She had been horrified to hear about Digby—that ought to kill his sympathy with Irish rebels, if anything would. She was also deeply sorry to hear about Mrs. Pollard’s death, though not surprised, after so much worry and so much tragedy.
She wished to let him know that Holme Ottery was being bought by an American, and that, to avoid the unhappiness of seeing the old house pass into new hands, she and her Mother had gone to Paris, on the way to Italy—while arrangements were being made by Alban to warehouse some of the old furniture and family treasures.
Her father had taken a new house in town, rather bigger than the little old house in John Street.
They had sold the Lely portrait of Rupert Bellairs, and she had wept to see it go. It was the symbol of the great smash in the family fortune. England was doomed by a prodigal Government, playing into the hands of Bolshevism.
One passage in the letter stabbed him.
. . . Kenneth Murless has shown me your articles in The New World. That one—the first?—called “The Mind of the Men” made me want to use bad language. No wonder you refused that offer from General Bellasis! Your words might have been spouted by a Hyde Park orator on an orange box to a mob of shifty-eyed hooligans. How can you, Bertram? How can you? To me it’s incredible, after your war-service! It’s nothing but rank treason. . . .
There was something in the letter about the beauty of Paris in May. Then another line or two about the hatred of France for Germany, and for the English Liberals who were playing into the hands of Germany.
. . . The French won’t tolerate any breach of the Treaty.
They will force Germany to pay, or march across the Rhine and seize her industrial cities. I quite agree with them. After all, we did win the war, though some people behave as though it were a shame to do so. . . .
Well, well, Joyce’s views on foreign politics didn’t matter very much. Some other words in her letter mattered more to him.