to pay his board and lodging. They’d had that argument out before, and she had promised to give him time. She’d broken that promise—a week or so too soon! A little more patience, perhaps, and he would have proved his quality as a writing-man, by getting a fair price for hard work.
He had not been a slacker. He had slaved over his book, late into the night. He would have gone on slaving, joyously, to earn a decent living, to pay for the things she liked, to take his share of life’s costs.
Well, “it was past argument now!” Agreed! No further argument should come from him. Nor did he intend to crawl to her, whining, to be “taken back.” By God, no! If she wanted him, she would have to ask for him. She would have to beg him to return, without conditions, on equal terms, acknowledging his right, and persuading him of love. Otherwise, never. And perhaps never, even then, if she waited too long, for even loyalty couldn’t suffer too great a strain, though now he sent her his love. . . .
So he had written, or in some such way, all night, with spells of thought when he had laid his head down on his arms, and, even, had wept a little like a weak boy. She hadn’t answered the letter. It was “past argument, now!”
His mother worried him by trying to get at his secret. A dozen times a day she spoke about “dear Joyce,” and he had to fence with her until about a week after his coming back she broke down his guard, and he told her everything, or nearly everything. Then he was put into the absurd position of defending Joyce.
His mother was indignant with her son’s wife, called her a “selfish creature,” and a “heartless hussy,” and couldn’t understand at all how any wife could so behave to any husband. It was, she said, “the moral breakdown caused by the war.” English girls seemed bereft of their senses, judging from the daily papers, and all the dreadful divorce cases. Joyce was another example of that. She wanted, like all the others, nothing but pleasure. Duty never entered her head. Self-sacrifice for love’s sake was not acknowledged these days. She was merely an empty-headed creature, with bobbed hair and short skirts.
“Mother!” said Bertram, “I can’t let you speak of Joyce like that! She’s not in the least empty-headed. On the contrary, she’s stuffed full of knowledge and ideas. As for her bobbed hair, it’s the fashion, and a pretty one.”
Absurd—to be defending Joyce who had given him Hell! Yet he did so, time and time again, until at last he became angry, and said, “Let’s give up talking about it, mother, for goodness’ sake! You don’t understand Joyce’s point of view, or mine. It’s impossible to explain. I can’t explain it to myself. I only know that it’s a frightful tragedy.”